Thomism and Analytic Philosophy: A Discussion

The Thomist 71 (2007): 269-317 THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY: A DISCUSSION JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana THE COLLECTION OF ESSAYS Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions, edited by John Haldane,1 is aimed at promoting a more fruitful engagement between the two traditions of its title. For complex historical and cultural reasons, the twentieth-century revival of Thomism tended in its encounter with contemporary philosophy to focus upon Continental European philosophy in its phenomenological and existentialist strains. With some notable exceptions, analytic philosophers often thought of Thomism as so thoroughly infected by the perceived authoritarianism of religion and the presuppositions of theism as to be discredited at the bar of philosophy. Thomists for their part tended to view analytic philosophy as deeply corrupted by Logical Positivism with its antimetaphysical bias. This two-sided suspicion at times had more to do with mutual ignorance than considered philosophical dispute. More recently, this suspicion has become weaker as a result of the work in analytic philosophy of theists like Michael Dummett, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, and others. In addition, figures like ElizabethAnscombe, Peter Geach, Alasdair Macintyre, Anthony Kenny, Norman Kretzmann, Eleanore Stump, Fergus Kerr, and Haldane have directly engaged Aquinas in their 1 John Haldane, ed., Mind, Metaphysics, and Value in the Thomistic and Analytical Traditions (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002). Pp. 240. $45.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-268-03467-2. 269 270 JOHN P. O'CALLAGHAN different ways with an eye toward the issues that concern analytic philosophy. Indeed, even thoroughly secular analytic philosophers have been studying authoritative aspects of their own tradition for philosophical insight. Almost no one any longer believes that presuppositionless philosophy is possible. Finally, the last three decades or so have seen a robust metaphysical turn in analytic Philosophy, as well as the seeds of a rapprochement with some strains of the phenomenological movement. This volume is a welcome addition of high-quality papers to the thaw that has been taking place. Just as within contemporary Thomism one will find a number of different approaches to the work of Aquinas, signaling that it is not a monolithic tradition, so also 'analytic philosophy' is a broad term covering a number of different approaches to contemporary philosophy. The wide array of essays collected here display that diversity of approach on both the Thomistic and the analytic sides. The limitations of space given to the authors required the writing of essays that very often are rich suggestions for much longer research projects. As the title suggests, the papers fall into three general categories, though the category of 'Value' is represented by only one essay, "Practical Reason and the Orders of Morals and Nature in Aquinas's Theory of the Lex Naturae," by M. W. F. Stone. Stone argues that it is a mistake to try to fit Aquinas's discussions of natural law too quickly into the contemporary category of ethical naturalism, as "plausible yet contrary readings of the theory of natural law, readings which lend themselves to both naturalist and anti-naturalist interpretations, can be derived from important passages in the Summa Theologiae" (196). Stone suggests that a good deal more examination of Aquinas' theories of action and mind has to be done before we can really begin to understand his theory of natural law. Perhaps coincidentally then, seven of the twelve essays consider questions in the Philosophy of Mind and Action. In "Aquinas after-Wittgenstein," Fergus Kerr argues that while Aquinas agrees with Wittgenstein that there is no problem THOMISM AND ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY 271 aligning the private world of thought with the public world of objects, since the very possibility of thought "presupposes the existence of public objects," nonetheless, Aquinas felt the need to argue for this position, where Wittgenstein did not. Kerr focuses upon the discussion of human knowing in the first part of the Summa Theologiae for Aquinas's arguments against the '"Cartesian' conception of the self-transparent subject" (4). He adds a very strong defense of Aquinas against the charge that his account leads to an overly individualist account of language learning and knowledge acquisition. Jonathan Jacobs's essay, "Habits, Cognition, and Realism...