•  1
    In this installment of the Faculty Authors Series, Vance Morgan (Philosophy, Providence College) discusses his newest book, "Freelance Christianity: Philosophy, Faith, and the Real World."
  • The Drama of Cartesian Morality
    Dissertation, Marquette University. 1991.
    One of the expected fruits of Descartes' philosophical enterprise is "the highest and most perfect moral system", a system which, organically developed from its metaphysical and physical foundations, will provide the moral agent with direction and purpose in each of life's contingencies. Yet, Descartes' published work contains no such moral system, and commentators have generally agreed that Descartes "has entered the history of philosophy as perhaps the only systematic philosopher of the first …Read more
  •  18
    As part of his Easter Sunday homily last year, my friend Mitch—the rector of the Episcopal church I attend—told the story of Gladys, a lifelong pillar of her Congregational church, one of only three churches within a seventy-mile radius in her area of the rural Midwest; the other two were Lutheran and Roman Catholic. One fateful Easter morning, Gladys arrived with her three children in tow, ready for Easter festivities. The homily was given by a young man who, according to Gladys, was “too smart…Read more
  •  16
    What May We Hope For?
    Bearings Online
    During this Advent season, I am in a forward-looking and hopeful mood. But that also involves looking back to a point in my life, not that many years ago, when hope took on a new meaning for me. I was reminded of this point in my life over the past few weeks as I studied the notoriously difficult philosopher Immanuel Kant with several philosophy majors and minors. In a rare moment of clarity, Kant once wrote that all important human questions can be boiled down to these three: WHAT CAN I KNOW? W…Read more
  •  11
    “Pleasure and Joy in the Work”: Using Simone Weil in the Classroom
    Philosophical Investigations 43 (1-2): 8-18. 2020.
    Richard Rorty once wrote that inspired teaching “is the result of an encounter with an author, character, plot, stanza, line or archaic torso which has made a difference to the [teacher’s] conception of who she is, what she is good for, what she wants to do with herself: an encounter which has rearranged her priorities and purposes.” In a teaching career more than three decades long, no author has influenced me more profoundly as a teacher and as a human being than Simone Weil. She has changed h…Read more
  •  19
    Facing Our Demons
    Bearings Online. 2019.
    Iris Murdoch is a fascinating figure, an internationally respected philosopher who, at the height of her career, left academia to write novels full time. She ended up writing twenty-six of them, extraordinary investigations of the complexities and messiness of human relationships and commitments. Murdoch claimed to be an atheist, but she also believed that true moral commitment required belief in something greater than ourselves, something transcendent not subject to the vagaries and whims of hu…Read more
  •  7
    Practical Realism and Moral Psychology (review)
    Review of Metaphysics 50 (4): 901-901. 1997.
    In this brief but insightful volume, the author presents and defends a version of ethical realism that he calls practical realism. Asserting that "moral claims are literally true or false and that their truth-values depend upon the facts", Jacobs argues that these facts are prescriptive for practical reasoners through the human capacity of practical reasoning. "My purpose is to explicate and illustrate how reason in its practical employment can understand the ethical significance of facts about …Read more
  •  11
    "_Weaving the World_ is a well-written and lucid overview of Simone Weil's writings on science and mathematics. This book will be of great benefit for anyone who wishes to pursue Weil's thought in depth." —_Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society_ "_Weaving the World_ is a detailed account of the philosophy of science and knowledge of Simone Weil. It is a very useful contribution to our understanding of one of the deepest and most incandescent thinkers of the twentieth century…Read more
  •  32
    An Aspect of Love
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1): 83-100. 1997.
  •  17
    Parachutes, Ticks & Moral Environments
    Philosophy Now 26 12-15. 2000.
  •  14
    Foreknowledge and Human Freedom in Augustine
    Journal of Philosophical Research 19 223-242. 1994.
    In this paper, I consider Augustine’s attempted solution of the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. I focus on two distinct notions of God’s relationship to time as they relate to this problem. In Confessions XI, Augustine develops an understanding of time and foreknowledge that cIearly offers a possible solution to the foreknowledge/free will problem. I then turn to On Free Will 3.1-4, where Augustine conspicuously declines to use a solution similar to the one in the Confessions, rat…Read more
  •  19
    American catholic philosophical quarterly 674
    with James Bernard Murphy and Michael N. Nagler
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 79 (4). 2005.
  •  40
    The Cartesian Prince: Descartes on the Legitimacy of Political Power
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 32 (3): 271-288. 1994.
    Descartes's comments concerning the legitimacy of political power have customarily been viewed as an expression of his agreement with the doctrine of "divine right" of rulers. I argue that Descartes' directives concerning the establishment of political legitimacy are best understood within the context of his larger ethical framework. This interpretation subjects political and social activity to the same moral demands as individual action, the demand that one always put one's best judgments into …Read more
  •  14
    Foundations of Cartesian Ethics
    Humanity Books. 1994.
    "One of the expected fruits of Descartes' philosophical enterprise is "the highest and most perfect moral system," a system which, organically developed from its metaphysical and physical foundations, will provide the moral agent with direction and purpose in each of life's contingencies. Yet, Descartes' published work contains no such moral system, and commentators have generally agreed that Descartes "has entered the history of philosophy as perhaps the only systematic philosopher of the first…Read more
  •  44
    Mathematics and Supernatural Friendship
    Philosophy and Theology 18 (2): 319-335. 2006.
    Simone Weil wrote in her notebooks that “Friendship, like beauty, is a miracle.” This paper investigates her discussions of friendship in the larger context of her understanding of the mediation of opposites, modeled on the Pythagorean and Platonic models of mathematics. For Weil, friendship was not only miraculous, butalso a key to understanding the relationship of the divine to the human. Convinced that friendship and love create equality between parties where none exists naturally, Weil concl…Read more
  •  18
    Cognitive Science, Naturalism, and Divine Prototypes
    Philosophy and Theology 11 (1): 25-46. 1998.
    A new vision of the human being is emerging from the cognitive sciences. A number of philosophers have recently argued that traditional, rule-oriented models of the moral life are unsuitable for this vision. They prefer an ethical naturalism that, among other things, eliminates from moral theory any element of transcendence or reference to the divine. In this paper, I argue that any model of the human being is incomplete unless it includes reference to the spiritual aspects of human nature, then…Read more
  •  49
    The Metaphysics of Naturalism
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75 (3): 409-431. 2001.
  •  39
    Humility and the Transcendent
    Faith and Philosophy 18 (3): 307-322. 2001.
  •  12
    An Aspect of Love
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1): 83-100. 1997.
  •  48
    Ockham and Skepticism
    American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 64 (3): 355-372. 1990.
  •  462
    Foreknowledge and Human Freedom in Augustine
    Journal of Philosophical Research 19 223-242. 1994.
    In this paper, I consider Augustine’s attempted solution of the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. I focus on two distinct notions of God’s relationship to time as they relate to this problem. In Confessions XI, Augustine develops an understanding of time and foreknowledge that cIearly offers a possible solution to the foreknowledge/free will problem. I then turn to On Free Will 3.1-4, where Augustine conspicuously declines to use a solution similar to the one in the Confessions, rat…Read more