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74The Wonder of the Poet; the Wonder of the PhilosopherProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 65 191-202. 1991.
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45Descartes’s Language Test for RationalityAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 83 (1): 107-125. 2009.Contrary to Michael Miller, I maintain that Descartes’s language test adequately distinguishes humans from non-human animals, and that the bonobosKanzi and Panbanisha have not passed it. Miller accepts Descartes’s language test as a good test for true language usage, but denies that it is an adequate test for the presence or absence of reason. I argue that it is a good test for reason, for normal rational beings eventually recognize the desirableness of knowledge of the world for its own sake as…Read more
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43Aquinas on Whether One Ought to Confide All One’s Problems to True FriendsProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 82 173-188. 2008.Probably most of us have suffered at the hands of a friend who continually turned to us for help, as well having been grieved by a friend who failed to do so on a given occasion. And we have probably been chagrinned by friends who divulge to us only the most limited knowledge about their past problems, as well as by friends who provide unnecessary information about their woeful past. The purpose of this paper is to set out Aquinas’s recommendations for the moral guidelines to be followed in deci…Read more
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43The Notion of Paideia in Aristotle’s De Partibus AnimaliumAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 67 (3): 299-319. 1993.
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42An Aristotelian-Thomist Responds to Edward Feser’s “Teleology”Philosophia Christi 12 (2): 441-449. 2010.I argue that Edward Feser misconstrues the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition on issues relevant to the arguments for God’s existence that proceed from finality in nature because he misapplies the A-T view that ordering to an end is inherent in natural things: (1) Feser speaks as if human action in no way serves as a model for understanding action for an end in nature; (2) he misreads, and ultimately undermines, the Fifth Way, by substituting intrinsic end-directedness in place of end-directedness…Read more
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35Environmentalism and Population Control: Distinguishing Pro-Life and Anti-Life MotivesCatholic Social Science Review 18 71-90. 2013.Environmentalists commonly offer three motives for why human populations need to be reduced or stabilized. One group maintains that human numbers threaten natural goods that should be preserved: biodiversity and ecosystems. A more extreme group maintains that we are taking up more than our fair share of the planet, eliminating species that have just as much right to be here. A third group advocates controlling human populations in order to prevent the environment from being degraded to the point…Read more
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34Imagination as Source of Falsehood According to AquinasProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 67 187-202. 1993.
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30Thomistic Rebuttal of Some Common Objections to Paley's Argument From DesignNew Blackfriars 97 (1069): 266-288. 2016.
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27Evolution in Court. A Federal Judge Defines ScienceScientia et Fides 4 (2): 397-415. 2016.This article highlights certain recurring themes in Mariano Artigas’s works by examining a judicial decision made in the United States in 1982 concerning the teaching of “creation-science” alongside “evolution-science” in public schools. These themes include: the proper delimitation of the boundaries of science, the importance of philosophy as a bridge between science and religion, and the misunderstandings concerning the limits of science inherent in scientism.
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27On the Tenth Anniversary of Barrow and Tipler’s Anthropic Cosmological PrincipleAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1): 39-58. 1998.
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26Aristotelian-Thomistic Reflections on the Use of Metaphors and Parables in PhilosophyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 72 149-161. 1998.
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22On the Occasion of Darwin’s BicentennialProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83 209-225. 2009.If Aquinas lived today, he would accept that Darwin was correct, at leastas to the broad lines of his theory, namely, that the unfit are differentially eliminatedand chance is involved in the origin of new species. Aquinas in fact offered a similarexplanation for what he believed were spontaneously generated organisms. I intendto show that extending this sort of explanation to all species in no way affects thekey steps in the Fifth Way (e.g., “those things which lack cognition do not tendto an e…Read more
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21Aristotelian-Thomistic Reflections on the Use of Metaphors and Parables in PhilosophyProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 72 149-161. 1998.
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19Thomistic Rebuttal of Some Common Objections to Paley's Argument From DesignNew Blackfriars 97 (1067): 266-288. 2016.
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17A Defense of the Distinction Between Plants and AnimalsProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. forthcoming.
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16Rist, John M., Plato’s Moral Realism: The Discovery of the Presuppositions of EthicsReview of Metaphysics 66 (4): 850-852. 2013.
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14Does Knowing What Things Are Require Language (As a System of Physical or Imaginable Signs)?American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 95 (1): 131-144. 2021.
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146. ET Meets Jesus Christ: A Hostile Encounter Between Science and Religion?Logos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 10 (2). 2007.
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14Aquinas’s Teachings on Concepts and Words in His Commentary on John contra Nicanor Austriaco, OPAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 94 (3): 357-378. 2020.In “Defending Adam After Darwin,” Nicanor Austriaco, OP, mounts a noteworthy defense of monogenism, part of which turns on the relationship between abstract thought and language. At a certain point, he turns to a passage from Aquinas’s Commentary on John to support two claims which he affirms without qualification: namely, that the capacity for forming abstract concepts corresponding to the quiddities of things presupposes the capacity for language and that we grasp concepts through words. In ad…Read more
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14On the Occasion of Darwin’s BicentennialProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 83 209-225. 2009.If Aquinas lived today, he would accept that Darwin was correct, at leastas to the broad lines of his theory, namely, that the unfit are differentially eliminatedand chance is involved in the origin of new species. Aquinas in fact offered a similarexplanation for what he believed were spontaneously generated organisms. I intendto show that extending this sort of explanation to all species in no way affects thekey steps in the Fifth Way (e.g., “those things which lack cognition do not tendto an e…Read more
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13A Rambutan by Any Other Name Would Taste as SweetAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 95 (1): 149-152. 2021.
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11Is Eco-theologian Thomas Berry a Thomist?Scientia et Fides 7 (1): 47-71. 2019.I examine the views of the renowned Catholic environmentalist, Thomas Berry, C.P., by comparing them with those of Thomas Aquinas, an author Berry frequently references. I intend to show that while the two share a number of views in common, ultimately the two diverge on many foundational issues, resulting in differing conclusions as to how we should regard and treat the environment. Aquinas upholds divine transcendence, whereas Berry regards the notion of divine transcendence to lead to the expl…Read more
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10Imagination as Source of Falsehood According to AquinasProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 67 187-202. 1993.
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8Aquinas on Whether One Ought to Confide All One’s Problems to True FriendsProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 82 173-188. 2008.Probably most of us have suffered at the hands of a friend who continually turned to us for help, as well having been grieved by a friend who failed to do so on a given occasion. And we have probably been chagrinned by friends who divulge to us only the most limited knowledge about their past problems, as well as by friends who provide unnecessary information about their woeful past. The purpose of this paper is to set out Aquinas’s recommendations for the moral guidelines to be followed in deci…Read more
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8Aquinas, Original Sin, and the Challenge of Evolution by Daniel W. HouckReview of Metaphysics 74 (3): 408-409. 2021.
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6A Critique of Richard Sorabji’s Interpretation of AristotleProceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy 2 (2): 113-117. 2018.A correct understanding of experience is crucial for understanding the difference between human and non-human animals. Richard Sorabji interprets Aristotle to be affirming that experience in non-human animals is the same thing as a rudimentary universal, and that the individual who possesses experience achieves his goal by the application of low level univer-sals. I argue that this is neither a correct understanding of Aristotle’s statements in the Posterior Analytics, Metaphysics, and Nicomache…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Philosophy, Misc |
Areas of Interest
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |
Philosophy, Misc |