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The American Catholic Philosophical Association2007 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)
Program Corrigenda
Letter from the Secretary
Registration Information for the 2007 Meeting
Hotel Information for the 2007 Meeting
Pre-registration Form
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)
2007 Annual Meeting Program
Most ACPA sessions
will be held in meeting rooms at the Hilton.
On Saturday, the concelebrated Mass will take place in the Wright
Ballroom.
Friday, November 9, 2007
7:00 - 7:30 am -- Holy Mass Gesu,
9:40 - 10:00 am -- Executive
Committee Meeting Oak Room
10:00 am - 1:00 pm --
Executive Council Meeting Oak Room
2:00 - 8:30 pm --
Registration Registration Counter
5:00 - 8:00 pm -- Book Exhibit
4:00 - 6:00 pm -- Satellite Sessions:
Society
for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics MacArthur
Society
for Continental Philosophy and Theology Mitchell
Society
for Catholicism and Analytical Philosophy C Wright
ACPA
Committee on Priestly Formation Pabst
Philosophers
in Jesuit Education Miller
Institute for
8:30
- 10:30 pm -- A.C.P.A. Contributed Papers
Session I: Freedom in Augustine and Anselm, Pabst
Chair: Mary
Catherine Sommers,
i. John J. Davenport,
“Augustine on
Commentator: Christopher
Anandale,
ii. Gregory B. Sadler,
“Freedom, Inclination of the Will, and
Virtue in Anselm’s Moral Theory”
Commentator: Mark Pestana,
Session
II : Freedom, Causation and Explanation,
Mitchell
Chair: Andrew Jaspers,
i. Michael Rota,
“Infinite Causal Chains and
Explanation”
Commentator: Jeffrey Kinlaw,
ii. Sharon Kaye,
“William of Ockham and the Unlikely
Connection between Transubstantiation
and Free Will”
Commentator: Justin Skirry,
Session III: Aquinas on Purpose and Intention, Miller
Chair: Astrid
O’Brien,
i. Kevin White,
“Aquinas on Purpose”
Commentator: James M.
Jacobs, Notre Dame Seminary
ii. Andrew Jaspers,
“Intentio
and Praeter Intentionem in the
Constitution of the Moral Object in Thomas Aquinas”
Commentator: Anthony
Giampietro,
Session IV: Conceptions of Freedom, Will and God in the
Arabic / Islamic Tradition, MacArthur
Chair: Richard Taylor,
i. Luis Lopez Farjeat,
“Determinism and Free Will in
Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Arabic Tradition”
Commentator: Terry Kleven,
ii. Shalahudin Kafrawi,
“What Makes an Efficient Cause
Efficient? Ibn Sina’s Notion of
Will.”
Commentator: Jon McGinnis,
10:00 pm - 12 midnight -- Reception hosted by
Saturday, November 10, 2007
7:30 am -- Concelebrated Mass Wright Ballroom
8:30 am - 6:00 pm --
Registration Registration
Counter
8:30 am - 6:00 pm -- Book
Exhibit
9:00 am - 11:30 am -- Plenary
Session Wright Ballroom
Chair: Thomas Anderson,
Speaker: John Rist, Emeritus Professor of Classics
and Philosophy at the
Topic: “Freedom
and Nature among the Greeks”
Speaker: Timothy
Noone ,The
Topic: “Nature, Freedom and Will: Sources of
Philosophical Reflection”
11:45 am - 12:15 pm -- Business
Meeting Oak Room
1:30 - 3:30 pm -- Satellite
Sessions:
Society for Thomistic Natural Philosophy Miller
Lonergan Philosophical Society Schlitz
Society of Christian Philosophers Kilbourn
Society
for the Advancement of American Philosophy Pabst
Gabriel
Marcel Society Usinger
International
Institute for Hermeneutics Wright
3:30 - 5:30 p.m. A.C.P.A. Contributed Papers
Session V: Ancient Philosophy, Miller
Chair:
Jack Carlson
i. Mark Spencer,
“Full Human Flourishing: The Place of
the Various Virtues in the Quest for Happiness In Aristotle’s
Ethics”
Commentator: David Carey,
ii. James L. Wood,
“Freedom in the Philebus”
Commentator: Michael Bowler,
Session VI: Freedom and Nature Pabst
