In Deceit, Desire, and the Novel, René Girard interprets a phenomenon he dubs “metaphysical desire” in which “metaphysical” signifies objects of attraction that are not physical things but rather intangible bi-products of mimetic entanglement—such as prestige or fame or social status. These “metaphysical objects” fuel the sometimes frenzied rivalry between the actors in their grip. Desire in the mimetic theory is always subject to mediation, and Girard distinguishes two modes of mediation: external and internal. (...) In external mediation, the model stands outside the field of play of the imitator; in such cases there can be imitation but not the mutually amplified rivalry that leads to violence and scapegoating. In internal mediation, however, the model/imitators become antagonists. In Girard’s exposition, this difference between mediators provides a first litmus test of violent potential. But Girard’s dichotomy is limited to types of mediation, and another dichotomy is possible, one that distinguishes between types of metaphysical objects: those that are essentially sharable and those inherently not so. This extension of Girard’s mimetic theory can potentially cast great light on Plato’s dialogues. My essay will argue both that Plato understood the double-bind of mimetic entanglement and that his “forms” (at least in the ethical/political realm) can best be understood as metaphysical objects of the sharable kind. My points of reference will be primarily Plato’s Phaedrus and Book IX of the Republic (with pointers to Aristotle’s analysis of philia in Book VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics). (shrink)

Review of Drew Dalton, Longing for the Other: Levinas and Metaphysical Desire (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 2009).

One of the most persistent and poignant human experiences is the sensation of longing--a restlessness perhaps best described as the unspoken conviction that something is missing from our lives. In this study, Drew M. Dalton attempts to illuminate this experience by examining the philosophical thought of Emmanuel Levinas on longing, or what Levinas terms "metaphysical desire." Metaphysical desire, according to Levinas, does not stem from any determinate lack within us, nor does it aim at a particular (...) object beyond us, much less promise any eventual satisfaction. Rather, it functions in the realm of the infinite where such distinctions as inside and outside or one and the other are indistinguishable, perhaps even eliminated. As Levinas conceives such longing, it becomes a mediator in our relation to the other--both the human other and the divine Other. -/- Dalton follows the meandering trail of Levinas's thought along a series of dialogues with some of the philosophers within the history of the Western tradition who have most influenced his corpus. By tracing the genealogy of Levinas's notion of metaphysical desire--namely in the works of Plato, Heidegger, Fichte, Schelling, and Otto--the nature of this Levinasian theme is elucidated to reveal that it is not simply an idealism, a "hagiography of desire" detached from actual experience and resulting in a disconnect between his phenomenological account and our own lives. Rather, Levinas's account of metaphysical desire points to a phenomenology of human longing that is both an ethical and religious phenomenon. In the end, human longing is revealed to be one of the most profound ways in which a subject becomes a subject, arising to its "true self," and hearing the call to responsibility placed upon it by the Other. -/- Throughout, Dalton explicates the nuance of a number of key Levinasian terms, many of which have been taken from the Western philosophical tradition and reinscribed with a new meaning. Eros, the "Good beyond being," shame, responsibility, creation, the trace, the il y a, and the holy are discovered to be deeply tied to Levinas's account of metaphysical desire, resulting in a conclusion regarding longing's role in the relationship between the finite and the Infinite.". (shrink)

There seems to be some kind of close relationship between desires and behavioral dispositions. While a popular view about the nature of desire is that it essentially involves dispositions towards action, there do seem to be pressing objections to this view. However, recent work on dispositional properties potentially undermines some of the metaphysical assumptions that lie beneath these objections.

Drew M. Dalton: Longing for the other: Levinas and metaphysical desire Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s11007-012-9216-y Authors Christopher Yates, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA Journal Continental Philosophy Review Online ISSN 1573-1103 Print ISSN 1387-2842.

