DOCSLIB.ORG

Not Scotist: Understandings of Being, Univocity, and Analogy in Early-Modern Reformed Thought

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Not Scotist: Understandings of Being, Univocity, and Analogy in Early-Modern Reformed Thought No. 2, 2012, 127-150 ه1 . ٧٠١ ,RENAI$SANCE REVIEW ه REFORMATION Not Scotist: understandings of being, univocity, and analogy in early-modern Reformed thought Richard a . M uller Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids Several lines of recent scholarship have identified developing Protestant thought as Scotist and, specifically, have contended a dominance of the Scotist concept of the univocity of being in early modern Protestantism. The present essay examines early-modern Reformed metaphysics and theology and demonstrates that the contention is unfounded. Rather, the more typical approach to the language of being and related issues of predication concerning God and creatures in Reformed circles was advocacy of the analogía entis , often understood in a classical Thomist manner as an analogy proportionality. KEVWORDS Reformed scholasticism, $cotism, univocity of being, analogy, Thomism, Radical Orthodoxy the issue of □uns Scotus and early-modern Reformed ؛Introduction thought In the now outdated scholarship of the latter part of the twentieth century, was typically identified as the hero or villain of (م-16ول 5ل Theodore Beza ( 5 developing ‘Calvinism.’ Perhaps because that debate has outworn its usefulness or perhaps because the perennial (and one might add, perennially misguided) quest for heroes and villains in the history of thought has been driven to find the sources of its issues deeper in the past, the figure of Duns Scotus (£.1266-1308) has emerged as the new source of all that is bad and of most of what is good in the older Reformed tradition and, in some accounts, in the entire heritage of the Reformation. ilosophical^؛ One school of thought has argued that the various theological and distinctions employed by Reformed or Calvinist orthodoxy ought to be read in a Scotist manner, on the ground of a pervasive Scotism in late-medieval and early- DOl 10.1179/14622459132.00000000011 و1 هw. s. Maney 8c Son Ltd 2 © RICHARD A. MULLER ו28 modern thought.1 Several studies belonging to this line of research argue that the older Reformed theology either held to the Scotist concept of the univocity of being or, at the very least, assumed a ‘univocal core’ in its language of God, even to the point of identifying univocity of being as the dominant view of seventeenth- century theologians.* There are two primary grounds for their claim: on the one hand, Martijn Bac assumes that the identification of all individual beings as having the transcendental properties of being itself (unity, goodness, and truth) will yield a conception of univocity; on the other hand Bac and Andreas Beck look to other instances of univocal predication, as evidence of a concept of the univocity of This approach leads Bac to find an implication of univocity of being in the ؟.being writings of one of the very authors who argued against it and supplies Beck with a basis for declaring that he can find among the Reformed ‘a nuanced univocity in foe Scotistic sense’ (although he does note some exceptions, notably Maresius and Turretin.)4 Yet another approach to the issue of Scotism and the Reformation, related to the so-called ‘Lortz Thesis’ concerning foe origins of the German Reformation, appears in the works of writers associated wifo Radical Grthodoxy and in foe recent historical diatribe of Brad s. Gregory. The Lortz thesis (now largely discredited) had claimed that Luther’s theological revolt was precipitated by foe decadent theology and philosophy of the later Middle Ages, specifically foe ؟.developments that took place after Duns Scotus largely among the nominalists Wifo the Radical Orthodox writers and Gregory, the thesis has become more focused on Scotus and his understanding of the univocity of being. According to their theses, Scotus’ understanding of univocity created a profound problem, identifying foe being of God wifo the being of creatures but nonetheless placed at an infinite distance from them, undermining traditional teaching concerning divine 1 Antonie Vos, ‘De kern van de klassicke gereformeerde theologie’, in Kerk en Theologie 47 (1996): 106-12.5; Vos, ‘Ab W illem ], van Asselt and ؛٨ ,’Vos, ‘Scholasticism and R eform ation ; وول9ر: uno disce omnes’, in Bijdragen 60 (04-2-173 Eef Dekker, eds. Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 99-119; Vos, ‘The Systematic ?lace of Reformed ^holasticism: Reflections Concerning the Reception of Calvin’s Thought’, in Church History and Religious Culture 91, no. 1-2, 2011: 29-41; Andreas J- Beck, ‘Gisbertus Voetius (1589-1676): Basic Features of his Doctrine of God’, in Willem 1. van Asselt and Fef Dekker, eds. Reformation and Scholasticism: An Ecumenical Enterprise , (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), 205-226; Roelf T. te Velde, Paths Beyond Tracing Out: the connection of method and content in the Doctrine of God, examined in Reformed orthodoxy, Karl Barth, and the Utrecht School (Delft: Eburon, 2010); and Martijn Bac and Theo ?leizier, ‘Reentering Sites of Truth. Teaching Reformed Scholasticism in the Contemporary Classroom’, in Willemien Otten, Marcel Sarot and Maarten Wisse, eds, Scholasticism Reformed: Festschrift Willem van Asselt, Studies in Theology and Religion, 14 (Eeiden: E.J. Brill, 2010), ^Martijn Bac, ‘?erfect Will Theology: Divine Agency in Reformed Scholasticism as against Suárez, Episcopius, Descartes, and Spinoza’ (doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University, 2009), 140-141, 208; cf. Andreas Beck,G isbertus Voetius (1j89~16y6): Sein Theologieversta«ndnis und seme Gotteslehre (Go«tflngen: Vandenhoeck &c Ruprecht, 2007), 218-222; and Te Velde, Paths Beyond Tracing Out, 115, 125-126. 3 Bac, ‘?erfect Will Theology’, 140. ydekker, Fax veritatis seu exercitationes ad nonullas؛citing Melchior D ,ؤn. 11 ,ا Bac, ‘?erfect Will Theology’, 40 4 controversias quae hodie in Belgio potissimum moventur: ... Praefixa est praefatio de statu Belgicae Ecclesiae, & suffixa dissertatio de Providentia Dei (Leiden: Daniel à Gaesbeec'k et Eeh^ Lopez, 1677), 126 (e^^hcit denial of univocity), and 252-253 (purported implication of univocity); cf. Beck, Gisbertus Voetius, 2 2 0 -2 2 1 . ,Josef Lortz, The Reformation in Germany, 2 vols., trans. Ronald Walls (London and New York: Herder & Herder؟ 1968), 1, 67-77, 193-2.10. Against the Lortz thesis, specifically on the backgrounds to Luther’s theology, see Dennis Janz, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism: A Study in Theological Anthropology (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University ?ress, 1983); and John Farthing,Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel· Interpretations of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Eve o f the R eform ation (Durham and London: Duke University ?ress, 1988). و NOT SCOTIST 12 transcendence. Scotus becomes the ‘crucial’ figure ‘in a general shift away from a focus upon the metaphysics of participation.’^ This problematic theological and p^losophical understanding then carried over wholesale into the Reformation, rendering ?rotestant theology highly flawed from the outset and, in the version of the thesis espoused by Gregory, yielding a defective understanding of the relationship of God and world, reason and theology, ultimately bringing about a new and highly secularized worldview as an unintended result of the Reformation/ Despite the several voices that have identified Reformed theology as philosophically eclectic,® as also despite the scholarship indicating significant misreading of Scotus and the implications of his conception of the univocity of being on the part of Radical Orthodoxy,9 little has been done to address either form of the claim that Protestant and specifically Reformed or Calvinistic Protestant thought became foundationally Scotist. In what follows, I examine a series of philosophers and theologians who contributed to the Reformed to the end of the ﻫﻮ5ل .intellectual milieu during the era of orthodoxy, from ca seventeenth century, and representing views found across the geographical spectrum of Reformed academies and universities, in Heidelberg (Zanchi), Geneva (Daneau, Beza), Danzig (Keckermann), Leiden (Junius, Burgersdijk, Jacchaeus, Heereboord), Franecker (Maccovius), Bremen (Crocius), Utrecht (Revius, Gisbertus and Paulus Voetius, Mastricht, Leydekker), Steinfurt (Timpler), Sedan and Groningen (Maresius), Cambridge (Crakanthorpe), Oxford (Twisse, Barlow, Gale), Aberdeen (Baron), Nimes (Derodon), Frankfurt-on-Oder (Grebenitz-Strimesius), Montauban (Charnier), Lausanne (Mu«ller), Herborn (Alsted), Duisberg (Clauberg), and Marburg (Goclenius, Combachius)ro — arguably, a representative sampling. The essay will demonstrate that, contrary to the assumptions of both the positive and the negative readings of a purported Recent Invocations of Univocity’, A ntonianum 78 ﺀه 6Catherine Pickst©ck, ‘Modernity and Sholasticism: A Critique .n. 2 , ﻫﺖ0و): 5) 7John Milbank, Catherine Pickstock, and Craham Ward, eds. Radical Orthodoxy: A New Theology (London: cf. Milbank, ‘Alternative Protestantism: Radical Orthodoxy and the ; وهz , 5, 2.3-24, 48, 50-51, 1 ,رووول ,Routledge Reformed Tradition’, in James K. A. Smith and James H. Olthius, eds, Radical Orthodoxy and the Reformed Tradition: Creation, Covenant, and Participation (Grand Rapids: I^erdmans, 2005), 30, 35; Milbank, Theology and Catherine Pickstock, A fter ; و9ه), Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1303-302 ar،d ; ووآWriting: On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1 23- 122 ,(8 Brad s. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society (Cambridge: Harvard University
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Vernon W
