BrainMap

Cristian Moisuc

Dr.

lecturer - UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI

Teaching staff

Web of Science ResearcherID: S-3510-2017

Expertise & keywords

Hierarchy and Analogy: a Metaphysical-Theological Inquiry Call name:
PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0259 2018 - 2020

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI (RO)

Project website: http://www.hamtiproject.wordpress.com

Abstract:

This project is set out to investigate a few of the doctrinal (metaphysical and theological) landmarks of the rapport between hierarchy and analogy. Its starting point is the research carried out in 2002 by several reputed scholars, who advanced the idea of an alternative history of the concept of scientia divina, from Neoplatonism to the 18th century. Our team intends to explore the breakthroughs that made possible the Augustinian turn on understanding the relationship between the Creator and the created order during the 13th century – we refer here to Jonannes Scotus Eriugena’s condemnation and, with it, of the Dionysian interpretation of the concept of analogy, and also to the condemnations of 1241 of the 10 theses that relayed the patristic legacy of the hierarchic relationship between God and man. Concepts such as analogy, hierarchy, contemplation, univocity of knowledge, representation or theandricity will be examined in order to reveal their evolution from Dionysius the Areopagite to the 17th century. The main goal will be to highlight the manner in which the functional equivalence between the divine knowledge and the human knowledge (best exemplified in Malebranche) was based on Augustine’s interpretation in De Trinitate that E. Gilson would coin later as the “metaphysics of Exodus”. Furthermore, it is very important for this project to analyse the notions of hierarchy and of analogy that are to be found in the work of D. Cantemir, Sacro-Sanctae Scientiae Indepingibilis Imago (1700). The members of the research team appreciate that they may reach innovative results as a consequence of the compared analysis between different approaches of the Corpus Dionysiacum in the writings of Western authors and the works of the Moldavian scholar.

Malebranchism and Enlightenment. Patterns of Reform of Knowledge, from metaphysical order to political order Call name:
PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0941 2018 - 2020

Role in this project: Project coordinator

Coordinating institution: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI

Project partners: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI (RO)

Affiliation: UNIVERSITATEA "ALEXANDRU IOAN CUZA" IASI (RO)

Project website: https://meprokproject.wordpress.com/

Abstract:

The present project proposes to investigate the influence exercised by Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) upon the Illuminist philosophers of the period 1720-1789. Its purpose is to fill a gap (within the current Malebranchist researches) and to provide an integrating explanation for the various types of receptions of Malebranchism during the Enlightenment. The work hypothesis is that the Illuminist philosophers “cropped”, reprised and adapted various Malebranchist concepts (such as “order” and “general law”) in order to attain other philosophical objectives than those for which they were used in the Occasionalist system. We conjecture that Malebranchism functions like a “hermeneutical prism” whose property is to decompose and recompose on new bases what seemed until then the effect of a process of purely arbitrary (at theological) or conventional (at moral-political level) justification. Hence, the metaphysical-theological instrument of the critique brought to Cartesianism (centred around the concept of “immutable order”) could be assumed and used in order for various Illuminist philosophers (from the count of Mirabeau to Voltaire) to constitute the Deistic thought currents or in order for authors such as Bernard of Mandeville to justify a “spontaneous order” at economic or moral-political level. Hence, Malebranchism as a system was broken into multiple “malebranchisms” and the authors who criticized it reprised very fertile concepts from it, including their functioning logic.

MODELS OF PRODUCING AND DISSEMINATING KNOWLEDGE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE: THE CARTESIAN FRAMEWORK Call name: Exploratory Research Projects - PCE-2011 call
PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0998 2012 - 2016

Role in this project: Key expert

Coordinating institution: FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA

Project partners: FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA (RO)

Affiliation: FUNDATIA NOUA EUROPA (RO)

Project website: http://descartesfme.wordpress.com/about/

Abstract:

Having investigated other fields of the Republic of Letters, the project aims to conduct a research from an interdisciplinary standpoint on Descartes correspondence, which constitutes a true fountain of theories, ideas and representations, one of the milestones of the intellectual networking of the early modernity. Descartes’ correspondence is first of all a privileged spot of an interdisciplinary study of the way of functioning of the Republic of Letters, in a period when all the instruments, techniques and communication protocols of the early modernity were already in use. In most cases, not only the letters of the French philosopher were preserved, but also the responses of his correspondents, exchanges who are revealing for the making off of some exceptionally philosophical doctrines, who are of highly importance for the evolution of the European society till now. Descartes’ Correspondence offers to the researcher a fascinating field of knowledge, because it facilitates an investigation conducted with interdisciplinary methods of an encounter territory of different and diverse paradigms -philosophical, scientific and political ones-, communicating with one another in the process of making of European modernity. Descartes' philosophical plan, launched in distinct moments trough his major works was tested each time by an exchange of letters with his contemporaries, which submitted his work to multiple tests of validation in the Republic of Letters.

Nulla natura interposita. Mediation and univocity in Nicolas Malebranche Call name: Postdoctoral Research Projects - PD-2011 call
PN-II-RU-PD-2011-3-0011 2011 - 2013

Role in this project: Project coordinator

Coordinating institution: Universitatea Babes Bolyai

Project partners: Universitatea Babes Bolyai (RO)

Affiliation: Universitatea Babes Bolyai (RO)

Project website: http://interposita.wordpress.com/

Abstract:

The goal of this project is to critically reevaluate the topos of Malebranche's Augustinianism in order to determine how Malebranche uses the Augustinian principle "nulla natura interpositita" as a basis for a modern theory of knowledge through representation. The theory of immediate and direct inspiration of the man by the divine Word allows Malebranche to build a metaphysical doctrine which uses medieval data (i.e the concepts of mediation, hierarchy, participation, distribution of grace) with a metaphysical purpose. The original documents of the Index Commision of Rome edited in 2003 will be useful in understanding the metaphysical significance of some malebranchean thesis that has generated philosophical and theological controversies.

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