In Mortal Imitations of Divine Life, Diamond offers an interpretation of De Anima, which explains how and why Aristotle places souls in a hierarchy of value. Aristotle’s central intention in De Anima is to discover the nature and essence of soul—the prin­ciple of living beings. He does so by identifying the common structures underlying every living activity, whether it be eating, perceiving, thinking, or moving through space. As Diamond demonstrates through close readings of De Anima, the nature of the soul (...) is most clearly seen in its divine life, while the embodied soul’s other activi­ties are progressively clearer approximations of this principle. This interpretation shows how Aristotle’s psychology and biology cannot be properly understood apart from his theological conception of God as life, and offers a new explanation of De Anima’s unity of purpose and structure. (shrink)

In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.

Aristotle’s chapter on productive mind (De Anima III.5) and its comparison of this mind to light are best understood as a careful revision to Plato’s Sun-Good analogy from Republic VI. Through a rigorous juxtaposed reading of De Anima II.7 on vision and III.5 on thinking, one can see how Aristotle is almost wholeheartedly taking up Plato’s analogy between vision and thought. When one accounts for all the detail of Aristotle’s explanation of light and vision in II.7 by seeing that chapter (...) as anticipating III.5, an interpretation of productive intellect emerges which reconciles the main opposing views on the question that have long divided interpreters: whether the productive intellect discussed in De Anima III.5 is human or divine. (shrink)

This paper explores Sean Kirkland’s thesis that relation is the fundamental concept in Aristotelian political philosophy. While substance is prior to relation in Aristotle’s metaphysics, Kirkland argues that since the human exists only in the context of a city which is defined by the essential diversity of views on the human good, relation precedes substantial unity in politics. I argue that the priority of the substantial unity of the city should not be seen to threaten the importance of political relations. (...) Already in his theoretical ontology, Aristotle sees relation as absolutely essential and integral to the identity and existence of any mortal individual. Because of the essentially dynamic and relational activity of any mortal substance, the city as political substance must include and preserve deep diversity and difference within itself. The priority of the substantial over the relational, which makes possible the constitutive power of relations in the life of substances, is as operative in politics as it is in metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper explores Sean Kirkland’s thesis that relation is the fundamental concept in Aristotelian political philosophy. While substance is prior to relation in Aristotle’s metaphysics, Kirkland argues that since the human exists only in the context of a city which is defined by the essential diversity of views on the human good, relation precedes substantial unity in politics. I argue that the priority of the substantial unity of the city should not be seen to threaten the importance of political relations. (...) Already in his theoretical ontology, Aristotle sees relation as absolutely essential and integral to the identity and existence of any mortal individual. Because of the essentially dynamic and relational activity of any mortal substance, the city as political substance must include and preserve deep diversity and difference within itself. The priority of the substantial over the relational, which makes possible the constitutive power of relations in the life of substances, is as operative in politics as it is in metaphysics. (shrink)

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza seeks to separate religion from philosophy and from politics. Yet the true metaphysical understanding of God remains relevant to a proper grasp of the state for Spinoza. Through identifying a common logical structure underlying Spinoza’s conception of God and the two subjects of the TTP - the relation of faith and reason, and the origin of the state and its relation to individual citizens – the paper attempts to demonstrate that Spinoza’s argument for the autonomy (...) of secular reason and the secular state in the TTP is inseparable from his metaphysical theology. (shrink)

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, Spinoza seeks to separate religion from philosophy and from politics. Yet the true metaphysical understanding of God remains relevant to a proper grasp of the state for Spinoza. Through identifying a common logical structure underlying Spinoza’s conception of God and the two subjects of the TTP - the relation of faith and reason, and the origin of the state and its relation to individual citizens – the paper attempts to demonstrate that Spinoza’s argument for the autonomy (...) of secular reason and the secular state in the TTP is inseparable from his metaphysical theology. (shrink)

This essay argues that there is an important analogy between the hierarchically ordered divisions of the divided line in Republic Book VI and the hierarchy of constitutions described in Books VIII-IX. Imagination corresponds to tyranny, belief to democracy, mathematical understanding to oligarchy, and dialectical reason to timocracy. The unhypothetical principle disclosed through the activity of dialectic, the idea of the Good itself, corresponds to the aristocratic rule of philosopher kings.