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Information has been omnipresent and all-powerful for almost two centuries, and now possesses sophisticated and invasive means of imposing itself and creating opinion. It was crucial in the Enlightenment and in the preparation of the French Revolution by the intellectual and bourgeois elites. Its characteristic is to be the opposite of intangible truths, to be moving, malleable and adaptable. It is the new replacing the old. It is bracketed by history, because it ignores tradition and no longer needs the past. The creation of opinion in the 18th century introduced a concept of freedom that in fact conceals totalitarianism. People are told what to think. Information is a weapon against all forms of personal reflection and inner life. It imposes itself and imposes, making it impossible to distance oneself. It even kills the democracy it boasts about.

This paper aims to present the specific functioning of the emotion of hatred from the point of view of the Aristotelian-Thomistic concept of emotions. This perspective is particularly relevant to the issue at hand because of its holistic and integral view of understanding human beings, including their emotional functions. In this paper, I consider the issue of the emotion of hatred in relation to other emotions against the backdrop of the structure of human action. When analyzing how hatred functions, I consider the notion of good and evil, which are linked to emotions and acts of will that play a vital role in the sphere of emotions. By correctly channeling one’s will towards the good, one is able to notice hatred arising within, and thus reflect upon it. Understanding how the emotion of hatred functions is essential for further research into how it is expressed.

Paul de Lacvivier This paper aims to highlight how the trial of Louis XVI expresses a complete inversion of the legal principles of Old Christian France, where the authority of the absolute King submits to superior customary and divine laws, against the Revolution, which makes the ‘general will’ a God allowing for unrestrained legal positivism. After recalling how the assassination of the King allowed the vicious circle of terror, the trial of Marie-Antoinette and the revolutionary trials, we propose an explanation of the legal principles that can lead to this kind of totalitarianism. To do so, we present some cases from 19th century Japan, which, when compared with the revolutionary trials and the pre-revolutionary Christian world, provide a key to understanding: the hierarchy of positive, natural and divine laws greatly explains how such and such a legal system can allow or not the justification of mass crimes or totalitarianism. Jason Morgan In his 2022 volume Common Good Constitutionalism, and in a series of essays and other works prior to the book’s release, Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule advances a new vision for the American republic. Against the two dominant strains of constitutional interpretation in the United States, namely originalism and progressivism (“living constitutionalism”), Vermeule argues for common good constitutionalism, a return to the ius commune pursuit of that which is good for all in accordance with the natural law. While Vermeule’s work is ambitious and his intervention into originalist-progressivist debates welcome, a question remains: will common good constitutionalism be able to overcome America’s Enlightenment civil religion? In this paper, I consider the challenges which America’s Enlightenment civil religion poses to common good constitutionalism (and any other attempt to think past the Constitution from within a constitutional framework), concluding that common good constitutionalism, insofar as it is predicated on the pre-existing Constitution and deployed within the American politico-theological domain, cannot overcome America’s Enlightenment civil religion to effect the common good.

The term „Lublin Philosophical School” refers to the mode of philosophizing devised in the 1950’s at the Catholic University of Lublin. After a brief history, the paper first discusses some methodological features of this mode and the social role of philosophy as a self-awareness of culture. Employing the School’s philosophy, the paper then considers the issue of post-truth and that of the value-ladenness of science. The post-truth approach replaces evidence with emotions, and in consequence, argumentation is replaced with power. This in turn threatens the human person, her rationality and freedom. Admitting that science is value-laden and values are subjective leads to denying the cognitive status of science. Lublin philosophy offers such a concept of value and scientific knowledge which allows one to solve the problem created by the value-ladenness of science. Thus, the paper shows that the Lublin School’s philosophy can provide answers to contemporary problems and evaluate intellectual developments of culture.

There is some debate among interpreters of Aquinas as to whether he attributed a doctrine of creation to Plato and Aristotle. Mark Johnson has noted many texts where Aquinas does appear to attribute to Plato and Aristotle an understanding of creation. Yet, an initial glance at Summa Theologiae I.44.2 would suggest he did not. This paper first examines what various interpreters of Aquinas have had to say on the matter. Secondly, it argues that Summa Theologiae I.44.2, taken in context with the proceeding article and De Potentia III.5, need not be read as denying such a doctrine to Plato and Aristotle. Thirdly, this paper concludes that because Plato and Aristotle do not actually possess doctrines of creation, they cannot be the chief sources for Aquinas’ own thought on this matter. Instead, to attribute creation to Plato and Aristotle, Aquinas interprets them through Avicenna. Thus, Avicenna is the chief source for Aquinas’ understanding of creation.

