Where, and how, do we bring meaning into the living of our lives? A movement from our assumed passive nihilism to a conscious active nihilism, Nolen Gertz argues. Despite this self-actualizing attempt at nihilism, it remains now as always a deleterious belief for any human being to adopt—the active no less, and perhaps quite a great deal more, than the passive.… Read More [review] Nihilism & Technology | Nihilism
Francisco Plaza, PhDCathedral High School, Houston TXEditor, Reality In the encyclical Evangelium vitae, Pope Saint John Paul II listed several crimes against human dignity, such as murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, all of which are “opposed to life itself.”[1] Apart from harming the victims themselves, these are also understood to do violence against society… Read More [essay] The Conflict between Human Dignity and Abortion – Part II
A Rapprochement Between the Individual-Person Distinction and the Primacy of the Common Good Contra Maritain’s Personalism[1] Taylor Patrick O’NeillAssistant Professor of TheologyMount Mercy UniversityCedar Rapids, IA ABSTRACT: This paper uses Garrigou-Lagrange in order to explore the wider question of a Thomistic response to personalism and the thought of Jacques Maritain. How ought Thomistic thinkers to… Read More [article] Was Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange a Personalist?
Francisco Plaza, PhDCathedral High School, Houston TXEditor, Reality As modern secularism strives to move further away from any sense of the religious, any principle which even suggests a possible theological basis rapidly comes under fire, even at the cost of human flourishing itself. Human dignity, an idea with Christian roots that has since been largely… Read More [essay] The Roots of Human Dignity & its Modern Dissolution – Part I
From the Editorial Introduction: This first issue of Reality—The Philosophy of Realism—like most publications and especially those of a collaborative effort, signifies innumerable hours of effort. The goal of our journal is simple: to reinvigorate an intelligent discussion about realism as a philosophical approach. By a realist approach, we mean not simply as pertains to… Read More [Issue] The Philosophy of Realism
Daniel C. Wagner, PhD Professor and Chair of Philosophy Aquinas College, Grand Rapids MI Editor, Reality Brian Kemple, PhD Continuum Philosophical Insight Executive Editor, Reality This first issue of Reality—The Philosophy of Realism—like most publications and especially those of a collaborative effort, signifies innumerable hours of effort. The goal of our journal is simple:… Read More Editorial Introduction – Reality as Katharsis
A response to Kirk Kanzelberger Michael J. Dodds, O.P. Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Berkeley, CA Abstract: I comment on certain aspects of Kirk Kanzelberger’s article, “Reality and the Meaning of Evil”, especially the distinction between “beings of nature” and “beings of reason” in the account of evil. For this, I employ the analogy… Read More [Article] Made of Flame and Air
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
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
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
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