Human Destiny

""What may I hope for?"" Immanuel Kant's third question, both speculative and practical, speaks to the heart of the problem of human destiny. Such a question can hardly help but call for careful scrutiny by Catholic philosophers. It confronts Catholic philosophy as inevitably and as poignantly as it does any other comprehensive humanistic thinking. It is especially urgent at present, as humanity seems to be destining itself to a suicidal end in a worldwide nuclear holocaust. Owens takes the notion of human destiny taught as a revealed truth by the Catholic Church and considers it thematically as an object of the philosophy of religion. He examines the philosophical problems that arise, first in Aristotle, then in Aquinas, and finally in the contemporary world.Reverend Joseph Owens, CSsR (1908-2005), was a Canadian Roman Catholic priest and a scholar in medieval philosophy. Owens received his PhD in 1951 from the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and remained at the Institute as a teacher and distinguished researcher for the rest of his career. He authored nine books and almost 150 academic papers. Among his many publications are A History of Ancient Western Philosophy, The Doctrine of Being in Aristotelian Metaphysics, and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Existence of God.