Rights movement." This conversation on race is framed around Hauerwas's memory of segregation-era... more Rights movement." This conversation on race is framed around Hauerwas's memory of segregation-era Texas. In this sense, he reinforces and expands upon observations made in Hannah's Child. These extemporaneous comments are sometimes uncomfortable, like when Hauerwas claims that working alongside black laborers in his youth gave him "a sense of what it meant to be African American before civil rights" (32-3). Brock, however, does an excellent job of pressing Hauerwas so that we come to understand that what Hauerwas means is not that he really "knows" what it means to be African American. Instead, Hauerwas simply means that any sense he has of what it means to be friends with African Americans came not from his church but from the jobsite-a point that is meant to challenge the church, not to flout his civil rights bona fides. Even this answer, however, is not finally adequate. In an astounding moment, Hauerwas admits that in the past he defended his failure to speak on race by suggesting that the African-American story was not his story but he now believes that claim to be a mistake (35). In an equally challenging conversation, Brock asks Hauerwas to reflect on his commitment to Yoder's Christological pacifism in light of Yoder's history of sexual abuse. Specifically, he asks Hauerwas to account for why well-known pacifists like Gandhi, King, and Yoder were also complicit in sexual abuse and exploitation. In the past, Hauerwas has championed the Mennonite disciplinary process and Yoder's restoration to the community as an example of reconciliation. In this interview, Hauerwas finally concedes that he did not know the extent of Yoder's abuse, and that the disciplinary process was not as successful as he previously believed (184). Hauerwas has been accused of idealizing the church and over-narrating the holiness of his moral exemplars. Here, at least, that criticism sticks, and Hauerwas is forced to come to terms. The tension between "Yoder: friend and mentor" and "Yoder: sex abuser" is palpable, and Hauerwas is caught in the middle with no easy answers. Stanley Hauerwas has made a career out of telling Christians that they need to learn how to live their lives "out-of-control." At the same time, he has always been very intentional about publishing in a medium that allowed him to control his material without saying too much. Even when speaking, he tends to balance off-the-cuff remarks with well-rehearsed stories, phrases, and ideas. Beginnings is a wonderful contribution to Hauerwas's theological work because he finally allows himself to be "out-of-control" with regards to some hard questions. It is a testament to his friendship with Brock that he trusts him enough to engage in this theological dialogue and it is a credit to Brock's integrity that he does not let Hauerwas off the hook.
This article contributes to conversations about the "Hitler problem" in leadership ethics and the... more This article contributes to conversations about the "Hitler problem" in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien's fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft, or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom's ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of a triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I argue that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
In his De veritate, in a question that has come to be known as On the Teacher (De magistro), St. ... more In his De veritate, in a question that has come to be known as On the Teacher (De magistro), St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is "to cause knowledge in another." 1 Such a conclusion raises a perplexity. Attributing causality to the teacher seems to undermine the learner's independence and responsibility; but denying causality to the teacher seems to negate the debt one feels towards one's mentors and instructors. Can teachers really cause learners to learn as a builder causes a house to come to be? Can learners learn without incurring any debt of dependence on their teachers? In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on these conundrums. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot (also known as John of St. Thomas), a seventeenth-century commentator on Thomas, to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause 2 and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas's distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas's emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of 1 homo dicitur causare scientiam in alio. .. et hoc est docere.
Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any stro... more Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any strong distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, that consensus has, in my view, been arrived at too hastily. In this paper, I hope to provide some evidence for that judgment by offering Thomistic assessments of the following four theses that have seemed to contemporary virtue epistemologists compelling grounds for rejecting the traditional distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. First, Linda Zagzebski has focused on the roots of the distinction in the Aristotelian analysis of the parts of the soul, arguing that the phenomenon of psychic conflict cannot justify distinguishing in kind among powers and virtues. Second, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood have denied that genuine virtues can be limited to specific contexts or practices, taking aim at the traditional view of the intellectual virtues as virtues only in a qualified sense. Third, Roberts and Wood have also argued that the inevitability of practices in the intellectual life shows us that moral and intellectual virtues cannot be cogently teased apart. Finally, Zagzebski and Roberts and Wood have both argued that much of our knowing consists in a blend of intellect and will or thinking and feeling, so that adopting the traditional distinction would leave us without resources for describing significant portions of our epistemic lives. Thomas’s account provides compelling reasons for doubting each of these apparently sensible claims and so for defending itself against its contemporary detractors. In the succeeding sections, I work through a Thomistic response to each of these challenges in turn, allowing a more sophisticated and accurate portrayal of Thomas’s distinction to emerge, as well as some indication of his own concern with the wholeness of a human life in its moral and intellectual dimensions.
Tristram Engelhardt's bioethics for moral strangers takes its starting point from his diagnosis o... more Tristram Engelhardt's bioethics for moral strangers takes its starting point from his diagnosis of the failure of the Enlightenment project. L. B. McCullough, in "A Critical Appraisal of Engelhardt on the 'Enlightenment Project,'" attempts to undermine Engelhardt's project by refuting that starting point and offering an alternative narrative.1 McCullough identifies two distinct Enlightenment projects and argues that only one of them-the only one that Engelhard considers-fails, whereas the second offers a promising path toward a transcultural account of morality. Engelhardt's narrative in Foundations of Bioethics does lack sufficient complexity, but McCullough's criticism and alternative fail to prove finally convincing, in part because he does not satisfactorily justify his interpretation of Engelhardt and in part because he and Engelhardt, in Foundations, make similar faulty assumptions about Enlightenment distinctives.
In "Why the Clinical Ethics We Teach Fails Patients," Autumn Fiester contends that the "principli... more In "Why the Clinical Ethics We Teach Fails Patients," Autumn Fiester contends that the "principlist paradigm" fails patients by obscuring crucial obligations towards them that their providers should acknowledge.1 Assuming Fiester is correct about the extensive influence in medical practice of this summary of Beauchamp and Childress's theory of principlism, I argue that more attention to the role of the virtues could enrich her insights.
First Published Online October 28, 2018
This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite ... more First Published Online October 28, 2018
This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite from the published article, using the link or doi on this page.
