Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211827
A. D. Bassford
The subject of this essay is propria and their relation to essence. Propria, roughly characterized, are those real properties of a thing which are natural but nonessential to it, and which are said to “flow from” the thing’s essence, where this “flows from” relation is understood to designate a kind of explanatory relation. For example, it is said that Socrates’s risibility flows from his essential humanity; and it is said that salt’s solubility in water flows from the essential natures of both salt and water. The question I raise and attempt to answer in this essay is: In what sense do propria “flow from” essences? What kind of explanatory relation is this exactly? Some suggest that it is a relation of logical consequence (e.g., Kit Fine); others, of grounding (e.g., Michael Gorman); and still others, of formal causation (e.g., David Oderberg). In this essay, I reintroduce and defend a view suggested by the late scholastic Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez, who in 1597 wrote that effluence is best understood as a very special kind of efficient causation, which we can call the relation of emanation. The thesis of this essay, then, is that propria emanate from essences. Along the way, this paper offers a new taxonomy of types of propria; it explains the significance of propria for the metaphysics and epistemology of essences; it discusses at length varieties of efficient causation (and emanation in particular); and then it offers an extensive abductive argument in favor of Suárez’s account, whereby the former accounts of effluence are critiqued, each in turn, and Suárez’s view is motivated and ultimately shown to be superior to its competitors.
{"title":"Essence, Effluence, and Emanation","authors":"A. D. Bassford","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211827","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211827","url":null,"abstract":"The subject of this essay is propria and their relation to essence. Propria, roughly characterized, are those real properties of a thing which are natural but nonessential to it, and which are said to “flow from” the thing’s essence, where this “flows from” relation is understood to designate a kind of explanatory relation. For example, it is said that Socrates’s risibility flows from his essential humanity; and it is said that salt’s solubility in water flows from the essential natures of both salt and water. The question I raise and attempt to answer in this essay is: In what sense do propria “flow from” essences? What kind of explanatory relation is this exactly? Some suggest that it is a relation of logical consequence (e.g., Kit Fine); others, of grounding (e.g., Michael Gorman); and still others, of formal causation (e.g., David Oderberg). In this essay, I reintroduce and defend a view suggested by the late scholastic Spanish philosopher and theologian Francisco Suárez, who in 1597 wrote that effluence is best understood as a very special kind of efficient causation, which we can call the relation of emanation. The thesis of this essay, then, is that propria emanate from essences. Along the way, this paper offers a new taxonomy of types of propria; it explains the significance of propria for the metaphysics and epistemology of essences; it discusses at length varieties of efficient causation (and emanation in particular); and then it offers an extensive abductive argument in favor of Suárez’s account, whereby the former accounts of effluence are critiqued, each in turn, and Suárez’s view is motivated and ultimately shown to be superior to its competitors.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298383","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211813
Miroslav Hanke
One of the prominent debates of post-Tridentine scholasticism addressed probability, often expressed by the term “moral” (or adverbially, “morally”), originally motivated by the epistemology of decision-making and the debates on predestination and “middle knowledge”. Puente (or Pedro) Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), an Iberian Jesuit and the author of one of the earliest Jesuit philosophy courses, entered this debate in the early-seventeenth century. This paper presents his 1610s and 1620s analyses of different forms or degrees of evidence, certainty, and necessity or impossibility, addressing the commonly-used trichotomy of the “metaphysical”, “physical”, and “moral”, in which “moral” is the weakest form of a modality, together with the paradigmatic examples and interesting applications of the framework.
{"title":"Hurtado de Mendoza on the “Moral” Modality","authors":"Miroslav Hanke","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211813","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211813","url":null,"abstract":"One of the prominent debates of post-Tridentine scholasticism addressed probability, often expressed by the term “moral” (or adverbially, “morally”), originally motivated by the epistemology of decision-making and the debates on predestination and “middle knowledge”. Puente (or Pedro) Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), an Iberian Jesuit and the author of one of the earliest Jesuit philosophy courses, entered this debate in the early-seventeenth century. This paper presents his 1610s and 1620s analyses of different forms or degrees of evidence, certainty, and necessity or impossibility, addressing the commonly-used trichotomy of the “metaphysical”, “physical”, and “moral”, in which “moral” is the weakest form of a modality, together with the paradigmatic examples and interesting applications of the framework.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298036","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211811
P. Dvořák
The paper attempts to interpret P. van Inwagen’s refutation of Evans’ argument that there cannot be vague objects and defend it against the charge of inconsistency raised by Radim Bělohrad. However, such an interpretation is not without a cost. Therefore another interpretation of van Inwagen’s example of the Cabinet is offered which evades Evans’ charge of inconsistency against indeterminate identity as it does not need the notion at all.
