Austin Woodbury, Student of Garrigou-Lagrange (works available for free)

Austin Woodbury, S.M. (1899-1979), was a faithful student of Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange’s at the Angelicum. His writings, which mostly take the form of lecture notes, have been made available at http://www.austinwoodbury.com/.

As the website relates, his works manifest “a heavy reliance on the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, as well as commentators of St Thomas, such as Cajetan and John of St Thomas, as well as other more recent Thomist philosophers. The writings also attempt an engagement with modern and contemporary philosophers and issues. They are written in the ‘manualist’ tradition but go beyond what is commonly found in manuals of philosophy in virtue of the breadth of topics covered and degree of detail. Also, the fact that they were written in English makes them quite rare in the manualist tradition.”

Manuals and manualists, of course, have not gotten good press of late. It is important to note, though, that manuals were essentially handbooks intended to provide systematic knowledge - albeit cursory knowledge - of essentials on any given topic. When it comes to moral manuals in particular, they are sometimes especially unappreciated because, it is said, they tended to overlook the role of happiness and virtue in the moral life. Although in general that seems like a false characterization, that is for another post. In this post, we should simply relate that Woodbury himself does not overlook either of those important topics in his ethical writings.

A partial list of his available works is found below. Please keep in mind that in order to access them, you will first have to register and wait for an email confirming the registration.

PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS

• Basic Morals

• Defensive Metaphysics

• Ethics

• Introduction to Philosophy

• Logic

• Natural Philosophy

• Ostensive Metaphysics - Natural Theology

• Ostensive Metaphysics - Ontology

• St Thomas' Proof of God from motion

• Natural Philosophy - Psychology

THEOLOGICAL WORKS

• Apologetics Commentary on Summa Theologiae I, qq. 1-2

• Commentary on Summa Theologiae I, qq. 1-2

• Existence of God

• God as Consummating His Works or the Last Things

• Essence of Grace

• The Sacraments in Common

• Sacred Theology

• The Supernatural and Grace

• Treatise on Message of Salvation (The Gospels; Sanctifying Grace)

Graduate Scholarships for Canadian Students in Philosophy at Dominican University College / Collège universitaire dominicain

Dominican University College (Collège universitaire dominicain), based on Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, is offering four scholarships this coming academic year for Canadian graduate students in philosophy. The scholarships are available for either master’s or doctoral studies and are offered to those students who wish to work in particular on the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Please click here for more information.

New Book on Aquinas's Ethics Free Online until May

My new very short book, Aquinas’s Ethics, just came out and is free for a month from Cambridge University Press.  It is for a more general audience than my other work is. Some readers might find it helpful. It will give you something to do if you are stuck at home! 

The site is here:  https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/aquinass-ethics/6E12E058585683A44571D91568CEDBC1.

New Issue of American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly

The most recent issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (94.2, 2020) features several articles that may be of interest to Thomists and readers of this site. On offer are a range of essays generally concerned with ethical and natural law themes.

What appears to be the most relevant to contemporary Thomistic interests is Justin Matchulat’s “Thomas Aquinas on Natural Inclinations and the Practical Cognition of Human Goods: A Fresh Take on an Old Debate.” Matchulat promises to break new ground in the “old” vs. “new” natural law debate over Aquinas’ understanding of how our natural inclinations relate to knowledge of human goods. Central to his case are that the natural inclinations play a “directive role” in our attending to basic human goods, such that as someone is, so does the end seem to such a one.

Of course, one of those natural inclinations is to seek knowledge of God. However, would the Philosopher tell us to worship the prime mover or “Thought Thinking Itself”? In his “Aristotle on the Proper Attitude Towards True Divinity,” Mor Segev analyzes possible grounds for an Aristotelian virtue of religion, and finds them in the virtue of magnanimity, which, in the face of the divine, resembles humility. He argues that Aristotle would have endorsed a “total devotion to the divine.”

Now, if you fail to be a virtuously religious philosopher, the bad news is that even the natural law demands that you be punished. Scott J. Roniger’s “Is There a Punishment for Violating the Natural Law?” proposes to examine that neglected question in Thomistic natural law theory. Augustine, Aristotle, and Plato’s Gorgias all assist Roniger’s elaboration of a Thomistic account of a three-fold punishment proper to the natural law (remorse of conscience, and a failure of friendship both to oneself and to others).

As the saying goes, traduttore, traditore. But can one be traitorous for a good end? José A. Poblete examines the influence of Grosseteste’s Latin translation of the Nicomachean Ethics 1134b18–35b5 in “The Medieval Reception of Aristotle’s Passage on Natural Justice.” Grosseteste’s interpretive transmission of what is “immutably just” influenced the commentaries of St. Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Also digging into the historical roots of the scholasticism in Aristotle’s Ethics is Henrik Lagerlund’s “Willing Evil: Two Sixteenth-Century View of Free Will and Their Background.” A ensemble cast of well-known and “virtually unknown” philosophers are ranged to debate the controversial apparent proposal of 16th-century Aristotelian commentator John Mair that “we can will evil for the sake of evil.” (What natural inclination leads to such a view, or what punishment the natural law demands, I leave to the readers of the ACPQ.)

