Metaphysical Foundations Research Articles

Problematizzazione, contesa e rivalutazione del bello nell’arte, tra relativismo filosofico, pratica artistica e senso comune

Aesthetic perception is today a confused and controversial experience. In common sense relativistic conception of beauty, coexists with the consideration of the so-called “masterpieces” as works in which there is a stable aesthetic value. Philosophical and scientific relativism seems to have definitively set aside the conception of beauty not only as a universal value, but also as the essence of art, as it is counted among those universal metaphysical values, which have long been questioned. But some philosophers, such as Severino, say the opposite. Today seems to be a tendency to rediscover beauty above all in art, as a contemplative perception. Would the eventual return of art to beauty mean a return to universal metaphysical values? The difference between Kantian adherent beauty and free beauty is analyzed. The first is linked to metaphysical values, as an expression of an idea. The second, free beauty, on the other hand, has no metaphysical characteristics because it is not linked to a concept, therefore an expression of empirical harmonies. But also with regard to free beauty, the Kantian idea that sentiment can perceive its universality as an intersubjective value, is today difficult to accept both theoretically and empirically. This happens because today sentiment is no longer cultivated in the perception of beauty through canons, which are also disqualified for the pretense of universality in determined forms. Here, too, a distinction must be made between classical anthropometric canons and archaic non-naturalistic canons. We discover that the former are affected by a metaphysical foundation, while the latter reveal a different structure with other functions. According to Florenskij, the canon is not oppressive but liberating. On these suggestions and on empirical evidence we theorize that the (non-naturalistic) canon constitutes a guide for the recognition of a polyvalence of expressive language in which feeling coordinates with the other functions of consciousness, leading to transcend language itself in a non-metaphysical dimension. This suggests that this polyvalent structure that emerges from the canons is associated with beauty, as aimed at its realization.

Philosophical Foundations of Contemporary Intolerance: Why We No Longer Take Martin Luther King, Jr. Seriously

ABSTRACT A growing body of research suggests that political polarization in the United States is at a forty-year high, and that it is rooted less in disagreements over policy than in hostile attitudes toward political opponents. Such attitudes explain the manifest increase of intolerant behavior in American culture and politics in recent years. But what explains the attitudes themselves? One significant contributor may have been the rise of scientism in the early twentieth century, which undermined the metaphysical, epistemic, and institutional foundations of the type of morality required to transcend our instinctual tribalism.

Metaphysical Foundationalism: Consensus and Controversy

Abstract There has been an explosion of interest in the metaphysics of fundamentality in recent decades. The consensus view, called metaphysical foundationalism, maintains that there is something absolutely fundamental in reality upon which everything else depends. However, a number of thinkers have challenged the arguments in favor of foundationalism and have proposed competing non-foundationalist ontologies. This paper provides a systematic and critical introduction to metaphysical foundationalism in the current literature and argues that its relation to ontological dependence and substance should be qualified in important ways.

Инерция и пространство: Кант и Эйлер

Kant’s natural philosophy in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is heavily influenced by Newton’s Principia. However, a closer look makes it clear that Kant’s project has also been influenced by other thinkers. One of these thinkers is Leonard Euler. His work was of great influence for Kant, not only with regards to his view on space and inertia but on the relation between metaphysics and natural science in general. Even though Euler’s Physics built on Newton’s work, he differs from him in fundamental regards, leading to crucial developments inside classical mechanics. Here I will discuss the influence of Euler on the work of Kant and focus on Euler’s view on the two entangled problems of inertia and space. It will become clear that both Euler and Kant went through a development concerning these fundamental notions. After shortly highlighting the differences between Kant and Newton (1), I shall go through the development of important parts of Euler’s natural philosophy concerning the above mentioned themes. I intend to demonstrate that he, through his refutation of Wolffianism, became an advocate for the necessity of absolute space but also denied the existence of an internal force of inertia (2). After that I will show how Kant’s reading of Euler lead to crucial changes of his natural philosophy in particular and his philosophical enterprise in general. I therefore analyze Kant’s revision of his theory of space and inertia in his precritical writings. Building upon that, I will show the influence of these thoughts on his Metaphysical Foundations (3).

