In this paper, I attempt to set out some of the main views about essence which Aristotle puts forward in Book Z of theMetaphysics.A central feature of Aristotle's account, as we shall see, is his distinction between primary and secondary cases of essence, and a similiar distinction in connection with the related notions of substance and definition. This division between primary and secondary cases means that Aristotle may well have two very different sorts of remark to make about essence, or (...) definition, or substance, according to which of the two kinds of case he has in mind. There is no reason to suppose the same logical properties apply to both the primary and the secondary cases. And when we come to define the various notions, we shall see that if our definitions are right, the logical properties in the two kinds of case are in fact quite different. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss the need for a theory of essences within Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) and then formulate one. I will do so by drawing on Graham Harman’s work on OOO and Martin Heidegger’s thought on the essence of being, presented in his Introduction to Metaphysics. Harman touches on essences, describing them as the tension between a withdrawn object and its withdrawn qualities, but fails to distinguish between essential and inessential qualities within this framework. To (...) fill in the gaps, I will turn to Heidegger’s explication of phusis in order to show that an essential aspect of being is how one enters into causal relations and continually reveals oneself to other beings. In bringing OOO and Heidegger together, I will find that each object has a unique way of exerting itself in the world and that the domestic relations that make up this unique profile are essential to it, while other domestic relations, those that do not influence its particular way of exerting itself, are inessential. Thus, the essence will be found to be the set of domestic relations that make up the determinate form, or unique causal profile, of the object. (shrink)

I will begin by conceding that some of Beer’s arguments are sound (mostly on pages before the last page), and observe that Beer’s theory that “now” ascribes an individual essence to a time on each occasion of its tokening is a novel theory that seems fruitful and is worthy of being pursued and of being developed to deal with the criticisms in the following points.

This book supports a version of the trope-bundle view of individual substances matching also with a coherent account of change, individuation and individual essences. In particular, it is argued that qualitative individuation and qualitative individual essences can be tackled within the frames of a trope account. The adoption of a trope BT together with the individuation of tropes via the bearer substance might create the feeling of circularity since tropes and substances seem mutually to individuate each other. The (...) novel solution to the problem developed here consists in showing that the individuation of concrete individual substances is independent, in crucial respects, from the fact that they are construed as bundles of tropes. Apart from metaphysician colleagues, the book is recommended for advanced students in analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

This book offers a novel defence of a highly contested philosophical position: biological natural kind essentialism. This theory is routinely and explicitly rejected for its purported inability to be explicated in the context of contemporary biological science, and its supposed incompatibility with the process and progress of evolution by natural selection. Christopher J. Austin challenges these objections, and in conjunction with contemporary scientific advancements within the field of evolutionary-developmental biology, the book utilises a contemporary neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of "dispositional properties", (...) or causal powers, to provide a theory of essentialism centred on the developmental architecture of organisms and its role in the evolutionary process. By defending a novel theory of Aristotelian biological natural kind essentialism, Essence in the Age of Evolution represents the fresh and exciting union of cutting-edge philosophical insight and scientific knowledge. (shrink)

This book provides a new approach to the intersections between music and philosophy. It features articles that rethink the concepts of musical work and performance from ontological and epistemological perspectives and discuss issues of performing practices that involve the performer’s and listener’s perceptions. In philosophy, the notion of essence has enjoyed a renaissance. However, in the humanities in general, it is still viewed with suspicion. This collection examines the ideas of essence and context as they apply to music. A common (...) concern when thinking of music in terms of essence is the plurality of music. There is also the worry that thinking in terms of essence might be an overly conservative way of imposing fixity on something that evolves. Some contend that we must take into account the varying historical and cultural contexts of music, and that the idea of an essence of music is therefore a fantasy. This book puts forward an innovative approach that effectively addresses these concerns. It shows that it is, in fact, possible to find commonalities among the many kinds of music. The coverage combines philosophical and musicological approaches with bioethics, biology, linguistics, communication theory, phenomenology, and cognitive science. The respective chapters, written by leading musicologists and philosophers, reconsider the fundamental essentialist and contextualist approaches to music creation and experience in light of twenty-first century paradigm shifts in music philosophy. (shrink)

