Three happy words: Lawrence. Dewan. iTunes.

Here are three words that made my day: Lawrence. Dewan. iTunes.

The Dominicans are hard at work bringing the recorded contents of their recent conference in Warsaw to iTunes. As of this writing at least three are available. To make sure that I get it all I’ve simply subscribed to the entire podcast feed for the Dominican House of Studies - Priory (Washington, DC, USA). This morning I discovered that the presentation at the conference of my teacher and mentor from PIMS in Toronto, Lawrence Dewan, O.P., has been inserted into the podcast stream. His paper was entitled “Saint Thomas and Philosophia perennis.”

While you’re at the iTunes podcast section don’t forget to subscribe to the equally informative Lectures in Dominican History podcast stream, which contains lectures given by Fr. John Frederick Hinnebusch, O.P.

Dominicans gather in Poland for conference: "Dominicans and the Challenge of Thomism"

As we speak, an international conference is taking place at The Thomistic Institute in Warsaw (Poland), entitled “Dominicans and the Challenge of Thomism.”

On invitation of the Polish Province of the Dominican Order, some 80 Dominican Thomists are gathered there to “discover the depth and diversity of Thomistic inquiry in our Order today, particularly for younger scholars immersed in the thought of St. Thomas.”

Take a look at the website to discover the impressive program but also listen to some of the talks. From what we can gather in reading the program, we cannot but eagerly await the proceedings of what looks like the single most important event in recent years in the ongoing “renaissance of Thomism” (A. Nichols).



Comment

Jörgen Vijgen

DR. JÖRGEN VIJGEN holds academic appointments in Medieval and Thomistic Philosophy at several institutions in the Netherlands. His dissertation, “The status of Eucharistic accidents ‘sine subiecto’: An Historical Trajectory up to Thomas Aquinas and selected reactions,” was written under the direction of Fr. Walter Senner, O.P. at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, Italy and published in 2013 by Akademie Verlag (now De Gruyter) in Berlin, Germany.

Job in moral theology at Marquette

Hop over to my personal site to learn more about a job in moral theology at Marquette University’s Department of Theology (here).

Comment

Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is an associate professor of Theology at Marquette University, and founded thomistica.net on Squarespace in November of 2004. He studied with James Weisheipl, Leonard Boyle, Walter Principe, and Lawrence Dewan, at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, Canada).

English translation of Aquinas's Sermons

Mark-Robin Hoogland C.P. (1969), Passionist priest and member of the ‘Thomas Instituut’ in Utrecht has just published his English translation of twenty sermons of Thomas Aquinas at The Catholic University of America Press.

The critical edition of these sermons, prepared by the late Father Bataillon, is about to be published in the Editio Leonina.

Download here the PDF from the Catholic University of America Press.

We thank the Fathers Bataillon and Hoogland for this inestimable service to the Thomistic community!

Comment

Jörgen Vijgen

DR. JÖRGEN VIJGEN holds academic appointments in Medieval and Thomistic Philosophy at several institutions in the Netherlands. His dissertation, “The status of Eucharistic accidents ‘sine subiecto’: An Historical Trajectory up to Thomas Aquinas and selected reactions,” was written under the direction of Fr. Walter Senner, O.P. at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, Italy and published in 2013 by Akademie Verlag (now De Gruyter) in Berlin, Germany.

Thomas Instituut (Utrecht, The Netherlands)

Our friends of the ‘Thomas Instituut’ in Utrecht (The Netherlands) launched their new website. Have a look around here.

Comment

Jörgen Vijgen

DR. JÖRGEN VIJGEN holds academic appointments in Medieval and Thomistic Philosophy at several institutions in the Netherlands. His dissertation, “The status of Eucharistic accidents ‘sine subiecto’: An Historical Trajectory up to Thomas Aquinas and selected reactions,” was written under the direction of Fr. Walter Senner, O.P. at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, Italy and published in 2013 by Akademie Verlag (now De Gruyter) in Berlin, Germany.

RIP Leonard Kennedy, CSB, former head of the Center for Thomistic Studies.

Thomas Osborne of the University of St. Thomas in Houston shared with me over the weekend the sad news that Leonard Kennedy, CSB, died at 9:30 a.m., on Thursday, April 1, 2010. Fr Kennedy made many contributions to medieval philosophy, edited some texts (including Aquinas’s short disputed question on the immortality of the soul) and left behind an especially useful Catalog of Thomists. Importantly, he was also the head of the Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas.

