Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy – serie

In this volume, John Wippel has collected a number of his essays dealing with Aquinas's metaphysical thought. The volume begins with a presentation and critical evaluation of certain twentieth-century attempts to describe the philosophical thought of Thomas Aquinas as a "Christian philosophy." The book is then divided into two major parts, with Part I devoted to Aquinas's usage of Avicenna in explaining the interrelationship between first philosophy and the other theoretical sciences, Aquinas's different reasons for naming metaphysics "first philosophy," and his appeal to a distinctive kind of intellectual operation—separation—in order to account for our discovery of being as being, or the subject of metaphysics.The chapters in Part II are directed to Thomas's argumentation for real distinction between essence and existence in created beings both as this is presented in the De ente et essentia and in many of his other writings. Thomas's views concerning the ontological status of nonexisting possibles are examined in a following chapter, along with the positions of Henry of Ghent and Godfrey of Fontaines. Chapters are then devoted to Aquinas's positions concerning the possibility of an eternally created universe, and our capacity to arrive at quidditative knowledge of God in the present life. A final chapter concentrates on the issues of divine knowledge, divine power, and human freedom in Aquinas and in Henry of Ghent.

In thirteen original essays, eminent scholars of the history of philosophy and of contemporary philosophy examine weakness of will, or incontinence - the phenomenon of acting contrary to one's better judgment. The volume covers all major periods of western philosophy, from antiquity through the Middle Ages and the modern period down to the present.Alfred Mele and Alasdair MacIntyre examine weakness of will from a contemporary perspective. Mele addresses the issue from the vantage point of Libertarianism. MacIntyre argues against the widespread view that actions that are out of character require special explanation, and reinterprets weakness of will as a failure to use moral lapses for moral progress. The other authors critically engage accounts of weakness of will by past philosophers: Kenneth Dorter writes on Plato, Terence H. Irwin on Aristotle, Lloyd Gerson on Plotinus, James Wetzel on Augustine, Denis J. M. Bradley on Aquinas, Tobias Hoffmann on Henry of Ghent, Giuseppe Mazzotta on Dante, Ann Hartle on Montaigne, John C. McCarthy on Descartes, Thomas E. Hill Jr. on Kant, and Tracey B. Strong on Nietzsche.The philosophical examination of weakness of will highlights central problems of action theory, such as the connections between desire, conviction, and action, between intellect and will, and between rationality and emotions. It also addresses important ethical issues such as the diversity of character dispositions, moral progress and moral education, the limits of virtue, and moral responsibility.The historical and contemporary perspectives offered in this volume will enrich current debates, not only by suggesting answers, but also by broadening the usual range of questions about weakness of will. Owing to the intimate connection of the topic with other key themes in moral philosophy, the historical and thematic studies contained in this book also provide an overview of moral philosophy as a whole.

This volume gathers studies by prominent scholars and philosophers about the question how have major figures from the history of philosophy, and some contemporary philosophers, addressed ""the ultimate why question"": why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever? The authors take this question seriously, striving to go beyond accounting for the present state of reality as distinguished from a prior or subsequent state, to the more profound question of discerning why anything whatsoever exists.The responses are varied: Lloyd P. Gerson considers Greek philosophy, and May Sim examines Chinese philosophy. Jon McGinnis explores a leading medieval Muslim philosopher, Avicenna, and volume editor John F. Wippel explores a leading medieval Christian philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. These chapters are followed by four responses from the modern period: Tad M. Schmaltz on Descartes; Daniel Dahlstrom on Leibniz, especially as he is understood by Heidegger; Edward C. Halper on Hegel; and, finally, Holger Zaborowski on F. W. J. Schelling. The final section of the book contains personal responses proposed by three contemporary thinkers who have addressed the problem in very different ways--Robert Cummings Neville, Brian Martine, and Nicholas Rescher. Readers will gain a greater understanding and appreciation of an issue that has taxed the ingenuity of many philosophers through the centuries and continues to intrigue many thinkers today.

