Part one of this two-part paper looked at the modern semantic developments underlying Gilson’s innovative and highly influential semantic theory in Being and Some Philosophers (BSP)—the existential neutrality of the copula, the distinction between predication and some positing or “thetic” function of judgment, and the distinction between predication and assertion. The present part of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s work in light of this modern backdrop. It argues that Gilson’s BSP, rather than being a purely historical exegesis of (...) the logical writings of a thirteenth-century friar, is a work of original philosophizing inspired by Aquinas, but principally engaged with modern debates. In particular, it advances a Brentano- inspired reading of Aquinas in place of Maritain’s Pfänder-inspired reading of him. Rereading Gilson in his historical setting clarifies the meaning and implication of many phrases and theses that have become commonplaces in philosophical discourse, in part because of Gilson’s work. (shrink)

In the last decades of psychological research, religion and spirituality have been regarded as helpful in coping with major life problems. Some existential challenges such as anxiety regarding death, meaninglessness, guilt or even feelings of condemnation call for a spiritual response. Beliefs and spiritual practices can play an important role in counteracting disease or influence it in a variety of ways. They can have an impact on how a person adheres to a treatment regime; they affect how a person follows (...) after-treatment recommendations. Spiritual teachings invite believers to develop compassion, hope, surrender, forgiveness, and, finally, charity. A great number of research studies have addressed the healing potential of spirituality. The vast majority of them have focused on their psychological, social, and physical effects. This article gives a concise overview of this research as well as discusses remaining methodological challenges to better grasp the relationship between spirituality, religion and health. (shrink)

The topic of God in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas will be treated in three aspects: the question of the existence of God, the essence of God, and the topic of the relations between man and God. In this article, we would like to show the key issues of Thomas’s philosophy of God in order to show how they serve as a starting point for the theology of Aquinas. With regard to the first matter, it was claimed that the (...) only argument of Thomas for the existence of God is the reasoning conducted in De ente et essential, where Aquinas points at the existence of God (the subsistent act of existence – ipsum esse subsistens) as the external efficient cause of the existence of beings composed of two elements, the act of existence and the essence as potentiality. In this perspective, the famous ways of St. Thomas were accepted in numerous philosophical systems (Aristotelianism, Neo-Platonism, and their compilations) to be an illustration of the possibilities of arriving at the stance that the first cause exists. When it comes to the latter issue, we present a concise approach to God’s attributes in Thomas’s Compendium theologiae and show a strictly existential approach to these attributes in the Thomism of Mieczysław Gogacz. Regarding the relation of man to God, we turned our attention —following St. Thomas — to two orders of these relations: natural, related to justice, and supernatural, which is love (friendship) between man and God. As an example of the application of philosophical solutions in theology, we point to a Thomistic interpretation of the development of the religious life of man. In sum, we observe that the philosophy of God, in its version developed by Aquinas, is characterized by strict intellectualism and a naturalistic starting point for philosophical analyses. (shrink)

In the article I will try to show that considerations on God on the ground of philosophy not only have to start with the image of God handed down by Revelation and Tradition, but they are complementary to the latter ones. In the first part I will refer to the most prominent philosophical conceptions of the absolute being developed by Plato, Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas. In the second part I will sketch the problem of God shown on the ground (...) of Revelation, considering the question of “The God of the Fathers” and “The God of Christians.” And in the last part I will present the tools which make it possible to reconcile both approaches, indicating the basics of predicating about God as well as the problem of analogy which makes it possible to predicate about the first cause on the basis of its effects. (shrink)

In this research paper I focus on the question of the relationship between atheism and transhumanism. I expose the well-known thesis whereby atheism is a property of Western culture. At the same time, I show atheism as the real cause of the emergence of a multi-directional philosophical movement, i.e. transhumanism, drawing attention in particular to its understanding of man, to the dialectic it creates between the extant philosophical image of man and the concept of the “new man” promoted by transhumanists. (...) This exposition of transhumanism concentrates primarily on the issue of “anthropological tragicism” that I detect in transhumanist thinking. (shrink)

