Virtue epistemology is new in one sense but old in another. The new tradition starts with figures such as Code, Greco, Montmarquet, and Zagzebski. The old tradition has its pedigree in Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, and their modern interpreters such as Anscombe and MacIntyre. Virtue epistemology recognizes that knowledge is something we value and that propositional knowledge requires intellectual virtues, that is to say, virtues as applied to the intellect. Although much pioneering work in the new tradition has been done on (...) propositional knowledge, comparatively little in it has been done on know-how. This is surprising, because one might naturally think of know-how as something to be refined into a skill, and virtues may be thought of as skills. In the modern epistemological tradition that does not take its direction from virtue ethics, propositional knowledge, as opposed to know-how, has received by far the bulk of the discussion, although since Ryle first argued that knowhow is not always propositional knowledge, there has been a fairly recent resurgence of interest in know-how.We value intellectual virtues because they are skills that promote our flourishing, both as individuals and as members of a community. The intellectual virtues are truth- seeking virtues and stem from a love of the truth. Since love is itself a virtue - indeed it was what Tyndale called the greatest Christian virtue before the King James translation renamed it as charity—it may be seen as the virtue that motivates all other intellectual virtues. A commitment to the truth is presupposed by any intellectual virtue. For example, logic is important to a community, and in particular to the intellectual community, not only because there are rules governing the activity of logic but also because there are those within the community who are trustworthy in following the activity and because there are publically accepted standards of accountability in the way the activity of logic is practiced. Here is how we will proceed. In section 2 we sketch a metaphysics of natural purposes that supports the claim that there are objective goods that beings need qua the kinds of being they are in order to flourish. In section 3 we argue that flourishing includes the acquisition of virtues. We give a general account of virtue, roughly as a stable disposition to act upon a habit elevated to a skill of putting one’s know-how into practice that springs from one’s motivation to pursue what one perceives as good. In section 4 we give a general sketch of intellectual virtues as truth-seeking virtues that stem from a love of the truth that are the skills to flourish intellectually. In section 5 we discuss connaturality, namely those specific metaphysical accidents readily acquired by beings due to their first nature. We make an original distinction between ontological connaturality, namely the connaturality that belongs to animals qua beings of a certain kind, and habitual connaturality, namely our first natures suffused with virtues—or vices, although we will concentrate only on virtues. Habitual connaturality is acquired through the practice of virtue and involves perceptiveness awakened by the possession of the virtue in question. The knowledge arising from this form of connaturality may be a form of know-how. In section 6 we give an account of connatural apprehension and connatural propositional knowledge. In section 7 we discuss connatural know-how and argue that it makes certain virtues possible. At this point we will have shown that intellectual and moral virtues are informed by know-how. In sections 8 and 9 we give analyses of know-how and skill in terms of counterfactual success. We show how skill is a refined form of know-how and how both know-how and skill are informed by moral and intellectual virtues. We conclude in section 10 that know-how informs intellectual and moral virtues in the sense that virtue is to be elucidated in terms of skill, which is in turn to be elucidated in terms of know-how. Moreover, virtues inform know-how in the sense that know-how is to be elucidated in terms of intellectual and moral virtues. No circularity arises because different virtues and different forms of know-how are involved. (shrink)

The idea of ‘connatural knowledge’ is attributed to Aquinas on the basis of passages in which he distinguishes between scientific and affective experiential knowledge of religious and moral truths. In a series of encyclicals beginning with Leo XIII's Aeterni Patris, popes have celebrated and commended Aquinas as the supreme guide in philosophy and theology and in some of these cited his discovery of connatural knowledge. The course and context of his ‘elevation’ are explored before proceeding to a discussion of moral (...) knowledge in which different forms of non-theoretical cognition are identified. This leads to an examination of work by Elizabeth Anscombe on the factuality of ethical judgement and connaturality. Aquinas and Anscombe offer important insights but more work remains to be done. Moral knowledge is a many-faceted thing. More accurately, it is not one thing but many things analogously related both by their modes and by their objects. (shrink)

. Moral innatism, connatural ideas, and impuissance in daily affairs: James Q. Wilson's acrobatic dive into an empty pool. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 77-82.

Como he señalado en otras oportunidades, la obra de Santo Tomás de Aquino, aunque extensa y omniabarcante, se estructura a partir de algunos conceptos claves que sirven de fundamentos a la totalidad del ordenamiento de su pensamiento, lo que no lo simplifica, sino lo funda, haciendo de él un paradigma de reflexión también para nuestro tiempo, si sabemos comprenderlo desde la íntima profundidad de su sentido. La filosofía tomista es una filosofía esencialmente inclusiva que, a través de esas mismas ideas (...) matrices, presenta una cosmovisión filosófica y teológica, al mismo tiempo que refleja en ella una experiencia de vida. Así logra una síntesis que estructura una arquitectura reflexiva. Ello se puede ver en ideas como sabiduría, hábito y virtud, participación, analogía y otras. La connaturalidad como forma de conocimiento es una de esas ideas que estructuran su síntesis, siendo expresión de la congénita simpatía con el bien y de su concepción sobre la participación, mirada desde la realización cognoscitiva y afectiva de lo humano. El conocimiento por connaturalidad se muestra como simpatía que acerca afectivamente a un bien. Es así como, a través de él, presenta una visión casi sinóptica al abrirse a una amplia región de la doctrina tomista sobre Dios, el hombre, las cosas, desde un contexto que, aunque se puede analizar filosóficamente, es fundamentalmente teológico. En Santo Tomás la naturaleza se encuentra compenetrada por la gracia; su inteligencia no es sólo la del cultivar el don recibido, sino una inteligencia iluminada por la fe y purificada por la caridad. Por eso, la nobleza intelectual que transparece en sus escritos es, ante todo, el fruto de la santidad, de una santidad que no podía menos de expresarse en el orden del pensamiento. (shrink)

