Traditional Metaphysics Research Articles

„Moartea autorului”. Analiza multispectrală a unui topos cultural

The present reflection proposes a novel investigation method in humanities, consisting in the analysis of local phenomena as originating in the dynamic of cultural `deep structures`. My focus falls on the death of the author which I consider to be a topos and a myth of last century’s humanities. The death of the author is associated with the Hegelian eschatological philosophy of history, but may also be deciphered as a consequence of the acute manifestation, within an entire culture, of the Kantian antinomy regarding the necessary existence of a transcendent being. As transcendent to the work, the author is refuted – because, as Hugo Friedrich shows, the modern artistic conscience intuited the empty ideality of traditional metaphysical notions –. Thus, the death of the author must be inquired upon not only as a particular phenomenon within the evolution of art, but also as a symptom of certain transformations that precede the aesthetical domain, transformations that are characteristic to the late Modernity and integrant of a `multispectral` analysis (with scopes in metaphysics, archetype and myth analysis). Such a methodological exigence is based on the assumption that a cultural phenomenon ought to be integrated within the scientific paradigm it expresses and also within the ontological and cosmological models around which it is articulated. An approach such as this shall reveal that the death of the author represents and intellectual version of the death of God, further assimilated to a cultural archetype, that of the death of Meaning. Consequently, the postmodern deicide represents the imposal of negation as a form of thought, a Western thought headed, with the end of Modernity, against the metaphysical tradition (of Presence) that it stems from. I assume that the self-destruction of Western tradition is symptom of a profound crisis of identity and I interpret it as a symbolic violence meant to redeem the fault of 20th Century’s atrocities, by cleansing the guilt the Western man experiences. My approach to the analysis of myth engages the actual debate regarding the canonical fights of the last few decades while trying to shed light on the way in which the symbolic deicide of the (`secularized`) author and auctor aims at imposing a new author and a new auctor to the symbolic products of culture. Ideology is the new auctorial authority.

The Hand Extending Beyond the Cosmos: Discussions on the Khalā’ [Void] Between the Baṣran and Baghdād Schools of Mu’tazila

We can find the origins of the notion of void in the Kalām tradition’s recognition of atomism. However, the main debates on the subject appeared after the Greek philosophical heritage transitioned to the Islamic world in the 3 rd century of Hijra. The literature of Kalām, just as in the metaphysical tradition, has two main types for this void being discussed. The first one is the external void (extracosmic) in which the cosmos floats. In the sources of Kalām, the question of whether such a type of void exists is debated around the questions of whether anyone who might look beyond the cosmos can see anything or whether someone who stretches their hand outside the cosmos can move it. The second type of void, which occupies more of the mutakallimūn (Muslim theologians) agenda, is the internal void (intercosmic), assumed to be within the cosmos and between the body-forming atoms. This kind of void is discussed around the question of “Whether separating the two atoms is possible so that a third one can be inserted between them?” An ongoing discussion on the intercosmic void is found between the Baṣran and Baghdād Schools of Mu’tazila. Ibn Mattawayh and al-Nīsābūrī narrated the evidence presented in these discussions in their original form. The current essay discusses the debates between the two Schools and assesses the theoretical and experimental arguments both Schools present to justify their viewpoints, considering their philosophical origins.

Kant on the Fundamental Forces of Matter: Why Attraction and Repulsion?

AbstractThis article addresses a simple question that has rarely been asked of Kant’s philosophy of nature: why are attraction and repulsion the two fundamental forces of matter? Where proposals can be found in the literature, they are divergent. I provide a new answer, which has strong support from the historical context: Kant pursues a modified version of what I call the ‘reduction method’ that was much debated in the German metaphysical tradition. To this, Kant crucially adds his critical doctrine of regulative ideas, revealing an overlooked way that the Appendix to theCritiqueinforms his philosophy of nature.

