Throughout his long intellectual life, Leibniz penned his reflections on Christian theology, yet this wealth of material has never been systematically gathered or studied. This book addresses an important and central aspect of these neglected materials—Leibniz’s writings on two mysteries central to Christian thought, the Trinity and the Incarnation. -/- From Antognazza’s study emerges a portrait of a thinker surprisingly receptive to traditional Christian theology and profoundly committed to defending the legitimacy of truths beyond the full grasp of human reason. (...) This view of Leibniz differs strikingly from traditional perceptions of the philosopher as a “hard” rationalist and quasi-deist. Antognazza also sets Leibniz’s writings in the context of the important theological controversies of his day. (shrink)

This paper advances the view that the history of philosophy is both a kind of history and a kind of philosophy. Through a discussion of some examples from epistemology, metaphysics, and the historiography of philosophy, it explores the benefit to philosophy of a deep and broad engagement with its history. It comes to the conclusion that doing history of philosophy is a way to think outside the box of the current philosophical orthodoxies. Somewhat paradoxically, far from imprisoning its students in (...) outdated and crystallized views, the history of philosophy trains the mind to think differently and alternatively about the fundamental problems of philosophy. It keeps us alert to the fact that latest is not always best, and that a genuinely new perspective often means embracing and developing an old insight. The upshot is that the study of the history of philosophy has an innovative and subversive potential, and that philosophy has a great deal to gain from a long, broad, and deep conversation with its history. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that a proper understanding of what Leibniz meant by “hypercategorematic infinite” sheds light on some fundamental aspects of his conceptions of God and of the relationship between God and created simple substances or monads. After revisiting Leibniz’s distinction between (i) syncategorematic infinite, (ii) categorematic infinite, and (iii) actual infinite, I examine his claim that the hypercategorematic infinite is “God himself” in conjunction with other key statements about God. I then discuss the issue of whether the (...) hypercategorematic infinite is a “whole”, comparing the four kinds of infinite outlined by Leibniz in 1706 with the three degrees of infinity outlined in 1676. In the last section, I discuss the relationship between the hypercategorematic infinite and created simple substances. I conclude that, for Leibniz, only a being beyond all determinations but eminently embracing all determinations can enjoy the pure positivity of what is truly infinite while constituting the ontological grounding of all things. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, in Leibniz’s mature metaphysics, primary matter is not a positive constituent which must be added to the form in order to have a substance. Primary matter is merely a way to express the negation of some further perfection. It does not have a positive ontological status and merely indicates the limitation or imperfection of a substance. To be sure, Leibniz is less than explicit on this point, and in many texts he writes as if (...) primary matter were a positive constituent of a substance. It seems to me, however, that the view most in keeping with the thrust of his mature philosophical system is that captured by a striking remark of 1695: “Materia rerum est nihilum: id est limitatio [The matter of things is nothing: that is, limitation].” This becomes especially apparent in texts showing that Leibniz’s conception of primary matter corresponds to his conception of creaturely limitation. I start by discussing the notion of primary matter in the scholastic tradition. I then show that although Leibniz places the scholastic terminology of primary matter at a crucial juncture of his metaphysics, he thinks of primary matter in a way which significantly deviates from earlier scholastic views. I conclude that despite his adoption of distinctive terminology of Aristotelian scholasticism, instead of holding a broadly Aristotelian concept of primary matter as the ultimate subject of inherence, Leibniz thinks of primary matter according to a Neoplatonic blue-print in which matter is non-being, privation, mere absence of perfection. (shrink)

Background: Many studies have explored personal values in nursing, but none has assessed whether the predictions made by the theory of intergenerational value change are true for the different generations of nursing professionals and students. This theory predicts a shift in those personal values held by younger generations towards ones focussed on self-expression. Research question: The purpose of the study was to identify intergenerational differences in personal values among nursing professionals and nursing students and to determine whether generational value profiles (...) fit the predictions made by the theory. Research design: An exploratory comparative design with a cross-sectional survey method was used. Participants and research context: Participants were recruited from four public hospitals and 10 Primary Care Centres in medium-size cities in Spain. A sample of 589 nurses and 2295 nursing students participated in the study. An open survey method was used to collect data that were classified grouping reported values into categories following a method of value lexicon construction and analysed by contingency tables with Pearson’s χ2 and standardized residuals. Ethical considerations: Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Deans of the nursing schools and the Directors of Nursing of the institutions. Anonymity was guaranteed, participation was voluntary and participants were informed of the purpose of the study. Findings: The results can be synthesized in two age-related trends in the reporting of values among three groups of participants. First, among younger nurses and students, some nursing core values (e.g. ethical and professional) decreased in importance, while other values centred on social relationships and personal well-being increased. Discussion and Conclusion: This study shows intergenerational change in personal values among both nursing students and young nursing professionals. Findings suggest the need to pay more attention to value training and professional socialization during the schooling period. (shrink)