This article contributes to conversations about the “Hitler problem” in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien’s fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft; or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom’s ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of the triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I ague that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
Mercer University Press, 2013
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to thi... more Mercer University Press, 2013
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to think more carefully about the significance of our inveterate story-telling habits for moral reflection. For some time those who promoted narrative’s central role for ethics on a variety of levels seemed to be commanding the field; but more recently skeptics of narrative’s relevance have begun to mount a vigorous resistance. Some of these struggles have played out on the terrain of Kierkegaard studies, and this book seeks to move the battle lines forward, both with respect to the significance of narrative more generally and to its place in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Three theses about the presuppositions, ends, and limits of Kierkegaard’s use of narrative are at its heart. First, Kierkegaard’s account of the moral life in terms of gift and task, a structure that lends itself naturally to narrative display, provides a compelling rationale for the pervasive presence of narrative forms in his writings. Second, Kierkegaard chiefly intends his use of narrative as a pedagogical tool for building up his reader in virtues that are acquired in a narrative pattern he calls “repetition,” a pattern of loss and then recovery in a new key. Finally, despite the importance of narrative in Kierkegaard’s moral reflection, he does recognize its limits, though he does not find them in the same places as today’s narrative skeptics. Instead his arguments and writings entail that narratives, necessary for giving meaning to the passing moments of our lives, must also be contextualized in the moment of encounter with the eternal and divine, the moment that is the fullness of time. Colton advances these theses through detailed readings of several Kierkegaardian texts as well as interactions with contemporary moral philosophers and narrative theorists, furthering both our understanding of Kierkegaard’s thought and the current debate on the significance of narrative for ethics.
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Forthcoming
Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable r... more Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable results both for those who wish to understand teaching better and those looking for models of the approach to virtue epistemology Roberts and Wood call “regulative.” To vindicate that claim, this article proceeds in four steps: First, I introduce Thomas’s taxonomy of the intellectual virtues in light of a pair of distinctions between practical and speculative knowledge and between immanent and transient operations. In the second section, I consider teaching’s relation to each of Thomas’s intellectual virtues and argue that it belongs most properly to art. Next, I describe Thomas’s taxonomy of art by distinguishing among four cross-cutting categories that characterize species of that virtue. Finally, I outline an account of the art of teaching that treats it, with respect to those categories, as performative, deliberative, cooperative, and intersubjective.
St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is “to cause knowledge in another.” Such a conclusion rai... more St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is “to cause knowledge in another.” Such a conclusion raises a perplexity. Attributing causality to the teacher seems to undermine the learner’s independence and responsibility; but denying causality to the teacher seems to negate the debt one feels towards one’s mentors and instructors.
In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on this conundrum. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas’s distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas’s emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of formal or objective causality. In a brief concluding section, I show that the objective causality of teaching points to its fundamental nature as an act of mediation.
In Logos, n. 18 (Fall 2015), 32-58
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosoph... more In Logos, n. 18 (Fall 2015), 32-58
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosophy, Pierre Hadot and John Cooper have recently reasserted a familiar complaint about the Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his neo-Thomist heirs. Scholasticism, they complain, diminished philosophy by rejecting its claim to be a holistic way of life, requiring the transformation of the whole person, and reconceiving it as an exercise in merely conceptual and logical maneuvering, requiring nothing more from the philosopher but the ability to compute logical relations. This arid theorizing, they claim, distinguishes Scholastic thought from ancient philosophy and from the more valuable efforts of certain, generally marginal and idiosyncratic, medieval and modern thinkers. I will argue in this paper that, from a Thomistic perspective, philosophy is a praxis, though with a theoretical end, uniting affection and intellect in the conduct of practices and activities that aim at a contemplative wisdom including discourse within it. Philosophy conceived in this way avoids the fragmentation and dualisms Hadot and Cooper see in Scholastic thought, bringing it closer to their ideals of philosophy as a way of life.
My argument proceeds as follows. In the first section, as a preliminary to developing these three themes in Thomistic fashion, I consider Hadot’s and Cooper’s readings of Aristotelian philosophy as a way of life to determine whether such strategies could be adapted and applied to Aristotle’s heir, Thomas. After a negative result in that inquiry, I turn next to reasons grounded in Thomas’s account of human action for thinking of philosophy’s theoretical inquiry as a genuine practice. In the third section, I examine Gilson’s argument in Love and Wisdom for the necessity of philosophy as a way of life uniting affection and intellect, and in the final section, I turn to the relation between discourse and contemplation, focusing on three challenges to the existential significance of Thomistic philosophy that arise from the centrality of discursive metaphysics in Thomas’s thought.
Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any str... more Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any strong distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, that consensus has, in my view, been arrived at too hastily. In this paper, I hope to provide some evidence for that judgment by offering Thomistic assessments of the following four theses that have seemed to contemporary virtue epistemologists compelling grounds for rejecting the traditional distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. First, Linda Zagzebski has focused on the roots of the distinction in the Aristotelian analysis of the parts of the soul, arguing that the phenomenon of psychic conflict cannot justify distinguishing in kind among powers and virtues. Second, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood have denied that genuine virtues can be limited to specific contexts or practices, taking aim at the traditional view of the intellectual virtues as virtues only in a qualified sense. Third, Roberts and Wood have also argued that the inevitability of practices in the intellectual life shows us that moral and intellectual virtues cannot be cogently teased apart. Finally, Zagzebski and Roberts and Wood have both argued that much of our knowing consists in a blend of intellect and will or thinking and feeling, so that adopting the traditional distinction would leave us without resources for describing significant portions of our epistemic lives. Thomas’s account provides compelling reasons for doubting each of these apparently sensible claims and so for defending itself against its contemporary detractors. In the succeeding sections, I work through a Thomistic response to each of these challenges in turn, allowing a more sophisticated and accurate portrayal of Thomas’s distinction to emerge, as well as some indication of his own concern with the wholeness of a human life in its moral and intellectual dimensions.
