Assessing Scientism
It’s way too tempting to dub the recent debates about Steven Pinker’s essay ‘The Scientism Wars’ but I loathe the rhetoric that finds a war in every corner…. Continue reading at my Forbes blog.
Category: philosophy
Fabrizio Amerini on Aquinas
It can’t be easy translating Latin for your daily research, and it must be even harder if it’s Latin that’s over 800 years old. Following up on my post earlier this month on Fabrizio Amerini’s new book Aquinas on the Beginning and End of Human Life, I wondered what drew the Italian scholar to the study… Continue reading Fabrizio Amerini on Aquinas
Book Notes: Fabrizio Amerini on Aquinas and the Beginning and End of Human Life
Fabrizio Amerini is not an author most Americans are likely to have heard of, but if you’re a fan of Umberto Eco, you might want to check out his new book. ‘New’ is not entirely accurate, perhaps, as it was first published in Italian in 2009. But Georgetown University professor Mark Henninger’s translation hit the… Continue reading Book Notes: Fabrizio Amerini on Aquinas and the Beginning and End of Human Life
Augustine and the Evolution of the Soul
By the term ‘soul’ (anima) Augustine meant the highest immaterial element in man, the art of man to which mind (mens, more rarely animus) is but a function. Exactly what ‘soul’ is and how God creates souls he regarded as beyond human knowledge. It would make for simplicity, he once remarked apropos of infant baptism,… Continue reading Augustine and the Evolution of the Soul
The Limits of Natural Law
In abstraction from specific religious or metaphysical traditions, there really is very little that natural law theory can meaningfully say about the relative worthiness of the employments of the will. There are, of course, generally observable facts about the characteristics of our humanity (the desire for life and happiness, the capacity for allegiance and affinity,… Continue reading The Limits of Natural Law