Criticisms of the “container” model of pregnancy picturing female and embryo as separate entities multiply in various philosophical and scientific contexts during the last decades. In this paper, we examine how this model underlies received views of pregnancy in evolutionary biology, in the characterization of the transition from oviparity to viviparity in mammals and in the selectionist explanations of pregnancy as an evolutionary strategy. In contrast, recent evo-devo studies on eutherian reproduction, including the role of inflammation and new maternal cell (...) types, gather evidence in favor of considering pregnancy as an evolved relational novelty. Our thesis is that from this perspective we can identify the emergence of a newhistoricalindividual in evolution. In evo-devo, historical units are conceptualized as evolved entities which fulfill two main criteria, their continuous persistence and their non-exchangeability. As pregnancy can be individuated in this way, we contend that pregnant females are historical individuals. We argue that historical individuality differs from, and coexists with, other views of biological individuality as applied to pregnancy (the physiological, the evolutionary and the ecological one), but brings forward an important new insight which might help dissolve misguided conceptions. (shrink)

From its beginning, Critical Theory aimed to explore the laws governing social life as a formational totality and the forces shaping and driving its historical evolution. So the attempt to develop a comprehensive conception of ‘society’ encompassing both its structural as well as its cultural components can be considered one of the defining hallmarks of Critical Theory through all its theoretical and generational variations. But what, then, is Critical Theory’s conception of society? To answer this question, the authors make use (...) of a three-tiered heuristic model distinguishing synthesis (what is society?), dynamis (what are the driving forces of social change?) and praxis ((how) can social change be motivated or influenced by social actors?). In this way, they are able to reconstruct not only the divergences and controversies between the different versions and approaches in Critical Theory across the four generations of authors writing in this tradition, but also four core points of convergence which can serve to differentiate between Critical Theory in the Frankfurt School tradition and other critical theories. These four points, we suggest, should be seen to form the backbone of any valid conception of society in contemporary Critical Theory. (shrink)

Tendo como ponto de partida a obra de René Girard, o presente artigo pretende apresentar a dimensão antropológica presente na obra deste autor, destacando a sua originalidade e novidade ao pensar o homem como animal socialmente desejante. A teoria mimética, como Girard a formula, pretende ser uma teoria que, colocando no centro da sua reflexão o desejo e a imitação, permita compreender como se estruturam as sociedades arcaicas e actuais, partindo de mecanismos marcadamente antropológicos, para afirmar que as sociedades se (...) estruturam a partir do desejo, do sacrifício e da necessidade de existência de «bodes expiatórios». A partir deste pressuposto, o sacrifício é a primeira instituição humana, com a capacidade farmacológica de preservar a sociedade e de permitir a sua subsistência no tempo. A cultura, por seu lado, emerge a partir do desejo mimético; e o mecanismo do bode expiatório, mecanismo vitimário por excelência, regula a sociedade ao solucionar as suas tensões internas. Considerando estes três conceitos – sacrifício, desejo mimético e mecanismo do bode expiatório – este artigo expõe o modo como se relacionam estes conceitos. Apesar de constatar a sua presença e eficácia na história, Girard não os legitima de jure, desvelando o segredo da sua eficácia – a ignorância inocente das vítimas – que, paradoxalmente, persiste mesmo depois de denunciada nas suas escusas razões. Posto isto, perguntemo-nos: como proteger o homem da sua própria violência? (shrink)

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s conception of the Christian church, his life-long ecumenical efforts, and his stance toward religious toleration. Leibniz’s regarded the main Christian denominations as particular churches constituting the only one truly catholic or universal church, whose authority went back to apostolic times, and whose theology was to be traced back to the entire ecclesiastical tradition. This is the ecclesiology which underpins his ecumenism. The main phases and features of his work toward reunification of Protestants and Roman Catholics, and (...) unification of Protestant churches are briefly explored, before turning to the issue of religious toleration. It is argued that a remarkably inclusive conception of toleration can be gleaned from a broad sample of Leibniz’s writings and correspondence. It is thanks to the philosophical and theological grounds of this conception that toleration can in principle be extended, for Leibniz, to all men and women of good will, including non-Christians, pagans, and atheists. (shrink)

How are ideas about education and democracy configured and reconfigured as they travel? Democracy and the Intersection of Religion looks at the work of John Dewey, the renowned philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer, and the ways in which his educational ideas and democratic ideals have been configured and reconfigured, adopted, and interpreted in different historical and cultural spaces.

