Metaphysical Themes, Medieval and Modern presents three sets of essays that engage the metaphysics of substance through a study of thought on this theme over the last eight centuries, shedding light on contemporary disputes as well as the history of thought leading into the modern era. Part I grows out of an author-meets-critics panel on Robert Pasnau’s Metaphysical Themes: 1274–1671 (OUP, 2011). Pasnau’s rich study delves into the four centuries wherein later medieval thought gives way to the modern period. Andrew Arlig reflects on Pasnau’s discussion of holenmers, entities such as God and the human soul, that are thought to exist as wholes in more or less disparate things. Paul Symington, on the other hand, treats the substance ontology of Thomas Aquinas in particular through a reflection on Aquinas’s understanding of the ontological status of the various modes or accidents of Aristotelian substances. Part II, “Substance Ontology, Medieval and Modern”, transitions to contemporary substance ontology. Travis Dumsday canvasses the field of debate over what is the substratum of change, contending that the Aristotelian, hylomorphic account of substance that views substances as matter-form composites remains the most robust. Gyula Klima, while agreeing with Dumsday’s conclusion, strengthens his argument with reference to the development of this bundle of problems within the recent history of analytic philosophy. Dumsday concludes with reflections on the relevance of substance ontology to natural theology, which, in turn, is the theme of Part III, “The Natural Theology of Thomas Aquinas”, wherein Alexander Hall and Michael Sirilla consider how Aquinas’s understanding of the divine substance bears on the logic of demonstration in his natural theology, concluding that contemporary Radical Orthodoxy readings that have Aquinas forfeit demonstrative proof that God exists misconstrue him on this point.

Mereology is the metaphysical theory of parts and wholes, including their conditions of identity and persistence through change. Hylomorphism is the metaphysical doctrine according to which all natural substances, including living organisms, consist of matter and form as their essential parts, where the substantial form of living organisms is identified as their soul. The theories date to Plato and Aristotle and figure prominently in the history of philosophy up until the seventeenth century, where their influence wanes relative to a reductive materialism that culminates with deflationary accounts of objects and persons, where mere conglomerates constitute things and we are left to account for mental phenomena in terms of the powers of physical materials. In view of such difficulties, there is a renewed interest in hylomorphism, as its forms structure matter and can account for natural kinds, with their various capacities and powers. This volume presents medieval theories of hylomorphism and mereology, articulating the conceptual framework in which they developed and with an eye on their relevance today.

This volume considers the contemporary relevance of Aquinas’ thought and what parameters should influence its reception. It discusses the reception of Aquinas on creation ex nihilo and offers guidelines for reception in the fields of metaphysics and natural theology. Chapters on physics and philosophy of mind intersect with key modern debates. Contributions interpret Aquinas’ physics in light of contemporary findings and discuss his account of human self-awareness.

This author-meets-critics volume about Robert Pasnau’s After Certainty treats the history of epistemology, from Aristotle to the present. Pasnau presents this history as a gradual lowering of expectations regarding certain knowledge, the culmination of a sea change dating to the early-modern rejection of Aristotelian essentialism. The result, he concludes, is that contemporary epistemology is, more than any other branch of philosophy, estranged from its tradition. Pasnau’s After Certainty draws conclusions that are not just historical, but also systematic, an effort that led to a 2018 Parisian symposium to evaluate the text, collected here as a volume that stands alone as an intriguing work on the history of epistemology or together with After Certainty as an invaluable companion piece.

Moses Maimonides and John Duns Scotus are key figures as regards the thirteenth-century philosophical tradition that developed out of the Western Christian reception of the Neo-Platonized Aristotelianism of Islamic and Jewish thinkers. Whereas the writings of Maimonides count among the received works that inaugurate and shape this span, the variety of conceptual instruments developed by Scotus arguably signal its end, preparing the way for the emergence of diverse fourteenth-century philosophical worldviews. Maimonides on God and Duns Scotus on Logic and Metaphysics explores the eponymous thinkers’ work across a variety of fields. In the domain of natural theology, Maimonides presses for creation de novo, adapting from the Islamic Kalām tradition what has come to be known as the Argument from Particularity, which deduces intelligent design when science seems, in principle, unable to account for states of affairs that conceivably needn’t obtain (to take an example from modern physics, the strength of the four fundamental forces). Part one of this volume contrasts Maimonides’s and Aquinas’s parallel treatments of this and other proof strategies still employed by contemporary philosophers. Part two, on Scotus, includes discussion of the authenticity of the logical writings attributed to him, the evolution of his thought in this field against the backdrop of various thirteenth-century developments, the types of Aristotelian universals theorized by Scotus, his semantics of theological discourse and ontology of possible entities.

