[Article] The Philosophical Implications of Sense Realism

A Response to Daniel Wagner James D. Capehart, Ph.D. Sacred Heart Apostolic School Rolling Prairie, IN [response to daniel wagner, “the logical terms of sense realism”] Download Issue Version PDF In his essay “The Logical Terms of Sense Realism: A Thomistic-Aristotelian and Phenomenological Defense” Daniel Wagner addresses the problem of universals and specifically the problem… Read More [Article] The Philosophical Implications of Sense Realism

[Article] Aquinas On Suppositum, Essence & Universals

  Seth Kreeger PhD Candidate Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology [online only response to daniel wagner, “the logical terms of sense realism”] Download as PDF Having read “The Logical Terms of Sense Realism: A Thomistic-Aristotelian & Phenomenological Defense” I find myself to be quite in agreement with Professor Wagner about the impossibility of nominalism… Read More [Article] Aquinas On Suppositum, Essence & Universals

[article] Signs and Reality

ABSTRACT: The world today has a “meaning” problem.  That is: while the attainment of “meaning” poses a perennial difficulty common to every human life in every human age, our lives in this age have a problem with attaining meaning—indeed, a twofold problem.  First, the problem being that we do not know, precisely, to what the term “meaning” refers; and second, the problem being that even if we recognize one aspect or more of the term’s referent, we do not understand how it can be resolved into a coherent whole, for we lack the requisite principles. Among the obstacles preventing both the attainment of the meaning of “meaning” and its coherent resolution are myriad misunderstandings of what it means to say that we “know reality”; misunderstandings which not only fall short but miss the mark entirely.    More must be done in order to explain both how realism is possible and just what falls into the reality which realism is said to make known. At the heart of the struggle for realism is the question of to what extent and in what regard the cognitive means of knowing are the same as the object known.  This question is especially central to the Thomistic tradition, for Thomas often refers to the species intelligibilis as a similitudo of the object known.  Various misinterpretations and muddy explanations of this reference have hindered an understanding of how the human intellect knows its object. To resolve this Thomistic problem and the problems of meaning, we propose a semiotic realism, a realism that structures its doctrines in accord with the nature of signs and that accordingly understands the species intelligibilis as fragmentary, incomplete, and in need of continual deliberate interpretational refinement in order that we attain a better grasp on the truth of the real.… Read More [article] Signs and Reality

[Article] The Logical Terms of Sense Realism

A Thomistic-Aristotelian & Phenomenological Defense Daniel C. Wagner Professor and Chair of Philosophy Aquinas College, Grand Rapids, MI Editor, Reality ABSTRACT: At the heart of realist philosophy is the doctrine of univocal predication of definitions or the universal terms genus, species, and difference. This doctrine, first set down by Aristotle in the Categories, was famously… Read More [Article] The Logical Terms of Sense Realism

[Article] Reality and the Meaning of Evil

“Evil is really only a privation.”  This philosophical commonplace reflects an ancient solution to the problem of theodicy in one of its dimensions: is evil of such a nature that it must have God as its author? Stated in this particular way, it also reflects the commonplace identification of the real with natural being—the realm of what exists independently of human thought and perspectives—as opposed to all that is termed, by comparison, “merely subjective” and “unreal”.   If we stick with this way of construing the meaning of “reality”, then by the excellent arguments of the tradition we are also stuck with defending the sufficiency of privation as a response to what evil “really is”.… Read More [Article] Reality and the Meaning of Evil

[article] Political Science and Realism

ABSTRACT: This article contrasts the pursuit of political science from a classically realist perspective versus a modernist one. We suggest that with the developments in modern philosophy and science, political science has stopped examining the common good itself, instead pursuing what is called a “value-free” analysis based on materialism, or a utopian ideal based on subjectivism. Neither path, however, arrives at the true good itself, as both approaches begin from a flawed set of metaphysical principles divorced from reality. Our proposal is that for political science to properly seek what is the actual common good, it must begin with a solid metaphysical foundation of true realism. To accomplish this, we shall look first to the foundation of political science with Aristotle, then, we shall examine what changed with the arrival of modernity. Finally, we will rely upon contemporary critics of political philosophy (Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, and Jacques Maritain specifically) to account for the problems with political science in its current form, and consider how these problems may be addressed through a return to classical realism within political philosophy.… Read More [article] Political Science and Realism

[article] Interpretation and Traditions

ABSTRACT: My topic today develops some themes found or at least suggested in both Ens Primum Cognitum and The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology but focuses on one in particular: namely, why people are so quick to develop and obstinate in maintaining bad intellectual positions—not in terms of the historical causes which have contributed to the state of bad thinking prevalent today, but in terms of the cognitive capacities themselves; that is, what happens in the person as cognitive agent when falsehoods are adopted and subsequently protected.… Read More [article] Interpretation and Traditions