In a recent article forthcoming in *Mind*, Leech (2020) presents a challenge for essentialist accounts of metaphysical modality: why should it be that essences imply corresponding necessities? Leech’s main focus is to argue that one cannot overcome the challenge by utilizing an account of essence in terms of generalized identity due to Correia and Skiles (2019), on pain of circularity. In this reply, we will show how to use identity-based essentialism to bridge ‘epistemic’ and ‘explanatory’ understandings of this alleged (...) essence-to-necessity gap without circularity, Leech’s arguments notwithstanding. We do so by first presenting a novel proof that generalized identities imply corresponding necessities. We then propose several substantive identity-based explanations of how it is, exactly, that essences imply necessities. -/- . (shrink)

Recent metaphysics has turned its focus to two notions that are—as well as having a common Aristotelian pedigree—widely thought to be intimately related: grounding and essence. Yet how, exactly, the two are related remains opaque. We develop a unified and uniform account of grounding and essence, one which understands them both in terms of a generalized notion of identity examined in recent work by Fabrice Correia, Cian Dorr, Agustín Rayo, and others. We argue that the account comports with antecedently plausible (...) principles governing grounding, essence, and identity taken individually, and illuminates how the three interact. We also argue that the account compares favorably to an alternative unification of grounding and essence recently proposed by Kit Fine. (shrink)

Essences play a central role in Spinoza’s philosophy, not only in his metaphysics, but also in his philosophy of mind, his theory of affects, and his political philosophy. Despite their importance, however, it is surprisingly difficult to determine what exactly essences are for Spinoza. On a widespread reading, the essence of X is nothing but the concept of X. This paper argues against this identification of essences and concepts. Spinozistic concepts are maximally inclusive: the concept of X (...) contains everything that is needed to make X conceivable. The essence of X, in contrast, is more limited in scope and does not include everything that is needed to make X conceivable. Thus, Spinoza avoids the ‘overloading’ of essences and the problems that would ensue. The account developed in this paper has a surprising implication, namely that the essences of non-divine, singular things do not suffice to render these things fully conceivable on Spinoza’s view. Thus, Spinoza breaks with a tradition according to which the essence of a thing states ‘what the thing is.’ As a result, his conception of essence is much further removed from traditional Aristotelian accounts, and from other seventeenth-century accounts, than usually acknowledged. (shrink)

The subject of this essay is propria and their relation to essence. Propria, roughly characterized, are those real properties of a thing which are natural but nonessential to it, and which are said to “flow from” the thing’s essence, where this “flows from” relation is understood to designate a kind of explanatory relation. For example, it is said that Socrates’s risibility flows from his essential humanity; and it is said that salt’s solubility in water flows from the essential natures of (...) both salt and water. The question I raise and attempt to answer in this essay is: In what sense do propria “flow from” essences? What kind of explanatory relation is this exactly? Some suggest that it is a relation of logical consequence ; others, of grounding ; and still others, of formal causation. In this essay, I reintroduce and defend a view suggested by the late scholastic Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez, who in 1597 wrote that effluence is best understood as a very special kind of efficient causation, which we can call the relation of emanation. The thesis of this essay, then, is that propria emanate from essences. Along the way, this paper offers a new taxonomy of types of propria; it explains the significance of propria for the metaphysics and epistemology of essences; it discusses at length varieties of efficient causation ; and then it offers an extensive abductive argument in favor of Suárez’s account, whereby the former accounts of effluence are critiqued, each in turn, and Suárez’s view is motivated and ultimately shown to be superior to its competitors. (shrink)

Essence and causation are fundamental in metaphysics, but little is said about their relations. Some essential properties are of course causal, as it is essential to footprints to have been caused by feet. But I am interested less in causation's role in essence than the reverse: the bearing a thing's essence has on its causal powers. That essencemight make a causal contribution is hinted already by the counterfactual element in causation; and the hint is confirmed by the explanation essence offers (...) of something otherwise mysterious, namely, how events exactly alike in every ordinary respect, like the bolt'ssuddenly snapping and its snapping per se, manage to disagree in what they cause. Some prior difference must exist between these events to make their causal powers unlike. Paradoxically, though, it can only be in point of a property, suddenness, which both events possess in common. Only by postulating a difference in themanner — essential or accidental — of the property's possession is the paradox resolved. Next we need an account of causation in which essence plays an explicit determinative role. That account, based on the idea that causes should becommensurate with their effects, is thatx causesy only if nothing essentially poorer would have done, and nothing essentially richer was needed. (shrink)

Essays on Existence and Essence presents a series of writings--including several previously unpublished--by Bob Hale on the topics of ontology and modality. The essays develop and consolidate a number of themes central to his work and to contemporary metaphysics, logic, and philosophy of language. They display Hale's innovative approach to some of the most fundamental issues in philosophy, in dialogue with other leading philosophers. The notion of a definition is examined as it applies both to words--verbal definitions-and to things--real definitions--and (...) the relations between these are brought out in order to address problems in the metaphysics of necessity and the semantics and epistemology of modality. Hale argues for an essentialist theory of the source of necessity and our knowledge of it, and provides rigorous and inventive responses to problems such a theory might face. This theoretical framework is applied to the recently influential truthmaking approach to semantics and logic, developing an exact truthmaker account of universal quantification and modal statements. Other topics covered include the Fregean theory of ontological categories, the status of second-order logic, the metaphysics of numbers, and the nature of analytic propositions. The volume opens with a substantial introduction by Kit Fine, providing a critical examination of Hale's philosophy, and closes with a complete bibliography of Hale's writings. (shrink)

In this paper, I am going to ask what the general criteria for identity are and exactly how essence is related to that. Two notions are related to this question: Essential properties (necessary properties) and individual essences. Only the notion of individual essence has been involved in the criteria of transworld identity. The disputes of transworld have centered on the intrinsic properties necessarily connected to thisness. Through introducing a notion of part-rigidity, however, we can see that there can be (...) an entity that does not have an individual essence as an intrinsic property necessarily connected to thisness, the non-part-rigid structure. Being this structure is an intrinsic property that is relational and compositional. An entity that has a relational and compositional intrinsic property as its necessary property seems to have no individual essence. For this kind of entities, just an essential property (or a necessary property) is involved in the criteria of transworldidentity. (shrink)

Le livre est une étude portant sur le moi ou l'intériorité comme affectivité. Il met en oeuvre une nouvelle science philosophique définie comme ousiologie. Cette dernière est la science des essences. Dans ce livre, cette même science porte sur les essences constitutives de cette même intériorité. Tout en intégrant certains acquis de la philosophie de Michel Henry, elle en remet en cause certains aspects fondamentaux. L'intériorité est en effet définie comme étant immanence, à savoir comme étant à la (...) fois une unité et une absence absolue de distance par rapport à soi ou une absence absolue de sortie de soi. Pourtant, cette unité est aussi paradoxalement reconnue comme étant une triplicité ou encore une trinité des essences internes. Elle est de même paradoxalement définie comme étant une sortie de soi qui reste pourtant au coeur de soi. C'est ce double paradoxe qui constitue l'essence du moi comme renonciation. La renonciation est plus exactement l'histoire interne, essentielle et universelle du moi qui passe par les trois essences de l'aspiration, de l'action et de l'accomplissement. Une combinatoire des trois essences affectives permet par ailleurs de définir une pluralité de natures affectives : la médiocrité, la liberté, la destinée, le dévouement, le génie et la sainteté. Cette définition des natures égologiques est aussi fondamentalement une remise en cause de l'affirmation sartrienne selon laquelle il n'y a pas de nature humaine. (shrink)

In his article "world and essence" ("phil. Rev." 1970, Pages 461-492) plantinga submitted that (a) individuals have essences and (b) the essence of an individual is a non-Trivial property which can be completely known only to god. In my note it is shown that on plantinga's own definitions each individual x has exactly one essence, The trivial property of x-Identity. Thus (b) fails.

