When Aristotle deals with specific kinds of motion, he surprisingly asserts that there is no movement according to a relation. This assertion is, on the one hand, well justifiable, but, on the other hand, it is at variance with the naturalistic spirit of peripatetic philosophy. In this paper I would like to propose a solution to this dilemma. Such an achievement, however, has an implication which may be difficult to accept: viz. the necessity to quite radically transform the traditional categorial (...) scheme. (shrink)

We deal with the concept of man and woman, as well as with the problem of their equality, in the two great ancient thinkers Plato and Aristotle. The discussion of Plato leads to the conclusion that there is no substantial difference between man and woman. We find Plato’s view close or similar to today’s widely held doctrine of “unisexism”. Aristotle on the other hand believes that there are important differences between man and woman and we find in his texts two (...) approaches to the problem. In his first view the sex difference is due to the lesser perfection of woman, according to the second view both sexes are equally perfect, nevertheless each in its own way. Both conceptions have their supporters in contemporary thought (so-called theories of „polarism“ and „compatibilism“). From a systematic point of view we suggest that Aristotle´s second approach should be further developed as it is most in accord with our Christian worldview. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to compare the Thomist and the Scotist theory of relations. The main feature of the Thomist theory is an effort to minimize the ontological import of the specific essential ratio of relation as such, called esse ad, and to reduce the ontological import of its other aspect, the esse in or inherence understood as a common feature of all accidents, to the esse in of its foundation. The Scotists, on the other hand, have no (...) tendency to deflate the esse ad of a relation. Moreover, according to Malafossa of Barge’s theory (adopted by B. Mastri and B. Belluto), a relation involves two different instances of esse in. The one, called esse in velut in subiecto, is that generic inherence common to all accidents (which, therefore, does not occur in the substantial relations of divine persons). The other, esse in velut in fundamento, belongs specifically to relation as such and reflects the fact that very relation, even a substantial one, is not only a relation towards something, but necessarily also a relation of something towards something else. In spite of the fact, therefore, that the Thomist and Scotist doctrines are usually grouped together as mere subvariants of anti-reductive realism, they must be regarded as substantially different. (shrink)

The main purpose of this paper is to contest the Aristotelian notion that the objects of metaphysics, mathematics and physics are all abstract, which is the reason why these disciplines constitute a homogeneous class. For a reflection on the way how objects are introduced into scientific discourse leads to the conclusion that some of these objects (especially the mathematical ones) are fictions of reason an that their nature is defined purely by their mutual relationships. From this it follows that, far (...) from being theoretical sciences, the respective disciplines are justifiedly classified as arts. (shrink)

Who owns the girl’s body, the parents, or the daughter herself? In Catholic casuistry, this issue has not only been occasionally touched upon, it has been topical among the commentators on Aquinas (STh II-II, q. 154, a. 6) from the 16th up to the 18th centuries. Nevertheless, modern scholarship ignores this big dispute. The distortion of early modern history in consequence thereof precludes a fair appraisal of the achievements of the Christian schools within the Habsburgian commonwealth. Whereas the Iberian Peninsula (...) was the theatre of the endeavour here described (Domingo de Soto OP, Luis de Molina SJ, Gabriel Vázquez SJ, Juan de Lugo SJ, the Salmantine Carmelites), Jansenist France was forward in defeating it. The quarrel about this issue gains an additional interest by the observation that it represents the rare case where the schoolmen themselves had the keen feeling that the stand they took represented a divide between two ages, medieval and modern, viz. Pre-Tridentine and Post-Tridentine. The main purpose of the present paper, then, is to render a necessary piece of apologetics. Its focus is on the deplorable situation in which we presently are due to the rotten feminist convictions about how things went. (shrink)

John Duns Scotus’s famous doctrine of the formal distinction has a twofold justification: a theological one, stemming from the necessity to express coherently the Christian doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and a metaphysical one, according to which formal distinction is a necessary condition of the abstraction of universal (objective) concepts from individuals. This paper is a detailed analysis of this latter argument, presented by Scotus in Questions on Metaphysics VII, q. 19. Scotus apparently demolishes the alternative theory of intentional distinction (...) proposed by Henry of Ghent, but not without first attempting to defend it in as refined and powerful form as possible. Given that Henry’s notion of intentional distinction is substantially the same as later Thomits’s “distinctio rationis ratiocinatae”, this rises questions about the validity about the latter notion, both in the context of Scotism (such as in the thought of Bartolomeo Mastri) and in genereal. (shrink)

Puente Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), Iberian Jesuit and author of one of the earliest comprehensive Baroque philosophy courses, entered the debate on the modality “moral” or “morally” in the sense of a qualifier of evidence, certainty, being, and necessity or impossibility in the first half of the seventeenth century. This paper presents his analysis of the different forms (or levels) of evidence and necessity or impossibility in 1630s, where “moral” represents the weakest degree of these properties. First, it covers the (...) notion of moral evidence in the sense of a wise decision that is in accordance with the consensus of either the majority of mankind or of the learned community, as introduced in Disputationes de Deo. Second, it covers the notions of moral necessity and impossibility, introduced in De Deo homine in terms of a strong inclination, and developed in Hurtado’s later theological texts. Third, Hurtado introduced the notion “morally” in his De actibus humanis in frequentist terms. (shrink)

I discuss the views on logic held by three early Nordic neo-Aristotelians — the Swedes Johannes Canuti Lenaeus (1573–1669) and Johannes Rudbeckius (1581–1646), and the Dane Caspar Bartholin (1585–1629). They all studied in Wittenberg (enrolled respectively in 1597, 1601, and 1604) and were exponents of protestant (Lutheran) scholasticism. The works I utilize are Janitores logici bini (1607) and Enchiridion logicum (1608) by Bartholin; Logica (1625) and Controversiae logices (1629) by Rudbeckius; and Logica peripatetica (1633) by Lenaeus. Rudbeckius’s and Lenaeus’s books (...) were published much later than they were prepared. Rudbeckius wrote the first versions of his books in 1606, and the material for Lenaeus’s book had been prepared by 1607. Bartholin calls the treatment of the nature of logic the “first doorkeeper of logic”. To compare the views of the three neo-Aristotelians on this topic, I systematically investigate what they have to say about second notions, the subject of logic, the internal and external goal of logic, and the definition of logic. I also compare their approaches with those of Jacob Martini (teacher of Rudbeckius and Bartholin) and Iacopo Zabarella (an intellectual predecessor of all three). (shrink)