This article discusses two philosophical issues the globalization ushered in in modern society: (1) Why should believers, and in particular Catholics, do science today? (2) What could be the believer’s attitude towards the multiplicity of religions? A proper understanding of the relation between science and religion is key to the first issue, and in addition, in a realistic approach, one can also see the concrete benefits of such a development. As for the second issue, the believer vis-à-vis religious diversity has (...) four options: naturalism, exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism. Each has its drawbacks: in the case of naturalism and pluralism the very meaning of professing one’s faith is undermined, albeit on different grounds, while exclusivism and inclusivism differ in their level of (actual or merely perceived) disregard for other religions. Inclusivism (doctrinal and soteriological) is the option that stands out as the most intellectually mature in this set. (shrink)

Human destiny itself is foremost a religious problem because, paradoxically, it stems from a distinctive sense of disbelief, or more precisely, from a radical disagreement with the randomness of life. The latter bears a resemblance to meaninglessness insufferable for human beings. On the other hand, fate presupposes a profound belief that despite the apparent reign of chaos inevitably spiralling towards nothingness, somewhere deep at the very foundations of things lies a secure harmony and a somewhat benevolent order, which ultimately governs (...) the whole and leads all things to a happy end. Therefore, believing in fate is not so much about adopting a theory or practicing faith as embracing a profound existential stance. As a prelude to a synthesis of the history of human fate, a lexical analysis will be made to explain various approximations of the concept of fate. Subsequently, the various historical forms, or rather disguises that fate has assumed in the history of culture will be explored in a philosophical and theological manner. (shrink)

The Polish medieval theory of the law of nations (ius gentium) was born in the nation’s conflict with the Order of Teutonic Knights, which pursued a bloody military expansion into Eastern Europe under the pretext of converting pagans, invoking the ideology of a holy war to justify its aggressive actions. The scholars of Kraków defended not just the Polish raison d’état, but also the rights of other non-Christian peoples who were also the subject of Teutonic aggression (Lithuanians, Samogitians, and Ruthenians). (...) Paulus Vladimiri (Paweł Włodkowic), the main founder of ius gentium, in his method argued from several levels: the legal, theological, and philosophical, thus defending basic human rights: the rights to life, freedom, equality, tolerance, and the independence of nations. Vladimiri poses a fundamental question: who is a neighbor? He states that a neighbor is every human being, not only Christians, with this, in the context of the conflict with the Teutonic Order, showing the obvious contradiction of the Order’s actions with the injunction to love one’s neighbor. Vladimiri stood consistently on the grounds of the Christian religion, from which he drew the principles of the dignity of every human being, the freedom of the will, and one’s duty to love their neighbor, invoking, inter alia, the words of St. Paul in Corinthians (13, 2) and Galatians (5, 6; 5, 14). Vladimiri used a passage from the Letter to the Galatians (5, 19-21) to demonstrate the Teutonic Order’s misappropriation of the Christian faith, for “faith cannot be useful without love.” In this context, love (caritas) appears as a political virtue in the sense of self-giving, which is reflected in the vocation of the person realised in relation to others and which serves as the root and condition for the peaceful union of different nations. (shrink)

This article concerns the question of whether St. Thomas Aquinas can be considered a young Earth creationist. This question breaks down to three different though interrelated issues: Aquinas’s view on the origin of species, his position on the length of the six days of creation (whether they were natural days or other periods of time) and his views on the age of the earth. Each of the topics is addressed separately in the subsequent sections. The article attempts to establish Thomas’s (...) views by his explicit statements as well as what he implies in some fragments. The conclusion presents Aquinas as a creationist with an open-ended view of the timescale of the creative events and the age of the universe. (shrink)

