Recovering Nature

Description

The recovery of nature has been a unifying and enduring aim of the writings of Ralph McInerny, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, director of the Jacques Maritain Center, former director of the Medieval Institute, and author of numerous works in philosophy, literature, and journalism. While many of the fads that have plagued philosophy and theology during the last half-century have come and gone, recent developments suggest that McInerny’s commitment to Aristotelian-Thomism was boldly, if quietly, prophetic. In his persistent, clear, and creative defenses of natural theology and natural law, McInerny has appealed to nature to establish a dialogue between theists and non-theists, to contribute to the moral and political renewal of American culture, and particularly to provide some of the philosophical foundations for Catholic theology.

This volume brings together essays by an impressive group of scholars, including William Wallace, O.P., Jude P. Dougherty, John Haldane, Thomas DeKoninck, Alasdair MacIntyre, David Solomon, Daniel McInerny, Janet E. Smith, Michael Novak, Stanley Hauerwas, Laura Garcia, Alvin Plantinga, Alfred J. Freddoso, and David B. Burrell, C.S.C.

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Métaphysique
• Éthique et morale
• Moral Philosophy
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• América
• Catholicism
• Metaphysics
• Ethics
• America

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 11 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268160715
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

RECOVERING NATURE
Matt Cashore
Ralph McInerny Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies Director of the Jacques Maritain Center University of Notre Dame
RECOVERING NATURE
Essays in Natural Philosophy, Ethics, and Metaphysics in Honor of Ralph McInerny
Edited by
T HOMAS H IBBS AND J OHN O C ALLAGHAN
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, IN 46556
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 1999 by University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Recovering nature : essays in natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics in honor of Ralph McInerny / edited by Thomas Hibbs and John O Callaghan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-268-16070-8 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-268-01666-1 (hardback)
1. -Philosophy of nature. 2. Thomists. I. McInerny, Ralph M. II. Hibbs, Thomas S. III. O Callaghan, John.
BD581.R39 1999
149 .91-dc21
99-38120
eISBN 9780268160715
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984 .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION , Thomas Hibbs and John O Callaghan
I. Natural Philosophy
Quantification in Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophy , William Wallace, O.P .
The Failure of Positivism and the Enduring Legacy of Comte , Jude P. Dougherty
The Philosophies of Mind and Nature , John Haldane
Persons and Things , Thomas De Koninck
II. Ethics
John Case: An Example of Aristotelianism s Self-Subversion? , Alasdair MacIntyre
Keeping Virtue in Its Place: A Critique of Subordinating Strategies , David Solomon
Deliberation about Final Ends: Thomistic Considerations , Daniel McInerny
Moral Terminology and Proportionalism , Janet E. Smith
The Gospels, Natural Law, and the American Founding , Michael Novak
McInerny Did It, or Should a Pacifist Read Murder Mysteries? , Stanley Hauerwas
III. Metaphysics
Religious Pluralism and Natural Theology , Laura Garcia
Reid, Hume, and God , Alvin Plantinga
Two Roles for Catholic Philosophers , Alfred J. Freddoso
From Analogy of Being to the Analogy of Being , David B. Burrell, C.S.C .
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We have incurred a number of debts in the process of editing this volume. First, we would like to thank Mrs. Alice Osberger, longtime administrative assistant to Ralph McInerny, for her assistance and advice on numerous matters. Second, we wish to express our gratitude to the contributors, who have graciously and promptly responded to all of our requests. We especially wish to acknowledge one of the contributors, David Solomon. The idea for this volume was born in a conversation we had with David a few summers ago. Along the way, he has provided encouragement, wit, and prudential judgment. Third, we would like to thank Mr. Michael Joyce and Ms. Dianne Sehler of the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation. The Foundation generously provided a grant to defray the costs of the publication of this volume and to support a celebration in honor of the achievements of Ralph McInerny. Finally, we gratefully acknowledge the assistance of John McCudden, Ann Rice, and Jeffrey Gainey of the University of Notre Dame Press, who have made many helpful editorial corrections and suggestions and who have expressed enthusiasm about the project from the very beginning.
INTRODUCTION
Thomas Hibbs and John O Callaghan
The recovery of nature has been a unifying and enduring aim of the writings of the man to whom this book is dedicated, Ralph McInerny, Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame, director of the Jacques Maritain Center, former director of the Medieval Institute, and author of numerous works in philosophy, literature, and journalism. The list of achievements and accolades could go on and on. But, although we have come to praise not bury McInerny, we want to do so by showing what we have learned from his teaching and writing. Clearly, one of the central preoccupations of his brand of Thomism, as an Aristotelian-Thomist, has been attention to nature. In his persistent, clear, and creative defenses of natural theology and natural law, Ralph has appealed to nature in order to establish a dialogue between theists and nontheists, to contribute to the moral and political renewal of American culture, and particularly to provide philosophical foundations for Catholic theology.
