Why Study Aristotle's Metaphysics?

From the TMC newsletter: What We are Reading: Aristotle's Metaphysics by Christopher O. Blum, Fellow and Dean

Metaphysics has never been as widely understood or as greatly loved as philosophers think it ought to be, but today, it seems, there are some particularly stiff cultural winds blowing in the face of its pursuit. In the first place, metaphysics is a kind of knowledge, and reasoned-out knowledge at that. In that regard, it is a subject more like chemistry or Euclidean geometry than it is like the study of literature or the sifting of political platforms. When we seek to answer questions such as “what is God?,” we are not looking for a moral or an aesthetic judgment, we are seeking understanding. Second, although metaphysics seeks the knowledge of the highest causes, it does so from common experience and human reasoning alone, and so it is different than the kind of knowledge of God that we have thanks to our faith and on the basis of what God has revealed about himself in Sacred Scripture. Metaphysics provides the tools to make our theological reflections more accurate and more fruitful, but, by itself—that is, without the assistance of revelation—it speaks only in the most general terms about the Divine. For these two reasons, then, it can be hard to muster up the patience that metaphysics demands of those who pursue it. After all, our political and cultural woes are so very pressing, and our faith certainly does offer more ready and more powerful answers to our most pressing questions. Why, then, do we labor through the difficulty of Aristotle’s Metaphysics? The reason is simple: in imitation of St. Thomas Aquinas, we thereby propose to measure our own intellectual grasp of reality against the one Dante called the master of those who know.


More on TMC's program of studies.

Joseph Pearce Moving to TMC

Insight Scoop: Joseph Pearce announces move to Thomas More College

TMC might be a better fit given the more "traditionalist" views of those who are in charge of Thomas More (with respect to culture and economics and politics); but does his move also signal something about Ave Maria University?

Icon painting class at Thomas More College

Or, icon writing for those who prefer that word.

NLM: Learn to Paint Icons in the Western Tradition at Thomas More College this Summer

Aidan Hart's book is rather expensive, but I'd still like to get a copy. Alas, I don't think I could become an iconographer.

Adam De Ville: Aidan Hart on Iconography (an interview with Aidan Hart)

Items of Interest, 6 December 2011

Playing With Fire
Obama's risky oil threat to China
Daniel Larison, Obama Must Be a High Hamiltonian Now
Robert Stark interview with Dylan Hales

Distributist Review: Journey into a Libertarian Future

Relocalization:
4 Reasons Why The Future Of Capitalism Is Homegrown, Small Scale, And Independent (via BALLE)

Policies for a shareable city #11: Urban agriculture (EB)

Counterpunch:
DEAN BAKER, Wrecking the World Economy
JULES LOBEL, The Future of the Occupy Movement
DOUG DOWD, The Decline of Imperial America
JOHN V. WALSH, Washington Post Boosts Obama’s Declaration of War on China
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, Is America’s Health Care Crisis Fixable?

Diet and Health:
Jimmy Moore, Jessica Biel Personifies Carbohydrate Addiction Better Than Anything I’ve Ever Seen


Higher Education:
James Schall, SJ, Why Bother Going to College?
Thomas C. Reeves, Are American Colleges Cheating Students?
John Zmirak, Where Theology Keeps Her Crown: Thomas More College

Jackie Evancho:


"I'll Be Home for Christmas"

At Jesuit Colleges, Lay Presidents Now Advance the Mission

Alas, full access is available for subscribers only. If you go to the website you can take a poll. Let them know what you think of the website and their subscription. News about an overrated industry that is doing more harm than good overall and opinions by those who have a vested interest in its well-being? Guess what I think about the relevance of the website and how much I am willing to pay for the news.

As for the Jesuit colleges and universities... I am waiting for them to fade away for betraying the legacy of St. Ignatius of Loyola. That punishment has been a long time coming.

The Remnant: And Then There Were None (Where have all the Jesuits gone?)

A contrast: Thomas More College Introduces the Usus Antiquior this Autumn -- And You Can Help Them

CNA: Authentic Catholic universities help resist ‘secular dictatorship,’ Cardinal Burke says

(via Fr. Z)

I would think that the complete text of His Eminence's address will be made available at the website for Thomas More College.

Is there a crisis of Catholic higher education? Yes. But has Catholic higher education in the United States come to grips with peak oil and the oncoming postcarbon era? I don't believe so. The principles of Catholic higher education should be made known to Catholic educators, but...

