Medieval Metaphysics

[Work in progress.] According to standard late medieval Christian thought, humans in heaven are unable to sin, having been “confirmed” in their goodness; and, nevertheless, are more free than humans are in the present life. The rise of voluntarist conceptions of the will in the late thirteenth century made it increasingly difficult to hold onto both claims. Peter Olivi suggested that the impeccability of the blessed was dependent upon a special activity of God upon their wills and argued that this (...) external constraint upon their wills did not eliminate their freedom. Later voluntarists largely agreed with Olivi in attributing the confirmation of the blessed to be dependent upon God’s activity in some way, but disputed the means by which and the extent to which the wills of those in heaven could be said to retain their freedom. This paper will examine various attempts made to either harmonize these two claims or else to soften the blow of rejecting one of them; among the authors surveyed will be Peter John Olivi, John Duns Scotus, Henry of Harclay, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Margurite Porete. (shrink)

En la teoría epistémica de Tomás de Aquino la lumen rationis desempeña la función de causa última del inventario completo del conocimiento humano natural. La tesis de acuerdo a la cual esa luz es puesta en nosotros por Dios justifica, de acuerdo al autor, la aserción de que la divinidad es el único y auténtico maestro interior del hombre. Ahora bien, en la visión beatífica la lumen naturale es perfeccionada por una luz sobrenatural, y la unión cognitiva con lo conocido (...) tiene lugar por la presencia real de Dios mismo en el entendimiento humano, única instancia en la que resulta conocido tal como es. Restringidos, en cambio, al modus intelligendi natural, la presencia cognitiva de la realidad divina solo puede ser representacional y, por lo tanto, según el autor, limitada, lo que repugna esencialmente a la divinidad. La esencia divina, en este caso, solo puede ser concebida de manera deficiente: por espejo y en enigma. En este trabajo intentamos explorar las diferencias entre ambos tipos de cogniciones tomando en cuenta los dos modos correlativos en que Dios nos enseñaría acerca de sí: ya de manera perfecta, como en la visión beatífica, ya de manera obscura, es decir, en enigma. (shrink)

A lo largo de la obra de Tomás de Aquino es posible encontrar cierta tensión textual en torno a la posibilidad de conocer de manera natural la esencia divina. Por un lado el teólogo parece afirmar que, precisamente, no podemos conocer acerca de Dios qué es, sino solo qué no es. Pero, por otra parte, existe evidencia textual de que habría sostenido la posibilidad de un conocimiento quiditativo imperfecto. En tanto y en cuanto el matiz más positivo suele aparecer con (...) mayor énfasis en el tratamiento de los problemas relativos al lenguaje, un gran número de comentadores (desde E. Gilson hasta, más recientemente, D. Burrell, G. Rocca y R. Accar) ha expresado una tentencia a circunscribir la tensión al ámbito linguistico o judicativo. Tomás, de acuerdo a estos autores, nunca habría sostenido que es posible tener un conocimiento quiditativo natural de la esencia divina. En palabras de E. Gilson: -/- “Hacer decir a Santo Tomás que tenemos un conocimiento por lo menos imperfecto de lo que Dios es, significa traicionar su pensamiento, tal como él lo ha formulado repetidas veces” 1 -/- El énfasis de estos autores, bien considerado, esta puesto en la tesis ciertamente defendida por Tomás de que la esencia divina es naturalmente incomprehensible. Los autores reaccionan específicamente contra la teoría del concepto análogo desarrollada originalmente por el cardenal Cayetano. Según interpretan, el concepto análogo se reduciría, en última instancia, precisamente, a un concepto comprehensivo. En este trabajo intentaremos volver a revisar la posición de Tomás sobre el conocimiento quiditativo natural desde sus bases. A nuestro entender el teólogo medieval ha sostenido desde sus obras más tempranas que es posible un conocimiento natural quiditativo -si bien imperfecto. Interpretamos que ese conocimiento incluye la posibilidad de representarnos, aunque de manera deficiente, la esencia divina. Defendemos, consecuentemente, la posibilidad de formarnos conceptos, siempre deficientes, claro, de la misma, distintos, por supuesto, de los conceptos análogos. Y sostenemos que la tesis de que la interpretación de la teoría epistemológica tomista en la que el sentido precede a la verdad judicativa no atenta contra la tesis de que Dios es, finalmente incomprehensible. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’ account of analogy provides resources for resolving the prima facie conflict between his claims that (1) the divine relations constituting the persons are “one and the same” with the divine essence; (2) the divine persons are really distinct, (3) the divine essence is absolutely simple. Specifically, I argue that Aquinas adopts an analogical understanding of the concepts of being and unity, and that these concepts are implicit in his formulation of claims about substance (...) and relation in the Trinity. I then show how Aquinas appeals to key structural features of analogical concepts, notably, the simpliciter/secundum quid characterization, to resolve apparent conflicts between the unity of substance and distinction of relations in the Trinity. (shrink)

