Harrison Jennings

St. Albertus Magnus was a pioneer in the project of integrating and reconciling Aristotelian hylomorphism (as received and interpreted through Neo-Platonic and Arabic sources) with the Christian theological tradition. In the past century, there has been debate over whether St. Albert’s overall anthropological synthesis was successful, in particular in avoiding dualistic implications with respect to the union of the human soul and body. The present paper revisits that debate, responding to the case against the success of St. Albert’s synthesis, and making a positive case in its favor. It identifies as the crux of the controversy the question of whether, for St. Albert, the soul on its own is a “complete” substance; and then argues both that St. Albert denies that it is, and that neither do his principles imply that it is. As a result, we can discover in his thought a unified, coherent anthropological synthesis.

Sexual realism has traditionally held that our categories of sex refer to something real about our biology. Sexual non-realism, on the other hand, either partially or wholly rejects this position. Sexual non-realists typically point to intersexuality as evidence that our categories of sex are not inherent to nature but are culturally constructed. This paper makes use of the work of Carrie Hull in her book The Ontology of Sex to explore the philosophical backgrounds of sexual non-realism and to make a general case for sexual realism from a Thomistic framework.