Leibniz's Revelation-Inspired Metaphysics : an Exercise in Reconciling Faith and Reason
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Philosophy As a Path to Happiness
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Helsingin yliopiston digitaalinen arkisto Philosophy as a Path to Happiness Attainment of Happiness in Arabic Peripatetic and Ismaili Philosophy Janne Mattila ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in auditorium XII, University main building, on the 13th of June, 2011 at 12 o’clock. ISBN 978-952-92-9077-2 (paperback) ISBN 978-952-10-7001-3 (PDF) http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/ Helsinki University Print Helsinki 2011 2 Abstract The aim of this study is to explore the idea of philosophy as a path to happiness in medieval Arabic philosophy. The starting point is in comparison of two distinct currents within Arabic philosophy between the 10th and early 11th centuries, Peripatetic philosophy, represented by al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā, and Ismaili philosophy represented by al-Kirmānī and the Brethren of Purity. These two distinct groups of sources initially offer two contrasting views about philosophy. The attitude of the Peripatetic philosophers is rationalistic and secular in spirit, whereas for the Ismailis philosophy represents the esoteric truth behind revelation. Still, the two currents of thought converge in their view that the ultimate purpose of philosophy lies in its ability to lead man towards happiness. Moreover, they share a common concept of happiness as a contemplative ideal of human perfection, merged together with the Neoplatonic goal of the soul’s reascent to the spiritual world. Finally, for both happiness refers primarily to an otherworldly state thereby becoming a philosophical interpretation of the Quranic accounts of the afterlife. -
The Function of the Trinity in Moltmann's Ecological Doctrine of Creation Paul D
Theological Studies 51 (1990) THE FUNCTION OF THE TRINITY IN MOLTMANN'S ECOLOGICAL DOCTRINE OF CREATION PAUL D. MOLNAR St. John's University, Jamaica, N.Y. CCORDING TO Jürgen Moltmann, "In the 1930's, the problem of the AL doctrine of creation was knowledge of God. Today the problem of the doctrine of God is knowledge of creation. The theological adversary then was the religious and political ideology of 'blood and soil', 'race and nation'. Today the theological adversary is the nihilism practised in our dealings with nature. Both perversions have been evoked by the unnatural will to power "* Moltmann's ecological doctrine of creation sees God's Spirit "in all created beings." To understand this, Moltmann has interwoven the first three articles of the Apostles' Creed in a trinitarian sense in order to "develop a pneumatological doctrine of creation. This doctrine of creation ... takes as its starting point the indwelling divine Spirit of creation."2 This thinking, Moltmann hopes, will provide a more holistic philosophy of nature. The word "ecology" means "the doctrine of the house." Molt mann's point is that if we see creation only as God's "work," such a doctrine will make little sense, but "if we understand the Creator, his creation, and the goal of that creation in a trinitarian sense, then the Creator through his Spirit dwells in his creation as a whole, and in every individual created being, by virtue of his Spirit holding them together and keeping them in life."3 As the inner secret of creation is this indwelling of God, the purpose of Shekinah (God's indwelling) is "to make the whole creation the house of God."4 To this theological side of 1 Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God (New York: Harper and Row, 1985) xi; hereafter abbreviated Creation. -
The Metaphysics of Jonathan Edwards's End of Creation
JETS 59/2 (2016): 339–59 THE METAPHYSICS OF JONATHAN EDWARDS’S END OF CREATION WALTER SCHULTZ* Abstract: In his dissertation ConcernIng the End for which God Created the World, the American theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758), argues precisely and validly for a particular view of God’s purpose and motive in creating and sustain- ing the world on the substantive assumptions that creation is ex nihilo and that only God is absolutely independent and self-sufficient. He asserts that his is the only conceptually possible counterexample to Baruch Spinoza’s contention that no specific position on God’s end and mo- tive in creation combined with a commitment to God’s aseity and creatio ex nihilo can escape incoherence. His argumentation entails a complex metaphysics, which—with careful qualifica- tion—may be referred to by the following terms: dispositionalism, emanationism, idealism, panentheism, anti-platonism, continuous creationism, and occasionalism. This paper briefly de- scribes Edwards’s argumentation for God’s end and motive in creation, summarizes each of these seven positions, and shows how they logically follow. Key Words: emanation, disposition, idealism, platonism, panentheism, continuous creation- ism, occasionalism. Jonathan Edwards’s argumentation in his 1765 dissertation Concerning the End for which God Created the World entaIlS a partIcular verSIon of emanatIonISm, dISpoSI- tionalism, Idealism, antiplatonism, panentheism, continuous creationism, and occa- sionalism.1 ThIS paper brIefly deScrIbeS Edwards’s argumentation for God’s end and motive in creation then Summarizes each of these seven positions and how they logically follow.2 My aImS are to preSent a précIS of EdwardS’S theory of God and creation only in so far as it is expressed in End of Creation. -
