There seems to be an inconsistency at the heart of Aristotle’s Metaphysics: a differentia is said both to presuppose its genus (in vii 12) and to be logically independent from it (in x 7). I argue that the relation of analogy resolves this inconsistency, restores the coherence of the concepts of differentia and species, and gives x 7 its rightful place in the development of the Metaphysics.

RESUMO O presente artigo apresenta a crítica arendtiana à differentia specifica. Mostra-se aqui que o procedimento de definir ser humano por meio da differentia specifica constitui um dos elementos totalitários que Arendt afirma existir na tradição. Em um percurso que vai do projeto de pesquisa elaborado por Arendt, em 1952, às primeiras páginas de A condição humana, o artigo mostra como o problema da differentia specifica se vincula a Marx e Heidegger e termina oferecendo a Arendt a (...) possibilidade de elaborar de maneira nova e mais profunda a sua crítica ao totalitarismo. ABSTRACT This article shows Hannah Arendt’s critique of differentia specifica. I claim here that the traditional procedure of defining human being through his differentia specifica regarding other animals is one of the totalitarian elements of tradition, as states Arendt. Starting with the research project written by Arendt in 1952 and finishing at the first pages of The Human Condition, I intend to show how the problem of differentia specifica is related to Marx and Heidegger, and opens to Arendt the possibility to elaborate a brand new and deeper way to fight totalitarianism. (shrink)

How are we to distinguish epistemic justification for believing a proposition from other sorts of justification one might have for believing it? According to what I call the received view about the differentia of epistemic justification, epistemic justification is intimately connected to “the cognitive goal of arriving at truth” in a specific way no other sorts of justification can possibly be. However, I will argue that the received view is mistaken by showing that there are cases in which pragmatic (...) justification for believing a proposition is related to the cognitive goal of arriving at truth in a way epistemic justification is supposed to be. The paper will close with a brief assessment of two possible rejoinders the received view might make to my objection.Epistemik gerekçelendirmeyi diğer tür gerekçelendirmelerden nasıl ayırmalıyız? Hâkim görüş diyebileceğimiz bir fikre göre, epistemik gerekçelendirme “doğruya varma” diyebileceğimiz bilişsel hedefe diğer tür gerekçelendirmelerin olamayacağı şekilde yakın bir biçimde irtibatlıdır. Bu yazıda, hâkim görüşün yanlış olduğunu iddia edeceğim. Bu iddiam, bazı olası durumlarda pragmatik gerekçelendirmenin de doğruya varma hedefiyle olan irtibatının epistemik gerekçelendirmenin o hedefle kurduğu iddia edilen irtibatın aynısı olduğunu gösteren bir düşünce deneyine dayanıyor. Yazı, hâkim görüşün sunduğum itiraza karşı geliştirebileceği iki yanıtın kısa bir değerlendirmesi ile sonlanıyor. (shrink)

Edward Aloysius Pace, philosopher and educator, by J. H. Ryan.-Neo-scholastic philosophy in American Catholic culture, by C. A. Hart.- The significance of Suarez for a revival of scholasticism, by J. F. McCormick.- The new physics and scholasticism, by F. A. Walsh.- The new humanism and standards, by L. R. Ward.- The purpose of the state, by E. F. Murphy.- The concept of beauty in St. Thomas Aquinas, by G. B. Phelan.- The knowableness of God: its relation to the theory of (...) knowledge in St. Thomas, by Matthew Schumacher.- The modern idea of God, by F. J. Sheen.- The analysis of association of its equational constants, by T. V. Moore.- Bibliography (p. 224-225) - Character and body build in children, by Sister M. Rosa McDonough. Bibliography (p. 248-249) - The moral development of children, by Sister Mary.- Medieval education (700-900) by T. J. Shahan.- The need for a Catholic philosophy of education, by George Johnson. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas is often presented as a philosopher with a realist and optimistic attitude toward human knowledge. This is essentially true. Nevertheless, there are texts where Aquinas underscores the limits of our knowledge of natural things. For example, he states that we arrive at knowing and naming the substance of a thing only through knowing its accidents. Aquinas makes three main claims about this process: first, the essential principles of natural things are unknown to us; second, the accidents of a (...) thing give a great contribution to the knowledge of what a thing is; third, we impose names on things moving from their accidents. Such claims may be read as introducing a skeptical concern. On the contrary, they express a form of phenomenal realism, which Aquinas reconciles with representationalism in knowledge. (shrink)

