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The American Catholic Philosophical Association2006 Annual Meeting |
The ACPA wishes to thank the host
institution,
for
its very generous financial and organizational support.
Complete Program (including paper-abstracts and satellite session
information)
Errata Sheet: a supplement to the 2006 ‘Complete
Program’ showing cancelled and added satellite sessions
Registration Information for the 2006 Meeting
Hotel Information for the 2006 Meeting
Schedule of van-shuttle service between Columbus Airport and
Granville, and between Newark Marriott and Granville
Please note: any exhibits, displays, etc. proposed in connection
with the Annual Meeting must be referred to the ACPA’s
Executive Committee for approval.
Complete Program
(including paper-abstracts and satellite session information)
2006 Annual Meeting Program
Most ACPA sessions
will be held in meeting rooms at the Granville Inn. Some sessions will be held in the College
Townhouse, which is adjacent to the Granville Inn. On Saturday, the concelebrated Mass will take
place at the Church of St. Edward the Confessor (785 Newark-Granville Road),
and the reception will be held in the Avery-Downer House (221 East Broadway).
Friday, October 27, 2006
8:45
- 9:00 am -- Executive Committee Meeting
Barney-Davis Board Room,
9
am – 12 noon --Executive Council Meeting Barney-Davis
Board Room,
2:00
- 8:30 pm -- Registration Lower Level, Granville Inn
5:00
- 8:00 pm -- Book Exhibit
Gallery of the Great Hall,
Granville Inn
3:00
- 5:00 pm -- Satellite Sessions:
Gabriel Marcel Society Granville Room, Granville Inn
Ohio Greek Philosophy Reading
Group Denison Room, Granville Inn
Society for Catholicism and
Analytical Philosophy
Wales Room, Granville Inn
Society for Thomistic
Natural Philosophy The Library, Granville Inn
Special Session: The Philosophical Dimensions of Deus Caritas Est
College
Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville Inn)
World Conference of Catholic Institutions in
Philosophy
College Townhouse II (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
5:00
- 7:00 pm -- Satellite Sessions:
ACPA Committee on Priestly Formation
College
Townhouse II (adjacent to Granville Inn)
American Association for the
Philosophic Study of Society
Denison Room, Granville Inn
International Institute for Hermeneutics
Third
Floor Clubroom, Granville Inn
Philosophers in Jesuit Education Granville Room, Granville Inn
Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics
The Library, Granville Inn
Special Session on Ethics and Religion
College Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
Special Session on Philosophy and Public Affairs
Wales Room, Granville Inn
8:30 - 10:30 pm -- A.C.P.A. Contributed Papers
Session I: Issues from Aristotle Wales Room, Granville Inn
Chair: Robert Delfino,
i. Jonathan Sanford,
“Aristotle’s
Divided Mind: Some Thoughts on Intellectual Virtue and
Aristotle’s Occasional
Dualism”
Commentator: Daniel
B. Gallagher, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
ii. Jean DeGroot,
The Catholic University of America
“A Husserlian Perspective on Empirical Mathematics in
Aristotle”
Commentator: Dominic Balestra,
Session II: Aquinas on Mind and World Denison Room, Granville Inn
Chair: Terrance
Klein,
i. Gloria Wasserman,
“Thomas
Aquinas on Truths About Non-Beings”
Commentator: Giorgio
Pini,
ii. Stephen Pimentel, Independent Scholar
“Formal Identity as Isomorphism in Thomistic
Philosophy of Mind”
Commentator: Robbie Moser,
Session III: Problems Concerning Substantial
Forms and
States College Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville Inn)
Chair: David Carey,
i. Benjamin Hill,
“Why We Can No Longer Rationally Believe That
Our Intellective Soul is a Substantial Form:
On the Degringolate of the
Simplicity Argument”
Commentator: Christopher
Lutz,
ii. J.M. Giebel,
“The Separate Minds of Church and State:
Collective Mental States and Their Unsettling Implications”
Commentator: Michael O’Neill,
Session IV: Abstraction in Al-Fârâbî & Avicenna The Library, Granville
Inn
Chair:
Gerald Twadell,
i. Richard C.
