Ascent to the Absolute: Metaphysical Papers and Lectures

268 Pages·2019·11.403 MB·English

by  J. N. Findlay

ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS:
METAPHYSICS
Volume 1
ASCENT TO THE ABSOLUTE

ASCENT TO THE ABSOLUTE
Metaphysical Papers and Lectures
J. N. FINDLAY
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ASCENT TO
THE ABSOLUTE
METAPHYSICAL PAPERS AND LECTURES
J. N. FINDLAY
LONDON • GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
NEW YORK • HUMANITIES PRESS
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1970
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BRITISH ISBN 004 III003 X
US SBN 391 00073 X
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TO MY WIFE
WHO
THOUGH NOT A NECESSARY BEING
REMAINS
NECESSARY TO ME

PREFACE
The lectures and papers in the present collection, of which some
have not been previously published, were all written over the last
decade. All are concerned, either with the nature of metaphysics
in general, or with the more special topic of 'Absolute-theory', by
which is meant the theory of an intrinsically necessary, all-
explanatory existent. From having (in 1948) constructed an
argument designed to disprove the existence of an Absolute
Being, I have moved to a position where, by a change of attitude
to a single premiss, the disproof has swung over into something
that may, if it betrays no inward, logical flaw, converge towards a
proof. An Absolute is the sort of thing that can be shown not to
exist (if it can be shown not to exist) on purely conceptual grounds,
but it is also the sort of thing whose existence depends on purely
conceptual considerations. What these considerations are is of
course not the easy question that some have taken it to be, and
it is not to be decided by invoking a soi-disant topic-neutral logic
which in fact rests on a hidden metaphysic. The sequence of
papers in the present volume will, however, show how, from
denying what may be loosely described as my Creator's existence,
I have come to be surpassingly interested in his logical properties.
The stages of my intellectual biography are, of course, of no
importance whatever, but there may be interest and importance
in the matters with which they were concerned. With one excep-
tion, the papers are chronologically arranged: I have, however,
put the three Matchette Lectures on Absolute-theory at the
beginning of the collection (though given in 1968), since they,
together with the final paper `Towards a Neo-neo-Platonism',
provide the most systematic account of my present ideas.
I have to thank the International Institute of Philosophy for
permission to reprint `The Teaching of Meaning', the Editor
of the Hartshorne Festschrift Process and Divinity for permission
to reprint `Some Reflections on Necessary Existence', the Editor
of The Monist for permission to reprint `Metaphysics and Affinity'
and `Hegel's Use of Teleology', the Editor of Philosophy East and
West for permission to reprint `The Diremptive Tendencies of
Western Philosophy', the Editor of Religious Studies for permission
to reprint `The Logic of Mysticism', Quadrangle Books Inc. for
permission to reprint `Essential Probabilities', the Editor of the
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