In this article the question is posed whether the modern concept of tolerance is an appropriate category with which to evaluate the thought of Nicholas of Cusa. The classic question of unity and pluriformity is linked by Cusanus to the problem of the plurality of contradictory forms of truth. Thus for Cusanus the problem of truth can never be thought without the possibility of tolerance. Vice versa this implies that the subject of tolerance can never be broached without broaching the (...) subject of the problematics of truth. This is why Cusanus understands man as a 'second god', who is the border of his own world, and who is confronted with the problem that there are 'several gods'. If we develop the thought of tolerance in this way along with Cusanus, it has much in common with the enquiry into the possibilities and limits of the concepts of god in and for human existence. (shrink)

This article presents an interpretation of Deleuze’s concept of difference-in-itself. I argue that this is best understood as an adption of Duns Scotus’s concept of ultimate difference. After suggesting that the influence of Scotus on Deleuze extends beyond their shared commitment to the univocity of being, I turn to briefly review Deleuze’s notion of absolute difference. I proceed from there to explain Scotus’s accounts of univocity and ultimate difference, throughout noting the many stark parallels with Deleuze. On the basis of (...) this Scotistic reading of Deleuzian difference, I then show how Deleuze’s synthesis of univocal being and difference-in-itself can be uniquely situated within the fourteenth-century Scotistic disputations on the predicability of univocal being to ultimate difference. I conclude with some suggestions on possible further connections between Deleuze and medieval metaphysics which are opened up through this association of Deleuze with Scotus and the Scotistic tradition. (shrink)

Problem’s statement. This article is the result of a study of the historical context in which Isidore of Seville is inserted as an author, as the creator of a unique method, which became the result of his hard work. But in order to describe the method of Isidore of Seville, it is necessary to outline the range of problems that arise before us. Due to serious political and social upheavals in the Western Roman Empire, the preservation of education comes to (...) the fore. The need for “Christianization,” on the contrary, fades into the background. The authors of this period perceived the works of the church fathers and apologists as a legacy, as part of tradition. On the other hand, representatives of the intellectual culture of the era under consideration were part of the aristocracy of Roman (in the broad sense) origin and in this sense, like their predecessors, were bearers of ancient education and culture.The purpose of the study. Analyze the historical context in which the method of Isidore of Seville developed and to consider the influence of the method of Isidore of Seville on the development of knowledge and ideas in the dark ages.Methods. To achieve the goal of the study, a number of general and specific methods were used that contributed to the study of the creative heritage of Isidore of Seville: the etymological method used in the practice of Isidore for the classification and origin of sciences and arts; togoria method for understanding the symbolism of medieval language and judgments; historical-retrospective, contributing to the study of the contribution of Isidore of Seville to European education from the first monastic schools to the formation of universities; terminological selection – for the purpose of selecting, clarifying and modernizing the system of individual terms used in the educated circles of Visigothic Spain; reconstruction – to reproduce the events of the cultural and historical process on the Iberian Peninsula during the Visigothic Kingdom.Results. The reception of the ancient heritage in the works of the authors of this era – and these are primarily Boethius, Cassiodorus and Isidore of Seville – occurs in a different vein than that of the church fathers (Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine) and the German kings of the Carolingian revival. This question concerns a narrower issue that is discussed in the article, and it is connected with Isidore as the author. Isidore of Seville (560-636) is known primarily as an encyclopedist, indicating the wide coverage of topics in his works, on the other hand, in a certain way characterizes the level of these works.However, Isidore was not only and not so much an antiquarian – a collector of ancient knowledge. If we use the “intellectuals and power” scheme, then Isidore was, so to speak, an intellectual in power. He occupied the position of bishop of Seville (the episcopal rank was considered the best conclusion for the cursus honorum even in the 5th century, his authority significantly exceeded the authority of the constantly changing Visigothic kings of Spain. Isidore presided over the IV Council of Toledo (633), whose priests formulated an order with its significant the influence of the episcopate on public affairs.We can say that Isidore, through his works, in a certain sense constructed an ideology. (or what might be called ideology) and the educational program inextricably linked to it.Discussion. First, the era of the “Dark Ages” is a period of permanent military-political struggle between the local nobility and kings, the German kingdoms and Byzantium, which occurred as a result of the height of the Western Roman Empire. The second question is religion, since there were several religions in the territory of the Visigothic kingdom; Christianization of culture and education and, as a consequence, a contradiction with ancient philosophy. Hence the problem of preserving and transmitting knowledge. It was these reasons that complicated the creation of a high-quality educational system. Thirdly, Isidore was not a methodologist, but created a unique method, he was not a scientist, but wrote an encyclopedic work, was not a philosopher, but wrote about philosophy, distinguished it from dialectics, constructed a certain type of knowledge of the real world known to him, was not even a philologist, but he knew Visigothic, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew.How did Bishop Isidore create an effective method? Fourth, after the authors of the “Golden Age” of patristics in the 6th–7th centuries. A new generation is emerging, which is faced with slightly different tasks. How does Isidore “construct” knowledge and what impact has his work had on society? Another important problem is the question of the scale and nature of Isidore’s influence on the intellectual culture of the Middle Ages. At the same time, special attention was paid to “etymologies, or principles,” its distribution, influence on the presentation of the seven liberal arts, etc. On the significance of Isidore’s method for medieval education.Conclusions. The method of Isidore of Seville was an important contribution to the preservation and transmission of knowledge in the Middle Ages and influenced the further development of encyclopedic knowledge. (shrink)

