A recent defense of the causal argument for physicalism is to defune the physical in terms of the non-mental. This move is designed to defuse Hempel's dilemma, one version of which is taken to the problem that the physical cannot be successfully defined in terms of either present-day or a future completed physics. I argue that the inductive support offered for this non-mental move simply begs the question for physicalism.

Some philosophers have suggested that, instead of attempting to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the physical, we should adopt the ‘via negativa.’ That is, we should take the notion of the mental as fundamental, and define the physical in contrast, as the non-mental. I defend a variant of this approach, based on some information about how children form concepts. I suggest we are hard-wired to form a concept of intentional agency from a very young age, and so there’s (...) some reason to believe that our concept of the physical does include, as part of its content, a contrast with the mental. (shrink)

How should ‘the physical’ be defined for the purpose of formulating physicalism? In this paper I defend a version of the via negativa according to which a property is physical just in case it is neither fundamentally mental nor possibly realized by a fundamentally mental property. The guiding idea is that physicalism requires functionalism, and thus that being a type identity theorist requires being a realizer-functionalist. In §1 I motivate my approach partly by arguing against Jessica Wilson's no fundamental (...) mentality constraint. In §2 I set out my preferred definition of ‘the physical’ and make my case that physicalism requires functionalism. In §3 I defend my proposal by attacking the leading alternative account of ‘the physical,’ the theory-based conception. Finally, in §4 I draw on my definition, together with Jaegwon Kim's account of intertheoretic reduction, to defend the controversial view that physicalism requires a priori physicalism. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to demonstrate that in the Monologion Saint Anselm affirms the priority of the via negativa over the via positiva.More precisely, I shall argue that in that text Anselm defends a distinctive thesis with three components. There is, to begin with,a semantic component, according to which, all of our words for God—including those purporting to tell us what God is—fall utterlyshort of their mark. A consequence of this is that none of our speech is capable (...) of describing the reality that is God. There is, inaddition, an epistemic component according to which there is no way for us to understand what God is; we can only know what Godis not. In consequence, we have no way of directly grasping God or of comprehending God’s being. Finally there is a metaphysicalcomponent according to which what God is in himself is an infinite and ineffable mystery. A consequence of this would be that Godturns out to have nothing at all in common with his creatures. (shrink)

I propose in this paper to examine and analyse the concept of śūnyatā as it is expressed in the Hrdaya sūtras of the Buddhist prajñā-pāramitā literature and in the Mū1amadhyamaka-kārikās of Nāgārjuna. I shall attempt to show some of the difficulties involved in seeking an objective referent or counter part for the concept and also in trying to preserve the tension implicit in the affirmation of the middle way. I hope to indicate that the via negativa approach has positive (...) implications for the understanding of śūnyatā and that in the final analysis we may have to look for its meaning in the way it is used. (shrink)

Physicalism is the thesis that everything is physical. But what does it mean to say that everything is physical? Daniel Stoljar has recently argued that no account of the physical is available which allows for a formulation of physicalism that is both possibly true and deserving of the name. As against this claim, I argue that a version of the via negativa—roughly, the view that the physical is to be characterised in terms of the nonmental—provides just such an account.

As substâncias imateriais não são compostas de matéria sensível, não partem dos entes; são diretamente inteligíveis. O conhecimento assim precisa de outra via para apreendê-las. Tomás, ainda no artigo 7 da questão 84, parece ver esta via a partir do pensador Dionísio Areopagita que, ao cogitar nomes para Deus, em seu tratado Nomes Divinos, enumerou quais as possibilidades de conhecimento para o intelecto humano ante a substância primeira. São três: o conhecimento por causa, por via de eminência, ultrapassamento ou por (...) negação ou remoção. Em Dionísio, conhecer negativamente Deus significa dizer que tudo o que se pode afirmar a respeito de sua natureza é aquilo que Ele não é. Tomás amplia o princípio para as substâncias imateriais em geral e há a possibilidade de se transpor o modo teológico do Areopagita para um modo gnosiológico, em que as substâncias imateriais, entendendo-as como toda aquela imune a qualquer mudança e movimento da matéria, assumem um possível caráter apofático e ainda assim possam ser afirmadas enquanto noções do entendimento. (shrink)

Some of the most well known figures in three main cultures, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, defend negative theology. They believe that God doesn’t have any positive attribute and that no positive knowledge of Him is possible. Others, who are in majority, are anxious of agnosticism. Maimonides the great Jewish philosopher tries to relive this anxiety. He proposes negative knowledge arguing that in terms of negation we become closer to some knowledge of Him, though His nature still remains out of access. (...) In this way he tries to avoid agnosticism and at the same time justify the extreme differences among believers in knowledge of Him. But it seems that, if we rely on reason alone, Maimonides' arguments are not convincing. This paper tries to criticize his examples and arguments. It seems clear that any negative knowledge should be based on a kind of positive one. No one by mere negation can receive any understanding of Him especially when the realm of negation expands upon the predicate of being too. In that case if someone like Maimonides insists to preserve his faith on God he should seek ways other than reason, like fideism or Gnosticism. And as a philosopher he cannot hold his position anymore. (shrink)