La force du vrai en déclin : les formes de subjectivation à l’ère de la post-vérité

ObjectivesIt has become a commonplace in research in human, social, and political sciences to refer to the current era as being one of “post-truth”. Considering the discontinuity between discourse and truth today, this article aims to identify under which regimes the force of truth is in decline and to indicate some contributions of authors from the psychoanalytic tradition, in order to reflect on the engagement of subjects in discourses of truth. MethodFrom a historical perspective, we refer to Foucault's analysis to identify, in the notion of “force of truth”, a conception of truth established between knowing and power. Then, we propose, based on the theoretical propositions of Freud and of Deleuze and Guattari, (1) an interpretation of the current decline of the truth, and, from Lacan's contributions; (2) possibilities for emphasising the dimensions of otherness and of the limits of the discursive in the experience of truth. ResultsGiven the failure of modern regimes of truth based on the knowledge model and the detachment of subjectivities from the discourses of truth, we identify the rise of a narcissism of small differences and a modality of fascism that submits differences to a principle of identity. Considering this scenario, the psychoanalytic approach demonstrates how powerfully the other occupies an unavoidable place of difference in the experience of truth. This perspective recovers another tradition of truth, which, associated with the subject's work on her/himself, implies the possibility of subjective transformation. DiscussionBy problematising the experience of truth based on knowledge and determined by a metaphysical tradition of the soul (psykhé), that is, by defining ontology as the subject's way of being, we highlight other possibilities of the subjectivation of truth based on the dimension of life (bíos) and of existence. By conceiving of telling the truth in psychoanalysis according to Lacan's reading, we question how this perspective reintroduces the question of the force of truth in the field of ethical discussion. ConclusionsBy promoting the return of truth through a clinical investigation of the subject, Lacan's contribution to psychoanalysis allows us to establish a critique of contemporary forms of subjectivation based on the principle of identity, and to redefine the place of otherness in discourses of truth. The determination of the limits of speech in the apprehension of the real does not give rise to a renunciation of the experience of truth, since, besides being inscribed in the tradition of knowledge, it can be situated in an aesthetic approach, in which the force of truth engenders stylistics of existence.

Basic integral theory and integral education

Integral Theory (IT) has become a framework, widely discussed and applied, which uses diverse kinds of claims, belonging to different fields of discourse: physical, biological, social, cultural, personal, or metaphysical. Because of that inherent complexity, IT received also many criticisms. The need to count with a coherent integral meta-theory of human evolution and development makes convenient the proposal of redefining the IT as a Basic Integral Theory (Basic IT). The asset of this Basic IT—here defined and developed—is to count with a better characterization of the second tier of consciousness, having the potentiality to arrive at it from different metaphysical views, characterizing the thinking skills needed, and as a point of encounter. On the other hand, the Basic IT presented does not interfere in the third tier of consciousness, which is better reached from each metaphysical tradition. Once characterized by Basic IT, this rationale can be applied to develop Integral Arts, among them Integral Education.

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.

The Hidden Theology of International Legal Positivism

This essay is a study in the critical deconstruction of one of the most popular theoretical paradigms in modern international law and its basic ideological impact on international law as a discipline. The paradigm in question is voluntarist positivism (aka classical international law positivism) and its general impact on the discipline of international law, I am going to argue, has been to encourage the rise and spread within it of what one might call a theoretical culture of ‘bad faith’ – a mix of false consciousness and self-censorship – particularly, in what concerns international law’s relationship with natural law and Christian theology. More specifically, I will argue that: voluntarist positivism, despite its pretense to the contrary, is really just a species of natural-legal thinking. In terms of its basic theoretical structure it shares the exact same metaphysical design as Immanuel Kant’s theory of morals and Adam Smith’s theory of free market economics, both of which are Enlightenment-era adaptations of Christian theology. One of the most influential attempts to develop the basic theoretical paradigm that underpins this metaphysical tradition can be found in the work of the medieval Franciscan scholar John Duns Scotus, and in particular his discussion of the problem of free will and the possibility of free will for the ‘blessed in heaven’. In addition to this unacknowledged Scotist legacy, the theoretical structure behind voluntarist positivism, I am going to argue, also exhibits a rather uncanny similarity to early Christological debates regarding the human/divine nature of Christ. Through a close reading of various international law texts, such as the Lotus and Nicaragua judgments, and scholarly works – Bruno Simma, Louis Henkin, Vaughan Lowe, Roberto Ago, Ian Brownlie – this essay proceeds first to uncover the essential contours of voluntarist positivism’s operative theoretical model, before exploring the structural parallels and similarities between voluntarist positivism, Kant, and Smith. The basic theoretical challenge which it identifies first as the problem of international law’s absent centre is shown to have its direct equivalent in Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative/universal morality and Smith’s theory of market adjustment (invisible hand)/natural prices. Unlike Kant’s moral theory and Smith’s political economy, voluntarist positivism, because of its ideological commitments to ‘scientificity’ and ‘secularism’, has not been able to afford a direct copying of the Christian paradigm. Thus where the concept of the categorical imperative and the theory of the invisible hand provided a direct replication of the Christian conception of God, voluntarist positivism has simply elected to ignore the issue of closure and structuration it raises altogether. The result has been the emergence of an extremely contradictory and illogical theoretical structure – not unlike that described by Nietzsche in his critique of Victorian liberalism – and a disciplinary economy of power/knowledge that is openly based on a politics of bad faith.