The question, What category does the differentia belong to? is a difficult problem in Aristotelian metaphysics. For example, is the differentia of a substance itself a substance, or e.g. a quality? The range of previous interpretations of Aristotle on this point are comprehensively surveyed. Based primarily on evidence in the Categories, this paper argues for an answer to this question.

I begin with my account of Ben-Ze’ev’s notions of acute, extended, and enduring emotions, focusing on explicating their ontological structure and identifying their differentia. I then discuss the two models of romantic love that Ben-Ze’ev introduces—the care model and the dialogue model—highlighting his argument against the claim that “love is a property of, and in some formulations resides in, the connection between the two lovers” (Ben-Ze’ev 2019, 48). Although this claim can be understood in at least one of two (...) ways—as a claim about the essence of the genus romantic love or the essence of the overarching genus, love—I will concentrate on the implication of Ben-Ze’ev’s argument against this claim for his conception of the genus romantic love. I will argue that Ben-Ze’ev’s rejection of the claim that love can be a property of or reside in the connection between two lovers jeopardizes his book’s primary aim: to convince us of the possibility of enduring romantic love. Ben-Ze’ev should, therefore, reconsider his claim that romantic love is not a property of or resides in the connection between two lovers, and accept that it is at least possible. (shrink)

De differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis -- Monitum ad commentationem luculentam de differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis.