In this response, while agreeing with Balibar’s substantive positive position, I take issue with the way he situates it. Specifically, he casts it as a via negativa in relation to all previously existing thought. I suggest that it would be more accurate to say he is positioning the notion of the transindividual as a via media between two alleged extremes, individualism and organicism. I argue that the idea that there is an opposite and equal error to individualism is mistaken, (...) and that in actuality Balibar’s concept of the transindividual is not a radical departure from a long history of anti-individualism. (shrink)

The external world sceptic tells some familiar narratives involving massive deception. Perhaps we are brains in vats. Perhaps we are the victim of a deceitful demon. You know the drill. The sceptic proceeds by observing first that victims of such deceptions know nothing about their external environment and that second, since we cannot rule out being a victim of such deceptions our- selves, our own external world beliefs fail to attain the status of knowledge. Discussions of global external world scepticism (...) tend to focus on the second step, where a number of well-known lines of resistance have been offered. But there has been little attention to the first, seemingly innocuous step. That will be the focus of this paper. Part one – sections 1, 2, and 3 – will explain why these standard narratives are not convincing examples of cases where there is no knowledge of the external world. In part two – section 4 – we shall undertake a useful case study. David Lewis’s ‘Elusive Knowledge’ is often thought of as presenting an epistemological vision that is somewhat friendly to external world scepticism: as Lewis himself presents things, there are contexts where external world knowledge ascriptions are uniformly false, and where true knowledge ascriptions are limited to either axiomatic truths or truths about our inner life. We examine his discussion in the light of the preceding reflections and show that the framework he presents is not so concessionary to global external world scepticism after all. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher’s way of understanding process philosophy reflects the ambitions of his own philosophical project and commits him to a conceptually ideal interpretation of process. Process becomes a transcendental idea of reflection that can always be predicated of our knowledge of the world and of the world qua known, but not necessarily of reality an sich. Rescher’s own taxonomy of process thinking implies that it has other variants. While Rescher’s approach to process philosophy makes it intelligible and appealing to mainstream (...) analytic philosophy, it leaves behind the more daring ideas of Bergson, James, and Whitehead, all of whom envisioned the primordial reality of process in a radical ontology of becoming. This variant of process thought can be construed as coherent and self-consistent, but not without relinquishing the correspondence theory of truth and embracing challenging ideas that bring us in close proximity to existentialism, apophatic theology, and Buddhism. (shrink)

While a surprising number of people, both religious and non-religious, have had deep and significant mystical experiences, scholars have reached little agreement about their cause and character. Many analyze mystical experiences as if they are formed by the same linguistic processes that shape ordinary experiences. This paper shows that this is based on a misunderstanding, for these experiences result from letting go of language. The paper concludes that we need to think about mystical experiences - and what they have to (...) teach about consciousness and reality - in a new light. (shrink)

Pese a las recurrentes advertencias de Derrida acerca de no pasar por alto la frontera que separa la deconstrucción de la teología negativa, malentendido que, según él, desvirtuaría el radical alcance crítico pretendido por la primera, su intento por distinguirlas no siempre pareció convincente dadas las evidentes similitudes entre sus recursos retóricos y los empleados por el discurso teológico negativo, en especial, su empleo constante de la vía negativa. Este artículo busca iluminar la distinción que existe entre ambas (...) operaciones discursivas apelando para ello a la noción de juego, de manera que la negatividad del discurso derridiano aparezca, a diferencia del discurso teológico, como un juego de escritura que, en cuanto tal, le hace realmente juego a la negatividad del «ser». (shrink)

Physicalism is frequently understood as the thesis that everything depends upon a fundamental physical level. This standard formulation of physicalism has a rarely noted and arguably unacceptable consequence—it makes physicalism come out false in worlds which have no fundamental level, for instance worlds containing things which can infinitely decompose into smaller and smaller parts. If physicalism is false, it should not be for this reason. Thus far, there is only one proposed solution to this problem, and it comes from the (...) so-called via negativa account of physicalism. Via negativa physicalism identifies the physical with the non-mental, such that if everything in the world ultimately depends only on non-mental things, then physicalism is true. To deal with the possibility of worlds without a fundamental level, this account says that physicalism is false in worlds with either a fundamental mental level or an infinite descent of mental levels. Here I argue that there could be a world with an infinite descent of all-mental levels, yet in which physicalism might plausibly be true—thus contradicting the sufficient-for-false condition meant to save physicalism from the threat of infinitely decomposable worlds. This leaves the need for a new dependence-based account of physicalism. (shrink)

