Acta Philosophica

The Identification of Wisdom with the Science of Being as Being: Unity and Universality of Aristotle’s Metaphysics According to Alexander of Aphrodisias

Rita Salis — 2024-03-21

The entire ancient and late antique commentary tradition tends to read Aristotle’s Metaphysics as a unitary work. According to this reading, one and the same science is developed, culminating in book Λ, containing the famous doctrine of the unmoved mover. The systematic intent of the reading of the Metaphysics, which extends to the entire corpus aristotelicum, begins with Aristotle’s greatest ancient commentator, Alexander of Aphrodisias. Through an analysis of key passages in Alexander’s commentary on books Α and Γ of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, this paper aims to show that the thesis according to which the exegete considered wisdom and science of being as being to be independent is not in fact borne out in Alexander’s texts. The connection between the books Α and Γ is shown by Alexander through the identification of wisdom with the science of being as being. This, in turn, constitutes the fundamental step for the demonstration of the existence of the science of being as being, which, according to Alexander, is initially only assumed by Aristotle.

Political Friendship. Critical Study and Current Perspectives of a Classic Category

Marco Panero — 2024-03-21

This study aims to reconstruct thoroughly the Thomist notion of ‘amicitia politica’, and seeks to explore its triple constitutive reference : the practice of friendship, the order of justice, the theological reference to the virtue of charity. The result is a highly topical concept, articulated into specific virtues that give practical effectiveness and provide the ethical component of common good, that is, what law alone is unable to ensure, although the life of the community largely depends just on it.

The Natural and Original Condition of Dominium Among Men. Thomas Aquinas between Augustine of Hippo and Neo-Republicanism

Santiago Argüello — 2024-03-21

This paper studies Thomas Aquinas’ teaching in S. th., i, q. 96, a. 4, which discusses the thought of Augustine of Hippo, especially De civitate Dei, xix. 15. Before that, it explores the essential coincidence in the concept of dominium between Neo-republicanism and Ciceronian and Augustinian statements on it. After a core depiction of the Thomistic understanding of dominium between human beings, the argument goes ahead and addresses the issue of its condition: whereas for Aquinas, dominium is something natural and prelapsarian, for Augustine, even keeping some traits of human nature, it is not prelapsarian, but postlapsarian, that is, as a result of the original sin. In this regard, the paper discusses a recent interpretation which cannot help but to conflate Aquinas’ and Augustine’s philosophies of dominium.

Fundamental Forms of the Absolute in Hegel’s Philosophy

Lelia Edith Profili — 2024-03-21

The following paper aims at proposing a consistent explanatory model of Hegel speculative thinking of the Absolute. The main thesis advocates that, in Hegel´s mature writings, it is possible to distinguish three distinct forms of the Absolute, which are not three different concepts, but three ongoing determinations of the same concept presented in a speculative manner. The analysis will also elucidate the decisive role of these in relation with the organic nature of Hegel’s philosophy and with its internal systematic organization.

Between-Discipline Pluralism vs. Within-Discipline Pluralism. Some Issues Concerning a Contemporary Debate in the Philosophy of Biology

Claudio Davini — 2024-03-21

Between-discipline pluralism and within-discipline pluralism are the two sides of the contemporary debate on function pluralism in biology. According to between-discipline pluralism, two of the most respected philosophical analyses of function-talk in biology – the selected effects theory and the causal role theory – are suitable to different branches of biology. According to within-discipline pluralism, on the contrary, it is possible to uncover these theories in any branch of biology. In this article, besides introducing the debate involving between-discipline pluralism and within-discipline pluralism, I will argue that the cause of within-discipline pluralism can be served more effectively by an argument based on Neander’s reflections on biological normativity rather than on Garson’s generalised selected effects theory. Despite the fact that the latter is the first proponent of within-discipline pluralism and the former is not directly concerned with the task of defending within-discipline pluralism; indeed, Garson’s position is affected by a serious shortcoming – which stems from the generalised selected effects theory’s presumption that we can treat evolutionary functions and ontogenetic functions as if they were of the same exact kind. At the end of the paper, I will build another argument to support the case of within-discipline pluralism.

