Thomistic Personalism: A Steinian Perspective | Dr Robert McNamara | Thomistic Institute

A lecture by Dr Robert McNamara of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, on: Thomistic Personalism: A Steinian Perspective Abstract: Reality is divided by a fundamental dichotomy separating persons and (mere) things. It is a metaphysical distinction with defined ethical import, both of which are captured well by Thomas Aquinas when he concludes that the person is ‘that which is most perfect in all nature.’ Edith Stein takes up this objective centrality and reintroduces what she calls an ‘Augustinian way’ of philosophizing, by attending to personal subjectivity via the phenomenological mode of investigation. The result is a form of Thomistic personalism that is attentive both to the substantiality of the person and to the subjectivity of the person, a personalism that avoids the many problems emerging from the modern ‘turn to the subject’ while also judiciously encompassing the genuine insights of this ‘Copernican revolution.’ I propose that only such a personalism can provide an anthropology fitting for the needs of the contemporary era, and indeed adequate to the singular being, nature, and life of the human person. Dr. Robert McNamara is an associate professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, associate member of faculty at the International Theological Institute and the Maryvale Institute, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland. Robert researches anthropological and metaphysical questions in medieval and phenomenological thinkers, especially as both bear reference to philosophical personalism. He has studied physics and computing, philosophy and theology, and received his Ph.D. for research in the thought of Edith Stein and Thomas Aquinas. Robert is originally from Galway, Ireland and now lives in Steubenville, Ohio (though currently residing in Gaming, Austria) with his wife, Caroline, and their four children, Vivian, John, Catherine, and Oran. The lecture was hosted by the Thomistic Institute, Oxford.