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1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Matthew Schaeffer Thomistic Personalism: A Vocation for the Twenty-First Century
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In a posthumously published paper, Fr. W. Norris Clarke, S.J., declares that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first century Thomism. I agree with Clarke, and I would also add that Thomistic personalism is the most creative and fruitful development in twenty-first centurymoral and political philosophy. Thus, in this paper—focusing on clarification and exhortation—I (i) identify the main commitments of personalism; (ii) identifyweak, moderate, and strong versions of Thomistic personalism; and (iii) suggest that Thomistic personalism is a vocation for the twenty-first century that requirescollaboration between specialists from diverse backgrounds.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Kyle P. Hubbard Augustine on Human Love for God: Agape, Eros, or Philia?
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Augustine believes that loving God is the proper end of human life. But what does it mean to love God? Following Anders Nygren’s influential critique, the common interpretation is that the central thrust of Augustine’s account of love for God is Platonic eros. However, I will argue that the main element of human love for God is not eros but philia, the desire for friendship with the beloved. Understanding Platonic eros as one element among others of human love for God allows us to reconcile the erotic aspects of Augustine’s account with the many texts in which he speaks of human love for God in self-forgetful, agapeistic terms. I will argue that we need to understand the erotic and agapeistic elements of Augustine’s position as essential but subservient to the major focus of our love for God, the desire for friendship with God.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Katherin A. Rogers Christ Our Brother: Family Unity in Anselm’s Theory of the Atonement
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If Christ, a single member of the human race, can pay the debt of sin for all of us, then there must be some principle uniting all humanity. Some scholarssuggest that, in Anselm’s theory of the atonement, the unity in question is similar to that of a corporation or that it derives from our shared participation in humannature. Neither of these proposals can be supported from Anselm’s text. Rather, there is considerable evidence that Anselm held that all the “children of Adam”belong to the same literal, biological family, and it is this which grounds the unity required for the efficacy of Christ’s work. If we understand family to be a naturalhuman institution, the concept of family unity is persuasive.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Catalina M. Cubillos Nicholas of Cusa Between the Middle Ages and Modernity: The Historiographical Positions Behind the Discussion
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From the outset of scholarly research on Cusanus, the question concerning the historical status of his original philosophy has been a constant issue in thesecondary literature. One continuously encounters the question of whether he is a medieval or a modern thinker, with a number of conflicting interpretations. These viewpoints are, in many cases, less related to concrete historical arguments than to general considerations regarding what it is meant by “medieval” or “modern” from a theoretical point of view. Accordingly, scholarship on Cusanus’s position in the history of ideas has been strongly influenced by the unconscious historiographical attitude of his interpreters.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Joshua W. Schulz Kierkegaard’s Comic and Tragic Lovers
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This essay examines a dialogue between Kierkegaard and the Aristotelian tradition on the topic of love and friendship. At stake in the dispute is whetherphilia or agape is the highest form of love and how we should understand the relation between the two loves. The essay contributes to the conversation by analyzing two kinds of deceptive love identified in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, viewing each through the lens of a Shakespearian persona. Against the Aristotelian tradition, Kierkegaard defends the idiosyncratic view that Hamlet’s Ophelia is a villain and King Lear’s Cordelia is happy. Central to Kierkegaard’s argument is the contention that agape requires an epistemic attitude of charitable presumption towards one’s neighbor despite the possibility of error, an attitude found in Cordelia but not in Ophelia. The essay contrasts this Thomistic attitude with its Cartesian counterpart as well as their consequences for moral and religious life.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Lance Simmons Pretense, Corruption, and Character in “Modern Moral Philosophy”
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In the last section of “Modern Moral Philosophy,” Elizabeth Anscombe puts on display three possible problematic relations to what may be thought of as three different kinds of necessity. The first relation is to pretend not to recognize the necessity that binds description to description in a paradigm case. The second relation is to fail to respond to a more primitive kind of necessity, thereby showing what Anscombe infamously calls “a corrupt mind.” The third relation is sometimes consciously to act, because of a non-virtuous character, against a third kind of necessity, discovered by Aristotle, namely, the necessity of that on whichgood hangs. While the last section of “Modern Moral Philosophy” does not discuss in detail these relations or kinds of necessity, it foreshadows Anscombe’s latertreatment of them.
