Reale's monumental work establishes the exact dimensions of Aristotle's concept of first philosophy and proves the profound unity of concept that exists in Aristotle's Metaphysics.

[written in 2002/2003 while I was a graduate student at the University of Connecticut and ultimately submitted as part of my qualifying exam for the Masters of Philosophy] The question I am interested in revolves around Kant’s notion of the unity of experience. My central claim will be that, apart from the unity of experiencings and the unity of individual substances, there is a third unity: the unity of Experience. I will argue that this third (...) unity can be conceived of as a sort of ‘experiential space’ with the Aesthetic and Categories as dimensions. I call this ‘Euclidean Experience’ to emphasize the idea that individual experiencings have a ‘location’ within this framework much like individual objects have a location in space and time. The first sort of unity, that of experiences (or ‘experiencings’ as I will call them) is not enough. In order to have self-consciousness (ascribed atomic experiencings) there must be a consciousness in which the experiencings ‘take place’ just as in order for there to be objects there must be space in which they are located. With such a notion of experience in hand I argue that it can be used to bring together the solipsistic and non-solipsistic strands in Kant’s thinking. The resulting position I call ‘Polysolipsism.’. (shrink)

The gradual emergence of the European Union has provoked the question whether it constitutes a new “we”. This essay asks how a “we” is constituted. In Hobbes’s terms: how can one constitute a “real unity” out of an aggregate of persons? Subjectivist and objectivist proposals are distinguished. Subjectivist proposals derived from the work of John Searle and John Horton are considered. It is argued that the relevant situations in which appropriate thoughts are found in every mind are not (...) necessarily situations involving a real unity of persons—resemblance is not unity. One objectivist proposal is found wanting: this appeals to a social pact or agreement. A distinct but related objectivist proposal is developed and preferred. This appeals not to an agreement but to something that subsumes agreements: a joint commitment. Finally there is discussion, with respect to the preferred proposal, as to how a new “we’ could be produced intentionally. (shrink)

Our response amplifies our case for scientific realism and the unity of science and clarifies our commitments to scientific unity, nonreductionism, behaviorism, and our rejection of talk of “emergence.” We acknowledge support from commentators for our view of physics and, responding to pressure and suggestions from commentators, deny the generality supervenience and explain what this involves. We close by reflecting on the relationship between philosophy and science.

Kant’s concept of the highest good proportionately unites virtue and happiness—the supreme goods of, respectively, the systems of freedom and of nature. A middle path between theological and secular interpretations of Kant’s highest good is possible if we disentangle two distinct roles played by God: a causal role in promoting the real unity of the highest good, i.e., its actualization; and a conceptual role in modeling its conceptual unity. The highest good is theological in the first case, (...) but neutral—neither directly theological nor secular—in the second. Reconstructing how Kant envisioned the conceptual unity of the highest good requires taking seriously his repeated reference to God as the highest original good, and to the best (i.e., moral) world as the highest derived good. If, as Kant thought, a moral God forms a triadic unity comprised of holiness, goodness, and divine justice, perhaps he assumed that the conceptual unity of the derived good is likewise triadic, comprised of virtue, happiness, and a form of justice that is not directly divine but “systemic,” designating the unity of the systems of nature and of freedom. Divine justice, in contrast, constitutes the real unity of the highest good. (shrink)

Judges have a duty to decide judicial cases, however, judicial decision will vary and will have certain characteristics depending on the kind of case at hand: this article address three kinds of judicial cases: clear cases, borderline cases and pivotal cases. The purpose: discuss if relying on these classifications is useful or not in light of the unity in judicial adjudication principle.Resumen:Los jueces tienen el deber general de resolver los casos judiciales; sin embargo, la decisión judicial variará y tendrá (...) ciertas características dependiendo del tipo de caso; son tres los tipos de casos judiciales que este artículo estudia: clear cases, borderline cases y pivotal cases. El objetivo: intentar descubrir si adoptar una de las tipologías señaladas vulnera o reafirma el principio de unidad propio de la aplicación judicial. (shrink)

According to one interpretation of Leviathan, Hobbes sinks the democratic argument in favour of government by representation into his own argument in favour of absolute rule. This paper argues that Kant in turn sinks Hobbes' argument for coercive political authority into Rousseau's construction of the volonté générale . Why does Kant reject Rousseau's argument in favour of popular sovereignty; why does he revert to Hobbes' endorsement of a coercively unifying political authority? The paper examines the different responses given by Hobbes, (...) Rousseau, and Kant to the problem of political unity and unified political decision-taking. While for Hobbes and Rousseau political unity must be empirically real - there must be an actual unifying authority - in Kant the idea of the general united will is a rational criterion of just lawmaking. For Kant, it is not the form of government that matters, but the manner of governing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume 30, Number 2, November 2004, pp. 265-296 A Symposium on Louis E. Loeb, Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise The Unity of Hume's Philosophical Project MICHAEL WILLIAMS 1. Introduction In both his Treatise of Human Nature and Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Hume presents a protean figure.1 By turns, he appears as a naturalistic theorist of the mind, a proto-Positivist critic of speculative metaphysics, and an (...) utter skeptic. Can these various characters be seen to work together? On the whole, Hume's interpreters seem to think not. The typical approach is to pick a dominant personality, leaving Hume's other philosophicalpersonae to be squeezed in as an afterthought, deprecated, or simply ignored. Louis Loeb is a shining exception.2 His new book, subtle and densely argued, offers an account of Hume's epistemology that makes a sustained effort to come to terms with its multi-faceted character. However, while Loeb's interpretation marks a real advance in our understanding of Hume, it is not one that I find ultimately persuasive. As I shall try to show, for all his insights, Loeb too fails to provide a satisfyingly unified account of Hume's philosophical pro j ect. In the course of explaining why I think this, I shall indicate how I think a better account ought to go. 2. Varieties of Skepticism The key to understanding Hume is to come to terms with the ways in which Hume is and is not a skeptic. So before going farther it will be useful to distinguish the Michael Williams is Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University, 347 Gilman Hall, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA. e-mail: [email protected] 266 Michael Williams various forms that skepticism takes, or might be thought to take, in Hume's epistemological writings. The distinctions I shall introduce will also make it easier to characterize different ways of reading Hume, Loeb's included. First, we must distinguish between epistemological skepticism, which has to do with knowledge and belief, and conceptual skepticism which has to do with meaning. So for example, where an epistemological skeptic may wonder whether beliefs of a certain broad kind can be justified, a conceptual skeptic will wonder whether the words we use to express such purported beliefs are so much as meaningful. It seems clear that both kinds of skepticism figure in Hume's theory of the understanding. However, commentators differ sharply over their relative importance. Second, we must distinguish two forms of epistemological skepticism: theoretical (or Academic) skepticism and suspensive skepticism (or Pyrrhonism). As its name suggests, theoretical skepticism is a thesis (or family of theses) about the epistemic status of human beliefs: for example, the thesis that such and such beliefs do not amount to knowledge or are not justifiable. It is important to note that one can entertain such a thesis in a purely speculative or theoretical way, without becoming inclined to relinquish any fundamental beliefs. By contrast, Pyrrhonism involves an actual breakdown in belief. Again, though we seem to be able to find both Academic and Pyrrhonian elements in Hume's epistemological outlook, commentators are seriously at odds over how to put them together. Third, both theoretical and suspensive skepticism can be either qualified (Hume says "mitigated") or unqualified (we can say "radical"). The most important form of qualified theoretical skepticism is anti-Rationalism. Anti-Rationalism embraces such theses as that our beliefs never amount to knowledge, or are not supportable by (what we can show to be) truth-conducive reasons. By contrast, theoretical skepticism in its most radical form is the claim that no beliefs are in any sense more reasonable than others: i.e., that normative-epistemological distinctions between beliefs are completely indefensible. We can make an analogous distinction with respect to suspensive skepticism. A qualifiedly skeptical outlook might take the form of anti-Dogmatism: we hold beliefs, but in an open-minded, fallibilist spirit, taking nothing to be altogether certain, suspending final judgment. Alternatively, we might suffer a complete breakdown of belief. Once more, we find serious differences of opinion among commentators. In what way is Hume's skepticism mitigated, or qualified, if indeed it is qualified... (shrink)

