Philosophers sometimes wonder whether academic work can ever be truly interdisciplinary. Whether true interdisciplinarity is possible is an open question, but given current trends in higher education, it seems that at least gesturing toward such work is increasingly important. This volume serves as a testament to the fact that such work can be done. Of course, while it is the case that high-level theoretical work can flourish at the intersection of dance and philosophy, it remains to be seen how we (...) might share this with undergraduate students. For many of us in philosophy and dance, a large number of the students we teach are neither philosophy nor dance majors. As such, we are familiar with the challenge of convincing our students to care about our fields. Both philosophy and dance, qua disciplines on a college campus, face similar challenges. These disciplines are often deeply misunderstood, frequently presumed to be “impractical” (a powerful, but confused objection), intimidating, and frivolous. In this chapter, we offer an account of the course we co-taught at Southern Utah University in the Spring of 2016 titled “Movement and Space” as a rough framework for how to introduce the intersection between philosophy and dance to students. We simultaneously attempted to break students of their misconceptions about philosophy and dance, and worked to engage students and professors alike in a truly interdisciplinary educational experience. Treating philosophy as an embodied endeavor, and employing philosophical concepts through the act of dance encouraged students and faculty alike to rethink the fundamental nature of aesthetics. (shrink)

Early Chinese texts make us witnesses to debates about the power, or lack thereof, that humans had over the course of events, the outcomes of their actions, and their own lives. In the midst of these discourses on the limits of the efficacy of human agency, the notion of ming 命 took a central position. In this article, I present a common pattern of thinking about the relationship between the person and the world in early China. I call it the (...) reifying pattern because it consisted in thinking about ming as a hypostasized entity with object-like features. Although external and independent, ming was not endowed with human qualities such as the capacities for empathy, responsivity, and intersubjectivity. The reification of fate implied an understanding of ming as an external, amoral, and determining force that limited humans without accepting intercommunication with them, thereby causing feelings of alienation, powerlessness, and existential incompetence. I first show that the different meanings of ming hold a sense of prevailing external reality, and hence can be connected to the overarching meaning of fate. Then, I offer an account of the process of reification of fate in early China and its consequences, theoretical and practical, through cases study of received (Mengzi 孟子) and found (Tang Yu zhi dao 唐虞之道) texts. I end with some reflections on the implications of ming as a nonpersonal and nonsubjective type of actor for both early Chinese and twenty-first-century accounts of agency. (shrink)

In this note, my aim is to point out a phenomenon that has not received much attention; a phenomenon that, in my opinion, should not be overlooked in the professional practice of philosophy, especially within feminist efforts for social justice. I am referring to the way in which being a non-native speaker of English interacts with the practice of philosophy.1 There is evidence that non-native speakers are often perceived in prejudiced ways. Such prejudiced perception causes harm and, more importantly, constitutes (...) wrongdoing. As in other cases of prejudiced perception and biased behavior, it would be pretentious and misguided to expect philosophers and the philosophy profession to be free from this vice. There are good reasons to think that this prejudiced perception is bad not only for the persons who are perceived in such a way, but also for the profession, for it might make us miss important things that could improve philosophy in general. I claim we should be more sensitive to this phenomenon, both out of concern for justice, and for the sake of doing better philosophy. (shrink)

The first contribution, by Mercedes Valmisa, begins by repositioning the Zhuangzi 莊子 as a whole within pre-Qin thought under the impact of newly excavated materials. Moving away from the traditional classification of texts according to schools, it focuses instead on varying approaches to life issues. Centering the discussion on life situations and changes we have no control over, including the unpredictable vagaries of fate (ming 命), it outlines several typical responses. One is adaptation, finding ways to go along with (...) what life demands, and even availing oneself of the new opportunities it brings about. Another is a turning inward, a focus on the inner self, holding on to ethical and other standards and making sure on does the right thing regardless of the outcomes of one's actions. While the former appears in several chapters of the Zhuangzi, notably in chapter 6, the latter is central to the Qiongda yishi 窮達以時 (Failure and Success Depend on Opportunity), a manuscript excavated at Guodian. However tempting it may be to characterize one approach as Daoist and the other as Confucian, they both appear within the Zhuangzi together with a third approach to fate, showing the fluidity of philosophical discussion and the futility of thinking along the lines of traditional boundaries. (shrink)