Il contributo si concentra sull'aenigma del gioco della palla, presentato da Cusano come un'esperienza mistica che si sviluppa nell'arco dell'esistenza vissuta. Nel De ludo globi, difatti, il moto dell'anima verso la conoscenza di Dio è paragonato al movimento della palla, che nel gioco viene lanciata da mano umana verso il centro del cerchio. Ugualmente nell'uomo l'intelligenza si muove tanto più la palla-anima diviene rotonda, ossia, tanto più viene levigata e così purificata dalle sue imperfezioni: in tal modo essa può correre (...) libera dagli impedimenti delle passioni. Il saggio mette dunque in evidenza le tematiche tipiche della tradizione platonica e della filosofia negativa: in effetti Cusano sottolinea che per esercitare l'anima intellettiva bisogna rimuovere i legami con il corpo e liberarsi dalle passioni (apháiresis), affinché l'anima resti sola con se stessa; nel suo intimo, nel fondo (Grund) essa diviene davvero libera e si apre così la visione della pianura della verità. Il movimento di conoscenza non è isolato dal contesto mondano, ma – al contrario – è da situare entro un uni-verso teoreticamente direzionato, dove al centro è situato «il regno della vita» e che, a cascata, si struttura in cerchi concentrici, tanto più lontani dal centro quanto meno illuminati dalla luce della Verità inattingibile: è “la mistica dei circoli”, che l'anima umana deve risalire fino all'unione nel centro. Per questa ragione le tappe del cammino di visione-ascesi-distacco divengono visibili nella coelesti Hierarchia mutuata da Dionigi Areopagita; a presidiare ogni livello di visione-ascesi-distacco, una differente figura angelica, che realizza la conoscenza a modo proprio, secondo le proprie possibilità. I nove cori, raggruppati in tre ordini sono perciò i livelli di distacco cui l'anima deve attraversare per intuire la Verità inattingibile realizzando la mistica unione di soggetto e oggetto della conoscenza. (shrink)

A main function of common natures in Avicenna’s metaphysics is supposed to be providing an objective ground for the categories. Thus, it is commonly assumed that in his metaphysics things are objectively divided into the categories into which they are because members of each category share the same common nature. However, common natures cannot perform the function unless they are shared, in a real sense of the word, by the members of the respective categories, and it is not clear at (...) all in what real sense Avicenna took common natures to be shared by them. On the one hand, he rejected Platonic and Aristotelian realisms about common natures, the two standard accounts of how common natures are shared by their instances. On the other hand, it is unclear that his alternative account(s) of common natures renders them genuinely common. The primary goal of this paper is to examine whether Avicenna’s common natures can provide an objective ground for the categories. It considers various interpretations of Avicenna's account and argues that they are either incorrect interpretations of Avicenna or do not render common natures genuinely common. It concludes with proposing to look elsewhere in Avicenna’s system to find the objective ground. (shrink)

There is a theological puzzle concerning the way in which Satan – an angel – was able to sin, despite lacking knowledge of no relevant fact about the world. Anselm and Aquinas explain Satan’s sin as malicious in virtue of Satan’s indifference to what mattered. I appeal to their account of Satan’s sin as a paradigm case clarifying the way in which those who intentionally engage in nonconsensual sex are always acting maliciously. Assuming competence, those who engage in nonconsensual sex (...) fail to attend to what matters and are willing to harm others merely for their own gratification. Such attitudes are diabolical. (shrink)

This dissertation is a study of John Buridan's (c.1300-c.1361) conception of modalities. Modal concepts - concepts of necessity, possibility, impossibility, and contingency - describe the ways in which things could and could not be otherwise. These concepts became notoriously central for philosophical discourse in the late Middle Ages. In recent years, Buridan's philosophy and modal theory have received sophisticated scholarly attention. The main contribution of the dissertation is to show new ways in which Buridan's modal theory is embedded in its (...) contextual practical aims, as providing methods for argumentation schemes and analysis used in his natural philosophy and metaphysics. The dissertation is divided into two parts. In Part I, I conduct a detailed analysis of Buridan's account of varieties of modality in logical contexts. In Chapter 2, I show that Buridan distinguishes between broad and restricted forms of necessity in his treatment of logical consequence. Moreover, I show how the distinction between these forms of necessity underpins his modal syllogistics. I argue in Chapter 3 that Buridan acknowledged a variety of modal concepts that are distinguished as a matter of degree. I identify the main modal concepts Buridan's theory reckons with, show how he motivates the distinctions among them, and clarify how they are logically related. Part II turns to applications of Buridan's modal analyses to natural philosophy. In Chapter 4, I address the relationship between necessity with sempiternal truth in Buridan's commentary on Aristotle's De Caelo and compare Buridan's treatment of a key passage in that commentary with the treatment by John of Jandun (c. 1285-1328), a near-contemporary master of arts at Paris. Chapter 5 focuses on Buridan's account of the relationship between power-based concepts of modality and his modal semantics. Chapter 6 describes Buridan's account of contingency in the Physics, and sets Buridan's account of the relationship between forms of contingency and chance against the background of a received debate between Avicenna's and Averroes' views on the subject. Finally, in Chapter 7, I analyse some important applications of Buridan's distinction between logical and metaphysical possibility in physical contexts. I conclude this section by showing how Buridan considered merely conceivable possibilities useful in natural philosophy, and draw further conclusions for investigating the connections between logic and natural philosophy in the later Middle Ages. (shrink)

Gyula Klima’s distinctive work recovering medieval philosophy has inspired a generation of scholars. Klima’s attention to the distinctive terms, problems, and assumptions that constitute alternative historical conceptual frameworks has informed work in philosophy of language and logic, cognition and philosophical psychology, and metaphysics and theology. This volume celebrates Klima’s project by collecting new essays by colleagues, collaborators, and former students. Covering a wide range of thinkers (Plotinus, Anselm, Aquinas, Buridan, Ockham, and others) and various specifc questions (e.g., about language, cognition, (...) the soul, and God), it is unifed by a common interest in applying historically sensitive, hermeneutically sophisticated, and logically rigorous philosophical interpretation to recover, and appreciate, lost perspectives. (shrink)

