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84Substance and Identity-DependencePhilosophical Papers 35 (1): 103-118. 2006.There is no consensus on how to define substance, but one popular view is that substances are entities that are independent in some sense or other. E. J. Lowe’s version of this approach stresses that substances are not dependent on other particulars for their identity. I develop the meaning of this proposal, defend it against some criticisms, and then show that others do require that the theory be modified.
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14Christological Consistency and the Reduplicative QuaJournal of Analytic Theology 2 86-100. 2014.
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971Talking about intentional objectsDialectica 60 (2): 135-144. 2006.Discusses the old problem of how to characterize apparently intentional states that appear to lack objects. In tandem with critically discussing a recent proposal by Tim Crane, I develop the line of reasoning according to which talking about intentional objects is really a way of talking about intentional states—in particular, it’s a way of talking about their satisfaction-conditions.
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591Nagasawa vs. Nagel: Omnipotence, Pseudo‐Tasks, and a Recent Discussion of Nagel's Doubts About Physicalism1Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 48 (5). 2005.In his recent "Thomas vs. Thomas: A New Approach to Nagel's Bat Argument", Yujin Nagasawa interprets Thomas Nagel as making a certain argument against physicalism and objects that this argument transgresses a principle, laid down by Thomas Aquinas, according to which inability to perform a pseudo-task does not count against an omnipotence claim. Taking Nagasawa's interpretation of Nagel for granted, I distinguish different kinds of omnipotence claims and different kinds of pseudo-tasks, and on t…Read more
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61Intentionality, normativity, and a problem for SearleDialogue 41 (4): 703-713. 2002.A biological understanding of mind is at the heart of Searle's philosophy. But there is a tension in his position. On the one hand, modern biology, as he understands it, requires a certain conception of normativity. On the other hand, the way Searle himself understands intentionality requires a very different conception of normativity. To resolve the difficulty, Searle must at the same time modify his understanding of biology and nuance his idea that spirit is a biological phenomenon just like …Read more
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4446The essential and the accidentalRatio 18 (3). 2005.The distinction between the essential and the accidental characteristics of a thing should be understood not in modal terms (the received view) nor in definitional terms (Fine’s recent proposal) but as follows: an essential characteristic of a thing is one that is not explained by any other of that thing’s characteristics, and an accidental characteristic of a thing is one that is so explained. Various versions of this proposal can be formulated.
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Trading Zones and Moral Imagination as Ways of Preventing Normalized DevianceIn Andrew Wicks, Sergiy Dmytriyev & R. Freeman (eds.), The Moral Imagination of Patricia Werhane: A Festschrift, Springer Verlag. 2018.
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15Timothy Pawl, In Defense of Conciliar Christology: A Philosophical Essay (review)European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 10 (4): 213-217. 2018.
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36Classical Theism, Classical Anthropology, and the Christological Coherence ProblemFaith and Philosophy 33 (3): 278-292. 2016.The traditional claim that Christ is one person who is both divine and human might seem inconsistent with classical conceptions of understanding divinity and humanity. For example, the classical understanding of divinity would seem to require us to hold that divine beings are immaterial, while the classical understanding of humanity would seem to require us to hold that human beings are material, leaving us unable to speak consistently of one person who is divine and human both. This paper argue…Read more
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Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic UnionCambridge University Press. 2017.The hypostatic union of Christ, namely his being simultaneously human and divine, is one of the founding doctrines of Christian theology. In this book Michael Gorman presents the first full-length treatment of Aquinas's metaphysics of the hypostatic union. After setting out the historical and theological background, he examines Aquinas's metaphysical presuppositions, explains the basic elements of his account of the hypostatic union, and then enters into detailed discussions of four areas where …Read more
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3Ontological PriorityDissertation, State University of New York at Buffalo. 1993.This dissertation is an investigation of ontological priority. The Introduction argues that although philosophers have often been concerned with the things that are ontologically prior, they have seldom addressed the question of what ontological priority is. ;Part One gives a detailed analysis of what ontological priority is. Chapter 1 notes that there are two competing theories available: according to the first, ontological priority is a dependence relation; according to the second, it is a deg…Read more
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85Ujvári, Márta., The Trope Bundle Theory of Substance: Change, Individuation and Individual Essence (review)Review of Metaphysics 67 (4): 890-891. 2014.
