English summary: Condillacs 1746 Essai sur lorigine des connaissance humaines represents a pioneering approach to the philosophy of knowledge. Working through a semiotic method, Condillac is able to radically revisit the theory of ideas developed by predecessors such as Malebranche and Locke. This critical edition allows readers to better understand Condillacs essential contributions to Enlightenment philosophy. French description: L'Essai sur l'origine des connaissances humaines que Condillac publie en 1746 est un texte surprenant a plusieurs points de vue. Il l'est tout (...) d'abord du fait qu'on ne sait pas exactement dans quelles conditions il a ete compose, et que, faute de manuscrits, il reste impossible a ce jour d'en connaitre la redaction initiale. Dans ses ouvrages ulterieurs, Condillac en a par ailleurs critique plusieurs elements, mais rien ne nous permet de savoir s'il a touche a l'Essai quand il a entrepris de reviser ses ecrits en vue de leur publication dans ses oeuvres completes qu'il n'aura pas eu le temps de mener a bonne fin. Il l'est aussi dans son contenu qui s'efforce d'articuler une philosophie de la connaissance avec ce que nous considererions comme une semiotique generale. Dans cet effort, le genie de Condillac prend appui sur toute la culture de son temps pour ouvrir avec alacrite une voie de recherche dans laquelle il fait oeuvre de pionnier. Ayant en effet arrime l'idee au signe, il entreprend l'inventaire des modalites de fonctionnement de toutes les especes de signes d'institution. Il lui devient alors possible de bousculer de l'interieur la theorie des idees sous les formes qu'elle a prises chez ses predecesseurs, en particulier Malebranche et Locke, et de reconduire sans reste l'idee jusqu'a la sensation. Au cours de ce travail, il met en place non seulement les bases, mais jusqu'au projet, destine a alimenter pour longtemps les discussions, d'une theorie de l'esprit. (shrink)

Étienne Balibar has provided a sustained commentary on the politics of Greece and its relation to the European Union. This writing is a practical mobiliza­tion of Balibar’s theoretical work on universalism and European identities. This essay questions some of the assumptions that provide a seeming confidence in Balibar’s decision-making with respect to Greece that are not found elsewhere in his work. It goes on to explore the questions of balance and calculation in Balibar and in writing on politics more generally.

This paper combines reflections on the current “state of war” in the Middle East with an epistemological discussion of the meaning and implications of the category “war” itself, in order to dissipate the confusions arising from the idea of a “War on Terror.” The first part illustrates the insufficiency of the ideal type involved in dichotomies which are implicit in the naming and classifications of wars. They point nevertheless to a deeper problem which concerns the antinomic character of a collective (...) institution of violence. The second part discusses the extent to which, in spite of the historical transformations in the means and political objectives of wars, the contemporary confrontation still obeys the rules of warfare described by Clausewitz, particularly with respect to temporality (“friction”). The third part discusses “non‐clausewitzian” aspects of the “new wars” defined by Martin Van Creveld and Mary Kaldor, while suggesting that they have left aside the most salient contradiction illustrated by the US interventions, which results from the combination of a claim to universal sovereignty and a reduction of war to generalized police operations. (shrink)

RésuméL’opuscule de Pascal Expériences nouvelles touchant le vide donne le schéma d’une démonstration physique visant à mettre un terme aux controverses entre plénistes et vacuistes. La forme traditionnelle de la dispute avec laquelle Pascal veut rompre se trouve cependant réactivée par Étienne Noël, qui reprend à son compte des objections plénistes que les Expériences nouvelles n’envisagent comme possibles que pour mieux les invalider. Les lettres de Pascal Au très révérend père Noël et À Monsieur Le Pailleur permettent au contraire de (...) délimiter un autre champ disputationnel que celui auquel Noël obéit. Pascal subordonne la dispute à la reconnaissance de principes épistémologiques communs: la discussion antithétique sur le vide doit être contrôlée par des critères méthodologiques acceptés par tous. Contre la figure de la dispute savante, Pascal définit ainsi un modèle radicalement nouveau: la dispute scientifique. (shrink)

