As a cornerstone of public health, epidemiology has lately undergone substantial changes enabled by, among other factors, the use of biobank infrastructures. In biobank-related research, the return of results to participants constitutes an important and complex ethical question. In this study, we qualitatively investigated how individuals perceive the results returned following their participation in cohort studies with biobanks. In our semi-structured interviews with 31 participants of two such German studies, we observed that some participants overestimate the nature of the personal (...) information they will receive from the study. Although this misestimation does not seem to jeopardize the validity of the consent provided at recruitment, it may still represent a threat for participants’ trust in research and thus their long-term commitment, crucial for such studies. We argue that such misestimation may have ethical consequences on the principles guiding the reflection on the return of results in biobank research, i.e. autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and reciprocity. We suggest that shifting from the idea of directly benefiting participants through the return of research results could help focusing on benefiting society as a whole, thereby increasing research trustworthiness of population-based studies using biobanks. (shrink)

Warrior cultures throughout history have developed unique codes that restrict their behavior and set them apart from the rest of society. But what possible reason could a warrior have for accepting such restraints? Why should those whose profession can force them into hellish kill-or-be-killed conditions care about such lofty concepts as honor, courage, nobility, duty, and sacrifice? And why should it matter so much to the warriors themselves that they be something more than mere murderers? The Code of the Warrior (...) tackles these timely issues and takes the reader on a tour of warrior cultures and their values, from the ancient Greeks and Romans to the 'barbaric' Vikings and Celts, from legendary chivalric knights to Native American tribesmen, from Chinese warrior monks pursuing enlightenment to Japanese samurai practicing death. Drawing these rich traditions up to the present, the author quests for a code for the warriors of today, as they do battle in asymmetric conflicts against unconventional forces and the scourge of global terrorism. (shrink)

This essay examines lines of connection between disgust, the effect of disciplines upon such intensive appraisals, political action, and the shape of ethical responsiveness. Philosophies that espouse purity in moral ity or politics mask these lines of connection; they thereby disparage the sig nificance of techniques of the self to ethical and political life. Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt provide the two main figures through whom these themes are explored. Arendt and Kant are brought into relation with each other through (...) the way each comes to terms with disgust and common sense. Kant's attempt to purify morality draws upon the spontaneity of common sense even more than it does upon a set of transcendental arguments. The Kantian metaphysic of the supersensible and the sensible then authorizes a concept of morality that almost removes the will beyond the reach of disci plines. But aporias he confronts within the will may bring these tactics back in. Arendt, while rising above the command conception of morality pro jected by Kant through her invocation of gratitude for being and appre ciation of new beginnings, reinstates purity in the concept of 'the political'. Arendt's drive to bracket the body - often treated as an assemblage of com pulsive moods and interests - from the realm of ethical and political life also disparages tactics by the self on the self. To challenge the metaphysic of the supersensible and the sensible with a metaphysic of the infrasensible and the sensible is to confirm the nobility of such tactics. The presentation of this alternative perspective calls into question the pretension of many contemporaries to be 'post-metaphysical'; it also helps to show why meta physical pluralism sets a condition for a politics of plurality attuned to the velocity and scope of late-modern life. Key Words: amygdala • Arendt • body • common sense • Deleuze • ethics • Kant • metaphysics • plurality • Spinoza. (shrink)

The week, twenty-five years ago, of the Apollo spacecraft's return visit to the moon was described by Richard Nixon as the greatest since the Creation. Across the Atlantic, a French Academician judged the same event to matter less than the discovery of a lost etching by Daumier. Attitudes to technological achievement, then, differ. And they always have. Chuang-Tzu, over 2,000 years ago, relates an exchange between a Confucian passer-by and a Taoist gardener watering vegetables with a bucket drawn from a (...) well. ‘Don't you know that there is a machine with which 100 beds are easily watered in a day?’—‘How does it work?’—‘It's a counterbalanced ladle’—‘too clever to be good … all machines have to do with formulae, artificiality [which] destroy native ingenuity … and prevent the Tao from residing peacefully in one's heart’. ‘Engines of mischief, in the words of the Luddite song, or testaments to ‘the nobility of man [as] the conqueror of matter’, in those of Primo Levi, the products of technology continue to inspire phobia and philia. (shrink)

