Collingwood wrote at a time when positivism was the dominant philosophical influence in British philosophy. Central to Collingwood's philosophical project was the task of rehabilitation of metaphysics against the backdrop of the positivistic deconstruction of metaphysics. Collingwood's defence of metaphysics is much nuanced in the sense that while Collingwood does not sympathize with the grandiose conception of metaphysics associated with traditional metaphysics he is nonetheless keen to argue for the possibility of metaphysics in some (...) form by reconceptualising metaphysics as a science of absolute presuppositions. Thus his reform of metaphysics is an answer to positivism at the same time an attempt to tone down the claims of metaphysics such as to bring it in accord with scientific rationality. Yet it remains to be seen whether Collingwood's rehabilitation of metaphysics is successful, so far as the so-called absolute presuppositions do not have any ontological bearing with the domain of reality as it is in-itself but are exclusively grounded as structural features of human rationality, writ large. In this sense, Collingwood's initiative appears to suffer from similar difficulties that bedevil its Kantian predecessor in reforming metaphysics in terms of the claims of his Copernican revolution in epistemology. (shrink)

Scholarly debates on the Critique of Pure Reason have largely been shaped by epistemological questions. Challenging this prevailing trend, Kant's Reform of Metaphysics is the first book-length study to interpret Kant's Critique in view of his efforts to turn Christian Wolff's highly influential metaphysics into a science. Karin de Boer situates Kant's pivotal work in the context of eighteenth-century German philosophy, traces the development of Kant's conception of critique, and offers fresh and in-depth analyses of key parts (...) of the Critique of Pure Reason, including the Transcendental Deduction, the Schematism Chapter, the Appendix to the Transcendental Analytic, and the Architectonic. The book not only brings out the coherence of Kant's project, but also reconstructs the outline of the 'system of pure reason' for which the Critique was to pave the way, but that never saw the light. (shrink)

The very title of Karin de Boer’s latest book Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics: The Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered makes her position clear: Kant is a reformist not a revolutionary and this refor...

Volume 29, Issue 6, December 2021, Page 1192-1197.

Tetens is usually considered the main representative of English empiricism in 18th-century German philosophy. In order to find out how fair this characterization is, the authors turn to the analysis of the critical foundations of the project of reform of metaphysics proposed by Tetens in his early article “Reflections on Some Reasons Why There Are So Few Settled Truths in Metaphysics” (1760). Having analyzed the arguments of this article, the authors prove: 1) Tetens's project for the (...) class='Hi'>reform of philosophy fully fits into the tradition of German "methodical" philosophy, 2) it is based on the methodological and epistemological principles of the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolf, and is aimed at substantiating the basic provisions of Leibniz's metaphysics, 3) Tetens's “observing method” is rooted in the philosophy of Leibniz and Wolf, and not in the tradition of English empiricism. (shrink)

In my comments on Karin de Boer’s Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics, I pose five questions. First, I ask how the fundamental principle of practical philosophy that Kant identifies and claims is fundamentally different from Wolff’s is consistent with the claim that Kant is reforming Wolff’s metaphysics. Second, I ask whether De Boer thinks that Kant, as a reformer of Wolff, continues to accept the Principle of Sufficient Reason (or some variant thereof). Third, I ask whether De Boer (...) accepts Wolff’s conception of analytic judgements, especially as applied to the fundamental principles of metaphysics, and if she does not, how Kant can be reforming rather than rejecting Wolff’s metaphysics. Fourth, I ask what De Boer’s argument is for thinking that Kant is not begging the question against Wolff in thinking that a priori cognition needs schemata. Fifth, I ask how De Boer understands the division of labour between the Transcendental Analytic and the Transcendental Dialectic in establishing the claims of metaphysics. (shrink)