    Philosophy Faculty Publications Philosophy 4-2014 Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Vernon W. Cisney Gettysburg College Follow this and additional works at: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/philfac Part of the Philosophy of Mind Commons Share feedback about the accessibility of this item. Cisney, Vernon W. "Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Nature of Thought." Foucault Studies 17 Special Issue: Foucault and Deleuze (April 2014). This is the publisher's version of the work. This publication appears in Gettysburg College's institutional repository by permission of the copyright owner for personal use, not for redistribution. Cupola permanent link: https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/philfac/37 This open access article is brought to you by The uC pola: Scholarship at Gettysburg College. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator of The uC pola. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Abstract In this paper I employ the notion of the ‘thought of the outside’ as developed by Michel Foucault, in order to defend the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze against the criticisms of ‘elitism,’ ‘aristocratism,’ and ‘political indifference’—famously leveled by Alain Badiou and Peter Hallward. First, I argue that their charges of a theophanic conception of Being, which ground the broader political claims, derive from a misunderstanding of Deleuze’s notion of univocity, as well as a failure to recognize the significance of the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze’s thinking. From here, I go on to discuss Deleuze’s articulation of the ‘dogmatic image of thought,’ which, insofar as it takes ‘recognition’ as its model, can only ever think what is already solidified and sedimented as true, in light of existing structures and institutions of power.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Part I Deleuze and Systematic Philosophy
    Notes Introduction 1. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane (New York: Viking, 1977), p. 240. 2. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi. (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 3. 3. Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, trans. Martin Joughin. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 88–89. 4. Gilles Deleuze, Empiricism and Subjectivity: An Essay on Hume’s Theory of Human Nature, trans. Constantine Boundas (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 107. 5. Ibid., p. 106. 6. Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), pp. 21–28. 7. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 8. Part I Deleuze and Systematic Philosophy 1. Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations (1972–1990), trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), p. 31. 2. Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), p. 18. 3. Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 170–6. 4. Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, trans. Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992). This logic of expression is developed in chapters 1–2 and 6–8. 5. Spinoza brings together the notion of substance and expression in Part 1 of the Ethics: definitions 4 and 6, Proposition 10, and the Scholium following Proposition 10. The treatment of modifications and individuals first appears in Part 2, Proposition 7 along with its Corollary and Scholium.
    [Show full text]
  • Spinoza: the Velocities of Thought SEMINAR at the UNIVERSITY of PARIS, VINCENNES-ST
    GILLES DELEUZE Spinoza: The Velocities of Thought SEMINAR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF PARIS, VINCENNES-ST. DENIS, 1980-1981 _____________________________________________________________________________________ LECTURE 1 25 NOVEMBER 1980 TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY S. MURPHY FOR WEB DELEUZE AUGMENTED TRANSCRIPTION AND TRANSLATION REVIEW BY CHARLES J. STIVALE It's quite curious the extent to which philosophy, up to the end of the 17th century, ultimately speaks to us, all the time, of God. And after all, Spinoza, excommunicated Jew, is not the last to speak to us of God. And the first book of his great work The Ethics is called “Of God.” And from all of them, whether it's Descartes, Malebranche, Leibniz, we get the impression that the boundary between philosophy and theology is extremely vague. Why is philosophy so compromised with God, and right up to the revolutionary coup of the 18th century philosophers? Is it a dishonest compromise [compromission] or something a little purer? We could say that thought, until the end of the 17th century, must take considerable account of the demands of the Church, thus it's clearly forced to take many religious themes into account. But one feels quite strongly that this is much too easy; we could just as well say that, until this era, thought's lot is somewhat linked to that of a religious feeling. I'm going back to an analogy with painting because it's true that painting is replete with images of God. My question is: is it sufficient to say that this is an inevitable constraint in this era? There are two possible answers.
