Metaphysical Notion Research Articles

Gould on species, metaphysics and macroevolution: A critical appraisal

Stephen Jay Gould's views on the ontology of species were an important plank of his revisionist program in evolutionary theory. In this paper I cast a critical eye over those views. I focus on three central aspects of Gould's views on species: the relation between the Darwinian and the metaphysical notions of individuality, the relation between the ontology of species and macroevolution, and the issue of contextualism and conventionalism about the metaphysics of species.

How postmetaphysical can God-talk be?

A stalemate often ensues when science, philosophy and theology deliberate over the notion of metaphysics. It is apparent that these three disciplines approach metaphysics from different vantage points. By delineating the definition of metaphysics to the distinction between ‘what is known’ and ‘what is not known’, it is argued that the resulting ‘silo-effect’ of knowledge does not advance the discourse between science, theology and philosophy. This is especially true when religion raises the notion of ‘God-talk’. In order to create a common ground between science, theology and philosophy (specifically when it comes to God-talk), this article proposes another construct, namely ‘postmetaphysics’. It is argued that postmetaphysics assists in overcoming dualistic theological notions of God which hampers discussions between the mentioned conversation partners.

Angel at the Gate

Angel at the Gate* Nathaniel Mackey (bio) —”mu” one hundred seventy-first part— “The metaphysical wishes of the body,” I’d read in Wilson’s book.A passerby with a beehive hairdo con- firmed it. Sister C and I steppedoff the bus. Was it body’s wish to rise above or to add to itself I won- dered out loud, a wish for more body or a wish to be more than body, a wish to be rid of itself. Thelady with the beehive hairdo wore a par- rot-feather boa, twinning her hair’s wish to be wing, Sister C said, tobe word, to be sigh, to be sign, to be book . . . A passerby with a scarlet Afro walked by next, frizz and flaming col- or of another world Sister C pointed out, bodily whisk as soon as it got soon gone, sad end it all comes to callingback as he passed out of sight. So it was we thought about time, vain pursuit. Had a passerby decked out in peacock feathers come next I’d’ve sighed . . . I want- [End Page 141] ed nothing if not to climb a soapbox, nothing if not to send an amen Wilson’sway, say something about soul, no body not soul’s effect, the buzz, the lowered eyes, the bitten lip. Come with us upthe Mountain of the Night Abdullah called from the box, one glamor come back, a lost or a last flare it seemed . . . I was hold-ing what came to hand, trying to hold on, contingency’s dictates contingency’s angel, soul body’s wish, viceversa [End Page 142] ________ We stepped off the bus to the plat-form, the podium, pulpit, lectern, bullhorn, soapbox I wanted it to be. Ab- dullah had my back I could hear, baritone reach, baritone bottom, no matter rectitude met lament. I stood tall affecting nothing if not stateli- ness, stately aplomb I wanted my address to come off with. I stood float- ing many a metaphysical notion, soul’s bodily tenancy one of them but only one, something seen in a face no face itself made good on, I lift-ed my arm, my heart above my head . . . I stood stately floating many a sensate no- tion. “Mouth be my witness,” I swore, “nose be my witness.” Mountain of the Night notwithstanding, the blue star toobright to be looked at bore down on us. “Eye, ear, sphincter, genital opening be my witness. Bodily gate be my witness,” Iswore. Sister C held my hand as I spoke, amen’d my every thought. Bodily gate bond- ed her book she avowed . . . We were in Hyde Park, the Speakers’ Corner. We were in back of the East Bay it seemed, thesense of being a band or in a band upon us again, the Dialectical Sound Ensemble the band we’d be, this or that drummed af- fliction’s dreamt relief . . . Got there clue-less, remained the same no matter, I toed a tight Heraclitean line, truth be told truth hid- den, the appeal of parts notshown [End Page 143] ________ I toed a strict Ogotemmêlian line, thewonder we wear nothing underneath no wonder, body’s metaphysical wish the wish it were so . . . Soul’s bodily wish was two lovers’ wish to be one I held forth, polis’s wish to be one we of like order. I spoke in search of clime, truth be told a hidden truth, hidden treasure, familiarity’s wear warded off [End Page 144] Nathaniel Mackey Nathaniel Mackey, editor of the experimental literary journal Hambone and former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets (2001–2007), is author of a number of volumes poems and fiction, including Bass Cathedral (volume four of his ongoing serial fiction From a Broken Bottle Traces of Perfume Still Emanate, 2008), Bedouin Hornbook (fiction, 1986), Splay Anthem (poetry, 2006), Nod House (poetry, 2011), and Blue Fasa (poetry, 2015). He is also author of two books of literary and cultural criticism, Discrepant Engagement: Dissonance, Cross-Culturality, and Experimental Writing (1993) and Paracritical Hinge: Essays, Talks, Notes, Interviews (2005). His numerous honors and awards include...