I raise three questions relevant to De Boer’s overall project in Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics. The first is whether Kant’s 1799 open letter to Fichte supports or threatens her contention that Kant had an abiding interest in developing a reformed metaphysics from 1781 onwards. The second is whether De Boer’s conception of the pure intellect and its place in Kant’s projected system of metaphysics captures the role of pure sensibility in the Analytic of Principles, rational physics (...) and rational psychology. The third is whether one might accept the outline of this system as De Boer develops it while still holding that it is more accurate to characterize it as revolution rather than reform. (shrink)

In her new book, Karin de Boer attempts to read Kant’s first Critique as a reform of a Wolffian project. My contribution contains several comments and questions that aim to further develop this stimulating approach to Kant. They concern (1) the affinities and disagreements between Kant and Wolff, regarding metaphysics, epistemology and method; (2) the place of Wolff’s students (in particular Mendelssohn) in De Boer’s narrative; and (3) the development of the dialogue between Wolff and Kant in the (...) latter’s later writings. (shrink)

Karin de Boer has given the best account so far of the reform of Wolffian metaphysics that Kant promised. But does such a reform cohere with the revolutionary goal that Kant also affirmed? Standpoint is singled out as the central meta-concept of Kant’s revolutionary goal, and it is argued that, in the second and third critiques, Kant himself developed his revolutionary insight into the perspectival character of both concept and judgement in ways that he did not anticipate (...) at the time of the first critique, when his promise to reform metaphysics was made. The question is raised what room Kant’s revolution leaves for doctrinal and not merely disciplinary judgements in both general and special metaphysics, and also whether the opening of new vistas may have drained metaphysical reform of its interest. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Looking back at the reception of Kant's philosophy in the twentieth century, it is striking to see how many philosophers tried to enlist Kant in their campaigns to "overcome" and "eliminate" metaphysics. Twentieth-century Kant scholars often shared their contemporaries' hostility to metaphysics, especially the "dogmatic" rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff. These attitudes can still be found within the discipline and among Kant scholars, but much has changed in the last thirty years. Metaphysics has been revived as a (...) central part of both analytic and continental philosophy. And historical, contextualist Kant scholarship has established that there are important continuities between Kant and his rationalist... (shrink)

Review of: Karin de Boer. Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics: The Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

_Review of: __de Boer, Karin, _Kant’s Reform of Metaphysics. The Critique of Pure Reason Reconsidered_, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. 280, ISBN 978-1-108-84217-4___.

This paper argues that Collingwood's theories of logic and metaphysics ought to be understood in the context of a diagnosis of a crisis in modern Western civilisation and a response to this problem in the form of a dialectical and historical philosophy.The crisis of civilisation is explained as the failure of contemporary civilisation to significantly move beyond a dependency on a Platonic philosophy of being. The solution, it is proposed, is the development of a philosophy of becoming, which reconciles (...) normative thinking with historical change. Collingwood's reform of logic and metaphysics is supplemented by a broader philosophy of history where the criteria for value and truth are located, not in an ideal transcendent world, but in a 'way of life' in the widest sense.Collingwood's answer to the crisis of Western civilisation, I contend, is a theory of culture as process, historicity and identity realising itself by undergoing diversity. This interpretation of Collingwood's philosophy is developed through a comparison with the historicist philosophy of Ortega y Gasset and a contrast with Nietzsche. (shrink)

R.G. Collingwood greatly admired Dilthey’s philosophy of history. In this article, I show that despite the obvious affinities between both authors, their views on the historical role of philosophy are clearly divergent. I focus on one topic in particular in their writings, namely, the status of metaphysics and its relation to history. Whereas Dilthey argues that the awareness of the historicity of metaphysics and its psychological-hermeneutical foundation inevitably leads to the euthanasia of metaphysics, Collingwood defends the possibility (...) of a reform of metaphysics into a historical discipline, based on a logic of question and answer. The analysis of the difference between these two thinkers with respect to the role of metaphysics consists of three steps. First, I situate Dilthey’s critique of metaphysics into the whole of his oeuvre, followed by a presentation of his ”solution’ to the metaphysical antinomy. Second, I focus on the role of Collingwood’s reform of metaphysics and on his ”solution’ to the metaphysical antinomy. To that end, I make use of Collingwood’s recently released unpublished manuscripts so as to shed greater light on his rejection of Dilthey’s understanding of the historical role and definition of metaphysics. Finally, I reformulate the differing statuses of metaphysics between these two thinkers by relating their divergent views to their respective understandings of human finitude. (shrink)

