The Idea and the Origins of Becoming Like God in Avicenna
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Descartes' Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View
R ené Descartes (1596-1650) is generally regarded as the “father of modern philosophy.” He stands as one of the most important figures in Western intellectual history. His work in mathematics and his writings on science proved to be foundational for further development in these fields. Our understanding of “scientific method” can be traced back to the work of Francis Bacon and to Descartes’ Discourse on Method. His groundbreaking approach to philosophy in his Meditations on First Philosophy determine the course of subsequent philosophy. The very problems with which much of modern philosophy has been primarily concerned arise only as a consequence of Descartes’thought. Descartes’ philosophy must be understood in the context of his times. The Medieval world was in the process of disintegration. The authoritarianism that had dominated the Medieval period was called into question by the rise of the Protestant revolt and advances in the development of science. Martin Luther’s emphasis that salvation was a matter of “faith” and not “works” undermined papal authority in asserting that each individual has a channel to God. The Copernican revolution undermined the authority of the Catholic Church in directly contradicting the established church doctrine of a geocentric universe. The rise of the sciences directly challenged the Church and seemed to put science and religion in opposition. A mathematician and scientist as well as a devout Catholic, Descartes was concerned primarily with establishing certain foundations for science and philosophy, and yet also with bridging the gap between the “new science” and religion. Descartes’ Influence in Shaping the Modern World-View 1) Descartes’ disbelief in authoritarianism: Descartes’ belief that all individuals possess the “natural light of reason,” the belief that each individual has the capacity for the discovery of truth, undermined Roman Catholic authoritarianism. -
Trans. Greek Thot Handout
11/14/19 TRANSMISSION OF GREEK THOUGHT TO THE WEST PLATO & NEOPLATONISM Chalcidius (late 3rd-early 4th cent. Christian exegete): incomplete translation & commentary of Timeaus Henricus Aristippus in Sicily (12th c.): translated the Meno and Phaedo Leonardo Bruni (c. 1370-1444/Florence) translated a selection of Plato’s dialogues (from Greek to Latin). Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499/Florence): 1st complete translation into Latin of Plato’s works (publ. 1496), and translation of Plotinus’s Enneads into Latin (1492). Neoplatonic thought was transmitted in the following: (a) Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy (written 524, in prison) (b) Macrobius’ Commentary on Cicero’s Dream of Scipio (written c. 400 CE). (c) Pseudo-Dionysius. A collection of writings attributed to Dionysius the Aeropagite (see Acts 17:34), but 19th century scholarship determined to be written c. 500 by a disciple of Proclus, held considerable authority throughout the middle ages and was a Christian Neoplatonism. (d) Theologica Aristotelis: this summary of Books 4-6 of Plotinus’s Enneads had been wrongly attributed to Aristotle (until 13th century) (e) Liber de Causis: this work based on Proclus’s Elements of Theology was wrongly attributed to Aristotle (until 13th century). ARISTOTLE Victorinus (4th century): Latin translations of Aristotle’s Categories and De interpretatione, as well as of Porphyry’s Isagoge. Boethius (470-524/Padua?): translated the entire Organon and wrote commentaries on all but the Posterior Analytics), as well as a translation of Porphyry’s introduction (Isagoge) to the Categories, but only De Interp. and Categories were readily available until 12th century. James of Venice (c.1128): translated Posterior Analytics; with the rediscovery of other translations by Boethius, this completed the Organon. -
Three Principles of Rationalism
Three Principles of Rationalism Christopher Peacocke It is just over fifty years since the publication of Quine’s ‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’ (1951). That paper expresses a broad vision of the system of relations between meaning, experience, and the rational formation of belief. The deepest challenges the paper poses come not from the detailed argument of its first four sections – formidable though that is – but from the visionary material in its last two sections.1 It is this visionary material that is likely to force the reader to revise, to deepen, or to rethink her position on fundamental issues about the rela- tions between meaning, experience, rationality, and, above all, the a priori. Does what is right in Quine’s argument exclude any rationalist view of these relations? How should a rationalist view be formulated? Those are the questions I will be addressing. I start with the critical part of this task, a consideration of the strengths and weaknesses of Quine’s vision. Drawing on the constraints emerg- ing from that critical discussion, I will then turn to the positive task of articulat- ing and defending a rival conception. The rival conception can be described as a Generalized Rationalism. 1. The Character of the Quinean Challenge Quine argued as follows. (a) Whatever meaning is, and whatever it is that has meaning – whether an individual sentences, group of sentences, or whole theory – mean- ing must be characterized in terms of the experiences or evidence that would support what it is that has meaning. (b) For a vast range of individual sentences, experiences or evidential conditions cannot be associated with those sentences one-by-one if the association is meant to capture the meaning of those individual sentences. -