This study examines the concepts of rhetoric used in ancient times, using a process of research based upon “Interpretivist Research Philosophy”. Common thinking among rhetoricians and philosophers in general argues that one concept of rhetoric was utilized. This paper argues that there were at least three concepts of rhetoric known in Antiquity. Each was unique in its own right and contributed to what was to be a new body of knowledge. Research conclusions stem from a study of the works of ancient authors, including Plato and Aristotle, and from schools of philosophies, including the writings of Stoics and Sophists. The reviewed literature supports the thesis presented in this paper that at least three concepts of rhetoric were known and used.

Against the background of the model of the metaphysics of the person (presented in the article “The Existential Metaphysics of the Person. Part 1: The Classical Concept of the Person and the Metaphysical Theory of Esse,” Studia Gilsoniana 10, no. 2) which was initiated by Thomas Aquinas and developed in the Lublin Philosophical School, this paper focuses on the attempt to show the philosophical breakthrough that the concept of personal existence can bring, and points out the most important theoretical consequences of adopting this theory in metaphysics. It outlines the elements of a new metaphysics of the person, based on the concept of personal existence, and hypothesizes about the metaphysical turn this concept could make. The investigations undertaken in the paper lead to the conclusion that not all inferences have yet been drawn from the concept of esse personale, and that the entire depth of the metaphysics of existence has not yet been explored.

This paper uses the philosophical methods employed by Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey to formulate pragmatism’s basic ideas about education. The ideas proposed by the pragmatists are also used to compare and define their relationship between each other in order to create a new philosophy (theory) of democratic education. Based on the assumptions of pragmatism to show democracy in education, the paper explains the application of pragmatism to educational reform in Vietnam today. For pragmatism is to be what unites education.

This paper reaffirms the truth of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church (CSD) and its impact in the socioeconomic sphere in Western Civilization. Specifically, it seeks to put in order the chaos in which secularized European society currently finds itself. Through Archbishop Giampaolo Crepaldi’s interpretation of CSD, the author dispels erroneous notions of collectivism surrounding private property, productive work, solidarity, and subsidiarity by arguing that a proper understanding of these principles supports a healthy capitalism, which in turn supports human dignity. Only through a capitalism in line with a proper understanding of CSD principles can the poor stand to gain the most, provided they have a socioeconomic framework in which they can independently thrive. Liberation theology as a cornerstone of a socioeconomic framework destroys the foundation the Church established through the centuries. In the interpretation of the relationship between the CSD and the capitalist economy provided by this paper, the concept of private property emerges as the central nucleus of any human operation, be it cultural, economic, social, or political. Ownership does not only mean possessing material things, but also spiritual elements. Thus ownership also means identity, of a person and of a people. As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the ideology of political correctness—that is, the ideology of the various cultural and political movements of the left—condemns identity as dangerous, a condemnation which furthers the operation of globalization, the homogenization of humanity, and the related attempt to weaken nations in view of a supranational management. If identity is one of the consequences of the concept of property, then this latter must also be banned, as an obstacle on the way to that global dis-identification that would herald a socialization of the Western world. But from the perspective of the main spiritual foundation of the West, that is, of the Judeo-Christian tradition, property is one of the pillars of society, and therefore cannot be suppressed or even undermined. The Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, founded by Pope Leo XIII and relaunched by Pope John Paul II, is an excellent antidote to the ideological poison of socialism and progressivism now wide-spread in all Western countries.

Although the question of whether, in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, sanctifying grace is “created” or “uncreated” has received considerable attention in the last several decades, many of the questions and arguments proposed by those, such as Karl Rahner, Jerome Ebacher, and Anna N. Williams, in favor of grace being uncreated have gone unanswered. Among these ancillary questions and arguments are those concerning the proper subject of grace, the categorial classification of grace, and the reason for the mystery and unconsciousness of grace. These questions appear unrelated, but, as this paper argues, they are each logically connected to each other and to the overall thesis that sanctifying grace is created, not uncreated. This paper aims to make Aquinas’s thesis that grace is created more palatable to objectors by addressing each of these previously unaddressed ancillary questions.

