William Desmond (philosopher) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
William Desmond
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| Born | 1951 (age 73–74) |
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| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
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William James Desmond (born January 7, 1951) is an Irish philosopher who has written on ontology, metaphysics, ethics, and religion. Desmond earned his B.A. and M.A. from University College, Cork, in 1972 and 1974; Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in 1978.
A former president of the Hegel Society of America (1990–1992) and the Metaphysical Society of America (1995), Desmond is professor of philosophy at the Higher Institute of Philosophy at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and also at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He is a past president of the American Catholic Philosophical Association. In his trilogy, Being and The Between, Ethics and The Between, and God and The Between, Desmond works out an entirely new and complete metaphysical/ontological philosophical system based on what he calls the potencies of being and the senses of being. His most original contribution in his metaphysics is the notion of the "metaxological". Desmond's program consists mainly in exploring the senses in which he claims that modernity has devalued being and what "to be" and "the good" might mean.
Contents
Philosophical work
The ethos
The ethos can be defined as the ontological matrix of value at any given time. For Desmond, the human self always lives in what he calls the ethos. The ethos is where we bring morality and concrete good through our power of affirming. Simultaneously, we receive the hospitality of the ethos through what Desmond calls the "agapeic origin of the good". The origin is the "original givenness that frees beings into their freedom" and must be understood as an agapeic gift which is overdetermined and thus cannot be aptly described or determined univocally or dialectically.
The potencies of being
Within the ethos there are seven potencies of being. This "enabling repertoire of self becoming" has the "character of an endowment", and is thus seen as a gift. The potencies are not a program to follow; they simply are all together the powers from which ethical selvings, expressed through particular senses of being, take their endowment. The seven potencies are:
- The Idiotic: By definition something which cannot be defined specifically. Our original expectation of being is goodness. This is seen in the immediate expectation of newborns to be healthy; when we see an unhealthy baby we are shocked and sad.
- The Aesthetic: Our being in the world is always incarnate. We live through our bodies and basic to our being is our embodied relationship with the world.
- The Dianoetic: The rational potency of lawmaking and determination. The dianoetic potency looks at the world through laws and determinate formulas.
- The Transcendental: The potency of a binding universality or condition of possibility.
- The Eudaimonistic: The sense of wholeness of how we are in the world.
- The Transcending: This is the potency of the "between" itself; the mystery of self-surpassing and the excess of the overdetermined milieu itself. The transcending potency can only be seen metaxologically because it is itself a move towards the open overdeterminate, which is only seen thus. A movement towards the agapeic cannot be done dialectically or univocally because both narrow and define, nor equivocally since transcending requires movement in the between, not mere equivocity.
- The Transcendent: The ultimate power that itself allows for the possibility of all transcending. "For this we have the extraordinary word God." The Good itself, the power behind everything, is what is always intimated in the between. It allows for self-development and transcending to the Good.
The senses of being
Within the ontological matrix of being, the different potencies can be expressed differently through the senses of being. These ways in which to express the potencies help explore the relations of sameness and difference within the ethos. The four potencies are:
- Univocal: This potency is that of intelligibility and identity. It is a potency most clearly seen as the driving force behind modernity. The univocal potency helps manifest intelligibility and gives determination to the ethos.
- Equivocal: The equivocal potency is marked by its indefiniteness and difference.
- Dialectic: Characterized by mediation, the dialectic sense places emphasis on self mediated wholeness.
- The Metaxological: From the Greek 'metaxu' meaning 'between', the metaxological is a view of the ethos from the between as overdetermined. Emphasizing mediation, it leaves the between open (as opposed to the dialectical) and emphasises the interplay between sameness and difference. The metaxological considers the between as overdetermined and does not attempt to constrict or define the between or the ethos as whole or progressing teleologically. It is a more robust consideration of the agapeic origin as overdetermined good.
Critique of other philosophers
Different philosophers can be seen as embodying different potencies and senses of being throughout the history of philosophy. Kant, for instance, is best defined as a transcendental univocalist. Nietzsche would come close to something like an aesthete given his acknowledgment of the aesthetic part of being; he is, however, described by Desmond as being defined by the transcending potency and being both equivocal and a dialectician. Hegel might be defined as a dialectician. Desmond believes, however, that all of these philosophers are somehow haunted by those potencies which they seek to ignore or devalue. There is a dialectics in Kant and there are equivocities in Nietzsche. "Metaxological vigilance" shows a clearer picture of the ethos than do any views that restrict philosophical considerations to the other senses of being and potencies.
