Carlos Andrés Gómez Rodas

When researchers and scholars claim their work is based on a philosophical idea or a philosopher’s corpus of ideas (and theory/theorist can be substituted for philosophy/philosopher), and when “basing” signifies something significant rather than subsidiary or inconsequential, what level of understanding and expertise can readers reasonably expect authors to possess? In this paper some of the uses to which philosophical ideas and named philosophers (Martin Heidegger and Leo Strauss) are put in exegesis is critiqued. Considering problematic instances of idea-name use may enable the question: “Can philosophy benefit nurses and/or nursing?” to be better understood if not answered.

Essences have been assigned important but controversial explanatory roles in philosophical, scientific, and social theorizing. Is it possible for the same organism to be first a caterpillar and then a butterfly? Is it impossible for a human being to transform into an insect like Gregor Samsa does in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis? Is it impossible for Lot’s wife to survive being turned into a pillar of salt? Traditionally, essences (or natures) have been thought to help answer such central questions about existence, identity, persistence, and modality. These questions are not only of great philosophical interest, they also are of great interest to society at large. This Handbook surveys the state of the art on essence. Core issues about essence are discussed in 33 chapters, all of them written exclusively for this volume by leading experts.

I discuss Aquinas’s view of habit—the genus to which virtue belongs. The first article in both of Aquinas’s sustained treatments of the virtues in general (STh I.II.55-67 and QDV 1) asks whether virtues are habits. Thus, Aquinas’s pedagogical strategy is to elucidate the virtues in terms of their nature as habits. Following this strategy, I explore Aquinas’s discussion of habits in Questions 49-54 of the prima secundae by tracing three important topics: the essence of habits, the cause of habits, and the increase of habits. By the end of this paper, the reader will have a strong grasp of the nature and types of habits and the different ways in which they can increase.

This paper raises an uncommon question: What can studying Thomas Aquinas and Critical Race Theory teach us about failures to promote mercy across the color-line? I answer this question in five stages. After locating Thomas’s teachings on mercy and its impediments within his masterwork, the Summa theologiae, I excavate Thomas’s account of mercy’s impediments. Next, I address the question “What is CRT?” Then I examine a foundational CRT text’s analysis of mercy’s impediments. Lastly, I offer a proposal for further Thomas-CRT collaborations.

Narratives relate salient connected events across some time and many particular details of the agents involved in those events. Whether fictional or true, historical or current, personal or cultural, they seem to pervade human experience and, according to theorists across different philosophical traditions, can be of some help to elucidate concerns in the moral life. Thomas Aquinas himself acknowledges the existence of such things, or at least their near analogues, in various places in his corpus. But he does not offer a sustained explanation of how narratives are understood in terms of his psychology. In this paper, I claim that such an account lies in his thought on the functioning of two interior senses in particular – the cogitative power (vis cogitativa) and the memorative power (vis memorativa) – which have been the subject of more sustained study only more recently. With this account of how humans generate and process such narratives, Thomistic scholars will be positioned to explain how narratives may function in human experience, especially the moral life, on Thomistic terms.

In the paper I discuss Geach’s rejection of volitions (inner acts of the will) both in the exegesis of Aquinas and in systematic action theory – a rejection followed by some analytical commentators of Aquinas (like Davies and Kenny). I claim that Geach’s interpretation of Aquinas’s action theory in terms of tendencies (treating the will as a special kind of tendency) enables – pace Geach – a sound defense of volitionism both in the exegesis of Aquinas and in the action theory. In other words, I offer arguments in favour of volitions (inner acts of the will) starting from some insights to be found in Geach, and I response to some standard objections against volitionism. Moreover, I try to sketch a framework (based on an ontology of tendencies suggested by Geach) suitable to discuss some other volitionist claims. I proceed in four steps: first I introduce the definition of a volition or inner act of the will that may be ascribed to various camps in the volitionism debate; then I discuss three main arguments of Geach against volitionism – the argument from trying, the argument from voluntary omissions, and the argument from natural theology. I pay special attention to the issue of the timing of volitions.