En este artículo se exploran las relaciones entre finito-infinito y los límites del lenguaje posible, del lenguaje finito, para hablar de su callado fundamento. En este sentido, el mismo vaciamiento del lenguaje, expresión de una imposibilidad a la cual empero no se hurta, la de hablar de Dios, conduce a ponderar la importancia que tiene la teología negativa en el sentido de permitir al mundo humano barruntar las dimensiones del misterio que lo funda. Se tocan, de esta manera, las (...) concepciones de Maimónides y de santo Tomás acerca de la vía negativa como mecanismo parcial que afronta eso que, precisamente, desborda las fronteras del entendimiento humano. No porque Dios, en sí mismo, no sea, por decirlo con Erígena, plus quam esse, hiperesencial, sino porque en la noche cognoscitiva del lenguaje a éste no le queda sino su propia abdicación en relación al telos que lo mueve. En la desproporción existente entre el lenguaje y aquello que lo anima, aquél, el lenguaje, celebrará su propio silencio y la lejanía abismal en relación a su fundamento. Palabras clave : teología negativa; vía negativa; teología apofática; teología catafática; vía de la eminencia. Maimonides and Thomas: The Triumph of NegationIn this article I explore the finite-infinite relations and the limits of the possible language, of the finite language, in order to speak of its silent foundation. In this regard, the very emptying of language, expression of an impossibility from which it nevertheless does not hide, that of speaking of God, leads to think over the importance that negative theology has, in the sense of allowing the human world to conjecture the dimensions of the mystery on which it is founded. Thus, the conceptions of Maimonides and Saint Thomas are found to be very akin as to their regarding the negative way as a partial mechanism to deal with that which, precisely, surpasses the bounds of human understanding. Not because God in himself is not, to say it with Erigena, plus quam esse, hyperessential, but because in the cognitive night of language the latter has no choice but its own abdication with respect to the telos that animates it. In the disproportion existing between language and that which animates it, the former, language, will celebrate its own silence and the abysmal distance in relation to its foundation. Keywords: Negative theology; Negative way; Apophatic theology; Cataphatic theology; Way of eminence. (shrink)

El presente artículo se encamina a analizar la que consideramos la filosofía en la que ha culminado toda pretensión sistematizadora e instrumentalizadora de la realidad: la dialéctica hegeliana. Con base en ello, plantearemos una tentativa, a través de Adorno, de una dialéctica negativa que permita hacer de la realidad un lugar abierto, fluyente e indeterminado, un lugar compuesto por unos individuos capaces de hacerse cargo de la realidad en la medida en que se hacen cargo de sí mismos. La (...) subjetivación de los individuos, por tanto, una subjetivación profunda, responsable y compleja, será el punto culminante de esta investigación, y será presentada como la vía a través de la cual una realidad en constante cambio puede llegar a buen puerto. (shrink)

The present article seeks to show, with reference to Thomas Aquinas and Richard Swinburne, that classical theism cannot reconcile the idea of divine perfection with the modern idea of a person. It then proposes a solution which consists in applying to the doctrine of God the model of complementarity which Niels Bohr first used in quantum physics in his attempt to explain (among other things) the duality between wave and particle. This model is then applied by juxtaposing the description of (...) God as a perfect being, established through the 'via negativa', and the description of God as a person, esablished through the 'via positiva' as two contradictory, albeit necessary, descriptions. (shrink)

Physicalism is the claim that that there is nothing in the world but the physical. Philosophers who defend physicalism have to confront a well-known dilemma, known as Hempel’s dilemma, concerning the definition of ‘the physical’: if ‘the physical’ is whatever current physics says there is, then physicalism is most probably false; but if ‘the physical’ is whatever the true theory of physics would say that there is, we have that physicalism is vacuous and runs the risk of becoming trivial. This (...) article has two parts. The first, negative, part is devoted to developing a criticism of the so-called via negativa response to Hempel’s dilemma. In the second, more substantial, part, I propose to take the first horn of Hempel’s dilemma. However, I argue for a broad construal of ‘current physics’ and characterize ‘the physical’ accordingly. The virtues of the broad characterization of ‘the physical’ are: first, it makes physicalism less likely to be false; and second, it ties our understanding of ‘the physical’ to the reasons we have for believing in physicalism. That is, it fulfills the desideratum of construing our theses according to the reasons we have to believe in them. (shrink)

