Civitas Dei Medal Presentation at Villanova

The Inaugural Presentation of the
Civitas Dei Medal
to
Alasdair MacIntyre
University of Notre Dame

Villanova University
Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 4:30 p.m.
Connelly Center, Villanova Room

In his seminal work, City of God (De Civitate Dei), St. Augustine articulates a distinctive commitment to intellectual engagement between the Church and the world. He created communities focused on the search for truth in unity and love, while respecting differences and the complexities of Catholic intellectual thought. With the Civitas Dei Medal, Villanova University seeks to recognize Catholics who through their work have made exemplary contributions to the Catholic intellectual tradition and have shown particular commitment to the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness.

The inaugural presentation of the Civitas Dei Medal will be awarded to Alasdair MacIntyre of the University of Notre Dame. A short panel presentation by Villanova faculty will be followed by a lecture by Professor MacIntyre.

Program:

Peter Wicks
St. Catherine of Siena Fellow, Ethics Program, Villanova University
“MacIntyre and Moral Philosophy”

John Doody
Robert M. Birmingham Chair in Humanities and Professor of Philosophy, Villanova University
“MacIntyre and Political Theory”

Thomas Smith
Anne Quinn Welsh Director, University Honors Program and Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Villanova University
“MacIntyre and Catholic Higher Education”

Michael Moreland
Vice Dean and Professor of Law, Villanova University
“MacIntyre as Teacher”

Presentation of the Civitas Dei Medal

Alasdair MacIntyre
Rev. John A. O’Brien Senior Research Professor of Philosophy (emeritus), University of Notre Dame
“Catholic Rather than What?”

Biography:

Alasdair MacIntyre is the Rev. John A. O’Brien Senior Research Professor of Philosophy (emeritus) at the University of Notre Dame. In a career spanning six decades, he has published over 30 books and hundreds of articles and reviews. Professor MacIntyre has made significant contributions to the history of philosophy, moral philosophy, political theory, the philosophy of the social sciences, and the philosophy of religion. His early works include Marxism: An Interpretation (1953), The Unconscious: A Conceptual Analysis (1958), A Short History of Ethics (1966), and Against the Self-Images of the Age (1971). The influential sequence of books, After Virtue (1981), Whose Justice? Which Rationality? (1988), Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (1990), and Dependent Rational Animals (1999) constitute the most important contemporary articulation of Aristotelianism and a sustained critique of modern moral philosophy. More recently, he has published an examination of the philosophical work of Edith Stein set against the background of twentieth century phenomenology, Edith Stein: A Philosophical Prologue, 1913-1922 (2005), two volumes of his collected papers, The Tasks of Philosophy and Ethics and Politics (2006), and God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition (2009).

Professor MacIntyre received his BA from Queen Mary College, University of London and MA degrees from Manchester and Oxford. Professor MacIntyre has held academic appointments at Oxford, Princeton, Brandeis, Wellesley, Boston University, Yale, Vanderbilt, and Duke. He has delivered the Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh, the Carus Lectures at the American Philosophical Association, the Caryle Lectures at Oxford University, the Tanner Lectures and Gauss Lectures at Princeton University, and the Aquinas Lecture at Marquette University. Professor MacIntyre is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a Member of the American Philosophical Society. In 2010, he was awarded the Aquinas Medal by the American Catholic Philosophical Association.