Scholastic Philosophy Research Articles

Keraguan Kritis; Descartes

<em>Rene Descartes is regarded as the father of modern philosophy, a figure of rationalism, a mathematician, and physiology. Descartes was also a philosopher whose philosophical teachings were very popular because his views which never faltered about the highest truths were in reason or human ratios. Descartes was a philosopher who was dissatisfied with Scholastic philosophy whose views were contradictory, and there was no certainty due to the poor method of thinking.</em>

Curriculum conceptions of technology: Theoretical insights from National Education Policies in Brazil, Korea, and the United States

Despite its ubiquity in modern life, there presently exists no consensual agreement on what technology is exactly. Striving for theoretical advancement and clarity, this grounded theoretical paper comparatively considers how technology is explicitly defined or implicitly conceptualized in the national education policies of three different countries: Brazil, Korea, and the United States. Serving as a source of theoretical insight, curriculum conceptions of technology are considered in light of scholastic philosophy and academic theorizing about the nature of technology. It is described how curriculum conceptions of technology varies in terms of alignment with humanities- or engineering-oriented philosophical perspectives on technology, in terms of society-centeredness (technology-society relations) or learner-centeredness (technology-self relations), and in terms of prioritizing preparation of informed users or producers/creators of technology. Despite such variations, several common themes are noticeable, including a strong emphasis on the latest technologies, the creative side of technological design, and a tendency to conceive of technology computationally. It is argued that comparing the national curricula of different countries offers a unique opportunity to examine diverse perspectives on technology and potentially advance deliberations about its nature. International comparison also provides a broader and richer context for theorizing about the ontological status of such an important and yet elusive human endeavor.

Four Comparisons on Sensible Qualities in Early Modern Philosophy: Hobbes, Descartes, Locke and Berkeley

Mevcut makalemiz, başlığının da belirttiği gibi, duyulur niteliklere dair Yeni Çağ’da dört filozof tarafından yapılmış mukayeseleri konu almaktadır. Birincil ve ikincil nitelikler arasındaki ayrım, Yeni Çağ felsefesindeki bu mukayeselerin ana eksenini meydana getirmektedir. Birincil ve ikincil nitelikler arasındaki ayrımın Yeni Çağ’daki öncüsü olmanın, münhasıran Locke’a atfedildiğine zaman zaman şahit olunur. Bu atıf önemli bir yanılgı barındırır: Birincil ve ikincil nitelikler arasındaki ayrımın Yeni Çağ’da önderliğini yapan aslında Galilei’dir; Locke bu ayrımı detaylandırır. Makalemizde duyulur nitelikler öğretisinin tarihsel arka planıyla giriş yaptık ve öğretinin köklerinin Antik Çağ’da Aristoteles’e uzandığını açıkladık. Öğretinin Skolastik felsefe geleneği üzerinden Yeni Çağ’a nakledildiğini tespit ettik. Galilei’nin birincil ve ikincil nitelikler arasında yaptığı ayrımı takiben Hobbes’un, Descartes’ın, Locke’un ve Berkeley’in mukayeselerini inceledik: Hobbes, niteliklerin dünyada gerçekten var olduğunu düşünmemizi sağlayan duyuların “büyük aldatmacasına” dikkat çekmiş ve istisnasız bütün duyulur niteliklerin gerçekliği yansıtmayan yanıltıcı fenomenler olduğunu savunmuştur. Her türlü duyulur niteliğe epistemolojik objektivite statüsü atfetmeyi kararlılıkla reddetmiştir. Birincil niteliklerin yanı sıra ikincil niteliklerin de subjektif olduğunu savunmuştur. Descartes’in felsefesinde, böyle adlandırmamış olmakla birlikte, birincil ve ikincil nitelikler arasında belirli bir ayrımın mevcudiyetini saptadık. Locke’un öncellerinde bulunmayan bir duyulur nitelik sınıfı olarak üçüncül nitelikleri gündeme getirdiğini, Berkeley’inse ikincil nitelikler kadar birincil nitelikleri de algılayan özneye tâbi kıldığını gözlemledik.