Each well-known proposed solution to the mind-body problem encounters an impasse. These take the form of an explanatory gap, such as the one between mental and physical, or between micro-subjects and macro-subject. The dialectical pressure to bridge these gaps is generating positions in which consciousness is becoming increasingly foundational. The most recent of these, cosmopsychism, typically casts the entire cosmos as a perspectival subject whose mind grounds those of more limited subjects like ourselves. I review the dialectic from materialism and (...) dualism through to panpsychism, suggesting that explanatory gaps in the latter stem from assuming foundational consciousness to be perspectival. Its renunciation may yield the notion of an aperspectival, universal, “non-dual” consciousness that grounds all manifestation and is unstructured by subject, object or any differentia. Not only is such consciousness suggestive of a natural successor to cosmopsychism, but it has also been reported to be the direct experience of mystics who claim to have transcended the individual perspective. Their purported insight — that our aperspectival conscious nature is identical to the ground of all being — has been termed “the Perennial Philosophy”. Believing this Perennial Philosophy to offer the most promising way forward in the mind-body problem, I construct from it the foundations of a metaphysical system that I call “Perennial Idealism”. This attempts to account for manifestation in terms of dispositional, imagery-bound subjects. I then address an age-old “Parmenidean” conundrum that I refer to as “the problem of the one and the many”: How can an undifferentiated substratum ground differentia without the ground itself differentiating? The proposed solution takes its cue from mystico-philosophical writings in the Advaita Vedānta tradition, known as the ajāta doctrine. (shrink)

In the first part of this essay it is contended that Schutz''s project is best called the philosophical theory of the cultural sciences; in the last parts it is shown that he offers satisfactory rudiments of a theory of the historical sciences except where the differentia specifica of those sciences is concerned. The central part is devoted to women''s liberation as a case of contemporary history in relation to which Schutz''s thought about the historical sciences needs correction.

The theory of essential definitions is a fundamental anti‐sceptic element of the Aristotelian‐Avicennian epistemology. In this theory, when we distinguish the genus and the specific differentia of a given essence we thereby acquire a scientific understanding of it. The aim of this article is to analyse systematically the sceptical reasons, arguments and conclusions against real definitions of three major authorities of twelfth‐century Arabic philosophy: Faḫr al‐Dīn al‐Rāzī, Šihāb al‐Dīn al‐Suhrawardī and Abū l‐Barakāt al‐Baġdādī. I focus on showing how their (...) refutation of our capacity to provide essential definitions of things is rooted in their semantic theory: we only know things under certain descriptions which are identical to the meanings of the words that we use to refer to them, yet these descriptions do not capture the essences of things in themselves. The best result one can achieve with Aristotelian‐Avicennian scientific definitions is a “nominal definition”. With this, Rāzī, Suhrawardī and Abū l‐Barakāt will put some serious epistemic limitations on our capacity to attain scientific knowledge of things, at least as Aristotle and Avicenna would have it. (shrink)

This monograph presents a synthesis and reconstruction of Rudolf Arnheim’s theory of media. Combining both Arnheim’s well-known writings on film and radio with his later work on the psychology of art, the author presents a coherent approach to the problem of the nature of a medium, space and time, and the differentia between different media. The latent ontological commitments of Arnheim’s theories is drawn out by affirming Arnheim’s membership in the Brentano school of Austrian philosophy, which allows his theories (...) to be clarified and strengthened, particularly with the metaphysical writings of Roman Ingarden. The resulting theory is relational, portraying essential medial differences with neutral criteria and allowing for a rigorous definition of a medium. The way in which a medium is based on the inherent dispositions of medial materials creates a highly appealing theory that is determinate without being deterministic. The theory is thus highly timely as people in media studies seek to address the determinate nature of media after the post-medium condition. The book will appeal to researchers and graduate students in cultural and media studies as well as architecture and design. (shrink)

Officially, for Kant, judgments are analytic iff the predicate is "contained in" the subject. I defend the containment definition against the common charge of obscurity, and argue that arithmetic cannot be analytic, in the resulting sense. My account deploys two traditional logical notions: logical division and concept hierarchies. Division separates a genus concept into exclusive, exhaustive species. Repeated divisions generate a hierarchy, in which lower species are derived from their genus, by adding differentia(e). Hierarchies afford a straightforward sense of (...) containment: genera are contained in the species formed from them. Kant's thesis then amounts to the claim that no concept hierarchy conforming to division rules can express truths like '7+5=12.' Kant is correct. Operation concepts ( ) bear two relations to number concepts: and are inputs, is output. To capture both relations, hierarchies must posit overlaps between concepts that violate the exclusion rule. Thus, such truths are synthetic. (shrink)

