Russell Wilcox presents lecture at the University of Navarre

The event took place in Classroom 1 of the Building of Ecclesiastical Faculties on Tuesday February 27th at 12:30 p.m.

Russell Wilcox, a researcher from England, who divides his time between Oxford and London, and whose principal interests concern Natural Law, philosophical anthropology and inter-cultural diversity, delivered a paper entitled “Nature, Language, and the Human Sciences ” to students and professors of the University of Navarre. The lecture addressed the relation between the knowledge of human nature and the normative ordering of human communities from an Aristotelian/Thomistic perspective.

One of the paper’s central arguments was the following: “(The) observance of the precepts of the natural law is necessary to preserve the integrity of the human action system as a whole”.

Wilcox dealt with the subject of Natural Law and human action from a largely Thomistic perspective, whilst at the same time drawing insights from such thinkers as American linguist, Noam Chomsky and German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas.

The audience was mainly composed of students and professors from the fields of Philosophy and Law. After the lecture, which was delivered in English, an engaging and constructive dialogue took place with the audience on subjects raised by the paper. This event, organized by the Cryf Research Group, received financial support from the John Templeton Foundation.

Abstract by the author

Working with an Aristotelian/Thomistic understanding of scientific knowledge acquisition, it is possible to speak in a more than merely metaphorical way of a whole range of distinctively human sciences. These sciences have as their objects the proper understanding of the human action system and its products. Unlike the study of systems in the non-human world, study of the human action system depends upon at least some form of cognitive reflexivity. This reflexivity is necessary to draw out evidence from the external world relating to the minds’ actions and work backwards in order to reach conclusions as to the underlying mechanisms governing human behaviour. It is also to engage in the sort of reconstructive procedure suggested by Jurgen Habermas, but without his commitment to a post-Kantian ontology, as well as to speak of the mechanisms underlying human action as generative in the manner of the Chomskian Linguist, but again with heavy qualifications. In particular, generativity allows for the unity-in-diversity which, it is argued, is fundamental to explaining the operations of the human person as an embodied intellect. Finally, the natural law concerns itself not with performative competence but with the right use of that competence, and observance of the precepts of the natural law is necessary to preserve the integrity of the human action system as a whole. To the extent that they are breached, so the human action system starts display signs of disintegration that are manifest in the breaking down of its natural balance between unity and diversity.