Medieval Logic and Metaphysics by Joshua Hochschild
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2021
Draws lessons about the meaning and social role of Catholic philosophy, from reflections on the l... more Draws lessons about the meaning and social role of Catholic philosophy, from reflections on the life and writings of Edward Pace (1861-1938), the founding President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. Pace’s dedication to teaching, study, and cultural engagement provide perspective on the legacy of Aeterni Patris, the purpose of Catholic education, and on the interpretation of “Thomism” and “neo-scholasticism” in the early 20th Century. Includes summary interpretations of Pace’s three Presidential Addresses for the ACPA from 1926-27. This lecture was delivered in 2021 as the Presidential Address for the 95th Annual Meeting of the ACPA, whose theme was “the diakonia of truth.”
Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind, 2023
To help frame the Festschrift for Gyula Klima (Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical R... more To help frame the Festschrift for Gyula Klima (Metaphysics Through Semantics: The Philosophical Recovery of the Medieval Mind, Springer, 2023), this appreciation offers perspective on the scholar's person and project. Drawing on biographical details and reflecting on signal contributions, it seeks to honor a distinguished philosopher who deserves to be celebrated by friends and introduced to a new generation of readers.
Doctor Communis, 2023
Mortimer Adler and Yves Simon each worked on monographs about analogy, Adler’s complete and unpub... more Mortimer Adler and Yves Simon each worked on monographs about analogy, Adler’s complete and unpublished, Simon’s incomplete. A summary of their motivations and approaches to analogy, especially their intended corrections of some 20th Century Thomistic preoccupations, points us to the importance of understanding analogy outside of metaphysics and theology, in the practice of scientific reasoning and dialectic more broadly.
In Doctor Communis 5 (2023): San Tommaso e l’Analogia / Saint Thomas and Analogy (Acts of the 20th Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2021), pp. 243-260.
The Thomist, 2019
This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in St. Thomas Aquinas, one... more This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in St. Thomas Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts he inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both of these senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity—which is what gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place—depends.
[NOTE: This is the final, published version of the paper that was originally made available before publication on Academia as "Divine Naming, Two Concepts of Analogy, and a Complex Semantics for the Simple God"]
NOTE: This is the prepublication version of a paper, which was subsequently published in revised ... more NOTE: This is the prepublication version of a paper, which was subsequently published in revised form as "Aquinas's Two Concepts of Analogy and a Complex Semantics for Naming the Simple God," published in THE THOMIST, Volume 83, Number 2 (April 2019) pp. 155-184. You can access the updated, published version here:
https://www.academia.edu/85788727/Aquinas_s_Two_Concepts_of_Analogy_and_a_Complex_Semantics_for_Naming_the_Simple_God
Abstract: This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts Aquinas inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity -- which gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place -- depends.
Request for scholars, please cite the later, published version published in the Thomist:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748123
DOI: 10.1353/tho.2019.0013
https://www.academia.edu/85788727
Hungarian Philosophical Review, 2020
This paper seeks to articulate the relationship between medieval logic and theology. ... more This paper seeks to articulate the relationship between medieval logic and theology. Reviewing modern scholarship, we find that the purpose of medieval logic, when it is even inquired about, has proven difficult to articulate without reference to theology. This prompts reflection on the metaphors of logic as a “tool” and a “game”: a tool is not merely instrumental, insofar as it can have its own intrinsic goods and can shape and be shaped by that which it serves; likewise a game, with its own intrinsic goods, may yet contribute to extrinsic goods as well. After reviewing some distinctive ways in which theology shaped developments of medieval logic, this paper summarizes key examples from the work of Thomas Aquinas where medieval logic shaped the articulation of, and is therefore crucial to a proper understanding of, theological arguments and claims. The conclusion suggests implications for future philosophical and theological work.
Saint Anselm Journal, 2014
Argues that traditional Catholic understanding of transubstantiation is obscured by modern metaph... more Argues that traditional Catholic understanding of transubstantiation is obscured by modern metaphysics' neglect of the category of substance, and by modern semantic assumptions about how words signify.
