St. Thomas Aquinas on Free Choice

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                            Jun 16toJun 23
                            
2024

This seminar will be a five-day, intensive discussion aimed at understanding and evaluating St. Thomas Aquinas’ account of liberum arbitrium and of the psychological and metaphysical principles that underlie it. The sessions will center on passages from the Summa Theologiae, but we will also refer to other works of Aquinas, such as the De Malo and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, and to pertinent texts from other philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Anscombe. We will want to address some of the more controversial questions about Thomas’ views, such as the following: Does he differ from Aristotle on the will, and if so, how? Did he change his own mind about the will? To what extent, in Aquinas' account, does the freedom of the will depend upon the distinction between the will and the intellect? Does St. Thomas’ apparent intellectualism commit him to some kind of determinism with regard to choice? Does he offer an adequate account of the choice of evil? In comparison with modern thinkers, does he sufficiently appreciate the value of freedom?

LOCATION AND FORMAT

Format: There will be two 2 ½ hour sessions each day. Each session will include an opening lecture and seminar-style discussion of the text and the issues at hand. Students will be expected to prepare the readings carefully and participate in the discussions of the material.

Location: The seminar will take place at the Gavin House. Students will be provided with lodging, most meals (some on their own), and a travel stipend of up to $350.

Application Information: This seminar will be open to PhD students in the humanities and relevant fields (such as philosophy, theology, english, classics, & history).

Applicants will be required to submit:

A completed online application form.
An updated CV.
At least one and as many as two letter(s) of recommendation from a member of the program in which the student is currently enrolled.
A statement of research interest no longer than 750 words, which includes an explanation of how this seminar might bear on the student’s current or future research plans.
One academic writing sample (30 pages maximum).

All application materials can be submitted via the online application. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Fiften students will be admitted to this seminar.

THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS FEBRUARY 25, 2024.

Fr. Stephen L. Brock is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei and Professor of medieval philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
Since 1990 Professor Brock has taught medieval philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. He was a visiting professor at the Catholic University of America in 1999, and is at the University of Chicago starting in 2017. His research has been mainly on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, in the areas of ethics, action theory, and metaphysics, with occasional ventures into theology.

Selected Publications:
Action & Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action, The Catholic University of America Press, 2022

The Light that Binds: A Study in Thomas Aquinas's Metaphysics of Natural Law, Pickwick Publications (2020)

“The Specification of Action in Aquinas: Nonmotivating Conditions in the Object of Intention,” The Thomist (2019)

“Dead Ends, Bad Form: The Positivity of Evil in the Summa theologiae,” in Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae: A Critical Guide, ed. Jeffrey P. Hause, Cambridge U. Press (2018)

“Formal Infinity, Perfection, and Determinacy in the Metaphysics of St. Thomas Aquinas,” Forum: Supplement to Acta Philosophica (2016)

The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Sketch, Cascade Books (2015)

“Intentional Being, Natural Being, and the First-Person Perspective in Thomas Aquinas,” The Thomist (2013)

“The Causality of the Unmoved Mover in Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on Metaphysics XII,” Nova et Vetera (2012)

“On Whether Aquinas’s Ipsum Esse Is ‘Platonism’,” The Review of Metaphysics (2006)

“Causality and Necessity in Thomas Aquinas,” Quaestio (2002)