Projects and Academics

Well my friends, sometimes an Article isn’t enough space for me. Sometimes I have to take it a little bit further…but I’m not going to apologize for it! This is a quick stop guide to some of my Content in Excess – things I’ve made that are just a little too big to not be put up in their own space, away from all of the other smaller items of mine. Take a look!

Thomistic Linguistics – I am currently working on a thesis that connects the Thomistic understanding of the human soul with linguistic studies. In particular I seek to support the claim that Thomistic Philosophy explains the success of Comprehension-Based Instruction in the Foreign Language classroom.

Since this is such a handful, here are a few articles that break it down into more bite-sized chunks.

1. 1. 1. 1. Some Things Never Change; A Metaphysical Reflection
        To begin an understanding, it coincidentally is a good idea to start with this article. How does change occur? What changes? What doesn’t?
      2. #1 – An Argument for Aristotelian Forms
        The first article sets the stage for the whole of the thesis. Before anything else can be discussed, a foundational understanding of an Aristotelian Form must be articulated.
      3. #2 – The Formal Cause of Man
        The second article translates from the very broad to the more specific. With the conception of an Aristotelian Form established, it must be articulated how that form is situated around mankind.
      4. #3 – Language as Man’s Passions
        The third article takes a deeper look at some of the qualities of mankind’s form and explores the specific relationship that language takes to said form. The fundamental role of Aquinas’ quiddity is explored and established as a necessary connection point to the existence of language.
      5. #4 – How Language is Acquired and Used
        The fourth article will explore how language functions moment to moment and exactly how language relies on the soul as much as feeds it. Language acquisition, first and second, will also be explained.
      6. #5 – What Relevance This Thesis Has
        This fifth and final article is perhaps the most important.
        So what?
        I will highlight how exactly my thesis differs in opinion from modern academic thought and what it offers to the future study of language.

6 Impossible Modern Possibilities (IMPs) – These are a set of arguments that belong together as a more unified work, but I’ll be working them out a piece at a time. The goal is to refute unnecessary futuristic thinking. So much effort, on the part of the general human public, is spent wondering about what the future will bring and what technology will be able to do for us one day. We spend so much time thinking about what this materialistic utopia could be that we forget about what we already know and can know. For example, is a utopia even worth searching for? Here follows a set of seven items that Science Fiction has imagined, and that we seek, but that we will never find. There are things that science can seek out, advancements in technology that will dramatically improve our lifestyle, but the following are things that we will never achieve, and we shouldn’t waste our time trying.

By focusing on what we don’t have, we forget about what we have already.

Of course, I must preface my arguments with this last note: imagination must never be suppressed. Great stories can be told and wonderful things can come from beautiful and impossible tales, but these stories, perhaps fairy-stories, are not about the most impossible things within them, but the most possible (the following of which are not those possible things). I would highly recommend, before reading these, scrolling up and clicking on “Some Things Never Change, A Metaphysical Reflection” as well as TL “#1 – An Argument for Aristotelian Forms.”