This notion of knowledge through connaturality is classical in the Thomist school. Thomas Aquinas refers in this connection to the Pseudo--Dionysius, and to the Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10, chapter V, where Aristotle states that the virtuous man is the rule and measure of human actions. I have no doubt that this notion, or equivalent notions, had, before Thomas Aquinas, a long history in human thought; an inquiry into this particular chapter in the history of ideas,--which would perhaps have to (...) take into account such philosophers as Ramanuja, and the Indian school of bhakti,--would be of considerable interest. I did not embark on such historical research; the question for me was rather to test the validity of the notion of knowledge through connaturality, as elaborated in the Thomist school, and more systematically to recognize the various domains to which it must be extended. (shrink)

Connatural knowledge is knowledge readily acquired by beings possessing a certain nature. For instance, dogs have knowledge of a scent-world exceeding that of human beings, not because humans lack noses, but because dogs are by nature better suited to process olfaction. As various ethicists have argued, possession of the virtues involves a sort of connatural knowing. Here, connatural knowledge emerges as a knowledge by inclination which systematically tracks the specific moral interests we humans possess precisely because we are human. In (...) this essay we explore the importance of connaturality for moral education. (shrink)

Connatural knowledge is knowledge readily acquired by beings possessing a certain nature. For instance, dogs have knowledge of a scent-world exceeding that of human beings, not because humans lack noses, but because dogs are by nature better suited to process olfaction. As various ethicists have argued, possession of the virtues involves a sort of connatural knowing. Here, connatural knowledge emerges as a knowledge by inclination which systematically tracks the specific moral interests we humans possess precisely because we are human. In (...) this essay we explore the importance of connaturality for moral education. (shrink)

Human existence entails that our encounter with the world is mediated by the context, historicity, and concrete particularities of that existence. Consequently, this situatedness, which contributes to our pre-understanding, makes us more or less capable of “seeing” the truth of the world we encounter. The hermeneutical principle of pre-understanding is sometimes presupposed to be ambivalent toward, if not in opposition to, traditional metaphysics. The present essay shows how traditional metaphysics, specifically of a Thomistic sort, need not be pitted against hermeneutics, (...) but rather, offers the ground for understanding the way in which pre-understanding, as our habituation into and connaturality with truth, and ultimately, God, is that means by which right interpretation is made possible. (shrink)

Elizabeth Anscombe is well-known for her insistence that there are absolutely prohibited actions, though she is somewhat obscure about why this is so. Nonetheless, I contend in this paper that Anscombe is more concerned with the epistemology of absolute prohibitions, and that her thought on connatural moral knowledge – which resembles moral intuition – is key to understanding her thought on moral prohibitions. I shall identify key features of Anscombe’s moral epistemology before turning to investigate its sources, examining the roots (...) of connaturality in Aquinas and comparing it with rationalist ethical intuitionism, which Anscombe differs from in rejecting “good” as a simple, non-natural property. I then develop a two-stage argument about absolute prohibition: The first will be loosely Thomistic, while the second will suggest how Anscombe’s absolute prohibitions can be seen as a continuation of Wittgenstein’s anti-scepticism in On Certainty. I develop an account of absolute prohibitions as a form of Wittgensteinian hinge proposition – they are not the conclusions of deductive arguments, but the foundations for intelligibility in action. (shrink)

Rémi Brague in On the God of the Christians gives a defence of the validity of faith against modern presumption that science supplies the model for all knowledge. Brague argues that since God is superpersonal, faith must know God in the way we know persons. Personal knowledge requires the connaturality of a loving will: hence faith in God requires love, utterly unlike any scientific knowledge. In criticism, it is suggested that love is essentially motivated by its object's value, and (...) so presupposes knowledge of the object. What is crucial in faith is not the love the subject brings but the demands of a supremely valuable reality. Since faith is, in the broadest sense, experiential, it has points of contact with scientific rationality. (shrink)

Human existence entails that our encounter with the world is mediated by the context, historicity, and concrete particularities of that existence. Consequently, this situatedness, which contributes to our pre-understanding, makes us more or less capable of “seeing” the truth of the world we encounter. The hermeneutical principle of pre-understanding is sometimes presupposed to be ambivalent toward, if not in opposition to, traditional metaphysics. The present essay shows how traditional metaphysics, specifically of a Thomistic sort, need not be pitted against hermeneutics, (...) but rather, offers the ground for understanding the way in which pre-understanding, as our habituation into and connaturality with truth, and ultimately, God, is that means by which right interpretation is made possible. (shrink)

우리가 아리스토텔레스의 도덕철학 안에 있는 교설들을 토마스 아퀴나스가 어떻게 해석하고 변형시켰는지를 논의해보는 것은 매우 의미 있는 일이다. 그런 의미에서 아리스토텔레스의 윤리학 안에 있는 ‘목적 구절’의 중요성을 충분히 잘 이해하기 위하여, 연구자는 올바른 실천적 지식을 획득하고 보존하는 것 안에서의 도덕적 탁월성과 실천적 지혜의 역할에 관한 『니코마코스 윤리학』안에서의 아리스토텔레스의 설명을 검토한다. 그런데 이러한 간략한 논의는 두 가지의 주된 문제점들을 제기한다. 첫째, 도덕적인 삶의 목적은 어떻게 알려지는가? 둘째, 도덕적 탁월성은 올바른 목적에 관한 우리의 지식에 어떻게 공헌하는가? 연구자는 이러한 질문들에 관한 토마스 아퀴나스의 답변은 (...) 무엇인지를 좀 더 세밀하게 검토한다.BR 첫 번째 질문에 관한 토마스 아퀴나스의 해결책은 도덕적인 삶의 일반적이고 특수한 목적들이 ‘우리가 어떻게 행위 해야 하는가?’에 관한 일반적인 표준이 되는 ‘보편적인 실천적 원리들’에 의해서 알려진다는 것이다. 그런데 보편적인 실천적 원리들은 좀 더 특수한 도덕학의 결론뿐만 아니라 자명한 실천적 전제들을 포함하고 있다. 두 번째 문제에 대한 토마스 아퀴나스의 대답은 도덕적 탁월성은 탁월성이 있는 개인이 진정으로 행위 하는 목적들이라 할 수 있는 ‘특수한 실천적 원리들’을 보증함으로써 올바른 목적에 대한 지식에다가 정서적 지지를 제공한다는 것이다.BR 토마스 아퀴나스는 이러한 맥락 안에서 ‘자기에게 고유하게 되는 것에 의한 판단’이라는 그의 교설에 의해서 또는 논증적이지 않은 실천적 지혜의 판단이라고 할 수 있는 ‘경향성에 의해서’ 아리스토텔레스의 ‘직관’을 한층 더 발전시킨다. 그러므로 보편적인 그리고 특수한 실천적 원리들이라는 토마스 아퀴나스의 교설은 그의 윤리학 안에 있는 ‘목적 구절’의 자리를 이해하는 데에 적절한 체계를 제공해준다. 토마스 아퀴나스는 아리스토텔레스 안에 함축되어있는 것을 단지 좀 더 명확하게 드러내고 있다. 그는 실천적 지혜에 관한 아리스토텔레스의 설명을 개선한다. 그는 근본적으로 실천적 지혜의 의미와 범위를 변경한다.BR 결론적으로, 연구자는 토마스 아퀴나스가 아리스토텔레스의 목적 구절을 기본적으로는 충실한 철학적 주해를 했다는 것, 그리고 언뜻 보아서는 잘 알 수 없는 아리스토텔레스의 목적 구절을 명료화했을 뿐만 아니라 더 체계적이고 일관성 있는 설명을 제시했다는 것을 주장한다. 그리하여 연구자는 그로 인하여 토마스 아퀴나스가 아리스토텔레스의 목적 구절을 그 자신의 주해 안에서 아리스토텔레스 자신의 사고의 원리들과 범주들의 도움으로 한층 더 발전적으로 확장했다고 결론을 내린다. (shrink)

