The paper deals with the metaphysics of Valerian Magni, a seventeenth-century Capuchin thinker and Church politician. It follows Stanislav Sousedik’s and Paul Richard Blum’s interpretations of Magni’s thought and aims to systematize Magni’s metaphysical notions and present their gradual development. The paper first focuses on Magni’s critique of Aristotelianism, which the Capuchin regards as an atheistic philosophy due to incorrect conceptions of God and the world. Then, Magni’s attempt to create a metaphysical system in his late work Opus philosophicum in (...) particular is presented. The influence of the Augustinian-Bonaventurian tradition and the subjectivist tendencies in Magni’s thought are taken into account. (shrink)

The article deals with the position of Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander sen. in the history of philosophy, history of science and philosophy of science. It works on humanistic foundation of Osiander’s thought and his elaboration of the tradition of the antient wisdom and Christian cabbala of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in particular in the biblical exegesis. The article deals with Osiander’s edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’ book De revolutionibus orbium caelestium as well and with his edition of the mathematical work of (...) Girolamo Cardano. In the context of philosophy of science Osiander’s foreword to Copernicus is analyzed and its role in the controversy between instrumentalism and realism is assessed. Osiander’s instrumentalism is viewed as an anachronism. Finally, the influence of Neoplatonism and Paracelsism in Osiander’s theology is analyzed and judged as too general. (shrink)

In July 1647 Valeriano Magni published in Warsaw a description of his experiment proving the existence of vacuum. His treatise called “Demonstratio ocularis, loci sine locato, corporis successive moti in vacuo, luminis nulli corpori inhaerentis” provoked a huge polemic, not only with the opponents of the void but also concerning the authorship of the experiment. The article deals with the circumstances of Magni’s experiment and the polemics with both scholars attacking Magni from the point of Aristotelianism and French scientists who (...) admitted the existence of the void but accused Magni of plagiarism, for experiments with vacuums had been performed by Torricelli and Pascal first. The attention is paid to the philosophical background of Magni’s experiments. (shrink)

Scholars dealing with Jessenius’ attitude towards Patrizi’s thoughts differ radically in their assessment of Jessenius’ intentions: Jessenius’ approach has been considered to be badly done plagiarism, a purely opportunistic act, an honest but not long-lasting fascination with Patrizi’s Platonism, or a correct understanding of Patrizi’s grasp of his own philosophy. The reason for the dissimilarities could be said to be the interpretation of the form of Jessenius’ reception of Francesco Patrizi’s philosophy is usually only based on an analysis of his (...) book Zoroaster, nova, brevis veraque de universo philosophia and on the reference to the particular historical context of its publication. This paper tries to present a different view of Jessenius’ edition of. (shrink)

This paper deals with the differences between the concept of the agent intellect in Thomas Aquinas and in the early Franciscan school with a focus on St. Bonaventure. While according to Aquinas the agent intellect is the faculty of the human soul, in the thought of Alexander of Hales, John of La Rochelle and St. Bonaventure it has a double or even a triple meaning. In the Franciscan Masters the agent intellect is simultaneously considered as a faculty of the human (...) soul but also as God himself and in John of La Rochelle as an angelic intelligence, too. This comparison could be useful in a new interpretation of the Condemnation of 1277 where the proposition on the separate agent intellect is also considered. It seems that the condemnation of this proposition 118 is in accord with the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas. What is actually being condemned here is the doctrine, partially held by the Franciscan friars, who are traditionally considered as initiators of the Condemnation. (shrink)

Johannes Jessenius published the treatise on Causes of Sympathy and Antipathy in 1599 which was defended by his student and disciple Daniel Sennert. This disquisition provides interesting material with respect to the concept of natural philosophy and its development in both Jessenius and Sennert. Although Jessenius proclaims that he deals with the question of sympathy and antipathy generally in the Aristotelian manner, he simultaneously indicates the inspiration and main source of his disquisition, these having been lectures held by the Paracelsian (...) Tycho de Brahe. Jessenius, with the help of a distinction between occult and manifest qualities, connected in his disquisition the principles of Aristotelian naturalism with the Paracelsian notion of correspondences between the higher and lower world. Sennert in his later works finds the theory of sympathy, based on analogies or on the doctrine of occult qualities, incompatible with Aristotelian scientific methodology and thereby implicitly demonstrates the inconsistencies in Jessenius's disquisition. (shrink)

