Non-Qualitativeness and Aboutness

This is the second of two chapters devoted to a special subclass of Tolerance Puzzles based on ‘indiscernible modality’, on which qualitative truths are automatically necesssary. This chapter develops our favoured solution to these puzzles, which involves denying the qualitativeness of properties like being a table. We introduce a metaphysical notion of “aboutness” which can be used to probe the sources of non-qualitativeness, and consider some special challenges that arise on the assumption that there could be new objects that aren’t among the objects there actually are.

Essence and Dependence

I argue that Kit Fine’s essence-based account of ontological dependence is subject to various counterexamples. I first discuss Fine’s distinctive “schema-based” approach to metaphysical theorizing, which aims to identify general principles accommodating any intelligible application of the metaphysical notion(s) at issue. I then raise concerns about the general principles Fine takes to schematically characterize the notions of essence and dependence, which principles enter into his account of ontological dependence. The problem, roughly speaking, is that Fine supposes that an object’s essence makes reference just to what it ontologically depends on, but various cases suggest that an object’s essence can also make reference to what ontologically depends on it. As such, Fine’s essence-based account of ontological dependence is subject to the same objection he raises against modal accounts of essence and dependence—that is, of being insufficiently ecumenical.

Analyticity Reconsidered1

This essay distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemological conceptions of analyticity. The former is the idea of a sentence that is ‘true purely in virtue of its meaning’ while the latter is the idea of a sentence that ‘can be justifiably believed merely on the basis of understanding its meaning’. It further argues that, while Quine may have been right to reject the metaphysical notion, the epistemological notion can be defended from his critique and put to work explaining a priori justification. Along the way, a number of further distinctions relevant to the theory of analyticity and the theory of apriority are made and their significance is explained.

Essence, individualité et personne chez Thomas d’Aquin

The rediscovery of the Hellenic philosophy, but also of the Patristic thinking is a typical feature of Thomistic thought, which consists of a new synthesis of Hellenism and Christianity that raises anew the issue of the relation between Christianity and philosophy as a focal point of medieval philosophy. Acknowledgement of Hellenic Patristic thought that focuses primarily on man as an inseparable union of body and soul, joined in a whole, has been a determining factor in the Thomistic approach of being, through the distinction between a person (or hypostasis) from essence (or nature). Through this distinction and because of the Aristotle’s hylomorphism, the notion of ‘person’ is placed in the field of individuality and the unity of the human composite. The metaphysical notion of a person as individual, complemented by the notion of “relation” is directly related to the ontological unity of human nature and is founded upon the metaphysical notion of “essence” (substance).

Constituting the Trinity

Recently several authors have developed accounts of the Trinity employing the metaphysical notion of constitution. I expound one such proposal and defend it against objections from Keith Yandell and Brian Leftow. In the process, I propose an improved definition of the constitution relation as applied to the Trinity. I then compare the resulting trinitarian metaphysics with Leftow's own view.

Making History and Writing History

This chapter examines the role played by Emerson in the development of Nietzsche’s position regarding history and historiography from the second Untimely Meditation up to the middle period works. Drawing inspiration from Emerson, Nietzsche takes a stance contrary to the theory of active forgetting that he had previously maintained and finds an alternative to the historicism of his age in an active and empathic reading of history in which events are relived “in the first person.” The precondition for developing this type of reading is the virtue that Emerson calls self-reliance, understood as a reverence for oneself and for one’s own task. This chapter also considers Emerson’s contribution to the critique of the metaphysical notion of genius and of the “cult of the hero.” Clarifying the genesis of this critique allows us to clarify in turn Nietzsche’s position regarding the theory of moral and political perfectionism.

Cixous, Hélène (1937–)

Hélène Cixous, a prolific, internationally acclaimed French writer born in Algeria and now residing in Paris, works between poetry and continental philosophy. She belongs to a larger community of artists and intellectuals in France that, in the 1960s, actively sought a critique of the Western (male) subject, claiming that the ‘metaphysical’ notion of the subject has for three centuries contributed to the repression of nature, women and other cultures by construing human existence in terms of the separation of mind from body, and more generally of concept from metaphor. Influenced by writers and thinkers from many times and places, Cixous privileges art and poetry in work of strong philosophical inflection, especially where it engages with that of Jacques Derrida. Like his, her thought champions notions of difference, and metamorphosis rather than opposition and identity. She seeks to displace the unified, narcissistic (generally male) subject, which in her view is on the side of death. Cixous is also importantly influenced by her critical reception of Freud, Hegel, Heidegger and Nietzsche.

Cixous, Hélène (1937–)

Hélène Cixous, a prolific French author born in Algeria, works between poetry and philosophy. She is part of a larger intellectual community in France that, since the 1960s, has sought a critique of the Western (male) subject, claiming that the ‘metaphysical’ notion of the subject has for three centuries contributed to the repression of nature, women and other cultures by construing human existence in terms of the separation of mind from body, and more generally of concept from metaphor. Influenced by Nietzsche and Freud, Cixous privileges the artistic and poetic but all her work has philosophical underpinnings, especially those proposed by Derrida. Like his, her thought champions notions of difference, multiplicity and life over identity, univocity and death. She seeks to displace the unified, narcissistic (male) subject, which in her view is on the side of death. Cixous is also importantly influenced by her critical reception of Hegel and Heidegger.

What Truth Is

What Truth Is presents and defends a novel theory of what truth is, in terms of the metaphysical notion of truthmaking. This is the relation which holds between a truth and some entity in the world, in virtue of which that truth is true. By coming to an understanding of this relation, I argue, we gain better insight into the metaphysics of truth. The first part of the book discusses the property being true, and how we should understand it in terms of truthmaking. The second part focuses on truthmakers, the worldly entities which make various kinds of truths true, and how they do so. I argue for a metaphysics of states of affairs, which account for things having properties and standing in relations. The third part analyses the logic and metaphysics of the truthmaking relation itself, and links it to the metaphysical concept of grounding. The final part discusses consequences of the theory for language and logic. I show how the theory delivers a novel and useful theory of propositions, the entities which are true or false, depending on how things are. One feature of this approach is that it avoids the Liar paradox and other puzzling paradoxes of truth.

A Savage Ontology

The underlying idea is that “life” is a metaphysical notion, not a scientific one, and that this notion has permeated both the European and the Anglophone traditions of thought