Philosophy Research Index

Users of The Philosopher’s Index might be interested in a new competing bibliographic tool, the Philosophy Research Index, a venture of the Philosophy Documentation Center. The PRI aims to cover articles in 360 journals, as well as dissertations, books, and reviews in philosophy, from the 15^th century (!) to the present. Journals include The Thomist, Aquinas, Divus Thomas, the ACPQ, and even some series no longer in print. Individuals can sign up for a 1-week free trial to the database here.

A bevy of Thomistic titles at Henry's books

Bookseller Henry Stachyra has released his “catalogue 10” of used and antiquarian books. It’s a list of thomistic titles, both by Thomas (translations, it seems) and interpretive works, all totaling 104 altogether. See the catalog here.

More Online Thomistic Resources

Some previous posts have noted the online presence of scans of important Thomistic texts. I just recently came across the HathiTrust Digital Library, a free repository of online books. A quick search for Thomistic-related items using the “full-view” option revealed a few items, such as the first 28 volumes of Revue thomiste (split up here and here), several classic Marquette Aquinas Lectures (e.g., Owens, Phelan, Maritain, Bourke, Adler, Régis), the occasional Latin text, and most of the Summa contra Gentiles in English.

There are many great texts available in similar repositories like Internet Archive and Google Books. There is some overlap between the three sites, and sometimes one scan will be full view on one site but preview-only on another, so it is best to look around. (With some surprise, I discovered that all of Johannes Capreolus’s Defensiones is available in Google Books – this means the text is searchable!). With just a computer, it seems, one now has more access to books than a certain famous wealthy Renaissance bibliophile.

Might there be other substantive online repositories of scholarly books beyond HathiTrust, Internet Archive, and Google Books that should be mentioned here? Reader comments below are welcome.

Gilles Emery, OP, to speak at Lumen Christi Institute (UChicago)

Fr Gilles Emery, OP, is a guest this spring of the Lumen Christi Institute at the University of Chicago, where he will be giving two public talks, listed below: 

Wednesday, April 27, 4:30pm
“The Dignity of Being a Substance”
Swift Hall, Common Room
1025 East 58th Street, Chicago IL (link)

Thursday, April 28, 7:00pm
“A Carnal Love of Concepts or a Work of Mercy? The Intellectual Life and the Dominican Vocation”
Social Sciences 122
1126 East 59th Street, Chicago IL (link)

More on the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI May 12-15, 2011)

I previously noted the high number of presentations on Aquinas for this year’s Congress. I should have mentioned also the wide range of Thomistic topics. Here are the papers directly on Aquinas or the history of Thomism:

Thursday, May 12

• Romans and the Summa: Exploring the Scriptural Foundations of Aquinas’s Question on Merit (I–II.114.1–3) (Charles Raith, Honors College, Baylor Univ.)
• The Changing Identification of a Methodological Prius in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa theologiae (Richard Nicholas)
• Analogical Science in Aquinas’s Five Ways (Alexander W. Hall, Clayton State Univ.)
• Job in the Sentences Commentaries of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas (Franklin T. Harkins, Fordham Univ.)
• Natural Law and Human Nature from Augustine and Aquinas to Francisco de Vitoria and Villegaignon: Adams Rib, Cannibalism, and Otherness (Toy-Fung Tung, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY)
• Moral Subjectivity as the Basis of Self-Cognition in Thomas Aquinas’s Thought (Magdalena Plotka, Univ. Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego w Warszawie)
• Aquinas on the Role of Bishops in the Mendicant Controversy (Hui Hui, Peking Univ.)
• Aquinas on Natural Law and Virtue Ethics (Melissa Moschella, Princeton Univ.)
• The Distention of “Mens” and the Unity of Consciousness in Augustine and Aquinas (Therese Scarpelli Cory, Seattle Univ.)
• Augustine, Thomas, and the Memory of Things Sensed (Jamie Spiering, Benedictine College)
• Thomistic Self-Knowledge and Avicennian Medicine (Kevin White, Catholic Univ. of America)