От математической к критической метафизике природы. Ламберт и Кант

In the mid-1760s, Johann Heinrich Lambert wrote a letter to Kant who offered cooperation with a view to reforming metaphysics. Based on the short correspondence between the two philosophers, it can be shown that this cooperation could never really come about. Nevertheless the thesis was sometimes put forward in research that Lambert had a defining influence on Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, also, and above all, with regard to the Newton-critical moments of this natur­al theory. However, this thesis can only be confirmed in relation to individual theorems, such as the relationship between attraction and repulsion force, even though the reasons for Lambert and Kant’s deviation from Newton’s theory of gravity also differ. For in its main features the transcendental metaphysics of Kant’s nature is substantially different from the mathematical methodology of Lambert’s theory of nature. In addition, Lambert stuck throughout his life to a theonomous natural teleology in the succession of Wolff, which was fundamentally made impossible by the Critique of Pure Reason: because the wise “intention of the creator”, which Lambert’s empirical-rationalistic cosmology could not and did not want to do without, could no longer be referred to in a rational context according to the Critique of Pure Reason. Even if Lambert certainly had moments of the Kantian theory of matter or — as Kant himself admitted — elements of the spatial theory of the first Critique, there is no way from his mathematisation of metaphysics and his natural teleology to the fundamental innovation of the Metaphysical Foundations.

Kritika suvremenog znanja kod nekih islamskih mislilaca

A critical approach to the modern type of knowledge is a thematic issue of the contemporary Islamic discourse. Reducing the overall reality to the concept (rationalism), measure and quantity (empiricism) and to a set of objects (positivism), has led to the reduction of reality as well as neglecting of its metaphysical foundation and spiritual values. In modern history, this approach has led to a "technical picture of the world" or "technicalization of the world" that has created numerous crises in Western history: the ecological crisis, the crisis of instrumental rationality, the moral crisis... Everyone agrees that the problem of modern knowledge lies in the neglect of the essence and that it leans on change for the sake of change, losing its spiritual and moral content. Conceptualizing knowledge through metaphysical and moral contents is the goal of the discourse of Hossein Nasr, Naguib al-Attas, Ismail Faruqi and Fazlur Rahman.

Гендерная поэтика романа О. Миртова «Яблони цветут»

The article examines a novel Apple Trees Are in Bloom by O. Mirtov (pseudonym of writer Olga Emmanuilovna Negreskul-Rozenfeld) in the context of gender representations of modernism era. The novel Apple Trees Are in Bloom was published in the leading literary and political journal Russian Thought from April to December 1911 and, on the whole, was an ideological continuation of the literary and gender discourse begun by the author in the novel Dead Swell in 1908. O. Mirtov’s second novel is a kind of literary and artistic manifesto of the author, part of her myth-making, which has absorbed the main gender-aesthetic views and spiritual throwing of a female author writing under a male pseudonym. The gender poetics of the novel is built on the basis of basic principles in constructing feminine and masculine imagery, closely related to the modernist concepts of the turn of the century. The novel contains direct references to the theory of gender dualism, Solovyov’s concept of “all-unity”, Berdyaev’s provisions on Kingdom of the Spirit, mystical world comprehension, and the foundations of sex metaphysics. In the novel, Nietzschean motifs coexist with the ideas of “creative love” and the infernal feminism nature. Apple Trees Are in Bloom fits into a successful literary and gender experiment, denounced in a novel form, well fitting into the context of fashionable philosophical trends that have developed by the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century.

