Mark Damien Delp
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Office phone: (510) 883-2072
E-mail: mdelp@dspt.edu
B.A., Sonoma State University; M.A., Graduate Theological Union; M.M.S., Ph.D., Medieval Institute, University of Notre Dame
For me, philosophy is the formation of the soul, and thus the study of philosophy should above all lead one to the question, What is form? And if we are lucky, this question will lead us to contemplate the order of things both within the soul and without, and the joy and wonder we experience at the vision will sustain us amidst the pain of inquiry and the disenchantment of skepticism.
Professor Delp received his doctorate in the area of late-antique and medieval philosophy at the Medieval Institute of the University of Notre Dame. His interests include the history of Platonism, especially in regard to its contribution to speculative mysticism and the role of beauty and form in the spiritual life, as witnessed in the writings of Plotinus, Pseudo-Dionysius, Johannes Scottus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa.
The courses Mark Delp regularly teaches are:
- Aristotelian Logic
- Thomistic Metaphysics
- Ancient and Medieval Aesthetics
- Contemplative Psychology
- Cosmology
- Metaphysics
Professor Delp is currently writing a book on the nature of artistic production in the philosophy of Plotinus. He is also finishing a commentary for the Corpus Christianorum Hermes Latinus series on the twelfth-century Hermetic text, De Sex Rerum Principiis ("On the Six Principles of Things"), a Platonic cosmology which draws on both ancient Western and newly translated Arabic and Greek sources. The text is related to the twelfth-century School of Chartes, the primary locus of Platonic renaissance in the Middle Ages.
Select Publications
"The Concept of Ratio in the De sex rerum principiis," forthcoming in Convegno internazionale di studi: La tradizione ermetica dal mondo tardo-antico all' Umanesimo.
The following articles for the New Westminster John Knox Dictionary of Church History: "Christian Platonism," "Pseudo-Dionysius," "Siger of Brabant," and "William of Moerbecke."
"Alcuin: Master and Practitioner of Dialectic," published in Proceedings of the PMR Conference (Augustinian Historical Institute, Villanova University), Vols. 16/17/, pp. 91-103.
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