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Self control
The relationship between memory and personal identity has long been of interest to philosophers, and it is also a theme explored to good effect in movies and science fiction. In Memento, Leonard...
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Anthony Brueckner (1953 - 2014)
Philosopher Tony Brueckner of UC Santa Barbara died this week. Tony was a professor of mine when I was in graduate school, and served on my dissertation committee. I remember him as an excellent...
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What We Owe the New Atheists
Last week I gave a lecture at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA, on the theme “What We Owe the New Atheists.” You can read the text and/or listen to the audio of the lecture at TAC’s website....
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God’s wounds
The God of classical theism -- of Athanasius and Augustine, Avicenna and Maimonides, Anselm and Aquinas -- is (among other things) pure actuality, subsistent being itself, absolutely simple, immutable,...
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A second exchange with Keith Parsons, Part I
I’d like once again to thank Keith Parsons, and moderator Jeffery Jay Lowder, for the very fruitful first exchange we had a few weeks ago. You can find links to each installment here. Per Jeff’s...
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Corrupting the Calvinist youth [UPDATED]
Some guy named “Steve” who contributes to the group apologetics blog Triablogue informs us that“Feser seems to have a following among some young, philosophically-minded Calvinists.” (Who knew?)...
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School’s out forever?
John Farrell, Forbes science blogger extraordinaire (and friend of this blog), comments on my recent talk at Thomas Aquinas College, over at his own personal blog. As you know if you’ve read or...
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A second exchange with Keith Parsons, Part II
Prof. Keith Parsons has posted his own opening statement in our second exchange, which is devoted to the topic of atheism, naturalism, and morality. (An index of the posts in our first exchange can be...
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Miracles, ID, and classical theism
The esteemed Lydia McGrew, a friend of this blog, wonderswhether my defense of classical theism and criticisms of “Intelligent Design” theory can be reconciled with some of the miracle stories one...
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Dominicans Interactive reviews Aquinas
Dominicans Interactive is a new online initiative of the Irish Dominicans. (Check out their Facebook page and website.) Today the website reviewsmy book Aquinas. From the review:The chapter on...
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Pre-Christian apologetics
Christianity did not arise in a vacuum. The very first Christians debated with their opponents in a cultural context within which everyone knew that there is a God and that he had revealed himself...
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New Scholastic books
The old Scholastic manuals of the first half or so of the twentieth century are often hard to find, though fortunately many are now being made available again by Editiones Scholasticae, Wipf and Stock,...
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This is philosophy?
This is Philosophy is a new introduction to the subject by Prof. Steven Hales. A reader calls my attention to the book’s companion website, which contains links to some lecture slides keyed to topics...
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Linked in
Two new papers from David Oderberg: “Is Form Structure?” and “The Metaphysics of Privation.”Donald Devine and I have been debating the merits of John Locke for years. Don offers his latest thoughts at...
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Sexual cant from the asexual Kant
Kant never married and apparently died a virgin. He is sometimes described as having had a low opinion of sex, on the basis of passages like this one from his Lectures on Ethics:[S]exuality is not an...
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Review of Gray etc.
Readers of the Claremont Review of Books may want to look for my review of John Gray’s book The Silence of Animals:On Progress and Other Modern Mythsin the Spring 2014 issue. At the moment the review...
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Judging a book by what it doesn’t cover
In his encyclical Aeterni Patris, Pope Leo XIII called for a “restoration of Christian philosophy.” He was quite specific about what he had in mind:[D]aily experience, and the judgment of the greatest...
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Sullivan’s cavils
I thank The Smithy’s Michael Sullivan for his two spirited further installments (hereand here) in his series of posts on my book Scholastic Metaphysics. (I responded to the first of his posts here.)...
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Summer web surfing
My Claremont Review of Books review of John Gray’s The Silence of Animalsis now available for free online.Keith Parsons has now wrapped up our exchange on atheism and morality at The Secular...
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The last enemy
There are two sorts of people who might be tempted to think of death as a friend: those who think the nature of the human person has nothing to do with the body, and those who think it has everything...
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