Empirismo y derechos humanos. Unas reflexiones a partir de la Filosofía del Derecho de K. Olivecrona

Seriously taken, empiricism seems to lead to the denial of human rights; at least if they are understood as the expression of human nature. In this optic, K. Olivecrona explicitly rejects any natural law, for being a metaphysical notion. However, when he describes positive law, he finds that it apparently assures a specific set of values. Olivecrona, besides describing this datum, accepts and defends these values in various writings. This last choice is not very coherent with a methodology which denies moral understanding. Probably this is the reason why he gradually abandons the defence of those values and progressively drops his interest in validate them empirically. Law is reduced to a mere organized force monopolized by the State. But this renunciation overlooks another empirical fact: after the Second World War modern constitutional systems have generally and radically opted to separate Law and rights and moreover some of these have been set up as the basis of the political and legal order. In view of this phenomenon, we strongly believe that it is possible to explain it, but even to justify it, considering that the institutionalization of these fundamental rights is based on a specific demand of justice.

Grounding and the argument from explanatoriness

In recent years, metaphysics has undergone what some describe as a revolution: it has become standard to understand a vast array of questions as questions about grounding, a metaphysical notion of determination. Why should we believe in grounding, though? Supporters of the revolution often gesture at what I call the Argument from Explanatoriness: the notion of grounding is somehow indispensable to a metaphysical type of explanation. I challenge this argument and along the way develop a “reactionary” view, according to which there is no interesting sense in which the notion of grounding is explanatorily indispensable. I begin with a distinction between two conceptions of grounding, a distinction which extant critiques of the revolution have usually failed to take into consideration: grounding qua that which underlies metaphysical explanation and grounding qua metaphysical explanation itself. Accordingly, I distinguish between two versions of the Argument from Explanatoriness: the Unexplained Explanations Version for the first conception of grounding, and the Expressive Power Version for the second. The paper’s conclusion is that no version of the Argument from Explanatoriness is successful.

An Ideological Conception of Politics—Critique of Zizek on Political Theology

For some time now, Slavoj Zizek has provocatively maintained that the radical left needs a ‘politics of universal Truth’ whose model is Pauline theology’s transformation of the Hellenistic world. Furthermore, in light of the worldwide resurgence of religious militancy after 9/11, Zizek also contends that political theology provides the conceptual resources for thinking historical materialism today. Zizek here represents the leading wing of a ‘theological turn’ amongst radical intellectuals, for whom religion is a last resource of hope following the collapse of historical communism. In this article, I show that this rather desperate position leads to an ideological conception of politics, one that introduces mystified representations of social antagonism and class struggle into the heart of progressive theory. Through an imminent critique of Zizek’s work that draws upon its Althusserian foundations, I demonstrate that, although Zizek makes some important contributions to the critique of ideology, his theoretical position contains a significant problem. The idea that ideology and politics are structurally the same, which is what allows him to discuss problems of socialist strategy in the medium of political theology, is seriously flawed. It leads Zizek inevitably towards metaphysical notions of the subject of history, and away from theoretical engagement with rethinking the concept of class struggle for the new century.

