Category: Scholasticism New and Old
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Bare Particulars and Lukáš Novák’s Argument Against Them
In his contribution to the book I am reviewing, Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic (Ontos Verlag, 2012), Lukáš Novák mounts an Aristotelian argument against bare particulars. In this entry I will try to understand his argument. I will hereafter refer to Professor Novák as 'LN' to avoid the trouble of having to paste in the diacriticals…
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John W. Carlson’s Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition
Dear Bill (if I may), I came across your interesting 2009 post on "The Dictionary Fallacy," and I would like to follow up. I wonder whether you are aware of my recent work, Words of Wisdom: A Philosophical Dictionary for the Perennial Tradition (University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). Attached are the publisher's notice, plus…
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Stanislav Sousedik’s “Towards a Thomistic Theory of Predication”
Enough of politics, back to some hard-core technical philosophy. If nothing else, the latter offers exquisite escapist pleasures not unlike those of chess. Of course I don't believe that technical philosophy is escapist; my point is a conditional one: if it is, its pleasures suffice to justify it as a form of recuperation from this all-too-oppressive world of…
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Aquinas Meets Frege: Analysis of an Argument from De Ente et Essentia
The other day I expressed my reservations as to the coherence of the Thomistic notion of a common nature. Let's plunge a little deeper by considering the argument from Chapter 3 of Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence (tr. Robert T. Miller, emphasis added): The nature, however, or the essence thus understood can be considered in two…
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Gyula Klima on Thomistic Common Natures: Some Questions
In his SEP article, The Medieval Problem of Universals, Gyula Klima offers the following explanation of the Thomistic doctrine of common natures: So, a common nature or essence according to its absolute consideration abstracts from all existence, both in the singulars and in the mind. Yet, and this is the important point, it is the…
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Frege Meets Aquinas: A Passage from De Ente et Essentia
Here is a passage from Chapter 3 of Thomas Aquinas, On Being and Essence (tr. Robert T. Miller, emphasis added): The nature, however, or the essence thus understood can be considered in two ways. First, we can consider it according to its proper notion, and this is to consider it absolutely. In this way, nothing is…
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Geach on the Real Distinction II: The Argument from Intentionality
See Geach on the Real Distinction I for some background on the distinctio realis. This post lays out the argument from intentionality to the real distinction. A theory of intentionality ought to explain how the objective reference or object-directedness of our thoughts and perceptions is possible. Suppose I am thinking about a cat, a particular…
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Kenny, Geach, and the Perils of Reading Frege Back Into Aquinas
I have been studying Anthony Kenny, Aquinas on Being (Oxford 2002). I cannot report that I find it particularly illuminating. I am troubled by the reading back of Fregean doctrines into Aquinas, in particular in the appendix, "Frege and Aquinas on Existence and Number." (pp. 195-204) Since Kenny borrows heavily from Peter Geach, I will…
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Geach on the Real Distinction I
Oceans of ink have been spilled over the centuries on the celebrated distinctio realis between essence and existence (esse). You have no idea how much ink, and vitriol too, has flooded the scholastic backwaters and sometimes spilled over into mainstream precincts. Anyway, the distinction has long fascinated me and I hold to some version of it. I will first give a…
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Hylomorphic Ontological Analysis and the Puzzle of Prime Matter
Recent posts have discussed hylomorphic dualism in the philosophy of mind. It is a serious contender in the arena of competing positions — unlike say, eliminative materialism, which is not. (If you think I'm just gassing off about EM, read the entries in the eponymous category.) But now I want to take a step back from…
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Feser Defends Hylomorphic Dualism Against My Criticism
I want to thank Edward Feser for responding to my recent post, A Problem for the Hylomorphic Dualist. And while you are at Ed's site, please read his outstanding entry, So you think you understand the cosmological argument?, an entry with which I agree entirely. Ed writes, Naturally, since I am a hylemorphic dualist, I…
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On the TFL (Mis)Representation of Singular Propositions as General
The following is a valid argument: 1. Pittacus is a good man2. Pittacus is a wise man—–3. Some wise man is a good man. That this argument is valid I take to be a datum, a given, a non-negotiable point. The question is whether traditional formal logic (TFL) is equipped to account for the validity…
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Aquinas on Intentionality: Towards a Critique
Yesterday I quoted Peter Geach in exposition of Aquinas' theory of intentionality. I will now quote Anthony Kenny in exposition of the same doctrine: The form is individuated when existing with esse naturale in an actual example of a species; it is also individuated, in quite a different way, when it exists with esse intentionale…
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Esse Intentionale and Esse Naturale: Notes on Geach on Aquinas on Intentionality
A theory of intentionality ought to explain how the objective reference or object-directedness of our thoughts is possible. Suppose I am thinking about a cat, a particular cat of my acquaintance whom I have named 'Max Black.' How are we to understand the relation between the mental act of my thinking, which is a transient datable…