John Paul II neither rejects modernity nor exalts the freedom it has engendered. Rather, he affirms the modem aspiration to achieve "the completeliberation of man," but does so in terms of "the complete truth about the human being" and "the truth and love revealed to men by Jesus Christ.".

Beginning by praising Carson Holloway’s The Way of Life: John Paul II and the Challenge of Liberal Modernity for both contributing to our understanding of John Paul’s posture toward modernity and bringing his thought into conversation with the thought of some of the intellectual architects of liberal modernity, my essayproceeds to identify several subjects I wish Holloway had explored further, including the positive aspects of John Paul’s appraisal of liberal modernity and the engagement with modern thought that looms so large (...) in his pre-papal philosophical writings. It then explores John Paul’s account of the achievements issuing from the modern quest for freedom, and the connection between the crisis that has engulfed this quest and the understanding of human freedom that informs contemporary culture. Against this backdrop, it examines John Paul’s efforts to address this crisis by articulating an anthropology that will assimilate the legitimateinsights of modern philosophies of freedom and consciousness into the broader framework provided by the philosophy of being as that philosophy has been understood within the Christian metaphysical tradition; and how the understanding of freedom that emerges from this anthropology differs from that which dominates contemporary culture. Far from being an adversary of the modern quest for freedom, John Paul believes that this quest is ultimately rooted in the revolution in human self-understanding wrought by Christianity, and seeks to articulate the intellectual foundation necessary to bring it to a successful conclusion. (shrink)

This article focuses on the conclusion in which the analyses of the previous papers converge, namely, the emergence of a new and radically different public order that is emerging in contemporary America. While Catholics could never feel completely comfortable in the older order that preceded it, the culture that informed this order had many features that were consistent with the Catholic vision of man, society, and the human good; and it secured for the Church a broad freedom to exercise her (...) ministry and for Catholics the freedom they needed to practice the faith. In sharp contrast, the new order installs at the heart of public life an ethic of human autonomy incompatible with the Catholic understanding, and jeopardizes the freedom of the Church and of Catholics to practice the faith. The emergence of this new order will require Catholics to rethink their relationship to American culture and the American state. (shrink)

Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed offers a compelling critique of liberalism that casts considerable light on many of our current discontents. Nevertheless, its argument is vitiated by certain shortcomings, namely, a failure to recognize the role of other traditions in inspiring and shaping liberal democracy, and to do justice to the achievements, history, and complexities of the liberal intellectual tradition. Likewise, its account of liberalism fails to address that tradition’s defining philosophical commitments, commitments that determine the limits and possibilities of (...) its political theorizing and explain its historical trajectory toward an ever-deeper individualism. It will not be possible to escape the intellectual prison of Enlightenment Liberalism’s moral emotivism and hyper-individualism until we have transcended the impoverished metaphysics from which they issue. (shrink)

This essay explores the impact of the ancient principle of the freedom of the Church—identified by the Second Vatican Council as “the fundamental principle” governing “the relations between the Church and governments and the whole civil order”—on both Western civilization and the development of modern Catholic social thought. Arguing that this principle requires the articulation and institutionalization of a new understanding of society and government, it contends this principle revolutionized the structure of Western political life and helped lay the groundwork (...) for Western liberty. At the same time, it maintains that the development in contemporary Catholic social teaching that crystallizes in Dignitatis Humanae must be seen in the context of the ongoing effort of Catholic thought to understand the nature and role of the state towards which the idea of the freedom of the Church points. (shrink)

This article focuses on the conclusion in which the analyses of the previous papers converge, namely, the emergence of a new and radically different public order that is emerging in contemporary America. While Catholics could never feel completely comfortable in the older order that preceded it, the culture that informed this order had many features that were consistent with the Catholic vision of man, society, and the human good; and it secured for the Church a broad freedom to exercise her (...) ministry and for Catholics the freedom they needed to practice the faith. In sharp contrast, the new order installs at the heart of public life an ethic of human autonomy incompatible with the Catholic understanding, and jeopardizes the freedom of the Church and of Catholics to practice the faith. The emergence of this new order will require Catholics to rethink their relationship to American culture and the American state. (shrink)

The contributions to this symposium raise several issues that extend beyond an examination of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. For example, is the conventional distinction between ancient and modern in political philosophy too simplistic? Is religion necessary to preserve democracy, and if so, what kind of religion must it be? Theological and sociological sources both suggest that the fate of democracy in the modern world is inextricably, not merely accidentally, connected with the fate of Christianity.

