The Wrong Questions of Modern Action Theory | Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P.

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4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

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Summary

Fr. Bonaventure Chapman analyzes the flaws in modern action theory, using Wittgenstein and Anscombe to argue against seeking intention in either physical or psychological states, and advocating instead for examining the description of intentional actions.

This lecture was given on October 5th, 2024, at Dominican House of Studies.

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About the Speaker:

Father Bonaventure Chapman, O.P. (Catholic University of America) was born and raised in Buffalo, NY. Father Bonaventure entered the Order of Preachers (Province of St. Joseph), in 2011 and was ordained a priest in 2017, having completed theology degrees at the Dominican House of Studies, as well as a Ph.L from The Catholic University of America. After teaching philosophy at Providence College, RI, he completed a Ph.D in philosophy at Catholic University in 2023 and joined the faculty of the School of Philosophy in Fall 2023. Father Bonaventure’s dissertation, “The Crusian Core of Kant’s Critical Project,” investigates the influence of philosophical Pietism, especially that of Christian August Crusius, on Immanuel Kant’s critical metaphysics and ethics. His primary research interest is eighteenth-century German philosophical Pietism as developed by Crusius and his beloved teacher Adolph Friedrich Hoffmann, and more broadly on early modern German metaphysics and ethics. For relaxation, Father Bonaventure serves as Assistant Student Master at the Dominican House of Studies, enjoys viewing great American art, sailing, and finding American toads whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Keywords: Action Theory, Anscombe, Ethics, Intention, Modern Moral Philosophy, Robert Chisholm, Wittgenstein, Wrong Questions

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast.
0:06.0	Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual tradition in the university, the church, and the wider public square.
0:12.0	The lectures on this podcast are organized by university students at Tomistic Institute chapters around the world.
0:19.0	To learn more and to attend these events, visit us at to mystic institute.org.
0:24.6	This is wrong questions of modern action theory.
0:28.4	So remember we started with, let's go, oh, I say before we get this thing, because I like,
0:33.3	I tend to think that, I mean, ideas don't interest me that much, even as the philosopher. People do, because I think that ideas have to be attached to people.
0:40.3	I have this weird view.
0:41.7	So I like seeing people.
0:43.8	So when I read books, I care about what they look like, who they are, the history and sort of thing.
0:46.9	So you haven't, you've been talking about Anskone, but you probably never met her or talked, you know, sort of thing, even though she was here at the House of Studies,
0:54.7	she would have prayed in that chapel. She slept in the Anskolm suite in the front of the house.
0:58.5	It's not called the Anskirtskete except by some of us. But so she stayed here. So she was
1:02.9	walking these grounds. So it's kind of like a philosophical saint sort of thing. But just so you get
1:06.4	a feel for who this person is, just you can see, like, get a sort of thing. If you look over on the screen, that's her as a young woman with Peter Geach. She was married to another philosopher,
1:15.5	a great philosopher, Peter Geach, who was kind of overshadowed by her, so it's like Mr. and
1:21.8	Mrs. Anscombe. So I might have to do a conference at some point. There's them. The young, they had seven kids. They would let them run around Oxford with signs on them that said, don't feed me.
1:29.4	I'm a geach.
1:30.6	They have, there's plenty of stories about Oxford.
1:33.4	You can read all of this kind of stuff with seven children, but also full-time philosophers.
1:38.2	There's them, of course, later life.
1:40.7	That's my favorite, Pat, perhaps my favorite picture of her. That's her giving a piece in the University of Navarre in Spain, I think, on human essence,
	...

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