This essay develops an ontology of differentiation and re-potentialization based on P.R. Sarkar’s Four-Chamber Model. It begins from the problem of how stable forms, identities, meanings, and structures emerge at all. While materialist approaches tend to reduce such phenomena to physical processes, non-materialist ontologies often respond by positing already determinate realities, such as Platonic Forms, Penrose’s mathematical structures, or Sjöstedt-Hughes’ atemporal perceptons. Against this background, the Four-Chamber Model proposes a different starting point: a preformal unity in which potential determinations, (...) qualitative tendencies, and relational tensions have not yet separated into stable identities. The paper interprets this process through the sequence Unity → Polarity → Symmetry → Manifestation and illustrates it through the relational structure of gluons in quantum chromodynamics. Finally, the concept of Omega4 is introduced as a principle that weakens the dominance of established semantic attractors and reopens the possibility of further differentiation. The central thesis is that forms are real, but not primordial: they are achievements of relational differentiation that remain open to transformation. (shrink)

This study introduces a Unity package designed to create and manage interaction cues for virtual reality (VR) environments. The package allows developers to define visual, auditory, and haptic cues in a JSON file, enabling dynamic guidance without disrupting immersion. It supports customization of cue appearance and triggers, enhancing user experience and usability in VR applications, particularly in therapeutic, educational, and training contexts. The framework provides tools for supervisors to monitor user interactions, facilitating real-time feedback and adaptive guidance.

Art in Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism is normally considered to be a direct and irrational leap from immanence to transcendence, liberating consciousness from the structure of differentiation to absolute identity. I challenge this view on two grounds. First, transcendence and immanence, or absolute identity and consciousness, are not mutually exclusive but intrinsically unified within the principle of productivity. Second, art is not a leap from one side to the other but a full enactment of productivity, thereby revealing the (...) class='Hi'>unity of immanence and transcendence—each affirming itself only through the other. In conclusion, Schelling redefines transcendence and immanence from the standpoint of productivity, diverging from common scholarly interpretations as well as the philosophies of Plotinus and Spinoza. The transcendent is the intrinsic vitality that drives the ceaseless generation and transformation of finite determinations in the immanent realm. In turn, immanence is the dynamic medium through which the transcendent actualizes its freedom and posits itself as a real transcendent. (shrink)

Buddhism and Hinduism appear to be separated by irreconcilable differences. I argue that this apparent gulf can be overcome. The argument has three main parts. First, I argue that the Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising is not a metaphysical principle of real causation, but a principle of fabrication. Second, I argue that this interpretation of dependent arising enables a unification of the main schools of Buddhism. Third, I argue that Buddhism can be unified fully with Advaita Vedānta, the most (...) important philosophical school of Hinduism, and I argue that a substantial unity can be established between Buddhism and the three main schools of Vedānta. In particular, Buddhism and Vedānta can agree that the highest aim and good consists in the direct realization of an unconditioned and pure mind or consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore the concept of unity in Kant’s system, as laid out by Lara Ostaric. One of the key claims Ostaric makes is that, for Kant, the idea of a harmonious and ethical society is not merely a utopia, but a robust project grounded in what she terms ‘Moral-Image Realism’ (MIR). The MIR thesis, according to Ostaric, renders different and sometimes seemingly incompatible aspects of Kant’s system coherent and, more than that, unified. I try to further (...) develop the implications of Ostaric’s view by exploring how Kant’s view, known as ‘Primacy of the Practical’, can be used to reinforce the claim that human beings progress toward fulfilling their ends as moral agents in what is famously known as the ‘kingdom of ends’. Furthermore, the MIR thesis, I try to show, renders Kant’s practical philosophy not just theoretically, but empirically driven. Namely, once established that the moral image of the world is more than just an empty hope or a utopia, it becomes paramount to consider how exactly such a goal can be realised, given the complexities of the real world (Kant’s as well as ours). This leads us to an entirely new way, I argue, of addressing the question of the applicability of Kant’s practical philosophy, which has often been deemed to be an impossible endeavour. This also leads us to re-evaluate Kant’s views and subsequent interpretations of the relationship between ethics, politics, and history. (shrink)

It is suggested that consciousness is primarily associated not with stimuli and perception, as commonly supposed, but with movement and responses. Consciousness of stimuli arises in situations in which possible movements are planned, or in which information must be actively acquired rather than passively registered, and may or may not require overt movements to be performed. By emphasizing response, this formulation provides a simple explanation for the perceived unity of consciousness: though stimuli can be diverse, with independent components, movements (...) must necessarily be coordinated. Therefore, if we are to look for a `site' for consciousness, it is likely to be in a region such as the anterior cingulate that is neurally close to the higher motor hierarchical levels, and also accessible both to real sensory feedback and also to virtual feedback derived through mechanisms of efference copy from actual or proposed motor commands. It is suggested that synchrony of arrival of such information may be an important prerequisite of this unity, and that on this basis such a `master node' might be expected to be temporally `equidistant' from each of these sources; this may well be true of the anterior cingulate, but no doubt also of other structures. (shrink)

This paper examines one of the central complaints regarding Locke’s Essay, namely, its supposed incoherence. The question is whether Locke can successfully maintain a materialistic conception of matter, while advancing a theory of knowledge that will constrain the possibilities for a cognitive accessto matter from the start. In approaching this question I concentrate on Locke’s account of unity. While material unity can be described in relation to Locke’s account of substance, real essence, and nominal essence, a separate (...) discussion will be called for altogether in the case of organic unity. In closing, I turn to Kant as a model for locating Locke’s purported incoherence, suggesting that his “skeptical idealism” yields the same epistemic advantages as those won by Kant’s “empirical realism.”. (shrink)