Steven D. Smith’s Pagans and Christians in the City takes its place alongside James Davison Hunter’s Culture Wars as one of the two truly indispensable books on today’s Culture Wars. It advances our understanding of today’s conflict by situating it historically and focusing our attention on its religious dimension. Smith argues that today’s conflict is the latest episode in a longstanding conflict between immanent forms of religiosity which locate the sacred in the world of space and time, and transcendent forms (...) of religiosity which locate the divine beyond space and time. As compelling as it is, the volume’s argument would have been strengthened by a more sustained treatment of the nature of the political community and the essential role played within it by the truths held in common by the members concerning God, man, nature, and history. (shrink)

Robert R. Reilly’s America on Trial: A Defense of the Founding argues that the intellectual roots of the founders’ political theory are found in the Christian understanding of man, society and the world, and in the tradition of natural law thinking that emerged under its aegis. The American founding, he concludes, must be understood as an attempted “re-establishment” of “the principles and practices” of medieval constitutionalism. While finding the broad outlines of Reilly’s argument persuasive, the author worries that Reilly does (...) not adequately take into account the eclectic character of the founders’ thought, the influence of the Enlightenment and Reformation on it, and the long-term implications of the latter influences for the historical trajectory of public order they created. The contrast between Reilly’s understanding of the founding and John Courtney Murray’s more nuanced account, the article argues, underscores both the strengths and weaknesses of this book. While both Reilly and Murray would agree that the founding was “good,” Murray, unlike Reilly, recognizes that “the seeds of dissolution” were present from the beginning and worries whether it is ultimately “good enough” to sustain the American experiment in self-government and ordered liberty. (shrink)

In the face of the new and radically different type of public order that seems to be emerging on the contemporary scene, Catholics have sought to secure the legal and social space necessary for themselves and their institutions to live in accordance with their beliefs by appealing to America’s historic commitment to religious freedom. The difficulty we confront is that the vision of man and society animating this order, a vision that emerges from Enlightenment Liberalism issues in an impoverished understanding (...) of religious freedom that fails to secure this legal and social space. (shrink)

This volume brings together eminent theologians, philosophers and political theorists to discuss such questions as how religious understandings have shaped the moral landscape of contemporary culture; the possible contributions of theology and theologically informed moral argument to contemporary public life; the problem of religious and moral discourse in a pluralistic society; and the proper relationship between religion and culture.

As reports of genocide, terrorism, and political violence fill today’s newscasts, more attention has been given to issues of human rights—but all too often the sound bites seem overly simplistic. Many Westerners presume that non-Western peoples yearn for democratic rights, while liberal values of toleration give way to xenophobia. This book shows that the identification of rights with contemporary liberal democracy is inaccurate and questions the assumptions of many politicians and scholars that rights are self-evident in all circumstances and will (...) overcome any conflicts of thought or interest. _Rethinking Rights_ offers a radical reconsideration of the origins, nature, and role of rights in public life, interweaving perspectives of leading scholars in history, political science, philosophy, and law to emphasize rights as a natural outgrowth of a social understanding of human nature and dignity. The authors argue that every person comes to consciousness in a historical and cultural milieu that must be taken into account in understanding human rights, and they describe the omnipresence of concrete, practical rights in their historical, political, and philosophical contexts. By rooting our understanding of rights in both history and the order of existence, they show that it is possible to understand rights as essential to our lives as social beings but also open to refinement within communities. An initial group of essays retraces the origins and historical development of rights in the West, assessing the influence of such thinkers as Locke, Burke, and the authors of the Declaration of Independence to clarify the experience of rights within the Western tradition. A second group addresses the need to rethink our understanding of the nature of existence if we are to understand rights and their place in any decent life, examining the ontological basis of rights, the influence of custom on rights, the social nature of the human person, and the importance of institutional rights. Steering a middle course between radical individualist and extreme egalitarian views, _Rethinking Rights_ proposes a new philosophy of rights appropriate to today’s world, showing that rights need to be rethought in a manner that brings them back into accord with human nature and experience so that they may again truly serve the human good. By engaging both the history of rights in the West and the multicultural challenge of rights in an international context, _Rethinking Rights_ offers a provocative and coherent new argument to advance the field of rights studies. (shrink)

A work of contemporary Christian political thought, this volume addresses the crisis of modern democracy evident in the decline of the institutions of civil society and their theoretical justification. Drawing upon a rich store of social and political reflection found in the Catholic and Neo-Calvinist traditions, the essays mount a robust defense of the irreducible identity and value of the social institutions_family, neighborhood, church, civic association_that serve as the connective tissue of a political community.

