The Expansion of Metaphysics

by Miklos Veto, Chris Hackett (Translator), David T. Carr (Foreword by)

Overview

The culmination of a lifetime's preoccupation with crucial human concerns too often curiously marginalized by the history of philosophy, The Expansion of Metaphysics sheds new light on freedom and the will by making the phenomenon of novelty philosophically intelligible. The a priori synthesis of Kant is joined to Judeo-Christian themes (the kenosis of Christ in the incarnation and the tzimtzum of God in the creation) in order to develop a doctrine of "superabundance" (freedom and love) and "singularity" (with the Work of Art and the Child as paradigms). Space and time are reanalyzed as structural forms of human existence as Vető guides the reader into the depths and heights of reality, climaxing in a metaphysics of good and evil.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498231268
Publisher:	Wipf & Stock Publishers
Publication date:	06/01/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Miklos Vető is a Hungarian-born French philosopher who taught successively at Marquette, Yale, Abidjan, Rennes, and Poitiers universities. Widely known as a historian of German Idealism, his works have been translated into many languages. He is the author of The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil.

 

William C. Hackett is Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and the Honors Program at Belmont University. He is the translator of several works from French to English, including Jean Wahl’s Human Existence and Transcendence.
Miklos Vető is a Hungarian-born French philosopher who taught successively at Marquette, Yale, Abidjan, Rennes, and Poitiers universities. Widely known as a historian of German Idealism, his works have been translated into many languages. He is the author of The Religious Metaphysics of Simone Weil.

 

Table of Contents

Foreword by David Carr ix

Introduction to Metaphysics xiii

Introduction 1

Book 1 First Philosophy

I The Image 11

The Nothing of Subjectivity 11

Instantiation of the Ectype 16

The Autonomy of the Image 20

The Artistic Image 24

From Dissimilarity to Auto-figuration 28

II Newness: Premises and Regressions 32

Renewing Newness 32

Becoming Less than Perfect: The Withdrawal of God and the Descent of the Son 35

Thinking the New: The Power of Synthesis 41

The Thorns of Analysis 45

Nature: Variations on Immanence 48

Limits and Pitfalls of Justice 52

Reciprocity 56

III Newness: Figures and Paths 63

The Horizons of Potentiality 63

From Superabundance to Tearing Away 64

Self-Exit and Self-Surpassing 70

Freedom 73

Meaning 78

Love 81

Sacrifice 85

Double Asymmetry 87

Faithfulness 91

Towards the Third 93

IV The Singular 95

The Third 95

Distinction and Differentiation 98

Intrinsic Differentiation 102

Syntheses of Singularity 105

From the Singular to the Unique 111

Things 113

The Work of Art 116

Works of Art 121

V The Unique 123

Asymmetrical Love 123

The Child 126

Paternity: Creation and Procreation 128

Monads 132

Ectypes and Copies 134

The Shadow and the Double 136

The Image-Child 141

The Unique Ones 144

Book 2 Eidetics

VI Space: From Homogeneity to War 153

Material Essences and Synthetic A Priori Eide 153

The Forms of Dispersion 155

Extension and Exteriority 157

From Indifference to Hostility 160

War 163

VII Spatial Eide 168

Beyond Homogeneity 168

Space and Color 169

Figure and Place 171

Extension and Expansion 177

Curves 178

Center: Symmetry and Asymmetry 182

Dimensions and Directions 184

Magnitude and Distance 187

From Breadth to Remoteness 189

Depth 193

Height 196

VIII Time 201

Change and Corruption 201

Power and Powerlessness of the Now 203

The Infinite Divisibility: Work and Money 207

The Unfolding of the Given 211

Repetition and Rhythm 213

The Irreversibility of Death 217

IX Times 221

Towards an Eidetic of Chronos 221

Duration 222

Synthesis and Schema 224

Past, future, Present 230

The Present: Duration and Differentiation 233

The Moving Image of Eternity 235

Pleasure 238

Peace 242

The Form of the Past and Retention 244

Memory and History 249

Protention and the Future 252

Hope 255

X The Will 261

The Human Self 261

Desire 262

Intention 264

The Indivisibility and Immediacy of the Will 266

Will, Causality, Temporality 271

Time and Will 273

The Renewal of Desire: The Request for Forgiveness 275

XI The Dual Will and Practical Knowledge 279

Enlarged Homogeneity 279

The Wills 280

How to Want More? 283

Philosophy of the Will and Moral Formalism 287

Sincerity and Rigorism 289

Will and Practical Knowledge 292

Practical Feeling 296

The Knowledge of Good and Evil 300

XII The Reality and Scope of Evil 305

Evil as Metaphysical Category 305

The Positivity of Evil 306

The Spirituality of Evil 312

The Impossibility of Evil 315

Radical Evil 319

Evil for Evil's Sake 324

From Evil to the Good 328

XIII The Good 335

Beyond Being, Beyond Essence 335

From Newness to Goodness 337

Kenosis as Will 343

The Good's Self-Diffusion 344

Bibliography 350

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“From one of the foremost scholars of German Idealism in our day there comes a book that gives us his personal vision of metaphysics. Miklos Vető’s The Expansion of Metaphysics presents a Christian metaphysics, one broadened from classical and romantic models to take proper account of the image, the new, and the singular, and finished with a capacious and engaging understanding of essence. Among other things, this is a book of wisdom. No one who reads it can remain unchanged by its teachings.”

—Kevin Hart, The University of Virginia



“Miklos Vető has been well known for decades as an illuminating interpreter of Bérulle, Jonathan Edwards, Schelling and Simone Weil—to name a few. It is high time to discover that he could read them because he is a philosopher in his own right. . . . As a book, everyone will find it thoroughly enjoyable. And one must thank Chris Hackett for a fine translation of Vető’s always elegant text.”

—Jean-Yves Lacoste, Clare Hall, Australian Catholic University, Cambridge



“In its trans-epochal reach, Miklos Vető’s Expansion of Metaphysics . . . enables students of philosophy to ask the big questions once again: about self, will, evil, the good, love, creation, and God. The agent of this expansion is a renewal of Kant’s transcendental phenomenology and of its premodern sources: recovering the agency of will beyond being, of self and other, which is the agency of the good, agency of the loving creator whose gifts perpetually renewed, are being and existence.”

—Peter Ochs, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

Editorial Reviews

From one of the foremost scholars of German Idealism in our day there comes a book that gives us his personal vision of metaphysics. Miklos Vető’s The Expansion of Metaphysics presents a Christian metaphysics, one broadened from classical and romantic models to take proper account of the image, the new, and the singular, and finished with a capacious and engaging understanding of essence. Among other things, this is a book of wisdom. No one who reads it can remain unchanged by its teachings.”

—Kevin Hart, The University of Virginia



“Miklos Vető has been well known for decades as an illuminating interpreter of Bérulle, Jonathan Edwards, Schelling and Simone Weil—to name a few. It is high time to discover that he could read them because he is a philosopher in his own right. . . . As a book, everyone will find it thoroughly enjoyable. And one must thank Chris Hackett for a fine translation of Vető’s always elegant text.”

—Jean-Yves Lacoste, Clare Hall, Australian Catholic University, Cambridge



“In its trans-epochal reach, Miklos Vető’s Expansion of Metaphysics . . . enables students of philosophy to ask the big questions once again: about self, will, evil, the good, love, creation, and God. The agent of this expansion is a renewal of Kant’s transcendental phenomenology and of its premodern sources: recovering the agency of will beyond being, of self and other, which is the agency of the good, agency of the loving creator whose gifts perpetually renewed, are being and existence.”

—Peter Ochs, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of Virginia

From the Publisher