This thesis presents and criticizes Hilary Putnam's argument that mathematics is as empirical as science, in particular the argument that the switch from Euclidean geometry to Riemannian geometry as the approporiate geometry for physical space constituted an instance of revising mathematics as a result of observation. The thesis explains Putnam's views on mathematics as following from his theory of meaning and reference for natural kind terms. It is argued that Putnam's account of reference is unsuitable for mathematical terms and that (...) an "if-thenist" approach to mathematical knowledge is more fruitful. (shrink)

Over the past decades a number of scholars have identified Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld as one of the most decisive early influences on Leibniz. In particular, the impressive similarity between their conceptions of universal harmony has been stressed. Since the issue of relations is at the heart of both Bisterfeld and Leibniz’s doctrines of universal harmony, the extent of the similarity between their doctrines will depend, however, on Bisterfeld and Leibniz’s respective theories of relations, and especially on their ontologies of relations. (...) This paper attempts to determine in more detail whether Bisterfeld’s ontology of relations contains at least the germ of the defining features of the ontology of relations later developed by Leibniz. It comes to the conclusion that, although Bisterfeld’s theory of relations is not as fully developed and explicit as that of Leibniz, it does contain all the key “ingredients” of it. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to reply to a misleading paper by M. Sachs entitled “Einstein's later view of the Twin Paradox” (TP) (Found. Phys. 15, 977 (1985)). There, by selecting some passages from Einstein's papers, he tried to convince the reader that Einstein changed his mind regarding the asymmetric aging of the twins on different motions. Also Sachs insinuates that he presented several years ago “convincing mathematical arguments” proving that the theory of relativity does not predict asymmetrical (...) aging in the TP. Here we give a definitive treatment to the clocks problem showing that Sachs' “convincing mathematical arguments” are non sequitur. Also, by properly quoting Einstein, we show that his later view of the TP coincides with the one derived from the rigorous theory of time developed in this paper. (shrink)

The category of metaphysical evil introduced by Leibniz appears to cast a sinister shadow over the goodness of creation. It seems to imply that creatures, simply in virtue of not being gods, are to some degree intrinsically and inescapably evil. After briefly unpacking this difficulty and outlining a recent attempt to deal with it, this paper returns to the texts to propose a novel and multilayered understanding of Leibniz’s category of metaphysical evil by reading it against the backdrop of the (...) traditional typologies of evil with which he was unquestionably familiar. It comes to the conclusion that metaphysical evil plays two key roles for Leibniz. First, it captures what Aquinas and especially Suarez meant by ‘natural evil’. Contrary to the common assumption that it is Leibniz’s category of physical evil that holds the place of natural evil, the paper shows that Leibniz’s physical evil corresponds to Augustine’s category of evil of punishment for sin whereas natural evil – intended as a kind of evil which is not related to moral responsibility -- is subsumed under metaphysical evil. Secondly, the category of metaphysical evil covers also the notion of original creaturely imperfection. In classifying creaturely limitation as a kind of evil Leibniz breaks from the Augustinian-Thomist-Scholastic tradition and its distinction between negatio and privatio. On the other hand, notwithstanding this important break, Leibniz’s notion of metaphysical evil is intended to account for something which is firmly within the broadly Augustinian-Scholastic tradition, namely the ascription to all creatures of a limitation that stems from their being created ex nihilo. Finally, the paper returns a verdict of non-guilty to the charge that Leibniz’s metaphysical evil implies that creatures qua creatures are to some extent necessarily intrinsically evil. More generally, in typical Leibnizian fashion, the notion of metaphysical evil will appear to be a complex mix of indebtedness to tradition and bending of received doctrines into something significantly different. (shrink)