The article focuses on debates concerning ontology and predication in early Neoplatonism (Porphyry and Iamblichus). Evidence coming from Simplicius’ Commentary on the Categories and from the Categories Commentary in the Archimedes Palimpsest suggests that Porphyry and Iamblichus interpreted Aristotle’s theory of synonymous predication (dici de subiecto) and specific differentia within the framework of their ontology (doctrine of the hierarchy of being). While Porphyry possibly suggested that a slightly emended version of Aristotle’s predication could express the relation between ante rem (...) and in re items (akatatakton, katatetagmenon), Iamblichus argued that different metaphysical levels cannot in any way be conceived of as species ranked under the same genus (hence Iamblichus’ emphasis on paronymous predication). Further evidence coming from Iamblichus’ Reply to Porphyry and from the Anonymous Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides attributed to Porphyry confirms these conclusions. (shrink)

The problem of consciousness is one of the most important problems both in cognitive science and in philosophy. There are different philosophers and different scientists who define consciousness and explain it differently. In philosophy, ‘consciousness’ does not have a definition in terms of genus and differentia or necessary and sufficient conditions. In this paper, I shall explore the very idea of machine consciousness. The machine consciousness has offered causal explanation to the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of consciousness, but they fail (...) to explain the ‘why’ of consciousness. Their explanation is based on the ground that consciousness is causally dependent on the material universe and that of all conscious phenomena can be explained by mapping the physical universe. In this regard, consciousness is basically a physical phenomenon and can be mechanically explained following the naturalistic methods of science. In other words, the mechanistic assumption is that consciousness and mind have an artificial origin and therefore have to be understood only within a mechanistic framework available in the sciences. If this is so, then this epistemological theory of consciousness is essentially committed to scientific world view that cannot avoid metaphysical implication of consciousness. At the same time, neo-Advaitins have maintained that the evolution of nature leads to the manifestation of human consciousness only because consciousness is already implicit in the material nature. Thus, the existence of consciousness in this physical world far exceeds the methods of science and needs a non-mechanical metaphysical explanation. (shrink)

In this paper we present an analysis of persuasive definition based on argumentation schemes. Using the medieval notion of differentia and the traditional approach to topics, we explain the persuasiveness of emotive terms in persuasive definitions by applying the argumentation schemes for argument from classification and argument from values. Persuasive definitions, we hold, are persuasive because their goal is to modify the emotive meaning denotation of a persuasive term in a way that contains an implicit argument from values. However, (...) our theory is different from Stevenson’s, a positivistic view that sees emotive meaning as subjective, and defines it as a behavioral effect. Our proposal is to treat the persuasiveness produced by the use of emotive words and persuasive definitions as due to implicit arguments that an interlocutor may not be aware of. We use congruence theory to provide the linguistic framework for connecting a term with the function it is supposed to play in a text. Our account allows us to distinguish between conflicts of values and conflicts of classifications. (shrink)

Although recent cognitive science and traditional phenomenology has placed great importance on first-person descriptions, exactly what this entails goes undefined. I will seek to answer what's involved in phenomenological description, with reference to Husserl. I define phenomenological description according to its genus and differentia. I compare description in the natural sciences with description in phenomenology. I discuss how the basic particulars for Husserlian phenomenological description stem from the intentional relation -- particularly the distinction between noesis and noema. I discuss (...) the pivotal role of reflection in phenomenological description. I further argue that a phenomenological description is more than a statement which utilizes the 'I-[verb]' template. The final section analyses the difficulties inherent in describing intersubjectivity and argues these difficulties may have influenced Husserl's early, descriptive account of this topic. (shrink)

