Roczniki Filozoficzne

In his „Topics”, forming part of his Dialectics, Abelard discusses the sense and truth-conditions of hypothetical sentences. In this aligns himself, not to the tradition of the Stoics, but, through Boethius, to the tradition of the old Peripatetics, namely to Eudemus.Among, hypothetical sentences, a basic type is the conditional sentence, or consequentia. In the present article it is shown that Abelard rejects the truth-functional interpretation and the probability-interpretation for conditional sentences (consequentia) and admits only two interpretations, of which one is modal and in complete agrees with the concept of strict implication of Lewis, and the second is inferential. This agrees with Ackermann’s concept of strict implication. Abelard is an advocate of inferential interpretation, free of paradoxes, to which a modal interpretation leads.

Dans mon travail: De existentia substantiali in doctrina S. Thomae Aquinatis, editée en 1962 par la Libraire de l'Université Grégorienne à Rome, les deux derniers chapitres se mettent au premier plan, qui soulignent la dépendance de toute existence substantielle dans son origine naturelle et dans sa conservation consécutive de l’Être suprême. Pourtant, des textes sur lesquels je me suis appuyé, englobant non seulement les existences substantielles, et réalisées par ces derniers les êtres substantiels, mais aussi ils suggèrent la dépendance de cet Être, tous les accidents avec leur action. C’est dans cet article nous voudrions mettre en relief la dépendance complète de la créature de son Créateur dans la doctrine de s. Thomas. Avant de motiver avec les textes de la Somme cette dépendance, nous voudrions d’abord présenter une base ontique de cette dépendance qui est constituée par la différence métaphysique thomiste entre l'être et l’existence dans tout être réel. Je ne m’arrête pas ici, mais je voudrais motiver, en quelle manière s. Thomasfait défendre des accidents, mais aussi leur action à travers leur existence de la Cause Première, donnant par là, une explication particulière du fameux „concursus divinus”. De cette façon l'acceptation de la différence réelle-métaphysique entre l’être et l’existence permet à s. Thomas non seulement séparer d’une façon catégorique l’Être Suprême des autres êtres, mais en même temps relier et faire dépendre d’une façon magistrale tout l'univers dans ses moindres symptômes du Créateur.

Henry of Ghent is commonly known in the History of Philosophy as one of the opponents of Thomism in the thirteenth century. The point discussed here is whether the „anti-thomist” Henry is to be considered as an essentialist as well.On the basis of Henry’s Summae Quaestionum and Quodlibeta the author endeavours to point out the two sources of misunderstanding leading to wrong conclusions, viz. 1. Henry’s terminology different from Thoma’s especially as regards ttie basic metaphysical concepts; 2. Henry interprets the real being in an entirely different manner from Thomas Aquinas.Nevertheless Henry remains on existential ground because: 1. his idea of God is wholly existential, and so is, too; 2. his analysis of concrete being, which he sees as a „limited existence”; 3. according to him the object of analysis does not consist in the content of being but solely and exclusively in the mode of being; 4. the modes of being are „instrumental” in the logical deduction and demonstration of the categories of being; 5. the theory of the analogy of being, as outlined in the Summae Quaestionum, is based exclusively on existence.

The article is an attempt to describe the explanation in classical metaphysics. These considerations are preceded by a presentation of the various types of explanation and the most typical methods, and of various concepts of classical metaphysics. Against this background the explanation is analysed in general metaphysics and next in detailed metaphysics.The explanation in general classical metaphysics is a variety of the theoretical explanation used in the natural sciences. In addition, in traditional concepts of metaphysics analytical methods are chiefly used in the explanation, and an especially important role is given to intuition. Modernized forms of metaphysics generally adopt a reflective method of explanation. This has at least three variants: reflective-phenomenological, reflective-synthetic and reflective-reductive. Sometimes the constructive method is used, which insists on ontology as an introduction to metaphysics. All these methods are faced with considerable difficulties. The analytic method does not guarantee absolute universality in the explanation. Reflective methods insufficiently fulfil the condition of ontologic realism. The method of construction cannot deal with so-called metaphysical experience. It appears that the method of so-called existential Thomism most fully satisfies the postulates of a realistic, controlled, universal, and infallible explanation. Such an explanation depends finally upon theory of the inner structure of being, or upon the essential relations between elementary constituting factors of being as being.An explanation in detailed metaphysics, in addition to theoretical explanation, makes use of evaluation, where the chief method of the latter operation is the method of construction, based, however, not on ontology but on general metaphysics and human metaphysics.

In this article the author attempts to support the thesis that among so-called „definitions” formulated in a typical text-book lecture on scholastic metaphysics, on the whole there are none which could explain the sense of the term defined by confronting it with a combination of meanings (different from it and differing among themselves) of several, or even two, terms. The analysis of the above — mentioned alleged definitions shows that the plurality of concepts included in their definienses is merely apparent. They are simple translations of one non-complex term into ar. other complex term, i. e. this is the use of the so-called method of synonyms, where both synonyms are equally derived from common speech and their sense is equally metaphoric. In addition, these definitions are, in the majority, translations of one language form (logico-grammatical) into another equivalent language form. Thus they are concretisations of generally important logico-grammatical schemats. This article draws attention to the illusive and strictly verbal nature of such an explanation of metaphysical terms.

In addition to the classically essentialising so-called traditional (scholastic) Thomism, especially under the influence of the philosophic thought of Cajetanus, Suarez and Wolff, at the present time avant-garde Thomism has its own essentialising version. What E. Braun calls the neoessentialistic interpretation of the Thomistic concept of being, depends, generally speaking, on substantializing the transcendent act of being, in relation to nature, in such a manner that both the existential actuality and the formal actuality are present in the act of esse. The author of the present article, after considering certain neoessentialistic objection to the so-called existentialistic concept of being in E. Gilson, analyses the theory of ontic esse in the works of C. Fabro and J. B. Lotz. Insofar as, according to the author of the present article, the metaphysical views of C. Fabro supplement Gilson’s interpretation of the Thomistic concept of being, Lotz’s theory of the ontic esse is a classical example of scholastic neoessentialism. The article ends with suggestions for distinguishing, in the field of metaphysical cognition, the so-called, „ontologic” and „ontic” analyses of reality, relative to the Thomistic thesis of the overlapping of so-called infraontic factors.

The question of how far God may be known is, in contemporary thought, extremely complicated and multiple-conditioned. Modern philosophical trends, first Kantism and Positivism and later Phenomenology an.d Existentialism, brought in new styles and methods and the intellectual atmosphere of our times.Three phenomena appear to be most symptomatic of the expression of the chief tendencies in this field: 1. The starting-point of considerations which are to lead us to a knowledge of God, is to be primarily man: his cognition, activity, situation, 2. prejudice against rational cognition. Intuition, instinct, feelings are held to be more adequate tools than the intellect, 3. an attempt to reach a kind of synthesis, to comprehend the whole, which leads to a blurring of boundaries between the various planes of cognition.The development of reflective philosophy (in both forms), the renaissance of the ontological proof, extreme revelationism and rejection of natural theology, and, above all, the development of the concept of the religious cognition of God are various forms of the realization of the tendencies indicated.