Scholarship

St. Thomas, at an age [of 49], decided to stop writing, saying that what he had written was no better than straw. As a disciple of St. Thomas, I would have to describe my writings as secondhand straw. And we know that calls for a shovel. ~ R. McInerny

Dissertation: “The Primum Mobile in the Thomistic Aristotelianism of Charles De Koninck: On Natural Philosophy as Architectonic” The Catholic University of America, 2016. See also this page.

Books (click here for more details)

– [As Translator] Édouard Hugon, O.P. Mary, Full of Grace (more details)
– La existencia de Dios: Un diálogo entre la cosmología y la filosofía tomista (more details)
– Searching for the Cosmos [in preparation]

Papers (click here for more details)

– “Charles De Koninck and the Cosmos of the Natural Sciences”
– “Is Aristotelian-Thomistic Natural Philosophy Relevant for Cosmology?”
– “A Thomistic Reply to Grünbaum’s Critique of Maritain on the Reality of Space”
– “Operari sequitur esse y el principio de acción mínima”
– “World Enough and Form: Why Cosmology Needs Hylomorphism”
– “Is Personal Dignity Possible Only If We Live in a Cosmos?”
– “St. Thomas and Modern Natural Science: Reconsidering Abstraction from Matter”
– “Charles De Koninck and the Sapiential Character of Natural Philosophy”

Reviews and other scholarly essays

See the “Essays & Lectures” page for more scholarly reviews or other works that have been published online.

– Co-authored with Geoffrey Woollard, “Review of Naturaleza Creativa.” Scientia et Fides 7, no. 1 (2019): 247–267. http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2019.012.
– Co-authored with Geoffrey Woollard, “Review of Creative Nature (Part 2).” Scientia et Fides 8, no. 1 (2020). https://doi.org/10.12775/SetF.2020.011.

Research interests

My research focuses on the Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy of nature. This includes not just its historical sources and development, but much more importantly, its contemporary relevance and perennial theoretic structure. I am currently developing a book that defends a contemporary, Thomistic philosophy of cosmology.

During 2017–2019, at the Instituto de Filosofía at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, in Santiago, Chile, and the supervision of Prof. José Tomás Alvarado, I conducted wide-ranging postdoctoral research in the philosophy of cosmology. My project focused, however, on understanding the tradition of the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy of nature and attempting to map out a philosophy of cosmology drawing on that tradition.  My project was funded by CONICYT-FONDECYT, Postdoctoral Project No. 3170446.

Current and future book projects

My current academic book project is tentatively entitled Searching for the Cosmos: An Essay on the Thomistic Philosophy of Cosmology. It is under a preliminary contract with the Catholic University of America Press. More about the book as the draft develops.

Future books are planned about the Thomistic-Aristotelian philosophy of nature and science, metaphysics, and political philosophy.

Translations

Translation of Juan Eduardo Carreño, La filosofía tomista ante el hecho de la evolución del viviente corpóreo: Consideraciones metodológicas y conceptuales para una integracíon, Colección del Centro de Estudios Tomistas (Providencia, Chile: RIL Editores, 2017). The key, third chapter of this book has been finished.

Translation with notes and appendices of John Poinsot, Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Volumen II: Physica, Pars I, ed. Beatus Reiser (Taurini: Marietti, 1930). This project will be long and ongoing, with the results posted here.

Translation with notes of Hoenen’s Cosmologia, likewise a long, ongoing project. The results are currently posted here.