In book Λ. of the Metaphysics, Aristotle suggests that an unmoved, unmoving being (God) is the source of all movement in the cosmos. He explains that this being instigates movement through desire. But how does desire affect movement? And what would make Aristotle’s God an object of desire? I attend to both questions in this paper, arguing that God’s existence as pure actuality (energeia) is crucial to understanding God’s status as the primary and ultimate source of wonder, (...) and that it is as the ultimate source of wonder that we can make sense of how God affects desire. (shrink)

고대로부터 욕망은 결핍에서 비롯된 감정의 문제요 몸(신체)의문제로 인식됐다. 이 글은 욕망의 근원과 원리를 형이상학적 관점에서 구명하고, 현대 사회에서 욕망의 현상을 탐구하는 데 목적이있다. 인간의 욕망은 우선 생물학적 필요와 요구로부터 자연스럽게 생성되지만, 근본적으로 한계를 모르는 정신의 무제약적 행위에 근거한다. 인간이 욕망하는 주체인 것은 인간이 신체를 갖고있기 때문이 아니라 바로 정신을 갖고 있기 때문이다. 왜냐하면, 신체적 욕구(physiological needs)는 생리적 한계를 갖지만, 정신적 욕구(mental greed)는 결코 만족하는 법이 없기 때문이다. 물론 욕망은 인간에게 있어서 필연적으로 몸을 매개로 하는 정신의표현이기에 육체의 기능 없이는 불가능하다. 인간의 (...) 욕망은 기본적으로 인간의 본성에 근거하지만, 또한 사회 구조에 크게 영향을받으며 다양한 모습을 띠고 나타난다. 오늘날 현대 사회의 욕망은지각 체험을 넓혀주는 ‘신체의 확장으로서 욕망’, 욕망을 감추고이데올로기화하는 ‘욕망의 이데올로기’, 존재와 소유 사이에서 소유를 지향하는 ‘과대 소비 욕망’으로 특징지을 수 있다. (shrink)

David Lewis [1988; 1996] canvases an anti-Humean thesis about mental states: that the rational agent desires something to the extent that he or she believes it to be good. Lewis offers and refutes a decision-theoretic formulation of it, the 'Desire-as-Belief Thesis'. Other authors have since added further negative results in the spirit of Lewis's. We explore ways of being anti-Humean that evade all these negative results. We begin by providing background on evidential decision theory and on Lewis's negative results. (...) We then introduce what we call the indexicality loophole: if the goodness of a proposition is indexical, partly a function of an agent's mental state, then the negative results have no purchase. Thus we propose a variant of Desire-as-Belief that exploits this loophole. We argue that a number of meta-ethical positions are committed to just such indexicality. Indeed, we show that with one central sort of evaluative belief--the belief that an option is right--the indexicality loophole can be exploited in various interesting ways. Moreover, on some accounts, 'good' is indexical in the same way. Thus, it seems that the anti-Humean can dodge the negative results. (shrink)

You can sometimes have and be moved by desires which you in some sense disown. The problem is whether we can make sense of these ideas of---as I will say---ownership and rejection of a desire, without appeal to a little person in the head who is looking on at the workings of her desires and giving the nod to some but not to others. Frankfurt's proposed solution to this problem, sketched in his 1971 article, has come to be called (...) the hierarchical model. Indeed, it seems that, normally, if an agent's relevant higher-order attitudes are not to some extent shaped by her evaluative reflections and judgments her agency will be flawed. But this suggests a Platonic challenge to the hierarchical account of ownership. The challenge is to explain why we should not see such evaluative judgments---rather than broadly Frankfurtian higher-order attitudes---as the fundamental basis of ownership or rejection of desire. I do think that a systematic absence of connection between higher-order Frankfurtian attitude and evaluative judgment would be a breakdown in proper functioning. But I want to explain how we can grant this point and still block the Platonic challenge. (shrink)

Delia Graff Fara maintains that many desire ascriptions underspecify the content of the relevant agent’s desire. She argues that this is inconsistent with certain initially plausible claims about desiring, desires, and desire ascriptions. This paper defends those initially plausible claims. Part of the defense hinges on metaphysical claims about the relations among desiring, desires, and contents.

Despite the common notion of a "post-metaphysical age" in philosophy, a new, genuine desire for metaphysics has become apparent in international philosophical discourse. This volume offers a reflective overview of the current international debate and reveals the historical and systematic diversity of metaphysical thought.

