This paper defends the cognitive value of literary fiction by showing how Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative understanding emphasizes the productive and creative elements of fictional discourse and defends its referential capacity insofar as fiction reshapes reality according to some universal aspect. Central to this analysis is Ricoeur’s retrieval of Aristotelian mimesis and mythos and their convergence in the notion of emplotment. This paper also supplements and specifies further Ricoeur’s account by retrieving an Aristotelian concept disregarded by Riceour, namely, synesis (understanding). Although Ricoeur connects narrative understanding to the intelligibility of praxis and in turn phronêsis, as opposed to theoretical knowledge (theōria or epistēmē), he overlooks Aristotle’s discussion of synesis. This paper then clarifies how the fictional truth of narrative understanding remains related to, and yet distinct from, both theoretical discourse (science) and praxis (politics).
{"title":"Truth, Fiction and Narrative Understanding","authors":"Stephen Chamberlain","doi":"10.5840/ipq2020602153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2020602153","url":null,"abstract":"This paper defends the cognitive value of literary fiction by showing how Paul Ricoeur’s account of narrative understanding emphasizes the productive and creative elements of fictional discourse and defends its referential capacity insofar as fiction reshapes reality according to some universal aspect. Central to this analysis is Ricoeur’s retrieval of Aristotelian mimesis and mythos and their convergence in the notion of emplotment. This paper also supplements and specifies further Ricoeur’s account by retrieving an Aristotelian concept disregarded by Riceour, namely, synesis (understanding). Although Ricoeur connects narrative understanding to the intelligibility of praxis and in turn phronêsis, as opposed to theoretical knowledge (theōria or epistēmē), he overlooks Aristotle’s discussion of synesis. This paper then clarifies how the fictional truth of narrative understanding remains related to, and yet distinct from, both theoretical discourse (science) and praxis (politics).","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":"201-219"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aquinas and the Metaphysics of Creation. By Gaven Kerr","authors":"A. Ramos","doi":"10.5840/ipq2020604168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2020604168","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":"492-495"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
My objective in this paper is to contribute to our understanding of Aristotle’s science of ethics by defending two claims. (1) There is a way in which generalizations hold only for the most part that is unlike any of the types of generalizations in the natural sciences that hold only for the most part. These ethical generalizations depict ideals that, although grounded in and perfective of our human nature, are only rarely realized. (2) Aristotle’s account of practical wisdom provides all the resources we need for understanding how the person with practical wisdom can tell when the for the most part generalization in ethics is true and when it is not.
{"title":"“For the Most Part” Generalizations and Practical Wisdom","authors":"Shane D. Drefcinski","doi":"10.5840/ipq2020602150","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2020602150","url":null,"abstract":"My objective in this paper is to contribute to our understanding of Aristotle’s science of ethics by defending two claims. (1) There is a way in which generalizations hold only for the most part that is unlike any of the types of generalizations in the natural sciences that hold only for the most part. These ethical generalizations depict ideals that, although grounded in and perfective of our human nature, are only rarely realized. (2) Aristotle’s account of practical wisdom provides all the resources we need for understanding how the person with practical wisdom can tell when the for the most part generalization in ethics is true and when it is not.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":"139-151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261303","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Cartesian Circles and the Analytic Method Thomas Feeney Abstract: The apparently circular arguments in Descartes’s Meditations should be read as analytic arguments, as Descartes himself suggested. This both explains and excuses the appearance of circularity. Analysis “digs out” what is already present in the meditator’s mind but not yet “expressly known” (Letter to Voetius). Once this is achieved, the meditator may take the result of analysis as an epistemic starting point independent of the original argument. That is, analytic arguments may be reversed to yield demonstrative proofs that follow an already workedout order of ideas. The “Cartesian Circle,” for example, is circular only when Descartes’s original analytic argument is mistaken for the demonstration it enables. This approach to Cartesian Circles is unlike the standard approach, which attempts to show that Descartes’s original arguments do work as demonstrations after all.
