Showing papers in "Review of Metaphysics in 1975"

Aristotle's categories and the nature of categorial theory

Abstract: JL he aim of this paper is twofold. First, I want to propose a fresh approach to Aristotle's Categories. Second, I want to reflect, in the light of the outcome, on the expectations we can have for categories in metaphysics. No apology is needed for starting with Aristotle. Ever since the Categories was placed at the head of the Corpus, the foundational character of categorial theory has been explicit. That is why a fresh way of looking at the Categories is at the same time a fresh way of looking at Aristotle's metaphysics, and suggests a mode of reckoning with categorial theory generally.

The Inverted World

Abstract: JL he Inverted World in Hegel's narration of the experience of consciousness is one of the most difficult sections to comprehend in relationship to the whole of the Phenomenology. I will at tempt to demonstrate that the content of the Inverted World, in the Chapter on "Force and Understanding," is cardinal for the entire structure of the Phenomenology. I can thereby confirm what E. Wiehl has shown: one cannot understand the beginning of the Phenomenology without keeping the Kantian philosophy directly in mind. If one considers the principle parts of the "phenomenology of consciousness," one will grasp the fact that Hegel has set himself the task of demonstrating the following: how the distinct forms of knowing, whose coordination Kant's Critique investigates, are actually inwardly related (the forms being intuition, understanding, and the unity of apperception or self-consciousness). The section dealing with the "phenomenology of conscious ness" is finally dominated by the question, How does conscious ness become self-consciousness, or how does consciousness become conscious that it is self-consciousness? This assertion, however, that consciousness is self-consciousness, is a central teaching of modern philosophy since Descartes. To this extent, Hegel's idea of phenomenology lies in the Cartesian line. Contemporary par allels show how much this is the case, especially the quite un known book of Sinclair, the friend of H?lderlin and Hegel, which deals with the Sphragis in the Ehein hymn, and is entitled Truth and Certitude. The work attempts, beginning quite explicitly

The Enigma of Religious Art

Abstract: ^antayana considered art and religion to be basically identical. Though that position appears more and more untenable for the present time, it undoubtedly holds true for the longest period in man's development. All through the primeval era of a culture's development, art forms an essential part of a symbolic integration to which we now, in retrospect, give the name "religious." But to the archaic mind all activities are religious : distinctions apply only within one sacred sphere, rather than between the sacred and other spheres. The much heralded distinction between the sacred and the profane is by no means primordial: it results from a long development. Even after it is firmly entrenched and the sacred no longer determines all aspects of life?though it continues to integrate them?the aesthetic and the religious domains remain intimately connected. The religious community prays in song, moves in dance, and acts in drama. The artist, on his part, re mains aware of the sacred allegiance to which he owes his inspira tion and, often, his livelihood The notion of sacred art becomes truly problematic only when society becomes secular. We all know how ancient myths survive in today's poetry and drama. We recognize the continuing inspiration of religious symbols. But is that sufficient to render art religious? Is it sufficient even to maintain the possibility of religious art? To answer those questions we shall have to consider succes sively to what extent all art is implicitly religious, what makes particular aesthetic expressions explicitly sacred, and how a secular culture affects either one or both of those modes. My overall thesis is that authentic art at all times, including our own, retains a potentially sacred quality. Controversial enough as it stands, this thesis does not imply that a genuinely sacred art must exist or is even possible at all times. Let us then first investigate the more general case.