In the history of Western thought, the philosophical study of man has been part of the philosopher's pursuits from the time of the ancient Greeks. But after a lapse of over two thousand years, the study in this field remains not much developed and its achievements are far from satisfactory. Already in 1928, Max Scheler in his Man's Place in Nature pointed out the troubled condition of the philosophical study of man: “Man is more a problem to himself at the (...) present time than ever before in all recorded history… We do not have a unified idea of man. The increasing multiplicity of the special sciences, valuable as they are, tend to hide man's nature more than reveal it.” In more recent times, Paul Ricoeur, although approaching the issue from a somewhat different perspective, nevertheless came to a similar conclusion. In his essay The Antinomy of Human Reality and the Problem of Philosophical Anthropology, he stated: “The sciences of man are dispersed into separate disciplines and literally do not know what they are talking about.” It seems to me that part of the explanation for this Situation lies in the way of thinking of Western learning, with its peculiar segmentation of fields of inquiry. During this century, some branches of human sciences, such as psychology, sociology, ethnology, political science, economics and psychoanalysis, have developed rapidly. They deal with the study of man from different angles, and have really accumulated a rich wealth of data. But what man is as such is still not clear. Unless we succeed in forming a comprehensive view of man as a whole, we will not be able to have a real insight into human nature and will be lost in a mass of disconnected and isolated data which seem to lack conceptual unity. We must recognize that the sciences of man in the contemporary Western world belong exclusively to the Western cultural tradition which originated in the early Greek civilization with its own concepts of values. They are entirely divorced from the other great cultures of the world, for instance, the Indian and Chinese cultures, which are as important as the Greek culture in the history of civilization. In order to reach a deeper understanding of man, it is perhaps necessary to make cross-cultural comparative studies. Therefore a short survey of the studies of man in ancient Chinese philosophy may not be superfluous. I would like to confine my survey to the early Chinese philosophers of the pre-Qin period, not only because it is almost impossible to deal with the entire history of Chinese philosophical ideas spanning over two thousand years in an article, but also because the ancient time is the most creative and most important period in the development of Chinese thought. (shrink)

Caring is a complex attitude. At first look, it appears very complex: it seems to involve a wide range of emotional and other dispositions, all focused on the object cared about. What ties these dispositions together, so that they jointly comprise a single attitude? I offer a theory of caring, the Attentional Theory, that answers this question. According to the Attentional Theory, caring consists of just two, logically distinct dispositions: a disposition to attend to an object and hence to considerations (...) pertaining to it, and a disposition to respond to the real or apparent reasons those considerations provide. The emotional and other attitudes involved in caring are instantiations of these two, more general dispositions; and these apparently diverse emotional and other dispositions are connected because the real or apparent reasons to which they are dispositions to respond are connected, in structured “packages.” The fact that the reasons to which a caring agent responds are connected in this way provides the basis for an error theory, explaining why it appears as if the emotions involved in caring are governed by rational coherence requirements. (shrink)

In the correspondence with Arnauld, Leibniz contends that each corporeal substance has a substantial form. In support he argues that to be real a corporeal substance must be one and indivisible, a true unity. I will show how this argument precludes a tempting interpretation of corporeal substances as composite unities. Rather it mandates the interpretation that each corporeal substance is a single monad.

The purpose of this paper is to show the methodological power and potentiality of the concept paradigm of unity introduced originally in the ceremony on the occasion of honoring Chiara Lubich with the doctor honoris causa title by the Catholic University of Lublin in 1996. Originally this conception was used to suggest the societal activity of Chiara Lubich in building, via the Focolari movement, psychosocial infrastructures for unity in various social domains, (for example in the economy of communion, (...) in politics (politicians for unity project), in public media (journalists for unity), in ecumenism and inter-religious contacts (ecumenical and inter-religion Focolari Centers) This conception is a kind of a great inspiration (a kind of Copernican revolution in the social sciences) which would motivate the social sciences to build their own research paradigm of a type of mental and methodological power and potentiality which could give a new vision of social world (as Copernicus did in natural sciences (Biela, 1996, 2006)). Thomas Kuhn (1962) regarded the Copernician revolution as the one which, in the history of science, best illustrates the nature of scientific revolution. The essence of paradigm in a Kuhnian sense is a mentality change in its nature. Copernicus had to change the well-established geocentric system which functioned not only in the science of his day but also in culture, tradition, social perception, and even in the mentality of religious and political authorities. And he did it in a well prepared empirical, methodological and psychological way. In a similar way Chiara Lubich created by her social acting a revolutionary inspiration for building paradigm in social science She decided in an extremely difficult and risky situation in 1944 in Trento not only to escape from her own life emergency but she with her friends made a decision to help other people who were in a much more difficult situation to survive. She decided to take a war bombing risk to be with lost children and older people who were in need. It was a practical building of the unity with the real people who were in need. This kind of experience rediscovered the community as a model for the real life and made a concretization and clarification of the charisma of the unity. However, the development of this charisma shows that it is simply a concrete and practical actualization of the new vision of social, economic, political and religious relationships which advises, recommends, suggests, and promotes the unity with others persons (Lubich, 2007). (shrink)

Could the organization of consciousness be the key to understanding its unity? This paper considers how the attentional organization of consciousness into centre and periphery bears on the phenomenal unity of consciousness. Two ideas are discussed: according to the first, the attentional organization of consciousness shows that phenomenal holism is true. I argue that the argument from attentional organization to phenomenal holism remains inconclusive. According to the second idea, attentional organization provides a principle of unity for conscious (...) experience, i.e. it is a relationship between the phenomenal parts that occurs in the real definition or essence of consciousness. Conscious experience provides subjects with a subjective perspective, or point of view, because its various parts are structured by attention into what is more central and what is more peripheral. (shrink)

In the correspondence with Arnauld, Leibniz contends that each corporeal substance has a substantial form. In support he argues that to be real a corporeal substance must be one and indivisible, a true unity. I will show how this argument precludes a tempting interpretation of corporeal substances as composite unities. Rather it mandates the interpretation that each corporeal substance is a single monad.