This paper argues, first, that the information problem poses a foundational challenge to mainstream semantics. It proposes, second, to address this problem by drawing on notions from Kit Fine’s essentialist framework. More specifically, it claims that the information problem can be avoided by strengthening standard truth theories, employing an operator expressing the notion of a relative constitutive semantic requirement. As a result, the paper proposes to construe semantic theories as theories of semantic requirements, and semantic knowledge as knowledge of such (...) requirements. (shrink)

Medieval authors generally agreed that we have the freedom to choose among alternative possibilities. But most medieval authors also thought that there are situations in which one cannot do otherwise, not even will otherwise. They also thought when willing necessarily, the will remains free. The questions, then, are what grounds the necessity or contingency of the will’s acts, and – since freedom is not defined by the ability to choose – what belongs to the essential character of freedom, the ratio (...) libertatis. This article studies medieval theories of freedom without choice from William of Auxerre to William of Ockham and their background in Augustine, Anselm of Canterbury, and Bernard of Clairvaux. (shrink)

The theory of the tab' in the physics of Mu 'tazila has a distinct place. It is necessary to distinguish the scholars from the atheist naturalists who adopt the idea of nature. Tab ' theory is a problem with the essence of the entity. This theory is related to the structure of living and inanimate beings. When it comes to the habit and tempering of man, we use the word tab'; it is used the term of nature (...) when it comes to the structure of objects. In particular, the Basra School of Muʿtazila has given the emphasis on tab' theory emphasizing the freedom of man. They have implemented the tab ' theory to a number of topics related to knowledge, action, metaphysical, moral and Spiritual life. The nature, which is defended by Muʻtezile, is a force that Allah places in the nature of man and body. Nature, which is in the essence of both living and inanimate substances, is not independent of Allah. It has caused some problems defending some scholars, such as Muammer and Câhız from Basra School of Muʿtazila the idea of compulsory natural causality in the interpretation of some metaphysical subjects. In this regard, The scholars of Muʿtazila such as Nazzâm and Kâdî Abdülcebbâr, have acted more carefully. While Nazzâm does not see the theory of natural nature independently of divine power, he prefers to use the word "itimat" instead of the tab ' theory ', which he sees as part of pagan culture. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been defined by Husserl as “theory of the essences of pure phenomena,” yet the ontological status of essences in Husserlian phenomenology is far from a settled issue. The late Husserlian emphasis on genetic constitution and the historicity of the lifeworld is not immediately reconcilablewith the ‘unchangeable’ nature that is prima facie attributed to essences. However, the problem of the nature of ideality cannot be dropped from phenomenological accounts without jeopardizing the phenomenological enterprise as such. (...) Through an immanent analysis of Husserl’s meditation on essences a positive account of their ontological status is provided. Essences are interpreted as ontological thresholds, primordially rooted in our motivated confrontation with sensuous transcendence. Essences appear as emergent ontological features, which are not reducible to their particular realizations and which exhibit a fundamental continuity between consciousness and being. They manifest themselves as prospectively a priori (a precondition for further experiences), but retrospectively a posteriori (they are founded in experience). Finally, essences manifest the ‘co-essential’ nature of consciousness and sensuous transcendence: they are the way in which we are motivated and constitutively bound to articulate being, which in turn is apt to be thus articulated. (shrink)

The co-reporting theory holds that for every A-sentence-token there is a B-sentence that differs in sense but reports the same event orstate of affairs. Thus, if it is now t7, what is reported by now tokening “It is t7 now” is identical with what is reported by tokening “It is t7 at t7.” Quentin Smith has argued that the fact that the sentence-tokens differ in sense but are co-reporting is compatible with the A-theory supposition that their difference in (...) sense consists in the fact that the A-sentence-token alone conveys the information that t7 has an irreducible A-property of presentness. I counter argue that every time the indexical “now” is tokened it expresses, not an irreducible A-property, but a unique individual essence of a moment of time which can be apprehended only at that time. (shrink)

The chapter discusses the issue of how we may achieve knowledge of essence. It offers a critical survey of the main theories of knowledge of essence that have been proposed within contemporary debates, particularly by Lowe, Hale, Oderberg, Elder, and Kment.

