The Historical Context of the Philosophical Work of St Thomas Aquinas

Aquinas ◽  
1969 ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
David Knowles
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Philosophical Work

Changing Notions of Linguistic Competence in the History of Formal Semantics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara H. Partee
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Formal Semantics ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Linguistic Competence ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Recent Advances ◽  
History Of ◽  
Language User ◽  
Knowledge Of Language

In the history of formal semantics, the successful joining of linguistic and philosophical work brought with it some difficult foundational questions concerning the nature of meaning and the nature of knowledge of language in the domain of semantics: questions in part about “what’s in the head” of a competent language-user. This chapter, part of a project on the history of formal semantics, revisits the central issues of Partee (1979) in a historical context, as a clash between two traditions, Fregean and Chomskyan, a clash that accompanied early work combining Montague’s semantics with Chomskyan syntax. Recent advances in philosophy of mind (from, e.g., Stalnaker and Burge) go a long way towards changing the framework of arguments about “psychological reality” and “competence”, challenging the suppositions on which the original dichotomy rested, thus largely defusing the tension.

Rahner, Karl (1904–84)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack A. Bonsor
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
The Subject

Rahner sought to offer an account of the Christian faith that would be credible to the modern mind. His early philosophical works lay the foundation for this theological project. Using both the method and categories of the early Heidegger, Rahner placed the thought of the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas in conversation with modern philosophy. He asked of Aquinas’ epistemology Kant’s question about the conditions of human subjectivity which make knowledge possible. Rahner argued that Aquinas’ description of knowledge and human freedom requires, as its necessary condition, that the subject possess an openness to a universal horizon of being, an openness to God. There is, in the structure of subjectivity, a constitutive, experiential, a priori relationship with the divine mystery. While this openness occurs within an individual’s self-awareness, it is always mediated by and interpreted through the objects, people, language and ideas that make up one’s historical context (the categorical). In his theology, Rahner argued that the true nature of humanity’s relationship with God had been revealed by Jesus to be one of absolute nearness. Rahner rendered Christian doctrines credible by correlating them with the transcendental experience of a God who is near.

Aquinas and Agnosticism

Agnosticism ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 163-185
Author(s):  
Paul O’Grady
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
The Way

Surprisingly little attention has been paid to clarifying the nature of agnosticism. As a stance in the philosophy of religion, it clearly emerged in the nineteenth century, although the earlier philosophical work of Hume and Kant paved the way for it. However, there is also an older, related tradition in philosophy and theology, called apophaticism, which makes the notion of ‘not knowing’ about God central to its concerns. How do these approaches relate to each other, if at all? To attempt an answer to this question, this chapter will explore an interpretation of the work of Thomas Aquinas which emphasizes apophaticism, and a related interpretation of his work which results in one of the most systematically articulated versions of contemporary agnosticism.

scholarly journals Do Everything for the Glory of God

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 754
Author(s):  
W. Scott Cleveland
Keyword(s):  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
1 Corinthians ◽  
Philosophical Work

St. Paul writes, “whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10: 31 NABRE).” This essay employs the work of St. Thomas Aquinas and the recent philosophical work of Daniel Johnson (2020) on this command to investigate a series of questions that the command raises. What is glory? How does one properly act for glory and for the glory of another? How is it possible to do everything for the glory of God? I begin with Aquinas’ account of glory and the pursuit of glory for God’s glory and Aquinas’s answers to some of the above questions that can be drawn from his discussion in De Malo. I defend Aquinas against criticisms from Daniel Johnson and present his own interpretation of the command. I advance the discussion through adding two additional interpretations that do not rely on a controversial assumption Johnson makes. Next, I address the puzzle of how we can intend everything for the glory of God using Aquinas’s three-fold account of intention. Finally, I discuss the relation between charity and the desire for God’s glory and how regular, actual intentions of one’s actions for the glory of God increases charity.

“Among the omitted stuff, there are many good remarks of a general nature” – On the Making of von Wright and Wittgenstein’s Culture and Value

SATS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Erbacher
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
General Nature ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis paper uses archival material to contextualize Georg Henrik von Wright’s making of Vermischte Bemerkungen (Culture and Value), an edition that assembles Wittgenstein’s remarks on cultural topics. Von Wright was particularly interested in these remarks but initially regarded them as too detached from philosophy to be published. In 1967-68, however, he began seeing socio-political questions as belonging to philosophy. He then resumed editing Wittgenstein’s ‘general remarks’ and published them in 1977. Von Wright did not read Culture and Value as a philosophical work, but as a means for helping readers understand Wittgenstein in relation to his times. It is argued that the intention to provide documents enabling readers to recognize the historical Wittgenstein motivated much of von Wright’s work as one of Wittgenstein’s literary executors. Moreover, through making available his own archives, he inspired the same documentary approach to fathom the history of editing Wittgenstein in its historical context.

Attempt at philosophy out of the Slavic spirit. Biographical and historical aspects of Bronisław Ferdynand Trentowski's philosophical work in Baden

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
pp. 195-205
Author(s):  
Gabriela Brudzyńska-Němec
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
German Language ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Philosophical Project

Bronisław Trentowski, a former officer in the November Uprising, was given the opportunity to study and work in the field of philosophy in Freiburg, Baden, after 1831. He set himself the ambitious task of creating an original Polish philosophical system with a universal dimension. Its source was to be a combination of western philosophical thought and tradition with the poetic Slavic spirit. The person of the philosopher himself, especially the language and style of his writings, was the medium and the coherence here. Trentowski intended to philosophize polish, using, at least at the beginning, the German language. It was the issue of language that became the focal point, but also the most problematic point of his philosophical career and personal biography. The article sketches, mainly in the biographical and historical context, the genesis of this ambitious philosophical project, its evaluation and controversy that it aroused, both among Polish and German compatriots of the philosopher.

Editionspraxis, Philosophie und Zivilisationskritik: Die Geschichte von Wittgensteins Vermischten Bemerkungen

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Erbacher
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The 1960S

AbstractUsing hitherto unpublished archival materials, this article reconstructs the editorial story of Wittgenstein’s Vermischte Bemerkungen (engl. edition: Culture and Value) in its historical context. The article’s starting point is the view of the editor of Vermischte Bemerkungen - Georg Henrik von Wright - that the book does not belong to Wittgenstein’s philosophical work, but that it shows Wittgenstein as “geistige Erscheinung” in relation to his times. It is argued that von Wright was particularly sensitive for the significance of Wittgenstein’s remarks on literature, music, religion and history, since their friendship rested essentially on conversations about these non-philosophical topics. The new archival materials show, however, that it needed a turn in Wright’s life and in his conception of philosophy, before he could regard a publication of Vermischte Bemerkungen as philosophically legitimate: Only after biographical and philosophical changes in the 1960s von Wright thought that occupation with public and cultural concerns may be a part of the philosopher’s work, and only in the light of this new understanding publishing Wittgenstein’s remarks on general topics seemed justified to him. Thus, Vermischte Bemerkungen is not only a portrait of Wittgenstein in relation to his times; the editorial story shows that the book is also a manifestation of von Wright’s philosophical development in relation to his own times.

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