In International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. Robert L. ... more In International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Mercer University Press, 2003) 205-238
This essay focuses on Kierkegaard’s pedagogical strategy, which, I believe, suggests important insights for any description of moral perception and the transitions from worse to better moral vision. In his discussion of moral development according to Kierkegaard, David Gouwens claims “virtue is learning to see things and persons as they are, to give them attention.” As part of the evidence for that claim, Gouwens points to “Judge William’s letters to A, which are not solely philosophical arguments, but also rhetorical appeals aimed at altering how A sees himself and others.” Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses reveal a similar pattern. He pursues his pedagogical aims by providing narratives of perceptual shifts to reshape the reader’s moral vision, according to relevant Christian concepts, so that virtuous actions, concerns, and emotions come to seem natural and compelling. The individuals in those narratives develop authentically Christian virtues of gratitude and generosity as they allow Christian concepts of human equality and divine goodness to shape their moral perception. This transition suggests that one should describe moral perception as conceptual and emotional, objective and subjective. Furthermore, the narrative form of Kierkegaard’s pedagogy suggests that one should describe moral transitions as contingent but not arbitrary.
The first section of this essay describes Kierkegaard’s pedagogical pattern, drawing several examples from “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above,” the third of four discourses published in December 1843. The next three sections sketch some important facets of a description of moral perception and development, employing insights evident in Kierkegaard’s pedagogy: the importance of moral perception, the perceptual and conceptual aspects of emotions, and the narrative character of moral transitions.
We aim to show that the essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle" exemplifies the k... more We aim to show that the essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle" exemplifies the kind of moral education for which Kierkegaard strives throughout his authorship. We proceed in three steps. First, we examine what it means to be a moral grammarian. Next, by drawing attention to Kierkegaard's longstanding concern with grammar, we argue that he is a moral grammarian, and that he engages in two of the central tasks of the moral grammarian in his essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle." Finally, we consider and respond to several objections.
A liberal education, Thomistically understood, rightly aims, not just at the formation of the int... more A liberal education, Thomistically understood, rightly aims, not just at the formation of the intellect, but at the formation of the whole person, for two sorts of reasons. First, Thomas argues that the moral virtues dispose one to the contemplative act of wisdom. Second, a Thomistically inspired account of the virtue of wisdom as a potential whole, comprising all the speculative and practical intellectual virtues, both preserves the distinction between intellectual and moral virtues and shows that the cultivation of wisdom in any form is internally linked to the formation of whole persons in a contemplative character.
WORKING DRAFT
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the though... more WORKING DRAFT
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas that MacIntyre has frequently urged, we can find new resources for better understanding and articulating the sorts of criticisms of the contemporary research university that MacIntyre has frequently and incisively offered. In particular, I contend that Thomas’s account of the virtue of art in philosophical education both illuminates the nature of philosophical pedagogy and reveals ways in which aspects of the contemporary research university threaten a genuine education for wisdom.
I begin with Thomas’s description of the intellectual virtues and the relation of art and wisdom to philosophy and philosophical education. I next provide a brief Thomistic grammar of the varieties of the virtue of art, arguing that the art of teaching is performative, ministerial, and deliberative. In a third section, I argue that the social location and structure of the contemporary research university make it inhospitable to the practice of a Thomistic art of teaching along each of those three dimensions. Finally, I argue that the art of philosophical education, Thomistically conceived, aims at cultivating in its participants a contemplative character directed to wisdom, a character marked by wonder or admiratio. But the ideals implicit in prominent forms of university education today suggest far different “characters,” calling to mind the economic producer; the life-artist; the democratic citizen; and the technical expert, each marked by characteristic stances that only partially achieve the adequacy of a genuinely contemplative character. I conclude by gesturing toward some hopeful signs that particular efforts and programs in particular places can offer some room for a genuine art of education even in the context of the contemporary university.
WORKING DRAFT
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and conse... more WORKING DRAFT
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and consequences of education, using as a prism his notions of “demoralization” and “life-view,” as he articulates them within his Christian conceptual grammar. Demoralization is a social process diminishing individuals’ capacities for genuinely personal and responsible actions by beguiling them with false promises of self-deification and dividing them through envy, and it forms a central part of Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of the modern learner’s ills. He responds to it by attempting to make demoralized individuals aware of the providential gifts and tasks that enable and empower their own striving for flourishing. Individuals freed from demoralization are shaped for a certain kind of social interaction, a life in common that is irreducible to state politics and dependent on a Christian life-view. Such an education is not in the service of a political program, but it does serve the society, and aid the state, as it moves its participants toward that unity in life-view expressed in friendship and especially toward that recognition of the equal value of human lives expressed in neighbor love. In so doing, education renews the individual and society by making all aware of the truths already to be found handed down from the fathers and waiting to be personally appropriated by each of us in our own personal striving.
Rights movement." This conversation on race is framed around Hauerwas's memory of segregation-era... more Rights movement." This conversation on race is framed around Hauerwas's memory of segregation-era Texas. In this sense, he reinforces and expands upon observations made in Hannah's Child. These extemporaneous comments are sometimes uncomfortable, like when Hauerwas claims that working alongside black laborers in his youth gave him "a sense of what it meant to be African American before civil rights" (32-3). Brock, however, does an excellent job of pressing Hauerwas so that we come to understand that what Hauerwas means is not that he really "knows" what it means to be African American. Instead, Hauerwas simply means that any sense he has of what it means to be friends with African Americans came not from his church but from the jobsite-a point that is meant to challenge the church, not to flout his civil rights bona fides. Even this answer, however, is not finally adequate. In an astounding moment, Hauerwas admits that in the past he defended his failure to speak on race by suggesting that the African-American story was not his story but he now believes that claim to be a mistake (35). In an equally challenging conversation, Brock asks Hauerwas to reflect on his commitment to Yoder's Christological pacifism in light of Yoder's history of sexual abuse. Specifically, he asks Hauerwas to account for why well-known pacifists like Gandhi, King, and Yoder were also complicit in sexual abuse and exploitation. In the past, Hauerwas has championed the Mennonite disciplinary process and Yoder's restoration to the community as an example of reconciliation. In this interview, Hauerwas finally concedes that he did not know the extent of Yoder's abuse, and that the disciplinary process was not as successful as he previously believed (184). Hauerwas has been accused of idealizing the church and over-narrating the holiness of his moral exemplars. Here, at least, that criticism sticks, and Hauerwas is forced to come to terms. The tension between "Yoder: friend and mentor" and "Yoder: sex abuser" is palpable, and Hauerwas is caught in the middle with no easy answers. Stanley Hauerwas has made a career out of telling Christians that they need to learn how to live their lives "out-of-control." At the same time, he has always been very intentional about publishing in a medium that allowed him to control his material without saying too much. Even when speaking, he tends to balance off-the-cuff remarks with well-rehearsed stories, phrases, and ideas. Beginnings is a wonderful contribution to Hauerwas's theological work because he finally allows himself to be "out-of-control" with regards to some hard questions. It is a testament to his friendship with Brock that he trusts him enough to engage in this theological dialogue and it is a credit to Brock's integrity that he does not let Hauerwas off the hook.
