ARTICLE - AFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE AND CONNATURALITY IN AQUINAS

REVISITING AFFECTIVE KNOWLEDGE AND CONNATURALITY IN AQUINAS
Thomas Ryan. Theological Studies. Washington: Mar 2005. Vol. 66, Iss. 1; p. 49 (20 pages)

The author investigates the nature and function of affective cognition through connaturality in Thomas Aquinas. Its modulations are disclosed in the human attraction to happiness, in emotions and their moral significance, in the affective virtues (fortitude and temperance), and in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Finally, the article notes some convergences between the thought of Aquinas and Bernard Lonergan concerning conversion and intentionality, both epistemological and existential

THOMAS RYAN, S.M., received his Ph.D. (with distinction) from the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia. Until recently a member of the College of Theology in the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, he is currently adjunct lecturer with the same university and with the Australian Catholic University, and a research fellow at Griffith University, Brisbane. His specialization focuses on the moral significance of emotions, as well as on human affectivity in theology and Christian living. He has contributed articles to the Australasian Catholic Record, Compass, and the Australian EJournal of Theology. Among his present research projects is a study on primordial moral awareness, interdisciplinary perspectives.

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ARTICLES: Moreland on 'Biblical Eudaimonia'

J. P. Moreland, Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology, has written some recent articles on the biblical notion of eudaimonia (my characterization) in the webzine, Boundless.

"The Selfish Heart of Christianity" (1/20/05)

... we can understand Scripture as advocating self-interest as a by-product and not as an intent, as a motive and not a reason, or as a prudential reason rather than a moral one. If any of these understandings are correct, then Scriptural connections between moral behavior and self-interest do not entail egoism ... There is a second way self-interest in Scripture differs from the self-interest of egoism. As C. S. Lewis argued, there are different kinds of rewards, and some are proper because they have a natural connection to our accomplishments and express what God made us to be. Money is not a proper reward for love because it’s foreign to the desires that ought to accompany love. By contrast, victory is a proper reward for battle. It’s proper because, rather than being unnaturally tacked onto the activity for which it is given, victory is the consummation of the activity itself ... According to Lewis, our desires for heaven and other biblical rewards are natural desires expressing what we are as creatures of God. We were made to desire His presence and recognition, and these things are the natural consummations of our activity on earth. Thus, the appropriateness of seeking heaven and God’s approval derives from the fact that these results genuinely express who we are and consummate the activities for which we were designed.

"Why Happiness Isn't a Feeling" (12/2004)

According to ancient thought, happiness is a life well lived, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness and goodness. For the ancients, the happy life — the life we should dream about — is a life of virtue and character. Not only did Plato, Aristotle, the Church Fathers and medieval theologians embrace this definition, but Moses, Solomon and (most importantly) Jesus did, too. Sadly their understanding is widely displaced by the contemporary understanding of happiness defined as pleasure and satisfaction, a subjective emotional state associated with fleeting, egocentric feelings ... Eternal life as defined in the New Testament isn’t primarily about living forever, it’s about having a new kind of life, a new quality of life so distinct that those without it can, in a real sense, be called dead. It’s life lived the way we were made to function, a life of virtue, character and well being lived for the Lord Jesus.

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BOOK - Aristotle on Relation -

From the University Press of America, Pamela M. Hood (Assistant Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University) has written a significant Aristotelian work, titled, Aristotle on the Category of Relation.

• Publisher Abstract: In Aristotle on the Category of Relation, Pamela Hood challenges the view that Aristotle's conception of relation is so divergent from our own that it does not count as a theory of relation at all. Professor Hood examines Aristotle's various treatments of relation and relational entities with a special focus on Aristotle's two central texts on relation, Categories 7 and Metaphysics V.15. While the common view is that Aristotle does not have, and indeed could not have, a theory that accounts for dyadic relations, Hood's analysis reveals Aristotle's deep commitment to the dyadic nature of relation. She also unearths a feature in Aristotle's relational theory that appears to account not only for the terms of a dyadic relation, but also for the relation itself. This book presents compelling evidence that Aristotle's theory of relation is more robust than originally suspected.
  

