- Department of Philosophy
Villanova University, SAC 108
800 Lancaster Avenue
Villanova, PA 19085 - 610 519 6893
Paul A Camacho
Villanova University, Augustinian Institute, Department Member
- I am broadly interested in bringing classical, late antique, and medieval accounts of moral motivation and religious ... moreI am broadly interested in bringing classical, late antique, and medieval accounts of moral motivation and religious devotion into dialogue with modern and post-modern philosophy. I am currently working on the relationship between love and freedom in Augustine’s account of moral motivation. I contend that Augustine’s concept of love has enduring philosophical relevance, not least because it disrupts our prevalent notion of freedom as autonomy or self-determination.
I have also become interested in contemporary re-appropriations of Augustine’s thought, especially the “theological turn” in phenomenology, and the re-discovery of love as a civic virtue. I have an on-going research interest in our cultural imagination surrounding love, and the role that it plays in our discussions of morality and religion.edit
In Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio, Dante's Virgil lays out a theory of sin, freedom, and moral motivation based on a philosophical anthropology of loving-desire. As the commentary tradition has long recognized, because Dante placed... more
In Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio, Dante's Virgil lays out a theory of sin, freedom, and moral motivation based on a philosophical anthropology of loving-desire. As the commentary tradition has long recognized, because Dante placed Virgil's discourse on love at the heart of the Commedia, the poet invites his readers to use love as a hermeneutic key to the text as a whole. When we contextualize Virgil's discourse within the broader intention of the poem-to move its readers from disordered love to an ordered love of ultimate things-then we find in these central cantos not just a key to the structure and movement of the poem, but also a key to understanding Dante's pedagogical aim. With his Commedia, Dante invites us to perform the interior transformation which the poem dramatizes in verse and symbol. He does so by awakening in his readers not only a desire for the beauty of his poetic creation, but also a desire for the beauty of the love described therein. In this way, the poem presents a pedagogy of love, in which the reader participates in the very experience of desire and delight enacted in the text. In this article, I offer an analysis of Virgil's discourse on love in the Purgatorio, arguing for an explicit and necessary connection between loving-desire and true education. I demonstrate that what informs Dante's pedagogy of love is the notion of love as ascent, a notion we find articulated especially in the Christian Platonism of Augustine. Finally, I conclude by offering a number of figures, passages, and themes from across the Commedia that provide fruitful material for teachers engaged in the task of educating desire.
Research Interests:
In To the Wonder, Terrence Malick asks us to consider the equivocity of erotic love. Malick presents eros as revelatory, uniquely capable of disclosing glory; at the same time, erotic love is fragile and fallible, subject both to time and... more
In To the Wonder, Terrence Malick asks us to consider the equivocity of erotic love. Malick presents eros as revelatory, uniquely capable of disclosing glory; at the same time, erotic love is fragile and fallible, subject both to time and the contortions of sin. Is there a form of love that persists despite this equivocity? Malick provides an answer in the character of Fr. Quintana, a figure of Christ who embodies the self-emptying love of kenosis. Interpreting Malick’s film through Plato’s Symposium and Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, this essay argues that eros can be redeemed only by a love that endures the dark night of the soul.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio, Dante’s Virgil lays out a theory of sin, freedom, and moral motivation based on a philosophical anthropology of loving-desire. As the commentary tradition has long recognized, because Dante placed... more
In Cantos 17 and 18 of the Purgatorio, Dante’s Virgil lays out a theory of sin, freedom, and moral motivation based on a philosophical anthropology of loving-desire. As the commentary tradition has long recognized, because Dante placed Virgil’s discourse on love at the heart of the Commedia, the poet invites his readers to use love as a hermeneutic key to the text as a whole. When we contextualize Virgil’s discourse within the broader intention of the poem—to move its readers from disordered love to an ordered love of ultimate things—then we find in these central cantos not just a key to the structure and movement of the poem, but also a key to understanding Dante’s pedagogical aim. With his Commedia, Dante invites us to perform the interior transformation which the poem dramatizes in verse and symbol. He does so by awakening in his readers not only a desire for the beauty of his poetic creation, but also a desire for the beauty of the love described therein. In this way, the poem p...
Research Interests:
Throughout his corpus, Augustine relies upon a distinction between goods that are ‘private’ (proprium) and goods that are ‘common’ (commune). Often overlooked is the way in which this distinction functions not only in Augustine’s critique... more
Throughout his corpus, Augustine relies upon a distinction between goods that are ‘private’ (proprium) and goods that are ‘common’ (commune). Often overlooked is the way in which this distinction functions not only in Augustine’s critique of private property, but also in his analysis of idolatry. In both cases, we desire a limited thing rather than a more comprehensive good, with tragic results: a private good cannot bear the weight of our infinite desire, and the result of such a misdirected love is neither happiness nor peace, but rather the perpetual need to consolidate power and extend dominion. The example of Roman amor laudis from De Ciuitate Dei 5 illustrates the manner in which the love of anything less than God leads to an inversion of the good intended – in this case, the slide from amor laudis into libido dominandi. By contrast, latreia names the orientation of a community toward its true and most common Good. Ultimately, for Augustine liturgical and sacramental unity are constitutive for genuine political and personal freedom.