Drawing on anthropological examples of first contacts between people from different cultures, I argue that non-verbal communication plays a far bigger part in intercultural communication than has been acknowledged in the literature so far. Communication rests on mutually attuning in a large number of judgements. Some sort of structuring principle is needed at this point, and Davidson's principle of charity is a good candidate, provided sufficient attention is given to non-verbal communication. There will always be more and less successful interpretations (...) and translations, and their success will depend on the success of the non-verbal communication at hand. There is no need for cognitive or semantic universals: people understand each other because they share (a) certain form(s) of life. How ever, it is incorrect to treat forms of life as rigid entities with clear boundaries: it is both impossible and unnecessary to determine them in an exact way. Any appeal to cognitive or cultural essences to explain how people communicate successfully is flawed. My critique of essentialism is not a defence of linguistic ‘anything goes' relativism whatsoever. Assumptions underwriting a relativist stance often wrongly issue, in a decidedly non-relativist confidence in one fixed set of categories, values or meanings. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(2) 2002: 85-96. (shrink)

Bob Hale’s distinguished record of research places him among the most important and influential contemporary analytic metaphysicians. In his deep, wide ranging, yet highly readable book Necessary Beings, Hale draws upon, but substantially integrates and extends, a good deal his past research to produce a sustained and richly textured essay on — as promised in the subtitle — ontology, modality, and the relations between them. I’ve set myself two tasks in this review: first, to provide a reasonably thorough (if not (...) exactly comprehensive) overview of the structure and content of Hale’s book and, second, to a limited extent, to engage Hale’s book philosophically. I approach these tasks more or less sequentially: Parts I and 2 of the review are primarily expository; in Part 3 I adopt a somewhat more critical stance and raise several issues concerning one of the central elements of Hale’s account, his essentialist theory of modality. (shrink)

A number of recent books and articles have defended the concept of de re modality. Although Slote makes some contributions toward its defense, he is mainly concerned with using de re modality to provide analyses of key concepts in metaphysics, including "process", "event", "change", "physical body", "self", "future", "past", "fact", and "state of affairs". Each concept is defined by essence and accident, that is, by specifying what is either accidental or essential to the entities covered by the concept. Such definitions (...) focus on the ontological relationships of exact similarity, necessary coexistence, and logical dependence. They provide the necessary existence conditions for processes, events, selves, etc. These existence conditions are a major concern in metaphysical questions about the relationship between psychic and physical existence, selves and their experiences, and things and their alterations. Thus Slote provides an important analytical procedure for this type of metaphysical problem. (shrink)

In this paper I deal with a puzzling passage, which occurs in Metaphysics Z 13.1038b2 – 3 and where Aristotle mentions four possible meanings of substance: the substratum, the essence, the compound of these (τὸ ἐκ τούτων) and the universal. This list accords only partially with the previous one in Z 3.1028b33–36, where Aristotle mentions the substratum, the essence, the universal and the genus. Thus, Z 13’s list omits Z 3’s genus, but includes τὸ ἐκ τούτων, which is standardly used (...) by Aristotle to refer to the compound of matter and form. This is puzzling, for at least two reasons: (1) it is not clear what has happened to Z 3’s genus; (2) it is not clear what exactly is the reference of τὸ ἐκ τούτων, for the context suggests, at first glance awkwardly, that the compound in question is that of substratum and essence, and not of matter and form. These problems have led some scholars to delete τὸ ἐκ τούτων from the list. In this paper I provide two sets of arguments in order to resist the deletion. In the first set I show how, at least in principle, it would not be inaccurate to define the compound of matter and form as a “compound of substratum and essence”. In the second set, I show how, in fact, through the reference to the compound of substratum and essence, Aristotle does not want to designate, in Z 13, the hylomorphic composite. Rather, he aims to designate the notion of form regarded as universal, namely as ‘species’, which seems to reveal a peculiar sort of composition between a substratum (its genus) and an essence (its specific difference). (shrink)

This is a metaphysical and conceptual analysis of the concepts ‘change’ and ‘continuity’. The Buddhists are in agreement with Heraclitus that all are flowing and nothing remains. However, the Buddhists have a much more elaborate theory about change and continuity, and this theory is a key element in the entire Buddhist system of related doctrines, viz., that of karma and rebirth, the possibility of Liberation and others. Simply put, the Buddhist emphasizes that change is there in every aspect of reality. (...) According to a later developed form of the Buddhist teaching, change is absolutely pervasive, and even these particles are subject to change as they are nothing more than putative objects which are conceptualized to be such and such, and without the conceptualization they are ‘nothing’ at all.. Hence it seems that continuity is not possible. But in fact according to the later theory, change is not only possible, it is accepted as part and parcel of everyday life. The fact that nothing at all remains the same does not imply that continuity is not possible, since continuity does not always have to be that of an inherently existing object. A changing object can be continued also, in roughly the same sense as we say that an event, like a drama, continues even though everything in it is changing. The thread that ties the disparate elements of the event together in this case lies within our own conceptual imputation. This does not imply that everything is subjective, since the distinction between subject and object presupposes the idea of an absolutely existing individual self, which all Buddhist schools rejects. So in this later theory, absolute change is not possible because there is, ultimately speaking nothing to change, and when there is no change there is no continuation either. This is not to deny the empirical fact of changes and continuities that are present to us; things are there and they are indeed changing. What is being denied here is the belief that that there are essences to things which endure through all the changes. Since things are empty they can change, and continuity is only possible, not because there is something that exists and endures, but because there is change. A drama that does not move cannot be continued. The foregoing discussions of the Buddhist theories have many implications for the dialog between science and religion. One point is that science still seems to subscribe to the object/subject distinction. But if change and continuity are not real in the ultimate sense, then perhaps the distinction should be reconsidered. Another point concerns how to find continuity amidst all the change. But perhaps in some important sense continuity depends on us. (shrink)

The proper way in which limit-problems [_Grenzprobleme_]—birth, death, dreamless sleep, the “prior to birth” [_das vor der Geburt_], the “after death” [_das nach dem Tod_], etc.—can be accessed according to Husserl is by means of so-called “construction” [_Konstruktion_] or “reconstruction” [_Rekonstruktion_]. Contrary to what is usually claimed with respect to this method, and therefore the acts it is composed of, this paper will attempt to prove that they do not consist in non-intuitive acts, but rather in intuitive, but non-sensible acts. (...) In other words, the aforementioned acts of construction consist in categorial acts. More specifically, they represent acts akin to the ones involved in the constitution of exact material essences of a qualitative (the “pure” red, the “pure” blue …) or of a geometrical kind (a triangle, a chiliagon …): both the acts involved in the constitution of elementary exact essences, or acts of idealization, and the acts involved in the constitution of derived exact essences, or acts of deriving. However, the acceptance of such acts of construction suggests a serious reconsideration of some of the basic tenets of Husserlian phenomenology. Indeed, it challenges the idea that phenomenology is an eidetic science of inexact—morphological, descriptive …—material essences, namely the essence of a subjective sphere (the essence of consciousness, the essence of ego …); in fact, it turns phenomenology, at least partially, into something Husserl explicitly repudiates on multiple occasions: a “geometry” of lived experience. It is thus important to determine whether these acts of construction should be integrated into Husserlian phenomenology, and, if yes, how they should be integrated into it. Providing an indication of this will be the ultimate goal of this paper. (shrink)

When Derrida translated and commented on Husserl’s manuscript The Origin of Geometry in 1962, he gave a central place to what Husserl called the Idea “in the Kantian sense”. This article reflects on the use and function of this Idea in Derrida’s reading of Husserl. It critically interrogates the relationship between the Idea in the Kantian sense and mathematical ideality, as well as the use of this Idea in the interpretation of the Thing (Ding) and the stream of experience (Erlebnisstrom). (...) In the centre of the discussion stands what Derrida calls “pure thinking”, on which he tries to ground the Idea in the Kantian sense. (shrink)