Chair:
Steven Jensen,
i. Cruz Gonzalez-Ayesta, Universidad de Navarra
“Scotus’s Interpretation of Metaphysics 9.2: On the Distinction
between Nature and Will”
Commentator: Mary Elizabeth Ingham, Loyola Marymount University
ii. Denis F. Sullivan,
“Anscombe on Freedom, Animals, and the
Ability to Do Otherwise”
Commentator: Bernard Prusak,
Session VII: Self-Sacrifice and Friendship, MacArthur
Chair: Gene Fendt,
i. Kalynne Hackney Pudner,
“What’s so bad about
self-sacrifice? Immolation, abnegation, effacement and donation in
ethics”
Commentator: Douglas
Rasmussen,
ii. Yoshihisa Yamamoto, Catholic University
of America
“Thomas Aquinas on the Ontology of Amicitia: Unio and Communicatio”
Commentator: Christopher
Lutz,
Session VIII: Freedom and Will: A Seminar on the Work of
Robert Kane, Mitchell Room
Chair: Timothy Noone,
i.
“Self-Forming Actions”
ii. Katherin Rogers,
“Libertarianism in Kane and
Anselm”
iii.
Robert
Kane,
“Free
Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem”
6:00 - 7:00 pm --
Concelebrated Mass Wright Ballroom
7:00 - 8:00 pm –
Reception hosted by
8:15 - 10:15 pm -- ACPA Banquet Monarch
Ballroom
Presentation
of the ACPA Young Scholar’s Award:
Awardee:
Michael Rota,
Introduction of the Aquinas Medalist: Alexander
Pruss,
Presentation of the Aquinas Medal:
Aquinas Medalist: Nicholas
Rescher,
Medalist’s Address: Aquinas and the Principle of Epistemic Disparity
Sunday,
November 11, 2007
7:30 am -- Concelebrated Mass Wright
Ballroom
8:30 am - 12:30 pm -- Book Exhibit
9:30 - 11:30 am -- Plenary
Session Wright Ballroom
Chair: Anthony
Lisska,
Speaker: Timothy
O’Connor,
Topic: “Human
Freedom and the Emerging Sciences of Brain and Behavior”
Speaker: Daniel O. Dahlstrom,
Topic: “Attitudes and Choices”
Abstracts of Contributed Papers
Session I: Freedom in
Augustine and Anselm
“Augustine on
John J. Davenport,
I have argued that like Harry Frankfurt, Augustine
implicitly distinguishes between first-order desires and higher-order
volitions; yet unlike
“Freedom, Inclination of the Will, and Virtue in Anselm’s Moral Theory”
Gregory B. Sadler,
My paper argues that Anselm’s
moral theory is concerned with virtue and vice. The affections or inclinations of
the will are central in Anselm’s moral theory, specifically to human
freedom and justice, and this allows Anselm’s moral theory to be regarded
as something like a virtue ethics that places the will and the human
person’s relationship with God at its center. My paper examines three
sets of topics: first, Anselm’s views on freedom and justice; second, key
distinctions in Anselm’s treatment of the will; third, the
will-as-affection for justice understood as taking determinate form as virtues.
Session
II: Freedom, Causation and Explanation
“Infinite
Causal Chains and Explanation”
Michael Rota,
Many cosmological arguments for the existence of a first cause or a necessary being rely on a premise which denies the possibility of an infinite regress of some particular sort. Adequate and satisfying support for this premise, however, is not always provided. In this paper I attempt to address this gap in the literature. After discussing the notion of a causal explanation (section I), I formulate three principles which govern any successful causal explanation (section II). I then introduce the notions of a caused being, a causal network, and a causal chain, and argue that (roughly) an infinite causal chain cannot be explained merely by reference to the causal activities of the members of that chain (section III). In a sequel to the present paper, I employ this result to construct two closely related arguments for the existence of a necessary being.
