•  284
    Moral vice, cognitive virtue
    Philosophy and Literature 27 (1): 223-230. 2003.
    An examination of jealousy and envy in the novels of Jane Austen
  •  177
    The Doctrine of Univocity is True and Salutary
    Modern Theology 21 (4): 575-585. 2005.
    I shall confine my attention to the one Scotist doctrine that seems to be singled out as especially worrisome, the doctrine of univocity. In the first part of the paper I argue that the doctrine of univocity is true. So even if the doctrine has unwelcome consequences, we ought to affirm it anyway; it is not the job of the theologian or philosopher to shrink from uncomfortable truths. In the second part I argue further that the doctrine of univocity is salutary. That is, it does not have the depl…Read more
  •  161
    Sin, grace, and redemption in Abelard
    In Kevin Guilfoy & Jeffrey Brower (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Abelard, Cambridge University Press. pp. 258-278. 2004.
    "From time to time some of my friends startle me by referring to the Atonement itself as a revolting heresy," wrote Austin Farrer, "invented by the twelfth century and exploded by the twentieth. Yet the word is in the Bible." (1) Farrer is referring to Romans 5:11 in the Authorized Version: "we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." Here the word 'atonement'--literally, the state of being "at one"--translates the Greek katallagê, which means "…Read more
  •  146
    I start with a story to convey what I think is the essence of the Platonic outlook that Augustine adopts. Then I’ll show you how various Platonists put the insights that this story encapsulates to work in three different aspects of philosophy. After I’ve laid all that out, I’ll talk about how Augustine transforms this Platonic picture in the light of his Christian faith..
  •  138
    Credo ut mirer: Anselm on Sacred Beauty
    Modern Schoolman 89 (3/4): 181-188. 2012.
    Anselm had a particular interest in the art of painting. He saw a close analogy between physical beauty and rational beauty. Both can be represented—physical beauty by paintings, rational beauty through discourse—and Anselm was especially attentive to the possibility of misrepresentation. Deceptive rhetorical coloring can mislead; unworthy discourse can obscure the truth’s inherent beauty. Yet even when discourse does justice to the beauty it is intended to represent, Anselm places strict limits…Read more
  •  130
    Anselm’s Account of Freedom
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 31 (2): 221-244. 2001.
    In this paper we offer a reconstruction of Anselm’s account of freedom that resolves various apparent inconsistencies. The linchpin of this account is the definition of freedom. Anselm argues that the power to preserve rectitude for its own sake requires the power to initiate an action of which the agent is the ultimate cause, but it does not always require that alternative possibilities be available to the agent. So while freedom is incompatible with coercion and external causal determination,…Read more
  •  115
    How Scotus Separates Morality from Happiness
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 69 (3): 425-445. 1995.
    As everyone who discusses Scotus's moral theory points out, Scotus recognized two fundamental inclinations in the will: the affectio commodi and the affectio iustitiae. Everyone agrees that these two affectiones play an important role in his moral theory, and there is virtual unanimity about what that role is. I contend that the standard view is misguided, and that it obscures the true character of Scotus's very un-medieval moral theory. I shall begin by laying out the context in which Scotus de…Read more
  •  105
    Reason, Morality, and Voluntarism in Duns Scotus
    Modern Schoolman 74 (2): 73-94. 1997.
    In some passages Scotus seems to endorse a thoroughgoing voluntarism, holding not merely that the moral law is established entirely by God's will, but even that there is no reason why God wills in one way rather than another. In other passages, however, Scotus insists that reason plays an important role in morality—that right reason is an essential element in the moral goodness of an action, and that moral truth is accessible to natural reason. Many commentators have supposed that these two vie…Read more
  •  100
    In this ambitious study, Alexander W. Hall examines the two preeminent figures of the golden age of natural theology: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Hall is not so much concerned with retracing particular proofs of the existence of God and derivations of the divine attributes—well-worn paths in discussions of medieval natural theology—as with investigating the larger philosophical issues that are raised by the project of natural theology, such as the nature of scientia and demonstrative ar…Read more
  •  92
    The Franciscans
    In Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 167-183. 2013.