Although the philosophical ideas of the English philosopher Robin George Collingwood on history and art have often been compared with those of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, an in-depth comparison between their concepts of metaphysics was never made. Therefore, the focus in this article is on both authors’ concepts of metaphysics. It is shown that, despite the undeniable affinity, their views of the status of metaphysics differ substantially. Both Dilthey and Collingwood focus on an inherent antinomy in (...) the project of metaphysics. On the one hand, there is the inescapable relativity of all time-bound ways of thinking and their results; on the other, there is the metaphysical search for objective and generally accepted knowledge of reality as a whole. For Dilthey, the awareness of its historical character reveals the impossibility for metaphysics to provide a foundation for natural and human sciences alike. Collingwood’s aim, by contrast, is to safeguard the possibility of metaphysics as a historical science to supply an enduring foundation of natural and human sciences. To clarify this radical difference with regard to the role of metaphysics, I make three steps. First, I situate Dilthey’s critique of metaphysics within the context of his work in order to present his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Second, I focus on the role of Collingwood’s reform of metaphysics and his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Finally, I relate the different status of their views of metaphysics to their divergent interpretations of human finitude. (shrink)

Leibniz is one of the philosophers who is most present in the philosophy of Maine de Biran, particularly from 1813 onwards. His influence is decisive in the reform of metaphysics (or First Philosophy) that he carries out from that moment on, reviving the notion of substance. Leibniz allows him to reconcile it with the idea of force, and thus to link it to the primitive fact of consciousness. This move has often been emphasized by commentators, but what has (...) been less studied is the way in which this reform takes place in Biran’s intellectual trajectory from the time when he claimed to be an Ideologist inspired by Condillac’s philosophy, to the last texts written in 1824, when he eventually adopted a spiritualist monism that owed much to Leibniz, abandoning the Cartesian-inspired metaphysical dualism to which he had been committed until then. (shrink)

A paperback re-issue of Bainton's excellent Reformation study, first published in 1952. --A. C. P.

Business education is at a critical juncture. How are we to justify the curriculum in undergraduate business awards in Aotearoa New Zealand? This essay suggests a philosophical framework for the analysis the business curriculum in Western countries. This framework helps us to see curriculum in a context of global academic communities and national needs. It situates the business degree in the essential tension which modernity (Western metaphysics) creates and which is expressed in an increasingly globalised economy. The tension is (...) between those who insist that the degree is to serve modernity and those who hope that it may contribute to a new era of justice and harmony with nature. One critical battle ground for the business curriculum is the subject Business Ethics. The business ethics curriculum often indicates the intention of the business ethics degree itself. Kant's distinction between heteronomy (rule following) and autonomy (making your own decisions) provides us with a means to judge the purposes of business ethics courses: there are courses which seek to produce reliable and compliant (heteronomous) employees, and there are those which seek to produce independent creative (autonomous) human beings. The question for this conference is: what do we as business educators see as our task? (shrink)

This paper argues that the famous passage that compares Kant’s efforts to reform metaphysics with his transcendental idealism to the earlier Copernican revolution in astronomy has a more systematic significance than many recognize. By examining the totality of Kant’s references to Copernicus, one can see that Kant’s analogy points to more than just a similar reversal of perspective. By situating Kant’s comments about Copernicus in relation to his understanding of the logic implicit in the great revolutions in mathematics (...) and natural science, this paper argues that Kant’s appeal to the Copernican revolution in astronomy as a forebear to his own transcendental project indicates that his attempt to revolutionize metaphysics by setting it on the secure path of the sciences demands a shift in how we think of the proper object of metaphysics. (shrink)

