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articles
1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Mor Segev Aristotle on the Proper Attitude Toward True Divinity
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Aristotle does not explicitly state how it is that one should ideally relate to the true gods of his metaphysics, like the prime mover. He does, however, speak of an unreciprocated relationship of friendship (φιλία) between humans and such gods. I argue that Aristotle’s conception of the magnanimous person sheds light on that relationship. The magnanimous person, who is a philosopher, devalues humanity and devotes her life and efforts to the divine. Thus, contrary to some scholars, Aristotle’s conception of magnanimity resembles quite closely the ideals of humility and even “lowliness of spirit” presented by Aristotelian medieval thinkers such as Moses Maimonides. Aristotle’s endorsement of total devotion to the divine seems to go against the natural tendency of organisms to further their own lives and species. Nevertheless, I argue that this recommendation is consistent with his teleological view of nature.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
José A. Poblete The Medieval Reception of Aristotle’s Passage on Natural Justice: The Role of Grosseteste’s Latin Translation of Ethica Nicomachea
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This essay argues that Robert Grosseteste’s Latin translation of Aristotle’s passage on natural justice was philosophically determinant for its medieval reception. By altering the passage, Grosseteste allowed for a reconciliation of prima facie opposing views on natural law, namely: On one hand, the Ciceronian-Stoic and Augustinian-Neoplatonic idea that natural law is primarily immutable; and on the other, Aristotle’s claim that all things that are naturally just are subject to change. Focusing on Albert the Great’s first commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics, and on Thomas Aquinas’s Sententia libri ethicorum, the paper shows that several distinctions made by these authors, which account for a restricted description of how naturally just things can change, were allowed and suggested by Grosseteste’s alterations of the passage.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Justin Matchulat Thomas Aquinas on Natural Inclinations and the Practical Cognition of Human Goods: A Fresh Take on an Old Debate
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Thomas Aquinas’s thought on how human natural inclinations relate to the cognition of basic human goods has been and continues to be highly disputed. Pointing out the weaknesses of both old and new natural law interpretations, I offer an interpretation that is highly sensitive to Aquinas’s language in key texts on this issue and in addition draws upon texts where Aquinas explicates the relationship between inclination and selective attention. I argue that the natural inclinations primarily play a directive role in drawing an agent’s attention to naturally apprehend basic human goods. This directive role is both externalist and reliabilist—the agent need not be aware of the inclinations and cognitive features that reliably direct her attention. Following a principle he inherits from Aristotle, I claim that for Aquinas, as human beings are by nature, so do the basic human goods seem to them.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Scott J. Roniger Is there a Punishment for Violating the Natural Law?
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Is there a punishment for violating the natural law? This important question has been neglected in the scholarship on Thomistic natural law theory. I show that there is a three-fold punishment proper to the natural law; the remorse of conscience, the inability to be a friend to oneself, and the inability to be a friend to another work in concert to provide a natural penalty for moral wrongdoing. In order to establish these points, I first analyze sources of St. Thomas Aquinas’s natural law theory by discussing St. Augustine’s notion of law and fundamental ideas in Aristotle’s political philosophy. Next, I show how Aquinas unites aspects of Augustinian and Aristotelian thought in his treatment of natural law and thereby provides a framework for answering our question. Finally, I turn to Plato’s Gorgias and to Aristotle’s discussion of self-love in order to integrate these ideas with Aquinas’s natural law theory.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Henrik Lagerlund Willing Evil: Two Sixteenth-Century Views of Free Will and Their Background
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In this article, I present two virtually unknown sixteenth-century views of human freedom, that is, the views of Bartolomaeus de Usingen (1465–1532) and Jodocus Trutfetter (1460–1519) on the one hand and John Mair (1470–1550) on the other. Their views serve as a natural context and partial background to the more famous debate on human freedom between Martin Luther (1483–1556) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) from 1524–1526. Usingen and Trutfetter were Luther’s philosophy teachers in Erfurt. In a passage from Book III of John Mair’s commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from 1530, he seems to defend a view of human freedom by which we can will evil for the sake of evil. Very few thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended such a view. The most famous medieval thinker to do so is William Ockham (1288–1347). To illustrate how radical this view is, I place him in the historical context of such thinkers as Plato, Augustine, Buridan, and Descartes.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Robert McNamara The Concept of Christian Philosophy in Edith Stein
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In her mature thought, Edith Stein presents a philosophy that is positively Christian and specifically Catholic. The rationale behind her presentation rests upon three interplaying factors: the nature of philosophy; the nature and state of finite creatures in relation to God; and the meaning of being a Christian. Stein maintains that given the essential imperfection and natural limitation of philosophy as a human science, philosophy lies interiorly open for its elevation and completion through its supplementation by the supernatural contents of Revelation, yet in such a way that it retains its proper philosophical character precisely as determined by its specific object domain appropriately investigated. In this paper, I critically examine this provocative proposal of Stein by setting it in contrast to “the Thomistic solution” of Jacques Maritain, upon which Stein’s solution to the question foundationally relies, and thereby intend to manifest its basic significance while simultaneously assessing its philosophical validity.
book reviews
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
John R. Betz Catholic Theology after Kierkegaard. By Joshua Furnal
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8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Andrew Jaspers Sin: A Thomistic Psychology. By Steven J. Jensen
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 2
Sarah Borden Sharkey European Sources of Human Dignity: A Commented Anthology. By Mette Lebech
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