Categories, and What Is Beyond

by Gyula Klima (editor)

For medieval thinkers, the distinction between intentional and extra-mental reality does not precipitate a Kantian turn to the subject. Rather, they allow that metaphysics and natural philosophy study things as they are and leave to logic the investigation of things as conceived. Within this broad scheme, there is much room for debate regarding whether and to what extent Aristotle s categories comprise an accurate picture of what types of things exist. Closely tied to consideration of what types of things exist are questions concerning how language reflects the relations that hold among these things. For instance, both substances and the accidents parasitic on their existence are said to be, but not in the same way. The essays in Categories, and What is Beyond draw on the philosophical traditions of late antiquity and the middle ages to study what types of things there are, the extent to which our knowledge of these entities is accurate, how (and whether) the semantics of analogy are competent to adjust for the difference and diversity found amongst analogates, and some ways in which these considerations bear on our ability to learn and speak of God.

135 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 2011

About the author

Gyula Klima is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York, Director of the Research Center for the History of Ideas of the Institute of Hungarian Research, Budapest, Hungary, and a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is the Founding Director of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics and Editor of its Proceedings, as well as the Founding Director of the Society for the European History of Ideas and Editor of its Proceedings. He is also an editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and the Editor-in-Chief of a book series at Springer, Historical-Analytical Studies in Mind, Nature and Action, and at Fordham, Medieval Philosophy, Texts and Studies. Before taking up his position at Fordham, he had taught philosophy in the US at Yale and Notre Dame, prior to which he had done research in Europe at the universities of Budapest, Helsinki, St. Andrews, and Copenhagen.