Understanding Our Being
      Amazon

Achieving the Good (introduction to forthcoming text on moral philosophy & ethics)

Words of Wisdom
     University of Notre Dame Press
     Amazon

 

Course Syllabi
     PHL 250 - Philosophical Foundations for
        ethical understanding
     PHL 320 - God & Persons

Curriculum Vitae

John W. (Jack) Carlson, Ph.D.

Professor
 

              I join my colleagues in welcoming you to the Creighton University Philosophy Department’s virtual home.  Ours is a department that is diverse, and—for philosophers who have a heavy commitment to teaching—well represented in the world of scholarship.  We pride ourselves in making a strong contribution to the College of Arts and Sciences Core, as well as offering philosophy majors and minors curricula that are both up-to-date and solidly grounded in historical sources.  Whatever their areas of specialization, all of our faculty have strong backgrounds in, and a high degree of respect for, the traditions of Western philosophy.  In my own case, there is a special commitment to what the late Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J., called “integral Christian wisdom”—a tradition of thought emphasizing the interplay of “reason” and “faith” that historically has characterized Catholic institutions, especially those sponsored by the Society of Jesus.

              Much of my classroom time is devoted to teaching God and Persons: Philosophical Reflections; and Philosophical Foundations for Ethical Understanding.  These courses are key elements of the Creighton College Core.  I also regularly teach Biomedical Ethics, a course in the College’s “Senior Perspectives” program frequented by students intending to pursue careers in the health sciences.  Finally, I teach courses for philosophy majors in Metaphysics and the History of Medieval Philosophy.

              In recent years, my scholarly efforts have focused on articulating philosophical elements of the above-mentioned tradition of integral Christian wisdom.  This tradition began with the Ancients (Plato and Aristotle) and then passed through the Fathers of the Church (e.g., St. Augustine) and the masters of Scholasticism (especially St. Thomas Aquinas); it now seeks to renew itself in the context—at times supportive, at times antagonistic—of contemporary intellectual culture.  (Pope John Paul II called for such a development in his 1998 encyclical Fides et ratio, #85.)  Linked pages offer descriptions of three projects related to this renewal of “perennial” thought:  Understanding Our Being (a textbook of speculative philosophy, The Catholic University of America Press, 2008); Achieving the Good (a textbook of moral philosophy and ethics, in preparation for the same press); and Words of Wisdom (a philosophical dictionary, University of Notre Dame Press, 2012).

              From 2005 – 2008 I was privileged to serve as Chair of the Creighton University Philosophy Department.  I arranged for our department to host, for the first time, the annual meeting of the American Catholic Philosophical Association.  Currently (2011-14) I serve on the American Catholic Philosophical Association's executive council.  I also have been active in the professional group, Philosophers in Jesuit Education, serving as its president in 2009-10, and on its executive committee through 2012.