Distinctions of Being: Philosophical Approaches to Reality, 2013
In a living body, the substantial form, the essence, and the soul play very similar, but non-iden... more In a living body, the substantial form, the essence, and the soul play very similar, but non-identical, metaphysical roles. This article explores the similarities and differences to clarify basic points of Thomistic metaphysics.
Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy (ed. G. Klima), 2015
Ockham is usually considered the first to hold a proper theory of mental language, but Aquinas is... more Ockham is usually considered the first to hold a proper theory of mental language, but Aquinas is willing to call the concept, or the act of intellect by which something is understood, a verbum mentis or “mental word.” This essay explores the sense in which Aquinas regarded concepts as language-like. It argues that Aquinas's understanding of concepts and their objects meant that his application of syntactic and semantic analysis to them did not and could not lead in the direction of theories of mental language as it was conceived by nominalist philosophers.
The Thomist, 2013
The common view that Aquinas changed his mind about analogy (before and after De Veritate 2.11) i... more The common view that Aquinas changed his mind about analogy (before and after De Veritate 2.11) is unwarranted. Dialectical context, and clarifications about the logic of analogy and the implications of proportionality, reveal consistency in Aquinas's teaching on the analogy of divine names.
Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, 2004
A response to John O'Callaghan's argument that "verbum mentis" is a strictly theological, as oppo... more A response to John O'Callaghan's argument that "verbum mentis" is a strictly theological, as opposed to philosophical, notion in Aquinas. (The main arguments of this paper were later developed further in the paper, "Mental Language in Aquinas?")
Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, 2006
Uses Anthony Kenny's puzzlement over Aquinas's distinction between an individual and its essence ... more Uses Anthony Kenny's puzzlement over Aquinas's distinction between an individual and its essence to clarify basic principles of Thomistic metaphysics.
Downside Review, 2004
Considers the use of Cajetan in an early modern dispute about theological language, and its impli... more Considers the use of Cajetan in an early modern dispute about theological language, and its implications for the relevance of semantics to philosophical and theological understanding.
Medieval Philosophy and Theology, 2003
of the properties of terms at the beginning of the Categories. As a matter of the semantics of te... more of the properties of terms at the beginning of the Categories. As a matter of the semantics of terms, then, analogy was analyzed by medieval thinkers in accordance with two roughly Aristotelian semantic assumptions: (1) that the meaning of a proposition depends on the meaning of its component terms, and (2) that the meaning of a term is a nature signified (and understood) by means of a "concept" or simple act of intellectual apprehension. On these assumptions, a term is univocal in different sentential contexts if, in the different contexts, the same term signifies the same nature by means of the same intellectual act of conception; and a term is equivocal in different sentential contexts if, in the different contexts, the same term signifies different natures by means of different acts of conception. Analogy, as a mean between univocation and equivocation, must involve the same term in different contexts signifying a nature (or natures) partly one and partly many, by means of concepts (or a concept) in some sense the same and in some sense different.
Proceedings of the Society for Medeival Logic and Metaphysics, 2007
Proceedings of the Society for Medeival Logic and Metaphysics, 2001
Sapientia, 1999
Defends Cajetan's use of semantic distinctions in his explication of theological theses and argum... more Defends Cajetan's use of semantic distinctions in his explication of theological theses and arguments in Aquinas's Summa Theologiae.
International Philosophical Quarterly, 2005
The influence of Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia is due largely to its first three chapters, which ... more The influence of Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia is due largely to its first three chapters, which introduce Cajetan’s three modes of analogy: analogy of inequality, analogy of attribution, and analogy of proportionality. Interpreters typically ignore the final eight chapters, which describe further features of analogy of proportionality. This article explains this neglect as a symptom of a failure to appreciate Cajetan’s particular semantic concerns, taken independently from the question of systematizing the thought of Aquinas. After an exegesis of the neglected chapters, which describe the semantics of analogy through the three levels of cognition (simple apprehension, composition and division, and discursive reasoning), the article concludes with observations about the relationship between Cajetan and Aquinas and the philosophical and historical significance of Cajetan’s approach to the semantics of analogy.
