Each of the essays collected here presents one or more flashpoints or crises in a history of 20 th - and 21 st -century dwelling.

After an exposition of some key concepts in scholastic ontology, this paper examines four arguments presented by Francisco Suarez for the thesis, commonly held by Christian Aristotelians, that God's causal contribution to effects occurring in the ordinary course of nature goes beyond His merely conserving created substances along with their active and passive causal powers. The postulation of a further causal contribution, known as God's general concurrence (or general concourse), can be viewed as an attempt to accommodate an element of (...) truth present in occasionalist accounts of divine causality. (shrink)

This paper attempts to construct a systematic and plausible account of the necessity of the past. The account proposed is meant to explicate the central ockhamistic thesis of the primacy of the pure present and to vindicate Ockham's own non-Aristotelian response to the challenge of logical determinism.

These original essays offer evidence that a growing number of Anglo-American philosophers are finding in the classical discussion of God's existence and nature fertile sources for critical reflection on issues in the philosophy of religion. Nelson Pike challenges Aquinas' claim that God is not responsible for evil and shows how the rejection of this claim bears on the problem of evil. Richard Swinburne defends the classical Christian understanding of heaven and hell, arguing that it is both philosophically plausible and compatible (...) with the Christian conception of God's goodness. Philip Quinn proposes a defensible version of the classical assertion that God's conserving a creature in existence is tantamount to his continuously creating that creature. Thomas Flint and Alfred Freddoso present an analysis of omnipotence which they claim to be both philosophically adequate and consonant with the orthodox Christian belief that God is both omnipotent and incapable of sinning. James Ross's main purpose is to dislodge the assumption that God's power is properly and adequately thought of as the power to cause (or bring about or actualize) states of affairs. Clement Dore reinterprets and defends Descartes' often maligned Fifth Meditation argument for God's existence. Finally, Mark Jordan explicates the metaphysical foundations of Aquinas' doctrine of divine names. (shrink)

Born in England and educated at Oxford, Ockham was the preeminent Franciscan thinker of the mid-fourteenth century. Because of his role in the bitter dispute between the Franciscans and Pope John XXII over evangelical poverty, he was excommunicated in 1328. After that he abandoned philosophy and theology proper, producing instead a series of political tracts on the ecclesiastical and secular power of the papacy.

Central to the western theistic understanding of divine providence is the conviction that God is the sovereign Lord of nature. He created the physical universe and continually conserves it in existence. What's more, He is always and everywhere active in it by His power. The operations of nature, be they minute or catastrophic, commonplace or unprecedented, are the work of His hands, and without His constant causal influence none of them would or could occur.

In the Logica Ingredientibus Abailard attacks the theory according to which universals are collections of individuals. This paper argues that Abailard's principal objection to this 'collective realism', viz, that it conflates universals with integral wholes, is actually quite strong, though it is generally overlooked by recent commentators. For implicit in this objection is the claim that the collective realist cannot provide a satisfactory account of predication. The reason for this is that integral wholes are not uniquely decomposable. In support of (...) thesis the author first explicates the medieval distinction between integral and subjective parts and then discusses its application to collective realism. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that an agent S has the power to bring it about that a proposition p is or will be true at a moment t only if S has at the same time the power to bring it about that it has always been the case that p would be true at t. The author first constructs a prima facie compelling argument for logical determinism and then argues that whoever accepts an Ockhamistic response to that (...) argument should also accept the above thesis. (shrink)

Let me begin somewhat perversely by making clear what I do not intend to do in this paper. I do not propose to offer a general defense of Ockham's resolution of the metaphysical perplexities engendered by the dogma of the Incarnation. In fact, I have argued elsewhere that his account of the hypostatic union is seriously deficient. 1..

The ArgumentThe question posed by this paper is why the Russian autocracy failed to pursue successfully Peter the Great's conscious policy of creating a society dominated by technique and competitive with technological levels achieved by Western Europe. The brief answer is that Peter's idea of a cultural revolution that would create new values and institutions hospitable to the introduction of technology clashed with powerful interests within society. The political opposition centered around three groups which were indispensable to the state in (...) fulfilling his vision: the nobility, the clergy, and the scientific establishment. Peter's original intention was to combine theoretical models and technology transfer from the West with educational reforms in Russia to produce new cadres of technical specialists. He attempted to adapt the Leibniz-Wolff cosmology to Russian conditions in order to reconcile ideological conflicts between military service and technical training, science and religion, theory and practice. The embodiment of his ideas in Russian science and religion were Mikhail Lomonosov and Feofan Prokopovich. Under his successors Peter's supporters encountered increased resistance: from the nobility to technical education, from the clergy to the scientific outlook, and from the Academy of Sciences to practical work. All three interest groups were willing to sacrifice real political rights for a recognition by the states of their autonomy to define their social roles. In the end the compromise was effected at the expense of Peter's ideal of the society dominated by technique. (shrink)

