Analogies between hearing and seeing already existed in ancient Greek theories of perception. The present paper follows the evolution of such analogies until the rise of 17th century optics, with due regard to the diversity of their origins and nature but with particular emphasis on their bearing on the physical concepts of light and sound. Whereas the old Greek analogies were only side effects of the unifying concepts of perception, the analogies of the 17th century played an important role in (...) constructing optical theories by imitation of acoustic theories, or vice versa. This transition depended on several factors including the changing relations between optics, music, mathematics, and physics, the diversity of early modern concepts of sound, and the rise of a new physics based on experimentation and mechanical explanation. (shrink)

Analogies between hearing and seeing already existed in ancient Greek theories of perception. The present paper follows the evolution of such analogies until the rise of 17th century optics, with due regard to the diversity of their origins and nature but with particular emphasis on their bearing on the physical concepts of light and sound. Whereas the old Greek analogies were only side effects of the unifying concepts of perception, the analogies of the 17th century played an important role in (...) constructing optical theories by imitation of acoustic theories, or vice versa. This transition depended on several factors including the changing relations between optics, music, mathematics, and physics, the diversity of early modern concepts of sound, and the rise of a new physics based on experimentation and mechanical explanation. (shrink)

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit literature to articulate the paradox of God’s oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda and vivartavāda. These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. In Part I, having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle vis-à-vis creation (...) in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, I investigate instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres, and especially in Śaiva literature from South and Southeast Asia, to highlight the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on the Śaiva textual corpus. Arguing that the distribution of the two pairs of analogies may cast some light on the relationship between different strands of dualistic and non-dualistic scriptures, I propose that the first pair could be traced back to the “formative” period of Śaivism—that is, prior to the emergence of the fully dualistic Śaiva Saiddhāntika corpus known to us. (shrink)

This article, divided into two parts, traces and discusses two pairs of analogies invoked in Sanskrit literature to articulate the paradox of God’s oneness and multiplicity vis-à-vis the souls and the manifest world, reflecting the philosophical positions of pariṇāmavāda and vivartavāda. These are, respectively, the analogies of fire in wood and dairy products in milk, and moon/sun in pools of water and space in pots. Having introduced prevalent ideas about the status of the supreme principle vis-à-vis the souls and creation (...) in Śaivism, Sāṅkhya, and Vedānta, and having investigated instances of the first pair of analogies in multiple textual genres in Part I, here I turn to the discussion of the second set of analogies. Having proposed that the first set reflects the influence of pariṇāma-Vedānta on an early strand of the Śaiva textual corpus, I argue that the second set, attested prevalently in relatively late sources, betrays a Śaṅkarian origin, thereby suggesting a vivartavāda-Advaita Vedānta influence on the Śaiva corpus after the 9th or 10th century. (shrink)

The term ‘bioethics’ is commonly associated with debates prompted by innovations in medical technology, yet the issues raised by bioethics are not new. They concern the extent to which medicine and social morality exist in harmony or opposition — issues routinely addressed in the social history of medicine. This paper will argue that historical thinking, understood broadly, has a significant role to play in understanding relations between medicine and social morality, and therefore in contemporary bioethics. It explores past and present (...) uses of metaphor and analogy in shaping perceptions of scientific innovation, and argues for the validity of apparently anachronistic thinking in our judgments of the past. The aims of the paper are ultimately pedagogical: to enable students to look at media reports about developments in medicine and biotechnology in order to problematise what are presented as the self-evident terms of current debate. (shrink)

This chapter aims to shed new light on the arguments and philosophical significance of Kant’s Universal Natural History by examining the work’s natural-philosophical methodology. The 1755 cosmological treatise, Kant asserts, follows “the leading thread of analogy”. After introducing the work’s main cosmological analogy, I examine the historical context of Kant’s analogical method. The most relevant context, I argue, is not the prior tradition of cosmology and natural history but rather works of scientific methodology and logic. Next, to better (...) understand and assess the principal analogy of the Universal Natural History, I outline Kant’s later theories of analogy. Kant distinguishes between analogies of similarity and fourfold analogies of proportion; the latter are concerned not with things but with relations. Analogies of proportion are further subdivided into inferential and non-inferential analogies. Based on these distinctions, I propose an interpretation of the kind of analogical reasoning that is employed in the Universal Natural History. (shrink)

