The modern (Russellian) theory of definition conceives definitions as abbreviations, so that the question of adequateness (let alone of truth-value) of definitions becomes meaningless. In this paper we show that beside Russellian conception of definitions understood as abbreviations, there is an Aristotelian conception, which exploits the notion of essence and that this conception can be rehabilitated from the standpoint of the modern logic (in particular by means of Pavel Tichý’s Transparent Intensional Logic). Also Carnap’s ‘explication’ indicates that what we (...) feel to be a definition is frequently distinct from a Russellian definition. (shrink)

Because we tend to study fight books in isolation, we often forget how difficult it is to understand the precise place they occupy in the sociocultural and historical fabric of their time, and spill the many clues they inevitably contain on their owner, their local society, their precise purpose. In order to unlock that information, we need to study them in their broader sociocultural and historical context. This requires a background and research skills that are not always easily accessible to (...) everyone. To illustrate the point, in this paper I show in some detail what is required to make sense of the claim that Aristotelian philosophy and science influenced the medieval fight books in relevant ways, and that understanding this influence helps us to better understand the fight books per se. I give an outline of the general historical framework, and apply it to a testcase: Talhoffer’s Thott 290 2° Ms., with some interesting results. My hope is that this framework may be of some use to other researchers in HEMA Studies who want to dig deeper in sources of interest to them. (shrink)

This monograph presents new material on Francisco Suárez’s comprehensive theory of sense perception. The core theme is perceptual intentionality in Suárez’s theory of the senses, external and internal, as presented in his Commentaria una cum quaestionibus in libros Aristotelis De anima published in 1621. The author targets the question of the multistage genesis of perceptual acts by considering the ontological “items” involved in the procession of sensory information. However, the structural issue is not left aside, and the nature of the (...) relationship due to which our perceptions are mental representations of this or that object is also considered. The heuristic historiographical background includes not only the theories of classical authors, such as Aristotle and Aquinas, but also those of late medieval authors of the fourteenth century. These are headed by John Duns Scotus, John of Jandun, Peter Auriol and Peter John Olivi. Readers will discover the differences between Suárez’s and Aquinas’s views, as well as other sources that may have served as positive inspiration for the Jesuit’s theory. By considering the late medieval philosophy of the fourteenth century, this book helps, to a certain extent, to fill a gap in the historiography of philosophy regarding the link between late medieval and early modern scholasticism. In the first part of the book, the metaphysics of the soul and powers is considered. Chapters on the external senses follow, covering topics such as the sensible species, the causes of sensation, self-awareness, and the ordering of the external senses. A further chapter is devoted to the internal senses and the author argues that by reducing the number and functional scope of the interior senses Suárez deepens the gap between the external senses and the intellect, but he reduces it through emphasizing the unifying efficacy of the soul.This book brings a synthetic and unifying perspective to contemporary research and will particularly appeal to graduate students and researchers in theology and philosophy, especially philosophy of mind. (shrink)

All medieval philosophers in the Aristotelian tradition agreed that the human intellect is not only able to know other things, but also itself. But how should that be possible? Which cognitive mechanisms are required for self-knowledge? This chapter examines three models that attempted to answer this fundamental question: (i) Thomas Aquinas referred to higher-order acts that make first-order acts and eventually also the intellect itself cognitively present, (ii) Matthew of Aquasparta appealed to introspection, (iii) Dietrich of Freiberg claimed that (...) no special cognitive process is necessary because the intellect is by nature always fully present to itself. An analysis of these three models shows that scholastic philosophers intended to provide an epistemological foundation for the explanation of Socratic self-knowledge. (shrink)

Second Scholasticism greatly developed the medieval theory of continuous quantity as the Aristotelian notion for thematizing spatial extension, paving the way for the idea of space as extension in early modern natural philosophy. The article analyzes the section related to the category of continuous quantity in the Coimbra commentary on the Dialectics (1606), showing that it is indebted to the novel theory of Francisco Suárez on quantity as bestowing extension to a body in a particular sense, something which (...) had been overlooked by previous research. The scholarly debate on quantity was brought to China, and here the Chinese translation is examined of the section on quantity in the fourth volume of the Mingli Tan, published in China in 1636-­1639. (shrink)