Husserl’s most systematic phenomenological work, Ideas for a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy. First Book: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (Ideas I) (Husserl, 2014), differentiates pure transcendental phenomenology, as an eidetic science, from the eidetic science of mathematics. In line with the tradition of transcendental philosophy arguably—ante rem—stretching back to Plato, Husserl contrasts transcendental phenomenology with mathematics and argues that its conceptuality cannot be appropriately articulated and conceived in analogy with mathematics. While both mathematics and transcendental phenomenology are eidetic sciences, (...) phenomenology “belongs to a basic class of eidetic sciences … [that is] totally different from that to which the mathematical sciences belong” (Husserl, 2014, 136). The key differential between these two sciences on Husserl’s view concerns the nature of the essences that are the subject matter of each discipline. Mathematics deals with exact essences, which he characterizes as ideas in the Kantian sense. Phenomenology deals with inexact essences, which Husserl characterizes as morphological. (shrink)

(i) God is omniscient; therefore, for any change, C, among particulars, God knows the occurrence of C. (ii) If God knows the occurrence of C, then X. (iii) not-X. It is clear that the set of propositions (i)—(iii) is inconsistent. This is the general form of two problems—which I call the ‘problem of change in knowledge’ (PCK) and the ‘problem of change in essence’ (PCE)—for Avicenna concerning God’s knowledge of particulars. No work in the secondary literature has discussed exactly what (...) PCK and PCE are. In this paper, I will clarify exactly what they are. (shrink)

The term 'essentialism' in its popular usage is usually qualified in some way, as in 'biological essentialism', 'gender essentialism' and 'social essentialism'. The essentialist theses were defended on the grounds that denying them leads, under plausible assumptions, to pairs of worlds containing objects which are intrinsic and spatio‐temporal duplicates and yet which are numerically distinct. This chapter outlines some technical difficulties in getting the definitions of 'essential property' and 'individual essence' exactly right. It explains the idea of a metaphysically essential (...) property in terms of Aristotle's 'essential/accidental' contrast. A popular idea is to invoke the notion, which has its roots in Aristotle's theory of essence and accident, of a substance sortal. A different way of developing a sortal‐based account of essential kinds is suggested by David Wiggins, who argues that it is only ultimate sortals that represent essential properties, where an ultimate sortal is the most general sortal corresponding to a given principle of individuation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan NicholsGerard T. MundyDeep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2020), vii + 133 pp.Basic Catholic teaching declares that God's will must be trusted and that perfect knowledge of all that is resides in the Creator. An implication of this claim is that all of God's work within time and history—in man's linearly conception of (...) time and history—is meaningful. For, as perfect order himself God's work is neither random nor coincidental. God's perfect understanding means that he is able, colloquially speaking, "to connect the dots" perfectly. Thus, the historical particulars of the New Testament events are not random and coincidental, but they connect perfectly within God's plan.In terms of biblical events, then, what are the significances of the time periods during which, and places at which, they occurred? "Why was Jesus born on a particular date, at a particular time, and in a particular manger in Bethlehem? Why was the womb of Mary, Mater Dei, chosen at that exact time, and at that exact place? Why did Jesus stand on that particular mountain and not upon another? There are perfect answers to all of those questions and more, for, as Proverbs declares in this vein: "The LORD has made everything for a purpose" (16:4).In Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves, Father Aidan Nichols, O.P., meditates on questions related to the potential reasons for some of the historical particulars of "the principal Christological mysteries." Fr. Nichols defines the mysteries as these: "the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Passion and Death, the Descent into Hell, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Second Coming." (41).Attempting to understand how all of the parts of the New Testament fit together perfectly in an historical sense—as God's mind would see it—is a fascinating intellectual endeavor. The primary difference between the innocent inquirer and the vain one, however, is that the former understands that God's reason is infinite and that only the First Mover has the ability to see and to put together all particulars. Thomas Aquinas elucidates the essence of the endeavor to connect the particulars when, in reference to man's ability to understand "the truth of faith," he argues: "Yet it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments, however weak they may be, provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or to demonstrate. For to be able to see something of the loftiest realities, however thin and weak the sight may be, is... a cause of the greatest joy" [Summa contra gentiles I, ch. 8).Posing the question of what the particulars of history might mean brings immediately another question. As Fr. Nichols asks: "How can the Eternal [End Page 386] and time be conjoined in a phrase, and the truth of such conjoining made credible?" (29). Indeed, if God transcends the man-conceived conception of time, how can man even understand God's movements if man can see time only in linear fashion? Fr. Nichols contends that Christ's "mystery-events are not just historical occurrences that, like all such events, belong to the human past" (31). Rather, argues Fr. Nichols, the mysteries "are permanently able to affect the intended beneficiary of the mysteries: namely, the human race" (31). In other words, contends Fr. Nichols, the mysteries are past, present, and future, in the human conception of time.Attempting "to connect the dots" in Christological historical particulars is a subjective endeavor that requires a great deal of individual deciphering, with reliance especially on the interpretation of perceived symbolism. Fr. Nichols's broad theme-based meditations can provide starting points for further study on more concentrated topics.The most exceptional part of the book is Fr. Nichols's discussion on how Jesus's mysteries exist, simultaneously, in the past, in the present, and in the future. This point is of great significance for both theology and philosophy. For, until the Second Coming, God, not being tied to man's limited experience of time, simultaneously, and... (shrink)

This paper investigates the doctrine of man’s essence and resurrection defended by the late Muʿtazilī Rukn al-Dīn b. al-Malāḥimī al-Khwārazmī (d. 536/1141). His anthropology combines substance reductionism and function organicism. Even though man is not a unitary substance additional to the sum of his atomic parts, the specific arrangement of parts we call “man” exhibits functions that are indivisible and irreducible (they are not sums of functions predicable of the indi­vidual parts). When it comes to resurrection, Ibn al-Malāḥimī abandons the (...) recreation model, the standard view of the Muʿtazilīs, in favor of the reassembly model, which he claims to be adherent to the manifest meaning of the Qur’ān as well as capable of answering an objection concerning continuity of identity (there is no way to discriminate between the resur­rected individual and an equivalent copy). For Ibn al-Malāḥimī, the identity of the resurrected becomes unproblematic once we accept that the material parts of the body persist from the moment of death to that of resurrection: when exactly reassembled, such parts unequivocally identify the individual. (shrink)

The dispute over the exact nature and status of possible worlds in Leibniz’s philosophy has proven difficult to resolve. The standard view, that there is one unique actual world and that possible worlds exist solely as ideas within God’s understanding, sits in tension with important metaphysical and theological components of Leibniz’s system. For example, Leibniz takes possible individuals to have some “essence or reality” in themselves and to strive for existence, which allows him to ground counterfactual claims and to (...) overcome necessitarianism. However, scholars have long seen these claims as being at odds with God’s creation of one unique actual world. Catherine Wilson (2000) challenges the standard view’s claim that possible worlds are substantially different from the actual world, arguing instead that Leibniz’s metaphysical commitments are consistent with there being more than one actual world and that Leibniz has no way to block the claim that God would generate more than one such world. In this paper, I expand on Wilson’s account and argue, contrary to the standard view, that the key theses at the heart of Leibniz’s philosophical system entail modal realism—for Leibniz, there can be no ontological difference between possible and actual worlds. (shrink)