While many of the fads that have plagued philosophy and theology during the last half-century have come and gone, recent developments suggest that Ralph s commitment to Aristotelian-Thomism has been boldly, if quietly, prophetic. Philosophers of religion and proponents of the ethics of virtue draw with increasing confidence upon premodern insights, arguments, and modes of inquiry. The rejuvenation of variants on Aristotle s conception of nature is now a pervasive feature of the philosophical landscape. Consider, for example, (a) the exploration of an anthropology to complement virtue ethics, (b) the reformulation of a variety of traditional arguments from nature for the existence of God, (c) the rehabilitation, even in discussions of evolutionary theory, of teleology, (d) the search for conceptions of the human person that avoid the reductionist alternatives of dualism and materialism, and (e) the renewed interest in the viability of natural law as a basis for political and legal reasoning.
This volume brings together essays by an impressive group of scholars. The contributors certainly do not all agree with one another nor on every point with the man whom their essays honor; nor, finally, do all the essays focus equally on the Aristotelian-Thomist conception of nature. Yet the topics and modes of inquiry in the essays complement one another nicely and all have been written with Ralph in mind. Indeed, it is a sign of the admiration that Ralph elicits in colleagues and friends that, when asked, a group of very busy scholars eagerly agreed to submit an essay and that they finished their pieces, if not in every case at the deadline, well in advance of what academic custom now considers punctual. Had we but world enough and time, we are convinced we could produce a number of lively and interesting volumes dedicated to the work and life of Ralph McInerny. As some small token of our gratitude, this one will have to suffice.
We have divided the essays into three categories, following the order of learning recommended by Aristotle: natural philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics.
NATURAL PHILOSOPHY
The chief impediment to the recovery of the classical, Aristotelian conception of nature is undoubtedly the assumption that the modern sciences have decisively refuted the central tenets of Aristotle s natural philosophy, or at least that their rejection was a necessary prelude to the impressive and irreversible advances of the sciences. The essays by William Wallace ( Quantification in Sixteenth-Century Natural Philosophy ) and Jude Dougherty ( The Failure of Positivism ) treat, respectively, the sixteenth-century origins of modern science and nineteenth-century positivism. Wallace shows how the birth of the modern sciences did not occur ex nihilo in the seventeenth century, but rather grew out of the sixteenth-century development of new techniques of quantification . . . of space, motion, and force. By demonstrating the medieval sources of these sixteenth-century developments, Wallace underscores the continuity between medieval and early modern science and suggests possibilities for integrating the new mathematical approach to nature with the older Aristotelian approach.
If Wallace shows how attention to the history of science undermines naive assumptions about the incompatibility of ancient and modern views of nature, Dougherty suggests that the actual practice of nineteenth- and twentieth-century science is incompatible with the interpretation of science most antithetical to Aristotle s natural philosophy: Comte s positivism. Positivism not only ruled out metaphysics but ruled out theoretical physics as well. At the root of its failure is its denial of the efficacy of causal reasoning. Like Wallace, Dougherty thinks the time is ripe for seeing modern science in a more Aristotelian light: Volumes of contemporary work in the philosophy of science . . . have taken a realist turn as many philosophers have recovered a realist perspective often directly inspired by Aristotle in their attempt to remain true to actual practice in the natural sciences.
As Dougherty observes, the lingering effects of positivism can still be seen in the human sciences. Perhaps the most striking way in which the Aristotelian order of this volume displays itself is in the inclusion of the papers by John Haldane and Thomas De Koninck under the heading of philosophy of nature. One lasting inheritance of positivism is the sense that philosophy and in particular metaphysics deal with all the problems left over after natural science has had its way. According to positivism, metaphysics will have a role to play only so long as conceptual difficulties about the mind and personal identity remain. Nothing could be further from the Aristotelian study of being-qua-being or the study of human nature as an area within the philosophy of nature. And yet, as John Haldane urges in Mind and Nature, recent developments in philosophy of mind provide starting points for a fruitful dialogue between the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of nature and analytic philosophical writing on thought and agency. With attention to the recent work of Davidson and Putnam, Haldane argues that physicalist reductionism is a lingering but now outdated prejudice. The key to his ar