“Abstraction in Al-Fârâbî”
Commentator: Deborah Black,
ii. Jon McGinnis,
“Avicenna on Abstraction: Its
Role in Avicenna’s Philosophy of
Science
and Its Metaphysical Underpinnings”
Commentator: Thérèse-Anne
Druart,
10:00
pm - 12 midnight -- Reception hosted
by
Saturday, October 28, 2006
7:30
am -- Concelebrated Mass Wales Room, Granville Inn
8:30
am - 6:00 pm -- Registration Lower Level, Granville Inn
8:30
am - 6:00 pm -- Book Exhibit Gallery
of the Great Hall, Granville Inn
9:00
am – 11:30 am -- Plenary Session The Great Hall,
Granville Inn
Chair: Anthony Lisska,
Speaker: Sir
Anthony Kenny,
Topic: “The Origin of the Intellectual
Soul”
Speaker: John Haldane,
Topic: “The Metaphysics of Intellect(ion)”
12
noon - 12:30 pm – ACPA Business Meeting The Great Hall,
Granville Inn
1:30 - 3:30 pm -- Satellite Sessions:
Author Meets Critics: Jean Porter’s Nature as Reason:
A Thomistic
Theory of the Natural Law Wales Room, Granville Inn
Lonergan
Philosophical Society Denison Room, Granville Inn
Ohio Greek Philosophy Reading Group
College Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
Society for the Advancement of
American Philosophy
The Library, Granville Inn
Society for Continental Philosophy and Theology
Granville
Room, Granville Inn
Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
College
Townhouse II (adjacent to Granville Inn)
Society for Medieval Logic and
Metaphysics
Third
Floor Clubroom, Granville Inn
3:30
- 5:30 p.m. A.C.P.A. Contributed Papers
Session V: Issues in Epistemology Wales Room, Granville Inn
Chair: Marc
Smith,
i. John Zeis,
“Evidentialism and Faith: Believing in Order to Know”
Commentator: Tony Flood, Cardinal Muench Seminary
ii. Bernardo Cantens,
“Cognitive Faculties and Evolutionary Naturalism”
Commentator:
Mark
Pestana,
Session VI: Issues Regarding Mind and
Body Denison Room, Granville Inn
Chair:
Jeffery
Kinlaw,
i. William Jaworski,
“Hylomorphism and Post-Cartesian Philosophy of Mind”
Commentator: Kevin
Sharpe,
ii. David B. Hershenov, SUNY Buffalo
“Shoemaker’s Problem of Too Many
Thinkers”
Commentator: Jason Eberl,
Session VII: Explaining the World and the
Possibility of Evil
College Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville Inn)
Chair: Thompson Faller,
i. Stephen Grimm,
“String Theory and the Philosophy of Mind”
Commentator: John M. McDermott, Sacred Heart Major Seminary
ii. Michael Schrynemakers,
“Vagueness and Pointless Evil”
Commentator: Trent
Dougherty,
Session VIII: Aquinas, Themistius,
and Mind The Library, Granville Inn
Chair: Matthew Kent, The
i. Lorelle Lamascus,
“Aquinas and Themistius on Intellect”
Commentator: Kevin White, The
ii. Jörg
Alejandro Tellkamp, Universidad Panamericana and
Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana –
“Aquinas on Intentions in the Medium
and in the Mind”
Commentator: Michael Rombeiro,
6:00 - 7:00 pm --
Concelebrated Mass
10-minute
walk from Granville Inn
7:00 - 8:00 pm –
Reception hosted by
221 East Broadway in Granville,
just
east of the Granville Public Library
8:15 - 10:15 pm -- ACPA Banquet The Great Hall,
Granville Inn
Presentation of the ACPA Young Scholar’s Award:
Awardee: William Jaworski,
Introduction of the Aquinas Medalist:
James
South,
Presentation of the Aquinas Medal:
Aquinas
Medalist: Sir Anthony Kenny,
Medalist’s
Address: “Philosophia Perennis?”