This article expands our knowledge of the historical-philosophical process by which the dominant metaphysical account of the Christian God became ascendant. It demonstrates that Marius Victorinus proposed a peculiar model of ‘consubstantiality’ that utilised a notion of ‘existence’ indebted to the Aristotelian concept of ‘prime matter’. Victorinus employed this to argue that God is a unity composed of Father and Son. The article critically evaluates this model. It then argues that Augustine noticed one of the model's philosophical liabilities but did (...) not publicly name Victorinus when he rejected it in De Trinitate, thereby exemplifying the practice of private ‘rebuke’ (ἐλέγχɛιν). (shrink)

The 16th and 17th centuries witnessed a philosophical shift that would help pave the way for modern science, a shift from metaphysical theories of material objects to other views embracing only the empirically-accessible parts of material things. One much-debated topic in the course of this shift was regarding prime matter. The late scholastic Jacobus Zabarella (1533-1589) arrived upon his views about prime matter via his version of the regressus method, a program for a sort of scientific reasoning. In his De (...) rebus naturalibus, Zabarella defends the position that prime matter is extended. However, it is less clear how he accounts for its extension. There is an important text where he apparently suggests that prime matter is extended in and of itself. However, there are two other texts apparently stating that matter is extended in virtue of a distinct accident in the category of quantity. I argue that a decisive reading based solely upon any particular texts is not available. Nevertheless, examining Zabarella’s writing on the topic as a whole, the trajectory of his overall argument is remarkably sympathetic to Averroes, who famously took the accidentally quantified position. Thus, from this systematic feature, the accidentally quantified reading is more reasonable. (shrink)

In the eighth question of his Quaestiones de ente, the Late Medieval Theologian William Farinier tackles the issue of the attribute agreement we normally experience between individuals of the same species. The sub ect of his discussion is whether the specific unity we attribute to particulars is something of which they are really endowed with, regardless of any cognitive activity. In sharp contrast with realist thinkers, such as Duns Scotus and Francis Meyronnes, he claims that this is not to be (...) the case. His idea is that specific unity is ontologically mind-dependent, while semantically mind-independent. This claim is not entirely original, though. As it turns out, Farinier makes large use of Auriol's view the matter to shape his own one. His explicit endorsement to some of the most typical aureolistic theses seems to make him one of the few known (for now) full-fledged aureolistae. (shrink)

The paper delves into manuscript sources connected with various disputations held at Prague University from around 1390 to 1420 and singles out a set of hitherto unknown quaestiones dealing with the nature of the human intellect and its relation to the body. Prague disputations from around 1400 arguably offer a unique vantage point on late medieval anthropological issues, since they encompass an entanglement of numerous doctrinal influences from Buridanian De anima commentaries to John Wyclif’s theories. The paper delineates several conceptual (...) tensions regarding the nature of the intellect, e.g., between materialism (entailed by the emphasis on the intellect’s inherence in the body) and personal immortality. It presents several strategies Prague masters employed to overcome these tensions. For example, an anonymous participant of the 1409 quodlibet develops the Buridanian distinction between the rationally demonstrable materialist tendency and the indemonstrable “catholic truth” about the intellect both inhering in and separable from the body. On the other hand, Wyclif’s adherents (Jacob of Mies and another anonymous master) postulate an immortal spirit hypostatically united to each human being beside the human soul educed from the potency of the matter. Yet, the boundaries between the doctrinal standpoints in question seem permeable, whereby a rigid definition of antagonistic groups in late medieval Prague intellectual milieu (e.g., Buridanians vs Wycliffites) is rendered ineffective. (shrink)

The trends of Platonism which proved to be the most influential throughout the Renaissance were born roughly around the same period as the Greek corpus attributed to the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. They resulted from the rich intermingling of Greek philosophy with other Near Eastern cultures since the time of Alexander the Great. It is not by chance, then, that their fortunes were bound together until the Early Modern period. Legend has it that Cosimo de’ Medici was highly impressed by (...) the Platonic wisdom of the Greek émigrés visiting Florence in 1439, during the Council of Union between the Eastern and Western Churches, and particularly by the eminent philosopher George Gemistos Plethon. More than twenty years later, Cosimo entrusted a young Marsilio Ficino with the task of translating into Latin a Greek manuscript of Plato’s dialogues, possibly bequeathed by the Byzantine emperor, if not by Plethon himself. Before completing his rendering of the first series of ten dialogues, Ficino presented his elderly patron with the Pimander, a translation of fifteen Greek treatises on theology and occult lore by the “thrice greatest” Mercury or Hermes, believed to be the first in a venerable tradition of ancient sages which culminated in Plato. Certainly, these and similar newly recovered collections helped to shape and enrich the intellectual life of the emergent Renaissance. Their novelty and relevance, however, tended to be overstated in some historiographical perspectives. Fortunately, profound critical studies of the various sources from the Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic traditions have multiplied since the 19th century, gradually providing a clearer picture of the extent and nature of their influence on Renaissance and Early Modern scholars. Some of the most interesting topics discussed currently regard the lines of continuity between the medieval and Renaissance receptions of Platonism and Hermetism. Indeed, the Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, and Byzantine Middle Ages offer an immense repository of Platonic and Hermetic wisdom to Renaissance humanists and philosophers, which includes new theoretical and practical approaches, interpretative methods, translations, and commentaries. Only after elucidating these elements of continuity and change can one adequately ponder the distinctive character and originality of Renaissance Platonists and Hermeticists. Another hotly debated issue since Lynn Thorndike’s pioneering studies is the role of these ancient and medieval traditions in the development of experimental sciences and the emergence of the scientific revolution around the 16th and 17th centuries. (shrink)

Although Auriol’s philosophical psychology has received increasing attention among contemporary scholars in medieval philosophy, his use of connotation has gone largely unnoticed. The aim of this paper is to delve into Auriol’s definition of cognition as a connotation. In his view, cognizing is nothing more than making things appear to the mind. Each concept is the extra-mental particular plus its property of being cognized by or appearing to the mind. It is nothing other than a real individual co-signifying or connoting (...) its being conceived. Being thought as a connotation, then, for Auriol intellectual cognition ultimately describes the following experience: the appearance of something to and its conscious reception by a cognizer. (shrink)

