Being

James Chastek, What am I trying to signify by “being”? and Simultaneity and the First, Second, and Third Way

I've been thinking of the question of being in relation to Duns Scotus and univocity, but since my handle of metaphysics is that of a beginner, I am just jotting some notes for later reference. Can there be a concept of being without first some sort of assent that a particular thing is/exists? How can one know any sensible thing without first sensing it? While essence is not the same as existence for contingent beings, does our conception of a thing necessarily have a reference to the judgment that it has existed? Is our conception of being then dependent upon some "being" having an effect upon our senses? A being is, first, that which has acted upon our senses, either directly or via something else?

If so, can our conception of being be univocal in this way, while it is equivocal when we try to reason out how material creatures differ from immaterial beings and God? Being is univocal in accordance with this sort of preliminary definition, but equivocal with a more "scientific" definition?

Metaphysics, the Middle Ages and the Birth of Protestantism - a review of Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation (via The Smith)

One might think that a committed Protestant would have a stake in showing that the Protestant Reformers were not determined in their teachings by their acceptance of bad medieval metaphysics, but I think that the claim in the critique that the metaphysical views of the Reformers were widely divergent (not all were followers of Ockham or Soctus) is something we should attend.

The Smithy: Divine Simplicity III: Univocity

James Chastek responds to Lee Faber: Petrus and St. Thomas on univocity made by the mode of conceiving

Lee Faber, Harmonization of Thomas and Scotus on Univocity

Radical Orthodoxy: An Interview with John Milbank and Catherine Pickstock

More finger-pointing at Duns Scotus for what ails Western culture.

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