“William of Ockham and the
Unlikely Connection between Transubstantiation and Free Will”
Sharon Kaye,
William of Ockham was tried for heresy due to his
assertion that certain qualities can exist independently of substances. Scholars have assumed he made this strange
assertion in order to account for the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation. I
argue, however, that the assertion was philosophically rather than
theologically motivated. Ockham develops
a nominalist substance ontology, according to which most changes can be
explained as the result of local motion.
Knowledge and virtue are changes in human beings that cannot be so
explained, however, because they are not entirely passive processes. In fact, knowledge and virtue require free
will, which could not be considered truly free if it were not an independently
existing quality. In this paper, I
explain Ockham’s nominalist substance ontology and show how it functions
as the sine qua non foundation for his uncompromising commitment to
metaphysical libertarianism.
Session
III: Aquinas on Purpose and Intention
“Aquinas on Purpose”
Kevin White, The
Starting from Summa
theologiae 1.2.3.obj.2, I consider some aspects of the term propositum as it occurs in his
works. The objection divides
“everything that appears in the world” into what is natural and
what is a proposito, and argues that
each of these can be accounted for by causes other than God. I suggest that what is a proposito be called “the purposed”, and I try to
clarify Aquinas’s understanding of purpose in relation to other notions
in his writings, in particular nature, fortune, and above all deliberation or
“counsel”, which is the prelude to choice. After some reflection on the theme of
“deliberated will” and on the contrast between deliberating and
being deliberate, I return to Aquinas’s reply to the objection I began
with, then conclude with reference to a recent discussion of the difference
between ends and purposes.
“Intentio and Praeter Intentionem in the Constitution of the Moral Object in Thomas Aquinas”
Andrew Jaspers,
As one of the three sources of the moral act in Aquinas’s philosophy, intention is fundamental to the understanding of his ethics. And while intention’s psychological and linguistic dimensions have been appreciated recently, after the appearance of Anscombe’s Intention, the Aristotelian physical framework of Aquinas’s thought on the issue has been neglected. Taking only the end of the agent into account in intentional analysis has led to incorrect interpretations of moral action, particularly among new natural law theorists. In this paper, I propose an understanding of intentio and praeter intentionem in Aquinas that elucidates his distinctions regarding justified killing, as well the bearing of intention in intentional action and moral acts.
Session
IV: Conceptions of Freedom, Will and God in the Arabic / Islamic
Tradition
“Determinism
and Free Will in Alexander of Aphrodisias and the Arabic Tradition”
Luis Lopez Farjeat, Universidad Panamerican
“What Makes an Efficient Cause Efficient? Ibn Sina’s Notion of Will”
Shalahudin Kafrawi,
Session
V: Ancient Philosophy
“Full Human Flourishing: The Place of the Various Virtues in the Quest for Happiness In Aristotle’s Ethics”
Mark Spencer,
Human ability to freely choose requires knowledge of
human nature and the final end of man. For Aristotle, this end is happiness or
full flourishing, which involves various virtues. Modern scholarship has led to
debate over which virtues are absolutely necessary. Taking into account the
hierarchical nature of the soul and the fact that relationships with the divine
and with others are necessary for human flourishing, it can be seen that human
flourishing requires contemplation, phronesis
and all the moral virtues, as perfections of the various parts of the soul.
The truly happy person has actualized all of his faculties and potential
relationships. Rather than taking one of the standard exclusivist or
inclusivist viewpoints on this ‘problem of the two lives,’ this paper
argues that a holistic reading of Aristotle’s ethical works requires a
hierarchical and relational view of the virtues, with all of them necessary for
human flourishing.