This paper investigates conceptions of explanation, teleology, and analogy in the works of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Richards (2000, 2002) and Zammito (2006, 2012, 2018) have argued that Kant’s philosophy provided an obstacle for the project of establishing biology as a proper science around 1800. By contrast, Russell (1916), Outram (1986), and Huneman (2006, 2008) have argued, similar to suggestions from Lenoir (1989), that Kant’s philosophy influenced the influential naturalist Georges Cuvier. In this article, I wish (...) to expand on and further the work of Russell, Outram, and Huneman by adopting a novel perspective on Cuvier and considering (a) the similar conceptions of proper science and explanation of Kant and Cuvier, and (b) the similar conceptions of the role of teleology and analogy in the works of Kant and Cuvier. The similarities between Kant and Cuvier show, contrary to the interpretation of Richards and Zammito, that some of Kant’s philosophical ideas, whether they derived from him or not, were fruitfully applied by some life scientists who wished to transform life sciences into proper sciences around 1800. However, I also show that Cuvier, in contrast to Kant, had a workable strategy for transforming the life sciences into proper sciences, and that he departed from Kant’s philosophy of science in crucial respects. (shrink)

In contrast to the previously widespread view that Kant's work was largely in dialogue with the physical sciences, recent scholarship has highlighted Kant's interest in and contributions to the life sciences. Scholars are now investigating the extent to which Kant appealed to and incorporated insights from the life sciences and considering the ways he may have contributed to a new conception of living beings. The scholarship remains, however, divided in its interest: historians of science are concerned with the content of (...) Kant's claims, and the ways in which they may or may not have contributed to the emerging science of life, while historians of philosophy focus on the systematic justifications for Kant's claims, e.g., the methodological and theoretical underpinnings of Kant's statement that living beings are mechanically inexplicable. My aim in this paper is to bring together these two strands of scholarship into dialogue by showing how Kant's methodological concerns (specifically, his notion of reflective judgment) contributed to the ontological concern with life as a distinctive object of study. I argue that although Kant's explicit statement was that biology could not be a science, his implicit and more fundamental claim was that the study of living beings necessitates a distinctive mode of thought, a mode that is essentially analogical. I consider the implications of this view, and argue that it is by developing a new methodology for grasping organized beings that Kant makes his most important contribution to the new science of life. (shrink)

Historically, many Christians have understood God’s transcendence to imply God’s properties categorically differ from any created properties. For multiple historical figures, a problem arose for religious language: how can one talk of God at all if none of our predicates apply to God? What are we to make of creeds and Biblical passages that seem to predicate creaturely properties, such as goodness and wisdom, of God? Thomas Aquinas offered a solution: God is to be spoken of only through analogy (...) (the doctrine of analogy). Gavin Hyman argues Aquinas’s doctrine of analogy was neglected prior to the early-modern period and the neglect of analogy produced the conception of a god vulnerable to atheistic arguments. Contra Hyman, in this paper, I show early-modern atheism arose in a theological context in which there was an active debate concerning analogy. Peter Browne (1665–1735) and William King (1650–1729) offered two competing conceptions of analogical predication that were debated through the 19th century, with interlocutors such as the freethinker Anthony Collins (1676–1729), theologian/philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), and skeptic David Hume (1711–1776). Lastly, I discuss the 18th century debate over theological analogy as part of the background relevant to understanding Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

This article offers a comparative study of the views of Alexis de Tocqueville and those of several Chinese thinkers of the late Ming dynasty (1368–1644)—primarily Gu Yanwu, Huang Zongxi, Wang Fuzhi—on the socio-political processes of centralization. My central claim is that their views of political centralization and of the decentralized polycentric society that preceded it in their respective countries exhibit a remarkable array of analogous structural features. More specifically, both Tocqueville and his Chinese counterparts perceive in centralization an inherent unsustainability (...) driven by its self-destructive nature: since the foundation and strength of statism depends on its social resources, the centralization of power inevitably results in the weakening of its own basis. I conclude that through their nuanced reinterpretation of self-interest, both parties advocate a “small-community-oriented communitarianism” instead of the increasingly centralized modern state. (shrink)