Публичность как проблема философии: возвращаясь к идеям Дж. Дьюи

The article analyses John Dewey’s ideas on the ‘recovery’ or ‘reconstruction’ of philosophy. Essential to the life of society and inextricable from its condition, philosophy can provide a tool for the prevention of social cataclysms. Yet some cataclysms are conditioned by philosophy – the matrix of thinking that has un­derpinned culture for two thousand years. Dewey’s approach to the tasks of philosophy is radical: the way to the intellectual transformation of society is through the reconstruction or ‘recovery’ of philosophical discourse. This point of view is juxtaposed with attempts found in the literature to limit the function of public philosophy to politicisation. The study investigates the ideas of Walter Lippmann and Michael Sandel, which are crucial for the approach in question, about public philosophy as a changing political reality. The major lines of Dewey’s ‘reconstruction’ of philosophy are examined, with special attention paid to the critical revision of the metaphysical foundations of philosophy and the re­consideration of the problem of the subject-object relationship. Arguments are made in favour of these ideas having the potential for stimulating the modern public ‘upgrade’ of philosophy and transforming current intellectual and educa­tional practices. In ceasing to be a theoretical tool to solve specific philosophical tasks, philosophy may become an intellectual method used by philosophers to eliminate urgent problems of the modern age

DASEIN AND ἦΘΟΣ: DO VALUES EXIST?

The article considers M. Heidegger’s deconstruction of the metaphysical foundations for the moral philosophy of modern times. Heidegger’s interpretation of Aristotle (together with an analysis of early Christianity) offers an original version of ontology combined with ethics. In such optics, Being and Time, like Nicomachean Ethics, is an ethical treatise: it is also based on an understanding of human ethos (from the Greek ἦθος, “temper, character, nest”) and reveals the characteristics of life structured by “proper”. During the Age of Enlightenment (17th–19th centuries), a paradigm shift occurred in the field of practical philosophy, associated with the transition from ethics (that is, ethos as a form of life with its practical and normative dimensions) to moral concepts based on individualism and the distinction between facts and values. The split between ontology and the teachings of morality made impossible any rational substantiation or justification of ethics. Unlike modernist theories of morality, which attempt to express impartial and value-free principles of individual behavior, Heidegger explores the conditions for the possibility of changing lifestyles. His understanding of ethics can be interpreted in an Aristotelian context, in which life in society (that is, being in a “shared world”) determines the ontological conditions that make ethical action possible. The philosopher reveals the existence of Dasein in the context of a certain perfectionist understanding: two modes are found in it, one of which is obviously more valuable (or perfect) than the other – at least due to a wider perspective and deep self-understanding. The fulfillment of “ethics” means revealing an individualizing (“owned”) way of disclosing the world, what implies sensitivity to the call of Being and a readiness in the midst of the world to transform one’s finiteness in order to become a “genuine” member of the historical community. In the ontological structure of Dasein, such way of being is fulfilled in special revealing “moods” (πάθη), which are not reducible either to empirical sensibility or to cognitive functions. The factual enactment of ethical values is expressed in resoluteness, steadfast adherence to the chosen historical heritage, sensitivity to all aspects of the existential situation. These characteristics of revealing “moods” form a list of metacultural virtues that are the basis for mutual understanding and dialogue between representatives of various “ethoses” of a fragmented society.

Islam and the West: A principled opposition

"Islam and the West" is the sensation of our times. The two apparently dissimilar sides of this expression are commonly framed in terms of a socio-political opposition, hostility, and clash. However, the real roots of this opposition can be found to lie in the metaphysical foundations of the worldviews of both Islam and the modern West. When these roots are properly understood, the opposition becomes more profound and the nature of the two sides is laid bare. The article in hand makes this foundational comparison and concludes by seeing the West to be an embodiment of shirk, which is the counter pole of tawḥīd that is the essence of Islam. Such a profound revelation of natures and realities increases the discernment of the seeker of truth in our time, helps in making religion, in general, and Islam, in particular, relevant in the modern world, and facilitates the establishment of a traditional and integral Muslim community.