Le désir se présente comme une sorte de point aveugle de la phénoménologie merleau-pontienne. Mais est-ce là la trace d’une carence ou d’un déplacement de la problématique en direction d’autres domaines de cette philosophie ? Dans cet article, nous tenterons de dégager trois régions d’investigation principales, qui s’entremêlent les unes avec les autres. Tout d’abord, demandons-nous, quelle est cette signification explicitement « métaphysique » que Merleau-Ponty prête au désir, et en quels sens variés convient-il de l’entendre au beau milieu d’une (...) phénoménologie, pourtant luxuriante, de la perception ? Quelle spécificité en vient alors à posséder le désir par rapport à des notions qui lui sont apparentées comme la sexualité, l’amour, la pudeur, ou encore la volonté ? Ensuite, sous quelle forme le désir se déploie-t-il sous nos yeux, à la faveur du dialogue incessant qu’entretient Merleau-Ponty avec la psychanalyse, en particulier celle qu’il dit « existentielle » ? Le désir merleau-pontien, est-ce principalement le désir sexuel, ou encore l’Éros ? Enfin, de quelle manière singulière l’approche merleau-pontienne du désir se retrouve-t-elle entrainée dans le courant ontologique mouvementé de sa dernière philosophie, dans les entrailles naturelles de l’esthésiologie, et le jeu de miroir du visible et de l’invisible ? Ces considérations nous aiderons peut-être à mieux cerner l’étrange attraction que ce philosophe exerce sur les autres et sur nous-mêmes, nous faisant passer pour ainsi dire de Merleau-Ponty parlant du désir au désir de Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

The topic of irresistible desires arises with unsurprising frequency in discussions of free agency and moral responsibility. Actions motivated by such desires are standardly viewed as compelled, and hence unfree. Agents in the grip of irresistible desires are often plausibly exempted from moral blame for intentional deeds in which the desires issue. Yet, relatively little attention has been given to the analysis of irresistible desire. Moreover, a popular analysis is fatally flawed. My aim in this paper is to construct (...) and defend a new analysis of irresistible desire. Although, to render the discussion manageable, I shall keep the issues of freedom and responsibility to one side, readers will see them in the background at every major turn. (shrink)

A. Raghuramaraju has curated and edited this volume, which proposes a major breakthrough in the field of philosophical studies. The volume reproduces not only Desire and Liberation and Kalidas Bhattacharyya's introduction to it, but also the letters that Bhattacharyya wrote to Chandidas, and Chandidas's own commentary on his text. In Desire and Liberation Vaddera Chandidas creates a new metaphysical system. The author rejects major convergences inphilosophy from both India and the West, especially on the ontological primacy of (...) non-being that results in permanence. He is especially opposed to the idea of permanence, which renders unreliable anything that is not permanent but changing. Chandidas points out that contradictoriness is the structural 'tinge' ofreality. (shrink)

The major part of this paper is devoted to the task of showing that Husserl's account of knowledge and truth in terms of a synthesis of fulfilment falls prey neither to a form of “metaphysics of presence” nor to a “myth of interiority” or mentalism. Husserl's presentation of the desire to know, his awareness of irreducible forms of absence at the heart of the intuitive presence of the object of knowledge and his formulation of general rules concerning the possible (...) accomplishment of a synthesis of fulfilment are therefore carefully examined. Special attention is also given to the fact that the determination of knowledge and truth provided by the Sixth Logical Investigation rests on an account of an original interweaving between the thing, consciousness, and language. Unlike in Husserl's earlier and later works, no attempt is thereby made to subordinate any of these three elements involved in all knowledge to one of the others. (shrink)

I argue for an evaluative theory of desire—specifically, that to desire something is for it to appear, in some way or other, good. If a desire is a non-doxastic appearance of value then it is no mystery how it can rationalize as well as cause action. The theory is metaphysically neutral—it is compatible with value idealism (that value reduces to desire), with value realism (that it is not so reducible), and with value nihilism (all appearances of (...) value are illusory). Despite this metaphysical neutrality the thesis opens up an epistemological gold mine. Non-doxastic value appearances can provide defeasible reasons for value judgements, in roughly the same way that perceptual appearances provide defeasible reasons for perceptual judgements. The paper presents a new line of argument for the evaluative theory—drawing on recent work on fitting attitudes—and rebuts some of the most pressing criticisms. (shrink)

