Articles by René Ardell Fehr
Self-published, 2023
Thomas Aquinas's claim that not all malicious sins proceed from an agent's vice is examined. Firs... more Thomas Aquinas's claim that not all malicious sins proceed from an agent's vice is examined. First, I summarize Thomas's arguments to the effect that all vicious actions are malicious, so as to provide the relevant backdrop. Second, I explain the two ways in which malicious and non-vicious sins arise: sickly bodily dispositions, and the removal of a restraint. Third, I explore the characteristics of malicious and non-vicious sins, and how these differ from those malicious sins that proceed from one's vice. Ultimately, I conclude that malicious and non-vicious sins constitute a mean of sorts between sins of passion and vicious sins.
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Res Philosophica 100, no. 2, 2023
This paper addresses three interpretive errors that are common with respect to Thomas Aquinas's u... more This paper addresses three interpretive errors that are common with respect to Thomas Aquinas's understanding of malice. The first error concerns the interpretation of malice as consisting in the preference or choice of a lesser good over a greater good. I argue that malice instead consists in a disorder of the will, and where that disorder results in the choice of a spiritual evil. The second error occurs when one charges Thomas with inconsistency: it is claimed that Thomas's view of the will is incompatible with malicious actions. I argue that such claims rest on a mistaken understanding of the role of choice in Thomas's thought. The third error is one of translation: some scholars caution against translating Thomas's malitia as "malice". The reasons that are usually given for this view do not hold up to scrutiny.
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New Blackfriars 102, no. 1100, 2021
The Third Man argument, as it originated in Plato's Parmenides, is unjustly read into Aristotle. ... more The Third Man argument, as it originated in Plato's Parmenides, is unjustly read into Aristotle. The Parmenides argument is briefly examined, followed by an analysis of the relevant Aristotelian texts, with a special emphasis on the commentary of Thomas Aquinas. Three different versions of Aristotle's Third Man argument are identified, of which none contain the essential infinite regress that characterizes the Parmenides argument. Finally, current scholarship on the Third Man argument, especially as it pertains to Aristotle, is reviewed. In this respect, I note that the overwhelming tendency has been to identify Aristotle's Third Man argument with that of the Parmenides, in spite of the fact that Aristotle only once articulates his version of the Third Man argument, and that this articulation is vastly different from its Parmenides counterpart. I conclude that contemporary Third Man scholarship must take this into account.
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Book Reviews by René Ardell Fehr
Science et Esprit 73/3, 2021
Review of Peter Karl Koritansky, Engaging the Skeptic: Essays Addressing the Modern Secularist's ... more Review of Peter Karl Koritansky, Engaging the Skeptic: Essays Addressing the Modern Secularist's Objections to a Catholic Worldview, Ottawa: Justin Press (2018), pp. 181. Published in Science et Esprit 73/3 (2021), pp. 435-438.
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Science et Esprit 72/3, 2020
Review of Gaven Kerr, Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation, New York: Oxford University Press ... more Review of Gaven Kerr, Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation, New York: Oxford University Press (2019), pp. viii and 252. Published in Science et Esprit 72/3 (2020), pp. 399-402.
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Science et Esprit 72/1-2, 2020
Review of Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biologi... more Review of Edward Feser, Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science, Neunkirchen-Seelscheid: Editiones Scholasticae (2019), pp. 515. Published in Science et Esprit 72/1-2 (2020), pp. 231-234.