This article contributes to conversations about the "Hitler problem" in leadership ethics and the... more This article contributes to conversations about the "Hitler problem" in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien's fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft, or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom's ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of a triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I argue that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
In his De veritate, in a question that has come to be known as On the Teacher (De magistro), St. ... more In his De veritate, in a question that has come to be known as On the Teacher (De magistro), St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is "to cause knowledge in another." 1 Such a conclusion raises a perplexity. Attributing causality to the teacher seems to undermine the learner's independence and responsibility; but denying causality to the teacher seems to negate the debt one feels towards one's mentors and instructors. Can teachers really cause learners to learn as a builder causes a house to come to be? Can learners learn without incurring any debt of dependence on their teachers? In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on these conundrums. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot (also known as John of St. Thomas), a seventeenth-century commentator on Thomas, to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause 2 and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas's distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas's emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of 1 homo dicitur causare scientiam in alio. .. et hoc est docere.
Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any stro... more Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any strong distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, that consensus has, in my view, been arrived at too hastily. In this paper, I hope to provide some evidence for that judgment by offering Thomistic assessments of the following four theses that have seemed to contemporary virtue epistemologists compelling grounds for rejecting the traditional distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. First, Linda Zagzebski has focused on the roots of the distinction in the Aristotelian analysis of the parts of the soul, arguing that the phenomenon of psychic conflict cannot justify distinguishing in kind among powers and virtues. Second, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood have denied that genuine virtues can be limited to specific contexts or practices, taking aim at the traditional view of the intellectual virtues as virtues only in a qualified sense. Third, Roberts and Wood have also argued that the inevitability of practices in the intellectual life shows us that moral and intellectual virtues cannot be cogently teased apart. Finally, Zagzebski and Roberts and Wood have both argued that much of our knowing consists in a blend of intellect and will or thinking and feeling, so that adopting the traditional distinction would leave us without resources for describing significant portions of our epistemic lives. Thomas’s account provides compelling reasons for doubting each of these apparently sensible claims and so for defending itself against its contemporary detractors. In the succeeding sections, I work through a Thomistic response to each of these challenges in turn, allowing a more sophisticated and accurate portrayal of Thomas’s distinction to emerge, as well as some indication of his own concern with the wholeness of a human life in its moral and intellectual dimensions.
Tristram Engelhardt's bioethics for moral strangers takes its starting point from his diagnosis o... more Tristram Engelhardt's bioethics for moral strangers takes its starting point from his diagnosis of the failure of the Enlightenment project. L. B. McCullough, in "A Critical Appraisal of Engelhardt on the 'Enlightenment Project,'" attempts to undermine Engelhardt's project by refuting that starting point and offering an alternative narrative.1 McCullough identifies two distinct Enlightenment projects and argues that only one of them-the only one that Engelhard considers-fails, whereas the second offers a promising path toward a transcultural account of morality. Engelhardt's narrative in Foundations of Bioethics does lack sufficient complexity, but McCullough's criticism and alternative fail to prove finally convincing, in part because he does not satisfactorily justify his interpretation of Engelhardt and in part because he and Engelhardt, in Foundations, make similar faulty assumptions about Enlightenment distinctives.
In "Why the Clinical Ethics We Teach Fails Patients," Autumn Fiester contends that the "principli... more In "Why the Clinical Ethics We Teach Fails Patients," Autumn Fiester contends that the "principlist paradigm" fails patients by obscuring crucial obligations towards them that their providers should acknowledge.1 Assuming Fiester is correct about the extensive influence in medical practice of this summary of Beauchamp and Childress's theory of principlism, I argue that more attention to the role of the virtues could enrich her insights.
First Published Online October 28, 2018
This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite ... more First Published Online October 28, 2018
This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite from the published article, using the link or doi on this page.
This article contributes to conversations about the “Hitler problem” in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien’s fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft; or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom’s ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of the triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I ague that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
Mercer University Press, 2013
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to thi... more Mercer University Press, 2013
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to think more carefully about the significance of our inveterate story-telling habits for moral reflection. For some time those who promoted narrative’s central role for ethics on a variety of levels seemed to be commanding the field; but more recently skeptics of narrative’s relevance have begun to mount a vigorous resistance. Some of these struggles have played out on the terrain of Kierkegaard studies, and this book seeks to move the battle lines forward, both with respect to the significance of narrative more generally and to its place in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Three theses about the presuppositions, ends, and limits of Kierkegaard’s use of narrative are at its heart. First, Kierkegaard’s account of the moral life in terms of gift and task, a structure that lends itself naturally to narrative display, provides a compelling rationale for the pervasive presence of narrative forms in his writings. Second, Kierkegaard chiefly intends his use of narrative as a pedagogical tool for building up his reader in virtues that are acquired in a narrative pattern he calls “repetition,” a pattern of loss and then recovery in a new key. Finally, despite the importance of narrative in Kierkegaard’s moral reflection, he does recognize its limits, though he does not find them in the same places as today’s narrative skeptics. Instead his arguments and writings entail that narratives, necessary for giving meaning to the passing moments of our lives, must also be contextualized in the moment of encounter with the eternal and divine, the moment that is the fullness of time. Colton advances these theses through detailed readings of several Kierkegaardian texts as well as interactions with contemporary moral philosophers and narrative theorists, furthering both our understanding of Kierkegaard’s thought and the current debate on the significance of narrative for ethics.
