With a Diamond in His Shoe: Reflections on Jorge J. E. Gracia’s Quest for Self-Perfection

• Authors: Redpath Peter A.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Jorge J. E. Gracia, was born in Cuba in 1942. At age 19, he escaped Cuba and arrived in the United States. In 2019, 58 years later, in a nation which, prior to his arrival in North America, had no major Latino cultural presence in higher education and philosophy, Gracia rose to hold the Samuel P. Capen Chair and State University of New York at Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literature. In this position, he became the leading figure to institutionalize Latin American philosophy in the U.S. academy and an internationally-renowned scholar in medieval philosophy. Jorge J. E. Gracia died in the United States on July 13, 2021. In this paper the author shows that what properly explains the philosophical and adult-personal life of Gracia is the Thomistic principle of virtual quantity. He contends that the only way to understand Gracia’s personal and philosophical life is to grasp this life as one of an organizational psychologist pursuing perfect self-realization in action and understanding: someone chiefly interested in intellectually grasping precisely how organizational wholes (including his own psyche) become united and divided, and operate when so united and divided.

Keywords

EN

Jorge J. E. Gracia; philosophy; comparative literature; Thomism; virtual quantity; self-perfection; tradition; identity; Catholicism; religious faith; organizational psychology; ragamuffin Thomist

• Publisher: International Étienne Gilson Society
• Journal: Studia Gilsoniana
• Year: 2021
• Volume: 10
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 997-1029

Dates

published

2021-12-30

Contributors

author

Redpath Peter A.

• CEO, Aquinas School of Leadership, Cave Creek, Ariz., USA

References

• Gracia, Jorge J. E. Old Wine in New Wine Skins: The Role of Tradition in Communication, Knowledge, and Group Identity. The Aquinas Lecture Series, vol. 67. Milwaukee, Wis.: Marquette University Press, 2005.
• Gracia, Jorge J. E. Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical Historiography. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1991.
• Gracia, Jorge J. E. With a Diamond in My Shoe: A Philosopher’s Search for Identity in America. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 2019.
• McVey, Arthur W. “Foreword: A Moral Psychology of Ragamuffins, for Ragamuffins, by Ragamuffins.” In Peter A. Redpath. The Moral Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Ethics, 1–17. St. Louis, Mo.: En Route Books & Media, 2017.
• O’Rourke, Fran. Pseudo-Dionysius and the Metaphysics of Aquinas.: Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010, 2nd printing.
• Redpath, Peter A. A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics: Written Hope of Ending the Centuries-Old Separation of Science between Philosophy and Science and Science and Wisdom. Vol. 2: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Thomism. St. Louis, Mo.: En Route Books & Media, 2016, 2nd printing.

Notes

EN

DOI: 10.26385/SG.100442