While the French Jesuits were scandalized at God's moral necessity to elect the best, Des Bosses was right in defending the Théodicée drawing the attention to the contemporary Spanish theology. In fact, Optimism is not the invention of Leibniz', but of the two Sevillan Jesuits' Diego Ruiz de Montoya and Diego Granado . It will be argued that Optimism has two roots, both of them closely connected with the Posttridentinian Theology: 1) the moralization of modal categories, 2) a universe integrating (...) Nature, Grace and Incarnation. In the latter regard, Optimism is a legitimate child of Molinism, viz. in respect to the ,scientia media‘ being the basis of its concept of World, to the ,total decree‘ as a certain mode of this world being realized. As a result, the Théodicée depends on Jesuit theology to an extent which still has to be acknowledged. (shrink)

Though it is well known that Hume composed his Treatise and the first version of his essay On Miracles during his stay in La Flèche, this fact has not received the attention it surely deserves. What may have induced a gentleman from Edinburgh to bury himself in the library of a Jesuit college? While every historian of early modern philosophy is quick to credit La Flèche with having provided Descartes’s education, Burton’s amazement that Hume himself never alludes to this unique (...) circumstance is still suggestive. I shall argue that what attracted Hume’s attention were the scholastic items contained in every good Jesuit library. (shrink)

Durch die Forschungen R. Darowskis wissen wir, wie unmittelbar Spanier im 16, Jh. am Aufbau des Philosophiestudiums an den polnischen Jesuitenkollegien beteiligt gewesen sind. Mit der erfolgten Suarezrezeption war auch ihr mittelbarer Einfluß auf die polnische Philosophiegeschichte keineswegs erschöpft. Eine kürzlich erschienene Monographie zu Antonio Perez SJ lenkt den Blick auf eine auch in der Beziehung interessante Figur.

Durch die Forschungen R. Darowskis wissen wir, wie unmittelbar Spanier im 16, Jh. am Aufbau des Philosophiestudiums an den polnischen Jesuitenkollegien beteiligt gewesen sind. Mit der erfolgten Suarezrezeption war auch ihr mittelbarer Einfluß auf die polnische Philosophiegeschichte keineswegs erschöpft. Eine kürzlich erschienene Monographie zu Antonio Perez SJ lenkt den Blick auf eine auch in der Beziehung interessante Figur.

Dzięki badaniom R. Darowskiego wiemy, jak bezpośrednio Hiszpanie w XVI wieku byli zaangażowani w rozwój studium filozofii w polskich kolegiach jezuickich. Ich zaś pośredni wpływ na historię filozofii polskiej nie ogranicza się bynajmniej do recepcji myśli Suareza. Wydana niedawno monografia, poświęcona Antoniemu Perezowi SJ, kieruje uwagę na postać, która także w tym względzie jest interesująca.

Dzięki badaniom R. Darowskiego wiemy, jak bezpośrednio Hiszpanie w XVI wieku byli zaangażowani w rozwój studium filozofii w polskich kolegiach jezuickich. Ich zaś pośredni wpływ na historię filozofii polskiej nie ogranicza się bynajmniej do recepcji myśli Suareza. Wydana niedawno monografia, poświęcona Antoniemu Perezowi SJ, kieruje uwagę na postać, która także w tym względzie jest interesująca.

The present essay explores the sources and the scope of a major feature of the scholastic logic and metaphysics: the 16th-century distinction of the reasoning reason in contradistinction to the distinction of reasoned reason. Depending on whether the non-identity was meant to refer to first-order or second-order intentions, the distinctio rationis ratiocinantis intervened either between a definition and the term defined or between the two terms of identical propositions: »A = A«. How to save this elusive kind of distinction was (...) a common concern of Thomists, Scotists and early modern Jesuits. Special attention is paid to the logician and metaphysician Bartholomew Mastri. German philosophy up to Frege will be considered. Quite contrary to a time-honoured prejudice, the ancient metaphysics turns out to have been furnished with a powerful device in order to avoid the traps of reification. (shrink)