The problem of method, which became one of the most oft-examined themes in Renaissance philosophy, is likewise the subject of Jan Jessenius' Et Philosophiae et Medicinae Solidae Studiosis. In the context of contemporary discussions which ended up distinguishing between methods of cognition and methods of presentation, it is shown that Jessenius does not avail himself of this distinction - despite the fact that he is considered a student of the Paduan school. On one hand, Jessenius does distance himself from a (...) rhetoricised form of logic which blurred the difference between method and the order of knowledge; on the other, he presents the method of attaining knowledge as a component part of the method of education. He understands logic, referring to Aristotle, mainly as an analytic art - not as dialectics. Analytics begin with induction, continues through the probabilistic syllogism, and is followed by a demonstration of the causes of things, thus drawing in essence from the progression of the demonstratio quia to the demonstratio propter quid, which the Paduan Aristotelians referred to as a regressus. According to Jessenius, however, the last phase of the whole process is definition, though its meaning is never precisely delimited. It appears that, rather than Paduan methodology, Jessenius took up the Aristotelian tradition which distinguishes four questions and associates different faculties of the human soul to each. He leaves aside the problems which were connected with the interpretation of Aristotle's texts during the Renaissance. In Jessenius' address, the question regarding whether scientific cognition is derived from first principles or first concepts remains unresolved. Johannes Jessenius thus appropriated the ideas of his Paduan teachers in a rather inconsistent manner and passed them on to his students in the same spirit, which bears witness to the level at which the methodology of science had been developed outside of its great centres at the turn of the 17th century. (shrink)

The physician and philosopher Johannes Jessenius, an enthusiastic anatomist in Wittenberg, often had to defend his anatomical practices against Lutheran orthodoxy, as is apparent from the invitations he wrote concerning his dissections. His most systematic defence can be found in the introduction to his description of the dissection performed in Prague in 1600, where he provides three different strategies for the justification of anatomical research. The first method traditionally builds on the use of the ancient dictum ‘know thyself;’ the second (...) strategy is based on teleology, which Jessenius adopted from Vesalius’ work; and the final method is derived from the philosophical tradition of the Renaissance. Jessenius makes use of the concept of the dignity of man in order to support the dignity of anatomical practice. The fundamental meaning of the philosophical framework of Jessenius’s approach emerges from the comparison with both Andreas Vesalius, whose Fabric was one model for Jessenius’s anatomical work, and with the speech delivered by Adamus Zaluzanius a Zaluzaniis prior to Jessenius’s Prague anatomical performance. (shrink)

This article summarises the basic features of Melanchthon’s approach to Aristotle’s philosophy in the areas of logic, ethics and natural philosophy. Although Melanchthon builds upon the humanistic ideal of purifying classical heritage, his Aristotelianism should not be viewed as ‘pure’. His conception of natural knowledge (notitiae naturales) could be regarded as a significant non-Aristotelian element of his philosophy. The view consequently penetrates his logic, ethics as well as epistemology. Primarily, however, the reason behind his reception of Aristotle is a defence (...) of Luther’s views: the aims of logic and rhetoric lie in theexegesis of the Bible within the context of the principle of ‘ Sola Scriptura’; he rejects the medieval concept of felicity and puts antropology into the dialectics of Law and Gospel; the aim of natural philosophy is the exposition of the existence of God’s Providence. Melanchthon’s reception of Aristotle is thus influenced by the theology of the Reformation to such an extent, that we might refer to it as Lutheran Aristotelianism. (shrink)

The subject of the article is the interpretation of a series of experiments proving the existence of vacuum. This was performed by the Capuchin Valerian Magni in 1647 and described in the treatise Demonstratio ocularis, which is the first printed text referring to successful experiments with vacuum. The work generated great controversy at the time, not only with opponents of void, but also with French scholars, who accused Magni of plagiarism. The article reconstructs both the situation around the work’s publication (...) and the reaction to it, with an aim of presenting the philosophical background behind Magni’s experiments. Magni understood the experiments as confirmation of his anti-Aristotelianism, and placed them among his metaphysics and natural philosophy, in which he attributes the key epistemological and ontological function to light. (shrink)

[The conception of the intellect in the older Franciscan school].