Chaucer’s “Summoner’s Tale” and the Logic of Literature

This essay discusses the fart joke that ends Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Summoner’s Tale.” It argues that the joke uses the language of medieval philosophy to satirize the work of medieval Scholastic philosophers. The essay begins by examining Chaucer’s relationship to philosophy more broadly and the scholarly controversies over Chaucer’s familiarity with this field of knowledge. It focuses on the way Chaucer uses disciplinary-specific jargon from philosophy, and from medieval logic more particularly, in “The Summoner’s Tale.” The language and content of the joke in “The Summoner’s Tale” are a burlesque play on the interests of the Merton Calculators, who used the logical thinking Scholasticism had developed in response to theological problems to investigate problems associated with natural philosophy. Chaucer’s joke reveals the way that the logical work of philosophers like Thomas Aquinas and the Merton Calculators relies on formal qualities more closely associated with literature, namely, character and narrative. In making a case that literature and logic rely on these same formal structures, Chaucer affirms literature’s capacity to present examples, concrete manifestations of philosophical or logical problems. He suggests that logic is attempting to make stories to work out problems, something that literature can do more effectively.

Late Scholastic Analyses of Inductive Reasoning

The late scholastic era was, among others, contemporary to the “emergence of probability”, the German academic philosophy from Leibniz to Kant, and the introduction of Newtonian physics. Within this era, two branches of the late-scholastic analysis of induction can be identified, one which can be thought of as a continual development of earlier scholastic approaches, while the other one absorbed influences of early modern philosophy, mathematics, and physics. Both branches of scholastic philosophy share the terminology of modalities, probability, and forms of (inductive) arguments. Furthermore, induction was commonly considered valid as a result of being a covert syllogism. Last but not least, there appears to be a difference in emphasis between the two traditions’ analyses of induction: while Tolomei discussed the theological presuppositions of induction, Amort’s “leges contingentium” exemplify the principles of induction by aleatory phenomena and Boscovich’s rules for inductive arguments are predominately concerned with the generalisation of macro-level observations to the micro-level.

Хасдай Крескас о божественном всеведении и человеческом выборе: из компаративной метафизики

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the parallels between the ideas of the Western scholastics and Jewish philosophers of the XIV–XV centuries. Hasdai Crescas was one of the famous Jewish philosophers. Until the 60s of the XX century researchers considered the philosophy of Judaism in the framework of the Arab-Muslim philosophical tradition. However, with the release of the significant Sh. Pines’ paper this trend has changed. Indeed, it would be much more methodologically more accurate to consider the philosophical ideas of Jewish thinkers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries also in the light of the interaction of the latter with European scholastic thought. The key issues raised in the main Crescas’ work, The Light of the Lord, are close to the questions formulated and decided by the scholastics. The ideas of Creskas on the divine knowledge of future events, freedom of human will, reward and punishment for actions are parallels with the ideas of different representatives of scholastic philosophy.

Рецепция кантовской гносеологии в неосхоластике:концепция Ж. Бальмеса

The Article is devoted to the Representative of the Early Neo-Scholasticism, Span­ish Thinker Jaume Balmes. The Focus of Attention is the Interpretation of the Kan­tian Doctrine of Knowledge, which Balmes proposed in the Fourth Book of his “Filosofia Fundamental”(1846). It is shown that contrary to the generally negative attitude towards Kant and the Philosophy of Criticism that prevailed by the 1830s in Catholic Intellectual Culture, Balmes not only seriously studies and evaluates the Results of Kantian Criticism, but also he finds many points of contact between Criticism and Scholasticism, for which he undertakes a large-scale rewriting of the Kantian Theory of Knowledge in Terms of Scholasticism. At the same time, he of­fers Criticism of Kantian philosophy based on the Resources of the Scholastic Tra­dition, which allows integrating the Transcendental Analysis of Cognition devel­oped by Kant into the Methods of Scholastic Philosophy. Balmes sought to restore the Possibility of Metaphysical Knowledge, as a Result of which he excluded a number of Important Points of the Kantian Concept, he changed idea of a priori, setting the Boundaries of Sensuality and Reason, to a moving and dynamic “Agent Intellect” (entendimento agente), and Balmes replaced a transcendental subject by a “Universal Reason” (razón universal). In Conclusion, it is shown that Balmes’ Interpretation had a profound Influence on the Development of Understanding of Kantian Philosophy in Neo-Scholasticism and Neo-Thomism.

