Scholarly Work- Unpublished Pieces

Actus and Potentia: From Philosophy of Nature to Metaphysics (2015). This is my contribution to the 2015 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop at Mt. St. Mary College in Newburgh, NY. The theme of the workshop was philosophy of nature, and it was chock full of good presentations -- by Fr. James Brent, OP, Bill Carroll, Ed Feser, Mike Gorman, Fr. Michael Dodds, OP, Chris and Jennifer Frey, Candace Vogler, and John O'Callaghan, along with a couple of excellent graduate-student presentations by Lindsay Cleveland and John Rose. Frank Beckwith and Rob Koons made excellent contributions to the open discussions. This was the fifth of these annual workshops, and attendance this year was the most ever. We may have reached our limit. I also got to see briefly Carson Daly, who was a junior faculty member with me at Notre Dame in the 1980's and is now president of Mt. St. Mary College.

The Vindication of St. Thomas: Thomism and Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy (2014). This is my contribution to a July 2014 conference called 'A Dialogue between Philosophy and Theology', sponsored by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. My commentator was my good friend Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP, who is also 'featured' in the paper, along with Ed Feser (who was also there), David Oderberg, and Lawrence Feingold.

St. Thomas on the Philosophical Intelligibility and Plausibility of the Doctrine of Divine Providence: Situating Summa Contra Gentiles 3, chap. 64 (2014). This is a cleaned-up version of a presentation I made at the 2014 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop at Mt. St. Mary's College in Newburgh, NY. It was preceded (conceptually) by (a) presentations by Fr. James Brent, OP and Ed Feser on what I call herein the first stage of St. Thomas's natural theology, i.e., arguments for God's existence, (b) presentations by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP and Fr. Michael Dodds, OP on aspects of the second stage of the natural theology, viz., divine simplicity and immutability, and (c) presentations by Candace Vogler, Bill Carroll, and Reinhard Huetter on aspects of the third stage of the natural theology, viz., God's goodness, the act of creation, and God as final cause of the universe and of each human being. A good time was had by all.

Introduction to the Problem of Free Will and Divine Causality (2013). This is an outline of a presentation I made at the 2013 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop in Newburgh, NY. It's been a long time since I worked on this material, and I don't break any new ground -- except perhaps for an indication that in my past work on these topics I wasn't sensitive enough to something that I have since come to appreciate more fully, viz., the manifold ramifications of the doctrine of divine transcendence.

Oh, M y Soul, There's Animals and Animals: Some Thomistic Reflections on Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (2012, 2014). Note of introduction: The intended audience for this paper is mainly Catholic graduate students and young Ph.D.’s in philosophy and theology, though everyone is of course welcome to read it. The paper was written in three stages. The first version was delivered in October, 2010 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. The revised version was delivered at the inaugural Thomistic workshop at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY in June 2011. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Catholic and Dominican Institute at Mount Saint Mary College and by The Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington. Finally, a new section on reductionism was added for the second Thomistic workshop at Mount Saint Mary College in June 2012, and the whole paper was revised again. In August 2014 I made some changes to the first part, which will be published as "No Room at the Inn: Contemporary Philosophy of Mind Meets Thomistic Philosophical Anthropology" by the journal Acta Philosophica (Università Santa Croce, Roma).

Father Thomas Joseph White on Wisdom in the Face of Modernity (2011). This is a brief comment on Thomas Joseph White, OP's Wisdom in the Face of Modernity (Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2009). I gave it at the annual meeting of the American Maritain Society in October, 2011.

Alfred J. Freddoso Professor Emeritus of Philosophy John and Jean Oesterle Professor Emeritus of Thomistic Studies University of Notre Dame


