I'm finally getting around to posting this here in Orexis Dianoētikē -- I can plausibly plead as an excuse the pressures imposed by (attempting) solid work in my ongoing classes -- a recent lecture I've given on Saint Anselm of Canterbury.
This particular talk, with some very lively Q & A at the end, comes from the
recent conference focused on the question "Must Morality Be Grounded Upon God," hosted by the Franciscan University of Steubenville (incidentally -- and this is entirely off topic -- incorporating the name of one of my long-time heroes, the
Baron Von Steuben, drillmaster to the budding Continental Army during our American Revolution).
In this talk, I answer the question structuring the conference with some typically Anselmian, "let's make some distinctions. . . and then Yes. . .
and No" -- but more Yes than No in Anselm's case.
I'm not
entirely happy with the shape of the paper, some I'm loath to upload it into my usual channels like
Academia.edu or GoogleDrive -- once I've reworked it, added all the references it need, and I'm satisfied with it, I'll definitely post a copy for public viewing.
There's a reason I rather tongue-in-cheek call this post "another Anselm lecture" -- I've given quite a few of them over the last five years. Here's a representative sampling:
All of these are
supposed in one way or another to feed into the book project I started years back, specifically devoted to systematically reconstructing and setting out Anselm's moral theory. Although I've written several chapters, work on that particular project moves slower than I'd like. But, that -- as well as additional work on translating the
De Similitudinibus and the
Dicta Anselmi -- are matters to which I plan to give much attention this coming summer and fall.