Featuring our all–time most–listened talks.

Most Popular Talks

This lecture was delivered for the Student Leadership Conference on 7/2/2021.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the Speaker:
Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. is the Director of the Thomistic Institute at the Angelicum. He did his doctoral studies at Oxford University, and has research interests in metaphysics, Christology, Trinitarian theology, and the theology of grace. His books include The Incarnate Lord, A Thomistic Study in Christology (2015) and The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism (2017). He is co-editor of the academic journal Nova et Vetera and in 2011 was appointed an ordinary member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. In 2019 Fr. White was named a McDonald Agape Foundation Distinguished Scholar.

What Is Christian Grace? Aquinas On Grace and Theological Virtues | Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P.

This lecture was delivered for the Civitas Dei Summer Fellowship on 6/14/2021. Slides for this lecture can be found at https://tinyurl.com/zfa34prs.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the Speaker:
Prof. Philip Bess (University of Notre Dame) lectures widely, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: City Baseball Magic: Plain Talk and Uncommon Sense About Cities and Baseball Parks (Knothole, 1991); Inland Architecture: Subterranean Essays on Moral Order and Formal Order in Chicago (Interalia / Design, 2000); and Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architecture, Urbanism, and the Sacred (ISI, 2006). He holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Whittier College, a graduate degree in church history from Harvard, and a graduate degree in architecture from the University of Virginia. In 2013-14 he was a William E. Simon Visiting Fellow in Religion and Public Life in Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions; in May 2015 he received the degree Doctor of Humane Letters honoris causa from The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology in Berkeley, California; and he was a Fall 2019 Fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study.

Cities And Human Flourishing | Prof. Philip Bess

This lecture was delivered on June 18, 2021 as part of the third annual Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium: Chance and Indeterminacy in the Natural World. Slides for this lecture can be found at: https://tinyurl.com/4643mb4v

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Dr. Valerie Plaus is Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, where she teaches calculus-based physics classes designed for pre-engineering and chemistry majors. She taught physics and mathematics at universities in Ohio, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin before coming to Franciscan in Fall 2018. She completed her masters and Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph. Her primary research interests are in supersymmetry and Higgs physics. Aside from physics, she is also passionate about swing and blues-idiom dancing and hiking.

The (De)Evolution of Determinism in Physics | Dr. Valerie Plaus

This talk was given on June 24th, 2021 at the 10th Annual Aquinas Philosophy Workshop, on Knowledge, Truth, and Wisdom in Aquinas.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the Speaker:

Fr. James Dominic Brent, O.P. was born and raised in Michigan. He pursued his undergraduate and graduate studies in Philosophy, and completed his doctorate in Philosophy at Saint Louis University on the epistemic status of Christian beliefs according to Saint Thomas Aquinas. He has articles in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Natural Theology, in the Oxford Handbook of Thomas Aquinas on “God’s Knowledge and Will”, and an article forthcoming on “Thomas Aquinas” in the Oxford Handbook of the Epistemology of Theology. He earned his STL from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, and was ordained a priest in the same year. He taught in the School of Philosophy at The Catholic University of America from 2010- 2014, and spent the year of 2014-2015 doing full time itinerant preaching on college campuses across the United States.

Modes of Knowledge: Apprehension, Judgment, Reasoning | Fr. James Brent, O.P.

This talk was given on June 25, 2021 as part of the 10th Annual Aquinas Philosophy Workshop, "Knowledge, Truth, and Wisdom in Aquinas." The handout for the talk can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/phksp393

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the Speaker:
Edward Feser is Professor of Philosophy at Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California.  He has been a Visiting Assistant Professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.  He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Santa Barbara, an M.A. in religion from the Claremont Graduate School, and a B.A. in philosophy and religious studies from the California State University at Fullerton.

Called by National Review “one of the best contemporary writers on philosophy,” Feser is the author of On Nozick, Philosophy of Mind, Locke, The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism, Aquinas, Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction, Neo-Scholastic Essays, Five Proofs of the Existence of God, and Aristotle's Revenge, the co-author of By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment, and the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hayek and Aristotle on Method and Metaphysics.  He is also the author of many academic articles.  His primary academic research interests are in metaphysics, natural theology, the philosophy of mind, and moral and political philosophy.

