The aim of this research is to propose a reading of Aristotle’s Metaphysics understood as an answer to the problem of non-being. This orientation will reveal the validity of the Aristotelian ontological approaches for the present, because today also the movement, the difference, the inidentity and the time constitute fundamental philosophical problems. We know that Aristotle displayed his ontology in dialogue and discussion with his predecessors. In this paper, I point out certain aspects of this debate to the extent that they contribute to highlighting those topics of the first philosophy that constitute a solution to the problem of non-being.

Aristotle says in the Nicomachean Ethics that pleasure accompanies the perfect activity, doing it more desirable, and that the activity of contemplation is the most divine and pleasurable. On the other hand, he says in the Metaphysics that God’s activity is the most pleasurable, because his activity is perfect. In this article I try to study the relation between pleasure and activity in contemplation and its relation with God’s activity, in order to understand intellectual pleasure: is it possible to speak about a “spiritual” pleasure? Are there sensations which do not depend on material organs?

The origin of Being as a live concept is one of the most difficult questions in history of metaphysics and ontology. This work analyses the postulate that being is constructed by the interaction of terms. In fact, being and the idea of Being has come from the possibility of relations. It is known that metaphysics and ontology has overestimated think Being like something that never change, a substance unchangeable. Reduce Being as ousía, translated as substance, does not understand central affirmation of Aristotle that “The term “being” is used in various senses, but with reference to one central idea and one definite characteristic, and not as merely a common epithet.” (Met. 1003a 33). The usually interpretation of relations make them one of those ways, however the concept of Being is always under a relation. Is reconsidered the role of relations in the basis of ontological thinking, taking the renewal of metaphysics, of the French philosopher Jean Wahl, and postulating that Being as totality is the relation that involves beings, Change and Time.

The Platonic myth in Book X of The Republic tells us how the choice of “destinies” is carried out by human souls about to be born. The revenant Er, in his particular nekia, returns to life to tell all he has seen and heard: that what life bring us is related to the good or bad choice of our future life trough a draw carried out under the eyes of Necessity and her three daughters: Lachesis, Clotho and Atropo, who weave the destiny of men (The Republic, Book X, 617e): Theintelligible character of this choice has the burden of a determinism ab origine without possibility of rewriting it, making our fate an inalterable journey. Kant could say the same in KrV, although it is true that the doctrine of the “intelligible character” only appears specifically in 1781, in the light of the Third Antinomies, in the“Dialectic” of the Critique of Pure Reason. Anyway, its long shadow appears in other texts (as in Religion Within Limits of Reason Alone of 1793)– that each one of voluntary acts of men: “it is predetermined, well before it occurs, in the empirical character of man” (KrV, A 553 / B 581) would suppose that this intelligiblecharacter would have to be understood together with the problem of freedom and decision. That threshold pointed out by Kant will be trespassed by Schelling, who will form a concept of freedom of a metaphysical character (libertas ex) which will send us to an origin, beyond all times, in which the de-cision, as ex-cision, restructures and sets in order our time. Cut or beginning, it is a wound without stitches which implies the proper opening of being into existence.

By a very long time, humankind has imagined about machines with autonomous consciousness, this ideas has become reality step by step in the last decades. But the question is still remaining, can computers think by themselves? This paper shows the principal differences between human and -a pretended- consciousness in the machines, also explains why I think that machines hasn’t get self-consciousness yet. It is worked on the idea that machines cannot have own ideas, beginning on the thought that it is necessary have a consciousness to be rational, and just then a system could create its own ideas about the world. This paper it is also based in two principal authors: John Searle and Mario Bunge, the first one to refer about the difference between syntax and semantics, and the second one to apply few of his ideas about knowing if a machine can be conscious or not.

The article deals with the topic of the «sequela Christi» taking as point of departure the difference that Augustine makes between disciples and apostles, discussing afterwards the topic of the example of Christ, presenting the different theological ideas in Augustine’s time developed to explain Christ’s example, namely pelagian ideas and those coming from monastic circles in Northern Africa (Hadrumentum) and the Gallia (Provence Monks). The article presents as a unifying Motif of Augustine’s ideas about the «homo spiritalis», his commentaries on Phil 1:29, underlining the aspects of gift and grace that Augustine stresses in his polemic with Pelagians, and also the role that the example of martyrs played in this discussion.

In contributing to the debate on the transformation of late Roman world, some scholars have claimed that the boundaries between religious groups were fluid with external and internal factors. Christian identity was not characterised by clear indications of religious belief, observance, and practice. Some intriguing surveys have shown that the difference between Christians and pagans can be seen as part of a discursive binary. While the North African evidence of their identity allows us to consider the question of what it means to be a Christian, it is noteworthy that there is a comprehensive framework for the understanding of human behavior and thought: the ‘spiritual exercises’ in the Greco-Roman tradition. In the fourth and fifth centuries, Christian thinkers began to pursue the matter in question as being linked with the context of his concern for Christianness in late North Africa, the correlation still remains in question. In this article, therefore, first I examine how he referred to the Christian code of behavior in his letters. In particular, focusing my attention on epistolary correspondence of Augustine with two seemingly ‘pagans’, I show how he tried to impose the idea of ehe Christian norms of behavior on his correspondence –with Dioscorus (epp. 117 and 118) and with Volusianus (epp. 132, 135, and 137). Then I ask what Augustine understood by spiritual training. For the sake of clarity, I have divided the letters along he thematic line into three groups –the intellectual and therapeutic (ep. 26, 37, 56, 102, 162, 193, 202A, and 2*), the religious and eschatological (ep. 92, 130, 131, 137, and 157), and the exegetical aspect (ep. 28, 137, 149, 199, and 213). In each group I consider them chronologically as far as possible. Finally, I consider the principal feature of spiritual training, thereby coming to the enhancement of spiritual affinities, and mutual relationships of which he made use in speaking about Christian identity.