Saturday, May 2, 2026

The transmission theory of authority

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Scholastic thinkers like Cardinal Cajetan, St. Robert Bellarmine, and Francisco Suárez developed what is sometimes called a “transmission th...
2 comments:
Friday, April 24, 2026

Misunderstanding the “just cause” condition of just war doctrine

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In a recent article at First Things , I argued that the just war tradition holds that for a war to be justifiable, it must be morally certai...
58 comments:
Tuesday, April 21, 2026

Just war doctrine and moral certainty

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In an article at First Things , I show that the standard view in the Catholic just war tradition is that for a war to be just, it is not eno...
53 comments:
Monday, April 20, 2026

The Journal of Natural Law

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The first issue of The Journal of Natural Law has now been published.  Among other things, it includes my review of Stephen Boulter’s boo...
1 comment:
Friday, April 17, 2026

Caught in the web

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At The Telegraph , John Haldane remembers the late Dominican theologian Fr. Fergus Kerr. At UnHerd , Sohrab Ahmari has had enough with D...
49 comments:
Friday, April 10, 2026

The New Neo-Scholasticism

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My article “The New Neo-Scholasticism” appears in the Winter 2026 issue of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly .  It is available...
20 comments:
Thursday, April 9, 2026

Rational social animals and addiction

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Roger Scruton’s book Beauty contains an interesting brief treatment of addiction.  Too much discussion of this topic today overemphasizes n...
68 comments:
Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Will “a whole civilization die tonight”?

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From Twitter/X , on the president’s deranged post of this morning (which managed to top even his deranged Easter post):
126 comments:
Thursday, April 2, 2026

Contra White and Graham

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From Twitter/X , on the comments made at the White House yesterday by Paula White and Franklin Graham :
187 comments:
Saturday, March 28, 2026

Texts on tyranny from the tradition

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“These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen,...
78 comments:
Tuesday, March 24, 2026

The epistemology of microphysics

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On March 21, I delivered a lecture on “The Epistemology of Microphysics” at the 49 th Annual Meeting of the American Maritain Association a...
52 comments:
Friday, March 20, 2026

Just war doctrine and the duties of soldiers

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The main point of just war doctrine is to guide public authorities in determining whether a military action they are considering is morally ...
33 comments:
Tuesday, March 17, 2026

Harrington on “Thomophobia”

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Earlier this month, British author Mary Harrington delivered a First Things Lecture titled “Our Crisis is Metaphysical” in Washington, D.C....
158 comments:
Monday, March 16, 2026

Thomism Revisited

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Thomism Revisited , a new anthology edited by Gaven Kerr, is out this month from Cambridge University Press.  It includes my essay “The Thom...
21 comments:
Wednesday, March 11, 2026

America’s conflict in Iran is not a just war

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In a new article at Public Discourse , I argue that it is even more obvious now than it was at the start that the Iran war does not meet the...
76 comments:

Dissent and double standards at Where Peter Is

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Mike Lewis, editor of Where Peter Is , is well known for freely accusing fellow Catholics of “dissent” from the teaching of the Church.  Yet...
15 comments:
Wednesday, March 4, 2026

The New Neo-Scholasticism

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For those with access to the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly , my forthcoming article “The New Neo-Scholasticism” is available in ...
18 comments:
Saturday, February 28, 2026

The U.S. war on Iran is manifestly unjust

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Last summer the United States joined in Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear program.  Many of us warned that it would be difficult for the U.S...
216 comments:
Thursday, February 26, 2026

Xenophanes and natural theology

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Natural theology is knowledge of the existence and nature of God that can be attained through the use of our natural rational powers, speci...
74 comments:
Friday, February 13, 2026

Cancelled in L.A. (Updated)

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I had been invited to speak later this month at St. John’s Seminary in Los Angeles. I have now been informed that the event is being cancel...
125 comments:
Saturday, February 7, 2026

No, AI does not have human-level intelligence

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In an article at Nature , Eddy Keming Chen, Mikhail Belkin, Leon Bergen, and David Danks ask “Does AI already have human-level intelligence?...
91 comments:
Friday, January 30, 2026

Van Fraassen on microscopy

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Philosopher of science Bas van Fraassen is well known for defending the “constructive empiricist” position that the success of a scientific...
43 comments:
Monday, January 19, 2026

Socratic politics: Lessons from the Gorgias

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Almost forty years ago, the liberal pragmatist philosopher Richard Rorty published an essay titled “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy....
110 comments:
Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Church history does not support Trump’s expansionism

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Some Catholic voices online have been suggesting that the example of Spanish colonialism justifies the Trump administration’s expansionist f...
137 comments:
Friday, January 9, 2026

Pope Leo XIV on politics and the death penalty

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From a couple of posts today at Twitter/X, commenting on Pope Leo’s address to the diplomatic corps at the Vatican : A marvelous address b...
77 comments:
Thursday, January 8, 2026

Review of Gorman

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Readers who have access to the journal The Thomist might be interested in my review of Michael Gorman’s terrific book A Contemporary Introd...
14 comments:
Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Interview on the Venezuela situation

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In an interview with Edward Pentin published at his Substack , I discuss just war doctrine, the Venezuela situation, and the false choice be...
71 comments:
Friday, January 2, 2026

On Searle at First Things

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On the Editor’s Desk podcast at First Things , Rusty Reno and I discuss John Searle and his place in contemporary philosophy. (The take-off...
8 comments:
Thursday, January 1, 2026

Some basic principles of masculinity

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From Twitter/X today , inspired by an excellent article by Justin Lee:
45 comments:
Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Catholic natural law thinkers on nation versus race

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As I’ve noted many times (e.g. here and here ), natural law theory and Catholic moral theology both affirm the indispensable role in human ...
75 comments:
Thursday, December 25, 2025

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas to all my readers. I love you all (including the grinches out there). May God bless you and yours!
18 comments:
Sunday, December 21, 2025

Return of the missing links

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My Christmas gift to you, dear readers – a revival of the blog’s “links of interest” posts, by popular demand.  Let’s get to it: J.P. Andr...
64 comments:
Thursday, December 18, 2025

Lawful authority in just war doctrine

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In an earlier article , I set out the conditions that traditional just war doctrine says a war must meet in order to be morally legitimate, ...
43 comments:
Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Kant’s claustrophobic metaphysics (Updated)

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My review of Marcus Willaschek’s Kant: A Revolution in Thinking appears in the latest issue of the Claremont Review of Books . UPDATE 12/2...
28 comments:
Wednesday, December 10, 2025

Would a U.S. war against Venezuela be just?

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To all appearances, the United States is preparing for war with Venezuela.  For months now, American military forces have been blowing up Ve...
79 comments:
Tuesday, December 2, 2025

It's an open thread!

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We’re due for an open thread.  Now is your chance to bring up matters that would otherwise be off-topic.  For example, sometimes readers wan...
124 comments:
Thursday, November 27, 2025

Liberalism and the virtue of gratitude

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In a new essay at Postliberal Order , I reflect on the virtue of gratitude or thanksgiving and the ways it tends to be eroded in liberal soc...
16 comments:
Friday, November 21, 2025

Pope Leo on immigration enforcement

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Pope Leo was recently asked by a reporter about the deportation and detention of illegal immigrants.  In response , he made the following re...
54 comments:
Thursday, November 13, 2025

Searle contra deconstruction

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In a new essay at Postliberal Order , I recall the late John Searle’s critique of deconstructionism and postmodernism more generally, which ...
8 comments:
Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Remembering John Searle

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I wrote an obituary for John Searle , which appears in the December 2025 issue of First Things .
8 comments: