In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Lorenzo Valla on the Problem of Speaking about the TrinityCharles TrinkausLorenzo Valla was a major Renaissance humanist critic of scholasticism, and a proponent of empirical and language-based thought. He also ventured into the field of theology with his humanistic preconceptions that not ancient philosophy but the literary arts and philology should provide the proper model for its study. Salvatore Camporeale in his major studies of Valla, and in a (...) recent notable article comparing the humanistic method of theologizing of Valla with the scholastic method of Thomas Aquinas, established the major features of this new mode of theologizing as based on Biblical philology and study of the Church Fathers. 1 This was taken up by Erasmus and given its fully developed form. 2 Valla was rash enough to apply his methodology to the central Christian doctrine of the Trinity, not without some disastrous results in his first effort in the 1439 redaction of his Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie, but with greater doctrinal acceptability in his later revised versions of 1448 and 1452. 3 Like all theological mysteries, the Trinity defied both ordinary human language and the most rudimentary rules of thought, i.e., grammar, logic, and “common sense.” 4 Hence there was a [End Page 27] great challenge and a real danger of falling into error in talking about the Trinity either to establish its true “nature,” or to defend it against criticism. Valla’s efforts may be considered likely paradigms of some of the ways language study played a role in unraveling one of the Christian religion’s central mysteries.It was one of Lorenzo Valla’s main convictions that the theology and religious and moral thought of his own age (namely Aristotelian scholasticism) should be purged of philosophy, which he regarded as a seedbed of heresy. Yet he himself, though a rhetorician, was not entirely pure of philosophy...just as elements of philosophical thought remained as indispensable ingredients of the rhetorical teachings of Cicero and Quintilian. Thus Valla, following them, especially Quintilian, found it necessary to retain some simplified elements of systematic thought in his primordia of linguistic theory. Nevertheless, he intended to demonstrate that a more satisfactory description of the Trinity could be attained by adhering to these rules of language than that arrived at by the scholastics seeking to affirm it by metaphysical principles.I: The Repastinatio of 1439Valla in his proem to the 1439 redaction of the Repastinatio stresses the libertas a philosopher should have to think and express his own thoughts and protests the compulsion to think in Aristotelian modes manifested by scholastic philosophers:Why therefore should we fear to contradict this man, especially while following the approved custom of freely stating what we believe? Certainly they treat themselves badly who commit themselves to some sect in which it is necessary to praise everything of the one they follow, whatever it is. We have insisted on that liberty in other books and will hold to it in these. 5In keeping with these sentiments Valla in this first redaction boldly sets forth his own views. For reasons which will be seen he becomes more careful to refute his opponents and justify his own views in the later two redactions. In this first redaction he begins by setting forth his reduction of the ten Aristotelian/Porphyrian/Boethian categories to three “elements,” using a term found in Quintilian. These are “substance,” “quality” and “action.” He follows this up by reducing the so-called six transcendentals to the one, multi-meaninged term res, or “thing,” which is that about which one is talking, or the subject that can comprise substance, quality and action. 6 [End Page 28]Because the res or “thing” is never substance only, since substance can never be perceived except by means of its qualities or actions which are manifest to the perceiver, Valla proposes a new term for the combination of substance, quality and action: “consubstance.” “There are two species of [consubstance],” he writes, “ ‘soul’ and ‘body.’ A third which is composed of both of these may be added, which is ‘animal.’” 7Just before introducing the term “consubstance” for things in their combination of the three elements, and without... (shrink)

This book intends to introduce readers to the work of Charles E. Butterworth, and thereby to introduce students to Medieval islamic political philosophy, of which Butterworth is one of the world's most prominent scholars. In a wider sense, the Festschrift introduces its readers to the current debates on Medieval islamic political philosophy, related as they are to the questions of the relationship between islam and Christianity, the Medieval to the Modern world, and reason and revelation. Butterworth's scholarship spans six (...) decades, primarily translating, editing, and interpreting the works of the Muslim political philosopher Alfarabi (d. 950) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd, d. 1198). He began his studies of Muslim political philosophy at a time when the Middle East and islam did not have the political salience they have acquired in more recent years. instead, Butterworth's reason for engaging with islam was rooted in the question of the relationship between reason and revelation. While one possible answer was pursued in the Christian, latin West, the islamic borderlands of Greek, Roman, and Muslim civilization offered another. By exploring Averroes, who provides the possibility of an Aristotelian-Islamic political philosophy, and Alfarabi, who pursues a Platonic-islamic political philosophy, Butterworth showed how islamic civilization provided a viable alternative to the theologico-political question reason v revelation, as well as serving as an inspiration to the latin West. (shrink)

