tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472139466585018053.post4154384438879875424..comments2024-03-11T04:11:06.487-04:00Comments on The Smithy: Lee Faberhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00476833516234522602noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472139466585018053.post-45608607090549748062021-06-09T23:54:48.836-04:002021-06-09T23:54:48.836-04:00"Haecceity" is pronounced "high&quo...<br /><br /> "Haecceity" is pronounced "high" + "kay" + "it" + "tee"<br /><br /> To believe as the author seems to that philosophy is about the largest categories and the most general concepts is to grasp half of the bequest of classical Greek philosophy. The tension between "the one and the many" is at least as old as Plato. <br />Theories of individuation do not contradict theories of general concepts any more than the essence contradicts the esse.<br /><br /> Put differently, medieval philosophy was not "contradictory"; rather, it formalized a pair of tensions within Being; tensions as old as Pythagoras, but framed very carefully by Aristotle. Tensions that yield the four elements; the four causes; the four humors. <br /><br /> The notion of philosophy as the search for the highest abstractions seems to be an essential fruit of modernist philosophical Idealism. (BTW, Duns Scotus had a lot to say about the Transcendental, too.) <br /><br /> Western philosophy, like Western science, is singular and startling in the sheer scope of its vision. James A. Givenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15765926707365898734noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2472139466585018053.post-90988202503715092722021-06-06T15:33:39.912-04:002021-06-06T15:33:39.912-04:00Thank you for discovering this writer for me. I mu...<br /> Thank you for discovering this writer for me. I must explore-<br />An award named for Andy Warhol ( a most confused Catholic) does not impress me; but why should one Zen Master not profit from another?<br /><br />I think the writer's designated central point is at the very center of the Western philosophical tradition, as was Duns Scotus: WE DO LOSE. WE NEVER GET THERE. OUR STRIVING TO REALIZE COMPLETE BEING MUST ALWAYS FAIL; WE SET OUT IN FIERCE PRIDE; STRAINING FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE; STRIVING TO RE-MEMBER THE FUTURE; EKSTATIS OCCURS; AND THEN WE FIND OURSELVES ALREADY ALWAYS THERE IN THE PAST.<br />TRULY THE BASIC MOTION OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY; ITS PRIMITIVE ACT; IS A TRACING OUT OF THE ARCHER'S MISSING OF THE MARK, OR HAMARTIA?<br /><br />*I have been pondering this for decades. Isn't it written out somewhere by Aristotle; this "paradox of time"? Several good books on this, e.g. Pascal Massie, "Contingency Time and Possibility: An Essay on Aristotle and Duns Scotus."<br /><br />A recurrent conclusion of mine in re Duns Scotus seems to me to be closely related: Aquinas writes metaphysics for the Afterlife. When we study metaphysics again, in Heaven, we will realize that Aquinas was exactly right. But Duns Scotus does Metaphysics for a Fallen Nature; for Those who Walk in Darkness-<br /><br />Finally, the answer to the above Paradox of Time is artistic creation; because the artist reaches for the solidity of the Past; and finds their Creation approaching them from the Future. The Creation attains the Future, but the Artist must let it go-<br />I don't know if Aristotle tell us about this solution- <br /><br /> James A. Givenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15765926707365898734noreply@blogger.com