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Throughout the long centuries of western metaphysics the problem of
the infinite has kept surfacing in different but important ways. It
had confronted Greek philosophical speculation from earliest times.
It appeared in the definition of the divine attributed to Thales in
Diogenes Laertius (I, 36) under the description "that which has
neither beginning nor end. " It was presented on the scroll of
Anaximander with enough precision to allow doxographers to transmit
it in the technical terminology of the unlimited (apeiron) and the
indeterminate (aoriston). The respective quanti tative and
qualitative implications of these terms could hardly avoid causing
trouble. The formation of the words, moreover, was clearly negative
or privative in bearing. Yet in the philosophical framework the
notion in its earliest use meant something highly positive,
signifying fruitful content for the first principle of all the
things that have positive status in the universe. These tensions
could not help but make themselves felt through the course of later
Greek thought. In one extreme the notion of the infinite was
refined in a way that left it appropriated to the Aristotelian
category of quantity. In Aristotle (Phys. III 6-8) it came to
appear as essentially re quiring imperfection and lack. It meant
the capacity for never-ending increase. It was always potential,
never completely actualized."
Joseph Owens presents an introduction to metaphysics designed to
develop in the reader a habitus of thinking. Using original
Thomistic texts and Etienne Gilson's interpretation of St. Thomas
Aquinas, Owens examines the application of metaphysical principles
to the issues that arise in a specifically Christian environment.
From a starting point of external, sensible, non-human beings, An
Elementary Christian Metaphysics focuses in the questions of
existence and the nature of revealed truths. Following his
historical introduction to metaphysics, Owens provides a general
investigation of the first principles and causes of being, and a
study of knowledge and of the divine nature and attributes in light
of natural reason.
Brings together a lifetime of work on the problems presented by the
notion of a Christian philosophy, debates whether a Christian
philosophy is possible, and outlines the steps for its development.
These papers treat those issues involved in formulating a logic of
propositional attitudes and consider the relevance of the attitudes
to the continuing study of both the philosophy of language and the
philosophy of mind. C. Anthony Anderson is professor of philosophy
and Joseph Owens is assistant professor of philosophy, both at the
University of Minnesota.
These papers treat those issues involved in formulating a logic of
propositional attitudes and consider the relevance of the attitudes
to the continuing study of both the philosophy of language and the
philosophy of mind. C. Anthony Anderson is professor of philosophy
and Joseph Owens is assistant professor of philosophy, both at the
University of Minnesota.
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