Theoria versus Poesis: Neoplatonism and Trinitarian Difference in Aquinas,John Milbank,Jean-Luc Marion and John Zizioulas

The totality with which postmodern Christian theology asserts its right to proceed independently of philosophy is, in fact, philosophically situated and determined. Heidegger, primarily, defines theology's project by his narration of Western Fate in terms of onto-theology. Two trinitarian differences are required of theologians who understand theology's situation thus: the first, associated with the procession of the Logos, requires getting beyond philosophy; the second, associated with the Spirit, requires getting beyond theology to poesis. Following Heidegger transforms theology into poesis and praxis. Beginning from a criticism of Aquinas implicit in a contrast made by Milbank between true trinitarian differential ontology and that possible from within Aristotelian categories like potency, act and actus purus , the paper considers what response might be made on behalf of medieval western philosophical theology and its development of trinitarian difference within theoria. The argument is that its union of Neoplatonic negative theology and metaphysics does not escape being onto-theology but does provide genuine trinitarian difference.     

On defining necessity in terms of entailment

In their book Entailment, Anderson and Belnap investigate the consequences of defining Lp (it is necessary that p) in system E as (pp)p. Since not all theorems are equivalent in E, this raises the question of whether there are reasonable alternative definitions of necessity in E. In this paper, it is shown that a definition of necessity in E satisfies the conditions { _E Lpp, _EL(pq)(LpLq), _E pLp} if and only if its has the form C ₁.C₂ .... C_np, where each C _iis equivalent in E to either pp or ((pp)p)p.     

Whose Metaphysics of Presence? Heidegger's Interpretation of Energeia and Dunamis in Aristotle

In the recently published 1924 course, Grundbegriffe der aristotelischen Philosophie, Martin Heidegger offers a detailed interpretation of Aristotle's definition of kinesis in the Physics. This interpretation identifies entelecheia with what is finished and present‐at‐an‐end and energeia with being‐at‐work toward this end. In arguing against this interpretation, the present paper attempts to show that Aristotle interpreted being from the perspective of praxis rather than poiesis and therefore did not identify it with static presence. The paper also challenges later variations of Heidegger's interpretation, in particular his account of dunamis in the 1931 course on Metaphysics Theta, which insists that its mode of being is presence‐at‐hand. By arguing that this reading too is untenable, the paper concludes that Aristotle's metaphysics is not a metaphysics of presence and that his texts instead point toward a possibility of metaphysics ignored by the attempts of Heidegger and others to overcome it.     

II. Introduction to a reappraisal of fear and trembling 1

The idea of a knighthood of faith which involves a ‘teleological suspension of the ethical‘ is the most arresting feature of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. It amounts to a theological shock treatment. It is therefore understandable that critics and commentators who have discussed Fear and Trembling have focused their attention almost exclusively on this extreme notion of faith. Their preoccupation has been unfortunate, however.     

Appearances,antirealism, and Aristotle

Summary Nussbaum misconstrues the difference between Plato and Aristotle over what is real for a debate over a conception of truth. She seems to mistake Aristotle's arguments against Plato' version of realism as an argument against realism per se, though the texts do not permit such a reading. She claims Aristotle is convinced that realism involves a fatal failure of reference, yet she produces not a single text where Aristotle is even remotely concerned about such a failure of reference given the commitments of realism. And nowhere is the crucial question of the relationship between Aristotle's antirealism and his method of appearances explicitly addressed or resolved.Nussbaum offers us a fashionable Aristotle. I have argued that, far from being attractive and obviously right on a deep and recent metaphysuical debate, Nussbaum's Aristotle is confused and inconsistent and thus that it is a good thing the texts do not support such a characterization.     

Examining how and why to Engage Practitioners from across the Learning Landscape in the Research Enterprise: Proposal for <Emphasis Type="Italic">Phronêtic</Emphasis> Research on Education

Educational practitioners are often reluctant, if not actively resistant, to their participation in production and consumption of educational research. Based on my research experience with educational practitioners, I try to deconstruct this phenomenon using dialogic Bakhtinian and Aristotelian sociocultural frameworks. I consider two major related breakdowns in the educational practice: 1) a lack of self-correcting process in the educational practice, while reliance on accountability policy to achieve the practice quality, and 2) a breakdown between educational research and educational practice. I argue that the first breakdown is caused by viewing teaching as poiesis, aiming at preset curricular endpoints, and not as praxis, critically defining its own values, goals, and virtues. As to the second breakdown, I argue that current mainstream and even innovative research is defined through the technê and epistêmê ways of knowing, which correspond to a poiesic vision of educational practice. I suggest that educational practice primarily involves the phronêtic and sophic ways of knowing, which correspond to a praxis vision of educational practice. I describe phronêtic research of teaching through a case of my students, preservice teachers, working on revisions of their lessons that they conducted at an urban afterschool program. Finally, I consider recommendations for institutional support for phronêtic research on teaching.     