There can be no doubt that discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs should not be tolerated in academia. Surprisingly, however, in recent years, policies of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity(DIE), officially introduced to counteract discrimination, have increasingly led to quite the opposite result: the exclusion of individuals who do not share a radical 'woke' ideology on identity politics (feminism, other gender activisms, critical race theory, etc.), and to the suppression of the academic freedom to discuss such dogmas. This (...) subversion of academia ― disguised Trojan-horse style as universal human rights advocacy ― is unacceptable because academia must be politically neutral and protect freedom of speech, a cornerstone of professional scholarly activity without which universities as we know them will slowly but surely suffocate. -/- Our purpose here is to put together some particularly illustrative cases of such repression in a single book, testifying to a ubiquitous trend within western culture, irreducible to a few isolated complaints. The essays contained here illustrate the abuse of power, censorship and witch-hunts at many universities and research centres in the name of DIE. -/- List of coauthors in alphabetical order: Dorian Abbot, Tomonori Agoh, Gerhard Amendt, Ivar Arpi, David Benatar, Peter Boghossian, Civitas Research Team, David Díaz Pardo de Vera, Pedro Domingos, Janice Fiamengo, Étienne Forest, Jorge Gibert Galassi, Norman Goldstuck, José L. González Quirós, Lawrence M. Krauss, Patrick LaBelle, Martín López Corredoira, Heather Mac Donald, Martin Malmgren, Erik. J. Olsson, Jordan Peterson, Constantin Polychronakos, Philip C. Salzman, Alessandro Strumia, Tom Todd, Andrei Yafaev. (shrink)

Being questioned about the nature of Christian faith, Mark Twain famously declared it as 'believing what you know ain't so'. Indeed, the role of reason for faith is a matter of dispute. Jesus, some argue, was not a philosopher or a teacher of wisdom. Rather, he is the saviour because of his unassuming sacrificial death and resurrection. Not reason, but the leap of faith is the ultimate condition of salvation. The Enlightenment however epitomises a Copernican revolution in favour of reason. (...) According to Charles Taylor, the dissemination of Jesus' message into Hellenistic culture contains within itself the risk of a secularisation of the faith. At the same time, voices opposing the overemphasis of reason have also been raised throughout the ages. Paul's speech to the Athenians was one such occasion that deals with the ambiguous relationship between faith and reason. Relying purely on divine grace and the Bible alone, Martin Luther rejected any form of speculative theology. According to the Reformer, it is a type of theology that trusts more in human reason than in God's revelation. In Luther's opinion, it also reverses the moral order because theological speculation justifies evil as good while professing as good what is evil. To such a theology of human glory, Luther prefers a theology of the cross that 'calls the thing what it actually is'. For the former Augustinian monk only God's grace is good beyond reasonable doubt. Hence true theologians are lovers of the cross while theologians of glory misuse their reason for the worst. Luther's theology of the cross, Marco Barone claims, has its root in Augustine. Hence, Luther's Augustinism appears to have decidedly broken with Aristotelian scholasticism. In this context, Thomas Aquinas was criticised for his threefold failure. First, the Dominican friar's speculative theology lacks an experiential human dimension. Secondly, it gives too much credit to Aristotle. Thirdly, Thomas is reprimanded for his serious deficiency of a theology of justification. (shrink)