The theory of natural monopoly has been substantially transformed in previous years. Ina clear and straightforward style, Dr. Sharkey gives an integrated presentation of the modern approach to this subject. Although the book is mainly conceptual in nature, the final chapter on natural monopoly in the telecommunications industry shows the practical applications of the theory. After an historical survey of natural monopoly, there follows a chapter stating and explaining the main results as well as giving a preliminary overview (...) of the rest of the book, where concepts such as the subadditivity of costs, optimal pricing, sustainability, and destructive competition are presented. The essence of the subject is presented in a manner accessible to the general reader, though the book also provides a synthesis of the subject suitable for advanced students. (shrink)

The Dialectic of Essence offers a systematic new account of Plato's metaphysics. Allan Silverman argues that the best way to make sense of the metaphysics as a whole is to examine carefully what Plato says about ousia (essence) from the Meno through the middle period dialogues, the Phaedo and the Republic, and into several late dialogues including the Parmenides, the Sophist, the Philebus, and the Timaeus. This book focuses on three fundamental facets of the metaphysics: the theory of Forms; (...) the nature of particulars; and Plato's understanding of the nature of metaphysical inquiry. Silverman seeks to show how Plato conceives of "Being" as a unique way in which an essence is related to a Form. Conversely, partaking ("having") is the way in which a material particular is related to its properties: Particulars, thus, in an important sense lack essence. Additionally, the author closely analyzes Plato's idea that the relation between Forms and particulars is mediated by form-copies. Even when some late dialogues provide a richer account of particulars, Silverman maintains that particulars are still denied essence. Indeed, with the Timaeus's introduction of the receptacle, there are no particulars of the traditional variety. This book cogently demonstrates that when we understand that Plato's concern with essence lies at the root of his metaphysics, we are better equipped to find our way through the labyrinth of his dialogues and to better appreciate how they form a coherent theory. (shrink)

According to a widely accepted reading of the "Ethics," Spinoza subscribes to a desire-satisfaction theory of value. A desire-satisfaction theory says that what has value is the satisfaction of one’s desires and whatever leads to the satisfaction of one’s desires. In this paper I argue that this standard reading is incorrect, and I show that in Spinoza’s view the foundation of what is truly valuable is the perfection of a person’s essence, not the satisfaction of a person’s desires.

Wittgenstein in his early work viz. Tractatus argued that there is a common, essential, underlying structure that links logic, language and the world. He also argued about the need for an analysis of ordinary language in terms of a perspicuous symbolism that would display a one to one relationship between a proposition and a fact – when both of them are broken down to their simplest components – viz. to atomic propositions and atomic states of affairs. All propositions are ultimately (...) truth-functional combinations of atomic propositions – thus all language is resolvable to a unique constant. So for early Wittgenstein, though there is an apparent complexity and diversity of propositions still there lies a uniform, essential structure of truthfunctional propositions and that can be reduced to a single constant. And language to have a determinate sense must be ultimately based on objects – the absolutely simple logical atoms of the world. These objects imbibe their range of combination with other objects, which implies that any genuine propositions – however unusual and unconventional it may seem to be – must ultimately be constrained by the permissible range of combination of the objects. In this way early Wittgenstein sought to secure an essential metaphysics via an essential structure of language. However in Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein attacked essentialism by rejecting the picture theory, and the search for commonality and uniformity. He denied essence, the universal, the common element present in all the objects of a class and accepted only an indeterminate and incomplete flow of the criss-crossing, the overlapping features. For him language is constituted by an ever expanding flow of uses, which he called language-games. The significance of the term ‘language-game’ lies in the fact that like games language too is not based on any ontology that would confer a common essence across all the widely divergent uses. Nor did Wittgenstein accept any hidden essence behind appearance. In PI the later Wittgenstein denied both analysis and essence and propagated description of usage and behaviours as the only method of philosophy. Later Wittgenstein will neither commit himself to ontological necessity, nor to necessity being a matter of scheme-relative propositions in the Quinean sense. For later Wittgenstein all attempts to establish essences, or the contrary exercises to relativise them to a particular set of presumptions, are themselves language-games – they boil down to usage and practices that do not rest on any foundation. (shrink)