Friday, May 13

• The Doctrine of Transcendentals and Aquinas’s De veritate: A Comparative Analysis of Lawrence Dewan and Jan Aertsen (Nathan R. Strunk, Boston Univ.)
• On Aquinas’s Incorporation of Boethius’s Account of Being and Goodness (Tyler D. Huismann, Univ. of Michigan–Ann Arbor)
• Revisiting Owens’s Interpretations of Individuation in Aquinas (Gaston LeNotre, Catholic Univ. of America)
• Exoteric Sexism: Aristotle and Aquinas on Generation and Delayed Hominization (Samuel Condic, Univ. of St. Thomas, Houston)
• Love for Animals: Singer and Aquinas (Steve Jensen, Center for Thomistic Studies)
• Modernity, Tradition, and Society: Thomism and the Early Twentieth Century in the United States (Markus Faltermeier, Ludwig-Maximilians-Univ. München)
• Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Gregory of Palamas on the Simplicity of God (James Carey, St. John’s College)
• Thomas Aquinas on the Will’s Self-Motion (Thomas M. Osborne, Jr., Center for Thomistic Studies)
• Divine Causality and Human Freedom in Actions Caused by Grace (John Rziha, Benedictine College)

Saturday, May 14

• Aquinas and Rhetoric (Jennifer Constantine-Jackson, Univ. of Toronto)
• Saint Thomas and the Rabbis (Luis Cortest, Univ. of Oklahoma)
• Friar Thomas, the Apostle, and the Philosopher (Eric M. Johnston, Seton Hall Univ.)
• Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Rational Astrology (Scott Hendrix, Carroll Univ.)
• Divine Predilection and the Hierarchy of Created Natures (Francis Murphy, Univ. of Oxford)
• Saint Thomas Aquinas’s Proofs from Motion in Summa contra gentiles 1.13: Their Nature and the Function of the Nominal Definition (Michael G. Sirilla, Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville)
• Analogy and Relation (Steven A. Long, Ave Maria Univ.)
• Of Schoolrooms and Manuscripts: Seeing Aquinas’s Roman Commentary in Its Dominican Context (M. Michele Mulchahey, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies)
• Thomas’s Students and Precursors to His Lectura romana (Robert Barry, Providence College)
• The Holy Spirit as Divine Impulse: Aquinas’s Account of the Eternal Procession of Love in the Lectura romana (Paul Shields, Ave Maria Univ.)

Sunday, May 15

• Truth, Existence, and Aquinas’ Theory of Adequation (R. J. Matava, Georgetown Univ.)
• Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent on a Substance as the Immediate Principle of Its Operations (Simona Vucu, Univ. of Toronto)
• Thomas Aquinas, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry of Ghent on the Soul’s Relationship to Its Powers (Adam Wood, Fordham Univ.)

A full schedule of papers is here.

Fordham's upcoming conference: the metaphysics of Aquinas and its modern interpreters

Fordham University’s Center for Medieval Studies is holding its 31st Annual Conference on Saturday, March 26 - Sunday, March 27, 2011, entitled “The Metaphysics of Aquinas and Its Modern Interpreters: Theological and Philosophical Perspectives.” I wrote about this conference and its call for papers last fall. The people already scheduled at the time, and now those who have joined them by having their papers included, form a veritable who’s who of contemporary North-American Thomistic scholarship. Here’s a recent description:

The Conference seeks to capitalize on the pluralism of Thomistic studies by inviting papers from a wide range of areas within the disciplines of philosophy and theology. Conference organizers welcome papers that may approach the topic from various branches of philosophy (such as the philosophy of religion, ontology, or natural theology), or various fields of theology, such as historical, fundamental, or systematic theology (including such areas as Trinitarian theology, Christology, or theological anthropology). Conference organizers also seek a representative variety of approaches to Aquinas and to Thomism, including those of the Dominican commentators, Transcendental Thomism, Existential Thomism, analytic philosophy, and postmodernism.

The Conference will include a special strand of sessions on what many regard as one of the central problems in the contemporary retrieval of Aquinas’s thought, namely, how to account for the mind’s knowledge of being qua being, or as this issue is often referred to, the discovery of the being of metaphysics.