After the criticism that Martin Heide-gger made of Western metaphysics some authors like Gilson or Fabro, among others, wanted to enter into confrontation giving them the oppor-tunity to study in depth most important theses of authors like Thomas Aquinas and his esse philo-sophy. Gilson’s theses had an important impact on the world of Thomism, but Lawrence Dewan, also a Thomist, wanted to defend against Gilson the traditional interpretation of Cayetano and Capreolo, which until now had been regarded as the (...) most celebrated commentators of Thomas. This article investigates a specific point of this confrontation: the causation of esse. El legado de Martin Heidegger con su crítica a la metafísica occidental ha suscitado numerosos estudios en torno a la perenne cuestión acerca del ser, la metafísica y el fundamento mismo de la filosofía. Étienne Gilson, entre otros autores, fue un medievalista que tomó el pulso al pensador alemán para demostrar que Tomás de Aquino no esencializó el ser, como aquél pretendía. Sin embargo, junto con el Francés, en torno a la filosofía del ser tomista surgieron otros estudiosos que quisieron confrontar el tomismo gilsoniano con lo que entendían era un modo más adecuado de entender el verdadero tomismo. Uno de los puntos más interesantes sobre esta confrontación es, sin duda, el papel del esse tomista en la comprensión de la causalidad, entrando aquí en juego, a posteriori, interesantes cuestión en torno a la relación entre el pensamiento tomista y el aristotélico. (shrink)

Today, more people want to know how to make a meaningful difference to what they care about. But for that, traditional approaches to learning often fall short. In this book, we offer a theoretical and practical way forward. We introduce the concept of social learning spaces for developing both new capabilities and a sense of agency. We provide a rich framework for focusing on the value of social learning spaces: how to generate this value, monitor it, and learn iteratively through (...) the process. The book is a useful extension and refinement of 'communities of practice' for those familiar with the theory. For those who are not, the chapters will lay out a new way to approach learning. This volume is written to serve the needs of readers across fields, including researchers, educators, and leaders in business, government, healthcare, and international development. (shrink)

This paper employs the critical and analytical techniques of philosophical reflection to present a moral justification for the use of non-violent civil disobedience by Kenyan citizens in pursuit of their aspirations. It sets out with a brief review of political disobedience in Kenya from the advent of the British invasion and domination of the country in the late nineteenth century to the present. Next, it examines the nature of non-violent civil disobedience, outlining the views of four of its most influential (...) advocates, namely, Étienne de La Boétie, Henry David Thoreau, Mohandas Karmachand Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. It then offers a moral justification for non-violent civil disobedience by presenting nine arguments in its favour, with special reference to the Kenyan context. Thereafter, it answers six objections to non-violent civil disobedience. The paper concludes that it is high time that Kenyans gave serious consideration to a commitment to non-violent civil disobedience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 65.1 (2004) 1-13 [Access article in PDF] Ambiguities of the Prisca Sapientia in Late Renaissance Humanism Martin Mulsow University of Munich The wisdom of the ancients, says Marsilio Ficino, was a pious philosophy.1 Born among the Egyptians with Hermes Trismegistus—and, according to Ficino's later writings, concurrently among the Persians with Zoroaster—it was raised by the Thracians under Orpheus and Aglaophemus. It later (...) matured under Pythagoras among the Greeks and Italians and culminated in Plato. As is well known, this genealogy was not merely a historical thesis for Ficino and his followers but also a program for revival, a utopia achieved through restoration. For the assertion of a concordance between these early philosophies and their accordance with Christianity—in the sense of a Christian Platonism—implied the synthesis of fragementary philosophemes into a fully developed doctrine in the service of a uniform and timely philosophia pia.This program was formulated in a variety of ways during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with differing protagonists and with diverse aims. Thus one could supplement the genealogy in a cabalist vein, introduce biblical characters such as Solomon or Moses, or (as was done by Bruno) use it to contest Christian doctrine. The genealogy could be read as culminating in various notable modern figures such as for example, Paracelsus. Aristotle could be included or excluded from it, depending on whether one wanted to assimilate the Aristotelian tradition or to distance oneself from it; and one could leave the end [End Page 1] of this genealogical lineage open in order to exhort the necessity of a scientific and moral reform.Here, however, we shall be occupied with the question of what became of this program during the late Renaissance, when two developments took place simultaneously: on the one hand, the utopia of the prisca sapientia set about to conquer the field formerly reserved to the Aristotelians, namely, natural philosophy; on the other hand, the first doubts arose about the overall validity of the historical-philological foundation of the program, especially the dating of the works of Hermes Trismegistus. The latter began with the publication of the first part of Patrizi's Discussiones peripateticae in 1571,which aimed to rehabilitate, contrary to Aristotle's critique, old presocratic natural philosophies, and in so doing it cleared the way for interpreting the latest advancements in non-Aristotelian natural sciences as resumptions of these very philosophies.2 This initiated a period of complex interaction between late humanist philology, innovative natural science, and speculative metaphysics.This phase, however, not only entailed the grand synthesizing endeavors that one finds in Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia;it also introduced historical critique—no doubt provoked by Patrizi—of the Hermetic prisca sapientia, understood in Frances Yates's sense, which was performed in careful detail long before Casaubon at the end of the Renaissance.3 Further, it was a phase characterized by an attempt to reevaluate Aristotelian philosophy against its opponents, which paradoxically was also motivated by Patrizi yet which managed to keep the venture open to "esoteric" depths. All of these developments were intertwined, and each effected the articulation of encyclopedic projects at the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the basis of manuscripts, letters, and some neglected texts, I want to introduce two such countercurrents, which illustrate how the migration of arguments from one cultural context to another can lead to wholly divergent and unexpected results. Moreover, these results show the diverse consequences that a prisca sapientia-utopia could have for different visions of encyclopedic scholarship.I. In the bookshop of Paolo Meietti in Padua, Teodoro Angelucci and Antonio Persio met accidentally on an autumn day in 1558. Meietti was the publisher of Angelucci's medical textbook as well as of texts by Patrizi and his [End Page 2] colleague Giannini, and it is possible that Persio was out to discuss publishing possibilities for his forthcoming manuscript De natura ignis. In any case, they were there for business-related matters, so it was quite natural for Persio to... (shrink)

