Liberal Arts and Sciences

This project tackles the question of whether Aristotle considers form to be peculiar to each particular being or to be identical for all members of a species. I focus on the form of natural beings, so soul. Contrary to the general opinion in Aristotelian scholarship, I believe that both species form and particular form are at work at the same time, as the first actuality and the second actuality respectively of a natural being.^ The first chapter establishes the historical frame within which we can discuss Aristotle’s philosophy. His work is a development not of Platonic dualism, but rather of an understanding of humans as psychosomatic unities. The second chapter reevaluates Aristotle’s views about form and soul. After rejecting both mereologist and conceptualist perspectives, I show that form and matter are correlative: an actual particular being and a potential particular being respectively. The emphasis here is on the way in which a particular is. A particular-being-actually-the...

There are two types of responsibility in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: a judgmental one and a healing one. In judgmental responsibility, humans judge others and the world around them and act in order to " cleanse " it from any impurities. In doing so, they establish themselves as supra-humans and, by consequence, as murderers. In healing responsibility, the cleansing of the world takes place in acknowledging that one is responsible before all. This kind of responsibility transcends morality and reestablishes the connection between all humans as members of the same world: it is the attitude that a human being is called to have when faced with a broken reality. Dostoevsky succeeds in distinguishing between these two types of responsibility by having characters engaged in similar actions. Dunya and Sonya both sacrifice themselves for their families, but the first does it as a personal choice, while the second perceives it as a given. Then, Porfiry and Sonya both ask Raskolnikov to confess his crime. The first wants Rodion's eternal damnation, while the second sees in confession Raskolnikov's chance to obtain salvation and to thus renew the entire world.

My translation of Constantin Noica’s (1909–1987) Pray for Brother Alexander. It is a meditation on responsibility, freedom, and forgiveness. On the surface, the book describes events and people from Noica’s life during his time in a political communist prison in Romania. However, the volume is not a historical account only, but rather an honest introspection into how a human being may keep sanity when everything around him makes no sense.
Unlike his famous Romanian contemporaries, scholar Mircea Eliade, dramatist Eugen Ionescu, and philosopher Emil Cioran, who lived abroad, Constantin Noica did not leave communist Romania. Considered an “anti-revolutionary” thinker, Noica was placed under house arrest in Câmpulung-Muscel between 1949 and 1958. In 1958, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released after 6 years, and Pray for Brother Alexander covers his experiences during this time. In his writings, Noica rekindles universal themes of philosophy, but he deals with them in a profoundly original manner, based on the culture in which he lived and for which he even suffered persecution.

The volume will be of great of interest to scholars and students in history of philosophy and continental philosophy, but also to people interested in the recent history of Eastern Europe and the political persecution that took place after WWII in those countries.

Constantin Noica’s (1909–1987) Pray for Brother Alexander is a meditation on responsibility, freedom, and forgiveness. On the surface, the book describes events and people from Noica’s life during his time in a political communist prison in Romania. However, the volume is not a historical account only, but rather an honest introspection into how a human being may keep sanity when everything around him makes no sense.

Unlike his famous Romanian contemporaries, scholar Mircea Eliade, dramatist Eugène Ionescu, and philosopher Emil Cioran, who lived abroad, Constantin Noica did not leave communist Romania. Considered an “anti-revolutionary” thinker, Noica was placed under house arrest in Câmpulung-Muscel between 1949 and 1958. In 1958, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was released after 6 years, and Pray for Brother Alexander covers his experiences during this time. In his writings, Noica rekindles universal themes of philosophy, but he deals with them in a profoundly original manner, based on the culture in which he lived and for which he also suffered persecution.

The volume will be of great of interest to scholars and students in history of philosophy and continental philosophy, but also to people interested in the recent history of Eastern Europe and the political persecution that took place after WWII in those countries.

In his essay on “Orthodoxy and the Trial of Communism,” Andrei Scrima says, “to a vigilant Christian conscience, communism appears as the gospel of God’s inexistence, as the most accomplished catechism of darkness.”  Communism, Scrima continues, is nothing more than the old and also eternally new dream of the fallen man: deification without God.  It is certainly not the case that communism invented the idea of deification, which appears in Christianity from its beginning. Christ became man so that we may become gods,  St. Athanasius says, pointing that the purpose of human existence is the return to God. Much closer in time to us, Fr. Arsenie Boca says in the opening of his Path to the Kingdom, “We come from God, we spend some time on earth, and then we return to God. Happy is the man who returns Home, closing the circle.”  In all of these accounts, human existence is potentiality for another type of existence, the divine itself. The difference between how communism and Christianity understand this potentiality rests on the source of our divinity. In communism, we are the source of our own deification, and this supra-existence is only achieved by the murder of the previous one, the human existence. In Christianity, the source for divine existence is the divine itself: Christ who became man so that we can become gods.

Plato's Crito and Sophocles' Antigone challenge the concept of justice as "benefitting friends and harming enemies": justice stems from anger and harms the soul. The Antigone first illustrates how violence results from people's actions when they see themselves as the agents of justice; second, it points to a possible reassessment of justice as benefitting all, regardless of what others do to you. In the Crito, Socrates shows how this new notion of justice, which is very similar to mercy, is consistent with the life of a good human being. RÉSUMÉ: Le Criton de Platon et l'Antigone de Sophocle mettent en question la notion de justice qu'on trouve dans le monde grec: "faire du bien à ses amis, faire du mal à des ennemis". Selon cette définition, la justice provient de la colère et fait du mal à l'âme. Antigone montre d'abord que la violence est le résultat des actions des gens quand ils se considèrent eux-mêmes comme les agents de la justice. En outre, cette pièce suggère une possible redéfinition de la justice, au sens de "faire du bien à tous, indépendamment de ce que les autres nous font". Dans le Criton, Socrate montre comment cette nouvelle notion de justice, très similaire à la pitié, est cohérente avec la vie de l'homme bon. Justice and revenge have a long relationship, and Sophocles' Antigone and Plato's Crito show how connected they were in the ancient Greek world. This cannot come as a surprise since the idea of revenge is deeply rooted in human culture. Even today, people are often troubled when they witness others who do not react angrily and do not desire revenge when