This paper examines the argument that moral approval of homosexuality is analogous to the early church's inclusion of gentiles. The analogy has a long but often overlooked history, dating back to the start of the modern gay-rights movement. It has recently gained greater prominence because of its importance to the Episcopal Church's debate with the wider Anglican Communion. Beginning with the Episcopal Church argument, we see that there are five specific areas most in need of further clarification. In this (...) essay I examine significant uses of the analogy from the prior 25 years to see how effectively they address these five areas. I conclude that the conversation surrounding the Gentile Analogy is the current, best hope for mutual understanding among Christians about homosexuality. However, if the analogy is to advance the Christian conversation, much greater care and precision is needed in its application from traditionalists and revisionists alike. (shrink)

The present article is the first to investigate in any detail the plant–animal analogies that are integral to Nehemiah Grew's Anatomy of Plants (1682). It focuses on three analogies that Grew used (either productively or critically) to produce novel accounts of vegetative processes: those between sperm and pollen, blood and sap, and mouths and roots. I suggest that Grew's analogical approach and specific mappings allowed him, on the one hand, to “see” plant features and functions that other botanists had overlooked, (...) and, on the other, to determine when the analogies that other botanists deployed did not convincingly describe observable phenomena. On this basis, I argue, he was able to present what he, and several contemporaries, considered to be more accurate accounts of the nature of the vegetative parts and processes in question. More broadly, the article seeks to show that the analogical and observational were complementary aspects of Grew's method, and that, far from hindering his empirical endeavour, his analogies were crucial to it. (shrink)

"Advocates of the evolutionary analogy claim that mechanisms governing scientific change are analogous to those at work in organic evolution - above all, natural selection. By referring to the works of the most influential proponents of evolutionary analogies (Toulmin, Campbell, Hull and, most notably, Kuhn) the authors discuss whether and to what extent their use of the analogy is appropriate. A careful and often illuminating perusal of the theoretical scope of the terms employed, as well as of the (...) varying contexts within which the analogy is appealed to in contemporary debates, leads to the conclusion that such general theories of selective processes are either too sketchy or eventually not persuasive, if not altogether based on flawed views of evolutionary biology. By clarifying what is at stake, the analysis carried out in the book sheds new light on one of the dominant theories of scientific progress. It also invites criticism, of course - but that is the very fuel of philosophical confrontation." - Stefano Gattei, IMT Institute for Advanced Studies, Lucca "This book presents a serious challenge to those, like David Hull, who seek to model scientific change as an evolutionary process. The authors point out that although there are similarities between the processes of scientific change and organic evolution, the dissimilarities present formidable difficulties to construing the relation as anything more than a weak analogy. Their argument employs what they call a 'type hierarchical' approach that promises to be a powerful tool for the classification of similarities between theories in all fields." - Michael Bradie, Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University "This is a most interesting discussion of the analogy between biological and scientific change. Particularly commendable is the close attention paid to the thinking of the late David Hull and his pathbreaking work on this issue." - Michael Ruse, History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University. (shrink)

The usefulness of “analogy” as an epistemological tool was at the center of a Victorian debate over the nature of historical knowledge. While researching one of her novels, George Eliot combined her obsession with historical veracity with a belief in the efficacy of analogical reasoning in the generation of historical knowledge to create a method of imaginative representation that was meant to advance our understanding of the past. Her work, along with that of her companion, G.H. Lewes, constituted a (...) rejection of the ascendant view that history needed to become an austere, inductive science, advanced by J.S. Mill, H.T. Buckle, and William Stubbs. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to the concept of analogy. We consider the peculiarities of its use in the history of philosophy, starting from Antiquity, from the school of Pythagoras, which is associated with the origin of this term. The use of analogy by Plato, Aristotle, Renaissance and Modern philosophers is discussed. The definition of analogical inference as a special type of plausible inference is given. The types of analogical inference and the corresponding examples are listed. We also consider (...) the use of reasoning by analogy in the field of mathematics, law, and in scientific research in general. Modeling as one of the most effective research methods is directly related to analogy. Analogy is based on the concept of similarity, and it has its own specifics in various scientific fields. In mathematics and logic, similarity is expressed in concepts such as isomorphism and homomorphism. The analysis of these concepts is provided in the corresponding section. Bionics is based on the analogy between living organisms and technological devices. Some examples of inventions, which were motivated by bionics ideas, are given. The paper also raises the question about the relationship of such concepts as analogy and metaphor, and indicates their essential differences. (shrink)

Analogies are partial similarities between different situations that support further inferences. Specifically, analogy is a kind of similarity in which the same system of relations holds across different objects. Analogies thus capture parallels across different situations.

