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articles
1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Jeffrey Hause Aquinas on the Function of Moral Virtue
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Aquinas is quite clear about the definition of moral virtue and its effects, but he devotes little space to its function: How does it accomplish what it accomplishes?Aquinas’s treatment of the acquired moral virtues in our non-rational appetites reveals that they have at least two functions: they make the soul’s powersgood instruments of reason, and they also calm the appetites so that one can make moral judgments with an unclouded mind. Virtue in the will has a different, “strong directive” function: it directs our will to certain goods prior to reason’s forming its judgment. Aquinas must also hold that the virtues of the non-rational appetites exercise strong direction as well, but we cannot see why unless we examine his account of the infused moral virtues.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Daniel Heider Is Suárez’s Concept of Being Analogical or Univocal?
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This article deals with the question of Suárez’s conception of being, which prima facie seems to oscillate between a Scotistic univocal conception anda conception of being according to the analogy of intrinsic attribution. The paper intends to show that Suárez’s doctrine can in no way be interpreted as representative of the univocal conception, and proceeds in six steps. First, it highlights the importance of the Uncommon Doctor’s theory of the unity of both the formal and the objective concepts of being. In the second part, the paper asks how the concept of being can, without any internal differentiation and structure, give rise to the different relations that it has to the natures subordinated to it. In the second and the third parts, this question receives an answer against the backgroundof Suárez’s critique of Scotus’s conception, and with the help of his theory of the radical intimate transcendence of being. In the fourth section, there follows anexposition of Suárez’s doctrine on the explication of the concept of being. The fifth section offers a brief presentation of the significance of esse for ratio entis. Inthe last section, the author places his interpretation in the general context of the Metaphysical Disputation.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Patrick H. Byrne The Goodness of Being in Lonergan’s Insight
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One of the lesser known features of Bernard Lonergan’s Insight is his theory of the relationship between being and goodness. Central to that theory is his claimthat the totality of being is good. From this central claim, Lonergan worked out an “ontology of the good,” in which the structures of ontological interdependencyare reflected in a theory of the scale of higher and lower values. Unfortunately, Lonergan’s way of supporting his claim in Insight is problematic. This article firstsummarizes Lonergan’s theory of the goodness of being, then identifies problems with his exposition, and finally shows how Lonergan could have arrived at thesame positions by closer adherence to his own philosophical methods. The article concludes by showing some of the advantages of Lonergan’s account of the goodness of being for contemporary debates in ethics.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Stephen Wang The Ambiguity of the Self and the Construction of Human Identity in the Early Sartre
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In his reflections on action in Being and Nothingness, Sartre goes to the heart of what it is to be human. Our free actions are not the consequence of ouridentity, they are its foundation. As human beings we go beyond who we are towards a freely chosen future self. Human identity is ambiguous because consciousness simultaneously accepts and sees beyond the identity it discovers; there is an internal disintegration which distances us from ourselves. The intentionality of consciousness means that we are constituted not by an objective presence but by a “presence to” our identity. Personhood is established only when we select certain values and allow them to shape our identity and guide our actions. As “being-for-itself” we go beyond the present and project ourselves towards an identity that does not yet exist, thus creating ourselves through our freedom, through our concrete choices. This article pays careful attention to Sartre’s understanding of consciousness, selfconsciousness, and “selfness,” before drawing some conclusions about the role of human freedom in the construction of identity.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Thomas M. Osborne, Jr. Rethinking Anscombe on Causation
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Although Elizabeth Anscombe’s work on causation is frequently cited and anthologized, her main arguments have been ignored or misunderstood as havingtheir basis in quantum mechanics or a particular theory of perception. I examine her main arguments and show that they not only work against the Humean causaltheories of her time, but also against contemporary attempts to analyze causation in terms of laws and causal properties. She shows that our ordinary usage does not connect causation with laws, and suggests that philosophers emphasize laws for mostly historical reasons. Moreover, she argues that the core of causation is derivativeness, which is as neglected now as when she wrote. Her focus on derivativeness indicates to us how we can both avoid the position that the causal “because” is truth-functional and yet still hold that causal statements are really explanatory.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Joseph K. Cosgrove Beauty and the Destitution of Technology
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The tension between beauty and technology is evinced in the modern distinction within technē itself between technology and “fine art.” Yet while beauty,as Kant observes, is never a means to an end, neither is it an “end in itself.” Beauty points beyond itself while refusing subordination to human interests. Both its noninstrumentality and its self-transcending character I trace to the intrinsic necessity of the beautiful, which is essentially impersonal while paradoxically being an object of love. I suggest that we conceive of beauty as an “anonymous voice,” and I relate the latter to Heidegger’s critique of modern technology as a projection upon nature of “resource being.” I conclude that technology can be creative rather than destructive of beauty when it lets natural ends, which are inescapably in conflict with one another, transcend themselves through self-sacrifice.
discussion
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
T. Michael McNulty, S.J. Taking the Victims’ Side
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We are told the academic ideal is that all voices have equal claim to attention. But this excludes the voices of the poor and marginalized, who lack theresources to be heard. They are the victims of historical forces over which they have no control, while a kind of “economic fundamentalism” infects first-worldattitudes toward markets and free trade, widely viewed as capable of automatically solving the problems of the Third World. But the earth does not possess theresources to allow everyone to enjoy a first-world standard of living. We can help only those with whom we share moral community. The issue is the recognition ofthe other as a fellow human. Taking the victims’ side, modeling the world from the perspective of the reality that daily oppresses them, transforms both the victimsand ourselves. This change in perspective will not be easy. The movement from observer to participant in the struggle of the poor cannot help changing the waywe relate to our students and what we understand by “education.”
book reviews
8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Joshua Parens Metaphysics as an Aristotelian Science
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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Gregory B. Sadler Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition
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10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
James Ross Rethinking the Ontological Argument: A Neoclassical Theistic Response
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11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Charles F. Kielkopf The Social Authority of Reason: Kant’s Critique, Radical Evil, and the Destiny of Humankind
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12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Bernadette Waterman Ward Coleridge and Newman: The Centrality of Conscience
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13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Vincent M. Colapietro Varieties of Religion Today: William James Revisited
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books received
14. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 81 > Issue: 1
Books Received
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