Communication can be studied from a subjective perspective, which focuses on the participants of communication and their decision-making. Human action can be considered in theoretical, practical, and artistic dimensions. In all of these, the human being is the agent, which means that they are dependent on their will. Therefore, communicative actions, which particularly distinguish humans from other actions they undertake, deserve attention. In communication, various aspects of individual and social life are concentrated, expressed in human decisions. These decisions can be (...) understood through the message, which contains individual personal experience. The interpersonal relationship that forms in this way can deepen through communication. Then, the concept of “co-participation” becomes significant, indicating the structure of this process. Co-participation thus becomes the key to understanding interpersonal communication. The goal of the article is to show the way humans function through communication, especially by highlighting the key moment that reveals the meaning of communication in social relations. (shrink)

Primer Ethics by Carol Wojtyła originated from a book titled OSOBA I CZYN (THE ACTING PERSON), translated by Andrzej Potocki and Edited by Anna Teresa Tymieniecka. It was published in 1979 by D. Reidel Company, part of Springer in Dordrecht, Netherlands. The translated version has over 300 pages. PRIMER ETHICS is an informal alternate title with the Polish equivalent, ELEMENTARZ ETYCZNY. It is bilingual, translated by Hugh McDonald, and Copyrighted by Polskie Towarzystwo Tomasza z Akwinu, Lublin 2017. It has 241 (...) pages. (shrink)

Ecological life choices, influenced by the individual morality-driven reflection on nature, ecosophy, seems to be a perfect embodiment of Charles Taylor’s strong evaluations. The purpose of the following text is to establish the linkage between these two, seemingly entirely separate concepts, which have never before been brought side by side. The article portrays ecosophy as a possible part of the strong evaluations. It also indicates the relationship between the theoretical and practical dimension of the two concepts, which not only have (...) the possibility of coexisting within the same person, but also mutually reinforce each other’s realizations. To explore the issue, I primarily used selected publications by the authors mentioned in the title: Arne Naess and Charles Taylor. It was the analysis of these works that led me to the thesis of the application of one term in the other and to the final conclusions and doubts. The latter, concerning, among other things, the differences in the understanding of particular words used by the two contemporary philosophers, will become a trigger for further consideration of the applications of strong evaluations. These doubts will also open the door to a discussion of ecosophy on a different ground than up until now. (shrink)

The article is an analysis of the influence of the Platonic concept of the state on the first attempts to build a modern concept of political economy in French. Unlike the English-language economic theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the French Traité de l’économie politique by Antoine de Montchrétien is not just an attempt to analyze economic phenomena such as labor productivity, new technologies, or the development of agriculture, industry, and crafts, but is also an attempt to relate the (...) new view of economics with the traditionally Platonic understanding of the state as a three-part structure in which each social group does only its own work. However, the understanding of Platonic justice as each social group doing its own thing is simplified in Montchrétien’s work. The French thinker relies on an archaic form of the social contract, in which individual social groups are dogmatically understood as elements of a fixed and immutable structure, of which the French monarchy system is an expression. On this point, Montchrétien diverges from the author of Republic because the Platonic state - contrary to Popper’s view - is not an example of a closed society along the lines of a feudal or aristocratic monarchy, but a flexible republic in which there is the possibility of passing from one social group to another, provided one possesses adequate personal qualities. It seems that Montchrétien’s attempt to promote the people as a new social class was not successful because his revolutionary demand was not followed by a proposal to build a new social contract through which the goods-producing class could become the real subject and source of the state’s wealth. The new social contract was introduced in Europe as a result of the Industrial Revolution and a series of political revolutions led by the French Revolution while the Montchrétien treatise remained a purely theoretical attempt to build a new concept of political economy. (shrink)

Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers (BSP) has been widely influential well beyond Thomistic circles, but its modern historical sources and logical consequences call for further investigation. The first part of this two-part article explores three modern semantic assumptions or principles without which BSP’s innovative theory of existential judgment cannot be fully appreciated—the existential neutrality of the copula ubiquitous among modern logicians; Kant’s introduction of a positing or “thetic” function of judgment, the understanding of which evolved in nineteenth-century logic; and the (...) distinction between predication and assertion, generally accepted by late nineteenth century logicians. Part two of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s BSP as an implicit critique of and alternative to Maritain’s synthesis of Aquinas with these modern developments. (shrink)