Carentiae и спор о негативном бытии

The article deals with the place of negations and privations in the structure of knowledge, from the point of view of the 17th century scholastic philosophy. Medieval scholasticism saw in nega­tiones and privationes those objects which formed the central area of mental being (ens rationis), that is, objects which existed only in intelligence. This traditional concept was clearly articul­ated and affirmed by Francisco Suárez in the final chapter of his “Metaphysical Disputations”. The decades following the death of Suarez in 1617 were a period of profound transformations in metaphysics, which also affected the doctrine of the mental being. The transformations were particularly evident in the changing role and place of negations and privations which were denoted by the general term carentiae, that is, negations in the broad sense. This whole area was divided into fictitious and real negations; fictitious negations remained in the ens rationis field, while real negations were taken out of it. It were real negations that attracted special attention of scholastic philosophers who tried to understand their nature and structure and, most importantly, their onto­logical status: whether they were purely logical and linguistic constructions or represented facts of the real world. The article deals with different conceptions of real carentiae in 17th century scholasticism, taken from several philosophical courses of Jesuit philosophers, such as Francisco Suárez (Senior), “Portuguese Suárez” (Francisco Suárez Junior), Thomas Compton Carleton, An­tonio Bernaldo de Quiróz, Sebastian Izquierdo and Pietro Sforza Pallavicino.

Ripping the Curtain

Peter Rollins is a writer, philosopher, storyteller and public speaker who has gained an international reputation for overturning traditional notions of religion and forming “churches” that preach the Good News that we can’t be satisfied, that life is difficult, and that we don’t know the secret. Challenging the idea that faith concerns questions relating to belief, Peter’s incendiary and irreligious reading of Christianity attacks the distinction between the sacred and the secular. It blurs the lines between theism and atheism and it sets aside questions regarding life after death to explore the possibility of life before death. Peter gained his higher education from Queens University, Belfast where he earned degrees (with distinction) in Scholastic Philosophy (BA Hons), Political Theory and Social Criticism (MA) and Post-Structural thought (PhD). He’s the author of numerous books, including Insurrection, The Idolatry of God, and The Divine Magician. He was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, currently lives in Los Angeles and will die somewhere as yet not known.

A Influência da Filosofia Escolástica na Formação do Pensamento Econômico

O presente estudo buscou avaliar o papel que a escola de filosofia escolástica, tanto no seu apogeu quanto na fase tardia, teve para a formação de fundamentais conceitos que formam a base de qualquer pensamento econômico ulterior. Foram apresentadas considerações escolásticas acerca de auto regulação do mercado, comércio, preço justo, teoria do valor, concorrência, propriedade, inflação e valor do dinheiro no tempo. A universidade de Salamanca mereceu destaque, tanto por ser o berço das teorias da economia de mercado, quanto por tentar conciliar as ideias econômicas com as bases morais e históricas, de matriz judaico-cristãs, que sempre nortearam os pensadores escolásticos. Através de uma pesquisa bibliográfica e histórica, com base documental, tanto de fontes primárias quanto de estudos posteriores, o presentatrabalho mostra as raízes escolásticas de escolas de pensamento econômico contemporâneas e a indissociabilidade dos conceitos por elas utilizados de seus autores originais.

The Probabilistic Logic of Eusebius Amort (1692-1775)

Abstract While classical sources including Aristotle, Cicero and Boëthius addressed different notions of probability, medieval contributions to probability (other than epistemic probability) seem rather scarce. The situation changes during the Second Scholasticism with the post-Tridentine debates on “probable opinion” in moral theology and the introduction of “moral necessity” and “moral implication” (tied to the ideas of frequency, stochastic processes, and propensity) in the debates on compatibilism and theological optimism. The eighteenth-century transformation of scholastic philosophy was marked, among other characteristics, by a gravitation towards the early modern scientific revolution. In his Philosophia Pollingana ad normam Burgundicae, the renowned moral theologian Eusebius Amort (1692-1775) addressed the basic issues of probabilistic logic from the philosophical, logical, and mathematical points of view in an attempt to synthesise earlier scholastic conceptual analyses of probability and probabilistic epistemic logic with the cutting-edge mathematical calculus introduced by Jacob Bernoulli.