Цивилизационная уникальность России, ее основополагающие ценности и исторический путь: взгляд Ф.М. Достоевского

The study of Dostoevsky’s project is in line with the search for a single Russian project of civilizational development, i.e. own model of life structure (form of government, value system, etc.), studying the cultural and civilizational charac­teristics of Russia and understanding the foundations of national identity. The ar­ticle reconstructs the project of the development of Russia, presented in the works of Fyodor Dostoevsky, and in this context the problems of the origin of the state, the secularization of the church, relations between morality and poli­tics, the church and the state, state and church court, Russia and the Western countries, the stages of civilizational development are considered, the concepts of vsechelovecheskoe and universal are analyzed; three levels of understanding of the universal in the writings of the writer are revealed. The study opens up the metaphysical foundations of Dostoevsky’s project, on the basis of which the writer points out the existence of a universal connection between people, and as­serts the need for the integration of humanity on a new basis in the General Syn­thesis. The article reveals the fundamental values of Russian civilization, which, according to the writer, are brotherhood, universality and vsechelovechnost, in­extricably linked with Orthodoxy. The author traces the development of Dosto­evsky’s socio-political and religious-moral ideas in the philosophy of the begin­ning of the 20th century. The socio-philosophical views of Dostoevsky are considered in the context of the ecclesiastical and historiosophical concepts of Aleksey Khomyakov, Vladimir Solovyov, Nikolay Danilevsky, Konstantin Leon­tiev and others. The article concludes about the relevance of the questions posed by Dostoevsky and the solutions proposed by him. It is shown that Dostoevsky’s ideas, being rethought and filled with new content, exist in modern public con­sciousness. The writer offers examples of new ways of human-human, human-social interaction, and interaction between social communities. The ultimate goal of his project is the transformation of the individual and society.

Литературно-философская позиция А.П. Сумарокова в полемике с В.К. Тредиаковским

The philosophical views of Aleksandr P. Sumarokov, one of the greatest Russian writers and thinkers of the middle of the 18th century, were also reflected in his literary works, including those written in the genre of tragedy, the most important one for this author. This article is an attempt to examine the philosophical system outlined in Sumarokov's early tragedies through the prism of criticism by his literary opponent – Vasily K. Trediakovsky, who wrote a review of Sumarokov's first tragedy "Khorev" (1747). The fundamental difference in the interpretation of the nature of social "prejudices" which the writers demonstrate, sheds light on the way Sumarokov understood human nature in general, as well as the essence of its good and evil beginnings. The writer's philosophical system, found both in his artistic and publicistic works (the articles "On Disagreement", "On Unjust Foundations", "On the Reason of Man According to Locke" and others, published in the magazine "Trudolyubivaya Pchela" (The Laboring Bee) in 1759) bears the imprint of the ideological influence of Voltaire, H. von Wolf, John Locke and others, but is in fact quite original. The study of the evolution of Sumarokov's tragedy and the creative history of his individual works allows us to trace the formation and transformation of these views: the author of the article examines Sumarokov's four early tragedies ("Khorev", "Hamlet", "Sinav and Truvor", and "Artystone"), written at the time when the writer's philosophical views were formed, and compares two revisions of the tragedy "Khorev". It is concluded that as Sumarokov's tragedy evolved, the metaphysical foundations of the artistic world of the plays became more Christianized, and the role of pagan motifs in it diminished.

Философия в полицентричном мире: о VIII Российском философском конгрессе

The main issues discussed at the VIII Russian Philosophical Congress held in Moscow are considered, an assessment of its results is given. The appeal to the memory of outstanding Russian philosophers A.A. Zinoviev, V.V. Mironov, V.S. Stepin, I.T. Frolov, B.G. Yudin and other colleagues-philosophers gave the work of the congress the character of a philosophical reconstruction carried out in the space of personal knowledge. The question of the polycentricity of the modern world allowed us to proceed to the consideration of the civiliza­tional ideas of Russian philosophers. The issues of civilizational differences and relations between Russia and the West found a significant addition at the plenary session “A.A. Zinoviev’s Philosophy and Modernity”, at which A.A. Guseynov, V.A. Lectorsky, A.P. Kozyrev and others spoke. The recognition of civilizational diversity, as A.V. Smirnov specially noted, involves thinking about the poly­centricity of philosophy itself, about its role in ensuring the “coherence” of cul­ture as an integrity. The symposium dedicated to the memory of V.V. Mironov, “Metaphysics does not die”, allowed us to draw a number of generalizing con­clusions about the metaphysical foundations of philosophy and the need to un­derstand it as a form of cultural self-consciousness and civic identity.