My paper concentrates on Peirce’s late essay, “Issues of Pragmaticism,” which identifies “critical common-sensism” and Scotistic realism as the two primary products of pragmaticism. I argue that the doctrines of Peirce’s critical common-sensism provide a host of commendable curricular objectives for democratic Bildung. The second half of my paper explores Peirce’s Scotistic realism. I argue that Peirce eventually returned to Aristotelian intuitions that led him to a more robust realism. I focus on the development of signs from the vague (...) and indeterminate to the determinate and universal. The primary example will be the evolution of the very idea of number. I believe we will never arrive at the end of number history because we can never fully contain creativity. I draw similar conclusions for the idea of curriculum. Whether or not there is an end to the evolution of signs in Peirce is a matter of debate. I incline toward the opinion there is not, though I am unsure. I conclude by arguing that rationality itself is but the form and structure of poetic creation and that we should embrace paradox and even contradiction rather that become caught in totalizing and totalitarian end of history stories. (shrink)

This article studies the academic context in which Cartesianism was absorbed in Germany in the mid-seventeenth century. It focuses on the role of Johann Clauberg (1622-1665), first rector of the new University of Duisburg, in adjusting scholastic tradition to accommodate Descartes’ philosophy, thereby making the latter suitable for teaching in universities. It highlights contextual motivations behind Clauberg’s synthesis of Cartesianism with the existing framework such as a pedagogical interest in Descartes as offering a simpler method, and a systematic concern to (...) disentangle philosophy from theological disputes. These motivations are brought into view by situating Clauberg in the closely-linked contexts of Protestant educational reforms in the seventeenth century, and debates around the proper relation between philosophy and theology. In this background, it argues that Clauberg nevertheless retains an Aristotelian conception of ontology for purely philosophical reasons, specifically, to give objective foundations to Descartes’s metaphysics of substance. In conclusion, Clauberg should not be assimilated either to Aristotelianism or to Cartesianism or, indeed, to syncretic labels such as ‘Cartesian Scholastic’. Instead, he should be read as transforming both schools by drawing on a variety of elements in order to address issues local to the academic milieu of his time. (shrink)

I discuss the views on logic held by three early Nordic neo-Aristotelians — the Swedes Johannes Canuti Lenaeus (1573–1669) and Johannes Rudbeckius (1581–1646), and the Dane Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629). They all studied in Wittenberg (enrolled respectively in 1597, 1601, and 1604) and were exponents of protestant (Lutheran) scholasticism. The works I utilize are Janitores logici bini (1607) and Enchiridion logicum (1608) by Bartholin; Logica (1625) and Controversiae logices (1629) by Rudbeckius; and Logica peripatetica (1633) by Lenaeus. Rudbeckius’s and Lenaeus’s (...) books were published much later than they were prepared. Rudbeckius wrote the first versions of his books in 1606, and the material for Lenaeus’s book had been prepared by 1607. Bartholin calls the treatment of the nature of logic the “first doorkeeper of logic”. To compare the views of the three neo-Aristotelians on this topic, I systematically investigate what they have to say about second notions, the subject of logic, the internal and external goal of logic, and the definition of logic. I also compare their approaches with those of Jacob Martini (teacher of Rudbeckius and Bartholin) and Iacopo Zabarella (an intellectual predecessor of all three). (shrink)

The author offers a fresh solution to the problem of rendering two key Aristotelian uses of the articular infinitive τὸ εἶναι with an embedded modifier, the one τί ἦν, and the other the dative noun and/or adjective, two usages which are clearly meant to be parallel.

Descartes is, for us, the father of modern philosophy, the figure with whom the history of our philosophy begins, the philosopher who ended scholasticism once and for all and turned aside the excesses of Renaissance thought. And the Discours de la méthode and Essais is the work in which Descartes seems to have declared his revolution, and announced to the world his independence from the history of philosophy. In the opening pages of his first published writing, Descartes wrote.

The Scientific Revolution was far from the anti-Aristotelian movement traditionally pictured. Its applied mathematics pursued by new means the Aristotelian ideal of science as knowledge by insight into necessary causes. Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbits from the inverse square law of gravity is a central example.

