Many discussions of per se and per accidens series focus on efficient causality and how a consideration of the metaphysics of the matter can deliver us a primary efficient cause of all that is (God). Drawing on my own previous work on causal series, I offer in this article a model for the understanding of per se causal series wherein the causality involved is that of finality. I then consider whether or not such per se final causal series are infinite. Finally, I consider the implications this has for our conception of God as creator.

The present study clarifies the theological importance of feeling in the formation of a person, as Edith Stein understands it. Feeling constitutes the originating dimension of the finite spirit, disclosing the dynamic pair of thinking and willing while being capable of anticipating infinite Spirit. A finite spirit is a most real and authentic incarnate spirit when it comprehends itself as stemming from God. The foundations of this formation are to be found in the ontic, historical, dynamic relationship between finite spirit and the Infinite Spirit, who anticipates finite spirit answering to an “image” logos (Bild ) as one who is led toward a “full similitude” (Gleichnis) to God by the Holy Spirit. The longing of the finite for the infinite manifests itself in the dynanimic relations between feeling, intelligence, and willing. Guided by these fundamental insights, Edith Stein teaches that the relationship between Bildung and Ausbildung constitutes a process of divinization based in a loving dialogue.

This contribution examines two related points in relation to Aquinas’s understanding of contemplation, which is a sorely neglected topic in scholarship. First, after having outlined that the final act of contemplation culminates in an intellective, simple apprehension of the truth, I will examine how this act relates to the three operations of the intellect (grasping of quiddity, judgement, and reasoning) Aquinas identifies in a number of places. Second, I argue that his view of contemplation as simple insight is significantly indebted to Neoplatonic sources; therefore, we must pay attention to the way he introduces Neoplatonic elements into his Aristotelian framework. I conclude this contribution by suggesting some reasons—of a theological nature—why Aquinas would have been drawn towards a non-discursive or “intuitive” notion of contemplation.

The paper deals with the theory of universals of Sebastian Izquierdo (1601–1681), a Spanish Jesuit author working in Rome, as he formulated and defended it in Disputation 17 of his major philosophical work The Lighthouse of Sciences (Pharus scientiarum), published in Lyon in 1659. Izquierdo’s discussion centers around three questions: What is universality? Is there some intellect-independent universality? What is the nature of the intellect-dependent universality? Izquierdo’s approach may be seen as a search for the third way between the (moderate) realism of the Thomists and the Scotists and the (conceptualist) nominalism of some Jesuits such as Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641).

Philippa Foot’s attempt in Natural Goodness to defend the claim that moral goodness is a form of species-specific natural goodness and that immorality is a natural defect has elicited a number of challenges. For instance, Scott Woodcock presents the following dilemma: Foot’s account of natural normativity either yields morally objectionable results, or there exists an appeal to a normative standard not grounded in natural norms. I contend that the Footian Neo-Aristotelian approach possesses the resources necessary for an adequate answer to this dilemma. I argue that Foot’s naturalism does wind up with a normative standard not grounded in empirically typical natural norms but that it is no Achilles’ heel. To support this thesis, I contend that such a standard appears inappropriate only if one assumes Foot is endeavoring to justify or establish a substantive conception of human goodness and defect, something she is not attempting.

Many scholars find Socratic irony so obvious in the Euthydemus that they don’t bother to cite any textual support when they claim that Socrates does not sincerely mean something he says, e.g., when he praises Euthydemus and his brother. What these scholars overlook is the role of agapē in shaping Socrates’s view of other intellectuals. If we take his agapē into account, it is easy to see that while there is some irony in the Euthydemus, none of it is Socratic.

In this paper I interpret Arthur Danto’s thesis on “the end of art” in eschatological terms. He allows for this by having chosen Joachim of Fiore’s theological theory of the three ages to illuminate his own understanding of art history. I offer some ideas on how this post-history might be understood by means of theological method. I also explore the relationship between the concept of “tradition” and Danto’s concept of “transfiguration.” By means of these analyses I bring out the tendency in contemporary analytical philosophy of art to interpret the work of art via theological categories. I consider this to be another argument in favor of the view that art has taken the place of religion in the philosophical consciousness.

