•  1
    Are There Failed Persons?
    Nova et Vetera 21 (4): 1123-1147. 2023.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Are There Failed Persons?John O'CallaghanIntroductionAre there failed persons? Yes. However, before explaining what a failed person is, it will be good to consider closely a very significant part of our society to get a sense of what it thinks a failed person is, since my account of what a failed person is is markedly different. It is important to think about the question of failed persons because there are growing movements here and…Read more
  •  1
    Philosophy after Christ
    Nova et Vetera 22 (1): 49-69. 2024.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy after ChristJohn O'CallaghanConsider the words of Justin Martyr written in the middle of the second century after the birth of Christ and after Justin's conversion to Christianity:Philosophy is indeed one's greatest possession, and is most precious in the sight of God, to whom it alone leads us and to whom it unites us, and in truth they who have applied themselves to philosophy are holy men.1In addition to the praise heap…Read more
  •  46
    IN THIS PAPER I WANT TO ADDRESS the metaphysical status of concepts in Thomas Aquinas. The need to do so is raised by contemporary criticism of Aristotelian reflections upon how language “hooks up with the world.” Many contemporary philosophers, following upon the later Wittgenstein think that in the opening passages of the De interpretatione Aristotle provides a very bad “theory” of semantic relations, when he sketches how words are related to things via the mind. It is a bad “theory” inasmuch …Read more
  •  21
    The Plurality of Forms
    Review of Metaphysics 62 (1): 3-43. 2008.
    This paper responds to an argument of Hilary Putnam to the effect that the plurality of modern sciences shows us that any natural kind has a plurality of essences. In the past, he has argued that no system of representations, mental or linguistic, could have an intrinsic relationship to the world. Though he has granted that the Thomistic notion of form and its application to the identity of concepts may avoid these earlier objections, he has maintained that the advance of the sciences has shown …Read more
  •  23
    Verbum Mentis
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 103-119. 2000.
  •  15
    Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages (review)
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 74 (4): 674-679. 2000.
  •  56
    Aquinas, Cognitive Theory, and Analogy
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (3): 451-482. 2002.
    Is it the case that God, human beings, and air all share the same capacity for cognition, differing only in the degree to which they engage in cognitive acts? Robert Pasnau has recently argued that according to St. Thomas Aquinas they do, a conclusion that for Pasnau follows straightforwardly from Aquinas’s discussion of God’s cognition in the first part of the Summa theologiae. Further, Pasnau holds that Aquinas’s relation to contemporary cognitive theory should be understood in light of the di…Read more
  •  47
    Concepts, Mirrors, and Signification
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 84 (1): 133-162. 2010.
    This article is a reply by the author to John Deely’s book review “How to Go Nowhere with Language: Remarks on John O’Callaghan, Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn” (ACPQ vol. 82, no. 2). Its main topics are: (i) Deely’s view that, for Aquinas, the concept is distinct from the act of understanding, (ii) John of St. Thomas’s use of mirror images as a metaphor for how concepts work in cognition, and (iii) the sign relation posited by Aristotle that stands between words and concepts of the min…Read more
  •  13
    Mercy Beyond Justice
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 90 31-53. 2016.
    Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice provides a dramatic setting for thinking about the relationship of mercy to justice, a topic of great concern to contemporary ethical and political thought. Traditionally classified as among Shakespeare’s comedies, the play can also be analyzed as a tragedy in which Shylock is the protagonist. The tragedy is driven by the relatively weak conception of mercy in relationship to justice that informs Portia’s famous soliloquy “the quality of mercy.... ” The mercy she…Read more
  •  21
    The Threefold Cord (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 54 (3): 678-679. 2001.
    This work consists of two lecture series and two appendices broadly critical of analytic philosophy of mind, epistemology, and metaphysics. Despite the diversity of pieces, it is a good book and enjoyable to read. The overarching theme is the inseparable interweaving of the antinomies of metaphysical and epistemological realism and antirealism bequeathed to contemporary philosophy by early modern philosophy and the theory of ideas, antinomies Putnam would avoid by rejecting the underlying framew…Read more
  •  19
    Aristotle’s Theory of Language and Meaning (review)
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 78 (3): 507-514. 2004.
  •  31
    More Words on the Verbum
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 77 (2): 257-268. 2003.
