[lbo-talk] papal logic

C. G. Estabrook galliher at illinois.edu
Tue Apr 21 19:51:57 PDT 2009


I think Chris is precisely right about the situation in American Catholic universities, but it's worth noting that there are other possibilities, particularly outside the US. Three may be worth noting:

[1] Transcendental (in Kant's sense) Thomism, which combined a rereading of the Scholastics with Phenomenology; the leading figures were Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan; both were Jesuits (and both died in 1984) but the latter was closer to Anglo-American philosophy, the former (a student of Heidegger) to continental.

[2] Liberation Theology, in eclipse by the end of the 20th century but still very much a presence, particularly outside Europe-N. America.

[3] A third school, particularly in N. Europe-UK, that might be called "Dominican" from the religious order that has produced its principal members. Marx, Thomas, and Wittgenstein are all influences but this school rejects the -isms associated with each. The best representative to my mind is the late Herbert McCabe; his posthumous books include "The Good Life" (2005), on the currently-fashionable virtue ethics, and "On Aquinas" (2008). The British critic Terry Eagleton -- whose Yale lectures "Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate" are, as it happens, published today -- wrote in the preface to his influential "After Theory" (2003), "The influence of the late Herbert McCabe is so pervasive on my argument that it is impossible to localize."

(Chris is right about Rome and Darwin, too, and even the contretemps that occurred ca. 1950 grew out of essentially unrelated matters associated with the document Humani generis [1950] and the peculiar but interesting work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin [d. 1955], the Jesuit who was involved in the discovery of Peking Man.) --CGE

Chris Doss wrote:
>
> Here's another hilarious example of this. I went to grad school at a Catholic
> university surrounded by Catholic intellectuals. If you don't have much
> experience with American Catholic philosophers, I'll just briefly explain
> that they tend to be either irritating-as-fuck hyperconservative Thomists or
> left-leaning (on economic issues, at least) phenomenologists. Anyway the
> Thomists (all recognizable by their haircuts) are fond of decrying everybody
> who is not as conservative as them as being wishy-washy cafeteria Catholics.
>
> Until the Pope said that the Iraq War was an abomination in the eyes of God.
> Then, they started complaining about the pacifists in the Vatican.
>
>
> --- On Tue, 4/21/09, Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] papal
>> logic To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Date: Tuesday, April 21, 2009, 2:56 AM
>>
>>
>> It actually works the other way as well. For instance, I have met large
>> numbers of American and European Catholics who believe that the Church's
>> position is anti-theory of evolution, because their priest is
>> anti-evolution. When I point out that the Vatican hasn't had a problem with
>> the theory of evolution since around 1950, they don't believe me.
>>



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