This lesson treats of Anselm’s argument in the form of a scholastic quaestio. The question of the anselmian argument is then divided in three articles, which are three main issues discussed within the argument’s tradition until our-days. The first article asks if Anselm’s argument is a direct deduction of existence as a perfection of divine essence. Against a common place about that argument, this lesson’s justified answer is: no. The second article asks if Anselm’s argument is an a priori argument. Against a big stream of interpretation, this lesson’s justified answer is: no. Finally, the third article asks if the anselmian argument offers the possibility of constructing a double argument in favor of divine dualism. Certainly against any Anselm’s expectation, this lesson admits very seriously that possibility.

These critical reflections esteem the historical and philosophical work developed in Xavier’s lesson about the question of Anselm’s argument. However some objections may be found to the first and the third articles. Concerning the first article, Xavier’s interpretation of the relation between real existence and existence in thought is contestable. Besides, her view on the relation between essence and existence in Anselm may be approached to Alvin Plantinga’s thought about universals and abstract entities. The second article is not criticized. Contrariwise, the third article is the most contested one. The construction of an argument for the existence of an unsurmountable evil is not authorized by Anselm’s argument. Evil cannot be an unsurmountable major; it can be just an unsurpassable minor.

Aristotle is reportedly held to have been a Moderate Realist in that he would maintain that a concept derives from an act of grasping a mind-independent universal object that exists somehow inside of the many different things which the concept is predicated of. As far as a universal is independent of mind, it would stand for the proper object of a concept that subsumes a given number of things as its own instantiations. But we claim that Aristotle rejected such a view and instead did perceive and comprehend universality as a feature of thought rather than as a feature of reality in its own right. As showed in the chapters of Topics regarding the so-called logic of comparison (with the support of Albert the Great’s commentary), each predicate can be more or less consistent with the attribute of the subject of which it may be predicated. Both essential and accidental attributes assume a definite degree of being related to the degree of belonging to substance. Unlike particular things, the universality of a concept is to be understood always in comparison with another concept according to a hierarchy of predicates in terms of universality degree arranged by comparative terms such as ‘more’ (μἂλλον), ‘less’ (ἧττον), and ‘likewise ’ (όμοίως). What is really mind-independent are the truth conditions which make a universal true when exclusively referring to a set of things identically meant by the same predicate whose universality is given by the place occupied in the hierarchy of predicates.

A logical reading on Aristotle’s Organon discovers some inconsistencies in the text which have to be solved by reducing them to metaphysical decisions of the author, if they are not just identified as deficiencies in the exposition that should be corrected. The present article tries to display a line of reading paying attention to those so-called inconsistencies, in an attempt to understand them as specific steps in Aristotle’s research. In order to this goal it focuses on the exposition procedure of the Aristotelian figures: the use of variables, whose introduction by Aristotle has been celebrated all over logical tradition. An analysis of the distinctive and internal features in this procedure will allow us to link Aristotle’s logos research and the “being qua being” investigation, and to determine also - though in a negative way - the connection between this reading and the logical-traditional one on Aristotle’s Organon.

Berkeley’s general tenet about immaterialism is presented and discussed. I examined apart the several theses that concur to the immaterialist theory. After that, the general argument is presented and discussed. In particular, I stress Berkeley’s assumption that a world without matter and a world with matter would be indistinguishable from the point of view of (i) the content of perceptions, (ii) natural science (viz. Newtonian mechanics). I stress that this assumption depends on a relative account of circular motion, generating the centrifugal forces, as Newton shows in his bucket experiment. In spite of the efforts by Leibniz and Huygens, such a relative account of rotational motion was never presented. So the thesis about the scientific and perceptual identity between worlds with and without matter remains a simple case of wishful thinking in need for a justification.

The article tackles with the role that Kantian notion of temperament plays within his theory of practical freedom. With this purpose, we will connect Kant’s approach to temperaments with the classical Greek approach to this principle of classification, in order to recognize in it the means to feel the passage of time and also the conditions of our relation to the world, that is, a physiological-empirical background for the exercise of freedom that, without being moral, shelter contents which reason will only try to reform, without expecting to silence it entirely. Our final goal is to extract relevant observations to answer adequately to Kant’s question What is Man?

