Kind Of Metaphysics Research Articles

One goodness, many goodnesses, and the Divine Ideas Imitation Theory

Abstract Some theories of goodness are descriptively rich: they have much to say about what makes things good. Neo-Aristotelian accounts, for instance, detail the various features that make a human being, a dog, a bee good relative to facts about those forms of life. Famously, such theories of relative goodness tend to be comparatively poor: they have little or nothing to say about what makes one kind of being better than another kind. Other theories of goodness – those that take there to be absolute goodness – are comparatively rich: they offer grounds for judging some types of things better than others because they have more absolute goodness. Moorean accounts, for example, can tell us that humans and human experiences are superior to bees and blades of grass. But such theories tend to be descriptively poor: they struggle to tell us in virtue of what this is so. In this article we motivate and flesh out a view that splits the difference between accounts of goodness as relative and accounts of goodness as absolute. Such a view holds promise only if the mechanics of this kind of metaphysics of goodness can be worked out. Here we present a view on which the paradigm for absolute goodness is God and the paradigm for each kind of relative goodness is a divine idea.

Binswanger versus Freud: apontamentos críticos para o lugar da psicanálise na problemática da daseinanálise em Foucault

This paper aims to critically present the phenomenological analysis, or Daseinanalysis, as it appears in texts of Foucault from the 50’s and 60’s based in what we call Daseinanalysis problematics. To do so we aim to recollect critically the insufficiencies of psychoanalysis and as far as possible Husserl stands towards the problem disposed along Foucault’s texts on the matter, so as the human being bringing some Binswanger’s commenters as well, whose lines are used by the French philosopher to criticize psychoanalysis. We conclude showing that though Foucault endorses Binswanger’s critics towards a supposed biological reductionism in Freud’s work he assumes surreptitiously a determined kind of metaphysics and heteronomy by Binswangers’ concept of liberty.

The Trinity and the Arts: Toward a Christian Poetics

AbstractThe purpose of this essay is to explore the question of a Christian poetics, and to see what, if anything, the doctrine of the Trinity has to do with it. Our conclusion is that the doctrine of the Trinity, far from being accidental to Christian poiesis, is fundamental to any account of it—if indeed all phenomena are analogues of the eternal phenomenality of the Son vis‐à‐vis the Father, and if all that is made is made through the Son by the power of the Creator Spirit. To this end, however, it is argued that Christian poetics implies a particular kind of metaphysics as well, namely, an analogical metaphysics, which is able to do justice to the interplay of essence and existence in creatures, which is cognate with the aesthetic interplay of form and novelty. The result of these explorations is not only a proposed standard, comprising four theses, for Christian art, but also an ecumenical proposal for how to think about the Trinity (and the Filioque) anew—not by dispensing with Augustine's psychological analogy, but by supplementing it with an artistic analogy, specifically, with the help of the patristic trope of the Son as the Ars Patris in whom the Father eternally delights. The final result is a clearer picture of the role of the Holy Spirit, in God and in creation, and of the spiritual‐poetic vocation of the imago Dei.

Reconsidering the Essential Nature and Indestructibility of the Soul in the Affinity Argument of the Phaedo

Abstract This paper offers a fresh examination of a salient distinction located at the beginning of the Affinity Argument between the composite (τὸ σύνθετον) and the incomposite (τὸ ἀσύνθετον). I offer reasons for why Plato may have intended for us to assume that the soul is an incomposite unity in its essential nature. I then substantiate this claim by reviving an ancient interpretation to the Affinity Argument according to which the soul is of the same metaphysical kind as the Forms. I thus suggest that the argument may be seen as supporting the basic indestructibility cum immortality of all souls.

Cavendish on life

This paper argues that Margaret Cavendish is a metaphysical deflationist about life. That is, it claims that, in Cavendish's mature philosophy, life is no metaphysical kind. From this it also follows that claims about matter being alive play no role in Cavendish's (natural) philosophy. On my reading, living is identical with (natural) being, Cavendish has no problem of life, and the label of vitalism is explanatorily vacuous as applied to her philosophy.