In the old days, taxing a commodity meant setting its price (i.e., its "rate") through negotiation, to keep it within the reach of as many people as possible. Taxation was an exceptional measure granted by royal authority to the public, who cherished it. In the name of a freedom that would be enjoyed only by merchants, the Enlightenment movement argued that taxation was theft, and the Revolution rigorously prohibited it from the outset. Prices soared. Whereas yesterday we taxed a product (...) to prevent it from going up in price, today the tax is what increases the price to the benefit of the State or a community. History has changed the meaning of words. (shrink)

After a cursory review of Wojtyła’s anthropology and his philosophy of freedom as self-transcendence aiming at the true good, this paper turned to his treatment of intersubjective relationships. We explained the core concept of participation, a property of the person whereby he maintains the personalistic value of his actions while also working together with others for the realization of a common end. Participation becomes reality in a community only when it has a proper subjective common good in addition to its (...) objective common good. The former fosters the normative conditions that make participation possible. Anterior to the common good in its totality is the “common good” for all human beings constituted by the bona honesta. Building and sustaining strong communities requires the engagement and solidarity of its members, which sometimes expresses itself through opposition. (shrink)

Europe has a Christian soul. The values, customs, and institutions of the social life of the European nations crystallized under the animating influence of Christ’s gospel. One can speak of the inalienability of Christianity on the Old Continent. There is an inextricable bond between Europe and Christianity. Following Joseph Ratzinger, the article presents European values and ideas growing out of the Christian heritage: the humanism of the Incarnation, the primacy of spiritual values, the subordination of law and democracy to eunomy, (...) a rational approach to reality, the dignity of conscience and recognition of its rights, the culture of love of neighbor and social justice, the idea of fraternity, and religious-political dualism in the relationship between the state and the Church. Maintaining Europe’s Christian identity is therefore a task for Christians and all those who want its characteristic ideas and institutions to survive. (shrink)

Between the French Revolution and the Second Vatican Council, alongside a magisterium of anathemas against the modern world born of this Revolution and against the concessions made to political modernity by liberal Catholics, culminating in Pius IX's Quanta Cura, another operation unfolded on the part of Rome, describable as "diplomatic" in a broad sense. One thinks in particular of the instructions for rallying to the modern Republic given by Leo XIII to French Catholics in his 1892 encyclical Au milieu des (...) sollicitudes. But there have been other acts before and since that enter into this perspective, by which the Holy See seemed to contradict, for the benefit of established liberal powers, its condemnation in principle of the institutions on which these same powers rested: the coronation of Napoleon, the "second Ralliement" of the 1920s, the abandonment of the Cristeros for "reasons of Church". (shrink)

Grandson of King Charles X, the earl of Chambord, Henry V (1820-1883), incarnated during his life the hopes of monarchical restoration of French legitimists, exercising a true moral royalty. In his speeches and letters, he presented a political program for to counter the ideas of French Revolution. The reflection of the earl of Chambord appears, during the third quarter of the XIXth century, like the most completed expression of counter-revolutionary thinking. To restore social harmony disturbed by the Revolution, the earl (...) of Chambord wanted to embody a Christian monarchy tempered by a new definition of representation rules, the recovery of local freedoms and the concern to restore social justice by improving the workers conditions of life. This political program encountered opposition from circles liberal-conservative who wanted to guard against the restoration of king adhering to the principles formulated by Pius IX in the Syllabus. They put to their support unacceptable conditions for the earl of Chambord, demanding to him to accept “the principles of 89”. The White flag crystallized this frontal opposition, failing the third restoration. (shrink)

