American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting on “Science, Reason and Religion” (October 28-30, 2011)

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This year the ACPA meeting will be in St. Louis, on the theme “Science, Reason and Religion,” hosted by St. Louis University. The conference program and satellite session schedule are now online. The Aquinas Medal will be awarded to Jorge J. E. Gracia, who will present “Does Philosophy Have a Role to Play in Contemporary Society? The Challenges of Science and Culture.” The four plenary speakers are: 

  • John Cottingham, “Confronting the Cosmos: Scientific Rationality and Human Understanding.”
  • Michael Ruse, “Making Room for Faith: Does Science Have Limits?”
  • John F. Haught, “Darwin, Faith and Critical Intelligence.”
  • Dominic J. Balestra, “Galileo’s Legacy: Getting the Relationship In-Between Scientism and Literalism Right.” 

As usual, there will be several talks on the philosophical thought of Aquinas in the program and satellite sessions. Registration information for the conference can be found here.

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

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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)

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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

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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)

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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

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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.”

Two Dominican-sponsored, Thomistic get-togethers in 2011

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From Fr Thomas Joseph White, OP, comes news of two, upcoming get-togethers about Aquinas, both sponsored by the Dominicans. He provided PDF files for each: 

  1. Thomistic Circles: A Theological Symposium on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Church: A Theo-Centric Ecclesiology, to be held in Washington, DC, April 29-30, 2011 (with Augustine DiNoia, OP, Fr Jonathan Robinson, Guy Mansini, OSB, Benoit-Dominique de La Soujeole, OP, Charles Morerod, OP) (PDF).
  2. Thomas Aquinas and Contemporary Philosophy, held by the The Catholic and Dominican Institute, Mount Saint Mary College, Newburgh, New York, June 23-26, 2011 (with Charles Morerod, O.P., James Brent, O.P., Lawrence Dewan, O.P., Dr. Alfred J. Freddoso, Dr. Joshua Hochschild, Dr. Gyula Klima, Joseph Koterski, S.J., Dr. John O’Callaghan, Thomas Joseph White, O.P.) (PDF of poster and brochure).

It’s good to be on the East coast!

 

Program for an Ave Maria conference in honor of Ralph McInerny (update)

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The kind people at Ave Maria University has passed along a conference program for the upcoming conference, “Philosophy in Theological Education,” to take place at Ave Maria University in early February. The conference is aptly dedicated to Ralph M. McInerny, whom we lost almost exactly a year ago. I wrote about this conference last year, but here is an updated program (in MS Word format).

American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting (November 5-7, 2010)

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This year the ACPA meeting will be in Baltimore, hosted by Loyola University Maryland. The updated conference program is here. There are several sessions on the thought of Aquinas, along with the usual full slate of satellite sessions on a variety of topics. This year the Aquinas Medal will be awarded to Alasdair MacIntyre. The theme for the conference is “Philosophy and Language.” It promises to be an exciting weekend.

If you are looking for another reason to join the ACPA, here’s one: members now have electronic access to all issues the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (including The New Scholasticism), as well as all issues of the the ACPA Proceedings.

Colloquium in Oxford on Garrigou-Lagrange (November 27, 2010)

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In from Francis Murphy in Oxford, news of a colloquium on Garrigou-Lagrange, to take place there on Saturday, November 27, 2010. Here’s a scrape:

Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange and Some Disputed Questions in 20th Century Catholic Thought

Saturday 27 November 2010 10.00-17.00

Philosophical Adequacy: Garrigou-Lagrange on the Thought of Bergson and Blondel

Richard Peddicord OP Aquinas Institute of Theology, St Louis, Missouri

Garrigou-Lagrange after Chenu on the Nature of Theology: a Critical Disciple of his Disciple

Henry Donneaud OP Institut Catholique de Toulouse

Garrigou and de Lubac on Divine Revelation

Aidan Nichols OP Blackfriars, Cambridge

In the discussion session to follow, Philip Endean SJ (Campion Hall, Oxford), John Sullivan (Liverpool Hope University), and Thomas Crean OP (Holy Cross, Leicester) will also participate.

Find out more in the PDF file he provided me.

Conference on Philosophy in Theological Education honoring Ralph McInerny

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The good people at Ave Maria University will be sponsoring a conference in February of 2011 (Feb. 10-12, 2011) honoring the late Ralph M. McInerny. The conference’s rationale and line-up is as follows:

A cornerstone of Catholic intellectual life is the teaching that the light of Catholic truth does not dim, let alone extinguish, the God-given light of reason. Faith in Jesus Christ heals, strengthens and elevates the light of reason. The excellent scholars at this Conference on Philosophy in Theological Education will explore how the love of wisdom and the intellectual life should inform the eduction of theologians. This is a theme dear to the heart and mind of the great philosopher and Catholic intellectual, Ralph McInerny. His labors for the renewal of Catholic intellectual culture will be fittingly honored and celebrated at the Conference.
  • Fr Charles Morerod, OP (Keynote Speaker)
  • Timothy Bellamah, OP
  • John Boyle
  • Romanus Cessario, OP
  • Brian Daley, SJ
  • Michael Dauphinais
  • Lawrence Dewan, OP
  • Gilles Emery, OP
  • Kevin Flannery, SJ
  • Marc Guerra
  • Thomas S. Hibbs
  • Reinhard Hütter
  • Joseph Koterski, SJ
  • Matthew L. Lamb
  • Steven A. Long
  • Guy Mansini, OSB
  • John O’Callaghan
  • Kevin White
  • Thomas Joseph White, OP
Plus an encomium of Dr McInerny by Michael Novak (per the PDF).

You can download also download a PDF of the conference’s main features, download the conference’s program, or can download the registration form.

Call for papers on Aquinas at Kalamazoo

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As they do every year, John Boyle and Ed Houser issue a call for papers for their sessions on Thomas Aquinas at Kalamazoo (see here for Michael Dougherty’s recent post on Kalamazoo, generally). Ed has provided all the details for your submission, chief among which are:

  • Papers are 20 minutes in length.
  • Deadline for 300 word abstract for presentation at Kalamazoo: 13 Sep 2010

He’s also provided a PDF with more information (here).