The table of contents can be viewed here.

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ANNOUNCEMENT - New Journal on Virtues

From the Ethics and Public Policy Center, it was announced that Adjunct Fellow Naomi Schaefer Riley will be the editor of In Character -- a new journal from the John Templeton Foundation.

According to a press release from the Templeton Foundation,

"In Character is about the nature and power of the everyday virtues -- virtues such as Thrift, to which the first issue is dedicated. Each issue of the magazine will examine how a particular virtue shapes our vision of the good life. Each 'single-virtue' issue will examine a virtue from different perspectives, bringing together scholars and journalists versed in public policy, the humanities, religion, and the sciences. ... The journal is intended to foster an appreciation of the virtues themselves -- and to prompt a widespread discussion of the virtues in American life."

You can read hear Riley's comments about the journal's launch, and about her editor's introduction.


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PAPERS - Julia Annas on Ancient Ethics -

Here are some noteworthy papers (published or forthcoming) by renowned Ancient ethicist, Julia Annas:

"Marcus Aurelius: Ethics and its Background" - Forthcoming in a collection edited by Elisabetta Cattanei and Giancarlo Movia.

• ABSTRACT: Annas seeks to understand Marcus Aurelius in his Stoic context: "Marcus has been read in the Stoic tradition because his ethical thoughts are Stoic. What has seemed different are other aspects of his thought which relate to ethics, in particular two. His view of the person and the self has seemed to many to be more Platonic than Stoic. And some positions are unexpected for a Stoic. He regards the physical world as ephemeral and frequently as repulsive, to a degree that would surely be surprising to Chrysippus. And he is strikingly open to entertaining the idea that the world might be not, as Stoics hold, the product of a wise Providence, but, as Epicureans believe, the chance product of random atomic collisions. In this paper I shall have less to say about his alleged Platonism about the self, but will have something to say about Marcus’ attitude to Providence and its relation to the ethics he so strenuously tries to live by. What is going on when Marcus brings in the possibility of an alternative to Providence? How is his ethical thinking related to what generally appears to be its background? Is Marcus’ approach to metaphysics and its relation to ethics unStoic, something a more orthodox Stoic would reject, or is it something they could comfortably accept?"

"Virtue Ethics" - Forthcoming in The Oxford Companion to Ethical Theory, edited by David Copp.

• ABSTRACT [from the introduction section]: Virtue ethics is best approached by looking at the central features of what I shall call the classical version of the tradition. Its theoretical structure is first clearly stated by Aristotle, but it is wrong to think of it as peculiarly Aristotelian, since it underlies all of ancient ethical theory. The classical version is our best entry-point into the subject because we have a large amount of material which was developed and refined over hundreds of years by extensive debate, and contains resources for establishing the whole theoretical structure, and for understanding what in it is basic and what more parochial. Modern virtue ethical theories have not yet achieved such a critical mass of argument and theory, and most are as yet partial or fragmentary. As we shall see, it is only when we have this whole picture in view that we can understand other theories which call themselves virtue ethics. So we shall first build up, cumulatively, a picture of the entire structure of classical virtue ethics, and then see how different versions of virtue ethics result from ignoring or rejecting parts of that structure. The result, while unavoidably schematic, should help to clarify the various debates that are growing up in virtue ethics, and help to orientate those less familiar with the terrain and sometimes puzzled by the recent proliferation of theories with the name of virtue ethics.

"Virtue Ethics: What Kind of Naturalism?" - Forthcoming in Virtue Ethics, Old and New, edited by Stephen Gardiner

• ABSTRACT [from the introduction section]: Virtue ethics is not by definition naturalistic. It would surely be surprising if it were; most ethical theories are compatible with different positions about their relation to the world. I take it that any ethics based on virtue requires an account of the good life which the virtues enable us to achieve. On this issue of the good life most modern forms of virtue ethics are naturalistic, and often take a form called neo-Aristotelian, harking back to the best-known naturalistic theory from antiquity, Aristotle’s. When we are investigating what the good life is, these theories hold, and how living virtuously might achieve it, we are aided by investigating our human nature. This in turn we do by seeing how we humans are a part, though a distinctive part, of the world that the sciences tell us about.