Metaphysics, the science of being as being, is the subject of this volume composed in honour of John F. Wippel, the Theodore Basselin Professor of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America, and an internationally prominent metaphysician and expert in medieval philosophy. Scholars present studies on key philosophical and historical issues in the field. Though varied, the investigations address three major metaphysical themes: the subject matter of metaphysics, metaphysical aporiae, and philosophical theology.Robert Sokolowski considers the historical recapitulation of the phrase ""the science of being as being""; Dominic O'Meara focuses on the development of this science in late antiquity; Jan A. Aertsen asks why the medievals called it ""First Philosophy""; and Andreas Speer returns to the origins of metaphysical discourse for a better understanding of contemporary metaphysical issues. Gregory T. Doolan examines difficulties concerning Aquinas's metaphysics of substance; Jorge Gracia looks to the tradition of scholastic philosophy to examine the individuality and individuation of race; and James Ross argues against the modal ontologies of the twentieth century, showing that metaphysical possibility depends on the existence of a free, divine creator. Stephen F. Brown considers Godfrey of Fontaines on the role of metaphysics in revealed theology; John F. Wippel examines Aquinas on the ""preambles of faith,"" those doctrines presupposed by faith that can also be proven philosophically; Brian J. Shanley addresses Aquinas's philosophical views on providence; Eleonore Stump, looking to Aquinas as well, shows how God can be personally present to human beings; and Marilyn McCord Adams offers a metaphysical consideration of the Christian doctrine of resurrection.

This volume contains eleven articles and book chapters written by John Wippel since the publication of his Metaphysical Themes in Thomas Aquinas in 1984. Many of them have also been published since the completion of his The Metaphysical Thought of Thomas Aquinas: From Finite Being to Uncreated Being. It is intended to serve as a complement to but not as a substitute for those volumes.The essays considered in this volume range widely over many different topics such as the possibility of a Christian philosophy from a Thomistic perspective, the Latin Avicenna as a source for Aquinas's metaphysics, truth in Thomas Aquinas (including truth in the intellect and truth of being), and Platonism and Aristotelianism in Aquinas's metaphysics. Several of them consider certain important axioms or adages used by Aquinas in developing his metaphysical thought, and still another investigates Aquinas's intention in writing his Commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics.Others examine Aquinas's views on whether created agents can cause esse, whether divine omnipotence can be demonstrated philosophically, and whether Aquinas has successfully shown on philosophical grounds that God is free to create or whether because of his goodness he had to create. All of them are concerned in one way or another with important aspects of Aquinas's metaphysics.Wippel bases his interpretations on a close reading of Aquinas's texts, taking into account certain difficulties that arise from some of those texts, along with other current and sometimes quite divergent readings. While Wippel argues for a strong Platonic-Neoplatonic influence on Aquinas's metaphysics along with the widely recognized influence of Aristotle, he concludes that Aquinas's metaphysics cannot be reduced to any of these earlier sources but is a truly original production by Thomas himself.

How do we understand the notions of the beautiful, the true, and the good, and how do they help us to know, to understand? Philosopher Robert E. Wood considers appeal respectively to the heart, to the intellect, and to the will. In our minds, their interplay beckons each of us to assimilate one’s past, and look forward towards further endeavours. They also set up what Wood calls a ""dialogical imperative"" to speak from where we stand and to stand in place of the Other, the person facing us, as well. The order follows Plato's claim that the love of Beauty is the light of the Good that grounds our pursuit of the True.Human experience, according to Wood, has a ""magnetically bipolar"" character, rooted in organically based desires. Yet that experience is aimed, through the all-encompassing notion of Being, at the absolute totality of what is. The notion of Being affords a distance that grounds both understanding and choice. Culture enters in as well. Its developments, initially empty in relation to the totality, come to occupy the space of meaning between the here-and-now and the totality. Each human being's genetic endowments interplay with one's cultural shaping. Taking them up, each individual sets up a unique field of attractions and repulsions belonging to the heart as one’s radically individual center.Wood proceeds from this phenomenological basis to consider key thinkers from Heraclitus and Parmenides, to Heidegger, Buber, and Marcel. He seeks, in this collection of essays from the past forty years, to develop a ""fusion of horizons"" with them, as part of an on-going broader philosophical dialogue that constitutes the history of thought, now and to come.

