The Thomistic Institute

Nov 1, 2022 • 56 min

This talk was given on September 12, 2022 at the University of Rochester. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. Paul Symington is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Scholarly Excellence at Franciscan University of Steubenville. His publications include On Determining What There Is (Walter De Gruyter, 2010) and over a dozen peer reviewed articles ranging in topics from philosophy of language, metaphysics, philosophy of science and medieval philosophy. He has also given numerous paper presentations, in topics ranging from medieval metaphysics and teleology in modern science, including talks on prime matter as well as the problem of human death at University of Oxford in 2015.

Oct 31, 2022 • 1h 3m

This talk was given on September 27, 2022 at Trinity College Dublin. For more information please visit, thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Nuno Castel-Branco is a historian of science and research fellow at the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, Germany. He completed his Ph.D. in the History of Science at Johns Hopkins University in May 2021. He also received an M.Sc. in Physics from the University of Lisbon (ISTécnico). His current research focuses on the emergence of the new sciences in seventeenth-century Europe through the career of Nicolaus Steno, an anatomist who converted to Catholicism and was beatified by John Paul II. He also studies the development of Jesuit science in early modern Iberia. He has won several awards in Europe and the United States, such as a Fulbright Fellowship and a Huntington Exchange Fellowship at Oxford University. His writings have been accepted for publication in several journals including Early Science and Medicine, Renaissance Quarterly, and Scientific American.

Oct 28, 2022 • 1h 12m

This talk was given on September 30th, 2022 at Yale University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Francis J. Beckwith is Professor of Philosophy & Church-State Studies and Affiliate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of the Graduate Program in Philosophy. Among his over one dozen books are Never Doubt Thomas: The Catholic Aquinas as Evangelical and Protestant (Baylor University Press, 2019), Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2015), winner of the American Academy of Religion's prestigious 2016 Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies. He is a graduate of the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis (MJS) as well as Fordham University (PhD, MA, philosophy).

Oct 27, 2022 • 45 min

The lecture was given at the University of California, Berkeley on September 23, 2022. For information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Dr. Lawrence M. Principe is Drew Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University. Professor Principe earned a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of Delaware. He also holds two doctorates: a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Indiana University, Bloomington, and a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Johns Hopkins University. In 1999, the Carnegie Foundation chose Professor Principe as the Maryland Professor of the Year, and in 1998 he received the Templeton Foundation's award for courses dealing with science and religion. Johns Hopkins has repeatedly recognized Professor Principe's teaching achievements. He has won its Distinguished Faculty Award, the Excellence in Teaching Award, and the George Owen Teaching Award. In 2004, Professor Principe was awarded the first Francis Bacon Prize by the California Institute of Technology, awarded to an outstanding scholar whose work has had substantial impact on the history of science, the history of technology, or historically-engaged philosophy of science. Professor Principe has published numerous papers and is the author or coauthor of three books, including The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest.

Oct 26, 2022 • 1h 16m

This lecture was given at Vanderbilt University on September 29, 2022. For information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel is a member of the St. Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, Tennessee and currently serves as Associate Professor of Theology at Aquinas College in Nashville, TN. She received her Doctorate in Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, Italy. She has been active in her religious community's teaching apostolate for over fifteen years and has assisted with the theological formation of the newest members of her religious congregation. In addition to contributing articles to a number of journals and magazines, including the Vatican newspaper (L'Osservatore Romano), The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, The Linacre Quarterly, and the Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings, Sister has served as editor-in-chief of her Congregation's book, Praying as a Family (also available in Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic versions). With EWTN, she directed a television series of the same title. She has also served as the creator and founding Director of the University of Dallas Studies in Catholic Faith & Culture Program.

Oct 25, 2022 • 1h

This talk was given on September 19, 2022 at Regent University. For more information, please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Thomas Hibbs is currently J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University, where he is also Dean Emeritus, having served for 16 years as Dean of the Honors College and as Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Culture. Hibbs received a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame and has served as tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Full Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and President of the University of Dallas. Hibbs works in the areas of medieval philosophy, especially Thomas Aquinas, contemporary virtue ethics, and aesthetics. He has published more than thirty scholarly articles and seven books, as well as 100 reviews and discussion articles on film, theater, art, and higher education in a variety of venues.

Oct 21, 2022 • 56 min

This talk was given on September 14, 2022 at Iowa State University. For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a Sloan fellowship, a Packard fellowship, the Newton Lacy Pierce Award from the American Astronomical Society, and a Simons fellowship. Her recent TED talk explaining some of her research can be found here https://www.ted.com/talks/karin_oberg_the_galactic_recipe_for_a_living_planet

Oct 20, 2022 • 40 min

Are quality of life judgments ethical? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with bioethicist Prof. Gina Noia about her latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "Are Quality of Life Judgments Ethical?” Bioethics and End of Life Decisions w/ Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/are-quality-of-life-judgements-ethical-prof-gina-noia-1 For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Gina Maria Noia is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Resident Bioethicist at Belmont Abbey College. She received her Ph.D. in Theology and Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University. She has served as a clinical ethicist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL and St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and she is published in Christian Bioethics and the Journal of Moral Theology.

Oct 19, 2022 • 54 min

This lecture was given at Cornell University on September 14, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, visit our website at thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Marie George has been a member of the St. John’s University Philosophy Department since 1988. Professor George is an Aristotelian-Thomist whose interests lie primarily in the areas of philosophy of nature and philosophy of science. She has received several awards from the John Templeton foundation for her work in science and religion, and in 2007 she received a grant from the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) for an interdisciplinary project entitled: “The Evolution of Sympathy and Morality.” Professor George has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles and two books: Christianity and Extraterrestrials? A Catholic Perspective(2005) and Stewardship of Creation (2009). She is currently working on Aquinas’s “Fifth Way,” and also on a variety of questions concerning living things (self-motion, consciousness, evolution, etc.). Professor George is a member of ten philosophical societies, including the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, and the Society for Aristotelian Studies.

Oct 18, 2022 • 53 min

This lecture was given for John Hopkins University on April 11, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Gina Maria Noia is an Assistant Professor of Theology and Resident Bioethicist at Belmont Abbey College. She received her Ph.D. in Theology and Health Care Ethics from Saint Louis University. She has served as a clinical ethicist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, IL and St. Alexius Hospital in St. Louis, MO, and she is published in Christian Bioethics and the Journal of Moral Theology

Oct 17, 2022 • 48 min

This talk was given on September 27, 2022 for the DC Young Professionals chapter of the Thomistic Institute. For more information please visit, thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Sr. Anna Wray is a native of Connecticut and a member of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Cecilia. 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 on faculty in CUA's School of Philosophy.

Oct 14, 2022 • 1h 14m

This lecture was given on September 15, 2022 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Stephen L. Brock is a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei (ordained 1992). He is Ordinary Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, where he has taught since 1990. He received a BA from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. In 1999 he was a visiting professor in the School of Philosophy of The Catholic University of America. In 2017 he is a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago, collaborating in the Templeton Foundation project “Virtue, Happiness, and Meaning in Life,” directed by Candace Vogler and Jennifer Frey; his collaboration has included teaching a course in the Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago, giving two public lectures, directing a reading group, and leading sessions in a summer seminar for graduate students. Since 2008 he has been an Ordinary Member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is the author of Action & Conduct: Thomas Aquinas and the Theory of Action (T&T Clark, 1998); articles on various aspects of Aquinas’s thought; and most recently, The Philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas: A Sketch (Wipf & Stock, 2015).