In his treatise on justice St. Thomas points out that the virtue of filial piety (pietas), by which we render honor to our parents, fails to satisfy the proper definition of justice because we cannot fully repay our debt to them. The same holds true of the virtue of respectfulness (observantia), by which we render honor to our teachers and guides, all the more if they themselves are virtuous. Ralph McInerny has been teacher and guide to me, and a virtuous (...) one at that. Still, it would be deplorably small-minded merely to call Ralph virtuous without noting the sheer magnificence of his moral and intellectual contributions to the building up of the Kingdom of God on earth. As is only fitting in the Christian dispensation, these contributions have made him an object of scorn in the eyes of some who are less magnanimous than he. But, like Peter and the apostles before him, he has rejoiced at being "judged worthy of ill-treatment for the sake of the Name.". (shrink)

Summary By means of examples drawn from everyday experience, the author investigates what conditions must be satisfied in order that behaviour may be called rational or irrational. Does the attribution of irrationality apply to means or to ends? Is it based on consideration of the total cost? Is heroism irrational? Cannot what is irrational for one person be rational for another? Finally, the author uses this approach to come to the problem of induction and to that of moral freedom.RésuméL'auteur examine, (...) à l'aide d'exemples divers tiréds de l'expérience quotidienne, quelles sont les conditions qui doivent ětre remplies pour qu'on puisse qualifier une conduite de rationnelle ou d'irrationnelle. L'imputation d'irrationalité concerne‐t‐elle les moyens ou les buts? Se fonde‐t‐elle sur une estimation globale des coǔts? L'héroïsme est‐il irrationnel? Ce qui est irrationnel pour l'un ne peut‐il pas ětre rationnel pour un autre? Enfin, il aborde par ce biais le problème de l'induction et celui de la liberté morale.ZusammenfassungDer Verfasser untersucht aufgrund verschiedener aus dem Alltag gezogenen Beispiele die Frage, welches die Bedingungen sind, die erfüllt sein müssen, damit man ein Verhalten als rational bezeichnen kann. Bezieht sich das Zuschreiben von Irrationalität auf Mittel oder auf Ziele? Ist es auf der Einschätzung des Aufwandes begründet? Ist Heldentum irrational? Kann das, was dem einen als irrational gilt, einem andern nicht als rational gelten? Schliesslich wird über das Induktionsproblem das Problem der moralischen Freiheit angegangen. (shrink)

This book offers the first English translation of the Quodlibetal Questions of William of Ockham --reflections on a variety of topics in logic, ontology, natural philosophy, philosophical psychology, moral theory, and theology by one of the preeminent thinkers of the Middle Ages. It is based on the recent critical edition of Ockham's theological and philosophical works.

"This is the only free-standing English translation of the entire Treatise on human nature, which includes St. Thomas's account of the metaphysical status of the human soul and its relation to the human organism ; the powers of the soul, especially the higher intellective powers that distinguish humans from other animals ; and, those questions on human origins, the creation of the first man and first woman, and their status as being created in the image of God."--Cover, p. 1.

According to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the Son of God is truly but only contingently a human being. But is it also the case that Christ’s individual human nature is only contingently united to a divine person? The affirmative answer to this question, explicitly espoused by Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, turns out to be philosophically untenable, while the negative answer, which is arguably implicit in St. Thomas Aquinas, explication of the Incarnation, has some surprising and significant (...) metaphysical consequences. (shrink)

My topic is God's activity in the ordinary course of nature. The precise mode of this activity has been the subject of prolonged debates within every major theistic intellectual tradition, though it is within the Catholic tradition that the discussion has been carried on with the most philosophical sophistication. The problem, in its simplest form, is this: Given the fundamental theistic tenet that God is the provident Lord of nature, the First Efficient Cause who creates the universe, sustains it in (...) being, and exists in all things by His essence, presence, and power,1 how exactly do the actions of secondary (i.e., created) causes fit in with God's own activity in the ordinary course of nature? Or, to put it a bit more neutrally, how exactly is God's own action as the First Cause in nature related to the causal activity, if any , of His creatures? (shrink)

Luis de Molina was a leading figure in the remarkable sixteenth-century revival of Scholasticism on the Iberian peninsula.

In this paper, I observe that Hobbesian physicalism on the one side, and Cartesian dualism on the other, have had a widespread cultural influence on the way we regard ourselves and on the way we behave toward one another. I argue that what we now need is a conceptual space within which we might forge a metaphysical alternative, an alternative that will give us some hope of overcoming the deleterious intellectual, moral, and social consequences of both physicalism and dualism.

