Does the Catholic Church Teach That There Is No One True Philosophy?
This paper assesses various reasons for the claim that a Catholic should avoid being a proponent of a one and true philosophy. Rather, within limits, a Catholic philosopher ought to be a conceptual pluralist. These reasons include Pope John Paul II’s remarks in Fides et Ratio like the following: &qu...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
[publisher not identified]
2003
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| In: |
Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Year: 2003, Volume: 77, Pages: 83-99 |
| Online Access: |
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| Summary: | This paper assesses various reasons for the claim that a Catholic should avoid being a proponent of a one and true philosophy. Rather, within limits, a Catholic philosopher ought to be a conceptual pluralist. These reasons include Pope John Paul II’s remarks in Fides et Ratio like the following: "The Church has no philosophy of her own nor does she canonize any one particular philosophy in preference to others." (para. 49) Also, Gerald A. McCool in his From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism argues that ironically the twentieth century Thomistic revival refuted the perceived call of Aeterni Patris to return to the conceptual formulations of Aquinas. In that respect, this paper considers three "Thomistic" arguments for philosophical pluralism as put forth by J. M. Le Blond during a famous debate between French Dominicans and Jesuits following the Second World War. Le Blond’s "Thomistic" arguments include: the abstractive character of concepts, the equivalency of being and the true; and the epistemology of intellectual dynamism. My conclusion is that neither the Pope nor Aquinas is a proponent of philosophical pluralism. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-7925 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Catholic Philosophical Association, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.5840/acpaproc20037729 |