Socrates says that everyone desires the good. Does he mean that people desire what appears to them to be good? Or does he mean that they desire what really is good? This article argues, with reference passages in the Meno and Gorgias, that these alternatives are less opposed than they seem: each identifies something Socrates takes to be a necessary but insufficient condition on desiring. If what we desire must both be and appear to us to be (...) good, then people desire a subset of the things they take themselves to desire, and a subset of the things that really are good. Pointing this out to people incites them to inquire about the good, since they will be motivated to discover which appearances are mistaken and which goods they have missed out on. This explains why Socrates so frequently asserts that everyone desires the good: it serves his protreptic purposes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I offer an approach to the problem of life’s meaning which poses a radical challenge to some of the familiar terms of this debate. First, I defend an expansive form of naturalism which involves a rejection of the common assumption that naturalism and theism are logically incompatible and offers a framework from which to rethink some of the central concepts operative in discussions of life’s meaning. Second, I defend a ‘desire solution’ to the problem of life’s meaning. My (...) initial inspiration is Richard Taylor’s version of such a position as articulated in his book Good and Evil. I argue that this solution is best articulated from within an expansive naturalist framework, raise some doubts about Taylor’s metaphysics, and make a connection with the Nietzschean problem of nihilism. (shrink)

Value, Reality, and Desire is an extended argument for a robust realism about value. The robust realist affirms the following distinctive theses. There are genuine claims about value which are true or false--there are facts about value. These value-facts are mind-independent - they are not reducible to desires or other mental states, or indeed to any non-mental facts of a non-evaluative kind. And these genuine, mind-independent, irreducible value-facts are causally efficacious. Values, quite literally, affect us. These are not particularly (...) fashionable theses, and taken as a whole they go somewhat against the grain of quite a lot of recent work in the metaphysics of value. Further, against the received view, Oddie argues that we can have knowledge of values by experiential acquaintance, that there are experiences of value which can be both veridical and appropriately responsive to the values themselves. Finally, these value-experiences are not the products of some exotic and implausible faculty of "intuition." Rather, they are perfectly mundane and familiar mental states - namely, desires. This view explains how values can be "intrinsically motivating," without falling foul of the widely accepted "queerness" objection. There are, of course, other objections to each of the realist's claims. In showing how and why these objections fail, Oddie introduces a wealth of interesting and original insights about issues of wider interest--including the nature of properties, reduction, supervenience, and causation. The result is a novel and interesting account which illuminates what would otherwise be deeply puzzling features of value and desire and the connections between them. (shrink)

In this paper I defend Kant’s Incorporation Thesis, which holds that we must “incorporate” our incentives into our maxims if we are to act on them. I see this as a thesis about what is necessary for a human being to make the transition from ‘having a desire’ to ‘acting on it’. As such, I consider the widely held view that ‘having a desire’ involves being focused on the world, and not on ourselves or on the desire. (...) I try to show how this view is connected with a denial of any deep distinction between reason and inclination. I then argue for an alternative view of what ‘having a desire’ involves, one according to which it involves being focused both on the world and on ourselves. I show how this view fits naturally with the Kantian distinction between reason and inclination, accounts for independent intuitions about ‘having a desire’, and supports the Incorporation Thesis. I then make some further suggestions about how we might conceive of the object of incorporation. (shrink)

Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded, that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on (...) which correct interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

This classic work by one of the most important philosophers and critics of our time charts the genesis and trajectory of the desiring subject from Hegel's formulation in Phenomenology of Spirit to its appropriation by Kojève, Hyppolite, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze, and Foucault. Judith Butler plots the French reception of Hegel and the successive challenges waged against his metaphysics and view of the subject, all while revealing ambiguities within his position. The result is a sophisticated reconsideration of the post-Hegelian tradition that (...) has predominated in modern French thought, and her study remains a provocative and timely intervention in contemporary debates over the unconscious, the powers of subjection, and the subject. (shrink)

Are interpersonal comparisons of desire possible? Can we give an account of how facts about desires are grounded that underpins such comparisons? This paper supposes the answer to the first question is yes, and provides an account of the nature of desire that explains how this is so. The account is a modification of the interpretationist metaphysics of representation that the author has recently been developing. The modification is to allow phenomenological affective valence into the “base facts” on (...) which correct interpretation is grounded. To use this extra resource within that theory to vindicate interpersonal comparisons, we will need to appeal rational connections between level of valence and level of desire, which this paper sets out and examines. (shrink)