Hegel often says that his "logic" is meant to replace metaphysics. Since Hegel's Science of Logic is so different from a standard logic, most commentators have not treated the portion of that work devoted to logical forms as relevant to this claim. This paper argues that Hegel's discussion of logical forms of judgment and syllogism is meant to be the foundation of his reformation of metaphysics. Implicit in Hegel's discussion of the logical forms is the view that the (...) metaphysical concepts discussed in Books I and II of the Science of Logic supervene on the role of subject and predicate terms in the logical forms discussed in Book III. Hegel thus has an explanation for the nature and significance of metaphysical concepts that resembles Kant's "metaphysical deduction," according to which the categories can be derived from the table of judgments. Though Hegel's metaphysics is often supposed to be influenced by Kant, prevailing interpretations do not show how Hegel's fine-grained treatment of logical forms is relevant to his critical view of metaphysics. The present interpretation provides a model for Hegel's explanation of metaphysical concepts, as well as a new picture of the structure of his Science of Logic that emphasizes the priority of its Doctrine of the Concept. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY PRESENTS AN EXTENDED MEDITATION ON THE DEVELOPING practice of scriptural reasoning insofar as it may contribute to our thinking about political discourse in the context of late-modern liberal democracies. Concerns are raised about the account of argument and practical reason expressed by practitioners of scriptural reasoning, particularly with respect to an antimetaphysical bias. Following Franklin Gamwell, I suggest that a coherent theoretical account of democracy should be open to the critical assessment of metaphysical claims. I conclude that scriptural (...) reasoning does provide a helpful resource for thinking about argument across religious traditions in a democratic context but requires a clearer position on metaphysics to make a truly distinctive contribution to reforming our understanding of democratic politics in the context of religious pluralism. (shrink)

