It is well known that the medieval scholastics did not begin their philosophy systematically with an explicit theory of knowledge. Unfortunately many people have concluded from that fact that the very idea of an epistemology, and especially the idea of a critique of knowledge, was completely foreign to them. Within recent years authors such as Professor Van Steenberghen and Father Copleston have done a great deal to spread a correct understanding of St. Thomas’s views on this matter. Much evidence might (...) be adduced from the principal work of John Duns Scotus to show that he also took steps to justify man’s spontaneous conviction that some natural knowledge of truth with certainty can be attained. In this article we will consider some of these elements of Scotus’s philosophy as they are found in the volumes that have so far appeared in the critical edition of his works. (shrink)

Only someone who has written or lectured, through the medium of Irish, on philosophy can fully appreciate the magnificent work done by Fr. Colmn Ó Huallachin in compiling this Philosopher’s Dictionary. Philosophy, like every specialised science, has its own vocabulary. Philosophers, physicists, biologists, economists must all use terms that are not found in everyday language. Before the publication of Foclir Fealsaimh, a philosopher who used Irish as a medium had to work under a serious handicap because he had no dictionary (...) to which he could refer to find the exact term he needed. Many of these terms were already in Irish but they were scattered through books and manuscripts written by Irish philosophers and theologians of the past and not readily available to-day. Other terms were new, terms that were not known when Irish was a normal medium of philosophical and theological thought, and these terms did not exist in Irish at all. As a result, the philosopher who lectured or wrote in Irish often had to spend much time looking for the exact term he needed or finding the best root on which to base a new Irish term. (shrink)

Considering the difficulty of Heidegger’s work this short expository and critical study is worthy of note as being both readable and scholarly. It should prove very helpful to those who have already some acquaintance with the general lines of Heidegger’s philosophy.

An accessible guide to philosophy, presenting a collection of 70 essays covering the major themes, theories and arguments of the most prominent thinkers of ancient Greece.

Lucy F. O'Brien; XII*—The Problem of Self-Identification, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 235–252, https://doi.o.

This text considers Aquinas the theologian, his profession as a teacher and preacher, his influence past and present, and theology as the subject of his thought and most of his writings. It examines the Summa theologiae in terms of its purpose and multiple structures. The centre piece of this volume is a tour through the themes of Christianity, as presented in the Summa, themes which range from Triune divine being, to the graced person as the image of God, and a (...) member of the body of Christ, to the life beyond death. (shrink)

Catholic theology today is not so much a new idea about God or Christian data but word, message, and medium interpreting and communicating the kerygma.

After having developed his theory of being, the causes and theology, Avicenna studies in chapter 7 of book IX of Philosophia prima the end of human beings. In this paper I analyze Avicenna’s considerations from a metaphysical perspective, and the importance that metaphysics has in the education of human desire. This education must be developed on metaphysical grounds because human being’s most proper desire does not match that of our sensitive desires. This kind of desire is not immediate to our (...) sensory experience, but is known through the arguments placed at the end of the Metaphysics. Thus, metaphysics as an essential feature of the education of human desire might allow us to distinguish different kinds of men. This attitude leads to the classification between ordinary souls and holy souls, i.e. those which enjoy the pleasure of knowledge and those which not. (shrink)

Book description: * Seventeen brand-new essays by leading philosophers and psychologists * Genuinely interdisciplinary work, at the forefront of both fields * Includes a valuable introduction, uniting common threads Leading philosophers and psychologists join forces to investigate a set of problems to do with agency and self-awareness, in seventeen specially written essays. In recent years there has been much psychological and neurological work purporting to show that consciousness and self-awareness play no role in causing actions, and indeed to demonstrate that (...) free will is an illusion. The essays in this volume subject the assumptions that motivate such claims to sustained interdisciplinary scrutiny. Patients with Anarchic Hand syndrome sometimes find their hands perform apparently goal-directed actions which the patients disown, yet seem to be unable to suppress (for example, reaching out for someone else's food in a restaurant). On the face of it, these patients lack the kind of control and self-awareness we ordinarily take ourselves to have when acting intentionally. Questions raised by this phenomenon include: What is involved in being aware of an action as one's own? What is the nature of the control these patients are lacking and which characterizes normal intentional actions? What is the relation between a priori explanations of consciousness and self-consciousness, on the one hand, and empirical work on the information-processing mechanisms involved in action control, on the other? Questions of action control and self-awareness tend to be treated separately in both philosophy and psychology. The central idea behind this volume is that outstanding unresolved issues on both topics, and in both disciplines, can only be resolved by an interdisciplinary examination of the relations between them. The editors' useful introductory essay offers a guide to cross-disciplinary reading of the contributions, and makes connections between them explicit. The book will be compulsory reading for psychologists and philosophers working on action explanation, and for anyone interested in the relation between the brain sciences and consciousness. (shrink)

This essay, beginning with pastoral and theological reasons why Karl Rahner is still important fifteen years after his death, discusses how his theology figures explicitly in a graduate course, and implicitly in an undergraduate course. Special attention is paid to the transcendental, categorical and historical modalities of grace and revelation.