The week, twenty-five years ago, of the Apollo spacecraft's return visit to the moon was described by Richard Nixon as the greatest since the Creation. Across the Atlantic, a French Academician judged the same event to matter less than the discovery of a lost etching by Daumier. Attitudes to technological achievement, then, differ. And they always have. Chuang-Tzu, over 2,000 years ago, relates an exchange between a Confucian passer-by and a Taoist gardener watering vegetables with a bucket drawn from a (...) well. ‘Don't you know that there is a machine with which 100 beds are easily watered in a day?’—‘How does it work?’—‘It's a counterbalanced ladle’—‘too clever to be good … all machines have to do with formulae, artificiality [which] destroy native ingenuity … and prevent the Tao from residing peacefully in one's heart’. ‘Engines of mischief, in the words of the Luddite song, or testaments to ‘the nobility of man [as] the conqueror of matter’, in those of Primo Levi, the products of technology continue to inspire phobia and philia. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 428-435 [Access article in PDF] Agapic Friendship Sharon E. Sytsma ARISTOTLE CATEGORIZED FRIENDSHIP into three types: friendships of pleasure, friendships of utility, and complete (perfect or true) friendships (1156a5-10). 1 The thesis developed here is that Aristotle neglects an important kind of friendship. Various aspects of his theory of friendship have been challenged, but no one has charged that his categorization is incomplete. 2 (...) In what follows, an Aristotelian account of the friendship between James Steerforth and David Copperfield in Dickens' David Copperfield will be given, and then shown to be inadequate. Then a brief account of agapic love will be given and shown to be another basis of friendship—agapic friendship. Finally, the agapic nature of the two young men's friendship will be highlighted. I One might suppose that the friendship between David Copperfield and Steerforth is a mixed form of the three types of friendships identified by Aristotle. There can be no doubt that their friendship was pleasurable and useful to both. The two boys (and later young men) were appreciative of the other's pleasing appearance. David frequently comments on the pleasure attending any kind remark issuing from Steerforth on his own behalf. He admits his pleasure in being "cherished as a kind of plaything in my room," indicating his awareness of Steerforth's pleasure in being with him. Steerforth took great pleasure in David's imaginative and talented storytelling, which David eagerly [End Page 428] used as a "cementing" force in their relationship. Surely, Steerforth also took pleasure in the respect and admiration of his doting schoolmate.Also undeniable is that both friends found each other to be useful. David treasured the gift of Steerforth's protection. Being favored by Steerforth automatically elicited the admiration and envy of the other schoolboys. "No one dared to annoy one whom [Steerforth] honored with his countenance." Steerforth, on his part, found David's storytelling to be a useful antidote to his insomnia.However, David's love for Steerforth went beyond any self-interested concern. David loved Steerforth for his friend's own sake. He stayed up late and rose early to recount and embellish tales, not because he was motivated by self-interest or fear, but only because he "admired and loved him." David perceived Steerforth to be considerate and generous, and he mistook his friend's self-confidence as evidence of nobility of character.These perceptions were hardly objective. David's good nature, generous-mindedness, and youthful naiveté kept him from recognizing the faults in his friend's character, even in the face of ample evidence. Steerforth's cruel streak should have been obvious to David since he witnessed Steerforth allowing another student, the hapless Traddles, to take the blame when Steerforth laughed in church, and his ruthless exposure of Mr. Mell's secret shame of having a mother living on charity in an almshouse. He heard Steerforth's story about how he had "accidentally" thrown a hammer into Rosa Dartle's face. David's uneasiness on these occasions was overcome by his natural generosity of spirit and sense of gratitude. When shocked by a cold and arrogant insult against Little Em'ly's fiancé, Ham, David responds with full confidence: [You may] try to hide your sympathies in jest from me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them and how exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman's, or humour a love like my old nurse's, I know that there is not a joy or sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you. And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more! So even though David has an inflated sense of Steerforth's virtue, his thinking of Steerforth as virtuous was integral to their relationship, and that in itself would support thinking of the friendship as based on the good.Given Steerforth's defects of character, one might easily be led to the conclusion that Steerforth loved David only for the pleasure and [End Page 429] benefits of his... (shrink)