The one, the true, the good\u2026 or not: Badiou, Agamben, and atheistic transcendentality

This article offers a reading of the “transcendental” character of Alain Badiou’s and Giorgio Agamben’s ontologies. While neither Badiou nor Agamben are “transcendental” philosophers in the Kantian sense, this article argues that their respective projects of ontology both recover aspects of the “classical” conception of the transcendentals. Not unlike how pre-modern philosophers conceived of oneness, truth and goodness as transcendental properties of all things, both Badiou’s and Agamben’s ontologies present various structures which can be universally predicated of all being. However, as opposed to the essentialist or even theological tendencies of traditional metaphysics, Badiou’s and Agamben’s ontologies are committedly “inessential” and atheistic at their very core. By replacing the divine names of the one, the true and the good in traditional metaphysics with a new yet quasi-classical transcendental notion of “the void” as a universal predicate of all beings, Badiou’s and Agamben’s works may be regarded as projects that go beyond both the pre-Kantian “theological” and the post-Kantian “subjective” conceptions of transcendental philosophy, thereby marking a new development in the history of western metaphysics.

Feminist Thought. A Theoretical Approach

In this essay, Cavarero thematically highlights the main issues of feminist thought, by criticizing the patriarchal system and its theoretical products—such as the concepts of complementarity of the sexes and of equality—through the lens of sexual difference. In doing so, she radically criticizes the so-called binary economy, namely the interpretative model on which the patriarchal system is based, in which the sole male sex is self-represented, establishing at the same time a representation of the female sex that is functional to men. Accordingly, by criticizing both the traditional and the postmodern approach, she aims to rethink from a feminist point of view the question of the subject, of the identity, and of the self. In this respect, she advances an account of the self as relational, namely a self that is given only through its relationship with others, hence rejecting the abstract universality of the male subject of traditional metaphysics. Subsequently, Cavarero presents a notion of identity as an interplay of relations that makes it fluid and dynamic, and not as fixed and permanent, as per the metaphysical tradition that understands it as universal substance. In conclusion, she argues that the unicity of the self—and of each human being—can be grasped only through a narrative discourse that counterposes the philosophical investigations on the essence of an absolute and universal principle of reality, and emphasizes the singular and unrepeatable nature of the self.

Now is the “We-Time.” Heidegger’s ‘Black Notebooks’ read as self-critical reflection of Nazi involvement

The article analyzes Heidegger?s relation to National Socialism based on his private writing in the ?Black Notebooks,? published in their entirety (nine volumes) this year. Although it is indisputable that Heidegger was an enthusiastic adherent of the National Socialist program between 1930 and 1934, his private writings show his avowed philosophical delusion that the National Socialist ?revolution? in Germany was going to bring about a new beginning of philosophy beyond the metaphysical tradition. The article shows how Heidegger criticized National Socialism after 1934, and the circumstances of his resignation from the post of Rector of Freiburg University in that year.