The scheme of concepts we employ in daily life to explain intentional behaviour form a belief-desire model, in which motivating states are sorted into two suitably broad categories. The BD model embeds a philosophy of action, i.e. a set of assumptions about the ontology of motivation with subsequent restrictions on psychologising and norms of practical reason. A comprehensive critique of those assumptions and implications is offered in this work, and various criticisms of the model are met. The model’s predictive (...) and explanatory value exploits realistic notions of beliefs and desires as inner states underlying behavioural patterns. It is argued that the popular explication that beliefs and desires differ in their “direction of fit” is insufficient and inescapably normative. Essential to the model is the causal role given to desires. ‘Desire’ is therefore focussed. A dispositional and functional characterisation of desires is compatible with an eliminative view of dispositions. These views taken together do not exclude regarding desires as causes. Desires have propositional content. Content is a feature of desire’s dispositionality, and thereby causally relevant. This functional characterisation of content allows for non-linguistic content. The phenomenal conception of desire is criticised and diagnosed. A theme defended in various ways throughout the work is that desires mostly are unknown to agents and that the agent is in a less privileged position when it comes to analysis of his own motivational states, than e.g. people close to him. There are formal and empirical reasons to be pessimistic about agents’ abilities to make reliable predictions about their own intentional behaviour. The BD model’s concept of ‘intention’ is discussed and compared with non-reductive views of intentions. Criticisms of the common view that David Hume defends a BD model are presented, but it is argued that the BD interpretation of Hume is plausible, although this reading requires important qualifications in order to preserve internal consistency. The BD model leaves room for focussing attention, making foregrounded practical judgements, higher order desiring and other activities affecting one’s decision process. However, these various forms of deliberation in many cases are overrated. Three suggested norms of internal structural rationality are criticised in favour of simple Humean instrumentalism about practical reason. That position implies that criticism of other people’s ultimate ends is not a matter of internal rationality, but an inevitably social practice; it is dependent upon our concern for others, our view of their social roles and our own intrinsic desires. (shrink)

The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of literature, the volume questions the orthodoxies not only of Western metaphysics but even of the phenomenological tradition itself. We miss much that has philosophical import when we exclude the somatic aspects of human life, and it (...) is therefore the philosopher’s duty now to rediscover the meaning inherent in desire, emotion, and passion—without letting the biases of any tradition determine in advance the meaning that reveals itself in embodied desire. Continental philosophers have already done much to challenge binary oppositions, and this volume sets out a new challenge: we must now also question the dichotomy between being at home and being alienated. Alterity is not simply something out there, separate from myself; rather, it penetrates me through and through, even in my corporeal experience. My body is both my own and other; I am other than myself and therefore other than my body. Additionally, this book is a conversation, not a presentation of a new orthodoxy. Thus, the hope is that these essays will open the way for further dialogue that will continue to radically rethink our understanding of embodied desire. Gathered together here are twelve essays that address these issues from deeply interrelated albeit unique perspectives from within the field. (shrink)

The desire of knowledge constitutes, as it is well known, the opening ‘theme’ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. This article focuses on the figure of Dominic of Flanders, one of the commentators of Aristotle’s Metaphysics who much developed this topic. Dominicus deals with it in the second question of the first book of his commentary. What makes the interest of Dominic’s account is its originality, in so far as, according to him, the beginning of Aristotle’s Metaphysics aims to stress the very (...) primacy of Metaphsyics, and not only, the primacy of science in general. In this sense, the desire of knowledge constitutes for Dominic the most efficacious argument for the primacy of Metaphsyics. However, this is possible only if the desiderium sciendi is related to two other principles: the first is that desirability entails perfection, and the second is that the desirability of an object depends on its intelligibility. (shrink)

Pragmatism’s heartening recent revival (spearheaded by Richard Rorty’s bold intervention into analytic philosophy Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature) has coalesced into a distinctive philosophical movement frequently referred to as ‘neopragmatism’. This movement interprets the very meaning of pragmatism as rejection of metaphysical commitments: our words do not primarily serve to represent non-linguistic entities, but are tools to achieve a range of human purposes. A particularly thorough and consistent version of this position is Huw Price’s global expressivism. We here (...) critically appraise Price’s understanding of a commitment to pragmatism as a rejection of metaphysics, and argue that such rejection is not as easy or desirable as Price claims. First we argue that Price’s global expressivism itself draws on significant metaphysical assumptions (a ‘word-world’ dualism, and a nominalism concerning the meaning of general terms). Then we seek to resolve neopragmatist anxieties about metaphysics by arguing that metaphysics is indispensable for pragmatist philosophizing insofar as it seeks ways for human beings to realise themselves through practices of understanding reality and their place in it. If, as we argue, metaphysics consists in a maximally general inquiry into the nature and structure of reality, to try to block it seems a puzzling exercise in epistemic self-harm. (shrink)