In this volume, distinguished philosopher Antonio S. Cua offers a collection of original studies on Xunzi, a leading classical Confucian thinker, and on other aspects of Chinese philosophy. While each essay individually makes an important contribution to the study of Chinese philosophy, the book as a whole represents a major scholarly achievement.In the first part of the book, Cua focuses on Xunzi. Although the topic of human nature is a recurrent concern for Xunzi, recent studies have neglected to analyze the key notions and arguments that he offers. Cua shows that Xunzi deserves attention from moral philosophers, not only because of the clarity and depth of his thought, but also for the ways in which he focused on language and for his method of presenting theses dealing with the relation between morality and human nature; the significance of ritual for governance in a civilized community; the ethical uses of history; the possibility of ethical knowledge; and honor and shame.The second part of the book deals with key aspects of Chinese philosophy and the Confucian vision. Cua discusses the emergence of Chinese philosophy; the notion of practical causation presupposed in Confucian ethics; implications for the quality of human life in the context of environmental ethics; the problem of moral failure; and metaphysical grounding of Confucian ethics.Throughout the book, the methodology exemplifies a constructive interpretation and analysis of major concepts. Cua's work offers new opportunities for the study and development of Chinese philosophy.

This volume in the Studies in Philosophy and the History of Philosophy series contains thirteen essays by Lawrence Dewan on metaphysics, the vision of reality from the viewpoint of being. While they take the form of interpretations of the thought of Thomas Aquinas, they are meant as a contribution to perennial philosophy, truth that transcends particular cultures and eras.Written over a period of 25 years, they range from an overall conception of the primary philosophical wisdom, to such particular subjects as the conception of substance in an evolutionary context; the natural seed of intellectual knowledge within the human being; the principle of causality; the immortality of the soul; and the real distinction between particular form and the act of being, crucial for our understanding of reality as created.The method combines close readings of and reflections on the texts of Thomas Aquinas and other relevant thinkers. Because the essays were written largely in response to the work of several prominent twentieth-century metaphysicians, they regularly offer alternative views on extremely fundamental issues.The distinctive contribution of this volume is its focus on the role of form among the various items in the ontological analysis. The most prominent Thomistic metaphysicians in the twentieth century laid great stress on the role of the act of being. Dewan's essays present what is essentially the same picture, but in a way that emphasizes the continuity between Christian philosophers and their predecessors in ancient Greece.

Kenneth Schmitz has spent an illustrious career as a philosopher striving to unite what Hegel called the ""being of the ancients""--their deep engagement with metaphysics--to ""the subjectivity of the moderns""--the modern concern with the interior life and historical particularity of human beings. Schmitz has sought to show how these concerns are two aspects of one ""single philosophical life"" which, far from being a pointless exercise, reflects an intellectually and spiritually fruitful human existence.In this volume, Schmitz brings his encyclopedic knowledge of the Western philosophical tradition to bear in a wide-ranging series of essays grouped under three headings: Being, Man, and God. He brings disparate philosophical traditions into conversation, such as classical Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics, the modern critical rationalism of Kant, the idealist synthesis of Hegel, the postmodern deconstructionism of Derrida and Foucault, and the personalist phenomenology of Scheler, Von Hildebrand, and Wojtyla.Schmitz explores re-situating classical metaphysics, with its confidence in the human ability to reach speculative truth, into a post-Enlightenment world that rejects the possibility, yet which values human interior richness. Schmitz believes, for instance, that we can have meaningful discourse about God's existence and about the role of beauty in helping us recognize that being is a gift received.Diverse in topics yet unified in purpose, this volume brings together Schmitz's penetrating and rich insight into being, produced over many years, to offer readers a magisterial study from one of the great Christian philosophers of our time.