Sunday,
October 29, 2006
7:30 am -- Concelebrated Mass Wales Room,
Granville Inn
8:30 am - 12:30 pm -- Book Exhibit Gallery
of the Great Hall, Granville Inn
9:00 - 11:00 am -- Plenary
Session Amphitheatre
of Burton-Morgan Hall,
Chair: Timothy
B. Noone, The
Speaker:
Kurt Pritzl,
The
Topic: “The Place of Intellect in
Aristotle”
Speaker:
Anthony Lisska,
Topic:
“A Look at Inner Sense in Aquinas: A Long-Neglected
Faculty
Psychology”
11:30 am - 1:00 pm –
Buffet-style Luncheon and Discussion
featuring Anthony Kenny
and John Haldane
on philosophical issues in theological discussions
Welsh
Hills Room of Burton-Morgan Hall,
Abstracts of Contributed Papers
Session I: Issues from Aristotle
“Aristotle’s Divided Mind: Some Thoughts on Intellectual Virtue and Aristotle’s Occasional Dualism”
Jonathan
Sanford,
In
this paper I focus on a few of the passages in the Nicomachean
Ethics that challenge the standard hylomorphic
interpretation of Aristotle’s anthropology. I proceed by reflecting on the manner in
which Aristotle’s two ways of characterizing the human person follow from
his accounts of the two most important intellectual virtues, phronesis and sophia.
I attempt to argue for the following three points: first, that
Aristotle’s presentation of a divided mind is the result of his
consistency rather than inconsistency; second, that there is not a clear way
found in his Nicomachean Ethics to
overcome this dual anthropology without doing violence to his account of
intellectual virtue; and third, that there are several reasons why this dual
anthropology should not be regarded as an aporetic
failure.
“A Husserlian Perspective on Empirical Mathematics in Aristotle”
Jean DeGroot, The
Examples
are presented of Aristotle’s use of non-idealized mathematics.
Distinctions Husserl makes in Crisis help to delineate the features of this empirical
mathematics, which include the non-persistence of mathematical aspects of
things and the selective application of mathematical traits and proper
accidents. In antiquity, non-abstracted mathematics was involved with practical
sciences that treat motion. The suggestion is made that these sciences were incorporated
by Aristotle into natural philosophy without first being abstracted as pure
mathematics--a state of affairs not envisioned by Husserl,
for whom science recast natural ontology by means of the idealization of pure
mathematics. The relation of empirical mathematics to life-world ontology is
considered.
Session II: Aquinas on Mind
and World
“Thomas Aquinas on Truths About Non-Beings”
Gloria Wasserman,
In
De Veritate I.2, Thomas Aquinas claims that
“every true act of understanding refers to a being and likewise every
being corresponds to a true act of understanding.” For Aquinas, the ratio of truth consists in a conformity between intellect and being. This account of truth, however, does not
appear to allow for a certain class of truths, namely those that are about
non-beings. Many think that it is true
that no chimeras exist, that blindness can be caused by exposure to
bright lights, and that evil should be avoided. Yet, in each of these cases of truth, there
does not appear to be a being to which the intellect conforms. In this paper, I will explore the ways in
which Aquinas’s notion of truth as “conformity to being” is
able to accommodate truths about non-beings.
“Formal Identity as Isomorphism in Thomistic
Philosophy of Mind”
Stephen
Pimentel,
Independent Scholar
A central problem
within an influential strand of recent philosophy of mind has been to explain
the “conformity of mind to thing” that characterizes
knowledge. John Haldane
has argued that this problem can be best addressed by a development of Thomas
Aquinas’ account of the “formal identity” of the knowing
subject with the object known. However,
such a development is difficult to present in a manner perspicuous to a
contemporary audience. This paper seeks to
present a persuasive account of formal identity, taking sensory cognition of
the individual object as the primary case for examination. Formal identity is initially explored using
the notion of encoding, or the systematic transfer of information reflecting
efficient and formal causal processes.
The mathematical notion of “isomorphism” is then employed to
describe precisely the features of encoding needed for formal identity. Forms are defined as formally identical if
and only if they are isomorphic.
