This article investigates a unique iconographic anomaly in late medieval Dunhuang silk paintings: the conflation of the bodhisattvas Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra. Focusing on two key artifacts from the 9th and 10th centuries and tracing their legacy to later folk prints, this study argues the phenomenon is not a scribal error but a creative Anomaly—a deliberate ritual synthesis. The analysis reveals this synthesis was driven by two forces: a phonetic re-semanticization in the local dialect and a theological logic born from the integration of Huayan School doctrines with Esoteric ritual practice. The paper demonstrates how Huayan metaphysics were operationalized through condensed Esoteric invocations, turning the inscription into a functional ritual shorthand. Crucially, this study demonstrates the genealogical survival of this Silk Road variant in Ming and Qing dynasty woodblock prints. It uncovers a parallel, non-canonical lineage of visual piety, sustained through workshop copybooks rather than elite textual discourse. This trajectory challenges the linear narrative of Buddhist art history, highlighting the generative power of localized adaptations existing outside the purview of the written canon.
Timothy Williamson’s is a fascinating and challenging paper and I am afraid that in my short response I cannot do full justice to much of what he says. What I would like to do is to deal with four central issues raised by his paper. The first concerns the question of how to characterize the two theses that he finds in ‘Essence and Modality’ (henceforth referred to as E&M); the second is whether or how the use of functional expressions might lead us into mistakenly accepting certain essentialist judgements; the third is whether the error he finds in these cases might extend to the kinds of case considered in E&M; and the fourth is whether, on the basis of essentialist considerations, philosophers have reacted with undue haste in rejecting the intensional paradigm.
The paper is an introduction to the collection of articles, published in the current issue of “Studia Philosophica Wratislaviensia”, on both the subject matter conceived (as broadly as possible) as Islamic metaphysics and on the very studies of this research area (the current state of knowledge, conjunctures, tendencies, prospects etc.). It attempts to provide presentation of discussion of topics and problems, which can be included in this area, but offers also first drafts of tentative and “work-in-progress definitions” of how Islamic metaphysics can be understood with its orientation on the most recent contexts, inspirations and applications, internal structures and dynamics relating to its interpretations and evolutions, as well as its original, historical versions. One of the inspirations for the project of studying the Islamic metaphysics presented here is rooted in Jasser Auda’s ambitious works on Islamic law, not narrowed to a technical, specialized domain of research about foundations (fundamentals), sources, jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) or specific legislation related to the Shari’a. The paper sketches a general orientation map introducing basic concepts and methodological strategies used by Auda with the prospects of their further application to the study (and potential rethinking) of Islamic metaphysics.
My central claim is that resonances between Transcendentalist and Chinese philosophies are so strong that the former cannot be adequately appreciated without the latter. I give attention to the <i>Analects</i>, the <i>Mengzi</i> and the Tiantai <i>Lotus Sutra</i>, which Transcendentalists read. Because there was conceptual sharing across Chinese traditions, plus evidence suggesting Transcendentalists explored other texts, my analysis includes discussions of Daoism and Weishi, Huayan and Chan Buddhism. To name just some similarities between the targeted outlooks, Transcendentalists adopt something close to <i>wu-wei</i> or effortless action; though hostile to hierarchy, they echo the Confucian stress on rituals or habits; Thoreau’s individualistic libertarianism is moderated by a radical causal holism found in many Chinese philosophies; and variants of Chinese Buddhism get close to Transcendentalist metaphysics and epistemologies, which anticipate radical embodied cognitive science. A specific argument is that Transcendentalists followed some of their Chinese counterparts by <i>conserving</i> the past and converting it into radicalism. A meta-argument is that ideas were exchanged via trade from Europe through North Africa to Western Asia and India into the Far East, and contact with Indigenous Americans led to the same. This involved degrees of misrepresentation, but it nonetheless calls upon scholars to adopt more global approaches.
A major concern for scholars in the fields of systemics and cybernetics is promoting rigorous interdisciplinary communication. The Canadian philosopher and theologian, Bernard Lonergan, SJ, and the American physicist and theologian, Ian G. Barbour, have made significant contributions in this space. While their approaches are clearly distinct, both Lonergan and Barbour are philosophical realists. Each in their own way, they propose a shared epistemology and an inclusive metaphysical system for diverse fields, hence facilitating interdisciplinary communication. In this article, we concisely explicate their unique approaches as well as critique particular aspects. These rigorous approaches to interdisciplinary communication show promise for cybernetics and systems theory.
La metafisica del processo, di cui Process and Reality è il manifesto e la attuazione, non nasce dal nulla, ma al contrario emerge da una complessa e prolungata meditazione condotta da Whitehead sin dai primi scritti, di carattere logico e matematico, e passa poi per una articolata riflessione sui problemi fondamentali dell’epistemologia delle scienze naturali, condotta alla luce della rivoluzione concettuale generata dalle ricerche di Einstein ma anche di molti altri studiosi.
