Abstract
The paper aims to show that Philoponus' theory of sense-perception does not fit in with the spiritualist claim that the sensory process does not involve an extra material change in the ...sense-organ. Both the specific sense-organs (like the vitreous liquid and choroid or corneal membrane in the eyes) and the primary sense-organ (like the optic pneuma) contract or expand in the perceptual process. On the other hand, the literalist claim needs to be modified as well since only the tactile sense-organ (flesh) takes on the relevant qualities. Contraction or expansion in the sense-organ is triggered, not by physical changes in the medium, but by the formal activities arising from the perceptible objects: colours make the visual sense-organ contract or expand. At the level of sense-organs, the physiological process underlying sense-perception has three stages. The change in specific sense-organ will be transmitted to the primary sense-organ of the particular sense (optic/acoustic pneuma), and then reaches the common sense-organ, the pneuma. The primary sense-organs are spatially distinguishable parts of the common sense-organ which is otherwise homogeneous, not allowing for qualitative differences. The homogeneity of the pneuma establishes the unity of sense-perception at the level of physiological processes.
The author presents a case study of her work with a female client. She chooses two periods of time in the therapy to explore the unconscious intersubjective nature of the clinical encounter. In part ...one she describes how an enactment leads to an impasse. Using the theory of the third, she describes how the impasse is resolved, which paves the way for the deeper therapeutic process described in part two. There she shows how previously dissociated traumatic states in both client and therapist are brought into conscious awareness. The theoretical focus is on theories of enactment, thirds, the use of imagination, reverie, and paradigms of the mind.
In a new retelling of the romantic rationalist adventure of ideas that is Hegel's classic The Phenomenology of Spirit, Robert Brandom argues that when our self-conscious recognitive attitudes take ...Hegel's radical form of magnanimity and trust, we can overcome a troubled modernity and enter a new age of spirit.
In this deep rethinking of Aristotle's work, Abraham P. Bos argues that scholarship on Aristotle's philosophy has erred since antiquity in denying the connection between his theology and his doctrine ...of reproduction and life in the earthly sphere. Beginning with an analysis of God's role in the Aristotelian system, Bos explores how this relates to other elements of his philosophy, especially to his theory of reproduction. The argument he develops is that in talking about the cosmos, Aristotle rejected Plato's metaphor of artisanal production by a divine Demiurge in favor of a biotic metaphor based on the transmission of life in reproduction, in which pneuma —not breath as it is often interpreted but the life-bearing spirit in animals and plants—plays a key and sustaining role as the vital principle in all that lives. In making this case, he defends the authenticity of the treatises De Mundo and De Spiritu as Aristotle's, and demonstrates Aristotle's works as a unified system that sharply and comprehensively refutes Plato's, and in particular replaces Plato's doctrine of the soul with a theory in which the soul is clearly distinguished from the intellect.
Christians look with hope to the resurrection of the dead and the restoration of all things. But what of those who have already died? Do they also await these things, or have they in some sense ...already happened for them? Within the Catholic theological community, this question has traditionally been answered in terms of the disembodied souls of human beings awaiting bodily resurrection. Since the 1960s, Catholic theologians have proposed two alternatives: resurrection at death into the Last Day and the consummation of all things, or resurrection in death into an interim state in which the embodied dead await, with us, the final consummation of all things. This book critically examines the Scriptural, philosophical and theological reasons for these alternatives and, on the basis of this analysis, offers an account of the traditional schema which makes clear that in spite of these challenges it remains the preferable option.
En este artículo el autor ofrece una interpretación de la presencia de Galeno en la obra del humanista y médico italiano Girolamo Cardano (1501-1576) a través de una análisis de su libro De ...immortalitate animorum (1545), en donde Galeno juega un doble papel, por un lado como objeto de un examen crítico, y por otro lado, como un muy influyente modelo teórico y literario.
Self and Soul Edmundson, Mark
2015, 2015-09-01
eBook
In a culture of the Self that has become progressively more skeptical and materialistic, we spare little thought for the great ideals--courage, contemplation, and compassion--that once gave life ...meaning. Here, Mark Edmundson makes an impassioned attempt to defend the value of these ancient ideals and to resurrect Soul in the modern world.
The City-State of the Soul: Self-Constitution in Plato's Republic offers a reinterpretation of Plato's philosophical masterpiece, which presents the moral life as consisting, most deeply, in the ...constituting or "founding" of one's own soul. Plato wants to persuade the brightest and most ambitious that the life of justice and, in particular, of just governance puts their talents and ambitions to their best possible use.
If humans are not capable of immortality, then eschatological doctrines of heaven and hell make little sense. On that Christians agree. But not all Christians agree on whether humans are essentially ...immortal. Some hold that the early church was right to borrow from the ancient Greek philosophers and to bring their sense of immortality to bear on the interpretation of biblical passages about the afterlife. Others, however, suggest that we are inherently mortal, and only conditionally immortal. This latter view is usually associated with an annihilationist interpretation of the doctrine of hell and a rejection of eternal torment. In a philosophical analysis and argument, McLeod-Harrison proposes that humans are, indeed, immortal, but not essentially so. But neither are we immortal accidentally or conditionally. Instead, immortality is an enduring property--a property we cannot lose once created. McLeod-Harrison carefully delineates the sense of immortality he defends and provides a broadly Christian philosophical argument for it. The argument, if correct, leaves the recent suggestion that the unredeemed are annihilated on unsteady metaphysical feet. However, McLeod-Harrison does not defend eternal conscious punishment for the unredeemed, but suggests some ways to think about the possibility of a universal salvation.