Oneness, Essence, and Self-Identity

Oneness, Essence, and Self-Identity PDF

Author: Damien Janos

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2024-07-22

Total Pages: 453

ISBN-13: 3111390020

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In how many ways can things be said to be one, how is oneness itself to be defined, and what is its relation to essence and existence? This book engages with these core questions by examining the works of Avicenna (d. 1037 CE), who is widely regarded as the most important philosopher of the Arabic tradition. In this monograph - the first that is exclusively devoted to Avicenna’s henology and to Arabic henology in general - the author analyzes the place and meaning of oneness in Avicenna’s general metaphysics and theology and devotes particular attention to how this notion relates to Avicenna’s theory of quiddity. He contextualizes Avicenna’s doctrines in light of three major intellectual currents (ancient Greek philosophy, early Arabic philosophy, and Islamic theology or kalām) and also offers the first detailed analysis of oneness in the Bahshamite tradition. The book challenges the prevailing interpretation of Avicenna’s henology and adduces new textual evidence to show that Avicenna developed an innovative theory of oneness that expresses the essential reality and self-identity of a thing. This foundational sense of oneness is applied to all the pure quiddities and, in an eminent and prior way, to God.

The Metaphysics

The Metaphysics PDF

Author: Aristotle

Publisher: Penguin UK

Published: 2004-05-27

Total Pages: 546

ISBN-13: 0141912014

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The Metaphysics presents Aristotle's mature rejection of both the Platonic theory that what we perceive is just a pale reflection of reality and the hardheaded view that all processes are ultimately material. He argued instead that the reality or substance of things lies in their concrete forms, and in so doing he probed some of the deepest questions of philosophy: What is existence? How is change possible? And are there certain things that must exist for anything else to exist at all? The seminal notions discussed in The Metaphysics - of 'substance' and associated concepts of matter and form, essence and accident, potentiality and actuality - have had a profound and enduring influence, and laid the foundations for one of the central branches of Western philosophy.

Aristotle: Metaphysics Theta

Aristotle: Metaphysics Theta PDF

Author: Aristotle

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2006-08-31

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 0198751079

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"This addition to the Clarendon Aristotle series comprises a new translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics Book [Theta], an introduction to the basic notions and problems around which the book is structured, and a detailed chapter-by-chapter critical commentary. Makin's aim throughout is to present Aristotle's text in as accessible a manner as possible, and to encourage and enable readers to engage critically with Aristotle's arguments. Metaphysics Book [Theta] is an extended discussion of the distinction between the actual and the potential, a distinction which is important both for Aristotle's own thought and for later philosophers. Aristotle starts by considering the relation between capacities and changes, and then expands his discussion to cover the notions of matter and substance, which are at the heart of his ontology. Among the topics covered in detail in the commentary are the distinctions between two-way and one-way capacities, and between rational and non-rational capacities; arguments against reductive views of possibility and impossibility; Aristotle's treatment of capacity identity and his account of the exercise of capacities; Aristotle's answer to the question 'what is it to be potentially such and such?'; his defence of the idea that actuality is prior in various ways to potentiality; and his brief comments on the evaluation of potentialities and actualities, the role of the actual-potential distinction in geometrical knowledge, and his treatment of truth and falsity." --Book Jacket.

John Duns Scotus

John Duns Scotus PDF

Author: Etienne Gilson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-12-27

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 0567678695

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Étienne Gilson's Jean Duns Scot: Introduction À Ses Positions Fondamentales is widely understood to be one of the most important works on John Duns Scotus' texts, famous for their complexity. James Colbert's translation is the first time that Gilson's work on Scotus has been put into English, with an introduction by Trent Pomplun and an afterword by John Millbank. Scotus contributed to the development of a metaphysical system that was compatible with Christian doctrine, an epistemology that altered the 13th century understanding of human knowledge, and a theology that stressed both divine and human will. Gilson, in turn, offers a thoroughly comprehensive introduction to the fundamental positions that Scotus stood for. Explaining Scotus's views on metaphysics, the existence of infinite being and divine nature, the matter of the physical spiritual and angelic, intellectual knowledge and will and Scotus' relationship with other scholars, Gilson and Colbert show how deeply Scotus left a mark on discussions of such disparate topics as the semantics of religious language, the problem of universals, divine illumination, and the nature of human freedom. This work has been translated from the original work in French Jean Duns Scot. Introduction à ses positions fondamentales (© 1952 by Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin).

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