Renowned scholar of Ancient Greek Martin Ostwald explains, for a modern audience, the terms by which the ancient Greeks saw and lived their lives—and ...

Martin Bell; X*—The De Dicto/De Re Distinction in Relation to Actions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 June 1983, Pages 159–174.

"Vous n'avez rien à dire. Le médecin, ici, c'est moi! " Cette phrase, trop de patients l'ont entendue et l'entendent encore de la bouche d'un médecin. Pour quelles raisons, lorsque nous consultons, avons-nous trop souvent la sensation de n'être ni écoutés ni entendus, mais au contraire négligés, observés comme un cas clinique de plus? Pourquoi pensons-nous que c'est "un mauvais moment à passer"? Formation des médecins? Hiérarchie des professions de santé? Idéologie du monde médical? D'où vient le problème? Martin (...) Winckler, qui fut sous son vrai nom médecin généraliste de campagne, répond. Il nous raconte comment les facultés de médecine françaises fabriquent des praticiens qui sont avant tout des techniciens, et non des soignants. Il nous explique aussi ce que devrait être la relation entre patient et soignant. (shrink)

Editores: José María Cuenca López; Jesús Estepa Giménez; Myriam J. Martín Cáceres Título: Investigación y buenas prácticas en educación patrimonial entre la escuela y el museo. Territorio, emociones y ciudadanía Lugar de edición: Gijón Editorial: Ediciones Trea Idioma: español Año: 2020 ISBN: 978-84-18105-99-9 Páginas: 496.