This paper attempts to bring the traditional theodicy on the question of evil and the Divine Providence, to its logical conclusion, in such a way that a believer is challenged to totally accept the implication of his or her faith in God. To have faith is to completely surrender to Divine Providence. It is to completely surrender ones free will to the rational conclusions or consequences of faith in the Divine Providence. Hence, this paper is for those who are perplexed (...) due to the Pandemic. Especially for Christians whose faith in God is perplexed because of their existential experience of the COVID 19 pandemic as evil. The existential reality of dread and misery caused by this pandemic is globally and more subjectively experienced due to the digitalization of this age. This shows how disastrously powerful the digitalization of our world can be in the proliferation of dread, misery and hopelessness. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Richard Rufus’ account of generation and corrup- tion. This is a fundamental metaphysical question in the Aristotelian framework. Given that there are things that are corruptible (such as trees and cats and the human body), and things that are incorruptible (such as the celestial bodies and angels), what is it that makes one one, and the other the other? In other words, what is the ultimate explanation (in Rufus' terminology, the principle or principles) of corruptibility (...) and incorruptibility? Do corruptible and incorruptible things have the same principles – the same fundamental metaphysical constitution – or are their principles different? Richard Rufus was among the first ones lecturing on Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_ at the University of Paris. He addresses these questions in book 4 (Gamma), lectio 1, question 2 of his longer commentary on Aristotle’s work (the _Scriptum_), which will provide the main textual basis of this paper. The other textual basis is an anonymous commentary on Aristotle’s _On generation and corruption_, found in Oxford, Corpus Christi MS 119, whose treatment of these issues is remarkably similar to Rufus’. As I show, we can learn a great deal about Rufus’ general metaphysical commitments by looking at this particular question, especially concerning his view of prime matter and his view of the qualities of the resurrected bodies. (shrink)

L'elaborato intende analizzare lo statuto ontologico dell'ente a partire dal binomio esse e id quod est, sviluppato da Tommaso nel commento al De Hebdomadibus di Boezio, specificando i concetti di partecipazione come causalità forte, e di essere come massimo estensivo e più generale.

The methods of intellectual history have not yet been applied to studying the invention of technology for printing texts and images ca. 1375–ca. 1450. One of the several conceptual developments in this period reflecting the possibility of mechanical replication is a view of the relationship of eternity to durational time based on Gregory of Nyssa’s philosophy of time and William of Ockham’s. The article considers how changes in these ideas helped enable the conceptual possibilities of the dissemination of ideas. It (...) describes a direct connection of human perceptual knowledge to divine knowledge that enhanced the authority of printed production to transfer and reproduce the true and the good. (shrink)

This article offers a reading of Sartre's phenomenological ontology in light of the pre-modern understanding of ‘transcendentals’ as universal properties and predicates of all determinate beings. Drawing on Sartre's transcendental account of nothingness in his early critique of Husserl as well as his discussion of ‘determination as negation’ in Being and Nothingness, this article argues that Sartre's universal predicate of ‘the not’ (le non) could be understood in a similar light to the medieval scholastic conception of transcendentals. But whereas the (...) scholastics saw the transcendental properties of oneness, truth, and goodness as reflections of God's divine perfections, Sartre's predicate of the ‘not’ operates as an atheistic transcendental which signifies the non-being of God – that God is not. By comparing Sartre's phenomenological ontology to medieval theological metaphysics, this article not only highlights the atheist underpinnings of Sartre's entire ontological schema in Being and Nothingness but also offers a new way of interpreting Sartre as a systematic transcendental metaphysician. (shrink)

This article presents a new approach to Japanese Zen Buddhism, alternative to its traditional views, which lack exact definitions of the relation between the meditator and the Buddha’s ultimate cause, dharma. To this end, I offer a comparative analysis between Zen Buddhist and Christian views of causality from the medieval to early modern periods. Through this, human causation with dharma in the Zen Buddhist meditations can be better defined and understood. Despite differences between religious traditions in deliberating human causal accounts, (...) there are parallel ways of thinking and practicing between Christian and Buddhist meditators. Firstly, I reconstruct three sorts of Christian scholastic theories of creaturely causality: conservationism, occasionalism, and concurrentism. Secondly, Zen Buddhist doctrines are introduced by placing particular emphasis on dharma as causal agency. Focusing on the Japanese Zen practice of meditation, finally I expound two theories of human causality: Sōtō Zen quasi-occasionalism following Master Dōgen’s teaching of enlightenment, and Rinzai Zen quasi-concurrentism given the meditator’s interactive kōan practice. Hence, my comparative analysis explains why religious beings are causally active, passive, or interactive in relation to the first agency, God or dharma, whereby systematically establishing alternative definitions of human causality in Zen Buddhism. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to look at whether Aquinas teaches in De veritate [DV], q. 1, a. 4, that truth is a form inherent in things. I take up this investigation because I am examining Lawrence Dewan's account of Aquinas's teaching on truth.1 On Dewan's account, a significant development occurs in Aquinas's teaching as regards truth as it is found in things. Before the Summa theologiae [ST], Aquinas thought that in addition to truth being in the intellect, it (...) was also in things. In ST, most explicitly in I, q. 16, a. 6, Aquinas no longer thinks that it is in things, but only in the mind. When Dewan says that before the ST truth is "in things" and in the ST it is not "in things," in both cases, by "in things," Dewan means "as a form inherent in things." What exactly this means for Dewan will be gradually brought out as I examine the text Dewan thinks most clearly teaches that truth is a form inherent in things: DV, q. 1, a. 4. (shrink)

