In a recent paper, Chunghyoung Lee argues that, because zygotes are developmentally plastic, they cannot be numerically identical to the singletons into which they develop, thereby undermining conceptionism. In this short paper, I respond to Lee. I argue, first, that, on the most popular theories of personal identity, zygotic plasticity does not undermine conceptionism, and, second, that, even overlooking this first issue, Lee’s plasticity argument is problematic. My goal in all of this is not to take a stand in the abortion debate, which I remain silent on here, but, rather, to push for the conclusion that transitivity fails when we are talking about numerical identity of non-abstract objects.

Thomists do not have an account of how modern mathematics relates to classical mathematics or more generally fits into the Aristotelian hierarchy of sciences. Rather than treat primarily of Aquinas’s theses on mathematical abstraction, I turn to considering what modern mathematics is in itself, seen from a broadly classical perspective. I argue that many modern quantities can be considered to be, not quantities as such or in themselves, but derived quantities, i.e., quantities that can be defined wholly in terms of the principles of number or magnitude. I also interpret the parts of modern mathematics that study quantitative change as being properly-speaking parts of natural philosophy, for example, probability theory, statistics, calculus, etc. In conclusion, I consider the place that quantity as such has in the order of the world and why we should expect the world to be highly mathematical, as we have found it to be.

Creationism is an important feature of Christianity but seems very foreign to Chinese philosophy. This paper examines an early attempt at introducing a metaphysical account of creationism in Huanyou quan (1628) by the Portuguese Jesuit, Francisco Furtado, and the Chinese scholar, Li Zhizao. It investigates the sources drawn from the works of Thomas Aquinas and reconstructs the choices made by the two authors in their translation. Finally, it suggests that Thomistic creationism bears similarities with Chinese philosophy.

Those who occupy positions of authority such as public officials and corporate executives frequently find themselves in contexts in which their choices can be expected to have consequences regarding the distribution of benefits and burdens among various stakeholders. How should such people reason in such contexts so as not to be biased? Herein I set forth and critically examine two answers to this question. The first is based on the work of John Rawls and is intuitively attractive. Nevertheless, I argue that there is reason to question its plausibility. The second is based on the work of John Finnis and is initially not intuitively attractive. Nevertheless, I develop a defense of it. If my defense of the second answer is plausible, what those who occupy positions of authority should do so as not to be biased when making choices in contexts of distributive choice is quite different than what is commonly supposed.

The aim of this paper is to show how systematic Charles Taylor’s philosophy is. It rejects two opposite readings: one claiming that Taylor’s thought is too diverse to have real unity; the other, that it is the product of a “monomaniac” (Taylor’s own word). I claim that his thought has a very distinct structure, comprising two levels. On the first, “meta-hermeneutic” level, Taylor defends a thesis about hermeneutics (namely, that it cannot be dispensed with): this unifies his anthropology, epistemology, moral philosophy, philosophy of language and political philosophy. On the second, “hermeneutic” level, Taylor builds an impressive historic construal of modern identity and its dilemmas. More importantly, while these two levels are irreducibly distinct, they relate to each other in interesting ways, giving Taylor’s philosophy its systematicity. I finally confront this view with other readings, and argue that it is the best way to understand Taylor’s work.

For a given decision, when an undemocratic procedure would result in a good outcome, and a democratic procedure would result in a bad outcome, which decision procedure ought we to use? Epistemic democrats, such as Joseph Schumpeter, argue that all else being equal, we should prefer the procedure with the good outcome. Schumpeter’s argument for this position is that we must reject the view that only democratic procedures matter when evaluating government institutions (pure proceduralism), and the only alternative to pure proceduralism that can coherently describe the relationship between democracy and the public interest is pure instrumentalism. I argue that Schumpeter’s argument for epistemic democracy does not succeed. In this paper, I outline three alternative ways of conceiving of the relationship between democracy and the public interest, which I call evaluative dualism, impure instrumentalism, and impure proceduralism. I explain how, with any of these three alternative views, we can evaluate government institutions without rejecting the intrinsic value of democratic procedures or the public interest.

In this essay, I discuss the essence of truth. In order to do so, I continue a fecund dialogue between Husserlian phenomenology, as recapitulated by Robert Sokolowski, and Aristotelian metaphysics, as developed by St. Thomas Aquinas. Integrating these phil­osophical approaches enables us to see that beings reveal themselves to us through their activities, both substantial and accidental, and that the active self-disclosure of things can be identified with their intelligibility. It is this objective yet potential intelligibility that we disclose and activate when we think about things truthfully by articulating them in the medium of speech. I therefore define truth as the human person’s syntactic activation of the potential intelligibility of things, and I conclude by showing how these reflections lead us to acknowledge God as the highest and first Truth.

