Think Better

"This is a fresh and wondrous introduction to #philosophical thinking, a true delight, a cool and restorative oasis in what’s too often a vast desert of dry pedantic texts."@TomVMorris, Philosopher & Bestseller Author #Philosophy #reason #homeschooling https://t.co/ZyXkHzOZnc

— Ulrich L. Lehner (@ulrichlehner) July 3, 2021

Baker Publishing

What We Would Call Dialectic

The front matter of my book 'The Dialogical Roots of Deduction' is already available online! It includes the ToC and the Preface, which offers a summary of the book as well as the acknowledgments (which is what everyone reads first anyway...).https://t.co/QyssckpzdK

— Prof. Catarina Dutilh Novaes 😷 (@cdutilhnovaes) November 27, 2020

Cambridge University Press

The Importance of Logic

This is actually very classical. We forget that "scholastic" style encodes a kind of conversation (disputatio) and that Plato and Aristotle both wrote dialogues (and Aristotle is very dialogical even in his lectures).

"Logic" is social:https://t.co/FfxDFDmxqd

— Josh Hochschild (@JoshHochschild) November 1, 2020

Logic as a Liberal Art: An Introduction to Rhetoric and Reasoning by R. E. Houser.

CUA Press

A recview:

"Houser, whose text primarily relies on the deductive reasoning of Aristotelian logic—with a healthy dose of grammar and rhetoric at the beginning—helps us identify the prevalence of illogic in public discourse." @CUAPress https://t.co/QfGeKv66Bu

— Russell Kirk Center (@KirkCenter) June 12, 2020

Anthony Andres: Dialectic as a Way to the Principles

TAC: Dialectic as a Way to the Principles by Dr. Anthony Andres

Published This Month

Analogy after Aquinas: Logical Problems, Thomistic Answers By Domenic D'Ettore

An Overhaul of the Aristotelian Sciences Is Needed?

Do the categories need to be reconsidered in a way going beyond the phenomenologists (e.g. William Marra)? What about the predicaments? Are the predicaments and attributes/properties confusing to the neophyte to Aristotelian philosophy? While the categories seem to be integral of the Metaphysics, are they so important to the Physics? Can one limit a discussion of change, generation, and corrruption to substance and accident? No, Aristotle does mention alteration of quality, quantity, and place. Out of those three, it seems that the category of quality is the one that may need to be revised in light of a better understanding of the natural world, even if it itself is a rather broad category that includes both color and thought?

Sandro Magister: All the Reasons of Professor Seifert, Fired For Too Much Fidelity to the Church

Eastern Christian Books: Conciliar Christology

Eastern Christian Books: Conciliar Christology


A question: Is Timothy Pawl an analytic philosopher?

Not an ad hom...

From Ignatius Press: Jesus' School of Life: Incentives to Discipleship by Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn

How good is he as a theologian, if theology must not simply be thought but lived and his questionable tenure as (arch)bishop, who should be a theologian par excellence, both as teacher and as one who prays.

An academic theologian is not necessarily a neo-scholastic, which Schönborn probably isn't.

That said, the description of the book sounds good, so I'd probably take a closer look at it myself.

26 in 2006, how many now?

A list of 26 Species “Concepts”

Was this really pastorally necessary?

Pope Francis: ‘Evolution … is not inconsistent with the notion of creation’ (via Call Me Jorge)

Some Thomists have taken a similar line regarding the possibility of some version of "theistic evolution" or another, but it just makes the Roman Church look bad to engage in dialectic poorly.

Catholics still trying to be "scientifically" respectable...

Post by Ignatius Press.

Articulating Medieval Logic by Terrence Parsons (via Thomistica.net)

A Fallacy for Some of the Pious

Or, attributable to others by them - denying the antecedent?

An example:
kneeling --> showing reverence
not kneeling --> not showing reverence

I say it is attributable to others, those they wish to protect from liturgical changes, because it may be that even though this is fallacious reasoning, some of the "simple faithful" may erroneously infer that because we do not need to kneel because of a bishop's directive, that no sign of reverence is necessary and that the Divine Liturgy is wholly "horizontal" rather than "vertical" in orientation.

The Smithy mentions a forthcoming book, Later Medieval Metaphysics
Ontology, Language, and Logic, and quotes an author of one of its essays, Terence Parsons, for his definition of medieval logic:

The first task is to decide what to count as medieval logic. Medieval logic consists of centuries of work by some very smart people working in a difficult area. I will be libertine about what is included in medieval logic. If any medieval logician ever said it, and if it is worthwhile, it is part of medieval logic.

It is rather circular, if a medieval logician is someone who writes about medieval logic. But Parsons probably refers to commentaries on the texts of Aristotlte and so on instead.

The Debate on Logic

The Difference between Traditional and Modern Logic and the Difference it Makes (via First Thoughts, which refers on a recent Peter Kreeft article - William Randolph Brafford's first post responding to Kreeft - see the comments posted there)

Related:
Henry Babcock Veatch's Two Logics

Thomistica.net: Weisheipl's Commentary on the Posterior Analytics Online

Being

James Chastek, What am I trying to signify by “being”? and Simultaneity and the First, Second, and Third Way

I've been thinking of the question of being in relation to Duns Scotus and univocity, but since my handle of metaphysics is that of a beginner, I am just jotting some notes for later reference. Can there be a concept of being without first some sort of assent that a particular thing is/exists? How can one know any sensible thing without first sensing it? While essence is not the same as existence for contingent beings, does our conception of a thing necessarily have a reference to the judgment that it has existed? Is our conception of being then dependent upon some "being" having an effect upon our senses? A being is, first, that which has acted upon our senses, either directly or via something else?

If so, can our conception of being be univocal in this way, while it is equivocal when we try to reason out how material creatures differ from immaterial beings and God? Being is univocal in accordance with this sort of preliminary definition, but equivocal with a more "scientific" definition?

Did St. Thomas Aquinas Justify the Transition from "Is" to "Ought" by Piotr Lichacz, O.P.

(Fribourg)

Roger Nutt, Does Thomism Offer a Theory of Doctrinal Development?

Nutt refers the reader to Charles Journet's What is Dogma for a Thomistic explication of doctrinal development.

An excerpt: Dogma and Mystery

Here is my initial shot:
As we are unable to give a real definition of God in this life (as we do not know God as He is in Himself), so His essence has not been captured in a single concept. Hence He reveals Himself to us in a way that we can understand, through His actions and attributes (via analogy). Our understanding of what has been Divinely Revealed can be deepened as we apply our reason to it. (But it seems that our understanding can also be deepened in itself through participation in the Divine Life and the life of the Church? - through both experiential reflection and contemplation?)