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This post was initially a topic I discussed on a separate website, The Philosophy Forum, but I have noticed a lot of militant atheists brewing in the forum lately so I have decided to distance myself from it. That being said, I will post a few threads that I wrote here to hopefully generate thoughtful discussion and dialogue. Hope you enjoy.
"Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself." - John Paul II, Faith and Reason
Two of the greatest impacts on the history of philosophy are St. Thomas Aquinas, the father of Thomism, and Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology. We see two ways of doing philosophy: A philosophy concerned with the nature of Being and a philosophy concerned with the nature of consciousness and this union births Phenomenological Thomism (sometimes called Existential Thomism). It is through a marriage of the classical Aristotelian-Thomist tradition and the modern phenomenological-existential tradition that we find an objective ethical and metaphysical dogma; One needs both objective fact and subjective experience to understand reality. The project undertaken by Edith Stein, the Lublin School of Thomism, and to some extent Dietrich von Hildebrand all sought to fulfill this. A version of personalism, another movement in philosophy and theology, could be considered the brainchild of this marriage, and John Paul II called this "Thomistic Personalism," which I identify closely with. Inspired by the ethical personalism of Max Scheler, John Paul II saw the union between these two as essential for the development of a concrete Christian ethics. Personally, I think it is unwise to try to base everything in phenomenology or humanistic existentialism (Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, and Buber are a different topic). There needs to be some presupposing objectivity. On the contrary, it is unwise to boil everything down to the nature of Being. There needs to be room for lived experience. Phenomenology and existentialism provide adequate methods of analysis of Thomistic metaphysics. The traditions of Phenomenological Thomism and Thomistic Personalism provide a healthy balance between subjective experience and transcendental truth.
A few great articles on these topics are the following:
Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Realism: Toward a Renewed Engagement
Transcendentalising Reduction The Heuristic Role of the Phenomenological Epoché in the Metaphysics of Existential Thomism
What Is Phenomenological Thomism? Its Principles and an Application: The Anthropological Square
On the Essence of Karol Wojtyła's Personalism
"Born and nurtured when the human being first asked questions about the reason for things and their purpose, philosophy shows in different modes and forms that the desire for truth is part of human nature itself." - John Paul II, Faith and Reason
Two of the greatest impacts on the history of philosophy are St. Thomas Aquinas, the father of Thomism, and Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology. We see two ways of doing philosophy: A philosophy concerned with the nature of Being and a philosophy concerned with the nature of consciousness and this union births Phenomenological Thomism (sometimes called Existential Thomism). It is through a marriage of the classical Aristotelian-Thomist tradition and the modern phenomenological-existential tradition that we find an objective ethical and metaphysical dogma; One needs both objective fact and subjective experience to understand reality. The project undertaken by Edith Stein, the Lublin School of Thomism, and to some extent Dietrich von Hildebrand all sought to fulfill this. A version of personalism, another movement in philosophy and theology, could be considered the brainchild of this marriage, and John Paul II called this "Thomistic Personalism," which I identify closely with. Inspired by the ethical personalism of Max Scheler, John Paul II saw the union between these two as essential for the development of a concrete Christian ethics. Personally, I think it is unwise to try to base everything in phenomenology or humanistic existentialism (Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, and Buber are a different topic). There needs to be some presupposing objectivity. On the contrary, it is unwise to boil everything down to the nature of Being. There needs to be room for lived experience. Phenomenology and existentialism provide adequate methods of analysis of Thomistic metaphysics. The traditions of Phenomenological Thomism and Thomistic Personalism provide a healthy balance between subjective experience and transcendental truth.
A few great articles on these topics are the following:
Thomism and Contemporary Phenomenological Realism: Toward a Renewed Engagement
Transcendentalising Reduction The Heuristic Role of the Phenomenological Epoché in the Metaphysics of Existential Thomism
What Is Phenomenological Thomism? Its Principles and an Application: The Anthropological Square
On the Essence of Karol Wojtyła's Personalism