John Brungardt

Dr. John G. Brungardt is assistant professor of philosophy in the School of Catholic Studies at Newman University in Wichita, Kansas. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile. A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College, Brungardt completed his doctorate in philosophy at The Catholic University of America. As a philosopher, Catholic layman, and Dominican tertiary, his studies, teaching, and scholarship aim at continuing the philosophical tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and their heirs, attempting to bring their insights into meaningful dialogue with modern theories. His central interests lie in the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of science. He is working on a monograph for CUA Press, Searching for the Cosmos. Brungardt is a scholar associate of the Society of Catholic Scientists and an ordinary member of The Sacra Doctrina Project. He also serves as the general editor of The Charles De Koninck Project and as the assistant editor of Lux Veritatis: A Journal of Speculative Theology, both initiatives of the Sacra Doctrina Project.

Books

La existencia de Dios: Un díalogo entre la cosmología y la filosofía thomista. Edicíon y presentacíon por Pablo G. Maillet Aránguiz. Coleccíon Cuestiones Perennes. Universidad Gabriela Mistral: Santiago, Chile, 2021.

Online Essays

“Those Two Roads: How a Natural Philosophical Solution to a Difficulty about Motion Serves Thomistic Theology.” Thomistica, 1 December 2019. 

“In Abortion Decision, Kansas Supreme Court Empties ‘Natural Rights’ Of Meaning.” The Federalist, 1 May 2019.

“A Natural Philosopher’s Lament.” Public Discourse, 25 April 2019. 

“The CRISPR Conundrum.” Arc Digital, 19 March 2019. 

“Will Gene Editing Allow for Human Perfectibility?” Crisis Magazine, 6 March 2019.

“Some Mistakes Due to What Is Per Accidens.” Thomistica, 20 February 2019. 

“A Different Kind of Pro-Life Argument.” Crisis Magazine, 18 January 2019. 

“Thinking Things Together in Science and Philosophy.” Arc Digital, 8 January 2019. 9.

“Ah, to Live in a Cosmos Again!” Church Life Journal, 19 September 2018. 

“The Difference Between Ivory-Tower and Street-Level Scientism.” Ethika Politika, 14 November 2014.

Articles & Book Chapters

“Charles De Koninck and the Cosmos of the Natural Sciences.” In Le Discernement Des Habitus: Autour de Charles De Koninck, edited by Michel Boyancé and Bernard Guéry, 51–67. Paris: Les Presses Universitaires de l’IPC, 2023.

“From First Physics to Fundamental Physics and Back Again.” In Aquinas and Us, edited by Timothy Kearns, Gyula Klima, and Alex Hall, 96–107. Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics 18. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2022.

“World Enough and Form: Why Cosmology Needs Hylomorphism.” Synthese 198, no. 11 (2021): 2795–2827. Part of the special issue, “Form, Structure and Hylomorphism,” guest-edited by Anna Marmodoro and Michele Paolini Paoletti. doi: 10.1007/s11229-019-02112-0.

“A Thomistic Reply to Grünbaum’s Critique of Maritain on the Reality of Space.” In Facts Are Stubborn Things: Thomistic Perspectives in the Philosophies of Nature and Science, edited by Matthew Minerd, pp. 109–123. Washington, DC: American Maritain Association, 2020.

“Operari sequitur esse y el principio de accíon mínima.” In El obrar sigue al ser: Metafísica de la persona, la naturaleza y la accíon, edited by Carlos Augusto Casanova G. and Ignacio Serrano del Pozo, 289–99. Santiago, Chile: RIL Editores, 2020.

“Is Aristotelian-Thomistic Natural Philosophy Still Relevant to Cosmology?” The Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, 93 (2019): 151–176; doi: 10.5840/acpaproc2021423114.

“Is Personal Dignity Possible Only If We Live in a Cosmos?” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 (2018): 223-240. doi: 10.5840/acpaproc2020917108

St. Thomas and Modern Natural Science: Reconsidering Abstraction from Matter.” Cognoscens in Actu est Ipsum Cognitum in Actu: Sobre los Tipos y Grados de Conocimiento, ed. by Carlos A. Casanova Guerra and Ignacio Serrano del Pozo, 433–471 (Santiago/Valpara´ıso: RIL Editores, 2018).

“Charles De Koninck and the Sapiential Character of Natural Philosophy.” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90, no. 1 (2016): 1–24. doi: 10.5840/acpq20161570.