Philosophy of action in the context of Classical China is radically different from its counterpart in the contemporary Western philosophical narrative. Classical Chinese philosophers began from the assumption that relations are primary to the constitution of the person, hence acting in the early Chinese context necessarily is interacting and co-acting along with others –human and nonhuman actors. This book is the first monograph dedicated to the exploration and rigorous reconstruction of an extraordinary strategy for efficacious relational action devised by Classical (...) Chinese philosophers in order to account for the interdependent and embedded character of human agency –what the author has denominated “adapting” or “adaptive agency” (yin 因). As opposed to more unilateral approaches to action also conceptualized in the Classical Chinese corpus, such as forceful and prescriptive agency, adapting requires great capacity of self and other-awareness, equanimity, flexibility, creativity, and response, which allows the agent to co-raise courses of action ad-hoc: unique and temporary solutions to specific, non-permanent, and non-generalizable life problems. Adapting is one of the world’s oldest philosophies of action, and yet it is shockingly new for contemporary audiences, who will find in it an unlikely source of inspiration to deal with our current global problems. This book explores the core conception of adapting both on autochthonous terms and by cross-cultural comparison, drawing on the European and Analytic philosophical traditions as well as on scholarship from other disciplines, opening a brand-new topic in Chinese and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

These thirteen paragraphs portray epistemology as the study, not directly of knowing as a human action (which could be considered the object also of anthropology) but as the study of the mode of being of the object in the subject and, in this sense, of intentional being. Moreover, intentional being is not understood as the being of the cognitional species or representation, which is real and subjective, but as the being of the known, as the presence of the known to (...) the knower (obviously, through the species but a being not reduced to the subjective being of the species): this kind of being is the proper object of epistemology. Other considerations regarding the distinction between metaphysics and epistemology take place as well. As regards the method, this essay attempts to apply Aquinas’ four steps of scientific reasoning to epistemology, in the following fashion and order: 1- Solution of the problem of the universals by recourse to the theory of the agent intellect (resolutio secundum rem); 2- Definition of knowledge as intentional possession of being (res. sec. rationem); 3- Judgment of value regarding the different instances of human knowledge or critique of knowledge (compositio secundum rem) and 4- Reinterpretation (in the light of the previous path) of common notions of epistemology, such as truth, certainty, evidence, and error (comp. sec. rationem). (shrink)

This study tries to identify the core elements of the teaching of Albert the Great on the possibility of a natural knowledge of God and its sources in the negative theology of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite.

Why does social injustice exist? What role, if any, do implicit biases play in the perpetuation of social inequalities? Individualistic approaches to these questions explain social injustice as the result of individuals’ preferences, beliefs, and choices. For example, they explain racial injustice as the result of individuals acting on racial stereotypes and prejudices. In contrast, structural approaches explain social injustice in terms of beyond-the-individual features, including laws, institutions, city layouts, and social norms. Often these two approaches are seen as competitors. (...) Framing them as competitors suggests that only one approach can win and that the loser offers worse explanations of injustice. In this essay, we explore each approach and compare them. Using implicit bias as an example, we argue that the relationship between individualistic and structural approaches is more complicated than it may first seem. Moreover, we contend that each approach has its place in analyses of injustice and raise the possibility that they can work together—synergistically—to produce deeper explanations of social injustice. If so, the approaches may be complementary, rather than competing. (shrink)

Mercedes Valmisa turns our attention to the relations between truth and practice in classical Chinese philosophy. In this tradition, truth is conceived of, in a pragmatic-like spirit, as a series of embodied beliefs and perspectives that lead to fitting dispositions, emotions, and actions (regardless of whether they accurately describe the world, or whether there are other competing beliefs and perspectives that equally accurately or inaccurately describe the world). This means that we should care about truth because of its normative (...) power to guide our behavior in the most fitting way, not because of a theoretical interest in accurately describing reality. Valmisa Oviedo traces the development of this conception of truth in the Mohists and Zhuangists, leading to two radically different sociopolitical and ethical positions: the Mohists used single-truth discourses to enforce ideological monopolies that could not allow pluralism in values, norms, beliefs, and practices, while the Zhuangists warned us against the dangers of such dogmatism. (shrink)

El objetivo de este pequeño trabajo es ayudar a comprender la necesidad de la composición real en el ser participado. Lo hacemos sirviéndonos de una parte de la magnífica obra del p. Fabro, La noción metafísica de participación. En la primera parte de nuestro trabajo nos serviremos de algunos de los textos de Santo Tomás que reportaba el p. Fabro, los que más nos ayuden a comprender la demostración. En la segunda, y al mismo efecto, estudiaremos el silogismo del p. (...) Fabro, con el cual dicho autor trataba de condensar la demostración de la composición real en todo ser participado. (shrink)