NLM: Thomas More College Commissions and Installs Mediaeval Italian Style Crucifix for College Chapel

NCR: Benedict’s Vision and Benedictine Spirituality Boost Thomas More BY Joseph Pronechen

(Is the fate of the newspaper tied to that of the Legionaries?)

I'll have to look at the curriculum again --

Benedictine Influence

Pointing out a neo-Benedictine revival of lectio divina (prayerful reading of the Bible) and Scripture studies in Benedict’s other speeches, Fahey said the college’s new sequence for theology is scriptural and Benedictine.

Another plus: All students learn to sing the Divine Office and pray lauds and vespers together. In the yearlong “Way of Beauty” tutorial, freshmen learn not only about sacred art, but also hands-on icon “writing.”

There is also a significant change in the required eight semesters of humanities. Zmirak points out the new curriculum is carefully designed to teach the history of the West chronologically, starting with the epic of Gilgamesh and going through Vatican II and Spe Salvi (Saved in Hope).

Fahey likened the previous approach to a merry-go-round. “A freshman got on wherever the college was at that point,” he said. “He might start in the Renaissance and end in the Middle Ages. A student had to grapple with Luther when he hadn’t yet read Augustine or St. Paul.”

Jonathan Reyes, president of Catholic Charities in Denver and founding president of the Augustine Institute there, is familiar with Thomas More’s readjusted and revised curriculum and considers it “superb.” He says the college is ready to rebuild Catholic culture through education and formation.

“It’s exactly what we need at this moment to recover Western civilization, fully understanding the debt of the Catholic tradition,” Reyes said. “Precisely in our cultural crisis we need to recover that tradition. In a strange way, it’s cutting-edge tradition.”

The part about the internship program is interesting -- perhaps there is a growing awareness that liberal arts colleges need to be able to justify the expense of the education and their own existence by helping their students to secure appropriate jobs after graduation. The internships are usually with Catholic organizations. I wonder if this doesn't run the risk of "ghettoization" for the students, though. Some would say that the students need to be prepared to deal with people who do not share their faith, or to participate in the new evangelization. I just think that it will not be possible for all of the graduates of the decent Catholic colleges in this country to get employment with a Catholic organization, and they must be willing to consider other sources of employment. Given the state of the economy and the reliance of many Catholic organizations on donations, the number of jobs may even decrease.

Zenit: William Fahey: Encyclical Has Message for Catholic Universities

Interview with President of Thomas More College

Zenit: Cardinal Arinze Defines a Truly Catholic College

The mark of a good Catholic university is success at turning out model Christians who are good citizens, says Cardinal Francis Arinze.

The cardinal, former prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, affirmed this May 10 in a commencement address he delivered at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire.

He said that a Catholic college that adopts an attitude of "courageous creativity and rigorous fidelity" contributes much to promoting a "healthy synthesis between faith and culture in society," the Cardinal Newman Society reported.

Cardinal Arinze contended that a Catholic institution of higher learning should teach its students "to appreciate that moral rules of right and wrong apply also to science, technology, politics, trade and commerce, and indeed to all human endeavors."

"In the complicated world of today, where all kinds of ideas are struggling for the right of citizenship, a university student needs a clear and viable orientation on the relationship between religion and life," he continued. "The Catholic college or university is ideally positioned to help him see the light and equip himself for a significant contribution in society."

The cardinal recognized that universities need to offer premium intellectual formation, but he affirmed that formation in upright behavior is also a need.

"But what does it profit us if a student is an intellectual giant but a moral baby," he asked, "if he or she can shoot out mathematical or historical facts like a computer but is unfortunately a problem for the parents, corrosive acid among companions in the college, a drug addict and sexual pervert, a disgrace to the school, a waste-pipe in the place of work and 'Case No. 23' for the criminal police? It is clear that intellectual development is not enough."

At Thomas More College, Not Obama But Arinze
Thomas More College Welcomes New President

The philosophy major at Thomas More College in New Hampshire. You might wonder why there isn't a course on the philosophy of nature. It's in the Cowan Core Curriculum:

Natural Science I—Introduction to Natural History
Natural Science II: Nature and Motion

Something from the TMC Online Lecture Library:
"Every Little Social Commonwealth: Jane Austen’s Vision of Social Order” by Dr. Christopher Blum, Professor of Humanities, at the 2007 President's Council Symposium (November 3, 2007)
[mp3]

Thomas More news on Beyond Capitalism and Socialism

Thomas More College Faculty Contribute to Book on Catholic Economics

Upcoming lecture at TMC:
February 29, 2008
"Philosophers Turned Green: the Art of Environmental Stewardship," lecture by Matthew Cuddeback, Ph.D.