Being is simultaneously knowing and unknown, rooted in man's spirit-matter composition. The dynamic unity in diversity provides the fundamental _Schwebe (oscillation, tension) of thought. In it sensibility is one with and diverse from intellection. In intellection form is diverse from and identical with _esse. Being's grade of self-presence grounds objective analogy to which corresponds the subjective analogy of sensibility, abstraction, and judgment. These operations reflect the ways of affirmation, negation, and eminence. A unity in diversity exists among sensibility, (...) abstraction, and judgment. Rahner emphasizes identity or diversity according to need, but stressing judgment, he risks relativizing formal abstraction. (shrink)

At the beginning of his influential De Nominum Analogia, Thomas de Vio Cajetan mentions three mistaken positions on analogy. He does not attach names to these positions, but each one was held by distinguished Thomists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Furthermore, their proponents were responding to the same set of challenges from John Duns Scotus that set the agenda for the De Nominum Analogia. In this paper, I would like to do something that Cajetan did not do, and (...) that is, directly consider the merits of the first position in his list of mistaken accounts of analogy; namely, the position that analogy is constituted by disjunction. More specifically, this paper investigates the polemical use for which Hervaeus Natalis deployed analogy of disjunction; the reply of John Duns Scotus; and the implications of this back and forth for understanding the Thomist-Scotist dispute over the concept of being. (shrink)

Ethnographic analogy, the use of comparative data from anthropology to inform reconstructions of past human societies, has a troubled history. Archaeologists often express concern about, or outright reject, the practice—and sometimes do so in problematically general terms. This is odd, as the use of comparative data in archaeology is the same pattern of reasoning as the ‘comparative method’ in biology, which is a well-developed and robust set of inferences which play a central role in discovering the biological past. In (...) pointing out this continuity, I argue that there is no ‘special pleading’ on the part of archaeologists in this regard: biologists must overcome analogous epistemic difficulties in their use of comparative data. I then go on to emphasize the local, empirically tractable ways in which particular ethnographic analogies may be licensed. (shrink)

From the political point of view, European Union (EU) integration implies some kind of unity in the community constituted by EU citizens. Unity is difficult to attain if the diversity of citizens (and their nations) is to be respected. A thick bond that melts members' diversity into a 'European pot' is therefore out of the question. On the other hand, giving up unity altogether makes political integration impossible. Through a meta-theoretical analysis of normative positions, this paper proposes a composed notion (...) of European identity that links without binding. It contains four facets – cultural, political, social, external – with nuances, expressed in three binaries, that cut across all of them – history-project, ethos-achievement, commonness-uncommonness. I will submit that a workable European identity (and the related concepts of unity, polity and citizenship) can be better conceived as analogical – a mid way between blending unity and irreconcilable diversity. (shrink)

It is widely believed today that John Duns Scotus’s doctrine of the univocity of being ushered in various deleterious philosophical and theological consequences that resulted in the negative features of modernity. Included in this common opinion, but not examined, is the belief that by affirming univocity Scotus thereby also denied the analogy of being. The present essay challenges this belief by recovering Scotus’s true position on analogy, namely that it obtains in the order of the real, and that (...) complex concepts of creatures are analogically related to complex concepts of God. Scotus’s doctrine is then compared to the later Scotist tradition. The common opinion of the Scotist school from the fourteenth century onward followed Scotus’s position on analogy and considerably expanded upon his scattered remarks. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to (...) research on analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

The editors have put together an interesting and important collection of twelve essays that trace the development of explanations of the human body that appeal to machines and other technological artefacts. Although the focus of the book is ancient authors, with the oldest being Homer and Pindar, the last essay reaches into the eighteenth century, at which point there are no longer mere analogies between human bodies and machines but a conception of the human body as something mechanized. The essays (...) are put together in such a way that emphasizes the early-modern conception as the terminus of the ancient mode of inquiry. (shrink)

In 1817, the German botanist Ludolph Christian Treviranus (1779–1864), while working on cytoplasmic streaming, exclaimed “What a matter for new observations and what an expectation for a more profo...

