Metaphysics: The Creation of Hierarchy"This book does nothing less than to set new standards in combining philosophical with political theology. Pabst s argument about rationality has the potential to change debates in philosophy, politics, and religion." (from the foreword) This comprehensive and detailed study of individuation reveals the theological nature of metaphysics. Adrian Pabst argues that ancient and modern conceptions of "being" or individual substance fail to account for the ontological relations that bind beings to each other and to God, their source. On the basis of a genealogical account of rival theories of creation and individuation from Plato to postmodernism, Pabst proposes that the Christian Neo-Platonic fusion of biblical revelation with Greco-Roman philosophy fulfills and surpasses all other ontologies and conceptions of individuality. |
Contents
Substance and Relation | 1 |
The Preeminence of Substance | 9 |
Can Substances SelfIndividuate? 4 Aristotles Indifferent God 5 Ontology Theology and Politics | 21 |
Virtue Autarchy and Sovereignty | 27 |
Relational Form | 37 |
The Individuating Power of Platos Good | 44 |
Trinitarian God and Triadic Cosmos | 54 |
The Priority of Person over Essence according to Gregory of Nyssa | 66 |
The Relativity of Individuals | 246 |
Bonum Diffusivum Sui and the Hierarchy of Relations | 250 |
Prime Matter and Substantial Form | 258 |
Materia Signata and the Relationality of Creation | 262 |
Aquinass Theological Metaphysics | 268 |
The Invention of the Individual | 272 |
The 1277 Condemnations and the Implications for Metaphysics | 273 |
Metaphysics and Formalism in Duns Scotus | 277 |
Gregorys Trinitarianism | 71 |
Augustines NeoPlatonist Theology | 74 |
Musical Metaphysics and Divine Illumination | 83 |
Matter Causality and the Gift of Creation | 92 |
Self Cosmos and God | 100 |
The Triune God and the Triadic Cosmos | 107 |
Christian Universalism | 112 |
Relational Substance and Cosmic Hierarchy | 113 |
Boethius Philosophical Ordering of the Sciences | 115 |
Perception of Particulars and Cognition of Universals | 118 |
Individuation and the Metaphysics of Act and Potency | 125 |
Individual Substance and the Ontological Difference | 131 |
Deus Ultra Substantiam | 135 |
Relationality and Participation | 138 |
The Coextension of Being and the Good according to Dionysius | 141 |
Individuation and Hierarchy | 147 |
Analogical Hierarchy | 150 |
Matter and Form | 153 |
The Priority of Essence over Existence | 155 |
The Division of Ontology and Theology in Early Islamic Philosophy | 157 |
The Turn from Being to Essence in Medieval Christian Theology | 166 |
A Mathematical Ordering of the Sciences | 170 |
Singularity Dividuality and Individuality | 173 |
The Generation and Subsistence of Singular Substances | 176 |
Creation Concretion and the Transcendental Securing of Unity | 180 |
Towards Potentia Dei Absoluta and Formal Modality | 184 |
Islam Christianity and the Passage to Modernity | 191 |
Faith and Reason | 198 |
Participation in the Act of Being | 201 |
A Theological Ordering of the Sciences | 202 |
Metaphysics beyond the One and the Many | 208 |
Can Created Minds Know Singulars? 5 Apprehending Actuality 214 232 | 214 |
The Principle of Haecceitas | 282 |
Nominalism and Absolute Singularity in Ockham | 286 |
The Ontology of Political Sovereignty | 291 |
Semantics and Universal Individuality in Buridan | 294 |
Potentia Dei Absoluta and Individuation | 299 |
Rationalism and Fideism | 300 |
Transcendence and Immanence | 305 |
Transcendental Individuation | 308 |
Early Modern Scholasticism | 310 |
Singularity without Actuality | 313 |
The Reality of Singular Essence and the Possibility of Universal Existence | 316 |
Singularity as Transcendental Precondition | 320 |
The SelfIndividuation of Entities | 326 |
Creation as Efficient Causality | 329 |
Natural Law and Transcendental Politics Sovereignty and Alienation | 331 |
Abstract Individuality and the Rise of the Modern State | 339 |
The Creation of Immanence | 341 |
Parallel Order and Common Notions | 345 |
A Hierarchy of Relative Individuality | 352 |
The Problem of Individuation in Spinozas System | 356 |
Monism Dualism and the Reality of the Natural Order | 360 |
Existence or Essence? | 363 |
The Causal Laws of Nature and the Nature of Causal Laws | 366 |
Naturalized Creation | 370 |
Conatus or the Ethics of SelfIndividuation and the Politics of Democracy | 376 |
Ontology of Production | 381 |
The Modern End of Metaphysics 383 | 383 |
Modern Metaphysics as Transcendental Ontology | 385 |
The New Imperative of Relationality | 445 |
| 465 | |
| 503 | |
Common terms and phrases
absolute abstraction actuality Aquinas Aquinas’s argues Aristotelian Aristotle Aristotle’s Augustine Augustine's Avicenna Boethius Buridan causality cause chapter Christian Neo-Platonist cognition common composite concept constitutes created creation creative Creator Descartes difference Dionysius distinction dividual divine entities epistemology essence Ethica Étienne Gilson existence faith fideism finite modes formal Gilbert God’s human idea immanent immaterial indi individual substance individual things infinite intellect ipsum John Duns Scotus John Milbank Kant knowledge logic material matter mediate medieval metaphysics mind modern monism nature Neo-Platonism Neo-Platonist object Ockham ontology Paris participation particular sensible things particular things patristic philosophy Plato Platonist Plotinus political Porreta potency potentia primacy pure quae quod rational reality reason relation relationality Scholasticism Scotus secundum singular Spinoza stance Suárez substantial form theology Thomas Thomist tion trans transcendent transcendental Trin Trinitarian Trinity unity universal forms University Press univocal vidual virtue William of Ockham