La distinction entre la distinctio rationis ratiocinatae et la distinctio rationis ratiocinantis n’est aucunement une spécialité scotiste, mais bien un héritage scolastique commun depuis le XVIe. La controverse portait sur la manière dont la distinctio rationis ratiocinantis s’appliquait à la proposition « A=A ». Sur ce point, la pensée de Mastri constitue un tournant dans l’histoire du scotisme, dans la mesure où il n’instrumentalise plus la distinctio rationis ratiocinantis pour la logique mentaliste, mais au contraire la transforme en une doctrine (...) ontologique qui permet au conceptualisme d’Auriol de se faire une place au sein du scotisme.In the scholastic way of spelling out « A=A », some sort of distinction intervened between the relata, viz. the distinctio rationis ratiocinantis. To distinguish between the distinctio rationis ratiocinatae and ratiocinantis was commonplace from the sixteenth up to the eighteenth centuries. But how to make sense of a distinction that is without any foundation in the object itself ? Mastri’s account marks a crisis within Scotism, since his reception of Peter Aureol’s conceptualism made it possible to give the distinctio rationis ratiocinantis a metaphysical rather than a logical interpretation. (shrink)

Im Zentrum des Streits zwischen Leibniz und Arnauld um die individuellen Begriffe steht die theologische Frage, ob sich dergleichen nur auf der Basis von Gottes Wirklichkeitswissen konzipieren läßt oder nicht. Arnauld behauptet das, Leibniz als Molinist bestreitet es. Nun war aber erstens die Reichweite der Scientia Media für die göttliche Weltplanung unter den Jesuiten des 17. Jahrhunderts selbst kontrovers. Zweitens hat Leibniz von den Gegnern der These, die göttliche Weltplanung komme mit der Scientia Media aus, bestimmte Ideen auch übernommen . (...) Das führt schließlich zu der Vermutung, daß das Lehrstück der Prästabilierten Harmonie eine Schwäche der Scientia-Media-Hypothese zu kompensieren bestimmt gewesen ist. (shrink)

Quite contrary to the mainstream history of ideas, Spanish intellectuals play an important part in the 17 th century dispute about natural law, physical evidence and the principle of induction. Optimism as taught by Antonio Perez and Martin Esparza in Salamanca and Rome has given rise to a sophisticated theological debate of a subject that was to demand philosophers' attention for centuries to come. The features of empirism brought forward by Bernardo Aldrete and Antonio Bernaldo de Quiros will stimulate the (...) research on Hume's scholastic reading. (shrink)

Who owns the girl’s body, the parents, or the daughter herself? In Catholic casuistry, this issue has not only been occasionally touched upon, it has been topical among the commentators on Aquinas (STh II-II, q. 154, a. 6) from the 16th up to the 18th centuries. Nevertheless, modern scholarship ignores this big dispute. The distortion of early modern history in consequence thereof precludes a fair appraisal of the achievements of the Christian schools within the Habsburgian commonwealth. Whereas the Iberian Peninsula (...) was the theatre of the endeavour here described (Domingo de Soto OP, Luis de Molina SJ, Gabriel Vázquez SJ, Juan de Lugo SJ, the Salmantine Carmelites), Jansenist France was forward in defeating it. The quarrel about this issue gains an additional interest by the observation that it represents the rare case where the schoolmen themselves had the keen feeling that the stand they took represented a divide between two ages, medieval and modern, viz. Pre-Tridentine and Post-Tridentine. The main purpose of the present paper, then, is to render a necessary piece of apologetics. Its focus is on the deplorable situation in which we presently are due to the rotten feminist convictions about how things went. (shrink)

Molinism, formerly an invective, is nowadays a topic of philosophy. This book, however, does not deal with the modern renaissance of Middle Knowledge, rather, it explores its proliferation during the 17th and 18th centuries. The focus shifts from reviewing current trends in Church History to rehearsing the metaphysics that backed up Middle Knowledge. Fact, in Molinism, is threefold: It could have been otherwise, it belongs to some possible world, it is necessarily known by the Omniscient. Whereas the classical account of (...) God's foreknowledge rests on its being postvolitional, the Molinist qualification of this account denies that it applies to the counterfactuals. On what else then does it prevolitionally depend that God knows for sure something to happen rather than not to happen? The Salmantine Treatise on God's foreknowledge edited here provides some additional piece of evidence of a deep Molinist disagreement. Though the manuscript was ready for print in 1653, this business failed and the manuscript fell into oblivion along with its author. The Jesuit Luke Wadding (1593-1651) belongs to a number of men from Waterford who at a time, when intolerance forced Catholics into large scale emigration, hopefully turned towards Spain. He must not be confounded with his famous namesake, the Franciscan friar, who was his cousin. (shrink)