‘Openness in Action’ Early Steps in Cosmic Phenomenology

‘Openness in Action’ Early Steps in Cosmic Phenomenology

Philosophical presentation and the implicitly humorous structure of philosophy

AbstractPhilosophy often at least implicitly includes and depends on a logical structure which is also that of jokes. This is the case when philosophy involves questioning or establishing concepts in their own right, and when it involves the kinds of metaphysics which ask about reality and the world as a whole or as such. Taking this humour-like structure into account in presenting philosophy helps, among other things, to lay open part of the character of philosophy itself, to underscore the radical self-perspective that is constitutive of philosophy, and to contextualise the often confusing experience of coming to grips with an unfamiliar philosophical framework.

Heidegger on the Unity of Metaphysics and the Method of Being and Time

The fundamental error of the metaphysical tradition, according to Heidegger, is the subordination of general ontology to the ontology of a special, exemplary entity (God, the soul, and so on). But Being and Time itself treats one kind of entity as exemplary, namely, Dasein. Does this mean that Heidegger fails to free himself from the kind of metaphysics that he sought to criticize? To show how he avoids this charge the author proposes to examine the parallels between the methodology of Being and Time and the methodology Heidegger ascribes to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Heidegger takes the virtue of Aristotle’s inquiry to reside in the way he resists the subordination of general to special ontology: Aristotle was guided by a “double concept” of metaphysics, pursued two irreducibly distinct methods of inquiry, and avoided the temptation to unite them. In proposing to similarly pursue a “double task” in Being and Time Heidegger seeks to apply this insight to his own work. Alongside the task of fundamental ontology, Heidegger spells out the shape of a second task, Destruktion, understood as a historical critique that traces ontological concepts back to their ontic roots. But Destruktion is not a mere addendum to fundamental ontology; the two tasks are meant to counterbalance one another and thereby prevent the collapse of the ontological difference between being and beings. Indeed, Heidegger proposes to apply Destruktion to the results of his own fundamental ontology. He hopes to thereby achieve a transformation of the philosophical attitude that underpins the metaphysical tradition.

Coping with Multitudes

This article is an outline of the current issue of Filosofija. Sociologija, thematically divided into four sections. Starting from the most general one, focused on abstract topics of metaphysical kind and big names, proceeding to theorize on practices of human co-existence, then dealing specifically with Marxist paradigm, and finally with problems related to artificial intelligence and digital society. The thought of the 20th century and its socio-political implications up till now unites them all.

No More This than That

In the terms of ancient epistemology, Pyrrho is a dogmatist, not a skeptic, simply on account of putting forward a metaphysical theory. His most contested claim is that things are indifferent, unmeasured, and indeterminate—or, on a competing reconstruction, that things are indifferentiable, unmeasurable, and indeterminable. This paper argues that Pyrrho’s position, which I call Pyrrhonian Indeterminacy, belongs to a rich tradition of revisionist metaphysics that includes ancient atomism, flux metaphysics, Plato’s analysis of becoming, and today’s discussions of indeterminacy and vagueness. This tradition, my argument continues, makes room for a kind of metaphysics that proceeds in epistemological terms. Pyrrho’s indeterminacy claim says that things are indeterminate insofar as they do not have features by reference to which we can determine them to be such-and-such. We should not waver or be inclined to see things one way or another—we should see things, and describe them, as “no more this than that.”

