John Joseph Haldane

Thomism, conceived of as the set of broad doctrines and style of thought expressed in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of those who follow him, first emerged in the thirteenth century. Aquinas himself was born in 1225 into a religious culture in which the dominant tradition of speculative thought was a version of Christian neoplatonism heavily influenced by St. Augustine. Early in his studies as a Dominican, however, Aquinas came under the direction of Albert the Great, who was to exercise an important role in communicating his own enthusiasm for innovations in philosophical, theological and scientific thought.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action.

Writing a little over a decade ago of developments in educational philosophy, R. F. Dearden remarked on the dearth of alternative approaches to that of conceptual analysis which predominated, at least in Anglophone cultures, at that time. One possible avenue of enquiry which he identified as conspicuously absent in this respect was the development of a distinctively Catholic approach to problems of educational philosophy, observing that a work of the mid-war years, Maritain's Education at the Crossroads, appeared to be well nigh the only modern effort in this direction. More than a decade on from this, in a climate no longer exclusively dominated by conceptual analysis - indeed, in which there is unprecedented interest in a wealth of different schools, traditions and approaches to philosophy of education - Dearden's remarks about the absence of a distinctively Catholic perspective still apply. In the following essay, therefore, the authors have undertaken, via a critical analysis of Maritain's educational speculations of half a century ago, to try to discern some of the principal issues and considerations which would need to be addressed in the interests of identifying a distinctively Catholic educational philosophy.

Contemporary medical ethics is generally concerned with the application of ethical theory to medico-moral dilemmas and with the critical analysis of the concepts of medicine. This paper presents an alternative programme: the development of a medical philosophy which, by taking as its starting point the two questions: what is man? and, what constitutes goodness in life? offers an account of health as one of the primary concepts of value. This view of the subject resembles that implied by ancient theories of goodness, and in later sections of the paper it is shown how Aristotle points us towards a coherent theory of human nature as psycho-physical, which overcomes the inadequacies of dualism and physicalist reductionism. What is on offer therefore, is the prospect of an integrated account of human nature and of what constitutes its flourishing: to be healthy is to be an active unity-of-parts in equilibrium

In this awaited follow up to his book _Faithful Reason_, the well-known philosopher and Catholic thinker John Haldane brings his unrivalled insight to bear on questions of the existence of God and the nature and destiny of the human soul. His arguments weave elements drawn from philosophy of mind, epistemology and aesthetics, together with recurrent features of human experience to create a structure that simultaneously frames and supports ideas such as that the cosmos is a creation, human beings transcend their material composition, and that human fulfilment lies beyond death. As in many of his other writings this volume blends themes from Aquinas with insights drawn from analytical philosophy and further establishes John Haldane as the leading 'analytical thomist'.

The idea of ‘connatural knowledge’ is attributed to Aquinas on the basis of passages in which he distinguishes between scientific and affective experiential knowledge of religious and moral truths. In a series of encyclicals beginning with Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris, popes have celebrated and commended Aquinas as the supreme guide in philosophy and theology and in some of these cited his discovery of connatural knowledge. The course and context of his ‘elevation’ are explored before proceeding to a discussion of moral knowledge in which different forms of non-theoretical cognition are identified. This leads to an examination of work by Elizabeth Anscombe on the factuality of ethical judgement and connaturality. Aquinas and Anscombe offer important insights but more work remains to be done. Moral knowledge is a many-faceted thing. More accurately, it is not one thing but many things analogously related both by their modes and by their objects.

Notwithstanding that there is now widespread interest in the rights of victims, little has been written about the theoretical justification of state compensation. Here we offer an initial exploration of the field in the hope that others might venture further and examine the points at which issues of compensation connect with other general and specific themes in social and political philosophy. For example, there has been much discussion about communitarian conceptions of civil society but the practical implications of such views, other than those relating to multiculturalism, have been largely ignored. The application of theory to social policy needs to take account of existing laws and institutions and these vary from one society and jurisdiction to another. In what follows we are principally concerned with the situation obtaining in the United Kingdom but the underlying issues are general ones [1].

Thomas Reid was one of the greatest philosophers of the eighteenth century and a contemporary of Kant's. This volume is part of a new wave of international interest in Reid from a new generation of scholars. The volume opens with an introduction to Reid's life and work, including biographical material previously little known. A classic essay by Reid himself - 'Of Power' - is then reproduced, in which he sets out his distinctive account of causality and agency. This is followed by ten original essays exploring different aspects of Reid's philosophy, as well as his relation to other thinkers, such as Kant, Priestley, and Moore