(In) between the living and the dead: New perspectives on time in history

AbstractThis article outlines some new temporal perspectives in historical studies. The first part deals with the dominant view of the relation between past and present within traditional historiography, in which the past is made absent, distant, or detached from the present. Gabrielle Spiegel's allusion to the historian as autopsist is seen as a manifestation of this view, echoing Michel de Certeau's claim that history articulates the conceptual border between the living and the dead. The second part is a discussion of the Austrian‐born and Auschwitz survivor Jean Améry's refusal to let go of the past. It is argued that Améry reveals the “chrononormativity” (Freeman) of historical time. He uncovers how prevailing conceptions of time structure our historical thinking: What can we not account for within an established regime of historicity? The haunting memories of victims have initiated a questioning of linear time as the natural medium for historians. The third part of the article discusses this questioning as part of a more general refiguration of the relation between past and present occurring in historical thinking today, exemplified by Berber Bevernage and others, who try to rework the conceptual space of temporality in historiography in favor of a plurality of non‐synchronous and conflicting temporal modes, albeit one that does not fall back upon metaphysical notions of historical reality.

El obrar de la creatura espiritual desde el punto de vista de la participación dinámica

Se examinan algunas cuestiones relacionadas con el devenir causal de los seres crea-dos –en particular, los seres espirituales–, sobre la base de la nocion metafisica de participacion desarrollada por Tomas de Aquino. La aproximacion parte de las exegesis y comentarios de Cornelio Fabro a las doctrinas tomistas.

Explanatory Asymmetries, Ground, and Ontological Dependence

The notions of ground and ontological dependence have made a prominent resurgence in much of contemporary metaphysics. However, objections have been raised. On the one hand, objections have been raised to the need for distinctively metaphysical notions of ground and ontological dependence. On the other, objections have been raised to the usefulness of adding ground and ontological dependence to the existing store of other metaphysical notions. Even the logical properties of ground and ontological dependence are under debate. In this article, I focus on how to account for the judgements of non-symmetry in several of the cases that motivate the introduction of notions like ground and ontological dependence. By focusing on the notion of explanation relative to a theory, I conclude that we do not need to postulate a distinctively asymmetric metaphysical notion in order to account for these judgements.

Absolutizing the Relative and Relativizing the Absolute: Metaphysical Implications of the Christian and Buddhist Soteriological Perspectives, Part I

This essay is an attempt at opening parallel but contrastive avenues into the respective Christian and Buddhist outlooks with respect to the metaphysical notion of relativity in contradistinction with the concept of the Absolute. The main thesis is that Christianity and Buddhism present us, in their respective normative intellectual economies, with analogous, yet profoundly different ways of envisioning metaphysics from the vantage point of their sui generis soteriology. In other terms, our argument is that Christian and Buddhist metaphysics are essentially informed by the tenets of their spiritual way, whether redemptive or emancipative. Furthermore, these forms of “soteriological metaphysics” could be encapsulated in the twin nutshells of an “absolutization of the relative” on the one hand, and a “relativization of the absolute” on the other hand. The first formula refers, more specifically, to Christian Trinitarian theology, and the second to the Buddhist ontology of emptiness. These two formulas provide a theoretical framework that suggests both the internal coherence of each tradition and the ways in which this coherence is variously understood within the tradition itself. In the soteriological emphasis of these two traditions lies a possible—but not exclusive—way to open a wider space for a hermeneutics of aspects and vantage points, as well as for warding off any overly rigid conceptual crystallizations through a deeper recognition of the interplay between principled intellectual unity and the manifold of human existence. This essay is the first section of the submission, which is focusing on the Christian tradition.

Ethnic Background and Meanings of Authenticity: A Qualitative Study of University Students

Ethnic Background and Meanings of Authenticity: A Qualitative Study of University Students

A TRAJETÓRIA DO CONCEITO DE GENEALOGIA EM FOUCAULT (1971-1984)

In this paper I intend to consider the various inflexions through which passes the Nietzschean concept of genealogy in Michel Foucault’s work throughout the 1970s and 1980s. I wish to point out that the genealogical procedure is modified according to the addressed subject, i.e. it does not share the same theoretical and methodological assumptions when it is focusing (1) the rejection of the metaphysical notion of an essential origin; (2) the relationship of reciprocity between Knowledge and Power; (3) the project of transforming human life into a sort of work of art and, finally, (4) the developing of an idea of truth divorced from logical, epistemological or ontological parameters.

