Before God created did God have ideas in mind for particular things, kinds of things, properties of things, particular events, and laws of nature? At least since Augustine, theists have proposed differing answers. This paper is about a relatively recent theory, which holds that God constructs them when he creates the universe. James Ross, Brian Leftow, and Hugh McCann are its primary advocates. Since the shared features of their views do not pertain to the so-called “abstract objects” or to the (...) “necessary truths” of mathematics and logic, let us call this “divine possibility constructivism”, differentiating it from the theistic activism of Christopher Menzel and Thomas Morris and from the voluntarism of René Descartes—both of which could otherwise be construed as “constructivist”. According to Ross, Leftow, and McCann, God had nothing in mind before he created—which is to say that, before God created, God was not aware of possibilities for a universe. Rather, God’s being aware of any such possibilities is grounded only in God’s having constructed them ex nihilo. This paper shows that DPC is incoherent. (shrink)

This article is in part an intervention in the ongoing debate inaugurated by Peter Harrison in 2002 when he called into question the validity of what had come by then to be called ‘the voluntarism and science thesis.’ Though it subsequently drew support from such historians of science as J.E. McGuire, Margaret Osler, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and, more recently, John Henry (in rebuttal of Harrison), the origins of the thesis are usually traced back to articles published in 1934–1936 and (...) 1961 respectively by the philosopher Michael Foster and the historian of ideas Francis Oakley. While classifying Foster’s work as pertaining to the ecology of ideas rather than their history, the article argues for the complementarity of the two approaches and seeks, not only to vindicate the voluntarism and science thesis itself but also to locate it within the broader constellation of ideas embracing legal and political as well as natural philosophy that the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott characterized as pertaining to a fundamental tradition of European thinking dominated by the master conceptions of Will and Artifice. (shrink)

The article defines the problem of the nature of ideas in Descartes’s philosophy according to the ontology of substances. First, it illuminates Descartes’s relation to antecedent theories of ideas (as platonic forms or as corporal images) and demonstrates that, in opposition to them, Descartes conceives ideas as modes of thinking substance. Then, it develops two possible explanations of his theory. The first one understands an idea as a complex consisting of perception and its necessary internal object, which enables the representation (...) of external objects. The second one understands it as an act with intrinsic representative structure. By using Arnauld’s analysis of Descartes’s texts, it demonstrates that in accordance with the second model, an idea is a singular mode of thinking substance, which should at the same time be understood as an act of mind and as a representation of objects. (shrink)

This study investigates the problem of the natural universal in the works of Mullā Ṣadrā. The problem of universals made its way into Arabic/Islamic philosophy via its Greek sources, and was transformed into the problem of natural universals by Avicenna. Weighing in on this problem, Ṣadrā reinterprets the nature of natural universals against the backdrop of his doctrine of “the primacy of being.” As he argues, a natural universal or quiddity qua quiddity is an “accidental being” that requireswujūdfor its existentiation. (...) Thus, Ṣadrā re-envisions the status of natural universals by stripping them of their disputed status as independently existing entities.RésuméDans cette étude je me propose de réfléchir sur le problème de l'universel naturel dans l’œuvre de Mullā Ṣadrā. Le problème des universaux s'est introduit dans la philosophie arabe et musulmaneviales sources grecques et s'est trouvé transformé en celui des “universaux naturels” aux mains d'Avicenne. En contribuant à son tour à l’évolution de ce problème, Ṣadrā réinterpréta le statut des universaux naturels à partir de sa propre doctrine de la “primauté de l’être”. Selon lui, un universel naturel ou “quiddité en tant que quiddité” est un “être par accident” qui requiertwujūdpour son existentiation. Ainsi, Ṣadrā re-envisage le statut des universaux naturels en les privant de leur statut contesté en tant qu'entités “indépendantes existantes”. (shrink)