Acta Philosophica

Editorial Note

The Editorial Board — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

The 2023-2025 triennium is marked by several anniversaries related to Thomas Aquinas. In 2023, the seventh centenary of his canonization was commemorated; in 2024, the 750^th anniversary of his death was observed; and in 2025, the eighth centenary of his birth will follow. Accordingly, Acta Philosophica dedicates several contributions in this issue to the thought of Thomas Aquinas: Rudi A. te Velde, Act and Action: Creation as the Communicative Action of God; Gregory T. Doolan, Aquinas on Answering the «Is it ?» Question about Singulars: What the ʻIsʼ Signifies in the Proposition «Socrates is»; and Stephen L. Brock, Sizeless Stretchable Souls: Substantial Form as Nature in Thomas Aquinas. In addition to these, which focus more directly on Aquinas, the issue includes María Elton’s contribution, The Causality of Moral Actions Integrating Mind and Body: Thomas Reid and Thomas Aquinas.

José Ángel Lombo de León, José Manuel Giménez Amaya, Antropología de la acción humana : La unidad dinámica de la vida racional, Eunsa, Pamplona 2024, pp. 224

Antonio Malo — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Giovanni Zuanazzi, Hegel e l’Antigone. Il tramonto del mondo greco nella Fenomenologia dello spirito, Studium, Roma 2024, pp. 284

Maria Alessandra Varone — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Eleonore Stump, The Image of God. The Problem of Evil and the Problem of Mourning, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2022, pp. 410

Ilaria Vigorelli — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Act and Action

Rudi A. te Velde — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

This article explores the intimate relationship between act and action in Thomas Aquinas. According to Thomas, every agent acts insofar as it is in act, since it is proper to the act to communicate itself in its action. As applied to creation, this basic principle raises the question of God’s will : is there any place for a free will in God if his action flows directly from the act of his being ? This question is addressed together with a critical discussion of Norris Clarke’s philosophy of dynamic action. Clarke interprets the connection between act and action in the sense that ‘being manifests itself in self-communicative action’. The consequence of this view, I argue, is that the difference between the first act (the substantial act of a thing in itself) and the second act (operation) is obscured.

Aquinas on Answering the « Is It ? » Question about Singulars

Gregory T. Doolan — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In this paper, I respond to the position of Lawrence Dewan and Stephen Brock that the answer to the question « Is it ? » is always made according to the sense of ‘is’ that signifies the truth of the composition of a proposition. Looking at Aquinas’s semantic theory, I argue that one exception to this rule concerns the answer to the « Is it ? » question when asked of a singular substance such as Socrates. In this case, the ‘is’ in the proposition « Socrates is » signifies the actuality of Socrates rather than the truth of the proposition. In the course of this investigation, I clarify aspects of Aquinas semantic theory as regards his views on the copula and its signification.

Sizeless Stretchable Souls

Stephen L. Brock — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Aquinas follows Aristotle in defining nature, taken strictly, as a thing’s primary intrinsic principle of motion and rest. He also identifies nature, so defined, with the essential makeup of its bearer, and chiefly with the substantial form. I sketch a rationale for this identification. A subtle but key thesis of Thomas’s regards the indivisibility of substantial form. He does not get the thesis from Aristotle. Its wording is Augustine’s, and its thought is largely Albert’s. But it seems to help clinch the aforesaid identification. I suggest that the history of the topic gives indirect support to this judgment.

The Causality of Moral Actions Integrating Mind and Body : Thomas Reid and Thomas Aquinas

María Elton — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In the realm of analytic philosophy, agent-causation theory posits that human actions are moral insofar as they are caused by the agent, and are therefore not simply events that follow other events according to the laws of nature. Such causality is, however, problematic : How can an agent cause an action involving physical events ? Reference in agent-cause theory to Thomas Reid, a leading philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment, has allowed us to discover the natural philosophical and metaphysical dimensions of this problem within contemporary philosophy of action. To understand this problem, we have had to investigate the capacity of the will as a faculty, avoiding the contemporary reduction of the will to mere phenomena, or events, or episodes. This is not possible without recourse to the history of philosophy, but represents an approach which frees us from the confinement of certain sometimes constraining philosophical categories.