Given the importance of the principle of causality for the demonstration of God’s existence, this paper attempts to justify the evidence and necessity of the principle of causality, by following Fr. Fabro’s Thomistic defense—based on the notion of participation—but adding a particular emphasis on the notion of “being which is not per se,” this latter as an explanatory notion of the notion of “being which is by participation.” The introductory remarks touch upon two misunderstandings regarding the notion of participation employed (...) as a subject of the principle of causality: the first, considering “participated being” as a synonym of “received being,” and the second, the confusion, regarding the notion of being by participation, between its notional dependence on the notion of being as a whole and its real dependence on the real intensive Being. Then, in the first point, the defense of the principle of causality is distinguished from other related problems, like the particular applications of this principle. In the second and main point, we try to justify the necessity of being caused in the being which is experienced as being by participation, as follows: 1) that which is something by participation is not this something per se; 2) now, that which is not per se, either is not or is per aliud, 3) Therefore, that which is something by participation is per aliud. In the third and last point, we endeavor to justify the Thomism of our defense and of our emphasis on this notion of “being which is not per se” by considering two texts of St. Thomas. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas wrote a text later known as Quaestio de attributis and ordered it inserted in a precise location of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard more than a decade after composing this work. Aquinas assigned exceptional importance to this text, in which he confronts the debate on the issue of the divine attributes that swept the most important centres of learning in 13th Century Europe and examines the answers given to the problem by the representatives of the (...) four mainstream schools of his time: the Greek mystic Dionysius Areopagita, the Latin Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the Jewish rabbi Moses Maimonides and the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sina. This in-depth study of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestio de attributis (In I Sent., d. 2, q. 1, a. 3) binds together the findings of previous research on the unique history of this text by reconstructing the historical circumstances surrounding its composition, shows that the Quaestio contains Aquinas’ final answer to the dispute on the divine attributes, and thoroughly examines his interpretation of Maimonides’ position on the issue of the knowledge of God by analysing this and other texts related to it chronologically and doctrinally. The examination of the Quaestio reveals the background of Thomas Aquinas’ renewed interest in Maimonides’ position on the issue and brings to light elements of Aquinas’ interpretation that are absent from his earlier references to Maimonides. Moreover, the chronological and doctrinal connection of the Quaestio de attributis to other Thomistic works with explicit references to Maimonides enables a reconstruction of his comprehensive approach to Maimonides’ teaching on the possibility and extent of the knowledge of God in the Guide of the Perplexed and highlights the place of Maimonides’ philosophical teachings in Thomas’ own thought in issues like "Being" as the proper name of God, the multiplicity of the divine names, the beatific vision in the afterlife, the causes that prevent the instruction of the multitude in divine matters and the role of faith and prophecy in the acquisition of the true knowledge of God in this life. The last chapter examines the reasons behind Aquinas’ silencing of Maimonides’ name when introducing his Five Ways for the knowledge of the existence of God, in spite of the evident relation between these and Maimonides’ Four Speculations. The study is completed with an extensive appendix that includes the text of the Quaestio de attributis with an English translation and the critical edition of several chapters of the 13th Century Latin translation of the Guide of the Perplexed known as Dux neutrorum. (shrink)

This chapter presents an analysis of Wang Bi’s (226-249 CE) hermeneutics and reception theory via the concept of “forgetting” (wang 忘) in his essay “Clarifying the Images” (Ming xiang 明象).