The meanings of person in Scheler’s phenomenology are discussed on three levels: that of epistemology, of ontology and of ethics. One can find the possible unity among these three levels through the concept of “selffeeling”. There are also three different philosophical meanings of self-feeling: “self-feeling 1” on epistemological level, “self-feeling 2” on ontological level, and “self-feeling 3” on ethical level. The person is self-given and gains its selfidentity through “self-feeling 1”. The person is related to its own existence and its (...) being, as well as to the absolute being in the negative and positive “selffeeling 2”. Therefore, the pattern of the being of the person is the becoming of the person, more exactly, is the to-be of the person toward the ideal ordo amoris and the ideal value-essence of person. According to Scheler, “self-feeling 3” builds the technique of personal salvation. One can completely understand Scheler’s phenomenological concept of person through the three meanings of self-feeling. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ius Gentium as Publicly Articulated Moral ScienceMatthew K. MinerdAmong the various types of law discussed in St. Thomas's theological "treatise on law"—questions 90–108 of Summa theologia [ST] I-II—the classification known as the "law of nations" (ius gentium) holds an ambiguous epistemological position. Marking a kind of halfway point between the natural law and civil law, it seems to straddle both domains. In fact, in a particularly important text dedicated (...) to this topic in the ST (I-II, q. 95, a. 4), Aquinas classes the ius gentium as being closely connected to the natural law, though in a way that is somewhat derivative, not as immediately flowing from human nature (especially in its animality) as does the natural law, but also not as marked by human contingency as is human civil law.As was recently discussed in a well-documented and insightful article by Barrett H. Turner in The Thomist, there have historically been two main lines of Thomist interpretation concerning the exact character of the "law of nations." Very broadly stated, what he refers to as the "Salamancan" line, indebted to Francisco de Vitoria, "interprets Thomas's doctrine of the ius gentium as a body of universal positive institutions (that is, specifications, determinationes) added to the natural law by agreement of the human race."1 [End Page 1043] This position, which would be common for several centuries among members of the Thomist school, would locate the law of nations essentially in the domain of nearly universally adopted customs and institutions, not strictly deduced from the natural law, but rather grounded on "the quasi-political authority of the entire human race, which promulgates the ius gentium by customs whose utility for attaining the ends of the natural law under a certain set of social conditions is easily recognized by rational creatures."2Turner calls the other line of thought "Maritain's Neo-Thomist Line,"3 an outlook that would be shared with various nuances by thinkers like Jean-Marie Aubert, Yves Simon, Marie-Michel Labourdette, John Finnis, and others. Setting aside my qualms about his appellation "neo-Thomist," which does more to obscure than to illumine (for it covers a host of Thomistic figures who have significantly different views on what constitutes "Thomism"), Turner does fairly lay out the major lines of Jacques Maritain's position, which is most directly articulated in Man and the State and La loi naturelle ou loi non-écrite.4 Basing himself on his particular view of knowledge of the natural law through connaturality,5 Maritain contrasted this sort of moral cognition with that which develops in the line of conceptual articulation, thus having a different "gnoseological" character from our knowledge of the natural law, while nonetheless still sharing the same "ontological" foundation. Such conceptually articulated law would be the ius gentium.Rather than add my voice to the dialectic of the various thinkers arrayed by Turner into the two aforementioned camps, I would like to propose a slightly different approach to the "moral epistemology of the law of nations," though one that I believe lies in line with the best aspects of Maritain's approach. Continuing a series of reflections that I have undertaken [End Page 1044] concerning moral epistemology during the past few years,6 I propose that it is most helpful to consider the "law of nations" as being a form of reasoning pertaining to what Scholastic vocabulary would refer to as "moral science,"7 namely discursive philosophical reasoning concerning the essences, properties, effects, and various other essential relationships that belong to a human acts, morally considered (the principal subject of moral philosophy), along with other subjects that are studied in relation to this principal subject (e.g., the principles of human acts, most particularly, the structure of human acts and the moral virtues). Moral science is the activity of reasoning that can be undertaken by knowing agents living together in community, seeking to discursively articulate and explain the moral truth that forms the essential basis for the contingent determinations that will then be codified in particular civil laws, the latter of which are not concerned with questions like "what are the ultimate foundations for property... (shrink)

Démocratie et piraterie : pourquoi un tel rapprochement? On aurait plutôt tendance à penser que la piraterie, monde des hors-la-loi, du crime et du pillage, est à l'exact opposé de la démocratie qui incarnerait, elle, le triomphe du droit. Que font donc ici, associés, les représentants respectifs de la morale et de l'immoralité? On savait, depuis quelque temps déjà, et par les historiens, qu'au XVIIIe siècle, époque de son apogée aux îles Caraïbes, la piraterie se dotait d'une forme d'organisation (...) assez exemplaire de ce que nous mettons sous le mot démocratie. Ce seul point méritait que l'on réfléchisse plus avant sur le sens d'un emprunt aussi inattendu. II fallait donc aller chercher plus loin la nature de cette association que dans la seule motivation des pirates : non plus du côté de la piraterie mais du côté de la démocratie cette fois-ci, de son histoire et de sa nature profonde. L'argument qu'avance ce livre procède d'un renversement complet de nos habitudes de penser. II tient en ceci : si la piraterie s'est faite si spontanément démocratique, c'est en réalité parce que c'est la démocratie qui a, en son essence, à voir avec la piraterie, avec la prédation et l'extorsion, et non l'inverse. C'est parce qu'elle a, en quelque sorte, la piraterie dans l'âme. Et cela, depuis ses origines jusqu'à nos jours. (shrink)

According to Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is the result of the rapid growth and unusual size of human brains. Bickerton argues that each of the properties distinguishing human intelligence and consciousness from that of other animals can be shown to derive straightforwardly from properties of (...) language. In essence, language arose as a representational system, not a means of communication or a skill, and not a product of culture but an evolutionary adaptation. The author stresses the necessity of viewing intelligence in evolutionary terms, seeing it not as problem solving but as a way of maintaining homeostasis - the preservation of those conditions most favorable to an organism, the optimal achievable conditions for survival and well-being. The term protolanguage is used to describe the stringing together of symbols that prehuman hominids employed. "It did not allow them to turn today's imagination into tomorrow's fact. But it is just this power to transform imagination into fact that distinguishes human behavior from that of our ancestral species, and indeed from that of all other species. It is exactly what enables us to change our behavior, or invent vast ranges of new behavior, practically overnight, with no concomitant genetic changes." Language and Human Behavior should be of interest to anyone in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences and to all those concerned with the role of language in human behavior. (shrink)

Hume famously warned us that the ‘[The] ultimate springs and principles are totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry’. Or, again, Newton: ‘Hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of these properties of gravity … and I frame no hypotheses.’ Aristotelian science was concerned with just such questions, the specification of occult qualities, the real essences that answer the question What is matter, etc?, the preoccupation with circular definitions such as dormative virtues, and so on. (...) The rise of modern science is usually seen as a break with the sterility of Aristotelianism, so what exactly is it that modern science does discover, if it is not the essential nature of matter, of force, of energy, of space and time? A famous answer was provided by Poincaré: ‘The true relations between these real objects are the only reality we can attain.’ This is often regarded as the manifesto of so-called structural realism, as espoused in recent years by John Worrall, for example ). In response to the arguments of Larry Laudan against convergent realism, Worrall points to the continuity in the formal relations between elements of reality expressed by mathematical equations, while the intrinsic nature of these elements of reality gets constantly revised. (shrink)

Sartre and Foucault were two of the most prominent and at times mutually antagonistic philosophical figures of the twentieth century. And nowhere are the antithetical natures of their existentialist and poststructuralist philosophies more apparent than in their disparate approaches to historical understanding. A history, thought Foucault, should be a kind of map, a comparative charting of structural transformations and displacements. But for Sartre, authentic historical understanding demanded a much more personal and committed narrative, a kind of interpretive diary of moral (...) choices and risks compelled by critical necessity and an exacting reality. Sartre's history, a rational history of individual lives and their intrinsic social worlds, was in essence immersed in biography. In Volume One of this authoritative two-volume work, Thomas R. Flynn conducts a pivotal and comprehensive reconstruction of Sartrean historical theory, and provocatively anticipates the Foucauldian counterpoint to come in Volume Two. (shrink)

Non-reductive moral realism is the view that there are moral properties which cannot be reduced to natural properties. If moral properties exist, it is plausible that they strongly supervene on non-moral properties- more specifically, on mental, social, and biological properties. There may also be good reasons for thinking that moral properties are irreducible. However, strong supervenience and irreducibility seem incompatible. Strong supervenience entails that there is an enormous number of modal truths (specifically, truths about exactly which non-moral properties necessitate which (...) moral properties); and all these modal truths must be explained. If these modal truths can all be explained, then it must be a fundamental truth about the essence of each moral property that the moral property is necessarily equivalent to some property that can be specified purely in mental, social and biological terms; and this fundamental truth appears to be a reduction of the moral property in question. The best way to resist this argument is by resorting to the claim that mental and social properties are not, strictly speaking, natural properties, but are instead properties that can only be analysed in partly normative terms. Acceptance of that claim is the price of non-reductive moral realism. (shrink)