Re-Construction and Definition of New Branches & Hierarchy of Sciences
Philosophy Study, July 2016, Vol. 6, No. 7, 377-416 doi: 10.17265/2159-5313/2016.07.001 D DAVID PUBLISHING New Perspective for the Philosophy of Science: Re-Construction and Definition of New Branches & Hierarchy of Sciences Refet Ramiz Near East University In this work, author evaluated past theories and perspectives behind the definitions of science and/or branches of science. Also some of the philosophers of science and their specific philosophical interests were expressed. Author considered some type of interactions between some disciplines to determine, to solve the philosophical/scientific problems and to define the possible solutions. The purposes of this article are: (i) to define new synthesis method, (ii) to define new perspective for the philosophy of science, (iii) to define relation between new philosophy perspective and philosophy of science, (iv) to define and organize name, number, relations, and correct structure between special science branches and philosophy of science, (v) to define necessary and sufficient number of branches for philosophy of science, (vi) to define and express the importance and place of new philosophy of science perspective in the new system, (vii) to extend the definition/limits of philosophy of science, (viii) to re-define meanings of some philosophical/scientific theories, (ix) to define systematic solution for the conflicts, problems, confusions about philosophy of science, sciences and branches of science, (x) to define new branches of science, (xi) to re-construct branches and hierarchy of science, (xii) to define new theories about science and branches of science. Author considered R-Synthesis as a method for the evaluation of the philosophy, philosophy of science, sciences and branches of science. -
A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Fourth Edition
A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, Fourth edition John Losee OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science This page intentionally left blank A Historical Introduction to the Philosophy of Science Fourth edition John Losee 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © John Losee , The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organizations. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available ISBN ––– Typeset in Adobe Minion by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd., Guildford and King’s Lynn Preface This book is a historical sketch of the development of views about scientific method. -
TABLE of CONTENTS PROLEGOMENA I. the Term 'World'
TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLEGOMENA PREPARATION FOR NATURAL PHILOSOPHY I. The Term 'World'. - II. Three Senses of 'World'. - III. Christ, the Perfect World. - IV. The World of Which we Shall Here Speak. - V. On the Object of Cosmology, or Natural Philosophy. - VI. It is Clear that Natural Philosophy is a Science. - VII. Division of Natural Philosophy. - VIII. On the fortune/history of Natural Philosophy - IX. Where the study of Natural Philosophy should be Treated. - X. Authors who have Written about Natural Philosophy. - XI. On the Method to be Followed in studying Natural Philosophy 34 FIRST TREATISE ON THE WORLD WITH RESPECT TO ITS EFFICIENT CAUSE FIRST QUESTION On the Peculiar Characters of the World FIRST ARTICLE Whether the world is simple and something perse one or something composed http://d-nb.info/1034270907 I. Monism. - II. Defenders of Monism. - III. The Three Forms of Monism. - IV. - First Conclusion: Monism, in whichever form it be proposed, is self-contradictory." - V. Objections. - VI. Second Conclusion: "All possible composition is to be ascribed to the world." 44 SECOND ARTICLE Whether the world is a contingent being I. Meaning of the Question. - II. Errors. - III. The First System is Refuted Easily. - IV. Uncaused Matter. - V. Conclusion: "Uncreated matter existing eternally is intrinsically contradictory." - VI. On the Fortuitous Coinciding of Atoms. - VII. The System of Active Evolution. - VIII. Active Evolution in many ways results in absurdity. - IX. The System of Hylozoism. - X. The System of Logical Evolution. - XI. What Kind of Necessity is Found in the World: on the law of inertia and the indestructibility of matter. -
Lost in the Labyrinth: Spinoza, Leibniz and the Continuum Lost in the Labyrinth: Spinoza, Leibniz and the Continuum
