International Philosophical Quarterly

The paper takes up a traditional view that has also been a part of some recent analytic metaphysics, namely, the view that substance is to be understood in terms of independence. Taking as my point of departure some recent remarks by Kit Fine, I propose reviving the Aristotelian-scholastic idea that the sense in which substances are independent is that they are non-inherent, and I do so by developing a broad notion of inherence that is more usable in the context of contemporary analytic metaphysics than the traditional notion is. I end by showing how non-inherence, while necessary for being a substance, cannot be taken as sufficient without some qualifying remarks.

For Saint Anselm, the mystery of the Holy Trinity was not merely an object of intellectual speculation but, more importantly, the object of praise and worship. Even though he claims that there is nothing in his treatise that violates the teachings of the Fathers, especially that of Augustine, Anselm explores in Monologion the doctrine of the Trinity in his own unique style. One very interesting discussion that does not appear in Augustine’s De Trinitate or in any of the Augustinian corpus is found in chapter 42, in which Anselm argues for the propriety of naming the Supreme Spirit “Father” and His Word “Son.” This paper examines this chapter, first, in the context of the four immediately preceding chapters and, second, in the context of those writings of Augustine that might have influenced Anselm in his presentation. The paper then offers reasons why Anselm included this unique chapter in his discussion on the Trinity.

This essay looks at Edith Stein’s descriptions of the fundamental equality, yet distinct differences between women and men, and attempts to make clear the ontology underlying her claims. Stein’s position—although drawing from the general Aristotelian-Thomistic position—differs from Thomas Aquinas’s, and she understands gender as tied significantly to our form or soul. The particular way in which gender is “written into” our soul, however, differs from the way in which both our humanity and individuality are tied to our soul. Thus, Stein wants to account for gender in a way that does not attribute it primarily to biology, nor does she understand gender as merely socially-constructed. Rather, gender is a significant part of our soul, yet not in such a way that either our common humanity orour distinct individuality are compromised.

In the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, learning is not a paradox, as suggested by Plato’s Meno, but the fundamental form of experience. To experience is precisely to be permeable and open to being reshaped by one’s experiences. I explore the reconceptualization of the human subject within Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy that allows us to understand how the body-subject can be a learning subject. Fundamentally this involves consideration of the nature of habit, and the way in which habit simultaneously locks us into a repressiveattachment to a specific past and opens us up to the possibilities of meaningful engagement with the world. Through an analysis of the temporality of habit, I conclude that understanding habit as the fundamental launching-place of learning also allows us to see how essential learning is to the experience of human freedom.

In this paper, I suggest that Heidegger’s conception of freedom, elaborated in piecemeal fashion in Being and Time, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, and Metaphysical Foundations of Logic and culminating in The Essence of Human Freedom, providesa way of rethinking our conception of freedom, not as a set of specific determinations and rights, but as the very condition for the possibility of both existence and community. In this elaboration, it is possible to trace Heidegger’s gradual removal of freedom from the ontology of self-presence. This, I argue, offers us a way of thinking freedom, not in terms of a quality or attribute that Dasein possess, but in terms of community, fraternity, and hence ethics.

In this paper I explain the basics of Heidegger’s early Daseinanalytik, an account that contains promising insights for the phenomenology of time. I then draw out some of the relevant lessons from his phenomenology for the debate between A-theorists andB-theorists in contemporary analytic philosophy of time, and I show how it is that he gives a more philosophically satisfying account of the phenomenological features of becoming than one generally finds in the analytic debate. In Heidegger’s theory, becoming is not some contingent and misleading artifact of consciousness or of Dasein. It is a necessary and sufficient condition for their occurrence, even though it is not identical with them.