Jesuit Probabilistic Logic between Scholastic and Academic Philosophy

There is a well-documented paradigm-shift in eighteenth century Jesuit philosophy and science, at the very least in Central Europe: traditional scholastic version(s) of Aristotelianism were replaced by early modern rationalism (Wolff's systematisation of Leibnizian philosophy) and early modern science and mathematics. In the field of probability, this meant that the traditional Jesuit engagement with probability, uncertainty, and truthlikeness (in particular, as applied to moral theology) could translate into mathematical language, and can be analysed against the background of the accounts of probability, pre-mathematical Jesuit logic, Wolff's conceptual analysis, and Bernoullian mathematisation. The works of two Jesuit philosophers, Berthold Hauser and Sigismund Storchenau, can be related to this context. The core of their logic of (epistemic) probability is the account of negation (or ‘contradiction’) and implication (or ‘argument’), in particular, the algorithms for computing the reliability of one piece of evidence when compared to the respective counter-evidence and for computing the probability of a conclusion given the probability of its premises.

St. Thomas Aquinas in Ukrainian Orthodox Schools

Ukrainian philosophical thought has been developing under the influence of several philosophical streams. Being influences by Orthodox tradition mainly, Church has always been at the forefront of any political campaign conducted on Ukrainian terrain. The level of education plays a key role in the process of cultural development of any country. Western part of Ukraine, comparing to its Eastern counterpart, had better access to education and information due to Catholic Church predominance in the region. The article intends to investigate the scholastic and patristic thought and its reproduction by Ukrainian cultural environment via various European teaching systems. Ukraine has been developing in a broad European context and this is why it could not have been deprived of influential teachings. But Russian imperialistic, and later communist ideology was hindering constantly the deployment and development of many ideas that were important for European philosophy. Together with Eastern theology, which was based mainly on works of Damascenus, Aristotelian traditions were introduced in Ukrainian schools gradually, and based on Aristotle’s works, theology of St. Thomas was taught. Prominent Ukrainian thinkers were influenced by many scholastic philosophers, including St. Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas’ influence is apparent in later thinkers.

Eckhartian Mysticism as Scholastic Humanism

ABSTRACTThis essay seeks to propose a new way of looking at the so-called mysticism of Meister Eckhart as a ‘scholastic humanism’ Eckhart's thought is “humanist” in the sense that it argues that all truth is such only insofar as it is appropriated by and transforms intellectually and existentially the individually existing human being; but Eckhart's humanism is scholastic insofar as it sees the truths of scholastic philosophy and theology as being firmly rooted in this lived and inner appropriation of truth. To this end, this essay explores the ways in which Eckhart “translates” the often static and abstract categories of Aristotelian-Scholastic theology into what he argues is their lived, inner origin in the soul's journey to union with God. And what makes this appropriation of truth by the individual human being possible is that the inner “ground” of the human existence is also the inner “ground” of God, the principle of all existence, an identity revealed and actualized in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Thus, Eckhart's “scholastic humanism” is also a thoroughly Christian humanism.

In the Honour of Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.: On the Sources of the Narrative Self

Modern philosophy is based on the presupposition of the certainty of the ego’s experience. Both Descartes and Kant assume this certitude as the basis for certain knowledge. Here the argument is developed that this ego has its sources not only in Scholastic philosophy, but also in the narrative of the emotional self as developed by both the troubadours and the medieval mystics. This narrative self has three moments: salvation, self-irony, and nostalgia. While salvation is rooted in the Christian tradition, self-irony and nostalgia are first addressed in twelfth-century troubadour poetry in Occitania. Their integration into a narrative self was developed in late medieval mysticism, and reached its fullest articulation in St. Teresa of Avila, whom Descartes read.

Can semiotics be used to drive paradigm changes in medical education?

This essay sets out to explain how educational semiotics as a discipline can be used to reform medical education and assessment. This is in response to an ongoing paradigm shift in medical education and assessment that seeks to integrate more qualitative, ethical and professional aspects of medicine into curricula, and develop ways to assess them. This paper suggests that a method to drive this paradigm change might be found in the Peircean idea of suprasubjectivity. This semiotic concept is rooted in the scholastic philosophy of John of St Thomas, but has been reintroduced to modern semiotics through the works of John Deely, Alin Olteanu and, most notably, Charles Sanders Peirce. I approach this task as both a medical educator and a semiotician. In this paper, I provide background information about medical education, paradigm shifts, and the concept of suprasubjectivity in relation to modern educational semiotic literature. I conclude by giving examples of what a suprasubjective approach to medical education and assessment might look like. I do this by drawing an equivalence between the notion of threshold concepts and suprasubjectivity, demonstrating the similarities between their positions. Fundamentally, medical education suffers from tensions of teaching trainee doctors the correct balance of biological science and situational ethics/ judgement. In the transcendence of mind-dependent and mind-independent being the scholastic philosophy of John of St Thomas may be exactly the solution medicine needs to overcome this dichotomy.

