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16The Trinitarian Christology of St. Thomas Aquinas by Dominic Legge, O.P (review)Nova et Vetera 20 (3): 975-978. 2022.
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1The Hypostatic Union According to Thomas AquinasDissertation, Boston College. 1997.The dissertation is a critical study of Thomas Aquinas's views on the hypostatic union. It examines the Latin texts of all of Thomas's major discussions of this topic. In the first chapter, the concepts of nature and person are discussed, and it is argued that these concepts, as Thomas understood them, led to a very problematic position in an early quodlibetal disputation. In the second chapter, the concepts of union-in-person and union-in-nature are discussed, and this permits a better understa…Read more
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72Loux, Michael. J. Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (review)Review of Metaphysics 53 (4): 943-944. 2000.
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3Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (review)Review of Metaphysics 53 (4): 943-943. 2000.This is a textbook in analytic metaphysics, written for advanced students.
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2Hugh of St. VictorIn Jorge J. E. Gracia & Timothy B. Noone (eds.), A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: Hugh's overall vision Sources Division of the sciences Biblical interpretation God Creation Providence and evil Human nature and ethics Salvation Spiritual teachings Influence and importance.
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12The Interaction of Philosophy and Theology in Aquinas's ChristologyNew Blackfriars 104 (1109): 23-38. 2023.Aquinas accepts the harmony of faith and reason, but he does not think that such harmony is always easily arrived at. After making some background points about his views on faith, reason, philosophy, and theology, I explore two cases drawn from his Christology. In the first, philosophical thinking influences how we understand revelation; in the second, theological thinking influences how we understand a topic normally thought of as part of philosophy. In both cases, harmony is not pre-given but …Read more
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21Talking About Intentional ObjectsDialectica 60 (2): 135-144. 2006.Tim Crane has recently defended the view that all intentional states have objects, even when these objects do not exist. In this note I first set forth some crucial elements of Crane’s view: his reasons for accepting intentional objects, his rejection of certain ways of thinking about them, and his distinction between the ‘substantial’ and the ‘schematic’ notion of an object. I then argue that while Crane’s account successfully explains what intentional objects are not, it leaves unexplained how…Read more
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30Kim, Jaegwon. Mind in a Physical World: An Essay on the Mind-Body Problem and Mental Causation (review)Review of Metaphysics 53 (4): 937-938. 2000.This book presents the current views on the mind-body problem of one of the most important analytic practitioners in the field. It is clearly written and full of astute substantive and methodological observations.....
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22Review of James Ross, Thought and World: The Hidden Necessities (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (4). 2009.
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495Categories and NormativityIn Jonathan J. Michael Sanford Gorman (ed.), Categories, The Catholic University of America Press. 2004.Anyone who tries to understand categories soon runs into the problem of giving an account of the unity of a category. Call this the “unity problem.” In this essay, I describe a distinctive and under-studied version of the unity problem and discuss how it might be solved. First, I describe various versions of the unity problem. Second, I focus on one version and argue that it is best dealt with by thinking of at least some categories as “norm-constituted,” in a sense that I try to make clear. Thi…Read more
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654Augustine’s Use of Neoplatonism in Confessions VII: A Response to Peter KingModern Schoolman 82 (3): 227-233. 2005.A modified version of Michael Gorman's comments on Peter King’s paper at the 2004 Henle Conference. Above all, an account of Augustine’s purposes in discussing Neoplatonism in Confessions VII, showing why Augustine does not tell us certain things we wish he would. In my commentary I will address the following topics: (i) what it means to speak of the philosophically interesting points in Augustine; (ii) whether Confessions VII is really about the Trinity; (iii) Augustine‘s intentions in Confess…Read more
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5147Christ as Composite according to AquinasTraditio 55 143-157. 2000.In this paper I explain Thomas Aquinas's view that Christ is a composite person, and then I explain the role of Christ's compositeness in Thomas‘s solutions to a range of Christological problems. On the topics I will be discussing, Thomas‘s views did not change significantly over the course of his career; for the sake of simplicity, then, I will focus on texts from the Summa theologiae, citing parallels in the notes.
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15ResponseLogos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 5 (1): 164-184. 2002.Four authors respond to James Rachels' article "Moral Philosophy and as a Subversive Activity."
