Spinoza's Account of Blessedness Explored through an Aristotelian Lens

Dialogue ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Sanem Soyarslan

ABSTRACT In this article, I examine whether Spinoza's account of blessedness can be identified with a contemplative ideal in the Aristotelian tradition. I first introduce the main features of the Aristotelian life of contemplation and its difference from the life of practically oriented virtues — a difference that is grounded in Aristotle's distinction between praxis and theoria. In highlighting the commonalities between Spinoza's two kinds of adequate cognition — that is, intuitive knowledge and reason — I show that there is no room for a similar distinction in Spinoza, which will enable us to identify intuitive knowledge and its attendant blessedness exclusively with the theoretical activity.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lance Clarence ◽  
Wan Muhammad Noor Sarbani Mat Daud

In the competition among organization on the global market, no organization will tolerate losses. Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) overall is a new process in which the efficiency of a system is calculated and complicated manufacturing issues are truly simplified to simple and intuitive knowledge delivery. It thinks about the exceptionally important measures of productivity. An endeavour has been done to measure and analyse existing Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) at company Kirino in hope to reduce unplanned downtime losses on equipment failure and tooling damage to maximize the productivity. The methods used to analyse these various causes were analysis tools and Intelligence Systems. After knowing the causes of various activities that leads to high rates of defects, then recommendations for improvements that could be used by company Kirino were ready to be made using intelligent system as a medium of solution


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-26
Author(s):  
Antonio Somaini

"The article presents an in-depth analysis of Benjamin’s use of the German term Medium, in order to show how his entire media theory may be interpreted as centered on the interaction between the historically changing realm of the technical and material Apparate, and what he calls in the artwork essay the »Medium of perception«: the spatially extended environment, the atmosphere, the milieu, the Umwelt in which sensory experience occurs. This notion of »Medium of perception« is then located within the long, post-Aristotelian tradition of the media diaphana, whose traces can be found in the 1920s and 1930s in the writings of authors such as Béla Balázs, Fritz Heider, and László Moholy-Nagy. </br></br>Der Artikel präsentiert eine eingehende Analyse von Benjamins Gebrauch des deutschen Begriffs »Medium«, um zu zeigen, dass seine gesamte Medientheorie fokussiert ist auf die Interaktion zwischen dem historisch veränderlichen Bereich der technischen und materiellen Apparate einerseits und dem, was er in dem Kunstwerkaufsatz das »Medium der Wahrnehmung« nennt: die räumlich ausgedehnte Umgebung, die Atmosphäre, das Milieu, die Umwelt, in der sinnliche Wahrnehmung erfolgt. Dieser Begriff des »Mediums der Wahrnehmung« wird dann innerhalb der langen, nacharistotelischen Tradition der media diaphana verortet, deren Spuren in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren in den Schriften von Autoren wie Béla Balázs, Fritz Heider und László Moholy-Nagy zu finden sind."


Author(s):  
Don Garrett

The Ethics distinguishes three kinds of cognition (cognitio): (1) opinion or imagination (opinion vel imaginatio); (2) reason (ratio), and (3) intuitive knowledge (scientia intuitiva). This chapter explains Spinoza’s theory of the highest and most desirable kind of cognition, scientia intuitiva, and, in doing so, it answers three puzzling but fundamental questions about it. First, what are the “essences” of attributes and of things on which scientia intuitiva is said to depend? Second, given that all cognition requires an “adequate” idea of an attribute of God, in Spinoza’s view, how does scientia intuitiva differ from the other two kinds of cognition? Third, can everything be known by scientia intuitiva, in Spinoza’s view, or are some truths beyond its reach?


Author(s):  
Robert C. Koons ◽  
Alexander Pruss

Functionalism in the theory of mind requires an account of function that has a normative component—mere conditional connection (whether indicative or sub-junctive) is not enough. For instance, a component of a computing system isn’t an adder just in case its output is always or would always be the sum of the inputs, since any computing system in a world with as much indeterminism as ours can err or malfunction. Two general reductions of normative language have been proposed that one might wish to apply to the problem of defining proper function: the evolutionary reduction (Wright, Millikan) and the agential reduction (Plantinga). We argue that whatever the merits of the reductions in other contexts, a functionalist theory of mind that defines proper function in either of these ways must fail. The argument proceeds by first showing the agential reduction is viciously circular in the context of a functionalist theory of agency. Second, if functionalism about mind is true and proper function is reducible evolutionarily, then it is possible to have a situation in which the presence or absence of mental properties depends in an implausibly spooky, acausal way on remote facts. It is plausible that the only currently avail-able way for the functionalist to meet these challenges is to accept irreducible end-directed causal powers of minds and/or their functional parts, in accordance with a broadly Aristotelian tradition.


Author(s):  
Jean-Yves Lacoste ◽  
Oliver O’Donovan

Considering the distinction between discursive, acquired knowledge and intuitive knowledge raises the question of how theology as a learned discipline relates to the spiritual life. The two kinds of knowledge cannot exist apart in history, but may be in unhappy tension. Eschatology can have no place for discursive knowledge, while history may be conceived as veiling of intuitive knowledge behind discursive knowledge. The goal of theology, then, is to introduce the believer into intuitive knowledge of God. “Indirect” communication allows it to speak of God without reductively “objectifying” him. The experience of worship combines the two kinds of knowledge. It involves words, and the words aim at truth. But its function is to allow the truth not merely to be understood but to be felt in its splendour.


2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Oldofredi

AbstractThe present essay provides a new metaphysical interpretation of Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) in terms of mereological bundle theory. The essential idea is to claim that a physical system in RQM can be defined as a mereological fusion of properties whose values may vary for different observers. Abandoning the Aristotelian tradition centered on the notion of substance, I claim that RQM embraces an ontology of properties that finds its roots in the heritage of David Hume. To this regard, defining what kind of concrete physical objects populate the world according to RQM, I argue that this theoretical framework can be made compatible with (i) a property-oriented ontology, in which the notion of object can be easily defined, and (ii) moderate structural realism, a philosophical position where relations and relata are both fundamental. Finally, I conclude that under this reading relational quantum mechanics should be included among the full-fledged realist interpretations of quantum theory.


Phronesis ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-261
Author(s):  
Keimpe Algra

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