Vol 5, No 2 (2014): Metaphysics

The Scientific Annals of “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi (New Series). PHILOSOPHY, 2008

The latest book signed by Stefan Afloroaei, Metafizica noastra de toate zilele / Our Metaphysics of All Days, published by Humanitas Publishing House in 2008, brings into discussion a problematic that seemed long forgotten. The very title of the book announces its main idea, namely that metaphysics is as natural and present "frame of mind" of ours as possibly conceivable, a "form of sensitivity", an "experience," as the author himself calls it.

Neoaristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics (Routledge), 2014

This volume re-examines some of the major themes at the intersection of traditional and contemporary metaphysics. The book uses as a point of departure Francisco Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputations published in 1597. Minimalist metaphysics in empiricist/pragmatist clothing have today become mainstream in analytic philosophy. Independently of this development, the progress of scholarship in ancient and medieval philosophy makes clear that traditional forms of metaphysics have affinities with some of the streams in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The book brings together leading contemporary metaphysicians to investigate the viability of a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics.

in A. Santiago Culleton - R. Hofmeister Pich (eds.), Right and Nature in the First and Second Scholasticism - Derecho y naturaleza en la primera y segunda escolástica, (Rencontres de philosophie médiévale, 16), Turnhout: Brepols, 2014, pp. 423-447., 2014

The investigations into the history of the debates concerning the nature of metaphysics and its object are an example of the circularity involving historiography and philosophical theory, a circularity which is not always virtuous. During the twentieth century, there appeared several accurate historical reconstructions of the thought of authors such as Francisco Suárez and the Protestant thinkers; and yet, the most successful representations of the history of metaphysics remain those proposed by Martin Heidegger and Étienne Gilson. The former formulated the theory that -at least from the Middle Ages onwards -the history of metaphysics had been marked by the unification into one science of the study of being as being (ontology) and the study of the first being (rational theology). Heidegger judged this unification to be unjustifiable and historically fatal and, redefining a term coined by Kant, he named the resulting discipline (which was for him aberrant) 'ontotheology'. Gilson was responsible for the theory that the Renaissance and Early-Modern university authors (and particularly Suárez) developed an ontology which -redefining a term circulating since the early eighteenth century -he named 'pure', i.e., independent of existence; an independence that Gilson judged to be nefarious.

Third Pisa Colloquium in Logic, Language and Epistemology. Essays in Honour of Mauro Mariani and Carlo Marletti. ANALITICA, p. 191-204, PISA:ETS, ISBN: 9788846755193, 2019

a-n-a-l-i-t-i-c-a 15 Analitica propone una serie di testi -classici, monografie, strumenti antologici e manualidedicati ai più importanti temi della ricerca filosofica, con particolare riferimento alla logica, all'epistemologia e alla filosofia del linguaggio. Destinati allo studio, alla documentazione e all'aggiornamento critico, i volumi di Analitica intendono toccare sia i temi istituzionali dei vari campi di indagine, sia le questioni emergenti collocate nei punti di intersezione fra le varie aree di ricerca. Analitica includes reprints of epoch-making monographs, original researches, edited collections and textbooks on major philosophical themes, with a special focus on logic, epistemology and the philosophy of language. The volumes of the series are designed for undergraduate students and for researchers, to whom they offer updated scholarship. They deal with both the fundamental topics of the various research areas and with the emerging questions to be found at their junctions.

T. E. Tahko (Ed.), Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics (Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 26–43., 2012

The so called 'Aristotelian' conception of metaphysics is often ridiculed because it takes certain notions as fundamental, or appears to require some sort of mysterious rational insight to establish epistemic access to metaphysical truths. In this paper I examine the methodology of this conception of metaphysics, contrast it with the predominant Quinean conception of metaphysics and ontological commitment, and make some suggestions regarding the methodology of Aristotelian metaphysics. Specifically, I argue that the Quinean idea of viewing all ontological questions as existence questions is flawed, and that the proper understanding of (many) ontological questions views them as questions concerning the natures or essences of the entities under investigation. Another way to put this might be to say that Aristotelian metaphysics is interested in explaining entities in virtue of others rather than reducing entities to other entities. I also examine the relationship between metaphysics and natural science and argue that Aristotelian metaphysics is in fact continous, or parallel, to natural science.