Článek se zabývá pojmem panteismus v období renesance. Ačkoli termín panteismus se objevil až na konci 17. století a později v kontextu tzv. “Pantheismusstreit”, za předchůdce moderního panteistického myšlení byl označen renesanční filosof Giordano Bruno. Následně i Mikuláš Kusánský, a to jakožto pokračovatel myšlení Mistra Eckharta, začal být považován za panteistu. Jak Kusánský, tak Bruno v určitém smyslu obhajovali imanenci božského ve světě, avšak zároveň oba zdůrazňovali rozdíl mezi Bohem a přírodou a připisovali Bohu transcendenci nebo přinejmenším transcendentální aspekty. Toto (...) není v souladu s definicí panteismu v tzv. silném slova smyslu, kdy se tvrdí striktní identita Boha a světa. Zdá se, že pojem renesanční panteismus je konstruktem, který byl vytvořen skrze násilnou aplikaci terminologie osvícenské filosofie na renesanční období. (shrink)

Johannes Jessenius became known by his contemporaries mostly as an exponent of the Italian anatomical Renaissance in Central Europe at the end of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The image of Jessenius in the twentieth century was also created with respect to his activities in the area of anatomy in Wittenberg and Prague in particular. The aim of this article is to put Jessenius into the context of the development of anatomy in the sixteenth century. (...) An important point in this progression can be seen in the change of the definition of anatomy from the art of dis- secting bodies and a “method” of instructing students to the way of acquiring knowledge of bodies and nature. The crucial role in this process played anatomical writings of the second half of the 16th century and the development seems to be connected with methodological discussions at the University of Padua. Jessenius, in his anatomical writings, primarily followed the Paduan anatomist Andreas Vesalius, whose work De humani corporis fabrica expresses the fundamental change in Renaissance anatomy. In addition, the methodological background of the anatomical Renaissance, which Jessenius became acquainted with during his studies in Padua, also echoes in Jessenius’ works. (shrink)

[St. Bonaventura: The Mind’s Search for God.].

Pantheism, Panpsychism, and secularism? To any historian of ideas still under the die-hard spell of the Enlightenment narrative, this would appear as an unlikely connection.1 If ever the theory of...

Many philosophers believe that our ordinary English words man and woman are “gender terms,” and gender is distinct from biological sex. That is, they believe womanhood and manhood are not defined even partly by biological sex. This sex/gender distinction is one of the most influential ideas of the twentieth century on the broader culture, both popular and academic. Less well known are the reasons to think it’s true. My interest in this paper is to show that, upon investigation, the arguments (...) for the sex/gender distinction have feet of clay. In fact, they all fail. We will survey the literature and tour arguments in favor of the sex/gender distinction, and then we’ll critically evaluate those arguments. We’ll consider the argument from resisting biological determinism, the argument from biologically intersex people and vagueness, the argument from the normativity of gender, and some arguments from thought experiments. We’ll see that these arguments are not up to the task of supporting the sex/gender distinction; they simply don’t work. So, philosophers should either develop stronger arguments for the sex/gender distinction, or cultivate a variety of feminism that’s consistent with the traditional, biologically-based definitions of woman and man. (shrink)

Modalists think that knowledge requires forming your belief in a “modally stable” way: using a method that wouldn't easily go wrong, or using a method that wouldn't have given you this belief had it been false. Recent Modalist projects from Justin Clarke-Doane and Dan Baras defend a principle they call “Modal Security,” roughly: if evidence undermines your belief, then it must give you a reason to doubt the safety or sensitivity of your belief. Another recent Modalist project from Carlotta Pavese (...) and Bob Beddor defends “Modal Virtue Epistemology”: knowledge is a belief that is maximally modally robust across “normal” worlds. We'll offer new objections to these recent Modalist projects. We will then argue for a rival view, Explanationism: knowing something is believing it because it's true. We will show how Explanationism offers a better account of undermining defeaters than Modalism, and a better account of knowledge. (shrink)