Last but not least, Robert McNamara considers a more contemporary topic, “The Concept of Christian Philosophy in Edith Stein.” McNamara examines the key factors that contribute to Edit Stein’s account of a “positively Christian and specifically Catholic philosophy,” and then contrasts this proposal with the Thomistic one defended by Jacques Maritain.

- Reviewed by John Brungardt, PhD

Eleventh International Thomistic Conference Postponed Due to COVID-19

The Eleventh International Thomistic Conference, which was supposed to take place in Rome between September 21 and 25 of this year, has been postponed due to COVID-19. The revised dates have yet to be released. Please find more information here.

New Issue of New Blackfriars

New Blackfriars has just released its May 2020 issue (volume 101, issue 1093), which contains two articles that may be of interest to the readers of Thomistica. First, there is Shawn Colberg’s article, “‘Lord Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner’: Aquinas on Grace, Impetration, and Justfication," which analyzes Aquinas’s understanding of the ways in which divine grace moves a person toward justification. It pays particular attention to the language of “impetration,” which shows up in Aquinas’s treatment of prayer in the Secunda secundae, and uses this to examine the ways in which the not-yet-justified person does and does not contribute to his own justification. Second, there is Stephen J. Pope’s “Christocentric Exemplarism and the Imitation of Jesus.” This article is a contribution to an ongoing discussion within Thomistic virtue ethics related to exemplarism. Pope argues that those who wish to develop a Christocentric virtue ethics would do well to “give more prominence to the imitation of Jesus.”

Thomistic Summer Conference

Thomas Aquinas College plans to launch a new event this year. This summer they are holding the first Thomistic Summer Conference at Thomas Aquinas College, California, on June 18-20, 2020. The theme for this summer’s conference is “Faith & Reason.” Featured speakers include Michael Sherwin, OP (University of Fribourg), John O’Callaghan (University of Notre Dame), Steven Long (Ave Maria University), and Michael Augros (Thomas Aquinas College). Please see the conference flyer below. If you are unable to attend the Sacra Doctrina Project’s Conference or missed the deadline for the Call for Papers for that conference, this is a great opportunity as abstracts are not due until March 7th. More information, including a Call for Papers, can be found at www.thomasaquinas.edu/tsc.

Invitation for submissions to the European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas

The board of the European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas is currently preparing volume 38 and is asking for submissions for it. The deadline for the issue is March 1st 2020. You can find out more here.

Call for papers! Sacra Doctrina Project's Conference on Development of Doctrine

The Sacra Doctrina Project is going to hold a timely conference on the Development of Doctrine in Cedar Rapids, IA on June 18 - 20, 2020. Matthew Levering and Aquinas Guilbeau will be just two of the outstanding scholars presenting there.See the conference poster below and www.sacradoctrinaproject.org/conference for more details.

Leo Elders s.v.d. (1926-2019): R.I.P.

Dear Friends,

I bring the sad news that on October 14 at 14.15 pm after a short illness, Father Leo Elders s.v.d. passed away in the house of the Dutch provincialate of his religious congregation, the Society of the Divine Word of which he was a member for almost 75 years. His funeral will take place on Saturday October 19 at 14.30 h at the chapel of the SVD provincialate in Teteringen (Netherlands). There he will also be buried.

Please join me in prayer for his soul. May Our Blessed Lady guide Father Elders, a faithful disciple of St. Thomas and a tireless worker for the Kingdom of God, to the reward he so richly deserves.

St. Albert and St. Thomas

Some interesting news from The Albertus Magnus Institut in Cologne

- An Albertus Magnus bibliography database is now online, covering (for now) the primary and secondary literature from 2001 onwards. It currently has 98 entries also dealing with Thomas Aquinas

- Their primary objective, the critical edition of Albert’s works (the so-called Cologne edition) is advancing steadily with in the last few years one volume every two years (De praedicamentis, 2013; Super I librum sententiarum : distinctiones 1-3, 2015; De nutrimento et nutrito ; De sensu et sensato cuius secundus liber est De memoria et reminiscentia, 2017).

The latest volume, which has just come out and edited by Ruth Meyer, has Albert’s Super Threnos and Super Baruch.

It might be interesting to see whether the introduction touches upon the In Threnos Jeremiae expositio, attributed to Thomas Aquinas or whether a future comparative analysis might shed a light on this question.

Philosophisches Jahrbuch digitalized

Some time ago I wrote about the exciting news that one of the oldest Thomistic journals Divus Thomas (Fribourg) had been digitalized. The same holds true for another important journal Philosophisches Jahrbuch. Started in 1899 by the Görres-Gesellschaft, a German learned society, based in the Catholic tradition, it contains numerous important articles for Thomists, although the journal never was Thomistic in a more strict sense of the word.

The 116 volumes (until 2009) contain 62 articles dealing explicitly with St. Thomas and features such illustrious names as Martin Grabmann, Erich Pzrywara, Bernhard Geyer, Franz Pelster, Kurt Koch, Bernhard Lakebrink, Martin Honecker (who rejected Karl Rahner’s Spirit in the World), Horst Seidl and many others.

For those interested in recent Thomism, Albert Mitterer’s 1957 article ‘Formen und Missformen des Thomismus’ is a must. He sharply distinguishes between ‘integral Thomism’ on the one hand and various forms of ‘Pseudo-Thomism’ on the other such as ‘totalitarian Thomism’, ‘ecclectic Thomism’, ‘opportunistic Thomism’, etc.