“Freedom in the Philebus”
James L. Wood,
In this paper I explore a possible grounding of human
freedom in Plato’s Philebus. I define freedom as “the capacity to
make choices and act on them without interference,” or more basically, as
“the ability to do what one wants.”
Freedom so conceived, I argue, requires the right relation of reason and
desire with each other and of both with the larger order of nature. This “right relation” maps onto
the “mixed” or good life of the Philebus. On Plato’s account, freedom and good
are realized simultaneously in the activity of integrating oneself as both
rational and sensual. His account of a
rational order of nature grounds the free and good life metaphysically even as
his analysis of pleasure articulates its proper relation to desire and
reason. The best and most liberating way
of life turns out to be nothing less than the pursuit of wisdom and good: the
life of Socratic philosophy.
Session
VI: Freedom and Nature
“Scotus’s
Interpretation of Metaphysics 9.2: On
the Distinction between Nature and Will”
Cruz Gonzalez-Ayesta,
Universidad de Navarra
In his reading of Metaphysics
9, 2, Scotus makes significant contributions to the explanation of the
difference between rational and irrational potencies. Whether his contributions
are in agreement with Aristotle’s intention is something to be clarified
in the article. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to explain Scotus’s
transformation of the Aristotelian view on this point.
In
the foresaid passage Aristotle establishes the distinction between rational and
non-rational powers and explains their difference in terms of their being ad opposita and ad unum, respectively. In his interpretation Scotus concludes that
the most basic division between active principles is the difference between nature
and will, rather than the difference between univocal and equivocal agents. Thus, the
Aristotelian distinction between rational and non-rational powers has now
become a distinction between nature and will. And the criterion for such a
difference no longer lies in the contrast between ad unum and ad opposita,
but rather is based on the twofold way the potencies can elicit their acts.
Indeed, the will has the ability to act otherwise in the very moment it is
acting. The will is not determined by its own nature: it is self-determined or
autonomous. Nature, on the other hand, acts necessarily unless some other
principle interrupts its action. Nature is determined in itself, and it follows
from this determination that the presence of the patient or an external agent
gives rise to nature’s action: nature is heteronomous. According to
Scotus, the key difference between nature and will is the distinction between
autonomy and heteronomy.-
This
paper is comprised of three sections. The first section deals with the
different meanings that Scotus assigns to the term ‘nature’ so as
to bring out the one that is relevant for this investigation, namely,
‘nature’ meaning an active principle. The second section develops
Scotus’s teaching on the distinction between nature and will according to
his reading of Metaphysics 9.2. The
paper finishes with some considerations on the status of intellect as a natural
potency rather than a rational one.
“Anscombe on Freedom, Animals, and the Ability to Do Otherwise”
Denis F. Sullivan,
It is commonly assumed that human beings are free
because they have minds and, since they are the only creatures we have
encountered that have minds, it is further assumed that they are the only
creatures that are free. Elizabeth
Anscombe, on the other hand, maintains that freedom, in the sense in which it
is identified with the ability to do otherwise, is required for intentional
action and, since even thoughtless beasts perform intentional actions, these
beasts are also free. She does not deny
that humans exercise this freedom in a unique way. But by situating human freedom in a broader
context and detaching it from any robust concept of mind she makes the claim
that human beings are free that much easier to defend.
Session
VII: Self-Sacrifice and Friendship
“What’s
so bad about self-sacrifice? Immolation, abnegation, effacement and donation in
ethics”
Kalynne
Hackney Pudner,
A persistent worry in
the ethical literature on care and empathy is that the agent is prone to
self-sacrifice by the requisite state of engrossment in or engagement of the
other. Addressing this worry
particularly as expressed by Alisa Carse, Adrian M.S. Piper, and Diana Tietjen
Meyers, I argue that the concept of self-sacrifice as morally deleterious
conflates four different relations of the self to its autonomous will:
self-immolation (destroying one’s own autonomy), self-abnegation
(disowning one’s autonomy), self-effacement (devaluing one’s
autonomy) and self-donation (dedicating one’s autonomy). The latter, far from being vicious, is from
an ethical standpoint the highest realization of autonomy; this claim finds
echoes in Robin Dillon’s work on self-respect as well as the personalist
philosophy of John Paul II.
