Dr Robert McNamara

Home / Staff / Dr-robert-mcnamara

Dr Robert McNamara

Head of Philosophy Department; Lecturer in Philosophy

Philosophy

Contact Details

Email: Robert.McNamara@spcm.ie
Phone: +353 01 708 3600
Office: 17 Dunboyne Hall

Office hours: Monday, 2-4pm.

Research
About

Research Interests

Consciousness
Philosophy of Natural Science
Philosophy of Language
Aristotle
Augustine

Highlighted Publications

‘Subjectivity—The True Center of Personal Life,’ in Festschrift for John Crosby (Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press, forthcoming).

‘Questioning “Gender Identity,”’ in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (forthcoming).

‘The Relation of Creation: An Existential Consideration,’ in The Thomist, 90.4 (2025).

The Personalism of Edith Stein: A Synthesis of Thomism and Phenomenology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2023).

Research

The Personalism of Edith Stein: A Synthesis of Thomism and Phenomenology (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2023).

‘The Relation of Creation: An Existential Consideration,’ in The Thomist, 90.4 (2025).

‘Questioning “Gender Identity,”’ in Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association (forthcoming).

‘Subjectivity—The True Center of Personal Life,’ in Festschrift for John Crosby (Steubenville, OH: Hildebrand Press, forthcoming).

‘Edith Stein’s Conception of Human Unity and Bodily Formation: A Thomistically Informed Understanding’, in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 94.4 (2020), pp. 639–63.

‘The Concept of Christian Philosophy in Edith Stein’, in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 94.2 (2020), pp. 323-46.

‘The Cognition of the Human Individual in the Mature Thought of Edith Stein’, in Philosophical News, Official Publication of the European Society for Moral Philosophy, ed. Elisa Grimi, 16 (2018), pp. 131-43.

‘Human Individuality in Stein’s Mature Works’, in Edith Steins Herausforderung heutiger Anthropologie, ed. by Hanna-Barbara Gerl-Falkovitz and Mette Lebech (Heiligenkreuz: Be&Be, 2017), pp. 124-39.

‘Essence in Edith Stein’s Festschrift Dialogue’, in Alles Wesentliche lässt sich nicht schreiben, ed. by Andreas Speer and Stephen Regh (Freiburg i. Br.: Herder, 2016), pp. 175-94.

Biography

Dr. Robert McNamara is lecturer in philosophy and head of philosophy department at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, Ireland, adjunct professor of philosophy at Franciscan University of Steubenville, USA, while also tutoring periodically at the ITI Catholic University, Austria, and the Maryvale Institute, England. Robert is also an associate series editor of Edith Stein Studies, an associate scholar of the Hildebrand Project, a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Man and Woman, and a founding member of the Aquinas Institute of Ireland (currently suspended). Having studied physics, computing, philosophy, and theology, Robert brings a multidisciplinary perspective to his work while exploring anthropological and metaphysical themes in ancient, medieval, and phenomenological thinkers, with a defined focus on philosophical personalism in the Christian tradition. He currently resides in Maynooth, Ireland, with his wife, Caroline, and their five children.

Research Specialization: