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articles
1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Ann A. Pang-White Augustine, Akrasia, and Manichaeism
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This paper examines Augustine’s analysis of the possible causes of akrasia and suggests that an implicit two-phased consent process takes place in an akratic decision. This two-phased consent theory revolves around Augustine’s theory of the two wills, one carnal and the other spiritual. Without the help of grace, the fallen will dominated by the carnal will can only choose to sin. After exploration of this two-phased consent theory, the paper turns to examine the accusation made by Julian of Eclanum, a fifth-century Pelagian, and J. Van Oort, a contemporary Augustinian scholar, that Augustine’s doctrine of the two wills and concupiscence led the Church into a Manichaean position. The paper concludes that this accusation fails to hold up, especially when one considers the more nuanced view on the human body and concupiscence in Augustine’s later works.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Bernardo J. Canteñs Suárez on Beings of Reason: What Kind of Beings (entia) are Beings of Reason, and What Kind of Being (esse) Do They Have?
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Beings of reason or non-existent objects have always been a source of mind-boggling paradoxes that have vexed philosophers and thinkers in the past and present. Consider Bertrand Russell’s paradox: “if A and B are not different, then the difference between A and B does not subsist. But how can a non-entity be the subject of a proposition?” Or Meinong’s paradox: “There are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects.” At the root of these troubling conundrums are two basic questions: What are beings of reason? What kind of existence do they have? Francisco Suárez was well aware that a solution to the metaphysical questions concerning the essential character of beings of reason and their ontological status would serve as the key to solving the puzzles and paradoxes just described. A solution to these metaphysical questions would also bring about an understanding of how we talk about beings of reason and other problems that they give rise to in the philosophy of language. In this paper, I present Suárez’s view on the nature andontological status of beings of reason and clarify some of the following questions: What kind of beings (entia) are beings of reason? What kind of being (esse) do beings of reason have? This latter concern is related to the following metaphysical issues: What are real beings? What is the nature and ontological status of possible beings? What is the distinction between real beings, actual beings, and possible beings?
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Paul Richard Blum Istoriar la figura: Syncretism of Theories as a Model of Philosophy in Frances Yates and Giordano Bruno
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Syncretism is a challenge to modern philosophy, but it was the main characteristic of Giordano Bruno’s thought. This has been made clear by Frances A. Yates, who in interpreting Bruno and Renaissance Hermeticism was not afraid of connecting theories and cultural expressions which on the surface are alien to philosophy. In doing so Yates was congenial to her object of study, as syncretism of theory was no mere side effect of Hermeticism, but had a philosophical aim. This aim can be identified as the desire to connect the world and its general principle, as well as the powers of the human mind, into a philosophical narrative which strives at unifying oppositions and contradictions.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
C. Jeffrey Kinlaw Schelling’s Original Insight: Schelling on the Ontological Argument and the Task of Philosophy
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This paper concerns the way in which the transition from negative to positive philosophy is executed in Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy. Schelling’s original insight is that the transition occurs within negative philosophy by means of a twofold experience within philosophical reflection: (1) recognizing the failure of the idealist project of the conceptual determination of Being, and (2) the reversal of the idealist conception of the relation between concepts and their objects. I argue that Schelling uses a form of the ontological argument, focusing on Anselm’s formula aliquid, quo nihil maius cogitari potest, both in his critique of traditional formulations of the argument and to navigate the transition to positive philosophy.
discussion
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
James C. Doig O’Callaghan on Verbum Mentis in Aquinas
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The essay’s point of departure is O’Callaghan’s insistence that verbum mentis is for Aquinas not a philosophical doctrine, but “a properly theological topic.” The principal evidence for this interpretation consists in the functioning of verbum mentis in certain theological passages as well as its absence in others characterized as philosophical. The essay proceeds by situating Aquinas’s doctrine of verbum mentis within the tradition from which the expression is drawn and by examining the nature of the Summa theologiae. Consequently, Aquinas is seen to espouse a philosophical doctrine of verbum mentis whose presence or absence in a particular passage is a function of both the passage’s goal and the nature of the audience for whom the passage was originally intended.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
John O’Callaghan More Words on the Verbum: A Response to James Doig
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In “Verbum Mentis: Theological or Philosophical Doctrine?” (Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, vol. 74, 2000), I argued against a common interpretation of Aquinas’s discussion of the verbum mentis. The common interpretation holds that the verbum mentis constitutes an essential part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology. I argued, on the contrary, that it is no part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology, but is a properly theological discussion grounded in the practice of scriptural metaphor, exemplified by such metaphors as “Christ is a rock.” James Doig challenges my alternate interpretation. His argument has three parts. He insists, first, that the discussion of the verbum mentis was a philosophical discussion in Aquinas’s predecessors, and that Aquinas never rejected this tradition; second, that it appears as a philosophical discussion in Aquinas’s commentary on the Gospel of John; third, that in the Summa theologiae, while there is no philosophical reason for Aquinas to discuss the verbum mentis in the context of the essence, powers, and operations of the soul (Ia, qq. 75–89), it is nevertheless a philosophical discussion in the examination of thedivine Trinity (Ia, qq. 27–43) Here I respond to and argue against all three legs of Doig’s counterargument.
review article
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Salvador Piá Tarazona The Transcendental Distinction Between Anthropology and Metaphysics: A Discussion of Leonardo Polo’s Antropología trascendental
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In the first volume of his recently published Antropología trascendental, Leonardo Polo proposes a transcendental distinction between metaphysics (understood as the study of the cosmos) and anthropology (understood as the study of the human being). In his view, these two sciences study distinct types of acts of being; the former studies the act of being of the physical universe (that is, the act of persistence), while the latter studies the act of being of the human person (that is, the act of co-existence). On the assumption that reality is distinguished by its various acts of being, Polo argues that anthropology can be properly labeled transcendental even though the traditional transcendentals of metaphysics (ens, unum, res, aliquid, verum, bonum, and pulchrum) differ from those of anthropology. The transcendentals of the human person are personal co-existence, personal freedom, personal intellection, and personal love. Co-existence, freedom, intellection, and love are transcendentals that are convertible with the act of being of the human being, because this act is personal, but not with the act of being of the cosmos, which is not personal.
book reviews
8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
D.W. Hadley John Scottus Eriugena
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Rod Coltman The Cambridge Companion to Gadamer
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10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Luigi Caranti Kant und das Problem des metaphysischen Idealismus
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11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Alicia Finch The Empirical Stance
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12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Patrick Toner Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy
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books received
13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 2
Books Received
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