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Seeking what he describes as "the utmost limit of the knowledge our natural reason can achieve . . . concerning the True Existence [that is God]," John Duns Scotus (1265–1308) offers in this treatise one of philosophy’s most rigorous and ambitious attempts to deduce God’s existence from purely metaphysical theorems. As elucidated by its concise philosophical commentary, Thomas M. Ward's new translation of the Treatise on the First Principle puts a masterpiece of natural theology within reach of a new generation of English-reading students of philosophy.
The ಜNew Atheistsಝ are pulling no punches. If the world of nature needs a designer, they ask, then why wouldn't the designer itself need a designer, too? Or if it can exist without any designer behind it, then why can't we just say the same for the universe and wash our hands of a designer altogether? Interweaving its pursuit of the First Cause with personal stories and humor, this ground-breaking book takes a fresh approach to ultimate questions. While attentive to empirical science, it builds its case not on authoritative pronouncements of experts that readers must take on faith, but instead on a nuanced understanding of universal principles implicit in everyone's experience. Here is essential reading for all people who care about contemplating God, not exclusively as a best-explanation for the findings of science, but also as the surprising-yet-inevitable implication of our commonsense contact with reality. Augros harnesses such intellects as Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas, ushering into the light a wealth of powerful inferences that have hitherto received little or no public exposure. The result is an easygoing yet extraordinary journey, beginning from the world as we all encounter it and ending in the divine mind.
Aristotle's reliance on dialectic as a method of philosophy appears to conflict with his metaphysical realist view of his conclusions. This book explores Aristotle's philosophical method and the merits of his conclusions, and shows how he defends dialectic against the objection that it cannot justify a metaphysical realist's claims. The author does not presuppose extensive previous acquaintance with Aristotle. Greek texts are translated, and Greek words transliterated.
How can we think about maths, despite the immateriality of numbers, sets, and other mathematical entities? How are we able to think about what might have happened if history had taken a different turn? Questions like these turn up in nearly every part of cognitive science and are central to our human position of having limited knowledge of what is true.
Adherents of originalism often present it as a theory that constrains legal decision-making in a clear and objective manner that is based on the text and original meaning of the Constitution, in contrast to the supposedly subjective and “activist” jurisprudence of those who promote a living Constitution. But originalists have not had the same views on constitutional issues, calling into question the theory of originalism. Limits of Constraint examines the originalist jurisprudence of Hugo Black, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas, showing that three of the Court’s originalists have arrived at different conclusions in many constitutional areas. While the starkest contrast is between Justice Black and Justices Scalia and Thomas, even the latter two justices have disagreed on several key issues, including executive power and the administrative state. James Staab shows that originalism in actual practice does not deliver on its promise of an objective jurisprudence free of personal philosophy and discretion. Rather than rehash theoretical debates about the merits of originalism, Limits of Constraint examines originalism in operation by focusing on the judicial opinions of three prominent Supreme Court originalists: Hugo Black, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas. If the analysis of this book is correct—that is, the results reached by Justices Black, Scalia, and Thomas are divergent across a wide array of constitutional areas—then originalism promises more than it can deliver. One of the fundamental claims made by originalists is that their theory of constitutional interpretation limits judicial discretion, but originalism does not constrain judicial behavior as much as its defenders claim.
Contents: Preface. - Introduction. - Science as a caricature of reality. - Three methodological revolutions. - The method of idealization. - Explanations and applications. - Truth and idealization. - A generalization of idealization. - References.
"Aristotle versus Plato. For a long time that is the angle from which the tale has been told, in textbooks on the history of philosophy and to university students. Aristotle's philosophy, so the story goes, was au fond in opposition to Plato's. But it was not always thus."—from the Introduction In a wide-ranging book likely to cause controversy, Lloyd P. Gerson sets out the case for the "harmony" of Platonism and Aristotelianism, the standard view in late antiquity. He aims to show that the twentieth-century view that Aristotle started out as a Platonist and ended up as an anti-Platonist is seriously flawed. Gerson examines the Neoplatonic commentators on Aristotle based on their principle of harmony. In considering ancient studies of Aristotle's Categories, Physics, De Anima, Metaphysics, and Nicomachean Ethics, the author shows how the principle of harmony allows us to understand numerous texts that otherwise appear intractable. Gerson also explains how these "esoteric" treatises can be seen not to conflict with the early "exoteric" and admittedly Platonic dialogues of Aristotle. Aristotle and Other Platonists concludes with an assessment of some of the philosophical results of acknowledging harmony.