Something more recent:
Noted Oriental Liturgist Speaks to Thomas More College Community

On January 25, 2008, as part of the College’s Children of Abraham lecture series, the Thomas More College community was treated to a talk by world-renowned theologian and liturgist, the Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Robert F. Taft, S.J.

The event was held at Our Lady of the Cedars Melkite Catholic Church in Manchester, New Hampshire, the home parish of a number of Thomas More students, faculty and staff, and was attended by sundry members of the New England clergy—including one Russian Orthodox priest who drove almost two hours to hear Father Taft speak.

Father Taft’s lecture, “The Catholic Church, the Society of Jesus, and the Challenges of Dialogue with the Orthodox Sister Churches: Perceptions, Realities, Reflections,” offered a sweeping overview of current relations between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches. Father Taft candidly explored the sometimes hostile relationship between these communities, and cataloged some of the misdeeds committed by Catholics against Orthodox—and Orthodox against Catholics—which still rankle today. For instance, Father Taft admitted that it is “undeniably true that, at various times in history, especially during the Crusades, the Catholic Church interrupted the life and patrimony of the Christian East.” However, he said, “It is equally true that Orthodox authorities oversaw the oppression and later suppression of the Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine in the 1940s.” Only an honest appraisal of history and the willingness to ask (and to offer) forgiveness can lay the groundwork for unity, Father Taft argued.

While he has belonged to the Society of Jesus for nearly 60 years, Father Taft was willing to offer some critiques of his own order's role in the Christian East. While the Jesuits have done great scholarly and pastoral work to revitalize the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church in Slavic countries, in other places the Jesuits promoted an aggressive westernization of existing Christian churches that alienated their flocks from Rome. For instance, Father Taft noted, when Portuguese Jesuits made contact with the long-isolated Christian community in Ethiopia, they ended up imposing a series of Latin hierarchs, the Gregorian calendar, Western liturgical practices, and European fasting laws on a native church which dated back to the fourth century. Such an imposition, said Taft, would be analogous to “President George Bush getting Billy Graham to appoint a Southern Baptist to head up the Assyrian Church in Iraq.”

Father Taft echoed the heartfelt wish of Pope John Paul II and Benedict XVI that union between East and West be advanced. He noted the fact the Vatican has long recognized the validity of Orthodox orders and sacraments, and suggested a number of moves which the Holy See could make unilaterally to foster closer ties between the churches:

• immediate recognition of all Orthodox saints, old and new;
• limitation in the exercise of papal administrative power over local churches, especially in the East, where many Eastern Catholic Churches are led by their own patriarchs;
• an end to Magisterial declarations elevating the celibate over the married priesthood;
• direct permission to Catholic priests to give Holy Communion to members of any Apostolic church (such as Armenian, Greek, or Russian Orthodox).

Father Taft’s lecture offered much food for thought, and invited questions from students and community members, both during the formal Q & A session, and later during the reception that followed the formal portion of the evening’s program.

New Faculty at Thomas More College

announcement:

Thomas More College Announces Several Administration and Faculty Appointments for 2007-2008 Academic Year

March 23, 2007--President Jeffrey O. Nelson is pleased to announce the hiring of Dr. William E. Fahey as Provost/Academic Vice President and Professor of Humanities; Dr. Christopher O. Blum as Professor of Humanities; the appointment of Mr. Brian Shea as Assistant Professor of Humanities; the appointment of Dr. Mary Mumbach as founding director of the Caroline Gordon Program for the Study of Literature as a Mode of Knowledge; the hiring of Andrea Assaf as part-time director for the Vatican Forum; and the hiring of Tony Assaf as a special assistant for Program Development. Below in alphabetical order are biographical and other related details.

Andrea Kirk Assaf

Andrea Kirk Assaf received her MA in liberal arts from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, in 1999. Immediately following graduation she attended the International Institute for Political and Economic Studies in Athens, Greece. She went on to the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C. where she commenced a career in journalism, specializing in news about the Catholic Church as well as the Middle East. She also spent summers helping her father, the author Russell Kirk, with various editing and agrarian projects. She periodically assists her mother, Annette Kirk, with programs at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal located in the Kirk's ancestral village (Mecosta, Michigan). Andrea is an alumna of the Thomas More College Summer Program.

