L’article est consacré à la conception de processio et d’explicatio dans un contexte historique et doctrinal du néoplatonisme de l’école d’Athènes et puis dans le néoplatonisme chrétien médiéval. C’est à Thierry de Chartres que le Cusain a emprunté les termes-clefs : complicatio-explicatio décrivant la relation de la Cause Première et de la multitude de ce qui en procède, aussi bien que expliquant la relation parmi l’immanence et la transcendance Divine.

Normal 0 21 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} Neste trabalho interessa-nos pensar a relaçáo entre unidade e multiplicidade, um problema fundamental tanto filosófico quanto teológico como lembra Beierwaltes (1989, p. 179), a partir do vocabulário filosófico-teológico cusano. Na primeira parte do texto fazemos uma leitura às avessas da obra cusana. Partimos da suposiçáo de que no De (...) apice tehoriae Nicolau de Cusa sugere um princípio a partir do qual pode ser lida tanto a sua última obra quanto toda a sua especulaçáo. Uma correta interpretaçáo desse princípio pode ser construída ao pensarmos o modo de ser próprio das coisas criadas. O princípio primeiro se deixa ver e as coisas principiadas sáo sua manifestaçáo e apariçáo. Porém, apariçáo perfeita do princípio é o seu Verbo. Em termos filosóficos isso significa que a apariçáo perfeita da unidade náo é a pluralidade (sua explicatio ), mas a igualdade (sua imago ). Será o De mente a nos sugerir a diferença. Na segunda parte, portanto, refletiremos sobre a complicatio - explicatio como aposta cusana para se pensar o problema da unidade e da multiplicidade. Retomamos essa discussáo a partir do De docta ignorantia e da Apologia quando Nicolau deve se defender da acusaçáo feita por Wenck, no De ignota litteratura , de ter feito coincidir criador e criatura. (shrink)

In seinem Beitrag versucht der Verfasser, im Rahmen der philosophischen Systematik Bonifac Badrovs, des langjährigen Philosophie-Professors an der Franziskanische Theologischen Fakultät in Sarajevo, sein scholastisch-neuscholastisches Wahrheitsverständnis als adaequatio intellectus et rei, das ihm als der Leitfaden für seine Konzeption „Wissenschaftsphilosophie“, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Auffassung der „Begriffsbildung“. Dabei wird den Vorgang der Begriffsbildung durch die Definitionen als Bedeutungsbeschreibungen geschildert. Dadurch verliert der Begriff seine Verankerung in der unimittelbaren menschlichen Existenz, d.h. er wird weder als das Ergebnis des complicatio und (...) explicatio Verhältnisses (N. Cusanus) noch als der Vollzug der Selbstgewinnung des Menschen in eigener Existenz verstanden (H.-G. Gadamer), weshalb die Frage nach dem „Sinn“ letztes Ende jede Bedeutung nicht nur für die Existenz des Menschen, sondern für den „Sinn“ des Erkenntnis- und Wissenschaftsverfahrens verliert. (shrink)

"The Role of the Christian Philosopher" is the principal topic of these discussions; and that role is taken to be the meeting of modern problems, considering criticisms of the established position, and establishing communication with philosophers of different persuasions. Brief but incisive historical studies of possibility in St. Thomas, univocity in Duns Scotus, and of the complicatio-explicatio distinction in Nicholas of Cusa are among the other articles.--R. E.

En este trabajo se pretende hacer un recorrido por la obra de Nicolás de Cusa y fijarse en lo que podríamos llamar "piedras angulares" sobre las que va a descansar La Docta Ignorantia y para conseguirlo tendremos que hablar de métodos, de la "coincidencia de los opuestos", del universo como explicatio Dei y terminar con Jesucristo como mediador entre lo finito y lo infinito.

The paper compares the method of Biblical interpretation used by Erasmus of Rotterdam with the method of Socinus, raising the question of the extent to which the method outlined by Socinus in his Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Joannis can be seen as continuous and and consonant with the method of Erasmus, and to what extent it should be seen as its rejection or modification. In addition, the essay outlines similarities and differences, with respect to both method and (...) content, between Erasmus' Adnotationes and Socinus’ Explicatio. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Juliusz Domański’s “Fausta Socyna Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Ioannis i egzegeza erazmiańska,” in his "Erasmiana minora. Studia i szkice o pisarstwie filozoficznym i religijnym Erazma z Rotterdamu" (Warsaw: Instytut Tomistyczny, Instytut Filologii Klasycznej UW, 2017), 337–63. Translated with the Author’s permission. The paper compares the method of Biblical interpretation used by Erasmus of Rotterdam with the method of Socinus, raising the question of the extent to which the method outlined by Socinus (...) in his Explicatio primae partis primi capitis Euangelii Joannis can be seen as continuous and and consonant with the method of Erasmus, and to what extent it should be seen as its rejection or modification. In addition, the essay outlines similarities and differences, with respect to both method and content, between Erasmus' Adnotationes and Socinus’ Explicatio. (shrink)