The concept of human dignity, despite its growing importance in legal texts and declarations in the last decades, is notoriously contested in moral philosophy and legal theory. There is no agreement either on what human dignity is or whether one should care much about it. We will show how these questions could be answered given the assumption that the expression ‘human dignity’ is to be read literally, as dignity of humans, where ‘dignity’ is understood as dignity proper, i.e. dignity as (...) it is usually ascribed outside of legal contexts. Dignity proper has played an important role in the history of mankind. It is sometimes also called ‘social dignity’ because it is bound to social relations, or ‘contingent dignity’, on the assumption that having dignity proper is due to contingencies of life and one's own behaviour (in contrast to human dignity as an essential feature of humankind). Dignity proper therefore depends on being treated with respect by others and on being able to present oneself as being of equal dignity in various practical contexts. Dignity proper is part of an extended conceptual space of evaluative terms which are important in moral life, including, among others, decency, nobility, rank, honour, respect, esteem, grace, decorum, merit, self-respect, coolness, offence, humiliation, degradation, shame. It is obvious, historically, that the concept of dignity proper must have played some role in the development of the concept of human dignity. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage riche et complexe de Manuela Martini, nourri d'une vaste exploitation archivistique et d'une bibliographie solide, vient combler une lacune historiographique. Malgré la multiplication durant ces deux dernières décennies des études d'histoire de la famille, les recherches centrées sur les familles de l'élite bolognaise de l'ancien régime et de l'époque contemporaine restent peu nombreuses et centrées sur leurs dynamiques de classes les plus globales. L'ouvrage, qui fait part...

En este artículo se estudia un peculiar recurso discursivo de un cronista barroco del virreinato del Perú: un elogio de las mujeres criollas de la ciudad de Arequipa, que se transforma en una vindicación general de los indígenas como una forma de exaltar a la ciudad criolla a través de una serie de analogías históricas con experiencias e ideales de la tradición hispánica asumibles para una audiencia metropolitana.

Aperto dai saggi di Alfonso Ruiz Miguel e Patrizia Borsellino, questo volume raccoglie contributi di giovani studiosi, intorno a temi caratterizzanti del pensiero filosofico-giuridico e filosofico-politico di Norberto Bobbio, dalla riflessione sul rigore analitico e sulla filosofia quale militanza, all'analisi sulla forma democratica, che in molte parti anticipò ed intuì i suoi successivi sviluppi. La riattualizzazione dei temi centrali e fondanti dei diritti umani e del pacifismo, si accompagna nei saggi alla rilettura di alcuni importanti contributi bobbiani alla teoria della (...) norma e dell'interpretazione, nonché alla vasta e complessa relazione tra diritto e ragione. A testimonianza dell'ampia e feconda figura intellettuale dell'Autore, il volume presenta in chiusura l'intervista al filosofo della scienza Giulio Giorello sul rapporto tra Bobbio e Geymonat, dando conto di una circolarità dei saperi professata e praticata con scrupolo. Patrizia Borsellino, Professore ordinario di Filosofia del Diritto e Bioetica, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca. Federico L.G. Faroldi, Dottorando di ricerca in Logica, Università di Pisa, Università degli Studi di Firenze, Visiting Scholar, Department of Philosophy, NYU, Visiting Scholar, EPHE, Paris.Mauricio Maldonado Muà±oz, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto e Bioetica Giuridica, Università degli Studi di Genova, Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy. Federica Martiny, Dottoranda di ricerca in Storia e Teoria del Diritto, Università di Macerata.Fabrizio Mastromartino, Assegnista di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Roma Tre. Emil Mazzoleni, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano.Marianna Nobile, Dottore di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca.Federico Oliveri, Ricercatore aggregato, Centro Interdisciplinare Scienze per la Pace, Università di Pisa. Alessio Panichi, Dottore di ricerca in Filosofia, Università di Pisa. Alfonso Ruiz Miguel, Professore ordinario di Filosofia del Diritto, Universidad AutÏŒnoma de Madrid. Michele Saporiti, Assegnista di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca, Chercheur post-doctoral, Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laà¯cités (EPHE-CNRS), Parigi, Professore a contratto di Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Bergamo. Natalina Stamile, Dottore di ricerca in Teoria del Diritto ed Ordine Giuridico Europeo, già Assegnista di ricerca, Università "Magna Graecia" di Catanzaro. Adriano Zambon, Dottorando di ricerca in Filosofia del Diritto, Università degli Studi di Milano.Michele Zezza, Dottorando di ricerca in Giustizia costituzionale e Diritti fondamentali, Università di Pisa. (shrink)