The Oxford English Dictionary says that a rite is ‘a formal procedure or act in a religious or other solemn observance’. The word comes into English through the French rite from the Latin ritus . Its original meaning escapes etymologists; and this is a mixed blessing, for we neither can nor must attempt a retrieval of its hidden roots. We are told by respectable etymologists that the word is associated from earliest times with Latin religious usage, but that even in (...) the early Latin it was already extended to ‘custom, usage, manner or way’ of a non-religious sort. [Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary .] So, too, in modern languages the terms ‘rite’ and ‘ritual’ have specifically religious meaning, but they are also used in social and cultural settings that we would not call religious. What first strikes us about the terms ’ and ‘ritual’ is an emphasis upon a certain formality, upon a regular and stable way in which an action or set of actions is to be performed. A ritual is more than a formalism, however, since there are formalisms that are not rites, such as the logical rules for making a valid argument. Moreover, the term is frequently associated with the terms ‘myth’, ‘symbol’ and ‘faith’. These, too, are primarily religious, but are also extended to non-religious contexts. Indeed, there seems to be a network of such terms whose usage touches upon some extraordinary quality in things. Like them, the term ‘ritual’ shares both a wide variety of meanings and a certain hint of impropriety. The variety of ritual forms is notorious, ranging from the most sacred religious liturgies to the absurdities of a fraternity initiation; and the impropriety of the term breaks out whenever we brand a certain action ‘ritualistic’, just as we sometimes refer slightingly to an assertion, saying it is ‘mythical’, ‘merely symbolic’ or ‘credulous’. (shrink)

Berkeley's philosophy is meant to be a defense of commonsense. However, Berkeley's claim that the ultimate constituents of physical reality are fleeting, causally passive ideas appears to be radically at odds with commonsense. In particular, such a theory seems unable to account for the robust structure which commonsense (and Newtonian physics) takes the world to exhibit. The problem of structure, as I understand it, includes the problem of how qualities can be grouped by their co-occurrence in a single enduring object (...) and how these enduring objects can bear spatiotemporal, causal, and other relations to one another. I argue that Berkeley's solution to these problems lies in his views about language. At one level, human language allows us to exploit patterns in our perceptions to construct a highly structured representation of the physical world which allows us to make accurate predictions at minimal cognitive expense. At a deeper level, these patterns occur in perception because our perceptions themselves form a language in which God speaks to us. (shrink)

The argument from contingency for the existence of God is best understood as a request for an explanation of the total sequence of causes and effects in the universe (‘History’ for short). Many puzzles about how there could be such an explanation arise from the assumption that God is being introduced as one more cause prepended to the sequence of causes that (allegedly) needed explaining. In response to this difficulty, this chapter defends three theses. First, it argues that, if the (...) argument from contingency is to succeed, the explanation of History in terms of God must not be a causal explanation; second, that a particular hypothesis about God’s relation to History—that God is what I call the foundational ground of History—is intelligible and explanatory; third and finally, that the explanatory advantages of this hypothesis cannot be had within the confines of naturalism. (shrink)

Each author first presents his own side, and then they interact through two rounds of objections and replies. Pedagogical features include standard form arguments, section summaries, bolded key terms and principles, a glossary, and annotated reading lists.

An omnipotent being would be a being whose power was unlimited. The power of human beings is limited in two distinct ways: we are limited with respect to our freedom of will, and we are limited in our ability to execute what we have willed. These two distinct sources of limitation suggest a simple definition of omnipotence: an omnipotent being is one that has both perfect freedom of will and perfect efficacy of will. In this paper we further explicate this (...) definition and show that it escapes the standard objections to divine omnipotence. (shrink)