I argue that a Thomistic theory of intentionality is both philosophically plausible and inconsistent with physicalism. I begin by distinguishing two types of intentionality and two senses in which something can be said to be non-physical. After sketching the relevant background hylomorphic philosophy of nature, I develop a Thomistic theory of intentionality that supports a certain kind of anti-physicalism. I then consider criticisms of the Thomistic theory of intentionality raised by Peter King and Robert Pasnau. In reply I argue that (a) King’s position would have the Scholastics adopt an approach to intentionality that fails to solve the very problem such a theory is supposed to address; and (b) contrary to Pasnau’s objection, there are ample resources available to show that the Thomist does not commit a content fallacy.

The immense distance between God and creatures is a core statement of Gregory of Nyssa’s thought, which makes it distinctive not only in theology, but also in cosmology, anthropology, and spiritual doctrine. For him, the main distinction between beings that articulates all reality is not that of intelligible and sensible, but the one between infinite God and creatures. This paper, dealing with some selected texts regarding the creation of man, points out the main roots of Gregory’s theism: a high comprehension of God’s transcendence and a proper philosophy of time and creation. From here, Gregory’s understanding of the hierarchy of beings as a non-dialectic unity of creation supported by a transcendent participation in God, and his articulation of Eternity and Time within the unique creative action of God, could be seen as a deep Christian comprehension of reality that is still intriguing for contemporary thinkers.

In the epilogue to Memory, History, Forgetting, Paul Ricoeur introduces an overlooked “vertical” axis into the problem of forgiveness. This verticality runs from the “depth” of fault to the “height” of forgiveness. For Ricoeur, forgiveness only appears an impossible “exchange” if one excludes this verticality from the question. Instead, he calls forgiveness “difficult” because it traverses from height to depth. This article argues that Ricoeur’s notion of the horizontal and the vertical in Memory, History, Forgetting is best understood as an allusion to his account of time and eternity in Chapter 1 of Time and Narrative, volume 1, even though Ricoeur himself does not explicitly make this connection. In light of the ontological tenor of this connection, the author also suggests a slight modification of Ricoeur’s account, calling forgiveness “improbable” rather than difficult.

Belonging presents a range of problems that have been treated thematically in the social sciences. However, belonging has rarely been explored as an explicit theme in philosophy. That said, many philosophers have implicitly considered the problem of belonging in their own way. In this paper, the work of Emmanuel Levinas is presented and considered, especially where it relates to the political. In outlining Levinas’s thought on fraternity, we are presented with a belonging that is not yet political. It is in some ways, but not necessarily, pre-political. On the contrary, we begin to see how all that is meant by the political—the State, citizenship, the remit of justice—is secondary or subsidiary to the primacy of the ethical which, in its only extension beyond the Other, finds expression in fraternity or in our belonging with others.

In this essay, I argue against an important position in contemporary perfectionist political philosophy, which holds both that the state is instrumental in nature and that there are principled, rather than merely prudential, limits on the scope of state authority such that pure paternalism is not morally acceptable. By so doing, I provide a conditional defense of the moral acceptability of pure paternalism.

Aquinas holds that by its nature the human will has happiness as its ultimate end in every choice, and yet he holds that one can and ought to love God more than oneself or one’s own happiness. This generates the so-called “problem of love”: how can an eudaimonist like Aquinas account for non-selfish love? I argue that Aquinas’s doctrine of goodness as the will’s object and his distinction between the love of desire and the love of friendship solve this problem and indicate that Aquinas’s eudaimonism is only “subordinated eudaimonism.” By its nature the will has happiness—total inhering goodness—as its ultimate object secundum quid (love of desire), and God—total subsisting goodness—as ultimate object simpliciter (love of friendship). Nevertheless, Aquinas argues on philosophical grounds and with the support of Aristotle’s Liber de Bona Fortuna that God Himself would have to move the will if one were to love God above oneself even in the order of nature.