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Forthcoming
Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable r... more Applying Thomas Aquinas’s account of the intellectual virtue of art to teaching yields valuable results both for those who wish to understand teaching better and those looking for models of the approach to virtue epistemology Roberts and Wood call “regulative.” To vindicate that claim, this article proceeds in four steps: First, I introduce Thomas’s taxonomy of the intellectual virtues in light of a pair of distinctions between practical and speculative knowledge and between immanent and transient operations. In the second section, I consider teaching’s relation to each of Thomas’s intellectual virtues and argue that it belongs most properly to art. Next, I describe Thomas’s taxonomy of art by distinguishing among four cross-cutting categories that characterize species of that virtue. Finally, I outline an account of the art of teaching that treats it, with respect to those categories, as performative, deliberative, cooperative, and intersubjective.
St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is “to cause knowledge in another.” Such a conclusion rai... more St. Thomas Aquinas claims that to teach is “to cause knowledge in another.” Such a conclusion raises a perplexity. Attributing causality to the teacher seems to undermine the learner’s independence and responsibility; but denying causality to the teacher seems to negate the debt one feels towards one’s mentors and instructors.
In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on this conundrum. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas’s distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas’s emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of formal or objective causality. In a brief concluding section, I show that the objective causality of teaching points to its fundamental nature as an act of mediation.
In Logos, n. 18 (Fall 2015), 32-58
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosoph... more In Logos, n. 18 (Fall 2015), 32-58
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosophy, Pierre Hadot and John Cooper have recently reasserted a familiar complaint about the Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his neo-Thomist heirs. Scholasticism, they complain, diminished philosophy by rejecting its claim to be a holistic way of life, requiring the transformation of the whole person, and reconceiving it as an exercise in merely conceptual and logical maneuvering, requiring nothing more from the philosopher but the ability to compute logical relations. This arid theorizing, they claim, distinguishes Scholastic thought from ancient philosophy and from the more valuable efforts of certain, generally marginal and idiosyncratic, medieval and modern thinkers. I will argue in this paper that, from a Thomistic perspective, philosophy is a praxis, though with a theoretical end, uniting affection and intellect in the conduct of practices and activities that aim at a contemplative wisdom including discourse within it. Philosophy conceived in this way avoids the fragmentation and dualisms Hadot and Cooper see in Scholastic thought, bringing it closer to their ideals of philosophy as a way of life.
My argument proceeds as follows. In the first section, as a preliminary to developing these three themes in Thomistic fashion, I consider Hadot’s and Cooper’s readings of Aristotelian philosophy as a way of life to determine whether such strategies could be adapted and applied to Aristotle’s heir, Thomas. After a negative result in that inquiry, I turn next to reasons grounded in Thomas’s account of human action for thinking of philosophy’s theoretical inquiry as a genuine practice. In the third section, I examine Gilson’s argument in Love and Wisdom for the necessity of philosophy as a way of life uniting affection and intellect, and in the final section, I turn to the relation between discourse and contemplation, focusing on three challenges to the existential significance of Thomistic philosophy that arise from the centrality of discursive metaphysics in Thomas’s thought.
Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any str... more Though contemporary virtue epistemologists share a wide consensus on the untenability of any strong distinction between moral and intellectual virtues, that consensus has, in my view, been arrived at too hastily. In this paper, I hope to provide some evidence for that judgment by offering Thomistic assessments of the following four theses that have seemed to contemporary virtue epistemologists compelling grounds for rejecting the traditional distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. First, Linda Zagzebski has focused on the roots of the distinction in the Aristotelian analysis of the parts of the soul, arguing that the phenomenon of psychic conflict cannot justify distinguishing in kind among powers and virtues. Second, Robert C. Roberts and W. Jay Wood have denied that genuine virtues can be limited to specific contexts or practices, taking aim at the traditional view of the intellectual virtues as virtues only in a qualified sense. Third, Roberts and Wood have also argued that the inevitability of practices in the intellectual life shows us that moral and intellectual virtues cannot be cogently teased apart. Finally, Zagzebski and Roberts and Wood have both argued that much of our knowing consists in a blend of intellect and will or thinking and feeling, so that adopting the traditional distinction would leave us without resources for describing significant portions of our epistemic lives. Thomas’s account provides compelling reasons for doubting each of these apparently sensible claims and so for defending itself against its contemporary detractors. In the succeeding sections, I work through a Thomistic response to each of these challenges in turn, allowing a more sophisticated and accurate portrayal of Thomas’s distinction to emerge, as well as some indication of his own concern with the wholeness of a human life in its moral and intellectual dimensions.
In International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. Robert L. ... more In International Kierkegaard Commentary, volume 5: Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Mercer University Press, 2003) 205-238
This essay focuses on Kierkegaard’s pedagogical strategy, which, I believe, suggests important insights for any description of moral perception and the transitions from worse to better moral vision. In his discussion of moral development according to Kierkegaard, David Gouwens claims “virtue is learning to see things and persons as they are, to give them attention.” As part of the evidence for that claim, Gouwens points to “Judge William’s letters to A, which are not solely philosophical arguments, but also rhetorical appeals aimed at altering how A sees himself and others.” Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses reveal a similar pattern. He pursues his pedagogical aims by providing narratives of perceptual shifts to reshape the reader’s moral vision, according to relevant Christian concepts, so that virtuous actions, concerns, and emotions come to seem natural and compelling. The individuals in those narratives develop authentically Christian virtues of gratitude and generosity as they allow Christian concepts of human equality and divine goodness to shape their moral perception. This transition suggests that one should describe moral perception as conceptual and emotional, objective and subjective. Furthermore, the narrative form of Kierkegaard’s pedagogy suggests that one should describe moral transitions as contingent but not arbitrary.
The first section of this essay describes Kierkegaard’s pedagogical pattern, drawing several examples from “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above,” the third of four discourses published in December 1843. The next three sections sketch some important facets of a description of moral perception and development, employing insights evident in Kierkegaard’s pedagogy: the importance of moral perception, the perceptual and conceptual aspects of emotions, and the narrative character of moral transitions.
