A journal for philosophical discourse
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ABSTRACT: This paper considers William of Auvergne’s understanding of creation and divine being. As William of Auvergne, and especially his doctrine of creation, have been largely overlooked, the present paper outlines the metaphysical foundations for his understanding of creation, his understanding of divine being, how God is the cause of all things, and how all things then, in some sense,…
ABSTRACT: When the name “Étienne Gilson” is mentioned, a multitude of appropriate phrases and notions easily come to mind due to Gilson’s significant contributions in multiple areas of philosophical scholarship. Two of those areas concern 1) the notion of Christian philosophy, as well as 2) the metaphysics of Aquinas. In fact, Gilson would consider the exercise of the latter—that is, the…
A response to Spencer Klavan's “All the Small Things”—what really makes things matter; what guarantees meaning and purpose in our lives?… Read More [essay] Deeper Cosmic Significance
Summary: What does it mean “to create”? The word has seen a conceptual shift in the Western world, as the influence of deep Christian understanding has waned and a cosmologically nihilistic worldview has supplanted it as the default background. Today, one finds it applied (albeit vaguely) not only to those engaged in the high arts… Read More Call for Papers: On the Meaning of Creation
This paper examines the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) through an Aristotelian-Thomistic lens. The central argument is that AI is mischaracterized as “intelligent”: true intelligence involves the ability to understand and learn in a manner that AI fundamentally cannot achieve.… Read More [essay] Why Do We Call Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Intelligence?
While commentators on APo II.19 generally take note of Aristotle’s break from Platonism in his approach to knowledge genesis, the fact that Aristotle’s approach is yet Platonic goes unnoticed. At the same time, APo II.19 is treated as an incomplete, even embarrassing attempt by Aristotle to answer the question as to the ultimate source of the principles of science. This study exhibits the elegance…
Professor Catherine Brown Tkacz ABSTRACT: This article explores the concept of the imago Dei (image of God) as manifested uniquely in female human persons. The study begins with the Biblical affirmation in Genesis that both male and female are created in God’s image, emphasizing spiritual equality yet acknowledging the significance of sexual differences. This leads… Read More [article] The…
ABSTRACT: This essay offers an extended, reasoned walk-through Nathan Lyons’ path-breaking text, Signs in the Dust. Every so often, a book comes about that manages to show how a variety of philosophical paths, hitherto regarded as separate, are converging on a common terrain. The value of such texts is to name this common terrain, and to go beyond mere juxtaposition of different philosophical…
ABSTRACT: In this paper we will explore how the action of signs underlying all human experience precludes the possibility that we are being systematically deceived in our perception of reality. The simulation hypothesis, as well as similarly motivated skeptical scenarios, such as the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis and Descartes’ evil demon thought experiment, wrongly presuppose a modern, dualistic…
“For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.”[1] Here, Mary Oliver is making an assertion rich with significance. Her attending contemplatively to the natural world is a genuinely prayerful experience, an experience of something seemingly transcendent. … Read More [article] Nature as the “Door to the Temple”
