Essentialist Metaphysics Research Articles

Richard Lynch, S.J. (1610–1676) on Being and Essens

This article examines Richard Lynch’s metaphysics and finds that he ultimately resolves his account of being in terms of essens—that which denotes the essential structure that a being (ens) has apart from existence. For Lynch, unlike many of his Jesuit contemporaries, existence is accidental to being. Yet, even if essens is distinct from existence, it is not altogether lacking being, but is accorded a certain kind of “essential being,” which is identified with the possible. Lynch thus seems to re-appropriate an essentialist metaphysics that has antecedents in Avicenna and Henry of Ghent’s notion of esse essentiae. More proximate to Lynch is the Jesuit thinker Francesco Albertini, who takes Henry’s metaphysics and conveys it to Baroque Scholasticism. Lynch continues down that metaphysical path which, as we shall see, generated fierce controversy among late seventeenth-century Scholastics regarding the nature of creaturely possibility.

Espontaneidad de la mónada y metafísica de lo posible en Leibniz

Leibniz is considered to be one of the main steps in progress of essentialist metaphysics, also called metaphysics of the pure possibility —there are some Leibniz’ texts that endorse it—. Question is placed in if this fact colours all metaphysical reflection of the Hannover thinker. This research considers action metaphysics that Leibniz developpes in the context of monadology.

A Figurative Necessity in Dealing with Selfhood in Kierkegaard’s Thinking

Abstract This article concerns the concept of selfhood in Kierkegaard’s thinking. First, it rejects any scholarly attempt to establish an essentialist metaphysics of selfhood in Kierkegaard; instead, it seeks to show how the author himself develops his thoughts on subjectivity by applying numerous literary figures and a good deal of irony. Secondly, the article underpins this reading by displaying a specific figure, “The Walking One,” that indicates that actual and individual existence is to be completed only in an actual and individual movement. From here, “The Walking One” opens up new vistas to recognition, communication and language-however, in a paradoxical way. This is proved through analyses of Philosophical Fragments (1844), The Sickness unto Death (1849) and also an upbuilding discourse “He is Believed in the World” (1847). In this light, it is argued that Kierkegaard performs a subtle dialectics between standstill and walking or between “break” and “practice.”

Natural Kinds of Substance

This paper presents an extension of Putnam's account of how substance terms such as ‘water’ and ‘gold’ function and of how a posteriori necessary truths concerning the underlying microstructures of such kinds may be derived. The paper has three aims. (1) I aim to refute a familiar criticism of Putnam's account: that it presupposes what Salmon calls an ‘irredeemably metaphysical, and philosophically controversial, theory of essentialism’. I show how all of the details of Putnam's account—including those that Salmon believes smuggle in such essentialist commitments—can be squared with a rejection of any such essentialist metaphysics. (2) I aim to reveal why Steward is wrong to suppose that, by helping himself to the claim that ‘H2O’ is a rigid designator of a substance, Kripke, too, presupposes something controversially ‘metaphysical’. (3) I aim to show how my proposed account also sidesteps a variety of objections raised by Needham and others who argue that Kripke's and Putnam's accounts of how ‘water’ and ‘gold’ function founder upon the sheer microstructural complexity of the phenomena in question.

Development, Ethics, and the Ethics of Development

This article investigates three things: (1) what development might be, (2) how development and ethics might be related, and (3) what an ethics of development might look like. First, I show how if we move away from an essentialist metaphysics of being to a possibilist-functionalist metaphysics of becoming in our understanding of development, we can reconceptualize ethics as self-directed ontogeny. Thus, ethics turns out to be a part of development. Secondly, I sketch out the possibility of an ethics of development, showing how it should be based on three desiderata: (1) sustainability, promoting the long-term existence of the maximum human and non-human biodiversity, (2) democracy, promoting human-human relationships that are bidirectional and, to the extent possible, non-imposing, and (3) non-ethnocentrism, promoting true modernity; a modernity not predicated on a non-existent abstract universality but on concrete syncretism. The ultimate aim of this ethics of development is the optimization of individual and collective subjectivity and agency across time.

