Reading Time: 3 minutes This is the summary of a book by Gunther Laird (criticising natural law theory) that I recently edited. The summary has been written up by the author for your delectation. While The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory [UK] is written with an eye to philosophy, by no means is it of interest […]
Aristotle
Posted inPhilosophy
Actuality, Abortion and the SCOTUS
Reading Time: 19 minutes Here is a guest piece from author Gunther Laird, who recently wrote The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory (UK), which I edited and consulted on. Please grab a copy! This piece is particularly pertinent given what is going on in the Supreme Court right now. Actuality and Abortion Gunther Laird As readers of A […]
Posted inReligion, Sex & Gender
Contraceptive Causality: Natural Law & Sexual Ethics
Reading Time: 7 minutes Gunther Laird has recently written a superb refutation of Natural Law Theory (NLT), as espoused these days by Christian thinkers such as Edward Feser who build upon work of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle. This kind of worldview underwrites conservative lawmakers who try to utilise NLT to underwrite modern jurisprudence. Therefore, whilst some might see a […]
Posted inEthics and Morality
The Problems of Pure Act
Reading Time: 7 minutes This is a guest post from Gunther Laird, whose superb new book The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory (UK), a devastating critique of Ed Feser, Thomas Aquinas and Natural Law Theory, is out now. Over to Laird: The philosopher Edward Feser, in most of his published books and articles (such as The Last […]
Posted inBooks, Ethics and Morality
The Unnecessary Science
Reading Time: 2 minutes The Unnecessary Science: A Critical Analysis of Natural Law Theory (Onus Books) is a cracking book tackling the work of Edward Feser in his defences and use of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle in trying to establish natural law theory and its connected areas of essentialism and so on. It is written by Gunther Laird and is just […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Criticising the Idea of Potential and Actuality in Natural Law Philosophy
Reading Time: 6 minutes As some of you may know, I am presently editing a book by Gunther Laird calls The Unnecessary Science. Natural Law philosophy, about which I have talked a great deal recently, owes an awful lot to Aristotle, Aquinas and other thinkers from a bygone era. One of the cornerstones of this essentialist worldview is the pair […]
Posted inUncategorized
Deconstructing Aquinas’ Fifth Way: Governance of the Universe – Preliminaries
Reading Time: 4 minutes Ficino (commenter here at ATP with a great interest in Thomas Aquinas) has kindly produced a critique of Aquinas’ Fifth Way, as famously exhibited in Summa Theologiae. This will be split into several parts. Thomas Aquinas set forth arguments for God’s existence in many places across his vast corpus of writings. Probably the best known today are his […]
Posted inEthics and Morality, Philosophy, Religion
Aristotelian Realism and Saving Theology
Reading Time: 10 minutes I recently posted about abstract objects and things that are called universals, writing about how I think the whole area is thoroughly problematic for metaphysics and thus theology. I won’t go through it all again – you can read more here – but I will redefine universals. There is a danger this post could be […]
Posted inPhilosophy
The Philosophy 101 Factfile – Plato
Reading Time: 5 minutes In doing the philpapers inspired Philosophy 101 series (most recent one found here), touching on the questions asked in the largest ever survey of philosophers, I thought I would give some nice, basic factfiles explaining what some of the key philosophers have brought to the philosophical table. We hear so much about Aristotle, Plato, Hume and Descartes, […]
Posted inPhilosophy
Philosophy 101 – Plato Factfile
Reading Time: 5 minutes In doing the philpapers inspired Philosophy 101 series (found here and here, so far), touching on the questions asked in the largest ever survey of philosophers, I thought I would give some nice, basic factfiles explaining what some of the key philosophers have brought to the philosophical table. We hear so much about Aristotle, Plato, Hume and Descartes, but who […]