This volume commemorates the 6th centennial of the birth of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), a Renaissance polymath whose interests included law, politics, metaphysics, epistemology, theology, mysticism and relations between Christians and non-Christian peoples. The contributors to this volume reflect Cusanus' multiple interests; and, by doing so they commemorate three deceased luminaries of the American Cusanus Society: F. Edward Cranz, Thomas P. McTighe and Charles Trinkaus. Contributors include: Christopher M. Bellitto, H. Lawrence Bond, Elizabeth Brient, Louis Dupré, Wilhelm Dupré, (...) Walter Andreas Euler, Lawrence Hundersmarck, Thomas M. Izbicki, Dennis D. Martin, Yelena Matusevich, Bernard McGinn, Clyde Lee Miller, Thomas E. Morrissey, Brian A. Pavlac, and Morimichi Watanabe. Publications by Charles Trinkaus: - Edited by C. Trinkaus and H.A. Oberman, The pursuit of holiness in late medieval and renaissance religion, ISBN: 978 90 04 03791 5 (Out of print). (shrink)

A new understanding of political philosophy from one of its leading thinkers What is political philosophy? What are its fundamental problems? And how should it be distinguished from moral philosophy? In this book, Charles Larmore redefines the distinctive aims of political philosophy, reformulating in this light the basis of a liberal understanding of politics. Because political life is characterized by deep and enduring conflict between rival interests and differing moral ideals, the core problems of political philosophy are the regulation (...) of conflict and the conditions under which the members of society may thus be made subject to political authority. We cannot assume that reason will lead to unanimity about these matters because individuals hold different moral convictions. Larmore therefore analyzes the concept of reasonable disagreement and investigates the ways we can adjudicate conflicts among people who reasonably disagree about the nature of the human good and the proper basis of political society. Challenging both the classical liberalism of Locke, Kant, and Mill, and more recent theories of political realism proposed by Bernard Williams and others, Larmore argues for a version of political liberalism that is centered on political legitimacy rather than on social justice, and that aims to be well suited to our times rather than universally valid. Forceful and thorough yet concise, What Is Political Philosophy? proposes a new definition of political philosophy and demonstrates the profound implications of that definition. The result is a compelling and distinctive intervention from a major political philosopher. (shrink)

After a run of over forty years, the series Readings in Moral Theology comes to a close with this retrospective volume by one of the original editors, Charles E. Curran.

Memory, funerals, and the communion of the saints: growing old and practices of remembering / M. Therese Lysaught -- God bends over backward to accommodate humankind...while the Civil Rights Acts and the Americans with Disabilities Act require [only] minimum effort / Mary Jo Iozzio -- Radical solidarity: migration as challenge ofr contemporary Christian ethics / Kristin E. Heyer -- Catholic lesbian feminist theology / Mary E. Hunt -- Theology of whose body? Sexual conplementarity, intersex conditions, and La Virgen de Guadalupe (...) / Katie M. Grimes -- Social conscience and politics in the United States of America: reflections / Mary Jo Bane -- Pope Francis, women, and the church for the poor / Lisa A. Fullam -- Floodwaters and the ticking clock: the systematic oppression and stigmatization of poor, single mothers in American and Christian theological responses / Julie A. Mavity Maddalena --What causes inequity? / Dean Baker -- Engaging the U.S. Bishops' pastoral on crime and criminal justice: from atomism to community justice / Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon -- Reconstructing the moral claim of racially unjust mass incarceration / Alison Benders -- The systemic erasure of the Black/dark-skinned body in Catholic ethics / Bryan Massingale -- Anti-blackness and white supremacy in the making of American Catholicism / M. Shawn Copeland -- White privilege / Charles E. Curran -- The Black Lives Matter Movement: justice and health equity / Michael P. Jaycox -- Mujerista theology: a challenge to traditional theology / Ada María Isasi-Díaz -- Faith of our mothers; Catholic womanist God-talk / Diana L. Hayes. (shrink)

Larmore aims to recover three forms of moral complexity that have often been neglected by moral and political philosophers. First, he argues that virtue is not simply the conscientious adherence to principle. Rather, the exercise of virtue apply. He argues - and this is the second pattern of complexity - that recognizing the value of constitutive ties with shared forms of life does not undermine the liberal ideal of political neutrality toward differing ideals of the good life. Finally Larmore agrues (...) for what he calls the heterogeneity of morality. Moral thinking need not be exclusively deontological or consequentialist, and we should recognize that the ultimate sources of moral value are diverse. The arguments presented here do not attack the possibility of moral theory. But in addressing some of the central issues of moral and political thinking today thay attempt to restore to that thinking greater flexibility and a necessary sensitivity to our common experience. (shrink)