A great deal of the criticism directed at Locke's theory of abstract ideas assumes that a Lockean abstract idea is a special kind of idea which by its very nature either represents many diverse particulars or represents separately things that cannot exist in separation. This interpretation of Locke has been challenged by scholars such as Kenneth Winkler and Michael Ayers who regard it as uncharitable in light of the obvious problems faced by this theory of abstraction. Winkler and Ayers (...) argue that Locke instead held that to have an abstract idea is to attend selectively to some portion of the content of a particular idea. On this view, to have an abstract idea is not to have a special kind of idea but to have an ordinary idea in a special way. Ayers argues that Locke inherited this theory from Arnauld. I argue that the case made by Ayers for the attribution of the extrinsic theory to Locke rests on a misinterpretation of Arnauld. In fact, both Locke and Arnauld regard selective attention as part of a process whereby a new kind of idea is constructed. (shrink)

Berkeley's philosophy is meant to be a defense of commonsense. However, Berkeley's claim that the ultimate constituents of physical reality are fleeting, causally passive ideas appears to be radically at odds with commonsense. In particular, such a theory seems unable to account for the robust structure which commonsense (and Newtonian physics) takes the world to exhibit. The problem of structure, as I understand it, includes the problem of how qualities can be grouped by their co-occurrence in a single enduring object (...) and how these enduring objects can bear spatiotemporal, causal, and other relations to one another. I argue that Berkeley's solution to these problems lies in his views about language. At one level, human language allows us to exploit patterns in our perceptions to construct a highly structured representation of the physical world which allows us to make accurate predictions at minimal cognitive expense. At a deeper level, these patterns occur in perception because our perceptions themselves form a language in which God speaks to us. (shrink)

In the Introduction to the Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley attacks the “received opinion that language has no other end but the communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an idea” (PHK, Intro §19). How far does Berkeley go in rejecting this ‘received opinion’? Does he offer a general theory of language to replace it? If so, what is the nature of this theory? In this chapter, I consider three main interpretations of Berkeley's view: (...) the modified ideational theory, the speaker intentions theory, and the use theory. I argue that the use theory does, and its competitors do not, make sense of Berkeley's remarks on language in both the earlier and later works. (shrink)

According to commonsense, some collections of objects compose wholes, and others do not. However, philosophers have found serious difficulties with attempts to preserve this thesis, and especially with attempts to preserve the existence of just those composite objects recognized by commonsense. In this paper, I defend a classical solution to this problem: "it is the mind that maketh each thing to be one" (Berkeley, Siris, sect. 356). According to this view, which I call 'mereological idealism,' it is when a plurality (...) is united in thought under a concept that a unified whole comes to exist. After explaining the view in more detail, I show how it escapes three standard arguments against commonsense views of composition. (shrink)

This paper correlates community service goals from 82 business firms with various organizational characteristics, including goals, niches, structure, context, and performance. The results demonstrate that community-service goals are positively correlated with prestige goals, assets goals, superior-design niche, net assets size, and performance on income to net assets. Community-service goals, however, were not significantly correlated with profit goals, low-price niche, multiplicity of outputs, workflow continuity, qualifications, or centralization, as expected.

The central unifying element in the philosophy of Peter Browne is his theory of analogy. Although Browne's theory was originally developed to deal with some problems about religious language, Browne regards analogy as a general purpose cognitive mechanism whereby we substitute an idea we have to stand for an object of which we, strictly speaking, have no idea. According to Browne, all of our ideas are ideas of sense, and ideas of sense are ideas of material things. Hence we can (...) conceive of spiritual things – including even our own spirit – only by analogy. One interesting application Browne makes of his theory is an account of how concepts such as knowledge can be correctly applied to beings that have no intrinsic properties in common, such as non-human animals, humans, angels, and God. I argue that this is best understood as what, in the contemporary literature, is known as a ‘multiple realizability’ problem and that Browne's solution to this problem has important similarities to functionalist theories in recent philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The will of an omnipotent being would be perfectly efficacious. Alexander Pruss and I have provided an analysis of perfect efficacy that relies on non-trivial counterpossible conditionals. Scott Hill has objected that not all of the required counterpossibles are true of God. Sarah Adams has objected that perfect efficacy of will (on any analysis) would be an extrinsic property and so is not suitable as a divine attribute. I argue that both of these objections can be answered if the divine (...) will is taken to be the ground, rather than the cause, of its fulfillment. (shrink)

Alexander Pruss and I have proposed an analysis of omnipotence which makes no use of the problematic terms 'power' and 'ability'. However, this raises an obvious worry: if our analysis is not related to the notion of power, then how can it count as an analysis of omnipotence, the property of being all-powerful, at all? In this paper, I show how omnipotence can be understood as the possession of infinite power (general, universal, or unlimited power) rather than the possession of (...) particular powers. I then argue that the ordinary notions of particular powers or abilities can be understood as applying vague limitations to the notion of infinite power. The vagueness of these limitations is the source of the well-known difficulties in the analysis of ability. (shrink)