RESUMO O semioticista Iuri Lótman escreveu contribuições decisivas no campo da semiótica da literatura. No entanto, ao longo dos anos 70 passa a ampliar seu universo de interesses para além do texto literário, trazendo contribuições para os estudos do cinema, das artes plásticas e mesmo das normas de etiqueta da nobreza russa. Neste artigo pretendo introduzir as contribuições de Lótman no campo da semiótica da cena e demonstrar como o semioticista russo realiza reflexões importantes em um campo até então pouco (...) explorado dentro dos estudos semióticos. Ao analisar o caráter do espaço teatral, as relações entre texto e código, o papel da semiótica teatral e do ensemble cênico, Lótman retoma o caminho aberto pelo Círculo Linguístico de Praga e antecipa flancos de interesse que só recentemente seriam explorados pela semiótica teatral. ABSTRACT The semiotician Yuri Lotman wrote decisive contributions to the field of semiotics of literature. However, throughout the 1970s he expanded his universe of interests beyond the literary text contributing to the study of cinema, fine arts and even Russian nobility’s code of behavior. In this article, I introduce Lotman’s writings in the field of theatre semiotics to demonstrate how the Russian semiotician brings important considerations to a field until then underexplored within semiotic studies. His reflections on the nature of the theatrical space, on the relations between text and code, on the role of theatre semiotics, and on the theatrical ensemble enlarged the path opened by the Linguistic Circle of Prague and anticipate discussions that only recently started to be explored by the semiotics of theatre. (shrink)

L'amicizia, secondo Nietzsche, richiede un tipo particolare di conoscenza di sé: quella che consente di nascondersi e che preserva dall'illusione che gli amici possano essere mai completamente trasparenti gli uni agli altri. Questo tipo di conoscenza di sé genera solitudine, che a sua volta suscita un desiderio di amicizia. Gli amici possono essere onesti tra di loro solo quando si consentono reciprocamente di nascondersi e ciò richiede un senso molto acuto della "misura e della medietà", come quello manifestato dal nobile.Friendship, (...) according to Nietzsche, is in need of a particular kind of self-knowledge: the kind that allows one to hide oneself and that prevents one from the illusion that friends could ever be completely open towards one another. This kind of self-knowledge causes solitude, which, in turn, causes a longing for friendship. Friends can only be honest to each other when they allow each other reciprocally their hiding. This demands a very sharp sense of "measure and middle", such as the noble presents it. (shrink)