    [Show full text]
  • The Univocity of Substance and the Formal Distinction of Attributes: the Role of Duns Scotus in Deleuze's Reading of Spinoza Nathan Widder
    parrhesia 33 · 2020 · 150-176 the univocity of substance and the formal distinction of attributes: the role of duns scotus in deleuze's reading of spinoza nathan widder This paper examines the role played by medieval theologian John Duns Scotus in Gilles Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza’s philosophy of expressive substance; more generally, it elaborates a crucial moment in the development of Deleuze’s philosophy of sense and difference. Deleuze contends that Spinoza adapts and extends Duns Scotus’s two most influential theses, the univocity of being and formal distinction, despite neither appearing explicitly in Spinoza’s writings. “It takes nothing away from Spinoza’s originality,” Deleuze declares, “to place him in a perspective that may already be found in Duns Scotus” (Deleuze, 1992, 49).1 Nevertheless, the historiographic evidence is clearly lacking, leaving Deleuze to admit that “it is hardly likely that” Spinoza had even read Duns Scotus (359n28). Indeed, the only support he musters for his speculation is Spinoza’s obvious in- terests in scholastic metaphysical and logical treatises, the “probable influence” of the Scotist-informed Franciscan priest Juan de Prado on his thought, and the fact that the problems Duns Scotus addresses need not be confined to Christian thought (359–360n28). The paucity of evidence supporting this “use and abuse” of history, however, does not necessarily defeat the thesis. Like other lineages Deleuze proposes, the one he traces from Duns Scotus to Spinoza, and subsequently to Nietzsche, turns not on establishing intentional references by one thinker to his predecessor, but instead on showing how the borrowings and adaptations asserted to create the connec- tion make sense of the way the second philosopher surmounts blockages he faces while responding to issues left unaddressed by the first.
    [Show full text]
  • Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
    MIDWESTERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY UNCHANGING BEAUTY: FAITH AS THE APPREHENSION OF THE IMMUTABLE GOD’S GLORY REVEALED IN THE SON A PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE COURSE DR 01-37395 ADVANCED SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY BY SAMUEL G. PARKISON KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI AUGUST, 19 2018 Introduction Two topics that have generated considerable attention in the field of systematic theology as of late are aesthetics1 and classical theism.2 Though neither topic is new to the Church’s life, each have experienced relative neglect and resurgence. However, notwithstanding how much attention both these theological loci have received, they are not often discussed in relation to one another. This paper seeks to explore their convergence in Christology. To be specific, we seek to answer: is the doctrine of divine immutability compatible with an aesthetic-soteriology, in which Christological glory elicits faith? This paper will contend for the affirmative: indeed, not only is divine immutability compatible with such an aesthetic-soteriology, it is necessary for it to work. Christology will thus serve as the gravitational center for this study, pulling these two areas of interest together. The aesthetic interest of saving faith is Christ, the Word made flesh. Likewise, the central challenge to divine immutability is Christ, the Word made flesh. Structurally, this paper will move from an examination of the aesthetic dimension of saving faith, to Christ’s revelatory role of the immutable God in the incarnation, and will conclude with a brief consideration and response to divine immutability’s challenge in light of the incarnation. Thus, we will show that saving faith in Jesus—as a response to his irresistible beauty—results in mediated access to the unchanging, beautiful Triune God.
    [Show full text]
  • March 2019 RADICAL ORTHODOXYT Theology, Philosophy, Politics R P OP Radical Orthodoxy: Theology, Philosophy, Politics
    Volume 5, no. 1 | March 2019 RADICAL ORTHODOXYT Theology, Philosophy, Politics R P OP Radical Orthodoxy: Theology, Philosophy, Politics Editorial Board Oliva Blanchette Michael Symmons Roberts Conor Cunningham Phillip Blond Charles Taylor Andrew Davison Evandro Botto Rudi A. te Velde Alessandra Gerolin David B. Burrell, C.S.C. Graham Ward Michael Hanby David Fergusson Thomas Weinandy, OFM Cap. Samuel Kimbriel Lord Maurice Glasman Slavoj Žižek John Milbank Boris Gunjević Simon Oliver David Bentley Hart Editorial Team Adrian Pabst Stanley Hauerwas Editor: Catherine Pickstock Johannes Hoff Dritëro Demjaha Aaron Riches Austen Ivereigh Tracey Rowland Fergus Kerr, OP Managing Editor & Layout: Neil Turnbull Peter J. Leithart Eric Austin Lee Joost van Loon Advisory Board James Macmillan Reviews Editor: Talal Asad Mgsr. Javier Martínez Brendan Sammon William Bain Alison Milbank John Behr Michael S Northcott John R. Betz Nicholas Rengger Radical Orthodoxy: A Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Politics (ISSN: 2050-392X) is an internationally peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the exploration of academic and policy debates that interface between theology, philosophy and the social sciences. The editorial policy of the journal is radically non-partisan and the journal welcomes submissions from scholars and intellectuals with interesting and relevant things to say about both the nature and trajectory of the times in which we live. The journal intends to publish papers on all branches of philosophy, theology aesthetics (including literary, art and music criticism) as well as pieces on ethical, political, social, economic and cultural theory. The journal will be published four times a year; each volume comprising of standard, special, review and current affairs issues.
    [Show full text]
  • Overturning the Paradigm of Identity with Gilles Deleuze's Differential
    A Thesis entitled Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy Dr. Ammon Allred, Committee Chair Dr. Benjamin Grazzini, Committee Member Dr. Benjamin Pryor, Committee Member Dr. Patricia R. Komuniecki, Dean College of Graduate Studies The University of Toledo May 2014 An Abstract of Difference Over Identity: Overturning the Paradigm of Identity With Gilles Deleuze’s Differential Ontology by Matthew G. Eckel Submitted to the Graduate Faculty as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts Degree in Philosophy The University of Toledo May 2014 Taking Gilles Deleuze to be a philosopher who is most concerned with articulating a ‘philosophy of difference’, Deleuze’s thought represents a fundamental shift in the history of philosophy, a shift which asserts ontological difference as independent of any prior ontological identity, even going as far as suggesting that identity is only possible when grounded by difference. Deleuze reconstructs a ‘minor’ history of philosophy, mobilizing thinkers from Spinoza and Nietzsche to Duns Scotus and Bergson, in his attempt to assert that philosophy has always been, underneath its canonical manifestations, a project concerned with ontology, and that ontological difference deserves the kind of philosophical attention, and privilege, which ontological identity has been given since Aristotle.
    [Show full text]
  • Actus and Potentia: from Philosophy of Nature to Metaphysics
    Actus and Potentia: From Philosophy of Nature to Metaphysics (Dedicated to Lawrence Dewan, OP and Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, OP) Alfred J. Freddoso University of Notre Dame Thomistic Philosophy Workshop Mt. St. Mary College, Newburgh June, 2015 1. Introduction cum exhortation In this presentation I want to lay out the general parameters of the distinction between actus and potentia, and to indicate how the order of learning here takes us fairly directly from philosophy of nature to the heights of metaphysics — more particularly, to St. Thomas’s teaching on creation ex nihilo, both (a) in its positing of the distinction between esse and essentia in the creature that receives, as it were, the act of creating and (b) in its characterization of the agent of creation. This is just one example of the power of St. Thomas’s Aristotelian philosophy of nature. I hope that what I say here will help you to recognize indications within contemporary mainstream philosophy of the enduring importance of the distinction between actus and potentia, acknowledged or unacknowledged, not just for philosophy of nature and philosophy of science, but for philosophical anthropology (aka philosophy of mind), natural theology, and moral theory as well. Now our best approach to the distinction between potentia and actus is precisely to begin from the principles of change as Aristotle lays them out in Physics 1 and to link the various specifications of the distinction to distinctive exercises of efficient causality. Before I get to that, however, I want to insert a word of encouragement and exhortation to the budding Thomists out there.
    [Show full text]
  • ARTICLE Becoming-Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature Of
    Vernon W. Cisney 2014 ISSN: 1832‐5203 Foucault Studies, No. 17, pp. 36‐59, April 2014 ARTICLE Becoming‐Other: Foucault, Deleuze, and the Political Nature of Thought Vernon W. Cisney, Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Gettysburg College ABSTRACT: In this paper I employ the notion of the ‘thought of the outside’ as developed by Michel Foucault, in order to defend the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze against the criticisms of ‘elitism,’ ‘aristocratism,’ and ‘political indifference’—famously leveled by Alain Badiou and Peter Hallward. First, I argue that their charges of a theophanic conception of Being, which ground the broader political claims, derive from a misunderstanding of Deleuze’s notion of univocity, as well as a failure to recognize the significance of the concept of multiplicity in Deleuze’s thinking. From here, I go on to discuss Deleuze’s articulation of the ‘dogmatic im‐ age of thought,’ which, insofar as it takes ‘recognition’ as its model, can only ever think what is already solidified and sedimented as true, in light of existing structures and institutions of power. Then, I examine Deleuze’s reading of Foucault and the notion of the ‘thought of the outside,’ showing the ‘outside’ as the unthought that lies at the heart of thinking itself, as both its condition and its impossibility. Insofar as it is essential to thinking itself, finally, I argue that the passage of thought to the outside is not an absolute flight out of this world, as Hallward claims, but rather, a return of the different that constitutes the Self for Deleuze. Thinking is an ongoing movement of deterritorialization and reterritorialization, or as Foucault says, death and life.