The study of film entered a new era after World War II, as cinema became an acceptable focus for intellectual inquiry. The many ways in which cinema has been imagined, studied, and discussed in the last fifty years are the subject of this comprehensive overview of film theory in the United States and Europe since 1945. Francesco Casetti groups his essays around principal movements in film studies. In the first part of the book, he reviews the attempts at defining (...) the "essence" of cinema during the 1950s. Then he explores disciplinary approaches to cinema--psychological, sociological, semiotic, and psychoanalytic--popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, he focuses on "field" theories--cinema and politics, the critique of representation, feminist film theory, neo-disciplinary tendencies, cultural and aesthetic studies, and the new approaches to film history. Theories of Cinema was originally published in Italy, where it won the Premio Domenico Meccoli--Scrivere di cinema 1993 of the Centro dello Spettacolo in Rome. This is its first English translation. The author has revised and updated this edition to cover the years 1945-1995. (shrink)

The idea that some sub-set of the properties of an object captures what it is to be that thing i.e. that it has an essence which is there to be discovered and about which we can be mistaken - is a commonsense assumption that we use all the time. However, philosophers of this century have regarded the realism about essence with skepticism, arguing that we impose essences on things by the way we define our concepts as opposed to discovering (...) them. Essences are supposedly characteristics of our concepts rather than of objects in the world. This was the orthodox view until a group of philosophers of language developed the theory of direct reference. They claimed that proper names and certain other words refer non-connotatively which entails that the real properties of objects are crucial to the establishment of the reference of such terms. It can be shown that the properties involved in reference determination must be all and only the necessary properties of those objects. This discovery has been taken to mark the rehabilitation of the notion of essence, with an object’s essence being taken to be that set of properties which it must have in all possible worlds in which it exists. I will argue that the theory of direct reference is correct up to the point at which it assimilates the necessary properties of objects to their essences. I will show that the set of an object’s necessary properties cannot fulfill the role reserved for the concept of essence in metaphysical hypotheses concerning the nature of objects. I will go on to show that a sub-set of a thing’s necessary properties can fulfill this role and I will suggest that we identify the members of this sub-set by testing their ability to furnish the kinds of explanations we expect from essences. I will demonstrate how this can be done using the Aristotelian idea that the notion of essence is required in order to explain how it is that objects can persist through change. (shrink)

Many theories assimilate the idioms of modality to those of quantification; they hold that so-and-so is possible iff there is a "world" at which it is true that so-and-so. "Modal realism" identifies worlds with certain concrete particulars, and truth at a world with what is true of it. Rival "ersatz" theories identify worlds with certain abstract entities and identify what is true at them with what they represent. ;David Lewis argues that pre-theoretic modal intuitions are best explained by modal realism. (...) I try to make a case for ersatzism. ;First, I argue that modal realism is flawed on the grounds that it entails the impossibility of certain intuitively possible spatiotemporal structures; it fails to explain fully even those intuitions with which it is compatible; and it renders the origin of modal knowledge mysterious. ;Next, I argue that objections to ersatzism are not conclusive. ;Lewis objects that even a generic version of ersatzism requires an unnameable and maybe unintelligible primitive relation. I suggest that the problems with naming are perfectly general; they have nothing to do with metaphysical theories of modality in particular. And I suggest a solution taken from Lewis himself. I also argue that any purported unintelligibility is due to illegitimately assimilating the relation to spatiotemporal relations. ;Finally, I consider some difficulties with a version of ersatzism that aims to reduce modality to impure set-theory. One concerns the accommodation of intuitions about properties that are not, but might have been, instantiated. Another concerns accommodation of intuitions about relations of exclusion and entailment among properties. I suggest that these difficulties are due to faulty assumptions about the nature of properties rather than any fundamental flaws in this ersatz approach. So I propose an account of properties that when incorporated into ersatzism circumvents these difficulties and allows it to claim the advantages of modal realism without its drawbacks. Unlike traditional accounts, this takes the essence of a property to consist in its role in imposing a certain classificational structure on the particulars that instantiate it, rather than in any unique and irreducible "quiddity". (shrink)

