Metaphysics As Mediating Dialogue
Metaphysics As Mediating Dialogue

Author: OLIVA. BLANCHETTE

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2023-08-18

Total Pages: 151

ISBN-13: 0813237211

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Metaphysics is not often spoken of as a venue for dialogue about anything, let alone culture or religion, which are more readily associated with phenomenology or hermeneutics in contemporary thinking. This collection of essays, however, by the late Boston College philosopher Oliva Blanchette, maintains the absolute necessity of metaphysics as a prerequisite for examining any particular 'realm of being,' in all areas of human inquiry, from the particular sciences to historical cultures and religions. Blanchette proposes metaphysics as a fundamental and necessary level of intelligence presupposed in any exercise of judgment, discourse, or dialogue, among rational beings. At the same time, he defends the idea that dialogue is the first and most fundamental form in which such reasoning takes place in human experience, on a radically intersubjective level through language. Metaphysics is not an abstraction removed from human experience. Rather, it is a science in its own right defining itself in relation to 'being as being', its subject matter, as it depends on all the particular sciences and bodies of knowledge. Firmly standing on the ground of human experience, and on the human person as primary analogate of being, it opens up an entire realm of questioning that the particular sciences and bodies of knowledge, operating in functional separation, cannot pose on their own, especially when they take, in a reductionist fashion, their own object to be the prime analogate. Metaphysics, in fact, insinuates itself into each and every particular science in exploring its own subject matter of 'being as being' in the analogical sense, advancing to more and more complex stages of analogy through dialogue among different spirits and cultures, and reaching its terminus in the transcendent aspect of spirit and religion. In this sense, metaphysics has much to say to theologians: without metaphysics, theology reduces to mere superstition.

A Contemporary Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics
A Contemporary Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics

Author: Michael Gorman

Publisher: CUA Press

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 0813237335

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A Contemporary Introduction to Metaphysics provides the reader with an introductory presentation of key themes in Thomistic metaphysics. There are many such books, but this one is, to use a phrase Michael Gorman has adopted, "analytic-facing," i.e., it presents things in dialogue with analytic philosophy. Sometimes that means disagreeing with analytic proposals (for example, possible worlds), and sometimes it means agreeing with them (for instance, making ample use of Ryle's notion of "systematically misleading expressions"). What's more, it (gently) takes a somewhat deflationary attitude towards many things metaphysicians like to talk about, such as accidents, universals, and the like. By "deflationary" Gorman means that such items are taken seriously, but their ontological status is taken down a notch: features, universals, possible worlds, and other such things are understood in terms of what substances are. Substances are "basic beings," and other things are what they are only in relation to substances. Of course this is Aristotle 101, but metaphysicians, Aristotelians included, often slip into treating non-substances as mini-substances, and Gorman pushes back against this throughout. A Contemporary Introduction to Thomistic Metaphysics begins by explaining what philosophy is, what metaphysics is, and how these relate to other kinds of thinking. It then moves through a series of topics, ending with a brief look at applications of metaphysical thinking in theology.

Dialogue and Deconstruction
Dialogue and Deconstruction

Author: Diane P. Michelfelder

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1989-07-03

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 1438413009

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Before the encounter in 1981 between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jacques Derrida, there had been virtually no confrontation or dialogue between hermeneutics in Germany and post-structuralism in France, nor has there been since then. Part I of this book makes available for the first time in English the complete texts of the encounter at the Goethe Institute in Paris. This exchange raised such issues as Gadamer's relation to psychoanalytic interpretation, the questionability of texts, Heidegger's reading of Nietzsche, and the dialogical aspect of language. Part II offers further reflections by Gadamer on the encounter itself and its relation of hermeneutics to deconstruction. Among the issues covered are Derrida's interpretation of "Destruktion" in Heidegger, Derrida's attack on logocentrism in Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche, and the relation of Heidegger, hermeneutics, and deconstruction to dialectic. Part III offers commentaries on the encounter from a variety of perspectives. The authors assess the original encounter as well as Gadamer's subsequent reflections on it.