Freedom and Beauty : The ‘Necessity’ of Evil in Dostoevskij

Luigi Bruno — 2024-03-21

Why is there a relationship and what kind of relationship is there between beauty and salvation? In other words: why does the world need to be saved? And by whom? Or from what? How is this combination of aesthetics and soteriology embodied in Dostoevsky’s works, in particular in the Idiot? These are the questions from which this reflection on the relationship between beauty and evil in Dostoevsky starts; but speaking of evil necessarily involves a discourse on freedom. Linking, anchoring the discourse on beauty to freedom means problematizing that concept in the light of existence, which concretely, as well as conceptually, is declined as a struggle between good and evil. In fact, this battle is the necessary consequence of man’s freedom, or rather of man’s awareness of his own freedom in man. This places Dostoevsky’s reflection on an eminently philosophical level. In this problematization of the concept (and reality) of beauty, anchored as it is to freedom, the question about evil and the consideration of its “necessity” are inserted, starting from its self-evidence precisely in the subject, which is what to say in the freedom, that is, in existence. However, Dostoevsky goes beyond the historical-existential level and therefore sees and affirms a solution to the problematic nature of beauty, when it is considered precisely on that same level. By fixing the overcoming of evil, and therefore of nihilism and atheism, in the final ‘éskathon’, from which he looks at history, as Dante does, he announces that the beauty that will save the world is that founded on the Ideal, on the Unique who was able to resolve, destroying it in himself, the conflict, the struggle between good and evil.

Damiano Simoncelli, Desiderare l’infinito. Bene e legge naturale in Tommaso d’Aquino, Orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2023, pp. 148

Francesco Maria Civili — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701011

Giuseppe Riconda, Augusto Del Noce e Luigi Pareyson. Ontologismo e filosofia della libertà, Morcelliana, Brescia 2023, pp. 104

Francesco Russo — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701011

Bram Demulder, Plutarch’s Cosmological Ethics, Plutarchea Hypomneumata, Leuven University Press, Leuven 2022, pp. 440

Federico Casella — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Timothy Williamson, The Philosophy of Philosophy, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 20222, pp. 642

Cosmas Agwu Uka — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Giampaolo Ghilardi, La morale del metodo, Etica e Talenti (n. 5), Orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2022, pp. 210

Miriam Savarese — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Nicolò Tarquini, Eternità e divenire. Emanuele Severino e la metafisica classica, Orthotes, Napoli-Salerno 2022, pp. 444

Andrea Potalto — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Francesca Rigotti, Clemenza, il Mulino, Bologna 2023, pp. 144

Miriam Savarese — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Marco Matteoli, Teorie della conoscenza e filosofia nella prima età moderna. Cusano, Fracastoro, Bruno, Carocci, Roma 2022, pp. 190. (Giovanni Citrigno)

Giovanni Citrigno — 2024-03-21

DOI: https://doi.org/10.19272/202400701010

Marc de Leeuw, Paul Ricoeur’s Renewal of Philosophical Anthropology: Vulnerability, Capability, Justice, Lexington Books, Lanham 2021, pp. vii-206

Maria Celine Anastasia Socrates — 2024-02-15

Activity, Inertia and Will: The Anti-Spinozist Interpretation of Frans Hemsterhuis’s Aristée ou de la Divinité

Viviana Galletta — 2024-03-21

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the relevance of Frans Hemsterhuis’ dialogue Aristée ou de la divinité to the Spinozastreit. It will be analysed the anti-Spinozist interpretation of the dialogue, which is provided by Jacobi in the Schriften zum Spinozastreit. Indeed, through the hemsterhuisian notion of activité and inertie, Jacobi tries to validate the existence of a free will and of final causes in contrast with Spinoza’s system.

The Unfolding of the Productive Dualization: from the Uses of the Product to the Network of Means. The Proximate Anthropological Bases of Economic Activity

Ignacio Falgueras Salinas — 2024-03-21

In the spirit of Leonardo Polo’s thinking, we study human productive activity from the use of the product to the network of means. Usage links the product with a human purpose, transforming it into a medium (or means). A careful examination of the medium reveals its rational and material dimensions. The consideration of its first dimension calls for studying the notion of human ends and their types, whose hierarchy allows the ordering of the means. Finally, the study of their material dimension unveils the plural character (network) of the whole set of means.

Person and Atheism. The Contributions of Edith Stein’s Phenomenological Anthropology

Rubén Sánchez Muñoz — 2024-03-21

The aim of this paper is to show the relationship between anthropology and atheism in Edith Stein’s work. Thus, following the model of the structure of the human person according to which the person is constituted from a material body (Körper), a living body (Leib), a psyche (Psyche) and a spirit (Geist) (which is also the basis of Max Scheler’s philosophical anthropology), Stein introduces the soul (Seele) as the center and core of the person. According to the structure of the soul and the place of the personal self in it, the core of the person is the seat of the affective life, the place where the person feels values and from where his or her personal individuality is understood. The deepest part of the soul, what Stein calls the ‘soul of the soul’ (Seele der Seele) is the dwelling place of God and the foundation for individuality. God dwells in the innermost center of the personal soul. What are the implications for the human person of denying the soul and denying God? Where does atheism lead? In this paper we show the anthropological implications of atheism, which include the loneliness, abandonment, and inner tearing of the human person, and we show that by denying God, the person denies a fundamental part of his or her own existence.