Possession as role-taking

The paper discusses the psychological function of mythical roles in the genesis and maintenance of the possessional experience. The Devil as a personification of the evil provides a role which is possible to recognize and even interiorize. Theemotional psychological dynamics interacts with thecognitive content provided by the religious world-view. A case is analyzed and related to prior scientific studies in the field bordering psychopathology and pastoral experience.     

Toward a model for spirituality and alcoholism

Spirituality is a significant factor in recovery from alcoholism, whatever definition of this condition one may use. One aspect of alcohol abuse is its apparent relationship to the balance between brain hemispheres. Excessive use of alcohol anesthetizes the object-based, language-oriented functions of the left hemisphere, associated with an action mode of consciousness. This allows greater engagement of the right-hemisphere receptive mode, which is also associated with religious experience. A model of spirituality based on achieving a balance between hemisphere functions and modes of consciousness could provide a non-chemical alternative to excessive use of alcohol.     

Two conceptions of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics

It is nearly universally agreed among commentators that according to Aristotle's account of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics (NE), only voluntary actions are blameworthy. I argue for a qualified rejection of this assumption: some actions that Aristotle counts as blameworthy do not meet the criteria for voluntariness set out in NE 3.1. However, in NE 3.5 and elsewhere, one finds a broader conception of voluntary action, and it is true that, for Aristotle, an action must be voluntary on this broader conception in order to be blameworthy. While the narrow conception only counts actions that are under the agent's direct control as voluntary, the broader conception includes also actions that are under the agent's indirect control. The compresence of these two conceptions in the NE is not simply a matter of sloppiness on Aristotle's part. Rather, he has good philosophical reasons for employing both.     

Evolutionary Biology and Classical Teleological Arguments for God's Existence

Much has been made of how Darwinian thinking destroyed proofs for the existence of God from ‘design’ in the universe. I challenge that prevailing view by looking closely at classical ‘teleological’ arguments for the existence of God. One version championed by Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas stems from how chance is not a sufficient kind of ultimate explanation of the universe. In the course of constructing this argument, I argue that the classical understanding of teleology is no less necessary in modern Darwinian biology than it was in Aristotle's time. In fact, modern biology strengthens the claims that teleological arguments make by vindicating many of their key features. As a consequence, I show how Aristotle and Aquinas' teleological argument for an intelligent First Cause remains valid.     

Once More into the Breach of Self-Ownership: Reply to Narveson and Brenkert

In reply to Narveson, I distinguish his no-proviso argument from his liberty argument, and I show that both fail. I also argue that interference lacks the strategic status he assigns to it, because it cannot be appropriately distinguished, conceptually and morally, from prevention; that natural resources do enjoy the importance he denies they have; that laissez-faire economies lack the superiority he attributes to them; that ownership can indeed be a reflexive relation; that anti-paternalism does not entail libertarianism; and that he misrepresents the doctrines of a number of philosophers, including John Locke, Ronald Dworkin, and myself. In reply to Brenkert, I show that he seriously misconstrues my view of the nature of freedom, and of its relationship to self-ownership. I then refute his criticisms of my treatment of the contrasts between self-ownership, on the one hand, and autonomy and non-slavery, on the other. I also show that his attempt to exorcize the demon of self-ownership is multiply flawed.     