Plato’s discourse on beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is distinctly apophatic in nature. Plato describes beauty in terms of what it is not (an approach sometimes referred to apophasis, or the via negativa). In this paper, I argue that Platonic apophatic practise in the Hippias Major and the Symposium depicts beauty as an ally to certain aspirations of philosophical discourse. In the first section, I offer some brief prefatory remarks on the nature of apophasis and its (...) presence in Plato’s thinking. In the second section, I provide some background to the dialogue of the Hippias Major and highlight the apophatic nature of the descriptions of beauty offered therein. In the third and final section, I discuss the Symposium, a dialogue within which, in addition to representing beauty apophatically, Plato illustrates how we may become able to achieve some positive, or cataphatic, insights into the nature of beauty. I conclude that the purpose of the Platonic apophatic portrayal of beauty in the Hippias Major and the Symposium is to show that, while beauty cannot be reduced to a series of assertive truth statements, it can nevertheless function as an accessory to other dimensions of philosophical thinking. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel on Pseudo-Philosophy: Reading the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit by Andrew Alexander DavisPaul T. WilfordDAVIS, Andrew Alexander. Hegel on Pseudo-Philosophy: Reading the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit. London: Bloomsbury, 2023. ix + 214 pp. Cloth, $125In Hegel on Pseudo-Philosophy, Andrew Davis makes a convincing argument that just as the problem of how to distinguish sophistry from philosophy is a recurrent theme of Plato's dialogues, so (...) too is the problem of sophistry or "pseudo-philosophy" central to the preface to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Indeed, the problem of how to recognize and guard against pseudo-philosophy is the common theme linking the prefaces to the Phenomenology of Spirit, the Science of Logic, the Encyclopedia, and the Philosophy of Right, each of which endeavors "to reveal something about the essence of philosophy... by highlighting the ways pseudo-philosophy fails to do justice to philosophical content." Such an undertaking is especially important to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, however, because the subject matter [End Page 543] of the work is nothing but the logos of the appearances of spirit. To arrive at knowledge of spirit requires attending to all the various ways in which spirit (or Geist) can appear, but, as Davis remarks, "like life, Geist may be thought as a source of appearances, but not as an appearance itself. It is always 'behind' what appears." As a result, the Phenomenology is an exercise in trying "to grasp what does not appear through appearances alone." Thus, just as the Phenomenology approaches the truth of spirit by considering spirit's partial, abstract, and one-sided modes of appearing, so too does the preface to the Phenomenology approach the truth of philosophy by investigating forms of pseudo-philosophy.As Hegel himself states, there are two principal tasks pursued in the preface: (1) to offer a preliminary sketch of what it would mean for "the cognition of absolute actuality to become perfectly lucid about its own nature;" and (2) to eliminate some "habitually accepted forms of thought" that prove obstacles to philosophic cognition. While most commentators take their bearings from the former, Davis's approach to the preface is unique (to my knowledge) in foregrounding the latter. Yet, as his book unfolds, it becomes clear that the latter is the route into the former. Indeed, one of the central lessons of the book is that, although the elimination of erroneous habits of thought may seem to be merely negative and therefore principally propaedeutic to the positive task of leading the reader toward "absolute knowing," the examination of error is an integral component of grasping the true. If the Phenomenology as a whole is a "highway of despair"—a comprehensive refutation of natural consciousness's pretensions to knowledge that is simultaneously a dialectical ascent to conceptually comprehending knowing (begreifende Wissen)—the preface initiates the reader into the via negativa that philosophic cognition must travel to attain self-knowledge.Davis's book is structured around seven forms of pseudo-philosophy, each of which is treated as a discrete, distinguishable problem in its own right and also as emblematic of the common failure to recognize that the form of philosophy is inseparable from the content of philosophy. As Davis argues, this failure lies at the root of the attempt (common to much of modern philosophy since Descartes) to establish a priori a universal method for thinking (what Leibniz called a mathesis universalis) that will secure certain and indubitable knowledge. But this effort proves self-undermining, always ultimately engendering the very skepticism it seeks to master. Through observing the aporiai generated by forms of pseudo-philosophy, we learn that "the method of philosophy is inseparable from the subject matter of philosophy. Method cannot be isolated and discussed on its own. Philosophy is thinking (form) about thinking (content)."Davis thus gradually discloses Hegel's positive answer to the question "what is philosophy?" through a series of determinate negations of philosophy's imitations. We learn that philosophy is the recollective, self-comprehending, self-moving thinking of thinking by attending to a set of tendencies that impede philosophy: "a tendency to explain rather than [End Page 544] present (chapter 1), a... (shrink)

Introduction: Staring into the abyss -- Situating the self in the abyss -- The mystical abyss: via negativa -- The dialectical abyss: the restless negative of Hegel -- The colonial abyss: groundlessness of being -- Creolizing cosmopolitics: poetics from the deep.