Feminist studies in the history and philosophy of science have suggested that supposedly neutral and objective discourses are shaped by pairs of dualisms, which though value-laden are assumed to inhere in the order of nature. These hierarchical pairs devalue women, particularly their bodies and their labor, as they sanction the domination of nature. Readers of literature can draw on these studies to address texts and genres which do not thematize gender but rather purport to portray "the human condition." Samuel Beckett's (...) Molloy, with its clear structure of Cartesian divisions, provides a dramatic example of how an examination of dualisms reveals the presence of a language of gender informing a minimalist literary text. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:32. BAYESIANISM AND ANALOGY IN HUME'S DIALOGUES Wesley Salmon has recently focussed attention on Hume's consideration of the argument from design for the existence of God in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, by construing it according to a Bayesian account of inductive inferences to causal hypotheses. Salmon argues that an interpretation of the argument from design, considered by Philo and Cleanthes in the Dialogues, as an appeal to (...) analogy is not a correct interpretation of Hume's argumentation. I would like here to argue that Salmon's account is too far afield of Hume's actual pattern of arguing to be taken as an accurate account of the discussion in the Dialogues. I would also like to characterize Hume's account of causal arguments in the Dialogues more closely, and to show how it is connected with his notion of resemblance. In doing so, I shall defend the thesis that an appeal to analogy is after all the fundamental form of argument that is considered in the Dialogues. I. Salmon argues that the discussion among the characters in the Dialogues, principally between Philo and Cleanthes, centers about the various probability terms entering into Bayes' s Theorem in the form: P(C/A&B).P(B/A) P(B/ASC) = ---------------------------------, P(C/ASB) -P(B/A) + PÍC/A&B) -P(B/A) where in the context of the Dialogues, "A" stands for any event of coming-into-being, "B" stands for any event that is a product of intelligence, and "C" stands for any event that 2 exhibits order or design. The various probabilities that enter into Bayes's Theorem can, then, be characterized in the present context more thoroughly. For example, P (B/A&C) is the probability that an event of coming-into-being which displays order is the product of intelligence. This 33. probability, if high, would tend to support the argument from design, and, if low, would tend to undermine it. In order to evaluate P(B/A&C) by using Bayes' s Theorem, we need to be in a position to find the following three probabilities: P(B/A): This is the probability that any event of coming-into-being is a product of intelligence. If we know its value, it is easy to calculate P(B/A), the probability that any event of coming-into-being is not a produce of intelligence. For P(B/A) = 1 - P(B/A). Both these probabilities are called the prior probabilities of the problem. P(C/A&B): This is the probability - which Salmon typically calls one of the two likelihoods of the problem - that an event of cominginto -being which is a produce of intelligence does exhibit order or design. P(C/A&B): This is the probability - which Salmon calls the other likelihood of the problem that an event of coming-into-being which is not a produce of intelligence exhibits order or design. Now Salmon is not merely arguing - though he is also arguing - that Bayes' s Theorem, with its constituent probabilities so understood, is relevant for evaluating the argument from design. He is arguing that Bayes' s Theorem is relevant for interpreting Hume's thoughts about the argument from design. Salmon admits that "Hume must have been unaware of Bayes" s Theorem." But he claims that Bayes' s Theorem is nevertheless relevant for interpreting Hume. He suggests a number of reasons for this. First, the argument considered by Philo and Cleanthes is weakened, he says, if it is 34. 4 represented as a mere appeal to analogy. Secondly, he says that the correct strategy for analyzing any causal hypothesis is Bayesian, and undoubtedly Philo and Cleanthes are debating about causal hypotheses. Thirdly, Philo and Cleanthes show by the end of the second dialogue that they are aware the argument is more complex than a simple appeal to analogy. Fourthly, with respect to the probabilities one needs to know in order to use Bayes' s Theorem in the relevant way, Hume's characters and especially Philo "devote considerable attention to each of the three types of probabilities in their discussion." Fifthly, Hume just does in fact recognize that the argument from design is "something deeper and more subtle than a simple appeal to D analogy." We can greatly... (shrink)