The essays collected in this volume all explore the problem of the relation between moral philosophy and modernity. Charles Larmore addresses this problem by attempting to define the way distinctive forms of modern experience should orientate our moral thinking. Charles Larmore wonders whether the dominant forms of modern philosophy have not become blind to important dimensions of the moral life. The book argues against recent attempts to return to the virtue-centered perspective of ancient Greek ethics. As well as (...) exploring the differences between ancient and modern ethics, the author examines such topics as the roles of reason and history in our moral understanding, the inadequacy of philsophical naturalism, and the foundations of modern liberalism. There are also extended discussions of a number of leading contemporary philosophers: Rawls, Habermas, Williams and Rorty. (shrink)

When we consider the concepts and assumptions of a way of interpreting we are not abstracting ourselves from concrete analytical practice, but are dealing with one dimension of that practice. When a person’s assumptions and concepts change, aspects of his therapeutic work will also change. The philosophical ideal of conceptual clarity means that one strives to be able to recognize how he interprets what is going on—he strives to recognize how he proceeds with the therapeutic process in relation to other (...) options. In that way he has a far better chance of allowing the experience to speak for itself to him, i.e., when he knows something about his own assumptions in relation to a variety of other assumptions, he is able to hear how an occurrence exceeds or differs from his own accustomed ways in which he makes sense of things. (shrink)

The book includes more than 75 examples and more than 600 problems. A solutions manual is available upon qualifying course adoptions.

In The Autonomy of Morality Charles Larmore challenges two ideas that have shaped the modern mind. The world, he argues, is not a realm of value-neutral fact, nor does human freedom consist in imposing principles of our own devising on an alien reality. Rather, reason consists in being responsive to reasons for thought and action that arise from the world itself. Larmore shows that the moral good has an authority that speaks for itself. Only in this light does the (...) true basis of a liberal political order come into view, as well as the role of unexpected goods in the makeup of a life lived well. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper the word mystery refers to “what“ cannot be understood or intellectually grasped; a mystery is concealed and unavailable for direct explanation. The questions the discussion raises address the decisive differences that sensibilities and feelings often make in our encounters with mysteries as well as occurrences of mystery that seem undetermined by differences of sensibility. The main topics are: mystery and eternal return, contexts of mystery, another kind of speaking about mystery (that take account of one's own (...) sensibility), turning away from Nietzsche and Heidegger and toward a prioritizing of feeling. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 45, Issue 3, pp 319 - 340 This paper engages “A Triadic Conversation” in _Conversations on a Country Path_. The context of this engagement is Heidegger’s account of τέχνη and φύσις in _Contributions to Philosophy _ as they are put to work in the conversation of a guide, a scholar, and a scientist. The leading questions are whether Heidegger’s thoughts of _Seyn, Wesen_, and _Machination_ are helpful to understand and engage the pressing challenges to Western societies? Are (...) those challenges primarily the devastations wrought by a culture of technology and its accompanying mind-set that, according to Heidegger, inevitably lead to war and massive types of destruction among all worldly lives? And is “A Triadic Conversation” an indication of a dangerous alienation from the everyday social and political world in which it was conceived? Stillness and silence play significant roles in the discussion of his accounts of the _Wesen_ of humans and of nature as it brings to bear the everyday events that defined the time during which Heidegger wrote “A Triadic Conversation.” The paper concludes with a reflection on the importance of the differences between Heidegger’s approach and ones that begin by confronting the confusing, uncertain, but specific events that are taking place in the thinkers’ world. (shrink)

In Curran's latest book, Diverse Voices in Modern US Moral Theology, he presents the twelve leading voices of Catholic Moral Theology (CMT) from the early twentieth century to the present. (One could argue that Curran, himself, should be in this book.) The book discusses key individuals, and one movement that included multiple people, in the development of the field to show how it has evolved. The New Wine, New Wineskins movement was included because the movement was led by lay people, (...) showing how dramatically the face of CMT changed. The book provides overviews of the major figures in CMT without offering critique in order to foster a dialogue between liberal and conservative approaches to MT, and demonstrates that one's approach to CMT is very rooted in one's historical circumstances--called Sitz-im-Leben in the field. It is the last aim that provides the main argument for the book; that CMT has changed and each of these theologians have shifted thinking largely because of the historical context in which they wrote. Curran also shows that those on opposing sides of the debates in moral theology have become more divided and urges in his conclusion that they have more conversations with each other and not just discussions within each side. (shrink)

An examination of split-brain syndrome, and whether split-brain patients have two minds.

Whether the redeeming activity of God can be an intelligible and compelling reality in a postmodern society represents a profound challenge to the Christian church. By paying attention to evil as an abuse of power, the church may be able to present and embody a rehabilitated Christus Victor view of the atonement to a radically suspicious postmodern society.