Natural law as fact, theory, and sign of contradiction -- The second tablet project -- The mystery of what? -- The natural, the connatural, and the unnatural -- Accept no imitations: natural law vs. naturalism -- Thou shalt not kill . . . whom? the meaning of the person -- Capital punishment: the case for justice -- Constitution vs. constitutionalism -- Constitutional metaphysics -- The liberal, illiberal religion.

ENGLISH: The author investigates whether the model prevalent today of an “humble reason” - based on fallibilism and epistemic humility - is the most appropriate to express the theological truth, even in the light of the debate within the contemporary theism (rational theology). To answer this question it is necessary to examine the epistemological status of “human truth” and the “truth of faith”, in order to develop a common approach to sciences, philosophy and theology. Finally, the author shows how the (...) communitarian dimension and the “choice” (a call for freedom) are inherent to theology understood as “critical faith”, whose peculiarity is to posit itself without nostalgia in the middle between fideism, rationalism and a certain relativism. From the path, finally, it emerges the proposal of a new “cristeologia”. ITALIAN: Il rapporto tra fede e ragione è la questione meta-teologica per eccellenza. L’autore si propone dunque d’indagare se il modello oggi prevalente di “ragione umile” – basato su fallibilismo e umiltà epistemica – sia il più adeguato per esprimere le verità teologiche, anche alla luce del dibattito interno al teismo contemporaneo (teologia razionale). Per rispondere a questa domanda è necessario esaminare lo statuto epistemologico della verità umana e della verità di fede, per poter elaborare un metodo comune alle discipline scientifiche, filosofiche e teologiche, capace di trovare un equilibrio tra fideismo e positivismo teologico. Dopo una breve panoramica storica dei rapporti tra fede e ragione nel pensiero occidentale (con particolare attenzione alla dottrina dei praeambula fidei), l’articolo cercherà di mostrare come, nel paradigma della verità relazionale e del fallibilismo sia necessario integrare il problema delle fonti, dell’autorità, del concetto di ispirazione e della nozione di “rivelazione”, giacché contraddistinguono la teologia rispetto alla filosofia. Si mostrerà infine come la dimensione comunitaria e della scelta (appello alla libertà) siano connaturate alla teologia intesa come fede critica, la cui peculiarità è di collocarsi senza nostalgie nel mezzo tra fideismo, razionalismo e un certo relativismo. Dal percorso emergerà infine la proposta di una nuova "cristeologia". (shrink)

The paper explores two avenues to the union of the believer with God in Thomas Aquinas inspired by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite; namely, the intellectual union in faith through the gift of understanding and the union in charity as the basis for the knowledge associated with the gift of wisdom. The former amounts to an intellectual grasp of revealed truths without full understanding of the terms used (without the apprehension of the essences), yet with a clear understanding of what would be (...) erroneous interpretations and meanings. The latter is an (quasi-)experimental knowledge of God based on connaturality with him due to the infused virtue of charity. Both kinds of knowledge or “mystical theology” are open to any believer in the state of sanctifying grace and are its effects. (shrink)

The paper is the first of two to be published in Cognitio which explore the hypothesis that the thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803- 1882), brilliantly expounded in the generation before Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), anticipated, if not provided the direct provenance of, Peirce’s mature metaphysical ideas. The papers provide running commentaries on Emerson’s later-phase essays, “Poetry and Imagination” (1854, published in 1876) and “The Natural History of Intellect” (1870). “Poetry and Imagination” is shown to contain the seeds of Peirce’s (...) objective idealism — namely, that “matter is effete mind,” or “mind hide-bound with habits,” — set within an evolutionary cosmology that grounds the human mind’s connaturality or affinity with the laws of nature, a doctrine subtending his abductory logic of scientific discovery. Mutatis mutandis, all these components were already present in Emerson’s essay. Peirce spoke of his “buddhisto-christian religion,” which was another name for Emersonian cosmosemiosis. His originality consisted in applying Emerson’s emphasis on the poetic to the scientific imagination, though the seeds of the latter are present in Emerson’s “The Natural History of Intellect” and other essays as well. (shrink)