The purpose of this article is to provide a case against certain claims made by modal skeptics with a specific application to the debate about whether conceivability is the right notion to employ in justifying the move from some state of affairs being conceivable to its being metaphysically possible. Does conceivability provide adequate, defeasible grounds for inferring metaphysical possibility? If not, is there a better approach that employs a replacement for conceivability? I argue that conceivability should be abandoned in favor of rational intuitions understood in a way I hope to make clear and precise.To accomplish this purpose, I begin by examing the general way conceivability has been related to metaphysical possibility and opt for a replacement for conceivability. Next, I make clear and precise what I mean by that replacement—rational intuitions. Third, I present three representative accounts of modal knowledge offered by Timothy O’Connor, George Bealer, and Edmund Husserl. O’Connor’s account is externalist, Bealer’s is a hybrid between an internalist and externalist view, and Husserl’s is a purely internalist perspective. While all three are plausible perspectives, I will criticize and reject the first two accounts and argue that Husserl’s way out of modal skepticism is successful. I conclude that Husserl’s employment of rational intuition made precise by his notions of eidetic and categorial intuition, provides a rigorous, fruitful way to ground modal knowledge in general, and de re and de dicto possibility in particular.

In an earlier paper, Mark Spencer synthesized three understandings of divine simplicity, arguing that the Thomist account can be enriched by Scotist and Palamite distinctions. After summarizing that earlier work, this paper builds upon it in four main ways. Firstly, it relates Scotus’ logical (diminished) univocity to Aquinas’ metaphysical analogy in language about God. Secondly, it explores the limits of univocity and the formal distinction as applied to the divine essence (in the Palamite sense), utilising the scientific metaphor of tomography. Thirdly, it defends Palamite energies from the charge of being Thomistic accidents by introducing the concept of “intrinsic ramification” and applying that concept to the Thomistic divine ideas. Fourthly, it tabulates some significant pre-existing parallels between the three systems’ nomenclature in referring to similar aspects of the divine.

Although the philosophical ideas of the English philosopher Robin George Collingwood on history and art have often been compared with those of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, an in-depth comparison between their concepts of metaphysics was never made. Therefore, the focus in this article is on both authors’ concepts of metaphysics. It is shown that, despite the undeniable affinity, their views of the status of metaphysics differ substantially. Both Dilthey and Collingwood focus on an inherent antinomy in the project of metaphysics. On the one hand, there is the inescapable relativity of all time-bound ways of thinking and their results; on the other, there is the metaphysical search for objective and generally accepted knowledge of reality as a whole. For Dilthey, the awareness of its historical character reveals the impossibility for metaphysics to provide a foundation for natural and human sciences alike. Collingwood’s aim, by contrast, is to safeguard the possibility of metaphysics as a historical science to supply an enduring foundation of natural and human sciences. To clarify this radical difference with regard to the role of metaphysics, I make three steps. First, I situate Dilthey’s critique of metaphysics within the context of his work in order to present his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Second, I focus on the role of Collingwood’s reform of metaphysics and his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Finally, I relate the different status of their views of metaphysics to their divergent interpretations of human finitude.

The so-called “analytical” appendix to the first part of Spinoza’s Ethics has at times puzzled scholars. It notably breaks with the geometrical method adopted in most of the text, and includes an impassioned argument against teleology, popular morality, and, ultimately, the faculty of imagination. In this essay I seek to resolve this interpretive difficulty by side-by-side comparison with philosophical resources from one of Spinoza’s main influences. In particular, I argue that analysis of the appendix to the first part of his Ethics is benefitted by comparison with certain Maimonidean arguments regarding the “imagination”—themselves part of a long tradition of debate on the powers of the imaginative faculty in ancient and medieval philosophy—contained in The Guide of the Perplexed. I introduce and trace this connection across both texts. This helps us to better appreciate both the appendix and its place within the Ethics and Spinoza’s sustained, complicated relationship with Medieval Judaism’s greatest thinker.