Thomists typically emphasize and defend Aquinas’s “realist” approach to knowledge as an alternative to modern skepticism, but Aquinas is attuned to the common experience of uncertainty, and gives principled reasons for the limits of knowledge across various domains, including especially in the realm of human action. Virtue in general, and Thomistic practical wisdom specifically, can be understood as a habit for responsibly managing choice in the face of imperfect knowledge, unpredictable circumstances, and risk. Several modern specialized disciplines – especially economics, psychology, and various applied social sciences – have highlighted interesting questions about uncertainty and its practical significance, especially in evaluating risk. Emphasizing the role of uncertainty in life is thus not only an invitation for Thomists to notice neglected aspects of Aquinas’s thought, but an opportunity to bring Aquinas’s writings into conversations in other disciplines. Catholic social teaching presents a particularly promising area to engage and learn from those other disciplines in the ongoing elaboration of Thomistic thought.

In this article, I would like to present a brief overview of Aquinas’s philosophy of mind. I try to express the cognitive processes that this model of the mind describes in more modern terminology (e.g., I interpret ‘an image’ [phantasm] as the binding effect of monomodal representations of a perceived object). Characteristic of this model is the postulation, in the case of the human mind, of intellectual abstraction leading to concepts, which requires assuming the existence of the intellect in its active and passive aspects. In this context, a metaphysical conclusion can be drawn about the immortal nature of this intellect, according to Thomas. On the other hand, this model of the mind is not, to all appearances, a variant of Platonic-Cartesian dualism – Aquinas makes several arguments against dualism understood in this way, at least one of which was still raised by (non-Thomistic) critics of Descartes. In addition, Thomas points to the developmental aspect of the human mind and also attempts to describe the possible functioning of the intellect after death.

In this paper, I tackle Aquinas’s notion of ‘natural inclinations’, specifically as it occurs in his seminal elaboration of the natural law in Summa Theologiae I-II. Question 94. Article 2. Maintaining that it constitutes a departure from Aristotle’s terminology, and is hence puzzling, I go on to investigate a raft of modern, mainly Anglophone, interpretations of the concept. Beginning with Jacques Maritain, I move through the broadly chronological sequence of John Finnis, Jean Porter, Steven Jensen, Justin Matchulat and Stephen Brock. In each case, I argue that – despite these scholars’ philosophical ingenuity and textual facility – there are crucial problems with their respective approaches and construals. I end the paper by outlining my own construal of ‘natural inclinations’, which, even if not bolstered by heavy textual scholarship, is at least coherent and, moreover, avoids the philosophical pitfalls of the above interpretations.

African Philosophy and St Thomas Aquinas have both been taught in African universities, but the engagement between the continent’s indigenous philosophical tradition and the Catholic intellectual tradition’s preeminent strand, has not been thorough. Presupposing that plural philosophical traditions contribute to the search to better understand, this research embarks upon a comparative analysis of the perspectives of the African ubuntu philosophy and Thomist philosophical conceptualisations of human becoming and being. Through analysis of dimensions of both traditions, it is contended that human fulness arises through relationality. It is argued that in centring on the interpersonal encounter and the consequent recognition of another’s being through mutual engagement, these philosophical traditions open to each other. Further, both traditions contribute toward the ontology of personhood in ubuntu and the good of mutual indwelling, respectively.

This scientific article explores the notion of a Christian geopolitics and its compatibility with realpolitik and international relations. The analysis delves into the perspectives of Pope Francis, John Mearsheimer, and Catholic social thought principles to examine the moral implications of geopolitical strategies. Mearsheimer’s bait and bleed strategy in Ukraine is critiqued for its callousness and disregard for human life, while Francis’s emphasis on personal and social reform highlights the importance of ethics and the universal destination of goods. The article questions whether Christians can engage in realpolitik strategies that perpetuate poverty and violate the principles of human dignity and mercy. It further considers the implications for Catholic leaders in government and military roles, particularly in the context of upcoming U.S. presidential contenders. The analysis ultimately challenges the notion that a Christian geopolitics is a category mistake, advocating for a higher moral road in international relations.

The 20th Century was a rich period for Thomism. Many commentaries to the First Way were written. One of the many points of disagreement between Thomists was the actual meaning of “motion.” In this paper, I try to argue that one should take for “motion” the broad meaning of “motus” (as equivalent to “mutatio”). I do so by reviewing the position of various prominent Thomists of the last century, many of which have disagreed with this position. I make the case that Aristotle is not the best interpreter of the First Way, and similarly that other works by Aquinas should only be used when the Summa Theologiae itself is not clear enough—which is not the case.