“Fair and equitable benefit-sharing” is one of the objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In essence, benefit-sharing holds that countries, farmers, and indigenous communities that grant access to their plant genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge should share in the benefits that users derive from these resources. But what exactly is understood by “fair” and “equitable” in this context? Neither term is defined in the international treaties. (...) A complicating factor, furthermore, is that different motivations and perspectives exist with respect to the notion of benefit-sharing itself. This paper looks at six different approaches to benefit-sharing that can be extracted from the current debates on “Access and Benefit-Sharing.” These approaches form the basis of a philosophical reflection in which the different connotations of “fair and equitable” are considered, by analyzing the main principles of justice involved. Finally, the various principles are brought together in order to draw some conclusions as to how a fair and equitable benefit-sharing mechanism might best be realized. This results in several recommendations for policymakers. (shrink)

“Fair and equitable benefit-sharing” is one of the objectives of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. In essence, benefit-sharing holds that countries, farmers, and indigenous communities that grant access to their plant genetic resources and/or traditional knowledge should share in the benefits that users derive from these resources. But what exactly is understood by “fair” and “equitable” in this context? Neither term is defined in the international treaties. (...) A complicating factor, furthermore, is that different motivations and perspectives exist with respect to the notion of benefit-sharing itself. This paper looks at six different approaches to benefit-sharing that can be extracted from the current debates on “Access and Benefit-Sharing.” These approaches form the basis of a philosophical reflection in which the different connotations of “fair and equitable” are considered, by analyzing the main principles of justice involved. Finally, the various principles are brought together in order to draw some conclusions as to how a fair and equitable benefit-sharing mechanism might best be realized. This results in several recommendations for policymakers. (shrink)

Ontic structural realism is the view that structures are what is real in the first place in the domain of fundamental physics. The structures are usually conceived as including a primitive modality. However, it has not been spelled out as yet what exactly that modality amounts to. This paper proposes to fill this lacuna by arguing that the fundamental physical structures possess a causal essence, being powers. Applying the debate about causal vs categorical properties in analytic metaphysics to ontic structural (...) realism, I show that the standard argument against categorical and for causal properties holds for structures as well. Structural realism, as a position in the metaphysics of science that is a form of scientific realism, is committed to causal structures. The metaphysics of causal structures is supported by physics, and it can provide for a complete and coherent view of the world that includes all domains of empirical science. (shrink)

In this paper my objective is two-fold. First, I will try to provide further arguments in favour of the view defended in my earlier paper¹. In particular, I will try to show (in § 1) that a plausible understanding of the notion of a complete concept, coupled with (what I take to be) a reasonable interpretation of Leibniz's intriguing talk of severa “possible Adams” (§ 2), leads quite naturally to the view that Leibniz was committed to the doctrine of world-bound (...) individuals. Second, I will try to show (in § 3) that a suggestive way of saving contingency in the framework of Leibniz's theory of complete concepts is bound to fail : and the reasons for this failure will provide further evidence in favour of the view under present discussion. The remaining sections of the paper (§§ 4-6), will be concerned with fixing and making precise some of the loose ends of the previous three sections. Thus §§ 4 and 5 will be devoted to an analysis of Leibniz's use and understanding of the notions of contingency and necessity, and essence and accident, respectively. It will be shown that Leibniz's use and understanding of those notions is perfectly consistent with his commitment to the doctrine of world-bound individuals. In § 6, finally, I will try to indicate exactly how David Lewis' Counterpart Theory can be brought to bear upon Leibniz's theory of complete concepts, and, specifically, how it ought to be interpreted in that context. (shrink)

Plato represents Socrates as believing in the unity of the virtues, quarreling with those who, like Protagoras or Meno, wish to treat the virtues as distinct objects of inquiry. On the other hand, there is good reason to deny that Plato's Socrates believed in the numerical identity of the virtues. What Socrates did believe, I shall argue, is that the various virtues are one in essence. I shall show what this means and how it clears up prima facie inconsistencies among (...) Plato's early dialogues.If I am right, Socrates’ theory has startling consequences. Since essence is exactly what Socrates wants a definition to state, it follows that all virtues will have one and the same definition. And if this is so, no wonder the quest for separate definitions of virtues fails in every case! For example in the Laches the generals are baffled by Courage because Courage has no private essence and cannot be marked off from the other virtues by stating its essence. Its essence is Virtue entire. That is a radical view, but there are good reasons for attributing it to Socrates. (shrink)

I discuss how Aristotle’s formulation of the problem of moral luck relates to his natural philosophy. I review well-known passages from Nicomachean Ethics I/X and Eudemian Ethics I/VII and Physics II, but in the main focus on EE VII 14 (= VIII 2). I argue that Aristotle’s position there (rejecting the elimination of luck, but reducing luck so far as possible to incidental natural and intelligent causes) is not only consistent with his treatment of luck in Physics II, but is (...) to be expected, given that the dialectical path of EE VII 14 runs exactly parallel to that of Physics II 4-6. Although Aristotle resolves some issues that he raises, he cannot avoid the problem of constitutive moral luck that, as Thomas Nagel puts it, pertains to ‘the kind of person you are, where this is not just a question of what you deliberately do, but of your inclinations, capacities, and temperament’. The problem for Aristotle follows not only from his ethical positions, but also directly from his more general physical and political principles and assumptions. Furthermore, the problem touches the very essence of Aristotle’s moral theory. (shrink)

These critical remarks attempt to point out the role which modern philosophical anthropology can play in historical theories of the present day. In order to grasp correctly the historical tendencies of the present period, it is necessary to take into account the special characteristics of modern man. Modern philosophical anthropology is criticized by H. because it attempts to picture man in his fundamental essence as a permanent and unchangeable entity, instead of studying him from the viewpoint of a theory of (...) historical change. Today it is necessary to emphasize the difference in human qualities between different social groups and to understand the interconnection between the changes of human types and the whole social development. But philosophical anthropology attempts to consider the essence of man as permanent and independent of historical change, and thus to impart meaning to individual and social life. In this way it proves its relationship to metaphysics and religion. In contradiction to this, H. indicates the results that might be achieved on the basis of an historical approach. He shows how the attitude of modern man towards contracts has changed in the last decades ; how the principle of equality has taken on an entirely different meaning ; how the human qualities of sympathy and understanding change their essence and their functions and are being transferred from one social group to another.Pour saisir exactement les tendances historiques de l'époque actuelle, il est nécessaire de tenir compte aussi du caractère propre et des transformations des hommes d'aujourd'hui. L'anthropologie philosophique moderne est critiquée par H. parce qu'elle cherche à dessiner une image éternelle de l'homme, alors que les études anthropologiques devraient être pénétrées d'esprit historique. Alors qu’il importe aujourd’hui de dégager les différences des qualités humaines dans les divers groupes sociaux, de comprendre le lien des transformations des types humains et de l’évolution de la société dans son ensemble, l’anthropologie philosophique veut fixer une fois pour toutes l'essence de l’homme et donner par là un sens à l’existence individuelle et sociale. Elle montre ainsi qu’elle est solidaire de la métaphysique et de la religion. H. oppose à cette méthode une recherche anthropologique qui serait orientée aux problèmes historiques, et il donne quelques indications sur cette anthropologie. J1 montre comment l’attitude de l’homme actuel à l’égard des engagements et des traités s’est transformée dans les dernières dizaines d’années, comment la categorie d'égalité comme détermination des hommes prend des significations toutes différentes, comment les qualités humaines de compréhension et de sympathie changent de nature et de fonction, passent d’un groupe social à un autre. (shrink)

The idea that genuinely racial thinking is a modern invention is widespread in the humanities and social sciences. However, it is not always clear exactly what the content of such a conceptual break is supposed to be. One suggestion is that with the scientific revolution emerged a conception of human groups that possessed essences that were thought to explain group-typical features of individuals as well the accumulated products of cultures or civilizations. However, recent work by cognitive and evolutionary psychologists (...) suggests that such essentialism is a product of culturally canalized, domain-specific, and species-typical features of human psychology. This suggests that one common explanation of the content of a break in racial thinking is wrong, and casts some doubt on the thesis that genuinely racial thinking is a culturally and historically local invention. (shrink)