In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel offers the following verdict on Spinoza’s ontology: “According to Spinoza what is, is God, and God alone. Therefore, the allegations of those who accuse Spinoza of atheism are the direct opposite of the truth; with him there is too much God” (Hegel 1995, vol. 3, 281-2). It is not easy to dismiss Hegel’s grand pronouncement, since Spinoza indeed clearly affirms: “whatever is, is in God” (E1p15). Crocodiles, porcupines (and your thoughts about (...) crocodiles and porcupines) are all in God. There is nothing that is not in Spinoza’s God. Spinoza defines God at the very opening page of the Ethics, and the definition (and its explication) unfold in three successively elucidatory steps: First, Spinoza characterizes God as “a being absolutely infinite [ens absolute infinitum]. Then, he spells out this characterization: “i.e., a substance consisting of an infinity of attributes, of which each one expresses an eternal and infinite essence” (E1def6). Finally, Spinoza adds an explicatio to the entire definition: “I say absolutely infinite, not infinite in its own kind; for if something is only infinite in its own kind, we can deny infinite attributes of it; but if something is absolutely infinite, whatever expresses essence and involves no negation pertains to its essence.” Throughout his philosophical career Spinoza plays with the precise formulation of this definition; its core remains pretty stable, though the small variations might indicate attempts to explore alternative nuances (see, for example, KV II.1; I/19; Ep. 2; IV/7; Ep. 83; IV/335). (shrink)

La metafisica de Nicolás de Cusapresentada, por primeira vez, en su obra capitalDe docta ignorantia presenta como una desus nociones fundantes la ldea de Máximo absolutosegún la cual la maximldad, por ser tal,carece de toda relación. Así pues, el Máximoabsoluto debe ser concebido en coincidencia consu opuesto, el mlnimo absoluto - coinc:identiaoppositorum - y, al mismo tiempo, puesto quenada se le opone, co-irnplicando en sí mismotodas las cosas - complicatio absoluta - sln sernlnguna de ellas de modo singular. De (...) estamanera, el Máximo resulta la forma única universalde todo lo real y lo posible. las ideas en e!Lógos divino, noción que atraviesa diversasexpresiones dei neoplatonismo cristiano, aparecenaqui unificadas e igualadas en una únicaesencia, que es el mismo Logos, que "corre" portodas las cosas y es su quididad absoluta. Estapresentación nos conduce necesariarnente a lapregunta por la constitución de la singularidad ypor la predicación universal acerca de estoasingulares. A la primera pregunta respondeNicolás con la doctrina de la "contracción"; a lasegunda debemos responder nosotros reconstruyendola idea cusana de des-velarniento deimuno que lleva a cabo la humana mens a partirdei entramado nocional de géneros y especies.Esta construcción nocional llevará al Cusano allamar al hombre "segundo dios". (shrink)

This article argues the following thesis: The distinctive characteristics of Philipp Melanchthon's Explicatio Proverbiorum Salomonis and the differences between the several editions or versions of it can only partly be explained by the origins of the book in Melanchthon's teaching activities during the ferment at German universities in the course of the sixteenth century Reformation. Both the peculiarities of the commentary itself and the way several differing versions of it were tolerated alongside one another only become explicable when a (...) theological consideration is brought into the equation. On the one hand this resides in the view of Holy Scripture shared by Melanchthon and Martin Luther, and on the other hand in the humanist notion of context that Melanchthon's exegetical work had in common with that of John Calvin. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to identify the theological comprehension of the Word as Creator in the action of the Trinity, which Thierry of Chartres offers in his Tractatus de sex dierum operibus. In his brief and synthetic explanation, he makes coincide the findings of human reason with biblical notions, such as Figure and splendor, Wisdom, Truth, Word, not as a mere sequence but in their deep and relational meaning. Thierry’s rational method is deductive-mathematical, whereas the philosophical premise is (...) the rerum universitas articulated in levels of necessity and possibility. All this allows creation to be considered as explication of the complicatio—or multiplicity produced by unity— which is typical of the chartrian neoplatonism, with the characteristic seal of Thierry. (shrink)