In the last several years, there has been an uptick of scholarly interest in Aristotelian theories of efficient causation. Much of this interest has focused on the late scholastic figure Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). This paper clarifies an important but neglected aspect of Suárez's theory of efficient causation—namely, his account of active causal powers. Like other Aristotelians, Suárez understands active causal powers as features that enable their subjects to perform certain sorts of actions. For example, a fire is able to heat (...) in virtue of its power or capacity for heating. However, it is not immediately clear which items in an Aristotelian ontology perform the role of an active power. The paper explains and motivates Suárez's answer to this question, and shows how this answer influences his position in a scholastic controversy about the causal roles of substantial and accidental forms in substantial change. (shrink)

I argue that Thomas Aquinas maintains the view that powers are accidental to their bearers not because powers pertain to bearers with limited essences, but because their bearers have limited actual being. Power tracks not only the essence of something but also its actual existence. Things have powers that are causally relevant when these things exist, that is, the nature of a power is determined by a thing’s essence, but the actual being of the thing of that essence accounts for (...) the limitations of this power and for the extent to which a power can have causal effects.J’interroge dans ce travail le sens dans lequel Thomas d’Aquin estime que les choses dotées de pouvoirs possèdent ceux-ci de manière accidentelle. Cette prise de position s’explique parce que le pouvoir retrace l’existence réelle d’une chose en plus de son essence. Les choses ont des pouvoirs pertinents à l’ordre de la causalité lorsque ces choses-là existent : la nature d’un pouvoir est déterminée par l’essence d’une chose, tandis que l’existence même de la chose ayant cette essence explique les limites de ce pouvoir et la mesure dans laquelle une puissance peut être cause d’effets. (shrink)

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy of disability (and Disability Studies more generally) and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call “disability.” The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new avenues of research (...) for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of “disability” and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part II is on disability in this life, and Part III is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology or disability studies. (shrink)

Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus, On the Six Principles of Things. A Medieval World System. -/- Bilingual Latin-Spanish edition of De sex rerum principiis, with introductory study and notes by Francisco Bastitta Harriet, Valeria Andrea Buffon and María Cecilia Rusconi. -/- Bold in metaphysical assumptions and well-versed in contemporary scientific theories, the anonymous author of About the Six Principles of Things tries to develop an integral system of the universe. While invoking the ancestral authority of the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, the present (...) treatise was actually written in the 12th century from various Arab and Latin sources, possibly in the School of Chartres. The previous hermetic tradition expressed a certain tension between works of a more philosophical or sapiential character, destined for intellectual elites, and other texts of a practical nature, mainly on astrology, alchemy or magic, which enjoyed less prestige among scholars. Our book clearly tries to bridge the gap between these two trends, in search for a true unification of knowledge. Not only does it present systematically the principles of the universe together with worldly prescriptions, on such matters as astrological medicine or the use of the astrolabe, but it carries this out with the aim of offering a maximum condensation of all the wisdom of its time. (shrink)

Il volume ripercorre lo sviluppo del pensiero del giovane Nicola Cusano dalla frequentazione del maestro albertista Eimerico da Campo presso l’Università di Colonia (1425) e dal confronto con le posizioni filosofiche dei domenicani dello Studium coloniense, fino agli anni della maturità a Roma (1450). Il saggio illustra il contesto storico-culturale della genesi del De docta ignorantia, testo che suggella la presa di distanza di Cusano dal proprio passato universitario ma anche, al contempo, la sua insoddisfazione nei confronti dell’umanesimo diffuso in (...) Italia negli anni del Concilio di Ferrara-Firenze; e lo segue nella sua ‘caccia della Sapienza’, nell’incontro con differenti tradizioni e contesti, fino alla formulazione dell’ideale del ‘Socrate cristiano’ nell’Idiota. Il volume, riccamente documentato anche sul piano della storia delle interpretazioni e degli studi su Cusano, contribuisce a far luce sulla formazione del suo pensiero e sulle questioni che ne hanno segnato la vita. (shrink)

