This essay explores some of the central aspects of Aquinas's account of mental representation, focusing in particular on his views about the intentionality of concepts (or intelligible species). It begins by demonstrating the need for a new interpretation of his account, showing in particular that the standard interpretations all face insurmountable textual difficulties. It then develops the needed alternative and explains how it avoids the sorts of problems plaguing the standard interpretations. Finally, it draws out the implications of this interpretation (...) with the aim of correcting some persistent misunderstandings of the connection between Aquinas's views and those developed by contemporary philosophers of mind. (shrink)

Universals are usually considered to be universal properties. Since tropes are particular properties, if there are only tropes, there are no universals. However, universals might be thought of not only as common properties, but also as common aspects (“determinable universals”) and common wholes (“concrete universals”). The existence of these two latter concepts of universals is fully compatible with the assumption that all properties are particular. This observation makes possible three different trope theories, which accept tropes and no universals, tropes and (...) determinable universals and tropes and concrete universals. (shrink)

One of the most striking differences between Frege's Begriffsschrift (logical system) and standard contemporary systems of logic is the inclusion in the former of the judgement stroke: a symbol which marks those propositions which are being asserted , that is, which are being used to express judgements . There has been considerable controversy regarding both the exact purpose of the judgement stroke, and whether a system of logic should include such a symbol. This paper explains the intended role of the (...) judgement stroke in a way that renders it readily comprehensible why Frege insisted that this symbol was an essential part of his logical system. The key point here is that Frege viewed logic as the study of inference relations amongst acts of judgement , rather than – as in the typical contemporary view – of consequence relations amongst certain objects (propositions or well-formed formulae). The paper also explains why Frege's use of the judgement stroke is not in conflict with his avowed anti-psychologism, and why Wittgenstein's criticism of the judgement stroke as 'logically quite meaningless' is unfounded. The key point here is that while the judgement stroke has no content , its use in logic and mathematics is subject to a very stringent norm of assertion. (shrink)

To understand Aristotle’s conception of form, we have to see clearly the relationship between his account and Plato’s Theory of Forms. I offer a novel interpretation of Aristotle’s Moderate Realism, in which forms are simple particulars that ground the character and mutual similarity of the entities they inform. Such an account has advantages in three areas: explaining (1) the similarity of particulars, (2) the synchronic unity of composite particulars, and (3) the diachronic unity or persistence of intrinsically changing particulars.

Eleonore Stump argues in her article in this volume that Aquinas’s theory of knowledge is not classical foundationalism, as it has sometimes seemed to be, but, instead, a version of reliabilism. I'm convinced that her thesis is important and well-supported, and it has led me to begin a re-examination of one aspect of Aquinas’s theory of knowledge from the new viewpoint Stump’s work provides. I think the results tend to confirm her account while revealing further details of Aquinas’s reliabilism.My topic (...) is not reliabilism itself. Instead, I am focusing on Aquinas’s account of the reliability of the fundamental operations of the two human cognitive faculties, sense and intellect. Accounts of cognitive reliability have a place in most theories about the justification of belief, of course, and so they are found in more than one sort of epistemology; but reliabilism might be said to need them most. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the philosophical consequences of one tradition in Trinitarian theology, which emphasizes that each of the persons of the Trinity is wholly God. I pay special attention to Leftow’s claim that the persons of the Godhead must be divine in the same sense of the word ‘divine’ as the Godhead itself. I argue that the existing philosophical account of the Trinity which best captures this view is what I have termed the ‘Strong Theory of Relative Identity,’ (...) first proposed Peter Geach. I then develop what I take to be the most pressing objection to this account of the Trinity, namely that it cannot be supplemented with a coherent model-theoretic semantics. I end with a suggestion for responding to this objection. (shrink)