A Critical Approach to Causality and Rational Knowledge in Ibn Khaldūn

The purpose of this study is to critically approach the thoughts of causality and rational knowledge in Ibn Khaldūn, who is one of the greatest names of Islamic philosophy. Ibn Khaldūn, who is a tremendously competent sociologist, historian, and politician, constituted his work entitled Muqaddima in a way exhibiting the science of ʿumrān. One of the fundamentals of science undoubtedly is the theory of causality. We see that Ibn Khaldūn, who construed everything in the universe in the light of the causality, does not use the same theory when miracles and supernatural events are in question. This differentiation basing on the distinction of the human intellect and divine revelation has not eliminated any contradiction coming out in the context of the causality. Another matter we examine in this study is the critique of Ibn Khaldūn about rational knowledge against philosophers. According to him, it is not a correct method reaching the universals with abstractions made from the particulars. It is because such universals have not been compatible with the facts. Ibn Khaldūn criticizes the philosophers in the context of metaphysical knowledge. But, if we consider the science of ʿumrān to be a kind of metaphysics, we might say that his method contains some contradictions.

Patterns of metaphysical discourse in West-African migrants’ ELF-mediated trauma narratives

This chapter focuses on an ongoing ethnographic research enquiring into West-African migrants’ and refugees’ trauma narratives mediated by a use of English as a ‘lingua franca’ (ELF) in Italian contexts of intercultural communication. The six case studies under investigation apply a construct built on models of Cognitive-Experiential Linguistics, Possible-Worlds Semantics and Modal Logic to the discourse analysis of Nigerian migrants’ ELF-mediated trauma narratives. Ethnographic data show that such trauma narratives are prevalently characterized by features from the migrants’ typologically-different native languages which come to be transferred into their ELF variations at the levels of: ergative clause structures, modality, idiomatic lexicon, and metaphorical patterns of a metaphysical kind. More specifically, it has been observed that, in such narratives, migrants often employ modal operators in the description of much- desired ‘possible worlds’ projected into a transcendental dimension triggered by their strong feelings and emotions which transfigure traumatic events and their effects into personifications of supernatural entities taking the animate agentive shapes, in ergative- subject position, of cruel Yoruba deities, or imaginary monsters often generated by a process of hybridization between parallel mythological creatures in both native and host cultures. In the case studies in point – making reference to a wider corpus of ELF- mediated West-African migrants’ and refugees’ trauma narratives (Guido 2018) – it has been noticed that the Nigerian migrants’ degree of psychological resilience to traumatic experiences is determined by their more or less optimistic prospects on the achievement of the much-desired ‘possible worlds’ which they represent in their minds as a sort of ‘utopia’, in contrast with the ‘dystopian real world’ that they have sadly experienced. In particular, the corpus of trauma narratives reveals the frequent occurrence of specific patterns in association with a four-level gradient ranging from possible, unreal, and impossible utopian worlds up to – as a more recent development triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic – a much-too-real dystopian world. Each of these degrees have been defined as trauma narratives of, respectively: ‘hope’, ‘frustration’, ‘despair’, and ‘urge of stampede’.

Metafísica y estética de la ceguera en el 'Edipo Rey' de Sófocles

El objetivo de este artículo es doble: por un lado, se trata de refutar un tópico de la literatura filosófica moderna y contemporánea sobre el presunto valor de la ceguera en cuanto visión más profunda respecto a la visión física, una especie de sabiduría directa, intuitiva, espiritual. Dicha idea, en los últimos dos siglos ha alimentado no sólo una mitología estética (lo “espiritual en el arte”, la “visibilidad de lo invisible”, etc.) sino también una metafísica que se podría resumir en el desprecio gnoseológico del Aparecer, pues la verdad estaría siempre detrás de los fenómenos, en la oscuridad de lo indeterminado, donde sólo unos pocos tendrían acceso: esta es la tiranía de la ceguera como paradigma cultural. La distorsión sistemática de la hermenéutica de los textos griegos, se ha introducido así en el lenguaje cotidiano, deformando lentamente toda nuestra concepción del valor teorético de lo visual y a la vez del legado griego. Por esta razón, el segundo objetivo del artículo, en desmontar las razones de este constructo, será el de ofrecer una lectura alternativa de la cultura visual griega, en este caso especialmente a través de la obra de Sófocles “Edipo Rey”, donde la mayoría de estos tópicos pretenden fundamentarse.