The aim of my dissertation is to investigate how universal concepts are formed according to the later medieval Franciscan theologian Peter Auriol (d. 1322). Specifically, in the dissertation I inquiry into the relation between Auriol's ontology - according to which only individuals, and not universals, have real, extra-mental existence - and his philosophical psychology, a study of how extra-mental particulars can give rise to universal concepts, according to Auriol's view. In the past academic year I refined the topic of my (...) PhD thesis in two ways : first, I have delineated the definitive table of content ; second, I have wrote down the results of my research. The thesis comprises two volumes. The second one contains a collation of Peter Auriol's,Reportatio II, d. 9, qq. 2 - 3. The text has been obtained by confronting two manuscripts, considered as the exemplars of the two main families that convey his Second Book of the Sentences: ms. Firenze, Biblioteca nazionale centrale, ms. conv. soppr. A.3.120 (Fb); (iii) il ms. Padova, Biblioteca Antoniana, ms. 161 scaff. IX (Pg). The first volume, instead, has been divided into five chapters: the first two offer a historical introduction, while the remaining three are dedicated to the study of Auriol's doctrine, starting from the analysis of the text proposed in the collation, then extending the investigation to all the documentary heritage available relating to the Franciscan master. The first chapter provides a survey of the main theories of the universals of the early fourteenth century, taking into account in particular the opinions of those thinkers who, like Duns Scotus, in addition to marking a philosophical era, have been significant for Auriol's developing of his theory of universals. These are: John Duns Scotus, Henry of Harclay, Walter Bulery and Hervaeus Natalis. In order to properly understand the philosophical proposal of the Doctor facundus, it is necessary to know how it fits into a debate that in the academic debate of the fourteenth century. The second chapter is mainly aimed at the identification of the sources of Rep. II, d. 9, qq. 2 - 3. In the quaestio secunda, Auriol deals with the foundation of the universals. In a.1, he discusses the opinion of multiwho he labels as 'platonic'. We tried, therefore, to detect the targets of his criticism. Burley, Wylton, Bacon, Duns Scotus have been identified as possible addresses. In a. 2 of the same question, Auriol analyzes the position of Duns Scotus on the common nature. It has been then hypothesized that the two articles - aa. 1-2 - has to be considered as a general presentation and specific case of it; as a thesis common to several forms of realism and the realism of one of its most important interpreters. The third chapter focuses Auriol's criticism of the different forms of realism reported in a. 1 and of Duns Scotus's theory, as it is found in a. 2. In both cases, Auriol reproaches the realists for breaking the unity of substance, into a multiplicity of formalitatesreally occurring in reand corresponding to the concepts of genus and difference. On the contrary, Auriol maintains that universal concepts have no unity in the extra-mental reality. Only individuals really exist and numerical unity the only fully existing unity. As a consequence, the unity of the universal concept is just similitudinaria,that is only given a concept. Successively, the criticisms that Auriol makes to the principle of individuation are considered. Generally speaking, everything that exists, insofar as it exists, is singular, according to him. It is a primitive fact and it is not, therefore, necessary to search for the causes of its individuation. Thus, mirroring the structure of the quaestio secunda, in q. 3, Auriol discusses, in the first place, Duns Scotus's position and secondly a group of theories, arisen during the scholastic debate between the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. Interestingly, to reconstruct this set of doctrines, Auriol follows almost literally the reconstruction that Scotus himself makes of the same theories in his Ordinatio. Now, relying on the assumption that everything that exists is individual, Auriol gives shape to the notions of individuality and singularity and their mutual difference. This is one of the hubs of the dissertation. According to Auriol, a singularity is an entity that does not admit the existence of other realities that can be considered as similar with it. In this sense, God is the only authentic singularity. Ordinary reality, on the other hand, is made up of individualities. An individuality is an entity that, being finite, does not exhaust in itself the totality of the species to which it belongs (as far as the species as such exists only in virtue of an act of the intellect), admits the existence of other realities conceivable as similar with it. Thus, inasmuch as reality is made up of individuals or individualities, the mind is able to form the corresponding universal concepts. Being finite, for Auriol, is the condition of the validity of universals. In this respect, the relation between the concept of individuality and that of singularity is taken into account. Subsequently, we analyze the function of the category of Quantity, as it is related to individuality. According to Auriol, Quantity has no individuating capacity. At most, in bodily substances, it functions as principle of distinction. Being, in fact, discrete realities, a material substance spatially ends where another one begins. The fourth chapter is a kind of juncture between the third one, in which the structure of the concrete individual is analyzed, and the fifth one, in which the cognitive side of the process of concept formation is discussed. What is discussed here are the rationes. According to Auriol, the rationesare the basic units that constitute the quiddity of each individual and serve to direct our thought to form certain concepts. Each concept is the concept of a ratio,indeed. In this respect, Auriol claims that, say, Socrates has the rationes substance, corporeality, sensitivity, rationality. Additionally, rationes of the same type occurring in different objects are "maximally similar" (simillimae). For example, the rationesof Socrates are utterly similar with those of Plato (Cf. Scriptum, d. 2, q. 1, a. 4). Therefore, although these rationes are non-universal characteristics - inasmuch as a ratio belongs to one and only one individual - due to their maximal similarity they do count as the extramental ground for our general concepts (Cf.II Sent., d. 9, q. 3, a. 1). According to these premises, Auriol can hold that different singulars can be mutually highly similar, without participating in the same common nature (Cf. II Sent., d. 9, q. 3, a. 3).At the same time, it is relevant to note these rationesdo not compromise the unity of an existing particular. Rather each ratiocoagulates into each other giving birth to the individual's ultimate ratio. This final ratiois an indivisible ratio (ratio atoma), which cannot be further specified or divided (II Sent., d. 9, q. 3). According to Auriol, then, the rationesqua rationesdo not exist in extra-mental reality. Rather, the exist as such only in virtue of an act of the intellect. This means that they have an ambiguous being. On the one hand, they indicate a nature that cannot be altered by the intellect. On the other, the need the mind's activity to exist as rationes. According to Auriol, therefore, the rationesare independent of any cognitive act, with regard to the content they express, while they depend on mind's activity with regard to their unity and their existence. Now, the opaqueness concerning the ontological consistency of rationesdirectly depends on Auriol's understanding of cognition. Chapter five mainly deals with the different stages of the process of formation of the universal concept. In this respect, the notion of impressiois what is firstly analyzed. The impressionescan be considered, for Auriol, as the rationesthat are 'deposited' in the intellect and constitute, in cooperation with the cognitive faculty, what the Franciscan theologian calls the actus intellectus. The intellectual act, according to Auriol, is an entity composed of the impressed similarity of the object and the intellectual power, in fact. Moreover, in his view, it is really identical to the intelligible species. Now, the identity that the Franciscan theologian establishes between these two noetic tools, which were traditionally considered as distinct, imposes a reinterpretation of the notion of species. Coinciding with the act, the species can no longer be considered as an entity juxtaposed to it, deputed to the activation of the cognitive process performed by the intellect. Indeed, all those theories of universal concepts that add other noetic tools to the act, be they a species, a quality, or something else, would necessarily compromise intellection, preventing it from having acquaintance with extra-mental reality. According to Auriol, considering intellectual cognition as a connotation allows us to avoid such inconveniences. According to this view, the intellectual cognition must be regarded as an activity that poses nothing but to allow something to appear to the cognizer. In this respect, the concept, for Auriol, is nothing but the real object qua appearingto the intellect, fully identical with the intellectual act in recto,while denominatively distinct in obliquo. In this perspective, the definition of intellection that the Franciscan theologian proposes is analyzed, trying, in particular, to determine the ontological status of the concept and its epistemological function. In conclusion, with this study we have tried to give an account of Auriol's philosophical attitude, of the scope of his theory of universals, focusing on the relationship between ontology and philosophical psychology. Using Auriol's texts and specifically the collation of Rep. II, d. 9, qq. 2 - 3, the answers to these questions were searched for in the words of the Franciscan theologian himself. The picture emerged is that of an autonomous, critical thinker, but perfectly inserted in the historical context in which he lives. A thinker who places himself, so to speak, halfway between Duns Scotus's realism and Ockham's nominalism, nevertheless succeeding, albeit with some opacity, in balancing an ontology in which the metaphysical priority is granted only to the individual and the universal concepts have a solid foundation and validity. (shrink)