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8Categories: Historical and Systematic Essays (edited book)Catholic University of America Press. 2004.The essays in this volume, written by a mix of well-established and younger philosophers, bridge divides between historical and systematic approaches in philosophy as well divides between analytical, continental, and American traditions.
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921Hugh of Saint VictorIn Timothy B. Jorge J. E. Noone Gracia (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Blackwell. 2003.An overview of Hugh’s thought, focusing on philosophical issues. Specifically it gives a summary of his overall vision; the sources he worked from; his understanding of: the division of the science, biblical interpretation, God, creation, providence and evil, human nature and ethics, salvation; and his spiritual teachings.
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524Independence and SubstanceInternational Philosophical Quarterly 46 (2): 147-159. 2006.The paper takes up a traditional view that has also been a part of some recent analytic metaphysics, namely, the view that substance is to be understood in terms of independence. Taking as my point of departure some recent remarks by Kit Fine, I propose reviving the Aristotelian-scholastic idea that the sense in which substances are independent is that they are non-inherent, and I do so by developing a broad notion of inherence that is more usable in the context of contemporary analytic metaphys…Read more
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Inspired Authors and Their Speech ActsNova et Vetera 4 747-760. 2006.Employs speech-act theory (a) to support the notion that biblical authors (not just their texts) are inspired and to (b) to make some points about how we ought to react to scripture—in a nutshell, scriptural passages vary in their illocutionary force, so appropriate responses will vary as well.
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35Henry of Oyta's Nominalism and the Principle of IndividuationModern Schoolman 69 (2): 135-148. 1992.Henry’s view of individuation makes him a nominalist; this doesn’t stop him from talking about the principle of individuation.
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510On a Thomistic Worry about Scotus's Doctrine of the Esse ChristiAntonianum 84 719-733. 2009.According to authoritative Christian teaching, Jesus Christ is a single person existing in two natures, divinity and humanity. In attempting to understand this claim, the high-scholastic theologians often asked whether there was more than one existence in Christ. John Duns Scotus answers the question with a clear and strongly-formulated yes, and Thomists have sometimes suspected that his answer leads in a heretical direction. But before we can ask whether Scotus‘s answer is acceptable or not, we…Read more
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27Logical and Metaphysical FormProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 69 (n/a): 217-226. 1995.Metaphysicians have not always been sufficiently attentive to the problem of dependence. Those who have paid attention to it have disagreed over what depends on what: do minds depend on brains, or vice versa? accidents on substances? creatures on God? Even less attention, however, has been paid to the question of what dependence actually is; usually, some answer to this question is taken for granted, and consideration is given only to the subsequent questions of which things depend on which. Th…Read more
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34Personal Unity and the Problem of Christ’s KnowledgeProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 74 175-186. 2000.According to the orthodox Christian belief expressed most famously at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Jesus Christ is one person who is both divine and human. Not surprisingly, many have wondered at this, for it seems impossible for one person to have both divine and human characteristics. There are different versions of this difficulty, which correspond to different human and divine characteristics. In this article, I will defend traditional Christology against an argument that bases itself on…Read more
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117Personhood, Potentiality, and NormativityAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85 (3): 483-498. 2011.The lives of persons are valuable, but are all humans persons? Some humans—the immature, the damaged, and the defective—are not capable, here and now, of engaging in the rational activities characteristic of persons, and for this reason, one might call their personhood into question. A standard way of defendingit is by appeal to potentiality: we know they are persons because we know they have the potentiality to engage in rational activities. In this paper I develop acomplementary strategy based…Read more
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46Uses of the Person-Nature Distinction in Thomas's ChristologyRecherches de Theologie Et Philosophie Medievales 67 (1): 58-79. 2000.Thomas Aquinas considers the distinction between nature and person indispensable for Christology. Failure to appreciate this distinction is, he thinks, the root of Christological heresy. Surprisingly, however, Thomas gives us little help in understanding how the distinction is to be used. Nor have his commentators discussed the matter adequately. As I shall try to show, Thomas has a variety of uses for this distinction, some more helpful than others. I will first explain the person-nature distin…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
13th/14th Century Philosophy |
Medieval Theology |