In this essay, I investigate Baumgarten’s doctrine of the six perfections of knowledge (wealth, magnitude, truth, clarity, certainty, and life), which is famously one of the most characteristic and enigmatic features of his philosophy. Recent scholarship has almost unanimously stressed the rhetorical background of the categories. Instead, I argue that Baumgarten elaborates his theory in close relationship with coeval philosophy. To support this claim, I examine the position of some Thomasian philosophers, such as Johann Liborius Zimmermann, who had indicated a (...) list of criteria similar to that of Baumgarten. Moreover, I analyse the distinction between formal and material perfections, tracing it back to the Wolffian milieu. On these bases, I propose a new reconstruction of Baumgarten’s doctrine, with particular attention to its aesthetic application. Finally, I outline the reception of the six categories in the late German Enlightenment until Kant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclecticism or Skepticism? A Problem of the Early EnlightenmentMartin MulsowEclecticism has its own logic.1 According to this logic, eclecticism is an attitude which seeks to free itself from sectarian doctrines and to achieve a more objective position above all such groups. However, many revolutions end by catching their own tails, and this attitude quickly deteriorates into the definition of just another sect, taking the original argument for eclecticism with (...) it. Germany’s self-styled “eclectic” philosophy found itself in just such a self-destructive phase at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the very point at which the concept was beginning to be used much more widely, as a recent comprehensive study by Michael Albrecht has demonstrated.2 Taking Albrecht’s observations as my basis, I wish to draw upon the example provided by two thinkers and some previously neglected material to consider in greater depth a problem which characterizes a part of the eclectic movement of the early German Enlightenment: the tense relationship between eclecticism and radical skepticism.3 [End Page 465]Jakob Friedrich Reimmann, SkepticAs a young man, Jakob Friedrich Reimmann, the great scholar and historian of philosophy and scholarship, was one of the most resolutely skeptical philosophers of the early Enlightenment.4 In an anonymous contribution to the eighth volume of the Observationes selectae, which appeared in 1704, Reimmann raises the question: was Solomon a skeptic?5 The anonymity which protected this article, as it did all others which appeared in Halle’s periodical,6 made it possible for Reimmann to experiment with unorthodox ideas, including some which had to do with the then-fashionable eclecticism. He could thus include such criticism of eclecticism as:[I]t is not so, as you say, that a distinction must be made between sectarians and eclectics. For it is possible to prove from induction that eclectics also disagree among themselves about knowledge of fundamentals, and that they do not agree among themselves any better than the clocks of a large town. What could be found wiser, what more pious, what better than the hypotheses of the Pyrrhonists?7Contemporary eclecticism, he asserted, was nothing other than a reproduction of the various individual sects because its own arguments mirrored their fundamental differences. Reimmann’s risky suggestion was that this eclecticism should be replaced by a pyrrhonism which would be better able to fulfil the original intentions of the “eclectic” philosophers. [End Page 466]Reimmann’s article has a somewhat cryptic relationship to Joachim Lange’s Medicina Mentis of 1704.8 Reimmann replies to this work without referring to it explicitly. Lange had written a history of philosophy as a history of corruption (a historia philomoriae, of the love of madness), according to which philosophy could only become blinder when, after the fall of Adam and the loss of Old Testament wisdom, it moved away from its origin. This argument was combined with an eclectic psychological logic in the style of Buddeus and Poiret. Reimmann is revenging himself for the “collubus,” that is, for Lange’s twisting of the ideas which Reimmann had discussed with him in confidence to portray them falsely as godless. The tensions between Thomasius and Lange, which increased after 1702, may also have played a role in the background. It is possible here to see the close contact and discussions which preceded the publication of books in Halle. From the safety of his anonymity Reimmann responds that it is ridiculous to try to sell the patriarchs as philosophers, but that, if one must do so, then Solomon can only be seen as a skeptic, if not a pyrrhonist. French libertines had already shocked the church with this assertion at the beginning of the seventeenth century,9 and it is significant that this tendency [End Page 467] reappears in the midst of the eclecticism of the early Enlightenment. Reimmann cites La Mothe le Vayer extensively.It seems logical, then, that Reimmann should have taken a critical position against Thomasian eclecticism as early as 1697 in his Schediasma philosophicum de Logices Aristotelicae, Rameae, Cartesianae & Electivae insufficientia.10 With Johann Jakob von Ryssel, a student of Thomasius, Reimmann develops the concept of “eclectic doubt”; his growing experience... (shrink)