Actus and Potentia: From Philosophy of Nature to Metaphysics (2015). This is my contribution to the 2015 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop at Mt. St. Mary College in Newburgh, NY. The theme of the workshop was philosophy of nature, and it was chock full of good presentations -- by Fr. James Brent, OP, Bill Carroll, Ed Feser, Mike Gorman, Fr. Michael Dodds, OP, Chris and Jennifer Frey, Candace Vogler, and John O'Callaghan, along with a couple of excellent graduate-student presentations by Lindsay Cleveland and John Rose. Frank Beckwith and Rob Koons made excellent contributions to the open discussions. This was the fifth of these annual workshops, and attendance this year was the most ever. We may have reached our limit. I also got to see briefly Carson Daly, who was a junior faculty member with me at Notre Dame in the 1980's and is now president of Mt. St. Mary College. The Vindication of St. Thomas: Thomism and Contemporary Anglo-American Philosophy (2014). This is my contribution to a July 2014 conference called 'A Dialogue between Philosophy and Theology', sponsored by the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley. My commentator was my good friend Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP, who is also 'featured' in the paper, along with Ed Feser (who was also there), David Oderberg, and Lawrence Feingold. St. Thomas on the Philosophical Intelligibility and Plausibility of the Doctrine of Divine Providence: Situating Summa Contra Gentiles 3, chap. 64 (2014). This is a cleaned-up version of a presentation I made at the 2014 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop at Mt. St. Mary's College in Newburgh, NY. It was preceded (conceptually) by (a) presentations by Fr. James Brent, OP and Ed Feser on what I call herein the first stage of St. Thomas's natural theology, i.e., arguments for God's existence, (b) presentations by Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP and Fr. Michael Dodds, OP on aspects of the second stage of the natural theology, viz., divine simplicity and immutability, and (c) presentations by Candace Vogler, Bill Carroll, and Reinhard Huetter on aspects of the third stage of the natural theology, viz., God's goodness, the act of creation, and God as final cause of the universe and of each human being. A good time was had by all. Introduction to the Problem of Free Will and Divine Causality (2013). This is an outline of a presentation I made at the 2013 Aquinas Philosophy Workshop in Newburgh, NY. It's been a long time since I worked on this material, and I don't break any new ground -- except perhaps for an indication that in my past work on these topics I wasn't sensitive enough to something that I have since come to appreciate more fully, viz., the manifold ramifications of the doctrine of divine transcendence. Oh, M y Soul, There's Animals and Animals: Some Thomistic Reflections on Contemporary Philosophy of Mind (2012, 2014). Note of introduction: The intended audience for this paper is mainly Catholic graduate students and young Ph.D.’s in philosophy and theology, though everyone is of course welcome to read it. The paper was written in three stages. The first version was delivered in October, 2010 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. The revised version was delivered at the inaugural Thomistic workshop at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh, NY in June 2011. The workshop was co-sponsored by the Catholic and Dominican Institute at Mount Saint Mary College and by The Thomistic Institute of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington. Finally, a new section on reductionism was added for the second Thomistic workshop at Mount Saint Mary College in June 2012, and the whole paper was revised again. In August 2014 I made some changes to the first part, which will be published as "No Room at the Inn: Contemporary Philosophy of Mind Meets Thomistic Philosophical Anthropology" by the journal Acta Philosophica (Università Santa Croce, Roma). Father Thomas Joseph White on Wisdom in the Face of Modernity (2011). This is a brief comment on Thomas Joseph White, OP's Wisdom in the Face of Modernity (Sapientia Press of Ave Maria University, 2009). I gave it at the annual meeting of the American Maritain Society in October, 2011. Christ: Unum vel duo? Esse, Union, and the Incarnation in St. Thomas (2006): This is an outline of a presentation I gave at the 2006 Summer Thomistic Institute, University of Notre Dame. Whose Standards of Excellence? Secularity and the Mission of the University (1999): An earlier version of this paper was presented to a conference on "Faith and Reason and a University's Stated Purposes," sponsored by the American Public Philosophy Institute, March 1999. The paper still needs work, and so comments are welcome. Comments on Sleigh and Carriero (1997): These are comments I gave in reply to Robert Sleigh's paper The Scholastic Influences on Leibniz's Doctrine of Divine Physical Concurrence and John Carriero's paper Substance and Teleology in Leibniz Comment on John Jenkins's Intellect, Will, and the Assent of Faith in Thomas Aquinas (1996) The Necessity for Revelation: A Primer on Summa Contra Gentles 1, chaps. 1-9 (1996) Comment on Michael Murray's Leibniz on Divine Foreknowledge of Future Contingents and Human Freedom (1993) St. Thomas's Rejection of Ockham's Way Out (1992) Comment on Brian Leftow's Aquinas on Dimensions and Individuation (1991) A Suarezian Model of Efficient Causality (1990) (An extensively revised version of this paper appears as a part of the introductory essay, Suarez on Metaphysical Inquiry, Efficient Causality, and Divine Action, in Francisco Suarez, On Creation, Conservation, and Concurrence: Metaphysical Disputations 20, 21, and 22 (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, November 1999).) Comment on Peter van Inwagen's The Place of Chance in a World Sustained by God (1987)