Summaries

Peter A. Redpath, THE NATURE OF COMMON SENSE AND HOW WE CAN USE COMMON SENSE TO RENEW THE WEST, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 455-484

Since most pressing today on a global scale is to be able to unite religion, philosophy, and science into parts of a coherent civilizational whole, and since the ability to unite a multitude into parts of a coherent whole essentially requires understanding the natures of the things and the way they can or cannot be essentially related, this paper chiefly considers precisely why the modern world has been unable to effect this union. In so doing, it argues that the chief cause of this inability to unite these cultural natures has been because the contemporary world, and the West especially, has lost its understanding of philosophy and science and has intentionally divorced from essential connection to wisdom. Finally, it proposes a common sense way properly to understand these natures, reunite them to wisdom, and revive Western and global civilization.

Robert A. Delfino, THE CULTURAL DANGERS OF SCIENTISM AND COMMON SENSE SOLUTIONS, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 485-496

In his article the author begins by defining what is meant by ‘science’ and ‘scientism.’ Second, he discusses some of the cultural dangers of scientism. Third, he gives several arguments why scientism should be rejected and why science needs metaphysics. Fourth, and finally, he concludes by noting how some of the questions and arguments raised in the article can be appropriated to help the general public understand the limits of science and the dangers of scientism.

Richard Fafara, A POLISH POPE AND AN AMERICAN PRESIDENT: 1979-1989, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 497-522

The author examines the shared religious and intellectual conviction, toughness, and an abhorrence of communism of Pope John Paul II and President Reagan that contributed to the demise of that system in Poland. The author discusses similarities between these two men; their approaches to communism; their meetings beginning in 1982; the hypothesis of a “holy alliance,” and concludes that based on available evidence to date, a strong case can be made that the Pope and Reagan jointly did more than any others to bring about the fall of communism, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.

Christopher P. Klofft, IMAGE AND IMAGO: A RATIONAL DEFENSE OF A THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY OF GENDER, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 523-535

Modern and Post-Modern discourse espouses a subjective understanding of gender. As a result, confusing new problems erupt in discussions as practical as marriage and as theoretical as questions of human meaning and purpose. Catholic theology, drawing primarily from the personalistic approach to gender contained in Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, provides a consistent account of gender that is also compatible with the best evidence available in support of a purely rational approach. A defense of this approach could lead to a better understanding of ourselves and our relationships, to the betterment of culture as a whole.

Alphonso Lopez Pinto, COMMON SENSE APPROACH TO THE RESTORATION OF SACRED ART, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 537-545

In this paper, Sacred Art is examined as an imitation of historia. Historia interprets historical human events as empirical, material and real while seeking to understand their moral and spiritual significance. It is from historia that sacred art can be understood, where Christ and the saints are portrayed in the integrity of their human natures united to symbols representing Divinity or grace in order to present a visual/contemplative narrative. Mortimer Adler rightly sees that the vision of the beautiful is inherently contemplative, thus sacred iconography provides a language that can form the common sense of men and women.

Michael B. Mangini, Esq., COMMON SENSE BIBLICAL HERMENEUTICS, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 547-562

Since the noetics of moderate realism provide a firm foundation upon which to build a hermeneutic of common sense, in the first part of his paper the author adopts Thomas Howe’s argument that the noetical aspect of moderate realism is a necessary condition for correct, universally valid biblical interpretation, but he adds, “insofar as it gives us hope in discovering the true meaning of a given passage.” In the second part, the author relies on John Deely’s work to show how semiotics may help interpreters go beyond meaning and seek the significance of the persons, places, events, ideas, etc., of which the meaning of the text has presented as objects to be interpreted. It is in significance that the unity of Scripture is found. The chief aim is what every passage of the Bible signifies. Considered as a genus, Scripture is composed of many parts/species that are ordered to a chief aim. This is the structure of common sense hermeneutics; therefore in the third part the author restates Peter Redpath’s exposition of Aristotle and St. Thomas’s ontology of the one and the many and analogously applies it to the question of how an exegete can discern the proper significance and faithfully interpret the word of God.

Peter J. Mango, PHILOSOPHICAL TENSIONS AMONG LEADERSHIP, EFFICIENCY, COMMUNITY—AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE ACADEMY, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 563-578

In any age, at any given time, there are leaders who fail to lead by example. The desires which motivate them, and the means they deploy to cover for this fact, can weave paths of destruction with social costs borne by those who can least afford them—including within the academy. Taking the right steps—both professionally and spiritually—at least theoretically make this avoidable. This article addresses select topics in light of ancient perspectives and recent phenomena alike, including those of: the harmony of Thomistic personalism with stakeholder theory and transformational leadership, respectively; the relationship of Augustinian realism to cognitive dissonance theory and the composition of boards.

A. William McVey, THOMISTIC SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP AND COMMON SENSE TRIAD OF ORGANIZATIONAL HARMONY, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 579-593

This paper examines the nature of organizational leadership from the perspective of common sense principles. The principles are established by means of a Thomistic metaphysics of the One and the Many, i.e., the Thomistic teaching of the opposition between Unity and Multiplicity. It is this Thomistic metaphysical philosophical science that studies the distinct kind (genus) of an organization and its specific common sense principles of organizational leadership. This common sense leadership is a harmonious blending of psychology, ethics and operational behavior.

Margaret J. Obrovac, F.S.P., TRANSFORMED IN CHRIST, THE MASTER OF UNCOMMON SENSE, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 595-603

Both definitive and enigmatic, the figure of Christ, the Master-Teacher emerges from the pages of the Gospel. What does he reveal? How does he reveal it? In an age that markets transformation as a commodity, what promise of rebirth does he offer us as persons and societies? What key implication does this hold for the unification of the sciences, as well as of art and science? The unique insight of Blessed James Alberione, SSP, sheds light on what has lain hidden in plain sight: what Jesus’ personal profile, ‘Way, Truth, and Life,’ can mean for our cynical yet searching times and particularly for us, who now find ourselves immersed in the Church’s new evangelization.

Peter A. Redpath, THE ESSENTIAL CONNECTION BETWEEN COMMON SENSE PHILOSOPHY AND LEADERSHIP EXCELLENCE, Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 605-617

This article argues that, strictly speaking, from its inception with the ancient Greeks and for all time, philosophy and science are identical and consist in an essential relationship between a specific type of understanding of the human person as possessed of an intellectual soul capable of being habituated and a psychologically-independent composite whole, or organization. It maintains, further, that absence of either one of the extremes of this essential relationship cannot be philosophy/science and, if mistaken for such and applied to the workings of cultural institutions, will generate anarchy within human culture and make leadership excellence impossible to achieve. Finally, it argues that only a return to this “common sense” understanding of philosophy can generate the leadership excellence that can save the West from its current state of cultural and civilizational anarchy.

Fr. Pawel Tarasiewicz, THE COMMON SENSE PERSONALISM OF ST. JOHN PAUL II (KAROL WOJTYLA), Studia Gilsoniana 3:supplement (2014): 619-634

The article aims at showing that the philosophical personalism of Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla) stems from the common sense approach to reality. First, it presents Karol Wojtyla as a framer of the Lublin Philosophical School, to which he was affiliated for 24 years before being elected Pope John Paul II; it shows Wojtyla’s role in establishing this original philosophical School by his contribution to its endorsement of Thomism, its way of doing philosophy, and its classically understood personalism. Secondly, it identifies a purpose of Wojtyla’s use of the phenomenological method in his personalism and reconstructs Wojtyla’s possible answer to the question whether there is a link between moral sense and common sense in human experience.