La dea Atena come immagine della provvidenza di Dio e dell’assimilazione alla natura divina in Filone di Alessandria

Federico Casella — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

This paper aims to determine the allegorical-philosophical value that Athena assumed in the works of Philo of Alexandria and to identify the reasons why he mentioned the pagan goddess (or her epithets) in his writings. Through appropriate cross-references to Pythagoreanism, Stoicism, and Middle Platonism – the traditions that constituted Philo’s philosophical formation – I will try to demonstrate how Philo incorporated the Hellenistic-Early Imperial symbolic value of Athena (an embodiment of universal and providential reason, as well as human rationality striving to connect with the divine) while simultaneously maintaining the monotheistic perspective of the Bible. In this way, Philo establishes a complex relationship between his Jewish faith and Greek philosophical reason, whose combination is capable of offering, in his eyes, a valid cosmological and ethical explanation of the genesis of the universe and the place humans assume inside it.

Descartes and the Problem of Discontinuity in the History of Philosophy as an Art of Living

Luca Mori — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Starting with an interrupted exchange of views between Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, Descartes’ thought can act as a strict test bed for any attempt at defining interruptions and continuity in the history of philosophical spiritual exercises from the ancient world to the modern age. This paper provides a new interpretation of the role that has been assumedly played by Descartes in the history of philosophical exercises, by introducing a quadripartite hermeneutic model to discover continuities and discontinuities between different theoretical positions.

De quel sujet s’agit-il ? Plaidoyer pour une critique de la subjectivité levinassienne dans "Autrement qu’être"

Cristobal Balbontin — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In many ways, Autrement qu’être represents Levinas’s effort to go beyond the framework of Totalité et infini. Indeed, according to Jacques Derrida’s critique in his essay Violence et métaphysique, Levinas is confronted with an impasse that leads him to revise his thinking on subjectivity. But, as we argue, this lead Levinas to other problems that is not able to resolve adequately.

The Modal-Epistemic Argument : Wintein’s Rebuttals Rebutted

Emanuel Rutten — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In a recent paper, Stefan Wintein criticizes my responses to the objections he raised to my modal-epistemic argument (MEA) for the existence of God. In this paper, I continue our debate and respond to Wintein’s criticisms of my previous responses. I argue that Wintein’s criticisms are unsuccessful. As a result, the MEA still stands.

Heavenly Matter in Alexander of Aphrodisias

Luca Gili, Silvia Fazzo — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In this paper, we argue that Alexander made an original contribution to the history of metaphysics in the Aristotelian tradition, when he argued that both heavenly and sublunary bodies are composed by the same type of indeterminate matter. Aristotle, on the other hand, has not been unanimously interpreted as subscribing to the idea that there only a type of indeterminate matter. There is a controversial text in Metaphysics, Λ that is preserved in two versions : while the reading attested by the direct tradition seems to make room to a distinction between two types of matter, Alexander states that he could also read a copy with a reading allowing for a single type of merely indeterminate matter. He consistently maintained that this second reading better corresponded to Aristotle’s thought. In doing this choice, he could develop an original version of Aristotelianism.

Understanding Responsible Research Assessment

Cinzia Daraio, Sante Maletta — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

Recently, research evaluation has undergone significant change, driven by the digitization of evaluation processes, the availability of data and the emergence of commercial
tools offering readily accessible indicators. Amidst this change, the concept of responsibility has emerged as a central theme. However, its precise meaning remains elusive. In our investigation, we adopt a phenomenological approach to elucidate the notion of responsibility as it pertains to research evaluation. Drawing inspiration from MacIntyre, we scrutinize research practices, examining
the challenges posed by external factors and the compartmentalization of social roles. This MacIntyrean philosophical framework, with its emphasis on virtues, allows us to shed light on the complexities of research assessment. Our work represents an initial examination contributing to ongoing debate about the future of research evaluation.

Amerigo Barzaghi-Paolo Bettineschi, Nichilismo e morte di Dio. Prospettive filosofiche e teologiche, Tab, Roma 2024, pp. 312.

Nicolò Tarquini — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Guillermo Hurtado, Biografía de la verdad : ¿Cuándo dejó de importarnos la verdad y por qué deberíamos recuperarla?, Siglo XXI, México 2024, pp. 142

Rafael Jiménez Cataño — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Rosa M. Calcaterra, Sarin Marchetti, Richard Rorty. Filosofia, letteratura, politica, Carocci, Roma 2023, pp. 284

Gabriele Aleandri — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Vittorio Possenti, Incontrare l’esistenza. Jacques Maritain e la metafisica, Studium, Roma 2023, (« Cultura », 326), pp. 174

Miriam Savarese — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012

Paulin Sabuy Sabangu, Subjectivité et solidarité. L’être-personne en question, L’Harmattan, Paris 2023, pp. 262

Alexis de Guerry — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0100

DOI: 10.19272/202500701012