Cause and explanatory principle of being in Aristotle (Metaphysics VII, 17)
Barbara BOTTER
Original title: Causa e princípio explicativo do ser em Aristóteles (Metafísica VII, 17)
Published in Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Peninsula Cultural History
Keywords: Aristotle, Explanation, Form, Hylemorfism, Metaphysics.
The main topic of this paper is to study the role the form has in constituting composite substances. I will examine the chapter 17 of Metaphysics VII, especially the lines 1041b12-25, who Aristotle uses the example of syllable to show that form is the primary cause of being of sensible substances in that it causes them to be one. The main issue of this investigation is to show that, especially in the last chapter of Metaphysics Zeta, essence is closely identified by Aristotle to the form, which is in charge to transform the material elements into an essential unity and to explain the structure of hylomorphic substances.
Ramon Llull and the Liber contra Antichristum
Esteve JAULENT
Original title: Raimundo Lúlio e o Livro contra o Anticristo
Published in Ramon Llull. Seventh centenary
Keywords: Faith and Reason, Liber contra Antichristum, Logic, Metaphysics, Ramon Llull, Theology and Philosophy.
A superficial interpretation of the “Book Against the Antichrist” may lead to several misunderstandings of Llull’s thought regarding the relation between Philosophy and Theology: this is particularly true for Llull’s purported rationalism that would despise knowledge through faith and lead to a false equivalence among religions. This article presents a new approach to Llull’s works from a metaphysical and a logical point of view: while holding the truths of faith in abeyance, Llull draws exclusively rational consequences which, however, correspond to revealed truths.
The Notion of Excessus in Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: A noção de Excessus em Santo Tomás de Aquino (1224-1274)
Published in The Kingdom of the Spirit
Keywords: Deus, Excessus, Knowledge, Metaphysics, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas, Transcendence, Triplex via.
The aim of this paper is to analyse the notion of excessus in St. Thomas Aquinas (Sth. Iª, q. 84, a. 7 ad 3). We will highlight the influence of the negative way of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite on human intellectual knowledge about God. The term excessus indicates the way of eminence (via eminentiae, per excessum) of our knowledge of the fullness of God’s perfections, that is, of his transcendence.
The degrees of knowledge to the mystical vision in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
José GONZÁLES RÍOS
Original title: Los grados de conocimiento hacia la visión mística en el pensamiento de Nicolás de Cusa (1401-1464)
Published in Mystic and Millenarianism in Middle Ages
Keywords: Knowledge, Metaphysics, Mystical vision, Neoplatonism, Nicholas of Cusa.
The speculation on the topic of vision (visio), and in it around the mystical vision (visio mystica), is rich in the system of thought of Nicholas of Cusa. It is permanently present in his sermons, letters and in the rest of his theological and philosophical work. While there are various ways to address it, we propose considering it from his metaphysics of the human mind (mens human) point of view, and in it through the consideration of the degree of knowledge what the mind gradually transit in the conjectural searching of vision of the first principle from which she and all proceeds. To this end, we will address the topic of the mystical vision by considering first, the elements that Cusano gives in the context of his early sermons (before 1440). Second, through the presentation of the degrees of knowledge of the human mind, as they appear in the first great metaphysical systematization of knowledge in the books of De coniecturis (1442/3).Third, we discuss the topic in his work De visione Dei (1453). Analyzing this elements we hope to show that the topic of the mystical vision in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa is inseparable from his metaphysics of the human mind.