研究早期中国哲学的学者均普遍认为，缺乏作者和思想学 派的资料，对以哲学为本的研究非常不利。就着这个观点，本文提出异议: 汉学研究所提供的文献、文学、语言、历史的知识，可融贯于早期中国哲学 的研究，并产生良好的影响。蒋韬在 2016 年提出了“汉学挑战”的论述。就此，本文论证，汉学正好 提供一个机会，结合不同的研究方法及角度，从而更有效地处理具体的哲 学议题。我以自己对“命”的研究为例，解释如何以多个文本为基础，梳理 哲学问题，做“没有作者的哲学”，并显示:融贯汉学研究所提供的各种方 法、知识、研究工具，不仅无损哲学研究，更为其注入新气象。我采取了“后学科”的研究角度:受到前学科文化(例如早期中国文 化)的启发，“后学科”的角度在提问时，往往从整体出发，不囿于各个学科 的既定模式和分类;并开辟新路向，容纳创意，追寻意义，以产生可行的新 联系。 Some scholars of early Chinese philosophy see the knowledge provided by Sinology as a challenge to the development of sound philosophical enquiry. What Sinology tells us about the historical context and the textual, material, and intellectual culture of the period is considered detrimental for engaging in philosophical research, reason why these scholars believe that Chinese philosophy must separate itself from Sinology. I argue that Sinology does not offer (...) a challenge but an opportunity to engage with a multitude of approaches and methods to more efficiently address philosophical problems and questions. I offer my own research as an example of how to integrate the knowledge and analytical tools offered by Sinology in a philosophical study of early China. Focusing on the most crucial Sinological challenge--the challenge to the notions of “book” and “author"--I show that using the methods and knowledge provided by other disciplines does not jeopardize but, much to the contrary, invigorates and revitalizes philosophical research. My perspective is post-disciplinary: inspired by pre-disciplinary cultures such as early China, post-disciplinarity engages inquiry holistically, suspending the patterns and categories established by discrete disciplines, forging new paths for creativity and the search of meaning, and allowing new viable connections to emerge. (shrink)

The article examines the first Hebrew Encyclopedia of Science, Yesodei ha-Tvunah u-Migdal ha-Emunah, by Medieval Jewish scholar Abraham Bar Hiyya from Saragossa (Iberian peninsula).

This paper leads us in reflections regarding the ontological status of a situation inspired by two main sources: the Zhuangzi--a multifarious compilation from Warring States China (ca. 4th c. BCE)--and José Ortega y Gasset's (1883-1955) Unas Lecciones de Metafísica (Some Lessons in Metaphysics)--the transcripts of a course on metaphysics by a Spanish philosopher of the early 20th century. Much as other ontologically subjective entities and events, situations do not preexist the intentional subject: instead, they are created alongside our act of (...) noticing. In Classical Chinese, shi , commonly rendered "propensity" and the closest the language comes to our concept of situation, denotes a dynamic process that incorporates the conscious subjective agent as well as other entities as constitutive elements. Here a situation is not reducible to the discrete phenomena and events that we can discern within a given space-time; rather, it necessitates our thinking about it to arise. These ontological reflections are important for a philosophy of action. They help us notice the role of attention in the creation of situations--as in the creation of worlds--hence the importance of understanding what the agent notices and fails to notice, what we privilege as worthy of our attention and what passes inadvertent among the world's plural affordances. The relational affordances that we actualize and reify as constituting a situation depend on what we are socialized and educated to see when looking at the world, thus situations and agents co-create one another over time. This acknowledgement is crucial to retrain our agency in order to illuminate our blind spots, overcome our uncritical certainties which generate absolutist tendencies, and move beyond fixed, reduced, and contingent corners from which to interpret the world. (shrink)

In contrast to individualistic explanations of social injustice that appeal to implicit attitudes, structural explanations are unintuitive: they appeal to entities that lack clear ontological status, and the explanatory mechanism is similarly unclear. This makes structural explanations unappealing. The present work proposes a structural explanation of one type of injustice that happens in conversations, discursive injustice. This proposal meets two goals. First, it satisfactorily accounts for the specific features of this particular kind of injustice; and second, it articulates a structural (...) explanation that overcomes their unattractiveness. The main idea is that discursive injustice is not the result of biased interlocutors, but of problematic discursive norms. (shrink)

St. Thomas Aquinas has always considered intelligence a potency higher than the will, absolutely speaking. That being said, and in my view, the existential primacy of the will in the act of freedom (particularly in choosing the existential end) is also indisputably Thomistic, as Cornelio Fabro has shown. This paper endeavors to explain Aquinas' doctrine on the absolute primacy of the intellect and thus show that these two primacies can be affirmed coherently, that is, the intellect’s absolute primacy and the (...) will’s existential primacy. Firstly, I will explain the reasoning St. Thomas Aquinas uses in the Summa to justify the absolute primacy of the intellect over the will. Secondly, I will explore some parallel texts, in order to shed light on my interpretation of the Summa and expand our view regarding this and related doctrinal points. Thirdly, I will offer a brief study of Fabro’s position, one in which his concerns regarding the intellect’s absolute primacy are taken into account and carefully considered. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to clarify, from a Thomistic point of view, the nature and method of metaphysics. I argue that metaphysics' object is created being, not God, even if God enters metaphysics as efficient cause of metaphysic's object. Also, that metaphysics is a science, insofar as a particular kind of coherent reasoning process, going from the many to understand a certain oneness, and then from that oneness to reinterpret the many. Moreover, that, in this particular process of reasoning, (...) doctrinal topics must follow a certain order. Thus, in particular, I argue that the distinction between essence and act of being in every creature cannot be argued before arguing the existence of God. I touch upon the notion of separation in metaphysics and I compare Aquinas' notion of resolution with Fabro's notion. (shrink)

