Catherine Peters

Cura personalis is one of the distinctive characteristics of Jesuit education, but the precise meaning of this phrase can sometimes be difficult to discern. Often translated as "care or education of the whole person," the expansiveness of its formulations can lead to an overlooking of what should be central: the care of a person in their full personhood and a reminder of the person's ultimate end. To understand cura personalis in a way that retains its distinctive character, I propose a return to Ignatius of Loyola himself, focusing especially on the importance of the Incarnation. I maintain that the Incarnation is indispensable for understanding cura personalis and that it indicates certain practical applications.

Knowledge in the sense of epistēmē /‘ilm / scientia is necessary knowledge of a thing in terms of its causes. An indispensable preliminary for attaining knowledge of this kind is the identification of what kind of causes can constitute it. Both Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas maintained that causes must be “common” in some way if it they are to yield ‘ilm or scientia. The central importance of common causes prompted Avicenna to distinguish two ways that a cause can be common (either “by predication” or “by causality”). This distinction was later adopted by Thomas Aquinas, who employed it in a variety of contexts throughout his works (including his commentary on the Sentences, De veritate, and commentaries on the Physics of Aristotle and De Trinitate of Boethius). In this last application, Thomas expands on Avicenna’s application and uses this distinction to identify the way theology investigates common causes. Grasping this distinction allows insight into the thought of Avicenna and Thomas by exploring their mutual concern with common causes.

Avicenna offers a novel definition of “nature” as a power in his Physics of the Healing. Some have seen in this redefinition a radical departure from Aristotle. James Weisheipl, for one, rejected Avicenna’s definition as a mistaken interpretation of Aristotle and as position incompatible with Thomas Aquinas. In Weisheipl’s view, Avicenna reifies form into a kind of motor of the natural being, a conception earlier rejected by Thomas Aquinas in several works. In this study, I offer a Thomistic defense of Avicenna by investigating the definition of nature and its relation to matter and form.

In this paper, I examine the distinction drawn by Jacques Maritain between dianoetic and perinoetic intellection in light of the work of William Wallace. In dianoesis, “substantial natures are to some degree known in themselves, by signs” while in perinoesis “substances and their properties are known by signs and in signs.” Only in the former, then, does one reach the natures of things and thereby attain certain and ontological knowledge of them. Common to both Maritain and Wallace is their invocation of the Aristotelian theory of demonstration as outlined in the Posterior Analytics and employed in the Physics. Indeed, the distinction between dianoesis and perinoesis is ultimately traced back to these Aristotelian sources, with particular concern for answering the questions an est and quid est. While accepting the distinction between dianoesis and perinoesis, Wallace criticizes Maritain’s limitation of science to perinoesis and reservation of dianoesis to philosophy. Standing behind this assignment, Wallace holds, is a tacit acceptance of a positivistic conception of science that rules out the possibility of reaching quidditative knowledge. The disagreement between Wallace and Maritain centers, then, on their understanding of science. If one follows Maritain in accepting science as positivistic then his allocation of dianoesis and perinoesis follows. But if one accepts Wallace’s view of science as dependent on and consonant with the Aristotelian tradition then it is able to attain dianoetic knowledge and Maritain’s sharp division must be tempered. Largely agreeing with Wallace, I hold that his account is nonetheless in need of continuation if the sciences—still largely tainted by positivism—are to return to their Aristotelian sources and thereby attain dianoesis. Accepting the distinction between dianoesis and perinoesis, I argue, need not entail Maritain’s division between science and philosophy but should rather lead the sciences to regain their sapiential dimension.

While debates concerning the natural law in general and Thomas Aquinas’ conception of it in particular abound, the precise meaning of participation in the Thomistic account of natural law has too often been left unexplored. Yet he defines the natural law itself in terms of participation, such that misunderstanding this concept cannot help but weaken one’s understanding of the law, too. The present study seeks to remedy this oversight by presenting the meaning and modes of participation as outlined in Thomas Aquinas’ commentary on the De hebdomadibus of Boethius and his subsequent employment of it in his “Treatise on Law” of the Summa theologiae. In so doing, this study shows the critical importance of recognizing natural law as a kind of participation in order to satisfy the general requirements for law as outlined in the opening of this legal treatise. The recent suggestion of Martin Rhonheimer that the Thomistic definition of law should be “the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil” will also be examined.  Though illuminative of the natural law, I show that Rhonheimer’s proposed definition fails to satisfy Thomas Aquinas’ criteria for law and should consequently be rejected. The traditional definition of natural law as “nothing else than a participation of the eternal law in a rational creature” should, instead, be retained.

This study draws attention to the ordering of matter and form argued for in Physics II, 8 (199a30-32). This argument for hylomorphic teleology relies on the presentation of nature earlier in Physics II, 1. In this way, it highlights the connections between chapter one’s account of nature as matter and form and chapter eight’s defense of final causality. Grounding final causality in the principles of nature reveals its central importance for Aristotle’s view of nature. To clarify the meaning of hylomorphic teleology I contrast my interpretation of Aristotle with that of Wolfgang Wieland regarding the scope and foundation of the final cause, countering his claim that chance and universal final causality are mutually exclusive. I contend that the presentation of teleology in chapter eight supports a diverse interpretation of the final cause, one that admits chance events while not sacrificing the intrinsic ordering of matter to form.

Peter Geach claims in Good and Evil that there can never be “just good or bad, there is only being a good or bad so-and-so” and thereby denies that goodness can ever be used in a non-relative sense. Although his rejection of absolute goodness might initially seem to be a startling and mistaken departure from the Thomistic understanding, I argue that an examination of Thomas’ texts reveal a strong agreement between them, one grounded in a common rejection of univocal goodness. For both, “good” is relative to the nature of a being. To defend the relativity of goodness, I consider two objections: first, that relativizing goodness leads to subjectivism. Second, that divine goodness is absolute and non-relative. In answering these objections, I show that in both Thomas’ medieval and Geach’s modern account “good” is an analogical perfection relative to a nature. In this way, then, goodness is objectively relative.

WINNER: American Catholic Philosophical Association “Young Scholar” Award, 2018.

In this study I examine the argument for the existence of God from finality formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas in the prologue to his commentary Super Evange-lium Sancti Ioannis. Of particular interest is accounting for his characterization of this argument as the via efficacissima. I suggest two reasons for this appellation: first, philosophically , because this demonstrates the existence of God from the cause of causes and thus supplies intelligibility and explanation even for the via manifestior of efficient cau-sality. Second, theologically, because its conclusion imparts an understanding of God as the Lord of Lords, by whose Divine Providence the world is ordered and governed. In this way, then, Thomas philosophically begins to explicate the theological implications of the Verbum of St. John's Gospel.