This paper deals with Bonaventure’s stand on the separability of accidents discussed within the framework of the theology of the Eucharist, in his Commentarium in Sententias, IV, d. 12, p. 1, a. 1, q. 1. Since an accident was traditionally defined as ens in alio, the existence of accidents apart from any subject in the Eucharist was considered philosophically challenging. The Franciscan theologian has been credited with having distinguished, for the first time (Bakker PJJM. La raison et le miracle: les (...) doctrines eucharistiques (c. 1250 – c.1400): contribution à l’étude des rapports entre philosophie et théologie. s.n., Nijmegen, 1999; Vijgen J. The status of Eucharistic accidents “sine subiecto”: An historical survey up to Thomas Aquinas and selected reactions. München: Akademie Verlag, 2013), between the relation of accident to subject secundum aptitudinem, and the relation of accident to subject secundum actum, while sustaining that only the relation to subject secundum aptitudinem constitutes the accident’s proper definition, a view that Aquinas would subscribe to and develop further, relying on Avicenna’s idea of the real distinction between essence and existence. The chapter will discuss Bonaventure’s rather different reasons for refusing to accept actual being in alio as the accident’s essence. Bonaventure does not appeal to a distinction between being and essence but draws on the common essence of accidents in individualized substances vs. accidents as universals, or accidents secundum species sive differentias speciales. (shrink)

"Alexander's commentary on Book 1 concerns the definition of Aristotelian syllogistic argument; its resistance to the rival Stoic theory of inference; and the character of inductive inference and of rhetorical argument. Alexander distinguishes inseparable accidents, such as the whiteness of snow, from defining differentiae, such as its being frozen, and considers how these differences fit into the schemes of categories. He speaks of dialectic as a stochastic discipline in which success is to be judged not by victory but by skill (...) in argument. Alexander also investigates the subject of ambiguity, which had been richly developed since Aristotle by the rival Stoic school."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

The Brabantine mystical author John of Ruusbroec initially appears to be a good example of the problematic relationship between mystics and the Church. He had a conflict with the clerical hierarchy in Brussels during his lifetime. After his death, Jean Gerson, Chancellor of the University of Paris, declared that the third part of Ruusbroec's Spiritual Espousals was to be absolutely rejected. When one examines the historical development of the ecclesial position, it appears that the hierarchy's and the theologians’ concern has (...) an important ethical and ecclesial component. In the ecclesial concern, the unio sine differentia appears to be problematic because it disrupts the unio of human society. An analysis of Ruusbroec's works, however, reveals that nothing could be more alien to his thought than a solipsistic mystic or a contemplative who threatens to endanger the communion of human society. On the contrary, his ideal of the mature Christian mystic is one in whom Christ dwells and who dwells in Christ, and such a person is communion- and community-oriented in every sense. This indwelling has often, however, been misunderstood. (shrink)

Izhajajoč iz označitve puščave kot najprimernejšega kraja za posvečanje filozofiji, ki jo v Hvalnici puščave poda Evherij Lyonski, članek raziskuje krščansko recepcijo antične poganske filozofije, zlasti z ozirom na askezo. V skladu s Hadotovim pojmovanjem antične filozofije kot načina življenja se v prvi polovici osredotoča na koncept in prakso askeze, ki se je izražala v obliki "duhovnih vaj" ali telesne vzdržnosti. Ob ugotovitvi, da sta obe dimenziji askeze obstajali že v klasični grški filozofiji, se kot differentia specifica krščanske askeze (...) izkaže fizična osamitev - odhod krščanskih asketov v puščavo. Članek tako v drugi polovici izpostavi poistovetenje filozofije z meništvom in sledi njeni asimilaciji v kontekst krščanske askeze, ki osamitev umesti med temeljne kriterije "filozofije". (shrink)

This article focuses on the debate concerning the status of specific differentiae from Alexander of Aphrodisias to Iamblichus. First, I outline Alexander’s views on the substantial status of differentiae and his distinction between the differentia insofar as it is taken in isolation and the differentia insofar as it is taken together with the genus and is a constituent part of the substantial species. I also focus on a passage from Plotinus on the differentia (see Enn. VI 3[44], (...) 5) which is apparently directed against Alexander, and I suggest that Simplicius reports Iamblichus’ criticism of Plotinus’ anti-Aristotelian stance. Both Porphyry and Iamblichus are credited with the view that differentiae are intermediate between substance and quality. As I aim to show, this conclusion requires some qualification. Porphyry essentially follows Alexander’s account of the substantial status of differentiae. Iamblichus, instead, emphasizes that the differentia, while being a completive feature of substance, is not a constituent part of substance and, therefore, cannot be regarded as a substance. I further analyze the controversy over the status of the differentia between Porphyry and Iamblichus and try to set their disagreement against the wider background of their metaphysical views. (shrink)