The Metaphysics of Historical Jesus Research: An Argument for Increasing the Plurality of Metaphysical Frameworks within Historical Jesus Research

In this thesis I examine the metaphysical presuppositions that influence modern academic historical Jesus research. I observe within the discipline a tendency to operate with the secular metaphysical presupposition to refuse to allow religious metaphysical presuppositions the opportunity to contribute to academic historiography, a tendency conceptualised in relation to the category of worldview (or Weltanschauung) as developed in the western philosophical tradition. The thesis is divided into two sections. In the first half of this thesis I lay a technical foundation by which I address the chosen topic. This involves careful and practical definition of the terms ‘metaphysics’ and ‘worldview’, whereby I define the latter in relation to the former. I define a worldview as a set of metaphysical presuppositions taken for granted when evaluating new information pertaining to the external world. I apply this category to the question of historical decision making, observing that historiography requires the historian adopt a worldview to make historical judgements. Thus, I distinguish between an historian’s worldview per se and the worldview they may adopt to undertake academic research, labelled an historiographical worldview. I then examine the phenomenon of secularism through the lens of three theories of secularization, concluding one might describe historical scholarship as secular if its historiographical worldview contains a metaphysical predisposition to refusing to allow religious metaphysical presuppositions to contribute to the historical task. In the second half of the thesis, having laid this technical foundation, I turn to modern academic historical Jesus research, understood as attempts undertaken within a higher education setting to apprehend the historical person of Jesus, beginning with Reimarus, until the present day. I examine the historiographical worldviews operative within the discipline by evaluating the extent to which its participants operate with the secular metaphysical presupposition that religious frameworks ought not to contribute to historiography. The first half of this task is taken up with a broad overview of this phenomenon within the quest, while the second half takes the critical realist approach of N. T. Wright as a specific test case and examines the extent to which this presupposition is manifest in Wright’s work. Between this overview of the quest and the detailed engagement with Wright, I claim secular metaphysical presuppositions significantly influence the quest for the historical Jesus, where its participants have refused to allow religious perspectives to contribute to the historical task. I conclude by outlining the implications of this argument for modern academic historical Jesus research: I invite the discipline to expand its notion of academic acceptability to include methods constructed within other (i.e., non-secular) metaphysical frameworks. I also offer suggestions regarding the shape Christian historiography might take as the result of further study on the matter, outlining a series of criteria such an historiography must fulfil to be both rigorously critical in its application and genuinely Christian in its metaphysical foundation.

The Thought of Muslim Philosophers in the Classical Period about Practical Arts

In this article, some thoughts on practical arts have been examined based on Farabi and Ikhwan-i Safa. Farabi divides arts into theoretical and practical. Practical arts are arts that aim to achieve useful things for life. These arts are related to the dexterous (mihenî) aspect of the practical mind. For Farabi, although the arts were born out of necessity, they contribute to human happiness. For Farabi, the aim of man is happiness. To achieve this, it is essential to acquire theoretical, practical thinking, moral and artistic virtues. The happiness of a society depends on these virtues being settled in that society. Thinking that a virtuous society consists of various classes, Farabi stated that every people in the society should have a single job. Drawing attention to expertise in profession and art, Farabi states that an artist who maintains his competence with up-to-date information will be considered distinguished. Ikhwan-i Safa, on the other hand, considers art as giving form to matter. The art also means imitating God by giving form. Because the artist imitates the Creator by giving shape to a substance in his mind. This can be seen as the metaphysical foundation of artistic mastery. Necessary needs force people to acquire art, and this view presents the purpose of existence of practical art as utility. In order to benefit, there is a need to know the object, which is the subject of art, and to learn the shapes it can take. Therefore, art necessarily leads people to knowledge. Therefore, in a way, art is a way of approaching God. Although both thinkers state that art arises out of necessity and is aimed at meeting a need, they are of the opinion that it ultimately conduces to the perfection of man. The metaphysical dimension about the aim and goal of art has not been neglected by expressing that the artist is a member of the superior class in this world with his scientific and moral virtues and will be one of the happy people in the hereafter.