One of the most debated topics in medieval philosophy was the metaphysics of identity—that is, what accounts for the distinctness (non-identity) of different individuals of the same, specific kind and the persistence (self-identity) of the same individuals over time and in different possible situations, especially with regard to individuals of our specific kind, namely, human persons. The first three papers of this volume investigate the comparative development of positions. One problem, considered by William of Auvergne and Albert the Great, deals with Aristotle’s doctrine of the active intellect and its relation to Christian philosophical conceptions of personhood. A larger set of issues on the nature and post-mortem fate of human beings is highlighted as common inquiry among Muslim philosophers and Thomas Aquinas, as well as Aquinas and the modern thinker John Locke. Finally, the last two papers offer a debate over Aquinas’s exact views regarding whether substances persist identically across metaphysical “gaps” (periods of non-existence), either by nature or divine power.

This volume considers the Aristotelian virtue-ethics tradition as it develops in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Part One studies the types of virtues Aquinas believes are held by Christians in a state of grace. Aquinas’s intriguing account is apparently fraught with inconsistencies, which have split contemporary interpreters over not only how to understand Aquinas on this matter, but also as to whether it is even possible to provide a consistent interpretation of his doctrine. This book brings together scholarship that reflects the various sides of the debate. Part Two explores a Thomistic synthesis regarding Aquinas’s account of the good as telos or end that emerges in the seventeenth century, as well as what promise his virtue ethics holds today, arguing that Aquinas’ hylomorphic understanding of human beings as matter-form composites furnishes a robust moral accounting that seems unavailable to alternative, reductive materialist accounts.

Contemporary introductions to the theme of self-knowledge too often trace its emergence in the history of philosophy to thinkers such as René Descartes and David Hume. Whereas Descartes conceives of self-knowledge as intimate and first-personal, Hume contends that it is limited to our awareness of our impressions and ideas. In point of fact, self-knowledge is a perennial theme. We may, for instance, trace the lineage of Hume and Descartes on these matters to Aristotle and Plato, respectively. This volume studies philosophical treatments of self-knowledge in the Medieval Latin West. It comprises two sets of papers; the first is taken from an author-meets-critics session on Therese Scarpelli-Cory’s Aquinas on Human Self Knowledge, which advances the thesis that Aquinas’s theory of self-knowledge wherein the intellect grasps itself in its activity bridges the divide between mediated and first-personal self-knowledge. The second set of papers discuss self-knowledge in terms of self-fulfilment. Authors look to Aquinas’s account of how we can know when we have acquired the virtues necessary for human happiness, as well as the medieval traditions of mysticism and theology, which offer accounts of transformative self-knowledge, the fulfilment that this brings to our emotional and physical selves, and the authority to teach and counsel about what this awareness confers.

Anschließend an den 2017 herausgegebenen Sammelband widmet sich auch der vorliegende zweite Teil der Geschichte des Problems der Kategorien. Das Ziel besteht nach wie vor darin, einige Trajektorien und Perspektiven dieser Geschichte zu beschreiben, ohne einen erschöpfenden Überblick darüber geben zu können. Vielmehr soll ein Beitrag zu einem umfangreichen Projekt geleistet werden, das allmählich sein Ziel erreicht. In diesem Band wurde das Problem der Kategorien bei weiteren Philosophen, von Platon bis Quine, untersucht; die vorliegende Arbeit bildet dadurch eine Ergänzung zum ersten Teilband. Auf unterschiedlichen Wegen werden einzelne Fragen und Umstände behandelt, die Kategorien werden in verschiedenen Zeiten und Kontexten ausgeleuchtet, wobei die Frage nach ihnen manchmal in den Vordergrund tritt und sich manchmal selbst verbirgt. Themen, die bis dahin ihre zentrale Stellung verloren hatten, wird mehr oder neue Aufmerksamkeit geschenkt. ********* This is the second volume devoted to the history of the question of categories, an issue which was also the focus of the collective volume published in 2017. The aim is still to describe some trajectories and perspectives of this history, without claiming an exhaustive overview of it, but rather representing a contribution to a wider project, which is gradually reaching its goal. In this volume the problem of categories has been investigated in the work of further philosophers, from Plato to Quine; in this way the present work complements that done in the first volume. The question of categories has been dealt with in different times and contexts, sometimes coming into the foreground and sometimes concealing itself—and this is something worthy of investigation in itself. It is also interesting to understand why in particular contexts greater attention is paid to a particular issue that had previously lost its centrality.

To know epistemology's history is to know better what contemporary epistemology could be and perhaps should be – and what it need not be and perhaps ought not to be. Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy covers the influence of Aristotle and Augustine during the Middle Ages. Epistemology and scepticism is part of philosophy from the late thirteenth century onwards, and knowledge was of great philosophical concern throughout the Middle Ages. By putting the medieval discussion in context it contributes to shedding light on the era and its thinkers, as well as to making it relevant for contemporary epistemologists. Demonstrating important aspects of epistemology, ones that has huge importance for our everyday life, chapters cover the notion of testimony and thinkers such as Avicenna, Scotus amd the definition of knowledge found in Ockham.