Session III: Problems
Concerning Substantial Forms and Collective Mental States
“Why We Can No Longer Rationally Believe That Our Intellective Soul is a Substantial Form: On the Degringolate of the Simplicity Argument”
Benjamin Hill,
The
most pedigreed line of thought about mind is the simplicity argument: that the
unity of thinking entails the simplicity, immateriality, and immortality of
soul. It is widely taken to be a
rationalist argument, as opposed to an empiricist or peripatetic argument (see Mijuskovic, The
Achilles of Rationalist Arguments) which was completely destroyed by Kant
in the First Critique. In this paper it
is argued that there is a conceptual connection between the downfall of the
Aristotelian conception of soul as substantial form and the downfall of this
argument in that
viewing the functional unity of a material system as constituting
a genuine unity per se became acceptable.
This then undermined all philosophical motivation for the postulation of
substantial forms. As a result, there
was no longer reason for rooting the unity of apperception in the simplicity of
a subsistence soul as opposed to some simply emergent power of thinking.
“The Separate Minds of Church and State: Collective Mental States and Their Unsettling Implications”
J.M. Giebel,
Claims
regarding collective or group mental states are fairly commonplace: we speak of
things like the belief of the Church, the will of the faculty, and the opinion
of the Supreme Court, often without considering what such claims really mean
and whether they are true in any interesting sense. In this paper I take a threefold approach:
first, I articulate several ways in which a group might be said to have beliefs
and other mental states. Second, I
explore the implications, positive and negative, of these accounts of
collective mental states. Third, I shall
give a brief defense of my own view despite its somewhat disturbing
implications for our membership in Church, State, and other groups.
Session IV: Abstraction in
Al-Farabi and Avicenna
“Abstraction in Al-Fârâbî”
Richard C.
Taylor,
Al-Fârâbî’s thought on intellect was known to the Latin
West through the translation of his Letter on the Intellect, through the
Long Commentary on the De Anima by Averroes
and through some other works. Al-Fârâbî’ identified the active power of intellect in
Aristotle’s De Anima 3.5 as the unique and separately existing
Agent Intellect, but the role of the Agent Intellect in forming intelligibles in act in the human soul is by no means
unequivocally clear. Further, the
apprehension of intelligibles by human beings and the
intellectual development of the soul, oftentimes described as an activity of
abstracting (intaza`a), seems to be a genuine
abstraction from experience, yet it somehow involves the emanative power of the
Agent Intellect. This paper works to
provide a coherent explanation the nature of abstraction and the role of Agent
Intellect in that activity.
“Avicenna on Abstraction: Its Role in Avicenna’s Philosophy of Science and Its Metaphysical Underpinnings”
Jon McGinnis,
A
debated topic in Avicennan psychology is whether for
Avicenna abstraction is a metaphor for emanation or to be taken literally. This
issue stems from the deeper philosophical question of whether humans acquire intelligibles externally from an emanation by the
Active Intellect, which is a separate substance, or internally from an
inherently human cognitive process, which prepares us for an emanation from the
Active Intellect. I argue that the tension between these doctrines is only
apparent. In his logical works Avicenna limns an account where through the
internal human process of abstraction accidents accruing to an essence existing
in matter are extracted, thus preparing the essence for new accidents emanating
externally from the Active Intellect, which make the essence something
conceptualized in the intellect. This study, then, outlines the epistemological
and metaphysical framework presented in the logical works that underpins
Avicenna’s theory of abstraction presented in his psychological works.
Session V: Issues in
Epistemology
“Evidentialism and Faith:
Believing in Order to Know”
John Zeis,
Evidentialism is generally taken to be a position which is not friendly to a
religious epistemology. However, in this
paper, I will argue for a religious epistemology which is compatible with
fundamental tenets of an evidentialist position on
epistemic justification. It is a
position which entails both a “will to believe” which goes beyond
the standard evidentialist principles governing the
appropriate doxastic attitude towards a proposition,
but nonetheless satisfies epistemic principles at the basis of an evidentialist position on justification. If my argument is successful, a proponent of
a conception of religious faith may be able to have her cake and eat it too:
namely, she may be able to fundamentally accept both the evidentialist
demand that epistemically rational belief fit, or be
supported by evidence as well as the position that rational faith is willing
belief beyond what one’s evidence strictly demands.
“Cognitive Faculties and Evolutionary Naturalism”
Bernardo Cantens,
In
Warrant and Proper Function Plantinga argues that his natural view of warrant is best
understood within a supernatural ontology. A central reason why a naturalistic
ontology cannot accommodate his version of natural epistemology is that it cannot
explain the reliability of cognitive functions.