In this study, the rational criticism directed by Ibn Tayymiyya (d. 1338) to the philosophical evidence used to prove the unity of the necessary existent in the book Kitāb al-Is̲h̲ārāt wa al-tanbīhāt, which is accepted as a constitutive text in the history of Islamic philosophy, is examined. Author of the aforementioned book Avicenna (d. 1037) tries to prove the unity of the necessary existent from different ways in his books. Kitāb al-Is̲h̲ārāt wa al-tanbīhāt is a book that includes (...) one of these ways. The evidence that Avicenna uses in that book comprises of two preliminaries. The first preliminary is made up of specifying the relation between the thing that the different perceptible particular entities are common and are different. The second one is based on proving the existence not to be the cause of essence by centering the difference of existence and essence. Ibn Taymiyya, who criticizes philosophers in many ways, criticizes this evidence used by Avicenna in his work Mes’eletün fî tevḥîdi’l-felâsife. Rejecting the logic of Mashshaiyyun as science, Ibn Taymiyya also tried to refute the philosophical and logical rules that philosophers accept and use. In this context, Ibn Taymiyya argues that not only the preliminary presuppositions of the philosopher's argument to prove the unity of the necessary being, but also that the logical principles and rules previously accepted by the philosopher are false. One of the most important issues criticized by the thinker in relation to the subject is the reality of concepts, the existence of universals, how universals are moved to particulars, and the state of quiddity. According to him, concepts are mental and universals do not have a reality in the external world. Again, he thinks that universals like humanity are attributed to particulars as attributes, and therefore, in a way, he denies the universal being universal. Because, according to Ibn Taymiyya, a certain attribute of a being that is particular cannot be universal unlike itself. According to the thinker, the commonality in the concepts that logicians call universal consists only of a linguistic partnership. Undoubtedly, it can be said that Ibn Taymiyya's thought on the issue of concepts is close to nominalistic approach in a way. But he does not directly deny the reality of the concepts. For, according to him, the concepts that are universally formed in the minds are actually realized particularly. That is to say, the universal humanity has been realized particularly in individuals such as Ahmet and Mehmet. In other words, because the humanity in individuals is particular, Ahmet's humanity is different from Mehmet's humanity. For this reason, there can be no real partnership among the examples given. In this context, the unity distinction made by Ibn Taymiyya in understanding his thoughts is helpful. According to him, unity is of two types, real and qualitative. Real unity is the unity that exists in the essence of the individual. The qualitative unity is the unity that exists between the things under the concept of the universal. However, the qualitative unity is not considered as a unity since it does not occur in the external world. In fact, this is what distinguishes Ibn Taymiyya from nominalist thinkers. If we turn back to the evidence of Avicenna, based on the objections that Ibn Taymiyya made to the logic and philosophical principles of Mashshaiyyun in general, we can say that the thinker criticized the precedents of this argument by emphasizing the knowledge that universal concepts are intellectual entities. He emphasizes the examples that Avicenna uses to show the affiliation among the things are only made up of universal notions and alleges them not to have perceptible entity. Thus, he says that there is not a real affiliation among different particular entities that have perceptible existence. As to the second preliminary, Ibn Taymiyya says that this preliminary is also inaccurate for the reason that it is, like the first preliminary, based on the knowledge that the intellectual entities had come true in the physical world. According to him, the essence is made up of intellectual conceptualization. Therefore, it has not physical reality. After criticizing the preliminaries in this manner, Ibn Taymiyya says that the analogy that consists of these preliminaries is also erroneous. Because the analogy that is based on erroneous preliminaries does not give a correct result. (shrink)

England, known as “the empire without sun settling down” and being among the final winners of the World War I (1914-1918), had one of the heaviest defeats of its history against the Ottoman Empire in the Kut al-Amara, which happened on 29 April 1916 close to Baghdad. Following the defeat of Kut al-Amara, which was the most important war trauma for England during the World War I, the Turks and Germans, as winner side of the battle were evaluated by British (...) prisoners from military, political, cultural and socio-psychological aspects in their memories. Content analysis method is used in the article for qualitative evalution of the data related to the Turkish and German image reflected in the memories of British prisoners after the siege of Kut al-Amara. The alliance between Turks and Germans is regarded as contrast in terms of important elements as national and ethnic identity, language, religion and culture in the main sources of the research as My Compain by Charles Townshend, Besieged in Kut and After by Barber, A Kut Prisoner by Bishop, In Kut and Captivity with the Sixth Indian Division by Sandes, The Secrets of a Kuttite by Mousley which occationally use exaggerated language and the subjective information due to the impact of traumatic defeat.Summary: Being a heroic epic in the war history of Turkey, Kūt al-‘Amāra has been the subject of very fewer researches until recently, despite its importance in Turkey’s history. This argument is supported by the fact that the memoirs by Ottoman soldiers related to the WWI, which also encompass information about Kūt al-‘Amāra, were published half a century after the war at the earliest. Unlike the records of Turkish soldiers participating in Kūt al-‘Amāra, the memoirs and the war diaries of British soldiers were published shortly after the war, as early as possible, between the years of 1918-1921. The authors of these memoirs and war diaries informed the public on the reasons for the defeat of Kūt al-‘Amāra on the one hand, and on the other hand created the Ottoman and Turkish image which was concidered differently in the British society in terms of culture and civilization. They also strengthened this image over that of German’s, with whom they shared many common values despite the fact that they represented the opposite fronts of the war.It is worthy mentioning that the role of the Ottoman army in the victory of Kūt al-‘Amāra was highly underestimated by the memoirs of the British prisoners. According to the authors, it is not the Turkish army that has achieved real victories over the British, but Germany’s support, notably General von der Goltz, the great strategist of Europe. The effects of bad weather conditions and geographical situation are also emphasized among the reasons of the defeat of Kūt al-‘Amāra. Consequently, the success of the Turkish army in the victory of Kūt al-‘Amāra was ignored, except for the role of Halil Pasha. The image of an army that knows the trench and defence techniques well, but fails to attack is one of the prominent evaluations in the memoirs related to the Turkish military characteristics.The British prisoners of war, who evaluate the Turkish and German image through the economic and political situation, draw a very desperate picture of the situation of the Turks in the mentioned areas. According to this image, corruption and bribery prevails at every stage of the Turkish government. The Turks are unable to repay their dept to Germany, which dominates the economy of the country completely. According to these records, besides ordinary people, the army is also facing great difficulties in meeting basic requirements. To convert the Ottoman Empire into their own property and keep the Turks under their control in military, economic and political spheres, the Germans lend a high amount of money.On the basis of Turkish soldiers encountered in Kūt al-‘Amāra, the British prisoners characterizes the Turks as physically large, hard and strong-bodied people. The authors also note that the Turks are not as cold-blooded, calm and obedient as they seem at first sight, rather they become rude people when they get angry. Another feature that British prisoners evaluate as a potential of the Turks, is their childish spirit. In as much as they are happy with small things and can be offended by small things. According to the memoirs, the Germans should not be allowed to benefit from these characteristics of the Turks, but the British should take the advantage of their potential power.The moral characteristics of the Turks and the Germans are among the most emphasized subjects. Written in exceptional time such as war, sometimes the diaries include exaggerated and sentimental phrases related to the moral attitudes enemy soldiers exhibited during siege, as well as captivity. Turks are regarded as negligent and careless rather than cruel or ruthless. They owe these characteristics to their Eastern identity, which is different from the Europeans having virtues such as task responsibility and diligence. The moral characteristic of the Turks regarding the duty, responsibility and kindness is evaluated comparatively with the civilized and humanistic behaviors of the Germans towards the prisoners. Being Europeans, the Germans often come to the fore because of their more polite treatment towards the British prisoners. Although the Germans as an enemy fought against the British on the front, they were kind to them in the Ottoman territories as the only civilized people among the barbarian peoples of the East.The Turks and the Germans are compared in the field of education, as well as other areas of development. The authors emphasize that the education level of the Turks is very low; Armenian and Greek subjects of the Empire are its brain and financial resources, which is the reason why the Turks are anxious about them. The Germans have the superiority in both transportation and communication technology in the Ottoman territories. One of the reasons they had a huge investment on the Ottoman territories is the Berlin-Istanbul-Baghdad-Basra railway. The British prisoners give details on the German communication technology they encountered during both the battle and the captivity days in Anatolia. In addition to the transport and communication technology, they also record much German-made military equipment, from weapons to maps.Evaluating the Turks and the Germans as opposites, the British prisoners draw an image for the latter, with whom they share a common cultural legacy, as a fully equipped enemy in terms of technology and strategy on the front, and the civilized Europeans characterized with their virtue in non-war situations. On the contrary, the Turks are described as a strong defender and daredevil soldiers on the front line, but strategically weak on the front. In terms of duties and responsibilities, the Turkish soldiers are presented with negligent and irresponsible approach towards their prisoners. The images of the Turks and the Germans, which are compared by the British prisoners, are often based on their Eastern and Western identity. The Turks symbolize the East with economic, political and cultural backwardness, yet quite the contrary, the Germans symbolize the West in terms of development, modernity and civilization. The British prisoners sometimes used exaggerated expressions in their approaches regarding both sides, as well as different details in terms of information and interpretation about the same event, due to the trauma of defeat. (shrink)

