Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671

Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671

Author: Robert Pasnau

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-02-07

Total Pages: 811

ISBN-13: 0191501794

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Robert Pasnau traces the developments of metaphysical thinking through four rich but for the most part neglected centuries of philosophy, running from the thirteenth century through to the seventeenth. At no period in the history of philosophy, other than perhaps our own, have metaphysical problems received the sort of sustained attention they received during the later Middle Ages, and never has a whole philosophical tradition come crashing down as quickly and completely as did scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth century. The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century. Pasnau begins with the first challenges to the classical scholasticism of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, runs through prominent figures like John Duns Scotus and William Ockham, and ends in the seventeenth century, with the end of the first stage of developments in post-scholastic philosophy: on the continent, with Descartes and Gassendi, and in England, with Boyle and Locke.


After Certainty

After Certainty

Author: Robert Pasnau

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-11-10

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 0192521934

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No part of philosophy is as disconnected from its history as is epistemology. After Certainty offers a reconstruction of that history, understood as a series of changing expectations about the cognitive ideal that beings such as us might hope to achieve in a world such as this. The story begins with Aristotle and then looks at how his epistemic program was developed through later antiquity and into the Middle Ages, before being dramatically reformulated in the seventeenth century. In watching these debates unfold over the centuries, one sees why epistemology has traditionally been embedded within a much larger sphere of concerns about human nature and the reality of the world we live in. It ultimately becomes clear why epistemology today has become a much narrower and specialized field, concerned with the conditions under which it is true to say, that someone knows something. Based on a series of lectures given at Oxford University, Robert Pasnau's book ranges widely over the history of philosophy, and examines in some detail the rise of science as an autonomous discipline. Ultimately Pasnau argues that we may have no good reasons to suppose ourselves capable of achieving even the most minimal standards for knowledge, and the final chapter concludes with a discussion of faith and hope.


Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 4

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Volume 4

Author: Robert Pasnau

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 0198786360

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Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best new scholarly work on philosophy from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. OSMP combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness, and will be an essential resource for anyone working in the area.


Metaphysical Themes, Medieval and Modern (Volume 11

Metaphysical Themes, Medieval and Modern (Volume 11

Author: Alexander W. Hall

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 140

ISBN-13: 1443858587

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Metaphysical Themes, Medieval and Modern presents three sets of essays that engage the metaphysics of substance through a study of thought on this theme over the last eight centuries, shedding light on contemporary disputes as well as the history of thought leading into the modern era. Part I grows out of an author-meets-critics panel on Robert Pasnau’s Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671 (OUP, 2011). Pasnau’s rich study delves into the four centuries wherein later medieval thought gives way to the modern period. Andrew Arlig reflects on Pasnau’s discussion of holenmers, entities such as God and the human soul, that are thought to exist as wholes in more or less disparate things. Paul Symington, on the other hand, treats the substance ontology of Thomas Aquinas in particular through a reflection on Aquinas’s understanding of the ontological status of the various modes or accidents of Aristotelian substances. Part II, “Substance Ontology, Medieval and Modern”, transitions to contemporary substance ontology. Travis Dumsday canvasses the field of debate over what is the substratum of change, contending that the Aristotelian, hylomorphic account of substance that views substances as matter-form composites remains the most robust. Gyula Klima, while agreeing with Dumsday’s conclusion, strengthens his argument with reference to the development of this bundle of problems within the recent history of analytic philosophy. Dumsday concludes with reflections on the relevance of substance ontology to natural theology, which, in turn, is the theme of Part III, “The Natural Theology of Thomas Aquinas”, wherein Alexander Hall and Michael Sirilla consider how Aquinas’s understanding of the divine substance bears on the logic of demonstration in his natural theology, concluding that contemporary Radical Orthodoxy readings that have Aquinas forfeit demonstrative proof that God exists misconstrue him on this point.


Necessary Beings

Necessary Beings

Author: Bob Hale

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2013-09-19

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 0199669570

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Bob Hale presents a broadly Fregean approach to metaphysics, according to which ontology and modality are mutually dependent upon one another. He argues that facts about what kinds of things exist depend on facts about what is possible. Modal facts are fundamental, and have their basis in the essences of things—not in meanings or concepts.


John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism

John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism

Author: Thomas M. Ward

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9004278974

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In John Duns Scotus on Parts, Wholes, and Hylomorphism, Thomas M. Ward examines Scotus's arguments for his distinctive version of hylomorphism, the view that at least some material objects are composites of matter and form. It considers Scotus's reasons for adopting hylomorphism, and his accounts of how matter and form compose a substance, how extended parts, such as the organs of an organism, compose a substance, and how other sorts of things, such as the four chemical elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and all the things in the world, fail to compose a substance. It highlights the extent to which Scotus draws on his metaphysics of essential order to explain why some things can compose substance and why others cannot. Throughout the book, contemporary versions of hylomorphism are discussed in ways that both illumine Scotus's own views and suggest ways to advance contemporary debates.


Medieval Perceptual Puzzles

Medieval Perceptual Puzzles

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 407

ISBN-13: 9004413030

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In our daily lives, we are surrounded by all sorts of things – such as trees, cars, persons, or madeleines – and perception allows us access to them. But what does ‘to perceive’ actually mean? What is it that we perceive? How do we perceive? Do we perceive the same way animals do? Does reason play a role in perception? Such questions occur naturally today. But was it the same in the past, centuries ago? The collected volume tackles this issue by turning to the Latin philosophy of the 13th and 14th centuries. Did medieval thinkers raise the same, or similar, questions as we do with respect to perception? What answers did they provide? What arguments did they make for raising the questions they did, and for the answers they gave to them? The philosophers taken into consideration are, among others, Albert the Great, Roger Bacon, William of Auvergne, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, John Pecham, Richard Rufus, Peter Olivi, Robert Kilwardby, John Buridan, and Jean of Jandun. Contributors are Elena Băltuță, Daniel De Haan, Martin Klein, Andrew LaZella, Lukáš Lička, Mattia Mantovani, André Martin, Dominik Perler, Paolo Rubini, José Filipe Silva, Juhana Toivanen, and Rega Wood.


Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy

Author: Robert Pasnau

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0198718462

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Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. OSMP is an essential resource for anyone working in the area.


Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy Volume 7

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy Volume 7

Author: Robert Pasnau

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0198845510

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Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best new scholarly work on philosophy from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. OSMP combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness, and will be an essential resource for anyone working in the area.


Locke's Image of the World

Locke's Image of the World

Author: Michael Jacovides

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0198789866

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Michael Jacovides provides an engaging account of how the scientific revolution influenced one of the foremost figures of early modern philosophy, John Locke. By placing Locke's thought in its scientific, religious, and anti-scholastic contexts, Jacovides explains not only what Locke believes but also why he believes it.