Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed on-line

I was reading this morning through a number of articles on Wikipedia, one of my favorite on-line resources for general knowledge. In response to a student’s query I started on an article on “kabbalah” and ended up (two hours later!) reading through a very useful article on Maimonides’s Guide for the Perplexed. It contained a link to a 1904 publication that used the 1881 English translation of M. Friedlander. You can simply download the work in PDF format by clicking here. A nice resource to have.

When God starts creating 36-hour days, I fully intend to sit down and read through the whole Guide. Right after I read all of Aristotle, Augustine, Dionysius, Ambrose, Pope St Gregory…….

Position in Thomistic moral theology at Providence Colllege, RI

The Department of Theology, Providence College (Providence, RI [Rhode Island, USA]), is now advertising a position at the Assistant Professor (tenure track) level, to commence in the fall, 2006. Here is the description:

Doctoral degree with a concentration in moral theology is required.  Successful candidate must be competent in Thomistic moral theology.  Teaching duties include an interdisciplinary Development of Western Civilization Program.  Submit cv, graduate transcripts, three letters of recommendation and a written response to the College Mission statement (available from our website) by November 30, 2005.  Send materials to: Moral Theology Search Committee, Department of Theology, Providence College, Providence, RI 02918.  Materials received after this date will be reviewed at the Committee’s discretion.  Providence College is a Roman Catholic four-year liberal arts institution conducted under the auspices of the Dominican Friars.  The College encourages applications from women and persons of color. AA/EOE

The ad mentions a mission statement but doesn’t tell you precisely where to find it (). I think that I found it here. This is a wonderful place, with wonderful, decent people. If you’re in the market for a position of this sort, don’t hesitate to contact them.

Correction: Leonard Boyle, OP, lecture IS published in English

Ugh. I hate being wrong.

A while back, in the first newsletter, I said that:

All the articles in the neat little collection of Leonard Boyle’s articles on Aquinas (Facing History: A Different Thomas Aquinas [Louvain-la-Neuve: FIDEM, 2000]) are in English…save one. The last article is in French, “Saint Thomas d’Aquin et le troisième millenaire,” (pp. 141-159). This is all a tad odd, since the original talk upon which this text was based was given in English in Chicago in 1999. You can, however, see a transcription of the talk in English, and indeed listen to the talk (in RealAudio or QuickTime format) by clicking here.

Thanks to Michael Sherwin, OP, we now know of a full publication of the talk. He explains:

You probably already know about this, but a published version of the talk in English exists.  Leonard gave the talk again as one of the Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth.  McEvoy published a collection of these talks.  Here is the reference: Leonard Boyle, "St. Thomas Aquinas and the third millennium" in Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth: the Aquinas Lectures at Maynooth, 1996-2001, edited by James McEvoy and Michael Dunne (Four Courts Press, 2002), 38-52.

My bad, Fr. Michael; I didn’t know about the talk!. It really is a wonderful talk. And if you read carefully, you’ll even see some Dominicans disagreeing with each other about some important matters in the Order’s history (Hint: The papal bull, Cum qui recipit prophetam).

Update on 2005-09-30 16:25 by Mark Johnson

I’m wrong twice! James Ginther points out:

Boyle’s talk was also printed in the last festschrift (Omnia Disce, ed. A. Duggan, J. Greatrex, and B. Bolton; Ashgate, 2005).

You can read his full comment in the comments on this news item.

Aquinas on Scripture: a new book from T&T Clark

Aquinas on Scripture: A Critical Introduction to his CommentariesThe folks at T & T Clark have come out with another useful book on Aquinas, this time one devoted to his reading and commenting on sacred scripture. The book is entitled Aquinas on Scripture: A Critical Introduction to his Commentaries. Here’s the blurb:

This book evaluates all the biblical commentaries of St Thomas Aquinas for the modern age with each commentary examined by an expert, specialist scholar in that field. Each chapter focuses on the two or three major themes of its particular commentary and also relates the themes of the commentaries to Aquinas’ Summa Contra Gentiles and especially to his Summa Theologica.

The purpose of this volume is not only to evaluate Aquinas’ commentaries, but also, in so doing, to demonstrate that Aquinas is primarily a biblical theologian, a consideration that has come more and more to the fore in recent studies. No other book systematically addresses this important issue for Aquinas, biblical studies and theology.

