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41. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Miroslav Hanke Insolubilia Novissima: Analysis of an Anonymous Insolubilia-Treatise with a Working Edition
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Insolubilia novissima is a short anonymous fifteenth-century treatise on semantic paradoxes printed in the Cambridge compendium Libellus sophistarum. Along with a working edition of this treatise, basic information about its content and historical and systematic context is offered. Insolubilia novissima endorses the Swyneshedian contextualist solution to paradoxes based on distinguishing between compositional and contextual meaning of sentences.
42. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Stefan Heßbrüggen-Walter Scientific Knowledge and the Metaphysics of Experience The Debate in Early Modern Aristotelianism
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Early modern commentaries on Aristotle’s Metaphysics contain a lively debate on whether experience is ‘rational’, so that it may count as ‘proto-knowledge’, or whether experience is ‘non-rational’, so that experience must be regarded as a primarily perceptual process. If experience is just a repetitive apprehension of sensory contents, the connection of terms in a scientific proposition can be known without any experiential input, as the ‘non-rational’ Scotists state. ‘Rational’ Thomists believe that all principles of scientific knowledge must rely on experiential data, because experience consists in an apprehension of facts rather than objects. And it is only apprehension of facts that can justify knowledge of principles. In this context, the role of mathematical knowledge is special, because it is self-evident. So Thomists must either show that mathematical principles do rely on experience, or that they do not express knowledge claims.
43. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Mark K. Spencer Transcendental Order in Suárez
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Francisco Suárez’s account of the transcendentals in Disputationes Metaphysicae 3 has been noted by Aertsen, Courtine, Darge, and Sanz for its reductionism; Suárez argues that all proposed transcendentals reduce to unum, verum, and bonum. This scholarship overlooks a key feature of Suárez’s account. In addition to providing his own theory, Suárez also works out a meta-metaphysical framework with which it can be shown how any proposed metaphysical item, including those that do not fit into Suárez’s own theory, relates to Being; he also works out rules for ordering these items. The way in which Suárez orders and reduces items related to Being involves several different kinds of reduction, and is more complex than current interpretations allow. Suárez’s framework and rules providea neutral standard for assessing the truth of any theory of transcendentals; this is shown through examining four accounts of the proposed transcendental aliquid using Suárez’s framework and rules.
44. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Nicholas Rescher Aristotle’s Precept on Precision
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As Aristotle saw it, the modus operandi of nature is frequently irregular and unruly. And this accords with the structure of the universe, with regularity predominant in the trans-lunar realm and regularity prominent in the cis-lunar. This circumstance opens the way to the different sorts of natural laws: those which are strictly universal and those which function only normally and “for the most part.” And knowing to what extent exactness, regularity, and universality can be expected in different areas of inquiry was, for Aristotle, the very touchstone of scientific wisdom and sophistication.
45. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 10 > Issue: 2
Vlastimil Vohánka Why Peter van Inwagen Does Not Help in Showing the Logical Possibility of the Trinity
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I conceive the Trinity doctrine as the proposition that there are three persons each of whom is God but just one being (substance) which is God. In two papers by Peter van Inwagen I distinguish three potential candidates for a reason that the Trinity doctrine is logically possible. First, a particular conjunction entailing the Trinity doctrine is formally consistent in relative identity logic. Second, the conjunction is formally consistent in the standard logic. Third, the conjunction shares a form in relative identity logic with another logically possible conjunction. I explain how all these three reasons fail because of the distinction between logical possibility and formal consistency. In contrast to previous critiques, I dispense with epistemological and metaphysical assumptions about absolute and relative identity. Instead, I employ modal distinctions endorsed even by the inspirer of van Inwagen’s relative identity of the Trinity — the pioneering analytic scholastic Peter Geach.
46. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Vlastimil Vohánka Are Standard Lawlike Propositions Metaphysically Necessary? Hildebrand vs. Groarke
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I discuss Dietrich von Hildebrand, a realist phenomenologist, and Louis Groarke, an Aristotelian. They are close in epistemology and modal metaphysics, but divided about the metaphysical necessity of standard lawlike propositions – i.e., standard natural laws and standard truths about natural kinds. I extract and undermine the reasons of both authors. Hildebrand claims that no standard lawlike proposition is metaphysically necessary, since none is in principle knowable solely by considering essences. I undermine this when I argue that the explanation of positive instances of at least some standard lawlike propositions by the metaphysical necessity of these propositions is quite plausibly (though not probably) true. Groarke claims that some standard lawlike propositions are metaphysically necessary, since their positive instances exemplify natural kinds that make all their members necessarily similar in relevant ways. I undermine this, too, as I point out the obscurity of relevant similarity. Finally I argue against Groarke’s suggestion that an appeal to relevant similarity is presupposed in all acceptable inductive arguments from samples.
47. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
John Peterson Creation and Consciousness
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Defenders of the evolutionary origin of human beings hold that humankind has in its entirety evolved out of lower life forms. This opposes the idea of creation under which at least one aspect of human beings has not evolved out of pre-existing material things or states of thing but has been produced out of nothing by God. It is here argued that creation is correct. For whatever might be said of other aspects or elements in our natures, our consciousness, taken per se or just as consciousness, is something which could not possibly have evolved out of pre-existing things or states of thing. That is because consciousness is ultimately simple and only what is composite can come to be by evolution out of pre-existing things or states of thing.
48. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
John A. Demetracopoulos Purchotius Græcus II: Vikentios Damodos’ Concise Metaphysics, Part I (“Ontology”) And II (“Pneumatology”)
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Vikentios Damodos (1700–1754) was a private teacher of philosophy and theology in Cephalonia (Kephallênia), Ionian Islands (Greece), when they were under Venetian rule. He had studied in Venice and Padua and elaborated a Greek Concise Metaphysics, which forms a part of his hefty Philosophy. Concise Metaphysics is a selective translation or adaptation of passages from the respective parts of Institutiones philosophicæ by Edmond Pourchot, a Scholastico-Cartesian professor of philosophy (1651–1734); namely from Metaphysics of Vol. I (Logic and Metaphysics); as well as from the respective parts(Compendium Metaphysicæ; Exercitationes scholasticæ) of Vol. V (Exercitationes scholasticæ… sive Series disputationum ontologicarum or Exercitationes ontologicæ) of Pourchot’s textbook. Damodos’ work is enriched by an Appendix, which includes some Metaphysical Questions. Like Damodos’ Concise Ethics, where the respective parts of the same textbook were plagiarized, the main body (Part I: “Ontology”; Part II: “Pneumatology”, sc. on spiritual beings) of the Concise Metaphysics testifies to his good apprehension of the content of the Latin original. Yet too, it shows no traces of philosophical thought on the part of the plagiarist. Damodos modified the content of the Latin text only with regard to Filioque and Trinitarian terminology, which was not acceptable to himself and his fellow Orthodox addressees. Damodos seems further to have been aware of the issue of whether theological topics (such as those regarding angels, which, as ‘spiritualbeings’, fall under the subject matter of metaphysics) should be admitted into metaphysical handbooks. He shares Pourchot’s view that this is in principle forbidden, although it can be accepted for practical reasons, just as another Scholastico-Cartesian, Jean-Baptiste du Hamel (1624–1706) had done in his own Metaphysics. Du Hamel, in his turn, had been a latent yet basic source of Pourchot’s Institutiones philosophicæ. Damodos enriched his own handbook by means of some additional material (e.g., on the various sorts of metaphysical ‘distinctions’), which he drew from du Hamel’s Logic and Metaphysics (from the Philosophia vetus et nova) and, probably, from the metaphysical part of the handbook of Thomistic philosophy by Antonius Goudinus (1639–1695).
49. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 1
Jan Palkoska Inesse and Concipi in Spinoza’s Ethics
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In this paper I examine the prospects of the two major approaches to interpreting the ‘inesse’ relation in Spinoza’s definitions of substance and mode in the Ethics – the ‘inherence’ interpretation and the ‘causal’ interpretation. I argue that these interpretations will find it difficult to reconcile the claim that modes ‘are in’ substance with the claim that modes are conceived through substance. I consider a number of strategies that proponents of these readings might use to overcome the problem, and conclude that none is satisfactory.
50. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Louis Groarke Response to “Hildebrand vs. Groarke” by Vlastimil Vohánka
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I defend an Aristotelian account of induction against an analytic challenge that recommends Bernoulllian satistics as a more rigorous foundation for inductive reasoning. If Aristotle defines metaphysical necessity as a causal relation produced by the form inherent in a substance, the modern Humean account construes metaphysical necessity as a matter of exceptionless statistical regularity. I argue that Humean epistemology cannot move beyond relations of ideas to a description of the true nature of things in the world and that Aristotelian realism offers, in comparison, a metaphysical perspective that can serve as a firm foundation for science. Any attempt to prove the validity of induction using mathematical probability is bound to fail for basic principles of all mathematics begin ininduction. Any such strategy is viciously circular. In the course of the paper, I argue that logic must begin in an immediate leap of reason, that intuitive insights can be tested in hindsight, that metaphysical essentialism can account for the accidental (or contingent) properties of things, and that phenomenological distinctions between metaphysical, natural, and empirical necessity can be mapped onto Aristotelian categories.
51. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Miguel García-Valdecasas Givens and Foundations in Aristotle’s Epistemology
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Aristotle’s epistemology has sometimes been associated with foundationalism, the theory according to which a small set of premise-beliefs that are deductively valid or inductively strong provide justification for many other truths. In contemporary terms, Aristotle’s foundationalism could be compared with what is sometimes called “classical foundationalism”. However, as I will show, the equivalent to basic beliefs in Aristotle’s epistemology are the so-called first principles or “axiómata”. These principles are self-evident, but not self-justificatory. They are not justified by their act of understanding, but by the arguments that satisfactorily prove them. In addition, these principles are intellectual, rather than perceptual, so that no basic belief that is about our immediate experience or sensorydata is apt to provide the required foundation of knowledge. In spite of this, I argue that Aristotle’s foundationalism has no givens, and that his epistemology resists the objections usually leveled against givens.
52. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 11 > Issue: 2
Dale Jacquette Toward a Neoaristotelian Inherence Philosophy of Mathematical Entities
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The fundamental idea of a Neoaristotelian inherence ontology of mathematical entities parallels that of an Aristotelian approach to the ontology of universals. It is proposed that mathematical objects are nominalizations especially of dimensional and related structural properties that inhere as formal species and hence as secondary substances of Aristotelian primary substances in the actual world of existent physical spatiotemporal entities. The approach makes it straightforward to understand the distinction between pure and applied mathematics, and the otherwise enigmatic success of applied mathematics in the natural sciences. It also raises an interesting set of challenges for conventional mathematics, and in particular for the ontic status of infinity, infinite sets and series, infinitesimals, and transfinite cardinalities. The final arbiter of all such questions on an Aristotelian inherentist account of the nature of mathematical entities are the requirements of practicing scientists for infinitary versus strictly finite mathematics in describing, explaining, predicting and retrodicting physical spatiotemporal phenomena. Following Quine, we classify all mathematics that falls outside of this sphere of applied scientific need as belonging to pure, and, with no prejudice or downplaying of its importance, ‘recreational’, mathematics. We consider a number of important problems in the philosophy of mathematics, and indicate how a Neoaristotelian inherence metaphysics of mathematical entities provides a plausible answer to Benacerraf’s metaphilosophical dilemma, pitting the semantics of mathematical truth conditions against the epistemic possibilities for justifying an abstract realist ontology of mathematical entities and truth conditions.
53. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Ľuboš Rojka The Modal Argument for the Soul / Body Dualism
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The modal argument for the existence of a Cartesian human soul proposed by Richard Swinburne more than thirty years ago, if slightly adjusted and interpreted correctly, becomes a plausible argument for anyone who accepts modal arguments. The difficulty consists in a relatively weak justification of the second premise, of the real possibility of a disembodied existence, as a result of which the argument does not provide a real (conclusive) proof. The argument is best understood in the following terms: (1) Special divine action is excluded from the metaphysical possibilities and only the natural possibilities are considered; (2) the “conceivable” possibility of the existence of a person without a body is interpreted as a metaphysical (real) possibility, and inductive support for its reality is provided by apparent first-person-conceivability of a disembodied existence, detailed descriptions of out-of-body and near-death experiences, a priori trust in introspection in psychology and the cognitive sciences, and by the unity of consciousness and the possibility of its extension to peripersonal space; (3) statements about having a soul or being a material substance are excluded from the domain of the premises; and finally, (4) one accepts the Kripkean principle that having a body or a soul is an essential component of a person. If these conditions are met, the argument is valid, and the conclusion is made more plausible by Swinburne’s modal argument than it would be without it.Argumentum modale pro animae humanae “Cartesianae” existentia, quod R. Swinburne ante plures quam 30 annos proposuit, acceptabile reddi potest cuicumque argumenta modalia non generatim respuenti, si paululum emendetur recteque intelligatur. Omnis huius argumenti diffi cultas consistit in iustifi catione debiliore secundae eius praemissae (possibilitatem realem existendi sine corpore statuentis), quo pacto argumentum ineffi cax redditur. Argumentum vero optime intelligetur his quattuor punctis animadversis: Primo, possibilitas metaphysica non nisi possibilitates naturales comprehendere intelligatur, omni speciali Dei ingerentia exclusa. Secundo, personae possibilitas “conceptibilis” sine corpore existendi intelligatur ut realis possibilitas metaphysica. Cui realitati argumenta favent inductiva tum ex possibilitate imaginandi (aspectu primae personae) existentiam sine corpore; tum ex minutatim enarratis testimoniis experiendi status “extra corpus” et “prope mortem”; tum ex fi de fundamentali veritatis introspectionis in psychologia scientiis que cognitivis; tum ex unitate conscientiae ac possibilitate eam in spatium extra corpus extendendi. Tertio, e praemissarum congerie assertiones excludantur quibus homo animam habere vel substantiam materialem esse assumeretur. Quarto, principium S. Kripkii accipiatur, scil. corporis vel animae habitum personae essentialem esse debere. His omnibus servatis argumentum Swinburnii validum evadit, conclusionem suam plus credibilem reddens quam secus esset.
54. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
Miroslav Hanke Cajetan of Thiene on the Logic of Paradox
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In the first half of the fifteenth century, the Italian logician, natural philosopher, and doctor of medicine Cajetan of Thiene wrote a commentary on William Heytesbury’s Regulae solvendi sophismata, which later became a part of the printed edition of Heytesbury’s treatises. Several late fifteenth century reprints sustained its circulation and further influence. Following Heytesbury, Cajetan listed four alternative treatments of paradoxes, where the first three were formulated in general logico-semantic terms and the last one in terms of obligationes. The present analysis reconstructs the first three positions in terms of the theories of logical operators endorsed as part of the solution to paradoxes. This reconstruction uncovers different underlying views of operators, namely context-sensitive (the function of operators is sensitive to contextual factors), value-functional (the function of operators is purely compositional), and supervaluationist (the function of operators saves classical tautologies by disregarding other factors).Priore dimidia parte saeculi 15 Caietanus de Thiena, logicus, physicus et medicus, commentarium super G. Hentisberi Regulis solvendi sophismata conscripsit, quod posterius una cum Hentisberi tractatibus typis impressum est. Cuius commentarii notitiam auctoritatemque continuam iteratae nonnullae eius editiones in fi ne 15 saeculi factae sustinebant. Caietanus (Hentisberum secutus) quattuor vias tractandi insolubilia distinxit, quarum tres primae conceptibus generalibus logico-semanticis, quarta doctrina de obligationibus innixae sunt. In analysi hic proposita auctor primas tres vias reconstruit, doctrinas varias de logicis coniunctionibus vel notis reserans, super quibus illae viae solvendi paradoxa fundantur. Quarum prima vim notarum a contextu sermonis dependentem facit. Altera notas pure “compositionaliter” tractat. Tertia iuxta modum doctrinae de “supervaluatione” omnes formales tautologias servat, aliis considerationibus neglectis.
55. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 1
John Kronen, Sandra Menssen Towards a Robust Hylomorphism
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Over the past fi fty years or so analytic philosophers (such as David Wiggins and Baruch Brody) have developed accounts of the nature of material objects that can plausibly be described as neo-Aristotelian. We argue that what we term non-robust neo-Aristotelian accounts of hylomorphism fail: if hylomorphism is true, then some species of robust hylomorphism is true. In Section 2 we explain what we take non-robust and robust hylomorphism to be and distinguish two species of non-robust hylomorphism (formal and substantial). In Section 3 we examine Aquinas’s definition of substance. It has much to recommend it, but precludes any sort of non-robust hylomorphism. So we consider whether there is an alternative definition of substance that might be employed in defense of non-robust hylomorphism. The only promising alternative, we suggest, is one inspired by Udayana, the great 10ᵗʰ-century Vaiśeṣika metaphysician, a definition that relies on the concept of inherence. In Section 4 we argue that formal non-robust hylomorphism is false under the alternative defi nition of substance, and that substantial non-robust hylomorphism, too, is false under that definition. And in Section 5 we offer a few final remarks, including a word of thanks to the neo-Aristotelians we so strongly criticize, for their work has signifi cantly benefitted those who, like us, favor a more traditional form of hylomorphism.Philosophi, ut aiunt, analytici (puta David Wiggins, Baruch Brody), postremis quinquaginta annis explicationem rerum materialium naturae, quae rite Neoaristotelica nuncupari potest, elaborant. Arguunt vero huius tractationis auctores, Neoaristotelicas hylemorphismi explicationes, quas ipsi “mitigatas” nominant, parum succedere: si hyle mor phismus verus sit, aliquam hylemorphismi non mitigati speciem veram esse debere. In sectione 2 auctores rationes hylemorphismi mitigati et non mitigati explicant duasque hyle morphismi mitigati species distinguunt: “ formalem” scil. et “substantialem”. In sectione 3 auctores substantiae defi nitionem examinant a S. Thoma propositam. Quae defi nitio nonnullis praestat virtutibus, hylemorphismum vero mitigatum omnino excludit. Hac de causa auctores aliam substantiae defi nitionem quaerunt, qua accepta hylemorphismus mitigatus vindicari possit. Non tamen videtur ulla posse inveniri nisi elaboratio aliqua defi nitionis quam Udayana proposuit (metaphysicus scil. praeclarus qui saec. 10 in India fl orebat, scholae quae “Vaiśeṣika” dicitur sectator): quae defi nitio inhaerentiae conceptui innixa est. In sectione 4 auctores arguunt, hylemorphismum mitigatum tam formalem quam substantialem esse falsum hac altera substantiae defi nitione posita. In sectione 5 auctores paucis quibusdam notulis tractationem concludunt, gratias quoque agentes philosophis Neoaristotelicis, quos ipsi impugnaverunt: eorum enim labore auctores magis traditionali hylemorphismi faventes speciei (huiusce tractationibus auctoribus non exclusis), multum profecerunt.
56. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 2
Monika Mansfeld The Fourfold Division of Opposition in Questions on Aristotle’s “Categories” (Quaestiones super “Praedicamenta” Aristotelis) by Benedict Hesse, Paul of Pyskowice and in the Oldest Cracow Commentary on the Categories Preserved in Cod. bj 1941
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In the first half of the 15ᵗʰ century there was a coherent philosophical system of teaching at the Jagiellonian university, so-called ars vetus, concerning the interpretation of three treatises: Aristotle’s Categories and Hermeneutics and Porphyry’s Isagoge. The question-commentaries on the Categories that have been preserved in several manuscripts show astonishing similarity in solving individual problems – there are three copies of Benedict Hesse’s commentary (BJ 2037, BJ 2043, BJ 2455) and one copy of Paul of Pyskowice’s work (BJ 1900), moreover, in BJ 1941 there is an anonymous commentary on the Categories that is also very close to the ones mentioned before, to prove that fact. This paper, discussing the four-fold division of opposition in those Polish commentaries on Aristotle’s Categories, is part of the studies on the manuscript material that has not been critically edited yet. The main goal is to show the philosophical views on contraries, contradictories, relatives and possession and privation in a wider perspective, comparing the Polish commentaries’ doctrine with the authoritative text itself.
57. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 2
Louis Groarke Can Aristotelianism Make Sense of Perihelion–Aphelion Orbits?
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In general historical treatments, one often encounters the idea that Kepler’s and Newton’s discovery of elliptical planetary orbits marked a decisive break with tradition and definitively undermined any possibility of an Aristotelian approach to physics and astronomy. Although Aristotle had no understanding of gravity, I want to demonstrate that elliptical orbits were a refinement of earlier models and that one can produce an Aristotelian account of elliptical orbits once one corrects his crucial mistake about gravity. One interesting side-effect of this straightforwardly Aristotelian approach is that it eliminates the empty, second focal point around which any elliptical system revolves. I should emphasize that the present paper is not intended to contradict, oppose, or replace any aspect of contemporary mathematical physics or astronomy. The point is not to propose a new scientific theory—we all know that planetary orbits are elliptical—but to demonstrate that metaphysical Aristotelianism is more versatile than is generally supposed.
58. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 13 > Issue: 2
James Franklin Elliptical Orbits and the Aristotelian Scientific Revolution Comment on Groarke
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The Scientific Revolution was far from the anti-Aristotelian movement traditionally pictured. Its applied mathematics pursued by new means the Aristotelian ideal of science as knowledge by insight into necessary causes. Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbits from the inverse square law of gravity is a central example.
59. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Tianyue Wu The Ontological Status of the Body in Aquinas’s Hylomorphism
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Hylomorphism is central to Thomistic philosophical anthropology. However, little attention has been paid to the ontological status of the body in this theoretical framework. This essay aims to show that in Aquinas’s hylomorphic ontology, the body as a constituent part of the compound is above all prime matter as pure potentiality. In view of the contemporary criticisms of prime matter, it examines the fundamental theoretical presuppositions of this controversial concept and offers a defensive reading of Aquinas’s conception of the body as prime matter. It also displays possible difficulties in identifying the body with prime matter and gives a clue indicating the way out. This effort will make it possible to defend the consistency of Aquinas’s conception of the body and to react to the severe criticism of hylomorphism in the philosophy of mind by contemporary philosophers such as Bernard Williams, namely by showing how hylomorphism can be formally consistent without slipping into the materialism or dualism it bitterly opposes.
60. Studia Neoaristotelica: Volume > 14 > Issue: 1
Miroslav Hanke The Closure Principle for Signification: (An Outline of a Dynamic Version)
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The Bradwardine-Read multiple-meanings solution to paradoxes invented in 1320s and formally reconstructed and developed in 2000s is based on the so-called “closure principle for signification”, in particular, for sentential meaning. According to this principle, sentences are assumed to signify whatever they imply. As a consequence, paradoxical sentences are proved to signify their own truth and thereby are reduced to simply false self-contradictions. One of the problems of this solution to paradoxes is that the closure principle over-generates if sentences are closed under unrestricted entailment. The present proposal will introduce a restriction based on what will be called the “dynamic closure principle”: sentential meaning will be regarded as closed under the inference steps performed in the (actual or optimal) process of evaluating the respective sentence’s truth-value.