After a presentation of the main onto-theological theses contained in the Liber de causis, the author explains how they were received and interpreted by Thomas Aquinas and Siger of Brabant in their respective commentaries on the short treatise “de primis causis rerum.” Starting from a mistranslation of the word “yliathim,” Thomas “injects” into the De causis his own doctrine of the distinction between being and essence. As for Siger, while he is often regarded as an adversary of Thomas Aquinas, his (...) ideas about the ontological difference between the Prime Cause and the created beings are on the very lines of the Thomasian lecture of the Liber de causis. (shrink)

RESUMO O presente artigo pretende explorar um tema ainda incipiente na literatura secundária referente ao estatuto do direito em Giorgio Agamben e ao peso do direito romano em seus trabalhos. Para isso lançamos mão do debate entre Agamben e Yan Thomas, um importante historiador do direito romano com quem Agamben teve um contato bastante intenso. Ao longo do artigo pretenderemos mostrar três coisas: em primeiro lugar, a relação de Agamben com a biopolítica, destacando, sobretudo, o aspecto articulatório da noção de (...) dispositivo que subjaz suas investigações. Em segundo lugar, a importância do ensaio Vita necisque potestas de Yan Thomas, que servirá para Agamben introduzir diferenças em relação a Hannah Arendt e Michel Foucault. Por fim, lançaremos luz sobre o estatuto do direito no pensamento de Agamben, que, é a nossa hipótese, comunga da visão thomasiana: o direito não seria uma realidade metafísica ou substancial, mas funcionaria por meio de artifícios e ficções, o que nos permite pensar o direito enquanto um autêntico dispositivo biopolítico. ABSTRACT This article intends to explore a still incipient theme in the secondary literature regarding the status of the law in Giorgio Agamben and the weight of Roman law in his works. To this end, we have used the debate between Agamben and Yan Thomas, an important historian of Roman law with whom Agamben had a very intense contact. Throughout the article we will show three things: firstly, the relationship between Agamben and biopolitics, emphasising the articulatory aspect of the notion of apparatus which underlies his investigations. Then we will point out the importance of the essay Vita necisque potestas by Yan Thomas, which will serve for Agamben to introduce differences in relation to Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault. Finally, we will shed light on the statute of law in Agamben’s thought, which is our hypothesis, communes with the Thomasian view: law would not be a metaphysical or substantial reality, but would work through artifice and fiction, which enables us to think the law as an authentic biopolitical apparatus. (shrink)

In the current discussion about the foundation ofChristian ethics some german Catholic theologians try to renew the naturallaw ethical system by interpreting it as a complex system of human moral rationality. Refering to the thomasian doctrin of the »inclinationes naturales« and integrating the results of the modern human sciences W. Korff wants to analyse the conditions of ethical reasoning. His argumentation is confronted with K. Barths emphatic rejection of any natural law ethics. But Barth bimself does not explainexactly, how living (...) in faith relates to »natural« wisdom. Therefore we suggest to notice the helpful hermeneutical reflections of K. Demmer: He understands the »nature« of man as human cultural product and as the result of a process of selfinterpretation, in which faith takes a fundamental place by defining the basic principles of anthropology. But why should we use the term »naturallaw« instead of "personal" or »human rights«, in order to indicate the basic norms of theological anthropology and ethics? (shrink)

It is undeniable that Thomas Aquinas showed great metaphysical originality among his contemporaries. However, his advances concerning the meaning of the uniqueness of the substantial form cannot be adequately grasped independently of an equally original understanding of matter, conceived in particular as pure power. This study attempts to grasp the implications of the Thomasian conception of matter in the various fields of his thought, from physics to metaphysics, passing through the foundations, in the very constitution of substance, theories of knowledge, (...) of moral action and apprehension of the beautiful. We discover a conception of the substance-subject in the strong sense which nevertheless shows itself, at the very heart of its constitutive principles, radically open to the originality of Otherness in its various forms. (shrink)