Preliminary Material /Hans Adler and Rainer Godel -- Formen des Nichtwissens im Zeitalter des Fragens /Hans Adler and Rainer Godel -- Das gewisse Etwas der Aufklärung /Hans Adler -- Zur Prekarität der Aufklärung. Vernunftkritik und das Paradigma der Anthropologie (Taine, Horkheimer / Adorno, Foucault, Lyotard) /Heinz Thoma -- Von den berechenbaren Grenzen des Nichtwissens zur Zeit der Aufklärung /Eberhard Knobloch -- L'effi cace de la raison /Bertrand Binoche -- Aufgeklärtes Nicht-Wissen /Rainer Enskat -- 'Fabelhaft' und 'wunderbar' in Aufklärungsdiskursen. Zur Genese (...) des modernen Mythosbegriffs /Stefan Matuschek -- Un-Möglichkeit der Ausnahme: Die Wunderkritik der Aufklärung /Daniel Weidner -- La sagacité de l'esprit. La conjecture au XVIIIe siècle /Denis Thouard -- Séjourner dans la contradiction. L'idée de «nouvelles Lumières» et les contradictions de l'universalism /Etienne Balibar -- Doing Without Knowing in Kant and Diderot: Experiments in Enlightenment /Claudia Brodsky -- Ways of Being Ignorant: A Field Guide /Arnd Bohm -- Wissenwollen trotz Nichtwissenkönnens. Von den Erkenntnisgrenzen der psychologischen und pädagogischen Wissenschaften des späten 18. Jahrhunderts /Gunhild Berg -- "Ein Abgrund innerer dunkeln Kräfte". Nichtwissen in den Bildungsdiskursen der Aufklärung /Stefan Metzger -- "There is nothing so intrinsically rational as religion is." Zum Versuch einer vernünftigen Entschlüsselung des Nicht-mehr-Wissbaren in der Frühaufklärung /Insa Kringler -- Ein falsches Bild. Oder: Was passiert, wenn Katharsis Form wird? Zu Lessings Emilia Galotti /Ralf Simon -- Die Schattenseiten der Seele: Zu Johann Georg Sulzers Theorie der dunklen Vorstellungen /Élisabeth Décultot -- Arten der Unwissenheit im anthropologischen Diskurs der Aufklärung /Angela Holzer -- Die Zone der Unbestimmtheit - Melancholiediskurs zwischen Wissen und Nichtwissen /Cornelia Bogen -- Die Produktion des Nicht-Wissens vom Selbst: Autobiographie bei Goethe und Hegel /Fritz Breithaupt -- "Charakter" - Die Konkurrenz einer metaphorischen und einer begriffl ichen Erkenntnisform des Nicht-/Wissens vom Menschen /Monika Sproll -- Unzuverlässige Leser - unzuverlässige Erzähler; oder: Literarische Wege aus dem Nicht-Wissen /Rainer Godel -- Labyrinthe der Aufklärung. Goethes Roman Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre /Harald Tausch -- Nichtwissen in Johann Gottfried Herders Geschichtsphilosophie /Luca Crescenzi -- Ins Narrenschiff mit Sokrates! Formen des Abderitismus bei Christoph Martin Wieland /Geneviève Espagne -- Zur Interdependenz von Wissen und Nichtwissen. Anthropologie als Aufklärungskritik bei Christoph Martin Wieland /Antonio Roselli -- Nichtwissen und Glaube. Zur Erkenntnistheorie und Ethik Friedrich Heinrich Jacobis /Mark-Georg Dehrmann -- Darstellung und Gegendarstellung von Aufklärung. Handlung, Erzählung und Schein in Schillers Geisterseher /Dirk Oschmann -- Wissen und Nicht-Wissen von anderen Menschen. Das Problem der Gemütererkenntnis von Gracián bis Schiller /Daniel Fulda -- Historische Vaterschaftsprozesse: Nichtwissen, verborgenes und verkehrtes Wissen bei Goethe, Hogarth und Kleist /Alexander Košenina -- Translating Knowledge and Prescribing Taste: English Enlightenment Critics /Sabine Volk-Birke -- Autorenverzeichnis /Hans Adler and Rainer Godel -- Namenregister /Hans Adler and Rainer Godel. (shrink)

On May 18, 1958, Martin Heidegger led a one-day colloquium in Freiburg on the topic of “Art and Thinking” together with Shin’ichi Hisamatsu, the Japanese philosopher and Buddhist scholar. The protocol of the colloquium, published in volume 16 of Heidegger’s Gesamtausgabe, presents a conversation among the colloquium participants about art in the East Asian world. In this conversation, Heidegger is particularly interested in hearing from Hisamatsu about the conception of art present in the East Asian world prior to the (...) introduction of Western aesthetic concepts and about the relationship between form and formlessness in East Asian aesthetics. The conversation allows Hisamatsu to clarify for the participants what he takes to be the most essential features of Zen art and how these features compare with those found in modern Western abstract art. (shrink)

Here are two famous Chinese classics in versions provided by one of the most seminal and beloved philosophers of the 20th century. Martin Buber first published these works individually in German in 1910 and 1911, but until now they have never been available in English.