This paper examines St. Thomas Aquinas’s and Immanuel Kant’s notions of measurement and judgment, particularly measuring and judging beauty, to demonstrate their respective conclusions about the highest achievement of man. For St. Thomas’s view, I draw from a variety of St. Thomas’s writings as well as rely on Peter Redpath’s research into St. Thomas’s understanding of measuring and judging. For Kant’s view, I focus on Kant’s perspective as written in The Critique of Judgement. In this paper, I argue that by examining the way both St. Thomas and Kant measure and judge beauty, we can see that, for Kant, man’s highest achievement is to live the moral life, while for St. Thomas, man’s highest achievement is to know the good and God. Interestingly, for both philosophers, their conclusions about man’s highest achievements wind through their understanding of beauty and the way beauty is measured and judged.

Gilson’s Being and Some Philosophers (BSP) has been widely influential well beyond Thomistic circles, but its modern historical sources and logical consequences call for further investigation. The first part of this two-part article explores three modern semantic assumptions or principles without which BSP’s innovated theory of existential judgment cannot be fully appreciated: the existential neutrality of the copula ubiquitous among modern logicians; Kant’s introduction of a positing or “thetic” function of judgment, the understanding of which evolved in nineteenth-century logic; and the distinction between predication and assertion, generally accepted by late nineteenth century logicians. Part two of this paper offers a rereading of Gilson’s BSP as an implicit critique of and alternative to Maritain’s synthesis of Aquinas with these modern developments.

After a cursory review of Wojtyła’s anthropology and his philosophy of freedom as self-transcendence aiming at the true good, this paper turned to his treatment of intersubjective relationships. We explained the core concept of participation, a property of the person whereby he maintains the personalistic value of his actions while also working together with others for the realization of a common end. Participation becomes reality in a community only when it has a proper subjective common good in addition to its objective common good. The former fosters the normative conditions that make participation possible. Anterior to the common good in its totality is the “common good” for all human beings constituted by the bona honesta. Building and sustaining strong communities requires the engagement and solidarity of its members, which sometimes expresses itself through opposition.

This paper aims to highlight Joseph de Maistre's pioneering work in anthropology, which 150 years before Girard came to the same conclusions as Girard: the importance of sacrifice in human societies, the logic of violence and its resolution, and the particular character of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, which comes as a fulfillment and definitive end to the logic of bloody sacrifice. This little-known aspect of the counter-revolutionary thinker gives us a better understanding of the issues of matriarchy, patriarchy and Christian patriarchy, right up to contemporary developments with gender. He also gives us an example of the application of Catholic realism, based on theology and nourished by sound Thomistic metaphysics, and how a return to this Catholic realism in the human sciences is a key to understanding contemporary phenomena.

In his paper, “The Concept of Value in the Ethical Thought of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła,” Tadeusz Ślipko argues that the thought of Karol Wojtyła was not faithful to the truth. This paper attempts (1) to bring into question the validity of Tadeusz Ślipko’s claim and (2) to show that Wojtyła can be embraced not only as an ambassador of the truth, but that such an acceptance allows us to embrace the truth itself. The paper consists of three parts. After (1) framing the stage with a more developed showcase of Wojtyła’s view of value within the bounds of morality as seen from antiquity, it (2) summarizes Ślipko’s objections and reservations and, then, (3) expands on Wojtyła’s stance in relation to the objections and offers relevant solutions.

The term “genus” has evolved over time. This paper traces development of the word from the common usage of Ancient Greece, through the pre-Socratic philosophers and Plato, and up to the more technical use in Aristotle. It began in common use to mean a class or race of people, most specifically referring to people with a common parentage. The pre-Socratics applied the term to refer to things that were generated. Plato used the term to refer to groups of people generated by a common interest or aim. Aristotle employed it in different ways based on his predecessors. This paper makes comparisons between these usages and the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. It argues that understanding the development of “genus” facilitates understanding how Thomas Aquinas used it.