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Artur Szutta Authentic Civic Attitude: A Personalist Perspective
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The article concerns the question of civic virtues, the aim being to present and argue for the personalist conception of citizenship. It consists of four parts. Inthe first part, following Will Kymlicka, I argue for the need of active citizenship; my claim is that personalism offers an attractive concept of such attitude. In thesecond part I make an outline of the personalist idea of authentic community, including the idea of authentic political community, and thus set the necessaryconceptual context for further considerations. In the third, central part I focus on characterizing authentic civic attitudes that constitute a true political community.In the fourth part I supplement the outline of civic attitudes with the characterization of unauthentic attitudes. In the conclusion, I briefly point out in what waythe personalist concept of authentic citizenship presented here may find a fruitful application to the contemporary debates in political philosophy.
symposium on the work of fr. ernan mcmullin
8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Brendan Sweetman Introduction
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Robert J. Deltete Ernan McMullin on Anthropic Reasoning in Cosmology
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Fr. Ernan McMullin wrote at least five essays in which anthropic reasoning in cosmology was a prominent topic of discussion and evaluation. Unlike thewritings of many passionate advocates and hostile critics of the so-called “anthropic principle” (AP), they are all nuanced essays—very much in keeping with Fr. Ernan’s usual approach to difficult and controversial subjects. Supporters of that approach will praise what he has to say as properly cautious and circumspect; others will likely find him often indecisive. In this essay, I will indicate why, while I largely agree with the first group of readers, I am nevertheless sympathetic to the concerns of the latter group.
10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Paul Allen McMullin’s Augustinian Settlement: The Consonance between Faith and Science
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In developing his trademark use of “consonance” to prescribe a relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences, Ernan McMullin drew on severaldistinctly Augustinian philosophical and theological themes during his fifty years of scholarship. Particularly prominent in McMullin’s work were an emphasis placed on Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic, which prioritized both literal and non-literal interpretive techniques, and Augustine’s epistemology of divine illumination. This paper examines several elements as part of an expository account of McMullin’s contribution toward the consonance between Christian faith and the natural sciences. It also outlines McMullin’s theory of retroduction and his account of scientific realism, both of which are philosophical positions that provide additional support for consonance from an epistemological perspective. I conclude that for McMullin, consonance is a differentiated term that hints at underlying metaphysical claims without necessarily delineating the nature of those claims.
11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Brendan Sweetman The Dispute between McMullin and Plantinga over Evolution
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The discussion between Ernan McMullin and Alvin Plantinga concerning evolution and religion, which first appeared in Christian Scholar’s Review in September 1991, is an enlightening airing of many of the issues that arise with regard to this complex, controversial topic. Overall, Plantinga favors a confrontational view of the relationship between religion and evolution, while McMullin favors a dialogue model. The two thinkers disagree about the evidence for evolution, about what Plantinga calls “theistic science,” about methodological naturalism, and about biblical interpretation. McMullin accepts a mainstream view in several important respects, holding that: (i) evolution is true; (ii) Genesis is not to be read literally; (iii) science should be separated from theology; (iv) we should accept “methodological naturalism”; and (v) we should reject “creation science.” Plantinga disagrees with all of these claims. This article explores the differences between the two thinkers by means of an exposition of the main points, and offers a few important critical observations on key questions.
12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Patrick J. McDonald Fr. Ernan McMullin on Evolutionary Biology and a Theology of the Human
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While it was not a main focus of his work, Ernan McMullin contributed to reflection on being human in the context of human evolutionary history. His work developed multiple strands for the formation of a systematic Christian evolutionary theism regarding human beings. The first theme concerns St. Augustine’sexplorations of “seed-like” principles in developing the idea that God brought forth humans in part through a natural process. Secondly, the paper discussesMcMullin’s response to the claim that evolutionary theory suggests humans to be the result of radical contingency, calling into question the Providential natureof human evolution. McMullin invokes Augustinian sensibilities about God’s eternality in his reply. Next, Fr. Ernan reflected on the concept of matter and howit can inform a response to dualistic conceptions of human being. Finally, in a characteristically even-handed tone, he defended emergentism as a viable optionto dualism, recognizing there to be serious philosophical and theological concerns about the emergentist picture. While McMullin did not solve the problems thatchallenge a synthesis of evolutionary theory and Christian anthropology, he offered a number of very helpful clues.
book reviews
13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
John Hughes Creation and the God of Abraham
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14. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Logan Paul Gage Evidence and Religious Belief
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15. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Anthony J. Lisska Mind, Method, and Morality: Essays in Honour of Anthony Kenny
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16. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Bonnie Kent Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas
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17. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Heidi Giebel The Ethics of Abortion: Women’s Rights, Human Life, and the Question of Justice
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18. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
James D. Madden Liebniz’s Mill: A Challenge to Materialism
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19. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Michael P. Krom Secularism and Freedom of Conscience
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20. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 86 > Issue: 2
Travis Dumsday Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering
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