Information Ontology as Anti-Metaphysics

Followed by the general review of various kinds of information ontology as metaphysical thoughts, two main approaches can be illustrated. The basic feature of this kind of metaphysics is its theoretical explanation for the constructivism of the whole world. However, metaphysics is undermining its study of existence itself by taking existence as substantial entities, attempting to construct the whole world, or separating existence and thoughts. With the insight from anti-metaphysical approaches, this paper discusses three aspects of the information ontology.

Il ceppo e l’intaglio. Riflessioni metafisiche sul Daodejing

The complex and long genesis of the Daodejing is widely known. Whether it was originally composed by a single author, the legendary Laozi, or whether it emerged over time as a sort of collective anthology ancient sayings, the text underwent countless changes made by copyists and commentators over the centuries, and the Daodejing extensively published today is clearly something different from its first (and second) versions. For this reason, as well as for the nature of Chinese thought itself, it seems inappropriate to search for a philosophical “system” in the Daodejing. Nonetheless, the text can shed light on the view of nature permeating classical China. The paper will focus on three issues. The first is the ontological non-individualization of the Dao, which is the counterpart to the epistemological individualization of the human and social world. The second is the kind of metaphysics that can frame these features: a metaphysics of diachronic events, processes, and emergences, rather than a synchronic metaphysics of objects, substances, and monadic properties. The third, finally, is the fragmenting power of language, which through naming and knowledge creates that individualization that splits the undivided unity of the Dao.

Axiomatics of Cosmology

The Truth admits of being learned no further than the system theory of mathematical continuum which is the only a priori existing reality. The rest can and must be derivable more deductively than inductively. The symbiosis of both ways does necessarily lead to the unified theory which is a formal axiomatic system. As such, it is subject to the Kurt Goedel’s Meta theorem implying that the final scientific knowledge ever achievable by the human civilization will not be without metaphysical kind of component. It is as if Providence vindicates.

Axiomatics of Cosmology

The Truth admits of being learned no further than the system theory of mathematical continuum which is the only a priori existing reality. The rest can and must be derivable more deductively than inductively. The symbiosis of both ways does necessarily lead to the unified theory which is a formal axiomatic system. As such, it is subject to the Kurt Goedel’s Meta theorem implying that the final scientific knowledge ever achievable by the human civilization will not be without metaphysical kind of component. It is as if Providence vindicates.