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Has Metaphysics to Do with Wisdom?John HaldaneThere are two loci of ambiguity in the title of the symposium from which this essay derives—"Is Belief in God Reasonable? Aquinas's Summa contra gentiles in a Contemporary Context."1 The first concerns the opening question, "is belief in God reasonable?" and the second the closing clause "in a contemporary context." I observe this not in the spirit of pedantry, but because I want to consider certain interpretations of what is at issue, ones which may be different from those of other contributors but which are relevant to Aquinas's circumstances and interests and to ours. So far as the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] is concerned, I will touch mainly on issues discussed by Thomas at the outset of book I, in chapters 1–15, which deal with philosophical knowledge of first principles and arguments to the existence of God. First, however, the general issue of reasonable belief.IConcerning the first locus of ambiguity, the question of the reasonability of belief in God is multiply interpretable. It may be treated as relative to a subject's other beliefs and attitudes, where that subject e may be an individual or a group. Given that S believes p and q (and these can each be conjunctions of any number of propositions), is it reasonable for S to believe r? This aspect of relative credibility is itself ambiguous because it [End Page 1249] can be viewed narrowly, without regard to the status of those antecedent beliefs and attitudes, or broadly, as also asking whether those are themselves reasonable. In a court setting, for example, it may be asked whether it was reasonable for someone to have believed (or done) something given their antecedent beliefs, but it may well be countered that this is an insufficient standard of reasonability, since the prior attitudes may be incredible, or credible but irresponsibly held. The issue of reasonable belief, foresight and foreseeability are common courtroom examples.In these respects, then, it may be granted by someone A, who holds that believing in God is not reasonable, that it was nevertheless reasonable for S to do so given S's antecedent beliefs. This need not be a matter of condescension, however, since A may grant that the prior beliefs were themselves reasonable for S to hold, and would also have been reasonable by some more objective standard prevailing at the time or in the circumstances.A "rationalist" objector may counter, however, that this is all beside the point, since the question to consider is not the relative, but the absolute one: is belief in God reasonable? Full stop. I agree that there is nothing to be gained by unconstrained relativizing, but if "absolutism" is the implied contrast, it is over-stated. First, if reasonability is related to having (or having access to) reasons, and to the "quality" of those reasons, then some degree of relativity is entailed, and the only standard of reasonability that can be applied is a contextual one. To ask simpliciter whether it is reasonable to believe p carries an unacknowledged implicit reference either to something such as prevailing commonly held beliefs and associated normal cognitive processes or to an idealized thinker with access to relevant proofs or evidence. On further consideration, however, the latter, somewhat like Adam Smith's "impartial spectator" in ethics,2 tends just to be a more abstract version of the contextually reasonable thinker. There is perhaps a step beyond this, namely to the Omniscient Reasoner (OR) but it is a sophistical move, since it amounts to saying that a belief is reasonable if and only if it would be held by someone who knows everything relevant to its justification. which given that we cannot know antecedently the range of relevant considerations, is for us an inapplicably high standard. There is also some irony in asking if OR would judge belief in God Reasonable since OR would be God or at least God-like in respect of being all-knowing. [End Page 1250]IIThe other respect in which the question "is belief in God reasonable?" is ambiguous (in this first of the two areas ambiguity noted at the...

The activity of thought is deeply perplexing. Anyone resistant to its consignment to the domain of sub‐personal psychology, or to quasi‐behaviouristic elimination, needs to address such matters as why it is that thinking seems to elude capture in consciousness, and what the nature of self‐ascription may be. This paper takes up from an earlier discussion by Claudio Costa (‘ “I’m Thinking” ’Ratio 2001) and argues that his account of thinking is flawed. It also argues, in opposition to Costa, that self‐reflexivity is real and is required to account for the ownership of thoughts. Finally, it identifies an argument from self‐awareness to the conclusion that the subject of thought is not a material object.

This is the first volume in a series— Handbook [sic.] of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion —of which the author is also editor. Two things strike one immediately: first, it is very impressive in its range and depth of coverage; second, it is outrageously expensive. Kluwer’s pricing policy is a disgrace which reviewers ought not to let pass uncriticized. It is a disservice to individual readers, to institutions, and to writers. The present author has evidently labored long, hard, and fruitfully, yet his work is not likely to be widely read because of an unwarranted cost imposed by the publisher. It is conceivable, though unlikely, that this criticism will affect the pricing of subsequent volumes, but it will be a cruel irony if the editor’s own volume is then the one that is least widely read. Kluwer would be advised to reprice this volume at half the cost.

In the heyday of conceptual analysis philosophical psychology was practised without regard to the ontology of mind as that was associated with disputes between materialism and non-materialism. The rise of functionalism, however, led philosophical psychology in the direction of materialism, though with a residue deriving from phenomenal consciousness. This is now widely viewed as ‘the hard problem’ for physicalism and probably an insuperable one for it, raising the spectre of epiphenomenalism. I argue that in fact sensory consciousness is not the greatest challenge to materialism, for that lies with the conceptual intentionality of abstract thought. I make these points in connection with the views of Aquinas and consider two of his arguments for the immateriality ofintellectual acts. While finding one inadequate for reasons internal to the Thomist account of cognition, I defend the second against recent critics.