The article investigates the influence that the theological debates on divine grace have exercised on the evolution of Dante’s reflection on the relationship between nobility of the soul and natural predisposition, from the Vita nuova to the Commedia. If in his youthful work, commenting the sonnet Negli occhi porta la mia donna amore, Dante had attributed to Beatrice the ability to «induce Love in potentiality where he is not» (Vn. 12, 6) - an ability that Augustine’s doctrine of grace had (...) reserved to God -, in Le dolci rime d’amor and, above all, in the IV book of the Convivio, Dante affirms, with Guinizelli, the essential correlation between a «gentle heart» and love, that is to say the necessity of a natural predisposition for the purpose of possessing nobility, i. e. the divine «grace» (Cv. IV XX 7). Finally, in the Commedia, the poet returns to freeing God’s gift from any preventive natural disposition, as demonstrated not only by the repeated references to the twins Jacob and Esau, destined to opposite fates by virtue of the «grace» with which God «at his own pleasure endows each creature differently» (Pd. XXXII, vv. 65-6), but also by the XXX canto of Purgatorio, where Dante no longer appears uncertain whether to attribute his genius to a «good star» or to «a better thing» (If. XXVI, vv. 21-24), but clearly affirms its dependence on the «largess of celestial graces» (v. 112). (shrink)

The objective of this work is to reflect on the usual and the unusual, based on Friedrich Nietzsche's perspective on the opposition between the pathos of distance or nobility and the ethos from the point of view of utility. In order to do so, an analysis of selected excerpts from Nietzsche's works is carried out, mainly On the genealogy of morality and Beyond Good and Evil. According to Nietzsche, there is no ethos, but only pathos, being the ethos, affirmed by (...) asceticism, only a strategy, a cunning and deceitful invention for the conservation of a precarious way of life. It is this ethos that forges and fixes ascetic values that represent the usual, by inverting values from the point of view of the resentful human's utility. Based on this Nietzschean perspective, we seek to reflect on the unusual as an active impulse that characterizes the noble-type pathos of distance, and the usual as a reactive impulse that characterizes the éthos from the point of view of utility. (shrink)

The article focuses on the twofold-nobility idea, a nobility of conduct and line, starting from some brief comments by Brunetto Latini, Thomas Aquinas and a more explicit formulation by Henry of Ghent. Then it focuses on the usage of this double notion in the De regimine principum by Giles of Rome and on how, through this couple, particularly in the vernaculars, it leads to the creation of a new political space for thinking nobility and courtesy.

The article focuses on the twofold-nobility idea, a nobility of conduct and line, starting from some brief comments by Brunetto Latini, Thomas Aquinas and a more explicit formulation by Henry of Ghent. Then it focuses on the usage of this double notion in the De regimine principum by Giles of Rome and on how, through this couple, particularly in the vernaculars, it leads to the creation of a new political space for thinking nobility and courtesy.

En estas páginas se ofrece un análisis filológico, moral y político de este esfuerzo intelectual por fundamentar, en el legado aristotélico, la superioridad moral del príncipe, poniendo el foco en el contexto político y cultural de determinados lectores, intérpretes y difusores del ideario del Filósofo.

It seems strange, on first thought, that anyone might look to Nietzsche to found an environmental ethic. In GS, he claims that “Whatever has value in the current world, has it not in itself, from nature—nature is always valueless”, and he generally lauds the natural strength and nobility manifested in the will to power’s domination and exploitation of resources. Yet in Naturalizing Heidegger, David E. Storey crafts an educative and compelling argument geared toward environmental philosophers who have yet to consider (...) the relevance of Nietzsche’s and Heidegger’s philosophies of life for environmental ethics. In particular, Storey argues that a non-mechanistic and... (shrink)

本书记述了历史上两个幽默大师,即战国时期的齐国人淳于髡和西汉武帝时期的东方朔的生平事迹。.

Big Ideas for Little Kids includes everything a teacher, a parent, or a college student needs to teach philosophy to elementary school children from picture books. Written in a clear and accessible style, the book explains why it is important to allow young children access to philosophy during primary-school education. Wartenberg also gives advice on how to construct a "learner-centered" classroom, in which children discuss philosophical issues with one another as they respond to open-ended questions by saying whether they agree (...) or disagree with what others have said. (shrink)

English summary: Marc Andre Wiegand analyzes the neo-Kantian premises of Gustav Radbruch's legal philosophy.