This paper takes the first steps in the construction of a theory of event identity as that theory applies to historical sentences. The theory is extensional throughout. Following statements of criteria of adequacy for the construction, Davidson's method of regimenting sentences is adopted in order to allow for variables ranging over events. Events in this theory are only partially construed, that is, to the extent of treating them as concrete individuals rather than as classes or repeatable universals. The paper concludes (...) with a statement of several theorems and definitions and an example of how the theory works. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to take issue with two aspects of Marilyn Adams's monumental work William Ockham . Part I deals with Ockham's ontology, arguing (i) that Adams does not sufficiently appreciate the use Ockham makes of the prinicple of ontological parsimony in his attempt to refute the thesis that there are extramental universals or common natures and (ii) that she sets an implausibly high standard of success for Ockham's project of showing that the only singular entities are (...) substances and qualities. Part II argues that Adams fails to provide a convincing defense of Ockham's 'anti-secularist' answer to the question of how Christian thinkers should react to prima facie conflicts between the deliverances of faith and the deliverances of reason. (shrink)

At a poignant juncture early in Brideshead Revisited, Sebastian, after briefly recounting for Charles his family's rather checkered performance with regard to its Catholicism, remarks, "I wish I liked Catholics more." When Charles replies, "They seem just like other people," Sebastian rebukes him: "My dear Charles, that's exactly what they're not ... It's not just that they're a clique-- as a matter of fact, they're at least four cliques all blackguarding each other half the time--but they've got an entirely different (...) outlook on life; everything they think important is different from other people. They try and hide it as much as they can, but it comes out all the time. It's quite natural, really, that they should. But you see it's difficult for semi-heathens like ... me." Outsiders are often distracted and even mesmerized by the blackguarding. In discussions of the elusive "Catholic character" we have come to expect comments like, "You can't even agree among yourselves what 'Catholic' means; is it any wonder that the rest of us get edgy when we hear of efforts to reinforce the Catholic character of Notre Dame?" Larry's paper helps us to understand a bit better both the significance of these internal disagreements and the fervor with which they are carried on. As he suggests, a true catholicity is marked by a kind of "coincidence of opposites," a plurality within a unity, or perhaps better, a creative anarchy within fixed limits, a volatile mixture of the hierarchical and the charismatic, of the stabilizing and the spontaneous, of St. Peter and St. Paul. Chesterton characterized it as an equilibrium in which the duelling opposites are allowed to become exaggerated just short of the point where the one would wipe out the other: "St. Francis, in praising all good, could be a more shouting optimist than Walt Whitman. St. Jerome, in denouncing all evil, could paint the world blacker than Schopenauer.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creativity Belongs to the Person, not to DiseaseJuan J. López-Ibor Jr. (bio) and María-Inés López-Ibor (bio)Keywordscreativity, patho-biography, Saint Teresa, visionsIn the paper, “From the Visions of Saint Teresa of Jesus to the Voices of Schizophrenia,” Cangas, Sass, and Pérez-Álvarez (2008) take an original approach to patho-biography that is very welcome.The temptation to designate historical individuals or characters of fiction as suffering from mental disease has always produced disagreeable feelings (...) in me. This sort of abuse of psychiatry and of the people in question is parallel to the abuse by the media or lay citizens when they describe, say, an especially violent murderer as a schizophrenic—forgetting that the vast majority of people with schizophrenia are not in the least violent. Having read Santa Teresa’s writings during my adolescence, well before I even considered entering medicine, I reacted to comments about her alleged psychiatric illnesses with uneasiness, to put it mildly. The Santa Teresa of La Vida de la Santa Madre Teresa de Jesús (her autobiography), of the Camino de Perfección, and of the El Castillo Interior was surely not a mental patient, it seemed to me. The same would apply to San Juan de La Cruz, Jean D’Arc, Don Quijote, Sancho Panza, Edipus, and Clitemnestra, to mention a few. Even van Gogh’s paintings did not seem to me the productions of a patient with schizophrenia or epilepsy. Of course all of them may have suffered, at certain periods of life, symptoms attributable to a mental disorder, but their creativity rested elsewhere, and was often manifest during healthy periods of their lives. After years spent fighting the stigma of mental diseases, and after organizing several exhibitions of works of art of people with mental diseases, we came to the conclusion that creativity and singularity belong to the person, not to the illness. Some of the diseases of these individuals may have being accidents (van Gogh’s hallucinations and psychotic symptoms, for example, were most probably due to intoxications with absinthe, then rich in hallucinogenic alkaloids such as tujone), or, together with other life circumstances, may have had unspecific influences on the person’s condition. In contrast with many other psychiatric disorders that are represented in ancient Greek and Roman literature, there are no descriptions of individuals with schizophrenia in the Greek and Roman literature dating from the fifth century bc to the beginning of the second century Ad (Evans et al. 2003), and several authors have speculated that schizophrenia did not exist