The following is an interpretation of Aquinas’ agent intellect focusing on Summa Theologiae I, qq. 75-89, and proposing that the agent intellect is a metaphysical rather than a formal a priori of human understanding. A formal a priori is responsible for the intelligibility as content of the object of human understanding and is related to Kant’s epistemological views; whereas a metaphysical a priori is responsible for intelligibility as mode of being of this same object. We can find in Aquinas’ text (...) many indications that the agent intellect is not productive of the universal as content but is, rather, productive of the abstracted or intelligible mode of being of the universal nature. This is because for Aquinas the universal nature, which is the object of human understanding, is present in the things themselves but with a different mode of being. Chapter 1 is intended to establish the fact which requires for Aquinas an agent intellect, and provides two very important principles: one is that the object of human understanding (the universal nature) is present in the things themselves and, the other, that it is not in the things themselves with a mode of being which makes it available to the intellectual eye. These two principles lead us to the main point of Chapter 2, namely the distinction between the intelligible object and its intelligible mode of being. Now, because knowing is receptive of the intelligible object (Chapter 3), which is present in the things themselves (Chapter 1), the agent intellect is productive not of the object’s intelligible content, but of its abstracted or intelligible mode of being (Chapter 4). (shrink)

I’m at the playground with my baby, and a smiling adult inquires, “Is it a boy or a girl?” Scientific studies show that if I say X, they will see my baby as doing A, being A, feeling A—versus if I say Y.1 They’ll likely make different assumptions about whether my baby is able to climb up the playground structures and sit without support, and they’ll encourage my baby to engage in different activities.2 And of course, they’ll respond to them (...) differently depending on whether they think the baby is a boy or a girl. What do I do if I don’t want that to happen? One way to respond to the question is not to reveal the gender, or rather, to reject the assumption that my baby already has a gender, which is arguably a weird move, breaking out of a smoothly functioning, well-oiled social exchange. Here I want to talk about this weird move: How weird it is? What are some of the reasons to make the move anyway, and what are some of the concerns? (shrink)

William Paley ( Natural Theology , 1802) developed the argument-from-design. The complex structure of the human eye evinces that it was designed by an intelligent Creator. The argument is based on the irreducible complexity ("relation") of multiple interacting parts, all necessary for function. Paley adduces a wealth of biological examples leading to the same conclusion; his knowledge of the biology of his time was profound and extensive. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species is an extended argument demonstrating that the "design" of (...) organisms can be explained by natural selection. Moreover, the dysfunctions, defects, waste, and cruelty that prevail in the living world are incompatible with a benevolent and omnipotent Creator. They come about by a process that incorporates chance and necessity, mutation and natural selection. In addition to science, there are other ways of knowing, such as art, literature, philosophy, and religion. Matters of value, meaning, and purpose transcend science. (shrink)