In this paper I propose an indubitability analysis of knowledge. The motivation for this analysis is a conviction I have that the Cartesian analysis of knowledge as indubitability is not completely mistaken, although it requires considerable weakening if it is to be satisfactory. My analysis may be contrasted to those which treat knowledge as a species of the genus justified true belief. For although on my analysis, ‘S knows that p’ entails ‘S has a justified true belief that p’, I (...) am not proposing indubitability as a differentia distinguishing knowledge from other members of the genus justified true belief. The situation here is analogous to that of the conceptual relation between vermillion and red: ‘X is vermillion’ entails ‘X is red’, but there is no straightforward differentia which would entitle us to think of vermillion as a species of the genus red. Another point of contrast is that species-of-justified-true-belief analyses start with an analysis which is too weak and strengthen it. My starting point is an analysis which is too strong which I then weaken. (shrink)

Bei dem schmalen Buch Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit. Drei Aufsätze zur Lehre vom Menschen, das erstmals 1963 erschienen ist, handelt es sich um eine Sammlung von drei wichtigen Jonas-Texten: »Gnosis, Existentialismus und Nihilismus«, »Die Freiheit des Bildens: Homo pictor und die differentia des Menschen « und »Unsterblichkeit und heutige Existenz«. Neben diesen im Untertitel angekündigten Aufsätzen beinhaltet Zwischen Nichts und Ewigkeit zudem ein Vorwort und im Anhang einen Auszug aus dem Briefwechsel zwischen Bultmann und Jonas aus den Jahren 1962 (...) und 1963, der sich auf den Aufsatz »Unsterblichkeit und heutige Existenz« bezieht. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to characterise the concept of difference in Aristotle, both as a predicate of the genus and as a predicate of the species. We then try to classify these two dimensions of difference within the framework of the predicables. The general conclusion is that the differentia constitutiva is an essential predicate, logically analogous to the genus in this respect, while the differentia divisiva cannot be located within that framework because the predicables are implicitly (...) thought by Aristotle as forms of predication in which the predicate has an extension greater than, or equal to, the subject. (shrink)

ON A GENERAL READING of the Metaphysics and the treatises of the so-called Organon, the types of assertion which Aristotle would allow as genuine predications seem relatively straightforward. According to the Categories, for instance, a species is characteristically predicated of the individuals falling under it, while genera and differentiae are predicated both of the relevant species and their associated individuals. The predicates are, in these instances, universals in a familiar Aristotelian sense. Furthermore, these intra-categorial predications, such as "Socrates is a (...) man" and "white is a color," are not the only instances of categorial acts. Aristotle also admits certain cross-categorial predications as logically well-formed; for example, "Socrates is white" and "Socrates is in the marketplace". These latter predications are at first glance also intelligible enough, though there are in both cases questions yet to be faced about the logical structure and ontological commitments of such ways of speaking. For Aristotle, one metaphysical theme presented even on the face of these linguistic appearances is the possibility that being a substrate for predication counts as a criterion for ontological primacy or, more generally, that being an ultimate substrate for meaningful discourse is grounds for being primarily real. An obvious corollary to this line of thought is the thesis that whatever might be said of or predicated of such primary substrata is ontologically dependent upon them. Just such a criterion seems to be at work in disqualifying universals from their claim to be substance in a significant sense. Therefore, it would be somewhat surprising to find primary substance appearing anywhere as a predicate. (shrink)

Mr. Wells thinks that I confound criterion with differentia. This, perhaps, because he uses "criterion" in two senses: "A criterion is... a property..."; and, "... one... criterion... is that... we see..." Only the latter use corresponds to mine.