The covid-19 pandemic and the increasingly polarized political situation in many countries today have highlighted the significance of various humanly natural intellectual mistakes, cognitive biases, and widespread inferential errors. This essay examines, at a philosophical meta-level, the relation between our natural epistemic errors and the kind of humanly unavoidable transcendental illusion analyzed by Immanuel Kant in the Transcendental Dialectic of the First Critique. While both kinds of illusion are usually primarily discussed in an epistemological context, my approach is not exclusively (...) epistemic. Rather, my main argument extends the broadly Kantian critique of reason – as a critical via negativa focusing on what is epistemically “wrong” about us, as the kind of cognitive agents we human beings naturally are – into a pragmatically enriched investigation of “the negative” as constitutive of the human condition, that is, our lack of sufficiently critical epistemic and ethical capacities, including our propensity to both cognitive error and moral evil. Our being inescapably inclined to manifest such negativities in our epistemic and ethical lives, and our insufficient awareness of doing so, are, arguably, “transcendental facts” about us, to be critically examined in terms of a Kantian-cum-pragmatist philosophical anthropology. This significantly enriches our picture of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

In Section 1, I outline the history of natural law theory, covering Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. In Section 2, I explore two alternative traditions of natural law, and explain why these constitute rivals to the Aristotelian tradition. In Section 3, I go on to elaborate a via negativa along which natural law norms can be discovered. On this basis, I unpack what I call three 'experiments in being', each of which illustrates the cogency of this method. In (...) Section 4, I investigate and rebut two seminal challenges to natural law methodology, namely, the fact/value distinction in metaethics and Darwinian evolutionary biology. In Section 5, I then outline and criticise the 'new' natural law theory, which is an attempt to revise natural law thought in light of the two challenges above. I conclude, in Section 6, with a summary and some reflections on the prospects for natural law theory. (shrink)

This essay examines various contemporary artistic responses to climate change. These responses encompass multiple media and diverse philosophical and emotional forms, from grief and resignation to resistance, hope, and poignant celebration of spiritual value and natural beauty. Rejecting much of the terminology of current theory, the author considers the artworks in relation to interrelated and arguably unjustly discredited aesthetic and theological categories, namely, the sublime and the beautiful as well as the via negativa, the latter adapted from Thomas Aquinas (...) by theologian Matthew Fox. Art's power is seen largely as the ability to “humanize” the science by rendering it emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually relatable to individuals. The broken relationship between humanity and nature seems related to the need for a renewed religious sense of integration with, and belonging to, the cosmos. Art might play a pivotal role in bringing this about. (shrink)

En este artículo se presenta una nueva traducción al español del breve opúsculo De mystica theologia junto con una introducción al texto. La introducción se concentra en el análisis de algunos puntos que son especialmente útiles para entender el texto en cuestión: su historia y su significado para el neoplatonismo y, aun más importante, su relevancia en términos de una exposición sumamente original de la doctrina cristiana desde la perspectiva de un neoplatónico; la importancia de este texto en la filosofía (...) contemporánea también se hace notar; y, finalmente, su crucial importancia para la así llamada “teología negativa”. (shrink)

El presente artículo trata de superar la división entre una epistemología de virtudes confiabilista y otra responsabilista. En su lugar se presenta una visión orgánica del conocimiento humano. La visión orgánica –también denominada pre-cismática- articula aspectos confiabilistas y responsabilistas. Finalmente se discute un nuevo concepto: felicidad epistémica, que se justifica desde la perspectiva agentiva del conocimiento. Así, se sostiene que parece razonable pensar que el conocimiento es un tipo de acción cuyo fin último es la felicidad. Esta felicidad se puede (...) obtener por vía negativa –al no obtener una verdad pero sí una mejora de la situación epistémica- o por vía positiva, esto es, cuando se da en el blanco de la verdad. (shrink)

