Edward Feser

"One of the best contemporary writers on philosophy" National Review

"A terrific writer" Damian Thompson, Daily Telegraph

"Feser... has the rare and enviable gift of making philosophical argument compulsively readable" Sir Anthony Kenny, Times Literary Supplement

Selected for the First Things list of the 50 Best Blogs of 2010 (November 19, 2010)

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Catholic natural law thinkers on nation versus race

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 ...

Thursday, December 25, 2025

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I love you all (including the grinches out there). May God bless you and yours!

Sunday, December 21, 2025

Return of the missing links

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...

Thursday, December 18, 2025

Lawful authority in just war doctrine

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, ...

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Kant’s claustrophobic metaphysics (Updated)

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...

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

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

To all appearances, the United States is preparing for war with Venezuela. For months now, American military forces have been blowing up Ve...

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

It's an open thread!

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...

Thursday, November 27, 2025

Liberalism and the virtue of gratitude

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...

Friday, November 21, 2025

Pope Leo on immigration enforcement

Pope Leo was recently asked by a reporter about the deportation and detention of illegal immigrants. In response , he made the following re...

Thursday, November 13, 2025

Searle contra deconstruction

In a new essay at Postliberal Order , I recall the late John Searle’s critique of deconstructionism and postmodernism more generally, which ...

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

Remembering John Searle

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

Tuesday, November 4, 2025

Cardinal Fernández on doctrinal clarity

From Twitter/X today , apropos of Mater Populi Fidelis :

Friday, October 24, 2025

There are two sides to the Catholic immigration debate

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church teaches that wealthy nations ought to welcome immigrants. It is less well known that she also teach...

Saturday, October 18, 2025

Vallicella on Immortal Souls

At his Substack Philosophy in Progress , my old buddy Bill Vallicella engages with my book Immortal Souls: A Treatise on Human Nature . Bi...

Friday, October 10, 2025

Fastiggi and Sonna on Catholicism and capital punishment (Updated)

Recently, theologian Robert Fastiggi was interviewed about the topic of the Church and the death penalty by apologist Suan Sonna on his pod...

Monday, September 29, 2025

Against flag burning

In a new essay at Postliberal Order , I argue that burning the flag as an expression of contempt for one’s country is contrary to the virtue...

Sunday, September 28, 2025

John Searle (1932-2025)

Daily Nous has reported that John Searle has died. Searle was one of the true greats of contemporary philosophy, having made huge and las...

Saturday, September 20, 2025

How not to limit free speech

I am by no means a free speech absolutist. In an article at Postliberal Order a couple of years ago, I set out the natural law position on...

Friday, September 12, 2025

Thucydides’ times and ours

All of my readers will no doubt have been following the horrific and heartbreaking news of the assassination of conservative activist Charli...

Saturday, September 6, 2025

Is mandatory vaccination intrinsically wrong?

Florida governor Ron DeSantis and state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo have announced that they will be ending all mandatory vaccination...

Friday, August 29, 2025

Maimonides on negative theology

Negative theology (also known as apophatic theology) is the approach to understanding the divine nature that emphasizes that what we know ab...

Monday, August 18, 2025

Diabolical modernity

Satan tempted Christ to avoid the cross, and offer us instead the satisfaction of our appetites, marvels or wonders, and political salvation...

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Hanson on observation

According to the conception of scientific method traditionally associated with Francis Bacon, science ought to begin with the accumulation o...

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Newman on capital punishment

It was announced last week that Pope Leo XIV will be declaring St. John Henry Newman to be a Doctor of the Church. As the Catholic Encyclop...

Wednesday, July 30, 2025

Suffering for the truth (Updated)

As many readers will have heard by now, last week Detroit’s new archbishop Edward Weisenburger suddenly fired three well-known professors a...

Thursday, July 24, 2025

A postliberal middle ground on trade

In my latest article at Postliberal Order , I defend a postliberal middle ground position between free trade dogmatism and rigid protectioni...

Saturday, July 19, 2025

Heeding Anscombe on just war doctrine

Elizabeth Anscombe’s “War and Murder” is a magnificent essay, an intellectually rigorous and morally serious defense of traditional Christi...

Friday, July 11, 2025

A second Honorius?

Like his predecessor Honorius, Pope Francis failed clearly to uphold traditional teaching at a time the Church was sick from heresy. So I a...

Thursday, July 10, 2025

Aquinas and prudential judgment

In contemporary debates in Catholic moral theology, a distinction is often drawn between actions that are flatly ruled out in principle and ...

Monday, June 30, 2025

Talk it out

Time again for an open thread. Now’s your chance to get that off-topic comment off your chest. The burning philosophical or theological q...

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Solidarity

The ideal to strive for in international relations is what in the natural law tradition and Catholic social teaching is called solidarity . ...

Monday, June 23, 2025

Preventive war and the U.S. attack on Iran

Last week I argued that the U.S. should stay out of Israel’s war with Iran. America has now entered the war by bombing three facilities as...

Saturday, June 21, 2025

Shields on Aquinas on the Unmoved Mover

My review of Daniel Shields’ important recent book Nature and Nature’s God: A Philosophical and Scientific Defense of Aquinas’s Unmoved Mov...

Tuesday, June 17, 2025

The U.S. should stay out of Israel’s war with Iran (Updated)

Let me say at the outset that I agree with the view that it would be bad for the Iranian regime to acquire a nuclear weapon. How close it i...

Monday, June 16, 2025

Immortal Souls in Religion & Liberty

In the Summer 2025 issue of the Acton Institute’s Religion & Liberty , David Weinberger kindly reviews my book Immortal Souls: A Treatis...

Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Riots should be suppressed swiftly and harshly

In an article at Postliberal Order , I argue that the Trump administration has the right under natural law to intervene to suppress riots of...

Friday, June 6, 2025

MacIntyre on Hegel on human action

Phrenology was the pseudoscience that aimed to link psychological traits to the morphology of the skull. Physiognomy was the pseudoscience ...

Friday, May 30, 2025

Lamont on Trump, abortion, and Ukraine

In an article at One Peter Five , philosopher John Lamont warns his fellow Catholics and traditionalists that on issues such as abortion and...

What is ideology?

What does the pejorative use of “ideology” amount to, and what is it to be an “ideologue”? I consider some common accounts before developin...

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)

Alasdair MacIntyre has died. His classic After Virtue had a tremendous effect on me when I was an undergrad and still in my atheist days, g...

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About Me

Edward Feser: I am a writer and philosopher living in Los Angeles. I teach philosophy at Pasadena City College. My primary academic research interests are in the philosophy of mind, moral and political philosophy, and philosophy of religion. I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.

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