Oct 13, 2022 • 52 min

This lecture was given at Baylor University on September 13, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Karin Öberg is Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University. Her specialty is astrochemistry and her research aims to uncover how chemical processes affect the outcome of planet formation, especially the chemical habitability of nascent planets. Dr. Öberg obtained her B.Sc. in chemistry at Caltech in 2005, and her Ph.D. in astronomy, with a thesis focused on laboratory astrochemistry, from Leiden University in 2009. She did postdoctoral work at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics as a NASA Hubble fellow, focusing on millimeter observations of planet-forming disks around young stars. In 2013 she joined the Harvard astronomy faculty as an assistant professor. She was promoted and named the Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor in Astronomy in 2016, and promoted to full professor with tenure in 2017. Dr. Öberg’s research in astrochemistry has been recognized with a Sloan fellowship, a Packard fellowship, the Newton Lacy Pierce Award from the American Astronomical Society, and a Simons fellowship. Her recent TED talk explaining some of her research can be found here: https://www.ted.com/talks/karin_oberg_the_galactic_recipe_for_a_living_planet

Oct 12, 2022 • 1h 4m

This talk was given on September 8, 2022 at The University of Texas at Austin For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Father Thomas Petri, O.P. is the President of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies, where he also serves as an assistant professor of moral theology and pastoral studies. Ordained a priest in 2009, he holds a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from The Catholic University of America.

Oct 11, 2022 • 1h 7m

This lecture was given on May 11, 2022 at the University of Oregon. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Dr. Christopher Kaczor (rhymes with razor) is Professor of Philosophy at Loyola Marymount University and a member of the James Madison Society of Princeton University. In 2015, he was appointed to the Pontifical Academy for Life of Vatican City, and he serves as a Consultor to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He graduated from the Honors Program of Boston College and earned a Ph.D. four years later from the University of Notre Dame. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Kaczor is a former Federal Chancellor Fellow at the University of Cologne and William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in the James Madison Program at Princeton University. He is an award winning author of twelve books including The Gospel of Happiness, The Seven Big Myths about Marriage, A Defense of Dignity, The Seven Big Myths about the Catholic Church, The Ethics of Abortion, O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor, Thomas Aquinas on the Cardinal Virtues; Life Issues, Medical Choices; Thomas Aquinas on Faith, Hope, and Love; The Edge of Life, and Proportionalism and the Natural Law Tradition. Dr. Kaczor’s views have been in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, National Review, NPR, BBC, EWTN, ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, MSNBC, TEDx, and The Today Show.

Oct 10, 2022 • 1h 1m

This talk was given on July 16, 2022 at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium For more information please visit thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: MARIUSZ TABACZEK, O.P., is a Polish Dominican and theologian. He holds Ph.D. in philosophical theology from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA and Church Licentiate from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. After his studies at the GTU and a fellowship at the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Studies he returned to Poland. For three years he worked as a researcher at the Thomistic Institute in Warsaw (Poland), a lecturer at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Warsaw and the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Krakow, and a director of Studium Dominicanum in Warsaw. He then moved to Rome where he became a professor of theology at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He is also a researcher at the Thomistic Institute at the same University. One of the hallmarks of modern science is the ability to explain the workings of nature by detailed study of its pieces and parts. Organisms are understood as combinations of organ systems, which are made up of tissues, which are made up of cells, which are made of up complex chemicals, then atoms, and more fundamental particles. As successful as this methodological reductionism has been, it is still an open question how complete it can be. Can everything about complex biological systems be reduced to chemistry, and every detail of chemistry explained from fundamental physics? Do the organization and complexity of higher-level systems require additional tools to complete our understanding of the natural world? Do the answers to these scientific questions work for or against an Aristotelian and Thomistic understanding of nature and natural kinds, and how might those classical ideas be of use in contemporary science? The Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium gathers expert scientists and philosophers to discuss the potential compatibility and mutual enrichment of the study of Aquinas' philosophy of nature and various forms of modern scientific knowledge in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. The 2022 symposium included a day of lectures geared towards an introduction to Thomistic philosophy and the history of science, with a focus on complexity, simplicity and emergence. The rest of the symposium will have scientific experts discussing the understanding of complexity and simplicity in their own fields with one another and with philosophers.