Ce travail pose la question des critères de la „progression biologique“ , d'après les documents fossiles, dans le monde des organismes, c'est-à-dire de ce perfectionnement qui ne s'arrête pas à l'intérieur du cadre d'un phylum donné, comme le „perfectionnement de l'adaptation“, mais qui conduit, au-de-là de phylums de rang différent, à des types supérieurs, par exemple, des Poissons pas les Amphibies et les Reptiles jusqu'aux Mammifères ou aux Oiseaux. Deux groupes de critères y sont recensés en détail, leur contenu est (...) exposé, et on les examine pour voir s'ils caractérisent sans ambiguïté la „progression biologique“. Le premier groupe comprend les critères de „différenciation croissante“ et „d'intégration harmonique”. Ils sont fondés sur la différenciation morphophysiologique ou plus exactement sur la „totalité” des organismes, c'est-à-dire leur multiplicité dans l'unité. Le second groupe de critères, à savoir „indépendance croissante du milieu” et „autonomie individuelle croissante”, part des relations de l'organisme au milieu et aux autres formes vivantes et souligne la „subsistence” des individus, c'est-à-dire leur plus ou moins grande indépendence ou leur stabilité interne. Comme „totalité” et „subsistence” sont les éléments décisifs d'une définition biologique de l'individu, on peut dire que la „progression biologique“ d'un organisme est d'autant plus élevée que sa totalité et subsistence et par là son être individuel sont plus accusés.Tous les critères mentionnés ne sont pas uniformes. Les motifs de leur imprécision sont divers. Tout d'abord, il n'y a pas encore de définition unique et complète de l'individu biologique, de sorte qu'on ne peut circonscrire d'une manière univoque ce qui confère à un organisme une individualité plus forte ou moins forte. Ensuite les lignées au-delà desquelles s'accomplissent des perfectionnements, et dont l'une reste intérieur au phylum , tandis que l'autre le transcende , sont entrelacées si intimement et d'une façon si particulière qu'elles ne se laissent pas séparer franchement et décrire rigoureusement selon leurs signes distinctifs. Tout représentant d'un phylum, peu importe son palier, est en effet nécessairement inséré dans un milieu et en quelque façon spécialisé. Il n'existe pas des types à caractères phylétiques purs, qui ne montrent dans aucune direction un „perfectionnement de l'adaptation”, mais seulement des marques caractéristiques de la „progression biologique”. Enfin nous ne connaissons pas les restes fossiles que le développement ou la formation des grands phylums du règne animal, à savoir du rameau des Vertébrés et des divers groupes des Invertébrés, mais non pas le plus intéressant et le plus important, leur „progression biologique” jusqu'au degré d'organisation qu'ils présentent déjà à l'époque du Silurien ou plutôt du Cambrien. C'est cela seulement qui permettrait une vue plus profonde sur la nature de la „progression biologique”.Die Arbeit stellt die Frage nach den Kriterien des fossil belegten Biologischen Aufstiegs” der Organismenwelt, d.h. derjenigen Vervollkommnung, die sich nicht innerhalb des Rahmens eines gegebenen Bauplans hält, wie die „Anpassungsvervollkommnung”, sondern über verschiedenrangige Baupläne hinweg zu höheren Typen führt, z.B. von den Fischen über die Amphibien und Reptilien zu den Säugern bzw. Vögeln. Ausführlich werden zwei Gruppen von Kriterien besprochen, ihr Inhalt dargelegt und ihre Eindeutigkeit zur Charakterisierung des „Biologischen Aufstiegs” untersucht. Die erste Gruppe umfasst die Kriterien der „zunehmenden Differenzierung” und „harmonischeren Integration”. Diese legen die morphologisch-physiologische Differenzierung oder genauer die „Ganzheit” der Organismen zugrunde, d.h. ihre Vielheit in der Einheit. Die zweite Kriteriengruppe, nämlich „zunehmende Umweltunabhängigkeit” und „zunehmende individuelle Autonomie”, geht von den Beziehungen des Organismus zur Umwelt und zu andern Lebensformen aus und betont die „Subsistenz” der Individuen, d.h. ihr grösseres oder geringeres Losgelöstsein oder ihre Selbständigkeit. Da nun „Ganzheit” und „Subsistenz” die entscheidenden Elemente einer biologischen Definition des Individuums sind, lässt sich sagen, dass der „Biologische Aufstieg” eines Organismus um so höher ist, je stärker seine Ganzheit und Subsistenz und damit sein Individuumsein ist.Eindeutigkeit kommt allen genannten Kriterien nicht zu. Die Gründe für ihre Unschärfe sind verschiedener Art. Zunächst gibt es noch keine eindeutige und vollständige Definition des biologischen Individuums, so dass sich nicht eindeutig umreissen lässt, was einem Organismus eine stärkere oder weniger starke Individualität verleiht. Dann sind die Linien, über die sich Vervollkommnungen vollziehen und von denen die eine innerhalb des Bauplans bleibt , die andere aber über ihn hinausführt so innig und in so eigenartiger Weise miteinander verflochten, dass sie sich nicht sauber scheiden und in ihren charakteristischen Merkmalen genau beschreiben lassen. Jeder Vertreter eines Bauplans, ganz gleich von welcher Ranghöhe, ist nämlich notwendig in eine Umwelt eingepasst und irgendwie spezialisiert. Es gibt keine Typen mit reinen Bauplanmerkmalen, die nach keiner Richtung hin eine „Anpassungsvervollkommnung”, sondern nur Merkmale des „Biologischen Aufstiegs” aufweisen. Schliesslich kennen wir fossil nur die Entfaltung oder Ausgestaltung der Grossbaupläne des Tierreichs, nämlich des Wirbeltierstammes und der verschiedenen Gruppen der Wirbellosen, nicht aber das Interessanteste und Wichtigste, nämlich ihren „Biologischen Aufstieg” zu der organisatorischen Höhe, mit der sie sich im Silur bzw. im Kabrium bereits vorstellen. Das erst würde einen tieferen Einblick in das Wesen des „Biologischen Aufstiegs” vermitteln.This article deals with the question of the criteria for the “biological ascent” of the organic world, resting on fossil evidence. That is, of that improvement which is not only restricted to the framework of a given “general structure” as is the “improvement of adaptation”, but which also leads beyond general structures of differentiated levels to a higher type,e.g. from the fishes through the amphibians and reptiles to the mammals or birds. Two groups of criteria are discussed at length, their content exposed and their univocity for the characterisation of this “biological ascent” is examined. The first group includes the criteria of “increasing differentiation” and “more harmonious integration”. The basis for these is the morphological-physiological differentiation, or more exactly, the “totality” of the organisms,i.e., their variety-in-unity. The second group of criteria, “increasing independence of environment” and “increasing individual autonomy”, is derived from the relationships of the organism to its environment and to other living forms, and stresses the “subsistence” of individuals,i.e., their greater or lesser degree of independence or self-sufficiency. Now since “totality” and “subsistence” are the decisive elements in a biological definition of the individual, it may be said that the “biological ascent” of an organism is higher, the more perfect its totality and subsistence and therefore its individuality is.The criteria mentioned are not univocal. The reasons for this lack of clarity are varied. First of all, there is no univocal and complete definition of the biological individual, so that it cannot be exactly stated just what gives an organism a more or less perfect individuality. Then the lines, along which improvements are made, and according to which the one remains within the general structure and the other goes beyond the general structure , are so intimately and singularly bound together, that they cannot be cleanly distinguished, and their characteristic notes exactly described. For each representative of a general structure, regardless of its level, is necessarily fitted into an environment and somehow or other specialised. There are no types with only notes of the general structure which show in no direction an “improvment of adaption”, but only the signs of “biological ascent”. Finally, we only have fossil evidence for the development or deployment of the “great general structures” of the animal world, namely that of the vertebrates and of the different groups of invertebrates, not for the most interesting and most important, that is, their “biological ascent” to the level of organisation with which they are found in the Silurian or Cambrian periods. Only that would give us a deeper insight into the essence of “biological ascent”. (shrink)

