Gheorghe PETRARU - Strong and Weak Metaphysics in the History of Romanian Philosophy

Gheorghe PETRARU

Rev. Prof. PhD „Dumitru Stăniloae” Faculty of Orthodox Theology, „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, Romania

Abstract:

A specific feature of Romanian metaphysics consists in its trait of being substantive. Similarly to functional and substantive sociologies or psychologies of religion, there are functional or substantive systems of metaphysics. The history of Romanian philosophy accounts for philosophers of strong metaphysical orientation, a substantive one, namely Nae Ionescu (1890-1940), Petru P. Ionescu (1903-1979), Constantin Radulescu Motru (1868-1957), Corneliu Mircea (born in 1944) or weak metaphysics, e.g. Nicolae Turcan (born in 1971). According to Radulescu Motru, metaphysics is the science with the purpose of granting us the most complete and least relative knowledge of the world (1997: 11), whereas Nae Ionescu’s belief is that metaphysics establishes contact with the absolute but in a different way than natural theology (Ionescu 1991, 37). Petru P. Ionescu feels that metaphysics is a thought about God who is ontologically genuine, not a fruit of imagination (2008: 330). For Corneliu Mircea, metaphysics is religious meditation gravitating around God (Mircea 2006, 345). For Turcan, in metaphysics, there are also echoes of its end due to the phenomenological turn as can be seen in his exegesis of Jean-Luc Marion’s work, symbolically entitled an apology after the end of metaphysics (Turcan 2016). Metaphysics will endure because it defines us as rational beings with speech, discourse and logic, able to discern the categories of beauty, good and truth.

Keywords:

Romanian metaphysics, ontology, natural religion, theology, God-love

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