Anselm Ramelow | Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology (original) (raw)

Papers by Anselm Ramelow

The Thomist , 2008

Review of Persons: The Difference between `Someone' and `Something,’ by Robert Spaemann (South Ox... more Review of Persons: The Difference between `Someone' and `Something,’ by Robert Spaemann (South Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), in: The Thomist 72 (2008): 317-321.

History of the concept of the Will from from Boethius to Kant [Historisches Wörterbuch der Phil... more History of the concept of the Will from from Boethius to Kant

[Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie vol. 12 (Basel: Schwabe, 2005): 769-783.]

Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte , 2001

The article explores the history of the concept of impossibility from early Greek thought to the ... more The article explores the history of the concept of impossibility from early Greek thought to the present day. Unlike the history of the concept of possibility, impossibility as such has never been looked at by itself. The article focuses therefore on actual occurences throughout the ages. It is shown, how under theological premises (God's omnipotence and the understanding of miracles, as well as logical speculation) the concept of impossibility receives a special interest from early Christianity through the middle ages. In the modern age, impossibility is also explored as epistemic category. Existentialism gives the concept a new dynamic. Throughout the ages, the idea of impossibility has been involved in foundational speculations of philosophy.

Middle Knowledge as a proposal for divine foreknowledge of free acts may be troubled by its self-... more Middle Knowledge as a proposal for divine foreknowledge of free acts may be troubled by its self-application. What early Jesuits called "reflexive middle-knowledge" (scientia media reflexa) may have deterministic consequences for God's own acts.
[In: Wort und Wahrheit, Fragen der Erkenntnistheorie; Festschrift für Harald Schöndorf SJ (Münchener philosophische Studien), ed. Ulrich Lehner and Ronald Tacelli (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag, 2019), 223-232.]

One of the many ways of coming to know God takes stock of the miracles attributed to Him in a rel... more One of the many ways of coming to know God takes stock of the miracles attributed to Him in a religious tradition. Though this way has met considerable challenges in the modern age, it remains crucially important. Some religions are based on a miracle (as Christianity is based on the Resurrection of Jesus); others rely on miracles for the authentication of their revelations. But any religion claiming that God is known not only by His creation, but by certain definite acts within this creation (i.e., by a particular revelation) is committed to the way of miracles. Hence, whatever is said about miracles, whether positively or negatively, involves a statement about who God is. For the notion of a God Who works miracles is very different from that of a God Who does not.
[in: God: Reason and Reality, edited by Anselm Ramelow, 303-364. Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 2014.]

“Sacrifice in Hegel and Girard.” In Mimetic Theory and World Religions, edited by Wolfgang Palave... more “Sacrifice in Hegel and Girard.” In Mimetic Theory and World Religions, edited by Wolfgang Palaver and Richard Schenk, 13-62. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2017.

Evangelization and Culture , 2019

Can Computer create? Can we make true makers? Is there creativity in computers? The making of ori... more Can Computer create? Can we make true makers? Is there creativity in computers? The making of original works of arts has various stages. In all of these stages, computers may fail to match human (and divine) making.

Theology and Science , 2018

Reductionist or physicalist theories of mind have been with us for a long time, from the Greek at... more Reductionist or physicalist theories of mind have been with us for a long time, from the Greek atomists perhaps, through Hobbes and all the way to a German 2004 Manifesto that takes its inspiration from neuroscience. 1 The volume of essays to be discussed here focusses on the implications of such neuroscience for the very notion of a self to which a mind would be attributed. Ever since Descartes, this self has been a fundamentum inconcussum of those who would defend an irreducible mind. Still, its existence had been questioned by D. Hume, as well as by S. Freud's suggestion that our conscious self is not really master of its own house. Now such skepticism finds new ammunition in the neuroscientific discovery that there is no center in the brain, hence nothing corresponding to Descartes' "pineal gland" (see, e.g., the article by W. Singer, 26). This is not of mere academic interest, for there are practical implications. For if "we" are an illusion, then a fortiori "our" responsibility or authorship for our actions cannot exist. And what we believe about other entities' mental states has practical consequences as well, as the editors demonstrate with the 17 th century example of cruel vivisections performed by Cartesians on animals (10). While it is hard to see what the new scientific discoveries add in principle to older forms of materialist reductionisms, they certainly invite new reflections. The present volume is the result of an (undated) conference of the Institut für Religionsphilosophische Forschung (IRF) at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, a conference that included neuroscientists, philosophers, and theologians. The volume focusses on the question of the self and does not take a particular stance on the problem; it allows various voices and perspectives to shed light on the problem in their own peculiar ways, without looking for coherence. The collection begins with a more reductionist view, inspired by neuroscientific research (Singer), followed by various (more or less critical) philosophical analyses of the implied arguments (Sager, Müller, Röska-Hardy), as well as reconceptualizations of science that are more open to mind and self (Görnitz, Clayton), including a rethinking of the very notion of causality itself (Mutschler). A more fundamental philosophical reflection is provided by J. Habermas (not usually associated with these questions, but local to Frankfurt). The volume concludes with questions of religious experience as seen in neuroscience, as well as in a Christian and Buddhist perspective (Hans Goller, Klaus Müller, Michael von Brück).

The Modern Mind

Conceptualizing the history of philosophy as envisioned by Kevin Wall, O.P.

Sacred Music: Journal of the Church Music Association of America , 2011

sermon

Communio 45 (2019): 629-636., 2019

Translation of Robert Spaemann's work

Evangelium Vitae – Five Years of Confrontation with the Society, 2001

Translation of Robert Spaemann's work. Evangelium Vitae – Five Years of Confrontation with the S... more Translation of Robert Spaemann's work.
Evangelium Vitae – Five Years of Confrontation with the Society; Proceedings of the Sixth Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life, edited by Juan De Djos Vial Correa and Elio Sgreccia (Rome: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001): 437-451.

Communio, 2019

A systematic synopsis of the thought of Robert Spaemann at the occasion of his death in December ... more A systematic synopsis of the thought of Robert Spaemann at the occasion of his death in December 2018.

This article responds to Thomas Weinandy's account of the consciousness and knowledge of Christ.*... more This article responds to Thomas Weinandy's account of the consciousness and knowledge of Christ.* Deserving of careful consideration, his is a rich and multifaceted proposal on a difficult and complex topic. Some of the complexity is theological in nature, not all of which I will be able to avoid in my response. Still, this response is meant to be primarily philosophical in nature.

Nova et Vetera, 2007

An extended review of Robert Miner's work on Vico and the history of early modern philosophy.

Angelicum, 2008

In the tradition of Aquinas and Aristotle, language has a tripartite structure. Many of the moder... more In the tradition of Aquinas and Aristotle, language has a tripartite structure. Many of the modern approaches to language can be seen as reductions of this tripartite structure. The talk will explore what is getting lost in these reductions, and how the tripartite structure provides a more adequate model. It will also become clear that the respective reductions have direct implications for the role of language in a theology of revelation.