(Tesis de Licencia en Filosofía. Moderador Alessandro Salucci, OP. Angelicum, Roma, Febrero 2006) -/- El problema causal está íntimamente ligado y nos lleva necesariamente al problema del ser, finito e infinito. Por tanto, no es un problema más en la filosofía. En la larga discusión que se planteó en el último período escolástico (fines del s. XIX y primera mitad del s. XX) las líneas de solución más originales las ha dado el p. Cornelio Fabro -/- Por lo tanto, nos (...) proponemos investigar su propuesta de solución. El p. Fabro defendía la necesidad de la dependencia causal a través de la noción de participación. Nuestro objetivo es por tanto hacer un análisis crítico de la postura del p. Fabro acerca de la dependencia causal como exigencia del ser participado, a través del estudio de algunas de sus obras más importantes al respecto. Buscamos respondernos por qué para el p. Fabro el ser participado exige una causa, y valorar sus argumentos. -/- Como hemos dicho, para nuestro trabajo nos valdremos ante todo del estudio de algunas de las obras más importantes del p. Cornelio Fabro con respecto a la causalidad. Nos referimos en concreto a tres de ellas: la primera, el artículo La difesa critica del principio di causa, donde el autor expone de un modo preciso la noción de participación como el fundamento de la justificación crítica del principio de causalidad. Las otras dos obras son La Nozione Metafisica di Partecipazione secondo San Tommaso d’Aquino, donde la noción de participación es puesta al centro de la metafísica tomista, como clave de bóveda de las tesis más características de la doctrina del Angélico; y Partecipazione e Causalità, obra en la cual el autor rescata el esse tomista original como fundamento de una metafísica de la causalidad. -/- Este estudio nos ha llevado a destacar la importancia de la noción de “ser que no es por sí” como noción esencialmente relacionada a la noción de participación y por otro lado cuasi necesaria para hacer el pasaje a la causa. (shrink)

This research intends to show a Kantian influence in Transcendental Thomism, particularly in Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthasar. What is meant by a Kantian influence is a certain attitude regarding the problem of the universals, an attitude which is radically different from St. Thomas’. In my previous work (The Radical Difference between Aquinas and Kant: Human Understanding and the Agent Intellect in Aquinas [Chillum: IVE Press, 2021], the radical difference between St. Thomas and Kant was shown. In this present research, (...) what is argued is that Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthasar follow Kant, not St. Thomas, with regard to the analysis of human understanding. From each Transcendental Thomist author mentioned above, I have taken one sample text, one most significant work where each author’s epistemology can be explored. Thus, I have selected Rahner’s Spirit in the World, Lonergan’s Verbum articles and Von Balthasar’s Theologic I. (shrink)

Did we get Aquinas’ Epistemology right? St. Thomas is often interpreted according to Kantian principles, particularly in Transcendental Thomism. When this happens, it can appear as though Aquinas, too—along with Kant—had made the “turn to the subject”; as if Aquinas were no longer the Aristotelian “believer” who thinks nature is what it is but, instead, the Kantian “thinker” who holds that nature is what we think of it; as if St. Thomas, like Kant, had concluded that nature is intelligible not (...) only when we think of it, but because we think of it. After much struggle with this problem, the challenge seemed obvious to me: to show the radical difference between Aquinas and Kant. Kant had reasons to make his turn, his Copernican revolution. Could I explain those reasons, could I pinpoint the problem leading Kant to think in those terms? Could I show Aquinas facing the same problem and clearly taking a different direction in his proposed solution? That is what I have tried to do in this book. This book provides an interpretation of Aquinas’ agent intellect focusing on Summa Theologiae I, qq. 75-89, and proposing that the agent intellect is a metaphysical rather than a formal a priori of human understanding. A formal a priori is responsible for the intelligibility as content of the object of human understanding and is related to Kant’s epistemological views, whereas a metaphysical a priori is responsible for intelligibility as mode of being of this same object. We can find in Aquinas’ text many indications that the agent intellect is not productive of the intelligible object but is, rather, productive of the abstracted or intelligible mode of being of this object. This is because for Aquinas the universal as nature, which is the object of human understanding, is present in the things themselves but with a different mode of being. In this four-chapter book, Chapter 1 is intended to establish the fact which requires for Aquinas an agent intellect, and provides two very important principles: one is that the object of human understanding (the universal as nature) is present in the things themselves and, the other, that it is not in the things themselves with a mode of being which makes it available to the intellectual eye. These two principles lead us to the main point of Chapter 2, namely the distinction between the intelligible object and its intelligible mode of being. Now, because knowing is receptive of the intelligible object (Chapter 3), which is present in the things themselves (Chapter 1), the agent intellect is productive not of the object’s intelligible content, but of its abstracted or intelligible mode of being (Chapter 4). (shrink)

This article discusses the category of foreigner in the context of academia. In the first part I explore this category and its philosophical significance. A quick look at the literature reveals that this category needs more attention in analyses of dimensions of privilege and disadvantage. Foreignness has peculiarities that demarcate it from other categories of identity, and it intersects with them in complicated ways. Devoting more attention to it would enable addressing issues affecting foreigners in academia that go commonly unnoticed. (...) In the second part of the article I argue that current efforts to make academia a more inclusive environment should address the disadvantages that many foreign academics face. I focus on two senses of foreigner: working and living in a country that is not your country of origin, and being a nonnative speaker of the language in which you work. (shrink)

