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21. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Matthew K. Minerd

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In Thomistic metaphysics, the domain of ens rationis pertains to a hazy region of “non-real” being, laying outside of the proper scientific subject of metaphysics. In addition to negations and privations, a very important domain of entia rationis pertains to that of relationes rationis, especially such relationes as play a role in human reasoning. Logic, studying these “non-real” relations, thus focuses on a unique, if hazy, realm of “non-being.” While this particular type of ens rationis receives the lion’s share of attention among Thomists, there is evidence that similar reflection should be given to two additional domains of experience, namely that of “moral being” and “artificial being” (i.e., the being of artifacts). This paper lays out the general metaphysical concerns pertaining to each of these domains, providing an outline of topics pertinent to a Thomistic discussion of the intentional existence involved in logic, moral realities, and artifacts.
22. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Jennifer Soerensen

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While examining how Aquinas defends his account of the human soul in Article 2 of On Spiritual Creatures, I will point out the difficulties that arise in determining the nature of the human soul when the very starting question is formulated in the manner of Article 2’s question: “Can a spiritual substance be united to a body?” This way of examining the human soul—beginning by considering pure spiritual substantiality and then considering whether it is possible that spiritual substance can relate to a body—reveals an intractable tension which Aquinas would have a difficult time resolving. However, this tension is avoided when the method for discussing the nature of the soul is a bottom-up analysis of the human composite and its operations, which is precisely how Aquinas argues in his Answer. The dialectic between these two different sorts of questioning in Article 2 represents the key opposition between Aquinas’s arguments regarding the soul and those of Averroes and Avicenna.
23. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Tully Borland, T. Allan Hillman

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Most agree that Scotus is a voluntarist of some kind. In this paper we argue against recent interpretations of Scotus’s ethics (and metaethics) according to which the norms concerning human actions are largely, if not wholly, the arbitrary products of God’s will. On our reading, the Scotistic variety of voluntarism on offer is much more nuanced. Key to our interpretation is keeping distinct what is too often conflated: the reasons why Scotus maintains that the laws of the Second Table of the Decalogue are (a) contingent (a modal distinction) as well as (b) not universal (a categorical distinction). A proper interpretation of Scotus must also take seriously the fact that these Second Table laws are natural laws “exceedingly in harmony with” (multum consona) the necessary laws, and are distinct from and not reducible to divine positive laws.
24. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Joshua C. Thurow

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Anselm’s argument in Cur Deus Homo commits him to the existence of collective sin and to Jesus’s offering recompense for the human race’s collective sin. By “collective sin” I mean sin of a collective entity—in this case, the human race. In the bulk of this paper I argue that one of Anselm’s defenses of a crucial assumption of his argument—what I call Anselm’s Principle—can succeed only on the assumption that Jesus offers recompense for the collective sin of the human race. At the end of the paper’s final section I briefly present a second argument that another, quite separate, aspect of Anselm’s argument—regarding the conditions for blessed happiness—also implies that Jesus offers recompense for the collective sin of the human race.
25. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
William Matthew Diem

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This essay examines the role that circumstances play in determining the morality of moral acts as presented in ST I-II, q. 18 and argues that q. 18 uses two different sets of principles that are left unreconciled in the text. The paper argues that consequently the text is not coherent but is radically divided; specifically, q. 18 holds both that a circumstance—by virtue of being a true circumstance and accident of the act—can make a good act evil but also that whenever a circumstance renders a good act evil it must cease to be a circumstance and an accident. This paper then shows that in De Malo, q. 2 Aquinas provides a distinct and heretofore unappreciated account of circumstances and that he explicitly used the unique features of this account to reconcile the propositions that were left unreconciled in q. 18.
26. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Rico Vitz, Marissa Espinoza

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In this paper, we elucidate an alternative conception of the “end of human life” that Germain Grisez considers but never develops. We then defend this conception against two key objections. We conclude by explaining a few ways that this alternative conception of the “end of human life” is particularly important both theologically (e.g., for interfaith discourse) and philosophically (e.g., for understanding the traditional Christian conception of human nature and, hence, of natural law).

book reviews

27. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Kelly Gallagher

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28. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Kenneth Boyce

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29. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Peter J. Younger

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30. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 3
Heidi Giebel

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articles

31. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Gaven Kerr, O.P.

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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.
32. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Anneliese Meis

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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.
33. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Rik Van Nieuwenhove

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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.
34. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Daniel D. Novotný

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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).
35. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Jessy Jordan

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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.
36. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Don Adams

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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.
37. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Sixto J. Castro

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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.

book reviews

38. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Ryan Cobb

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39. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Timothy Jussaume

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40. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly: Volume > 91 > Issue: 2
Andreea Mihali

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