{"title":"Cartesian Circles and the Analytic Method","authors":"Thomas Feeney","doi":"10.5840/ipq20201120157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq20201120157","url":null,"abstract":"Cartesian Circles and the Analytic Method Thomas Feeney Abstract: The apparently circular arguments in Descartes’s Meditations should be read as analytic arguments, as Descartes himself suggested. This both explains and excuses the appearance of circularity. Analysis “digs out” what is already present in the meditator’s mind but not yet “expressly known” (Letter to Voetius). Once this is achieved, the meditator may take the result of analysis as an epistemic starting point independent of the original argument. That is, analytic arguments may be reversed to yield demonstrative proofs that follow an already workedout order of ideas. The “Cartesian Circle,” for example, is circular only when Descartes’s original analytic argument is mistaken for the demonstration it enables. This approach to Cartesian Circles is unlike the standard approach, which attempts to show that Descartes’s original arguments do work as demonstrations after all.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261128","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Emergence: Towards a New Metaphysics and Philosophy of Science. By Mariusz Tabaczek","authors":"Glenn Statile","doi":"10.5840/ipq2020602155","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2020602155","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article considers the positions of Gabriel Marcel and Thomas Aquinas on self-knowledge and argues for a synthesis between them. The basis of this Marcelian-Thomistic synthesis is their common understanding of the self as inherently in relation to that which is other (via embodiment) and in the necessity of activation for self-knowledge to occur. The divergence between these thinkers occurs in regard to the process of activation. While Aquinas presents an Aristotelian account of activation rooted in his understanding of cognition, Marcel offers a broader vision of activation that gives pride of place to intersubjectivity. A Marcelian-Thomistic synthesis preserves the Aristotelian systematization of Aquinas, while adding Marcel’s expanded understanding of activation and his prioritization of intersubjectivity. Such a synthesis allows for a treatment of self-knowledge that is metaphysically systematic and true to lived experience.
{"title":"Gabriel Marcel and Thomas Aquinas","authors":"R. Lisowski","doi":"10.5840/ipq20201120160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq20201120160","url":null,"abstract":"This article considers the positions of Gabriel Marcel and Thomas Aquinas on self-knowledge and argues for a synthesis between them. The basis of this Marcelian-Thomistic synthesis is their common understanding of the self as inherently in relation to that which is other (via embodiment) and in the necessity of activation for self-knowledge to occur. The divergence between these thinkers occurs in regard to the process of activation. While Aquinas presents an Aristotelian account of activation rooted in his understanding of cognition, Marcel offers a broader vision of activation that gives pride of place to intersubjectivity. A Marcelian-Thomistic synthesis preserves the Aristotelian systematization of Aquinas, while adding Marcel’s expanded understanding of activation and his prioritization of intersubjectivity. Such a synthesis allows for a treatment of self-knowledge that is metaphysically systematic and true to lived experience.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":"473-488"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261177","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philosophers in China during the Warring States period generally saw themselves as investigators into the Dao—the uniquely authoritative Way to live and to flourish. Certain voices found in the Zhuangzi, however, offer a radical response to this project by rejecting the premise that there exists such a uniquely authoritative Dao. Instead, they argue that there exist myriad, diverse dao, none of which has absolute moral authority. Yet the very texts that undermine the idea of an authoritative Dao simultaneously make positive ethical suggestions regarding how to live and flourish. In this paper I explore texts in the Zhuangzi that discuss the diversity of dao and sagely flourishing, and I argue that these two themes come together to form the basis of a comprehensive ethical view that I call Zhuangist pluralism.