According to both Jaakko Hintikka and Simo Knuuttila, Aquinas’ third way to demonstrate that God exists presupposes the acceptance of the principle of plenitude, i.e., of the claim that all possibilities are realized at some time. Aquinas, however, maintained elsewhere that not all possibilities are always realized, and the coherence of his philosophical project may be called into question if one were to accept Hintikka’s and Knuuttila’s reading of the third way. In this paper, I argue that it is difficult to present the third way without invoking the principle of plenitude in Hintikka’s formulation. The corollary of this claim is that third way cannot be a demonstration within the philosophical system outlined by Aquinas, despite his claim to the contrary. Against the backdrop of this exegetical discussion, it is possible to rephrase Aquinas’ third way as a probabilistic argument that shows that God’s existence is highly likely, although not necessarily proven.

Does the fine-tuning of the universe for life continue in the afterlife? Aquinas would answer yes. In his view, the cosmic conditions post-apocalypse are set to support the resurrected body and the sensible knowledge of God’s majesty as reflected in the renewed material creature. The renewed universe is, thus, fine-tuned for immortal human life. In the first part, I present Aquinas’ version of fine-tuning, referring to earthly life and the afterlife. I distinguish between two modes of fine-tuning: organic and cognitive. In the second part, I analyze the characteristics of the universe post-apocalypse in connection with the resurrected body in general and the qualities of the blessed body in particular.

In a number of texts throughout his career, Thomas Aquinas identifies different senses of the term ‘esse’. Most notably, he notes that according to one sense, the term signifies the act of existence (actus essendi), which he famously holds is really distinct from essence in all beings other than God. Perhaps surprisingly, he also notes on a number of occasions that according to another sense, the term ‘esse’ can signify that very principle that he says is distinct from the act of existence, namely, essence. In light of Aquinas's semantic theory, this paper investigates how he coherently holds within his metaphysical system that this term ‘esse’ can signify in different ways both essence and the act of existence. More broadly, what it shows is how, for Aquinas, the metaphysician can look to the modes of signification (modi significandi) of terms and as well as their modes of predication (modi praedicandi) to draw careful conclusions about the modes of existence (modi essendi) of real beings. These considerations reveal that in Aquinas's view, although the grammarian and logician in their way are also concerned with these semantic modes, it is not their job to employ them to discern the various senses of the term ‘being’ or the fundamental modes of being. In the end, this is a task for the metaphysician.

In the broadest sense of the term, “Thomism” refers to a set of ideas and principles, both in philosophy and theology that can be considered as derivations or representations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. However, Thomism should not be considered as a mere conceptual body. It also represents a certain view and way of doing philosophy and theology. Alasdair MacIntyre, in his book Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, argues that the Thomistic approach provides a coherent and skillful point of view for dealing creatively and critically with opposing views, contrasting this approach with the encyclopedic and the genealogical approaches. The former imposes a single worldview, enclosing knowledge and “truth” in a monolithic structure of “progress,” while the latter, following Nietzsche, devalues and relativizes knowledge, reducing it to a multiplicity of perspectives, each with its own claims to truth, leading to incommensurability and the consequent subjugation of “truth” to the law of the strongest. On the other hand, Thomists have adopted, from the end of the thirteenth century to the present day, different styles and ways of thinking while maintaining dialogue with their “predecessors” and at the same time with their contemporaries, that is, Thomists are capable of what MacIntyre called the “rationality of tradition”.

In Nicomachean Ethics IV Aristotle exposes the characteristics of the moral virtue of the μεγαλοψυχία and offers a detailed description of the conditions of the magnanimous. St. Thomas in his commentary on Ethics follows the Aristotelian text apparently without disagreeing with the Greek author, and completes this exposition with other texts found in the Summa Theologica. The aim of this paper is to highlight the differences, if there are any, between the Aristotelian conception of the μεγαλοψυχία and that of Saint Thomas, considering also whether the virtue of humility that appears in the Thomist texts can be equated to the vice of the pusillanimity of which Aristotle speaks.