This paper explores the arguments against the compatibility of classical metaphysics (Aristotelian-Thomistic) and theistic evolution. It begins with presenting the line of division between theists and atheistic evolutionists regarding the origin of the universe. Next, it moves to definitions of the terms evolution and species. The core of the paper consists of the five reasons why theistic evolution is excluded by Thomistic metaphysics. Among these are the problem of sufficient cause, accidental changes generating substantial changes, the reduction of causality in theistic evolution and the problem of the order in the universe. This is followed by a presentation of the positive teaching of Aquinas on the origin of species. Finally, the article responds to the three common arguments put forward by theistic evolutionists who seek to either accommodate or dismiss classical metaphysics.

Karol Wojtyła understood that the turn to the subject had beneficially augmented traditional metaphysics by revealing the uniqueness of each person. Nevertheless, he also knew that for those investigations into personhood to resist devolving into mere relativism, the analysis had to be grounded in the metaphysical principles of Thomism. One contemporary illustration of an ungrounded subjectivism is the rise of identitarianism; that is, the idea that people can choose their own identity based on a peculiar property as distinct from our common human nature. In this paper, I will examine both the Thomistic metaphysical and phenomenological personalist bases for critiquing identitarianism. I will argue that the analogy of being, distinguishing substance from dependent modes of being, is the necessary metaphysical foundation for the personalist integration of actions in a subject who, while unique, must be recognized primarily as an instance of a common human nature.

Abstract: One might wonder whether the essence of love involves self-transcendence. If it does, then philosophers who speak of self-love could not really be addressing love at all. Perhaps they address a related phenomenon, maybe even a good, positive reality, but not love itself. Since St. Thomas Aquinas speaks to the legitimacy of the love of self, philosophers who argue the essence of love involves self-transcendence criticize the scholastic’s position. This is the exact criticism Dietrich von Hildebrand advances in The Nature of Love. This paper defends Aquinas against von Hildebrand’s suggestion that “self-love” is not really love at all. I will argue that, based on both natural and supernatural principles, Aquinas’s notion of the love of self, as far as it relates to the love of God, involves transcendence.

Nicholas Cusanus is often seen as a pivotal figure in the history of Western philosophy. His writings are sometimes viewed as an attempt to reject the traditional scholarly knowledge, troubled by manifold tensions and crises, in order to prevent the collapse of Western Christianity under the weight of its complex architecture of knowledge. In this paper, I try to refute this mode of interpretation by highlighting the roots and structure of Cusanus’s theory of knowledge that serve as the basis of his concept of docta ignorantia. I present the concept of docta ignorantia as being intended to serve the purpose of a unifying framework for academic discourse.

The text presented aims to illustrate the thesis of E. Gilson derived from his work “The Unity of Philosophical Experience” on the impersonal necessity linking philosophical ideas, as exemplified by Porphyry and his work Sententiae ad intelligibilia ducentes. E. Gilson puts forward a thesis that the philosopher is free at the moment of choosing the first principles of their philosophy, then they must accept the consequences that necessarily follow from these principles. Porphyry’s Sentences are a fairly synthetic account of Plotinus’ metaphysics and allow for a quite clear grasp of both the starting point and the above-mentioned consequences. In addition, for contrast, the paper presents the position of Alexander of Aphrodisias, similar in several points to that taken by Porphyry, but ultimately completely different.

The Philosophical Fragments (Lambeth Fragments) of St. Anselm of Canterbury are a kind of dictionary that explains the meaning of certain terms, such as: facere, velle, posse, necesse, debere, or agere. They include a discussion, conducted on the intersection of logic and ethics, of such deontic concepts as “obligation” and “goodness.” Through the explication of meanings, Anselm attempts to create a conceptual apparatus for rational proofs of the main tenets of the Christian doctrine and, even more broadly, for the exegesis of Scripture. In addition, this new apparatus allows him to examine some purely philosophical topics, including free will, causation, and the relationship between human freedom and divine foreknowledge. Recently attempts have been made (by D. Walton at the level of syntax and by S. Uckelman at the level of neighborhood semantics) to reconstruct the logic of agency presented in the Philosophical Fragments. The article will briefly introduce the main issues discussed in the Philosophical Fragments. The paper shows that the description and analysis of the verb “facere” mainly in the Philosophical Fragments, but also in Anselm’s other treatises, can be well described within the Aristotelian logical square; however, the article shows some problems in trying to describe the concepts of causation, agency, and action in the language of logic. Thus, the article examines the thesis of the applicability of logic to the fundamental problems of metaphysics, namely causality, especially in the context of human free will and God’s action.