Sameness, Difference and Environmental Concern in the Metaphysics and Ethics of Spinoza and Chan Buddhism

In this paper I contrast the metaphysical philosophies of Benedict de Spinoza and the ‘sudden enlightenment’ tradition of Chan Buddhism. Spinoza’s expressivist philosophy, in which everything can be conceived via a lineage of finite causes terminating in substance as a metaphysical ground of all things, emphasises the relative sameness of all entities. By contrast, Chan’s philosophy of emptiness, which rests on the dependent co-origination of all entities, renders such comparison fundamentally meaningless. Having no source beyond dependent co-origination to generate a thing’s distinct nature leads to a metaphysics in which, rather than being relatively similar or different, all things are at one and the same time absolutely the same and absolutely distinct. As a result, Spinoza grounds ethics wholly is sameness or similarity, whereas Chan transcends the dichotomy of sameness and difference and offers an environmental ethics grounded simultaneously in absolute sameness and absolute difference. As a result, in Spinoza’s case, the dissimilarity between human beings and the non-human world places limits on our concern for it. In Chan Buddhism, however, insight into the emptiness of all phenomena leads to a concern for all entities in their suchness, regardless of whether they are similar or different to human beings. As such, I argue that Chan is in a better position than Spinoza to develop a robust environmental ethic.

Lessons of Descartes: Metaphysicity of Man and Poetry

Purpose. To consider the uniqueness of Descartes’ way of interpreting poetry as a type of philosophizing that makes it possible to comprehend the metaphysical nature of man. Its implementation involves the consistent solution of the following tasks: a) understanding methodological changes in the philosophy of the 20th century in the process of actualization of anthropological interest; b) argumentation of the importance of poetic thinking for early Descartes in the process of addressing modern historians of philosophy and the thinker’s texts. Theoretical basis. I rely on the conceptual positions of phenomenology, existentialism and hermeneutics. Originality. Finding of the study is that poetic thinking is the most authentic way of meaningful comprehension of the metaphysicity of man. The paper outlines the nature of the expression of this correlation in the philosophizing of the 20th-21th centuries and substantiates the thesis about the importance of the poetic principle for understanding the phenomenon of man in early works by Descartes. Conclusions. The paper examined the methodological shifts in anthropologically oriented philosophizing of the 20th-21th centuries and focused on the manifestations of related moments in the philosophical legacy of Descartes. The latter demonstrates the existence of a still underestimated version of interpreting the metaphysical foundations of human existence, the form of understanding of which is poetic thinking. It is a form of caring for the humane in man.

Spinoza on children and childhood

Baruch Spinoza, the 17th century philosopher best known for his metaphysical rigor and the radical heterodoxy of his conception of God as Nature, did not say much about children or childhood. Nevertheless, his few mentions of children in his masterpiece, the Ethics, raise fascinating questions of autarky, rationality and mind-body relations as they are perceived in the contrast between children and adults. Generally, philosophical theories of childhood benefit greatly from a strong metaphysical foundation. Spinoza’s philosophy, which has recently been gaining considerable attention by contemporary neuroscientists and psychologists, can serve as stable and fertile ground for developing a strong philosophy of childhood. In this paper I address the Spinozistic conception of a flourishing, happy human and the way this understanding of human excellence reflects on his understanding of children and childhood. I argue that the use of Spinozistic concepts can be valuable in the analysis of children and childhood—especially essence, striving to persevere in being, and the nature of the imagination. Spinoza’s epistemology can explain the unique rationality of children, and provide a metaphysical basis for normative behavior. Moreover, it can help us as caregivers better understand and empathize with children, by explaining the similarities and differences between children and adults.