"Ancient scepticism and ancient religion" - unknown whether or not this paper will be published anywhere.

• ABSTRACT [from the concluding paragraph]: Why does Sextus not make more use, when arguing about the gods, of material which might, in fact, destabilize ordinary religious belief – material which does, in Greek tragedy, produce problems about the traditional gods of Greek worship? Perhaps he himself had a very intellectual approach to religious issues, so that he concentrates on philosophical arguments about the divine, being uninterested in ordinary religious life except as a source of interesting diversities of practice. (This is arguably Cicero’s view, except that he takes traditional religious practice more seriously for its cultural and political resonances.) Or perhaps by Sextus’ time ordinary religious belief and practice could continue unworried by stories about gods behaving badly, these being regarded as irrelevant to serious arguments about the gods. There had, after all, been centuries to get used to this type of criticism, and mythical materials could by this point be regarded as an imaginative resource for poets and dramatists, rather than a significant part of religious belief and practice.If so, then both the worshippers and the philosophers thinking about the gods could ignore them. Thus Sextus’ approach to religion in the sceptical life may reflect a fact about Sextus or a fact about his audience. As so often with Sextus, this is a matter on which we end up suspending judgement.

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WEB AUDIO - Arkes on Marriage & Natural Law

Hadley Arkes, an Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) Senior Fellow, and the Edward Ney Professor American Institutions at Amherst College, gave a lecture titled, "The Question of Marriage."

The lecture was part of the EPPC's series, titled, "American Culture and Democracy"

In this lecture, Professor Hadley Arkes explained how the most serious challenge in principle to the traditional laws governing marriage in fact reveals the deeper flaws in the argument for same-sex marriage.

The lecture can be downloaded as two mp3 files: (1) and (2)

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BOOKS & REVIEWS - Aquinas & Thomism - (article)

Anthony Kenny (Oxford) offers a favorable review of Eleonore Stump's biography, titled, Aquinas in The Philosophical Quarterly 54:216 (July 2004): 457-463.

Timothy Chappell (University of Dundee) provides a comparative review of Mind, Metaphysics and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions (part of the NDU Thomistic Series) edited by John Haldane, Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth edited by James McEvoy and Michael Dunne, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism by Fergus Kerr, Aquinas by Brian Davies and Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature by Robert Pasnau. The reviews appear in The Philosophical Quarterly 54:216 (July 2004): 469-474.

• Haldane 2003: Jeffrey E. Brower, from Purdue University, also reviewed Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions, which appeared in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (March 2003); Sebastian Rehnman (Uppsala University / Johannelund Theological Seminary, Sweden), writing for Ars Disputandi: Online Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2003), provided a review.

R. J. Snell, Professor of Philosophy at North Park University, favorably reviewed Fergus Kerr's After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002) vi + 254 pp. $26.95 (paper), ISBN 0631213139] in the Christian Scholars Review 33:3 (Spring 2004): 414-17.

Long description of the book:

"Written by a leading theologian, this new account of the writings of Thomas Aquinas and their interpretation by modern commentators reflects the major revival of interest in his work. After Aquinas makes available in one volume all the material necessary for a rounded appreciation of Aquinas's work and his enduring influence. As well as revisiting Aquinas's own work, Kerr brings together a range of views that have previously appeared in disparate places, thereby exploring alternatives to the standard understanding of Aquinas's writings. This book therefore represents a major revisionist treatment of Thomism and its significance, combining useful exposition with original, creative thinking. After Aquinas will become essential reading for all undergraduate students and scholars interested in the work of this great theologian."

Final paragraph of the review:

"In the end, Kerr's Thomas looks very little like the rationalistic philosopher committed to a bland, unlikely and barely Christian natural theology. Instead, Thomas is the completely Christian thinker, deeply committed to the patristic tradition and with a mysticism underlying his reflections. Further, his reflections remain entirely relevant to the questions of our own day as we struggle to make some sense of God and our relation to Him."

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