On the Road Again...

Back from Alaska Just for a day. It was great. Now I'm heading to Princeton for a week for a seminar in Thomism and Analytic Philosophy. [Thomism is the philosophy inspired by Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Analytic Philosophy is philosophy which relies heavily on formal logic, especially "mathematical" logic.] That might sound like an odd combination, but it shouldn't.

When, in the 13th Century the Pope asked Albertus Magnus to find someone to deal with this new-fangled philosophy of Aristotle re-discovered by Greece-conquering Muslims, he tapped "The Dumb Ox" his favored student Thomas. Christian philosophy since Augustine had been decidedly Platonic. Plato's fun to read, but Aristotle makes all kinds of further distinctions and has a kind of subtlety and systematic apparently lacking in Plato. Aristotle relied heavily on logic and fine distinctions. In a way, Aristotelianism was the analytic philosophy of his day, so treating Aquinas own work in terms of it is quite natural.

Here are some pictures of my Alaska trip (more here):

See you when I get back.