{"title":"Ethics in the Zhuangzi","authors":"Frank Saunders","doi":"10.5840/ipq2020602152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2020602152","url":null,"abstract":"Philosophers in China during the Warring States period generally saw themselves as investigators into the Dao—the uniquely authoritative Way to live and to flourish. Certain voices found in the Zhuangzi, however, offer a radical response to this project by rejecting the premise that there exists such a uniquely authoritative Dao. Instead, they argue that there exist myriad, diverse dao, none of which has absolute moral authority. Yet the very texts that undermine the idea of an authoritative Dao simultaneously make positive ethical suggestions regarding how to live and flourish. In this paper I explore texts in the Zhuangzi that discuss the diversity of dao and sagely flourishing, and I argue that these two themes come together to form the basis of a comprehensive ethical view that I call Zhuangist pluralism.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"60 1","pages":"221-235"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Reimagining the Analogia Entis: The Future of Erich Przywara’s Christian Vision. By Philip John Paul Gonzales","authors":"Aaron Pidel","doi":"10.5840/ipq20206012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq20206012","url":null,"abstract":"<jats:p />","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71261226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
One common feature of debates about the best metaphysical analysis of putatively lawful phenomena is the suspicion that nomic realists who locate the modal force of such phenomena in quasi-causal necessitation relations between universals are working with a model of law that cannot convincingly erase its theological pedigree. Nancy Cartwright distills this criticism into slogan form: no God, no laws. Some have argued that a more plausible alternative for nomic realists who reject theism is to ground laws of nature in the fundamental dispositional properties or “pure powers” of physical objects. This article argues that for all its advantages over deflationary and rival realist accounts, a pandispositionalist account of law cuts against the commitment to metaphysical naturalism that its supporters almost always presuppose. It then examines and rejects a Platonic version of this account before elaborating and advancing a theistic alternative that is more theoretically powerful and more metatheoretically parsimonious. In slogan form: no God, no powers.
{"title":"No God, No Powers","authors":"J. Orr","doi":"10.5840/ipq2019108138","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2019108138","url":null,"abstract":"One common feature of debates about the best metaphysical analysis of putatively lawful phenomena is the suspicion that nomic realists who locate the modal force of such phenomena in quasi-causal necessitation relations between universals are working with a model of law that cannot convincingly erase its theological pedigree. Nancy Cartwright distills this criticism into slogan form: no God, no laws. Some have argued that a more plausible alternative for nomic realists who reject theism is to ground laws of nature in the fundamental dispositional properties or “pure powers” of physical objects. This article argues that for all its advantages over deflationary and rival realist accounts, a pandispositionalist account of law cuts against the commitment to metaphysical naturalism that its supporters almost always presuppose. It then examines and rejects a Platonic version of this account before elaborating and advancing a theistic alternative that is more theoretically powerful and more metatheoretically parsimonious. In slogan form: no God, no powers.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44730819","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This five-step metaphysical proof borrows from the metaphysical thought of Aquinas as well as from Bernard Lonergan’s proof of God in Insight. It makes several advances to proofs of God. Most importantly, by showing that an unconditioned (uncaused) reality must be unrestrictedly intelligible, the second step of the proof is original and lays a stronger foundation than previous proofs for the uniqueness of an unconditioned reality as well as its identification with an unrestricted act of thinking. This point strengthens the argument that this unique reality is a creator of everything else in reality. In so doing, it responds to contemporary criticisms of proofs of God by Richard Dawkins and others. This proof also adapts metaphysical ideas and terms to those arising out of the contemporary scientific world view, so that it is relevant and applicable to quantum and relativity theory, quantum cosmology, and other contemporary cosmological ideas, such as a multiverse and multidimensional physical realities.
{"title":"A Contemporary Metaphysical Proof for the Existence of God","authors":"R. Spitzer","doi":"10.5840/ipq2019594143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/ipq2019594143","url":null,"abstract":"This five-step metaphysical proof borrows from the metaphysical thought of Aquinas as well as from Bernard Lonergan’s proof of God in Insight. It makes several advances to proofs of God. Most importantly, by showing that an unconditioned (uncaused) reality must be unrestrictedly intelligible, the second step of the proof is original and lays a stronger foundation than previous proofs for the uniqueness of an unconditioned reality as well as its identification with an unrestricted act of thinking. This point strengthens the argument that this unique reality is a creator of everything else in reality. In so doing, it responds to contemporary criticisms of proofs of God by Richard Dawkins and others. This proof also adapts metaphysical ideas and terms to those arising out of the contemporary scientific world view, so that it is relevant and applicable to quantum and relativity theory, quantum cosmology, and other contemporary cosmological ideas, such as a multiverse and multidimensional physical realities.","PeriodicalId":43988,"journal":{"name":"INTERNATIONAL PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2019-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44352950","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}