Kant on education and improvement: Themes and problems

Whilst Kant is one of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy and was also, in his own time, an important theorist of education, he is sometimes regarded with suspicion by contemporary educational theorists. His philosophy, it is often maintained, is fraught with problematic dualisms and other familiar confusions of the Enlightenment that are obstacles to cogent educational theory and liberatory pedagogical practice. At the same time, of course, there are many Kantian ideas that have informed and inspired important developments in philosophy of education, not least of all the concept of autonomy, which played a prominent role in the London School's conception of liberal education in the 1960s and 1970s and which has had ever since a vital, if contested, place in theories of educational aims and values. In this essay—a prologue to the Special Issue, Kant on Education and Improvement—we explore the enduring relevance to education of Kant's insights on the following topics: autonomy; dignity and respect for persons; pedagogy; motivation and sensitivity; judgement; public reason; progress; and duties to self. We end by considering two significant problems in Kant's legacy: his dreadful views of race, gender and sexuality, on the one hand, and the apparently problematic metaphysical foundations of his philosophy, on the other.

Ethics by Dietrich von Hildebrand

Reviewed by: Ethics by Dietrich von Hildebrand D. T. Sheffler HILDEBRAND, Dietrich von. Ethics. Steubenville, Ohio: Hildebrand Press, 2020. liv + 500 pp. Paper, $26.99 This new edition of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Ethics will be of interest both to students of Catholic moral philosophy and to students of realist phenomenology. Perhaps the most valuable portion of the book is the brief prolegomena on philosophical method that justifies the realist phenomenological approach to ethics. In it, Hildebrand argues that we must begin from that which is given in moral experience without trying to debunk it or reduce it to something else. For example, he argues that we have a basic experience of justice. We may be mistaken when we think that a particular situation is just, but we could not be mistaken that there is something to be described by the word “justice” or so mistaken about its nature that justice turns out to be reducible to something altogether different, such as mere pleasure or power. The task of the moral philosopher is, therefore, to begin from the basic intuition of values, take them seriously as originating in the nature of objective reality, and elucidate their natures and interrelations. This prolegomena helps the reader to understand a couple aspects of Hildebrand’s work that may otherwise be puzzling. First, Hildebrand clearly approaches ethics from a Catholic perspective, but someone accustomed to the traditional, scholastic terminology might find his work foreign. At certain points there may be a substantive difference between Hildebrand’s position and the scholastic approach, but for the most part, the difference is merely apparent and comes from the method of beginning with basic moral intuitions rather than taking for granted a particular metaphysical framework. Hildebrand, therefore, begins where the scholastic approach often ends, and works his way backwards, so to speak, to similar metaphysical foundations. Second, the reader who is new to Hildebrand may be struck by how much of his writing consists of cataloging, distinguishing, and developing taxonomies. At times, he reads like Aristotle. One rarely finds, for instance, in-depth arguments about controversial moral dilemmas or detailed thought experiments. Again, this follows from his philosophical method since throughout he is trying to be faithful to the data of moral intuition by enumerating, elucidating, and distinguishing the various ideal types that we find in moral consciousness. A word must be said about values and value-response since this is the cornerstone of Hildebrand’s ethics. He distinguishes between that which is capable of motivating our will, which he calls “importance,” and that [End Page 379] which appears to us as neutral. For example, even if we are unmoved by someone’s kindness, we recognize a qualitative difference between this datum and the neutral information that Lake Tahoe is 1,644 feet deep. The former is capable of moving us in a way that the latter is not. Within the realm of importance, he argues that we must distinguish between three categories: (1) that which is important in itself, or “value,” (2) that which is merely subjectively satisfying, and (3) the objective good for the person. While these categories appear to us on the object side, various kinds of response are engendered within us on the subject side. The greatest conflict arises between the first two categories, while the third is necessary for understanding such things as love and gratitude. For example, we may take an interest in the value of justice even though we derive no subjective satisfaction from it, and conversely, we may take an interest in a game of bridge even though by doing so we neglect an important moral duty. Contra his friend Max Scheler and much of the philosophical tradition, Hildebrand argues that these two kinds of importance are fundamentally heterogeneous and appeal to different centers within our psyche. Recognizing the irreducibility of these categories to each other enables Hildebrand to approach several classic problems in an illuminating way. For example, akrasia is frequently understood to occur when an agent mistakenly prefers a lower good to a higher one where these two goods are understood to exist within the same domain or hierarchy. This may be construed as a purely intellectual error...