{"title":"On the Alleged Inconsistency in Van Inwagen’s Rebuttal of Evans’ Argument","authors":"P. Dvořák","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211811","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211811","url":null,"abstract":"The paper attempts to interpret P. van Inwagen’s refutation of Evans’ argument that there cannot be vague objects and defend it against the charge of inconsistency raised by Radim Bělohrad. However, such an interpretation is not without a cost. Therefore another interpretation of van Inwagen’s example of the Cabinet is offered which evades Evans’ charge of inconsistency against indeterminate identity as it does not need the notion at all.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211829
Martin Cajthaml
The paper focuses on MacIntyre’s account of teleology and the role of teleology in explaining value language and grounding ethical normativity. It isolates three distinct albeit interrelated notions of teleology emerging gradually from Macintyre’s philosophical project. It investigates how moral language is explained and moral norms justified on the bases of these three articulations of the teleological motif. It subjects the weakness of this reasoning to criticism.
{"title":"Teleological Foundations of Moral Language in MacIntyre’s Philosophical Project","authors":"Martin Cajthaml","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211829","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211829","url":null,"abstract":"The paper focuses on MacIntyre’s account of teleology and the role of teleology in explaining value language and grounding ethical normativity. It isolates three distinct albeit interrelated notions of teleology emerging gradually from Macintyre’s philosophical project. It investigates how moral language is explained and moral norms justified on the bases of these three articulations of the teleological motif. It subjects the weakness of this reasoning to criticism.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211812
Michele Paolini Paoletti
In this article I discuss several apparent counterexamples to the asymmetry of ontological dependence. These counterexamples were introduced in discussions about grounding, but they can affect every theory of ontological dependence. I show that, if one adopts metaontological pluralism (i.e., the view according to which there are many dependence relations), one has some advantages when it comes to defending the asymmetry of dependence. In Section 1, I introduce metaontological pluralism and my own version of it, which is based on Respect-of-Dependence Relations (rd-relations). I then single out five strategies to deal with apparent cases of symmetric dependence and show that two of them are only available to metaontological pluralists. In Sections 2, 3, and 4 I deal with cases of symmetric dependence by adopting these strategies. Finally, in Section 5, I anticipate and reply to three objections against my account.
{"title":"Respects of Dependence and Symmetry","authors":"Michele Paolini Paoletti","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211812","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211812","url":null,"abstract":"In this article I discuss several apparent counterexamples to the asymmetry of ontological dependence. These counterexamples were introduced in discussions about grounding, but they can affect every theory of ontological dependence. I show that, if one adopts metaontological pluralism (i.e., the view according to which there are many dependence relations), one has some advantages when it comes to defending the asymmetry of dependence. In Section 1, I introduce metaontological pluralism and my own version of it, which is based on Respect-of-Dependence Relations (rd-relations). I then single out five strategies to deal with apparent cases of symmetric dependence and show that two of them are only available to metaontological pluralists. In Sections 2, 3, and 4 I deal with cases of symmetric dependence by adopting these strategies. Finally, in Section 5, I anticipate and reply to three objections against my account.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71297984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211828
Marco Stango
What does ‘being dead’ mean? Should we understand ‘being dead’ as a real property or state of a subject or as something different? Does the study of death belong to metaphysics or philosophy of nature? Does the meaning of ‘being dead’ change when referred to a corpse or to a separated soul? What kind of negation does it entail? The present paper discusses these and related questions concerning the meaning of death. To do so, the paper assesses the contemporary debate concerning the so-called “termination thesis” and provides a metaphysical argument against non-terminism.
{"title":"Making Sense of ‘Being Dead’","authors":"Marco Stango","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211828","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211828","url":null,"abstract":"What does ‘being dead’ mean? Should we understand ‘being dead’ as a real property or state of a subject or as something different? Does the study of death belong to metaphysics or philosophy of nature? Does the meaning of ‘being dead’ change when referred to a corpse or to a separated soul? What kind of negation does it entail? The present paper discusses these and related questions concerning the meaning of death. To do so, the paper assesses the contemporary debate concerning the so-called “termination thesis” and provides a metaphysical argument against non-terminism.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar202118310
Miroslav Hanke
The problem of logical omniscience breaks down to the problems of the closure of knowledge under implication and of the distribution of knowledge over implication. In late medieval scholasticism these two related issues were engaged in various genres, in particular in general analysis of validity, games of obligationes, solution to self-referential antinomies and semantics of terms. The present study analyses the corpus of fourteenth-century texts with some overreaches to the subsequent two centuries, attempting to cover representatives of both the “British” and the “Continental” tradition. With some degree of simplification, this results in a range of four basic positions: 1. knowledge is closed under “analytic entailment” (Buridan), 2. knowledge distributes over implication (Heytesbury), 3. knowledge distributes over implication provided that its consequent’s truth is being taken into consideration (Peter of Mantua), 4. knowledge does not distribute overimplication (Wyclif).
{"title":"Scholastická logika „vědění“ III.","authors":"Miroslav Hanke","doi":"10.5840/studneoar202118310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar202118310","url":null,"abstract":"The problem of logical omniscience breaks down to the problems of the closure of knowledge under implication and of the distribution of knowledge over implication. In late medieval scholasticism these two related issues were engaged in various genres, in particular in general analysis of validity, games of obligationes, solution to self-referential antinomies and semantics of terms. The present study analyses the corpus of fourteenth-century texts with some overreaches to the subsequent two centuries, attempting to cover representatives of both the “British” and the “Continental” tradition. With some degree of simplification, this results in a range of four basic positions: 1. knowledge is closed under “analytic entailment” (Buridan), 2. knowledge distributes over implication (Heytesbury), 3. knowledge distributes over implication provided that its consequent’s truth is being taken into consideration (Peter of Mantua), 4. knowledge does not distribute overimplication (Wyclif).","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211826
Mário Correia
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, one of the most controversial intellectual disputes was the question of method in natural philosophy, or physics. The tensions between observational experience and geometrization, demonstration from the effects (demonstratio quia, a posteriori) and from the causes (demonstratio propter quid, a priori), and between Aristotle’s authority and new philosophical tendencies made some philosophers search for new solutions. Others criticized these new solutions and tried to show the validity of several medieval scholastic readings of Aristotle. With this article, I intend to present the role of experience in the dispute between Nicoletto Vernia’s approach to the subject-matter of physics and Gomes of Lisbon’s response to it. While Vernia holds that the subject-matter of physics is mobile body, Gomes argues it is natural substance. What is at stake is how to combine experience, definition, and demonstration to obtain a consistent scientific method. Only through the study of this kind of text and discussion can we gather a solid background to elucidate what has changed and what has been inherited from the past in the scientific shift of the seventeenth century.
在15和16世纪,最具争议的学术争论之一是自然哲学或物理学的方法问题。观察经验和几何化之间的紧张关系,结果论证(后验)和原因论证(先验论证)之间的紧张关系,以及亚里士多德的权威和新的哲学倾向之间的紧张关系,使一些哲学家寻求新的解决方案。其他人则批评了这些新的解决方案,并试图证明中世纪对亚里士多德的一些学术解读的有效性。在这篇文章中,我打算在Nicoletto Vernia对物理学主题的研究方法和Gomes of Lisbon对此的回应之间的争论中展示经验的作用。Vernia认为物理学的主题是可移动的身体,而Gomes则认为它是自然物质。关键在于如何将经验、定义和论证结合起来,以获得一致的科学方法。只有通过对这种文本的研究和讨论,我们才能收集一个坚实的背景,来阐明在17世纪的科学转变中,什么发生了变化,什么从过去继承了什么。
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Pub Date : 2021-01-01DOI: 10.5840/studneoar20211814
Mauricio Lecón
In his Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, Francisco Suárez offers a rich account of the psychology and physiology of laughter. Among other claims, he asserts that laughter is a voluntary act, without giving any further explanation. The aim of this paper is to glean from his texts a philosophically compelling argument for this claim. I will claim that for Suárez laughter is a commanded act of the will, since it somehow needs the will’s consent to be elicited. This kind of voluntariness is enough to make laughter morally relevant.
{"title":"Are We Responsible for Laughing?","authors":"Mauricio Lecón","doi":"10.5840/studneoar20211814","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5840/studneoar20211814","url":null,"abstract":"In his Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, Francisco Suárez offers a rich account of the psychology and physiology of laughter. Among other claims, he asserts that laughter is a voluntary act, without giving any further explanation. The aim of this paper is to glean from his texts a philosophically compelling argument for this claim. I will claim that for Suárez laughter is a commanded act of the will, since it somehow needs the will’s consent to be elicited. This kind of voluntariness is enough to make laughter morally relevant.","PeriodicalId":55635,"journal":{"name":"Studia Neoaristotelica","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2021-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71298047","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}