This paper makes two main arguments. First, that to understand analogy in St. Thomas Aquinas, one must distinguish two logically distinct concepts he inherited from Aristotle: one a kind of likeness between things, the other a kind of relation between linguistic functions. Second, that analogy (in both of these senses) plays a relatively small role in Aquinas's treatment of divine naming, compared to the realist semantic framework in which questions about divine naming are formulated and resolved, and on which the (...) coherence of the doctrine of divine simplicity—which is what gives rise to the questions of divine naming in the first place—depends. (shrink)

Renaissance Thomists knew Thomas Aquinas spoke of natural happiness, but some believed this happiness is absolutely impossible; others impossible in a state of elevation. Most Thomists rejected both forms of skepticism. An example is the Dominican theologian Pedro de Godoy (1608–1677). This article reconstructs Godoy’s main arguments with a view toward uncovering his method and originality. While his arguments are diverse, they mostly depend on the relation of happiness to human psychology. Godoy repeatedly appeals to the natural abilities of intellect (...) and will, yet natural abilities can depend on God’s grace, which is natural or supernatural. Some natural abilities are even impossible without natural grace, like that of loving God above all things. For Godoy’s part, then, it is chiefly psychological considerations that explain why the Thomist School of his day held firm against rising doubts over natural happiness. Above all, it was considerations of knowing and loving God. (shrink)

Complexe significabilia are the significate of whole sentences, irreducible to what is signified by categorematic sub-sentential components. It has been propounded firstly by Adam Wodeham. Wodeham construes his argument for the postulation of complexe significabilia as a middle way between William of Ockham and Walter Chatton. According to Wodeham, Ockham’s view implies a reflexive theory of mental acts, which goes against the phenomenology of the act of assent. Moreover, it leads to an anti-realist epistemology. We need therefore things outside the (...) mind to be object of the act of assent, which is also the conclusion reached by Chatton. However, against Chatton, Wodeham argues that things signified by the categorematic component of sentences cannot be the object of assent. In effect, sentences with different syncategorematic structures, but with the same categorematic components, would correspond to the same propositional attitude in Chatton’s framework, which is an unwelcome consequence. The result is that we need to postulate that the objects of assent are outside the mind, contra Ockham, that are not signified by sentential categorematic components, contra Chatton, but are irreducibly signified by the whole sentences. (shrink)

Dr. DP Singh is a prolific writer in many areas of Science, Religion and Literature. He came into my contact almost four decades back when he started his teaching career in Shivalik College, Nangal. In my note published on the blurb of this book, I wrote: " I expect his forthcoming book "Science and Sikhism: Conflict or Coherence" will prove to be a landmark in the area of Science-Religion Dialogue, with special reference to Sikh religion". I can declare without an (...) iota of doubt that DP has more than justified my claim on his book. -/- The title of the book is followed by a note "Anthology of Essays on various Concepts in Sri Guru Granth Sahib" which may be considered as a sub-title to the book. Nearly a dozen titles have appeared in the global market projecting scientific vision of Sikh Gurus enshrined in the holy pages of Sri Guru Granth Sahib but there is no rival to this volume in my view till date. The coverage of topics by DP Singh is very exhaustive. All Chapters of the book open with an appropriate quotation from Science, Religion or Literature. (shrink)

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute (...) to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general. (shrink)

The medieval notion of instrumental cause is not limited to what we call today “instruments” or “tools.” It extends way beyond the realm of technology and includes natural entities, for instance, the accidents by which a substance acts on another substance, sensible species in the air acting on a visual faculty, sacraments, bodily organs, and sometimes creatures with respect to God’s action. In all these cases, instrumental causes, like secondary causes in general, are subordinated to a principal cause and contribute (...) to its action and effects. However, the manner in which they do so makes them different from regular secondary causes, and the specifics are not easy to pinpoint. At the occasion of discussions about creation ex nihilo and sacraments, John Duns Scotus challenges Thomas Aquinas’s theory of instrumental causality. Whereas Aquinas does not strongly distinguish between artifacts and natural agents, and postulates a complex superposition of layers of causation, Scotus offers a novel view that clearly separates artificial instrumentality and natural instrumentality, and in both cases explains causation with great economy. Scotus’s in-depth discussion has far-reaching implications. It completely transforms the understanding of instrumental causality in general. (shrink)

This light revision of Bornholdt's doctoral thesis (Würzburg, 2015) is effectively a medievally-oriented follow-up to Richard Gaskin’s 'The Sea Battle and the Master Argument' (1995). The book is stimulating from a philosophical point of view, but the exegesis is disappointingly unreliable.