Traditional Christianity teaches that the Bible's primary referent is Jesus Christ, the Messiah, and Christians have long looked for ways to connect every passage in the Bible to the Christ. One venerable strategy is the allegorical or figurative approach of creatively interpreting any unit of biblical meaning, sometimes down to the individual words, as referencing Christ. Alternatively, we might take the biblical narrative itself as referencing Christ and find the connection of smaller units of meaning to Christ through their place in that narrative. My article clarifies this topic through interaction with an exemplary practitioner of the strategy of figurative reading, the Church Father Augustine. I will first explain Augustine's reasons for his hermeneutics, which stem largely from his focus on smaller units of reference such as the word and the sentence. Then I will argue that his reasons are not persuasive if indeed the Bible does refer to Christ at a broader level, the level of narrative.

Aziz Augustinus V. Yüzyılın Hristiyan teoloğu ve tarih felsefecisidir. Yazmış olduğu Tanrı Şehri/Devleti isimli eseri Batı Roma’nın Gotlar tarafından yağmalanmasının hemen akabinde kaleme alınmıştır. Eserin yazılış mantığı Roma’nın yıkılış sebebinin, insanların pagan inancını bırakıp Hristiyanlığa geçmeleriyle açıklayanlara bir cevap niteliği taşımaktadır. Buna göre Augustinus, Roma’nın yıkımının pagan inancına sırt çevirmekten değil yozlaşmaktan olduğu görüşünü savunmaktadır. Bu minvalde Augustinus, Pagan tanrılarının beceriksizliği karşısında Hristiyan inancının gücüne ve kurtarıcılığına vurgu yapmaktadır. Hristiyan medeniyetinin belki de tarih felsefesi bağlamında en erken savunusunu yapan Augustinus, bu savunusunu Tanrı Devleti ve yeryüzünün kurtuluşu metaforunu işleyerek derinleştirmektedir. Tanrı Devleti fikrinin Haçlı seferlerinde birincil itici güç olması, Papa II. Urbanus ve Haçlıların Augustinus’un Tanrı Devleti savunusunu bir yönüyle teoriden pratiğe geçirme girişimi olarak düşünülebilir. Bu girişim, Augustinus’u haklı çıkarmaktan ziyade Haçlı kimliğini kanonik bir forma büründürme şeklinde ele alınmalıdır. Bu makale, Tanrı devleti düşüncesinin Hristiyan tarih tasavvurundaki yeri ve önemini Augustinus’un zihnî arka planından anlamlandırarak Haçlı seferlerine nasıl etki ettiği üzerine odaklanmıştır. Çalışmada, Tanrı Devleti’nin mümkünlüğü Augustinus’un yaklaşımından hareketle tarihsel sarkacın ileriye yönlendirilişiyle incelenmeye çalışılmıştır. Makalede kıyas yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Bu sayede Augustinus’un fikirleri ile Papa Urbanus’un fikirleri arasındaki benzerlik aşikâr kılınmaya çalışılmıştır. Nihai olarak Haçlı seferlerinin teolojik ve fikri zemininde, Augustinus’un Tanrı Devleti düşüncesi ve Hristiyanlık savunusunun etkisinin olduğu sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

_Resumen:_ Al interior de la tradición clásica del derecho natural, los teólogos escolásticos de los siglos xvi-xvii describen ese derecho como simplemente necesario, así como inmutable y universal. Lo describen, además, como un orden objetivo, independiente de la voluntad de Dios. Sin embargo, no todos los teólogos escolásticos entienden la inmutabilidad del derecho natural de la misma forma, ni llaman “derecho natural” exactamente a lo mismo: para unos este es el “derecho de la naturaleza”, mientras que para otros es el “derecho de la razón natural”. El artículo, así, aborda las principales diferencias que existen en las teorías de estos escolásticos sobre el derecho natural.

Iniciamos com a questão da separação entre o poder civil e a fé, a natureza e a graça, o poder temporal e o poder espiritual, de modo a delimitar o âmbito específico dos dois poderes e a mostrar a autonomia da razão natural como fundamento do poder civil. No segundo ponto expomos a questão da origem, natureza e finalidade do poder civil, mostrando a conciliação entre a origem divina e a origem popular do poder, transversal aos autores desta escola, vincando, ao mesmo tempo, o seu fundamento ético. A fundamentação ética do poder político abre caminho, no terceiro ponto, à análise do direito de resistência à tirania, sublinhando que o poder dos reis é supremo na sua esfera mas não absoluto, porque limitado pelo direito natural e pelo _jus gentiu_m. Considerada a circunstância ibérica de abertura ao Novo Mundo, cumpre-nos depois analisar, num quarto momento, a questão da legitimidade das soberanias indígenas e da universalidade do que hoje se designa como direito de autodeterminação. Finalmente expomos a contribuição desta escola para o conceito de comunidade universal.