First published in 2004, this book is a rigorous textbook on the metaphysics of the mind for advanced students of philosophy, covering the background they need to understand the debates and bringing them to the frontiers of current research. It is also a monograph on the nature of de re and de se states of mind, incorporating material the author published in journals. The short file you will see is only a gateway to more than two dozen other files which (...) are rewrites of the book. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine two versions of the so-called “hierarchical” approach to personal autonomy, based on the notion of “second-order desires”. My primary concern will be with the question of whether these approaches provide an adequate basis for understanding the dynamics of autonomy-ascription. I begin by distinguishing two versions of the hierarchical approach, each representing a different response to the oft-discussed “regress” objection. I then argue that both “structural hierarchicalism” (e.g., Frankfurt, Bratman) and “procedural hierarchicalism” (e.g., Dworkin, Christman, Mele) (...) have difficulties accommodating the dynamics of how the attribution of autonomy to persons is claimed, disputed, and resolved. Although they differ in details, both shortcomings can be traced to viewing autonomy as a metaphysical rather than a normative, practical matter. I conclude by suggesting that these difficulties underscore the advantages of a more constructivist and pragmatist. (shrink)

This is a 1988 philosophical introduction to Aristotle, and Professor Lear starts where Aristotle himself starts. The first sentence of the Metaphysics states that all human beings by their nature desire to know. But what is it for us to be animated by this desire in this world? What is it for a creature to have a nature; what is our human nature; what must the world be like to be intelligible; and what must we be like to (...) understand it systematically? Through a consideration of these questions Professor Lear introduces us to the essence of Aristotle's philosophy and guides us through the central Aristotelian texts - selected from the Physics, Metaphysics, Ethics, Politics and from the biological and logical works. The book is written in a direct, lucid style which engages the reader with the themes in an active, participatory manner. (shrink)

This chapter focuses exclusively on normative reasons. Normative reasons count in favor of actions and attitudes like beliefs, desires, feelings, and emotions. Section 11.2 explores the common ground concerning the metaphysics of reasons. We shall see that the really controversial metaphysical issues in metanormative theorizing about reasons arise with respect to the metaphysics of the reason relation. The two subsequent sections therefore go beyond the common ground and consider competing accounts of the reason relation. Robust and quietist versions of (...) non-naturalism are considered in section 11.3 and naturalism is considered in section 11.4. Section 11.5 summarizes and gives a brief comparative assessment of the accounts considered. (shrink)

This paper offers one formal reason why it may often be inappropriate to hold, of two conflicting desires, that the first must be weaker than, stronger than, or of the same strength as the second. The explanation of this fact does not rely on vagueness or epistemological problems in determining the strengths of desires. Nor does it make use of the problematic notion of incommensurability. Rather, the suggestion is that the motivational capacities of many desires might best be characterized by (...) two values, neither of which should be interpreted as strength. (shrink)

Alnwick distances himself from Scotus, as he appears in Lectura Oxoniensis and the commentary on Metaphysics, though the natural propensity of the will is affirmed in q. 9 d. 49 of Book Four of Reportata Parisiensia. However, this question could be spurious, or else more susceptible to the Parisian influence of teaching of Henry of Ghent, with whom Alnwick aligns himself when he sanctions without any doubt the fact that man desires to pass from a lesser good, guaranteed by philosophical (...) speculation of an Aristotelian- Averroist matrix, to a supreme good, which coincides with the clear vision of divine essence, because man knows that essence both naturaliter and supernaturaliter. Alnwick tenaciously debates natural knowledge in the prologue to the Commentary on the Sentences, thanks to the use of discursus, which serves to set up a chain of syllogistic deductions in order to arrive at quidditative concepts of divinity in both an affirmative and negative sense. These concepts assure the wayfarer a general k... (shrink)