In 'Een handvol filosofen' staan de filosofen centraal die sinds de oprichting van de Vrije Universiteit in 1880 aan deze instelling verbonden zijn geweest. Het gaat hierbij niet alleen om de inhoud van hun werk, maar ook om de personen zelf. Er waren filosofiedocenten die zich met de universiteit identificeerden en zich volledig konden ontplooien. Er waren er echter ook voor wie dit niet gold, die geïsoleerd of in gewetensnood raakten. Veel filosofiestudenten waren actief betrokken bij wat er in hun (...) faculteit gebeurde. Zij namen initiatieven, protesteerden soms tegen de gang van zaken en kozen partij in conflictsituaties. Sinds het eind van de jaren zestig van de twintigste eeuw verloor de Vrije Universiteit geleidelijk haar christelijk karakter. Tegenwoordig werken alle stafleden vanuit hun eigen motivatie mee aan een hoofdzakelijk seculier geworden universiteit, die ruimte biedt voor religieuze en levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. (shrink)

The second edition of The Great Psychotherapy Debate has been updated and revised to include a history of healing practices, medicine, and psychotherapy, an expanded theoretical presentation of the contextual model, an examination of therapist effects, and a thorough review of the research on common factors such as the alliance, expectations, and empathy.

Of the nature and origin of the mind, by B. de Spinoza.--Spinoza and the theory of organism, by H. Jonas.--Man a machine, and The natural history of the soul, by J. O. de la Mettrie.--On the first ground of the distinction of regions in space, and What is orientation in thinking? by I. Kant.--Soul and body, by J. Dewey.--The philosophical concept of a human body, by D. C. Long.--Are persons bodies? By B. A. O. Williams.--Lived body, environment, and ego, by (...) M. Scheler.--Metaphysical journal, and A metaphysical diary, by G. Marcel.--The body, by J.-P. Sartre.--The spatiality of the lived body and motility, by M. Merleau-Ponty.--Anthropodology: man a-foot, by R. M. Griffith.--Man and his body, by H. Plügge.--The nobility of sight: a study in the phenomenology of the senses, by H. Jonas.--Born to see, bound to behold: reflections on the function of upright posture in the esthetic attitude, by E. W. Straus.--Selected reading (p. [363]-367). (shrink)