Many contemporary epistemologists hold that a subject S’s true belief that p counts as knowledge only if S’s belief that p is also, in some important sense, safe. I describe accounts of this safety condition from John Hawthorne, Duncan Pritchard, and Ernest Sosa. There have been three counterexamples to safety proposed in the recent literature, from Comesaña, Neta and Rohrbaugh, and Kelp. I explain why all three proposals fail: each moves fallaciously from the fact that S was at epistemic risk (...) just before forming her belief to the conclusion that S’s belief was formed unsafely. In light of lessons from their failure, I provide a new and successful counterexample to the safety condition on knowledge. It follows, then, that knowledge need not be safe. Safety at a time depends counterfactually on what would likely happen at that time or soon after in a way that knowledge does not. I close by considering one objection concerning higher-order safety. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

Do the facts of evolution generate an epistemic challenge to moral realism? Some think so, and many “evolutionary debunking arguments” have been discussed in the recent literature. But they are all murky right where it counts most: exactly which epistemic principle is meant to take us from evolutionary considerations to the skeptical conclusion? Here, I will identify several distinct species of evolutionary debunking argument in the literature, each one of which relies on a distinct epistemic principle. Drawing on recent work (...) in epistemology, I will show that most of these initially plausible principles are false, spoiling the arguments that rely on them. And we will see that each argument threatens only one popular view of moral psychology: a “Representationalist” view on which our moral judgments rely crucially on a mental intermediary—e.g. a sentiment, gut reaction, or affect-laden intuition—delivered by our evolved moral faculty. In the end, only one evolutionary debunking argument remains a menace: an “ Argument from Symmetry ” that I will introduce to the literature. But we will see that it should worry only all naturalists, pressuring them into a trilemma: give up moral realism, accept a rationalism that is incongruous with naturalism, or give up naturalism. Non-naturalists are free and clear. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

‘Gender identity’ was clearly defined sixty years ago, but the dominant conceptions of gender identity today are deeply obscure. Florence Ashley’s 2023 theory of gender identity is one of the latest attempts at demystification. Although Ashley’s paper is not fully coherent, a coherent theory of gender identity can be extracted from it. That theory, we argue, is clearly false. It is psychologically very implausible, and does not support ‘first­person authority over gender’, as Ashley claims. We also discuss other errors and (...) confusions in Ashley’s paper. (shrink)

In an essay recently published in this journal (“Is Safety in Danger?”), Fernando Broncano-Berrocal defends the safety condition on knowledge from a counterexample proposed by Tomas Bogardus (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2012). In this paper, we will define the safety condition, briefly explain the proposed counterexample, and outline Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety condition. We will then raise four objections to Broncano-Berrocal’s defense, four implausible implications of his central claim. In the end, we conclude that Broncano-Berrocal’s defense of the safety (...) condition is unsuccessful, and that the safety condition on knowledge should be rejected. (shrink)

In this paper, I hope to solve a problem that’s as old as the hills: the problem of contingency for religious belief. Paradigmatic examples of this argument begin with a counterfactual premise: had we been born at a different time or in a difference place, we easily could have held different beliefs on religious topics. Ultimately, and perhaps by additional steps, we’re meant to reach the skeptical conclusion that very many of our religious beliefs do not amount to knowledge. I (...) survey some historical examples of this argument, and I try to fill the gap between the counterfactual premise and the skeptical conclusion as forcefully as possible. I consider the following possibilities: there are no additional steps in the argument; or there are and they concern the alleged safety condition on knowledge, or the alleged non-accidentality condition on knowledge, or the unclarity produced by disagreement. On every possibility, the argument from the counterfactual premise to the conclusion of widespread skepticism is invalid. It seems, then, that there is no serious problem of contingency for religious belief. (shrink)