За гранью эпического времени. «Ричард II» и природа трагического у Шекспира

The major disagreement on the nature of the epic is rooted in the opposition of two concepts — either the epic draws on the myth, or its optics is regulated by history. In Leonid Pinsky’s opinion the way leading from the epic past towards the individual and inward self was the way of Shakespeare’s heroes both in his tragedies and history plays. Richard II (1595, opening the second tetralogy) follows one of the two archetypes suggested by Hugh Grady in his article “Shakespeare's links to Machiavelli and Montaigne.” Richard is not essentially a machiavellian type, though occasionally called a weak, “deficient” tyrant by critics and a “landlord” (not a king) by John Gaunt in the play. Creating this character Shakespeare makes the first step towards Hamlet. The climax is reached in the scene of his dethronement, much more known for its political topicality than being scrutinized for the discovery a dethroned king is to make. Who is he now? A nonentity, or a new being? The mirror he asks to bring lies, he thinks, when he recognizes his own unchanged face in it. Several scenes in the play (the Queen and Bushy, Richard and his jailor) demonstrate how the lyrical experience, Shakespeare must have acquired in the two plague years (1592–1594), had changed his dramatic technique. In Richard II he gave a start to a new metaphysical tradition.

Ethical and World-View Philosophy by Wilhelm Dilthey

Reviewed by: Ethical and World-View Philosophy by Wilhelm Dilthey Sebastian Luft Wilhelm Dilthey. Ethical and World-View Philosophy. Edited, with an introduction, by Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi. Selected Works, volume 6. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2019. Pp. xi + 346. Cloth, $55.00. The present volume is the final tome in the six-volume translation of the main writings of Wilhelm Dilthey, offering a selection of what the series editors, Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi (together with an advisory board including scholars such as Paul Ricœur and Otto Pöggeler), deemed the most important writings of the philosopher-historian. By comparison, Dilthey's Collected Works in the German spans twenty-six volumes (an editorial project lasting over one hundred years) and is now complemented by a four-volume edition of his correspondence (of which three volumes have appeared). Thus, the texts gathered in this set of translations are but the tip of the iceberg of Dilthey's writings. The sixth volume fills a thematic gap in the series by including texts on ethics and religion. While Dilthey's writings on the philosophy of worldviews might be some of his most-known work in German, his writings on religion and ethics belong perhaps to his least-known work overall. Given the standard narrative of Dilthey's thought, perhaps the most surprising text in this volume is the System of Ethics of 1890, which should receive special mention here. In this text of a bit over one hundred pages, Dilthey gives a historical overview of the ethical systems the West has had to offer, critiquing each along the way, thereby laying out his ethical "system" especially in confrontation with the tendencies of his time. These are, to him, naturalism in philosophy and science, and socialism in ethics, which he sees as of a piece. He also critiques as having become insufficient in our times Christian dogma and traditional metaphysics that posits universally valid principles; both, too, are seen as stemming from the same standpoint. Instead, ethics is in need of an "epistemological and critical foundation" (48). This foundation is based on the "inner relatedness of instinct, feeling, and volition" (73), which produce a teleological movement in the individual in their "gradual merging" (74). This leads Dilthey to propose a "formative ethics," which does not restrict, but "cultivates psychic animality into a joyful form of life in harmony with the higher life" (82). Ultimately, personal ethics has to lead to a "social ethics" and to a "moral culture" (131). As the editors characterize Dilthey's stance: "Whereas traditional ethics located the ideal of inner worth in individual character, Dilthey's social ethics also projects this ideal into the historical world of cultural development" (9). Included in this volume is the well-known "Dream," a talk Dilthey gave at the celebration of his seventieth birthday in 1903. Dilthey reports a dream he had after a philosophical conversation with a friend. In this dream, Dilthey meets past and present philosophers, as if he were walking through a live staging of Raphael's School of Athens. As he also meets philosophers he personally knew, he grows anxious, as they form two separate groups, creating a hostile standoff. This leads Dilthey to reflect on the "two faces" (168) that philosophy shows. "The inextinguishable impulse for metaphysics wants to solve the riddle of the world and of life, and in this regard, philosophers are akin to religious thinkers and poets. But philosophers differ from them inasmuch as they want to solve this riddle through [End Page 524] universally valid knowledge" (168). While the latter is present in the great systems of Western philosophy, the former can only be grappled with at the level of worldviews, which "express different forms while referring to one truth. This truth is not cognizable" (169) but needs to be lived through from the standpoint of historical consciousness. Known today mainly as the philosopher who influenced Heidegger to move beyond Husserl's phenomenology toward Heidegger's analysis of Dasein and from there to Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, Dilthey in this volume, along with the entire Selected Works series, shows us a philosopher who deserves to be recognized in his...