Croatian literary culture of the 18th century is marked by stylistic pluralism, considering that its Enlightenment character and its didactic and utilitaristic dimensions are emphasized the most. Austrian catechism was the fundamental book of school religious education from 1777 until 1847 in the whole Habsburg Monarchy, and it played an important role in the upbringing of children, but also of the entire family and social community in the spirit of Josephine politics. This topic is viewed from the perspective of Immanuel (...) Kant who found it important to emphasise the dangers to which the fetishisation of ecclesiastical norms can lead to, i.e. to hinder the development of critical moments of liberty and upbringing. The absence of Enlightenment period in Croatian countries of the Habsburg Monarchy is complexly conditioned: from religious resistance and changes in a social and political sense to stagnancy and lack of education of a large part of the population, altogether favourable to the Croatian nobility and clergy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AQUINAS'S FOURTH WAY AND THE APPROXIMATING RELATION HERE IS, IT CAN BE SAID, at least one troubleome premise (to some, unacceptable) in each of the Five Ways recorded by Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae (S.T., I, q.2, a.3, c.). Three of the W·ays, i.e., the First and the Second and the Fifth, have a premise which describes God-Prime Mover (Primum Movens, quod a nullo movetur), First Efficient Cause (Causa (...) Efficiens Prima), Intelligent Orderer (Aliquid Intelligens, a quo omnes res naturales ordinantur in finem), respectively-in a way which falls short of a proper or adequate (unmistakable, unquestionable, unique) identification of God. That is, it is not necessary that the Prime Mover be God, or that the First Efficient Cause be God, or that the Intelligent Orderer be God. For, whatever else God is, God is the Creator, and the Prime Mover is not. And neither is the First Efficient Cause; nor is the Intelligent Orderer. This happens because the empirical point of departure of each of these three Ways gives the causality of the Prime Mover, of the First Efficient Cause, and of the Intelligent Orderer an effect and a scope which make it impossible to identify them with the effect and the scope of the causality of the Creator. The two remaining ways, though providing a description of God which quite properly or adequately identifies God-SelfNecessary Being (Ens per se necessarium), Most a Being (Maxime Ens), respectively-make an analytic claim which is troublesome (to some unacceptable), in any case difficult to understand. In the Third Way, it is the analytic claim that "... si... omnia sunt possibilia non esse, aliquando nihil fuit in rebus;" and in the Fourth Way, it is the analytic claim that 17 18 JOSEPH BOBIK ". [si]... magis et minus dicuntur de diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversimode ad aliquid quod maxime est...,... est... aliquid quod est verissimum et optimum et nobilissimum... et... maxime ens." There are three parts in the argument of the Fourth Way,1 and it is the first of these which is difficult to understand. The first part moves from the observed existence of the more and the less good, true, noble, etc. to the concluded existence of the most good, true, noble, etc.-the simpliciter good, true, noble, etc., as it is called in the Contra Gentiles formul,ation of an argument (S.G., I, cap. 13) which is similar to (though also quite different from) the Fourth Way of the Summa Theologiae.2 The second part argues that the most true or verissimum 1 It will be of help to the reader to have the text of the Fourth Way in hand, and to have its three parts explicitly distinguished. Quarta via sumitur ex gradibus qui in rebus inveniuntur. First part: Invenitur enim in rebus aliquid magis et minus bonum, et verum, et nobile: et sic de aliis huiusmodi. Sed magis et minus dicuntur de diversis secundum quod appropinquant diversimode ad aliquid quod maxime est: sicut magis calidum est, quod magis appropinquat maxime calido. Est igitur aliquid quod est verissimum et optimum et nobilissimum, Second part: et per consequens maxime ens: nam quae sunt maxime vera, sunt maxime entia, ut dicitur II Metaphys. Third part: Quod autem dicitur maxime tale in aliquo genere, est causa omnium quae sunt illius generis: sicut ignis, qui est maxime calidus, est causa omnium calidorum, ut in eodem libro dicitur. Ergo est aliquid quod omnibus entibus est causa esse, et bonitatis, et cuiuslibet perfectionis: et hoc dicimus Deum. 2 Whereas the Fourth Way uses the approximating relation to move to the existence of the Maxime Ens from the fact that there are real things which are more and less, the way of the G.G. uses the approximating relation to move to the existence of the Maxime Ens from the fact that there are propositions such that one is more false than the other (and so, less true than the other) more puzzling still than the Fourth Way. Here is the text of the G.G. argument: Potest etiam alia ratio colligi ex verbis Aristotelis. In II enim Metaphys. ostendit quod ea quae sunt maxime vera, sunt et... (shrink)

The focus of this article is on an ambivalent conception in medieval thought, namely the term ‘transcendens’, which on the one hand signifies a reality beyond created beings, i.e. God, and on the other hand signifies something common to all beings. Armandus de Bellovisu, in his Declaratio difficilium terminorum, has thematized exactly this difference between transcendence that follows from ‘nobility of being’ and that which follows from ‘commonness of predication’. The medieval term ‘transcendens’, because of its ambiguity, thus includes two (...) fundamental concepts, which represent divergent philosophical tendencies concerning the specification of First Philosophy: the one understands it as «Philosophy of Transcendence», the other as «Transcendental Philosophy». The history of metaphysics is characterized by the tension between these two tendencies, but as we shall see, it also shows that they are intimately connected. (shrink)