Aristotelian Predicables, Universality and Realism the Logic of Comparison in Topics As Denying the View That Aristotle Was a Realist*
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Aquinas on Attributes
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by MedievaleCommons@Cornell Philosophy and Theology 11 (2003), 1–41. Printed in the United States of America. Copyright C 2004 Cambridge University Press 1057-0608 DOI: 10.1017/S105706080300001X Aquinas on Attributes BRIAN LEFTOW Oriel College, Oxford Aquinas’ theory of attributes is one of the most obscure, controversial parts of his thought. There is no agreement even on so basic a matter as where he falls in the standard scheme of classifying such theories: to Copleston, he is a resemblance-nominalist1; to Armstrong, a “concept nominalist”2; to Edwards and Spade, “almost as strong a realist as Duns Scotus”3; to Gracia, Pannier, and Sullivan, neither realist nor nominalist4; to Hamlyn, the Middle Ages’ “prime exponent of realism,” although his theory adds elements of nominalism and “conceptualism”5; to Wolterstorff, just inconsistent.6 I now set out Aquinas’ view and try to answer the vexed question of how to classify it. Part of the confusion here is terminological. As emerges below, Thomas believed in “tropes” of “lowest” (infima) species of accidents and (I argue) substances.7 Many now class trope theories as a form of nominalism,8 while 1. F. C. Copleston, Aquinas (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1955), P. 94. 2. D. M. Armstrong, Nominalism and Realism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978), pp. 25, 83, 87. Armstrong is tentative about this. 3. Sandra Edwards, “The Realism of Aquinas,” The New Scholasticism 59 (1985): 79; Paul Vincent Spade, “Degrees of Being, Degrees of Goodness,” in Aquinas’ Moral Theory, ed. -
Existence As a Real Property
Francesco Berto Existence as a Real Property The Ontology of Meinongianism For Graham Priest, Long-distance teacher Prologue: Much Ado About Nothing Some philosophers think that something’s having intuitive content is very inconclusive evidence in favor of it. I think it is very heavy evidence in favor of anything, myself. I really don’t know, in a way, what more conclusive evidence one can have about anything, ultimately speaking. –Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity 1 In an episode of The Today Show of some years ago, Gene Shalit – NBC’s film and book critic, famous for his wits – reviews several books sharing the feature of bearing entertaining titles. The highpoint of the monologue comes with Nonexistent Objects, by the UCLA philosopher Terence Parsons. Shalit wonders how one could write a whole book on things that do not exist!1 This whole book, too, is about things that do not exist. But if one stops to think, one may find that, in a sense, there is nothing special about this. There are, in fact, thousands of books speaking about unreal things. You have probably read quite a few of them: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories portrait the adventures of the detective Sherlock Holmes; The Lord of the Rings speaks at length of Gandalf the wizard. Doyle represents Sherlock Holmes as a detective living in London, Baker Street (precisely, at number 221b), describes his remarkable observational and deductive abilities, makes of him the arch-enemy of the criminal mastermind Moriarty. J.R.R. Tolkien characterizes Gandalf as a wizard with a pointy hat and a grey robe (a white one, from a certain point of the story onwards), a heavy pipe-herb 1 The anecdote is reported by Roy Sorensen [2003], p. -
Logic and Ontology
Logic and Ontology Nino B. Cocchiarella Abstract A brief review of the historical relation between logic and ontology and of the opposition between the views of logic as language and logic as calculus is given. We argue that predication is more fundamental than membership and that di¤erent theories of predication are based on di¤erent theories of universals, the three most important being nominalism, conceptualism, and realism. These theories can be formulated as formal ontologies, each with its own logic, and compared with one another in terms of their respective explanatory powers. After a brief survey of such a comparison, we argue that an extended form of conceptual realism provides the most coherent formal ontology and, as such, can be used to defend the view of logic as language. Logic, as Father Bochenski observed, developed originally out of dialectics, rules for discussion and reasoning, and in particular rules for how to argue suc- cessfully.1 Aristotle, one of the founders of logic in western philosophy, described such rules in his Topics, where logic is presented in this way. Indeed, the idea of logic as the art of arguing was the primary view of this subject in ancient philos- ophy. It was defended in particular by the Stoics, who developed a formal logic of propositions, but conceived of it only as a set of rules for arguing.2 Aristotle was the founder not only of logic in western philosophy, but of ontol- ogy as well, which he described in his Metaphysics and the Categories as a study of the common properties of all entities, and of the categorial aspects into which they can be analyzed. -