After spending six months traveling through Europe as a freelance journalist, interviewing European conservatives, Andrea settled in Rome where she has worked for the last five years writing for such publications as Inside the Vatican magazine, United Press International, Newsmax magazine and website, Our Sunday Visitor, the Wall Street Journal, and for the Vatican's charitable organization, Caritas Internationalis. In 2003 she was awarded a Phillips Foundation fellowship to research the relationship between the Bush administration and the Vatican. She has been interviewed by Zenit News Agency, Global Journalist Radio, Deutsche Welle Radio, Relevant Radio, and Niedziela, a Polish newspaper.

In 2003, she founded the Vatican Forum, a lecture series that brings Church experts to the general public to discuss issues in the news or cultural themes involving the Church. Speakers have included Italian politician and philosophy professor Rocco Buttiglione, veteran Catholic journalist and author Russell Shaw, Faith and Reason Institute founder Robert Royal, Priests for Life director Fr. Frank Pavone, neuroscientist and theologian Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, president of the Culture of Life foundation Austin Ruse, and the editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, Robert Moynihan, among others. Topics have included Church-State relations, bioethics, Flannery O'Connor and the problem of modernism, G.K. Chesterton, international law, and the papal conclave.

As a complement to the College's highly-regarded Rome Program, the Vatican Forum is now sponsored by Thomas More College and will be organized on a part-time basis by Mrs. Assaf (who already worked with Professor Connell this month on the College's first Vatican Forum event, a lecture by Robert Royal).

Andrea is married to Tony Assaf. They have one child, Maya (1) and are expecting a sibling for Maya this fall. Mrs. Assaf manages and edits her popular blog: www.andreakirkassaf.blogspot.com

Tony Assaf

Tony Assaf studied philosophy, theology, and oriental studies in Rome, receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in 2000. He also received an International Masters Certificate in Management and Communication for Cultural Politics from the Libera Università di Santa Maria Assunta in 2004.

During his nine years in Rome, Mr. Assaf has worked for the United Nation's World Food Programme, the Italian news agency AdnKronos, the Italian television company RAI, as an on-call translator for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and as a co-founder and researcher for the Italian think-tank Middle Eastern Geopolitical Observer. He also worked as a personal assistant to Cardinal Opelio Rossi at the Casa Internazionale del Clero and as a volunteer for Caritas Internationalis. In the field of communications, he has written for Inside the Vatican magazine, and interned in the Arabic section of Vatican Radio. He is the founder of the Arabic version of Zenit News Agency, for which he serves as editor, translator, journalist and fund-raiser.

Mr. Assaf is a native speaker of Arabic and is also fluent in Italian, French, and English with an academic knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Siro-Aramaic, the language spoken by Our Lord. He has taught Arabic to Italian and English speakers as a private tutor. On a personal note, he was asked to be a lector in Arabic and Aramaic and serve at several Masses celebrated by Pope John Paul II. On one occasion Mr. Assaf read for the Pope at the Good Friday service; on another he read at the Pope's Christmas midnight Mass.

Mr. Assaf will join the College on August 1, 2007 and assist the President and new Provost with Program Development.

Christopher Olaf Blum

Christopher Blum will join the faculty of Thomas More College bringing with him over a decade of teaching experience at Christendom College (Front Royal, Virginia), where he was an Associate Professor of History and served as Department Chairman for the last five years. Professor Blum has displayed considerable breadth in his teaching: in addition to his History offerings, he has taught courses in Euclidean Geometry, The History and Philosophy of Scientific Thought, The Essay, and Medieval Art and Architecture. He is a distinguished teacher and has been ranked highly over the last several years by the nationally acclaimed Choosing the Right College, which remarks that Dr. Blum has always been one "counted on for exceptional courses." In addition to teaching, Dr. Blum has served extensively on the College's senior Curriculum Committee and was the chief architect behind Christendom College's Medieval Festival, held annually near the Feast of All Saints. He and his wife Kathleen have both been Advisors for the American School in Switzerland.

Dr. Blum was educated at the University of Virginia, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts with distinction in Biology and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa (the nation's oldest undergraduate liberal arts honors society, founded in 1776). As a National Science Foundation Fellow, he studied at the University of Notre Dame, where he received the MA in History & Philosophy of Science, and later the PhD in History & Philosophy of Science and European History. His dissertation examined the life and work of St-George J. Mivart, an outspoken critic of the adequacy of Darwinian theory. Dr. Blum was also the recent recipient of a Fellowship from the National Endowment for Humanities to participate in the summer session on Gothic art and architecture.