What do we mean, when we claim that something is »refuted«? The present essay deals with the evolution of the notion of refutation. Nowadays, refutations do not enjoy that high estimation in intellectual life as formerly – a lost of credit that is due to the removal of the Aristotelian pattern of refutation and its having been replaced by a more demanding pattern during the 16th – 18th centuries. On the one hand, the modern pattern pushed the Enlightenment culture, on (...) the other hand, it ended up in a sceptical crisis. At first, this crisis concerned only philosophy. Finally, even the conclusiveness of empirical refutations was disputed. The philosophical way of doing Begriffsgeschichte, whereof the present essay is a specimen, centers on the long-term impact of definitions and distinctions. From this point of view, special attention is called to the contribution of the 18th-century Wolffianism. (shrink)

Sven K. Knebel wyklada filozofię w Freie Universität Berlin. Jego praca została przez tenże Uniwersytet przyjęta w roku 1998 jako podstawa habilitacji z zakresu filozofii. Lata 1550-1700 wymienione w tytule omawianej pracy, to okres pomiędzy ogłoszeniem Dekretu o usprawiedliwieniu na Soborze w Trydencie oraz ogłoszeniem Bulli Unigenitus. Na koniec wspomnianego okresu przypadają lata życia G. Leibniza, 1646-1716. Knebel koncentruje się więc na 150 latach filozoficzno-teologicznych dysput, w których zasadniczym pytaniem było: jak w sposób spekulatywny mówić o Bożej (...) i ludzkiej wolności z jednej strony oraz o związanej z nią moralnej konieczności z drugiej strony? (shrink)

The year 2021 saw the publication of Sven K. Knebel’s new book on Middle Knowledge. It is an exceedingly important research publication which deserves scholarly attention. The book contains a long introduction (consisting of various studies) and an edition of the fourth book of the Irish Jesuit theologian Luke Wadding’s incomplete work on scholastic theology. This present review article first recapitulates the origins and historical significance of the doctrine of Middle Knowledge. Then Knebel’s book as well as (...) the career of Luke Wadding are introduced. I then discuss the place of Wadding’s work in the Jesuit discourse of ‘concordia’ and its relation to Molinism. In the subsequent sections, I investigate various doctrines defended by Wadding. These include his view of disjunctive necessity, his variant of the doctrine known as ‘connectionism’, and his use of various kinds of distinctions in theology. The study concludes with a critical assessment of Knebel’s publication. Despite all praise, I disagree with Knebel’s all too pessimistic view of the research landscape: We will soon be pondering over why Early Modern scholasticism has received so much attention in recent scholarship, rather than why it did not do so in the past. (shrink)

How do we ascribe subjective probability? In decision theory, this question is often addressed by representation theorems, going back to Ramsey (1926), which tell us how to define or measure subjective probability by observable preferences. However, standard representation theorems make strong rationality assumptions, in particular expected utility maximization. How do we ascribe subjective probability to agents which do not satisfy these strong rationality assumptions? I present a representation theorem with weak rationality assumptions which can be used to define or measure (...) subjective probability for partly irrational agents. (shrink)

An alarming number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have argued that mind extends beyond the brain and body. This book evaluates these arguments and suggests that, typically, it does not. A timely and relevant study that exposes the need to develop a more sophisticated theory of cognition, while pointing to a bold new direction in exploring the nature of cognition Articulates and defends the “mark of the cognitive”, a common sense theory used to distinguish between cognitive and non-cognitive processes Challenges (...) the current popularity of extended cognition theory through critical analysis and by pointing out fallacies and shortcoming in the literature Stimulates discussions that will advance debate about the nature of cognition in the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