He presents arguments for the following two conclusions: (1) that
naturalism is probably false; and (2) that naturalism is irrational. He
considers the latter to be his main argument. The objective of this paper is to
refute Plantinga’s arguments for the conclusion
that naturalism is irrational. I will
demonstrate that given naturalistic evolution, we have reason to believe that
it is likely that we would develop reliable cognitive theoretical faculties. As a result, a naturalist has sufficient
epistemic ground to maintain the reasonableness of the view that her
theoretical cognitive faculties are reliable and her theoretical beliefs true.
It is, therefore, not irrational to be a naturalist.
Session VI: Issues Regarding
Mind and Body
“Hylomorphism
and Post-Cartesian Philosophy of Mind”
William Jaworski,
Descartes
developed a compelling characterization of mental and physical phenomena that
has remained more or less canonical for Western philosophy ever since. The greatest testament to the power of
Cartesian thinking is its ubiquity. Even
philosophers who are critical of post-Cartesian anthropology (philosophers, for
instance, who are self-professed exponents of one or another form of hylomorphism) nevertheless tacitly endorse Cartesian assumptions. Part of what leads to this strange
inconsistency is that by and large philosophers no longer know what a
non-Cartesian anthropology looks like. I
discuss some commitments characteristic of post-Cartesian philosophy of mind,
and present an alternative conception of psychological and physical phenomena
more consistent with a hylomorphic outlook.
“Shoemaker’s Problem of Too Many Thinkers”
David B. Hershenov, SUNY
Shoemaker maintains that when a functionalist theory
of mind is combined with his belief about individuating properties and the
well-known cerebrum transplant thought experiment, the resulting position will
be a version of the psychological approach to personal identity that can avoid
The Problem of Too Many Thinkers. I maintain that the costs of his solution
– that the human animal is incapable of thought - are too high. Shoemaker
also has not provided an argument against there existing a merely conscious being
that is not essentially self-consciousness but is spatially coincident with a
person who is essentially self-conscious. Both the person and the merely
sentient being will be transplanted when the cerebrum is. And another thought
experiment will make it impossible for Shoemaker to identify the person and the
merely conscious being.
Session VII: Explaining the
World and the Possibility of Evil
“String Theory and the
Philosophy of Mind”
Stephen Grimm,
Explanatory inquiry
characteristically begins with a certain puzzlement about the world. But why do certain situations elicit our
puzzlement (or curiosity) while others leave us, in some epistemically
relevant sense, cold? Moreover, what
exactly is involved in the move from a state of puzzlement to a state where
one’s puzzlement is satisfied? In
this paper I try to make sense of these questions by focusing on two case
studies, one from the popular literature on string theory and one from recent
debates in the philosophy of mind.
“Vagueness and Pointless Evil”
Michael Schrynemakers,
Many
theists and atheists believe that God would not permit an evil unless
God’s allowing it (or an evil at least as bad) is required for a greater
good. In “The Argument from
Particular Horrendous Evils” (and elsewhere) Peter van Inwagen has argued against this belief by appealing to his
“No Minimum Claim” (NMC), namely, that it is reasonable to believe
there is no minimum amount of evil required for God’s purposes. In this paper I distinguish different
formulations of NMC, and, by drawing an instructive parallel to traditional sorites paradoxes, refute Jeff Jordan’s criticism
that because morally significant suffering is finitely diminishable, NMC must
be false.
Session VIII: Aquinas, Themistius, and Mind
“Aquinas and Themistius on
Intellect”
Lorelle Lamascus,
Aquinas
puts forward two different, and conflicting, interpretations of Themistius’ account of the intellect. In his earlier interpretation of Themistius, Aquinas understands him to hold the position
that both the possible and agent intellect are separate and incorruptible,
existing apart from individual human souls but shared in by individual souls in
the process of knowing. In De unitate intellectus contra averroistas, however, Aquinas radically departs from
this reading, hailing Themistius as a genuine
interpreter of the Peripatetic position, while decrying Averroes’
perversion of both Themistius and Aristotle. This paper examines these competing interpretations
of Themistius’ account of the intellect in his Commentary
on the De Anima of Aristotle, focusing on two issues central to its
interpretation: (1) the nature of
intellect insofar as it is separate, impassive, and unmixed (2) whether the
productive intellect is one or many.