The author investigates whether the model prevalent today of an “humble reason” - based on fallibilism and epistemic humility - is the most appropriate to express the theological truth, even in the light of the debate within the contemporary theism (rational theology). To answer this question it is necessary to examine the epistemological status of “human truth” and the “truth of faith”, in order to develop a common approach to sciences, philosophy and theology. Finally, the author shows how the communitarian (...) dimension and the “choice” (a call for freedom) are inherent to theology understood as “critical faith”, whose peculiarity is to posit itself without nostalgia in the middle between fideism, rationalism and a certain relativism. From the path, finally, it emerges the proposal of a new “cristeologia”. Il rapporto tra fede e ragione è la questione meta-teologica per eccellenza. L’autore si propone dunque d’indagare se il modello oggi prevalente di “ragione umile” – basato su fallibilismo e umiltà epistemica – sia il più adeguato per esprimere le verità teologiche, anche alla luce del dibattito interno al teismo contemporaneo (teologia razionale). Per rispondere a questa domanda è necessario esaminare lo statuto epistemologico della verità umana e della verità di fede, per poter elaborare un metodo comune alle discipline scientifiche, filosofiche e teologiche, capace di trovare un equilibrio tra fideismo e positivismo teologico. Dopo una breve panoramica storica dei rapporti tra fede e ragione nel pensiero occidentale (con particolare attenzione alla dottrina dei praeambula fidei), l’articolo cercherà di mostrare come, nel paradigma della verità relazionale e del fallibilismo sia necessario integrare il problema delle fonti, dell’autorità, del concetto di ispirazione e della nozione di “rivelazione”, giacché contraddistinguono la teologia rispetto alla filosofia. Si mostrerà infine come la dimensione comunitaria e della scelta (appello alla libertà) siano connaturate alla teologia intesa come fede critica, la cui peculiarità è di collocarsi senza nostalgie nel mezzo tra fideismo, razionalismo e un certo relativismo. Dal percorso emergerà infine la proposta di una nuova "cristeologia". (shrink)

As moral standards, natural law and the notion of properly functioning human nature have persisted in Western cultures from the dawn of civilization. Medieval Christians developed it in their theologies. However, Enlightenment criticism of medieval thought undermined the credibility of natural law and its authority for modern man. Jacques Maritain developed a rational foundation for natural law and sought to provide objectivity to natural law precepts. His theory also reestablishes the divine authority of natural law for a world without faith. (...) Maritain locates the primary disclosure of natural law in the conscience’s moral reflection in a controversial act of pre-conceptual or non-conceptual knowledge called connatural knowledge. (shrink)

Shaftesbury started his literary career in 1698 with an edition of Whichcote’s sermons. At the same time he worked on An Inquiry Concerning Virtue and his ‘Crudities’, which were incorporated after August 1698 in the Askêmata manuscripts. In this paper I argue that Shaftesbury’s critique of John Locke is based on central ideas from Whichcote’s sermons. In his examination of Locke’s epistemology and moral philosophy he uses Whichcote’s arguments, concepts and keywords. Locke’s rejection of the ‘innate ideas’ reduces man to (...) an abstract being, ‘absolutely indifferent towards whatever is presented to him’. In opposition to this reduction he posits Whichcote’s Connatural Notions, ‘the principles of which Man doth consist, in his very first Make’, i.e. the categorial form of human feeling, discernment, understanding and judgment. These connatural principles include the idea of good and evil, i.e. the foundation of a non-legalistic, autonomous morality. (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo expone un caso de estudio ilustrativo del papel de las mujeres en la prensa escrita de principios del siglo pasado que sirve para examinar críticamente los reportajes que firmara la estadounidense Emma Sarepta Yule (1863-1939) sobre las mujeres en Asia Oriental, publicados en la revista ilustrada Scribner’s Magazine y en Current History. La pretensión es poner de manifiesto los elementos ideológicos, culturales y de género patentes en las crónicas de Yule dedicados a la «nueva mujer» asiática, y (...) cómo los escritos reflejan el contexto geopolítico de la época. Se busca con ello destacar el rol de estas «corresponsales de género» para discutir la representación de la «nueva mujer» en Japón, China y Corea que difundieron en las revistas. Asimismo, se reseñan los factores «geosexuales» y «geoideológicos» de sus textos, y las contradicciones entre la realidad de aquellas mujeres y el intento de la periodista por superponer, manejando la categoría «nueva mujer», principios y valores propios de la «modernidad protestante» movilizados con la ayuda de a implantación en Asia de organizaciones lideradas por mujeres como la Young Women’s Christian Association (ywca). Se destaca la naturaleza disputada de la modernidad y del feminismo en Asia Oriental durante ese período, estudiando cómo las periodistas extranjeras jugaron un rol sustancial en la construcción de la imagen de la «nueva mujer» en la región, para concluir subrayando la relevancia que esta producción periodística tuvo transmitiendo el ideario liberal-idealista connatural a la sociedad internacional de entreguerras y los problemas epistémicos que presenta. Palabras clave: Emma Sarepta Yule (1863-1939); crónica periodística; nueva mujer; geosexualidad; geoideología. Abstract: This article presents an illustrative case study of the role of women in the print media at the beginning of the last century that serves to critically examine the chronicles signed by Emma Sarepta Yule (1863-1939) on women in East Asia, published in the journals Scribner’s Magazine and Current History. The aim is to highlight the ideological, cultural, and gender elements evident in Yule’s reports dedicated to the Asian «new woman», and how the writings reflect the geopolitical context of the time. This seeks to highlight the role of these «gender correspondents» to discuss the representation of the «new woman» in Japan, China, and Korea that they disseminated in magazines. Likewise, the «geosexual» and «geoideological» factors of their texts are reviewed, as well as the contradictions between the reality of those women and the journalist’s attempt to superimpose, handling the category “new woman”, principles and values of the «Protestant modernity» mobilized with the help of the establishment in Asia of women-led organizations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association (ywca). The disputed nature of modernity and feminism in East Asia during this period is underlined by studying how foreign journalists played a substantial role in the construction of the image of the «new woman» in the region, to conclude by showing the relevance that this journalistic production had in transmitting the liberal-idealist ideology inherent to the interwar international society and the epistemic problems that it presents. Keywords: Emma Sarepta Yule (1863-1939); journalistic chronicle; new woman; geosexuality; geoideology. Sumario: 1. Introducción; 2. La «nueva mujer» del «nuevo Japón»; 3. Las sin nombre: la «Señorita China» entre murallas; 4. Las «nuevas» y «jóvenes» rebeldes coreanas en un país «soñoliento»; 5. Nota final: El «género» de la «crónica»; 6. Referencias bibliográficas. (shrink)