The paper analyzes the argumentation that the representatives of Polish neo-scholasticism, Gabryl and Wais, used to justify the existence of God and the immortal human soul. The analysis shows the high intellectual requirements observed by both thinkers. Not only have they avoided naive confessional apologetics, but they were critical when choosing arguments from different philosophical traditions as well. The scientific activity of the two scholars was a reflection of the program of the renewal of scholasticism formulated in Leuven. The features of this program were both restraint in using the term “Christian philosophy” and avoiding confessional apologetics on the one hand and the preservation of its specificity on the other. This specificity was expressed in undertaking the traditional tasks of Christian philosophy: undertaking the justification of preambula fidei and the observation of the negative role of faith.

This paper presents the sociological research carried out among Polish and Ukrainian students concerning the importance of family within their life. The purpose of the article is to demonstrate the differences and similarities in the perception of this fundamental group unit of society. The research was conducted at a unique time, as it was during the ongoing period where Ukraine has been a country at war, in addition to the epidemic outbreak of COVID-19. It was assumed that these special circumstances as well as the cultural differences would influence the perception of marriage and family. In a threatening situation, a person can change their former value system, priorities, and the most important life goals. In addition, the observed social and cultural changes that are taking place in both countries - albeit not at the same time and to the same extent - affect the way young people see their vision of the world, and in particular in what family model they would like to spend their future, and also whether they think about starting a family at all.

The paper examines Jean Baudrillard’s conception of society as the silent majority. Thus conceived society has been shaped against the background of digital media transformations. Paying attention to the relationship between citizens perceiving media messages, and the media themselves and the power creating spectacular media messages, became the basis for Jean Baudrillard’s model of the relationship between power and society. This relationship takes on the function of the silent majority. A society with these characteristics emerged as a reaction to the simulative nature of power. For Baudrillard, simulation processes are the starting point of his analysis of the political sphere. Understanding society as the silent majority introduces a diagnosis of the functioning of the politician-voter relationship.

This article examines Karol Wojtyła’s concept of participation and alienation by starting the discussion on his personalist anthropology, leading to his structure of the human community. Wojtyła’s personalist anthropology reveals to us the nature of the human person as a unique, unrepeatable personal subjectivity. According to Wojtyła, the human act takes us to the knowledge and understanding of the person’s interiority and simultaneously allows us to have a glimpse of the human person’s specific complexity. Then, I analyze the correlation between person-action in living and acting with other persons. Here, I attempt to demonstrate that if our existence has to acquire any human significance, it is that, rather than alienation, which makes such a unique experience possible. Finally, I explored the impact of the failure to grasp a genuine understanding of the human person and the capacity to participate in the humanity of other persons, setting a profound sense of alienation that dehumanizes us to our very core. This paper aims to answer the following questions: Given the actions that can be performed ‘together with others,’ how does the person’s acting with others affect the dynamic correlation of the action with the person? What is the significance of this participation for the personalistic value of the action? Why is alienation antithetical to participation?

This paper explores a normative layer of Habermas’s public sphere in its relation to human rights. His public sphere came into being as a result of a spontaneous nonconformity manifested by the early bourgeoisie’s reaction to an absolutist regimen making inroads in the realm of basic human liberties; it managed to survive the changeable conditions of society and state thanks to its participants’ capability of cultivating collective self-determination, fed from the outset by the intellectual claims of modernity. Thereafter, the link between Habermas’s public sphere and human rights bifurcates, leading concurrently to liberal individual rights (Menschenrechte) and to the republican freedom of popular sovereignty (Volkssouveränität). Further revisions and corrections transpose that simple dualism from the clear-cut bourgeois world of universal morality into the realm of legalism and the protocols de rigueur in the world of systems. Habermas integrates individual human rights and popular sovereignty in the procedures of a democratic state, overcoming this ostensibly irreconcilable duality in his genuine claim about the co-originality of civil autonomy. This thesis institutionally unifies universal pre-constitutional morality, with legalism regulating the democratic world of legal subjects (citizens) and their constitutionally guaranteed entitlement.

