Reflections in Response to Brian Kemple Matthew K. Minerd, Ph.D. Byzantine Catholic Seminary of Ss. Cyril and Methodius Pittsburgh, PA ABSTRACT: I have been asked to write a response to Dr. Brian Kemple’s essay, “Signs and Reality: An Advocation for Semiotic Realism.” What follows will be a kind of “rough and ready critical glance” over… Read More [Article] The Analogy of Res-ality
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
“Romantic love”, Carrie Jenkins writes near the end of her book, “cannot continue to be something we just stumble into and accept.” This is true and good advice, and Jenkins’ book—which spans a prologue, introduction, seven chapters, and a conclusion—successfully instigates a questioning after the truth of what romantic love is or ought to be. The implication, however, that there might be other things—our politics, our careers, our religious beliefs—into which we, having stumbled into them, can or ought to accept unquestioningly, is itself highly questionable. Indeed, I will argue that many of the presuppositions on which Jenkins builds the argument of What Love Is appear accepted without question. As we intend to show here, these unexamined presuppositions, when exposed, result in Jenkins’ argument falling apart—or, perhaps to continue the metaphor, turn a stumble into a precipitous fall.… Read More [review] What Love Is
Part 2 of 2: The Ancient meaning of nature, that of an ἀρχή, is a necessary beginning. A necessary beginning for what? For katharsis of the lived nihilism of modernity! As we explain in our editorial introduction to the first Issue of Reality the English term catharsis, meaning “a release, or relief from powerful repressed emotions,” is from the ancient Greek term κᾰθαρσις (katharsis).… Read More [essay] Aristotle on Nature (φύσις) – Part II
“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
Part 1 of 2: The Ancient meaning of nature, that of an ἀρχή, is a necessary beginning. A necessary beginning for what? For katharsis of the lived nihilism of modernity! As we explain in our editorial introduction to the first Issue of Reality the English term catharsis, meaning “a release, or relief from powerful repressed emotions,” is from the ancient Greek term κᾰθαρσις (katharsis).… Read More [essay] Aristotle on Nature (φύσις) – Part I
In this response to Francisco Plaza’s paper, I have two primary aims. First, to highlight and further explore Plaza’s critique of what I will call the “content” that makes up modern thought, especially as it relates to certain broader cultural movements in the Western world. Second, to provide…… Read More [article] Classical Realism in a Democratic Context
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
A review of Kate Manne’s Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (Oxford University Press: New York, 2018).… Read More [review] Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny
How do we confront evil? There is no easy solution to this problem; but we learn much from a literary investigation, if we have the eyes to see what great thinkers like Jacques Maritain and Fyodor Dostoevsky have to tell us.… Read More [essay] Dostoevsky and the Cry of Rachel
REALITY 
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