    It is somewhat misleading to think of the Franciscans as forming a “school” in ethics, since there was a fair bit of diversity among Franciscans. Nonetheless, one can identify certain characteristic tendencies of Franciscan moral thought, and certain “celebrity” Franciscans whose views in ethics and moral psychology are particularly noteworthy. I shall first offer an overview of the general character of Franciscan moral thought in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and then turn …Read more
  •  87
    Describing God
    In Robert Pasnau (ed.), The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 749-760. 2009.
    The philosophical problem of describing God arises at the intersection of two different areas of inquiry. The word ‘describing’ makes it clear that the issue is in part a logical one – in the broad medieval sense of ‘logic,’ which includes semantics, the philosophy of language, and even some aspects of the theory of cognition. It is the problem, first, of forming an understanding of some extramental object and, second, of conveying that understanding by means of verbal signs. But the word ‘God’ …Read more
  •  86
    Recent Work on Saint Augustine
    Philosophical Books 41 (3): 145-153. 2000.
    An overview of major work on Augustine published between 1990 and 2000.
  •  82
    The Unmitigated Scotus
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 80 (2): 162-181. 1998.
    Scotus is notorious for occasionally making statements that, on their face at least, smack of voluntarism, but there has been a lively debate about whether Scotus is really a voluntarist after all. Now the debate is not over whether Scotus lays great emphasis on the role of the divine will with respect to the moral law. No one could sensibly deny that he does, and if such an emphasis constitutes voluntarism, then no one could sensibly deny that Scotus is a voluntarist. As I am using the word, ho…Read more
  •  82
    Anselm's Quiet Radicalism
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24 (1): 1-20. 2016.
    It is characteristic of Anselm to adopt the formulations of his authorities while giving them meanings of his own, hiding conceptual disagreement by means of verbal echoes. Anselm's considerable originality sometimes goes unnoticed because readers see the standard Augustinian language and miss the fact that Anselm uses it to state un-Augustinian views. One striking instance of Anselm's quiet radicalism is his understanding of free choice and the fall. He seems to uphold standard Augustinian priv…Read more
  •  81
    Review of Brian Dobell, Augustine's Intellectual Conversion
  •  81
    So I present myself this morning not as an expert with wisdom to impart, but as a neophyte reflecting on his own practice with a view toward getting clearer on the vision of philosophical historiography that underlies it and thereby, perhaps, improving that practice. The paper will fall into two tenuously connected parts. The first part contains a general reflection on method that I wrote a few years back which has since been published in Czech but has not had any circulation in the Anglophone w…Read more
  •  80
    Anselm on truth
    with Sandra Visser
    In Brian Leftow & Brian Davies (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Anselm, Cambridge University Press. pp. 204-221. 2005.
    A good place to start in assessing a theory of truth is to ask whether the theory under discussion is consistent with Aristotle’s commonsensical definition of truth from Metaphysics 4: “What is false says of that which is that it is not, or of that which is not that it is; and what is true says of that which is that it is, or of that which is not that it is not.”1 Philosophers of a realist bent will be delighted to see that Anselm unambiguously adopts the Aristotelian commonplace. A statement is…Read more
  •  77
    Lying, Deception, and the Virtue of Truthfulness
    Faith and Philosophy 17 (2): 242-248. 2000.
    In “Lies and the Vices of Deception,” J. L. A. Garcia argues that lying is always immoral, since it always involves a motivation contrary to the proper discharge of a morally determinative role. I argue that Garcia fails to show (i) that anyone who fails in the sub-role of information-giver thereby fails in a morally determinative role, (ii) that the sub-role of information-giver is precisely that of “informing another truthfully,” (iii) that lying deviates from the motivation characteristic of …Read more
  •  77
    Saint Anselm
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Saint Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) was the outstanding Christian philosopher and theologian of the eleventh century. He is best known for the celebrated “ontological argument” for the existence of God in chapter two of the Proslogion, but his contributions to philosophical theology (and indeed to philosophy more generally) go well beyond the ontological argument. In what follows I examine Anselm's theistic proofs, his conception of the divine nature, and his account of human freedom, sin, an…Read more
  •  77
    John Duns Scotus
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015.