Thomas Aquinas Orta Çağın en üretken filozoflarından biridir ve onun felsefi görüşleri kendi döneminin yanı sıra birçok çağdaş düşünürü de etkilemiştir. Aquinas’ın düşünce erdemleri ve ahlak erdemleri konusundaki görüşlerinin Aristotelesçi temelleri sıklıkla tartışılmasına karşın ilahi erdemler sınıfında yer verdiği erdemlerin incelenmesi göz ardı edilmiştir. Çağdaş erdem tartışmalarında kural temelli erdem anlayışını savunanlar Aquinas’ı kaynak göstermezler. Oysa bu çalışmada göstereceğimiz gibi, kural temelli erdem yaklaşımının en açık, ayrıntılı ve tutarlı biçimini Aquinas’ta görmekteyiz. Çalışmada ilkin Aquinas’ta erdemin özü, tanımı ve nedenleri incelenerek genel eylem kuramı çerçevesinde ahlaki eylem olarak erdemin ortaya çıkışı gösterilecektir. İkinci olarak, düşünce ve ahlak erdemleri ile ilahi erdemlerin kaynağı ortaya konacaktır. Bu inceleme ile Aquinas’ın erdem anlayışının Aristoteles’in anlayışından farkı ortaya konarak kural temelli erdem anlayışının temelleri gösterilecektir.

Aquinas holds that after death, the human soul can no longer change its basic orientation either toward God or away from him. He takes this to be knowable not only from divine revelation but by purely philosophical reasoning. The heart of his position is that the basic orientation of an angelic will is fixed immediately after its creation, and that the human soul after death is relevantly like an angel. This article expounds and defends Aquinas's position, paying special attention to the action theory underlying it.

Many questions have been raised concerning the logical validity of Aquinas's Fourth Way. Some commentators judge the Fourth Way to be problematic while others find it delightful. In this paper, the Fourth Way is understood as a reflection on what it is to attribute to things around us scalar predicates. Does the Fourth Way not resemble what Wittgenstein observes when speaking about ‘the standard meter’? If so, is the Fourth Way significantly different from what might be called a ‘mystical’ line of thinking? If not, it would be this mystical meaning that is used in the Way with respect to ‘God exists’. How should we understand this mystical meaning? By noting that beauty appears as a response-dependent property and by stressing that in order to attribute it to something we must possess certain virtues. Beauty would then be relative to virtues which are linked to the mystical meaning of ‘God’. Why could such a use, concerning the predicate ‘beautiful’ (even if that is not mentioned in the Fourth Way) not constitute an explanation of ‘what we call God’? This is a question to which the reading of the Fourth Way might lead.

El objetivo del presente artículo consiste en analizar el trasfondo de las matemáticas empleadas por Aristóteles en el libro V de la _Ética a Nicómaco_ con el propósito de esclarecer las nociones de aritmética y geometría en relación con la justicia y la ética. Expongo brevemente la concepción de algunos estudiosos de Aristóteles que proponen una incompatibilidad radical entre ambos modelos matemáticos, y a partir de ello indico por qué esa lectura es equivocada. Finalmente, defiendo una interpretación integracionista, especialmente a partir de la comprensión de la virtud como _enérgeia_ y _entelécheia_.

En este trabajo se presenta una interpretación sobre la célebre distinción entre el intelecto activo y el intelecto pasivo en _De anima_ III, 5, a partir de “otra modesta propuesta”. Para ello, se expone el núcleo fundamental de esa reciente propuesta, que identifica el intelecto activo con el hábito de los principios y con el contenido de los primeros principios. A continuación, se ponen de manifiesto algunas objeciones a dicha interpretación y, finalmente, se analizan las notas o características del intelecto activo presentes en el texto de Aristóteles. El propósito de este artículo consiste en mostrar una posible comprensión del intelecto activo de Aristóteles, con la intención de que se convierta en una “aún más modesta propuesta”.