A Philosophical Happy Hour on persons and personalism. If someone came up to you—someone you know, perhaps not very well, but with whom you have had association for enough time to reasonably say, “Yes, I know him [or her]”—and said any of the following to you, how would you react? Most of us, I suspect, […]

Metaphors of Personal Identity in Derek Parfit and Teresa of Ávila Personal identity over time is an idea derided by analytic philosophy.  Hume began the process of debunking the person, or self, as “nothing but a bundle or collection of different perceptions.”[1]  The demolition job concluded in 1984, with the publication of Derek Parfit’s Reasons […]

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, styled by certain parties as the "Sacred Monster of Thomism," taught at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (the "Angelicum") in Rome for a long career of over fifty years.  Although he is normally understood to be a conservative Roman theologian of his period, an honest assessment of his work shows...

What is philosophy?  Is it something we study—as subject, like biology or literature?  Is it something each of us has, individually—as in, “my personal philosophy”?  Is it a relic of history?  An intellectual curiosity?  A means to impress at cocktail parties and on social media? Or perhaps—as this seminar will attempt to demonstrate—philosophy is a […]