The article aims to present the study of Aristotle’s teaching on consciousness and soul conducted by the well-known contemporary scholar of ancient philosophy, Jonathan Barnes, as an example of a certain historical-philosophical style that emerged within British analytic philosophy as a whole and within the Aristotelian Society in particular during 1970-1980s. It is shown that the development of the historical-philosophical style within the Aristotelian Society at this time continues the tradition of slow reception of ideas from continental philosophy, (...) which was noted already in the early period of Society emergence and development. This is explained by certain theoretical isolation that had developed by this time in British philosophy, which had its imprint on historical-philosophical studies and is expressed in the application of conceptual analysis and the inclusion of its results into the modern philosophical context. Although Barnes considers Aristotle’s teaching on consciousness and soul through the prism of contemporary versions of physicalism and dualism, the question of what role the Aristotelian teaching plays for them remains unanswered. The author puts forward the thesis that in this case, J. Barnes’s analysis of the Aristotelian problem of consciousness and soul appears less productive than the previously developed approaches in scholasticism and phenomenology in the continental history of philosophy. (shrink)

Psychology and Philosophy provides a history of the relations between philosophy and the science of psychology from late scholasticism to contemporary discussions. The book covers the development from 16th-century interpretations of Aristotle’s De Anima, through Kantianism and the 19th-century revival of Aristotelianism, up to 20th-century phenomenological and analytic studies of consciousness and the mind. In this volume historically divergent conceptions of psychology as a science receive special emphasis. The volume illuminates the particular nature of studies of the psyche in (...) the contexts of Aristotelian and Cartesian as well as 19th- and 20th-century science and philosophy. The relations between metaphysics, transcendental philosophy, and natural science are studied in the works of Kant, Brentano, Bergson, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, and Davidson. Accounts of less known philosophers, such as Trendelenburg and Maine de Biran, throw new light on the history of the field. Discussions concerning the connections between moral philosophy and philosophical psychology broaden the volume’s perspective and show new directions for development. All contributions are based on novel research in their respective fields. The collection provides materials for researchers and graduate students in the fields of philosophy of mind, history of philosophy, and psychology. (shrink)

Causality is without doubt one of the main topics of Hobbes's philosophy. Quite justifiably, F. Brandt stated that Chapters 9 and 10 of De Corpore, which expound Hobbes's doctrine of causality, are the most crucial ones ever written by Hobbes. According to Hobbes the quest for causes is the quintessence of all philosophical inquiry. "Philosophy is such knowledge of effects or appearances, as we acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we have first of their causes or generation. And again, (...) of such causes or generations as may be from knowing first their effects." Although this definition as such is quite peculiar and fraught with difficulties, the description of philosophy in terms of causal knowledge is in itself rather traditional. Hobbes himself admits that he follows the Aristotelian dictum scire est per causas scire. However, although Hobbes agrees with the Aristotelians that knowledge bears a causal character, he fundamentally disagrees with them as to "what he saw to be genuinely causative." Hobbes's doctrine of causes may be seen as a systematic attempt to discard the scholastic view on causality and replace it with strict mechanistic explanatory principles. Therefore, Hobbes's theory of causality can only be understood properly if we put it against its scholastic background, which is the line of interpretation followed in the present article. It will be made clear that Hobbes's relation to scholasticism is rather complex, ranging from downright rejection to the adoption of terminological distinctions as well as of specific arguments and doctrines. (shrink)

In this paper Mele constructs, and defends as adequate, a practical-syllogistic schema for representing deliberation.

In his Repastinatio . . . Lorenzo Valla launched a heavy attack on Aristotelian-scholastic thought. While most of this book is devoted to metaphysics, language and argumenta- tion, Valla also incorporates chapters on the soul and natural philosophy. Using as criteria good Latin, common sense and common observation, he rejected much of standard Aristotelian teaching on the soul, replacing the hylopmorphic account of the scholastics by an Augustinian one. In this article his arguments on the soul’s autonomy, nobility (...) and independency from the body are studied and analysed. His critique of Aristotle’s opinions on natural phenomena as being untrue to what we observe will also be briefly studied. His arguments do not show him always to be deep or consistent thinker, but the critical review of Aristotelian philosophy proceeds from some philo- sophically interesting assumptions. Moreover, from a broader historical perspective his undermining of Aristotle’s authority may be regarded as a contribution to the final demise of the Aristotelian paradigm, even though the humanist critique was just one factor in this process. (shrink)

A general metaphysical account of logic, meaning, and reference that developed from the Greeks through the medievals and up into modem times can be called Aristotelian. “Copernican” claims (Kant, Frege), radically to replace this paradigm as quasi-“Ptolemaic,” actually participated in the prolonged decline of scholasticism, after Aquinas in particular. We need to recognize, or to remember, thepriority of being to truth and not to conflate them. We need to explicate the origin of thinking (abstraction) as at one remove (...) from immediate sense-experience. Syllogistic logic then emerges as a true causal account of reasoning in general; it is not some primitive attempt to outline a formal logical system. An account of suppositio as controlling the analogous uses of our finite store of words in reference to an infinite reality itself shaped by criss-cross patterns of likenesses, governs the general picture supplied here. (shrink)