The question the author explores in this paper is whether Paul's stance on retaining one's ethnic identity which eventually was lost when the church became predominantly gentile was already lost by the time the letter to the Ephesians was written around 90 CE at the latest. The point is that Christ does not merely bring peace of mind, psychological well-being, but shalom, the total health and well-being of being right with God and finding peace even with enemies. It is a (...) real political and social peace that Christ enables and demands of those who truly belong to His kingdom. As Eph. 1-2 indicates, through the power of Christ hostility arising from difference can be turned into a cause of celebration of the blessings of God in Christ. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Unity of Plato’s Sophist: Between the Sophist and the PhilosopherRosamond Kent SpragueNoburo Notomi. The Unity of Plato’s Sophist: Between the Sophist and the Philosopher. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxi + 346. Cloth, $64.95.Any corrective to what might be called the "Piecemeal Plato" of the fifties and sixties is to be welcomed; Notomi's contribution to this endeavor is interesting and, I believe, basically sound. (...) As a result of treating the Sophist as a unity, rather than yielding to the temptation to extract philosophically enticing bits, he concludes that "the basic problem of the Sophist is how to distinguish the sophist from the philosopher" (163). Definitional inquiry is suspended in the important Middle Part (236d-264b) in order to deal with the difficulties concerning appearance, image, falsehood, and what is not; Plato is then able to proceed, in the second Outer Part, to the definition of the sophist in terms of the distinction between apparition-making and likeness-making: the sophist is an apparition.Much attention is of necessity devoted to the enigmatic sixth definition of the sophist (the "sophist of noble lineage") in the first Outer Part. Notomi thinks that Plato's initial strategy in the task of distinguishing the sophist from the philosopher was to allot the role of the philosopher to Socrates. But, Notomi writes, "this strategy might undermine his very attempt to secure philosophy... since people often took Socrates for a major sophist" (60-1). The Sophist therefore abandons confrontation with particular historical sophists (as in mainly earlier dialogues) in favor of a more abstract analysis in which Plato appears to be "casting serious doubt on the figure of Socrates as a philosopher" (63). "We have encountered the sophist who appears to be Socrates, and here the appearances of the sophist and the philosopher become the real issue in the Sophist" (68).It is just at this point that Notomi, who follows Proclus in attaching importance to the prologue, where the philosopher is recognized as divine, seems to shy away from a conclusion for which he has really prepared the ground, namely, that the Eleatic visitor takes on the role of the philosopher. He does write that "the visitor from Elea... leads the dialogue in a more constructive manner" (i.e., than Socrates does) (63), but he could well say something much stronger. A passage which would have been much to his purpose as combining the notion of the philosopher with that of appearance, especially to the young, has been missed out; I am thinking of 265d where the visitor, having divided production into divine and human, asks Theaetetus for an important decision: are we to say, of mortal animals and so on, "that nature gives birth to them as a result of some spontaneous cause without intelligence, or shall we say that they come from a cause which, working with reason and art, is divine and proceeds from divinity?" Here Theaetetus makes a remarkable reply: "Perhaps because I am young, I often shift from one belief to the other, but at this moment, looking at your face [eis se blepô] and believing you to hold that these things have a divine origin, I too am convinced" (Cornford). In other words, the face of the visitor has something of the god-like in it, an appearance that Plato has appropriately expressed by using the verb blepô, which, with its compound apoblepô, is his verb of choice for looking at the Forms. I think that the author (perhaps made uneasy by the visitor's place of origin) has not really followed out the implications of his view that "serious doubt" has been cast on the figure of Socrates [End Page 585] as a philosopher. If not Socrates, who then? Eristic may have come out of Elea, but so did the concept of being suitable for Platonic metaphysics, and this latter is by no means unassociated with Socrates in the dialogues, as Notomi quite correctly observes. Perhaps the Eleatic visitor is either Plato himself or else a Socrates made young and beautiful.There is much more in this book than these remarks would imply. A study of Platonic... (shrink)

Contents: The Communist Party and the politics of cultural change in postwar Italy, 1945-50 / Stephen Gundle -- Writing and the real world : Italian narrative in the period of reconstruction / Michael Caesar -- The making and unmaking of Neorealism in postwar Italy / David Forgacs -- The place of Neorealism in Italian cinema from 1945 to 1954 / Christopher Wagstaff -- Tradition and social change in the French and Italian cinemas of the reconstruction / Pierre Sorlin -- (...) Humanism and national unity : the ideological reconstruction of France / Michael Kelly -- Les Lettres Franca̜ises and the failure of the French postwar "Renaissance" / Nicholas Hewitt -- The reconstruction of culture : Peuple et Culture and the popular education movement / Brian Rigby. The chameleon rearguard of cultural tradition : the case of Jacques Laurent / Colin Nettelbeck -- German literature in 1945 : liberation for a new beginning / Helmut Peitsch -- Continuity or change? : aspects of West German writing after 1945 / Keith Bullivant -- West German theatre in the period of reconstruction / Ursula Fries. (shrink)