Projecting essence onto a social category means to think, talk, and act as if the category were a discrete natural kind and as if its members were all endowed with the same immutable attributes determined by the category's essence. Essentializing may happen implicitly or on purpose in representing ingroups and outgroups. We argue that essentializing is a versatile representational tool that is used to create identity in groups with chosen membership in order to make the group appear as a unitary (...) entity, that outsiders often draw on a group's essentialist self-construal in their judgements about the groups, that judgements about members of forced social categories are often informed by essentialist thinking that easily switches to discrimination and racism, and that under certain historical and political conditions members of social categories and groups may contest their essentialized identity, such as parts of the feminist movement, or that they may attempt to reconstruct an essentialized identity, such as parts of the homosexual movement or the largely defunct European nobility. Besides explicit political and power interests, we see communication processes and language use as a tacit force driving essentialization of social categories. (shrink)

Husserlian Essentialism is the view, maintained byEdmundHusserl throughout his career, that necessary truths obtain because essentialist truths obtain. In this thesis I have two goals. First, to reconstruct and flesh out Husserlian Essentialism and its connections with surrounding areas of Husserl's philosophy in full detail – something which has not been done yet. Second, to assess the theoretical solidity of the view. As regards the second point, after having presented Husserlian Essentialism in the first two chapters, I raise a serious (...) problem for it in Chapter 3. In the remainder of the thesis I endeavour to solve the problem. In order to do so, I propose to amend both Husserl's theory of essence and his theory of predication. The bulk of the emendation consists in working out an account of essence and an account of predication that do not presuppose, or in any way imply, the claims that: 1) for a universal to be in the essence of an object, either the object or one of its parts must instantiate the universal; 2) for a universal to be truly predicated of an object, either the object or one of its parts must instantiate the universal. These claims, notice, apart from being what gets Husserl in trouble, are well entrenched not only in Husserl's, but in most theories of essence and predication. It is thus interesting to see what an alternative option may be – even regardless of the Husserlian setting in which I work it out. (shrink)

Despite its enduring insights, Durkheim’s theory of suicide fails to account for a significant set of cases because of its overreliance on structural forces to the detriment of other possible factors. In this paper, we develop a new theoretical framework for thinking about the role of culture in vulnerability to suicide. We argue that by focusing on the cultural dynamics of excessive regulation, particularly at the meso level, a more robust sociological model for suicide could be offered that supplements (...) structure-heavy Durkheimian theory. In essence, we argue that the relevance of cultural regulation to suicide rests on the (1) degree to which culture is coherent in sociocultural places, (2) existence of directives related to prescribing or proscribing suicide, (3) degree to which these directives translate into internalized meanings affecting social psychological processes, and (4) degree to which the social space is bounded. We then illustrate how our new theory provides useful insights into three cases of suicide largely neglected within sociology: specifically, suicide clusters in high schools, suicide in the military, and suicides of “despair” among middle-aged white men. We conclude with implications for future sociological research on suicide and suicide prevention. (shrink)

This article attempts to develop the abandoned occasionalist model of causation into a credible present-day theory. If objects can never exhaust one another through their relations, it is hard to know how they can ever interact at all. This article handles the problem by dividing objects into two kinds: the real objects that emerge from Heidegger’s tool-analysis and the intentional objects of Husserl’s phenomenology. Each of these objects turns out to be split by an additional rift between the object (...) as an enduring unit and its plurality of traits. This explains Heidegger’s notorious ‘fourfold’ model of the thing. This article shows that Heidegger’s Geviert must be reinterpreted as a system of four tensions that can be identified as time, space, essence, and eidos. Time and space can no longer be left as peerless dimensions of the cosmos. Instead, they are shown to arise from the tensions between things and their qualities. And for this reason they are joined by essence (in the classical sense of the term) and eidos (in Husserl’s sense, not Plato’s) as two out of four basic features of the fabric of the world. (shrink)