We aim to show that the essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle" exemplifies the k... more We aim to show that the essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle" exemplifies the kind of moral education for which Kierkegaard strives throughout his authorship. We proceed in three steps. First, we examine what it means to be a moral grammarian. Next, by drawing attention to Kierkegaard's longstanding concern with grammar, we argue that he is a moral grammarian, and that he engages in two of the central tasks of the moral grammarian in his essay, "The Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle." Finally, we consider and respond to several objections.
A liberal education, Thomistically understood, rightly aims, not just at the formation of the int... more A liberal education, Thomistically understood, rightly aims, not just at the formation of the intellect, but at the formation of the whole person, for two sorts of reasons. First, Thomas argues that the moral virtues dispose one to the contemplative act of wisdom. Second, a Thomistically inspired account of the virtue of wisdom as a potential whole, comprising all the speculative and practical intellectual virtues, both preserves the distinction between intellectual and moral virtues and shows that the cultivation of wisdom in any form is internally linked to the formation of whole persons in a contemplative character.
WORKING DRAFT
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the though... more WORKING DRAFT
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas that MacIntyre has frequently urged, we can find new resources for better understanding and articulating the sorts of criticisms of the contemporary research university that MacIntyre has frequently and incisively offered. In particular, I contend that Thomas’s account of the virtue of art in philosophical education both illuminates the nature of philosophical pedagogy and reveals ways in which aspects of the contemporary research university threaten a genuine education for wisdom.
I begin with Thomas’s description of the intellectual virtues and the relation of art and wisdom to philosophy and philosophical education. I next provide a brief Thomistic grammar of the varieties of the virtue of art, arguing that the art of teaching is performative, ministerial, and deliberative. In a third section, I argue that the social location and structure of the contemporary research university make it inhospitable to the practice of a Thomistic art of teaching along each of those three dimensions. Finally, I argue that the art of philosophical education, Thomistically conceived, aims at cultivating in its participants a contemplative character directed to wisdom, a character marked by wonder or admiratio. But the ideals implicit in prominent forms of university education today suggest far different “characters,” calling to mind the economic producer; the life-artist; the democratic citizen; and the technical expert, each marked by characteristic stances that only partially achieve the adequacy of a genuinely contemplative character. I conclude by gesturing toward some hopeful signs that particular efforts and programs in particular places can offer some room for a genuine art of education even in the context of the contemporary university.
WORKING DRAFT
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and conse... more WORKING DRAFT
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and consequences of education, using as a prism his notions of “demoralization” and “life-view,” as he articulates them within his Christian conceptual grammar. Demoralization is a social process diminishing individuals’ capacities for genuinely personal and responsible actions by beguiling them with false promises of self-deification and dividing them through envy, and it forms a central part of Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of the modern learner’s ills. He responds to it by attempting to make demoralized individuals aware of the providential gifts and tasks that enable and empower their own striving for flourishing. Individuals freed from demoralization are shaped for a certain kind of social interaction, a life in common that is irreducible to state politics and dependent on a Christian life-view. Such an education is not in the service of a political program, but it does serve the society, and aid the state, as it moves its participants toward that unity in life-view expressed in friendship and especially toward that recognition of the equal value of human lives expressed in neighbor love. In so doing, education renews the individual and society by making all aware of the truths already to be found handed down from the fathers and waiting to be personally appropriated by each of us in our own personal striving.
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This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite from the published article, using the link or doi on this page.
This article contributes to conversations about the “Hitler problem” in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien’s fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft; or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom’s ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of the triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I ague that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to think more carefully about the significance of our inveterate story-telling habits for moral reflection. For some time those who promoted narrative’s central role for ethics on a variety of levels seemed to be commanding the field; but more recently skeptics of narrative’s relevance have begun to mount a vigorous resistance. Some of these struggles have played out on the terrain of Kierkegaard studies, and this book seeks to move the battle lines forward, both with respect to the significance of narrative more generally and to its place in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Three theses about the presuppositions, ends, and limits of Kierkegaard’s use of narrative are at its heart. First, Kierkegaard’s account of the moral life in terms of gift and task, a structure that lends itself naturally to narrative display, provides a compelling rationale for the pervasive presence of narrative forms in his writings. Second, Kierkegaard chiefly intends his use of narrative as a pedagogical tool for building up his reader in virtues that are acquired in a narrative pattern he calls “repetition,” a pattern of loss and then recovery in a new key. Finally, despite the importance of narrative in Kierkegaard’s moral reflection, he does recognize its limits, though he does not find them in the same places as today’s narrative skeptics. Instead his arguments and writings entail that narratives, necessary for giving meaning to the passing moments of our lives, must also be contextualized in the moment of encounter with the eternal and divine, the moment that is the fullness of time. Colton advances these theses through detailed readings of several Kierkegaardian texts as well as interactions with contemporary moral philosophers and narrative theorists, furthering both our understanding of Kierkegaard’s thought and the current debate on the significance of narrative for ethics.
In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on this conundrum. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas’s distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas’s emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of formal or objective causality. In a brief concluding section, I show that the objective causality of teaching points to its fundamental nature as an act of mediation.
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosophy, Pierre Hadot and John Cooper have recently reasserted a familiar complaint about the Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his neo-Thomist heirs. Scholasticism, they complain, diminished philosophy by rejecting its claim to be a holistic way of life, requiring the transformation of the whole person, and reconceiving it as an exercise in merely conceptual and logical maneuvering, requiring nothing more from the philosopher but the ability to compute logical relations. This arid theorizing, they claim, distinguishes Scholastic thought from ancient philosophy and from the more valuable efforts of certain, generally marginal and idiosyncratic, medieval and modern thinkers. I will argue in this paper that, from a Thomistic perspective, philosophy is a praxis, though with a theoretical end, uniting affection and intellect in the conduct of practices and activities that aim at a contemplative wisdom including discourse within it. Philosophy conceived in this way avoids the fragmentation and dualisms Hadot and Cooper see in Scholastic thought, bringing it closer to their ideals of philosophy as a way of life.