David Hume’s thought has interrupted entire disciplines from dogmatic slumbers. Yet Hume’s influence is even more expansive and continuous than we might have thought. There are two significant areas of inquiry where Hume’s influence has not been adequately appreciated or articulated: analytic phenomenology and analytic process philosophy. My dissertation explores these traditions’ indebtedness to Hume by engaging with the work of Edmund Husserl and Alfred North Whitehead, who introduce consequential changes into their systems in direct response to what they see (...) as Humean problems with their initial models. Three major themes are of special interest. First, vis-à-vis “Unity of Mind,” each philosopher asks what accounts for the apparent unity of mind and experience, including what principles connect distinct experiences. Second, vis-à-vis “Temporal Awareness,” each philosopher inquires into what grounds temporality and the experience of temporal passage, including what principles connect distinct moments. Third, vis-à-vis “Personal Identity,” each philosopher investigates what constitutes the experience of continuity and unity over time, including personal continuity and unity qua “personal identity.” A fourth concordance is methodological. In pursuing the aforementioned themes, each philosopher accords epistemic primacy to lived experience and what discloses itself therein. An overarching Humean problem for all, correlatively, is how continuity and unity arise from distinct items: perceptions, intentional experiences, and actual occasions, respectively. My dissertation attempts to explicate this and related systematic issues from a historical perspective informed by contemporary analytic metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and recent scholarship in Hume, Husserl, and Whitehead studies. Chapter One argues that Hume’s infamous “Appendix problem” concerns reconciling the incontrovertible unity of mind with his unrenounceable epistemological principle that the mind never perceives real connections between distinct perceptions. Chapter Two traces Hume’s proto-phenomenological influence on Husserl’s theories (not theory) of temporal awareness. Chapter Three examines Hume’s proto-processual influence on Whitehead's theories (not theory) of personal identity. Unfortunately, neither Husserl nor Whitehead read each other’s work. Nevertheless, both take Hume to be the one who knocks at, yet ultimately fails to walk through the doors that his explorations unveil. By so doing, they beg that we do the same with them. (shrink)

Hegel repeatedly identifies rational self-consciousness as a real example of the concept, and its tripartite constituents: universality, particularity, and individuality. In what follows I will show that the concept as such, along with its tripartite constituents, are constitutive of rational self-consciousness. On the one hand, by showing how Hegel’s concept of the concept applies to rational self-consciousness, I aim to provide a concrete example of the concept of the concept in a real being whose being is not merely (...) logical. On the other hand, I aim to show that Hegel’s application of the concept to rational self-consciousness is motivated by a problem within the philosophy of mind. For this reason, Hegel’s application of the concept of the concept to the mind is not arbitrary, but motivated by significant philosophical problems. (shrink)

Kant calls the Principle of the Synthetic Unity of Apperception (PSUA) the “highest point” to which we “must affix all use of the understanding, even the whole of logic and, after it, transcendental philosophy.” In this article, I offer an original interpretation of this “supreme principle.” My argument is twofold. First, I argue that the common identification of this principle with the “I think” or even the form of the I think misses the basis on which this principle is (...) capable of grounding Kant’s transcendental deduction. It must be understood as a purely formal, transcendental principle. Second, I argue that this highest principle must be understood (in part) as a purely formal principle of pure synthesis in order for Kant’s account of the mind to lay valid claim to such spontaneity (the freedom of theoretical cognition operative through synthesis) without invoking the very dogmatic idealism that he critiques. The reduction of this principle to the real I think, or even to the Transcendental Unity of Apperception (TUA), undermines the basic distinction on which Kant’s deduction depends. I pay particular attention to important, recent arguments from Longuenesse (2017) on the TUA, Williams (2017) on the Original Unity of Apperception, Allison (2004) and Pollok (2017) on the status of a priori principles, and McLear (2015) on the claim that unity necessarily presupposes synthesis. (shrink)

Sohn-Rethel’s great idea was to ‘socialise’ Kant’s transcendental subject by combining it with Marx’s commodity-form. In so doing, he took on three challenges simultaneously: a) the timeless validity of modern natural science; b) the social genesis of empirically pure forms of cognition; and c) socialisation occurring through a purely social synthesis. However, Sohn-Rethel construed Marx’s value-form analysis as an empirical exchange of commodities and held that such exchange performs a real abstraction – in this way, he laboured under the (...) very semblance that money engenders at the surface of society by virtue of its function qua means of exchange. This semblance can be rendered transparent by, on the one hand, explaining value in terms of capitalist valorisation rather than as a product of abstraction, and, on the other, developing money as the measure and form of this valorisation. (shrink)

To speak of ‘the real subject’ or ‘the primary aim’ of a Platonic dialogue usually means to magnify one aspect of it at the expense of other aspects as important. Such is not my intention. It is quite clear, however, without prejudice to the philosophic value of any of the topics discussed, that the Protagoras is an attack upon the sophists as represented by Protagoras, the greatest of them. Hippias and Prodicus are present and some of the great man's (...) glory is reflected upon them; they are also no doubt to some extent implicated in his defeat, though they seem quite unaware of the fact. (shrink)

When the Ming dynasty Confucian Wang Yangming (1472-1529) proposed his tenet of the unity of knowing and acting (zhi xing heyi 知行合一), he did so because he believed that Zhu Xi (1130-1200), his revered Song dynasty predecessor and architect of the School of Principle (Neo-Confucianism), had wrongly conceptually divided knowledge and action, and that this had led to profound problems of an existential nature for the individual with real-world consequences. For Wang Yangming, the relation between knowledge and action (...) is fundamentally one of identity, an identity grounded in the inherent, true condition of the vital being of the individual, in a unity of mind and body. He called this identity the original condition and original form of knowing and acting, explaining it in various ways. This article first explains how Wang Yangming positioned his tenet in relation to Zhu Xi’s conceptualization of the relation between knowledge and action, and then elucidates his conception of the unity of knowing and acting in four orientations, according to the different senses in which knowledge/knowing are understood: as perception, as awareness, as what is known, and as the innate knowing. (This is an abbreviated and edited translation of 論 ‘知行合一“的四重向度， 原载于《社会科学战线》2019年第2期). (shrink)

This lucid and compact book contains a forceful critique of the "wave-particle duality" interpretations of quantum theory, and a unitary particle theory which explains the quantum rules in terms of non-quantal axioms. To speak of a wave-particle duality, says Landé, is to speak of an abstraction and a real thing as if they were on a level of parity; and he takes Born's statistical interpretation of quantum phenomena as evidence that a unitary particle theory is needed. The problem then (...) is to explain why particles obey quantum laws of interference and h-dominated periodicity. Although much of the book assumes knowledge of mathematics and physics, many sections require no scientific background; and in the more technical sections there are frequent summaries which state the arguments and conclusions in a non-mathematical way. An incisive and provocative work which deserves to be widely read.--B. J. H. (shrink)