Вчення про нескінченність у могилянських філософських курсах (XVII–XVIIІ ст.): до постановки проблеми

The article analyses the explication of the infinity in the philosophical courses taught at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy at the 17th and 18th centuries. It examines 12 philosophical courses – since 1645 (the course by Inokentii Gizel) until 1751 (the course by Georgii Konyskyi). It shows how the infinity was defined and in which kinds it was divided in different courses. In general, all the professors, as well as other scholastic philosophers, agree that categorematic infinity exists only in God, but syncategorematic is present in the created world. Regarding the question whether God, being omnipotent, can create a categorematic infinity in the world, the Mogilyans are divided into several camps: (1) Inokentii Gizel, Stefan Yavorskyi, Inokentii Popovskyi, Sylvestr Pinovskyi, Platon Malynovskyi gave a positive answer to the question; (2) Yosyf Volchanskyi, Ilarion Levytskyi, Amvrosii Dubnevych, Sylvestr Kulabka believed that this kind of infinity is in principle impossible, hence God cannot create it; (3) Teofan Prokopovych and Georgii Konyskyi took a sceptical stand and consider that the human mind as such could not solve this problem. The article analyses which arguments were offered by each camp, and gives suggestions what influenced the position of certain Mohylian professors. Most probably, Mohylian philosophers who supported the possibility of actual infinity in the created world were influenced by nominalistically oriented Jesuit philosophers, like Pedro Hurtando de Mendoza and Rodrigo Arriaga. The other Mohylians backed a more traditional idea, supported by Thomas Aquinas, that only one actual infinity can exist and it is God.

Uwieczniać się jako gatunek ludzki

In this article author analyses the value on being itself as a basis and reason for prolongation of the mankind. Against some nihilistic and existentialist philosophers and writers who denied the value of life-giving, author refers to thoughts of Emmanuel Levinas and Remi Brague and shows that, like in the ancient and scholastic philosophy, we can find here the belief that Being is essentially connected with the Good itself. Neitherscience (as well as ideologies it evolves), nor pessimistic overview can give us such a powerful perspective to mankind’s durability and its genuine value as a humanism,strengthened with religious faith, can do.

A Contextualist History of Cartesian Philosophy: Roger Ariew’s Descartes and the First Cartesians

A Contextualist History of Cartesian Philosophy: Roger Ariew’s <i>Descartes and the First Cartesians</i>

Proyección histórica de Francisco Suárez: Xavier Zubiri

La obra epistemológica y metafísica de Francisco Suárez supuso un cambio importante en la filosofía escolástica. Por ello ha sido denominada como la Segunda Escolástica. En realidad, más que un «cambio» o «reforma» del tomismo, es una verdadera alternativa. En Suárez tienen su eco el pensamiento nominalista y la ciencia moderna. Estos puntos de referencia nos hacen entender por qué Suárez dijo lo que dijo. En alguna manera intuyó lo que su tiempo significaba. El tomismo puro asumió una interpretación «dura» del dualismo griego y esto había dado lugar a la teoría de la prevalencia del universal en el proceso cognitivo. El nominalismo y la ciencia moderna no iban en esta línea. Para ellos, la mente humana se construía a partir de la experiencia, en la línea del sensismo y del empirismo posterior. Suárez, en efecto, cambió también de perspectiva, haciéndola más conforme con su tiempo, al reconstruir el proceso del conocimiento a partir de la teoría epistemológica de la prevalencia del singular sobre el universal en el proceso cognitivo. Durante los siglos siguientes, la obra de Suárez supuso una alternativa eficaz frente al tomismo puro, sobre todo por la obra docente de los jesuitas. Por ello, el estilo filosófico de Suárez se extendió por toda Europa y marcó una línea de presencia filosófica en España. Creemos que puede hablarse de una constante filosófica española que recoge las grandes líneas de Suárez. Esta manera de pensar se ha proyectado, o ha fructificado, en el siglo XX, en autores como Amor Ruibal y Zubiri. En este artículo mostraremos la conexión entre la epistemología de Suárez y la de Zubiri.