Curriculum Vitae
Welcome to my curriculum vitae. Below you'll find information on my academic background and links to my published work.
AoS: Thomas Aquinas, Medieval Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Logic
AoC: Ancient Philosophy, Thomistic Ethics and Anthropology, Philosophy of Religion
Table of Contents
Academic Assignments
Academic Assignments
Assistant Professor, Pre-Theology (Philosophy), St. John Vianney Theological Seminary, August, 2024–.
Adjunct Faculty, Philosophy, University of St. Thomas (Houston, TX), May, 2020–May, 2024.
PHIL 1311, Philosophy of Human Nature (2x)
PHIL 2301, Ethics (5x)
PHIL 3301, Metaphysics (12x)
Service Work and Other Work
Copyeditor, The Catholic University of America Press, June 2020–present.
Referee for American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2019–present.
Education
PhD cand., Philosophy, The Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (TX)
Dissertation: “Thomas Aquinas on the Accidentality and Essentiality of Being in Light of His Arabic and Logico-Grammatical Sources”
Director: Brian Carl. Committee: Thomas Osborne, Domenic D’Ettore
MA, Philosophy, The Center for Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (TX) (summa cum laude), May 2019
BA, Philosophy, Economics, Catholic studies, University of St. Thomas (MN) (summa cum laude)
Scholarly Publications
Elliot Polsky, "Why Are Accidents Included under Being per se," Nova et Vetera, forthcoming. [Winner of the Leo Elders Junior Scholar Essay Contest.] [PhilPapers][Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "The Modern Semantic Principles behind Gilson's Existential Interpretation of Aquinas [Part 1]," Studia Gilsoniana 13, no. 2 (2024): 303–37. [PhilPapers][Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "The Modern Semantic Principles behind Gilson's Existential Interpretation of Aquinas [Part 2]," Studia Gilsoniana, forthcoming. [PhilPapers][Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "The Semantics of Divine Esse in Boethius," Nova et Vetera, forthcoming. [PhilPapers][Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "The Real Distinction between Supposit and Nature in Angels in Thomas Aquinas," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (2023 meeting), forthcoming. [PhilPapers][Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "Secunda Operatio Respicit Ipsum Esse Rei: An Evaluation of Jacques Maritain, Étienne Gilson, and Ralph McInerny on the Relation of Esse to the Intellect’s Two Operations," Nova et Vetera 19, no. 2 (2021): 895–932. [PhilPapers] [Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "Secondary Substance and Quod Quid Erat Esse: Aquinas on Reconciling the Divisions of 'Substance' in the Categories and Metaphysics," American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 96, no. 1 (2022): 21–45. [PhilPapers] [Academia.edu] [ACPQ]
Elliot Polsky, "'In as Many Ways as Something is Predicated ... in that Many Ways is Something Signified to Be': The Logic Behind Thomas Aquinas’s Predication Thesis, Esse Substantiale, and Esse in Rerum Natura," Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 93 (2019): 263–92. [PhilPapers] [Academia.edu] [Pr. ACPA]
Elliot Polsky, "Thomas Aquinas on Grace as a Mysterious Kind of Creature," Studia Gilsoniana 10, no. 3 (2021): 545–78. [PhilPapers] [Academia.edu]
Elliot Polsky, "Thomistic Special Relativity: Length Contraction and Time Dilation Without the Fourth Dimension," Proceedings Sixth World Conference on Metaphysics 6 (2015): 1157–1169. [PhilPapers] [Academia.edu]
Presentations
"Does God Only Efficiently Cause through the Medium of a Formal Cause?" Presented at the Fourth Annual Academic Conference of The Sacra Doctrina Project: All Things that Were Made, St. Paul, MN, June 8, 2024.
“What is Esse substantiale? Aquinas with Boethius and Averroes against Avicenna and William of Auvergne.” Presented at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 11, 2024.
“The Real Distinction between Supposit and Nature in Angels in Thomas Aquinas.” Presented at American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, Houston, TX, November 2023.
“The Meaning of Existence and the Copula from Kant to Alexander Pfänder: The Modern Context for Maritain and Gilson’s Existentialism.” Presented at Speculative Philosophy Research Group, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas (TX), October 5, 2023.
“Avicenna, Averroes, Boethius, and Aquinas: Which Esse is Composed with Creatures?” Presented at the Center for Thomistic Studies Colloquium Series, University of St. Thomas (TX), September 29, 2023.
“The Thomistic Debate about the Accidentality of Esse.” Presented at Speculative Philosophy Research Group, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas (TX), September 7, 2023.
“The Real Distinction between Supposit and Nature in Angels in Thomas Aquinas.” Presented at International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, MI, May 2023.
