-
1Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers by Gloria Frost (review)Review of Metaphysics 77 (4): 715-717. 2024.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers by Gloria FrostJulie Loveland SwanstromFROST, Gloria. Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. xii + 239 pp. Cloth, $99.99; paper, $32.99; eBook, $32.99Reconstructing Aquinas’s premodern approach to causation in which causation is an ontological rather than logical relationship is Frost’s goal in Aquinas on Efficient Caus…Read more
-
“Soul Making and Soul Splitting: Alchemy of the Soul in Harry Potter”In Anne J. Mamary (ed.), The Alchemical Harry Potter: Essays on Transfiguration in J.K. Rowling’s Novels, Mcfarland. pp. 244-264. 2020.
-
32Embedding Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in a Philosophy CourseAmerican Association of Philosophy Teachers Studies in Pedagogy 4 78-99. 2018.I explore methods for the explicit instruction of critical thinking in a topics-based philosophy course. These methods make the classroom more experiential and less didactic and involve students in the philosophical process, allowing them to learn content while using the methods of philosophy to work through, explain, or produce similar content. Experiential learning—approaching learning as a “continuous process grounded in experience” involving the acquisition of practices, the specialization i…Read more
-
17Illumination of the Heart: Doubt, Certainty, and Knowledge Acquisition in al-Ghazali and AugustineRes Philosophica 98 (2): 307-330. 2021.Though al-Ghazalı is often superficially compared to Descartes, Ghazalı’s epistemological project echoes—in consonance or dissonance—Augustine’s, warranting a clear exploration of the depths of these echoes. For both Augustine and Ghazalı the epistemological and theological quest starts with an interior turn, and divine illumination provides the tools for and content of knowledge. Both recount skeptical leanings resolved by divine illumination; both employ philosophy as a tool in theological dis…Read more
-
6Aquinas and Virtue Acquisition in Secondary CausesRevista Portuguesa de Filosofia 76 (1): 261-282. 2020.A part of Aquinas’s argument against occasionalism is that creatures like human beings must be true causes in order to be able to grow and be perfected. Were humans not true causes, God’s promises and exhortations to humankind are for naught. Here, I explore the role of virtue in habit and the perfection of human beings in Aquinas, with the larger goal of using this discussion of virtue to address secondary causation. Virtue is relevant because a) creatures can act as secondary causes because of…Read more
-
18Aquinas on Sin, Essence, and Change: Applying the Reasoning on Women to Evolution in AquinasZygon 56 (2): 467-480. 2021.Aberrations and variations within kinds of creatures required explanation to Western medievals, who took the Genesis creation narratives together with Aristotelian species to imply that change was limited to within species; consequently, species were presumed static. Medieval philosophers often explained variation—including “new” kinds like mules—as due to problems in procreation/gestation (following Aristotle) or by sin. I argue that Aquinas's explanation of variation in women, people with disa…Read more
-
35Why Take Notes?Teaching Philosophy 43 (3): 281-302. 2020.For disciplines depending upon precise definitions and distinctions, students’ notes provide an avenue for student engagement with skill and content. Activities enliven the classroom, and those discussed here can also help students develop and exercise critical thinking skills through note-taking. Lecturing and experiential learning happen hand-in-hand when the instructor uses teaching about notes and note-taking as a method for critical engagement with class content. In this paper, I integrate …Read more
-
52Creation as Efficient Causation in AquinasAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. 2019.In this article, I explore Aquinas’s account of divine creative activities as a type of efficient causation. I propose that Aquinas’s works hold a framework for understanding God as an efficient cause and creating as an act of divine efficient causation that makes explicit what Aquinas views to be implicit in Aristotle’s account of efficient causation. I explore Aristotelian efficient causation in depth, offering a detailed analysis of the components of Aristotelian efficient causation. After th…Read more
-
39Avicenna’s account of Creation by Divine Voluntary EmanationOtrosiglo 1 (2): 103-128. 2017.I defend the claim that Avicenna explains the creation of the universe in terms of emanation modeled on Neoplatonic emanation by exploring Avicenna’s account of creation by emanation in detail. I address what appears to be an obvious problem for the application of this model to creation—namely, that creation as emanation seems to be non-voluntary and has been understood to be non-voluntary by several prominent interpreters. I explore how Avicenna contends that God emanates voluntarily and non-ne…Read more
Julie Loveland Swanstrom
Augustana University
-
Augustana UniversityReligion, Philosophy, and ClassicsAssistant Professor