Terms such as ‘exist’, ‘actual’, etc., (hereafter, “ontic terms”) are recognized as having uses that are not ontologically committing, in addition to the usual commissive uses. (Consider, e.g., the Platonic and the neutral readings of ‘There is an even prime’.) In this paper, I identify five different noncommissive uses for ontic terms, and (by a kind of via negativa) attempt to define the commissive use, focusing on ‘actual’ as my example. The problem, however, is that the resulting definiens for (...) the commissive ‘actual’ is itself equivocal between a commissive and a noncommissive reading. I thus consider other proposals for defining the commissive use, including two proposals from David Lewis. However, each proposal is found to be equivocal in the same way—and eventually I argue that it is impossible to define an ontic term unequivocally. Even so, this is not meant to overshadow that we can understand an ontic term as univocally commissive, in certain conversational contexts. I close by illustrating the import of these observations for the Hirsch–Sider debate in metaontology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:From Epistemology to EthicsPaul D. NumrichThe evolution of the essays gathered here began as I pondered a popular article about contemporary science-religion dialogue some years ago. I was reminded that Christian notions provide the motivation, presuppositions, and conclusions for much of this dialogue and wondered, "How might things differ if Buddhism joined the conversation?" I later learned that others wondered likewise and that the John Templeton Foundation was willing (...) to fund a project to explore the contours of a Buddhism-Christianity-science dialogue.As important as all this was, the project took an early epistemological turn, to borrow a phrase from Mark T. Unno's chapter in the eventual edited volume, The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science.1 The project's advisors recommended that we not devolve into simplistic litanies of how the latest scientific theories confirm ancient religious wisdom or how religions might accommodate the latest scientific discoveries. They also counseled that we should avoid narrowly construed theoretical or doctrinal discussions. Instead, we should focus on "knowability" in science and religion. And we should challenge the hubris that claims to know everything—or everything that really matters—whether that hubris presumes to speak for science or for religion.The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science addresses the really big philosophical question "What can we know about reality?" and inquires into profound epistemological issues that cut across the worldviews of Buddhism, Christianity, and science: How do they explore the boundaries between the known and the unknown? What do they define as unknowable? How do they participate in the human quest for knowledge about reality? The volume goes beyond the usual fare in contemporary science-religion dialogue to explore how science and religion engage each other's attempts to understand reality.In the opening chapter, I ruminate on human knowledge generally. The other chapters move largely from Buddhism to Christianity to science, although several incorporate insights from more than one of these worldviews. Project advisor Roger Blomquist of Argonne National Laboratory suggested the important distinction between a boundary (which is movable) and a limit (which is fixed, i.e., the ultimate boundary). The frontiers of knowledge are often pushed back in both science and religion, yet these shifting boundaries exist within a larger fixed limit of human knowability. What Buddhists, Christians, and scientists do in the face of moveable boundaries within a fixed limit of knowability provides the intrigue of the volume. The contributors were not required to honor the distinction between moveable boundaries and a fixed limit. At times these terms are used interchangeably, at other times the distinction is implicitly called into question, thus adding to the volume's intrigue.The physicist-philosopher Niels Bohr (1885-1962) pondered the inherent inadequacy of conceptualization and language in apprehending and explaining reality. His assistant relates a discussion between Bohr and unnamed others: "He [Bohr] was forcefully stressing the primacy of language: 'Ultimately, we human beings depend on our words. We are hanging in language.' When it was objected that reality is more fundamental than language and lies beneath language, Bohr answered: 'We are suspended in language in such a way that we cannot say what is up and what is down.'"2Religions understand the human condition of being suspended in languages that cannot contain perceived realities. Hence their frequent use of metaphor, symbolism, via negativa statements, and the notion of "mystery." Here is a fruitful opening for dialogue between science and religion, offering an opportunity for mutual pondering of the limit of pondering. The volume presents Buddhism, Christianity, and science as case studies in the human endeavor to understand a reality tantalizingly beyond our ability to understand fully. It examines the epistemological conundrums at the boundaries and limit of human [End Page 161] knowledge, where at some point both conceptualization and language inevitably fail us.The essays gathered here were given in early versions at the 2009 annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. Paul O. Ingram and Dennis Hirota gave presentations based on their chapters in The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity, and Science, to which Sandra Costen Kunz and Amos Yong, respectively, gave responses. These four presentations... (shrink)

Ricoeur’s text divides into three parts corresponding to its title: the phenomenology of memory; the epistemology of history; and the hermeneutics of the human historical condition, its “emblem of vulnerability” being “forgetting”. That the words “memory” and “history” appear in the title proves unsurprising. But what of the title’s final word, “forgetting”? The putative “duty of memory” to “not forget” relegates forgetting to a via negativa, the “reverse side of memory”. Ricoeur, however, raises the prospect of a “right of (...) forgetting”, “a positive meaning” for forgetting that entails the “spirit of forgiveness” and “reconciliation”. By reconsidering forgetting, Ricoeur moves toward the praxis of forgiveness beyond epistemological reflections—including the phenomenology of memory and totalizing, Hegelian philosophies of history —and utilitarian ethico-politics, and redresses lacunae in Time and Narrative and Oneself as Another. (shrink)

Este artículo presenta algunas ideas de Alain Badiou sobre el arte contemporáneo. Marcel Duchamp, como bisagra entre arte moderno y arte contemporáneo desempeña un papel fundamental. El envés de la crítica de Badiou a algunos aspectos del arte contemporáneo reside en el afirmacionismo que el pensador francés entiende como destino del arte en tanto que proceso de subjetivación y fidelidad a una verdad (surgida, a su vez, de un acontecimiento), en absoluta precisión de toda definición de sí por vía (...) class='Hi'>negativa. (shrink)

Physicalism dominated Anglo‐American philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century, and is perhaps still the most popular view among analytic philosophers. Panpsychism is increasingly being seen as a serious option, both for explaining consciousness and for providing a satisfactory theory of the natural world. Perhaps the most popular form of panpsychism at present is constitutive panpsychism. At least some fundamental material entities are conscious; facts about human and animal consciousness are grounded in facts about the consciousness of their (...) fundamental material parts. This chapter equates panpsychism with constitutive panpsychism. In considering responses to the notorious combination problem for panpsychism, the chapter moves onto other forms of panpsychism to examine whether they fare any better against this challenge. It adopts the via negativa definition of physicalism. Panqualityism is the only form of panprotopsychism which offers a clear positive proposal as to what protophenomenal properties are. (shrink)