Oct 7, 2022 • 1h 6m

This lecture was given at the Fourth Annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium entitled, Complexity, Simplicity and Emergence, on July 14, 2022 at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Fr. Thomas Davenport, O.P. is a Dominican friar, physicist, and philosopher. He joined the faculty of philosophy at the Angelicum in Rome in 2020, where he co-leads the Project for Science and Religion. Before joining the Dominican order he studied physics at the California Institute of Technology before going on to earn his doctorate in physics from Stanford University studying theoretical particle physics. The focus of his scientific research is writing and testing simulations for high energy particle colliders like the LHC at CERN. After joining the Dominicans in 2010, he studied philosophy and theology in preparation for his ordination to the priesthood in 2017. In addition, he earned a Licentiate in Philosophy from the Catholic University of America, focusing on the philosophy of science and natural philosophy. For two years he was an Assistant Professor of Physics at Providence College in Providence, RI, where he taught physics and restarted a research program in particle physics. He has written and spoken in a number of forums on the relationship between faith and science including contributions to the Thomistic Evolution project and organizing conferences on science and philosophy for the Thomistic Institute in Washington, DC.

Oct 7, 2022 • 42 min

What is truth? If we're right, are they wrong? What are the Catholic claims on truth? Join Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P. of Aquinas 101, Godsplaining, and Pints with Aquinas for an off-campus conversation with Prof. Paul Gondreau about his latest Thomistic Institute lecture, "If We're Right, Are They Wrong? Catholic Claims on Truth." What is Truth? w/ Fr. Gregory Pine (Off-Campus Conversations) You can listen to the original lecture here: https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/if-were-right-are-they-wrong-catholic-claims-on-truth-prof-paul-gondreau For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org About the Speaker: Paul Gondreau earned his doctorate in sacred theology from the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, writing under the renowned Thomist scholar Rev. Jean-Pierre Torrell, O.P. He is professor of theology at Providence College in Rhode Island, where he teaches/has taught courses on marriage, Christology, the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the Church, the Eucharist, the Sacraments, and the Catholic thought of J.R.R. Tolkien. He has a published manuscript on Christ's human passions in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas and has published numerous essays in the area of Thomistic Christology, Thomistic anthropology, a Thomistic account of human sexuality, and a Thomistic theology of disability. He is associate editor of the theological journal Nova et Vetera, and has served as a consultant to the USCCB's committee on marriage and family.

Oct 5, 2022 • 1h 18m

This lecture was given on April, 22, 2022 at the University of California at Berkeley. About the speaker: Fr. Anselm Ramelow is a Catholic priest in the Order of Preachers. He is professor of philosophy at the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley and currently the chair of the philosophy department. He obtained his doctorate under Robert Spaemann in Munich on Leibniz and the Spanish Jesuits (Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl, 1997) and did theological work on George Lindbeck and the question of a Thomist philosophy and theology of language (Beyond Modernism? - George Lindbeck and the Linguistic Turn in Theology, 2005). He contributed articles to the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophy and essays on topics at the intersection of philosophy and theology, as well as a translation and commentary on part of Aquinas’ De veritate. He continues to work on questions of free will, philosophy of religion (miracles, existence and nature of God) and philosophical aesthetics.

Oct 5, 2022 • 38 min

This lecture was given at Louisiana State University on April 21, 2022. For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website: www.thomisticinstitute.org About the speaker: Robert C. (“Rob”) Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught for 33 years. M. A. Oxford, Ph.D. UCLA. He is the author or co-author of four books, including: Realism Regained (Oxford University Press, 2000), and The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics, with Timothy H. Pickavance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). He is the co-editor (with George Bealer) of The Waning of Materialism (Oxford University Press, 2010), and co-editor (with Nicholas Teh and William Simpson) of Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (Routledge, 2018). He has been working recently on an Aristotelian interpretation of quantum theory, on defending and articulating Thomism in contemporary terms, and on arguments for classical theism.