The autosomal recessive genetic disorder, Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome, is characterised by an excessively high risk for the development of lymphatic tumours and an extreme sensitivity towards ionising radiation. The most likely explanation for these characteristics, a deficiency in the repair of DNA lesions, has been greatly substantiated by the recent cloning of the gene mutated in Nijmegen Breakage Syndrome patients and the analysis of its protein product, nibrin. The direct involvement of this protein in the processing of DNA double strand (...) breaks caused by ionising radiation and those also necessary for normal DNA metabolism can be correlated with many of the cellular and clinical aspects of the disease, including the cancer predisposition of patients and their heterozygous relatives. BioEssays 21:649–656, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

On March 18–19, 1995, the Virginia Polytechnical Institute in Blacksburg sponsored a symposium on Hegel and architecture. Genially organized and hosted by Deland Anderson of VPI, the event afforded a rare opportunity for philosophers, teachers of architecture, and students to discuss common interests.

Arnaud Martin Le 29 août 2018, le président du gouvernement espagnol Pedro Sánchez annonça la création d’une commission de la vérité sur les crimes commis durant la guerre civile et la dictature franquiste. Ainsi devait prendre officiellement fin la politique d’impunité et d’amnésie politique imposée au peuple espagnol au lendemain de la mort du général Franco par la loi du 15 octobre 1977, confirmée trente ans plus tard par la loi du 26 décembre 2007, comme contrepartie des mesures d’amnistie (...) prises en faveur des condamnés politiques et comme prix à payer pour assurer la réussite du processus consensuel de transition démocratique. La mémoire historique qui avait été refusée aux Espagnols allait pouvoir devenir réalité. La commission s’inscrit de façon originale dans la logique de la justice transitionnelle. En effet, l’élaboration de la vérité historique annoncée par Pedro Sánchez a pour but, non pas d’assurer la transition démocratique et la pacification d’une société postconflictuelle, mais de prévenir la « déconsolidation » démocratique à laquelle pourraient conduire la non-reconnaissance des torts subis par les victimes du franquisme et l’impossibilité de l’Espagne – notamment de la droite – à tourner la page du franquisme. (shrink)