My argument proceeds as follows. In the first section, as a preliminary to developing these three themes in Thomistic fashion, I consider Hadot’s and Cooper’s readings of Aristotelian philosophy as a way of life to determine whether such strategies could be adapted and applied to Aristotle’s heir, Thomas. After a negative result in that inquiry, I turn next to reasons grounded in Thomas’s account of human action for thinking of philosophy’s theoretical inquiry as a genuine practice. In the third section, I examine Gilson’s argument in Love and Wisdom for the necessity of philosophy as a way of life uniting affection and intellect, and in the final section, I turn to the relation between discourse and contemplation, focusing on three challenges to the existential significance of Thomistic philosophy that arise from the centrality of discursive metaphysics in Thomas’s thought.
This essay focuses on Kierkegaard’s pedagogical strategy, which, I believe, suggests important insights for any description of moral perception and the transitions from worse to better moral vision. In his discussion of moral development according to Kierkegaard, David Gouwens claims “virtue is learning to see things and persons as they are, to give them attention.” As part of the evidence for that claim, Gouwens points to “Judge William’s letters to A, which are not solely philosophical arguments, but also rhetorical appeals aimed at altering how A sees himself and others.” Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses reveal a similar pattern. He pursues his pedagogical aims by providing narratives of perceptual shifts to reshape the reader’s moral vision, according to relevant Christian concepts, so that virtuous actions, concerns, and emotions come to seem natural and compelling. The individuals in those narratives develop authentically Christian virtues of gratitude and generosity as they allow Christian concepts of human equality and divine goodness to shape their moral perception. This transition suggests that one should describe moral perception as conceptual and emotional, objective and subjective. Furthermore, the narrative form of Kierkegaard’s pedagogy suggests that one should describe moral transitions as contingent but not arbitrary.
The first section of this essay describes Kierkegaard’s pedagogical pattern, drawing several examples from “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above,” the third of four discourses published in December 1843. The next three sections sketch some important facets of a description of moral perception and development, employing insights evident in Kierkegaard’s pedagogy: the importance of moral perception, the perceptual and conceptual aspects of emotions, and the narrative character of moral transitions.
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas that MacIntyre has frequently urged, we can find new resources for better understanding and articulating the sorts of criticisms of the contemporary research university that MacIntyre has frequently and incisively offered. In particular, I contend that Thomas’s account of the virtue of art in philosophical education both illuminates the nature of philosophical pedagogy and reveals ways in which aspects of the contemporary research university threaten a genuine education for wisdom.
I begin with Thomas’s description of the intellectual virtues and the relation of art and wisdom to philosophy and philosophical education. I next provide a brief Thomistic grammar of the varieties of the virtue of art, arguing that the art of teaching is performative, ministerial, and deliberative. In a third section, I argue that the social location and structure of the contemporary research university make it inhospitable to the practice of a Thomistic art of teaching along each of those three dimensions. Finally, I argue that the art of philosophical education, Thomistically conceived, aims at cultivating in its participants a contemplative character directed to wisdom, a character marked by wonder or admiratio. But the ideals implicit in prominent forms of university education today suggest far different “characters,” calling to mind the economic producer; the life-artist; the democratic citizen; and the technical expert, each marked by characteristic stances that only partially achieve the adequacy of a genuinely contemplative character. I conclude by gesturing toward some hopeful signs that particular efforts and programs in particular places can offer some room for a genuine art of education even in the context of the contemporary university.
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and consequences of education, using as a prism his notions of “demoralization” and “life-view,” as he articulates them within his Christian conceptual grammar. Demoralization is a social process diminishing individuals’ capacities for genuinely personal and responsible actions by beguiling them with false promises of self-deification and dividing them through envy, and it forms a central part of Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of the modern learner’s ills. He responds to it by attempting to make demoralized individuals aware of the providential gifts and tasks that enable and empower their own striving for flourishing. Individuals freed from demoralization are shaped for a certain kind of social interaction, a life in common that is irreducible to state politics and dependent on a Christian life-view. Such an education is not in the service of a political program, but it does serve the society, and aid the state, as it moves its participants toward that unity in life-view expressed in friendship and especially toward that recognition of the equal value of human lives expressed in neighbor love. In so doing, education renews the individual and society by making all aware of the truths already to be found handed down from the fathers and waiting to be personally appropriated by each of us in our own personal striving.
This is the accepted manuscript version. Please cite from the published article, using the link or doi on this page.
This article contributes to conversations about the “Hitler problem” in leadership ethics and the use of literary narratives in leadership studies by proposing Tolkien’s fiction as a model of leadership. Resonating with Aristotelian and Thomistic themes, these narratives present leadership as more a matter of practical wisdom than of morally neutral craft; or, more precisely, they model leadership as a matter of using craft for the sake of wisdom’s ends. Those ends become intelligible in terms of the triadic account of human action that depicts it as a response to a gift or call. I ague that this model of leadership suggests that Hitler-type leaders are corrupted leaders, rather than partially excellent leaders or no leaders at all. I also maintain that these insights demonstrate the fruitfulness for leadership studies of approaching literary narratives in something like the way scientists treat their models.
In recent decades, many moral philosophers have begun to think more carefully about the significance of our inveterate story-telling habits for moral reflection. For some time those who promoted narrative’s central role for ethics on a variety of levels seemed to be commanding the field; but more recently skeptics of narrative’s relevance have begun to mount a vigorous resistance. Some of these struggles have played out on the terrain of Kierkegaard studies, and this book seeks to move the battle lines forward, both with respect to the significance of narrative more generally and to its place in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Three theses about the presuppositions, ends, and limits of Kierkegaard’s use of narrative are at its heart. First, Kierkegaard’s account of the moral life in terms of gift and task, a structure that lends itself naturally to narrative display, provides a compelling rationale for the pervasive presence of narrative forms in his writings. Second, Kierkegaard chiefly intends his use of narrative as a pedagogical tool for building up his reader in virtues that are acquired in a narrative pattern he calls “repetition,” a pattern of loss and then recovery in a new key. Finally, despite the importance of narrative in Kierkegaard’s moral reflection, he does recognize its limits, though he does not find them in the same places as today’s narrative skeptics. Instead his arguments and writings entail that narratives, necessary for giving meaning to the passing moments of our lives, must also be contextualized in the moment of encounter with the eternal and divine, the moment that is the fullness of time. Colton advances these theses through detailed readings of several Kierkegaardian texts as well as interactions with contemporary moral philosophers and narrative theorists, furthering both our understanding of Kierkegaard’s thought and the current debate on the significance of narrative for ethics.