before the eighteenth century (Ellard 1987).Caution is important when dealing with mental health and religious issues in contrast with creativity. The creativity of people suffering from bipolar disorders is well recognized (Jamison 1993) and [End Page 277] the same applies to alcohol and drug intoxication. Tellenbach (1986) has also written on the creativity of depressed persons, although he refers more to the disposition of mood (Schwermut) than to clinical depression as such. The link between melancholia and genius put forward by Aristotle has often been misinterpreted. The philosopher was considering the melancholic temperament and not the melancholic illness as we would understand it today. Of the four temperaments, it is in his view only the melancholic that is gifted with creativity. The sanguine person seeks the immediate pleasures of life, the choleric one considers himself powerful and dedicates himself to manifesting this power, and the phlegmatic individual is disconnected from life and seeks to live without effort or pleasure. The melancholic temperament leads to creativity because of the predominance of doubt, reflection, and dissatisfaction with the miseries of life.Freud’s notion of religiosity as a collective obsessive neurosis is totally mistaken, in my view. The three main themes of obsessions are cleanliness, order, and guilt. In none of these cases is the theme the goal of the action; rather, it is a strategy to contain anxiety. As a consequence, patients with obsessions and compulsions about dirt and cleanliness tend to be dirty themselves, because the real purpose of their compulsions is not in fact to be clean but rather to satisfy a ritual. When order... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Anthropological Perspectives in Psychiatric NosologyJuan J. López-Ibor Jr. (bio) and María-Inés López-Ibor (bio)KeywordsDSM, etiology, Aristotelian causes, social dramasPsychiatry and clinical psychology, as we learn in this paper, are disciplines in need of an ontological perspective. Very few branches of contemporary learning share this characteristic. Probably only theoretical physic and theology—as the rest have long ago given up trying to define and understand the essence of their object, for example, (...) life in the case of biology or mind in psychology. Consequently, the paper by Pérez-Álvarez, Sass and García-Montes, “The Ontology of Mental Disorders in Constructivist Perspective,” (2008) should be welcomed and indeed included in the reading lists for trainees in psychiatry and clinical psychology.The authors propose an approach to the understanding of mental disorders that is extremely attractive and well articulated, and which also has practical implications for clinicians. It is not just another “philosophical divertimento” devoid of scientific and practical importance. Let us analyze the article in an orderly way.Less DsmThe authors of the target paper disapprove of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-III/IV approach to defining illnesses by starting from the symptoms that are present—on the grounds that this may lead clinicians to assume that their sole role is to identify, fight, and suppress the symptoms by whichever procedure. They propose an alternative that is dear to myself because it follows the path of the so-called “anthropological” psychiatry of Binswanger, von Gebsattel, Erwin Strauss, Zutt, López-Ibor, Sr., and others. In essence, this is a phenomenological approach to the meaning of mental diseases, one that emphasizes how the illness is revealed to the patient him- or herself.The target article’s criticism of DSM should be considered in the context of the abuses committed on its behalf. The DSM is not a textbook of psychiatric disorders, nor does it contain a definition of the diseases. The DSM does not tell what a disease is (Klerman et al. 1984)—something that is impossible with a classification system based on the manifestations of the diseases, the signs and symptoms. The DSM, as its title states, is just a diagnostic and statistical manual, which does not contain anything about the origin of [End Page 259] any disease nor an explanation of why it exists or what it means. The DSM is, in fact, just a tool to determine whether a disease is present, and therefore to facilitate communication between professionals and with other individuals, without saying anything about the disease’s aitia—a key term (associated with notions of essence as well as cause) to be discussed below. In theory, most clinicians should understand these limitations; it may be, however, that this is not really the case for many who read or use the DSM. In the world there are around 200,000 psychiatrists; since 1980 the number of DSM copies sold is in the order of several hundred thousand.The misuse of a classification system is even more noticeable in the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-10 Research Version. The instructions for the use of this version recommend that the first step is to make an inventory of all the symptoms present, and then to construct a diagnosis based on them. This how all computer-assisted systems work. This procedure can, however, only be valid if the clinician has already reached a diagnostic conclusion by other means—a diagnosis then to be confirmed for research purposes. It may be that this is one of the reasons why the ICD-10 Research Version has almost never actually been used for research.Furthermore, the concept of symptoms in psychiatry applies only to organic mental disorders (Schneider 1959), conditions in which the patient’s attitude and way of experiencing the symptoms do not play the kind of role that they play in schizophrenia and other mental disorders. The quotation from the important paper by Sass and Parnas in this context is most appropriate. It is indeed that case that “subjective experience can play an important causal role in the progressive experiential transformations of a developing schizophrenic illness... (shrink)