이 글은 스피노자의 개체화 이론이 어떻게 스피노자 철학의 전체 체계와 모순 없이 조 화될 수 있는지를 들뢰즈의 스피노자론을 통해서 해명하는 것을 그 목적으로 한다. 왜냐하 면 스피노자의 개체화 이론은 표면적으로 모순들을 가지고 있는 것처럼 보이기 때문이다. 그것은 양태의 본질의 실존과 양태의 실존 사이의 구분에 관한 문제이다. 국내의 몇몇 스 피노자 연구자들은 양태의 본질의 실존과 양태의 실존 사이의 구별은 스피노자를 오해한 것이라고 비판한다. 그들이 보기에 양태의 본질의 실존과 양태의 실존을 구분하는 것은 스 피노자의 철학을 플라톤주의화하는 것이기 때문이다. 즉 양태의 본질의 실존을 (...) 양태의 실 존 외부에 두는 것은 플라톤이 그러했던 것처럼 세계를 두 세계로 나누는 것을 의미하기 때문이다. 그러나 양태의 본질의 실존과 양태의 실존의 구분은 스피노자가 명시적이지는 않지만 많은 곳에서 드러내고 있는 구분이다. 그리고 이 구분과 함께 내재성은 유지될 수 있다. 왜냐하면 양태의 본질과 실존의 구분은 실재적 구분이 아니기 때문이다. 실존 양태 는 더 이상 실체 또는 속성 안에 담겨만 있지는 않다. 이 담겨만 있지 않다는 스피노자의 표현이 중요하다. 즉 그 구분은 실체적이 아니라 양태적 구분이라는 것이다. 이를 통해 스 피노자의 철학은 내재성이 모순 없이 유지될 수 있다. 들뢰즈는 이것을 강도량과 외연량의 구분을 통해서 설명해낸다. 스피노자의 개체화 이론의 두 계열 즉 합성과 본질은 강도량과 외연량의 구분을 통해서 화해하게 된다. (shrink)

I address two related questions: first, what is the best theory of how objects have de re modal properties? Second, what is the best defence of essentialism given the variability of our modal intuitions? I critically discuss several theories of how objects have their de re modal properties and address the most threatening antiessentialist objection to essentialism: the variability of our modal intuitions. Drawing on linguistic treatments of vagueness and ambiguity, I show how essentialists can accommodate the variability of (...) modal intuitions while holding that objects have their modal properties independently of contexts. (shrink)

At the beginning of his career in the 1920s, Adorno sketched a plan to write a major work on the theory of musical reproduction, a task he returned to time and again throughout his career but never completed. The choice of the word reproduction as opposed to interpretation indicates a primary supposition: that there is a clearly defined musical text whose precision exceeds what is visible on the page, and that the performer has the responsibility to reproduce it as (...) accurately as possible, beyond simply playing what is written. This task, according to Adorno, requires a detailed understanding of all musical parameters in their historical context, and his reflections upon this task lead to a fundamental study of the nature of notation and musical sense. In the various notes and texts brought together in Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, one finds Adorno constantly circling around an irresolvable paradox: interpretation can only fail the work, yet only through it can musics true essence be captured. While he at times seems more definite in his pronouncement of a musical scores absolute value just as a book is read silently, not aloud his discourse repeatedly displays his inability to cling to that belief. It is this quality of uncertainty in his reflections that truly indicates the scope of the discourse and its continuing relevance to musical thought and practice today. (shrink)

Speculative logical theory, as provided in Hegel’s Science of Logic, consists of three main parts: the logic of being, the logic of essence, and the logic of the concept. The peculiar character of each logic’s starting point determines the most general character of each logic’s development. The present paper aims at making explicit the character of the starting-point of the third logic, the logic of the concept. This starting-point is exemplified by the category of universality. It is shown (a) (...) that the fundamental determination of this category is the harmonious unit y of self-identity and full determinacy and (b) that this unity has necessarily the logical structure of “double shining.” The latter is described in detail and justification is provided as to why it is preferred from “single shining.” I conclude the paper by defending the structure of “double shining” against certain objections raised against it by Friedrike Schick and Christian Iber. (shrink)

