Ryan May

Philosophy, it is true, cannot help but paint its “grey in grey,” but the richness and depth of its content—the wealth of its kingdom—is not thereby limited to an arbitrary and lifeless palette of abstract acrylics. Nor again, does the philosopher, when he philosophizes, converse with a cortège of ghostly, ethereal shades. On the contrary, man philosophizes only insofar as he directs his gaze not to any “spectral woof of impalpable abstractions, or unearthly ballet of bloodless categories,” but to the Absolute. It is the Absolute which constitutes the subject-matter of philosophy. This brief declaration is the credo of the Hegelian system. The following paper investigates Hegel’s conception of the “I” and the relations it bears to the Absolute (i.e., the Idea), and argues that there is a profound structural isomorphism between the “I” and the Idea in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. To substantiate this claim, this essay brings to light relevant passages and themes found in Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind, Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Philosophy of Nature, as well as by incorporating past metaphysical readings and interpretations of Hegel’s thought.

The elusive relationship between a thing and its “essence” or “nature” is a mystery that has ensnared innumerable minds for millennia. One form of this problem takes shape in the question of the reality of universals; namely, whether or not the “shared” essences that we often take to be “common” to many particular beings, are in fact real (i.e., mind-independent existences) or merely ideal (i.e., mere concepts without a corresponding referent in reality). Philosophers, in their tireless effort to understand and untangle this Gordian knot, have proposed myriad solutions and counter-solutions, and the diversity and ingenuity of their answers is matched only by the problem’s perenniality. The goal of this essay is to articulate a compelling case against nominalist theories of universal essences (e.g., that of the Medieval philosopher, William of Ockham) with the precise aim of illustrating the preferability of a realistic alternative. After outlining the theoretical “program and platform” of each camp, attention will be paid to illustrating the metaphysical dilemma embedded within the heart of the nominalist project itself: the impossibility of nominalism’s “similarities” and “resemblances” successfully accomplishing the metaphysical tasks performed by realism’s universal “identities.”

A philosophy, to be true to itself as a philosophy, must be saturated with the personality of the man who develops and christens it; and the philosopher, if he is to be worthy of the name, must philosophize as a man of flesh and bone. It is with this dramatic clarion call that Miguel de Unamuno introduces his seminal, 1912 work, The Tragic Sense of Life—a meditation on what he views as the most tragic dilemma at the heart of philosophy: reconciling the intellectual necessities of man with the necessities of his heart and will”—a struggle that culminates in the “only real vital problem” of philosophy: the immorality of the soul. Philosophy, being the scientific reflection upon the tragic sense of life, cannot help us with establishing an eirenicon or resolution between these contraposed aspects of our nature, nor again a definitive answer to the question of our personal immortality. On the contrary, Unamuno solemnly declares that “it is on this rock that every philosophy that pretends to resolve the eternal and tragic contradiction, the basis of our existence, breaks to pieces.” As distressing as this diagnosis is for philosophical speculation, Unamuno insists that “the eternal and tragic contradiction” which constitutes our very nature, and is the basis of “the tragic sense of life,” does not thereby render philosophy an idle pursuit. On the contrary, it is this very “shock” within our souls that allows for philosophy to begin. The task of the present essay is to critically examine Unamuno’s crusade against abstract, intellectualist, and impersonalist conceptions of philosophy, and the adequacy of his sketch toward an alternative understanding of a tragic philosophy—a philosophy whose wherefore is not rooted in the “inhuman” and hollow desire for “knowledge for the sake of knowledge” or “truth for truth’s sake,” and a philosopher who “philosophizes not with the reason only, but with the will, with the feelings, with the flesh and with the bones, with the whole soul and the whole body.”

Francis Herbert Bradley’s contributions to the philosophy of space and time have suffered from undue neglect. When Bradley’s treatment of space and time has received attention, more often than not it has been viewed as independent of his fundamental metaphysical commitments. Rather than isolating Bradley’s arguments for the unreality of space and time from the central tenets of his metaphysical system, this essay analyzes them in the context of his broader metaphysical positions. An investigation into Bradley’s thoughts on the unreality of space and time in their proper context would provide us with an opportunity to deepen our understanding of his overall metaphysical project and to recognize him as a philosopher who did, indeed, take space and time seriously.

In the philosophy of Bernard Lonergan, the nether region of our cognitive life is saturated by the “data of experience.” The restless flow of experiential data is far from being a mere “blooming, buzzing confusion” that the mind leaves behind as it advances on its path towards knowledge; on the contrary, the data of experience not only fill up the contours of what is immediately “given” to us, but also serve an essential function in our formulation of insights and our arrival at knowledge. Within the sphere of experience, Lonergan distinguishes between the “data of sense” and the “data of consciousness.” Since the “data of consciousness” includes all forms of cognitive acts performed by human subjects (e.g., sensing, perceiving, understanding, questioning, judging, knowing, etc.), this paper will be focusing on Lonergan’s account of the data present on the level of sensibility in particular; namely, “acts” and “contents” of sensation. The purpose of this essay will be to penetrate into this primal sphere of our conscious life, and to ask how these communions of sensitive “acts” and sensible “contents” figure into knowing and the known. Before diving into the realm of sensibility, the work will begin by providing a functional analysis of the roles the “data of experience” play in the mind’s endeavour towards understanding and knowledge (e.g., how the data of experience are taken up in, and patterned by, the different levels of the cognitive process). Afterwards, an intrinsic analysis will be performed on the flow of sensible data and their act-correlatives—i.e., what Lonergan took to be the inherent features and distinctions present on this level of consciousness. Following the intrinsic analysis of acts and contents of sensation, the investigation will turn to the question of how the data of sense enter into the constitution of “things”—i.e., the unity-identity-wholes that common sense describes, and science explains. Following this, several questions and potential areas of tension will be brought to light regarding Lonergan’s account of sensible data.