Whitehead and others have decried the ,,bifurcation of nature“, that is, the split between the world depicted by science, which lacks such phenomena as purpose, meaning, and value, and the world of human experience, which is largely constituted by those same phenomena. In order to guide our thinking about how this split might possibly be overcome, I propose three guiding principles, which I hope will be widely accepted: (1) The reality of the human world; (2) The cognitive excellence of empirical (...) science; and (3) The unification of knowledge. All three of these principles are eminently reasonable, and yet they appear to form an inconsistent triad. Naturalism, as the metaphysical worldview extrapolated from empirical science, is distinguished from empirical science as such. I propose that the only way to reconcile the three guiding principles is to reform naturalism in such a way as to recognize the objective reality of biological purpose. Such a reform in the foundations of biology might then provide us with a foundation for reconstructing our view of the human world. The argument in support of this proposed reform proceeds in two stages. First, as pars destruens, I show that naturalism as usually construed is anyway untenable, because the two chief theories by means of which biological purpose is supposed to be reduced to mechanism - the theory of natural selection and the theory of cybernetic control - fail as reductive schemas because each theory tacitly presupposes purpose at a crucial point in its explanatory structure. Second, as pars construens, I discuss the possibility of using some concepts borrowed from nonlinear dynamics and condensed-matter physics as a way of directly representing biological purpose as a real, emergent phenomenon. Finally, I end with a brief reflection on the implications of the doctrine of ontological emergence for the principle of the unification of knowledge. German Whitehead und andere Autoren haben die ,,Verzweigung der Natur“, d. h. die Kluft zwischen der von den Naturwissenschaften beschriebenen Welt, die keine Phänomene der Art von Zielen, Bedeutung und Wert enthält, und der Welt der menschlichen Erfahrung, die weitgehend von eben diesen Phänomenen konstituiert ist, beklagt. Um unsere Überlegungen darüber, wie diese Kluft eventuell überwunden werden kann, zu leiten, schlage ich drei Leitprinzipien vor, von denen ich hoffe, daß sie weitgehend akzeptiert werden: (1) die Realität der menschlichen Welt; (2) die kognitive Exzellenz der empirischen Wissenschaft; und (3) die Vereinheitlichung der Erkenntnis. Alle drei Prinzipien scheinen in hohem Masse vernünftig, und dennoch scheinen sie eine inkonsistente Triade zu bilden. Der Naturalismus als die metaphysische Weltauffassung, die aus der empirischen Wissenschaft extrapoliert wird, sollte von der empirischen Wissenschaft als solcher unterschieden werden. Ich schlage vor, daß die einzige Art und Weise, die drei Leitprinzipien zu versöhnen, in einer Reform des Naturalismus besteht derart, daß die objektive Realität biologischer Zielsetzung anerkannt wird. Eine solche Reform in den Grundlagen der Biologie kann dann eine Grundlage bilden für eine Rekonstruktion unserer Auffassung der menschlichen Welt. Das Argument für die vorgeschlagene Reform geht nach zwei Stufen vor. Zuerst, als pars destruens, zeige ich, daß der Naturalismus in seiner üblichen Fassung sowieso unannehmbar ist, weil die zwei hauptsächlichen Theorien, durch welche biologische Zielsetzung angeblich auf einen Mechanismus reduziert werden kann - die Theorie der natürlichen Selektion und die Theorie der kybernetischen Kontrolle - keineswegs als reduktive Schemata taugen, weil jede Theorie stillschweigend Zielsetzung an einer entscheidenden Stelle ihre erklärenden Struktur voraussetzt. Zweitens, als pars construens, diskutiere ich die Möglichkeit, bestimmte Begriffe aus der nichtlinearen Dynamik und aus der Festkörperphysik einzusetzen, um biologische Zielsetzung als ein reales, emergentes Phänomen direkt zu repräsentieren. Ich schließe den Aufsatz mit einer kurzen Reflektion über die Konsequenzen der Lehre der ontologischen Emergenz für das Prinzip der Vereinheitlichung der Erkenntnis ab. (shrink)

Taking Locke's epistemology as a starting-point, Maine de Biran elaborated the notions of expectation of resistance and kinaesthetic response into a theory which attempted to account for the origin of our ideas of personal identity and causation. In this clear and intelligent study, Hallie compares Maine de Biran to the British empiricists, finding him most in sympathy with Berkeley; he also assesses the importance and limitations of this internal critique of empiricism for both empiricism and later French philosophy.--R. F. T.

Despite their divergent metaphysical assumptions, Reformed and evolutionary epistemologists have converged on the notion of proper basicality. Where Reformed epistemologists appeal to God, who has designed the mind in such a way that it successfully aims at the truth, evolutionary epistemologists appeal to natural selection as a mechanism that favors truth-preserving cognitive capacities. This paper investigates whether Reformed and evolutionary epistemological accounts of theistic belief are compatible. We will argue that their chief incompatibility lies in the noetic effects of sin (...) and what may be termed the noetic effects of evolution, systematic tendencies wherein human cognitive faculties go awry. We propose a reconceptualization of the noetic effects of sin to mitigate this tension. (shrink)

The Benedictine Dom Léger-Marie Deschamps and the philosophical Abbé Claude Yvon may indeed be minor eighteenth-century figures, and they both may be considered to have emerged from the Catholic side of something Helena Rosenblatt has dubbed the Christian Enlightenment, but neither of these figures is neatly “conservative” (as Mark Curran defines it), nor are they fully “radical” (in the sense of having contributed to the Radical Enlightenment). Rather, Deschamps and Yvon are among a number of eighteenth-century figures who do not (...) fit neatly into the expected parameters of Catholic, Christian, Religious or Radical Enlightenment. This article argues that the entanglement of both heterodoxy and orthodoxy, and of sociopolitical progressivism and conservatism, is characteristic of Yvon’s and Deschamps’s particular engagement with what Vincenzo Ferrone describes as the cultural revolution of the eighteenth century. This study of these under-examined Catholic scholars further suggests that conventional and tidy scholarly narratives of the history of Enlightenment should be further problematized. (shrink)