In this paper, I show that investigating the nature of pedagogical causality can shed light on this conundrum. To that end, I take advantage of the semiotic thought of John Poinsot to argue that teaching works as a kind of instrumental, extrinsic formal, or objective, cause and, further, that thinking of the causality of teaching in that way allows one to resolve those perplexities. My argument moves through three steps. First, I consider teaching in relation to Thomas’s distinction between instrumental and principal causes. In the second section, I turn to Poinsot for an account of the causality of signs that, combined with Thomas’s emphasis on signs in teaching, leads to the conclusion that teaching is an example of formal or objective causality. In a brief concluding section, I show that the objective causality of teaching points to its fundamental nature as an act of mediation.
In works of impressive erudition based in ancient philosophy, Pierre Hadot and John Cooper have recently reasserted a familiar complaint about the Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas and his neo-Thomist heirs. Scholasticism, they complain, diminished philosophy by rejecting its claim to be a holistic way of life, requiring the transformation of the whole person, and reconceiving it as an exercise in merely conceptual and logical maneuvering, requiring nothing more from the philosopher but the ability to compute logical relations. This arid theorizing, they claim, distinguishes Scholastic thought from ancient philosophy and from the more valuable efforts of certain, generally marginal and idiosyncratic, medieval and modern thinkers. I will argue in this paper that, from a Thomistic perspective, philosophy is a praxis, though with a theoretical end, uniting affection and intellect in the conduct of practices and activities that aim at a contemplative wisdom including discourse within it. Philosophy conceived in this way avoids the fragmentation and dualisms Hadot and Cooper see in Scholastic thought, bringing it closer to their ideals of philosophy as a way of life.
My argument proceeds as follows. In the first section, as a preliminary to developing these three themes in Thomistic fashion, I consider Hadot’s and Cooper’s readings of Aristotelian philosophy as a way of life to determine whether such strategies could be adapted and applied to Aristotle’s heir, Thomas. After a negative result in that inquiry, I turn next to reasons grounded in Thomas’s account of human action for thinking of philosophy’s theoretical inquiry as a genuine practice. In the third section, I examine Gilson’s argument in Love and Wisdom for the necessity of philosophy as a way of life uniting affection and intellect, and in the final section, I turn to the relation between discourse and contemplation, focusing on three challenges to the existential significance of Thomistic philosophy that arise from the centrality of discursive metaphysics in Thomas’s thought.
This essay focuses on Kierkegaard’s pedagogical strategy, which, I believe, suggests important insights for any description of moral perception and the transitions from worse to better moral vision. In his discussion of moral development according to Kierkegaard, David Gouwens claims “virtue is learning to see things and persons as they are, to give them attention.” As part of the evidence for that claim, Gouwens points to “Judge William’s letters to A, which are not solely philosophical arguments, but also rhetorical appeals aimed at altering how A sees himself and others.” Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses reveal a similar pattern. He pursues his pedagogical aims by providing narratives of perceptual shifts to reshape the reader’s moral vision, according to relevant Christian concepts, so that virtuous actions, concerns, and emotions come to seem natural and compelling. The individuals in those narratives develop authentically Christian virtues of gratitude and generosity as they allow Christian concepts of human equality and divine goodness to shape their moral perception. This transition suggests that one should describe moral perception as conceptual and emotional, objective and subjective. Furthermore, the narrative form of Kierkegaard’s pedagogy suggests that one should describe moral transitions as contingent but not arbitrary.
The first section of this essay describes Kierkegaard’s pedagogical pattern, drawing several examples from “Every Good and Every Perfect Gift Is from Above,” the third of four discourses published in December 1843. The next three sections sketch some important facets of a description of moral perception and development, employing insights evident in Kierkegaard’s pedagogy: the importance of moral perception, the perceptual and conceptual aspects of emotions, and the narrative character of moral transitions.
In this paper, I argue that by taking up the deeper engagement with the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas that MacIntyre has frequently urged, we can find new resources for better understanding and articulating the sorts of criticisms of the contemporary research university that MacIntyre has frequently and incisively offered. In particular, I contend that Thomas’s account of the virtue of art in philosophical education both illuminates the nature of philosophical pedagogy and reveals ways in which aspects of the contemporary research university threaten a genuine education for wisdom.
I begin with Thomas’s description of the intellectual virtues and the relation of art and wisdom to philosophy and philosophical education. I next provide a brief Thomistic grammar of the varieties of the virtue of art, arguing that the art of teaching is performative, ministerial, and deliberative. In a third section, I argue that the social location and structure of the contemporary research university make it inhospitable to the practice of a Thomistic art of teaching along each of those three dimensions. Finally, I argue that the art of philosophical education, Thomistically conceived, aims at cultivating in its participants a contemplative character directed to wisdom, a character marked by wonder or admiratio. But the ideals implicit in prominent forms of university education today suggest far different “characters,” calling to mind the economic producer; the life-artist; the democratic citizen; and the technical expert, each marked by characteristic stances that only partially achieve the adequacy of a genuinely contemplative character. I conclude by gesturing toward some hopeful signs that particular efforts and programs in particular places can offer some room for a genuine art of education even in the context of the contemporary university.
This paper focuses on Kierkegaard’s analysis of the social contexts and consequences of education, using as a prism his notions of “demoralization” and “life-view,” as he articulates them within his Christian conceptual grammar. Demoralization is a social process diminishing individuals’ capacities for genuinely personal and responsible actions by beguiling them with false promises of self-deification and dividing them through envy, and it forms a central part of Kierkegaard’s diagnosis of the modern learner’s ills. He responds to it by attempting to make demoralized individuals aware of the providential gifts and tasks that enable and empower their own striving for flourishing. Individuals freed from demoralization are shaped for a certain kind of social interaction, a life in common that is irreducible to state politics and dependent on a Christian life-view. Such an education is not in the service of a political program, but it does serve the society, and aid the state, as it moves its participants toward that unity in life-view expressed in friendship and especially toward that recognition of the equal value of human lives expressed in neighbor love. In so doing, education renews the individual and society by making all aware of the truths already to be found handed down from the fathers and waiting to be personally appropriated by each of us in our own personal striving.