Although Habermas's sophisticated conception of constitutional patriotism successfully avoids the charge of trying to ground patriotism in a set of principles that is too thin and abstract to sustain a real sense of solidarity and belonging, his optimism regarding the prospect in modern pluralist societies of building a genuinely shared political culture is misplaced. The march of modernization as rationalization is neither as relentless nor as inevitable as Habermas assumes. Hence the rational consensus on liberal constitutional principles that is (...) to provide the basis for a shared political culture remains elusive. However, while Habermas's solution to the `solidarity gap' that confronts many contemporary liberal democracies remains problematic, he is right to point to the importance of a shared identity that is strong enough to turn strangers into fellow citizens. The challenges that cultural diversity and value pluralism pose for contemporary states cannot be resolved via a procedural approach that focuses solely on political legitimacy. Yet the difficulties that surround Habermas's conception of `constitutional patriotism' suggest modern states will struggle to build a collective political identity that can generate a genuine sense of solidarity. If this is so, modern pluralist states face a more profound challenge than writers such as Habermas assume. (shrink)

The article discusses the diversity of the subject field of the philosophy of war as well as the internal integrity of the discipline, united by the focus on the philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of war. The author shows the role of H. Lloyd, who influenced K. Clausewitz, H. Jomini and their followers’ interpretation of the meaning and content of the subject area of the philosophy of war. In the abundance of specific topics addressed by philosophers of this field, the (...) following topics should be noted: the issue of victory and defeat and their interpretation as well as the issue of historical memory. This problem is projected on contemporaneity and reflects the deep connection between peace and war, the dialectic of their relations. The interpretation of certain military and political events is of real interest in the light of the processes of distortion of historical events that have radically affected the course of history. An analysis of the motives and causes of this process is supposes to reconstruct an objective picture of relations between the subjects of international relations in various periods of history. The author finds answers in already existing concepts that have been developed in our time. It is important to mention the project of the French philosopher Charles Renouvier, who put forward the concept of “uchronia,” which became the starting point for the consideration of historical events in the “subjunctive mood.” This genre of historiosophical fantasy was picked up by famous followers – by the former President of France V. Giscard d’Estaing and others. The article provides eyewitness accounts of historical events (in particular, the campaign of Napoleon in Russia) that are historical facts and help to understand the true state of things. The article demonstrates that the philosophical study of the problem of war is important for understanding the origins and essence of relations arising from the transition between peaceful and military states. (shrink)

Hegel and Canada is a collection of essays that analyses the real, but under-recognized, role Hegel has played in the intellectual and political development of Canada. The volume focuses on the generation of Canadian scholars who emerged after World War Two: James Doull, Emil Fackenheim, George Grant, Henry S. Harris, and Charles Taylor.

This paper considers various senses of the notion of identity and describes the strongest sense of the term—what it labels “absolute identity.” Absolute identity combines monistic identity of all in all as one substance with the absence of internal differentiation. The paper explores the possibility of absolute identity along three lines—linguistic, mental, and ontological. It determines that though there are serious difficulties, linguistic and mental, involved with positing absolute identity the possibility of its coming to be real cannot be (...) ruled out. Finally, on grounds of its lack of coherence-functionality absolute identity is rejected as an adequate conception of the world. The paper closes with a discussion of the ramifications of the denial of absolute identity. (shrink)

Carroll denies that the spectator of fiction film commonly has empathy with the characters. He argues that the spectator typically emotes to the events in the film from his position as observer, and that this context gives asymmetrical reactions in spectator and character. According to Carroll, empathy is unlikely to occur. Theproblem with this argument is that if the differences between spectator and character that Carroll points to exclude empathy, it would also exclude empathy in real life. Furthermore, Carroll (...) merely shows that the spectator cannot only feel as the character feels. This does however not entail that empathy cannot be one part of the spectator’s response as observer. This paper thus argues that Carroll fails to show that empathy is an unlikely spectator response. (shrink)

It is argued that all of the different kinds of real possibility (formal, empirical-causal, noumenal-causal, nomic) in Kant’s Critical theory of modality instantiate a common scheme, and this scheme is a generalized version of Kant’s pre-Critical theory of real possibility. It is then argued that Kant does not abandon, within the Critical system, either his pre-Critical view that God is the ground of all real possibility, or his reasons for claiming this. What changes is the epistemic status (...) of this doctrine: what was formerly (in 1763) the object of a possible demonstration becomes (in the 1780s) a ‘doctrinal belief’ or ‘postulate of pure theoretical reason.’ We are rationally required to postulate an absolutely necessary ground of real possibility in order to satisfy one of the necessary ends of theoretical reason: to explain why anything is really possible at all. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Toward an East–West Ultramontane Polyphony:On Dogma, Ecclesial Unity, and the FilioqueThomas Joseph White O.P.The book that the contributors to this symposium have commented upon with graciousness and remarkable intellectual acuity is a work consisting of four parts. There are four main claims to the book associated with these four parts, each of which is divided into sub-themes. Thus, one can denote a number of inevitably controversial ideas advanced (...) by the book. In clarifying the nature of these claims, I can initially respond to some of the main points advanced by various of the helpful review essays in this symposium.Framing the Argument of the BookThe first part of the work posits that there is a fundamental developmental continuity between Old and New Testament revelation, wherein God is revealed first to Israel as the one Creator, and subsequently in Jesus Christ as three distinct persons, the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.1 This revelation is in turn received in the pre-Nicene era of the early Church, principally under a twofold conceptual format, according firstly to a model of God as a single transcendent subject of wisdom who sends his Word into the world in human nature, and inspires the prophets by his Spirit (the apologists' monotheistic model, exemplified by Justin Martyr) and, secondly, to [End Page 569] a model of economic Trinitarian activity, of the Father, Son and Spirit, who are each divine and one in being, active in sacred history (Irenaeus).2 Nicene Trinitarian authors sought in various ways to find a deeper concordance of the two approaches, one of which emphasized more the immanent unity of God (potentially tending toward a danger of Sabellianism) and the other of which emphasized real distinction of persons active in the economy (potentially tending toward the danger of subordinationism).3 Pro-Nicene figures like Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine, among others, paved the way for a mature doctrine of immanent Trinitarian life, in which God was understood to be characterized, mysteriously, by eternal processions of the Word and the Spirit who originate from the Father, and receive from him the plenitude of their deity or divine nature, and thus are equally and identically the one God.4 God is mysteriously three persons who are truly one both in essence and being.The second part of the book is concerned with the theological exploration of what it means to speak of God as one, and of the divine nature of God. This determination of Christian theological wisdom stems from a threefold exigency: first, to uncover the inner unity of revelation itself, as indeed the Israelite revelation of the divine unity and the oneness of God the transcendent Creator is thematic to both Testaments;5 second, to consider the preconditions of Nicene orthodoxy, as indeed the claim that the three persons in God are one in essence or nature presupposes that there is a nature of God that is one common to the three persons;6 third, to consider what must be said about the inner life of God as truth and love, as a precondition for thinking about the processional life of the Word and Spirit, who are immanent distinct persons in God who receive and possess this fullness of life but who do not divide this one eternal life in God or cause it to evolve due to their relational proceeding.7I argue that a consideration of God's nature as simple, perfect, good, eternal, immutable, and so forth is essential to any theology that takes the biblical revelation of the unity and transcendence of God seriously, and therefore confesses the revelation of the Trinity integrally.8 Furthermore, regarding [End Page 570] the apophatic contours of this form of reflection, I hold that it is precisely in order to guarantee the kind of circumspect avoidance of "non-biblical speculation" about positive knowledge of God outside of Christ that it is necessary to qualify rightly how God is not identifiable with creation and thus remains unknown in his inner divine nature and eternal life apart from and outside of his divine self-disclosure in the revelation of the Old and New Testaments. Philosophical... (shrink)