The late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez articulates and defends an extraordinarily detailed account of efficient causation. Some of the most interesting and difficult questions connected with this account concern the particular types of efficient causation he acknowledges. This paper clarifies one of the most fundamental distinctions Suárez employs in the course of his treatment of efficient causation—namely, that between motion or change, on the one hand, and creation ex nihilo, on the other. The paper shows that, although motion and creation (...) differ in systematic and important ways, they nevertheless can both be captured by Suárez’s general theoretical model of efficient causation. Moreover, the paper shows that creation serves as a kind of limit case of efficient causation, and accordingly that it informs how Suárez understands motion or change as well. (shrink)

Яскрава модернова обкладинка книжки, яку присвячено далеко не новій темі, обіцяє щось революційне, нестандартне. Ім’я автора, знаного науковця, живить передчуття нових джерел, нових думок, точно сформульованих і підкріплених ґрунтовною науковою аргументацією. Проте від самого початку читання виникають певні перепони, а під кінець стає зрозумілим, що нова версія життя українського філософа приховує своєрідний «гадательний» смисл, який стосується не лише Сковороди і культури XVIII ст. Мова про ставлення до традиції, пізнання й істини у ширшому сенсі. Спочатку оглянемо форму і зміст книжки. У (...) вступній частині під назвою «Prelude» на читача відразу чекають несподіванки. Розповідь про життя Григорія Сковороди, як і годиться, автор розпочинає з притчі про пустельника в «Silenus Alcibiadis», але раптом переносить нас у зовсім інший історичний світ. Тепер він розповідає про Олександра Потебню та подібність його думок і думок Сковороди. Чому книжку про філософа XVIII ст. треба починати з доведення подібності його думок до думок мислителя ХІХ ст.? Не дуже зрозуміло. Принаймні автор посилається на своє відчуття. І такий сюжетний хід мусить навіювати читачеві думки про історичну тяглість певних ідей. Серед цих ідей азначено такі: гостре відчуття богополишеності світу; панування «кривди» (с. 7); досягнення суспільної гармонії лише за умови чистоти сердець (с. 10); трактування серця як найглибшої основи людського буття (с. 10); нерозривний зв’язок пізнання речей і любові (с. 11); релігійне «підложжя» вчення обох мислителів (с.12); подібність теорії пізнання: пізнати світ можна шляхом пізнання себе і навпаки (с. 18); визнання символічності слова (с. 19); однакове розуміння структури слова і образу (с. 21); «нерівна рівність» як універсальний принцип (с. 24); «послідовний націоналізм», предтечею якого Потебня вважав Сковороду, і просвітницький пафос (с. 27). Згадка про «націоналізм» додає провокативності сюжету. А до питання про «просвітницький пафос» ми ще повернемося. Закінчує вступну частину висновок, що народ спить і його треба «розбудити». Очевидно, автор збирається пов’язати цю тему з філософією Сковороди, але не дає чітких пояснень з цього приводу. І претензій не висунеш, адже це не вступ до дисертації, а «prelude». (shrink)

The central claim of this paper is that the Aristotelian metaphysics of objects is incompatible with physicalism. This includes the contemporary variant of Aristotelianism I call ‘sortalism’. The core reason is that an object’s identity as an instance of a (natural) kind, as well as its consequent persistence conditions, is neither physically fundamental nor determined by what is physically fundamental. The argument for the latter appeals to what is commonly known as ‘the grounding problem’; in particular I argue that the (...) physicalist has no solution, and this requires that the physicalist jettison the traditional concept of objects having kind-specific identity and persistence conditions. (shrink)

Середньовічний світогляд бачить всесвіт як двоїсту систему духовного та земного. Така структурна особливість реалізується у літературних текстах за допомогою різних видів топосів. Острів, пустеля, місто, а також печера – всі вони виконують у тексті роль множинних просторів. -/- Києво-Печерський патерик не лише відобразив світоглядну парадигму XI–XVII ст., а й зберіг художні функції простору печери, що були успадковані від античності й трансформувались з огляду на запити середньовічної ідеології.

У статті розглянуто феномени жанрової та ідеологічної пам’яті ландшафтів українських ходінь до раю та показано поліморфізм функцій просторових описів у середньовічній літературі. Теоретичний аспект дослідження передбачає осмислення способів протистояння авторської інстанції стихіям культурної та жанрової пам’яті, яка зберігає усі ціннісні, етичні й естетичні програми претекстів новопосталого твору. На позначення цього явища запроваджено термін «криптограматичність літературного дискурсу», сила опору якій прямо пропорційна до меж індивідуалізму письменницької свободи, установленої в рамках кожної культурно-історичної епохи. З цієї перспективи стверджено, що специфіка ходіння до раю (...) як окремої таксономічної одиниці визначається сумою його претекстів та архітекстуальних взаємодій, оскільки для середньовічного скриптора схрещення й модифікація жанрових матриць подекуди ставали ключовою формою самовираження. Завдяки внутрішній жанровій інтеракції у наративній структурі апокрифів завжди наявні осередки інших типів раціональності та ідеологем, резервуарами яких у художньому тексті часто слугували шаблонізовані екфразиси. Історико-літературний ракурс розвідки сфокусований на механізмах рецепції античного греко-римського «індійського тексту» в середньовічній апокрифічній традиції. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a categorial theory of meaning which asserts that the meaning of a sentence is the function from the actualization of some potentiality or the potentiality of some actuality to the truth of the sentence. I argue that it builds on the virtues of David Lewis’s Possible World Semantics but advances beyond problems that Lewis’s theory faces with its distinctly Aristotelian turn toward actuality and potentiality.