|
Welcome To My Scholastic Philosophy Page My name is Scott Sullivan and I teach philosophy at the University of St Thomas and the University of Houston. Currently I am pursuing my PhD studies at the Center for Thomistic Studies in Houston TX, and my main interests are philosophy of religion, metaphysics, and logic. This is my personal site dedicated to understanding what is true about the world, (that is in important matters like how do we know?, what is real?, how should we live our lives?, what is good?, etc.) and I see the philosophy of the scholastics, namely St. Thomas Aquinas in particular, as the best way to go about this. In other words, I think philosophy reached its zenith in the Middle Ages, and has been sort of hit and miss ever since. But by no means do I limit my approach to scholasticism, on the contrary, since I think one ought to pursue truth wherever it is found, one can find some other things here that although they do not fit into the category of Thomism or scholasticism, I think they are nevertheless good and true insights and so are compatible with anything else that is true. So for example, I think John Henry Newman and Blaise Pascal had a lot of good things to say and so you will find some of their thought reflected here as well. Finally, if anyone is wondering what so much faith based material (like on the Catholic faith) is doing on a philosophy site, the answer is that faith, when it is true, will always not only be compatible with but is even a great aid to human reason. Faith is reasonable in at least three ways; some of the truths known by faith can also be known by reason, the mysteries of the faith cannot be shown to be true by reason but arguments against them can be shown to be fallacious or inconclusive, and finally miracles serve as "motives of credibility" for the faith. In all of three of these areas, human reason and philosophical argument serves an important purpose. Thus, I do not for a minute reject the possibility of a "Christian Philosophy" - after all, that certainly was precisely what the philosophy of the Middle Ages was. If someone wants more on this topic they could do hardly do better than to read Etienne Gilson's The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy. Students and Course Handouts Students looking for course handouts should go here to the courses page. |
This text is an introduction to the logic of the scholastics, that is, logic
as it was developed from the time of Aristotle up until the Middle Ages. Relying
heavily on the Thomistic tradition as understood by John of St Thomas and more
recent thinkers such as Jacques Maritain and Henry Veatch, this text covers all
three parts of logic; definition, propositions, and argumentation with helpful
diagrams and exercises. $24.95 Aquinas the Neoplatonist A recent "work in progress" regarding Aquinas on the problem of universals and his implicit acceptance of Albert the Great's neoplatonic ante rem realism. Contra a mere peripatetic in re and post rem realism (which reduces to conceptualism) Aquinas' solution to this issue is more robust and "moderately non-Aristotelian". In other words, Aquinas adopts a position that is platonic, non-Aristotelian, and, to his mind, true. Not only does Aquinas' ante rem realism grounded in the Divine Ideas provide a solution to Ockham's charge, it also provides Aquinas with the ontological wherewithal to account for necessary truths. This is an ongoing piece and the current file (pdf) is available here. |
 |
Links
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Scott M. Sullivan
holds a BA in European History from the University of Southern Indiana, and
a MA in Philosophy from Holy Apostles College in Cromwell CT. During his
undergraduate years, Scott held two United States Heavyweight