This paper aims to highlight how the trial of Louis XVI expresses a complete inversion of the legal principles of Old Christian France, where the authority of the absolute King submits to superior customary and divine laws, against the Revolution, which makes the ‘general will’ a God allowing for unrestrained legal positivism. After recalling how the assassination of the King allowed the vicious circle of terror, the trial of Marie-Antoinette and the revolutionary trials, we propose an explanation of the legal principles that can lead to this kind of totalitarianism. To do so, we present some cases from 19th century Japan, which, when compared with the revolutionary trials and the pre-revolutionary Christian world, provide a key to understanding: the hierarchy of positive, natural and divine laws greatly explains how such and such a legal system can allow or not the justification of mass crimes or totalitarianism.

In his 2022 volume Common Good Constitutionalism, and in a series of essays and other works prior to the book’s release, Harvard Law School professor Adrian Vermeule advances a new vision for the American republic. Against the two dominant strains of constitutional interpretation in the United States, namely originalism and progressivism (“living constitutionalism”), Vermeule argues for common good constitutionalism, a return to the ius commune pursuit of that which is good for all in accordance with the natural law. While Vermeule’s work is ambitious and his intervention into originalist-progressivist debates welcome, a question remains: will common good constitutionalism be able to overcome America’s Enlightenment civil religion? In this paper, I consider the challenges which America’s Enlightenment civil religion poses to common good constitutionalism (and any other attempt to think past the Constitution from within a constitutional framework), concluding that common good constitutionalism, insofar as it is predicated on the pre-existing Constitution and deployed within the American politico-theological domain, cannot overcome America’s Enlightenment civil religion to effect the common good.

The central questions addressed in this paper are: (1) how are forms related to predication? And (2) what role do forms and predication play in the discovery and articulation of truth? The first section of the paper provides—in broad strokes—a synopsis of Plato’s account of forms. The second section considers predication in relation to forms showing that the existence and nature of forms is a necessary condition for predication, and that Plato’s account of predication is consistent with, in fact, anticipates, Aristotle’s treatment of reality in the Categories. The conclusion of the paper is that forms and predication are central to philosophical hermeneutics, to the discovery and articulation of truth.

This paper focuses on the sociological analysis of power relations in terms of the concept of the network society. It starts with a discussion on the network approach and its understanding in social sciences. The author analyzes several mediating notions such as social network, power, structure, language, and collectivity grounded in the sociological approach. Further analysis leads to the discussion of power relations in technologically developed societies. The author searches for answers to many fundamental questions to open up avenues for building a coherent network theory. To achieve these goals, she uses a sociological approach that is based mainly on the criticism of writing and the analytical and synthetic methods.

Soon after Charles Darwin proposed his theory of the origin of species (1859), Catholic theologians set out to harmonize the evolutionary account with the traditional Christian doctrine of creation. While there have been several attempts at achieving this, all of them encountered philosophical or theological problems. After Humani Generis (1950), the debate among Catholic scholars shifted to questions related to polygenism and the propagation of original sin. In this paper, we show that these new theories adopted philosophically or theologically problematic concepts of hominization. We also argue that there is ample paleontological evidence from anatomy and tool-making to support the claim that the so-called fossil hominids should be categorized as either apes or human beings (Homo sapiens). This postulate invites a new look at human origins, one that remains compatible with modern science as well as traditional theology and metaphysics.

The issue of intentionality is one of the pivotal points in the theory of knowledge. Depending on how intentionality is understood, one can be a realist, a nominalist, or an idealist. For that reason, modern Thomists widely discuss this theme. The four different positions in this debate are: the first three, which are considered reductive views are: “identity view of representationalism,” “direct realism,” and “similarity theory.” The fourth is considered a non-reductive view and can be called primitive intentionality theory. The paper concludes that the most adequate way to understand intentionality is a non-reductive view, not exactly the same as the “primitive intentionality theory,” but rather a view that considers esse intentionale as a metaphysical mode of being which solves the question of the existence of known objects.

