“Toward a Metaphilosophy”

For the 1963 convention of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the President that year, Professor Donald Gallagher, chose the topic Philosophy in a Pluralistic Society, and invited Grisez, then only in his sixth year of teaching at Georgetown, to present one of the plenary session papers. For the occasion, he prepared his first—and as it has turned out, his only—published treatment of the philosophical topic of widespread and seemingly intractable philosophical disagreement, and the possibility of overcoming it. The address was published in the Association’s Proceedings and is copyright © American Catholic Philosophical Association 1963, all rights reserved.

Open the Paper (PDF)

“Sketch of a Future Metaphysics”

This article resulted from presentations, between 1959 and 1962, to various informal circles of philosophers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and to philosophy clubs at George Washington University in Washington and at the Unversity of Virginia in Charlottesville. The article, published in New Scholasticism, is copyright © American Catholic Philosophical Association 1964, all rights reserved.

Unlike the essay on metaphilosophy, this sketch was later developed at book length in Beyond the New Theism: A Philosophy of Religion. That book went out of print but was reprinted by St. Augustine’s Press in 2004 with a new preface and a new title: God? A Philosophical Preface to Faith. That volume remains in print.

There were no significant later developments in the metaphysics laid out in the book, and it was presupposed in Grisez’s later philosophical and theological work.

Open the Article (PDF)