“A society permeated by the Faith, the Gospel, and natural law is something desirable. It is the job of the lay faithful to construct it. That is in fact their proper vocation. They work for the good of all when they build a city in conformity with human nature and open to Revelation. But the…
Philosophy> ideas stick around because they are true or persuasive (sophistry) Pre-Socratics Thales and His Followers (625 -545 BC) Pythagoras (535 BC flourished) *Parmenides of Elea (510 BC born) Hippocrates Socratics Socrates/ Plato (470-399 BC / 428-348 BC) Aristotle (384-322 BC) Neo-Platonists Plotinus (240-270 AD) Proclus (412-485 AD) Patristic (150-449 AD) Augustine (354-430…
We arrive at the pivot point in human societal structuring, the Enlightenment Project and the French Revolution. At the end of this essay, sources for further study are proposed. David Hume (1711-1776) has the advantage of stating his thoughts concisely while still widely read today. Peter Gay, a historian on the Enlightenment, says, “Hume, more…
However, there were other philosophers and theologians who found the ideas of the Pre-Socratics persuasive. William of Ockham, famous for his Ockham’s Razor theorem so prevalent in the sciences, as well as for embracing nominalism. Then as now, students of Aquinas find his thought to be difficult and dry. Ockham in contrast was found to…
Part I: Pre-Socratics to Scholastics As a context for the current essay, recall the four guideposts of a Catholic philosophy: creation metaphysics, hylomorphic anthropology, realistic epistemology, and objective ethics. https://fidesetratio.us/2018/02/01/four-catholic-guideposts-of-philosophy-part-i https://fidesetratio.us/2018/03/29/aristotle-setting-the-philosophical-scientific-standard-for-millennia/ I ended my previous essay with Aristotle but to be complete with the classical philosophers I should conclude with Plotinus (circa 240-270 BC), who…
“In 1973, when abortion became the “law of the land” by judicial fiat, pro-lifers warned that one day it would lead to infanticide. “Get real!” abortion proponents retorted: “Do you mean you really can’t tell the difference between a collection of cells and a newborn squalling and kicking its arms and legs?” Sure, there’s a huge difference:…