This paper is a review of the book by Rémi Brague, titled The Law of God. A Philosophical History of the Alliance, in which he aims to analyze the concept of divine law, assuming „[...] that human activity is based on norms derived from a divine source.” The author analyses this concept historically and philosophically, and thus searches for its historical conditions and reasons for its existence. Focusing mainly on the Middle Ages, he undertakes a critique of modern times and the modern concept of law, according to which it is merely a convention. He stresses that in pre-modern times law was treated as objective, because it was given by God and was closely connected with religion. Such understanding of law was common in all traditions, the history of which the author is following, and it constitutes the very foundation of European culture. In spite of certain differences in interpreting the idea of law, resulting from differences in the doctrines of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, on the grounds of all of them law possesses divine features—as determined and revealed by God, eternal and inherent to the nature of being.

The paper addresses the matter of differences of aesthetic judgment by examining Shakespeare’s Tempest through the Thomistic understanding of substance and of beauty. It seeks principally to explore three elements of aesthetic inquiry: (1) what characterizes the subject who perceives beauty? (2) what characterizes the object of aesthetic experience? and (3) how do aesthetic judgments differ from sensual perceptions? The Tempest serves as particularly fruitful territory for such exploration in virtue of the persons of Miranda and Caliban, who by the limitations of their experience delineate the generic borders, the degrees of virtual quantum excellence, which characterize the beautiful object. Their education at the hand of Prospero likewise elucidates somewhat the process of aesthetic training.

The paper deals with the specific nature of research in realistic metaphysics by Andrzej Maryniarczyk. The first part presents the method of realistic metaphysics, i.e., metaphysical separation, which constitutes the basic method of forming the understanding of being. The second part focuses on the characteristics of the system of metaphysics as a cognitive response to the existence of reality. The third part concentrates on the metaphysical theory of creation ex nihilo, showing the essential aspects of this theory. All the presented issues constitute important complements, which integrate the metaphysics practiced by A. Maryniarczyk into a whole.

This paper is a review of Christopher C. Knight’s book, Science and the Christian Faith. According to the author, Knight’s book sheds light on the wide differences between Orthodox and western theology and applies Orthodox-inspired perspectives to explaining many key aspects and terms, such as the fall and its ramifications, miracles, grace, the sacraments, the western distinction between the natural and the supernatural, and the link between the Logos and the logoi. The author concludes that Knight’s book is an attempt to show that the Orthodox vision of the universe is not in competition with science.

Jorge J. E. Gracia, was born in Cuba in 1942. At age 19, he escaped Cuba and arrived in the United States. In 2019, 58 years later, in a nation which, prior to his arrival in North America, had no major Latino cultural presence in higher education and philosophy, Gracia rose to hold the Samuel P. Capen Chair and State University of New York at Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature. In this position, he became the leading figure to institutionalize Latin American philosophy in the U.S. academy and an internationally-renowned scholar in medieval philosophy. Jorge J. E. Gracia died in the United States on July 13, 2021. In this paper the author shows that what properly explains the philosophical and adult-personal life of Gracia is the Thomistic principle of virtual quantity. He contends that the only way to understand Gracia’s personal and philosophical life is to grasp this life as one of an organizational psychologist pursuing perfect self-realization in action and understanding: someone chiefly interested in intellectually grasping precisely how organizational wholes (including his own psyche) become united and divided, and operate when so united and divided.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how three very different Chicago economists, Milton Friedman, Frank H. Knight, and John U. Nef, Jr., handled the question of God and religion. The author shows that for each of these three figures, their stance on religion set limits on the effectiveness of their intellectual efforts in the public sphere of their university, the larger academic community, and American society.

The response to the special 2019 issue of Studia Gilsoniana on economics was so positive that it led to the creation of the Aquinas School of Leadership School of Economics (ASLSE). This 2021 publication is, therefore, a second special issue of Studia Gilsoniana on the same theme and the second installment of ASLSE’s economic journals. We are delighted to present here further fruits of thought from the maturing Studia Gilsoniana and ASLSE partnership. Economics is held to be a value-free, scientific enterprise, and as such there can be no relationship between economics and religion. Ayn Rand, a well-known novelist-turned-philosopher, took this position in an unapologetic way in her writings, specifically in her novel Atlas Shrugged. The contrary position to what we might call the Randian “strict separation” thesis holds that economics and religion are related, in some way and to some degree, and therefore should be considered in tandem. The papers in this special edition of Studia Gilsoniana set out to show the extent and quality of the relationship between economics and religion from a variety of viewpoints and historical periods.

