After an introductory discussion about Mann’s and Heidegger’s direct comments about each other, I explore how Mann and Heidegger are situated with regard to what has been called conservative revolution. Mann not only helped to gain currency for the concept of conservative revolution, but he also defended it against what he considered its right-wing and/or fascist spoilers, before eventually providing a thorough criticism of it in his Doctor Faustus. Heidegger’s recently published Black Notebooks show that in the 1930s and 1940s his thought veered towards the direction of conservative revolution, as described in Mann’s novel. To complement the understanding of conservative revolution, I also draw on Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s seminal speech from 1927, which helps to determine how much Heidegger’s philosophy partakes of the spirit of conservative revolution in Germany.

This chapter deals with the concept of being in Mesoamerican traditions, which to some extent resembles what we find in other global traditions. The chapter covers concept such as the Yucatec Maya itz and the Nahuatl teotl as a kind of basic stuff of the cosmos determining its nature. It is not quite right to call these constituents of reality, in the sense of a material such as atoms that make up the world in physicalistic systems. Instead, these concepts should be understood as expressing the nature of reality itself, that is, being itself, underlying, prior to, and sustaining all particular things.

This analysis of Jacobi’s pivotal Spinoza Letters illustrates that the driving force behind his innovative altercation with Spinoza lies not in religious motives, but rather in motives derived from the philosophy of action. By putting into effect the contradiction between system and freedom in the practical sphere, Jacobi opened up new perspectives in modernity’s own self-understanding.

Being as the most fundamental intentional state. Being as a matter of “being-there,” where the “there” is determined by metaphors. Sovereign states and sovereign individuals in early modern Europe. The uncertain ontological status of both subjects. Theater and theory as ways to make both subjects beholdable and indisputably there. Dance as a way to come into being. Social ontologies based on dance metaphors – the world-stage and the social interaction of resident ambassadors.

This chapter explores possible differences between powerful qualities and pure powers, argues for the Pure Powers Model, and discusses the problem of being for pure powers. It is argued that powerful qualities are modally indistinguishable from pure powers but have a denser nature. Since pure powers are ontologically simpler than powerful qualities yet equally explanatorily relevant to modality, we should reject powerful qualities. After rejecting the Powerful Qualities Model, the reality of pure powers is defended. If pure powers are to provide a stable basis for physical modality, the problem of their being or grounding during periods of nonmanifestation needs resolution. It is argued that pure powers are self-grounded. A regress argument advanced by Stathis Psillos, which challenges the self-grounding of pure powers, is deflected. Lastly, Point Theory is developed to explain the self-grounding of pure powers.

A number of readings of the work of Martin Heidegger have emerged recently that place at its heart what has been labeled a "paradox of being." We find these readings in the work of Filippo Casati, Adrian Moore, Graham Priest, and Edward Witherspoon, though related themes can be traced earlier in work by Daniel Dahlstrom. The approach that these readings take poses new and interesting questions of Heidegger’s texts – some of these commentators arguing, for example, that the paradox they identify calls for a radical change in our understanding of logic – as well as contributing to a revival of interest in "the question of being." This chapter argues that these readers are right to point to a "paradox of being" in Heidegger’s work and to stress the importance of that "question"; but it raises questions about how they do this. The first half of the chapter examines critically the "paradox of being" that these readings identify, and the basis upon which they believe it rests. The second half of the chapter argues that a "paradox of being" does indeed emerge in Heidegger’s work, but it is rather different in character, is more pressing – because it rests on sounder foundations – and becomes visible only when we examine more closely precisely which "question of being" it is that is at stake in Heidegger’s work.

In the Sophist, Plato asks how there can be false statements. A false statement (logos) says what is not. But a statement cannot say nothing – there must be something that it says. Plato tries to solve the puzzle by investigating the notion of not-being and the notion of a logos. To understand not-being, we must first understand being. That in turn requires understanding how something can be called by many different names. Plato’s solution to these problems rests on the distinction between what something is of itself and what it is because it is related to other things. It also rests on an understanding of the notion of difference. The class of not-beautiful things, for example, is a real group: they are different from the beautiful things. Similarly, not-beings are a real group. The upshot is this: “Theaetetus is flying” is false, in that flying is different from what is with reference to Theaetetus. Theaetetus has being. Flying has being. But “Theaetetus is flying” says with reference to him what is not.

Chapter 5 inquires with Augustine into the origins and metaphysics of humility and pride, and how we may come to know them. In books XI–XII of The City of God, Augustine explores this theme by reflecting on biblical and Platonic accounts of creation, especially of angels and human beings, and of the birth of Augustine’s famous “two cities” among them.

