Maverick Philosopher

Footnotes to Plato from the foothills of the Superstition Mountains

Category: Scholasticism New and Old

  • Evil as Privation and the Problem of Pain (Part One)

    A reader recalled my posts on evil as privatio boni from the old blog and wants me to upload them to the new, which I will gladly do.  So far I managed to scare up two.  Here is the first. ……………………… The goddess of blogging sent me Peter Lupu whose comments are a welcome stimulant.…

  • Total Dependence and Essence/Existence Composition

    Anthony Flood has done metaphysicians a service by making available John N. Deck’s excellent, St. Thomas Aquinas and the Language of Total Dependence. This is an essay that Anthony Kenny, no slouch of a philosopher, saw fit to include in his anthology, Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays (University of Notre Dame Press, 1976). Mr.…

  • 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…

  • Substance and Suppositum: Notes on Fernand Van Steenberghen

    Here is another of the scholastic manuals I pulled off my shelf: Fernand van Steenberghen, Ontology (Nauwelaerts Publisher, Brussels, 1970, tr. Moonan).  A paragraph from p. 278 supports my thesis that the distinction between primary substance and suppositum is an ad hoc device invented for a theological purpose, a device for which there is no…

  • Substance and Suppositum: Notes on Klubertanz

    This recent excursion into the philosophy of The School is proving to be quite fascinating, and I thank Dr. Novak et al. for their stimulation.  I should say that I have read thousands upon thousands of pages of scholastic material, from Aquinas to Zubiri,  from Maritain to Marechal, over the past 40 years, so it…

  • More Christology: Freddoso on Supposita

    To better understand the doctrine of supposita and the role it plays in the doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation, we turn to Alfred J. Freddoso, Human Nature, Potency and the Incarnation (bolding added): According to the Christian faith, as defined in this instance by the great Christological Councils and mirrored in centuries of liturgical practice and…

  • Supposita

    We have been discussing the question of the logical consistency of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.  Dr. Lukas Novak (Charles University, Prague) has offered a solution to the consistency problem that relies crucially on the notion of a suppositum or supposit.  If I have understood him, his suggestion is that there is nothing logically problematic in…

  • Contemporary Czech Analytic Scholasticism

    Vlastimil Vohánka reports:  I observe you're discussing with my friend Lukas Novak.   Here, in the Czech Republic, one of the most atheistic and secularist countries in the world, one can, paradoxically, observe a sort of revival of Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy, including the inauguration of philosophical organizations and of a Neo-Aristotelian journal, several conferences, and interaction with the…