Secundum Petrum Bieri dualismus ontologicus hoc trilemma generat: 1) Status mentis non sunt status physici. 2) Status mentis causalitatem exerceunt in regionem statuum physicorum. 3) Regio statuum physicorum est causaliter clausa. Haec tertia propositio a Bieri “physicalismum methodologicum” exprimere dicitur. Ut hoc trilemma solvat, Bieri unum eius membrorum reicere suadet. Hylemorphismus causalitatem mentis ut causalitetem formalem explicat, relationem vero hominis ad mundum ut causalitatem efficientem. Unde clausura causalis mundi de causalitate efficiente intelligi potest, quae in physica investigatur. Liberum arbitrium ab (...) intentione mentis originem trahit. Etiam possibilitas libertatis humanae ex intentionalitate mentis explicari potest. Libertas adhuc hominis ut electio unae duarum optionum intelligi potest. Homo eligens rationes ponderat, quae sunt abstractae et distinctae a causis efficientibus rerum materialium, quae sunt concretae. Doctrina hylemorfica insuper fundamenum sufficiens ad problema identitatis personae per tempus solvendum praebere potest. Quoniam omnia elementa materialia in homine per tempus mutantur – imo DNA mutari potest –, principium identitatis immateriale esse debet. Pro principio identitatis igitur forma substantialis personae accipi potest, quae est metaphysica explicatio naturae mentis, quae actionem liberam electione deliberata per intentionalitatem libertatemque arbitrii inchoare potest)Peter Bieri formulates the assumptions of the ontological dualism via a trilemma: 1) Mental states are not physical states. 2) Mental states have causal effects in the realm of physical states. 3) The realm of physical states is causally closed. Bieri labels the third sentence of this trilemma as methodological physicalism. In order to solve this trilemma Bieri proposes to abandon one of the three premises. Hylomorphism explains mental causality as formal causality, and the relation between human beings and the world as efficient causality. Thus, the causal closure of the world can be understood as closure of the efficient causes, which are studied by physics. Free decision begins with the intentionality of the mind. The possibility of human freedom can also be explained through the intentionality of the mind. Human freedom can be understood as a choice between two alternatives. When choosing, human beings weigh reasons which are abstract and distinct from the efficient causes of material objects that are concrete. Hylomorphism can, further, provide sufficient grounds for solving the issue of personal identity through time. Since all the material elements in a human being change through time – even the DNA can change – the principle of identity cannot be material in character. Thus, it is the substantial form of a person (i.e. the metaphysical explanation of the mind, which is capable of initiating free action through its intentionality and freedom of choice in deliberate decision making) that can be accepted as the principle of identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:L'autorité d'un canon philosophique. Le cas Descartes by Delphine Antoine-MahutFred AblondiDelphine Antoine-Mahut. L'autorité d'un canon philosophique. Le cas Descartes. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2021. Pp. 356. Paperback, €13.00.Henri Gouhier once asked, "Après le mort de Descartes, qu'est-ce que le cartésianisme?" to which he replied, "C'est la philosophie de Descartes vue par ses disciples" (La vocation de Malebranche [Paris: J. Vrin, 1926], 80). In L'autorité d'un canon philosophique, (...) Delphine Antoine-Mahut asks a similar question about who controls in just what a philosophical '-ism' consists, and she offers a nuanced and thoughtful answer. While "l'auctorialité du nom en question" is one part, she adds that we must also consider "l'auctorialité de celui ou de celle qui raconte cette histoire, dans un contexte et avec des enjeux très différent de ceux de l'individu d'origine auquel cette histoire est attachée" (10–11). The end result is that "un canon philosophique n'a rien de philosophiquement pur" (12). With this larger question in mind, she documents, as something of a case study, the genesis and development of the "impure" canon cartésien.The battle for authority over the content of canonical Cartesianism starts with the story of Descartes and his one-time devoted pupil and later disavowed outcast, Henricus Regius. Their relationship began in 1638, when Regius, a professor of theoretical medicine and botany at the University of Utrecht, wrote a letter of appreciation to Descartes. Over the next few years, Descartes offered both corrections to Regius's written work and advice on how best to handle the controversies that arose as a result of those writings. In 1645, however, Regius published his Fundamenta physices, in which he claimed that reason alone is not sufficient to prove either the existence of God or the real distinction between the human mind and body. In fact, he went on to speculate that the human mind is merely a mode of the body. [End Page 322] He also denied that we possess innate ideas, and the existence in us of a pure intellect. At the bottom of Regius's break with Descartes was his belief that Cartesian metaphysics is not needed to ground Cartesian physics. For Regius, consistency with empirical findings and simplicity are all that is required.At this point, as Antoine-Mahut puts it, "le sillon est creusé" (41). Descartes responded angrily, both in private letters and in his preface to the 1647 French edition of his Principles of Philosophy. He accused Regius of plagiarizing from his unpublished work and of confusing his views. Following the appearance of a broadsheet summarizing Regius's disagreements with Descartes (written by Regius's student, Peter Wassenaer), Descartes wrote Notae in programma quoddam, in which he reiterated his arguments for both God's existence and the real distinction. Regius and Wassenaer replied with their Brevis explicatio mentis humanae (1648). All of this is laid out clearly and in detail by Antoine-Mahut in part 1 of her book.Part 2 picks up with Descartes's literary executor Claude Clerselier and his campaign to disassociate Regius from what he believed to be "true" Cartesianism. In the preface to the publication of the first volume of Descartes's letters (1657), Clerselier revived the charge of plagiarism against Regius, who responded by publishing a second edition of the Brevis explicatio. This included a preface that attacked Clerselier for publishing Regius's private correspondence without his permission—in fact, because Regius had not made Descartes's letters to him available, Clerselier had had to reconstruct them from Descartes's notes— and claimed it was Descartes who plagiarized Regius. In Antoine-Mahut's narrative of these events, this "disassociation" was followed by a "combining" (her terms) of Cartesian thought with empiricist natural philosophy in the work of Louis de la Forge, for whom "le cartésianisme se spécifie comme une psychologie empiriste dans laquelle l'activité de l'âme joue un rôle essentiel" (175). There was then a subsequent "incorporating" (again borrowing Antoine-Mahut's terminology) by Nicolas Malebranche, who, she says, "occupe une place... (shrink)

