Abstract Plotinus did not set out to be obscure. Difficulties of interpretation arise partly from his style of writing, compressed, elliptical, allusive. The allusions, easily enough recognisable by those he was writing for, are often not recognised at all by the modern reader who no longer has at his fingertips the texts of Plato and Aristotle that Plotinus undoubtedly alludes to, but whose authors he has no need to name. So it is pre-eminently with his subtle use of earlier ideas (...) in tackling the difficult question of the nature of matter and its place in the scheme of emanation. The frequent references to matter as `non-being' and as `privation' can be understood only if they are seen as a radical adaptation of the paradoxical definition of a `form that is, of what is not' in Plato's Sophist (258 D 5-7) and as a deliberate correction of Aristotle's unsuccessful attempt at including female desire in an analysis of privation in the Physics (i 9, 192 a 22-25). Only when the debt to Plato and Aristotle has been recognised for what it is are we able to appreciate that matter defined as `non-being' is not therefore `non-existent', and that the `privation' that is matter is not a terminus a quo of change, but a permanent substrate of change. The adaptation and the daring syncretism lead to deliberate paradox in Plotinus' own definition of matter as both `so to speak a form of sorts' and `formless' (I 8 [51] 3). The seeming inconsistency is Plotinus' acknowledgment of the use he has made of earlier ideas when he writes of matter, so defined, as `made' by a lower manifestation of soul, and therefore as the last and the least of the products flowing from, but not created by, the One. (shrink)

Despite the efforts of such notable thinkers as Sartre, Camus, and Ricoeur to affirm philosophically the being of evil, a systematic critique of the traditional metaphysical understanding of evil as privation of being has not yet been fully worked out. The task of this paper is to sketch out just such a critique and to suggest a more adequate philosophical reflection on the being of evil by turning to the thought of Heidegger. Part 1 examines Heidegger’s commentary on Aristotle’s remarks (...) on steresis. Aristotle is our teacher, Heidegger argues, in learning “to hold on to the wonder” of the steresis-dimension of Being (physis), and, thus, to hold on to the wonder that “lack,” “loss,” “absence” - is. Part II considers Heidegger’s recognition that the k-not at the very heart of our existence is yet much more complex. He turns to the fragments of Parmenides and Heraclitus to bring to light a dissembling-dimension of Being. (shrink)

One bi-lingual - hungarian-ENGLISH - meditation and research about the Illness and the Living Being. Concentrated, of course, to the specific HUMAN reporting to them. The book investigates philosophically the issue of human illness and its organic pertinence to the meaning of human life starting from the recognition that the dangerous encounter with the experience of illness is an unavoidable – and as such crucial – experience of the life of any living being. As for us humans, there is probably (...) no mortal man who has never suffered of some – any! – kind of disease from his birth to the end of his life… Illness is therefore an experience or outright a danger of existence and its possibility, as well as a way of being that nobody has ever been and will ever be ontological or existentially exempted from. So, it may well be “arbitrary” or “accidental” which disease affects which being or person, when and to what degree, in what way, etc., but it is factually unavoidable that in the course of one’s entire life – from its very beginning to its very end – one would never fall ill in some respect. The paper discusses this issue by the ontological investigation of possibility. Together with the analyses about of the origins and history of the MEDICINE. -/- The english CONTENTS -/- Illness – A Possibility of the Living Being Prolegomena to the Philosophy of Human Illness ............................................. 127 -/- Excursus Sketchy considerations regarding the problems of Christian medicine and Christian healing ...................................................... 135 -/- A dialogue-attempt with Aristotle: Dynamis, energeia, entelecheia, and steresis ...................................................... 147 . (shrink)

Maurice Blondel's later works address the problem of the relationship between the Catholic Church and tradition and modernity. This dissertation situates Blondel's developed position between the analyses of modern philosophy and culture developed in the encyclicals Pascendi Dominicus Gregis and Fides et Ratio. Modernism in Catholic circles bears implications for philosophy in general, since modernism has its source in modern philosophy and the culture it gives rise to and reinforces. Three key concepts operating in Blondel's later works are the concrete (...) logic, the philosophy of insufficiency, and the option between egoism and charity. The concrete logic is a logic of the moral life, a logic in which opposition is fundamentally on the basis of hexis and steresis instead of the apophasis and kataphasis , equivalent to the inclusion and exclusion of abstract logic. Use of a logic in philosophy is unavoidable, and inadequate philosophical positions are the result of reliance on abstract logic where a concrete logic is both required and secretly relied upon. The philosophy of insufficiency works within the concrete logic. It has a critical function of assessing and uncovering the insufficiency of the claims made by other philosophical systems, and it has a reconstructive function of leading the human subject towards what could allow it to be rendered sufficient, a supernatural order. This supernatural order imposes a requirement for the human subject to make an option either for egoism of for charity. Modernism represents one modality of the option for egoism, and the option for charity can lead not only to the supernatural order but also to recognition of the continued importance of the Catholic tradition in supporting and keeping intelligible the option for charity. (shrink)

Este artículo puede ser considerado como un comentario de Física, I. En él se expone, por lo tanto, una interpretación de la investigación mediante la que Aristóteles intenta responder a la pregunta acerca de cuántas y cuáles son las archaí del saber relativo a la physis. A través de un análisis de la crítica aristotélica de las respuestas dadas a esa pregunta por los filósofos precedentes, buscamos además aclarar y facilitar la comprensión del desarrollo de dicha interpretación. This article may (...) be considered as a commentary on Physics, I. In it is expounded, therefore, an interpretation of the research by which Aristotle tries to answer the question about how many and which are the archai of the knowledge concerning physis. By an analysis of the Aristotle's criticism of the answers given to this question by the previous philosophers, we also try to clarify and make easier the understanding of that interpretation¿s development. (shrink)