This paper is a review of the book On the Metaphysical Cognition by Stanisław Kamiński, one of the founders of the Lublin School of Philosophy (Poland) which refers to the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. The book consists of a selection of Kamiński’s five articles devoted to the specificity of metaphysical cognition. According to the author, Kamiński’s book is not only a unique contribution to the understanding of cognition in classical metaphysics, but also a valuable reading suggestion for all interested in the general methodology of sciences and philosophy.

This paper is a review of Roberto de Mattei’s book, La critica alla Rivoluzione nel pensiero di Augusto Del Noce [The Criticism of the Revolution in the Thought of Augusto Del Noce]. According to the author, de Mattei’s book acquaints the reader with Del Noce’s criticism of the destructive nature of revolution as that which stems from the ideas of modern philosophy and culminates in current politics and culture.

This paper investigates Denys Turner’s article, “On Denying the Right God: Aquinas on Atheism and Idolatry.” According to the author, Denys Turner’s account contributes to theist and atheist debates by treating the issue of whether God can be intelligibly comprehended with great emphasis.

This paper is intended to consider whether human vulnerability as manifested in the situation of being ill can be accepted as a profound human limitation in life that contributes to a deeper understanding of what it ultimately means to be human—to learn not only to live with suffering but to live through it. Also a further horizon, which is looked at more closely from philosophical and theological points of view, is drawn by understanding one’s own being as gift.

This paper is a review of the book: Habiger Institute for Catholic Leadership, The Heart of Culture (Providence, R.I.: Cluny, 2020). The author highlights that the book (1) takes a chronological view of western education, beginning from its roots in ancient Greece, through its development by Christianity, up to its present crisis, and (2) stresses that what western education needs today to correct its errors is not a specific plan of action, but a set of principles, including the cultivation of wisdom and virtue.

Dr. Brian T. Carl published a paper, “Thomas Aquinas on the Proportionate Causes of Living Species,” in which he defends a thesis that the principle of proportionate cause, as understood by Aquinas, cannot be used to contradict the modern theory of biological evolution. This rejoinder explores thoroughly Carl’s argument, specifically his idea that spontaneous generation serves as a model to explain causality in biological evolution. It is shown that Aquinas indeed accepts proportionate causes in spontaneous generation, but this fact cannot be extrapolated to modern evolutionary theories. The origin of new species after creation was completed is not a straightforward thesis in Aquinas; rather Thomas sees it as a possible exception, which contradicts the evolutionary origin of the vast majority of species. Additionally, Carl misses the major point that in Aquinas the origin of new species belongs to the work of creation rather than the natural operation of secondary causes.

This paper is a response to Dennis F. Polis’s article “The Compatibility of Evolution and Classical Metaphysics” (2020), which offered a critique of the author’s article “Classical Metaphysics and Theistic Evolution: Why Are They Incompatible?” (2019). In order to justify and maintain his objections to the compatibility of classical metaphysics and theistic evolution, the author concentrates on three problems: (1) the definition of evolution, (2) the Aristotelian-Thomistic understanding of substance, and (3) the clarification of why Dr. Polis’s responses to his arguments fail.

This paper is a review of the book: Frère Pierre Marie, O.P., Dieu existe-t-il? Les preuves de l’existence de Dieu (Editions du Sel, 2020). The author highlights that Frère Pierre Marie’s book (1) describes the shortcomings of modern philosophies, and (2) can serve as both a challenging introduction to the basics of Thomistic thought and a powerful apologetic resource for well-versed Thomists.

This paper is written to articulate in a summary form 14 evidently-known essential and personalistic principles from the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas needed, especially by Pope Francis, to understand a third period of neo-Thomism we are now in: Born-again, or Ragamuffin, Thomism. It maintains that, without application of these principles to the Church’s “new evangelization,” this movement will fail. With that failure the Church will be unable to halt the cultural suicide in which the West is presently engaged.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the problem of the human body as to whether it is wholly and directly influenced by the rational forces of the soul, or it contains something instinctive or unconscious that can exert a determinative influence on human actions and behavior. Drawing on Thomistic anthropology, the author gives his interpretation of organic factors in the human body and their place in the free and rational actions of the human being through the case study of sensual appetitive powers. The latter, he concludes, are what simplify the execution of desires of the soul.