Extension and Comprehension in Logic: an Essay in Doctrine
Document generated on 09/24/2021 9:48 p.m. Laval théologique et philosophique Extension and Comprehension in Logic An Essay In Doctrine Joseph C. Frisch Volume 24, Number 2, 1968 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1020127ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1020127ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Laval théologique et philosophique, Université Laval ISSN 0023-9054 (print) 1703-8804 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Frisch, J. C. (1968). Extension and Comprehension in Logic: An Essay In Doctrine. Laval théologique et philosophique, 24(2), 215–257. https://doi.org/10.7202/1020127ar Tous droits réservés © Laval théologique et philosophique, Université Laval, This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit 1968 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ Extension and Comprehension in Logic An Essay In Doctrine Although the words ‘extension’ and ‘comprehension’ have been used in logical textbooks for more than three hundred years without anyone offering a serious appraisal of their validity, the question arises whether this sort of vocabulary is well-grounded, and whether logicians can defend their position concerning this manner of speaking. Let us examine whether the words ‘extension’ and ‘comprehension’ may be employed legitimately within the domain of logic, or whether these two words convey adequately the meaning intended by logicians. -
The Problem of the Transcendentals
The Problem of the Transcendentals Ligerz, March , Philipp Blum Being is not a genus Suppose Being were a genus and substances one of its species, substantial being the specific difference. substantial alsois, soitisitselfamongtheexemplarsofthegenus. Doesitbelongtothespeciesofsubstances or not? If it does, then it is a substance and is substantial. But then it is separated and the same in kind as its exemplars, and shares with them itself – a third man problem if there ever was one. If it does not belong to itself, on the other hand, then it is not a substance and not separated – but how can it then be, and be the specific difference of a species? If animal were predicable of rational, taken apart from rational animal, then rational would be an animal, but then rational would be animal, i.e. all animals would be rational and rational would not mark out a species among the genus, but be the same as animal. How being can be unified even if it is not a genus is one of the problems set for the Metaphysics to solve. The question is involved already in the th aporia of Met. Beta: πρὸς δὲ τούτοις εἰ καὶ ὅτι μάλιστα ἀρχαὶ τὰ γένη εἰσί, πότερον For if the universal is always more of a principle, evidently the δεῖ νομίζειν τὰ πρῶτα τῶν γενῶν ἀρχὰς ἢ τὰ (15) ἔσχατα κατη- uppermost of the genera are the principles; for these are pred- γορούμενα ἐπὶ τῶν ἀτόμων; καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο ἔχει ἀμφισβήτησιν. εἰ icated of all things. There will, then, be as many principles of μὲν γὰρ ἀεὶ τὰ καθόλου μᾶλλον ἀρχαί, φανερὸν ὅτι τὰ ἀνωτάτω things as there are primary genera, so that both being and unity τῶν γενῶν· ταῦτα γὰρ λέγεται κατὰ πάντων. -
Jean Buridan's Theory of Individuation
c Peter King, in Individuation and Scholasticism (SUNY 1994), 397–430 BURIDAN’S THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION* 1. Introduction URIDAN holds that no principle or cause accounts for the individuality of the individual, or at least no principle or B cause other than the very individual itself, and thus there is no ‘metaphysical’ problem of individuation at all—individuality, unlike gen- erality, is primitive and needs no explanation. He supports this view in two ways. First, he argues that there are no nonindividual entities, whether existing in their own right or as metaphysical constituents either of things or in things, and hence that no real principle or cause of individuality (other than the individual itself) is required. Second, he offers a ‘semantic’ inter- pretation of what appear to be metaphysical difficulties about individuality by recasting the issues in the formal mode, as issues within semantics, such as how a referring expression can pick out a single individual. Yet although there is no ‘metaphysical’ problem of individuation, Buridan discusses two associated problems at some length: the identity of individuals over time and the discernibility of individuals. The discussion will proceed as follows. In §2, Buridan’s semantic frame- work, the idiom in which he couches his philosophical analyses, will be * References to Buridan are taken from a variety of his works (with abbreviations listed): Questions on Aristotle’s “Categories” (QC); Questions on Aristotle’s “Physics” (QSP); Questions on Aristotle’s “De caelo et mundo” (QCM); Questions on Aristotle’s “De anima” (QA); Questions on Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” (QM); Treatise on Supposi- tion (TS); Sophismata; Treatise on Consequences (TC). -
