"Esse, Vivere, Intelligere: A Triad at the Heart of the Philosophical Tradition"
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2025 Annual National Meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (ACPA)
Call for Papers
“Esse, Vivere, Intelligere: A Triad at the Heart of the Philosophical Tradition”
Conference Location: University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN
Conference Date: 30th October-2nd November 2025. [Date is subject to change to earlier in October 2025 due to Notre Dame football schedule. The finalization of the date will be announced as soon as possible.]
Elected President: D.C. Schindler
Deadline for Submission: 30 April 2025. Please note that one must be an ACPA member in order to submit a paper.
Send all submissions to: acpa@acpaweb.org
Conference Theme Announcement:
What it means to know and what it means to be are arguably two of the most fundamental questions in the history of philosophy. As Aristotle put it (and Heidegger reminded us), “the question which was raised of old and is raised now and always, and is always the subject of doubt” is the question “what is being?” (Meta., VII.1.1028b3-4). The question concerning the nature and the possibility of knowledge, which we perhaps associate more directly with the modern and postmodern periods, is in truth just as ancient as the question of being. But the question concerning life has had less direct attention: What does it mean to live? There is a di_erence between explaining the nature of life in itself, and simply expounding the activities that characterize life. According to Aquinas, “living is not an accidental but an essential predicate” (ST 1.18.2). There is no doubt something mysterious about the act of living, and it would seem a worthy endeavor for the members of the ACPA to explore this mystery and how it bears on other concerns central to the philosophical tradition.
A host of questions springs up from the articulation of the series, esse, vivere, intelligere, any one of which would warrant sustained philosophical reflection: Does this indicate a hierarchy of being? Is each a kind of intensification of the one before, and if so, in what sense? Does living illuminate the meaning of being, as the famous phrase of Aquinas (quoting Aristotle) suggests: “vivere viventibus est esse”? Does knowing, by analogy, illuminate the nature of living? Is knowing an intensification of life, as again Aristotle suggests (“The actuality of thought is life,” Meta., XII.7.1072b26)? Clearly, being is a necessary condition for living and knowing. Can we also say that living is a necessary condition for knowing? In other words, is there such a thing as “artificial intelligence”? What about “artificial life”? If there is a connection between living and knowing, what does this reveal about the nature of knowing? What does it mean to say that, in God, these three are identical? Does this divine identity bear on the meaning of each, and in what way? One of the central assumptions of the classical philosophical tradition is the “sameness,” the ultimate unity, of being and knowing. What exactly does this mean, and does living have anything to do with this connection? Do moral acts regarding life and death—for example, cloning on the one hand or assisted suicide on the other—bear on the philosophical life (as Plato’s Phaedo suggests)? In short, what does it mean to live, and what insights might an exploration of this question open up in relation to the more familiar questions regarding being and knowing?
In addition to these mostly metaphysical inquiries, there are also important historical questions related to this theme: In what sense does this series of notions, which came to be called the “noetic triad,” derive from Plato, or even earlier thinkers? Does the triad undergo an evolution of meaning in the passage from Middle Platonism, to Neo Platonism, and then to the Christian tradition? More specifically, what presence does this theme have in Aquinas’s appropriation of Neoplatonic thought, witnessed above all in his commentaries on the Divine Names and on the Book of Causes? What role does the triad play in the development of Trinitarian doctrine? What place does the triad have in the interpretation of man as “microcosmos” and as “imago dei”? What is the relation between the “noetic triad” tradition and the scholastic treatises on the divine names, the essential attributes of God, and the “pure perfections”?
For more information regarding the annual ACPA Conference, please visit the conference homepage at: https://acpaweb.org/index.php/2025-annual-meeting/
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September 15, 2025, 9:00am EST
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