Per situare quindi nel suo giusto contesto teorico le nozioni fondamentali elaborate da Whitehead nel suo periodo cosiddetto “speculativo”, è fondamentale delineare il quadro teorico da cui tali nozioni emergono, per mostrare che esse non rappresentano, come qualcuno ha sostenuto, una deviazione, ma al contrario uno sviluppo coerente delle premesse matematiche, logiche ed epistemologiche su cui il matematico e filosofo inglese non ha mai cessato di interrogarsi (anche dopo le grandi opere degli anni venti). In tal modo si può sia apprezzare il contenuto filosofico di scritti apparentemente diversi, sia il senso genuino di termini che altrimenti restano avvolti in una oscurità spesso denunciata ma più raramente compresa. Le nozioni speculative di entità attuale, oggetto eterno, processo, concrescenza e così via si comprendono solo se viste in questa chiave a un tempo genetica e geneaologica.
This paper is written to articulate in a summary form 14 evidently-known essential and personalistic principles from the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas needed, especially by Pope Francis, to understand a third period of neo-Thomism we are now in: Born-again, or Ragamuffin, Thomism. It maintains that, without application of these principles to the Church’s “new evangelization,” this movement will fail. With that failure the Church will be unable to halt the cultural suicide in which the West is presently engaged.
En este artículo propongo y defiendo una base epistemológica para una metafísica. No creo que haya una base epistemológica lógicamente indudable, pero creo que la base (que propondré, dada nuestra situación epistemológica actual, es una que sabemos que existe: ese objeto unitario, el mundo del espacio-tiempo. A mi propuesta, de que tal objeto existe, la denominaré la tesis naturalista débil. Una propuesta más fuerte, a saber que el mundo espacio-temporal es todo lo que hay, la denominaré la tesis naturalista fuerte, simplemente, naturalismo, a secas. Pero es claro que ésta no es parte de mi base epistemológica favorita.
Lo que deseo es argumentar en contra de aquellos filósofos que aun aceptando un naturalismo débil, no estarían dispuestos a aceptar un naturalismo fuerte, pero no por creer en una deidad trascendente o en una dualidad cartesiana, sino porque piensan que una metafísica tiene que dar cabida a posibilidades y/o a clases y/o a números y/o a universales y/o a objetos de pensamiento. Entidades éstas que, según creen, no pueden explicarse conforme a una base naturalista.
El argumento que emplearé en contra de tales filósofos, que puede denominarse el argumento de la superveniencia, tendrá la siguiente estructura: dada cierta base, se considerara si, la misma, implica formalmente la existencia de ciertas entidades (las que serán, en caso de hacerlo, las entidades supervenientes). Se argumentará, luego, que las entidades supervenientes no representan una adición ontológica a la base. El argumento, sin embargo, lo empleo con cierta cautela.
Para cada uno de los casos que considero (clases, posibilidades, números y universales), mi conclusión es que tales entidades pueden explicarse como supervenientes a la base elegida.
Como conclusión, no ocultaré mi convicción de que en estas cuestiones, tales filósofos (que incluyen a algunos de mis mejores amigos) carecen de un fuerte sentido de la realidad. Me encuentro respetando más a aquellos metafísicos que rechazan el naturalismo porque creen en las almas y en Dios.
[J.A. Robles]
This paper discusses how Korean Neo-Confucian philosophers in the Joseon dynasty (1392⁻1910) explained the moral nature of the mind and its emotions. Among the philosophical debates of Korean Neo-Confucianism, the author of the paper focuses on the Four⁻Seven Debate (a philosophical debate about the moral psychological nature of the four moral emotions and the seven morally indiscrete emotions) to analyze its <i>li</i>⁻<i>qi</i> metaphysics (a philosophical explanation of the universe through the intricate and interactive relation between the two cosmic processes, <i>li</i> and <i>qi</i>) and its conflicting viewpoints on the moral psychological nature of emotion. Because of the ambiguities and inconsistencies in the Neo-Confucian explanation, specifically those of the Cheng⁻Zhu schools of Neo-Confucianism on the nature and functions of the mind, Korean Neo-Confucians struggled to bring Neo-Confucian <i>li</i>⁻<i>qi</i> metaphysics to the moral and practical issues of the human mind and moral cultivation. Later in the Joseon dynasty, some Korean Neo-Confucians discussed the fundamental limitations of <i>li</i>⁻<i>qi</i> metaphysics and developed their explanations for the goodness of the moral mind and the world from an alternative (i.e., theistic) viewpoint.