1. Armstrong and Aristotle There Are Two Main Reasons for Not
RECENSIONI&REPORTS report ANNABELLA D’ATRI DAVID MALET ARMSTRONG’S NEO‐ARISTOTELIANISM 1. Armstrong and Aristotle 2. Lowe on Aristotelian substance 3. Armstrong and Lowe on the laws of nature 4. Conclusion ABSTRACT: The aim of this paper is to establish criteria for designating the Systematic Metaphysics of Australian philosopher David Malet Armstrong as neo‐ Aristotelian and to distinguish this form of weak neo‐ Aristotelianism from other forms, specifically from John Lowe’s strong neo‐Aristotelianism. In order to compare the two forms, I will focus on the Aristotelian category of substance, and on the dissimilar attitudes of Armstrong and Lowe with regard to this category. Finally, I will test the impact of the two different metaphysics on the ontological explanation of laws of nature. 1. Armstrong and Aristotle There are two main reasons for not considering Armstrong’s Systematic Metaphysics as Aristotelian: a) the first is a “philological” reason: we don’t have evidence of Armstrong reading and analyzing Aristotle’s main works. On the contrary, we have evidence of Armstrong’s acknowledgments to Peter Anstey1 for drawing his attention to the reference of Aristotle’s theory of truthmaker in Categories and to Jim Franklin2 for a passage in Aristotle’s Metaphysics on the theory of the “one”; b) the second reason is “historiographic”: Armstrong isn’t listed among the authors labeled as contemporary Aristotelian metaphysicians3. Nonetheless, there are also reasons for speaking of Armstrong’s Aristotelianism if, according to 1 D. M. Armstrong, A World of State of Affairs, Cambridge University Press, New York 1978, p. 13. 2 Ibid., p. -
A Critical Evaluation of the Epistemology of William Pepperell Montague
Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1957 A Critical Evaluation of the Epistemology of William Pepperell Montague John Joseph Monahan Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Monahan, John Joseph, "A Critical Evaluation of the Epistemology of William Pepperell Montague " (1957). Master's Theses. 1426. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/1426 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1957 John Joseph Monahan I"'" A CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE EFISTEiv:OLO<1Y OF WILLIAr·~ FEPfF.RELL tJ!ONTAGUE by John Joseph Monahan A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of tre Graduate School , • of Loyola University in Partial Fulfillment of· • the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Janu&.I'1 1957 , , LIFE The Reverend Jol"n J oae ,h r':!)Mran, C. f!. V. was born in Oh .:teago, 1111 [.'018 f r,~arch 2. 1926. He attended Qulgley .Preparatory Se:n.1nary, Oh,1cago t Illino1s, a.nd was gradua.ted from St. Ambrose College, Daven. port, Iowa, August, 1948, with th~ degree of Bacbelor ot Art a • In 1952 he was ordained til prl•• t from St. Thoma. Seminary, Denver, Oolo%'ado tv1 tt; the degree of Haste%' ot Art •• from. -
Aristotelian Vs. Contemporary Perspectives on Relations
Aristotelian vs. Contemporary Perspectives on Relations JEFFREY E. BROWER Prior to the 20th century, philosophers did not—perhaps even could not—properly appreciate the reality or the irreducibility of relations. Or so many of us have been taught to believe. Indeed, according to a familiar story, full-fledged realism or anti-reductionism about relations did not appear until the late 19th century, when it burst onto the philosophical scene almost wholly unprepared for. As David Armstrong suggests: Philosophy has been a long time coming to grips with the category of relations . It is not until the late nineteenth and the twentieth century with C. S. Peirce, William James, and Bertrand Russell that relations begin (no more than begin) to come into focus. (Armstrong 1989, 29) Echoing these sentiments, with a bit more caution, John Heil writes in his recent entry on relations in the Routledge Companion to Metaphysics: Indeed, the history of philosophical discussion of relations divides conveniently into the period before and the period after the late nineteenth century. With important exceptions, relations were regarded with suspicion until philosophers working in logic and foundations of mathematics advanced reasons to doubt that we could provide anything like an adequate description of the world without employing a relational vocabulary. (Heil 2009, 312) According to the familiar story, the late development of our contemporary perspective on relations owes, in large part, to the influence of Aristotle. Sometimes the relevant influence is said to be linguistic or semantic in nature. Undue emphasis on the subject-predicate form of propositions is what prevented the conception of relations as beings or entities corresponding to polyadic predicates. -