IN COMPARISON with other doctrines Cthe doctrine of omnipotence, for example Cthe proper formulation of the doctrine of omniscience has not seemed especially problematic. Once we accept the contemporary wisdom that knowledge is knowledge of truths, the formulation of the traditional doctrine seems straightforward: to be omniscient is just to know all truths. What has seemed problematic, rather, is whether the doctrine is itself true. In particular, many have wondered whether anyone can know the parts of the future not necessitated (...) in any way by the present or past. (shrink)

Thomas de Vio Cajetan produced a highly influential Thomistic treatise on analogy entitled De nominum analogia. The merits of this work have been contested since the sixteenth century. Notable twentieth-century Thomists who adopted many of the teachings of De nominum analogia include Jacques Maritain and Yves Simon. Joshua Hochschild’s The Semantics of Analogy highlighted the significance of chapter ten, where Cajetan applies his theory to resolve the problem of demonstrations that use analogous terms, with the explicit purpose of (...) addressing a serious challenge from Scotists regarding the use of analogy in metaphysics. This paper examines the criticism of Cajetan’s way of using analogous terms in demonstrations by the seventeenth-century Franciscan Scotist Bartolomeo Mastri. It shows how the Thomist differs from the Scotist and analyzes these rival positions. (shrink)

In this essay, an attempt is made to formalize the idea of analogy in a way which is as faithful as possible to Thomas Aquinas’ theory of analogy. To accomplish this, we must first present Aquinas’ theory of analogy as it appears in his main works; we then express the contents of Aquinas’ theory of analogy using Leśniewski’s Ontology, a symbolic language which is both rigorous and true to the spirit of Aquinas’ philosophy. In doing this (...) we present definitions and theorems lying outside the scope of Leśniewski’s Elementary Ontology and we demostrate that the notion of “to be the definition of” is not an extensional functor. (shrink)

Contents: Wisdoms of East and West; Method of Analysis; Table of Symbolic Numbers; The Three Columns; Application of Principles to History; Astrology; Twelve ...

Since the first decade of the 14th Century, Thomas Aquinas’s disciples have struggled to explain and defend his doctrine of analogy. Analogy after Aquinas: Logical Problems, Thomistic Answers relates a history of prominent Medieval and Renaissance Thomists’ efforts to solve three distinct but interrelated problems arising from their reading both of Aquinas’s own texts on analogy, and from John Duns Scotus’s arguments against analogy and in favor of univocity in Metaphysics and Natural Theology. The first of (...) these three problems concerns Aquinas’s at least apparently disparate statements on whether a name is said by analogy through a single concept or through diverse concepts. The second problem concerns the model of analogy suited for predicating names analogously across the categories of being or about God and creatures. Is “being” said analogously about God and creatures, or substance and accidents, on the model of how “healthy” is said of medicine and an animal, or on the model of how “principle” is said of a point and a line? The third problem comes from outside challenges to Aquinas’s thought, in particular Scotus’ claims that univocal names alone can mediate valid demonstrations, and any demonstration that failed to use its mediating terms univocally would fail by the fallacy of equivocation. Analogy after Aquinas makes a unique contribution to the study of philosophical theology in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas by showing the historical and philosophical connection between these three problems, as well as the variety of solutions proposed by leading representatives of this tradition. Thomists considered in the book include: Hervaeus Natalis (1250-1323), Thomas Sutton (1250-1315), John Capreolus (1380-1444), Dominic of Flanders (1425-1479), Paul Soncinas (d. 1494), Thomas dio vio Cajetan (1469-1534), Francis Silvestri of Ferrara (1474-1528), and Chrysostom Javelli (1470-1538). (shrink)

The recent translation into English of Jean-Luc Marion’s essay “Saint Thomas Aquinas and Onto-Theo-Logy” provides an opportunity to re-examine the significance of Marion’s earlier criticisms of Aquinas in the light of his most current position on Aquinas. Toward this end, I discuss the role that the doctrine of analogy plays in Marion’s reassessment, and partial retraction, of the controversial indictment of Aquinas that was presented in God without Being. Marion’s claim that the Thomistic conception of God as ipsum esse (...) should be understood by “starting from the distance of God” is highlighted in order to elucidate how, for Aquinas, the doctrine of analogy functions phenomenologically, as do the divine names generally, to manifest the character of God as infinite goodness and excessive givenness. (shrink)