New Scholasticism Meets Analytic Philosophy

New Scholasticism Meets Analytic Philosophy
Author: Rafael Hüntelmann
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2021-08-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3868385452

Recent decades have seen a revival of interest in Aristotelian and Scholastic thought, particularly among analytic philosophers. Neo-Aristotelians, Analytic Scholastics, and Analytical Thomists have made significant contributions to several fields within contemporary philosophy, including metaphysics, philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. This volume of new essays brings together some of the leading thinkers of this movement, to address such topics as materiality, causation, possibility, privation and dispositionality. The contributors are Rani Lill Anjum, Edward Feser, Uwe Meixner, Stephen Mumford, David Oderberg, Edmund Runggaldier and Erwin Tegtmeier.

Identity and Coherence in Christology

Identity and Coherence in Christology
Author: Paul S. S. Scott
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 203
Release: 2023-09-29
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1000924904

This book explores a number of closely related logical and metaphysical questions relating to the identity of Jesus Christ. In particular it considers: ‘What does “Jesus Christ” name?’ and ‘How may Jesus Christ be the subject of both divine and human attributes, given their apparent incompatibility?’. The author draws on analytic and scholastic influences and integrates them into a rehabilitation of the neglected habitus theory of the hypostatic union. The theory maintains a real identity between Christ and the Word and emphasises the instrumental or possessory dimension of Christ’s relationship to his human nature. This approach allows for an account of the hypostatic union that is true to the indispensable articles of classical Christology and which satisfies the demands of logical coherence. Yet, at no point is the mystery of the Incarnational event reduced to the strictures of creaturely comprehension. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of Christology, analytic theology and the philosophy of religion.

The Philosophy of Being in the Analytic, Continental, and Thomistic Traditions

The Philosophy of Being in the Analytic, Continental, and Thomistic Traditions
Author: Joseph P. Li Vecchi
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2020-10-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1350103330

This book provides a discussion of the philosophy of being according to three major traditions in Western philosophy, the Analytic, the Continental, and the Thomistic. The origin of the point of view of each of these traditions is associated with a seminal figure, Gottlob Frege, Immanuel Kant, and Thomas Aquinas, respectively. The questions addressed in this book are constitutional for the philosophy of being, considering the meaning of being, the relationship between thinking and being, and the methods for using thought to access being. On the one hand, the book honors diversity and pluralism, as it highlights how the three traditions may be clearly and distinctly differentiated regarding the philosophy of being. On the other hand, it honors a sense of solidarity and ecumenism, as it demonstrates how the methods and focal points of these traditions constitute, and continue to shape, the development of Western philosophy. This book contributes toward an essential overview of Western metaphysics and will be of particular interest to those working in the history of philosophy and in the philosophy of being.

Aquinas Among the Protestants

Aquinas Among the Protestants
Author: Manfred Svensson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1119265940

AQUINAS AMONG THE PROTESTANTS This major new book provides an introduction to Thomas Aquinas’s influence on Protestantism. The editors, both noted commentators on Aquinas, bring together a group of influential scholars to demonstrate the ways that Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed thinkers have analyzed and used Thomas through the centuries. Later chapters also explore how today’s Protestants might appropriate the work of Aquinas to address a number of contemporary theological and philosophical issues. The authors set the record straight and disavow the widespread impression that Aquinas is an irrelevant figure for the history of Protestant thought. This assumption has dominated not only Protestant historiography but also Roman Catholic accounts of the Reformation and Protestant intellectual life. The book opens the possibility for contemporary reception, engagement, and critique and even intra-Protestant relations and includes: Information on the fruitful appropriation of Aquinas in Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed theologians over the centuries Important essays from leading scholars on the teachings of Aquinas New perspectives on Thomas Aquinas’s position as a towering figure in the history of Christian thought Aquinas Among the Protestants is a ground-breaking and interdenominational work for students and scholars of Thomas Aquinas and theology more generally.

Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers

Aquinas on Efficient Causation and Causal Powers
Author: Gloria Frost
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2022-08-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1009225413

In this innovative book, Gloria Frost reconstructs and analyses Aquinas's theories on efficient causation and causal powers, focusing specifically on natural causal powers and efficient causation in nature. Frost presents each element of Aquinas's theories one by one, comparing them with other theories, as well as examining the philosophical and interpretive ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and proposing fresh solutions to conceptual difficulties. Her discussion includes explanations of Aquinas's technical scholastic terminology in jargon-free prose, as well as background on medieval scientific views - including ordinary language explanations of the medieval physical theories which Aquinas assumed in formulating his views on causation and causal powers. The resulting volume is a rich exploration of a central philosophical topic in medieval philosophy and beyond, and will be valuable especially for scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas and on medieval natural philosophy.

