Alice Ramos

Professor
Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Navarra, Pamplona, SpainPh.D., French Literature, New York UniversityM.A., French Literature, New York UniversityB.A., French (Spanish minor), Marymount Manhattan College (summa cum laude)

Alice Ramos is Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University in Queens, New York, where she has taught since 1987. She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy with highest honors from the University of Navarra in Spain (1986), and a Ph.D. in French Literature from New York University (1979), where her doctoral dissertation was nominated among the top four of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Her publications include Beauty and the Good: Recovering the Classical Tradition from Plato to Duns Scotus(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, November 2020; History of Philosophy Series), Dynamic Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a Thomistic Perspective (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, May 2012), two edited books for the American Maritain Association: Beauty, Art, and the Polis (2000) and Faith, Scholarship, and Culture in the 21st Century (2002), a book written in Spanish entitled SignumDe la semiótica universal a la metafísica del signo (University of Navarra Editions, 1987), and over sixty articles in areas such as Thomistic metaphysics and ethics, Christian anthropology, Kantian ethical theology. She is the recipient of grants for scholarly work both in the United States and in Europe (France and Poland). She was a fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Center for the Philosophy of Religion (winter-spring semester of 1995) and was a participant at Notre Dame’s Erasmus Summer Institute for Faculty on practical rationality (June 11-25, 2005) under the direction of Alasdair MacIntyre. She was also a participant of Thomistic Institutes organized by the Thomist philosopher Ralph McInerny at the University of Notre Dame. She is a past president of the American Maritain Association (2001-2004) and has been a member of the Executive Council of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, having served on the Council in two elected terms. She has also served on the Executive Committee of the Metaphysical Society of America. She has for a number of years collaborated in research projects in medieval philosophy with colleagues from the University of Navarra and other European and Latin American universities. More recently she worked on a project which was published in article form, where she tried to show how the thought of contemporary philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer can be enriched by reference to the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, who offers key principles for understanding some of Gadamer’s fundamental intuitions.

Areas of Interest 

  • Metaphysics
  • Ethics
  • Aesthetics
  • Thomas Aquinas
  • History of Medieval Philosophy
  • History of Modern Philosophy
  • Philosophy of the Human Person
  • Metaphysics
  • Ethics
  • History of Medieval Philosophy
  • History of Modern Philosophy
  • Philosophy of Religion
  • Epistemology
  • Aesthetics
  • Senior Seminar

Refereed Books:

Beauty and the Good: Recovering the Classical Tradition from Plato to Duns Scotus (Washington, D.C.:  The Catholic University of America Press, 2020). I am the editor of this book which consists of fifteen essays written by philosophers and theologians.

Dynamic Transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty from a Thomistic Perspective (Washington, D.C.:  The Catholic University of America Press, 2012).

Refereed Articles:

  • “What is the Meaning of Beauty’s Leading Us before the Face of God,” in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, appeared in print in September 2022, vol. 94 (2020), pp. 229-242.
  • “Divine Brilliance,” invited for Credo magazine, March 2022
  • “St. Augustine on Truth and Interiority,” invited paper, in La Ciudad de Dios/Revista Agustiniana, Vol. 234, no. 3 (September-December 2021), pp. 973-992.
  • “Gadamer and Aquinas on Language, Being, and the Beauty of Truth,” in Acta Philosophica 30, no. 2 (2021), pp. 273-295.
  • “What We Can Learn from the Hope of Martyrs,” in Philosophical News, official publication of the European Society for Moral Philosophy, no. 17 (2020), pp. 135-148.
  • “The Transcendentals, the Human Person, and the Perfection of the Universe,” in The Discovery of Being and Thomas Aquinas: Philosophical and Theological Perspectives, ed. Christopher M. Cullen, SJ and Franklin T. Harkins (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019).
  • “Shame, Honor, and Conscience,” in In Search of Harmony: Metaphysics and Politics, edited by James G. Hanink (Washington, D.C.: American Maritain Association Volumes, distributed by The Catholic University of America, 2019), pp. 305-323.
  • “The Human Person as Imago Dei and the Perfection of the Universe,” in Causality and Resemblance: Medieval Approaches to the Explanation of Nature, ed. Maria Jesus Soto Bruna (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2018), pp. 145-58.
  • “Faith, Reason, and the Splendor of Truth, in Quaestiones Disputate, ed. Randall G. Colton, vol. 9, no. 1 (Fall 2018), pp. 9-24.
  • “Ratzinger on Faith, Philosophy, and Trust,” in The Things That Matter: Essays Inspired by the Later Work of Jacques Maritain, ed. Heidi M. Giebel (American Maritain Association Volume, distributed by The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 2018).
  • “Creación y Conocimiento en una Metafísica del Verbo,” in AnnalesTheologici, 30 (2016), pp. 355-370.
  • “Los trascendentales del ser,” Philosophica, philosophical on-line encyclopedia of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy, 16 pp.
  • “Anselm on Truth and Goodness,” Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 21 (2014), 85-94.
  • “A Metaphysics of the Logos in St. Thomas Aquinas: Creation and Knowledge,” Cauriensia, Revista anual de Ciencias Eclesiásticas IX (2014), pp. 95-111.
  • “Aesthetic Iconoclasm: Reasons, Origins, and Remedies,” in A Piercing Light: Beauty, Faith, and Human Transcendence, ed. James M. Jacobs (American Maritain Association, distributed by The Catholic University of America Press, Washington, D.C., 2014), pp. 215-32.  
  • “La Causalidad del Bien en Santo Tomás,” Anuario Filosófico 44, no. 1 (2011), 11-27.
  • “Anselm on Truth,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 84 (2010), 183-97.
  • “Beauty and the Perfection of Being,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 71 (1997), 255-68.
  • “Ockham and Aquinas on Exemplary Causality,” Proceedings of the Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies Conference (Augustinian Historical Institute, Villanova University) 19-20 (1994-1996), 199-213.                  
  • “A Metaphysics of the Truth of Creation: Foundation of the Desire for God,” Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 69 (1995), 237-48.
  • “Technologies of the Self: Truth, Asceticism, and Autonomy,” Bulletin de la Société Américaine de Philosophie de Langue Française 6, no. 1-2 (Spring 1994), 20-29.