Born in Pittsburgh and raised in Maryland, Dr. Carl Vater graduated from Saint Vincent College in 2009. He returned to Saint Vincent in Fall 2021 and is excited to be able to contribute to the good work that the College does for the students, the community, and the Church. In his spare time, Dr. Vater spends time at home with his wife and four young children: Benedict, Edmund, Jerome, and Anastasia. He enjoys swimming, hiking, and reading with his children.
Education
PhD, Philosophy, The Catholic University of America MA, Philosophy, The Catholic University of America MA, Theology, Villanova University BA, Philosophy and Theology, Saint Vincent College
Courses
Medieval Philosophy Philosophical Anthropology Logic and Theory of Knowledge Metaphysics Listening Seminar Philosophy of Nature and Contemporary Science Proficiency Seminar
Research Interests
Medieval Philosophy (especially issues in Metaphysics and Philosophy of God) St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bl. John Duns Scotus
Selected Publications
“The Absence of Divine Ideas in the Summa Contra Gentiles,” New Blackfriars (February, 2021). https://doi.org/10.1111/nbfr.12639.
“An Inconsistency in Aquinas’s De veritate Account of Divine Ideas” Nova et Vetera 18.2 (2020): 639–52.
With Timothy B. Noone, “The Sources of Scotus’s Theory of Divine Ideas.” In J.F. Falà and I. Zavattero, Divine Ideas in Franciscan Thought (XIIIth–XIVth century), 85–111. Flumen Sapientiae: Studi sul pensiero medievale 8. Rome: Aracane, 2018.
“The Role of the Virtus Formativa in St. Thomas Aquinas’s Account of Embryogenesis,” The Thomist 82 (2018): 113–32.