Everyday Life and Ultimate Reality: Dialectical Reversals in Hegel, Heidegger and Buddhism

Buddhism relentlessly exposes the impermanent, painful, and insubstantial character of all phenomena, but it ends up reinstating the conventional samsaric world as the place where nirvanic emptiness can be encountered and where compassion can be skilfully exercised. In Hegel and Heidegger one also finds dialectical reversals that bring a positive result from the ordeal of the negative. In Heidegger, the encounter with nothingness in anxiety brings a discovery of the phenomenon of being. In Hegel, the dialectical self-dissolution of received metaphysical notions generates a positive method of grasping the real. Heidegger's meditative thinking has an affinity with Hegel's Concept, in that both free the mind from the painfully constricted forms of metaphysics. Heidegger is also near to Daoism when he grounds the clarity of logical thought in a more obscure, originary kind of thought, and when he characterises the movement of thinking, at this more originary level, as a ‘way.’ All four dialectical paths reveal their vitality, in reciprocal critique, when rooted in the human quest to bring the everyday into connection with ultimate meaning.

Hildegard of Bingen: A Feminist Ontology

Two major lines of argument support the notion that Hildegard of Bingen’s metaphysics is peculiarly gynocentric. Contra the standard commentary on her work, the focus is not on the notion of viriditas; rather, the first line of argument presents a specific delineation of her ontology, demonstrating that it is a graded hierarchy of beings, many of which present feminine aspects of the divine, and all of which establish the metaphysical notion of interpenetrability. The second line of argument specifically contrasts her thought to that of Aquinas and Meister Eckhart, noting areas of similarity and difference. It is concluded that the visionary origins of Hildegard’s work may have to some extent precluded our understanding of it, and that her work merits consideration not only philosophically and theologically but from the standpoint of its early presentation of a gynocentric worldview.

What Should I Believe About What Would Have Been the Case?

The question I am addressing in this paper is the following: how is it possible to empirically test, or confirm, counterfactuals? After motivating this question in Section 1, I will look at two approaches to counterfactuals, and at how counterfactuals can be empirically tested, or confirmed, if at all, on these accounts in Section 2. I will then digress into the philosophy of probability in Section 3. The reason for this digression is that I want to use the way observable absolute and relative frequencies, two empirical notions, are used to empirically test, or confirm, hypotheses about objective chances, a metaphysical notion, as a role-model. Specifically, I want to use this probabilistic account of the testing of chance hypotheses as a role-model for the account of the testing of counterfactuals, another metaphysical notion, that I will present in Sections 4 to 8. I will conclude by comparing my proposal to one non-probabilistic and one probabilistic alternative in Section 9.

Impasse in Marlovian Drama. A Badiou Perspective

Influential critics such as Jonathan Dollimore, Michael Hattaway, and Richard Wilson have identified a tendency in Marlowe's plays to arrest dramatic development in what appear to be surface expressions of an original impasse — of desire, despair, or failed authority. On this view, an impasse of origination would account for the claustrophobic logic of limits that Marlovian drama presumably embodies and interrogates. While this article agrees that impasse is ubiquitous in Marlowe's plays, it takes issue with the metaphysical implications of the critical idiom employed to describe it. In particular, it questions the widespread tendency to adapt the metaphysical polarity subject-object to the interpretation of plays that, while making ample use of it, encourage readers and playgoers to dismiss such polarity as existentially ineffective. Only by tentatively adhering to a post-metaphysical scenario focused on presentation rather than representation and on truth as propitious event rather than individual property can we grasp the limitations of a metaphysical paradigm that writers like Marlowe unwittingly helped consolidate. Today, this scenario is best promoted by Badiou, a reluctant heir to Heidegger. Approaching Marlovian drama from the perspective of Badiou's meta-ontology of truth-procedures sheds new light on the etiology of dramatic impasse. This perspective exacts the subtraction of a “subject of truth” from every community and from received metaphysical notions of individualism. This manifestly challenges both the heuristic intimations of pre-social — whether libidinal or creaturely — subjectivity and the emancipatory ethos attached to community-oriented agendas in much contemporary Marlowe criticism (Greenblatt, Belsey, Dollimore, Sinfield, and Lupton). Through the use of a Badiou perspective five major points are advanced: in Marlovian drama 1) there is little room for the “inconsistent multiplicity” of the ontological that is nonetheless implied in it; 2) there are no subjects and no truths, but only abject individuals and self-destructive communities, which are ultimately indistinct; 3) there is a radical absence of genuine events; 4) impasse is contingent on epistemic failure — lack of truths — itself a consequence of the absence of events and the multiple confusion of truth-procedures like art, science, politics, and love; 5) there is no position of philosophical exteriority. This reading openly opposes the view of Marlowe's plays as productively subversive, incipiently emancipatory, or committed to whatever modality — whether sexual or civic — of communal Utopia.