Distributive justice in Aristotle's ethics and politics

Conclusion The symbolism introduced earlier provides a convenient vehicle for examining the status and consistency of Aristotle's three diverse justifications and for explaining how he means to avoid Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism.When the variables x and y are allowed to range over the groups of free men in a given polis as well as over individual free men, the formula for the Aristotelian conception of justice expresses the major premiss of Aristotle's three justifications: (1) (_x)(_y) (P(x)·W(x)/P(y)·W(y)=V(T(x))/V(T(y)))Democracy is justified by adding a minor premiss to the effect that as a group the many (m) are superior (>) in virtue and wealth to the few best men (f): ⁸⁵ (2_d) (P(m) · W(m)) > (P(f) · W(f)) (3_d) V(T(m))>V(T(f))Absolute kingship is justified when a godlike man (g) appears in a polis who is incommensurably superior () in virtue and wealth to all the remaining free men (r): (2_k) (P(g) · W(g)) (P(r) · W(r)) (3_k) V(T(g)) V(T(r))True aristocracy requires a more complex justification, which was symbolized in Section 4.These justifications are compatible with each other since they apply to different situations. The polises where democracy and true aristocracy are justified contain no godlike men, and the polis in which democracy is justified differs from that in which true aristocracy is justified in containing a large group of free men who individually have little virtue (Pol. III.11.1281b23-25, 1282a25-26).Each of the justifications is a valid deductive argument. Aristotle affirms the major premiss they share on the basis of a twofold appeal to nature. The principle of distributive justice, the concept as distinguished from the various conceptions of distributive justice, is itself according to nature (Pol. VII.3.1325b7-10) and so too is one particular standard of worth, the standard of the best polis. Consequently, the question of the status of these three justifications, whether they are purely hypothetical or not, is a question about the minor premiss or premisses of each.In the case of the democratic premiss Aristotle's answer is straightforward: it is sometimes but not always true (Pol. III.11.1281bl5-21). Hence the justification of democracy is not purely hypothetical. Nor is the justification of absolute kingship. The man who is like a god among men (Pol. III.13.1284a10-11) would be a man of heroic virtue (see VII.14.1332bl6-27); and such a man, Aristotle says, is rare (ávo) (not nonexistent) (E.N. VII.1.1145a27-28).The minor premisses of the aristocratic argument describe a situation where all of the free men in a given polis have sufficient wealth for the exercise of the moral and intellectual virtues and where all of the older free men of the polis are men of practical wisdom. In the Politics Aristotle makes only the modest claim that such a situation is possible: It is not possible for the best constitution to come into being without appropriate equipment [that is, the appropriate quality and quantity of territory and of citizens and noncitizens]. Hence one must presuppose many things as one would wish them to be, though none of them must be impossible (Pol. VII.4.1325b37-38; see also II.6.1265al7-18). But Aristotle appears to subscribe to the principle that every possibility is realized at some moment of time (Top. 11.11.115bl7-18, Met. .4.1047b3-6, N.2.1088b23-25). This principle together with the claim that the situation described is possible entails that the situation sometimes occurs. Thus even Aristotle's justification of true aristocracy is not purely hypothetical.The final question is Aristotle's way of avoiding Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. The relativist, along with everyone else (E.N. V.3.1131a13-14, Pol. III.12.1282bl8), can accept the principle of distributive justice: Q(x)/Q(y) = V(T(x))/V(T(y)) And he can concede that particular instances of this principle, particular conceptions of justice, accurately describe the modes of distributing political authority that appear just to particular polises and to particular philosophers. What he denies is that there is any basis for ranking these various conceptions of justice or for singling one out as the best (Plato, Theaet. 172A-B). Aristotle, following in Plato's track (Laws X.888D7-890D8), maintains against the relativist that nature provides such a basis. But he departs from Plato in his conception of nature. For Plato the just by nature (ó o}) (Rep. VI.501B2) is the Form of justice, an incorporeal entity (Phdo. 65D4-5, Soph. 246B8) that exists beyond time and space (Tim. 37C6-38C3, 51E6-52B2), whereas for Aristotle the sensible world is the realm of nature (Met. A.1.1069a30-b2). Thus in appealing to nature Aristotle does not appeal to a transcendent standard. Nor does he appeal to his main criterion of the natural, namely, happening always or for the most part. Aristotle's theory of justice is anchored to nature by means of the polis described in Politics VII and VIII, and he regards this polis as natural because it fosters the true end of human life and because its social and political structure reflects the natural hierarchy of human beings and the natural stages of life. Thus the nature that Aristotle's theory of justice is ultimately founded on is human nature.     

The Pragma-Dialectical Analysis and Evaluation of Teleological Argumentation in a Legal Context

In this article the author develops a framework for a pragma-dialectical reconstruction of teleological argumentation in a legal context. Ideas taken from legal theory are integrated in a pragma-dialectical model for analyzing and evaluating argumentation, thus providing a more systematic and elaborate framework for assessing the quality of teleological arguments in a legal context. Teleological argumentation in a legal context is approached as a specific form of pragmatic argumentation. The legal criteria that are relevant for the evaluation of teleological argumentation are discussed and translated in terms of critical questions that are relevant for the evaluation of the various forms of teleological argumentation.

James Hillman: Toward a poetic psychology

InThe Dream and the Underworld James Hillman continues to deepen and to refine Jung's recovery of the spontaneous image-making of the soul. Hillman's contribution lies in his imaginai reduction-relating of images to their archetypal background in Greek mythology. Myth is seen as the maker of the psyche, and, in turn, the soul-making ispoesis-a return to the imaginal and poetic basis of consciousness. Dreams, understood poetically, are neither messages to be deciphered and used for the benefit of the rational ego (Freud) nor compensatory to the ego (Jung); they are complete in themselves and must be allowed to speak for themselves. Hillman also sees dreams as initiations into the underworld of death-the other side of life where our imaginal substance is unobstructed by the literal and dualistic standpoints of the dayworld.The author ofImagination is Reality: Western Nirvana in Jung, Hillman, Barfield and Cassirer(Spring Publications, Inc.: University of Dallas, Irving, Texas, 1980)     

Question-begging and infinite regress

InMetaphysics , Ch. 4, Aristotle speaks of both infinite regress and question-begging, but does not explicitly relate them. We get the impression that he thinks that to use one of these arguments to avoid the other is to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. This relationship is illustrated in terms of the ignorant belief that everything can be proved, and of attempts to prove the Law of Noncontradiction.     

Marx,technocracy, and the corporatist ethos

Communism, in Marx' mind, did not mean simple liberation, but the economics of liberation. The realm of necessity (technē) was to become the primary field for emancipation (praxis), the latter taking form in new institutions, responsive to real socio-economic needs. In this sense, the problem of technocracy and the corporatist ethos in Marx are part of a broader discursive structure, which links the experiences of workers through the industrial revolution with the philosophies ofpraxis as they reach from Hegel through Marković.