Neste trabalho, irei abordar o conceito de desejo e
relacioná-lo à ação moral. Iniciarei pela lenda de Aristóteles,
mostrando como o desejo foi compreendido como uma perturbação
da alma que deveria ser evitada pelo filósofo. Num segundo
momento, mostrarei um duplo sentido da palavra desejo, tentando
responder à perguntar: é possível desejar sem querer? Por fim,
mostrarei como a filosofia kantiana relaciona desejo, obrigação
moral e fraqueza da vontade.
The main goal of this work is to investigate the evolution of Adorno’s reading of Husserl’s phenomenology, to present it as a central theme for the formation of his own materialistic philosophy. This article wants to trace the genesis of his thought, from his early fidelity to Cornelius’ work, to the framework of his own philosophy in the 1930s.
This study focuses on the origins of A. N. Whitehead’s metaphysical thought. First,the basic features of Whitehead’s panphysicsproject and its differences from the metaphysicalsynthesis are described. It is shown what possible motives led Whitehead to the constructionof a complex system of ideas, and its basic char-acteristic features are analyzed. Three main pillars of Whitehead’s organismic philosophy are described, in the spirit of Ford’s compositional analysis of the work Science and the Modern World,and arguments for the concept of organic mechanism instead of the materialistic view of mechanismare defended. Finally, through imaginative leapsof mind, it is shown how Whitehead arrives at thehighest metaphysical principles by means of thebasic organismic principles.
This paper considers Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a special transcendental paradigm (a special type of philosophical research) differing from both the "objective" metaphysics of Antiquity and the "subjective" metaphysics of Modernity (the metaphysics of an object (transcendent metaphysics; meta—physics) — experience (transcendental metaphysics) — the metaphysics of the subject (immanent metaphysics; meta—psychology)). For this purpose, the author introduces suchnew methodological concepts as “transcendental shift” and “transcendental perspective” (see CPR, B25) and “transcendental constructivism” or “pragmatism” (see “acts of pure thinking" (CPR, B81)). This interpretation of transcendentalism is based on the cognitive-semantic reading of the Critique in the light of Kant’s question formulated in a letter to M. Herz (of February 21, 1772): “What is the ground of the relation of that in us which we call “representation” to the object?” (R. Hanna) and the modern interpretation of Kant that was called the “two aspects” interpretation (H. Allison). Whereas classical metaphysics interprets knowledge as a relation between the (empirical) subject and the object, the transcendental metaphysics understands "possible experience”(Erfahrung) as a relation between the transcendental subject (transcendental unity of apperception) and the transcendental object. At the same time, unlike contemplative classical metaphysics, Kant’s transcendentalism is an "experimental" metaphysics, whereas the “transcendental” is defined as a borderline ontological area between the immanent and the transcendent, an “instrumental” element of our cognition and consciousness (cf. E. Husserl’s intentional reality andK. Popper’s three worlds).
According to modal realism formulated by David Lewis, there exist concrete possible worlds. As he argues the hypothesis is serviceable and that is a sufficient reason to think it is true. On the other side, Lewis does not consider the pragmatic reasons to be conclusive. He admits that the theoretical benefits of modal realism can be illusory or that the acceptance of controversial ontology for the sake of theoretical benefits might be misguided in the first place. In the first part of the paper, I consider the worry and conclude that although the worry is justified, there can be an epistemological justification for his theory. Next, I outline the so-called indispensability argument for the legitimacy of mathematical Platonism. Finally, I argue that the argument, if accepted, can be applied to metaphysics in general, to the arguing for the existence of concrete (im)possibilia in particular.
This article deals with the limits of divine power in the OT. The aim is to show how one of the traditional attributes from ancient philosophical metaphysics, namely omnipotence, does not fit the depiction of YHWH in the Hebrew Bible. The biblical traditions know of several limitations of divine power that must be reconciled to regional and functional limits, and the one most difficult to overcome, that is, the border of the realm of death. Those limits were not absolute but the OT has preserved those traditions were they are at hand, and they are not without influence. There are, however, also limits of a still more severe kind: in YHWH’s relation to creation, to Israel, and to the world, we see more limitations than can be healthy to an omnipotent god. In YHWH’s dealing with evil we find anything but a static perspective: life is threatened continually by hostile realms. YHWH’s love history with Israel reveals a divine pathos that, at the same time, limits his attitude and actions and opens up new dimensions in the mystery YHWH. In Jonah, the Creator extends his love relation to the hated Assyrians: since YHWH is attached to his creation he is restricted by his steadfast love.
The dynamic and relational perspectives in the biblical texts should prevent us from limiting their theological panorama by traditional word-studies of e.g. holiness and covenant, as well as by traditional philosophical categories, such as omnipotence, omniscience, and apatheia.