If critical momentum in European philosophy and theory has seemed to shift away from deconstruction over the past decade or so, nevertheless the indebtedness of contemporary key thinkers to Derrida's writing and the entire project of deconstruction is unquestionable, regardless of whether it is always fully acknowledged, and whether or not Derrida's influence manifests itself as a source of inspiration or the grounds of critical antagonism or opposition. Many of those who now reject deconstruction continue to write texts that engage (...) with Derrida's work, whether dismissively or not. In this context, how best to recall deconstruction as a continuing 'voice' across the various fields of the critical humanities, theory and philosophy? The starting point for this collection of essays is the idea that, rather than reduce deconstruction to an object of historical importance or memory, one might more fruitfully analyze its significance in terms of complex matrices of desire in which it continues to figure; ceaselessly provoked in this way, deconstruction may neither be dismissed as simply 'dead', nor unproblematically defended as still alive and well. Instead, it asks to be repositioned on the threshold of life-death (about which deconstruction has always had much to say), an intricate threshold which profoundly complicates its relationship to the 'present' field of critical thought. This is a field which-according to a highly complex set of desires-still struggles to memorialize, to inter, or indeed to cremate, reduce to ashes, the deconstructive corpus. This collection therefore brings together leading voices at the forefront of their critical fields, in order to address the question of the desires of deconstruction, in precisely these multiple senses. With contributions from Etienne Balibar, Catherine Malibou and Martin Hagglund, the volume includes key thinkers across various generations of scholarship: those whose careers took off in the 1960s, at the same time Derrida's importance was gaining acknowledgement; those who played their part in the Anglo-American reception and translation of Derrida in the subsequent two or three decades; those taught by him; and those who, without undue discipleship or hagiography, now seek to critically re-evaluate his work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 151 highly conscientious translator, and a sign of this are the Latin-English and English-Latin glossaries that are appended at the end of the work. The glossaries show how he has tried to remain consistent in his choice of terms and how he decided to render difficult terms like ratio and esse, which cause every translator of Aquinas problems. One could complain, however, that these nine pages of (...) glossary are not quite complete enough. A few missing entries, for example, are ' individual ' (which is used to translate concretum, suppositum, individuatum, and particufuris), ' subiectum ' (translated " substance " and " subject "), and' modus'. The briefest of bibliographical notes and an index complete the work. Here one might want to register a more serious complaint. The bibliographical note is much too brief to he especially helpful. The beginner could use some more suggestions about what to read as a follow-up to Martin's hook. All in all, this is a collection of readings from Thomas Aquinas one would like to see stay in print for a long time to come. Many who teach the thought of Aquinas in the round will want to make use of this work. And, by reading this work, philosophy students to whom Aquinas is an unknown will make a good beginning in becoming di· rectly familiar with one of the greatest of minds. ROBERT D. ANDERSON Saint Anselm College Manchester, New Hampshire Being and Order: The Metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas in Historical Perspective. By ANDREW N. WOZNICKI. Catholic Thought from Lublin. New York: Peter Lang, 1990. Pp. 309 + xiv. This first volume bodes well for the new series Catholic Thought from Lublin, because the author of the hook is also the general editor of the series. Father Woznicki has here produced a welcome addition to those worthwhile hooks exploring the philosophical vision of St. Thomas in depth and comparing and contrasting that vision with other philosophical outlooks. Such studies are important not just for Thomists hut for all who are interested in the thought of the Angelic Doctor. On the first page of his Foreword, Woznicki announces that being and order are so inextricably interrelated that it is absolutely impos· sihle to understand one without the other. With thorough scholarship and impressive depth, Woznicki hacks up his claim. The Foreword also includes Etienne Gilson's marvelous statement: "Metaphysics al- 152 BOOK REVIEWS ways buries its undertakers." Not only does Woznicki probe profoundly into St. Thomas's metaphysics but he shows with an enviable clarity what is metaphysically lacking in philosophies as diverse as those of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Descartes, Kant, and Whitehead. Woznicki's goal in this well documented study is to discover the order present in the very structure of being as being. In examining the concept of being itself, he claims that being can reveal itself in its inner disposition of both essential and existential characteristics only as something in which essence and existence are related to each other reciprocally and mutually. The Lublin Thomist distinguishes the predicamental and the transcendental modes of predication. While in the predicamental mode of predication a predicate is added to a being as its determining