Is there a choice in sexual orientation? [Wilkerson, William S. : “Is It a Choice? Sexual Orientation as Interpretation”. In: Journal of Social Philosophy 40. No. 1, p. 97–116] argues that sexual desires require interpretation in order to be fully constituted, and therefore sexual orientation is at least partially constituted by choice. [Díaz-León, Esa : “Sexual Orientation as Interpretation? Sexual Desires, Concepts, and Choice”; In: Journal of Social Ontology] critically assesses Wilkerson’s argument, concluding that we still lack a good argument (...) for the claim that choice plays a role in sexual orientation. Here I examine Díaz-León’s response to Wilkerson. I introduce what I call the conceptual act theory of sexual orientation, and argue that even if interpretation were not necessary to constitute sexual desires, it is a necessary element to constitute what we call sexual orientation. However, I conclude that even if we agree that interpretation is involved in sexual orientation, it does not follow that there is a choice involved. (shrink)

Alberto Magno aprovecha lo mejor del neoplatonismo y del aristotelismo. Examina la doctrina aristotélica sobre el deseo de la verdad presente en la naturaleza humana y la ciencia metafísica que permite intuir la fuente de ese deseo, pero éste es analizado con más profundidad por el Pseudo Dionisio, siendo la ciencia teológica la que da más respuestas y la ciencia más universal, porque logra una mayor perfección no sólo intelectual sino de toda la persona.

The following is a paper presented for the Course Rahner and Lonergan at the University of Toronto (Winter, 2014), revised and edited Winter, 2018. Our purpose is to defend the possibility of “perceptualism,” that is to say, the position maintaining that the intelligible content of consciousness is given in perception and not posited by the activity of the subject. Assisted by the insights of Cornelio Fabro, this defense contrasts perceptualism with Bernard Lonergan’s “critical realism”. This paper focuses on the notion (...) of experience, seemingly the basis of the opposition between perceptualism and critical realism. (shrink)

Why I thought it useful to offer an explanation of Hegel’s doctrine on the Incarnation was so that the reader may be empowered to identify Hegel’s influence in modern accounts of this mystery. Even if, in my view, Hegel’s interpretation of revealed religion differs greatly from Catholic Doctrine, it is not surprising to find the presence of some of his concepts in modern theology. In truth, what matters is not the theologian’s self-identification as Hegelian or as non-Hegelian, but whether or (...) not the theologian adopts Hegel’s concepts. This paper offers an explanation of the internal dynamism of Hegelian concepts and their relation to Christian doctrine in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit. This research may help to show in what way it is possible to explain Christian religious doctrine with a philosophy other than the Thomistic one and how, at least in Hegel’s case, religious doctrine is changed and reduced to an erroneous philosophical content. Also, an attempt is made to show the internal “coherence” of this Hegelian re-reading of Christianity so that theologians may become more cautious about accepting an explanation of Christian doctrine simply because the Christian language is preserved in that explanation. (shrink)

Fenomenologia della percezione (1ª ed. 1941, 2ª ed. 1961) è, a mio parere, un libro fondamentale, che ci può orientare in modo decisivo davanti alla dialettica idealismo - realismo (60). Infatti, il principio di immanenza, da Cartesio a Gadamer, si basa su una sbagliata e gratuita descrizione del punto di partenza della conoscenza. In questa concezione, la conoscenza partirebbe da una materia informe, o un polverone di elementi che deve essere organizzato in qualche modo dal soggetto. L’esperienza ci dà la (...) molteplicità, e l’unità non può venire che dal soggetto. Ora, qual’è l’esperienza sulla quale si basa questa asseverazione? Nessuna, ovviamente, ed p. Fabro si incarica di provarlo fino alla stanchezza nelle 400 pagine che compongono la sua colossale opera. Il punto di partenza dell’idealismo non è per niente fuori discussione, e per convincersi basta prendere tra le mani questo libro. (shrink)

This paper is my best attempt to confute (Kantian) Modern Philosophy at its very core. This implies, of course, that in my view the principles of Critical Realism are Kantian. The basic arguments supporting Critical Realism are powerful: I have tried to show clearly their power, but also to expose clearly their putrid root. Section 3 on the principle of immanence offers the most important contribution in this undertaking. The arguments of critical realism studied in this paper are the following: (...) 1. The Notion of Experience 2. The Nature of Knowledge: Question and Inquiry 3. The Principle of Immanence 4. The Notion of Relation 5. Judgment as the Position of the Real. (shrink)

