In this paper I argue that Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy must be understood against the background of his overall philosophy of being. I suggest that Thomas’s oscillation between an analogy of attribution and proper proportionality should be understood as an attempt to address analogy from two different, albeit complementary, metaphysical perspectives. If created being is, as Thomas maintains, a composition of essence and existential act, then it would seem that the analogy of being would bear out the implications of the composite character of being. Thus, if Thomas’s analogy sometimes focuses on formal causality and at other times upon the communication of act via efficient causality, it is not because he adopts a new doctrine of being that supplants his earlier teaching but because of the twofold character of created being.

Many of us want to say that there is an absolute—or at least a virtually absolute—prohibition on torturing people. But we live in a world in which firm moral restraints of all sorts are hard to defend. Neither contemporary conventional morality, nor any of the available moral theories, provides adequate support for the deliverances of the “wisdom of repugnance” in this area. Nor do they support casuistry capable of distinguishing torture from (sometimes legitimate) forms of rough treatment. I here make some suggestions concerningthe improvement of this situation.

Augustine was aware of objections to the idea of educational progress, and nowhere is this more acute than in his treatment of academic skepticism. While much attention has been paid to Augustine’s theory of knowledge within the Contra Academicos, too often overlooked is the specifically moral significance that he attaches to the skeptic’s critique of knowledge. I argue that Augustine’s chief criticism in this dialogue is not directed against an erroneous epistemology, although he does provide a refutation of that. Rather, itis against the disastrous educational and moral implications that follow from the skeptic’s views. Along the way I show how this interpretation helps to explain some of the novel structural features of the dialogue and allows us more securely to situate its argument against Augustine’s other key early reflections on the limits of knowledge.

Despite Marx’s claim that criticism against his views from a religious standpoint are not deserving of serious examination, I try to offer a critical examination of Marx’s epistemology of religion from the viewpoint of Reformed epistemology. Although Marx himself never set forth a systematic epistemology, let alone an epistemology of religion, his writings nonetheless provide an adequate resource to reconstruct his views on the matter. Given this, I set out what I take to be characteristic of Marx’s epistemology of religion and provide the meta-context in which the epistemological issue is framed. In light of Reformed epistemology, I then provide a critique of Marx’s criticism by turning his own argument on its head to the effect that there is significant likelihood that his view is both false and irrational. Finally, I defend against a possible objection.

The role of empirical evidence in scientific and in religious discourse has been revisited in a recent paper by John Worrall, who argues for the overlap between these two types of discourse and for the superiority of the former. His main thesis is that the epistemic attitude of natural science is superior because it is essentially related to evidence and falsifiability, whereby the search for counter-evidence is taken as the primary driving force for research. The epistemic attitude of religion, on the contrary, is essentially related to faith, whereby the effects of counter-evidence are always minimized or neutralized. In this paper, I question Worrall’s analysis of the role of evidence in the two kinds of discourse. I argue that the debate has systematically neglected the question of holism of meaning. When such holism is taken into consideration, the very idea of a purely given experience becomes questionable. I argue that this neglected area is as pivotal in our understanding of religious discourse as it has been acknowledged to be in philosophy of science. I then propose a refined account of religious language, illustrating thereby that between the role of evidence in science and its roles in religion there is a lot in common.

This article argues that Fichte is correct in claiming, as he does in the Foundations of Natural Right, that a derivation of the law of right from the moral law is impossible because the former relies on lex permissiva. I focus on Kant’s deduction of the concept of merely intelligible possession in the Metaphysics of Morals precisely because Kant attempts what Fichte says is not possible. By illustrating the problems involved in the concept of the lex permissiva, one is then in a position to see why Fichte believes the derivations mustremain separate and why Fichte stresses that the law of right must be argued for without reference to morality or the moral law.

This paper replies to Fred Ablondi’s discussion of Descartes’s treatment of madness in the Meditations. Against Ablondi’s interpretation that Descartes never seriously takes on board the skeptical hypothesis that he might be mad, because to do so would be for him to undermine the logical thought processes required to realize his agenda in the Meditations, I contend that Descartes does employ madness as a skeptical device, by assimilating its skeptical essentials into the dream argument. I maintain that while Descartes does not use madness to undermine logical processes, he does adduce other considerations that reveal him to be prepared to see those processes undermined. On the question why Descartes abandons madness in the Meditations, I argue that, despite its attractiveness as a skeptical device, the madness hypothesis involves methodological shortcomings that render it unfit for service in the doubt.

This article presents a reading of Mill in which his view of self is social rather than individualistic. I will provide criticisms of the radically-individualist interpretations of Mill offered by John Gray, R. P. Anschutz, and Robert Wolff. Gray and Anschutz get Mill wrong from the right, and Wolff gets Mill wrong from the left. Mill’s individualism has at times been overstated, leading to a neglect of the importance that he places on positive community influence of moral agents. This heavy emphasis on individual detachment can lead to an (intended or not) impression that Mill’s individual is thoroughly atomistic. An overemphasis on the individualism in Mill neglects the importance of community’s role in nurturing the individual to be united with fellow citizens, to develop sympathetic affections, and to be integrated into a unified web of corroborative associations.

Immanuel Kant’s position on international justice is beset by some troublesome inconsistencies, most notably a conflicted set of views on the status of federations as suitable alternatives to a world state. It is tempting for contemporary readers to interpret Kant’s indecision as a lack of commitment or resoluteness. Closer inspection demonstrates that this problem involves deeper paradoxes, rooted in the concept of sovereignty. On this matter, Kant’s Rechtslehre is the source of the difficulties found in the “popular” essays. Kant’s vacillating position on the proper institutional end for international relations is attributable to the fundamentally “permissive” character of his concept of right. Rechtslehre doctrines entail a form of skepticism, from which a coherent cosmopolitan program cannot possibly be derived.