Philosophy

Perché si agisce? Quanto contano la razionalità e la volontà nella nostra esistenza? Qual è il ruolo delle passioni? Che cosa chiediamo agli altri, entrando in relazione con loro? Chi sono io? Nella cultura occidentale, è alla filosofia che si chiede ancora di dare risposte a questo genere di domande. Quello che viene presentato in questo libro è dunque una riflessione filosofica sull’essere umano, offerta in particolare a chi non si occupa professionalmente di filosofia, ma che cerca una bussola per orientare la propria vita e profili dell’umano, in forza dei quali rispondere alla diverse sfide culturali e professionali di oggi.

The western idea of soul has a dual origin: the platonic one, according to which the soul is the principle of spiritual life, and the aristotelian one, according to which the soul is the form of the body. In the 13 th century, thanks to the mediation of Avicenna, this twofold idea is not seen as a possible source of incoherence, but as the proof of the complexity of human life: the soul is, at the same time, both that which makes man similar to the other life forms and that which makes it different. In accordance with this premise, Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus both affi rm that philosophy allows us to identify the most peculiar characteristics of the human soul. While Aquinas claims, however, that even immortality of the soul comes within the conclusions of philosophy, John Duns Scotus does not consider immortality to be demonstrable, beyond the horizons of faith. The essay dedicates particular attention to the arguments with which Duns Scotus has professed to show the inability of philosophy to deal with the subject of immortality in a pertinent way.

Questo contributo si concentra sull’analisi di due precisi elementi
della dottrina dell’individuazione proposta da Giovanni Duns Scoto.
Il primo consiste nella necessità di riconoscere che la natura comune
è una dimensione reale dell’individuo, non un costrutto della ragione.
L’autore sottolinea l’importanza storico-dottrinale di questa posizione
di Scoto, mettendola anche in relazione alle critiche mossegli
da Pietro Aureolo e da Guglielmo di Alnwick. Il secondo elemento
riguarda il modo in cui Duns Scoto ha interpretato i passi in cui
Aristotele sembra porre la materia come principio di individuazione:
elaborando una lettura dello Stagirita molto diversa da quella tipica
di Tommaso d’Aquino, Scoto ha inteso presentare Aristotele come un
precursore della propria dottrina dell’haecceitas.

La nozione di persona appare oggi attraversata da un’insuperabile ambiguità. Essa è dovuta certamente alla complessità della sua vicenda storica, ma soprattutto al fatto che una tale nozione è terreno di scontro tra due concezioni antropologiche rivali: la prima è quella che risale a Severino Boezio, il quale, tra il V e il VI secolo d.C., ha stabilito un forte legame tra persona e natura; la seconda è quella maturata a partire da John Locke, il quale ha indicato come criterio dell’identità personale la coscienza.

In questo contributo, l’autore mette in luce il ruolo della nozione di natura all’interno della definizione classica di persona, mostrando come un tale ruolo abbia prodotto per secoli l’attribuzione della dignità personale all’essere stesso dell’individuo. Quindi, l’autore rimarca che, a partire da John Locke, una tale concezione è stata abbandonata, spostando così il riconoscimento di chi è persona dal piano dall’essere dell’individuo a quello di ciò che l’individuo è in grado di fare, fornendo in tal modo un’inaspettata base teorica alla costruzione di una società basata sull’avere e sulla «dittatura della prestazione».

The world we experience is marked by change. Starting from Aristotle, Greek philosophy has identified in "matter" the fundament of such a succession of forms, bodies and lives. What exactly is the nature of matter? What is the relationship between matter and the constitution of individuals? What kind of realities are composed by Matter? Medieval thought has played a crucial role in the development of the notion of matter, a role that still remains, in many ways, to be explored. This book is an opportunity to fill this gap at least in part: for the first time, an organic vision of the investigations and debates that had the Franciscan masters of the first decades of the 14th century is provided. These masters produced an original contribution to the late medieval physics, revealing an attitude that is anything but passive towards the then dominant Aristotelian paradigm. They have proposed the philosophical idea - rooted in a precise image of creation - that matter is a positive entity, characterized by a privileged relationship with quantity and extension.

I intend to discuss Aquinas' natural law argument for justifying environmental ethics, by referring to the consideration of natural law as the participation of the eternal law. Before we examine views on what constitutes this participation of the eternal law, understood as an active and passive participation, we need to examine views on what environmental ethics strive for. In general, environmental ethics aims to argue the value of natural beings and moral attitude toward nature. The consideration of the passive participation of the eternal law both in human and natural beings is useful for justifying not only the value of natural beings but also the community of being between humans and the rest of nature. The consideration of the active participation of the eternal law in human beings serves to argue the moral responsibility for non-rational beings.