On Van Cleve (Rysiew)
Penultimate version 1 First Principles as General, First Principle 7 as Special PATRICK RYSIEW 1. Introduction Thomas Reid claimed that his main achievement was having called into question the ‘theory of ideas’, the sceptical tendencies of which he saw Hume as having brought to full fruition (COR, 210-11). But those who’ve studied Reid’s work know that it contains many important positive contributions beyond that. James Van Cleve’s masterful Problems from Reid displays the breadth, depth – and, at times, difficulties -- of Reid’s writings, with penetrating critical discussion of his views on perception, memory, personal identity, knowledge, action, and morals, among other topics. The book is a model of clarity and rigor, bringing Reid to life, and his ideas into productive and illuminating contact with contemporary debates and positions. Below, I focus on Van Cleve’s discussion of Reid’s epistemological views, which many have found to be rich and rewarding – while, tellingly, often disagreeing as to just what they are. After outlining the central issues Van Cleve addresses and the interpretive choices he favors, I’ll raise some questions about the latter and suggest some alternatives. Specifically, I will address the distinction, prominent in Van Cleve’s discussion, between first principles as particular and as general, and argue that the generalist line not only has much more going for it than Van Cleve suggests, but also that this doesn’t come at the cost of sacrificing other of his central claims. Further, I will (much more briefly) suggest that Reid’s seventh first principle is special, though not in the way Van Cleve considers and criticizes, and that, here too, the suggested alternative does not compromise Van Cleve’s central theses. -
Forgetful Platonism: Misrepresenting Proclus and Twentieth-Century
Misrepresenting Neoplatonism in Contemporary Christian Dionysian Polemic: Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa versus Vladimir Lossky and Jean-Luc Marion American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 82:4 (2008): 683–703. Wayne Hankey Part I: From Eriugena to Nicholas of Cusa The Corpus Areopagiticum in Greek—or at least a part of it—circulated in Rome, probably from the time of Gregory the Great‘s Homily XXIV (592 or 593), but certainly from the middle of the seventh up to the second half of the ninth century.1 Nonetheless, there was no profound encounter by the Latins with the philosophical and mystical content of the corpus, until the translations by Hilduin and Eriugena consequent on its arrival at the Frankish court in 827.2 John the Scot‘s grasp and development of what the Areopagite passed on from his sources has only rarely been equalled. After Boethius, he was the first to draw together the Greek and Latin Platonists. Among the Latins, Augustine and Boethius, together with Ambrose, because, as Eriugena wrote, he so often followed the Greeks, were pre-eminent .3 He learned most from the Greek texts he translated—the Dionysian corpus, the Ambigua and Scoliae of Maximus the Confessor, and the De hominis opificio of Gregory of Nyssa—; what he took from the Latins was generally assimilated to their logic.4 His sources were so nearly exclusively Christian, and the texts so predominantly theological and mystical—despite such ―secular‖ and pagan authorities as the De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella from his Irish education5—that no real confrontation between Hellenic and Christian Neoplatonisms occurs for him. -
Plato's Metaphysics of Morals
Created on 19 July 2003 at 9.15 hours page 39 PLATO’S METAPHYSICS OF MORALS C. D. C. REEVE craft (τÝχνη) constituted the paradigm of knowledge when Plato began to develop his philosophy,he used it—critically— as a model. He uncovered epistemological flaws in the crafts and described, in outline at least, a craft-like science that avoided them. This science, which has the Good itself as its unhypothetical— because dialectically defensible—first principle, is the superordi- nate craft that occupies the pinnacle of an allegedly unique craft hierarchy. It is philosophy as Plato conceives of it. Its deep simi- larities to Aristotle’s science of first principles—metaphysics or primary philosophy—should be evident, though there are, it goes without saying, deep di·erences as well. The craft paradigm, as we may call it, is at the heart of Plato’s conception of philosophy, then, determining its structure and un- derwriting many of its central doctrines. In the present paper I want to provide some justification for these stark claims by exam- ining Plato’s critique of the specifically mathematical crafts and its surprising consequences for his metaphysics of morals.1 The Re- public and Philebus are my chief textual focus, but the Euthydemus, Cratylus, and Symposium also come into the picture. ã C. D. C. Reeve 2003 I am grateful to audiences at Northwestern University, Princeton University, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and (especially) to David Sedley for their very helpful comments and criticisms. 1 Calculation and geometry are crafts at Chrm. -