These supporting concepts enable us to much more adequately understand the meaning of apoha. First, a sharp distinction is drawn between the real and the conceptual; the real is particular, unique, momentary and the basis of perception, while the conceptual is universal, general, only supposedly objective and the basis of language. Second, the complex nature of negation discloses the kind of negation meant by apoha. Negation by implication is seen as disclosing the necessary relation between simple affirmations and simple negations. (...) It is in this sense that Dignaga asserts that the meaning of words lies in the negation of the opposite. Third, the idea of apoha as the differentiation of concepts is to be distinguished from the Nyāya-Vaiśe $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ika notion of exclusion as a materially present quality in objects.Ratnakirti, and Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta following him, use the idea of negation by implication to explain apoha as the simultaneity of and logical relation between a positive assertion concerning an epistemological object and a negative assertion concerning all things which are not that epistemological object. For example, Ratnakirti in accordance with the theory of apoha explains that the term cow “harbors” the negation of non-cow in the same way that blue is harbored in the term blue lotus. The exclusion of the other, i.e., the negation of the non-cow, is held by Ratnakirti to be an actually apprehended attribute of the cow cognized (as distinct from the cow in itself). He says “... discrimination of non-cow inevitably arises simultaneously with the perception of the cow, for (the negation of non-cow) is the qualifier (of the individual).” This interaction between the positive and the negation of the other, i.e., the relation of negation by implication, as a simultaneous interaction is necessary lest when, e.g., asked to tie up a cow one ties up a horse instead.Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta denies three possible interpretations of apoha before putting forth his own definition. The first is that when an external object is conceptualized this is done as “the other (the dissimilar) is discriminated from this.”The second is much the same, only it is in terms of the mental image, i.e., the epistemological object rather than the ontological object as in the first. The third is that apoha means the negation of an assertion, i.e., the simple absence of the other. All three of these interpretations are unacceptable to Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta. He defines apoha as “the affirmation (of a positive entity) qualified by discrimination (of it from all other entities).”Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta goes on to explain this simultaneity more fully: ... those who stress affirmation think that after we have known the cow, we consequently determine the discrimination of the essence of the cow from that of the non-cow; those who stress the negative function of apoha are of the opinion that we first know the discrimination of the dissimilar thing and then consequently confirm the thing which is discriminated from others, viz., the cow. Thus (both interpretations) are wrong. For at the time of judgment we do not experience an order of comprehension in which (negation or affirmation) occurs first. In fact, it is not the case that one, having understood the affirmation, later confirms the negation by implication, or that one having understood the negation later confirms what is discriminated (from the dissimilar). Therefore, we say that the very understanding of the cow is the same as the understanding of what is discriminated from the dissimilar.We can see from this that for Ratnakirti and Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta apoha meant the simultaneous affirmation of and negation of the dissimilar from the (epistemological) object. Mok $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ ākaragupta's concern with the “time of judgment” also shows that the idea of apoha was understood by them as being psychologically descriptive. In the process of identifying an epistemological object as some particular thing, neither the negative nor the positive function have priority but are, rather, complementary one to the other. This simultaneity and complementarity are supported by the examination of mind “at the time of judgment,” i.e., it is a psychological description of the process of identification of an epistemological object as some particular thing.It is this fact of apoha describing the process of identification which, as described above, places apoha in the inference category of sources of truth. Apoha is clearly, therefore, involved with words and concepts rather than being on the perception side where it would have to be a metaphysical concept describing the real or absolute.Putting the idea of apoha into contemporary terms we can say that it is a psychological descriptor for the bipolar relation of concepts. Dignaga and the other Buddhist logicians are then to be understood here as being involved in producing a phenomenological description of linguistic thought processes. More broadly, as in the discussion of perception, they are involved in the phenomenological description of consciousness, a favorite Buddhist undertaking. As such, the work of the Buddhist logicians fits into the larger soteriological intention of all Buddhist thinkers, since enlightenment is understood to follow from insight into the nature of consciousness as productive of suffering.Some authors have criticized the logicians as being overly concerned with the un-Buddhist occupation of arguing. However, when their work is seen as expanding our understanding of the nature and working of consciousness, the logicians are certainly worthy of our respect. (shrink)