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.”

Is Edith Stein’s Finite and Eternal Being a Kind of “Phenomenological Metaphysics”?

One striking feature of Finite and Eternal Being is Edith Stein’s exceedingly rare use of the term “metaphysics.” She uses the term “formal ontology” numerous times, but the term “metaphysics” only appears a handful of times in the body of the text, and even those references are themselves a bit surprising. This could be explained in several ways, some of which may be quite innocent and have nothing to do with whether she understands her project as metaphysical. In the following, however, I would like to explore a differing explanation and argue that (at least, in part) her reason for avoiding describing her work as metaphysical is connected with the type of philosophical critique she wants to make of traditional metaphysics. I will not argue that Finite and Eternal Being should ultimately be read as a phenomenological analysis of being rather than any sort of metaphysical treatise, but I will argue that Stein has explicitly phenomenological reasons for being cautious about using the term “metaphysics.”

Phýsis krýptesthai phileî. Naturaleza y metafísca en la crisis de Ser y tiempo

En este artículo, expondré el concepto heideggeriano de phýsis entre los años 1927-30. Este concepto aparece en la doctrina de la Welteingang des Seienden, en el marco de una ‘radicalización de la ontología’, proyecto metafísico que luego hará crisis y llevará a Heidegger a reinterpretar la pregunta por el sentido del ser como pregunta por la verdad del Ser. Mostraré que la cuestión de la phýsis aporta elementos en esa crisis y posterior cambio de enfoque, en el ámbito filosófico-histórico y en el fenomenológico. Mi hipótesis es que el empleo del concepto de phýsis en el contexto de la doctrina de la Welteingang des Seienden es un recurso especulativo que pretende aclarar el sentido en que el ente natural es, pero sin aparecer dentro del mundo, en términos de ‘tránsito’ desde el completo ocultamiento (phýsis) al desocultamiento (alétheia). Esto tendrá consecuencias respecto a la evaluación de la tradición metafísica, entendida como un preguntar por la phýsis en el doble sentido de ente en totalidad y ser de lo ente o esencialidad.

SIGNIFICANCE OF METAPHYSICS’ CRITICISM IN M. HEIDEGGER'S CREATIVITY

Despite various interpretations of Heidegger's philosophy, he is undeniably a deep critic of the metaphysical tradition in European philosophy. His task of overcoming metaphysics once again aroused interest in the fundamental issues of life in the era of the total dominance of private sciences. In the article, the authors explore the concept of metaphysics and its criticism in the work of M. Heidegger, as well as subsequent interpretations, in particular by O. Peggeler (“New Ways with Heidegger”, 1992). Criticism of metaphysics was a necessary condition for overcoming it to build a fundamental ontology. Having experienced the influence of Nietzsche, Heidegger does not remain a Nietzschean, because he considers him the last metaphysician to be overcome. In this regard, Peggeler recognizes Heidegger's main work not as “Being and Time”, but as “Reports to Philosophy” (1936), where he sought to reveal the primary sources of the concept of metaphysics. Heidegger's views regarding the interpretation of the development of metaphysics in different historical eras are specially considered.

Considerações sobre a ação como negociação

Our aim in this paper is to investigate the possibilities of thinking the concept of "action" bringing it closer to the notion of "negotiation", retaking, this way, the meaning of the word praxis. We start from a critique of the Arendtian notion of action as "initiative", pointing out its metaphysical basis. Seeking to distance ourselves from an understanding of “action” that is closely tied to the traditional metaphysics of subjectivity, that is, the free-initiative action of a rational and conscious subject, we turn to Espinosa and Ortega y Gasset. The notions of affectivity and circumstance, in the broad sense in which such thinkers employ them, help us to think of "action" as negotiation between multiplicities of circumstances which affect each other in many ways. In the conclusion, we explore some ethical-political consequences of such a conception of action.