While the modern revival of virtue ethics largely looks back to Aristotle, most, if not all, versions of this trend continue to be much indebted to and/or based upon specific mid‐twentieth‐century neo‐naturalist and descriptivist critiques of prevailing antinaturalist trends of that time: specifically, upon Anscombe's critique of the ethics of duty and utility and of the so‐called modern moral ought, and Geach's robust defence of the descriptive character of moral and other goodness. However, in the wake of further critical attention (...) to these neo‐naturalist claims, this paper argues that there can ultimately be no reliable or secure logical or empirical grounding of the virtues of inherently normative human moral life and conduct in the goods or virtues of effective or even beneficial natural function. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis addresses a group of conceptual instruments that are central to Aristotle's philosophy, namely, the concepts of pros hen, homonymy, synonymy and multivocity. These instruments are crucial to many of Aristotle's works as he devotes himself to analysing the key notions in each of his investigations using these instruments. Despite the undisputable importance of these instruments, they display severe interpretative problems, which this thesis critically evaluates. The currently established view on the relationship between homonymy and multivocity is discussed (...) and then reassessed in order to approach the definition of the so-called pros hen structure. This approach takes into account a so-far undescribed distinction of types of examples Aristotle uses and sheds new light on the assessments of the role of the pros hen structure in Aristotle’s philosophy and the theories on development in Aristotle’s thought. Niels Tolkiehn studied Philosophy and Systematic Musicology at the University of Hamburg. He continued his studies as a doctoral student at the Munich School of Ancient Philosophy, a graduate school of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Supervised by Prof. Dr. Christof Rapp, he was awarded his doctoral degree in 2019 with this dissertation. (shrink)

I must admit that I was long tempted to choose a different title for this lecture—one which seemed to give a better idea of its contents. On the other hand, the title I found so attractive did not seem suited to the note of solemnity which normally accompanies an inaugural lecture. I was forced to suppress it—until today, at any rate; for today I have the opportunity of justifying it, and I hope to make the most of it. The title (...) I wanted to use was ‘The Thing with the Thing’. (shrink)

Este trabajo presenta y discute diferentes intentos recientes para resolver el así llamado «problema de la Trinidad». Las declaraciones dogmáticas han asumido que (a) sólo hay un Dios; (b) que hay tres personas diferentes, el Padre, el Hijo y el Espíritu Santo; y (c) que esas tres personas son un solo Dios. Pero si hay tres personas diferentes y esas tres personas diferentes son Dios, entonces parece que, o bien no hay un único Dios, o no hay realmente tres personas (...) diferentes. Han aparecido cuatro posiciones principales en el debate reciente en Teología Filosófica para resolver este problema: (i) la teoría social de la Trinidad, (ii) la teoría «latina» de la Trinidad, (iii) la teoría de la Trinidad basada en identidades relativas, y (iv) la teoría de la Trinidad basada en relaciones de constitución. Se presentan y discuten críticamente las cuatro posiciones. This work presents and discusses different recent attempts to solve the so-called «problem of the Trinity». The dogmatic declarations have assumed that: (a) there is only one God; (b) that there are three different persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and (c) that those three persons are just one God. But if there are three different persons and those three different persons are God, then it seems that, either there is not just one God, or there are not really three different persons. There have appeared four main positions in the recent debate in Philosophical Theology to solve this problem: (i) the social theory of the Trinity, (ii) the «latin» theory of the Trinity, (iii) the theory of the Trinity based on relative identity, and (iv) the theory of the Trinity based on relations of constitution. All four positions are presented and critically discussed. (shrink)

In 1902 there arrived in Jena a letter from Russell laying out a proof that shattered Frege’s confidence in logicism, which is widely taken to be the doctrine according to which every truth of arithmetic is re-expressible without relevant loss as a provable truth about a purely logical object. Frege was persuaded that Russell had exposed a pathology in logicism, which faced him with the task of examining its symptoms, diagnosing its cause, assessing its seriousness, arriving at a treatment option, (...) and making an estimate of future prospects. The symptom was the contradiction that had crept into naïve set theory in the form of the set that provably is and is not its own member. The diagnosis was that it is caused by Basic Law V of the Grundgesetze (Frege, In: Grundgesetze der Arithmetik: Begrifsschriftlich abgeleitet, Jena: Herman Pohle, 1893/1903. Translated into English as Basic Laws of Arithmetic, also edited by Philip A. Ebert and Marcus Rossberg, with Crispin Wright, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). Triage answers the question, “How bad is it?” The answer was that the contradiction irreparably destroys the logicist project. The treatment option was nil. The disease was untreatable. In due course, the prognosis turned out to be that a scaled-down Fregean logic could have an honourable life as a theory inference for various domains of mathematical discourse, but not for domains containing the logical objects required for logicism. Since there aren’t such objects, there aren’t such domains. On the face of it, Frege’s logicist collapse is astonishing. Why wouldn’t he have repaired the fault in Law V and gone back to the business of bringing logicism to an assured realization? In the course of our reflections, we will have nice occasion to consider the good it might have done Frege to have booked some time with Aristotle had he been able to. By the time we’re finished, we’ll have cause to think that in the end the Russell might well have begged the question against Frege. (shrink)