Some philosophers believe that, when epistemic peers disagree, each has an obligation to accord the other’s assessment equal weight as her own. Other philosophers worry that this Equal-Weight View is vulnerable to straightforward counterexamples, and that it requires an unacceptable degree of spinelessness with respect to our most treasured philosophical, political, and religious beliefs. I think that both of these allegations are false. To show this, I carefully state the Equal-Weight View, motivate it, describe apparent counterexamples to it, and then (...) explain away the apparent counterexamples. Finally, I adapt those explanations to cases of religious disagreement. In the end, we reach the surprising conclusion that—even if the Equal-Weight View is true—in very many cases of religious disagreement between apparent epistemic peers, the parties to the disagreement need not be conciliatory. And what goes for religious beliefs goes for political and philosophical beliefs as well. This strongly suggests that the View does not demand an unacceptable degree of spinelessness. (shrink)

In the standard thought experiments, dualism strikes many philosophers as true, including many non-dualists. This ‘striking’ generates prima facie justification: in the absence of defeaters, we ought to believe that things are as they seem to be, i.e. we ought to be dualists. In this paper, I examine several proposed undercutting defeaters for our dualist intuitions. I argue that each proposal fails, since each rests on a false assumption, or requires empirical evidence that it lacks, or overgenerates defeaters. By the (...) end, our prima facie justification for dualism remains undefeated. I close with one objection concerning the dialectical role of rebutting defeaters, and I argue that the prospects for a successful rebutting defeater for our dualist intuitions are dim. Since dualism emerges undefeated, we ought to believe it. (shrink)

The present article revolves around the notion of universality and its relation to freedom and temporal orientation in contemporary political thought, with a focus on Susan Buck-Morss' notion of universality. The purpose is twofold. Firstly, I discern and critique the historico-political premises of her approach. Secondly, I suggest an alternative historico-political approach to universality addressing the drawbacks of her approach. I present three objections to her approach. Drawing on Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom, I first present (...) a critique of the conceptualisation of freedom on which Buck-Morss' approach hinges, arguing that she overemphasises the moment of liberation. Thereafter, I turn to her reflections on historical orientation. My third objection concentrates on Buck-Morss' concept of universality. As a heuristic tool to expound on my critique, I activate the distinction between fictive and ideal universality as suggested by Étienne Balibar. I contend that Arendt's distinction between liberation and the practice of freedom efficiently elucidates the questions at stake in Balibar's discussion, as well as how his distinction points to the limits of Buck-Morss' argumentation. Ultimately, I contend that these critical remarks open up for a more dialectical approach to universality as a historical-political problem. (shrink)

In the recent literature on the nature of knowledge, a rivalry has emerged between modalism and explanationism. According to modalism, knowledge requires that our beliefs track the truth across some appropriate set of possible worlds. Modalists tend to focus on two modal conditions: sensitivity and safety. According to explanationism, knowledge requires only that beliefs bear the right sort of explanatory relation to the truth. In slogan form: knowledge is believing something because it’s true. In this paper, we aim to vindicate (...) explanationism from some recent objections offered by Gualtiero Piccinini, Dario Mortini, and Kenneth Boyce and Andrew Moon. Together, these authors present five purported counterexamples to the sufficiency of the explanationist analysis for knowledge. In addition, Mortini devises a clever argument that explanationism entails the violation of a plausible closure principle on knowledge. We will argue that explanationism is innocent of all these charges against it, and we hope that the strength of the defense we offer of explanationism is evidence in its favor, and a reason to investigate explanationism further as the long-elusive truth about the nature of knowledge. (shrink)

Abstract: Daniel Wegner’s theory of apparent mental causation is often misread. His aim was not to question the causal effectiveness of conscious mental states like intentions. Rather, he attempted to show that our subjective sense of agency is not a completely reliable indicator of the actual causality of action, and needs to be replaced by more objective means of inquiry.

ABSTRACT:Giving without the expectation of reward is difficult to understand in organizational contexts. In opposition to a logic based on self-interest or a sense of duty, a “logic of gift” has been proposed as a way to understand the phenomenon of free, unconditional giving. However, the rationale behind, and effects of, this logic have been under-explored. This paper responds by first clarifying the three logics of action—the logic of exchange, the logic of duty, and the logic of gift—and then explains (...) how their balanced integration promises to enhance organizational life and outcomes. Having explicated the unique character and contributions of the logic of gift, the paper further suggests practical implications for management. Encouraging the logic of gift fosters more humane relationships within organizations and to enable individuals to be generous in ways that inspire trust and promote creativity. (shrink)