Ralph Cohen on Literary Periods: Afterword as Foreword

Ralph Cohen on Literary Periods:Afterword as Foreword John L. Rowlett (bio) I In 1970 new literary history published "A Symposium on Periods" in its inaugural volume, making clear that any "new literary history" would need to rethink inherited views of literary periods. With that issue editor Ralph Cohen offered the journal's readers the first interdisciplinary reconsideration of this space-time concept and its role in the analysis of aesthetic change. Although none of the fourteen distinguished scholars presented a theory of periodization, and although contributors did not refer to the same period concepts, there was general agreement that period classifications of some kind were necessary in order to account for the unifying continuities and discontinuities that characterize any temporal series of objects under study, as well as to explain their displacement or supersession by an alternative series. In his introductory contribution, art historian Meyer C. Shapiro identifies two salient criteria of periods among the five "Criteria of Periodization in the History of European Art" that seem, generally speaking, undeniable: 1) "Since development is gradual and uneven, periodizing must be vague in its boundaries. The types of art which seem distinct in the particular works cited in defining the types become less distinct when we try to specify the earliest and latest examples of the types. And in some periods there are opposed styles with forms that resist classification as elements of a common art"; and 2) "Independent of conflicting period concepts and common to all of them as a basic datum and axis of reference is the irreversible order of single works located in time and space. Whether Poussin is called Baroque or Classic, his work belongs to a definite time and place, and this position entails restrictions on all interpretations and explanations of his art."1 The commentary on the symposium papers comes from philosopher Francis E. Sparshott, who, resisting assumptions about periodization, accuses his "fellow-contributors of erring (if at all) on the side of monism." In turn, he retaliates, "I shall indulge my own pluralism to the [End Page 129] point of fragmentation."2 Two of his fragmentary remarks are especially pertinent to periods and have continued to arise as open theoretical issues: 1) "Apparently some sort of periodization is almost necessary for historical description, and a sort of quasi-periodization is quite necessary. Because this is so, its introduction does not suffice to commit one to any kind of metaphysics or ontology, or indeed to anything beyond the goal of intelligibility. … The foregoing abstract and formal remarks on periods are not only inadequate but somewhat absurd, because with all their talk about purposes they have included nothing about the historian's own purpose"3; and 2) "Many champions of intrinsic periodization deny that analogous periods recur. … Yet the case cannot be fully sustained. If a period can be described in general terms at all, the description must, merely from the logical requirement of generality, be applicable to whatever other periods it may fit, and there is no way of guaranteeing that there will be none such. … The only way to identify a period non-repeatably is by abjuring description altogether, and pointing to objects or space-time coordinates for which no significance or congruence is claimed but which are confessedly arbitrary."4 Sparshott is correct to admonish historians for neglecting to announce their own aims. Moreover if consensus about analogous periods among literary historians might be supported by comprehensive theorizing of the differences among literary periods in some compelling sense, then Sparshott's commentary might suggest not just a disagreement, but a disciplinary gap between philosophic logic and historical concepts—a gap that involves the differential ordering of, and descriptive generalizations about, particular historical objects whose nature and interconnections are far from simply logical. Two decades later, with little apparent advance having been made on the problems of periodization for literary history other than that of clarification, David Perkins, inquiring into the very possibility of literary history, acknowledges that "at present, we tend to regard periods as necessary fictions. They are necessary because … one cannot write history or literary history without periodizing. Moreover, we require the concept of a unified period in order...

‘Physics is a kind of metaphysics’: Émile Meyerson and Einstein’s late rationalistic realism

Gerald Holton has famously described Einstein’s career as a philosophical “pilgrimage”. Starting on “the historic ground” of Machian positivism and phenomenalism, following the completion of general relativity in late 1915, Einstein’s philosophy endured (a) a speculative turn: physical theorizing appears as ultimately a “pure mathematical construction” guided by faith in the simplicity of nature and (b) a realistic turn: science is “nothing more than a refinement ”of the everyday belief in the existence of mind-independent physical reality. Nevertheless, Einstein’s mathematical constructivism that supports his unified field theory program appears to be, at first sight, hardly compatible with the common sense realism with which he countered quantum theory. Thus, literature on Einstein’s philosophy of science has often struggled in finding the thread between ostensibly conflicting philosophical pronouncements. This paper supports the claim that Einstein’s dialog with Emile Meyerson from the mid 1920s till the early 1930s might be a neglected source to solve this riddle. According to Einstein, Meyerson shared (a) his belief in the independent existence of an external world and (b) his conviction that the latter can be grasped only by speculative means. Einstein could present his search for a unified field theory as a metaphysical-realistic program opposed to the positivistic-operationalist spirit of quantum mechanics.

The Problem of Origin in Husserl’s Phenomenology

ABSTRACTDuring his philosophical life, Husserl sought to develop his phenomenology as a “science of true beginnings, or origins” that is metaphysically neutral. Nevertheless, according to Heidegger and Derrida, Husserl’s phenomenology remains a kind of metaphysics of presence in that it presupposes a metaphysical notion of “origin”. This paper attempts both to correct Heidegger and Derrida’s misunderstandings of Husserl’s notion of “origin” and to clarify the reason why Husserl’s phenomenology and its pursuit of “origin” is still a metaphysical project.