“‘In as Many Ways as Something is Predicated … in that Many Ways is Something Signified to Be’: The Logic Behind Thomas Aquinas’s Predication Thesis, Esse substantiale, and Esse in rerum natura.” Presented at American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN, November 2019.
“Either the Popular Free Will Defense or Aquinas, Not Both: Why Aquinas’s Ontology Entails Divine Sovereignty over the Created Will.” Presented at American Catholic Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, Dallas, TX, November 2017.
“Thomistic Special Relativity: Interpreting Length Contraction and Time Dilation without the Fourth Dimension.” Presented at Sixth World Conference on Metaphysics, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain, November 2015.
Reading Groups & Seminars
Uncertainty, Confidence, and Truth in the Sciences: Thomistic Philosophy and Natural Science Symposium, sponsored by the Thomistic Institute, The Catholic University of America, July 12–16, 2023.
Aquinas and "the Arabs" International Working Group (AAIWG), “Luis Xavier López-Farjeat, Classical Islamic Philosophy: A Thematic Introduction,” organized by Atefe Esmaili, Seth Kreeger, Nicoletta Nativo, Pooya Heybatollahi, Richard Taylor, Fall 2022–Spring 2023.
The City of God and Modernity: Culture and Ecclesiology, sponsored by the Institute for Human Ecology and the Thomistic Institute, The Catholic University of America, June 12–17, 2022.
Select Awards / Grants
Leo Elders Junior Scholar Essay Contest ($750)
Sponsor: Leo Elders Foundation
Title: "Why Are Accidents Included under Being per se?"
Thomas D. Sullivan Medal for Best Undergraduate Philosophical Essay ($500)
Sponsor: University of St. Thomas (MN), Philosophy Department
Title: “What to Make of Modes of Names: Filling an Important Gap in Aristotle’s On Interpretation”
Delta Epsilon Sigma National Research Essay Contest Champion ($500)
Topic: From Theology to Art: How the Development of Dominican Theology Motivated the Preaching of Dominican Sponsored Artists
Young Scholars Research Grant ($4,000)
Sponsor: University of St. Thomas (MN), Grants and Research Office
Topic: Special Relativity without the Fourth Dimension: Interpreting Einstein’s Physics with Aristotle’s Definition of Motion
Mentor: Thomas Feeney, PhD, MPhil, MSt
Collaborative Inquiry Grant ($1,500)
Sponsor: University of St. Thomas (MN), Grants and Research Office
Topic: Biology’s Accidental Species: The Compatibility of Multiple True Taxonomies with Aristotelian Essentialism
Mentor: Mark Spenser, PhD
Center of the American Experiment, Research Assistant ($1,500)
Mentor: Mitch Pearlstein, PhD
Topic: How Religious Institutions and Leaders Can Better Promote Healthy Marriages
Dissertation
Title: “Thomas Aquinas on the Accidentality and Essentiality of Being in Light of His Arabic and Logico-Grammatical Sources”
Description: This dissertation addresses ongoing debates concerning St. Thomas’s apparently incompatible claims about the accidentality and essentiality of being (esse) to creatures. It offers a significant revision of standard accounts both of the substance of his doctrine and its sources. Since Pierre Duhem and Étienne Gilson, it has usually been thought that Aquinas derives his teaching on the accidentality of esse to creatures from Avicenna by way of William of Auvergne and that his understanding of esse as an “act” was his own unique contribution to Avicennian thought. Very little attention has been given, however, to the Latin text of Averroes used by Aquinas or to the precedence for his technical terminology—his phrase “substantial being” (esse substantiale) and his notion of esse as an “act”—in the twelfth- and early thirteenth-century Latin logico-grammatical traditions. I argue that when attention is given to these understudied sources, it becomes clear that Aquinas’s notion of esse as composed with creatures as an “act” is not at all Avicennian. On the contrary, it is a critique of William of Auvergne’s novel Avicennian interpretation of Boethius in favor of a more traditional, twelfth-century one, formulated in language inspired both by Averroes’s Metaphysics commentary and the earlier Latin logico-grammatical tradition.
Dissertation Outline:
Ch0: Introduction.
Ch1: Recent Attempts to Solve the Problem of the Accidentality and Essentiality of Being.
Ch2: The Modern Origins of the Existential Reading of Aquinas in Maritain, Gilson, and Wippel.
Ch3: Why is Every Predication a Predication of Being.
Ch4: Being per accidens and per se.
Ch5: Aquinas’s Averroistic Critique of William of Auvergne and Avicenna.
Ch6: The Essentiality of Being: What is “Esse substantiale”? Why is Esse an “Act” and “Accident”?