This essay argues for the necessity of a phenomenological perspective on mind and mental disorder while also emphasizing the inherent difficulty of adopting such an orientation. Here I adopt a via negativa approach—by considering three forms of error that the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty recognize as needing to be guarded against, lest they subvert the project of attaining an adequate understanding of consciousness or subjectivity: namely (1) prejudices deriving from theory and common sense, (2) distorting (...) effects of reflection, and (3) what Heidegger termed the forgetting of the ontological difference. Phenomenology insists on the importance of studying subjective life while also acknowledging the epistemological paradoxes inherent to this domain—a domain whose very self-evidence is inseparable from mystery, whose visibility conceals a deeper invisibility. I consider these issues in light of phenomenology’s relevance for certain issues in psychopathology and literary representation. (shrink)

For Damascius, the last great Neoplatonist of late Antiquity, the answer to the question “how to go beyond the plurality of human thought for the purpose of really attaining the one?” is not to be found on the side of the via negativa – which is the dynamics of a rejection of plurality –, but in a positive, unifying and integrative dialectic by which the plurality of the soul is not denied any more, but gathered, contracted and simplified in (...) an undifferentiated unity for the purpose of really attaining the one. Setting himself apart from his predecessors due to a new conception of the ‘one’ understood as ‘all(ness)’, Damascius aims to deconstruct, and then abandon, the via apophatica, for it becomes in his eyes an illusory, unsuitable and counterproductive way in the vertiginous ascent of the soul towards its origin. Indeed, a number of passages of his masterpiece, De Principiis, reveal his radically critical decision to reject the immoderate use of negative discourse to express the one, as well as the cathartic status and the anagogical purpose generally allowed to apophatism. It is stated here that ‘negation’ is only the reflection of our own cognitive powerlessness, a dangerous illegitimate (‘bastard’) reasoning, or simply an artifice of language, even if authorized in certain circumstances. Is the one not beyond any discourse, distinction and exclusion? Making obsolete any triumphalism of hyperapophatism, judged as unacceptable and contradictory, Damascius offers the human soul the promise of an authentic, as well as lucid anagogy towards the principle. (shrink)

Uno de los motivos recurrentes del pensamiento contemporáneo, es la indagación sobre el concepto, la representación y la valoración de la comunidad como una dimensión de la experiencia, en particular en su incidencia política/impolítica. Pero "comunidad" se ha manifestado como un "semantema" elusivo, es decir, una familia de nociones y asociaciones significativas, que abren y complejizan más y más la búsqueda de un concepto preciso, hasta empujarnos hacia las típicas "vías negativas" para la caracterización o definición del mismo. A modo (...) de hipótesis, sin pretender con ello construir un esquema abarcador, sostendré que hay un núcleo estético en ese semantema, aludiendo con "estética" a la presencia, en el punto pivote de la constelación que delimita "lo comunitario", de términos como sonido/silencio, diferencia, doble, forma, identidad, imagen y semejanza. Se trata mayormente, como es evidente, de significaciones construidas sobre los planos auditivo y visual de lo sensorio. Como una especificación de dicha hipótesis, ensayaré la elaboración de una noción de comunidad a partir de la pregunta acerca de cuándo hay comunidad. La respuesta a articular, es que hay comunidad cuando hay imagen, esto es, corporización de una semejanza y de un sentido, capaces de conjurar tanto la amenaza de lo informe como la de la forma sin semejanza. El fundamento último de esta hipótesis, es que nuestro ser-en-común originario toma consistencia en el plano de lo sensible porque se vincula a la insuficiencia de toda representación para subordinarlo a un concepto, pues se presenta aquí, entre comunidad y concepto, la misma distancia infranqueable que hay entre la existencia y su teorización. One of the recurrent motifs of contemporary thought is the inquiry about the concept, representation and valuation of community as a dimension of experience, particularly in its political/impolitic influence. But "community" has proved to be an elusive semanteme, i.e., a family of notions and significant associations that make the search for a precise concept very complex, pushing us to the typical "negative ways" for its characterization or definition. As a hypothesis, and with no intention of building an all-encompassing frame, I will hold that there is an aesthetic nucleus to this semanteme, understanding "aesthetic" as the presence of terms such as sound/silence, difference, double, shape, identity, image and likeness, occurring at the very pivot point of the constellation that defines "the communitarian". It refers mostly to significances related to the hearing and seeing senses. Following this hypothesis, I will try to define a notion of community answering the question of when a community occurs. The answer to this being that there is a community when there is an image; that is, the embodiment of a likeness and a sense that can thwart the threat of what is shapeless or of a shape with no likeness. The ultimate foundation of this hypothesis is that our original being-in-common becomes consistent to the senses because of its inability to subordinate to a concept, as happens with any representation, being the unbridgeable distance between community and its concept the same there is between existence and its theorization. (shrink)

Introduction: imagination and the prism of the inapparent -- 1. Via negativa and the imaginal configuring of God -- 2. Apophatic vision and overcoming the dialogical -- 3. Echo of the otherwise and the lure of theolatry -- 4. Secrecy of the gift and the gift of secrecy -- 5. Immanent atheology and the trace of transcendence -- 6. Undoing (k)not of apophaticism: a Heideggerian afterthought.

