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2Philosophical Perspectives on Existential Gratitude (edited book)Bloomsbury Publishing. 2023.Existential gratitude-gratitude for one's very existence or life as a whole-is pervasive across the most influential human, cultural and religious traditions. Weaving together analytic and continental, as well as non-western and historical philosophical perspectives, this volume explores the nexus of gratitude, existence and God as an inter-subjective phenomenon for the first time. A team of leading scholars introduce existential gratitude as a perennially and characteristically human phenomenon…Read more
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14Epistemic Paternalism, Averroes, and Religious KnowledgePhilosophy East and West 72 (4). 2022.Abstract:Epistemic paternalism occurs when evidence is withheld or shaped in particular ways in order to help an agent arrive at the truth, but this is done without their consent (and sometimes without their knowledge). While general defenses of epistemic paternalism are garnering more attention in the recent literature, little has been said regarding the practice in religious contexts. We explore a defense of epistemic paternalism in religious settings inspired by the work of the medieval Islam…Read more
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21Collective Action and Social Ontology in Thomas AquinasJournal of Social Ontology 7 (1): 119-141. 2021.In this paper I argue that there are resources in the work of Thomas Aquinas that amount to a unique approach to what David P. Schweikard and Hans Bernhard Schmid’s call the “Central Problem” facing theorists of collective intentionality and action. That is to say, Aquinas can be said to affirm both (1) the “Individual Ownership Claim” and (2) the “Irreducibility Claim,” coherently and compellingly. Regarding the Individual Ownership Claim, I argue that Aquinas’s concept of “general virtue” (vir…Read more
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56Ontological Pluralism and Divine Naming: Insights from AvicennaRes Philosophica 98 (2): 205-231. 2021.In this article, I defend a version of ontological pluralism, specifically with an eye toward laying metaphysical groundwork for an account of divine naming inspired by Avicenna. I try to show (1) that Avicenna’s pluralism is well-motivated as a metaphysical thesis and (2) that it offers substantive philosophical support for a correlatively pluralist approach to divine naming. My argument proceeds by identifying two influential objections to ontological pluralism, and then offering replies to th…Read more
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25Univocity and Analogy: A Comparative Study of Gilbert Ryle and Martin HeideggerDiametros 34 34-50. 2012.
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15Things within Things? Toward an Ontology of the FirmProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 91 225-236. 2017.The burgeoning analytic literature on “social ontology”—that is, the properly ontological status of “social” phenomena, such asinstitutions, firms and nation-states—has yielded some promising avenues of research for economists interested in the economic agency of groups as opposed to individual persons. Following M. D. Ryall, in this paper I offer a preliminary sketch of an ontology of social entities inspired by the work of Bernard Lonergan and the Aristotelian metaphysical tradition.
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11Who’s Truth?Philosophia Christi 16 (1): 165-174. 2014.This paper is a response to an article in Philosophia Christi by W. Paul Franks and Richard B. Davis entitled “Against a Postmodern Epistemology.” In this article, the authors offer a critique of James K. A. Smith. I respond to three of their particular criticisms in the following manner: by explaining the motivations behind rejecting a modern “correspondence theory of truth”; revealing what I take to be an invalid inference on the topic of scripture and interpretation; and offering an alternati…Read more
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18Transcendental Multitude in Thomas AquinasProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 89 109-118. 2015.In this study, I consider the viability of what is perhaps one of the more “obscure” transcendentals in Aquinas’s work—that is, the concept of multitudo transcendens. This strange notion is mentioned explicitly (as a member of the transcendentia, that is) on four occasions in Aquinas’s oeuvre. Despite its apparent difficulties, i.e., the clear difficulties associated with claiming that ens is really convertible with both unum and multitudo, I suggest that Aquinas’s affirmation of multitudo as a …Read more
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18Some Prolegomena to Any Future Truth Theory in Christian PhilosophyPhilosophia Christi 17 (1): 71-87. 2015.I argue that the many disparate meanings of truth in John’s Gospel ought to be considered “prolegomena” for any Christian truth theory. That is to say, insofar as any theory of truth in Christian philosophy fails to accommodate the multifaceted character of truth evidenced in John, it fails as a theory. After demonstrating some of the most important meanings of truth in John, I argue that the “correspondence” theory advocated by many contemporary Christian analytic philosophers is a reductionis…Read more
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50Does Aquinas Hold a Correspondence Theory of Truth in De Veritate?Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 88 285-300. 2014.At least since Martin Heidegger’s influential reading of Thomas Aquinas’s account of truth as a precursor to modern philosophy’s unfortunate “forgetfulness of being,” it has been popular to classify the Angelic Doctor as one of the forerunners of the modern “correspondence theory” of truth. In what follows, I attempt to answer the question of whether or not this is a correct assessment. I want to suggest that Aquinas’s account of truth has superficial concord but deep conflict with modern corre…Read more
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Just Faith? A National Survey Connecting Faith and Justice Within the Christian Reformed ChurchReview of Religious Research 58 (2). 2016.
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27Transcendental Multitude in Thomas Aquinas in advanceProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. forthcoming.
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40Analogy in AquinasFaith and Philosophy 34 (1): 33-56. 2017.In the last decade there arose a debate between William P. Alston and Nicholas Wolterstorff on the subject of Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of analogia—that is, the position that perfection terms, when properly predicated of God and of creatures, are distinct, yet related in meaning. Whereas Alston interprets Aquinas to hold this well-known position before criticizing it, Wolterstorff argues that Aquinas actually did not hold the position as it is usually presented. In this paper, I show why Alston’…Read more
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23Being, essence and substance in Plato and Aristotle Paul Ricoeur malden, ma: Polity press, 2013; 266 pp.; $24.95 (review)Dialogue 54 (4): 805-807. 2015.
Joshua Lee Harris
Institute For Christian Studies
The King's University College
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Institute For Christian StudiesDoctoral student
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Providence, RI, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
History of Western Philosophy |