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articles

1. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Gaston G. LeNotre

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The scholarly consensus is that Thomas Aquinas’s views about individuation changed over time. The consensus states that he wavered in his opinion about whether determinate dimensions or indeterminate dimensions serve in the individuation of corporeal substances. I argue that this consensus is mistaken. I focus on early texts of Thomas to argue that he relies on different types of dimensions to answer different problems of individuation. Determinate dimensions resolve a problem in the order of perfection, and indeterminate dimensions resolve a problem in the order of generation. I explain texts that answer the problem of individuation in the order of perfection according to questions about universals, cognition, and science. I then explain texts that answer the problem of individuation in the order of generation. My conclusion argues that, despite abandoning the language, Thomas continues later in his career to rely on indeterminate dimensions to resolve the problem of individuation in the order of generation.
2. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Bryan Frances

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I first argue that, contrary to many atheistic philosophers, there is good reason to think the typical theistic philosopher’s retaining of her theism when faced with the Problem of Evil (PoE) is comparatively epistemically upstanding even if both atheism is true and the typical theistic philosopher has no serious criticism of the atheist’s premises in the PoE argument. However, I then argue that, contrary to many theistic philosophers, even if theism is true, the typical theistic philosopher has no good non-theistic reasons for rejecting any of the atheist’s premises, and she has good non-theistic reasons in favor of the atheist’s premises. In that respect, it’s extremely difficult for the theistic philosopher to respond to the PoE in an informative, non-question-begging way. I close by considering whether theistic philosophers should reject my second thesis.
3. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Matthew McWhorter Orcid-ID

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Aquinas teaches that the acquired moral virtues associated with the civil life are to be differentiated from the gratuitous moral virtues associated with the spiritual life. An interpretation of Aquinas will benefit from situating his various remarks on the moral virtues within the context of his teaching regarding how Christian persons develop in virtue over time. In this account, Aquinas makes a distinction between the moral virtues exercised in this life (in via) and in heaven (in patria), as well as between three stages of the Christian moral life in via (active, intermediate, and contemplative). I argue that Aquinas indicates that for Christian persons the acquired moral virtues are retained in the active life in via, but not in patria. Further, claims that Aquinas makes regarding the relationship between the contemplative moral virtues and the active moral virtues provide an analogy for understanding how infused charity might relate to the acquired moral virtues.
4. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Shane D. Courtland

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In an article that appeared in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Kody Cooper argued that “to be a Hobbesian is to be prolife.” In this essay, I will provide an argument that rebuts Cooper’s prolife interpretation of Hobbes. First, I will argue that Cooper has, without argument, committed an equivocation between a person’s personal identity and his or her organism. Resolving this ambiguity would allow for an interpretation of Hobbes that can consistently reject the notion that the life of a person “begins at conception.” Second, I will show that Cooper fails to take into account the significant costs that are placed upon prospective mothers and is therefore not able to judge whether or not aborting a fetus is within a mother’s enlightened self-interest. Third, I will, contrary to Cooper, show why it may be acceptable for a Hobbesian sovereign to construct a legal regime that is permissive of abortion.
5. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Brandon Dahm

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It’s strange that sleep doesn’t come up more when we think of virtue. In this paper, I argue that there is a virtue concerned with sleep, which I call “somnience,” and I develop an account of this virtue. My account of somnience builds on the virtue tradition of Aristotle and Aquinas and recent research about the nature of sleep. In the first section I argue that there is a need for such a virtue. Next, I argue that somnience is a form of temperance. Third, I show how somnience connects to a number of other virtues, which helps us fill out the nature of the virtue. Finally, I argue that sleep also relates to virtue by aiding virtue formation.
6. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Robert McNamara

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The problem of human unity lies at the heart of Edith Stein’s investigation of the structure of human nature in her mature works. By examining her resolution of this problem in Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person and Endliches und ewiges Sein, I show how Stein incorporates two teachings of Thomistic anthropology—namely, the rational soul as principle both of substantial unity and of bodily formation—while reinterpreting the meaning of these teachings through performing a fresh phenomenological investigation. Although this investigation leads Stein to propose a conceptually different explanation of human unity and bodily formation than that given by Aquinas, I argue that this difference should not be understood as if Stein and Aquinas stand squarely opposed on these important anthropological questions, but rather that Stein’s proposal lies in decisive continuity with the received teachings of Aquinas even while it represents an expanded conception of these teachings that also includes some contrast and disagreement.

book reviews

7. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
Andrew J. Jaeger

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8. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4
D. T. Sheffler

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9. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 4

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articles

10. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Marie I. George

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In “Defending Adam After Darwin,” Nicanor Austriaco, OP, mounts a noteworthy defense of monogenism, part of which turns on the relationship between abstract thought and language. At a certain point, he turns to a passage from Aquinas’s Commentary on John to support two claims which he affirms without qualification: namely, that the capacity for forming abstract concepts corresponding to the quiddities of things presupposes the capacity for language and that we grasp concepts through words. In addition, he asserts that Aquinas is talking about abstraction in this passage. I argue that these three claims are based on a misreading of Aquinas. I then show that Aquinas would agree with the qualified claim that the formation of certain concepts presupposes the usage of words. I also show that Aquinas might accept with qualification the notion that the capacity for forming abstract concepts presupposes the capacity for language: namely, by way of disposition.
11. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Christopher A. Bobier

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Hope is important in Thomas Aquinas’s account of the emotions: it is one of the four primary emotions and the first of the irascible emotions. Yet his account of hope as a movement of the sensory appetite toward a future possible good that is arduous to attain appears to be overly restrictive, for people often hope for things that are not cognized as arduous (e.g., when I hope for fine weather on my wedding day, that a professional athlete remains in good health, or that an experimental medicine is effective). This paper examines Aquinas’s reasons for limiting hope to arduous goods.
12. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
J. Caleb Clanton, Kraig Martin

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William of Ockham is often thought to be the medieval progenitor of divine command theory (hereafter DCT). This paper contends that the origin of a thoroughgoing and fully reductive DCT position is perhaps more appropriately laid at the feet of Andrew of Neufchateau. We begin with a brief recapitulation of an interpretive dispute surrounding Ockham in order to highlight how there is enough ambiguity in his work about the metaphysical foundations of morality to warrant suspicion about whether he actually stands at the origin of DCT. We then show how all such ambiguity is jettisoned in the work of Andrew, who explicitly rejects a position similar to one plausibly attributable to Ockham and also articulates a fully reductive DCT.
13. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
David Torrijos-Castrillejo Orcid-ID

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This article deals with the historical position of Domingo Báñez in the De Auxiliis Controversy. He was a protagonist of the beginning of the dispute and his name was used by the defenders of Luis de Molina to describe the traditional Thomist account on divine providence and free will; even today, many Thomists use the name of Báñez to designate their own position. This article tries to determine his personal opinion regarding the ontology of physical premotion without presupposing the later development of Bañecian doctrine. Most Thomists conceive it as a kind of entity inherent in the creature, but Báñez did not interpret it this way in his own account. According to him, God moves the created will so that the free human act is the first new entity in the creature, and it is produced by both God and created free will.

book discussion

14. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Edward Feser

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15. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Robert C. Koons

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16. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Stephen M. Barr

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17. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Edward Feser

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book reviews

18. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Adam Wood

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19. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Jennifer Newsome Martin

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20. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 94 > Issue: 3
Michael Rota

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