Numenius (second century AD), the only witty Platonist after Plato himself, memorably described Plato as ‘Moses talking Attic’. He did not mean thereby to rate Eastern wisdom more highly than Platonic philosophy, as is sometimes suggested, but to recognise in the words ‘I AM THAT I AM’, spoken to Moses by the God of the Hebrews, an anticipation, unique in Eastern lore, of the conception Numenius championed of the Platonic first principle One or Good as Being itself. This paper proposes that his further exploration of that idea shows him to have construed the Timaeus account of such being as an eternal present, or in Boethius’s words ‘the complete possession all at once of an infinite life’, not as timelessness (the Timaeus interpretation advocated by Richard Sorabji). It is argued that this was both a correct interpretation of Plato’s text, and one shared in much subsequent ancient and medieval philosophy, including Plotinus, Augustine, and Aquinas. From our own human perspective, a present tense without past or future connections might be considered ‘a kind of logical torso’, a defective remnant of ordinary time. For Plato that human conception of present time is itself a mere image of eternity.

The framework of this paper is a defence of Burnet’s construal of Apology 30b2–4. Socrates does not claim, as he is standardly translated, that virtue makes you rich, but that virtue makes money and everything else good for you. This view of the relation between virtue and wealth is paralleled in dialogues of every period, and a sophisticated development of it appears in Aristotle. My philological defence of the philosophically preferable translation extends recent scholarly work on εἶναι in Plato and Aristotle to γίγνεσθαι, which is the main verb in the disputed sentence. When attached to a subject, both verbs make a complete statement on their own, but a statement that is further completable by adding a complement. The important point is that the addition of a complement does not change the meaning of the verb from existence to the copula. Proving this is a lengthy task which takes me into some of the deeper reaches of Platonic and Aristotelian ontology, and into discussion of whether Greek ever acquired a verb that corresponds to modem verbs of existence. I conclude that even when later authors such as Philo Judaeus, Sextus Empiricus and Plotinus debate what we naturally translate as issues of existence, none of the verbs they use (εἶναι, ὑπάρχειν, ὑφεστηκέναι) can be said to have existential meaning.

This essay considers Duns Scotus’s arguments against the so-called semantic analogy—the view according to which a term can signify two or more things according to relations of priority and posteriority. It argues that this view was commonly adopted in Paris but was rejected by a group of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century English thinkers, which included Duns Scotus. Since supporters of semantic analogy held that ‘being’ was the foremost example of a term signifying according to priority and posteriority, the implications of this debate on metaphysics are profound. This essay's conclusion is that Duns Scotus’s rejection of semantic analogy should be considered as preliminary to his famous claim that being is a univocal concept.

The aim of Part 3 is to make sense of Plato’s succinct ontological assertion that the sun-like good is source of the being and reality (or essence) of ‘the other’ forms. The text rules out equating this with the other forms’ participation in the form of the good. Two positive interpretations are put forward, one whereby ‘the other' forms are forms of virtues, the other whereby they are ethically neutral types such as returning a borrowed item to its owner. Both interpretations are closely grounded on Plato’s precise wording of his ontological claim. And, unlike various current interpretations, both allow for a measure of continuity between Socratic argument in earlier dialogues and dialectic in the Republic. Other interpretations are considered and rejected: the idea that the form generates the other forms by self-diffusion; the perfectionist approach that identifies the form of the good with the perfection or ideality as such common to all specific forms; and the approach that sees the form of the good as in some sense the system of other forms.

This chapter deals with arguments against the existence of God, at least a God as is supposed by Christianity – Creator, omnipotent and omniscient, all-loving especially toward his special creation, humankind. Ruse thinks that the arguments are effective. Above all, he cannot reconcile the Christian God with the problem of evil. He sees that human free will, including the power to do great evil, can in some sensed be reconciled with the Creator. He sees also that natural evil can likewise be reconciled with the Creator. He just cannot see that the Creator, knowing it was going to happen, let it happen. The suffering of small children cannot ever be reconciled with the end, no matter how good. Davies, taking a position much influenced by the great theologians, especially Aquinas, thinks that people like Ruse have an altogether mistaken understanding of God and his nature. The Bible is far from portraying God as the friendly chap in the sky, as supposed by Ruse. And theology backs up this realization by showing that, properly understood, we can speak of God as all-powerful and all-loving.

This essay treats of the (Neo)platonic influences in the thought of Thomas Aquinas, in particular the notion of participation. It describes Aquinas’ doctrine of participation in being as developed from his principal Neoplatonic sources, to wit, Boethius’ De hebdomadibus, Dionysius’ De divinis nominibus, and the Liber de causis. It argues that the doctrine of creation in terms of participation the Christian conditions of creation.