“Aquinas on Intentions in the Medium and in the Mind”
Jörg Alejandro Tellkamp,
Universidad Panamericana and Universidad
Autónoma Metropolitana
–
In
his philosophical works, Aquinas spends some effort establishing why cognitive
beings differ from those that are not able to have a cognitive, i.e.
intentional, grasp of the exterior world.
Prima facie, the matter is clear, since only those beings acquire
knowledge that have the proper powers to do so. One remark, however, while discussing the
nature of change in the process of visual perception, strikes the reader as
particularly odd, since Aquinas states that “a ‘spiritual
alteration’ […] occurs in virtue of a species’ being received
in a sense organ or in the medium in the manner of an intention
[…].” Whereas it is not
problematic to think that perceptions and thoughts are intentional, it seems
peculiar to talk of the species in the medium as being received “in the
manner of an intention.” While
current interpretations propose that Aquinas’ account is either erroneous
or in need of rectification, I would like to argue that the notion of
mind-independent or non-cognitive intentions, which follows the Avicennian tradition, is rooted in a peculiar theory of
sensible form. Given that the intentions
in the medium make sense, it is, however, important to show that they differ
from those intentions that are apprehended by cognitive powers. For this purpose, I will try to trace the
underlying physics for cognitive change, showing that an account in terms of
qualitative change leads one to posit a proper recipient of sensible forms,
i.e., the sense powers.
Satellite Sessions
Friday, October
27, 2006 -- 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Gabriel Marcel Society Granville
Room, Granville Inn
Speaker: Teresa Reed,
“Marcel on Time and Eternity”
Ohio Greek Philosophy Reading
Group Denison Room, Granville Inn
Chair: Michael Baumer,
Speaker:
Have To Do with Eudemian
Eudaimonia?”
Speaker: Myrna J. Gabbe,
“Understanding Aristotle
through the Commentary Tradition”
Society for Catholicism and
Analytical Philosophy
Wales Room, Granville Inn
Chair: Gavin T. Colvert,
Speaker: Matthews Grant,
“God and Human
Freedom”
Speaker: Trent Dougherty,
“Realizing Virtue: A Unified Virtue Epistemology”
Society
for Thomistic Natural Philosophy The
Library, Granville Inn
Chair: Steven C. Snyder,
Speaker: Andrew T. Seeley,
“Power and End: Aristotle’s Matter as Dynamis”
Speaker: Michael W. Tkacz,
“The Telos of Matter: Comments on Andrew Seeley’s
Psychological Analogies for Aristotelian Matter”
Special Session on the
Philosophical Dimensions of Deus Caritas Est
College Townhouse I (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
Speaker: Thomas Harmon,
“Benedict on
Sexuality in Deus Caritas Est”
Speaker: Brendan Palla,
Speaker: “Benedict
XVI on the Relationship Between
the Church and State”
World Conference of Catholic
Institutions of Philosophy
College Townhouse II (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
Session
Title: Facilitating International
Dialogue among Philosophers at
Catholic Institutions: An Invitation and Introduction
to the
World Conference of Catholic Institutions of Philosophy
Presentation
by: Richard
Cobb-Stevens,
Question
and Answer Period to Follow
Friday, October
27, 2006 -- 5:00 - 7:00 p.m.
ACPA Committee on Priestly
Formation
College Townhouse II (adjacent to Granville
Inn)
First
Hour of Priestly Formation Session:
Topic: “Being
and the 21st Century Seminarian”
Chair: David Foster,
Speaker: John F. X. Knasas, Center for Thomistic Studies,
Second
Hour of Priestly Formation Session:
Topic: “Update and
Discussion on Model Curriculum
for Catholic Seminaries”
Project
Chair: ACPA Executive Committee on
Priestly Formation
American
Association for the Philosophic Study of Society
Denison Room, Granville Inn
Session Title: “Some Responses to Norms of
by Douglas B. Rasmussen and Douglas J. Den Uyl”
Chair: Peter Vedder, Independent Scholar
Speakers: Denis Sullivan,
̶