List of Articles
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Metaphysics and Theology
Jean Borella, on the Analogical Unity of Religions
A “transcendent unity of religions” is problematic, and Jean Borella has repeatedly denounced it (“Intelligence spirituelle et surnaturel”, in Éric Vatré, La Droite du Père, Enquête sur la Tradition catholique aujourd’hui, Trédaniel, 1994 ; “Problématique de l’unité des religions”, afterword to Bruno Bérard, Introduction à une métaphysique des mystères chrétiens, L’Harmattan, 2005; “La religio perennis n’est pas une religion” in René Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, héritages et controverses, L’Harmattan, 2023). This article presents Jean Borella’s arguments in favor of an analogical unity of religions.
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Metaphysics and Philosophy
Merit: An Illusion?
The notion of merit has clearly evolved over time, and today’s sporting competitions provide an example of how this notion has been misused. This etymological, sociological, philosophical, metaphysical, theological and spiritual investigation provides a timely challenge, especially at a time of meritocratic ideology
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Metaphysics and History
An Independent Priest in the 19th Century: Father Lacuria (1806-1890)
Presentation of Lacuria’s life and thought from an esoteric-political angle as found in the subject matter of Politica Hermetica, or the Italian Corriere Metapolitico. This angle of view includes the dimensions of Lacuria’s conception of his priesthood, his theological thinking as well as his politico-social thinking.
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Metaphysics and Science
Philosophy and Science, Epistemic Opening and Closing of the Concept
If there is a fundamental difference between science and philosophy, it lies in the legitimate – and constitutive – reduction of the concept to a calculable logical reason in science, whereas what characterizes philosophy is the epistemic openness of the concept. Philosophy is discovered by distinguishing intelligence from reason, which has always been the case, except for those who were enamored of Kantianism and overly attached to the illusory comfort of a narrow rationalism.
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Metaphysics
Metaphysics as Anti-Dogmatism and as a Non-System
Metaphysics is not only a science, it is also a way. As a science, it appears extralinguistic insofar as it leads beyond the conceptual. The conceptual, in fact, turns out to be the simple step toward the knowable. Therefore, metaphysics can never be reduced to a system. By going beyond itself, this science becomes nescience; it is therefore anti-dogmatic by its very nature. As a way, metaphysics confirms this: it is the term of objective illusion for intelligences that know how to close their eyes (St. Dionysius Areopagitus). The mind seeks only what it has already found (Pascal, Chrétien de Troyes).
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Metaphysics and History
Rossellini, the Other Cinema
Once you’ve had a chance to see a film by director Roberto Rossellini (1906-1977), you discover that cinema is the art of showing without showing, an art without strings, without gimmicks, without special effects. The film shows what the act of filming is all about – it’s a lesson in cinema!
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Metaphysics
Paradoxes of Reason, Paradoxes of Intelligence
The three types of paradoxes – paracosmia, paralogy and paradoxia – are powerful teachings for the distinct faculties of reason and intelligence. We might even call them “metaphysical operators”.
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Metaphysics
Reason and Intelligence, the Two Sides of the Mind
Understanding the distinction between reason and intelligence enables human beings to break free from their mental confinement within conceptual games. A certain distance enables us to distinguish within reason itself the different regimes according to which it operates and, above all, to realize that the intelligible transcends the conceivable for the betterment of human thought.
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Metaphysics and Philosophy
To Believe, to Know, to Cognize
While we will see that, contrary to popular belief, believing and knowing are not in opposition, moreover, we will realize that knowledge and cognizance can be in opposition. This opposition is even crucial to understand what metaphysics is and how intrinsic it is to every human being.
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Metaphysics and Science
Does Time Precede Space?
What is time? What is space? Questions for ever asked and that modern space-time theory has not extinguished. The purpose of this paper is to consider these questions scientifically, philosophically and metaphysically so that to answer the critical question: does time precedes space, which seems to be the case in Christianity.
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Metaphysics and Theology
The Christological Hologram or the Hologramic Christ
As the Gospel indicates: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40), this means that if Christ is the Neighbor par excellence. it is because any neighbor is Christ. As Jean Borella has put it « the neighbor is the matter of neighborhood, Christ is its eternal form“. Here came the notion of a hologramic Christ, present in totality in any human being. Hence, this open a path into the metaphysical mystery of the One and the multiplicity, at both ends of Becoming (Creation) and Resorption (Pleroma).
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Metaphysics and Philosophy
Was René Descartes a Cartesian? Was Isaac Newton a Newtonian?
It is now academically well established that Cartesian dualism has unfairly been put onto Descartes after his time. This paper is an opportunity to restore some truth about him, while Cartesianism definitely may be a methodology in science but no metaphysical doctrine at all.