The number of open and controversial questions in contemporary Heidegger research continues to be a source of scholarly dialogue. There are important questions that concern the development, as it were, of his thought and the differences and similarities between his early main work Being and Time and his later so-called being-historical thought, the thinking of the event, or appropriation, of Being. There are questions that focus on his relation to important figures in the history of ideas such as the pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, the German idealists, and Nietzsche. Other questions focus on his biography, on his rectorate and on his relation to politics in general and to National Socialism in particular or on his influence on subsequent philosophers. The contributions to this volume, written by leading scholars in the field of Heidegger research, address many of these questions in close readings of Heidegger’s texts and thus provide sound orientation in the field of contemporary Heidegger research. They show how the different trajectories of Heidegger’s thought—his early interest in the meaning of Being and in Dasein, his discussion of, and involvement with, politics, his understanding of art, poetry, and technology, his concept of truth and the idea of a history of Being—all converge at one point: the question of Being. It thus becomes clear that, all differences notwithstanding, Heidegger followed one very consistent path of thinking.

Immanuel Kant's ""critical philosophy"" is rightly renowned for its criticism of the metaphysical pretensions of reason unaided by experience. It therefore seems ironic that, within a single generation, some of Kant's most important followers argued that the critical philosophy could be made fully critical only by recourse to the very metaphysical themes that Kant had apparently criticized. The story of the emergence of German Idealism (from its beginnings in Kant to its apparent consummation in Hegel) has never been fully told. The story is full of tensions, contradictions, and reversals, all of which seemingly conspire to render a meaningful and unified account impossible.While defying any simple or simplistic explanation, the various and sometimes conflicting impulses that led to the emergence of German Idealism together constitute an intelligible and rich line of development. In this volume, an international group of leading scholars shows how the various aspirations at work in the emergence of German Idealism—moral, religious, aesthetic, political, and epistemological—can be understood as both consummating and overcoming Kant's critical philosophy. The volume also includes a chronology of the major works in the development of German Idealism, as well as a new translation of the seminal and still-controversial essay, ""The Earliest System Programme of German Idealism.

The essays in this volume pose the question common usage has obscured: was ""the Enlightenment"" truly enlightened or enlightening? Scholarly investigation has sometimes avoided the question by confining itself to historical particulars of 18th-century Europe. Yet the most visible proponents of the Enlightenment, the ""philosophers"", insisted that their project originated a century earlier, in the writings of the first self-proclaimed modern ""philosophers"". This volume seeks philosophical clarity of modernity's enlightenment by beginning with Bacon, Descartes and Hobbes. Consideration of Pascal, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Roussea, Lessing and Kant - all philosophical critics, or reformers, of the Enlightenment - furthers the study of its legacy by displaying its diversity. Finally, the book indicates the Enlightenment's vitality by outlining ways it continues to hold philosophical sway in this century. The contributors discuss several themes pertaining to the ambition of Enlightenment reason: justice, tradition and authority; the mastery of nature; metaphysics and scientific method; enlightened and unenlightened ""dogmatism""; the utilitarian revision of the common good and the commonly true; Christianity and the limits of enlightened theology; ""theodicy""; aesthetics and political rhetoric; myth, history and human freedom.

This volume offers a comprehensive philosophical study of Confucian ethics-its basic insights and its relevance to contemporary Western moral philosophy. Distinguished writer and philosopher A. S. Cua presents fourteen essays which deal with various problems arising in the philosophical explication of the nature of Chinese ethical thought. Offering a unique analytical approach, Cua focuses on the conceptual and dialectical aspects of Confucian ethics. Among the topics discussed are: the nature and significance of the Chinese Confucian moral vision of tao; the complementary insights of Classical Taoism, namely of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu; and the logical and rhetorical aspects of Confucian ethics. Perhaps more relevant to contemporary East-West ethical discourse, several essays present an introduction to a systematic Confucian moral philosophy. Cua explains the idea of a living, Confucian, ethical tradition and highlights the problem of interpreting the cardinal concepts of Confucian ethics as an ethics of virtue. Much of the effort is spent in shaping concepts such as jen (humanity), I (rightness), and li (ritual propriety) in the light of the Confucian ideal or vision of tao. Cua concludes with a discussion of the possibility of reasoned discourse, aiming at a resolution of intercultural, ethical conflict. This book will appeal to a broad spectrum of scholars interested in ethics, Chinese philosophy, comparative Chinese and Western ethical thought, and Confucianism.

This study of the questions of final causality is arranged in historical order from Aristotle to contemporary anthropic-principle cosmology. It discusses such teleological issues as chance and providence, and Aristotle's definition of nature in relation to extrinsic efficient and final causes.