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Ph.D. Diss. (DUC 2022) by René Ardell Fehr
This project aims to examine the relationship between vice and malice according to Thomas Aquinas... more This project aims to examine the relationship between vice and malice according to Thomas Aquinas. The first chapter begins with a consideration of the categories before moving on to disposition and habitus. Habitus, it is argued, is a disposition that resides in certain powers of the soul that is difficult to change; they make action prompt, easy, and pleasurable, and their objects connatural to their subjects. The second chapter takes up unsuitable habitus: vices. The features of habitus are applied to vice, and the relationship of vice to virtue and to the mean, the connection of the vices, and the generation, strengthening, weakening, and corruption of vices are examined. The third chapter focuses upon that to which vicious habitus are directed: sinful actions. Here, sin is examined as a philosophical concept as well as as an act. The fourth chapter considers malice, which is an interior cause of sinful actions, consisting as they do in a disordered will that loves some temporal good more than a spiritual good, and which, when the temporal and spiritual good are perceived to be incompatible with each other, result in an agent who knowingly chooses a spiritual evil so that the temporal good may be obtained. Malice is contrasted with the exterior causes of sinful action, as well as with the other interior causes of sinful action: ignorance and passion. Special emphasis is placed upon the roles of intention and choice in the malicious action, as well as upon the role of evil in the choice that characterizes malice. The groundwork being laid, the fifth and final chapter considers the relationship between vice and malice, which consists in large part of an examination of Thomas's two claims that, first, all sins arising from one's vicious habitus are malicious, and, second, that not all malicious sins are from a vicious habitus. In the former case, this is in part because a vicious habitus makes its object connatural to the sinning agent. In the latter case, this is because malicious sins need not be committed in the manner which vicious sins are: promptly, easily, and pleasurably. Thus, for Thomas, the relationship between vice and malice is characterized differently whether one approaches malice from the side of vice, or vice from the side of malice. I argue that the result is a progression of vice and malice in the sinning agent, according as one's appetites are more or less inclined to their respective objects.
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M.A. Thesis (DUC 2018) by René Ardell Fehr
In this thesis I conduct exegesis on the Fifth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas. I begin
by showing the... more In this thesis I conduct exegesis on the Fifth Way of St. Thomas Aquinas. I begin
by showing the historical and textual context of the argument, and proceed by providing
my own translation and careful analysis. I argue that the Fifth Way revolves around
unknowing natural bodies operating for ends, and that these operations arise naturally from them. The thrust of the argument is that this cannot be due to chance, but only from something knowing the ends in question and which directs said natural bodies. I also argue that the Fifth Way is not an Intelligent Design argument as they are commonly understood today, and I examine the archer analogy that Thomas makes use of. Further, I compare the Fifth Way to five similar arguments found in Thomas's body of work. Finally, I argue for the value and limits of the Fifth Way.
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Other by René Ardell Fehr
This is a reference work which provides an explicit structuring of the Summa Theologiae according... more This is a reference work which provides an explicit structuring of the Summa Theologiae according to St. Thomas Aquinas, taken from the preambles to the questions.
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Articles by René Ardell Fehr
Book Reviews by René Ardell Fehr
Ph.D. Diss. (DUC 2022) by René Ardell Fehr
M.A. Thesis (DUC 2018) by René Ardell Fehr
by showing the historical and textual context of the argument, and proceed by providing
my own translation and careful analysis. I argue that the Fifth Way revolves around
unknowing natural bodies operating for ends, and that these operations arise naturally from them. The thrust of the argument is that this cannot be due to chance, but only from something knowing the ends in question and which directs said natural bodies. I also argue that the Fifth Way is not an Intelligent Design argument as they are commonly understood today, and I examine the archer analogy that Thomas makes use of. Further, I compare the Fifth Way to five similar arguments found in Thomas's body of work. Finally, I argue for the value and limits of the Fifth Way.
Other by René Ardell Fehr
by showing the historical and textual context of the argument, and proceed by providing
my own translation and careful analysis. I argue that the Fifth Way revolves around
unknowing natural bodies operating for ends, and that these operations arise naturally from them. The thrust of the argument is that this cannot be due to chance, but only from something knowing the ends in question and which directs said natural bodies. I also argue that the Fifth Way is not an Intelligent Design argument as they are commonly understood today, and I examine the archer analogy that Thomas makes use of. Further, I compare the Fifth Way to five similar arguments found in Thomas's body of work. Finally, I argue for the value and limits of the Fifth Way.