Henri de Lubac's treatment of the relationship between nature and grace helped the Catholic Church to move beyond the antagonisms that had defined its relationship with the modern nation-state. In critiquing de Lubac, some recent scholarship has presented an interpretation of Aquinas that is remarkably similar to the problems associated with the neo-Scholastic method. These approaches indicate that in order for late modern democratic states to achieve their connatural ends of justice and the common good, they must directly advert to (...) revealed knowledge and Church teaching. This essay proposes an alternative correction to de Lubac that both maintains a distinction between nature and grace and facilitates a capacity for Christians to engage in a nuanced dialogue of affirmation and critique of the human goods sought by late modern political and legal institutions. In the conclusion, this nature-grace distinction is used to analyze the way the US Catholic Bishops have engaged in moral, political, and legal debates over the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. (shrink)

This article explores the relation between Aquinas’ metaphysical, epistemological and theological ideas and his theory of education as presented in the De Magistro and other writings. Aquinas’ theory of education is based on a theological metaphysics of human nature and an account of human rationality that is grounded in human nature. In the first section after the introduction we provide a synopsis of Aquinas’ metaphysical narrative, but in a contemporary key that draws upon the resources of Analytical Thomism. However, this (...) theologically inspired metaphysics leads to a somewhat neglected epistemology that is crucial to his understanding of teaching and learning in the De Magistro – the notion of connatural knowledge that we explore in the second section. Our exposition of the Thomistic ontology of the human person together with the notion of connatural knowledge, provide the context for understanding the De Magistro in the third section. (shrink)

With a few exceptions, Thomists have by and large failed to engage with the historical and hermeneutical turns in philosophy and theology. This article offers an account of what the beginnings of a Thomistic engagement with recent hermeneutical philosophy might look like. In order to develop such an account, the author turns to arguably the most important contemporary hermeneutical philosopher, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, as a dialogue partner. Despite claims to the contrary, this article argues that Gadamer does not successfully deal (...) with the specter of relativism. It goes on to show how that the thought of Thomas Aquinas can ably deal with this specter. There are two central elements in the argument put forward. Firstly, the author argues that the human being exists in between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists. This existence between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists furnishes the connatural context in which human knowing and willing unfolds. Secondly, he considers the dynamics of “interinvolvement” between intellect and will. The upshot of these arguments is a construal of reason that is at once capable of universal truth and hermeneutical in nature. Indeed, the universal range of reason and its hermeneutical dimension are in no way opposed to each other: they are rather dual aspects of one and the same reality. (shrink)

The dissertation entitled Jacques Maritain and the Centrality of Intuition is a study in the influence of Henri Bergson's notion of intuition in the thought of Jacques Maritain. It is argued that Maritain used tenets from Thomistic philosophy to transform Bergsonian intuition, first by putting intuition back into the intellect from which Bergson in fact severed it. It is also argued that, although Bergson in fact put a wedge between intellect and intuition, that was not his intention. Because Bergson in (...) fact separated intuition from the intellect, however, Maritain accused him of being anti-intellectual. Contrary to Maritain's criticism, it is argued that Bergson was anti-intellectual only in the sense of criticizing a bad use of intelligence, but not in the sense of criticizing intelligence as such. Maritain then interprets Bergson's intuition as an immediate knowledge of reality in two ways: first, as the intellectual metaphysical intuition of being yielding a concept of being as being in its analogical amplitude and as not intrinsically linked to matter; second, as various and analogous modes of intuition by way of affective connaturality, i.e., an obscure, but deep and penetrating knowledge of the very subsistence of a thing by bypassing the concept. Various modes of affective connaturality are described, namely, the connatural knowledge of the virtuous person, of the prudent person, of the natural law itself, of the mystic, the lover, and the poet. In connatural knowledge, intuition is seen to be both intellectual and emotion-laden. Given the various modes of intuition explored by Maritain, it is argued that intuition is central to Maritain's thought. It is further argued that the content of one's experience of the self and being known in the various modes of connatural knowledge is stored in the depths of the spiritual preconscious of the soul and acts as an indirect cause that disposes one to have an intuition of being should one be so gifted. In addition, connatural knowledge of being is also an indirect cause of creative insights in science, mathematics, and in all other kinds of knowledge. A kind of poetic intuition is at work everywhere, even when subordinated to the ends of some other kind of knowledge. Consequently, it is necessary to be a contemplative, especially for the philosopher who needs to be attuned and receptive to the mystery of being if he/she is to be gifted with the metaphysical intuition, without which one cannot be an authentic metaphysician of existence. The thought of Henri Bergson, Pierre Rousselot and the Maritain Thomist, Joseph Sikora, S. J. is heavily relied on in the exposition of the thesis. (shrink)

El dopaje ha sido un fenómeno connatural al deporte desde sus inicios, pero no es hasta el año 1998 en el que, a raíz de los escándalos que sucedieron en el Tour de Francia de ese año, las autoridades deportivas deciden emprender una lucha decidida contra esta práctica y se crea la Agencia Mundial Antidopaje que, desde entonces, es la encargada de dirigir todas las políticas relacionadas con el control y represión del dopaje en el mundo.

Affective knowledge of God is a kind of knowledge which follows human affectivity. This knowledge takes place on two levels: the level of the natural inclination of man towards God and the level of the religious bias of man towards God. What is the nature of affective knowledge of God? It seems there are three problems in question. First of all, as there is a natural inclination towards God in man, one will be restless unless one recognizes or finds God. (...) Secondly, one who loves God has a new deeper knowledge of the divine things through connaturality and inclination. Thirdly, as the result of one's encounter with God and of uniting with Him, man experiences certain subjective states which cannot be expressed by words. (shrink)

Actualmente, la reflexión sobre la imagen se centra mayoritariamente sobre su masiva presencia y su interminable reproducción. En este trabajo nos centraremos, a la inversa, en cómo las imágenes se destruyen masiva y sistemáticamente. Si el examen interdisciplinar es una prerrogativa fundamental en los estudios visuales, el volumen Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate 2013), compilado por excelentes históricos y arqueólogos, ofrece a los filósofos un modelo importante de colaboración a la hora de pensar qué son las imágenes. El (...) propósito de este trabajo es presentar y discutir brevemente algunos aspectos originales de estos ensayos, enfatizando la importancia de los distintos modos y motivos por los que nuestros antepasados no solo han creado, sino también han destruido imágenes. Distinguiendo la iconoclasia del simple vandalismo, podemos descubrir una ambigüedad fundamental según la cual quien intenta preservar las imágenes, acaba con destruirlas y quien aparece como destros antepasados no solo han tructor, logra fertilizar nuevas concepciones y significados para su propia tradición figurativa. Quizás esta ambigüedad no sea algo que las imágenes sufren desde fuera, sino que sea algo connatural a la imagen misma. Y si es así, quien hoy estudia la vida de las imágenes, quizás podría encontrar un acceso privilegiado en esa a través una lógica paradójica que destaca como las imágenes mueren. PALABRAS CLAVESICONOCLASIA, ICONOFÍLIA, FILOSOFÍA Y TEORÍA DE LAS IMÁGENES, ESTUDIOS VISUALES.ABSTRACTContemporary thought on images focuses mostly on their massive presence and their endless reproduction. On the contrary, in this paper, I will focus on how images have been massively and systematically destroyed. If the interdisciplinary exam is a fundamental prerogative in visual studies, the volume Striking Images, Iconoclasms Past and Present (Ashgate 2013), compiled by excellent historians and archaeologists, could offer to philosophers an important frame of teamwork in thinking what the images are. The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss briefly some original aspects of these essays, by emphasizing the importance of means and reasons through which our ancestors have not only created, but also destroyed images. Once distinguished iconoclasm and mere vandalism, we could discover a fundamental ambiguity whereby any person who tries to preserve the images, finishes with wrecking them; while on the contrary somebody who appears as a destroyer, succeeds to fertilize new concepts and meanings for his/her own figurative tradition. Perhaps this ambiguity is not something that image suffers extrinsically, but something inherent to the image itself. And if it is so, he/she who wants to study the life of images, could perhaps find a privileged access to it, through a paradoxical logic that explains, instead, how images die.KEYWORDSICONOCLASM, ICONOPHILIA, PHILOSOPHY AND THEORY OF IMAGES, VISUAL STUDIES. (shrink)

This article discusses the development of John Scottus Eriugena’s teaching on the spiritual body. In his early treatise De praedestinatione, as well as in the Periphyseon, John Scottus understands the spiritual body as ethereal or aerial. This conception tacitly assumes that men and angels are connatural. Moreover, Eriugena’s angelology and demonology compel him to localize Hades in the air—a teaching in which he follows a well-established ancient and Christian tradition. John Scottus is influenced by ideas of Origen and Gregory of (...) Nyssa in maintaining that there are two different kinds of human bodies; the interpretation of the biblical “coatsof skin” as the earthly human body plays an important part in this. According to Eriugena, the soul in a sense creates an earthly body for itself. In later passages from the Periphyseon, he abandons the idea of individual subtle bodies, accepting a complete transformation of body into spirit at the resurrection. However, he remains ambiguous on this point as his position would contradict Christian doctrine. The Periphyseon culminates in a paraphrase of a section from Ambigua ad Iohannem XXXVII. In the light of the latter text, the nature of the eight gradual unifications from the epilogue of the Periphyseon becomes clear. (shrink)

