The Theory of Transcendentals in Meister Eckhart

Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy

This article examines the extent to which two of Meister Eckhart's Latin writings fall prey to Heidegger's charge of ontotheology. It argues that the intellectualist, 'meontological' approach to God in Eckhart's First Parisian Question and the analogical, ontological approach in his Opus tripartitum are not as different as may initially appear. Not only do both rest on Eckhart's peculiar doctrine of analogy; both serve to dismantle the ontotheological architecture. Indeed, rather than an intellectualist alternative to ontotheology, Eckhart's First Parisian Question presents a meticulously crafted dialectic designed to explode rational distinctions. Rather than a traditional account of God as the highest being, Eckhart's Opus tripartitum obliterates hierarchies with its appeal to treat all being as God. Still, although both approaches contribute to an appreciation of Eckhart's principal concern—the basic unity of the soul and the Godhead in Gelassenheit—neither suffices for unfolding its deepest implications. An ontotheological residue remains.

In this paper we attempted to consider Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a special type of philosophizing (resp. new transcendental paradigm), which differs both from the ‘object’ metaphysics of Antiq uity and ‘subject’ metaphysics of the Modern Age (transcendent — transcendental — immanent metaphysics). For this purpose, we introduce such methodological terms as transcendental shift [B 25] and transcen dental perspective. The basis for such representation of transcendentalism is cognitive and semantic readaing of the Critique and theory of ‘two aspects’. While in classical metaphysics, cognition is interpreted as a relation between empirical subject and object, in transcendental metaphysics, ‘possible experience’ (Erfah- rung) shall be understood as a relation between transcendental subject and object. However, Kant consid- ers the subject and the object uncritically, in the substance modus and their transcendental rethinking in existential (Dasein; Heidegger) and event-ness (Sachverhalt; Wittgenstein) mode will allow taking the next important step towards development of transcendental paradigm of philosophizing.

Theologische Revue, 2020

Subjekt und Wahrheit. Meister Eckharts dynamische Vermittlung von Philosophie, Offenbarungstheologie und Glaubenspraxis, hg. v. Martina ROESNER. -Leuven: Peeters 2018. 224 S. (Eckhart: Texts and Studies, 8), geb. € 78,00 ISBN: 978-90-429-3550-1

Revista de Filosofia Aurora, 2016

The aim of this paper is to present the core of Kant´s critique of traditional metaphysics and ontology as a transcendental semantics that allows reformulating the problem about the objects and their reality. In order to achieve this purpose, we propound a paper divided in two parts: 1. A brief justification of Kant’s semantics interpretation; 2. A work program based on a semantics comprehended as a fundamental part of a method of resolution of philosophical problems. Basically, we can state that the critical position against traditional metaphysics and ontology leads to the question upon: how are a priori synthetic judgments possible? This question leads to its conditions of possibility, that is: sensible representations; intellectual representations; syntactic rules; semantic rules (or referential rules, on the relation between intellectual representations and some sort of sensibility or affection); the operator of the syntactic and semantic rules (subject, man, human nature, gend...

The article presents Eckhart’s contradictory ideas on God and man. After sketching some theories that are trying to explain the inconsistencies in Eckhart and after showing their deficiencies, the article is trying to suggest a conception that seems to be the best suited for the right understanding of the mystic. This conception assumes that the main tendency of his axiological as well as intellectual endeavors was to find a salvific power. It is believed that the ascertaining of the fact of the ambivalent nature of power, which will be analyzed in the context of the ideas of Nietzsche and the phenomenology of religion, can bring us to a more adequate understanding of Eckhart’s inconsistencies. Eckhart’s contradictions come from the fact that power is what exists as well as from (self)overcoming of what exists and if one looks for the salvific power, one can desire to have both sorts of power. That desire can be easily led to accept intellectual inconsistencies.

Axiomathes, 2018

In this article I am going to argue for the possibility of a transcendental source of logic based on a phenomenologically motivated approach. My aim will be essentially carried out in two succeeding steps of reduction: the first one will be the indication of existence of an inherent temporal factor conditioning formal predicative discourse and the second one, based on a supplementary reduction of objective temporality, will be a recourse to a time-constituting origin which has to be assumed as a non-temporal, transcendental subjectivity and for that reason as possibly the ultimate transcendental root of pure logic. In the development of the argumentation and taking into account W.V. Quine’s views in his well-known Word and Object, a special emphasis will be given to the fundamentally temporal character of universal and existential predicative forms, to their status in logical theories in general, and to their underlying role in generating an inherently non-finitistic character reflected, for instance, in the undecidability of certain infinity statements in formal mathematical theories. This is shown also to concern metatheorems of such vital importance as Go¨del’s incompleteness theorems in mathematical foundations. Moreover in the course of the discussion the quest for the ultimate limits of predication will lead to the notions of separation and intentional correlation between an ‘observing’ subject and the object of ‘observation’ as well as to the notion of syntactical individuals taken as the irreducible non-analytic nuclei-forms within analytical discourse.

Eckhart Review, 1997

International Philosophical Quarterly, 1969

The Logical Structure of Transcendental Method 1 Otto Muck, S.J.

The problem of applications the transcendental proof of objectivity of the world ouside, fulfilled by Kant and reanimated in part by analytic philosophers, is examined. The goal of the procedure is to demonstrate a purported matching between categories of semantics and of epistemology. (in Ukrainian) Scientific Proceedings of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy / Наукові Записки НаУКМА. - 2011. - Том 115. - Серія: Філософія та релігієзнавство.

In the paper we have attempted to consider Kant’s transcendental philosophy as a special type of philosophizing and the new transcendental paradigm, which differs from both the ‘object’ metaphysics of Antiquity and ‘subject’ metaphysics of the Modern Age (transcendent — transcendental — immanent metaphysics). For this purpose we shall introduce the methodological terms ‘transcendental shift’ and ‘transcendental perspective’. The basis for such representation of transcendentalism is the cognitive and semantic reading of the Critique and theory of ‘two aspects’. While in classical metaphysics cognition is interpreted as a relation between empirical subject and object, in transcendental metaphysics (perspective) ‘possible experience’ (Erfahrung) shall be understood as a relation between ‘consciousness generally’ (transcendental subject) and ‘thing-in- general’ (transcendental object). In this, Kant’s transcendentalism, in contrast to classical contemplative metaphysics, acts as an ‘experimental’ metaphysics and the transcendentality is defined as the intermediate between the immanent and transcendent ontological area (as a “instrumental” component of our cognition).