LOST IN THE LABYRINTH: SPINOZA, LEIBNIZ AND THE CONTINUUM LOST IN THE LABYRINTH: SPINOZA, LEIBNIZ AND THE CONTINUUM By PATRICK RIESTERER, B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies In Partial Fulfillment ofthe Requirements For the Degree Master ofArts McMaster University © Copyright by Patrick Riesterer, August 2006 MASTER OF ARTS (2006) McMaster University (Philosophy) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Lost in the Labyrinth: Spinoza, Leibniz and the Continuum AUTHOR: Patrick Riesterer, B.A. (Trinity Western University) SUPERVISOR: Professor Richard Arthur NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 110 ii Abstract In this thesis, I address the extent ofSpinoza's influence on the development of Leibniz's response to the continuum problem, with particular emphasis on his relational philosophy oftime and space. I expend the first chapter carefully reconstructing Spinoza's position on infinity and time. We see that Spinoza developed a threefold definition ofinfinity to explain the difference between active substance and its passive modes. Spinoza advances a syncategorematic interpretation ofinfinity, and founds a causal theory oftime directly on this conception ofinfinity. In the second chapter, I examine the changes Leibniz's understanding ofthe continuum problem underwent during 1676 and immediately thereafter. During this period, Leibniz's interacted extensively with Spinoza's ideas. We see that several fundamental features ofLeibniz's philosophy oftime take shape at this time. Leibniz adopts a Spinozistic definition ofdivine eternity and immensity, he reevaluates several analogies in an attempt to understand how the attributes ofa substance interrelate, and he develops the notion ofthe law of the series that will become an essential feature ofmonadic appetition. Leibniz synthesizes several ofthese discoveries into a first philosophy ofmotion. -
Copyright © 2008 by Lydia R
ABSTRACT Analogy, Causation, and Beauty in the Works of Lucy Hutchinson Evan Jay Getz, Ph.D. Dissertation Chairperson: Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. Lucy Hutchinson's translation of the ancient epic De Rerum Natura is remarkable in light of her firm commitments to Calvinist theology and the doctrine of Providence. David Norbrook and Jonathan Goldberg offer strikingly different explanations for the translation exercise. For instance, Norbrook argues that Hutchinson translates Lucretius in order that she might learn from the false images in Lucretius and make better ones in such works as Order and Disorder (Norbrook, “Margaret” 191). In contrast, Goldberg argues for compatibility between Lucretian atomism and Hutchinson‟s Christianity, seeing no contradiction or tension (Goldberg 286). I argue that neither critic accounts for the aesthetics of beauty in Hutchinson's poetry; both critics instead attribute an aesthetics of the sublime to Hutchinson. In making this argument, I show that Hutchinson's theory of causation has much in common with Reformed Scholasticism, whereby she is able to restore a metaphysics of formal and final cause. Hutchinson also revives the doctrine of the analogy of being, or analogia entis, in order to show that the formal cause of creation is visible as God's glory. After a discussion of her metaphysics and ontology, I then show that Hutchinson's poetry reflects a theological aesthetics of beauty and not the aesthetics of the sublime. In the fourth chapter, I compare the typological accounts of Abraham found in Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan and Hutchinson's Order and Disorder with a view to virtue as the proper basis of authority. -
Thevirginthat Became Male: Feminine Principles in Platonic And
chapter 14 The Virgin That Became Male: Feminine Principles in Platonic and Gnostic Texts John D. Turner It is indeed an honor to contribute to this anthology of studies on the subject of Women and Knowledge in Early Christianity in recognition of our esteemed col- league Antti Marjanen—to my knowledge the only Professor of Gnostic Studies in the modern academic world—who has taught us so much on the subject of gender and the role of women in antiquity and the early Christian world. Although he has dealt extensively with real women as intellectual leaders in these contexts, I would like to explore a more abstract topic, namely the ways in which wisdom (σοφία) and (spiritual) knowledge (γνῶσις) are frequently per- sonified as female entities. Of course one must bear in mind that there is a distinction between functional femininity and merely grammatical femininity in ancient Greek, Latin, and Coptic sources, in which various significant nouns and pronouns in the philosophical and mythological schemes can appear in the feminine gender, sometimes for good and substantial reasons, and sometimes for reasons that are purely grammatical and lexicographic.1 In this chapter, I survey the phenomenon of feminine principles in the meta- physics of selected Platonic and gnostic literature. The Platonic sources will include Plato’s later dialogues and oral teaching, and continue with some sub- sequent Platonist sources, including Speusippus, Philo of Alexandria, Moder- atus, Plutarch, Numenius, the Chaldaean Oracles and Plotinus. I will limit the treatment of gnostic sources to texts commonly referred to as “classic gnos- tic” or “Sethian.” These will include the theogony that Irenaeus in his Adver- sus Haereses 1.29–30 attributes to certain “gnostics” later identified as Ophites, Sethians and Barbeloites, and the related Nag Hammadi treatises Eugnostos the Blessed, Apocryphon of John, Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (Gospel of the Egyptians), Trimorphic Protennoia, Allogenes, Zostrianos, and Marsanes. -