Self-immolation, self-abnegation, and self-effacement, on the other
hand, are characterized by detachment from responsibility, corruption of the
boundaries between self and other, and suppression of self-understanding.
“Thomas Aquinas on the Ontology of Amicitia: Unio and Communicatio”
Yoshihisa
Yamamoto,
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the
ontological character of amicitia in Aquinas. The originality of
Aquinas's theory is found in the ontological foundation expressed by
Neoplatonic concepts (unio, unitas, communicatio). By integrating
such Neoplatonic concepts with his analysis on the transcendentals (aliquid,
unum), I made a new ontological foundation to the theory of amicitia.
In order
that a man is a one (unum), he must establish himself as something
different (aliud quid) in the midst of the relationship with others and
then has to return to himself. So long as he stays self-contained without
moving outward, he cannot constitute himself as an independent being which is
different from other beings (aliquid). The ontological oneness (unitas)
as an independent rational substance makes it possible for a man to form the
mutual relationship of unity (unio) without losing himself in the midst
of the deep relationship with someone else.
Session
VIII: Freedom and Will: A Seminar on the Work of Robert Kane
“Self-Forming Actions: The
Genesis of a Free Will”
Robert Allen,
The
following is a now popular argument for free will skepticism:
1. If free will exists, then people make themselves.
2. People do not make themselves.
3. Thus, free will does not exist.
It would make no sense to hold someone
responsible, either for what he’s like or what he’s done, unless he
has made himself. But no one makes
himself. A person’s character is
imposed upon him by Nature and others.
To rebut, I
intend to lean on common usage, according to which 2 is false: the vernacular
provides a clear sense in which we do
make ourselves. It is the sense in which
we speak of a cake being made from ingredients or a statue out of clay. Self-formation sufficient for a free will
occurs along these lines. I shall
discuss a Compatibilist and a Libertarian version of this project.
“Libertarianism in Kane and Anselm”
Katherin
Rogers,
Anselm of Canterbury is the first Christian philosopher, perhaps the first philosopher, to offer a systematic analysis of libertarian freedom. His work prefigures that of Robert Kane, and looking at the two philosophers together is helpful in understanding and appreciating the work of each of them. In this paper I show how Anselm adopts a view of choice that foreshadows Kane’s doctrine of ‘plural voluntary control’. Kane proposes this doctrine as attempt to answer the ‘luck’ problem. Alfred Mele criticizes this approach, arguing that, unless the agent’s competing desires ultimately originate with the agent himself, he cannot be considered autonomous. It is true that on both Kane’s and Anselm’s analysis, agents have only a limited area of autonomy. However, an appreciation of the radical implications of this limited autonomy in Anselm’s system shows that plural voluntary control gives the agent significant freedom.
“Free Will: New Directions for an Ancient Problem”
Robert Kane, UT-Austin
Over the past three decades, I have been developing a
distinctive view of free will motivated by a desire to reconcile a
non-determinist (incompatibilist or libertarian) view of free will with modern
science as well as with recent developments in philosophy. A view of free will
of the kind I defend (called a “causal indeterminist” or
“event-causal” view in the current literature) did not exist in a
developed form before the 1980s, but is now discussed in the philosophical
literature as one of three chief options an incompatibilist or libertarian view
of free will might take. As such, this view has been the subject of much recent
discussion. In this paper, I explain and defend my view of free will, and
answer recent criticisms of it. Some of these criticisms are made by Robert
Allen in his paper “Self-forming Actions,” a contribution to the
seminar of which the present paper is a part. I also respond to Katherin Rogers’
contribution to this seminar “Libertarianism in Kane and Anselm.”