Monads, mirrors and minds. Mathematical thinking and “imago Dei” in the work of Nicholas of Cusa. This article introduces Nicholas of Cusa monadic vision of reality: the world acquires sense and value as contraction Dei, that is the ability of God’s infinite power to concentrate, individualise and actualise itself in each and every created thing by the infinite divine power. In the universal explicatio Dei the human mens has an exclusive and privileged role: it is not mere explication, but (...) living imago Dei. The mind is defined by Nicholas of Cusa on the base of the ability to give mensura, dimension of everything: the mind measures as numerates. However our mind numerates and knows, measuring, everything on the base of a Mathematics that originates things which is the one of divine mind. The human mind is image of God’s one inasmuch this one creates everything on the base of divine Mathematics while the human mind knows everything on the base of the Mathematics generated by itself. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente trabajo es aproximarse a la forma en que el hombre se conoce a sí mismo a través del curioso juego de la bocha planteado en De ludo globi. La respuesta que plantea este trabajo es que, si ha de conocerse, el alma humana debe salir de sí misma. A partir de un análisis de los elementos involucrados en dicho juego, veremos que la creación artística, como explicatio de las nociones que aquella lleva en sí misma, (...) proporciona la instancia y herramienta adecuadas para este fin. Por ende, seguiremos el rastro de la vis inventiva para descubrir las potencias del alma y acentuar un aspecto importante en el cual la mens humana es imago Dei: la fuerza creativa libre. (shrink)

As a preface to his own theological work, thoroughly Thomistic in orientation, John of St. Thomas, O.P., wrote three essays, including this one entitled Isagoge ad D. Thomae theologiae. Explicatio connexionis et ordinis totius Summae Theologiae D. Thomae, per omnes ejus material. A brilliant philosopher in his own right and confessor to King Philip IV of Spain, Poinsot was the last major figure in the revival of scholasticism in the sixteenth century. This work is neither a commentary nor a (...) work of analysis, according to McInerny, but rather a “bearing of its infrastructure, displaying the ordering principles that brought together the vast treasury of Christian theology in as economical and perspicuous manner as possible”. Or as the author himself states his plan, “we will try to lay out in a general way the marvelous order of the whole Summa of Theology and the interconnection of treatises and topics that St. Thomas himself discovered and perfected, as well as the questions making up the treatises, briefly showing the object of each and the place they occupy in the whole work”. (shrink)

In the late Middle Ages, Nicholas of Cusa renders human cognition as creative, asymptotic assimilation—humans creatively approach their objects of cognition without ever fully reaching them. Questions about measuring are an important part of Nicholas’ model of cognition in two regards: On the one hand, he explicitly calls human cognition a ‘measuring’, moving the concept into the centre of attention. On the other hand, measuring in the sense of evaluating epistemic activities is an issue for Nicholas. He describes humans as (...) living images of god who ‘enfold’ the ideas of all things within themselves in a specific way. They measure, i. e. judge, their epistemic activities looking at what they enfold. However, Nicholas provides little information about what exactly that means. He is thus threatened with a serious epistemological problem: the lack of a satisfying criterion of epistemic activities. In my paper, I discuss options of how to deal with this problem. After briefly describing Nicholas’ notion of human cognition and what he has on offer regarding a criterion of epistemic activities, I try to clarify what ‘enfolding the ideas of all things’ can mean. Presenting and discussing two plausible interpretations of this expression—a static and a dynamic one—sheds light on possible answers Nicholas can give as well as the limitations these answers are confronted with. (shrink)