Chapter 4 Naturalisms, Materialisms and the Ideal World

In previous chapters of Interpreting Kant in Education, a particular set of assumptions about mind and world has been identified for their influence on the familiar ‘Kantian’ picture in education, a picture that receives widespread criticism. In this fourth chapter, various understandings of familiar concepts are again discussed for the purpose of developing a more valuable reading. Continuing with the consideration of ideas about mind and world that underlie different interpretations, this chapter looks at diverse conceptions of world—nature and reality. Kant's Copernican view has been discussed in relation to traditional metaphysics and empiricism; here it is contrasted with naturalist epistemology. Versions of naturalism and materialism are considered, drawing on the work of John McDowell, Sebastian Rödl and David Bakhurst, to draw attention to different ways of conceiving what is real and natural in the world. Discussion is aimed at helping with an understanding of Kant's (non-traditional) version of idealism.

THE MULTIPLICITY OF UNITY: A REVIEW OF THE VARIOUS APPROACHES TO THE UNITY OF SCIENCE

This paper represents an analysis of several attempts to sustain the idea of unity in science and in knowledge. The authors of the text argue that through the preservation of unity, the link between science and philosophy is strengthened – which is, in modernity, significantly weakened. Philosophical research was undertaken with the aim of further strengthening pluralism, both in science and in methodology, which is reflected in the philosophies of science by Kuhn and Feyerabend. It is also noted that the concept of unity is rather relevant, for it is via unity that modern science maintains its link with the traditional metaphysics, in addition to the many reasons which are listed in the paper. The weakening of the unity in knowledge and the sciences is, in fact, the weakening of the rest of philosophy in sciences. The crisis of the scientific unity reflects the crisis in philosophy. This research firstly contemplates the forms of the reduction of pluralism in the very knowledge, whereas the second chapter deals with the similar attempts related to the unity in science. The final part of the research represents the author’s perspective, as an answer to the question of why unity is that relevant, as well as the manner in which the lack of it would affect science.

Review of Creative Nature (part 3)

The short monograph Creative Nature (Francisco Javier Novo, Rubén Pereda, and Javier Sánchez-Cañizares. 2018. Naturaleza Creativa. Madrid: Rialp. ISBN: 978-84-321-4916-0. 196 pp. Paperback, €14.25) is a welcome contribution to the philosophy of nature that arose from interdisciplinary conversations between authors who are both up-to-date in the scientific literature and deeply grounded in the Western intellectual tradition. In this third and final part of the review essay, I take Creative Nature as a point of departure and develop a theological synthesis of our relationship with the natural world. My approach to making sense of natural evil draws on the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical tradition. I emphasize the wisdom of viewing nature as a whole and avoiding anthropomorphisms, in order to both come to peace with our common home and feel like we belong in a welcoming world. I draw from St. Paul’s teaching on cosmic redemption in his letters to the Colossians and Ephesians to shine the light of supernatural faith on our relationship with the natural world. This approach illustrates how a sound philosophy of nature and biblical interpretation are pivotal for faith–science dialogue.The short monograph Creative Nature (Francisco Javier Novo, Rubén Pereda, and Javier Sánchez-Cañizares. 2018. Naturaleza Creativa. Madrid: Rialp. ISBN: 978-84-321-4916-0. 196 pp. Paperback, €14.25) is a welcome contribution to the philosophy of nature that arose from interdisciplinary conversations between authors who are both up-to-date in the scientific literature and deeply grounded in the Western intellectual tradition. In this third and final part of the review essay, I take Creative Nature as a point of departure and develop a theological synthesis of our relationship with the natural world. My approach to making sense of natural evil draws on the Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysical tradition. I emphasize the wisdom of viewing nature as a whole and avoiding anthropomorphisms, in order to both come to peace with our common home and feel like we belong in a welcoming world. I draw from St. Paul’s teaching on cosmic redemption in his letters to the Colossians and Ephesians to shine the light of supernatural faith on our relationship with the natural world. This approach illustrates how a sound philosophy of nature and biblical interpretation are pivotal for faith–science dialogue.