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378Subjectivism about normativity and the normativity of intentional statesInternational Philosophical Quarterly 43 (1): 5-14. 2003.Subjectivism about normativity (SN) is the view that norms are never intrinsic to things but are instead always imposed from without. After clarifying what SN is, I argue against it on the basis of its implications concerning intentionality. Intentional states with the mind-to-world direction of fit are essentially norm-subservient, i.e., essentially subject to norms such as truth, coherence, and the like. SN implies that nothing is intrinsically an intentional state of the mind-to-world sort: i…Read more
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505Questions Concerning the Existences of ChristIn A. R. K. and Speer Friedman Emery (ed.), Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, Brill. 2011.According to Christian doctrine as formulated by the Council of Chalcedon (451), Christ is one person (one supposit, one hypostasis) existing in two natures (two essences), human and divine. The human and divine natures are not merged into a third nature, nor are they separated from one another in such a way that the divine nature goes with one person, namely, the Word of God, and the human nature with another person, namely, Jesus of Nazareth. The two natures belong to just one person, and the …Read more
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650IncarnationIn Brian Davies & Eleonore Stump (eds.), The Oxford handbook of Aquinas, Oxford University Press. 2011.According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ is a divine person who became “incarnate,” i.e., who became human. A key event in the second act of the drama of creation and redemption, the incarnation could not have failed to interest Aquinas, and he discusses it in a number of places. A proper understanding of what he thought about it is thus part of any complete understanding of his work. It is, furthermore, a window into his ideas on a variety of other topics: God, human nature, language, substa…Read more
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122Hume's Theory of BeliefHume Studies 19 (1): 89-101. 1993.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Theory of Belief Michael M. Gorman Belief is a key concept in Hume's philosophy, and yet Hume's statements aboutbeliefappear to be hopelesslyinconsistent.1 Various solutions have been offered, from saying that Hume is incorrigibly confused to saying that his theory ofbeliefchanged over the course of his career. This article will focus on the question ofthe nature ofbelief and show that Hume's theory is in fact consistent. In s…Read more
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471On substantial independence: a reply to Patrick TonerPhilosophical Studies 159 (2): 293-297. 2012.Patrick Toner has recently criticized accounts of substance provided by Kit Fine, E. J. Lowe, and the author, accounts which say (to a first approximation) that substances cannot depend on things other than their own parts. On Toner’s analysis, the inclusion of this parts exception results in a disjunctive definition of substance rather than a unified account. In this paper (speaking only for myself, but in a way that would, I believe, support the other authors that Toner discusses), I first mak…Read more
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81Ontological priority and John Duns ScotusPhilosophical Quarterly 44 (173): 460-471. 1994.The philosophical literature understands ontological priority in two ways, in terms of dependence, and in terms of degrees-of-being. These views are not reconcilable in any straightforward manner. However, they can be reconciled indirectly, if both are seen as instances of higher-level concept that is a modification of John Duns Scotus' notion of essential order. The result is a theory of ontological priority that takes the form of a list of membership criteria for the class of "ontological prio…Read more
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61Two Types of Features: An Aristotelian ApproachRatio 27 (2): 140-154. 2013.A certain theory of substance, one that grows out of Aristotelian philosophy but which has adherents today as well, draws a distinction between the features a substance has by instantiating a universal and the features it has by possessing a trope. An adherent of this theory might say that a certain cat is red because it possesses a redness-trope, but that it is a cat because it instantiates the universal CAT. A problem that must be faced by philosophers who hold this sort of view is the followi…Read more
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