L’« effet un peu criant » produit par la juxtaposition qui constitue le concept d’a priori historique ne l’a pas empêché de devenir un concept directeur de l’« épistémologie historique », une orientation philosophique qui introduit la contingence historique au sein des « cadres infrangibles » qui structurent notre expérience. On peut identifier les travaux de cette tradition...

The present contribution presents a series of distributions of the apriori in different phases of Husserl’s phenomenology: eidetic vs. categorial apriori in the Idea of Phaenomenology, formal vs. contingent apriori in the Formal and Transcendental Logic, and the distinction of the universal objective apriori and the universal apriori of the life-world in the Crisis of the European Sciences. The introduction of genetic phenomenology, it is argued, gradually turns the formal apriori’s initially proclaimed independence of the material apriori to its opposite. (...) In the Formal and Transcendental Logic, the foundational role of the contingent-material apriori with regard to the formal apriori is still qualified by the contingence of this material apriori relative to pure subjectivity. The Crisis, finally, unconditionally articulates the universal apriori of the lifeworld as the foundation of the universal objective apriori. (shrink)

"Absolute Beginners" is a multi-approach study of the founding role of the Absolute as the very beginning of knowledge in medieval philosophy (Henry of Ghent, Richard Conington), the subject being addressed from historical, methodological, ...

Nel XIII sec., il dibattito su Dio come primum cognitum si sviluppò all'interno della tradizione agostiniana anche attraverso la mediazione di Avicenna, per poi essere decisamente attaccato da Tommaso. La prima metà dello studio verte sulla posizione di Guiberto, esposta nel suo Rudimentum doctrinae, dove il problema è inquadrato all'interno della dottrina agostinana dell'illuminazione, e rapportato alla tesi bonaventuriana. La seconda parte è invece centrata sulla confutazione tomista, desunta principalmente dal prologo e dal trattato Super librum Boetii De trinitate. Nelle (...) conclusioni l'A. ribadisce, tra l'altro, la posizione intermedia presente nella Summa fratris Alexandri. (shrink)

This contribution deals with the quasi-oxymoron of a historical a priori, as it was originally conceived by Edmund Husserl and, later, by Michel Foucault. It wants to discover the relevance of this historical a priori by setting up two series of opposites: namely, one in which the concept is contrasted with the objective a priori as in Husserl and the other in which it is contrasted with the formal a priori as in Foucault. Now some interpretations identify Husserl’s concept of (...) the historical a priori with Foucault’s concept of the formal a priori. In criticism of such a simplifying identification, this contribution makes a distinction between a critical and a therapeutic aspect of the historical a priori. The plurality and historicity of this concept in Foucault does certainly prevent a return to its original evidence. Nevertheless, Foucault fully endorses with Husserl the critical aspect by which this historical a priori is freed from the subreptitious substitution by epistemological constructs. Only when it is recognized that the concept of the historical a priori is defined in Husserl as well as in Foucault in contradistinction to a subreptitiously substituted concept of the a priori, will the program of a critique of such a subreption, which is enclosed in the concept of the historical a priori, be disclosed. This program constitutes the philosophical relevance of the historical a priori as a guiding concept of historical epistemology. (shrink)

Die verschiedenen Aufsatze, die in diesem Band aus Anlass des 60. Geburtstages von Jan A. Aertsen gesammelt sind, widmen sich der Spannung zwischen der Metaphysik und dem Guten. Lasst sich eine Metaphysik denken, die vom Begriff des Guten ausgeht? Diese Spannung durchlauft die Philosophie in Antike und Mittelalter wie ein roter Faden und hat nicht selten zu Weiterentwicklung oder Neuorientierung Anlass gegeben. Die verschiedenen Aufsatze behandeln den Anspruch von Ethik und Metaphysik, Erste Philosophie zu sein (Carlos Steel); die Idee einer (...) praktischen Metaphysik (Theo Kobusch); die Metaphysik des Guten bei Gilbert von Poitiers (Scott MacDonald); den Begriff des Guten bei Thomas von Aquin (Rudi te Velde); die Stellung des Guten und das Metaphysikverstandnis Bonaventuras (Andreas Speer); das Gute als Ersterkanntes bei Berthold von Moosburg (Wouter Goris). Zusammen lesen sie sich als eine Deutung von der Moglichkeit und der Qualitat der Synthese von Platonismus und Aristotelismus, wie sie in der mittelalterlichen Transzendentalienlehre erstrebt wird. (shrink)

This study attempts a reconstruction of the philosophy of the unfinished _Opus tripartitum_ of Meister Eckhart. One new feature is the 'hermeneutic approach' to the question of Eckhart's philosophy, another is the recognition that the concept of Unity plays a decisive role in the organisation of his metaphysics, to the extent, indeed, that one can speak of a metaphysics of the One. Eckhart's metaphysics is determined to a contemplation of the divine, which in this thinking of Unity is understood as (...) the principle and end of all things. Yet, at the same time Eckhart's thinking of Unity marks the boundaries of the _ratio naturalis_. In this way his thought combines a supreme trust in the effectivity of reason with a negative theology of the purest sort. By a systematic reading of linked texts of Meister Eckhart the trail of his philosophy of the One is followed down into the German sermons. (shrink)

Comenius (1592 - 1670) war ein großer Europäer, ein kreativer Metaphysiker und überzeugter, aber nicht indoktrinierender Theologe, ein Pädagoge, der zugleich ein begnadeter Praktiker war, ein Politiktheoretiker, ein Literat und Linguist auf hohem Niveau. Der Wunsch, Gewalt von den Dingen fernzuhalten, stammt von ihm. Er wird verständlich, wenn man sich klar macht, dass Comenius „pansophisch“ (allumfassend) gedacht hat: Die Gewalt gegen die Dinge spiegelt die Gewalt gegen die Menschen, und beides muss aufhören. Die vorliegende Publikation zeigt eine fremde Welt, die (...) doch in unserer Zeit angesichts der Globalisierung aller Lebensbereiche wieder von großer Aktualität ist. Comenius fostered pansophic, all-encompassing thinking in philosophy, theology, history, politics and education. That is why today, in an age of increased globalisation, his works are the subject of renewed interest. Twenty-nine authors from eight countries, dedicated to this task, develop the picture of a great European thinker. (shrink)

Edition de la question 6 du deuxième Quodlibet du carme anglais Robert de Walsingham. Le texte présente la première critique dans l’école des Carmes d’Oxford de la doctrine de Dieu comme premier connu de Richard de Conington.

The medieval doctrine of God as first known presents a privileged moment in a tradition of classical metaphysics that runs from Plato to Levinas. The presentcontribution analyzes two versions of this doctrine formulated by Bonaventure († 1274) and Henry of Ghent († 1293). In reaction to the preceding discussion inParis, they advance a doctrine of God as first known that distinguishes the relative priority of God within the first known transcendental concepts from the absolutepriority of God over these. Although their (...) two-staged doctrines of God as first known structurally agree, they vary in their strategical embedding. Underlying this variation is a transformation of the concept of reality that abstracts actuality as a standard and criterion to the determination of the first known. As such, thisconcept of reality gives rise to the very idea of neutral existence against which Levinas objects. (shrink)

Pendant le symposium à l'occasion des adieux d'Albert Zimmermann, Jan Aertsen, son successeur au Thomas-Institut à Cologne, profitait de cette occasion pour présenter sa conception de la philosophie médiévale. Dans sa contribution à ce symposium, Aertsen décrit un débat dans lequel il prend ensuite position lui-même. Dans le titre de sa contribution, la problématique de ce débat se trouve résumée: «Gibt es eine mittelalterliche Philosophie?». Aertsen répond à cette question en discutant de trois conceptions de la philosophie médiévale. Il prête (...) consécutivement attention à la conception d'Etienne Gilson de la philosophie médiévale comme une «philosophie chrétienne»; à la conception logique-analytique de la philosophie médiévale comme elle a été codifiée dans le Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy; et finalement à la conception d'Alain de Libera, successeur de Gilson à l'École Pratique des Hautes Etudes à Paris et un des auteurs du Cambridge History, qui cherche le propre de la philosophie médiévale dans le développement d'un idéal philosophique, celui de l'«aristotélisme éthique». (shrink)

There are various ways to describe the transformation that metaphysics underwent in the Middle Ages. One way is to describe this transformation as the purging of all theological reminiscences from ontology, which took place — whether induced by the presence of a theology of revelation in the Latin West, or not — in the 13th and 14th century. Another way is to describe it as the rise of a transcendental philosophy in the first part of the 13th century, a doctrine (...) of the properties of being as being that transcend the Aristotelian categories; this transcendental philosophy would develop, with Kant, into the system of apriori knowledge of objects. A third way to describe the transformation of metaphysics in the Middle Ages is closely related: as the development of metaphysics into a supertranscendental science. (shrink)

Like bundles of homogeneous light or particles that are scattered in physics experiments, says Goris, the homogeneous field of metaphysics was dispersed in the 14th century. He connects that dispersion to the contemporary rejection of metaphysics. His topics are the analysis of concepts, the contested primacy, scattering the homogeneous field of me.

In deze bijdrage worden twee alternatieve visies op de verhouding van geloof en weten geschetst aan de hand van twee middeleeuwse denkers: Bernardus van Clairvaux en Thomas van Aquino. De auteur betoogt dat zowel de ‘rationalistische’ positie van Thomas van Aquino als de ‘anti-rationalistische’ positie van Bernardus van Clairvaux beide, geloof en rede, als op waarheid betrokken zien, waarmee zicht wordt geboden op het wijsgerige belang van dit vermeende anti-rationalisme.