December 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, arguably the single most important and influential document endorsed by the United Nations. Jacques Maritain was a primary author of the religious liberty clauses of the 1948 Declaration, and the most prominent Christian philosopher ofthe twentieth century. Maritain developed a radical critique of prevailing Westem political and social thought. A persuasive critic of secular humanism and legal positivism, Maritain sought a cultural renewal of Christian Europe by means (...) of rediscovering an integral Christian humanism. This essay explores the central ideas in Maritain's philosophical defense of universal human rights. Maritain placed the philosophical foundation of human rights in natural law, and assumed the existence of a "natural spirituality of intelligence" grasped by a connatural, pre-philosophic intuition. Yet Pope Benedict XVI challenges the central philosophical assumptions at the foundation of Maritain's defense of human rights. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe paper examines the relevance of the nomological view of nature to three discussions of tide in the thirteenth century. A nomological conception of nature assumes that the basic explanatory units of natural phenomena are universally binding rules stated in quantitative terms. Robert Grosseteste introduced an account of the tide based on the mechanism of rarefaction and condensation, stimulated by the Moon's rays and their angle of incidence. He considered the Moon's action over the sea an example of the general (...) efficient causality exerted through the universal activity of light or species. Albert the Great posited a plurality of causes which cannot be reduced to a single cause. The connaturality of the Moon and the water is the only principle of explanation which he considered universal. Connaturality, however, renders neither formulation nor quantification possible. While Albert stressed the variety of causes of the tide, Roger Bacon emphasized regularity and reduced the various causes producing tides into forces. He replaced the terminology of ‘natures’ by one of ‘forces’. Force, which in principle can be accurately described and measured, thus becomes a commensurable aspect of a diverse cosmos. When they reasoned why waters return to their place after the tide, Grosseteste argued that waters return in order to prevent a vacuum, Albert claimed that waters ‘follow their own nature’, while Bacon held that the ‘proper force’ of the water prevails over the distant force of the first heaven. I exhibit, for the thirteenth century, moments of the move away from the Aristotelian concerns. The basic elements of these concerns were essences and natures which reflect specific phenomena and did not allow for an image of nature as a unified system. In the new perspective of the thirteenth century the key was a causal link between the position of the Moon and the tide cycle, a link which is universal and still qualitative, yet expressed as susceptible to quantification. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ius Gentium as Publicly Articulated Moral ScienceMatthew K. MinerdAmong the various types of law discussed in St. Thomas's theological "treatise on law"—questions 90–108 of Summa theologia [ST] I-II—the classification known as the "law of nations" (ius gentium) holds an ambiguous epistemological position. Marking a kind of halfway point between the natural law and civil law, it seems to straddle both domains. In fact, in a particularly important text dedicated (...) to this topic in the ST (I-II, q. 95, a. 4), Aquinas classes the ius gentium as being closely connected to the natural law, though in a way that is somewhat derivative, not as immediately flowing from human nature (especially in its animality) as does the natural law, but also not as marked by human contingency as is human civil law.As was recently discussed in a well-documented and insightful article by Barrett H. Turner in The Thomist, there have historically been two main lines of Thomist interpretation concerning the exact character of the "law of nations." Very broadly stated, what he refers to as the "Salamancan" line, indebted to Francisco de Vitoria, "interprets Thomas's doctrine of the ius gentium as a body of universal positive institutions (that is, specifications, determinationes) added to the natural law by agreement of the human race."1 [End Page 1043] This position, which would be common for several centuries among members of the Thomist school, would locate the law of nations essentially in the domain of nearly universally adopted customs and institutions, not strictly deduced from the natural law, but rather grounded on "the quasi-political authority of the entire human race, which promulgates the ius gentium by customs whose utility for attaining the ends of the natural law under a certain set of social conditions is easily recognized by rational creatures."2Turner calls the other line of thought "Maritain's Neo-Thomist Line,"3 an outlook that would be shared with various nuances by thinkers like Jean-Marie Aubert, Yves Simon, Marie-Michel Labourdette, John Finnis, and others. Setting aside my qualms about his appellation "neo-Thomist," which does more to obscure than to illumine (for it covers a host of Thomistic figures who have significantly different views on what constitutes "Thomism"), Turner does fairly lay out the major lines of Jacques Maritain's position, which is most directly articulated in Man and the State and La loi naturelle ou loi non-écrite.4 Basing himself on his particular view of knowledge of the natural law through connaturality,5 Maritain contrasted this sort of moral cognition with that which develops in the line of conceptual articulation, thus having a different "gnoseological" character from our knowledge of the natural law, while nonetheless still sharing the same "ontological" foundation. Such conceptually articulated law would be the ius gentium.Rather than add my voice to the dialectic of the various thinkers arrayed by Turner into the two aforementioned camps, I would like to propose a slightly different approach to the "moral epistemology of the law of nations," though one that I believe lies in line with the best aspects of Maritain's approach. Continuing a series of reflections that I have undertaken [End Page 1044] concerning moral epistemology during the past few years,6 I propose that it is most helpful to consider the "law of nations" as being a form of reasoning pertaining to what Scholastic vocabulary would refer to as "moral science,"7 namely discursive philosophical reasoning concerning the essences, properties, effects, and various other essential relationships that belong to a human acts, morally considered (the principal subject of moral philosophy), along with other subjects that are studied in relation to this principal subject (e.g., the principles of human acts, most particularly, the structure of human acts and the moral virtues). Moral science is the activity of reasoning that can be undertaken by knowing agents living together in community, seeking to discursively articulate and explain the moral truth that forms the essential basis for the contingent determinations that will then be codified in particular civil laws, the latter of which are not concerned with questions like "what are the ultimate foundations for property... (shrink)

As environmental concerns rightly take a greater role in the critical reevaluation of the American philosophical tradition, it behooves us to return again to the often slippery notion of “nature” to ask if it can be redeemed as not merely the canvas on which human endeavor is depicted but an active element of the diverse and distinct philosophical perspectives that make the tradition. Indeed, there is a great need to depict the potentially subversive ways that human and nature can be (...) understood as radically connatural, in intimate ecological and constructive relations that make nature not just the instrument for the exertion for human wants and desires but also thoroughly and... (shrink)

El cultivo de la filosofía, particularmente el de la metafísica, constituye el fin último del hombre y cuyo acto tiene por objeto la contemplación de Dios ut auctornaturae. Ahora bien, la Revelación cristiana introduce dos factores determinantes que modificaron la condición pura de nuestra naturaleza: la elevación al orden sobrenatural y la intromisión del pecado original. De allí que, por un lado, el fin último del hombre consistirá en la visión sobrenatural de Dios ut auctor gratiae y, por otro, la (...) necesidad de la gracia sanadora y elevadora para llegar a esa visión. No obstante, Santiago Ramírez siguiendo a Santo Tomás de Aquino, explicará que el hombre actual –es decir, caído por el pecado– es impotente incluso para alcanzar su fin connatural sin la ayuda de la gracia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mystery on the Move:Aquinas’s Theological Method as Transforming WisdomGilles Mongeau, S.J.CONTEMPORARY APPROACHES to the thought of Thomas Aquinas have begun to recover its character as a “wisdom practice” aimed at the transformation of persons and sociocultural situations.1 The wise person helps others move along a path through the mysteries of faith toward a wisely ordered life for themselves in a justly ordered society. The starting point of this essay (...) is the supposition that Aquinas’s theological method in the Summa theologiae, rooted in the practice of the three arts of language (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric) is itself a wisdom practice that proposes an ordered series of exercises that must be performed by the student, leading him or her to a greater participation in divine wisdom. I will show that Aquinas’s use of the tools of rhetoric, particularly the enthymemes known as arguments of fittingness, are a set of practical instructions that facilitate an affective response to divine mystery in order to enable a judgment by connaturality. [End Page 285] Thus, we can learn from Aquinas how fruitfully to order affect and reason in the exercise of the theological craft.The essay proceeds in three parts. First, a thought experiment will help us understand (a) how a medieval text works as a guide to performance, and (b) how intellect and affect interact in both artistic performance and aesthetic appreciation. Second, I will trace the role of affect and reason in knowledge for Aquinas, specifically in knowledge of the beautiful, of the good, and of divine mysteries. Third, I will show how Aquinas’s use of rhetorical enthymemes, specifically the argument of fittingness, promotes an affectively founded judgment whose fruit is true knowledge of the divine mysteries.I. A Thought ExperimentThe image below reproduces the sheet music for “O nuit d’amour,” a duet for tenor and soprano between Faust and Marguerite in Gounod’s opera Faust. A person with absolutely no training in music, looking at this page, will be able to glean only a small amount of information from it: the content of the text itself; the fact—indicated by the names “Faust” and “Marg.” listed above the score—that there are two singers; possibly, if he or she is enterprising and looks up a translation of “andante,” the fact that this piece of music is sung at a walking pace, moderately slow and mellow. But he or she is unlikely to be able to sing the duet without memorizing it from a performance he or she hears.Now, someone with singing experience in a choir, though without training in solfège, will be able to get a bit more information from the page: he or she will likely be able to recognize the time signature and the sequence and value of the notes and rests, as well as the ascending and descending patterns of the melody, so that given solid accompaniment and competent direction, and enough practice time, he or she could sing the duet. But this performance will not rely so much on the sheet music as it will rely on the external supports, and the nuances of the performance will be minimal. [End Page 286] Click for larger view View full resolutionFinally, two singers with training in solfège will be able to notice a number of things about the duet: first, that it is in D flat major, but that Faust’s part shades at bars five and six into B flat minor, adding a mysteriously ambiguous quality to his declaration of love; second, that Marguerite’s part remains always in a major key, though it shifts between D flat major and G flat major, adding a kind of temporary “lift” at key points in [End Page 287] her melody; that some of the chords in the accompaniment, at key points in the duet, are not played in their root positions, but in their second or third inversions, thus transforming the quality of the sound; they will also note instructions for holding notes. All of this information will allow a well-trained singer to sight-sing the duet and supply the necessary nuances from the... (shrink)