Her book, Anselm on Freedom
(forthcoming from Oxford), argues that Anselm defended a unique libertarian
view of free will, avoiding both Pelagianism and Augustine’s later
compatibilism, a view that she argues has affinities to my view of free will. I
also discuss these affinities to Anselm in my paper and their theological and
well as philosophical implications.
Satellite Sessions
Friday, November
9, 2007 -- 4:00 - 6:00 p.m.
Society for Medieval Logic
and Metaphysics MacArthur
Topic “Scotus and the Univocity of Being”
Speaker: Alex Hall,
“Confused Univocity?”
Speaker: Joshua Hochschild, Mount St.
Mary’s University
“Cajetan on Scotus on the Univocity
of Being”
Society for Continental
Philosophy and Theology Mitchell
Topic: “Phenomenology, Nature
and Religion”
Chair: Christina M. Gschwandtner,
Speaker: H. Peter Steeves,
“In the Beginning and in the End”
Speaker: Scott Cameron,
“What’s in a Name?
Anthropocentrist, Biocentrist,
and Hermeneutic Appropriations
of the Natural World”
Society for Catholicism and
Analytical Philosophy C Wright
Chair: Gavin T. Colvert,
Speaker: Patrick Toner,
“Transubstantiation,
Essentialism and Substance”
Speaker: Christopher Tollefsen,
“Lying: The Integrity Approach”
ACPA Committee on Priestly
Formation Pabst
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”
Philosophers in Jesuit
Education Miller
Topic: Is there a Jesuit
Philosophy? A Discussion
Chair: Jeffrey
Bloechl,
Speaker: Elizabeth Murray,
“Bernard
Lonergan: An Ignatian Thinker”
Speaker: Andrew Tallon,
“Beyond Thomism
after Rousselot & Rahner”
Institute for St. Anselm
Studies Schlitz
Topic: “Saint Anselm, Original Sin, and Human Free
Will”
Chair: John R.
Fortin, O.S.B., Saint Anselm College
Speaker: Katherin A. Rogers,
“Anselm on Free
Will and the
(Possibly Fortunate) Fall”
Speaker: Stan Tyvoll,
“Anselm on the
Problem of Original Sin”
Speaker: Matthews Grant,
“Anselm, God,
and the Act of Sin”
Saturday, November
10, 2007 -- 1:30 - 3:30 p.m.
Society for Thomistic Natural
Philosophy MacArthur
Chair: Thomas McLaughlin, St. John Vianney Theological Seminary
Speaker: Kurt J. Pritzl, O.P., The
“Aristotle
on Mixture and the Relationship of the
Soul
to the Body in Sense Perception”
Lonergan
Philosophical Society Schlitz
Chair: Elizabeth
A. Murray,
Speakers: Patrick Byrne,
“Freedom
beyond Biological Determinism”
Robert Doran,
S.J.,
“Discernment and the Fourth Level”
Society for Christian
Philosophy
Kilbourn
Speakers: Jason Baehr,
“Openmindedness
as an Epistemic Virtue”
Stephen Grimm,
“How Knowledge and Practical Interests are
Related”
Society
for the Advancement of American Philosophy Pabst
Topic:
“The Integration
of Personalism and Metaphysics in
Twentieth Century Thomism: A Discussion”
Chair:
Speaker: W. Norris Clarke,
Gabriel
Marcel Society Usinger
Topic: “The pervasive
presence of the spiritual in
Gabriel
Marcel”
Chair: Thomas Michaud,
Speaker: Thomas Anderson,
Commentators:
Lance
Richey,
Brendan Sweetman,
International
Institute for Hermeneutics Wright
Topic: “The Theological
Background of German Idealism”
Chair: Andrzej Wiercinski, International Institute for Hermeneutics
Speaker: Michael Schulz,
“Hegel and the Doctrine of the Trinity”
Speaker: Sean J. McGrath, Memorial
“Schelling and Esoteric Christianity”
Speaker: Andrzej
Wiercinski, International
Institute for Hermeneutics,
“Approaching
Transcendence: Boehme and Hegel
and Negative Theology”
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