    [Show full text]
  • Politics and Its Double: Deleuze and Political Ontology
    POLITICS AND ITS DOUBLE: DELEUZE AND POLITICAL ONTOLOGY POLITICS AND ITS DOUBLE: DELEUZE AND POLITICAL ONTOLOGY By BORNA RADNIK, Hon. B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University © Copyright by Borna Radnik, September 2013 McMaster University MASTER OF ARTS (2013) Hamilton, Ontario (Philosophy) TITLE: Politics and its Double: Deleuze and Political Ontology AUTHOR: Borna Radnik, Hon.B.A. (York University) SUPRVISOR: Dr. Barry Allen NUMBER OF PAGES: v, 130 ii ABSTRACT: The objective of this thesis is to intervene into the ongoing dispute surrounding the political import of Gilles Deleuze’s single-authored work, specifically Difference and Repetition and The Logic of Sense . This thesis presents an alternative explanation to the question of whether or not Deleuze’s philosophy is political. By situating the debate surrounding Deleuze’s political implications in the contemporary ontological turn in political theory, this thesis argues that Deleuze’s works can be considered to be political in the non-conventional sense of the term, that is, insofar as a conceptual distinction is made between politics and the political . I further argue that Deleuze’s univocal ontology influences a concept of the political that is immanent to his thought, and in this respect he can be said to present a political ontology . The reading of Deleuze’s political ontology addresses not only the common critiques of his philosophy as posed by thinkers such as Alain Badiou, Peter Hallward, and Slavoj Žižek, but also sheds light on the problematic relationship between philosophy and politics.
    [Show full text]
  • Natural Theology and the Christian Contribution to Metaphysics: on Thomas Joseph White’S Wisdom in the Face of Modernity
    Nova et Vetera, English Edition, Vol. 10, No. 2 (2012): 539 –62 539 Natural Theology and the Christian Contribution to Metaphysics: On Thomas Joseph White’s Wisdom in the Face of Modernity NICHOLAS J. H EALY , J R. John Paul II Institute Washington, DC From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act “with logos” is contrary to God’s nature. [T]he faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which unlike - ness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abol - ishing analogy and its language (cf. Lateran IV). God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. This inner rapprochement between biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history—it is an event which concerns us even today. 1 It is my view that the neoscholastic rationalism that was trying to reconstruct the praeambula fidei, the approach to faith, with pure rational certainty, by means of rational argument that was strictly inde - pendent of any faith, has failed; and it cannot be otherwise for any such attempts to do that kind of thing.
    [Show full text]
  • Gilles Deleuze and the Apolitical Production of Being
    Gilles Deleuze And the Apolitical Production of Being by Tim Paugh B.A., St. Francis Xavier University, 2005 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of Political Science © Tim Paugh, 2008 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Gilles Deleuze and the Apolitical Production of Being By Tim Paugh, B.A., St. Francis Xavier University, 2005 Supervisory Committee Warren Magnusson (Department of Political Science) Supervisor Rob Walker (Department of Political Science) Departmental Member Luke Carson (Department of English) Outside Member iii Supervisory Committee Warren Magnusson (Department of Political Science) Supervisor Rob Walker (Department of Political Science) Departmental Member Luke Carson (Department of English) Outside Member Abstract Gilles Deleuze’s ontology is often understood to ground a kind of radical pluralism, the political defense of which is thought to be articulated most strongly in the Capitalism and Schizophrenia books. It is clear, however, that this “politics” is defined in a wholly negative way, and that the revolutionary dimension of these books is animated by a strictly ethical logic. In my view, if there is a politics in Deleuze it must be understood in relation to the central problem of his ontology: namely, the problem of understanding how being is produced. To grasp politics as a singularity, as a mode of ontological production, has a number of radical consequences – consequences, however, that Deleuze himself did not embrace. Ultimately, Deleuze’s conception of ontological production appears marked by an apolitics, in that any effective mobilization Being’s transformative potential requires that we stand posed to sacrifice anything of the integrity and organizational capacity of political existence that limits the expression of Being itself.
    [Show full text]