Already a subscriber? - Login here
Not yet a subscriber? - Subscribe here

Browse by:



Displaying: 1-14 of 14 documents


articles

1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
J. Obi Oguejiofor

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Although African philosophy has become a part of the world philosophic heritage that can no longer be neglected, no comprehensive history of it is available yet. This lacuna is due to the numerous problems that affect any attempt to outline such a history. Among these problems are those inherent in the historiography of philosophy in general and many others specific to African philosophy. They include the absence of scholarly unanimity over the exact nature of philosophy and, by extension, African philosophy; the dispute over the beginning of philosophy in Ancient Egypt, as well as the Afrocentrist assertion of the origin of Greek philosophy in Egypt; the problem of periodization; the status of ethnophilosophy, etc. These difficulties do not make a comprehensive history of African philosophy an impossible or irrelevant task. On the contrary, such a history is a necessity that promises to exert an enormous positive influence on the future development of African philosophy.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Salman Bashier

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
This paper draws on the mystical thought of Ibn al-‘Arabī (d. 1240) in order to explicate Plato’s account of the relationship between intelligible Forms and sensible objects. The author considers attempts by scholars to solve the difficulties that are inherent in the relationship between sensible objects and their essences—difficulties raised in the Parmenides—by reference to the notion of “immanent characters” of the Phaedo. He examines Ibn al-‘Arabī’s notion of “Specific Faces,” which in the author’s opinion correspond to Plato’s immanent characters. Comparing Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thought with Plato’s reflections on the theory of Forms in the Republic and the Symposium, the author reaches the conclusion that the notion of immanent characters or Specific Faces cannot be offered as a rational account of the relationship between sensible objects and their essences.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Gerard Casey

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In the debate on the relationship between conceptions of human nature and ethics/politics there are those who view any attempt to ground ethics/politics upon a reasonably “thick” conception of human nature as illegitimate. On the other side of the argument are those who accept the necessity of a theory of human nature for an adequate grounding of ethics and politics, although there may be deep divisions among supporters of this basic position as to what kind of theory best fulfills this grounding role. In this paper the claim is made that an understanding of the concept of human nature is central to the enterprises of ethics and politics because it indicates the effective limits of political and ethical debate and that, despite its centrality in ethics and politics (or perhaps because of it) the notion of human nature is essentially contentious.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Edward L. Krasevac

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In 1992, James Keenan put forward a renewed interpretation of the development of Aquinas’s thought to the effect that he shifted from an intellectual determinism in his early works, to an understanding of the autonomy of the will in the Prima Secundae of the Summa theologiae; this autonomy is the ground for Keenan’s (and others’) distinction between moral goodness and moral rightness. The present essay analyzes Keenan’s interpretation in terms of the body of criticism that it has generated over the past ten years. In particular, it highlights five important implications that Keenan draws from his theory of the will’s autonomy: the separation of volition from knowledge in the dynamic of freedom, the virtue of charity as formal and non-specific, the moral neutrality of the acquired virtues, the two measures of moral action, and sin as moral “badness.”
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Craig J. N. de Paulo

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
By tracing some of the historical and hermeneutical influences of Augustine on Martin Heidegger and his 1927 magnum opus, this article argues that Being and Time has an “Augustinian constitution.” While Heidegger’s philosophical terms are in a certain sense original, many of them have their conceptual origins in Augustine’s Christian thought and in his philosophizing from experience. The article systematically revisits all of Heidegger’s citations of Augustine, which reveals not only the rhetorical influence of Augustine on the organization of Being and Time, but also the fact that the conceptual inspiration of the work and the development of its philosophicalterms are significantly indebted to Augustine. Further, an original synthesis of Heidegger’s methodology with Augustine’s thought on restlessness and conversion is developed in order to demonstrate the philosophical compatibility between Heidegger and Augustine. This synthesis results in what the author considers the foundations for an Augustinian phenomenology.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Jeffrey Koperski

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
In his recent anthology, Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics, Robert Pennock continues his attack on what he considers to be the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design Theory. In this critical review, I discuss the main issues in the debate. Although the volume’s rhetoric is often heavy and the articles are intentionally stacked against Intelligent Design, it touches upon many interesting topics in the philosophy of science. I conclude that, contra Pennock, there is nothing intrinsically unscientific about Intelligent Design. At this stage, however, it remains more of a provocative idea than a research program. Whether design theorists can bridge this gap is still very much in question. In any case, the debate serves as a case study for such classic problems as the nature of scientific explanations, theory change, the demarcation problem, and the role of metaphysical assumptions in the development of science.
7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Ryan Nichols

abstract | view |  rights & permissions | cited by
Proponents of intelligent design theory seek to ground a scientific research program that appeals to teleology within the context of biological explanation. As such, intelligent design theory must contain principles to guide researchers. I argue for a disjunction: either Dembski’s ID theory lacks content, or it succumbs to the methodological problems associated with creation science—problems that Dembski explicitly attempts to avoid. The only concept of a designer permitted by Dembski’s explanatory filter is too weak to give the sorts of explanations which we are entitled to expect from those sciences, such as archeology, that use effect-to-cause reasoning. The new spin put upon ID theory—that it is best construed as a “metascientific hypothesis”—fails for roughly the same reason.

book reviews

8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Kevin Hart

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Raymond Dennehy

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Michael Ewbank

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
James Daly

view |  rights & permissions | cited by
12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4
Bruce Ballard

view |  rights & permissions | cited by

books received

13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4

view |  rights & permissions | cited by

contents of volume

14. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 77 > Issue: 4

view |  rights & permissions | cited by