Reading Proclus and the Bookof Causes
introduction Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes: Notes on the Western Scholarly Networks and Debates Dragos Calma University College Dublin / Newman Centre for the Study of Religions, Dublin The majority of contributions reunited in this volume were first presented during the first of the three sessions of the conference “Les Éléments de thé- ologie et le Livre des causes du Ve au XVIIe siècle”. It took place at the École pratique des hautes études, Paris, on 13–14 November 2015, during the ter- rorist attacks.1 The second took place on 12–13 February 2016, and the third on 14–15–16 April 2016; all within the framework of the project LIBER (ANR- 13-PDOC-0018-01) which I directed between 2013 and 2017 at the École pra- tique des hautes études, Paris, and which generously financed these meet- ings and the publication of the proceedings.2 The conferences were organ- ised by Marc Geoffroy and myself, under the auspices of Olivier Boulnois, Philippe Hoffmann, Ruedi Imbach, Zénon Kaluza and Dominique Poirel. I wish to acknowledge the important support of the following bodies in the organisa- tion of the conference: École pratique des hautes études, Équipe “philosophie arabe” of the Centre “Jean Pépin”—CNRS (UMR 8230), Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes—CNRS (UMR 8584), Labex haStec (Laboratoire européen d’histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances), Insti- tut de recherche et d’histoire des textes—CNRS, Centre “Pierre Abélard”— Université Paris Sorbonne. Compared to the original program of the three conferences, minor thematic rearrangements have been made for publication. -
67 Some Reflections on the Liber De Causis C. J. DE VOGEL ANY Years
Some on the Liber de causis reflections C. J. DE VOGEL ANY years have passed since Bardenhewer published his edition of M both the Arabic text of the early Medieval Book "on the Pure Good", and its Latin translation, made towards the end of the I 2th century by Gerhard of Cremona. It is still a highly valuable work, and up till a few months ago it was the only text of the so-called Liber de Causis we could consult. Very rightly this edition of 1 8 82 has been recently reprinted. Though the text edition, of course, was of the first interest, this is by no means all. The volume also contains the history of this famous little book throughout the Middle Ages. It is very interesting, indeed, to consider how from the end of the i 2 th century (Alanus ab Insulis) onwards this book is cited by almost all 1 3th century ecclesiasti- cal authors of any importance, and how they interpret certain texts of it. Bardenhewer duly mentions St. Thomas' commentary and gives us some idea of its significance. However, it was not until 19 s4 that a modern critical edition of this work appeared from the hand of Fr. H. D. Saffrey, and not until 1966 that A. Pattin published a new edition of the Latin text of the De Causis. It appeared in the Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, (Louvain) March 1 966 . Saffrey's edition of St. Thomas' commentary is a very welcome and truly interesting contribution to the study of the Liber de causis. -
The Mind–Body Problem and Whitehead's Non-Reductive Monism
Anderson Weekes The Mind–Body Problem and Whitehead’s Non-reductive Monism Abstract: There have been many attempts to retire dualism from active philosophic life, replacing it with something less removed from sci- ence, but we are no closer to that goal now than fifty years ago. I pro- pose breaking the stalemate by considering marginal perspectives that may help identify unrecognized assumptions that limit the main- stream debate. Comparison with Whitehead highlights ways that opponents of dualism continue to uphold the Cartesian ‘real distinc- tion’between mind and body. Whitehead, by contrast, insists on a con- ceptual distinction: there can no more be body without mind than mind without body (at least at the level of ultimate constituents). Key to this integration is Whitehead’s understanding that mind, at its most rudimentary, is simply the intrinsic temporality of a physical event. Thus, the resulting form of ‘panpsychism’ is more naturalistic than commonly supposed, and it solves both the composition problem (tra- ditionally fatal to panpsychism) and the ‘hard problem’. I. Introduction In this paper I look at the ideas of the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) in light of the contemporary debate on the ‘hard problem’of physically explaining consciousness. Consciousness studies is a burgeoning business, but one still marked by partisan controversy. If we look closely, however, we can find consensus behind the controversy. There is, for example, well attested agreement on the structure of the problem space.Onealso Correspondence: Email: [email protected] Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19, No. 9–10, 2012, pp. -