The Ethics of Killing

The Ethics of Killing
Author: Christian Erk
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2022-09-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3031071832

In this book, Christian Erk examines the ethical (im)permissibility of killing human beings in general and of selected killings in particular, namely suicide, lethal selfdefence, abortion and euthanasia, as well as organ transplantation and assisted suicide. He does so by addressing a range of important ethical questions: What does it mean to act? Of what elements is an action comprised? What is the difference between a good or evil action and a permissible or impermissible action? How can we determine whether an action is good or evil? Is there a moral duty not to kill? Is this duty held by and against all human beings or only persons? What and who is a person? What is human dignity and who has it? What is it that is actually taken when somebody is killed, i.e. what is life? And closely related to that: What and when is death? By integrating the answers to these questions into an argumentative architecture, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of one of the most fundamental questions of mankind: Under which conditions, if any, is killing human beings ethically permissible?

What Tends to Be

What Tends to Be
Author: Rani Lill Anjum
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2018-05-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1351009796

People tend to enjoy listening to music or watching television, sleeping at night and celebrating birthdays. Plants tend to grow and thrive in sunlight and mild temperatures. We also know that tendencies are not perfectly regular and that there are patterns in the natural world, which are reliable to a degree, but not absolute. What should we make of a world where things tend to be one way but could be another? Is there a position between necessity and possibility? If there is, what are the implications for science, knowledge and ethics? This book explores these questions and is the first full-length treatment of the philosophy of tendencies. Anjum and Mumford argue that although the philosophical language of tendencies has been around since Aristotle, there has not been any serious commitment to the irreducible modality that they involve. They also argue that the acceptance of an irreducible and sui generis tendential modality ought to be the fundamental commitment of any genuine realism about dispositions or powers. It is the dispositional modality that makes dispositions authentically disposition-like. Armed with this theory the authors apply it to a variety of key philosophical topics such as chance, causation, epistemology and free will.

Powers, Time and Free Will

Powers, Time and Free Will
Author: Christopher J. Austin
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2022-03-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030924866

This book brings together twelve original contributions by leading scholars on the much-debated issues of what is free will and how can we exercise it in a world governed by laws of nature. Which conception of laws of nature best fits with how we conceive of free will? And which constraints does our conception of the laws of nature place on how we think of free will? The metaphysics of causation and the metaphysics of dispositions are also explored in this edited volume, in relation to whether they may or may not be game-changers in how we think about both free will and the laws of nature. The volume presents the views of a range of international experts on these issues, and aims at providing the reader with novel approaches to a core problem in philosophy. The target audience is composed by academics and scholars who are interested in an original and contemporary approach to these long-debated issues. Chapters [2] and [4] are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil
Author: David S. Oderberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2019-11-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000712508

The Metaphysics of Good and Evil is the first, full-length contemporary defence, from the perspective of analytic philosophy, of the Scholastic theory of good and evil – the theory of Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and most medieval and Thomistic philosophers. Goodness is analysed as obedience to nature. Evil is analysed as the privation of goodness. Goodness, surprisingly, is found in the non-living world, but in the living world it takes on a special character. The book analyses various kinds of goodness, showing how they fit into the Scholastic theory. The privation theory of evil is given its most comprehensive contemporary defence, including an account of truthmakers for truths of privation and an analysis of how causation by privation should be understood. In the end, all evil is deviance – a departure from the goodness prescribed by a thing’s essential nature. Key Features: Offers a comprehensive defence of a venerable metaphysical theory, conducted using the concepts and methods of analytic philosophy. Revives a much neglected approach to the question of good and evil in their most general nature. Shows how Aristotelian-Thomistic theory has more than historical relevance to a fundamental philosophical issue, but can be applied in a way that is both defensible and yet accessible to the modern philosopher. Provides what, for the Scholastic philosopher, is arguably the only solid metaphysical foundation for a separate treatment of the origins of morality.

Studies in the Ontology of E.J. Lowe

Studies in the Ontology of E.J. Lowe
Author: Timothy Tambassi (Ed.)
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2022-11-22
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3868382135

With the death of Edward Jonathan Lowe (1950-2014), the analytical philosophy lost one of the most influential thinkers of the last thirty-five years. His contributions include (but are not limited to) philosophy of mind, John Locke's philosophy and metaphysics. In particular, concerning metaphysical studies, the most innovative part of Lowe's philosophical perspective is the four-category ontology that, according to the author, provides an exhaustive inventory of what there is and a powerful explanatory framework for a metaphysical foundation of natural science. Accordingly, the purpose of this volume is to collect some new essays from distinguished authorities in the field, critics and collaborators of Lowe in order to present some fundamental issues triggered by his ontological proposal.