Descartes-Inseparability-Almog

Joseph Almog' s elegant and concise monograph, What am /?, simultaneously advances a new interpretation of Descartes' dualism and offers a powerful articulation of the bearing of essentialist metaphysics on the mind-body problem. Some may object to Almog' s endeavor to see Descartes so much in light of recent, Kripkean developments in metaphysics. Some may object to this, but not me. The study of the history of philosophy is tough, and we cannot afford to neglect any potential source of insight. Some may object to Almog's tying his original development, and criticism, of Kripkean metaphysics to the let's face it often obscure views of someone writing more than three centuries ago. Some might say: why not forget the history and just take on the real issues directly? Some might say this, but not me. Like the study of the history of philosophy, philosophy itself is tough and we cannot afford to neglect any potential way of making progress, even if that way comes from one of our remote philosophical ancestors. Indeed, I would say that the distinction between doing philosophy and studying its history is not all that sharp, if it exists at all. This is one of the important lessons of which Almog's book reminds us. Some may object to Almog's relatively sparse attention to the details of Descartes' texts and his non-existent attention at

Un análisis crítico del Informe de 1993 acerca de los tratamientos empíricamente validados (TEV)

For to close the special issue about empirically-validated treatments in Apuntes de Psicología, we do a critical analysis about the initial report of 1993 of the Task Force on Promotion and Dissemination of Psychological Procedures. This analysis to do stress the historical, social and economical context in that this report was born, and they are critically appraised some underlying assumptions, like the essentialist metaphysics of science, and the prevailing model of knowledge dissemination inthe relationship between research and professional practice. We do some recommendations stretching to reveal the self-vindicative character of Clinical psychology, and the future trends derived of the stress in the assessment of psychological treatments results.

Warum man Essentialist sein kann – eine logische Konstruktion im Schnittfeld von Sprache, Ontologie und Naturwissenschaft

Essentialism is, on the one hand, anchored with considerable firmness in a common sense picture of the world. On the other hand, it was dismissed for logico-philosophical reasons by a scientifically minded theorist like Quine. ``New essentialists' like Kripke did engage in very profitable theorizing on an essentialist basis, but made no significant effort to investigate the prospects of imparting to an essentialist metaphysics a solid foundation within a scientific world view. These foundational prospects are the concern of the article. – The investigation is guided by two ideas which are elaborated within a proof theoretical framework in the course of the article. First, being an essential F (where ``F' represents a predicate) is linked with a lifelong possession of the property signified by ``F' (but there is something more in it). Second, a special kind of necessity is involved in (true) predications of essential F-ness; it should be capable, like possibly all kinds of necessity, of being spelt out, in the final analysis, in terms of the provability of appropriate propositions in appropriate theoretical systems. In outlining the relevant axiomatic bases, the article draws on an early paper by E. Hirsch on individuation and essence.

Listening to the Call of Dance: Re-thinking Authenticity and ‘Essentialism’

A sustained and devastating critique has been aimed in recent years at a metaphysics of truth which understands truth and authenticity as essence, as fixed, self-identical and persistent over time. So successful has this critique been that it is now possible to speak of authenticity only in terms of a certain ‘strategic’ or politically necessary engagement, on the part of subaltern groups, with an essentialist metaphysics. While the critique is a necessary one, taken on its own it has resulted in a reductionist presumption that we are only ever going to encounter versions of truth that we have already understood, for purposes of critique, as so many versions of ‘essentialism’. By contrast, in the ceremonial performances of dance described in this issue of TAJA, across a broad spectrum of cultures, we witness the striking persistence and centrality of references to virtuosity, appropriate ‘feeling’ and to the experience of a kind of integrity, coherence and ‘truth’ in a good performance. The commentary argues that these distinctions rest on traditions that move us quite far from an essentialism both of the spirit and of the body, requiring instead a fresh effort of understanding on our part. Utilising other traditions to develop a better, less reified understanding of truth criteria can help arrest a certain hyper-expansion of ‘the political’ that threatens to leave no other terms alive with which to inform its own vision of the relation between past, present and future.

Listening to the Call of Dance: Re‐thinking Authenticity and ‘Essentialism’

A sustained and devastating critique has been aimed in recent years at a metaphysics of truth which understands truth and authenticity as essence, as fixed, self‐identical and persistent over time. So successful has this critique been that it is now possible to speak of authenticity only in terms of a certain ‘strategic’ or politically necessary engagement, on the part of subaltern groups, with an essentialist metaphysics. While the critique is a necessary one, taken on its own it has resulted in a reductionist presumption that we are only ever going to encounter versions of truth that we have already understood, for purposes of critique, as so many versions of ‘essentialism’. By contrast, in the ceremonial performances of dance described in this issue of TAJA, across a broad spectrum of cultures, we witness the striking persistence and centrality of references to virtuosity, appropriate ‘feeling’ and to the experience of a kind of integrity, coherence and ‘truth’ in a good performance. The commentary argues that these distinctions rest on traditions that move us quite far from an essentialism both of the spirit and of the body, requiring instead a fresh effort of understanding on our part. Utilising other traditions to develop a better, less reified understanding of truth criteria can help arrest a certain hyper‐expansion of ‘the political’ that threatens to leave no other terms alive with which to inform its own vision of the relation between past, present and future.

