W. Norris Clarke's Relational Metaphysics: Being and Person

Winkowitsch, John (Author); The Catholic University of America (Degree granting institution); Doolan, Gregory (Thesis advisor); Gorman, Michael (Committee member); Brent, James (Committee member); Galvin, John (Committee member); Henderson, Phillip (Committee member); (author); (Thesis advisor); (Committee member); (Degree grantor)

Degree Awarded: Ph.D. Philosophy. The Catholic University of America

383

Philosophy; Metaphysics; Aquinas, Esse, Person, Phenomenology, Thomism, Whitehead

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:53766

http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:53766

Aquinas; Esse; Person; Phenomenology; Thomism; Whitehead

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

William Norris Clarke firmly placed “person” at the core of his philosophy. He spent much of his career attempting to develop a Thomistic metaphysics that took into account phenomenological insights into the nature of person as relational. His life-long philosophical project was an attempt to articulate a Thomistically-inspired relational metaphysics that united the scholastic notion of person as substance with the phenomenological notion of person as relation. The final result of Clarke’s creative retrieval of Thomas Aquinas was, in his own words, the personalization of being itself from within Thomistic metaphysics, such that the ultimate meaning of existence is person-to-person gift and the ultimate key to the mystery of existence is interpersonal love.This dissertation traces the development of Clarke’s system of relational metaphysics and considers the extent to which the works of Thomas played a role in that development. The strictly chronological structure of the dissertation is divided into two parts and loosely organized around the main themes that Clarke himself identified as the primary pillars of his Thomistically-inspired relational metaphysics. The first part answers the question: What does it mean to be real? Clarke’s answer involves four principal themes. The unrestricted dynamism of the human spirit is the underlying presupposition of Clarke’s entire system of relational metaphysics, and upon this foundation are built three basic pillars of reality: the participation structure of the universe, existence as a dynamic act of presence, and action as the self-manifestation of inner being. The second part answers the question: What does it mean to be a human person? Clarke’s answer involves three principal themes. Beginning with persons as the supreme value in the universe, Clarke develops his own Christian philosophy of the person while incorporating the good as goal that draws all existence into act.In order to help determine the degree to which these various themes were inspired by Thomas, I cataloged every cited reference to Thomas in the published works of Clarke and organized them into Appendix B. This allowed me to identify to an even greater degree how much each particular theme was inspired by Thomas himself.

Dissertation

Winkowitsch_cua_0043A_10732.pdf

The Catholic University of America

2016