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 2003
Cajetan’s analogy theory is usually evaluated in terms of its fidelity to the teachings of Aquina... more Cajetan’s analogy theory is usually evaluated in terms of its fidelity to the teachings of Aquinas. But what if Cajetan was trying to answer questions Aquinas himself did not raise, and so could not help to answer? Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia can be interpreted as intending to solve a particular semantic problem: to characterize the unity of the analogical concept, so as to defend the possibility of a non-univocal term’s mediating syllogistic reasoning. Aquinas offers various semantic characterizations of analogy, saying it involves, for instance: signification per prius et posterius; or a ratio propria which is only found in one analogate; or diverse modi significandi with a common res significata. Examined in turn, it is clear that none of Aquinas’s rules for analogy solve the semantic problem described. Cajetan thus cannot be reasonably expected to have intended his analogy treatise primarily as an interpretation or systematization of Aquinas’s teaching on analogy.
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Medieval Logic and Metaphysics by Joshua Hochschild
In Doctor Communis 5 (2023): San Tommaso e l’Analogia / Saint Thomas and Analogy (Acts of the 20th Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2021), pp. 243-260.
[NOTE: This is the final, published version of the paper that was originally made available before publication on Academia as "Divine Naming, Two Concepts of Analogy, and a Complex Semantics for the Simple God"]
https://www.academia.edu/85788727/Aquinas_s_Two_Concepts_of_Analogy_and_a_Complex_Semantics_for_Naming_the_Simple_God
Abstract: This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts Aquinas inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity -- which gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place -- depends.
Request for scholars, please cite the later, published version published in the Thomist:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748123
DOI: 10.1353/tho.2019.0013
https://www.academia.edu/85788727
In Doctor Communis 5 (2023): San Tommaso e l’Analogia / Saint Thomas and Analogy (Acts of the 20th Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, 2021), pp. 243-260.
[NOTE: This is the final, published version of the paper that was originally made available before publication on Academia as "Divine Naming, Two Concepts of Analogy, and a Complex Semantics for the Simple God"]
https://www.academia.edu/85788727/Aquinas_s_Two_Concepts_of_Analogy_and_a_Complex_Semantics_for_Naming_the_Simple_God
Abstract: This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts Aquinas inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity -- which gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place -- depends.
Request for scholars, please cite the later, published version published in the Thomist:
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748123
DOI: 10.1353/tho.2019.0013
https://www.academia.edu/85788727
https://institutodeanima.com.br/repositorio/2o-congresso-aristotelico-tomista-de-psicologia/
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27255527?seq=1
[Abstract credit: from Mars Hill audio reprint]
Appeared in:
Dale McConkey and Peter Augustine Lawler, eds., Faith, Morality, and Civil Society (Lexington Books, 2003), pp. 41-68
and
Faith and Reason 27 (2002): 117-155.
Not an academic book, but informed by Thomistic psychology with special attention to the interior senses and their relation to intellectual virtue.
(St. Augustine's Press, 2008)
Front matter available here (title page, table of contents, preface by Ralph McInerny, Introduction by editors).
(St. Augustine's Press, 2008)
Front matter available here (title page, table of contents, preface by Ralph McInerny, Introduction by editors).
Copyright © 2004. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080303134310/http://www.newpantagruel.com/issues/1.1/
(Prepublication version, from 2003 conference website https://maritain.nd.edu/jmc/ti03/eHochsch.htm)
* Developed originally as a lecture and series of blog posts.
* A revised and extended version, with scholarly citations, entitled “John Paul II’s Gamble with ‘the Meaning of Life,” was published in Studia Gilsoniana fall 2021, with a response by Mirela Oliva. https://www.academia.edu/85788981/John_Paul_IIs_Gamble_with_the_Meaning_of_Life
My recent talk on R. G. Collingwood, for a project on "genealogies of truth." Considers themes from Collingwood in light of his assertion that theoretical reason is an application of practical reason, and finds resonance with the practice of dialectic in the Aristotelian tradition, including medieval logic.