Quantity and Mathematics
Draft accepted for the Proceedings of the Eleventh International Thomistic Congress, 2022 Thomistic Foundations for Moderate Realism about Mathematical Objects Contents 1. Extended Abstract ................................................................................................................................. 1 2. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 3 3. Formal and Material Mathematics ....................................................................................................... 3 3.1 Why should math have anything to do with matter? ................................................................... 3 3.2 Not just any matter will do ........................................................................................................... 5 3.3 The Goldilocks Problem ................................................................................................................ 7 4. Quantity is Necessary for Mathematics: A Ratio Measure ................................................................... 7 5. Quantity is Sufficient for Mathematics: Actual Potential Infinity ......................................................... 8 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 13 7. References ......................................................................................................................................... -
Proquest Dissertations
00 UNIVERSITE D'OTTAWA ECOLE DES GRADUES AN EXAMINATION OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE CONTENT OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE OBJECT OF KNOWLEDGE AS THE FOUNDATION OF ROY WOOD SELLARS' THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE by Terrence W. Nevins LA6)fii BIBL'OTHEQIJ'S <^T [u Ottawa *°r*ity o< °* THESIS submitted to the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Ottawa in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Philosophy Ottawa 1971 Q) Terrence W. Nevins, 1972. UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES UMI Number: EC55393 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform EC55393 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 UNIVERSITE D'OTTAWA ECOLE DES GRADUES TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION CHAPTER I: Sellars' Fundamental Distinction Between the Object and Content of Knowledge CHAPTER IT: Extension of the Object-content Distinction in Sellars' Critical Realism 34 CHAPTER III: Critical Evaluation of Sellars' Theory of Knowledge 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY 103 UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES UNIVERSITE D'OTTAWA ECOLE DES GRADUES INTRODUCTION It was a fateful day in the history of philosophy when Rene Descartes, left alone with his stove in the comfort of his room, forgot the stove, and, conscious only of Rene1 Descartes, attempted to rebuild the whole of Western thought on the Cogito. -
The Problem of Intuition in Saint Thomas Aquinas
Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Master's Theses Theses and Dissertations 1948 The Problem of Intuition in Saint Thomas Aquinas Bernice Josphine Novogrodzka Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Novogrodzka, Bernice Josphine, "The Problem of Intuition in Saint Thomas Aquinas" (1948). Master's Theses. 788. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_theses/788 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1948 Bernice Josphine Novogrodzka THE PROBLEM OF INTUITION IN SAL.1\JT THOMAS AQUINAS BY BERNICE J. NOVOGRODZKA A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FOLFILI1fE1TT OF THE REQUIHEMENTS FOE THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LOYOLA UNIVERSITY JUNE 1948 VITA AUCTORIS Bernice Josephine Novogrodzka was born at Wies Kleszniaki in v~te Russia, and at the latter place she received her elementary education. In January 1939, at the age of fourteen, she came to the United States of America. She entered Sacred Heart Acade~, Lisle, Illinois, and was graduated in June 1942. '!he Bachelor of Arts degree with a maj or in English and minor in Philosophy, Sociology, and Education was conferred by the College of Saint Benedict, Saint Joseph, Minnesota, in June 1946. • TABLE OF CONTEhTS CHAPTER PAGE l'UREWORD I. INTRODUCTION • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 1 Herein the problem will be stated, its history exposed, the difficulties presented in Ancient, Ndddle Ages, and later times up to our 01m times.