This volume presents 15 studies occasioned by the 500th anniversary of the European discovery of America. It covers both the initial encounters between the Europeans and native Americans and the golden age of Hispanic philosophy that followed the discovery - specifically between 1500 and 1650.

The ten essays in this collection approach the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas not merely as an object of scholarly interest but also as a framework for addressing perennial philosophical questions, even as they are raised and debated in our own times. The first five articles are expositions of important philosophical themes as developed in Aquinas's own works. In the last five, the authors bring Aquinas's thought to bear on contemporary philosophical discussions of metaphysical, ethical, and social issues.

Consisting of nine studies, this volume presents a series of specific insights on Aristotle's influence from Plotinus through Arabic thought.

Provides commentary on prominent philosophers on important philosophical themes. ""These unusual and exquisite essays focus on a problem or a text with extraordinary acuity"".

Natural theology, which suffered significantly in the eighteenth century as a result of the criticisms of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, appeared to be a terminal patient in the mid-twentieth century in the 1960s, however philosophers and theologians began to give renewed attention to the kinds of issues that natural theology was intended to address. During the past decade, the interest in natural theology - its place and role in discussions of religious knowledge - has reached new heights. This collection of essays provides a sample of the current status of natural theology among scholars.

This volume presents new work in history and historiography to the increasingly broad audience for studies of the history and philosophy of science. These essays are linked by a concern to understand the context of early modern science in its own context. The papers presented in this volume form four goups. The first two essays address historiographical questions concerning the role of institutions such as universities and scientific academies in the founding of modern science. Mordecahi Feingold substantially qualifies the thesis that universities were the centers of resistance to the new science. David Lux examines the pervasive influence of Martha Ornstein's work concerning 17th-century scientific societies. The second group of essays extends the range of historical studies into generally neglected areas of science. Harold Cook's essay provides an entry into a range of issues connecting medicine and other sciences. Roger Ariew's paper reminds us that astronomy and physics were by no means the exclusive interests of those now remembered as founders of modern physics. The third section of essays is in more traditional areas of interest to historicans and philosophers of science but offers distinctly novel conclusions. Alan Gabbey provides the first modern treatment of a central problem in heliocentric astronomy and cosmology - the nature of the moon's motion. Jospeh Pitt offers a unique picture of the relationship between Bellarmine and Galileo. Bernard Goldstein punctures one of the great myths of the Copernican revolution: Alfonso of Castile's supposed dissatisfaction with the Ptolemaic tradition. Finally, the last group presents papers on early modern mathematics. Francois de Gandt examines Cavalieri's mathematical practice during the period of the development of calculus. Emily Grosholz considers the mathematical practice of Descartes and demonstrates that Descartes' own mathematical ideals were an impediment to the full utilization of the mathematical resources exploited by his successors.

The 13 essays in this collection are marked by a diversity of philosophical styles and perspectives on art. While some authors focus on specific forms of art, others are more concerned with the interpretation given to art by past and contemporary philosophers and artists. In some essays nothing less than the outline of a systematic account of the arts is ventured, even as other authors raised the question of the very possibility of such interpretations or argue for the conditions that must be met by an adequate account or evaluation of the arts. Yet, in one way or another, all the essays address the question of specifying the distinctiveness of artworks or art itself.

The present volume is a collection of systematic and historical studies addressing the terms of Aristotelian inference.

Brings together a lifetime of work on the problems presented by the notion of a Christian philosophy, debates whether a Christian philosophy is possible, and outlines the steps for its development.

Collected essays of Prof. Henry B. Veatch, distinguished philosopher and teacher. Examines a variety of topics, including the works of Quine, Rorty, Gewirth, and Finnis as well as a variety of topics such as ethical egoism, libertarianism, the works of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, ethics, the study of the humanities, and the nature of natural law.

A collection of papers meant to illustrate the richness of Edmund Husserl's own work and the tradition he began.

Brings together articles that influenced the scholarly work of Ralph McInerny.

The philosophy of nature is a field of inquiry which had been a casualty of the increasing and dominant acceptance from the early 19th century of the conception of physics as a mechanics.