What and how is the work of art? This paper considers Heidegger’s venerable question by way of a related one: what exactly is the essence of the painting? En route to critiquing the Heideggerian conception of the work of art as that which discloses a world, I present Michel Henry’s competing aesthetic theory. According to Henry, the artwork’s task is not to disclose the exteriority of the world, but rather to express the interiority of life’s pathos—what he calls transcendental self-affectivity. (...) To clarify Henry’s view, I examine his analysis of the abstract painting of Kandinsky, after which I illustrate the significance of Kandinsky’s abstractionism by showing how the representational paintings of Paul Signac, Andrew Harrison, Alphonse Osbert, and Henry Ossawa Tanner attempt to express the invisibility of subjectivity. I then reveal how Heidegger’s account of the work of art in terms of world disclosure overlooks the work’s task of exalting life. In closing, I accordingly suggest that Henry’s view of painting—which locates its essence in Life rather than the world—not only presents a competing position to the Heideggerian view of the origin of the work of art worthy of our attention, but one that explains how art can contribute to overcoming our age’s nihilism. (shrink)

This dissertation deals with the following three questions which will likely be classified as questions in different areas of specialization, the philosophy of action, comparative-historical studies, and ethics respectively: What is the essence of voluntary action? Do classical Chinese philosophers have the concept of voluntary action? What role does the concept of the will play in ethics? ;In this dissertation I argue for two related theses. As an answer to question 1, my first thesis is that the essence of voluntary (...) action is not the will. This thesis is the basis for my argument against a relativist answer to the question 2. Some scholars have argued that classical Chinese philosophers do not have the concept of voluntary action, because they do not have the concept of the will. Their argument is based on a false answer to question 1), i.e., the false idea that the essence of voluntary action is the will, which is exactly the opposite of my first thesis. So if my first thesis is true, their arguments would collapse. ;My second thesis is my answer to question 3 "If the will is not invented for a theory of voluntary action, what is it invented for?" My answer is the following: for a large class of cases---usually historical figures such as the early Wittgenstein, Augustine, Confucius and Mencius---in which we find the concept of the will, the will is invented for ethical purposes. ;The dissertation consists in two parts. Part I is my argument for the first thesis. My argument is based on the later Wittgenstein's work. I also show the limits of his arguments and how to fix them. In Part II, I show in details how the actual histories of the inventions of the concept of the will vary greatly from Augustine to the early Wittgenstein, and to Confucius and Mencius. The significance of the dissertation is that this diverse picture will help us imagine new possible forms of ethical life, which is, I believe, the purpose of historical-comparative studies. Or, indeed, the purpose of philosophy. (shrink)

In the theory of meaning, it is common to contrast truth-conditional theories of meaning with theories which identify the meaning of an expression with its use. One rather exact version of the somewhat vague use-theoretic picture is the view that the standard rules of inference determine the meanings of logical constants. Often this idea also functions as a paradigm for more general use-theoretic approaches to meaning. In particular, the idea plays a key role in the anti-realist program of Dummett (...) and his followers. In the theory of truth, a key distinction now is made between substantial theories and minimalist or deflationist views. According to the former, truth is a genuine substantial property of the truth-bearers, whereas according to the latter, truth does not have any deeper essence, but all that can be said about truth is contained in T-sentences (sentences having the form: ‘P’ is true if and only if P). There is no necessary analytic connection between the above theories of meaning and truth, but they have nevertheless some connections. Realists often favour some kind of truth-conditional theory of meaning and a substantial theory of truth (in particular, the correspondence theory). Minimalists and deflationists on truth characteristically advocate the use theory of meaning (e.g. Horwich). Semantical anti-realism (e.g. Dummett, Prawitz) forms an interesting middle case: its starting point is the use theory of meaning, but it usually accepts a substantial view on truth, namely that truth is to be equated with verifiability or warranted assertability. When truth is so understood, it is also possible to accept the idea that meaning is closely related to truth-conditions, and hence the conflict between use theories and truth-conditional theories in a sense disappears in this view. (shrink)

Sartre and Foucault were two of the most prominent and at times mutually antagonistic philosophical figures of the twentieth century. And nowhere are the antithetical natures of their existentialist and poststructuralist philosophies more apparent than in their disparate approaches to historical understanding. A history, thought Foucault, should be a kind of map, a comparative charting of structural transformations and displacements. But for Sartre, authentic historical understanding demanded a much more personal and committed narrative, a kind of interpretive diary of moral (...) choices and risks compelled by critical necessity and an exacting reality. Sartre's history, a rational history of individual lives and their intrinsic social worlds, was in essence immersed in biography. In Volume One of this authoritative two-volume work, Thomas R. Flynn conducts a pivotal and comprehensive reconstruction of Sartrean historical theory, and provocatively anticipates the Foucauldian counterpoint to come in Volume Two. (shrink)

"Le concept d'inconscient a fait son apparition dans la culture moderne en même temps que celui de conscience et comme son exacte conséquence : dès que l'essence originelle de la phénoménalité, révélée et occultée à la fois par Descartes dans le cogito, a été réduite à la représentation. Pour autant que Freud emprunte explicitement son concept de conscience à cette tradition philosophique, l'affirmation que le Fond de la Psyché échappe à la phénoménalité ainsi entendue revêt une portée immense : elle (...) pose, après Schopenhauer et Nietzsche, que la vie ne s'exhibe jamais dans l'Ek-stase où la pensée, depuis la Grèce, la cherche. Et si, faute de moyens appropriés, le freudisme fut contraint de rejeter dans un arrière-monde les formes élémentaires de l'expérience, si l'affect fut ramené à la pulsion, et la pulsion à un système énergétique conforme aux schémas scientifiques de l'époque, il reste possible de reconnaître, derrière ces constructions spéculatives, à travers ces emboîtements d'hypothèses à l'infini, la figure même de cette vie - la nôtre" - M. Henry. (shrink)

" La formule cartésienne causa sive ratio scande l'histoire de la causalité, entre le privilège suarézien de la cause efficiente et l'invention leibnizienne du principe de raison suffisante. Elle traverse un siècle exactement, des Disputationes metaphysicae de Suarez (1597) aux 24 thèses métaphysiques de Leibniz (1697). La métaphysique s'y constitue en époque de la causalité. Qu'ils la soutiennent ou qu'ils la récusent, les philosophes du XVIIe siècle ont en commun de discuter la thèse qui confère l'intelligibilité à la relation causale (...) ; elle prend la forme exemplaire de l'équivalence cartésienne de la cause et de la raison. Mais la façon dont la relation causale gagne l'intelligibilité demeure à son tour inintelligible, puisqu'elle renvoie à la toute-puissance incompréhensible de celui qui l'exerce, y compris peut-être envers lui-même : sui causa. C'est là précisément la thèse que les post-cartésiens ne cesseront de lire comme un problème et de récuser : Spinoza, en posant que l'ordre et la connexion des idées sont les mêmes que l'ordre et la connexion des choses ; Malebranche, en faisant de la cause occasionnelle une raison inefficace et en concentrant en Dieu toute l'efficace ; Leibniz, en employant le principe de raison suffisante, qui rationalise l'existence en la soustrayant à l'emprise de l'efficience. Loin de la produire, la causalité se voit alors soumise, sous diverses modalités, à l'intelligibilité. Aussi le principe de raison suffisante signe-t-il ce que nous appelons la fin de la cause - par excellence la fin de l'efficience -, qui n'est pas la fin de la question du fondement, mais le déplacement de sa réponse vers plus fondateur que la cause : la raison. Ainsi se trouve accomplie l'essence du fondement à l'époque moderne de l'histoire de la métaphysique. " V. C. (shrink)