Mind, Body, Motion, Matter Eighteenth-Century British and French Literary Perspectives Edited by Mary Helen Mcmurran and Alison Conway MIND, BODY, MOTION, MATTER
Mind, Body, Motion, Matter Eighteenth-Century British and French Literary Perspectives edited by Mary Helen McMurran and Alison Conway MIND, BODY, MOTION, MATTER Eighteenth-Century British and French Literary Perspectives Mind, Body, Motion, Matter Eighteenth-Century British and French Literary Perspectives EDITED BY MARY HELEN MCMURRAN AND ALISON CONWAY UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London © University of Toronto Press 2016 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in the U.S.A. ISBN 978-1-4426-5011-4 (cloth) Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. ___________________________________________________________________ Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Mind, body, motion, matter : eighteenth-century British and French literary perspectives / edited by Mary Helen McMurran and Alison Conway. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-5011-4 (cloth) 1. English literature – 18th century – History and criticism. 2. French literature – 18th century – History and criticism. 3. Philosophy in literature. 4. Materialism in literature. 5. Vitalism in literature. 6. Aesthetics in literature. I. Conway, Alison Margaret, editor II. McMurran, Mary Helen, 1962–, author, editor PR448.P5M55 2016 820.9'384 C2015-908168-8 ___________________________________________________________________ CC-BY-NC-ND This work is published subject to a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivative License. For permission to publish commercial versions please -
Bielik-Robson
AGATA BIELIK -ROBSON Institute of Philosophy and Sociology Polish Academy of Sciences THE TRAPS OF THE SUBLIME The darkness of the time is an image of disorientation. It is a time when God enters the mind: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or perhaps the mask of Dionysus… The problem with the vertical intrusion of the various orders of the nonrealized is that we do not know what realm of discourse has inserted its claim through the wound in consciousness. Charles E. Winquist, Epiphanies of Darkness Review of Clayton Crockett’s Interstices of the Sublime. Theology and Psychoanalytic Theory. New York: Fordham University Press, 2007. 232 pp. ISBN 978- 0823227228. Paper, $26.00. he new book of Clayton Crockett, Interstices of the Sublime , can be regarded as a sequel to his Theology of the Sublime , where he attempted an analysis of Tthe Kantian concept of the sublime as a pivotal notion of modern religious experience. This time Crockett concentrates on the discourse of the sublime created within the broadly conceived movement of theoretical psychoanalysis. “This is not a ‘scholarly’ book on ‘Freud’, or on ‘Lacan’ – Crockett says in the introduction - but rather a book that seeks to inscribe Freudian and Lacanian thought into theological thinking in such a way that unsettles both theology and psychoanalysis”. 1 This declaration of subversion sets a master tone to his whole enterprise whose main purpose is, indeed, to unsettle : shake theologians out of their outdated conceptuality, traumatize their minds, and open them to this particular “variety of religious experience” that is brought with the sublime, especially the psychoanalytic one. -
Materialism and “The Soft Substance of the Brain”: the Case of Diderot Charles T. Wolfe Department of Philosophy and Moral S
Materialism and “the soft substance of the brain”: the case of Diderot Charles T. Wolfe Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences Sarton Centre for History of Science Ghent University Longer draft (2015) of paper forthcoming in British Journal of History of Philosophy (a number of additional citations appear in published version) Abstract Materialism is the view that everything that is real, is material or is the product of material processes. It tends to take either a ‘cosmological’ form, as a claim about the ultimate nature of the world, or a more specific ‘psychological’ form, detailing how mental processes are brain processes. I focus on the second, psychological or cerebral form of materialism. In the mid-to-late eighteenth century, the French materialist philosopher Denis Diderot (1713-1784) was one of the first to notice that any self-respecting materialist had to address the question of the status and functional role of the brain, and its relation to our mental, affective, intellectual life. After this the topic grew stale, with knee-jerk reiterations of ‘psychophysical identity’ in the nineteenth-century, and equally rigid assertions of anti-materialism. In 1960s philosophy of mind, brain-mind materialism reemerged as ‘identity theory’, focusing on the identity between mental processes and cerebral processes. In contrast, Diderot’s cerebral materialism allows for a more culturally sedimented sense of the brain, which he describes in his late Elements of Physiology as a “book – except it is a book which reads itself”. Diderot thus provides a lesson for materialism as it reflects on the status of the brain, science and culture.