The conference’s website sports more details about lodging and location, plus a listing of all the scheduled papers plus a handy PDF abstract for most of the papers.

International Congress on Medieval Studies (Kalamazoo, MI May 12-15, 2011)

When I heard the 2011 International Congress on Medieval Studies was shrinking to offer fewer sessions, I wondered how this change would affect the number of presentations on medieval philosophy and theology. To my surprise, this year’s offerings include a stunning number of talks on Aquinas: 33 on my count. Other presentations can be found on a wide range of medieval thinkers, including Scotus, Durandus, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, Gerson, Boethius, Cusanus, Anselm, Bonaventure, Giles of Rome, Grosseteste, and Augustine. And, as I mentioned previously, the always-informative annual session “How to Get Published: Advice from Editors and Insiders” should not be missed.

Conference on Preaching in Paris on April 7, 2011

In from Adriano Oliva, OP, over in Paris, comes news of a one-day conference on preaching from antiquity to the modern age, “Prédications de l’antiquité à l’époque moderne,” to be held on April 7, and sponsored by the Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes (PDF). This sounds like a great way to get ready for volume 44 of the Leonine Edition. Fr Oliva himself will speak on “Les Sermons de Thomas d’Aquin édités par le Père Louis Jacques Bataillon.”

Summer Program in Medieval Latin (Columbus, OH)

My Ohio Dominican University colleague Matthew Ponesse is directing a new Summer Program in Medieval Latin:

This summer Ohio Dominican University will offer a Summer Program in Medieval Latin. The program has been developed for students pursuing graduate studies in the fields of medieval history, literature, philosophy, or theology, but also serves those with a general interest in Medieval or Ecclesiastical Latin. The Summer Program in Medieval Latin offers non-credit courses to students at various levels of Latin competency:

Beginner/Review Course

June 13 - July 8, Monday-Friday, 9:00 -10:00 a.m.

Intermediate Medieval Latin

June 13- July 8, Monday-Friday, 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Advanced Medieval Latin

July 11- August 5, Monday-Friday, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m.

Limited on-campus housing is available for interested students. The deadline for applying to the Medieval Latin Summer Program is May 1, 2011. 

The program has a website and the program application can be found here. 

Pdfs available of the first thirteen volumes of the Leonine edition

Via Don Paco, who blogs at Ite ad Thomam, the University of Toronto has posted scanned pdfs of twelve of the first thirteen volumes of the Leonine edition (for some reason, they have not posted volume five). Links to all of the volumes can be found here.  

Speaking of Don Paco’s website, he has scanned an extraordinary number of out-of-print Thomistic resources that he has made available for a small fee.  To see his list, go here.

Philosophy Job at Canisius College (Buffalo, NY)

The Philosophy Department at Canisius College is advertising a tenure-track assistant professor position for a specialist in medieval philosophy with a concentration in Thomistic thought:

Canisius College is accepting applications for a tenure-track, assistant professorship of philosophy beginning fall 2011. The successful candidate will have: AOS - Medieval Philosophy with concentration in Thomistic thought; AOC - open but needs in Ethics and topical issues in applied ethics; History of Philosophy; Logic; strong commitments to undergraduate teaching, Introduction to Philosophy and courses in the Core Curriculum.

The full job ad can be found here and here.

Solvency soon, 'cause we're finally making some money. . .

A week or so back I went to my mailbox here at home and pulled out a check for $5.00 from the people at CafePress, the online merchandise people who let you sell branded gear for free. If you’ve ever noticed the Thomistica.net sweatshirts in the right columns (“Got Summa?”), then you’ve seen these CafePress products. In a fit of creativity of few years back—procrastination?—I put together a fun little product line of things, hoping that now and again someone might buy something, and the money from sales would help to make Thomistica.net self-sustaining. Oh, to have the site be revenue-neutral!

Someone must have taken the bait, because when an item is sold a sliver of the cost goes back to the owner of the “product line,” in this case, back to me. So, to whoever actually bought something from the Thomistica.net CafePress mini-site, a hearty thank you for helping to defray the monthly cost of keeping the site going.

Spring’s coming, so it may be time to put together some Thomistica.net baseball caps!