This essay presents an argument against the Identity Theory that does not depend upon the apparent epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths, the existence of qualia, or the conceivability of philosophical zombies. The argument begins by establishing three principles: the Principle of Perceptual Determinacy, the Principle of Perceptual Self-Exclusion, and the Principle of Perceptual Non-Loopability—each identifying a necessary condition underlying the existence, or occurrence, of perceptual states. Next, a contradiction is shown to follow from the three principles and the Identity Theory being jointly true. Since the three principles can be demonstrated a priori, it follows that the Identity Theory is false. Potential objections to the argument are then raised and addressed.

The following essay is a critical analysis of Jean-Paul Sartre’s phenomenological and psychological investigations into the radical heterogeneity between consciousness and its objects. The essay’s primary aim is to shed light upon Sartre’s uncompromising dualism between consciousness (i.e., the “For-itself,” or the Pour-soi) and Being (i.e., the “In-itself,” or the En-soi), and how such a “bifurcation” creates an irreconcilable gulf between the “nothingness” of imagination and the “infinite density” of reality. Rather than conducting a survey of the entirety of Sartre’s diverse and extensive corpus, this investigation concerns itself, in the main, with the theory of perception and imagination expounded in the philosopher’s 1940 work of phenomenological psychology, The Imaginary. Nevertheless, just as a distinct “figure” is appreciable only insofar as it is in communion with a contextual “ground,” pertinent ideas from Sartre’s other works (e.g., The Transcendence of the Ego from 1936, and Being and Nothingness from 1943) are introduced to supplement and clarify the theoretical Gestalten within which Sartre’s suggestive thoughts unfold. The present essay begins by sketching the unique architecture of the Sartrean consciousness. Next, it drafts an outline of what Sartre identifies as the perceptual, the conceptual, and the imaginative ways of being conscious (i.e., the basic, diverse modes in which a consciousness can be a consciousness of something)—none of the three species of consciousness being identical with, nor reducible to, one another. Following the discussion of Sartre’s classification of consciousness, this essay discloses a puzzle latently slumbering within, and entailed by, the philosopher’s emphasis on the “emptiness” of imaginative consciousness and the “fullness” of Being—two spheres that he leaves “coupled apart.”

In the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa, the relationship between God and His Creation is a difficult and elusive matter. The following essay is an analysis of Cusanus’ idea of God as “Not-Other”—a concept that he develops in his 1461 dialogue, De li Non-Aliud (On the Not-Other). The main thesis propounded in the dialogue is that conceiving God as “Not-Other” is the least inadequate way for us to direct our minds towards the Divine. By diving into this difficult text, and defending Cusanus’ ideas against potential criticisms, we can see how “Not-Other”—this elusive symbol, this perplexing double negation—provides us with a compass pointing the way towards a radically transcendent and radically immanent God.

Only when reason has been uplifted by faith may it spread its wings and ascend towards reality and truth. To sever the power of reason from the agency of faith is to render the mind idle—it is to condemn the mind to a state of dormancy and impotence. Far from being opposing and mutually exclusive faculties or departments of human experience, reason and faith reinforce each other—they are abstractly distinguishable factors of a single process that gradually unfolds throughout the course of the mind’s conscious development. Indeed, on the mind’s pathway towards reality, reason cannot help but run on the rails of faith—a faith in its own efficacy. Now, the notion that reason and faith are inseparable and interpenetrating forces, rather than hostile foes, demands explanation. Our purpose in this brief essay is to illustrate how these two factors are complementary and mutually reinforcing movements in the life of mind.

Throughout Arthur Schopenhauer’s post-Kantian Weltanschauung, one frequently encounters the philosopher of pessimism pondering over the enigmatic relationship between our waking-lives, dream-lives, and Reality. Schopenhauer’s efforts to unravel this puzzle take the form of an extensive and elaborate exploration that reaches into the depths of epistemology, speculative metaphysics, physiology, and even parapsychology. To fully appreciate the fruits of Schopenhauer’s labor, and to better understand the many-sided character of his proposed solutions to the enigma of the oneiric world, Schopenhauer’s discussions of dreams must be grasped in the context of (i) his voluntaristic, transcendental idealism—our perceptible and palpable world being the self-knowledge and phenomenal manifestation of an unconscious, unfulfilled, and never-satisfied Will; (ii) his conception of consciousness, and intellectual activity in general, as merely secondary functions of the human and animal psyche—mere tools in service of, and subordinate to, the primal impulses and drives of the Will-to-live; and (iii) the existence of a special “dream-organ”—a faculty postulated by Schopenhauer to account for the mysterious nature of oneiric images.