RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA - 2014 - 4

In this paper, from a reflective standpoint, the author aims to find out the modern consciousness of time and history following the steps of some great thinkers in the Jewish and Christian Tradition, such as E. Peterson, K. Löwith, F. Rosenzweig, J. Taubes or V.S. Soloviov. The results of this analysis allow to interpret the 20st century as the most emphatic manifestation of the crisis in modern reason. Its consequences in philosophical, political and theological thought as well as upon the reality challenge the world which is still ours.

For Hegel, the commencement, which is immediate, needs also to be understood as a mediation, i.e. as something which cannot but unravel itself. Severino agrees on this proposition, but he also posits the commencement as the ultimate foundation: something furnished with a structure that would consist with a mono-dyadic-construct relationship that enables us to identify the foundation and then derivate from it the system of all determinations. For Hegel, though, relationship is not only a construct: an extrinsic relationship; but also an intrinsic relationship: the act that pushes all determinations beyond themselves. Inevitably, since it proceeds from a starting point, the system of determinations is posited; undeniably, though, it is indeed transcended. The unity of the system of determinations must not be confused with the unity of its foundation. The latter only is the reason for ablatio alteritatis, where duality – upon which relationship is based – is transcended.

This work presents the attempt by science to unfold the origin of the universe, pointing out the limits and contradictions. It critically analyses the universe identification with a Turing’s machine and the possibility of a definitive theory that may give a thorough understanding of it. It explains the equivocal and contradictory assumptions of the idea itself on the origin of the universe in contemporary naturalism. It finally shows the groundlessness of a protology based on the M-theory, which is thought to be the most meaningful «Theory of Everything». Starting from Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, the final arguments show that a theory which should be thoroughly explicative, not falsifiable, necessarily true and unconditionally grounded can’t be conceived. Furthermore, it is contradictory to deduce by the M-theory a creation from the nothingness of the universe and then the old metaphysical questions reproposed by Hawking are not scientifically solved. Finally a contradictory Heraclitean position can be avoided only admitting that at the origin of everything there isn’t an event, but a state.

This paper tackles the criticism against stoic determinism in Alexander of Aphrodisias’ De fato XXII and the foundation of the human free will. First of all, the paper discusses Alexander’s analysis of the stoic causality and the incompatibility with free assent. Secondly, it focuses on peripatetic naturalization of fate and the relationship between the structure of cosmos and causality. Infact, maybe that to autexousion is not consistent with the structure kazen. So, the stoic conception might refuse it de facto. It could be rather consistent with the structure pros en: the free will would no more be ignorance of the cosmic Fate but the possibility of making a contingent choise. The paper also analyses the modern debate about the relationship among ignorance, omniscience, indetermination. In conclusion, it suggests that, according to Alexander, the free will is based on contingency and mostly consists in intentions of human actions.

The paper attempt to collocate, starting from a interpretation of Contributions to Philosophy. From Enowning of Martin Heidegger, the question of freedom within the 'being-historical thinking' [das seynsgeschichtliche Denken] – developed from Heidegger exactly in Contributions. This question, thanks to an hermeneutic use of the coeval Heidegger’s course about the Freiheitschrift of Schelling, is collocated in connection with the request of the 'system' and of 'ground', and identified as the 'dynamics of enowning', the continuous appropriation and expropriation of be-ing [Seyn] and being-there [Da-sein].

This article is intended to be a first step within a long-term project dedicated to Charles Taylor’s volume Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity (1989). In particular I focus on the method adopted by Taylor in his studies concerning the making of the modern identity. In order to reach this aim I consider in particular two essays: Philosophy and its History (1984) and Modernity and the Rise of the Public Sphere (1993). From this analysis (which also focuses on Taylor’s concept of practice) it emerges that according to Taylor, in order to write a history of the modern identity, a constant reference to moral sources, to the visions of the good articulated during that time cannot be avoided.

Hugh of Newcastle, whose epithet is Doctor Scolasticus, is one of Scotists mentioned in the inscription borne by Scotus’ tomb in Cologne. At the beginning of the 14th century he wrote a commentary on the Sentences. In this paper a critical edition of the Prologue of this commentary is offered. It consists of seven questions in which the substantial anti-Thomism of Hugh on the theory of subalternation and the subject of theology is revealed. Instead, several Scotist theories are defended: the infinity as absolute reason of the deity, the necessity of the supernatural support for a more rigorous knowledge of God and the definition of activity. However, just a veiled hint suggests Hugh’s assent to the doctrine of the active character of theology.