In the process of secularization of legal institutions, the thirteenth century - with all its political conflicts between emperors and popes - is relevant to understand the evolution of those institutions in modernity. Contextualized in that period, this chapter shows the importance of Aquinas's line of thought about the common good, law, and right in this process.
In general, the context of Aquinas’s era and his personal circumstances were characterized by tensions between two perilous alternatives, the imperial and the papal power. Because of this, Aquinas was cautious to express his opinion in specific political issues of the time. This chapter argues that, in spite of Aquinas's caution in putting forward his political ideas, the essence of his political thought and his opposition to theocratic theory of government could be inferred also from his notions of natural law and ius gentium, in which he addressed the basic issues of property rights and slavery.
Contrary to the tendency in academia which adscribes Aquinas's political thought to the theocratic theory, the present work argues that Aquinas was not a defender of this theory, but really a defender of secular power. Furthermore, in Aquinas's view, there was no need to invoke revealed truth to support political decisions and enactments, but only natural reason. Every law must conform to natural reason and natural law, and in order to be legitimate must aim for the common good. From this standpoint, Aquinas dealt with topics such as dominium, private property, commerce and slavery.
The chapter concludes that with his notions of natural law and ius gentium, Aquinas defended the legitimacy of secular power and contributed to the secularization in its meaning as declericalization, by depriving temporal, political power of the clerical character it had in late thirteen century Europe. Aquinas also provided the grounds for the development of the doctrines about religious freedom, human natural sociability, and property rights that were used afterwards to discuss the rights over the new world.
Keywords: Aquinas, political thought, common good, theocratic theory, secularization, natural law, ius gentium, property rights, slavery.

O »NOVI TEORIJI NARAVNEGA ZAKONA«
Članek poda Akvinčevo pojmovanje naravnega zakona, kot osnovo za sodobni razvoj tako imenovane »nove teorije naravnega zakona«. Ta dejansko označi nov pristop k naravnemu zakonu Akvinskega, ki je manj znan zaradi različic in pojmovanj istega etičnega koncepta predvsem v sodobnosti. Akvinskega naravni zakon je bogat koncept z dolgo tradicijo v etiki in predstavlja dobro podlago tako za normativnost kot tudi za razpravo o praktični racionalnosti. Članek poda tudi nekatere sodobne perspektive »nove teorije naravnega zakona«. Večina avtorjev obravnava temeljna dobra kot ključni koncept novega stališča teorije naravnega zakona. Članek sklenemo s premišljevanjem dosegov in mej pristopa k naravnemu zakonu z vidika teorije temeljnih dober ter z razmišljanjem o naravnem zakonu in moralni teoriji na splošno.

Ključne besede: etika, naravni zakon, Akvinski, temeljna dobra, moralna teorija

ABOUT »NEW NATURAL LAW THEORY«
The article presents Aquinas' natural law concept which is the base of the contemporary development of the so called »New Natural Law Theory«. Actually it designs a new approach to Aquinas' natural law that is less known because of different explanations of the same notion above all in modern philosophy. Aquinas' natural law is a rich concept with a long tradition in ethics and represents a good argument both for normativity and discussing on practical rationality. The article presents some contemporary perspectives of »New Natural Law Theory«. The majority of the authors treat basic goods like a key concept in the new approach to natural law theory. The article concludes with a consideration of the attainments and limits of the approach to natural law from the perspective of basic goods and a reflection on natural law in relation to moral theory in general.

Keywords: ethics, natural law, Aquinas, basic goods, practical rationality

Normativity and Transcendence of Natural Law: A Comparison of the Approaches of Thomas Aquinas and Francis Suárez

The concept of something »just by nature« enjoys
a long philosophical tradition, from Plato to Thomas Aquinas,
but only in Aquinas do we find the notion of natural
law as participation of the eternal law in the rational being.
Based on this notion, we deal with the relationship between
natural law and eternal law in Thomas Aquinas and Francisco
Suárez. Particularly relevant is the issue of the basis of the
natural law since it relates to the question of the foundation
of moral law and, ultimately, of ethics. Precisely this reflection
on the foundation is needed, because since the 1980s, natural
law has been considered above all as a law of practical
reason, focusing on a reflection on the connection between
natural law and virtue, or between natural law and human
law. However, the metaphysical dimension of natural law,
and with it, the question of the ultimate basis of normativity
has yet to be addressed satisfactorily. Suárez was the last
great scholastic follower of Aquinas and, consequently, to
some extent responsible for the modern reception of the
natural law of Aquinas. Thus, the comparison with Suárez
aims to find out differences for the subsequent knowledge
of the classical concept of natural law.