El presente ensayo se propone mostrar la filosofía política no normativa, sucontraste y diferencia con la filosofía política normativa desde la perspectivade laTeoría Crítica de la Sociedad. La idea básica que desarrolla es que laTeoría Crítica de la Sociedad contiene una filosofía política no normativa quese desprende de la crítica a la racionalidad y la lógica del dominio ligada a lainstrumentalización de la razón. Tal filosofía política procede por vía negativa,no parte de una situación no política a la instauración (...) de la sociedadpolítica y el Estado mediante un acuerdo o consenso, sino de los conflictose injusticias de la sociedad capitalista liberal al establecimiento de una sociedadracionalmente organizada; el texto profundiza en lo que llamo filosofíapolítica no normativa, frecuentemente olvidada y desechada en los debatesmás recientes de la filosofía política. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El presente artículo se centra en algunos de los aspectos centrales de la concepción heideggeriana de la indicación formal. Como es sabido, el filósofo toma como punto de partida en una de las más tempranas exposiciones de este metaconcepto, una explicación delimitativa frente a otras operaciones conceptuales. Se revisará críticamente la explicación que Heidegger hace de la generalización a diferencia de la formalización, destacando especialmente que no se trata aquí de una mera distinción entre generalización y formalización, sino de (...) una estructura de fundamentación. En segundo lugar se argumenta que la crítica de Heidegger no se dirige directamente contra la formalización, sino contra el contexto metódico al cual sirve. Por último, a modo de conclusión, se intenta mostrar que para Heidegger concebir la indicación formal como principio de la investigación fenomenológica, supone que ella es, por vía negativa, una radicalización de la tendencia a lo formal.ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to focus on central aspects of Heidegger's conception of the formal indication. An early Heideggerian exposition of this meta-concept take as starting point a differentiation from others conceptual operations. First, it will be critical discuss the exposition of the generalization. The main point is that the distinction of generalization and formalization is rather a foundational structure than a simple difference. This premise leads to the view that the Heidegger's critical attempt is not addressed to the formalization as such, but rather to the methodological context to which the formalization serves. Finally, based on this, it will be claimed that is a necessary condition for the determination of the formal indication as a methodological principle of the phenomenological investigation, that this meta-concept is a radical tendency toward the formal. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El presente artículo se centra en algunos de los aspectos centrales de la concepción heideggeriana de la indicación formal. Como es sabido, el filósofo toma como punto de partida en una de las más tempranas exposiciones de este metaconcepto, una explicación delimitativa frente a otras operaciones conceptuales. Se revisará críticamente la explicación que Heidegger hace de la generalización a diferencia de la formalización, destacando especialmente que no se trata aquí de una mera distinción entre generalización y formalización, sino de (...) una estructura de fundamentación. En segundo lugar se argumenta que la crítica de Heidegger no se dirige directamente contra la formalización, sino contra el contexto metódico al cual sirve. Por último, a modo de conclusión, se intenta mostrar que para Heidegger concebir la indicación formal como principio de la investigación fenomenológica, supone que ella es, por vía negativa, una radicalización de la tendencia a lo formal. ABSTRACT: The aim of this article is to focus on central aspects of Heidegger's conception of the formal indication. An early Heideggerian exposition of this meta-concept take as starting point a differentiation from others conceptual operations. First, it will be critical discuss the exposition of the generalization. The main point is that the distinction of generalization and formalization is rather a foundational structure than a simple difference. This premise leads to the view that the Heidegger's critical attempt is not addressed to the formalization as such, but rather to the methodological context to which the formalization serves. Finally, based on this, it will be claimed that is a necessary condition for the determination of the formal indication as a methodological principle of the phenomenological investigation, that this meta-concept is a radical tendency toward the formal. (shrink)

Taking into account Jones’s adoption of principles of modernist poetics—juxtaposition, allusion, and parataxis, all geared “to create newness”—this essay examines the theological ramifications for the poet’s breaking down, in his semi-autobiographical World War I poem, of modernist order and control. Jones unravels modernist aesthetics, conveying their inadequacy to the brutal realities of war. A space for religious belief appears through this process, but one not of heightened understanding; instead it is a via negativa, an unknowing, consonant with ideas from (...) medieval mysticism but applied to the modern Waste Land. This pattern is borne out in Jones’s handling of the medieval trope of “misadventure,” his references to Eliot, his play on the word “line,” and his development of the concept of “parenthesis.”. (shrink)