This essential historical introduction to the main themes of the book starts with a close, sympathetic, and significantly novel analysis of a famous argument in Plato’s Republic in which Plato draws a distinction of kind between knowledge and belief, and between their objects. It is then demonstrated that the distinction, broadly so understood, remained a dominant force, in one form or another, in all non-sceptical branches of the European philosophical tradition, including empiricism, until the eighteenth century. It is argued that (...) there is much to learn from this history, and specific features of the traditional distinction are identified as deserving the further, sympathetic consideration given, in effect, in later chapters. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of Leibniz’s contribution to the rise of modern ‘science’. To be sure, it is now generally agreed that the modern category of ‘science’ did not exist in the early modern period. At the same time, this period witnessed a very important stage in the process from which modern science eventually emerged. My discussion will be aimed at uncovering the new enterprise, and the new distinctions which were taking shape in the early modern period under the (...) banner of the old Aristotelian terminology. I will argue that Leibniz begins to theorize a distinction between physics and metaphysics that tracks our distinction between the autonomous enterprise of science in its modern meaning, and the enterprise of philosophy. I will try to show that, for Leibniz, physics proper is the study of natural phenomena in mathematical and mechanical terms without recourse for its explanations to metaphysical notions. This autonomy, however, does not imply for Leibniz that physics can say on its own all that there is to be said about the natural world. Quite the opposite. Leibniz inherits from the Aristotelian tradition the view that physics needs metaphysical roots or a metaphysical grounding. For Leibniz, what is ultimately real is reached by metaphysics, not by physics. This is, in my view, Leibniz’s chief insight: the new mathematical physics is an autonomous enterprise which offers its own kind of explanations but does not exhaust what can (and should) be said about the natural world. (shrink)

Art had always a prominent place in libertarian universe because the productions were advertising’s instruments that carried a marked ideological purpose. This article reconstructs the characteristics of anarchist art in Buenos Aires between 1900 and 1930. It studies the doctrinal texts of the main theorists and the way in which they influenced the local artists, as well as the articulation between local productions, newspaper articles and specialized art magazines, in order to address the aesthetic values that delineate these productions. It (...) concludes that, although anarchism preferred to exclude national realities due to its strong internationalism, argentine libertarian art had a strong local component that does not deny the libertarian anchorage of those artists and militants. (shrink)

This article tries to show that focusing on why and how subject and object are distinct is of key importance for understanding the nature of knowledge itself. It argues that: 1) cognition starts with an aliud which is present to a felt self in a way fundamentally different from one’s own modes of being; 2) individual human knowledge in its paradigmatic form is essentially first-personal, that is, its object-directedness requires a built-in, implicit awareness of a ‘self’ that provides the unifying (...) perspective from which the aliud is apprehended; 3) this is a first-order awareness which is crucially distinct from the second-order awareness which requires a reflexive cognitive act – a distinction which the author proposes to cash out in terms of ‘first-person knowledge’ versus ‘self-knowledge. (shrink)

The issue discussed in this paper is as topical today as it was in the early modern period. The Reformation presented with heightened urgency the question of how to relate the system of beliefs and values regarded as fundamental by an established political community to alternative beliefs and values introduced by new groups and individuals. Through a discussion of the views on toleration advanced by some key early modern thinkers, this paper will revisit different ways of addressing this problem, focusing (...) on the relationship between truth and toleration. The comparison between different proposals in their historical and political contexts, will reveal a variety of understandings of toleration and of models for its promotion. These understandings will be shown to be grounded in different conceptions of religious belief, of its relation to truth, and of human reason’s ability to reach it. They will provide a map of possible models for addressing conflict in a pluralist world from which lessons of enduring relevance can be learnt. The upshot of the paper is that, from a theoretical point of view, the culprit in intolerance is not in itself belief in some objective truth. Some of the common assumptions about the denial of religious truth or the reduction of religious truth to a minimal creed as the best paths to universal toleration will be challenged. Likewise, the narrative centred on England and France which has led to the celebration of the heroes of a supposedly ‘universal’ toleration that still manages to exclude millions of people will be shown to be in need of significant revision. After discussing approaches based on the rights of the individual conscience and on the unknowability of religious truths above human reason, the paper will finally investigate whether grounds for a general and principled theory of toleration can be found in religious truth itself and, following the tradition of natural law, in some universal truth discoverable by natural reason. (shrink)