This paper attempts to answer the question of what defines mnemonic confabulation vis-à-vis genuine memory. The two extant accounts of mnemonic confabulation as “false memory” and as ill-grounded memory are shown to be problematic, for they cannot account for the possibility of veridical confabulation, ill-grounded memory, and wellgrounded confabulation. This paper argues that the defining characteristic of mnemonic confabulation is that it lacks the appropriate causal history. In the confabulation case, there is no proper counterfactual dependence of the state of (...) seeming to remember on the corresponding past representation. (shrink)

The global method safety account of knowledge states that an agent’s true belief that p is safe and qualifies as knowledge if and only if it is formed by method M, such that her beliefs in p and her beliefs in relevantly similar propositions formed by M in all nearby worlds are true. This paper argues that global method safety is too restrictive. First, the agent may not know relevantly similar propositions via M because the belief that p is the (...) only possible outcome of M. Second, there are cases where there is a fine-grained belief that is unsafe and a relevantly similar coarse-grained belief that is safe and where both beliefs are based on the same method M. Third, the reliability of conditional reasoning, a basic belief-forming method, seems to be sensitive to fine-grained contents, as suggested by the wide variation in success rates for thematic versions of the Wason selection task. (shrink)

According to T. M. Scanlon's 'buck-passing' analysis of value, x is good means that x has properties that provide reasons to take up positive attitudes vis-à-vis x. Some authors have claimed that this idea can be traced back to Franz Brentano, who said in 1889 that the judgement that x is good is the judgement that a positive attitude to x is correct ('richtig'). The most discussed problem in the recent literature on buckpassing is known as the 'wrong kind of (...) reason' problem (the WKR problem): it seems quite possible that there is sometimes reason to favour an object although that object is not good and possibly very evil. The problem is to delineate exactly what distinguishes reasons of the right kind from reasons of the wrong kind. In this paper we offer a Brentano-style solution. We also note that one version of the WKR problem was put forward by G. E. Moore in his review of the English translation of Brentano's Vom Ursprung sittlicher Erkenntnis. Before getting to how our Brentano-style approach might offer a way out for Brentano and the buck-passers, we briefly consider and reject an interesting attempt to solve the WKR problem recently proposed by John Skorupski. (shrink)

Sven Bernecker presents an analysis of the concept of propositional (or factual) memory, and examines a number of metaphysical and epistemological issues crucial to the understanding of memory. -/- Bernecker argues that memory, unlike knowledge, implies neither belief nor justification. There are instances where memory, though hitting the mark of truth, succeeds in an epistemically defective way. This book shows that, contrary to received wisdom in epistemology, memory not only preserves epistemic features generated by other epistemic sources but also (...) functions as a source of justification and knowledge. According to the causal theory of memory argued for in this book, the dependence of memory states on past representations supports counterfactuals of the form: if the subject hadn't represented a given proposition in the past he wouldn't represent it in the present. The book argues for a version of content externalism whereupon the individuation of memory contents depends on relations the subject bears to his past physical or social environment. Moreover, Bernecker shows that memory doesn't require identity, but only similarity, of past and present attitudes and contents. The notion of content similarity is explicated in terms of the entailment relation. (shrink)

PurposeIn this article, we aim to present and defend a contextual approach to mathematical explanation.MethodTo do this, we introduce an epistemic reading of mathematical explanation.ResultsThe epistemic reading not only clarifies the link between mathematical explanation and mathematical understanding, but also allows us to explicate some contextual factors governing explanation. We then show how several accounts of mathematical explanation can be read in this approach.ConclusionThe contextual approach defended here clears up the notion of explanation and pushes us towards a pluralist vision (...) on mathematical explanation. (shrink)

Is more information always better? Or are there some situations in which more information can make us worse off? Good (1967) argues that expected utility maximizers should always accept more information if the information is cost-free and relevant. But Good's argument presupposes that you are certain you will update by conditionalization. If we relax this assumption and allow agents to be uncertain about updating, these agents can be rationally required to reject free and relevant information. Since there are good reasons (...) to be uncertain about updating, rationality can require you to prefer ignorance. (shrink)