American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

Volume 94, Issue 1, Winter 2020

The Philosophical Legacy of John Henry Newman

Keith Beaumont
Pages 27-56

“Real” and “Notional” in Newman’s Thought

Newman’s constant preoccupation with “connectedness” leads him to explore and to insist upon the importance of the relationship between the “notional” and the “real,” and therefore of that between theology and philosophy, on the one hand, and spirituality (in the sense of lived spiritual experience) and morality or ethics, on the other. This paper explores Newman’s expression of these ideas, firstly in his sermons and theological writings, and finally in the more philosophical context of the Grammar of Assent.