THEO7048 · Theology

Genealogies of Catholicism: The Problem of Franciscan Modernity

Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences

Famously, Heidegger accused nearly all western philosophy of ontotheology, the naming of God as Being and everything else as manifestations or participations in that metaphysical scheme, a manifestation of the human desire to grasp, to comprehend, and thus, in some measure, to manipulate and control reality as such, the ultimate extension of humantechne, our capacity to manipulate the world. Such a metaphysics, he averred, deprives Being of its deep mystery by claiming to know its nature as such, and thus to grasp it and make it useful. In the end, it is little more than a more refined and civilized dimension of the Nietzschean will to power. Ever since, scholars have sought the precise origins and development of this pernicious modernity. Also famously, so-called Radical Orthodox thinkers have sketched an influential genealogy of this modernity that extends through Suarez back to Scotus, and then hinted that behind Scotuss error may be even Bonaventure. In the preface to the second edition ofTheology and Social Theory, John Milbank traces this first step through to the Scotist leap and the modern tumble into the ontotheological slough, labeling this bad tradition Franciscan modernity. While this narrative has recently come in for trenchant criticism, it remains widely and resiliently prevalent. This seminar, accordingly, seeks to canvas the problem of Franciscan modernity, critically assessing the accuracy and utility of this genealogical narrative, beginning with its sources in the late Middle Ages and then surveying its modern proponents and detractors