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Studia Neoaristotelica

A Journal of Analytic Scholasticism

Volume 4

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Displaying: 1-20 of 22 documents


articles

1. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Miroslav Hanke

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The subject of the present article is the analysis of fundamental logical-semantical terminology of late-medieval nominalistic logician Jean Buridan (c. 1295–1360). The analysis focuses on the concepts of truth conditions and logical consequence, whose clarification presupposes explication of modal terminology as well as a solution of semantical antinomies such as “Liar” (or an attempt to solve them). The analysis of Buridan’s argumentation suggests that Buridan’s project of logic actually fails due to several failures of conceptual analysis of semantical and modal terminology. An alternative solution of the question concerning logical consequence is thus proposed in terms of Buridan’s implicit (and unused) semantical conception of modalities that makes it possible to establish conceptually and therefore explicatively closed logical framework.
2. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Daniel Heider

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The paper deals with the problem of conceptual interpretation of Aristotle’s prima facie divergent opinions on human happiness in his Nicomachean Ethics, especially in Book 1 and Book 10. As its starting point it takes the well-known expository scheme connected with the polarity “Dominantism versus Inclusivism”. It attempts to show that the relationship of two main candidates on human happines, namely the activities of moral virtues and of contemplation, should be understood on the basis of the predicative scheme called the intrinsic analogy of attribution. While both contemplation and the activities of moral virtues are intrinsically valuable, it is argued that they exhibit certain order of priority and posteriority: the theoretical activities of our intellect realise happiness primarly, whereas the moral activities merely secondarily. The desirable character of intrinsic goodness of our moral actions consists in the fact that they are beautiful and that they, in a certain way, approximate theoria. Interpreting the teleological relation between moral action and contemplation as one of approximation thus seems to represent a plausible alternative, which, unlike the standard means–end relation, keeps in balance both of the desiderata, i.e. the intrinsic goodness of our moral actions as well as their intrinsic orientation toward contemplation.
3. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
David Svoboda Orcid-ID

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Suárez’s solution to the problem of the conceptual Addition of the One to being follows firstly the Aristotelian-Averroistic tradition mediated by Aquinas. According to this tradition, the One adds to being only a negative determination. Suárez claims that the One does not signify any positive perfection either really or conceptually distinct from being as such. Suárez’s own solution to the problem is presented in a critical discussion with many different conceptions, but Suárez pays most attention to the theory of certain, mainly Franciscan, authors who hold that the One adds to being a positive perfection which is only conceptually distinct from being as such. The main argument for this thesis is based on the assumption that indivision is to be taken as a double negation, by which an affirmation is expressed. This concept of indivision was, according to Suárez, also defended by Aquinas, who holds that the negation which is expressed by the One negates the division of one being from another. Suárez rejects this solution and proposes his own conception, according to which the One does not negate the negative moment of the division of one being from another, but the positive moment of an essential division of a being in itself. The One thus negates a real positive division of being in itself. On the basis of this theory, Suárez further rejected Aquinas’s (and the Thomistic) conception of a conceptual priority of the One over the Many, which was put forth as an answer to the old Aristotelian problem of a privative opposition between the One and the Many. Suárez defends the real priority of an indivision over a division as well as a real and conceptual priority of the One over the Many. Suárez’s conception seems to us to be compatible with his concept of a negative Addition of the One to being.
4. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Petr Dvořák

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The paper deals with various species of fatalism originating either in causal determinism, in the semantic fact that propositions about the future may be true in the present, or in divine omniscience. The common argument form is identified as well as the relevant notion of modality at play, that of power necessity. Finally, the paper examines briefly a strategy to combat theological fatalism, the socalled Ockhamism and various attempts to disprove the underlying transfer principle (of power necessity).

discussions

5. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Lukáš Novák

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6. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
David Peroutka OCD

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reviews

7. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Tomáš Machula

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8. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Josef Novák

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9. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Michal Chabada

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10. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Tomáš Machula

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news

11. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 2
Pavel Blažek

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articles

12. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Lukáš Novák

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13. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Paul E. Oppenheimer, Edward N. Zalta

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In this paper, the authors show that there is a reading of St. Anselm’s ontological argument in Proslogium II that is logically valid (the premises entail the conclusion). This reading takes Anselm’s use of the definite description “that than which nothing greater can be conceived” seriously. Consider a first-order language and logic in which definite descriptions are genuine terms, and in which the quantified sentence “there is an x such that…” does not imply “x exists”. Then, using an ordinary logic of descriptions and a connected greater-than relation, God’s existence logically follows from the claims: (a) there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater is conceivable, and (b) if x does not exist, something greater than x can be conceived. To deny the conclusion, one must deny one of the premises. However, the argument involves no modal inferences and, interestingly, Descartes’ ontological argument can be derived from it.
14. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Paul E. Oppenheimer, Edward N. Zalta

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The authors evaluate the soundness of the ontological argument they developed in their 1991 paper. They focus on Anselm’s first premise, which asserts that there is a conceivable thing than which nothing greater can be conceived. After casting doubt on the argument Anselm uses in support of this premise, the authors show that there is a formal reading on which it is true. Such a reading can be used in a sound reconstruction of the argument. After this reconstruction is developed in precise detail, the authors show that the conclusion, a reading of the claim “God exists”, does not quite achieve the end Anselm desired.
15. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
David Peroutka OCD

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Receptive potencies are the essence in relation to the act of being (esse) and the matter in relation to the form. Suárez identifies the essence with the existence. A potential essence, according to Suarez, is nothing; therefore it cannot be receptive potency for being (esse). The actuality of an actual essence is its being (esse). Hence, the actual essence does not need to receive any further being distinct from it. Essence does not differ really from being (esse); nevertheless, we can conceive it without being. Essence as “whatness”, quiddity, is closely connected with concept and definition. In this regard we may make some critical remarks on Suarez’s doctrine: If the “whatness” is identical to the being (esse), this fact has to be reflected in the adequate notion of the “whatness”. If it is so, it seems that the essence conceived without being (esse) is not the same essence any more. Furthermore: If essence and existence are identified, what is it to which existence can be non-trivially ascribed? What is the receptive potency for being (esse)? Arriaga follows Suárez in the doctrine of essence and being, in his teaching on the prime matter however he goes even further. Whereas Suárez ascribes to the prime matter its own actuality, Arriaga assigns to it some attributes of substance. In contradistinction to the Suarezian conception of receptive potencies, the Thomistic doctrine of the relation of participation between potency and act permits metaphysics to withstand the threats of mechanicism and the post-fregean trivialization of the notion of being (esse).

translations

16. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Peter Hoenen SJ

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discussions

17. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Lukáš Novák

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18. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
David Peroutka OCD

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reviews

19. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Stanislav Sousedík

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20. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 4 > Issue: 1
Rastislav Nemec

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