It is not unusual for scholars to recognize the puzzle that arises from the many and seemingly divergent accounts that Aristotle gives in the Metaphysics of the subject-matter of that work. It is also not unusual for scholars to recognize the way in which Aquinas’s prooemium to his commentary on the Metaphysics offers an ingenious solution to that puzzle. What is unusual is for scholars to recognize that Aquinas’s answer to this question trades one aporia for another. Specifically, Aquinas’s solution to the problem of the subject of metaphysics raises a new problem concerning its principles, for in the prooemium St. Thomas identifies the principles of being as being with separate substances in the plural, and not just with God. In what sense can the angels be counted among the principles of ens inquantum ens? And how is this possible if they also fall under being? While recent interpreters of Aquinas offer few resources for solving this new puzzle, the same is not true when we turn to older commentators. In particular, the purpose of this paper is draw attention to a striking answer offered by the 15th century Dominican metaphysician, Dominic of Flanders (aka Flandrensis), who argues that, unlike God, the angels both fall under being, insofar as they are immaterial beings in the category of substance, and are principles of being, insofar as they are truly causes of categorial being itself. The paper will proceed in three parts: §1 will consider the initial aporia regarding Aristotle’s account of the subject-matter of the Metaphysics; §2 will turn to Aquinas's prooemium to the commentary on the Metaphysics and consider both the answer it provides and the new problem that it raises; §3 will outline Flandrensis’ resolution of this further puzzle, according to which the angels’ causal role as celestial movers renders them not only cosmological principles of change, but ontological principles of being. The paper will then close by asking whether or not this solution itself raises any further puzzles about the science of metaphysics.

2012

Aristotelian (or neo-Aristotelian) metaphysics is currently undergoing something of a renaissance. This volume brings together fourteen new essays from leading philosophers who are sympathetic to this conception of metaphysics, which takes its cue from the idea that metaphysics is the first philosophy. The primary input from Aristotle is methodological, but many themes familiar from his metaphysics will be discussed, including ontological categories, the role and interpretation of the existential quantifier, essence, substance, natural kinds, powers, potential, and the development of life. The volume mounts a strong challenge to the type of ontological deflationism which has recently gained a strong foothold in analytic metaphysics. It will be a useful resource for scholars and advanced students who are interested in the foundations and development of philosophy.

Leibniz's Key Philosophical Writings: A Guide, 2020

The “Discourse on Metaphysics” is widely considered to be Leibniz’s most important philosophical work from his so-called “middle period”. Written early in 1686, when Leibniz was 39 years old, it consolidates a number of philosophical ideas that he had developed and sketched out in the years beforehand in a host of short private essays, fragments, and letters. This essay guides the reader through the key themes of the “Discourse”, such as God’s choice of the best, the nature of substance, final causes, and the relationship between soul and body. The chapter concludes with a consideration of what prompted Leibniz to write the “Discourse”; I suggest that the “Discourse” is likely to have been conceived as an attempt to reach supporters of Descartes and Malebranche, not only to challenge key tenets of their respective philosophies but also to present a viable alternative.

in "Quaestio", 8 (2008), pp. 219-277., 2008

This essay examines the positions of Scotus and a number of Scotists on the nature of metaphysics and its object. According to the mature Scotus, metaphysics is possible as a science distinct both from physics and from revealed theology thanks to a capability and a limitation. The capability is expressed by Scotus in two ways. Firstly: the ratio of being that is included in everything can be abstracted from it; in particular, this ratio can be abstracted from sensible things. Secondly: in reality, metaphysics is a “transcendentology”, which deals both with absolute transcendentals (first of all with the ratio of being) and with disjunctive ones (moreover, considering separately each of their two parts). In particular, metaphysics has to deal with the proper characteristics of the two parts of the disjunctive transcendental “infinite being / finite being”. The limitation posed by Scotus is twofold. First of all, in the present state the human intellect (and, as a consequence, human metaphysics) cannot grasp the proper characteristics of the infinite being. Secondly, in any case the couple “immobile being / mobile being” is not a disjunctive transcendental, so that metaphysics cannot study the proper characteristics of the immobile being. Thanks to these tenets, Scotus advocates a conception of metaphysics as a unitary science dealing both with rationes generalissimae, and – but only to some extent – spiritual substances, nevertheless he binds together these two parts of this science in a way which is intrinsically complex and (due to the fact that one of his works, the De cognitione Dei, failed to circulate) not even fully known by his followers. In this essay I argue that Scotus’ followers solved the “open problems” posed by the theory and the texts of their master by developing divergent strategies. Francis of Marchia and Bonet removed all sorts of asymmetry inside metaphysics between the study of material substances and the study of spiritual substances, but separated the science of transcendental rationes from the science of spiritual beings. By contrast, Andrés, Zerbi and Trombetta combined into a single science the science of tran¬scendental rationes and the science of spiritual beings, but emphasized that metaphysics deals with spiritual substances more in detail than it does with the material ones. In particular, the position of the Scotist Trombetta diverges from the position of his ideal master on an essential point. According to Scotus, the distinction between metaphysics and physics lies in the simple and immediate abstractability of being from what is sensible. This abstractibility is such that the comprehension of being, considered as a unitary and intelligible ratio, does not change during the entire development of metaphysics. By contrast, for Trombetta, the distinction between metaphysics and physics lies in the cognizance that spiritual beings can occur. This cognizance is the result of the demonstration of the existence of spiritual beings.