More news of his passing as it becomes available.

Comment

Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is an associate professor of Theology at Marquette University, and founded thomistica.net on Squarespace in November of 2004. He studied with James Weisheipl, Leonard Boyle, Walter Principe, and Lawrence Dewan, at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, Canada).

Job opening (moral theology) in Fribourg

In from the esteemed Fr Michael Sherwin, OP (in Fribourg): 

Mark,

I want to give you and your web readers a heads up about a post here in Thomistic moral theology. My colleague, Luc-Thomas Somme is returning to France and thus we are looking for his replacement. Ideally we would like a Dominican, but any qualified Thomist moral theologian who can speak French and English would be seriously considered and very much encouraged to apply.

Fr Sherwin included a PDF with more details.

1 Comment

Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson is an associate professor of Theology at Marquette University, and founded thomistica.net on Squarespace in November of 2004. He studied with James Weisheipl, Leonard Boyle, Walter Principe, and Lawrence Dewan, at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies (Toronto, Canada).

The Witherspoon Institute's Fifth Thomistic Institute

This in, from Matthew O’Brien of the University of Texas:

The Thomistic Seminar is the Witherspoon Institute’s fifth-annual, week-long, intensive program for graduate students in philosophy. The seminar is devoted to exploring the intersection between analytic philosophy and the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition.

This year’s seminar, entitled “Aesthetics and Morality: Thomistic and Contemporary Philosophical Approaches,” will examine the relationship between aesthetics and morality, particularly with respect to the social aspects of human life. It will take place August 15 - 21, 2010 in Princeton, New Jersey.

Recent years have seen intense philosophical work on the nature and content of morality; addressing issues in normative ethics, moral theory and metaethics. There has also been a growth of serious work on nature and value of the arts, and on the role of the aesthetic as a constituent of human well-being. The seminar will draw together some of these themes and issues, bringing to bear both contemporary ideas and aspects of the theories of value and practice to be found in the writings of Aquinas.

It has been increasingly common to see Aquinas cited or discussed by contemporary moral philosophers outside the Thomistic tradition, such as Philippa Foot, Alasdair MacIntyre, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon, Michael Thompson, and David Wiggins, but to date aestheticians in the analytical tradition have neglected ideas and figures from the pre-Kantian period. Yet there is in Aquinas the makings of theories of beauty, art and normative aesthetics that are of intrinsic interest and which also suggest ways in which aesthetics and ethics might be interwoven in a general account of value and practice, both personal and social.

Faculty

John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy, University of St. Andrews
Thomas Hibbs, Professor of Ethics and Culture, Baylor University
Anthony O’Hear, Professor of Philosophy, University of Buckingham
Candace Vogler, Professor of Philosophy, University of Chicago

Past student participants in the seminar have hailed from top-tier graduate philosophy programs in North America and Europe. Past faculty participants have included Nicholas Rescher (Pittsburgh), Michael Gorman (Catholic University), John Haldane (St. Andrews), Candace Vogler (Chicago), John O’Callaghan (Notre Dame), Robert Koons (UT, Austin), Gavin Lawrence (UCLA), Mark Murphy (Georgetown), David Solomon (Notre Dame), Alexander Pruss (Baylor), David Oderberg (Reading), Gyula Klima (Fordham), Anselm Mueller (Trier), Jeff McDonough (Harvard) and Thomas Pink (King’s College, London).

Seminar Participants

This seminar is open to graduate students in philosophy. Applications from students in other disciplines (e.g. theology, political theory, and art history), who nonetheless have a background in philosophy, will also be considered.

Seminar Facilities

This seminar will take place on the campus of the Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey. Seminar participants will be provided with room and board for the duration of the seminar.

Visit http://www.winst.org/ethics_and_university/seminars/philosophy/index.php for application information. The application deadline has been extended to April 15, 2010.


PAST and Doctor Communis

Here is some news on the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

The Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas (PAST) will hold its X Plenary Session in the Vatican on 18-20 June 2010 on the topic The Human Animal: Procreation, Education and the Foundations of Society. The speakers will include Kevin Flannery SJ, John Haldane, Reinhard Hütter and John O’Callaghan.

For more on the Pontifical Academy, follow this link to their new website.

As a follow-up on our report on last year’s Plenary Session (see here), we have acquired the proceedings of the sessions of 2009 and 2008.