This paper aims to analyze Kant’s concept of Klugheit and how it relates to morality. For Kant, this concept does not belong to the field of morality as it is, according to him, an interested act, therefore only capable of hypothetical imperatives. In this sense, prudence generates at most one’s own happiness, but not necessarily goodness. On the other hand, we reason that prudence plays an important role in promoting man’s moral improvement towards the exercise of virtue. Prudence only holds good, therefore, if understood from a Kantian anthropological point of view.

Le projet d’une Anthropologie Philosophique en tant que philosophie fondamentale defini par Helmuth Plessner, se base sur la catégorie d'excentricité: l’homme occupe une place à la fois centrée et décentrée, soit en tant qu’être au monde, soit dans le rapport à son corps, tantôt vécu comme identité personnelle, tantôt usé en tant qu’instrument. Cette dualité fondamentale de la condition humaine et de son existence dialectique mène à une compréhension de l’expressivité en tant que double. Ou bien l’expression suit une voie indicative (par le langage, les gestes et la mimique) quand l’homme est son corps, ou bien, quand le corps est usé en tant qu’instrument de réponse, l’expressivité devient opaque. L’article propose une lecture de ce point spécifique de la théorie de l’expression, thème central du livre de 1941, Rire et pleurer. Une étude des limites du comportement humain. Décrire la signification et le processus déclencheur du rire et du pleurer c’est donc saisir l’homme au sein même de son ambivalence.

In this paper, we explore the extent to which mountain huts and rules imposed on their users can provide metaphoric inspiration to the exploration of issues of an intergenerational justice. We indicate features made salient by the metaphor. We focus in particular on the content of an intergenerational golden rule and on cleronomic justice (Sect. 1). We also explain why the absence of a warden matters (Sect. 2). Other absent features make salient other dimensions that are central to intergenerational justice. Special attention is granted to two of them: the “genesis” relationship among successive generations and the problem of population change across generations (Sect. 3).

The philosophical point of view of Rawls is here analysed; and how Rawls’s philosophical position implies an epistemological cut with the classical conceptions that were joining the social contract to a determined natural idea of man or of society. In his proposal, the idea of Justice, in a society, is established in the fact that men accomplish a social pact fireely in itself, with another reasonable men, using various goods, and possessing equal politic rights. Rawls prefers not to choose the disjunctive “freedom or equality”; but for the option enunciated like “freedom and justice”. Equality is not a value as such in itself, yet contingent upon the idea of Justice. Nevertheless this justice from his social point of view is a politic justice. This is constituted freely for the associates, with equal rights, in a pact. His conception is not revolutionary in order to solve injustices right now historically established, but a progressive conception that utilizes the freedom to advance toward a fair equality, and here is now examined.

This article debates the philosophical reach of Pessoa’s writings. As a matter of fact, Pessoa’s Archive contains several projects for philosophical books, essays, small productions and dialogues. Thus, this article tries to demonstrate, through the analysis of the unpublished documents, that the philosophical dimension of this author’s work is not circumscribed to the philosophical references present in the poetry and fictions of Fernando Pessoa.

Nous essayons de montrer, dans sa constitution généalogique, la formulation de l’expérience érotique en Leonardo Coimbra, laquelle, à partir de l’amour sexuel — et en profitant de sa vertu d’ouverture métaphysique des êtres au Principe même des relations universelles — , se prolonge dans la création des sciences, des arts et de la morale, culminant par se dévoiler comme manifestation — plus qu’analogique — de la transcendance immanente de l’Amour divin. On finit, surtout dans les notes, par suggérer des relations spontanées de cette pensée avec la tradition portugaise médiévale, renaissante et contemporaine et avec plusieures formes de tradition où l’opposition entre Éros et Agapè se dissipe dans l’évidence vécue de l’amour sexuel comme initiation simultanée à la Vérité et à sa dispensation compassionée pour tous les êtres.

This article devellops the following argument: although desire is in Freud's view regressive (nostalgic), it splits itself in two directions — the principle of constance associated with death instincts and the principle of pleasure, bound to the vital instincts of Eros. Constancy and pleasure that are at first linked together are afterwards separated by Freud.