This paper presents the view that tropes can change, and so are not individuated by their determinate qualitative characters. On the view I have in mind, a trope is at any given time fully determinate, but can change qualitatively within the bounds set by a determinable essence. A charge trope, for example, must at any time have some exact intensity, but can survive changes in intensity. My argument, roughly, is this: Objects can change, and tropes are the parts of (...) objects that change (in a special sense of ‘part’), so tropes can change too. After some preliminaries, I present the argument carefully and discuss the operant notions. I then discuss each premise in turn. I respond to the charge that the view isn't realist, and to objections based on identity‐conditions for tropes. I describe both substratum‐ and bundle‐theoretic versions of the view, and finally, show what the view buys us. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA* IN THE NEW critical edition of Avicenna's MemphyS'ics by S. Van Riet at Louvain (I, 1977; II, 1980; III, 1983), Gerard Verbeke states that according to Avicenna, "L'Etre necessaire n'a pas une essence qui est distincte de son existence" (II, p. * 42, at note 159), i.e. that the Necessary Being does not have an essence that is distinct from its (...) existence. One looks in vain for a precise reference to an Avicennian text. On the other hand, in a three-part study, Albert G. Judy, O.P., "Avicenna's Me1taphy8'ics in the Summa contra Gentiles," published in Angelicum, part I: 52 (1975) 340-384; part II: 541-586; part Ill: 53 (1976) 183-226, states quite clearly that the "First" does not have a quiddity but only an "anity" (anitas)... (546), and that Avicenna... finds that the absolutely necessary being cannot have what every other reality has, namely, a quiddity, a "whatness " distinct from its" whether-ness" or anitas (547-548). Moreover, the first appendix of Judy's article contains a redaction of the 1495 and the 1508 Venice editions of ltletaphyiscs 8.4, which differs chiefly in punctuation from the excellent Van Riet text based on five Latin MSS. A slightly more nuanced position is. found in Etienne Gilson's Elements of Christian Philosoph;y (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1960), p. 127: "... such exactly had been the con- * Delivered before the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy and Science meeting in conjunction with The American Catholic Philosophical Association in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on April 12, 1985. 79 80 E. M. MACIEROWSKI clusion of Avicenna: the first has no quiddity (quidditatem non habet)," a claim that cites (305, note 28) secondary literature which one can trace as far back as Father M.-D. RolandGosselin 's edition of the De ente et essentia. What is at stake in this dispute? What if God does not have a quiddity? It would seem that He should be utterly unknowable, if quiddity or essence is a principle of knowledge as well as of being. Such would be plausible consequences of Gilson's and Judy's position. What, on the other hand, if God does have a quiddity? One possible inference, if we happened to have access or insight into the divine quiddity, is that we could have a sort of mystical union with God, perhaps even in this life; or again, one might draw pantheistic conclusions. Verbeke does not follow such paths. His inference points toward a rawrochement between Avicenna's doctrine and that of St. Thomas Aquinas, who maintained not only that God is His own essence (and therefore that it is reasonable to speak of a divine essence) but also that God's essence is no other than His esse, His being or existence. Accordingly, for scholars to have such opposed views about so important a topic even at the hermeneutical level of Avicenna's position points to a serious difficulty. Since Judy does offer texts in support of his interpretation, let us consider the evidence, using his section numbers and Van Riet's pages and lines: Judy, section 4=Van Riet 398.83-399.84 goes thus in Latin: Redibo igitur et dicam quod primum non habet quidditatem, nisi anitatem, quae sit discreta ab ipsa. This text he renders, "The first does not have a quiddity, except an 'anity,' which is distinct from it" (549). The other text in Latin (Judy, section 13=Van Riet 401.31-32) goes thus: Igitur necesse esse non habet quidditatem nisi quod est necesse esse, et haec est anitas, which he renders, "Therefore necessary being does not have a quiddity, but only the fact of its necessary being, and this is DOES GOD HAVE A QUIDDITY ACCORDING TO AVICENNA 81 'anity'" (559). We wonder, however, why nisi should be translated "except" in section 4 and "hut only" in section 13. One would have expected a sed solum or a sed tantum to justify the rendering "but only." Accordingly, the translation should be corrected to read, " Therefore the necessary being has no quiddity except that it is necessary being, and this... (shrink)

The paper is the final, fifth part of a series of studies introducing the new conceptions of “Hilbert mathematics” and “ontomathematics”. The specific subject of the present investigation is the proper philosophical sense of both, including philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics not less than the traditional “first philosophy” (as far as ontomathematics is a conservative generalization of ontology as well as of Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology” though in a sense) and history of philosophy (deepening Heidegger’s destruction of it from (...) the pre-Socratics to the Pythagoreans). Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s derivative “fundamental ontology” as well as his later doctrine after the “turn” are the starting point of the research as established and well known approaches relative to the newly introduced conception of ontomathematics, even more so that Husserl himself started criticizing his “Philosophy of arithmetic” as too naturalistic and psychological turning to “Logical investigations” and the foundations of phenomenology. Heidegger’s “Aletheia” is also interpreted ontomathematically: as a relation of locality and nonlocality, respectively as a motion from nonlocality to locality if both are physically considered. Aristotle’s ontological revision of Plato’s doctrine is “destructed” further from the pre-Socratics' “Logos” or Heideger’s “Language” (after the “turn”) to the Pythagoreans “Numbers” or “Arithmetics” as an inherent and fundamental philosophical doctrine. Then, a leap to contemporary physics elucidates the essence of ontomathematics overcoming the Cartesian abyss inherited from Plato’s opposition of “ideas” versus “things”, and now unifying physics and mathematics, particularly allowing for the “creation from nothing” instead of the quasi-scientific myth of the “Big Bang”. Furthermore, ontomathematics needs another interpretation of arithmetic, propositional logic and set theory in the foundations of mathematics, where the latter two ones are both identified with Boolean algebra, and the former is considered to be a “half of Boolean algebra” in the exact meaning to be equated to it after doubling by a dual anti-isometric counterpart of Peano arithmetic. That unified algebraic realization of the foundations of mathematics is related to Hilbert mathematics in both “narrow and wide senses” where the latter is isomorphic to the qubit Hilbert space, thus underlying all the physical world by the newly introduced substance of quantum information being physically dimensionless and generalizing classical information measured in bits. The substance of information, whether classical or quantum, visualizes the way of the unification of physics and mathematics by merging their foundations in Hilbert arithmetic and Hilbert mathematics: thus how ontomathetics is a “first philosophy”. The relation of ontomathematics to the Socratic “human problematics”, furthermore being fundamental for Western philosophy in Modernity, is discussed. Ontomathematics implies its “substitution” by abstract information (or by “subjectless choice” relevant to it), thus “obliterating the human outline on the ocean beach sand” (by Michel Foucault’s metaphor). A reflection back from the viewpoint of mathematic to Western philosophy as the philosophy of locality ends the study. (shrink)

Plato can claim a preeminent place in the philosophy of education, for two reasons at least. The first is that he started the subject; the second is that he expressed with a force which has not since been surpassed a particular, seemingly authoritarian, view about it. Any liberal has to come to grips with this view, for which ‘Platonism’ is still the most appropriate name; and the first step is to determine more exactly what, in essence, the view is. This (...) paper will not be concerned with the close examination of Plato’s text; that must be left for a book about his moral philosophy that I am working on. I shall say nothing about the quaint details of the educational curriculum in the Republic or the Laws, which have distracted the attention of some commentators from more fundamental problems. What I aim to discuss is the question ‘Can virtue be taught?’, with which Plato introduces the subject in the Meno—the question which more than any other provides the incentive for his entire philosophical enterprise. (shrink)

My topic is God's activity in the ordinary course of nature. The precise mode of this activity has been the subject of prolonged debates within every major theistic intellectual tradition, though it is within the Catholic tradition that the discussion has been carried on with the most philosophical sophistication. The problem, in its simplest form, is this: Given the fundamental theistic tenet that God is the provident Lord of nature, the First Efficient Cause who creates the universe, sustains it in (...) being, and exists in all things by His essence, presence, and power,1 how exactly do the actions of secondary (i.e., created) causes fit in with God's own activity in the ordinary course of nature? Or, to put it a bit more neutrally, how exactly is God's own action as the First Cause in nature related to the causal activity, if any , of His creatures? (shrink)