Being and Some PhilosophersThe study of being was one of the main preoccupations of Gilson's scholarly and intellectual life. Being and Some Philosophers is at once a testament to the persistence of these concerns and an important landmark in the history of the question of being. The book charts the ways in which being is translated across history, from unity in Plato and substance in Aristotle to essence in Avicenna and the act of existence in Aquinas. It examines the vicissitudes of essence and existence in Suarez and Christian Wolff, in Hegel and Kierkegaard, in order to uncover the metaphysical and existential foundations of modern thought. And yet Being and Some Philosophers remains not so much an historical investigation (although it could only have been written by a scholar steeped in the history of philosophy) but, in the words of its author, "a philosophical book, and a dogmatically philosophical one at that." Its passionate vigour has proven, over many years, at once fresh and provocative. Indeed, the appendix to this revised edition contains critiques of the book by two Thomists as well as Gilson's replies to their objections. |
Contents
ON BEING AND THE ONE | 1 |
AppendixON SOME DIFFICULTIES OF INTERPRETATION | 216 |
Index | 233 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract accident act of existing actual existence actus Aristotelian Aristotle ascribe Averroes Avicenna become belongs causality cause Christian cognition composition conceived concept concrete constitutes copula created creatures Descartes determinations distinction of essence divine doctrine Duns Scotus ence entails essence and existence essential eternally existential finite formal Hegel human Hume Ibid Ideas inasmuch individuals intellectual intelligible John the Scot judgment Kant Kirkegaard knowledge least Leibniz logic matter means meta metaphysician metaphysics mind namely nature Neoplatonism never non-being notion noun object ontology ovoía Parmenides philosophy Plato Plotinus point of fact position possible potency praedicatum precisely predicate principle problem Proclus propositions pure question quiddity quod reason relation remains Resp Scotist self-identity sense Siger Siger of Brabant signifies simple Socrates speak Suarez substance supreme theologians thing Thomas Aquinas Thomistic thought true to say truth ultimate unity verb whole Wolff words