Max Scheler's Reformation of Philosophy of Religion The following contribution aims to show the relevance of Max Scheler's reflections on the relation of Christianity and modernity for the present situation. It interprets Scheler's philosophy of religion in terms of a principle of reformation that can be implicitly found in Scheler's critical assessment of the historical impact of Lutheran Protestantism. Scheler's principle of reformation provides four criteria: autonomy of the religious sphere, dialectics of life and spirit, community beyond religious denominations, and (...) metaphysical determination of the divine. On that basis, we will see that Scheler's "catholic” phenomenology of religion from 1921 only partly meets his own criteria, whereas his "post-catholic” metaphysics of panentheism, developed after 1922, is more suitable to meet these criteria. Two factors are crucial: First, the divine is characterized by a fundamental metaphysical tension between spirit and vital impulsion, which leads to transferring the responsibility of balancing this tension to the history of mankind. Second, the community that corresponds to this metaphysical conception is not delimited by religious denomination but is integrated by solidarity among all human and living beings instead. (shrink)

This book is a manifesto of reformed Stoicism. It proposes a system of life which is bullet-proof, universal, viable and effective in every cosmic setting. It holds in every possible universe, under any government and within any economic system. We can be reformed Stoics no matter what we believe in. Reformed Stoicism is about enjoying and exercising our agency. In other words, it's about the flow of making autonomous and right decisions, and about celebrating our ability to make them. With (...) no reliance on nature, with the recalibration of metaphysical positions, with skepticism towards grand discourses and universal answers, with an emphasis on the usefulness instead of truthfulness of narratives, with no reference to the vanity argument, with criticism of both conservative and ascetic misinterpretations of Stoicism, with an overall softer and more empathic approach, we can no longer be defined by the generic term "Stoicism". Our time, in short, calls for a fresh interpretation of Stoicism. It is time for a new generation of Stoics. Thus: reformed Stoicism. (shrink)

Current health care standards, in many countries, Australia included, are regrettably poor. Surprisingly, practitioners and treating teams alike in mental health and disability sectors, in particular, make far too many basic care-related mistakes, in addition to the already abundant diagnostic mistakes that cause and amplify great harm. In part, too many practitioners also fail to distinguish adverse effects for what they are and all too often treat adverse effects, instead, as comorbidities. Diagnostic failures are dangerous, the result of which generates (...) and perpetuates harms that are extremely costly in terms of patient welfare, in addition to the financial burden placed on everyone. In this essay, I contend that the authority bestowed upon psychiatry is misplaced. Subsequently, this misplaced authority affects the governing and investigatory institutions reliant and informed by psychiatry. The examination process undertaken in this investigation traces the metaphysics of psychiatric disorders relative to the Diagnostic-Statistical-Manual (DSM) in all its iterations and to the epistemological construction process that serves to underpin the fundamentals of psychiatric practice. There exists a crisis of confidence in psychiatric practice and I urge drastic reform be undertaken to arrest the damage. (shrink)