The article introduces and defends Aristotelian ontological theory of the possible as that which a power is capable of bringing about. It regards this conception to be a sort of middle way between Platonic explanation based on abstracta on one hand and the possibilist theory ultimately making everything possible into actual on the other. The doctrine defended leads to the conception of necessary being. Combined with other assumptions concerning this being, there arise some interesting issues and apparent tensions to (...) be resolved. The article outlines some of the discussions related to these problems in medieval and early modern Scholasticism. (shrink)

It is often thought that Aristotelian hylomorphism was undermined in the early modern era by the external challenges that alternative atomist and corpuscularian matter theories posed. This narrative neglects the fact that hylomorphism was not one homogeneous theory but a fruitful, adaptable framework that enabled scholastic Aristotelianism to continuously transform itself from within and resolve new natural philosophical, metaphysical, and theological problems. I focus on the period of the Counter-Reformation and rise of Protestant scholastic metaphysics. During this time accounting (...) for the individuation of substances within a hylomorphic framework consistent with Aristotle’s texts, the doctrine of the Trinity, and Aristotelian physics became both urgent and more challenging. I show that Protestant scholastics who took up influential late sixteenth-century Jesuit accounts of individuation so altered the hylomorphic framework inherited from medieval philosophers that atomism appeared to at least one author as more consistent with Aristotle’s metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

I offer a novel reading in this dissertation of René Descartes’s (1596–1650) skepticism in his work Meditations on First Philosophy (1641–1642). I specifically aim to answer the following problem: How is Descartes’s skepticism to be read in accordance with the rest of his philosophy? This problem can be divided into two more general questions in Descartes scholarship: How is skepticism utilized in the Meditations, and what are its intentions and relation to the preceding philosophical tradition? -/- I approach the topic (...) from both a historical and a text-based analysis, combining textual and contextual research. I examine Descartes’s skepticism against two main traditions in the historical analysis: philosophical skepticism and Aristotelian Scholasticism. I argue that skepticism in the Meditations is intended to oppose and upheave both Scholasticism and skepticism. The intended results of the work are not merely epistemological but also metaphysical and even ethical. Furthermore, these ambitions cannot be neatly distinguished but merge into each other. -/- The third historical context against which the skeptical meditations are examined is the literary genre of meditative exercises, particularly from the 1500–1600’s, which, while religiously and spiritually oriented, likewise provided the practitioner with an enlightened understanding of self-knowledge and their cognitive place in the world on the way to closer spiritual proximity to God. I argue by this reading that the skepticism of the Meditations is an attentive, meditational cognitive exercise that is not merely instrumental and methodological but is to have a genuine and serious (psychologically real) effect on our thinking. The skeptical meditation is not simply a theoretical thought experiment but is to be seriously practiced as a transformative process of reorienting one’s cognitive framework to discover truth, certainty, and a way to a happy, tranquil, and virtuous life. -/- I offer a close reading in the textual analysis of the first three meditations of the Meditations. I argue that the meditative skepticism employed in the work does not reject the previous beliefs but suspends judgment on them, withdrawing assent until further evidence can be found. I introduce a new term into Descartes scholarship in this analysis, based on the terminology of ancient skepticism: Cartesian epochē (gr. epochē, suspension, withdrawal). Instead of rejecting previous beliefs or assenting to the probably false, the skeptical procedure of the Meditations is argued to emulate in important ways the suspension of judgment on equally balanced reasons in ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism. Novel interpretations are presented along the way of the will’s freedom, of the First Meditation’s skeptical scenarios, of the cogito, and of the vindication of metaphysical certainty, as well as a clarification of the Cartesian Circle problem. -/- Reinterpreting the relation of Descartes’s skepticism to the preceding historical and literary traditions leads to a new look at the skeptical method itself. Presenting a new interpretation of skepticism in the Meditations leads at the same time to a new look at its relation to the historical context. The two research questions are, then, intrinsically tied together. -/- My focus in the study is on the Meditations, but I also reference and discuss Descartes’s other philosophical works, as well as his correspondence, when necessary. (shrink)