Common Sense and First Principles : Dispelling an Ambiguity (A
Philosophical Enquiries : revue des philosophies anglophones - décembre 2016, n° 7 – Varia Common Sense and First Principles : Dispelling an Ambiguity (A. Thébert, Centre Atlantique de Philosophie, Nantes) Abstract In his discussion of scepticism, Reid often appeals to “original principles of belief” and “principles of common sense”. He also refers to “first principles of truth” and more simply to “common sense”. The terminology does not seem clearly fixed. Is it all the same? If not, shall we accuse him of a lack of coherence? My contention is that common sense is a power of knowledge and first principles are propositions taken for granted. The dispelling of this ambiguity sheds a new light on Reid's position on the epistemic scene. Indeed, these two readings (the “faculty-line-of-thought” and the “basic propositions-line-of-thought”) correspond to Reid's different targets: while he sometimes considers the sceptical attitude, aiming at dissolving it, at other moments he is rather involved in the discussion of sceptical arguments, striving to raise an objection to them. Finally, I claim that the question to know whether principles of common sense are natural psychological tendencies or rather first truths, on which the structure of knowledge is erected, is not adequate. If we usually separate these two threads, Reid's epistemic finalism (according to which, by the original constitution of our nature, we are designed to truth) quite naturally weaves them. I propose a third line of thought, drawing from Wittgenstein's remarks on “hinge propositions”. Introduction In his analysis of the powers of the human mind and in his discussion of scepticism, Reid constantly refers to the “principles of common sense”. -
Books by Alfred North Whitehead
THE PHILOSOPHY OF ORGANISM AND PROCESS: BOOKS BY ALFRED NORTH WHITEHEAD Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World (1925; 1st paperback ed., New York: The Free Press, 1967) ______, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected ed., ed. David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne (1929; corrected ed., New York: The Free Press, 1978) ______, Adventures of Ideas (1933; 1st paperback ed., New York: The Free Press, 1967) ______, Modes of Thought (New York: The Free Press, 1938) Review by Herman Greene There is a philosophical tradition known as “process philosophy.” It is an ancient tradition, though designation by that name is recent. The term came into being to identify the neo-classical metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947). Once the name was in place, certain philosophers, both ancient and contemporary, have been identified as being process philosophers. In its simplest form, process philosophy means that change is at the essence of existence. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus who wrote “No man ever steps in the same river twice,” was a process philosopher, while Parmenides who wrote “what-is-is” was not. These two philosophers are considered to be the founders of ontology. The meaning of ontology can be expressed in several ways: It is the philosophy of the nature of existence, or of being, or of what is really real, or of what is the essence of all beingness. Heraclitus articulated the philosophical concept of “becoming” as being fundamental. Whereas for Parmenides “reality (coined as what-is-is) is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, necessary, and unchanging.”1 In addition to Heraclitus, much of Eastern thought is considered process oriented, including Taoism and Buddhism. -
Descartes' Cogito
24.01: Classics of Western Philosophy Descartes’ Cogito (Meditation II) 1. The “Archimedean point” “[G]reat things are also to be hoped for if I succeed in finding just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken” (63). The meditator’s candidate: “This pronouncement ‘I am, I exist’ [ego sum, ego existo] is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind” (64). Descartes articulated a similar point in his earlier work Discourse on the Method: And observing that this truth ‘ I am thinking, therefore I exist’ [je pense, donc je suis] was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.1 The most famous formulation of this point comes from Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy: For it is a contradiction to suppose that what thinks does not, at the very time when it is thinking, exist. Accordingly, this piece of knowledge— I am thinking, therefore I exist [cogito, ergo sum]—is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way.2 2. The special status of cogito-type beliefs or claims Some epistemological concepts:3 i. Indubitable: A person S’s belief that p is indubitable if and only if S cannot doubt p. ii. Self-verifying: If S asserts p, then p is true. Note also self-refuting: If S asserts p, then p is false. Also pragmatic contradiction: presupposing p while also denying p.