Dr. Blum's published essays include studies on Jane Austen, the notion of the Common Good, the abbey church at Vezelay, Euclid's Elements, the educational vision of John Henry Newman, and the French Catholic political author, Louis de Bonald. He has published widely in such journals as Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture, Modern Age, The Downside Review, The Journal of Education, and Sacred Architecture. Dr. Blum is an adept translator of French and has edited two volumes of French Catholic social thought, Critics of the Enlightenment (2004) and The True and Only Wealth of Nations (2006). Of his work, Joseph Pearce has said "Christopher Blum is to be commended for bringing together such a wealth of wisdom on the subject of the French Revolution and its devastating impact." Daniel Mahoney, a scholar of French and political thought, has described Blum's work as "handsome and ably translated" and National Review magazine has stated that "Christopher Blum illuminates a neglected tradition important to anyone interested in the battle over the nature and future of the West."

Professor Blum and his wife of fourteen years, Kathleen, have two children, John Louis (8) and Isabel Marie (2). Dr. Blum is a long-time visitor to the Granite State and has spent many summers hiking in the White Mountains.

Dr. Blum has been appointed Professor of Humanities effective August 1, 2007.

William Edmund Fahey:

William Fahey comes to Thomas More College after nearly a decade of teaching at Christendom College (Front Royal, Virginia), where he established the Department of Classical and Early Christian Studies, of which he was Chairman. While at Christendom he has taught courses in Greek, Latin, Classical and Byzantine History, Patristic Theology, Mediaeval Political Thought, and Classical and Early Christian Literature. Dr. Fahey also taught at The Catholic University of America, as well as at Brookfield Academy (Wisconsin) and the American Academy (St. Davids, Pennsylvania). In addition to holding posts on a number of faculty committees, Dr. Fahey was editor of the journal Faith & Reason, Director of the Christendom College Press, and President of Faculty Senate.

Educated at Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio) in Classics and History, Fahey pursued postgraduate studies in Ancient History at University of St. Andrews (Scotland), where he met his wife and still managed to complete his MPhil. He earned both the MA and PhD in Early Christian Studies from the Catholic University of America. He has held a number of distinguished fellowships, including the Thomas Savage, SJ Fellowship for excellence in Humanities; the Russell Trust Award of the University of St. Andrews; The McGuire-Peebles Fellowship at the Catholic University of America; the Richard M. Weaver Fellowship; the Marguerite Eyer Wilbur Fellowship; two Earhart Fellowships; and was a Salvatori Fellow at the Heritage Foundation (Washington, DC). His archeological work has lead him to Wales, the south-east coast of England, eastern Turkey and the Alpine valleys in Italy.

Dr. Fahey's scholarly interests extend from the Classical World through the Fathers of the Church to the importance of Agrarian thought on past and contemporary culture. In addition to Cicero, Virgil, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, and St. Gregory the Great, he has an especial interest in the writings of G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, and Fr. Vincent McNabb. He has published in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, The St. Austin Review, Faith & Reason, The University Bookman, Classical World, and The Classical Bulletin. Dr. Fahey has recently finished co-editing (with Joseph Pearce) a volume of Hilaire Belloc's political thought, as well as an anthology on the principle of subsidiarity. He is currently translating St. Robert Bellarmine's political writings.

Dr. Fahey is a Benedictine Oblate (novice) with the Monastery of Our Lady of the Annunciation (Clear Creek, Oklahoma). He and his wife Amy - a doctor in English literature from Washington University, St. Louis, and an M.Phil. from St. Andrews, Scotland - have four children: Helena (10), Mary (6), Catriona (4), and William (6 months). Dr. Fahey's family has lived in Massachusetts and Maine since the Eighteenth Century.

Dr. Fahey has been appointed Professor of Humanities and Provost of the College effective August 1, 2007.

Mary Mumbach

Dr. Mary Mumbach has been appointed founding director of the Caroline Gordon Program for the Study of Literature as a Mode of Knowledge. After completing her current tenure as Dean of the College in the Spring of 2008, the thirtieth anniversary of her position as founding dean, Dr. Mumbach will continue as full professor with the added responsibility of designing and directing the Gordon Program. The Gordon Program will be an institutional vehicle to advance the understanding of literature as a mode of knowledge and explore the foundations and contemporary importance of "Ontological Criticism" through scholarly conferences, lectures, and publications. It will also develop a component that seeks to teach current teachers of literature in high school and/or college how to incorporate the insights and theories Dr. Mumbach has developed during her academic career into their classrooms and curricula.

Brian Shea

Mr. Shea, having served this College community with great distinction for more than a quarter century, has been appointed Assistant Professor of Humanities, effective June 1, 2007. Please congratulate Professor Shea when you see him.

Mrs. Andrea Kirk Assaf's blog, Quo Vadis is still up. The Forgotten Victims.