A Critical Assessment of Professor Todd Ryan’s, “Philo on the ‘Incomprehensible Nature of the Supreme Being’ in Dialogues 2”  

作　　者：Stanley Tweyman 

机构地区：[1]York University,Toronto,Canada

出　　处：《Philosophy Study》2024年第2期91-96,共6页哲学研究（英文版）

摘　　要：I begin my comments by acknowledging that Professor Ryan is correct when he states early in his paper that Philo makes common cause with Demea by arguing that philosophical reflection can yield no knowledge of the nature or essence of the divine being. Ryan asserts that Philo’s defense of this claim, as set out in the third and fourth paragraphs in Part 2, has not received the attention it deserves from commentators. This, according to Ryan, is surprising, since, if Philo is successful here, he will have effectively shut down the project of natural theology, before it can even begin. Ryan goes further, citing my work, Scepticism and Belief in Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1986) to say that Philo’s challenge receives no direct answer from Cleanthes. Instead, Cleanthes proceeds directly to formulate his version of the Argument from Design. Ryan concludes his introductory remarks by asserting that, in these two paragraphs, Philo offers not one, but two, distinct arguments for the conclusion that we can achieve no strictly philosophical knowledge of the nature of God. He then proceeds to flesh out these two arguments, and attempts to show that neither of Philo’s objections is ultimately telling against Cleanthes’ experimental natural theology.

关 键 词：STRICTLY CLEAN NEITHER 

分 类 号：O17[理学—数学]