Truthmaking and Grounding

This paper is concerned with the relation between two important metaphysical notions, ‘truthmaking’ and ‘grounding’. I begin by considering various ways in which truthmaking could be explicated in terms of grounding, noting both strengths and weaknesses of these analyses. I go on to articulate a problem for any attempt to analyze truthmaking in terms of a generic and primitive notion of grounding based on differences we find among examples of grounding. Finally, I outline a more complex view of how truthmaking and grounding could relate. On the view explored, truthmaking is a species of grounding differentiated from other species of grounding by the unique form of dependence it involves.

Models and Logical Consequence

This paper deals with the adequacy of the model-theoretic definition of logical consequence. Logical consequence is commonly described as a necessary relation that can be determined by the form of the sentences involved. In this paper, necessity is assumed to be a metaphysical notion, and formality is viewed as a means to avoid dealing with complex metaphysical questions in logical investigations. Logical terms are an essential part of the form of sentences and thus have a crucial role in determining logical consequence. Gila Sher and Stewart Shapiro each propose a formal criterion for logical terms within a model-theoretic framework, based on the idea of invariance under isomorphism. The two criteria are formally equivalent, and thus we have a common ground for evaluating and comparing Sher and Shapiro philosophical justification of their criteria. It is argued that Shapiro's blended approach, by which models represent possible worlds under interpretations of the language, is preferable to Sher’s formal-structural view, according to which models represent formal structures. The advantages and disadvantages of both views’ reliance on isomorphism are discussed.

Czy „śmierć Boga” jest „śmiercią społeczeństwa”? Próba połączenia wybranych aspektów filozofii Fryderyka Nietzschego z filozofią i socjologią Georga Simmla

The aim of the present article is an analysis and interpretation of the relation between the “death of God”, proclaimed by Frederic Nietzsche, and the prerequisites of sociation in the postmodern era. I will try to show that the “death of God” does not only refer to the religious dimension but also expresses the contemporary condition of the western culture. Nowadays the western culture is a decentralized culture that does not relate the human life to any metaphysical notions or ideals. This leads into the destruction of social integration which I will analyze after Georg Simmel in three dimensions: the destruction of the image of man, individual self-realization and the harmony between the individual and the social entirety. I will try to prove that postmodernity constitutes an era of a simulation of the society and a battlefield of multifarious forms of life, values, customs and conceptions of truth, which cannot be pacified.

Intrinsicality and Grounding

AbstractA number of philosophers have recently claimed that intrinsicality can be analysed in terms of the metaphysical notion of grounding. Since grounding is a hyperintensional notion, accounts of intrinsicality in terms of grounding, unlike most other accounts, promise to be able to discriminate between necessarily coextensive properties that differ in whether they are intrinsic. They therefore promise to be compatible with popular metaphysical theories that posit necessary entities and necessary connections between wholly distinct entities, on which it is plausible that there are such properties. This paper argues that this promise is illusory. It is not possible to give an analysis of intrinsicality in terms of grounding that is consistent with these theories. Given an adequate analysis should be compatible with these theories, it follows that it is not possible to analyse intrinsicality in terms of grounding.