Aristotle in the 21st Century

This review focuses upon three themes from Aristotle's Economic Thought (Meikle, 1995) to reveal how (i) Aristotle's essentialist metaphysics can assist in clarifying contemporary issues in (ii) value theory and (iii) economics as ethics. Essentialism allows one to pose (adequately) the central question of value, namely: what is the entity that renders incommensurable commodities commensurable? Essentialism, by discouraging the elision of differences between activities with different aims, sharply differentiates between those activities which aim at use value, and those which aim at exchange value. Pursuit of the latter encourages neglect of the former, making it difficult for society to pursue ethical aims.

Conversion principles and the basis of aristotle's modal logic

Aristotle founds his modal syllogistic, like his plain syllogistic, on a small set of ‘perfect’ or obviously valid sylligisms. The rest he reduces to those, usually by means of modal conversion principles. These principles are open to more than one reading, however, and they are in fact invalid on one traditional reading (de re), valid on the other (de dicto). It is argued here that this way of framing the contrast is not Aristotelian, and that an interpretation involving modal copulae allows us to see how these principles, and the modal system as a whole, are to be understood in light of close and precise connections to Aristotle's essentialist metaphysics.

The Voluntarism of Duns Scotus, as Seen in His Comparison of the Intellect and the Will

THE VOLUNTARISM OF DUNS SCOTUS, AS SEEN IN HIS COMPARISON OF THE INTELLECT AND THE WILL Scotus' voluntarism, appropriately, is a many-splendoured thing; the light from its varying facets radiates on diverse planes in divine and created spheres. Basically its core lies in the divine freedom itself. The light radiating from this absolute liberty touches all other facets of Scotistic voluntarism. And there are many facets indeed in this voluntarism: God's action in regard to all things other than Himself, His creations, actual and possible, His regulation of causality, His determinations of morality; and on the created level, liberty itself, the primacy of love, the primacy of liberty, the possession, excellence and liberty of beatitude, the superiority of the will over the intellect — besides all those things that are uniquely theological, such as the primacy of Christ, the Immaculate Conception, grace and charity, etc. In these days this voluntarism of Scotus in the created sphere has its own pertinence in a world whose culture is turning more and more to the humanist creation of values, to the assertion of the primacy of liberty and to the dignity of the human person. No doubt, Scotus has something to say on all these questions which an existentialist philosophy has beaten to the surface of human consciousness. Of course, one must not exaggerate this pertinence ; for on many and fundamental scores Scotus' philosophy is the very antithesis of existentialism . For example, it could be said that his essentialist metaphysics of being would constitute a classical example of the sort of metaphysics that most existentialists greatly decry. It could even be rightly said that his metaphysics is farther removed from modern existentialist metaphysics than that of St. Thomas himself.1 Medieval scholasticism 1 This can be seen from the fact that his metaphysics is quidditative, whereas St. Thomas' is more existentially slanted; this is particularly true with regard to his proof for the existence of God, where Scotus is at pains to insist that he is not basing the beginning of his proof merely on the contingent fact of some existing effect, but rather on the very nature of being an effect. Cf. Ord. I, d. 2, p. 1, q. 1—2; Ed. Vat. II, p. 151, n. 43, and 64ROBERT PRENTICE, O. F. M. and modern phenomenological existentialism are quite different mentalities .2 But granted these reservations which his metaphysics obliges us to make, we can still admit that there are certain facets of a voluntarism implanted in such a metaphysics that have a modern pertinence. His affirmation of the primacy of the will over the intellect is one of them. Not that we should say that such a facultative division of the human spirit is terribly modern ; but in so far as the assertion of the primacy of the wiU is an affirmation of the primacy of liberty in the human person, we can say that we have here a certain anticipation of the modern humanist and existential preoccupation with the exercise of liberty. However, this is relating Scotus to the things that are ahead of him. To understand his own position, it is more important to relate him to those that were behind him. For, as is well-known, Scotus, in discussing the relations of the intellect and the will, is not doing anything new. That discussion had been standard issue in the schools for half a century ; almost aU of the great lights of scholasticism treated it one way or another — usuaUy in relation to prayer or to beatitude or in some psychological context. When they related it to prayer they commonly asked some sort of question like this: "Whether the inteUect or the will can go higher, when the soul ascends to God in prayer?" This is the sort of question, for example, that Alexander of Hales, Matthew of Aquasparta and Roger Marston all asked.3 It is interesting to note that all three are Franciscan, and in the Augustinian tradition. It is pp. 161—2, n. 56. Professor Gilson has often called attention to this characteristic of Scotistic metaphysics ; cf. Gilson, Jean Duns Scot, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1952, pp. 181—182, 185—186, 199...