The Vendée War (1793-1795) was an essential part of the French Revolution (1789-1799). A region of western France, south of Nantes, the Vendée, refused to continue obeying the new authorities of the Republic (1792), against a backdrop of forced military mobilization and anti-Catholic religious persecution. This peasant insurrection, led by nobles like Charette, suffered terrible repression, beyond military counter-insurgency. The Convention, the assembly governing the Republic, was very frightened in 1793, in a context of difficult foreign war and multiple domestic (...) disputes. It took revenge by organizing a populicide in the Vendée. Carrier's infamous massacres in Nantes, carried out to order, were the norm, not a pathological exception. The infernal columns of the Republican army carried out the Vendée genocide. We propose to rediscover these historical facts, sometimes still hidden. (shrink)

This paper aims to highlight Joseph de Maistre's pioneering work in anthropology, which 150 years before Girard came to the same conclusions as Girard: the importance of sacrifice in human societies, the logic of violence and its resolution, and the particular character of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which comes as a fulfillment and definitive end to the logic of bloody sacrifice. This little-known aspect of the counter-revolutionary thinker gives us a better understanding of the issues of matriarchy, patriarchy and (...) Christian patriarchy, right up to contemporary developments with gender. He also gives us an example of the application of Catholic realism, based on theology and nourished by sound Thomistic metaphysics, and how a return to this Catholic realism in the human sciences is a key to understanding contemporary phenomena. (shrink)

The word "school" has never been so commonly used as it is today. But do we really think about what it means? What reality(s) lie(s) behind this apparently neutral term? Originally encompassing a wide range of different meanings, the noun gradually became confined, in the wake of the Renaissance and the French Revolution, to common or public education, associated with simultaneous teaching. Older, more traditional forms of child-rearing, more domestic in nature, have steadily declined. The consequences of this anything but (...) trivial phenomenon are numerous for individuals, families, societies and even the Church. It's important to be aware of them, to be conscious of them, and to take stock of them, which is what this two-part post hopes to contribute to. (shrink)

The word "school" has never been so commonly used as it is today. But do we really think about what it means? What reality(s) lie(s) behind this apparently neutral term? Originally encompassing a wide range of different meanings, the noun gradually became confined, in the wake of the Renaissance and the French Revolution, to common or public education, associated with simultaneous teaching. Older, more traditional forms of child-rearing, more domestic in nature, have steadily declined. The consequences of this anything but (...) trivial phenomenon are numerous for individuals, families, societies and even the Church. It's important to be aware of them, to be conscious of them, and to take stock of them, which is what this two-part post hopes to contribute to. (shrink)

Abbé Lionel Groulx (1878-1967) is the most influential intellectual in Quebec history. A historian and nationalist activist, he asserted that the French language was the guardian of the Catholic faith in North America. He edited L'Action française de Montréal (1917-1928), a magazine inspired by the traditionalist thinking of Maurice Barrès and Charles Maurras. Groulx advocated Quebec independence as early as 1922. He denounced Anglo-Saxon cultural infiltration of French-Canadian society, through both British imperialism and American capitalism. He harshly criticized the "Quiet (...) Revolution" of the 1960s, which de-Christianized Quebec under the pretext of modernizing it, and in particular the educational reform that distanced French culture in America from the living axis of ancient Greco-Latin civilization. (shrink)

Information has been omnipresent and all-powerful for almost two centuries, and now possesses sophisticated and invasive means of imposing itself and creating opinion. It was crucial in the Enlightenment and in the preparation of the French Revolution by the intellectual and bourgeois elites. Its characteristic is to be the opposite of intangible truths, to be moving, malleable and adaptable. It is the new replacing the old. It is bracketed by history, because it ignores tradition and no longer needs the past. (...) The creation of opinion in the 18th century introduced a concept of freedom that in fact conceals totalitarianism. People are told what to think. Information is a weapon against all forms of personal reflection and inner life. It imposes itself and imposes, making it impossible to distance oneself. It even kills the democracy it boasts about. (shrink)