Feser also writes on politics and culture, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective.  In this connection, his work has appeared in such publications as The American, The American Conservative, The American Mind, Catholic Herald, Catholic World Report, City Journal, The Claremont Review of Books, Crisis, First Things, Liberty, National Review, New Oxford Review, Public Discourse, Reason, TCS Daily, and the Times Literary Supplement.

He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and six children.

Truth as Transcendental: Ontological Foundations | Dr. Edward Feser

This lecture was delivered at the University of Arizona on September 14, 2021. The handout can be found at https://tinyurl.com/4tj4vebb.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Gregory T. Doolan received his B.A. in political theory from Georgetown University in 1993 and his Ph.D. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in 2003. He taught philosophy at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C. from 2004–05 and joined the faculty of the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in 2005. Dr. Doolan’s research interest is in the area of Aquinas’s metaphysics; in recent years, his focus has been on Aquinas’s account of the Aristotelian categories of being. A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Doolan currently lives in Washington, D.C. with his wife and three children.

Why Should We Believe God Exists? | Prof. Gregory Doolan

This talk was given on June 26th, 2021 at the 10th Annual Aquinas Philosophy Workshop: Knowledge, Truth, and Wisdom in Aquinas. The handout can be found at https://tinyurl.com/yv5by7f5

For information on upcoming Thomistic Institute events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Robert C. (“Rob”) Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught for 33 years. M. A. Oxford, Ph.D. UCLA. He is the author or co-author of four books, including: Realism Regained (Oxford University Press, 2000), and The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics, with Timothy H. Pickavance (Wiley-Blackwell, 2017). He is the co-editor (with George Bealer) of The Waning of Materialism (Oxford University Press, 2010), and co-editor (with Nicholas Teh and William Simpson) of Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science (Routledge, 2018). He has been working recently on an Aristotelian interpretation of quantum theory, on defending and articulating Thomism in contemporary terms, and on arguments for classical theism.

On the Union of the Knower with the Known | Prof. Robert Koons

This talk was given on September 20, 2021 at Vanderbilt University.

For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the speaker:
Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, O.P., is a member of the Saint Cecilia Congregation of Dominican Sisters of Nashville, TN. Currently, she teaches Theology at Aquinas College in Nashville and assists with the theological formation of the newest members of the religious congregation. She studied theology at the Angelicum (The Pontifical University of St. Thomas) in Rome, Italy.

What Can an Adulteress Teach Us about Happiness? | Sr. Jane Dominic Laurel, O.P.

This talk was given at the University of Wisconsin on September 29, 2021.

For information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org.

About the Speaker:
W. Matthews Grant is Professor and Chair in the Department of Philosophy at University of St. Thomas (MN), and Associate Editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly. His articles have focused on Aquinas and the Philosophy of God, particularly issues having to do with the divine nature and God’s relationship to human freedom. His new book Free Will and God’s Universal Causality: The Dual Sources Account, draws resources from Aquinas and the scholastic tradition to explain how libertarian creaturely freedom can be reconciled with robust accounts of God’s providence, grace, and predestination.

The Problem of Evil: Can Evil Disprove God? | Prof. W. Matthews Grant

This lecture was given during a conference on Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers at Ave Maria University, that was held January 26-27, 2018, entitled: "What is Beauty? Is God Beautiful?" This event was hosted by the Aquinas Center and the Thomistic Institute.

What Is Beauty? Is God Beautiful? | Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP

To better serve you, we've switched to a new podcast provider. If you're currently listening on SoundCloud, we invite you to join us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and more!

We’re excited to share that you can also visit our podcast webpage at https://podcast.thomisticinstitute.org, where you can search for speakers, topics, and find episodes that interest you. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait for you to tune in to our latest content!

Most Popular Talks

The Thomistic Institute - WE HAVE MOVED, SEE BIO