The Stoics are famously committed to the thesis that only bodies are, and for this reason they are rightly called “corporealists.” They are also famously compared to Plato’s earthborn Giants in the Sophist, and rightly so given their steadfast commitment to body as being. But the Stoics also notoriously turn the tables on Plato and coopt his “dunamis proposal” that being is whatever can act or be acted upon to underwrite their commitment to body rather than shrink from it as (...) the Giants do. The substance of Stoic corporealism, however, has not been fully appreciated. This paper argues that Stoic corporealism goes beyond the dunamis proposal, which is simply an ontological criterion for being, to the metaphysics of body. This involves, first, an account of body as metaphysically simple and hence fundamental; second, an account of body as malleable and continuous, hence fit for blending (krasis di’ holou) and composition. In addition, the metaphysics of body involves a distinction between this composition relation seen in the cosmology, and the constitution relation by which the four-fold schema called the Stoic Categories proceeds, e.g. the relation between a statue and its clay, or a fist and its underlying hand. It has not been appreciated that the cosmology and the Categories are distinct — and complementary — explanatory enterprises, the one accounting for generation and unity, the other taking those individuals once generated, and giving a mereological analysis of their identity and persistence conditions, kinds, and qualities. The result is an elegant division of Plato’s labor from the Battle of Gods and Giants. On the one hand, the Stoics rehabilitate the crude cosmology of the Presocratics to deliver generation and unity in completely corporeal terms, and that work is found in their Physics. On the other hand, they reform the Giants and “dare to corporealize,” delivering all manner of predication (from identity to the virtues), and that work is found in Stoic Logic. Recognizing the distinctness of these explanatory enterprises helps dissolve scholarly puzzles, and harmonizes the Stoics with themselves. (shrink)

In this first book-length treatment of Descartes' important and influential natural philosophy, Daniel Garber is principally concerned with Descartes' accounts of matter and motion—the joint between Descartes' philosophical and scientific interests. These accounts constitute the point at which the metaphysical doctrines on God, the soul, and body, developed in writings like the Meditations, give rise to physical conclusions regarding atoms, vacua, and the laws that matter in motion must obey. Garber achieves a philosophically rigorous reading of Descartes that is sensitive (...) to the historical and intellectual context in which he wrote. What emerges is a novel view of this familiar figure, at once unexpected and truer to the historical Descartes. The book begins with a discussion of Descartes' intellectual development and the larger project that frames his natural philosophy, the complete reform of all the sciences. After this introduction Garber thoroughly examines various aspects of Descartes' physics: the notion of body and its identification with extension; Descartes' rejection of the substantial forms of the scholastics; his relation to the atomistic tradition of atoms and the void; the concept of motion and the laws of motion, including Descartes' conservation principle, his laws of the persistence of motion, and his collision law; and the grounding of his laws in God. (shrink)

when r. g. collingwood began to write his autobiography in 1938, he was only 49 years old, still very young for drawing up a final balance. Only three years earlier, he had been appointed to the prestigious Waynflete Chair of Metaphysical Philosophy in Oxford. By then, Collingwood was already severely ill and he knew that he only had a few more years to live. Therefore, he did not only present his past evolution in his autobiography; his attention rather went to (...) those subjects for which he feared there was not enough time left to elaborate. The project that in his mind deserved the most attention was the defence of the possibility of a contemporary metaphysics. Less than one year later, Collingwood elaborated this .. (shrink)

Theologians are used to pointing the finger at European continental postmodernism when dealing with modern relativism. This article addresses a problem that is seldom highlighted within theology: modern relativism is the result of a series of epistemological discussions that took place during the early Enlightenment between scholars such as Rene Descartes, John Locke and Immanuel Kant. They were reacting, in part, to Aristotle’s metaphysics and logic. When the whole picture unravels, one immediately sees that modern relativism is deeply ingrained (...) in Western thought. In other words, modern relativism will not gather dust after the demise of postmodernism. To the contrary, this article would argue that modern relativism will continue to pose serious challenges to reformed churches in future. Pastors who want to engage with Western audiences will benefit from being made aware of this. Hopefully this will encourage theologians to re-evaluate the relevancy of reformed theological constructs in societies that are deeply steeped in relativist thought. (shrink)

This paper aims to counter the recent opinion that there is a peculiar epistemology in the reformed Church which made it negative to natural theology. First, it is shown that there was an early and unanimous adoption of natural theology as the culmination of physics and the beginning of metaphysics by the sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophers of good standing in the reformed Church. Second, it is argued that natural theology cannot be based on revelation, should not assume a (...) peculiar analysis of knowledge and must not pass over demonstration. (shrink)