Doctor Communis 2009: Saint-Thomas’s Interpretation of Saint Paul’s Doctrines

  • Rodríguez, Pedro: Del año paulino al año sacerdotal (20-22)
  • Martínez García, Enrique: In memoriam Francisco Canals Vidal (23-25)
  • Cordero Lanza DiMontezemolo, Andrea: L’anno paolino ed i programmi svolti nella Basilica di San Paolo fuori le Mura (26-38)
  • Hütter, Reinhard: “In hope he believed against hope” (Romans 4:18) (39-59)
  • DiNoia, Joseph A.: Christ brings freedom from sin and death (60-75)
  • Biffi, Inos: Aspetti della figura di Cristo nel commento di Tommaso alla Lettera agli Ebrei (76-91)
  • Rodríguez, Pedro: El “sacrum ministerium” en los comentarios de Santo Tomás al “Corpus paulinum” (92-113)
  • Ocáriz, Fernando: L’adozione filiale e il mistero di Cristo (114-130)
  • Elders, Leo J.: The “Lecturae” of St. Thomas Aquinas of the Letters of the Apostle Paul to the Philippians and Colossians (131-149)
  • Wielockx, Robert: Au sujet du commentaire de saint Thomas sur le “Corpus paulinum” (150-184)
  • Waldstein, Michael: The spousal logic of justification (185-197)
  • Ferrara, Ricardo: “Gratia secundum se”. La dottrina della grazia nel commento alla Lettera ai Romani (198-218)
  • Sánchez Sorondo, Marcello: Grace as “new creation” (219-236)

Doctor Communis 2008: The “Praeambula Fidei” and the New Apologetics

  • Zdybicka, Zofia J., Commemorazione di Mieczysław Albert Krąpiec, O.P.(18-20)
  • Levada, William J., The importance of a new apologetics (21-28)
  • McInerny, Ralph M., Newman and natural religion (29-37)
  • Wippel, John F., Philosophy and the preambles of faith in Thomas Aquinas (38-61)
  • Brock, Stephen L., Realistic practical truth (62-75)
  • Glendon, Mary A., Apologetics in the public square (78-86)
  • Morerod, Charles, Le nouvel athéisme évolutionniste et les praeambula fidei (87-112)
  • Cottier, Georges, Scientisme et apologétique (113-124)
  • Biffi, Inos, Per una nuova coscienza della centralità di Cristo nella cultura contemporanea (125-135)
  • Bruguès, Jean L., Moral convictions and evangelical ethics (136-144)
  • Livi, Antonio, La teologia di oggi ha bisogno di una nuova interpretazione filosofica della dottrina tommasiana dei “praeambula fidei” (151-175)
  • Galeazzi, Umberto, La razionalità dei tommasiani “praeambula fidei” el il fideismo di K. Barth, convergente con i neopositivisti (176-200)
  • Seidl, Horst, Apologetic theology as fruit of the encounter between Christian faith and metaphysics (201-208)

A blog devoted to St. Anselm

Thanks to David Whidden of Southern Methodist University, a link to a blog devoted to the life and work of St. Anselm, whose 900th-year anniversary of death just passed in 2009. The link is: http://anselm2009.blogspot.com. David notes:
It looks relatively new and seems to focus a bit on the philosophic side of Anselm rather than the theological.

Take a look!

bab.la iPhone / iPod Touch app now available

I thought I was making a funny when I said that the good people at bab.la should make an iPhone/iPod Touch app for their on-line dictionary. It turns out that they were right in the midst of doing just that. Their first app is now available on iTunes, for German -> English. It’s free, and is a great way to work on your German (or Englisch).

They plan on producing apps for the other 24 dictionaries they have on the go. Wow.

Dewan books in Spanish

This in, from Liliana Irizar of the Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Columbia:

I am writing to you to tell you that two books, Fundamentos metafísicos de la ética and Lecciones de metafísica have just come out! The first contains Fr. Dewan’s lessons of the Seminar which was given by him here, in Colombia, during his stay in September 2008. The second is a compilation of some of his Metaphysics’ classes and several relevant Metaphysical articles.

It’s important to note that Fr. Stephen L. Brock wrote the prologue for the Lecciones de metafísica and Professor Jason West wrote prologue for the second book.

Liliana also provided pictures of the covers for each book (click on the pictures below for the original resolution).