The essence of the theory of minima naturalia is the contention that a physical body is not infinitely divisible qua that specific body. A drop of water cannot be divided again and again and still maintain its “wateriness”. There are several statements in Aristotle's Physics which suggest such an interpretation, and the theory of minima naturalia is commonly considered to have originated in the thirteenth century as an interpretation of these statements. The present paper is a preliminary presentation (...) of the role of Ibn Rushd in the evolution of the theory, hitherto neglected. His theory developed not only as an elaboration on the “suitable” statements of Aristotle, but mainly as an attempt to solve the difficulties raised by Aristotle's thesis that body and motion are continuous, infinitely divisible entities and are associated qua such. According to Ibn Rushd's interpretation, body and motion are associated not qua being continuous but qua having indivisible minimal parts. It seems that Epicurus' and Ibn Rushd's theories of minima developed as responses to Physics VI and offer modifications of classical atomism and of classical Aristotelianism , which to a certain extent reduce the gap between these two systems. (shrink)

Attacks on ?closest continuer? and ?best candidate? theories of identity have something correct in them while still failing to discredit the theories they oppose. What follows from Noonan's and Wiggins's objections to such theories is that they need to be so formulated as not to deny the necessity of identity. The best metaphysics for best?candidate theories to adopt is one in which everyday objects are taken to transcend, in a certain sense, their life histories in given worlds. This metaphysics also (...) has the potential for solving problems about contingent identity, transworld identity, and the issue of haecceitism or individual essence. To develop the metaphysics, it is only necessary to follow through the analogy between worlds and times suggested by writers like Plantinga and Schlesinger. (shrink)

The new critical edition of Stein’s lectures on philosophical and theological anthropology makes it possible to research further her theory of the person as developed during her middle period in Munster, that is, between 1932 and 1933. Her project revolves around the anthropological foundations of a Catholicpedagogy. Th is phase of her work is marked by various debates. On one hand, she attempts to bring the intellectual legacy of Husserl and phenomenology intodialogue with Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastic thinkers. (...) On the other hand, she confronts the ideas and spirit of National Socialism with her Catholic faith.Stein’s Munster phenomenological method contrasts with Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology; she develops an “eidetic psychology within a universal ontology.” In her “somatological” anthropology, the human being appears as a unity of lived body, soul, and mind. As a person, the human being is investigated as species, double species (man-woman), individual, as having a communal essence (outside the concept of race), and, ultimately, as a seeker of God. Stein examines the freedom of human beings, which lies between the givens of nature and grace, as well as the tension between knowledge and faith. In the final section of this paper, I discuss Stein’s position over against contemporary deconstructivist feminism. (shrink)

The article considers the theory of cognition of the Russian and Soviet philosopher Vasily Seseman in its relation to the main philosophical orientations in early 20th-century: phenomenology, neokantianism, and intuitionism. Seseman’s theory of cognition is interesting today because, following the tradition of neo-Kantianism, it largely shares the principles and methods of phenomenology, poses epistemological problems that were not explicitly formulated by Edmund Husserl, and offers solutions that are relevant today. The article highlights a common thematic field combining phenomenology, (...) neo-Kantianism, and intuitionism. This field is set by the initial subject-object cognitive attitude, the desire to identify the conditions for the possibility of cognition, the recognition of the presence of a non-linguistic level of knowledge. Moving in this unified theoretical cognitive context of the early twentieth century, Seseman offers his own solution to the following problems: defining the subject of cognition, developing the method of intuition in general and in relation to the contemplation of essence, distinguishing between objective and non-objective attitudes and using this distinction to describe different types of cognition, thematizing the irrational in cognition, and understanding the judgment and its role in the final formation of cognition. Seseman believes that the cognition of reality is preceded by the perception of its objects. He diverges from the Neo-Kantians, who claim that the objects of cognition are formed only in judgment, and holds a position than Husserl, according to whom we perceive the world around us already objectively. However, unlike Husserl, Seseman does not recognize the cognitive nature of perception and argues that knowledge begins with a reflexive fixation of the object of cognition. The cognition of an individual object is embodied in a judgment in which the relation of the object to its environment is fixed and the object is defined as a unique combination of universal properties. Finally, it is shown that the solution of epistemological questions inevitably leads Seseman to ontological issues. (shrink)