Pursuing a suggestion made by Christopher Stead in his book Divine Substance and employing distinctions made by Gottlob Frege in his article “Concept and Object,” it becomes possible to answer a common charge against Trinitarian Theism: its alleged inconsistency in claiming that, while there is only one God, there are also three “persons,” each rightly named “God.” The argument advanced, while supporting the logical coherence of traditional Trinitarian Theism, also defends the orthodoxy of the controversial “Social Trinitarianism” associated with Richard of Saint Victor.

Absolutism—the idea that some kinds of acts are absolutely wrong and must never be done—plays an important role in medical ethics. Nicholas Denyer has defended it from some influential consequentialist critics who have alleged that absolutism is committed to “agent-relative constraints” and therefore intolerably complex and messy. Denyer ingeniously argues that, if there are problems with agent-relative constraints, then they are problems for consequentialism, since it contains agent-relative constraints, too. I show that, despite its ingenuity, Denyer’s argument does not succeed. The defense of absolutism must move to other grounds.

Plato’s Timaeus reveals a cosmos governed by Necessity and Intellect; commentators have debated the relationship between them. Non-literalists hold that the demiurge (Intellect), having carte blanche in taming Necessity, is omnipotent. But this omnipotence, alongside the attributes of benevolence and omniscience, creates problems when non-literalists address the problem of evil. We take the demiurge rather as limited by Necessity. This position is supported by episodes within the text, and by its larger consonance with Plato’s philosophy of evil and responsibility. By recognizing the analogy between man and demiurge, the literal reading provides a moral component that its non-literal counterpart lacks.

Certain teachings found in Gadamer’s hermeneutics (especially as presented in his major work Truth and Method) are examined in order to help cultivate the historically-minded theological methodology proposed by Thomistic thinker Benedict Ashley. Consideration is given to four Gadamerian themes mentioned in Ashley’s introduction to Theologies of the Body: (1) Interpretation is an intellectual inquiry that can be enriched by adopting hermeneutic reflection where such reflection is understood as a kind of a contemplative meta-praxis. (2) Interpretation as the search for understanding involves a heuristic process. (3) Hermeneutic reflection facilitates an interpreter becoming aware that the work of interpretation itself occurs within a historical context. (4) The process of interpretation is incomplete without the contemporary application of what is understood. With respect to each of these four themes, Ashley’s work is considered first and then the same topics are considered as found in the writings of Gadamer.

This paper tries to show that there is an important virtue (with no generally recognized name) that could be called “accountability.” This virtue is a trait of a person who embraces being held accountable and consistently displays excellence in relations in which the person is held accountable. After describing the virtue in more detail, including its motivational profile, some core features of this virtue are described. Empirical implications and an agenda for future research are briefly discussed. Possible objections to the virtue are considered and rebutted, and relations to other virtues, particularly the personal virtue of justice, are discussed. In conclusion, we suggest that though this virtue has not received the attention it deserves in contemporary society, it has been more clearly recognized in other cultures. Some of the reasons for the partial eclipse of the virtue are understandable and justifiable, but there are good reasons to think our society would be improved if we paid more attention to accountability from a virtue perspective.

A growing number of scholars have suggested that there is a unique I-You relation that obtains between persons in face-to-face encounters, but while the increased attention paid to the second-person has led to many important insights regarding the nature of this relation, there is still much work to be done to clarify what makes the second-person relation distinct. In this paper we wish to develop recent scholarship on the second-person by means of a phenomenological analysis of a doctor-patient interaction. In such an interaction the doctor and patient continuously shift between the observational I-It and the interactive I-You, and recognizing the difference between observation and interaction not only helps to defend the claim that this relation is sui generis, but also uncovers the co-constitution of experience from within this relation. As we argue, engaging another second-personally involves a shared experience that is a result of incorporating the other’s mental states into one’s own while standing in the second-person relation.

Rationality should not be seen as a ghostly process exclusive of the world of matter, but rather as a transcendent process within matter itself by virtue of a participated power. A Thomistic metaphysics of embodied participation in being effectively answers Robert Pasnau’s objection that the standard hylomorphic account confuses ontological and representational immateriality, and is more satisfying than nonreductive physicalist accounts of rationality, and the Anglo-American hylomorphic accounts reliant on formal causality. When the active intellect is understood as a participated power and not as a formal or constitutive principle of rationality, the transcendent basis of rationality is clarified; all embodied rational operations are seen to utilize, without being reduced to, a substrate of neurophysiological systems, processes and structures. I utilise an allegory of alien abduction, to illustrate participation as a key to understanding the intrinsic relationship between transcendent, immaterial thought and embodiment.