This essay takes its starting point from the position of Aidan Nichols (From Newman to Congar: The Idea of Doctrinal Development from the Victorians to the Second Vatican Council) that doctrinal development depends on wisdom. A key figure for Nichols’s position is Pierre Rousselot, whose idea of sympathetic knowing helps explain how wisdom itself works, namely, as knowledge influenced by love. I focus on Rousselot’s use of the Thomist concept of connaturality as the underlying basis of sympathetic knowing and (...) offer a modern interpretation of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae 2a 2ae, q 45, a 2, the key text on connaturality in ethical and mystical experience (being for affection what Summa theologiae 1a, q 84, a 7 is for cognition). I cite Bernard Lonergan’s “Newman’s Theorem” to show how omitting affection from theological explanation has dominated older interpretations of human intentionality, not only in Aquinas himself but in many of his followers. (shrink)

The criterion of 1 John for preferring John’s community over the secessionists is that the former love one another: John’s heart does not accuse him. Expressions in 1 John and Brown’s commentary suggest that knowledge by affective connaturality and recent neuroscience furnish exegetical access to this text. John’s appeal to the accusing heart is to social praxis as access to doxa. John’s community can know they love and are God’s children only intersubjectively, in the social. John’s heart should accuse (...) him. Were his heart changed, love for the secessionists would not be burdensome. John’s community became a sect because their love never became love for their enemies. (shrink)

THOMAS AQUINAS INSISTS that there are two different ways to attain correct judgment. One is by way of “perfect use of reason,” and another is by way of “connaturality”.

With a few exceptions, Thomists have by and large failed to engage with the historical and hermeneutical turns in philosophy and theology. This article offers an account of what the beginnings of a Thomistic engagement with recent hermeneutical philosophy might look like. In order to develop such an account, the author turns to arguably the most important contemporary hermeneutical philosopher, namely Hans-Georg Gadamer, as a dialogue partner. Despite claims to the contrary, this article argues that Gadamer does not successfully deal (...) with the specter of relativism. It goes on to show how that the thought of Thomas Aquinas can ably deal with this specter. There are two central elements in the argument put forward. Firstly, the author argues that the human being exists in between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists. This existence between God as First Efficient Cause of all that exists and God as Final Cause of all that exists furnishes the connatural context in which human knowing and willing unfolds. Secondly, he considers the dynamics of “interinvolvement” between intellect and will. The upshot of these arguments is a construal of reason that is at once capable of universal truth and hermeneutical in nature. Indeed, the universal range of reason and its hermeneutical dimension are in no way opposed to each other: they are rather dual aspects of one and the same reality. (shrink)

The paper inquires the category of _performance_ in Hannah Arendt. Her concept of the political eludes the tradition-inherited approach and subtracts the praxis from instrumental reason. Arendt revisits the political experiences of ancient Greek cities, where tragedy and assembly, theater and agora, provide the propitious space for action. She avoids the instrumental approach of _homo faber_, conceptualizes action as performance and shows its connaturality with the performing arts, to the detriment of the productive ones. In “What is Freedom?” Arendt (...) understands political freedom as a “worldly fact”, and assesses the Machiavellian _virtù_ as public excellence: as _performance on stage_. (shrink)

Mathematics and music in practice and performance, and in learning and teaching, share many characteristics, such as beauty and harmony, memory and intuition and mind or intellect. These raise the principles of processing information in mathematics and music and, by implication, the role of an acquaintance with the essentials of perception, abstraction and affective connaturality in teacher education. This paper compares mathematics and music and considers the acquisition of knowledge and skills through the external and internal senses and emotions, (...) utilizing the role of knowledge through multiple intelligences. In doing so it does not canvas the utilities of mathematics and music as fields of human endeavour so much as their role in the cultivation of serenity and knowledge in the cultured mind. This is a theoretical paper but it is based on nearly a century of teaching from the combined work of the two authors in the teaching of music and mathematics. The paper highlights the importance of inspiration in teaching, inspiration built on a thorough basis of the foundations of anthropology to include the emotions as well as the intellect. While teacher education programs rightly concern themselves with knowledge of the field of study, knowledge of pedagogy, they do not always consider the ability to inspire which is at the heart of managing and mentoring people. (shrink)