    John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) was one of the most important and influential philosophertheologians of the High Middle Ages. His brilliantly complex and nuanced thought, which earned him the nickname "the Subtle Doctor," left a mark on discussions of such disparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problem of universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom. This essay first lays out what is known about Scotus's life and the dating of his works. It then offers a…Read more
  •  75
    The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts, Vol. 2: Ethics and Political Philosophy
    with Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen, and Matthew Kempshall
    Philosophical Review 111 (4): 576. 2002.
    A review of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Thought, vol. 2
  •  74
    Anselm’s Proslogion
    Topoi 35 (2): 613-616. 2016.
    Up to this point, Anselm has been known for two quite different kinds of work: his devotional writings, which aim to move and inspire the reader and are marked by an ornate style that relies heavily on alliteration and antitheses and suchlike ornaments, and his Monologion, a work of what has come to be known as analytic theology, written in straightforward, unadorned, philosophical prose that aspires only to clarity and precision. In his new work, Proslogion, Anselm attempts to combine the two s…Read more
  •  71
    Aquinas in Dialogue with Contemporary Philosophy (review)
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 79 (3): 483-491. 2005.
    In her volume on Aquinas for Routledge’s “Arguments of the Philosophers” series, Eleonore Stumps aims at an interpretation of Aquinas that is historically faithful but also responsive to the concerns of contemporary philosophers. I assess her success in attaining this twofold aim by examining in detail Stump’s overview of Aquinas’s metaphysics, which engages with contemporary debates over constitution and identity, and her interpretation of Aquinas’s account of justice, which brings Aquinas into…Read more
  •  68
    Every reader creates a personal version of what is read....This is often the very opposite of what might at first blush be expected: but on consideration it is exactly the way in which a writer of genius should — we perhaps suddenly realise — respond. It is, in short, creative rather than passively parallel, and a matter of unobtrusive decisive omissions followed by the flow of new matter, of demarcation rather than of imitation.
  •  63
    Anselm on Freedom (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009. 2009.
    In Anselm on Freedom Katherin Rogers investigates Anselm's attempt to provide room for genuine creaturely freedom in a world in which a perfect being is altogether sovereign. She begins with two chapters of general background. Chapter 1, "Anselm's Classical Theism," reads like a grab bag of brief essays on Anselm's account of the divine nature, the relationship between Creator and creature, theological semantics, the problem of evil, and the relationship between God and the moral order. Chapter …Read more
  •  63
    God Who Sows the Seed and Gives the Growth
    Anglican Theological Review 2007 611-627. 2007.
    This paper examines Anselm's pneumatology.
  •  56
    Anselm
    Oxford University Press. 2009.
    The reason of faith -- Thought and language -- Truth -- The Monologion arguments for the existence of God -- The Proslogion argument for the existence of God -- The divine attributes -- Thinking and speaking about God -- Creation and the word -- The Trinity -- Modality -- Freedom -- Morality -- Incarnation and atonement -- Original sin, grace, and salvation.
  •  55
    A most methodical lover?: On scotus's arbitrary creator
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (2): 169-202. 2000.
    The paper argues against interpretations that appeal to divine justice and rationality in order to mitigate the apparent arbitrariness of Scotus's God with respect to creation
  •  55
    The Cambridge Companion to Duns Scotus (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2002.
    Each volume in this series of companions to major philosophers contains specially commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimidation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. John Duns Scotus was one of the three principal figures in medieval philosophy and theology, with an influen…Read more
  •  53
    Anselm: Basic Writings
    Hackett. 1997.
    Ranging from his early treatises, the ’Monologion’ (a work written to show his monks how to meditate on the divine essence) and the ’Proslogion’ (best known for its advancement of the so-called ontological argument for the existence of God), to his three philosophical dialogues on metaphysical topics such as the relationship between freedom and sin, and late treatises on the Incarnation and salvation, this collection of Anselm’s essential writings will be of interest to students of the history o…Read more