Malebranche argues that ideas are representative beings existing in God. He defends this thesis by an inference to the best explanation of human perception. It is well known that Malebranche’s theory of vision in God was forcefully rejected by philosophers such as Arnauld, Locke, and Berkeley. However, the notion that ideas exist in God was not the only controversial aspect of Malebranche’s approach. Another controversy centered around Malebranche’s view that ideas are to be understood as posits in an explanatory theory. (...) Opponents of this approach, including Arnauld and Locke, held that our talk about ideas was not explanatory but instead merely descriptive: we use the word ‘idea’ to describe phenomena that we observe by reflecting on our own minds. This controversy has not received much attention from scholars, but in the present paper I will show that it was an explicit and important subject of concern for Malebranche, Arnauld, Locke, and Berkeley and that attention to this controversy can illuminate several aspects of these philosophers’ work. (shrink)

In the Preface to the Three Dialogues<, Berkeley says that one of his main aims is to refute the free-thinkers. Puzzlingly, however, we are then treated to a dialogue between two Christians in which the free-thinkers never reappear. This is related to a second, more general puzzle about Berkeley's religious polemics: although Berkeley says he is defending orthodox conclusions, he also reminds himself in his notebooks "To use the utmost Caution not to give the least Handle of offence to the (...) Church or Church-men." What is Berkeley worried about? Both of these puzzles are solved by the recognition that the argument against matter in the Three Dialogues is patterned after an argument for atheism that Berkeley attributed to Anthony Collins. Berkeley's aim is thus to use the free-thinkers' own premises and arguments against them. In doing this, however, he rejects doctrines many churchmen held dear -- most notably, the doctrine of divine analogy. (shrink)

In his dispute with Malebranche about the nature of ideas, Arnauld endorses a form of direct realism. This appears to conflict with views put forward by Arnauld and his collaborators in the Port-Royal Grammar and Logic where ideas are treated as objects in the mind. This tension can be resolved by a careful examination of Arnauld's remarks on the semantics of ‘perception’ and ‘idea’ in light of the Port-Royal theory of language. This examination leads to the conclusion that Arnauld's ideas (...) really are objects in the mind, and not perceptual acts as many commentators hold. What Arnauld denies is that these mental objects are really distinct from the external objects they represent. Instead, Arnauld holds that, by the act of conception, the external objects themselves—not copies—come to be present in the mind and are therefore called ‘ideas’. (shrink)

Traditionally, religious doctrines and practices have been divided into two categories. Those that purport to be justified by natural reason alone are said to be part of natural religion, while those which purport to be justified only by appeal to supernatural revelation are said to be part of revealed religion. One of the central aims of Berkeley's philosophy is to understand and defend both the doctrines and the practices of both natural and revealed (Christian) religion. This chapter will provide a (...) survey of this aspect of Berkeley's thought. (shrink)

Making sense of our reasoning in disputes about necessary truths requires admitting nonvacuous counterpossibles. One class of these is the counteressentials, which ask us to make contrary to fact suppositions about essences. A popular strategy in accounting for nonvacuous counterpossibles is to extend the standard possible worlds semantics for subjunctive conditionals by the addition of impossible worlds. A conditional A □-> C is then taken to be true if all of the nearest A worlds are C worlds. I argue that (...) a straightforward extension of the standard possible worlds semantics to impossible worlds does not result in a viable account of counteressentials and propose an alternative covering law semantics for counteressentials. (shrink)

William King's De Origine Mali contains an interesting, sophisticated, and original account of free will. King finds 'necessitarian' theories of freedom, such as those advocated by Hobbes and Locke, inadequate, but argues that standard versions of libertarianism commit one to the claim that free will is a faculty for going wrong. On such views, free will is something we would be better off without. King argues that both problems can be avoided by holding that we confer value on objects by (...) valuing them. Such a view secures sourcehood and alternative possibilities while denying that free will is simply a capacity to choose contrary to our best judgment. This theory escapes all of the objections levelled against it by Leibniz and also has interesting consequences for ethics: although constructed within a eudaimonist framework, King's theory gives rise to a very strong moral requirement of respect for individual self-determination. (shrink)