In spite of vast global improvements in living standards, health, and well-being, the persistence of absolute poverty and its attendant maladies remains an unsettling fact of life for billions around the world and constitutes the primary cause for the failure of developing states to improve the health of their peoples. While economic development in developing countries is necessary to provide for underlying determinants of health – most prominently, poverty reduction and the building of comprehensive primary health systems – inequalities in (...) power within the international economic order and the spread of neoliberal development policy limit the ability of developing states to develop economically and realize public goods for health. With neoliberal development policies impacting entire societies, the collective right to development, as compared with an individual rights-based approach to development, offers a framework by which to restructure this system to realize social determinants of health. The right to development, working through a vector of rights, can address social determinants of health, obligating states and the international community to support public health systems while reducing inequities in health through poverty-reducing economic growth. At an international level, where the ability of states to develop economically and to realize public goods through public health systems is constrained by international financial institutions, the implementation of the right to development enables a restructuring of international institutions and foreign-aid programs, allowing states to enter development debates with a right to cooperation from other states, not simply a cry for charity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This volume collects seven articles of Carlo Paolazzi, O.F.M., previously published in journals and congress proceedings between 1996 and 2004, each of them dealing with the Writings of Francis. The essays are not arranged chronologically but move from more general to more specific studies on the Writings of Francis of Assisi. The titles of the essays included are: 1) The Birth of the Writings and Constitution of the Canon (...) ; 2) Francis, Theology and the Letter to brother Anthony ; 3) Anthony cites Francis: the Epilogue of the Sunday Sermons and the Early Rule XVI ; 4) The Writings between Francis and his secretaries: a Knot to be Untied ; 5) Concerning the Autographs of brother Francis: Doubts, Verifications and Confirmations ; 6) Concerning the Authenticity of the Writings of Francis to the "Poor Ladies" ; 7) The Lesser Brothers and Books: Concerning the Exegesis of "the books necessary to fulfill their office" and "Those who do not know how to read" . Each of the essays displays a careful methodology and appreciation for the evangelical content of the texts.The first essay deals with the establishment of the "canon" of Francis's writings in which the author demonstrates that the writings are born and develop from Francis's relationship with the Word of God. In this context, "writing" takes on the character of an "essential moment" in Francis's relationship with the Word , with God and with the brotherhood. This explains for Paolazzi, the passion with which Francis recommends the writings to those to whom they are addressed.The second and third essays are related to Anthony of Padua and the writings. The second essay deals with the content and authenticity of the Letter to Anthony, included by Kajetan Esser in the canon of Francis's writings. Paolazzi argues that the expression, "Brother Anthony my bishop" goes back to Francis himself. He suggests that Anthony's request for permission to teach reflects the concern of the novice who had permission from his minister to have a breviary, but was uncomfortable and needed Francis's explicit permission , a characteristic of the tension in the brotherhood upon Francis's return from Egypt in 1220. The conditions Francis places on the teaching of Anthony reflect Francis's concern that the Word of God not be approached purely from an intellectual perspective, but rather as a Word which must transform life. The third essay attempts to demonstrate that the Epilogue to Anthony's Sunday Sermons integrates sections of chapter 17 of the Early Rule. Paolazzi concludes this careful lexical study with the affirmation that Anthony had the Early Rule's exhortation to preachers in chapter 17 before his eyes as he concluded his Opus Evangeliorum .In the fourth essay Paolazzi tackles the question of the role played by secretaries in the production of the Writings of Francis. Scholars, including Esser, have suggested that because of his health and/or because of his status as "illiterate," Francis depended on secretaries to put his thoughts on paper. Paolazzi approaches the question by citing a saying attributed to Francis from the Mirror of Perfection . That this saying goes back to the historical Francis Paolazzi concludes based on both the content and the fact that it reflects Francis's literal approach to the Gospel. The saying states that Francis wanted no one to call him good, father or master because of the teaching of Christ in the Gospel who said that only God should be addressed with these titles . He then studies the usage and appearance of these three terms in the Writings of Francis, which confirm a consistent usage in accord with this saying. This demonstrates that the Writings reflect the "speech" of Francis and not simply his conceptual thought. Paolazzi considers that "in the Writings religious thought and the verbal lexicon of evangelical inspiration respond one to.. (shrink)

Today''s headlines suggest that economic criteria alone is the basis for business decision-making. This paper argues that while profitability is a legitimate end of business, it must be moderated by ethical considerations. But can business be both successfuland ethical? Practical examples highlight individuals who chose profitability over ethical responsibility and those who chose and continue to choose both. The authors propose that there is an ethical person profile. Corporate managers can resolve the profits vs ethics dilemma by modeling ethical behavior.