    In “Verbum Mentis: Theological or Philosophical Doctrine?” (Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, vol. 74, 2000), I argued against a common interpretation of Aquinas’s discussion of the verbum mentis. The common interpretation holds that the verbum mentis constitutes an essential part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology. I argued, on the contrary, that it is no part of Aquinas’s philosophical psychology, but is a properly theological discussion grounded in the practic…Read more
  •  25
    Mercy Beyond Justice
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 31-53
    Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice provides a dramatic setting for thinking about the relationship of mercy to justice, a topic of great concern to contemporary ethical and political thought. Traditionally classified as among Shakespeare’s comedies, the play can also be analyzed as a tragedy in which Shylock is the protagonist. The tragedy is driven by the relatively weak conception of mercy in relationship to justice that informs Portia’s famous soliloquy “the quality of mercy.... ” The mercy she…Read more
  •  36
    The Immaterial Soul and Its Discontents
    Acta Philosophica 24 (1): 43-66. 2015.
  •  11
    Mercy Beyond Justice in advance
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. forthcoming.
  •  8
    Verbum Mentis
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 103-119. 2000.
  •  2
    The Identity of Knower and Known: Sellars’s and McDowell’s Thomisms
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 1-30. 2013.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ engagement with Thomism in “Being and Being Known” is examined, specifically for his reformulation of the thesis that the mind in its mental acts is in some sense identical in form to the object known. Borrowing the notion of “isomorphism” from modern set theory, Sellars describes an identity of form between mind and world that is non-intentional in the “Realm of the Real,” while confining all questions of meaning and truth to the “Realm of the Intentional.” John McDowell’s resp…Read more
  •  22
    Aquinas, Cognitive Theory, and Analogy
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (3): 451-482. 2002.
    Is it the case that God, human beings, and air all share the same capacity for cognition, differing only in the degree to which they engage in cognitive acts? Robert Pasnau has recently argued that according to St. Thomas Aquinas they do, a conclusion that for Pasnau follows straightforwardly from Aquinas’s discussion of God’s cognition in the first part of the Summa theologiae. Further, Pasnau holds that Aquinas’s relation to contemporary cognitive theory should be understood in light of the di…Read more
  •  13
    Thomist Realism and the Linguistic Turn.
    Philosophical Quarterly 55 (218): 122-124. 2005.
  •  31
    Can We Demonstrate That “God Exists”?
    Nova et Vetera 14 (2): 619-644. 2016.
  • The nuclear weapons predicament has troubled humanity since the first atomic bomb was exploded in Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945. Currently, the issue has been injected with new life, characterized by intense debate and widespread protests. ;This study addresses primarily the ethical dimensions of the issue. First, in the context of the adversary relationship of the nuclear superpowers, there is a summary of some quantitative aspects related to nuclear weapons, such as numbers, configurat…Read more
  • Mental Representation: St. Thomas and the "de Interpretatione"
    Dissertation, University of Notre Dame. 1996.
    In the opening passages of the De interpretatione, Aristotle provides a brief description of how words, the mind, and reality are related. Spoken words signify mental impressions, which in turn are natural likenesses of things. Traditionally, this description has been taken to imply a relation of words to things--words are related to things, because they are related to mental impressions of things. Among some contemporary philosophers, e.g. Hilary Putnam and Michael Dummett, it is commonly held …Read more
  •  32
    The Identity of Knower and Known: Sellars’s and McDowell’s Thomisms
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 1-30. 2013.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ engagement with Thomism in “Being and Being Known” is examined, specifically for his reformulation of the thesis that the mind in its mental acts is in some sense identical in form to the object known. Borrowing the notion of “isomorphism” from modern set theory, Sellars describes an identity of form between mind and world that is non-intentional in the “Realm of the Real,” while confining all questions of meaning and truth to the “Realm of the Intentional.” John McDowell’s resp…Read more
  •  25
    The Identity of Knower and Known: Sellars’s and McDowell’s Thomisms
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 87 1-30. 2013.
    Wilfrid Sellars’ engagement with Thomism in “Being and Being Known” is examined, specifically for his reformulation of the thesis that the mind in its mental acts is in some sense identical in form to the object known. Borrowing the notion of “isomorphism” from modern set theory, Sellars describes an identity of form between mind and world that is non-intentional in the “Realm of the Real,” while confining all questions of meaning and truth to the “Realm of the Intentional.” John McDowell’s resp…Read more
  •  16
    Verbum Mentis
    Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 103-119. 2000.
  • Science, Philosophy, and Theology (edited book)
    St. Augustine's Press. 2014.
  •  2
    Aquinas's rejection of mind, contra Kenny
    The Thomist 66 (1): 15-59. 2002.