Acta Philosophica

Carrying the Enquiry Forward: On the Philosophical Legacy of Alasdair MacIntyre

Sandra Hernández-González — 2026-10-15

Published on the occasion of the first anniversary of Alasdair MacIntyre's death, this dossier — presented and introduced by Sandra Hernández-González, who also conducts the central interview — carries forward the philosophical dialogue his work invites. That interview with Kelvin Knight covers the key innovations of MacIntyre's Aristotelian ethics and the questions that remain unresolved. Accompanying contributions include MacIntyre's original Common Goods and Political Reasoning research proposal, an introductory essay by Marco D'Avenia, and a piece by Matías Petersen applying MacIntyre's account of human action to the contemporary debate on large language models.

“In the Cave of the Heart”. The Stratifications of Human Nature in the Anthropology of Romano Guardini and Pavel Florensky

Domenico Burzo — 2026-10-15

Approached in a theoretical proximity that crosses geographical and historical distance, both Florensky and Guardini were committed themselves to develop and clarify a Christian worldview, from which arises the centrality of the question about man, his nature and his destiny. Created in the image and likeness of his Creator, the fall into original sin has warped his existential condition, which now appears characterized by the structural necessity of struggle. The awareness of this origin and the will to face the present condition are able to reveal the heart as the ontological centre of the human being, as a point of connection and unification of all his faculties and all the stratifications of human nature. The power and ontological depth of the heart, when reaching the summit of the ascetic journey that everyone is called to undertake, come to shine on the face of man, illuminating the truth of his features.

Ontology and History in Mircea Eliade and Martin Heidegger

Enrico Moncado — 2026-10-15

This paper aims to attempt a comparison between Mircea Eliade’s archaic ontology and Martin Heidegger’s ontology of Dasein. More specifically, the first part of the article structures a comparison between Eliade and Heidegger’s early reflection in terms of methodological similarities and differences. In the second part, after reconstructing the sense and meaning of archaic ontology as expressed in Eliade’s main works, a contrastive comparison is proposed on the function that the concept of ‘repetition’ assumes in the Romanian historian and in the German philosopher. The third part, in conclusion, having established the irreducibility of the two ontological proposals, recovers Eliade’s perspective in order to show the internal criticality of any philosophy that seeks to resolve human existence in historical and temporal immanence.

A Semantic Argument Against the Existence of Universal Properties and Its Implications for the Likelihood of Theism

Emanuel Rutten — 2026-10-15

By conducting a semantic analysis of the reference and meaning of concepts that correspond to properties, and assessing its metaphysical implications, I develop a new argument for theism. Theism is understood here as the thesis that a personal being is the ultimate origin and ground of reality. More specifically, I argue that there are no universally held positive contingent properties and that this absence significantly increases the likelihood of theism. By integrating semantic inquiry with metaphysical reasoning, this paper offers a novel approach that contributes to ongoing debates in metaphysics and philosophy of religion.

Daniele Guastini, Estetica e modernità. Sulle radici medievali dell’arte, il Mulino, Bologna 2026, pp. 408

Ignacio Yarza — 2026-10-15

Giuseppe Barzaghi, Filosofia della grammatica. Dai nomi alle cose e dalle cose ai nomi, Edizioni Studio Domenicano, Bologna 2025, pp. 367

Nicolò Sambo — 2026-10-15

Paul Guyer, The Moral Foundation of Right, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2025 (« Elements in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant »), pp. 74

Irbab Younis Hakim — 2026-10-15

Francesca Marin, Le tre Grazie dell’etica: vulnerabilità, cura e gratitudine, ETS, Pisa 2025, pp. 224

Jorge Martín Montoya Camacho — 2026-10-15

Maddalena Mazzocut-Mis, Claudio Rozzoni, Estetica del teatro : Affettività ed emozioni, Morcelliana, Brescia 2025, pp. 208.

Filippo Cappelli — 2026-10-15

Jingyi Jenny Zhao, Aristotle and Xunzi on Shame, Moral Education, and the Good Life, Oxford University Press, New York 2024, xiii+pp. 178

Aftab Yunis Hakim — 2026-10-15

Elio A. Gallego García, La teología política de John Henry Newman, CEU Ediciones, Madrid 2023, pp. 155

Francisco Javier Calvo Tolosa — 2026-10-15

Giovanni Citrigno, La Legge della misura. Indagine sulla nozione di “misto” nel Filebo di Platone, La Valle del Tempo, Napoli 2025, pp. 206

Ariberto Acerbi — 2026-10-15

John Dewey, Natura umana e condotta. Introduzione alla psicologia sociale, a cura di G. Baggio, M. Piazza, C. Silva, Cortina Ed., Milano 2025, pp. xxviii + 307

Giovanni Citrigno — 2026-10-15

Neri Marsili, Daniele Sgaravatti, Giorgio Volpe (a cura di), Filosofia della conoscenza. Cosa sappiamo, come lo sappiamo, ArchetipoLibri (Clueb), Bologna 2024, pp. 488