What is the distinction between understanding and forming a concept? In my view, for Aquinas, intelligere (the act of understanding) and dicere (the forming of a verbum or mental word) are not two different acts, but simply two different aspects of the same act of understanding. In the following, I will explore more in depth what this distinction means for Aquinas. Firstly, I will give a mostly doctrinal or systematic overview of the issue and, secondly, I will support my claims (...) with relevant textual evidence, taken exclusively from Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. This study, as an appendix, is part of “The Influence of Kant in Transcendental Thomism: Rahner, Lonergan and Von Balthasar” (forthcoming). In my view, Lonergan’s way of distinguishing intelligere and dicere is different from St. Thomas’ way. In the body of my book, I focus on Lonergan’s reasons to distinguish these notions in his own particular way, whereas this study focuses on St. Thomas’ doctrine. It is my hope that the following lines will foster an understanding of St. Thomas’ epistemology and of its application to Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

(From the Introduction) The topic I would like to present is “Scholasticism and Thomism” as found in Chapter 7 of Fabro’s "Brief Introduction to Thomism". My presentation, as both a summary and a partial commentary on some aspects of this work, may be helpful as we wait for the English translation of Fabro’s book. The title of this chapter says exactly what Fr. Fabro wants to do. He wants to relate Scholasticism and Aquinas in two senses: 1) from a historical (...) point of view, so that we may understand the origins, context and later fortune of the doctrine of St. Thomas, and 2) from a doctrinal point of view (and this is the most important) so that we may clearly distinguish St. Thomas’ doctrine from the rest of Scholasticism. This is very important because some people have tried to understand the Church’s invitation—or, rather, instruction—to study St. Thomas as simply a broad invitation to study Scholastic philosophy and theology. This is clearly not the case. The Church wants us to study the principles of Thomistic doctrine which, many times, are substantially different from other scholastic doctrines. (shrink)

Kant and Aquinas: who can doubt they are different? And however, there are some who equate Aquinas and Kant in doctrines in which they are actually opposed; some attribute to St. Thomas Aquinas approaches that are Kantian and by no means Thomistic. They make those mistakes by misinterpreting or misusing Aquinas’ texts. This paper intends to clarify a little bit the radical difference between the approaches of Aquinas and Kant to human knowledge. In my view, we need first of all (...) to understand the problem of the universals, which is the basic problem of human understanding and, in a sense, the only problem of philosophy. Second, we need to understand the stance of both philosophers in front of this same problem. Only then will we be able to see what and how radical is the difference between Aquinas and Kant. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to give the main lines of a theological accounting for the fullness of knowledge in Christ from the time of his conception. We follow the doctrine of St. Thomas and take into account some objections which are relatively modern. The paper is intended as a systematic articulation that is faithful to the Tradition and the doctrine of the Church and also concerned with faithfully interpreting the whole biblical narrative in our preaching. In particular, we (...) have in mind Gilles Mongeau’s question: “If from the beginning [Jesus] has all knowledge, how could he learn, which is such a fundamental part of a genuinely human existence?” We try to connect the issue of the knowledge of Christ with the reasons for the Incarnation. First, we show that our theological accounting finds support in the Magisterium and in the Bible. Secondly, we try to articulate systematically the reasons for affirming the fullness of human knowledge in Christ and the progression in his acquired knowledge. (shrink)

Here the point of departure of Being and Time is criticized, i.e. the priority of Dasein in the determination of the meaning of being. An overview of Heidegger’s doctrine is offered, his concern for intentionality is acknowledged, then it takes place a critique of his starting point, and finally a Thomistic alternative account of intentionality is proposed.

The immense outpouring of archaeological discoveries this past century has shed new light on ancient East Asia, and China in particular. Yet in concert with this development another, more troubling, trend has likewise gained momentum: the looting of cultural heritage and the sale of unprovenienced antiquities. Scholars face difficult questions, from the ethics of working with objects of unknown provenance, to the methodological problems inherent in their research. The goal of this Element is to encourage scholars to critically examine their (...) relationships to their sources and reflect upon the impact of their research. The three essays in this Element present a range of disciplinary perspectives, focusing on systemic issues and the nuances of method versus ethics, with a case study of the so-called 'Han board' MSS given as a specific illustration. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)