Milbank criticizes Hegel for the philosophical “error” in his “myth of negation.” The issue is how difference arises, the logic of difference. Milbank points to Leibniz by way of contrast, who “conceived logic as a ‘series,’ which unfolded by . . . . Continue Reading »
Milbank notes in Theology and Social Theory that there are two modern responses to skepticism. One is the Cartesian view that “thinks of the known object both as something ‘beneath’ the subject, and so as under the subject’s control, like the instruments of technology, . . . . Continue Reading »
No, according to A.N. Williams, writing in New Blackfriars . Williams defines foundationalism not only in terms of the structural distinction between basic and inferred propositions, but in telic terms: “the purpose of the non-inferred or basic propositions is to impart to the structure . . . . Continue Reading »
Lakoff and Johnson explain why Aristotle must reduce metaphor to linguistic deviance: Aristotle employs the metaphors “Ideas are Essences” and “Essences are Forms,” and on this basis argues that “things in the world . . . can be directly grasped by the mind. . . . . Continue Reading »
Lakoff and Johnson make the striking claim that the notion of free will is implicated in the traditional disembodied conception of reason: “Will is the application of reason to action. Because human reason is disembodied - that is, free of the constraints of the body - will is radically . . . . Continue Reading »
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson ( Philosophy in the Flesh : The Embodied Mind and Its Challenge to Western Thought ) agree with Paul DeMan that metaphors lie at the heart of metaphysical theories. They do not, however, believe that exposing the metaphorical ground of metaphysics destabilizes . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Postmodernism Rightly Understood: The Return to Realism in American Thought , Peter Augustine Lawler says that “Postmodern thought rightly understood is human reflection on the failure of the modern project to eradicate human mystery and misery and to bring history to an end. One . . . . Continue Reading »
“The principles of philosophy are certain truths within the immediate ken of every human person,” writes Ralph McInerny ( Praeambula Fidei: Thomism And the God of the Philosophers ). His first example: “Who could fail to grasp being, since it is grasped in anything we . . . . Continue Reading »
Jenson notes that Barth was not opposed to philosophy, but “refused to depend on the official philosophers because what they offered to do for him he thought he should do for himself, in conversation with them when that seemed likely to help.” This leads Jenson to the striking claim . . . . Continue Reading »
Nicholas of Cusa broke with traditional Aristotelian views of uniform substance and motion. No two things are ever exactly the same: ”two or more objects cannot be so similar and equal that they could not still be more similar ad infinitum . Consequently, however equal the measured . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