This article provides an account of the Enlightenment dispute over hermeneutical skepticism with particular reference to the idea of hermeneutical probability in the philosophical work of Christian August Crusius. The essay sheds new light on the hermeneutical issues addressed in the philosophical school of the so-called Thomasians based mainly in Leipzig in the first half of the eighteenth century. The paper deals with Crusius’ wide-ranging efforts to cope with the uncertain character of most parts of human knowledge and his attempts (...) to construct a workable theory of hermeneutical probability. This raises points of central interest relating to probabilism in the methodology of textual interpretation and connects Crusius to contemporary discussions of hermeneutical skepticism. (shrink)

This essay was born out of two astonishments: an admiration and a perplexity. On the one hand, this essay was born out of our admiration for the text of the question De aeternitate mundi, written by St. Thomas Aquinas in the full maturity of his thought (1271). It is a philosophically exemplary text, in terms of construction and discernment, in which the author argues that there is no contradiction between the theology of creation and the possibility of an eternal world, (...) in accordance with Aristotelian physics. On the other hand, we were also motivated by our perplexity with the difficulty that even today the Christian faith in creation experiences in dealing with the Darwinian theory of evolution. It occurred to us, then, to elaborate a question of evolution, entirely analogous, in construction and in discernment, to the question of the eternity of the world, as it had been thought of by St. Thomas Aquinas. Thus, we also argue here that there is no contradiction between the theology of creation and the possibility of a world in evolution, according to Darwin’s biological theory. And we do this by following the structure of the Thomasian question step by step. (shrink)

Johann Liborius Zimmermann (1702 – 1734) studierte Philosophie und theologische Moral an der Universität Jena. Dort wurde er 1725 mit einer philosophischen Dissertation promoviert und lehrte anschließend alle Gebiete dieses Fachs. Nach einer kurzen Tätigkeit als Hofprediger des Grafen von Wernigerode wechselte er 1731 zur Universität Halle, wo er bis zu seinem Tode praktische Theologie lehrte. Zimmermann greift im vorliegenden Traktat, der sich methodisch strenger, an Wolffs Methodenideal anknüpfender Prinzipien bedient, einerseits sehr frei – eklektisch – auf Wolffs Topoi in (...) dessen Metaphysik zurück und bleibt andererseits Grundüberzeugungen treu, die sich der Tradition des Thomasianismus verdanken, insbesondere was die praktische Ausrichtung und Nützlichleit der Philosophie betrifft; darüberhinaus wird gerade diese Ausrichtung unter pietistischem Einfluss noch theologisch überhöht. Dies verleiht insgesamt seiner Metaphysik eine singuläre Gestalt. Johann Liborius Zimmermann (1702-1734) studied theology and theological morals at the University of Jena. In 1725 he gained his doctorate in philosophy and went on to teach in all areas of this subject. After a short period as court preacher to the Count of Wernigerode, he moved in 1731 to the University of Halle where he taught practical theology until his death. In this treatise Zimmermann, who uses stricter principles based on Wolff’s ideal method, in part refers very freely – eclectically – to the topoi in Wolff’s metaphysics and in part remains true to basic convictions from the tradition of Thomasianism, especially where the practical orientation and usefulness of philosophy are concerned; in addition, this very orientation, influenced by Pietism, is elevated in theological terms. All of this lends his metaphysics a singular character. (shrink)

Close examinations of competing interpretations of Aquinas complement insistence on the profound coherence of Aquinas’s reflections without any caricature of his works as a manualist encyclopedia with ready responses to all questions. Yet the author firmly holds that one can adjudicate competing interpretations of major issues and indicates those he considers more certain or correct. Familiarity with virtually all “thomasian” interpretive genotypes is evidenced.

Invest some energy... and be amazed at how a multi-century process rose above and beyond the shoulders of Aquinas to culminate in John's teachings. This event is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the (...) Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** A Ruthenian Catholic, husband, and father, Matthew K. Minerd is a professor of philosophy and moral theology at Ss. Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. His academic work has appeared in the journals Nova et Vetera, The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Saint Anselm Journal, Lex Naturalis, Downside Review, The Review of Metaphysics, and Maritain Studies, as well in volumes published by the American Maritain Association through the Catholic University of America Press. He has served as author, translator, and/or editor for volumes published by The Catholic University of America Press, Emmaus Academic, Cluny Media, and Ascension Press. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani. (shrink)