María Elton Bulnes, PhD

My scientific interest, in the field of philosophy, has evolved from an investigation of the knowledge of natural law through practical reason to an investigation of the metaphysics of the will that allows us to solve problems that we find in the volitionism of contemporary action philosophy. Some topics that I have addressed in the framework of this evolution have been the passions of the soul, masterfully explained by Thomas Aquinas, and their influence on practical reasoning; and the loss of a robust concept of the will, as a faculty, in modern philosophy, which has been criticized by Thomas Reid in full Enlightenment. The latter has led me to study the problems that this philosophical vacuum poses to the philosophy of contemporary action, and to discover the importance of certain current systematic questions being studied from their historical-philosophical roots, criticizing some of them that are implicit in those problems. Although these themes are developed from arduous philosophical analytics, my aspiration is that they illuminate the themes of the human sciences in general, insofar as they explain how the person acts freely. It should be noted that, in studying these subjects, I have delved, written, and taught also about Adam Smith's theory of moral feelings and Kant's practical philosophy. My knowledge of Thomas Aquinas' moral philosophy has helped me to identify important points and find common elements among all these authors.