Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Aquinas and Thomism

  • Ontological Analysis in Aristotle and Bergmann: Prime Matter Versus Bare Particulars

    Hardly anyone reads Gustav Bergmann any more, but since I read everything, I read Bergmann. It is interesting to compare his style of ontological analysis with that of the great hylomorphic ontologists, Aristotle and Aquinas. The distinguished Aristotelian Henry B. Veatch does some of my work for me in a fine paper, "To Gustav Bergmann: A…

  • Scholastic Realism and Predication

    This post continues our explorations in the philosophy of The School. What is a scholastic realist? John Peterson (Introduction to Scholastic Realism, Peter Lang, 1999, p. 6) defines a scholastic realist as follows: S is a scholastic realist =df i) S is a moderate realist and ii) S believes that universals exist in some transcendent…

  • The Aporetics of Divine Simplicity

    Thomist27 e-mails:  Thank you first of all for a spectacular blog. I discovered Maverick Philosopher a few years ago and have been reading it regularly ever since. Through your blog, I learned that you wrote the SEP's article on divine simplicity, among similar things; I think, then, that you are qualified to answer my questions. …

  • Edith Stein on Cognitio Fidei: Is Faith a Kind of Knowledge?

    One finds the phrase cognitio fidei in Thomas Aquinas and in such Thomist writers as Josef Pieper. It translates as 'knowledge of faith.' The genitive is to be interpreted subjectively, not objectively: faith is not the object of knowledge; faith is a form or type of knowledge. But how can faith be a type of knowledge? One…

  • Aquinas on Why Being Cannot Be a Genus

    At 998b22 of his Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that being cannot be a genus. Thomas Aquinas gives his version of the argument in Summa Contra Gentiles, Book I, ch. 25, para. 6. I find the presentation of the doctor angelicus clearer than that of the philosophus. After quoting Thomas' argument, I will offer a rigorous reconstruction and…

  • Are the Souls of Brute Animals Subsistent? Considerations Anent the Unity of Consciousness

    We have been discussing the view of Thomas Aquinas according to which (i) the soul is the form of the body, and (ii) the souls of some animals, namely rational animals, are subsistent, i.e. capable of an existence independent of matter. I have registered some of my misgivings. Here is another. If our souls are…

  • Imago Dei in Relation to Aquinas and Christology

    This just over the transom from Will Duquette:  A fool rushes in… In your comment on Peter Lupu's guest post, you say > Man was not created in God's material image, since he has none; he  > was created in God's spiritual image.  But this implies that what is  > essential to man is not…

  • Conceivability, Possibility and Per Impossibile Reasoning

    Here is an example of per impossibile reasoning from Thomas Aquinas, De Veritate, q. 1, art. 2: Even if there were no human intellects, things could be said to be true because of their relation to the divine intellect. But if, by an impossible supposition [per impossibile], intellect did not exist and things did continue…

  • Retortion and Performative Inconsistency Once Again

    This post continues my meditations on the probative reach of retortion.  See the category Retortion for more on this intriguing topic. 1. If a number of us are sitting silently in a room, I cannot say 'We are silent' without in some sense contradicting myself.  In what sense, exactly?  In the performative sense.  Were I…

  • The Reach of Retortion

    Tony Flood e-mails: Bill, when you distinguish retorsive arguments that work from those that don't, I'm not clear about what you mean by "working." You haven't said that some retorsive arguments are fallacies, but if they're not, then what is their defect?  A "performative contradiction," e.g., "I cannot write a sentence in English," may not…

  • A Hylomorphic Solution to the Interaction Problem?

    Interactionist substance dualism in the philosophy of mind is supposed to face a devastating objection, the interaction objection. In the first part of this post I will present this objection in its traditional form and suggest that it is not all that serious. In the second part, however, I take the objection seriously and consider…

  • Aquinas on Intellect’s Independence of Matter: Summa Contra Gentiles, II, 49, 8

    In an earlier post on hylomorphic dualism, I said that Aquinas cannot do justice to his own insight into the independence of the intellect from matter from within the hylomorphic scheme of ontological analysis he inherits from Aristotle. His metaphysica generalis is at war with his special-metaphysical insight into the independence of intellect from matter. To…