The Thomistic Institute

Latest Episodes:

Overcoming The Science And Religion Divide | Prof. Karin Oberg Mar 01, 2024

Show notes

Discovering Wisdom: A Journey with Edith Stein w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. and Prof. Catherine Pakaluk Feb 29, 2024

Show notes

Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Catherine Pakaluk about the philosophy of Edith Stein (St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross). Learn how she inspired Prof. Pakaluk and why her work matters today!

Discovering Wisdom: A Journey with Edith Stein w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. and Prof. Catherine Pakaluk (Off-Campus Conversations)

You can listen to more from Prof. Pakaluk here: on.soundcloud.com/JMU9u

About the speaker:

Catherine Ruth Pakaluk is an Associate Professor of Political Economy in the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She received the Acton Institute's prestigious Novak Award in 2015, and the Freedom and Opportunity Prize from The Heritage Foundation in 2023. Her widely anticipated book, Hannah's Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth, explores the relation between biblical faith and childbearing. Pakaluk earned her doctorate in economics at Harvard University. She lives in Maryland with her husband, philosopher Michael Pakaluk, where her kitchen table is joyfully crowded with children, grandchildren, and students.

Dumb Ox to Angelic Doctor: The Life and Works of St. Thomas Aquinas | Fr. Conor McDonough, OP Feb 28, 2024

Show notes

This lecture was given on June 16th, 2023, at Glencomeragh House, Ireland.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events

Fr. Conor McDonough, O.P. (Dominican House of Studies, Dublin) is a Dominican friar from Galway. He studied science and theology at the University of Cambridge and taught theology at secondary school before joining the Dominicans in 2009. He was ordained priest in 2016 and undertook further studies in theology at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland), focussing on the writings of St Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. He is currently based in Dublin where he teaches theology to the students at the Dominican House of Studies in Dublin.

What is Freewill? And Do We Have It? | Prof. Paul Symington Feb 27, 2024

Show notes

This lecture was given on November 18th, 2023, at University of South Florida.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events

About the speaker:

Professor Paul Symington graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in Philosophy and Religion from Roberts Wesleyan College in 1998. He received an M.A. in Theology from Northeastern Seminary in 2001 and an M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College in 2004. He graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2007. He then taught for one year at the University of San Francisco before receiving a position in 2008 at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

He was a Service-Learning Faculty Fellow at the University of San Francisco and received a NYS Professional Development Award from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2007. He is a member of The Society for Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, The American Catholic Philosophical Association, and The American Philosophical Association. His research is mainly focused on areas in metaphysics and medieval philosophy

What We Owe to God and Country: Romans 13 | Prof. Erik Dempsey Feb 26, 2024

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This lecture was given on November 7th, 2023, at University of North Texas. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the Speaker: Erik Dempsey (PhD, Boston College) is the Assistant Director of UT's Thomas Jefferson for the Study of Core Texts and Ideas. He completed his doctorate at Boston College in June 2007. He is interested in understanding human virtue, and the proper place of politics in a well-lived human life, the different ways in which human virtue is understood in different political situations, and the ways in which human virtue may transcend any political situation. His dissertation looks at Aristotle's treatment of prudence in the Nicomachean Ethics, and Aristotle's suggestion that virtue should be understood as an end in itself. He is currently at work turning his dissertation into a book by adding chapters which consider Thomas Aquinas' interpretation of Aristotle in terms of natural law, and Marsilius of Padua's critique of Thomas. He grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY and graduated from Hastings High School. As an undergraduate, he attended St. John's College in Annapolis, MD where he began to study the Great Books seriously. From June 2000 until August 2001, he worked for DynCorp in Chantilly, VA, doing mathematical modeling and providing other support for the GETS program. From September 2007 - May 2008, he taught in the Herbst Program for the Humanities at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Religious Liberty And The Human Good | Robert P. George Feb 23, 2024

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This lecture was given on September 28th, 2023, at Georgetown University. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events About the speaker: Robert P. George is the sixth McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, a program founded under his leadership in 2000. George has frequently been a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Born on July 10, 1955, Robert George has served as Chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom as well as a presidential appointee of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the President’s Council on Bioethics. In addition, Professor George has served as the U.S. member of UNESCO’s World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. He was also a Judicial Fellow at the Supreme Court of the United States, where he received the Justice Tom C. Clark Award. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore, he holds J.D. and M.T.S. degrees from Harvard University as well as D.Phil., B.C.L., D.C.L., D.Litt. degrees from Oxford University. He holds twenty-two honorary doctorates. George is a recipient of the U.S. Presidential Citizens Medal, the Honorific Medal for the Defense of Human Rights of the Republic of Poland, the Irving Kristol Award of the American Enterprise Institute, the Canterbury Medal of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and one of Princeton University’s highest honors – the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. George is the author of hundreds of books, essays, and articles. He is a finger-style guitarist and bluegrass banjo player.

Accessing Aquinas' Account of Acedia: Can We Choose Joy? | Sr. Anna Wray, O.P. Feb 23, 2024

Show notes

This lecture was given on February 23rd, 2024, at Ave Maria University.

For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events

About the Speaker:

Sister Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia of Nashville, TN. Sister received her phD in philosophy from The Catholic University of America, having written her dissertation on Aristotle’s account of the activity of contemplation. Sister is an assistant professor on the faculty of CUA's School of Philosophy in Washington, DC, where she regularly teaches courses in the history of philosophy, logic, rhetoric, ethics, philosophy of religion, and philosophical psychology. She is also an adjunct professor for Aquinas College, where she teaches metaphysics and epistemology to her sisters in formation. When time permits, sister enjoys the occasional trip that allows her to speak to (and with) others who share her loves.

Is There Always a Right Choice? Conscience, Prudence, and Natural Law |Prof. Joshua Hochschild Feb 22, 2024

Show notes

This lecture was given on June 21st, 2023, at Stonyhust College. For more information on upcoming events, visit us at thomisticinstitute.org/upcoming-events Prof. Joshua Hochschild (Mount St. Mary’s University) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

Who Gets to Judge?: Answering Objections to Truth in Morality | Professor Joshua Hochschild Feb 21, 2024

Show notes

Prof. Joshua Hochschild (Mount St. Mary’s University) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He also served six years as the inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts. His primary research is in medieval logic, metaphysics, and ethics, with broad interest in liberal education and the continuing relevance of the Catholic intellectual tradition. He is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (2010), translator of Claude Panaccio’s Mental Language: From Plato to William of Ockham (2017), and co-author of A Mind at Peace: Reclaiming an Ordered Soul in the Age of Distraction (2017). His writing has appeared in First Things, Commonweal, Modern Age and the Wall Street Journal. For 2020-21 he served as President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.

The Gift Of Fear | Prof. Adam Eitel Feb 20, 2024

Show notes

Dr. Adam Eitel (Yale Divinity School) holds appointments in the Divinity School, the Program in Medieval Studies, and the Humanities Program. His research and teaching bring topics in the history of Christian theology to bear on questions of fundamental moral concern. A specialist in medieval scholasticism, his particular research interests span doctrinal and moral theology, especially in the works of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries. His first book, Thomas Aquinas and the Invention of the Preacher, examines the need for gifts of the Holy Spirit in light of the eliminable conditions of human folly; as this volume approaches the final stages of revision, he is also preparing a translation and critical introduction to Aquinas’s Contra impugnantes. His contributions to various journals include published and forthcoming essays in the Journal of Religious Ethics, Nova et Vetera, Studies in Christian Ethics, and The Thomist. Longer term aspirations include projects on the virtue of charity, the nature of sin, grace, eschatology, grief, and infant mortality.

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