This book explores the scope and limits of the concept of personDS a vexed question in contemporary philosophy. The author begins by questioning the methodology of thought-experimentation, arguing that it engenders inconclusive and unconvincing results, and that truth is stranger than fiction. She then examines an assortment of real-life conditions, including infancy, insanity andx dementia, dissociated states, and split brains. The popular faith in continuity of consciousness, and the unity of the person is subjected to sustained criticism. The (...) author concludes with a look at different views of the person found in Homer, Aristotle, the post-Cartesians, and contemporary cognitive science. (shrink)

Jeffrey Brower argues that Aquinas’s hylomorphic account of change entails a distinction between “property” possession and “property” characterization. Given that and Brower’s assumption that Aquinas’s fundamental hylomorphic compounds are material substances and accidental unities, it follows that material substances are not characterized by the accidents they possess. In order to avoid that counterintuitive consequence, Brower stipulates a form of derivative property characterization and a numerical sameness without identity relation, which together enable him to affirm that material substances are derivatively characterized (...) by the accidents they possess. I argue that, by affirming a plausible alternative to Brower’s account of Aquinas’s fundamental hylomorphic compounds, we can maintain that accidents characterize material substances in the primary sense without having to affirm the real existence of accidental unities or Brower’s objectionable numerical sameness without identity relation. (shrink)

This essay will investigate the context – in terms of both sources (by means of influence, transformation, or contrast) and ancient reception – of the concept of the dynamic unity of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father (John 10:38, 14:10, 17:21) in both ‘pagan’ and Christian Middle-Platonic and Neoplatonic thinkers. The Christians include Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa, but also Evagrius Ponticus and John Scottus Eriugena. The essay will outline, in ‘Middle (...) Platonism’, the hierarchical theology of a first and second God (and sometimes a third), and in Neoplatonism, Plotinus’ three hypostases arranged in hierarchical order, which will be contrasted with Origen’s and the Cappadocians’ three divine hypostases that are equal – like those of Augustine. Thus, for Origen not only is the Son in the Father, as in a ‘pagan’ Middle and Neoplatonic scheme, but also the Father is in the Son, in a perfect reciprocity of dynamic unity. Origen subscribes to this reciprocity because, as I argue, he is no real ‘subordinationist’, but the precursor of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan line (the Cappadocians, especially Nyssen, developed and emphasised the notion of equality, bringing the three Hypostases of the Trinity to the level of Plotinus’ One, but the premises were all in Origen’s theology and his concept of the coeternity of the three Hypostases and their common divinity: Nyssen, like Athanasius, even use Origen’s arguments in his own anti-Arian polemic, as we shall see). Origen even interpreted Philo’s theology, also close to so-called Middle Platonism, in a non-subordinationistic sense, attributing to the Hypostasis of Logos/Sophia the various dynameis, such as Logos and Sophia, that Philo used most probably in a non-hypostatic sense. I shall also demonstrate how Gregory of Nyssa, significantly following Origen, in his work Against Eunomius used John 14:10a to refute the philosophical argument of Eunomius, who had a profoundly subordinationistic view of Christ with respect to the Father. Gregory’s solution is that neither the Father nor the Son are in an absolute sense, but both are in a reciprocal relation or σχέσις, what I shall present as Gregory’s own version of the dynamic unity (in turn grounded in Origen). I shall also concentrate on the use that Gregory makes of John 17:21-23 to argue that the unity of the Father and the Son, and of all believers – and eventually all humans – in them, is substantiated by the Holy Spirit, who is seen as a bond of unity. I shall study how the notion of the Father in the Son and the Son in the Father relates to the parallel statements in John 14:10, that Christ is in the disciples (and all believers) and these are in Christ – what I will call an ‘expansive’ notion of dynamic unity – and John 17:21, that just as the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, so the disciples and all believers too should become ‘one’ in the Father and the Son. Here, as I shall argue, Middle and Neoplatonic henology comes to the fore as a possible background and interpretive lens at the same time. I shall show how Origen joined it to the unifying force of charity-love (agape), in turn a central theme in John, and how Evagrius, performing his exegesis of these verses, interpreted henosis. A coda will explore the corollary of the Divinity ‘all in all’, which is not only a central tenet of Origen’s theology, but also of that of Proclus. It will be pointed out how this concept relates to the issue of the dynamic unity within the divine. (shrink)

The present dissertation consists of a developmental account of the problem of the ontological status of individuality as manifested initially in the metaphysical thought of Aristotle and subsequently developed by Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Francis Suarez. ;The philosophical context for the problem of individuality's ontological status is set by the theme, prominent in Greek philosophy, of unity as a mark of what is most real and most perfect. The historical precedent for viewing individuality as fitting under this (...) theme, and thus as having ontological importance, is provided by Aristotle's doctrine of primary substance, which characterizes individuality as a type of unity that pertains to the most fundamental aspects of reality such as this man or this horse. Though this doctrine highlights the ontological primacy of individual entities, the specific issues of where individuality fits on the ontological map, and what role it plays in constituting substances, are discussed only indirectly by Aristotle. These matters remain mostly unaddressed until the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, in which individuality becomes a focal point of philosophical discussion due to the integration of Aristotelian metaphysical thought into Christian doctrine and the accompanying recognition of individuality as a topic of critical importance. ;The problem of individuality's ontological status can be summarized in terms of two questions. First, what kind of thing is individuality, i.e., where does it fit on the ontological map? Second, how is individuality related to the other metaphysical aspects of a thing, such as their form, common nature, etc.? Aquinas's treatment of this problem reveals strong roots in the Aristotelian doctrines of substance and of unity as a transcendental attribute of being. Scotus's account likewise is developed in the context of the aforementioned Aristotelian notions, but is more extensive than Aquinas's and more suggestive of individuality's importance given Scotus's identification of metaphysics as the science of the transcendentals and of individuality as a transcendental. Suarez's treatment of the ontological status of individuality builds upon these notions, synthesizing the insights of his predecessors to formulate an account that is more explicit, more precise, and in many ways more rigorous than his predecessors' accounts. (shrink)