Here’s the line-up of articles in the book, their authors, and affiliations:

• Introductory Essay, by Nicholas M. Healy, St John’s University, New York, USA
• Job, by John Yocum, Loyola School of Theology, Ateneo University, Manila
• Isaiah, by Joseph Wawrykow, University of Notre Dame, USA
• Matthew, by Jeremy Holmes, doctoral student at Marquette University
• John, by Matthew Levering, Ave Marie University, Naples, Florida
• Romans/Galatians, Steven Boguslawski, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, USA
• 1&2 Corinthians, by Daniel Keating, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, USA
• Ephesians/Colossians, by Mark Edwards, Christ Church College, Oxford University, UK
• Philippians, 1&T Thessalonians, Philemon, by Francesca Murphy, University of Aberdeen, Scotland
• 1&2 Timothy, Titus, by John Saward, Greyfriars, Oxford and International Theological Institute,
  Gaming, Austria
• Hebrews, by T. Weinandy, Greyfriars, Oxford and the United States Conference of
  Catholic Bishops, Washington, D.C.
• Index

The hardback copy of the book is absurdly priced at $105.00 USD, making the paperback appear reasonable at $29.95.

Averroes Database at the Thomas Institut in Cologne

A service of the Thomas Institut in Cologne, the Averroes Database aims to "provide scholars working on Averroes (MuÎammad Ibn Rušd, 1126-1198) with resources, supplying bibliographical information on Averroes’s works and the modern scholarly literature on Averroes." This includes bibliography, a complete survey of Averroes’s works, and, soon, a page on Averroes’s medieval translators.

Peter King, superman

If you are looking to learn, just to learn, swing by the website of Professor Peter King at the University of Toronto. King’s website is loaded with a variety of fascinating articles, ranging from articles on Scotus (and editions of Scotus) to articles on Hobbes and the Beatles, and translations of medieval philosophical texts. More than that, almost all of these articles can be downloaded in PDF format, as King has produced the PDF files of his publications (even though they are found in journals and in books) through Emacs, TeX, and pdfTeX (ouch!).

I love it when others make learning easy for me…

Benedict Ashley on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Thomist moral theologians lament all the time that some of the deeply religious features of Aquinas’s doctrine are left out in the cold when discussions of his moral teaching take place, and that is surely true of his treatment of the gifts of the holy spirit.

While putzing around the Dominican Central web site, and looking up the page devoted to Benedict Ashley, OP, I came across this handy article on Thomas’s teaching regarding the gifts of the holy spirit. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting and helpful.

Abbey Library of St. Gall now online

This is soooo cool. When we took our paleography courses in Toronto one of the libraries to which constant reference was made was the famed library of St. Gall, in Switzerland. Now there is word that the same library is working on putting many of their precious manuscripts on-line. Currently, about 20 are viewable, via a well put-together site (existing in German, French, English, and Italian). The site boasts:

• high resolution of digital images
• entire manuscripts
• manuscript descriptions and many search options
• accessible in German, French, English and Italian

Click here to get a peek. You can read the Rule of St. Benedict in a splendid 9th century hand, or even a Bible from around 760 a.d.! A splendid site.

The Third Annual Midwestern Conference in Medieval Philosophy

The Third Annual Midwestern Conference in Medieval Philosophy will be held on Sept. 16-17 at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (all sessions will be held in the Conference Center in the basement of Raynor Library). Here are the papers to be given:

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16

8-9 am. Coffee, tea, & bagels in the Commons Room in the Philosophy Department, Coughlin Hall

• 9:15-10:30 am Yael Raizman-Kedar, Haifa University, "Some 13th Century Philosophers on the Differences Between Lux and Lumen."
• 10:45-12:00 am John O’Callaghan, University of Notre Dame, "Aquinas’ Aristotelian Image of God"
• 1:15- 2:30 pm Isabelle Moulin, University of Notre Dame and University of Chicago, "Albert the Great, commentator of Aristotle’s Metaphysics book Lambda"
• 2:45 - 4:00 pm Michael Rota, University of St Thomas (MN), "Aquinas’s Account of Efficient Causation"
• 4:15 - 5:30 pm Louis Mancha, Ashland University, "Concurrentism, ‘Little Lords,’ and the ‘Not-One-Act’ Mantra"

