James J. McEvoy (14 October 1943 in

Larne, Northern Ireland Larne (, , the name of a Gaelic territory) is a town on the east coast of County Antrim, Northern Ireland, with a population of 18,755 at the 2011 Census. It is a major passenger and freight roll-on roll-off port. Larne is administered by Mid an ...

–2 October 2010) was an Irish

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and priest. His principal academic interests were related to medieval philosophy, particularly the work of John Scotus Eriugena and Robert Grosseteste. He also wrote about the philosophy of friendship.

Biography

McEvoy undertook undergraduate and postgraduate study in the Department of Scholastic Philosophy at

Queen’s University of Belfast , mottoeng = For so much, what shall we give back? , top_free_label = , top_free = , top_free_label1 = , top_free1 = , top_free_label2 = , top_free2 = , established = , closed = , type = Public research university , parent = ...

, where he wrote his MA thesis on Robert Grosseteste's commentary on

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the ''Corpus Areopagiticum'' or ...

's ''Celestial Hierarchy.'' He studied for his Bachelor of Divinity at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, and was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1968 for the

Diocese of Down and Connor The Diocese of Down and Connor, ( ga, Deoise an Dúin agus Chonaire) is a Latin Church ecclesiastical territory or diocese of the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland. It is one of eight suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of the me ...

. In 1974 he was awarded his PhD by the

Université catholique de Louvain The Université catholique de Louvain (also known as the Catholic University of Louvain, the English translation of its French name, and the University of Louvain, its official English name) is Belgium's largest French-speaking university. It ...

for a dissertation on the philosophy of Grosseteste, which he wrote under the supervision of Fernand Van Steenberghen. McEvoy held chairs of philosophy at The Queen’s University Belfast (1975–88), Louvain-la-Neuve (1988–95), and Maynooth (1995-2004). He served as dean of the Faculty of Philosophy of the

National University of Ireland Maynooth The National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM; ga, Ollscoil na hÉireann Mhá Nuad), commonly known as Maynooth University (MU), is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. It w ...

. He was elected a member of the

Royal Irish Academy The Royal Irish Academy (RIA; ga, Acadamh Ríoga na hÉireann), based in Dublin, is an academic body that promotes study in the sciences, humanities and social sciences. It is Ireland's premier List of Irish learned societies, learned socie ...

in 1982 and conferred with an honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Leicester at Lincoln Cathedral in 2004, the same year that a volume on friendship, ''Amor amicitiae'', was published in his honour.

Bibliography

* ''The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste'' (Clarendon Press, 1986) * ''Robert Grosseteste: Exegete and Philosopher'' (Variorum, 1994) * ''Roberti Grosseteste: New Perspectives on his Thought and Scholarship'' (Brepols, 1995) * (ed.) ''Roberti Grosseteste: Expositio in Epistolam Sancti Pauli ad Galatas'' (Brepols, 1995) * (ed., with J. Follon) ''Sagesses de l'amitié'' (2 vols, Editions du Cerf, 1997, 2003). An anthology of texts on friendship from Antiquity to the Renaissance. * ''Robert Grosseteste,'' Great Medieval Thinkers Series (Oxford University Press, 2000) * (ed., with Michael Dunne) ''History and Eschatology in John Scottus Eriugena and his Time'' (Leuven University Press, 2002) * (ed.) ''Mystical Theology: The Glosses by Thomas Gallus and the Commentary of Robert Grosseteste on De Mystica Theologia'' (Peeters, 2003) * (ed., with Maurice P. Hogan) ''The Mystery of Faith: Reflections on the Encyclical "Ecclesia de Eucharistia"'' (Columba Press, 2005) * (ed., with Michael Dunne) ''The Irish Contribution to Scholastic Thought'' (Four Courts Press, 2009) * (ed., with Declan Lawell and J. Stanley McQuade) ''Roberti Grosseteste Episcopi Lincolniensis Versio Caelestis Hierarchiae Pseudo-Dionysii Areopagitae'' (Brepols, 2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McEvoy, James J. 1943 births 2010 deaths Academics of Queen's University Belfast Alumni of Queen's University Belfast Alumni of St Patrick's College, Maynooth Université catholique de Louvain alumni Roman Catholic priests from Northern Ireland Irish Roman Catholic priests Philosophers from Northern Ireland Irish philosophers 20th-century Irish philosophers 21st-century Irish philosophers

Biography

Bibliography

Further reading

References