This contribution discusses Leibniz’s conception of faith and its relation to reason. It shows that, for Leibniz, faith embraces both cognitive and non-cognitive dimensions: although it must be grounded in reason, it is not merely reasonable belief. Moreover, for Leibniz, a truth of faith (like any truth) can never be contrary to reason but can be above the limits of comprehension of human reason. The latter is the epistemic status of the Christian mysteries. This view raises the problem of how (...) it can be determined whether a doctrine above the full grasp of human reason does or does not imply contradiction. The notion of ‘presumption’ and the ‘strategy of defence’ are presented and discussed as Leibniz’s way to tackle this issue. Finally, the article explores the ‘motives of credibility’ which, according to Leibniz, can and should be produced to uphold the credibility of a putative divine revelation, including his account of miracles. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation undermined the Christian consensus that unaided human reason could prove God’s existence. As a consequence the issue of the provability of God in principle gained new prominence and had to be addressed in the first instance before entering the discussion of specific proofs of His existence. On the basis of the answers given to the preliminary question of the provability of God’s existence, the chapter discusses eighteenth-century reformulations of a priori (...) and a posteriori arguments for the existence of God, as well as new directions taken by natural theology in the late eighteenth century. (shrink)

Winner of the Premio Iberoamericano Book Award in 1997 What form does the crisis of modernity take in Latin America when societies are politically demobilized and there is no revolutionary agenda in sight? How does postmodern criticism reflect on enlightenment and utopia in a region marked by incomplete modernization, new waves of privatization, great masses of excluded peoples, and profound sociocultural heterogeneity? In _No Apocalypse, No Integration _Martín Hopenhayn examines the social and philosophical implications of the triumph of neoliberalism and (...) the collapse of leftist and state-sponsored social planning in Latin America. With the failure of utopian movements that promised social change, the rupture of the link between the production of knowledge and practical intervention, and the defeat of modernization and development policy established after World War II, Latin American intellectuals and militants have been left at an impasse without a vital program of action. Hopenhayn analyzes these crises from a theoretical perspective and calls upon Latin American intellectuals to reevaluate their objects of study, their political reality, and their society’s cultural production, as well as to seek within their own history the elements for a new collective discourse. Challenging the notion that strict adherence to a single paradigm of action can rescue intellectual and cultural movements, Hopenhayn advocates a course of epistemological pluralism, arguing that such an approach values respect for difference and for cultural and theoretical diversity and heterodoxy. This essay collection will appeal to readers of sociology, public policy, philosophy, cultural theory, and Latin American history and culture, as well as to those with an interest in Latin America’s current transition. (shrink)

El presente artículo de reflexión es el resultado de una investigación que tuvo un enfoque metodológico cualitativo que se expresó en dos dimensiones: uno analítico-conceptual y otro crítico-hermenéutico, y está dirigido primordialmente a examinar el problema de la obediencia moral al derecho desde los presupuestos teóricos y conceptuales de la ética normativa. Sosteniendo como tesis principal que la ética no puede equipararse a una moral aplicada, en la medida que esto implicaría confundir la ética con la moral y por el (...) contrario, el cumplimiento de las normas se da por ser lo moralmente correcto, en consecuencia, será posible concluir a través del presente trabajo que existe una obligación moral de cumplir el derecho, salvo juicios morales concretos frente a ciertas regulaciones de conductas establecidas por normas que no estén acorde a los valores críticos o morales. (shrink)

The nm23 gene, a putative metastasis suppressor gene, was originally identified by its reduced expression in highly metastatic K‐1735 murine melanoma cell lines, as compared to related, low metastatic melanoma cell lines. Transfection of nm23 cDNA has been reported to suppress malignant progression in Drosophila and mammalian cells. Highly conserved homologues of nm23 have been found in organisms ranging from the prokaryote Myxococcus xanthus to Drosophila, where the gene is involved in normal development and differentiation. The product of the nm23 (...) gene exhibits a nucleoside diphosphate kinase activity, yet the nucleoside diphosphate kinase activity of Nm23 does not correlate with its apparent biological functions. We review recent cellular, genetic, biochemical and X‐ray crystallographic data to formulate and evaluate hypotheses concerning the molecular mechanism of nm23 action. (shrink)

Recent studies reported the development of psychological distress symptoms in patients who recovered from COVID-19. However, evidence is still scarce and new data are needed to define the exact risk and protective factors that can explain the variability in symptoms manifestation. In this study, we enrolled 257 patients who recovered from COVID-19 and we evaluated the levels of psychological distress through the Symptoms Checklist-90-R scale. Data concerning illness-related variables were collected from medical records, while the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties, (...) both before and after the illness, as well as the level of the cognitive reserve, were assessed over a clinical interview. Results revealed that being female and reporting the presence of subjective cognitive difficulties after COVID-19 were associated with higher levels of psychological distress. At the same time, being admitted to the hospital and having a high CR were protective factors. Adding new information to this emerging research field, our results highlight the importance of a complete psychological and cognitive assessment in patients with COVID-19. (shrink)