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17

• 10:15 - 11:30 am Roland Teske, S.J., Marquette University, "Henry of Ghent’s Metaphysical Argument for the Existence of God"
• 11:45 am - 1:00 pm Josh Blander, UCLA, "Omnipotence and Dependence in Ockham’s Critique of Realism"
• 2:15 - 3:30 pm Thomas Williams, University of Notre Dame/University of South Florida, and Sandra Visser, Valparaiso University, "Anselm’s Philosophy of Language: The Theory and Some Applications"
• 3:45 - 5 pm Jeffrey Hause, Creighton University, "Aquinas on Sin and Responsibility"
• 5:15 - 6:30 pm Francisco Romero, Marquette University, "Aquinas and Cajetan on the Finality of Worship"

Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and the Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy with support from the College of Arts and Sciences.

More information can be found on the web site of Dr Richard C. Taylor, by clicking here.

A new book by David Berger

David Berger, editor of Doctor Angelicus (the newer German journal devoted to Aquinas), has a new book coming out. The book is entitled In der Schule des Hl. Thomas von Aquin: Studien zur Geschichte des Thomismus (Bonn: Verlag Nova et Vetera, 2005). Here’s the blurb (auf Deutsch):

Seit dem Tod des hl. Thomas von Aquin (1274), des „engelgleichen Lehrers" der katholischen Kirche, haben sich seine Schüler immer wieder neu um die Aneignung und Tradierung seiner Lehre bemüht und diese dadurch lebendig erhalten: so entstand als eigene Denkrichtung und philosophisch-theologische Schule der Thomismus. Obgleich dieser Schule über all die letzten sieben Jahrhunderte bis zur gegenwärtigen Stunde eine eminente Bedeutung zukommt, existiert bis heute keine Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Geschichte.

In dem hier vorliegenden Buch sind Studien zu wichtigen Aspekten dieser Geschichte versammelt, die einen Beitrag für eine noch zu schreibende historische Gesamtdarstellung des Thomismus bieten wollen. Dabei reicht das Themenfeld von der Jahrhunderte langen Suche dieser Denkrichtung nach ihrem eigenen Wesen über naturrechtliche Fragen bis hin zu wichtigen thomistischen Institutionen (Päpstliche Thomasakademie, Zeitschrift „Divus Thomas") sowie bedeutenden Thomisten (N. Del Prado, R. Garrigou-Lagrange, B. Lakebrink, J. Brinktrine).

Ganz entsprechend der Doktrin des hl. Thomas selbst, ist die historische Forschung jedoch stets mit dem systematischen Anliegen verbunden: durch alle Studien hindurch wird deutlich gemacht, dass der Thomismus kein museales Phänomen ist, sondern gerade heute eine ganz einzigartige Aktualität besitzt: Zeigt er uns doch den hl. Thomas inmitten der aufgewühlten Wogen der „Diktatur des Relativismus" (Papst Benedikt XVI) als jenen Leuchtturm, der uns den Weg zur Wahrheit weist.

The book will appear in Oktober, and can be purchased from Verlag Nova et Vetera. You can get the table of contents and the forward in PDF format by clicking here.

Update on Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum

An update from Monika Michalowska (on behalf of Professor Elzbieta Jung):

It is a pleasure for me to inform you that we have almost completed the first number of Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum which will be published at the beginning of 2006. 

However, as we have some place for a few articles it is still open for contributions in history of medieval philosophy, theology and science in English, French, German and Latin and editions of medieval texts of approximately 30 printed pages (ca 54000 signs). I would also like to ask you to send a short note about you together with the text.

So….got an article you’d like to see published? See the original call for papers here, posted in February, 2005, which contains the mailing address, and e-mail address, of the journal.

Robert Pasnau's book wins APA Book Prize for 2005

Robert Pasnau’s book, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature : A Philosophical Study of Summa Theologiae, 1a 75-89 ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), has won the American Philosophical Association Book Prize award for 2005. The book is a new, in-depth, consideration and presentation of Thomas’s teaching on human nature as found in questions 75-89 of the first part of the Summa theologiae. The book is available on amazon.com.