Dialogues on Metaphysics
Dialogues on Metaphysics

Author: Nicolas Malebranche

Publisher:

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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English and French texts of: Entretiens sur la m©♭taphysique & sur la religion.

Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics
Plato and the Foundations of Metaphysics

Author: Hans Joachim Krämer

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1990-01-01

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780791404331

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This is a book about the relationship of the two traditions of Platonic interpretation -- the indirect and the direct traditions, the written dialogues and the unwritten doctrines. Kramer, who is the foremost proponent of the Tubingen School of interpretation, presents the unwritten doctrines as the crown of Plato's system and the key revealing it. Kramer unfolds the philosophical significance of the unwritten doctrines in their fullness. He demonstrates the hermeneutic fruitfulness of the unwritten doctrines when applied to the dialogues. He shows that the doctrines are a revival of the presocratic theory renovated and brought to a new plane through Socrates. In this way, Plato emerges as the creator of classical metaphysics. In the Third Part, Kramer compares the structure of Platonism, as construed by the Tubingen School, with current philosophical structures such as analytic philosophy, Hegel, phenomenology, and Heidegger. Of the five appendices, the most important presents English translations of the ancient testimonies on the unwritten doctrines. These include the "self-testimonies of Plato." There is also a bibliography on the problem of the unwritten doctrines.

The Philosophical Basis of Inter-religious Dialogue
The Philosophical Basis of Inter-religious Dialogue

Author: Mirosław Patalon

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2008-12-18

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 1443802808

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In the present epoch of tensions between civilizations, challenges being brought by globalization processes and the necessity of the coexistence of various cultures and traditions, the subject of inter-religious dialogue seems to be particularly significant. Can religions remain isolated islands? Are their claims of being the only source of theological truth justified? Or should it rather be understood as an effect of interaction between different points of view and common effort of looking for the answers to the questions about God and his relations to the world? What is the role of dialogue? Is it only a politically correct element or maybe something more essential – the basis of reasonable existence and development of religion? Should the direction traced by 20th century's partisans of ecumenical movements be widened in order to embrace also non Christian religions? What is the orthodoxy and where are its boundaries? The process philosophy creates a convenient and favorable atmosphere for this kind of considerations. The articles of this selection represent different points of view of the discussed topic. The book is addressed to all who deal with the inter-religious dialogue: both clergy and laymen as well as scholars and students interested in the subject.

On the Good Life
On the Good Life

Author: Cristina Ionescu

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2019-06-14

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 143847508X

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Plato's Philebus continues to fascinate us with its reflections on what it means to live a good life by aiming at the right combination of pleasure and knowledge. In this book, Cristina Ionescu argues that mediation is a central theme in the dialogue. Whether we talk about mediating between distinct ontological levels, between steps of reasoning, between pleasure and knowledge, between distinct types of pleasure, or between concrete circumstances and ideals, the steps in between remain essential to a good life. Focusing on ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical aspects of the dialogue, Ionescu occasionally steps beyond the letter of the text, while remaining faithful to its spirit, as she tries to illuminate what is only hinted at.

Ernan McMullin and Critical Realism in the Science-Theology Dialogue
Ernan McMullin and Critical Realism in the Science-Theology Dialogue

Author: Paul L. Allen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-05-13

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1317141768

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Scientists, philosophers and theologians have wrestled repeatedly with the question of whether knowledge is similar or different in their various understandings of the world and God. Although agreement is still elusive, the epistemology of critical realism, associated with Ian Barbour, John Polkinghorne and Arthur Peacocke, remains widely credible. Relying on the lifetime work of philosopher Ernan McMullin, this book expands our understanding of critical realism beyond a permanent stand-off between the subjective and objective, whether in science or theology. Critical realism illuminates the subject and the objectively known simultaneously. Responding to criticisms made against it, this book defends critical realism in science and theology with a specific role to play in our understanding of God.