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Postliberalism, economics, and culture
I commend to you economist Philip Pilkington’s fine essay “Towards a Postliberal Political Economy,” at The American Postliberal. It is in part a response to my recent Postliberal Order article “In...
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Pilkington responds
Philip Pilkington sent me a response to my reply to his American Postliberal article. I thank him for it and am happy to post it here:Feser's response to my piece is a welcome effort at clarification....
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The vice of insensibility
Temperance or moderation is the virtue governing the enjoyment of sensory pleasures. In particular, and as Aquinas says, “temperance is properly about pleasures of meat and drink and sexual...
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Cardinal Newman, Archbishop Fernandez, and the “suspended Magisterium” thesis
St. John Henry Newman famously noted that during the Arian crisis, “the governing body of the Church came short” in fighting the heresy, and orthodoxy was preserved primarily by the laity. “The...
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Archbishop Fernandez’s clarification
Recently, it was announced that Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernandez would become the new prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). As I noted in an article last week, Pope Francis...
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What is classical theism?
Recently, I was interviewed by John DeRosa for the Classical Theism Podcast. The focus of our discussion is my essay “What is Classical Theism?,” which appears in the anthology Classical Theism: New...
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Lofton’s YouTube straw man
There’s a popular mode of online intellectual discourse that I rather dislike, which might be labeled “the extended YouTube hot take.” It involves a talking head riffing, for an hour or so, on...
View ArticleA comment on the Lofton affair
For any readers of my recent reply to Michael Lofton who have not been following events at Twitter and YouTube, Lofton has, over the course of the last few days, posted a series of tweets at the former...
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Stove and Searle on the rhetorical subversion of common sense
One of the stranger aspects of contemporary political and intellectual life is the frequency with which commentators put forward extremely dubious or even manifestly absurd claims as if they were...
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Open-minded open thread
It’s time for an open thread. So dust off those otherwise off-topic comments you’ve been aching to post. Because from M.C. Escher to MC Hammer, from pick-up sticks to Kubrick flicks, from panpsychism...
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Haugeland on hylomorphism
In his essay “Ontological Supervenience” (in his anthology Having Thought: Essays in the Metaphysics of Mind), John Haugeland puts forward an unusual criticism of hylomorphism, essentially accusing it...
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All One in Christ on EWTN Bookmark
Some time back I was interviewed about my book All One in Christ: A Catholic Critique of Racism and Critical Race Theory for EWTN Bookmark with Doug Keck. The episode airs on Sunday, August 27 at 10...
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Aquinas and Nietzsche on the politics of envy
Recently, I joined Postliberal Order as a regular contributor. Today, my essay “Against the Politics of Envy” appears at the site. It discusses Aquinas’s account of the nature and effects of the sin...
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Fastiggi on Capital Punishment and the Change to the Catechism, Part I
In 2018, Pope Francis revised the section of the Catechism of the Catholic Church dealing with the topic of capital punishment, so that it now states that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it...
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Fastiggi on Capital Punishment and the Change to the Catechism, Part II
In 2018, Pope Francis authorized a revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which now states that “the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of...
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Hartshorne on the project of natural theology
Process theism denies some of the key attributes ascribed to God by classical theism, such as immutability and impassibility. Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) was among its chief representatives. As a...
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The Death Penalty and Genesis 9:6: A Reply to Mastnjak (Guest article by...
Genesis 9:6 famously states: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image” (RSV). This has traditionally been understood by Jews and Christians...
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Augustine on false community
In a new article at Postliberal Order, I discuss the perverse forms of human community identified and criticized by Augustine in the Confessions, and how what he has to say applies to our times.
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Aquinas on the will’s fixity after death
My essay “Aquinas on the Fixity of the Will After Death” appears in New Blackfriars. (It’s behind a paywall, I’m afraid.) Here’s the abstract:Aquinas holds that after death, the human soul can no...
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Michael F. Flynn (1947-2023)
It is with much sadness that I report that Michael F. Flynn, well-known science fiction writer and longtime friend of this blog, has passed away. Mike’s daughter made the announcement at his blog...
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