Key words: natural law, eternal law, civil law, natural inclinations,
practical reason, will, rational ethics, Thomas Aquinas,
Francisco Suárez

This article offers an exposition and critical discussion of the account of the truth of practical reason in the natural-law theory of Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, and John Finnis. The exposition rests mainly on an article published by these authors in 1987. There they argue that “true” is said of theoretical and practical knowledge in radically diverse senses. They also distinguish, within practical knowledge, between two kinds of truth, practical and moral. This distinction is tied to their understanding of relations that obtain among the  rst principles of practical reason. The essay’s critical discussion raises problems for the account in all three areas and favors the view that “true” means the same for all knowledge. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 15.2 (Summer 2015): 303–329.

Focusing mainly on two passages from the Summa theologiae, the article first argues that, on Aquinas’s view, an individual substance, which is the proper subject of being, can and normally does have a certain multiplicity of acts of being (actus essendi). It is only “a certain” multiplicity because the substance has only one unqualified act of being, its substantial being, which belongs to it through its substantial form. The others are qualified acts of being, added on to the substantial being through accidental forms. Having established this thesis, the rest of the article uses it as a basis for an approach to the so-called real distinction between act of being and essence or (more precisely) between act of being and substantial form. This approach is meant to be effective even in an Aristotelian setting where there may seem to be no place for a substantial act distinct from substantial form.

This book is aimed at helping those who are not experts in medieval thought to begin to enter into Thomas’s philosophical point of view.  Along the way, it brings out some aspects of his thought that are not often emphasized in the current literature, and it offers a reading of his teaching on the divine nature that goes rather against the drift of some prominent recent interpretations.
  The excerpt that can be downloaded is used with Permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.  Softcover and epub versions are available from their webpage.  Amazon has a kindle version.

The book examines Thomas Aquinas's understanding of the relation between human conduct and physical action, and between the will and the real events which it effects in the world.  Comparisons and contrasts are drawn between his views and those of certain contemporary philosophers, mostly analytical.

From reviews:

“'Considered as both a philosophical study and as an interpretation of Aquinas, this is a first-rate book... Brock's lucid and illuminating analysis offers much of value to both intellectual historians and theologians, as well as to philosophers.' -Jean Porter, Theological Studies

"...a remarkable book. It remains for others to draw out the theological and ethical implications of Brock's work, which makes both a philosophically compelling and exegetically sound case for the analogy of action in Aquinas. The work is so thorough and so lucid that no students of Aquinas or of contemporary action theory can afford to neglect it." -Thomas S. Hibbs, Boston College

"Others may find reasons to dissent from Brock's conclusions, but few will come to doubt the importance of his achievement. His treatment of Aquinas's account of action exhibits a rare combinations of rigor and learning. It is, no doubt, the best we have.' -John R. Bowlin, The Thomist

“Stephen Brock presents a comprehensive exposition and analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of action in general, and human action in particular. The book begins with a well-deserved introduction by Ralph McInerny, and it lives up to the high praise he offers. Both Thomistic scholars and analytic philosophers interested in theories of human action and accountability will find this book a welcome addition to their libraries...This book is clear, informative, and helpful in furthering a proper understanding of Aquinas's theory of action and the various nuanced distinctions it involves. Brock's work is this text is truly a substantive addition to both Thomistic scholarship and the ongoing analytic investigation into human action and responsible agency." -American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

In this paper I argue for three things.  The first is that what Thomas Aquinas calls “intentional existence,” esse intentionale, is actually quite different from what is now called “intentionality.” It is simply a certain mode of existence of forms. The second is that, for Thomas, cognitive existence—the existence by virtue of which something is known—is not always esse intentionale; sometimes it is what he calls “natural existence,” esse naturale. In this case, it is esse naturale that is in the knower. The third regards Thomas’s application of this point to human self-knowledge.  I suggest that it highlights and helps to account for an interesting feature of the unique, “first-person” perspective that each of us has on himself, namely, that having this perspective does not entail attributing to oneself some proper quality or set of qualities that distinguishes oneself from all others.  Complete article in pdf available on request.