principle, in the transcendental mode of predication nothing can be added to a being as an extraneous nature, in the way that an accident is added to a substance or that a difference is added to a genus. (These additions cannot take place because every nature is essentially being.) The distinction between the two modes of predication permit the formulation of two kinds of concepts, namely, the predicamental and the transcendental. The former describe various grades of being which match different modes of being and so reveal.the various genera of being; the latter in depicting being in its universality express more clearly what is contained in the nature of being as such. A predicamental order of being is established through the predicamental concepts' description of being by its essential characteristics ; a transcendental order of being is established through the transcendental concepts' description of being as expressed by the existential characteristics of esse. While in the predicamental order the emphasis on the essential aspects reveals being as it is expressed in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions AGOSTINO NIFO'S EARLY VIEWS ON IMMORTALITY Various historians of Renaissance philosophy have taken some notice of the prolific author and important philosopher of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, Agostino Nifo (1470-1538), x but no one has yet studied his writings in a methodical and exhaustive fashion. 2 He not only published philosophical works in logic, physics, psychology and metaphysics, but he also authored treatises (...) on humanist topics? Recent scholars have tended to concentrate their attention on his psychological doctrines, no doubt because he was one of the major opponents of Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) during the immortality controversy.4 Nifo published his De Immortalitate Animae in 1518 as a reply to the De lmmortalitate Ardmae, On the year of Nifo)s birth, see Bruno Nardi, Saggi sull'aristotelismo padovano dal secolo xav al xvl ('Florence, 1958), p. 284, n. 8. There is contemporary evidence that he died on January 18, 1538. See Bartolommeo Capasso, "Le cronache de li antiqui ri del regno di Napoli di D. Gaspare Fuscolill0," Archivio storico per le province napoletane, I (1876), p. 538. The standard bio-bibliography still remains Pasquale Tuozzi, "Agostino Nifo 9 le sue opere," Atti e memorie della R. Accademia di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in Padova, Nuova scrie, XX (Padua, 1904), pp. 63-86. But see also Giuseppr Tommasino, Tra umanisti e filosoft (Maddaloni, 1921), Porte I, pp. 123-147; and Edward P. Mahoney, "A Note on Agostino Nifo," Philological Quarterly (forthcoming). z See Franeeseo Fiorentino, Pietro Pomponazzi; Studi storici su la scuola bolognese e padovana del secolo xvI (Florence, 1868); Carlo Giacon, La seconda scolastica: 1 grandi commentatori di San Tommaso (Milan, 1944); Etienne Gilson, "L'affaire de l'immortalit6 de l'fime ~t Venise at* d6but du xvIe si~ele," in Umanesirno europeo e uraanesimo veneziano, ed. Vittore Branea (Florence, 1963), pp. 31-61; Miehele Giorgiantonio, "Un nostro filosofo dimentieato dcl '400 (Luea Prassicio e Agostino Nifo)," Sophia, XVI (1948), pp. 212-214 and 303-312; Bruno Nardi, Saggi sulraristotelismo padovano dal secolo x]v al xvI (Florence, 1958); idem, Sigieri di Brabante nel pensiero del Rinascimento Italiano (Rome, 1945); Giovanni di NapoH, L'immortalitd delranima nel Rinascimento ('Turin, 1963); John Herman Randall, Jr., The School of Padua and the Emergence of Modern Science (Padua, 1961); Wilhelm Risse, Die Logik der Neuzeit, I (Stuttgart, 1964); Eugenio Garin, La cultura [ilosofica del Rinascimento Italiano (Florence, 1961); idem, Storia della filosofia italiana, II (Turin, 1966). See Nifo's De Armorum Literarumque Comparatione Commentariolus (Naples, 1526); De Pulchro et Amore (Rome, 1531); De Re Aulica (Naples, 1534); and Prima Pars Opusculorum (Venice, 1535). The second of these works has been studied by Jules Houdoy, La beaut~ des femmes dans la litt#rature et darts rart du xII" au xvIe si~cle; Analyse du livre de A. Niphus du Beau et de l'amour (Paris, 1876). 4 For recent discussion of the immortality controversy, see Etienne Gilson, "Autour de Pomponazzi, ProbMmatique de l'immortalit~ de l'~me en Italic au d~but du xvIe si~.cle," Archives d'histoire doctrinale et litt~raire du moyen dge, Ann6e 1961, pp. 163-179; Giovanni di Napoli, op. cit., especially pp. 227-338; Paul Oskar Kristeller, Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance (Stanford, 1964), pp. 72-90; Bruno Nardi, Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi (Florence, 1965); Martin Pine, "Pomponazzi and the Problem of 'Double Truth'," Journal ot the History of Ideas, XXIX (1968), pp. 163-176; Harold Shulsky, "Paduan Epistemology and the Doctrine of the One Mind," lournal of the History of Philosophy, VI (1968), pp. 341-361. [451] 452 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (1516) of Pomponazzi, who had argued that personal immortality cannot be philosophically demonstrated, s But while these scholars correctly point out that Nifo abandoned an Averroist interpretation of Aristotle concerning the unity of the intellect and the immortality of the soul for the position which they assume to be Thomistic, they are not precise as to just when Nile made the shift.6 They have not observed that in his first two printed works, namely, the commentary on Averroes' Destructio Destructionum (1497) and the early commentary on the De Anima (1503), Nifo explicitly accepts Averroes as the... (shrink)