Ariberto Acerbi — 2026-10-15

The Philosophical Thought of Jacques Maritain: A Reassessment - Introduction

Antonio Petagine — 2026-10-15

This article investigates Jacques Maritain’s distinction between individuality and personality. Drawing on several contemporary Thomistic thinkers, Maritain conceives individuality as situating a human being within the physical and social world, while he grounds personality in the subsistence of the spiritual soul, underpinning freedom, dignity, and moral agency. This distinction functions as a philosophical critique of both individualism, which reduces the human being to a self-enclosed ego, and collectivism, which subsumes the person into the social whole. The paper first traces the development of this distinction from Maritain’s early works to his mature thought. It then examines the principal objections raised by Thomistic critics, who contend that the distinction misinterprets Aquinas and engenders both theoretical and political challenges. The article concludes by arguing that this distinction is ultimately difficult to defend, both as an interpretation of Thomistic thought and as a theoretical construct in its own right. It also considers whether the most significant insights of Maritain’s personalist philosophy can nevertheless be retained independently of this distinction, notwithstanding the central place that Maritain accords it in his philosophical and political theory.

Ontology and Freedom in Jacques Maritain's Philosophy of the Person

Vittorio Possenti — 2026-10-15

This paper situates Jacques Maritain’s philosophy of the person within the framework of his metaphysics of being.
Firstly, the author emphasises that Maritain based the ontology of the person on subsistence, combining the classical tradition’s legacy with the modern focus on subjectivity. Maritain’s wellknown distinction between individuality and personality plays a central role within this framework, enabling him to articulate the relationship between the material dimension and spiritual vocation. This demonstrates that the person, characterised by interiority and openness to others, cannot be reduced to social functions or mere empirical determinations. Secondly, the
focus shifts to freedom, which Maritain conceives as a dynamism ranging from free will to the ultimate freedom of autonomy and self-giving. This concept is inseparable from the fulfilment of the person. Ordered directly towards God as its ultimate end, the person transcends every created common good, establishing a theocentric vision of humanism and offering criteria with which to critique naturalistic, socio-political, and post-metaphysical reductionisms.

Jacques Maritain and the Distinction between Personality and Individuality

Antonio Petagine — 2026-10-15

This article investigates Jacques Maritain’s distinction between individuality and personality. Drawing on several contemporary Thomistic thinkers, Maritain conceives individuality as situating a human being within the physical and social world, while he grounds personality in the subsistence of the spiritual soul, underpinning freedom, dignity, and moral agency. This distinction functions as a philosophical critique of both individualism, which reduces the human being to a self-enclosed ego, and collectivism, which subsumes the person into the social whole. The paper first traces the development of this distinction from Maritain’s early works to his mature thought. It then examines the principal objections raised by Thomistic critics, who contend that the distinction misinterprets Aquinas and engenders both theoretical and political challenges. The article concludes by considering whether Maritain’s broader conception of the person can be maintained independently of this distinction, despite the central role that Maritain assigns the distinction in his philosophical and political thought

The Thomism of Jacques Maritain

Serge-Thomas Bonino — 2026-10-15

This article presents the concept of "living Thomism" as developed by Jacques Maritain in the 1920s to define his own intellectual project. This concept must be understood in light of the idea of philosophia perennis. This suggests an intention to position oneself in the ongoing line of Thomist commentators, while advancing that tradition by integrating new ideas and addressing contemporary cultural challenges from an apostolic viewpoint.

The Liberation of Intelligence: Jacques Maritain's Pedagogical Proposal

Giancarlo Galeazzi — 2026-10-15

In the thought of Jacques Maritain, the liberation of intelligence appears essential for the flourishing of the person, and therefore it is in the context of the person that the question of intelligence and its education must be placed. Among the philosophical paths, the following are privileged here: the path of existential epistemology which is centered on "distinguishing to unite" and on "approaches without borders", and the path of integral anthropology, which is centered on the "possibilities of cooperation in a divided world", and on the "role of the spiritual" in terms of "inspiration, education and culture". These epistemological and anthropological indications provide the basis for identifying two educational paths of liberation of intelligence: the methodological path as education to rigor and pluralism, and the axiological path as education to ideals and dialogue; through them one can exercise a rigorous and courageous intelligence, capable of avoiding the enemies of intelligence such as intellectualism and reductivism through a renewed "liberal", i.e. humanistic, education.

Freedom of the Creative Spirit in Jacques Maritain

Gennaro Giuseppe Curcio — 2026-10-15

This research aims to be a theoretical reflection on the themes of art and beauty, but also a practical guide to the potential uses of the artistic medium, informed by ethics, as a tool for personal and social growth. This essay is structured around the figure of Maritain and, in part, his wife Raïssa Oumançoff, who made their lives a work of friendship and the pursuit of beauty and truth, through an ethical-aesthetic journey in which creative intuition and the freedom of the creative spirit become fundamental in the ethical choice of artists' "work." This research seeks to highlight how Maritain's aesthetics, despite the limited studies on the subject, occupies a central and fundamental place in the French philosopher's thought. An aesthetic, therefore, accompanied by ethics as the development of freedom born from an intertwining of intelligence and will for the artist's creative development and pursuit of responsibility. From these premises arises an art that becomes an educational driver in society.