The papers gathered in this volume offer precise investigations of the historical and philosophical grounds for the first medieval commentaries on the ...

Benner, Erica. Machiavelli’s Ethics. Princeton, 2009. 527p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780691141763, $75.00; ISBN 9780691141770 pbk, $35.00.

Reviewed in CHOICE, April 2010

This major new study of Machiavelli’s moral and political philosophy by Benner (Yale) argues that most readings of Machiavelli suffer from a failure to appreciate his debt to Greek sources, particularly the Socratic tradition of moral and political philosophy. Benner argues that when read in the light of his Greek sources, Machiavelli appears as much less the immoralist or sophist (...) he often is taken for and instead as a serious moral philosopher very much concerned with the republican ideals of justice and the rule of law. The author does not ignore Machiavelli’s more infamous dicta, but argues that a careful reading shows that they are expressions of views he ultimately rejects. Particularly noteworthy here is her careful attention to Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories.
Benner’s reading of Machiavelli is far too complex and subtle for such a brief summary. Her research is meticulous and her arguments finely honed. This important contribution to both Machiavelli studies and the history of political philosophy will be indispensable for scholars.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty/researchers. — B. T. Harding

Endorsements:

"Machiavelli's Ethics is a superb scholarly book. Erica Benner does truly impressive work in analyzing Machiavelli's views on the most fundamental ethical issues--including necessity and virtue, justice and injustice, and ends and means. She shows, with very solid evidence, that Machiavelli did in fact worry a lot about justice and that he put it at the core of his republican theory."--Maurizio Viroli, author of Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli

"Machiavelli's Ethics is excellent--learned, subtle, highly original, and a constant pleasure to read. And, since it is really a study of Machiavelli's thought in its entirety, it is also the first book of its kind. Its originality lies in taking seriously the claim by some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers--notably Bacon, Spinoza, and Alberico Gentili--that Machiavelli was essentially a moral and political philosopher. Erica Benner does a brilliant job of resurrecting this neglected Machiavelli."--Giulia Sissa, University of California, Los Angeles


About the book, from the publisher:
Machiavelli's Ethics challenges the most entrenched understandings of Machiavelli, arguing that he was a moral and political philosopher who consistently favored the rule of law over that of men, that he had a coherent theory of justice, and that he did not defend the "Machiavellian" maxim that the ends justify the means. By carefully reconstructing the principled foundations of his political theory, Erica Benner gives the most complete account yet of Machiavelli's thought. She argues that his difficult and puzzling style of writing owes far more to ancient Greek sources than is usually recognized, as does his chief aim: to teach readers not how to produce deceptive political appearances and rhetoric, but how to see through them. Drawing on a close reading of Greek authors--including Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and Plutarch--Benner identifies a powerful and neglected key to understanding Machiavelli.

This important new interpretation is based on the most comprehensive study of Machiavelli's writings to date, including a detailed examination of all of his major works: The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories. It helps explain why readers such as Bacon and Rousseau could see Machiavelli as a fellow moral philosopher, and how they could view The Prince as an ethical and republican text. By identifying a rigorous structure of principles behind Machiavelli's historical examples, the book should also open up fresh debates about his relationship to later philosophers, including Rousseau, Hobbes, and Kant.
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The question of the unity of the soul is posed in the Midle Ages, at the crossing point of the Aristotelician theory, which distinguishes several potencies, even several parts in the soul, and the Augustinian doctrine, which underlines the unity of the mind using corporeal powers. John Buridan, when commenting the Treatise on the Soul of Aristotle, emphasizes the unity, probably in reaction against John of Jandun's position. From the middle of 14th century till the end of 17th, this problem (...) goes on being debated through the two questions of the substantial unity of the soul and of the the relation between the soul and its potencies. This article studies some stages of this development, some of them immediately after Buridan, in Nicole Oresme's and Peter of Ailly's positions, another more distant, in Antoine Rubio's work. It suggests that we find still the same problematics, reelaborated and transformed, in Descartes. (shrink)

Vorbemerkung „Nichts unter der Sonne ist neu," war Giordano Brunos Leitspruch. Dennoch ist es angebracht, ihn als einen Denker vorzustellen, der eine eigene ...

Wonder, miracle, occult science, poetry, and the epistemological implications in Renaissance authors: Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico, Pietro Pomponazzi, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Giordano Bruno, Francesco Patrizi, Tommaso Campanella, Francisco Suárez.

The purpose of this entry is to provide a systematic introduction to medieval views about the nature and ontological status of relations. Given the current state of our knowledge of medieval philosophy, especially with regard to relations, it is not possible to discuss all the nuances of even the best known medieval philosophers' views. In what follows, therefore, we shall restrict our aim to identifying and describing (a) the main types of position that were developed during the Middle Ages, and (...) (b) the most important considerations that shaped their development. We shall have occasion along the way, however, to examine in detail certain aspects of the views of important representatives of all the main medieval positions, including Peter Abelard (1079 1142), Gilbert of Poitiers (1085 1154), Albert the Great, (1200 1280), Thomas Aquinas (1225 1274), John Duns Scotus (1265 1308), Henry Harclay (1270 1317), Peter Auriol (1280 1322), and William Ockham (1285 1347). (shrink)

This paper shows how Wyclif is able at the same time (i) to claim that whatever is is a proposition ("pan-propositionalism") and (ii) to develop a nontrivial theory of propositional truth and falsity. The study has two parts: 1) Starting from Wyclif's fivefold propositional typology – including a propositio realis (real proposition) and asic esse sicut propositio significat (a fact) – we will analyse(a) the three different kinds of real predication, (b) the distinction between primary and secondary signification of propositions (...) (the latter being an instantiation of the former) and (c) the status of logical truth as opposed to (but depending on) metaphysical truth. Furthermore, the notion of ens logicum (as intermediate between statements and facts) will be compared to Walter Burley's propositio in re of which it appears to be a close analogon. 2) The second part deals with two semantic and metaphysical implications of the "pan-propositionalism": (a) the extended notion of being (ampliatio entis) called upon to explain the truth of so-called non-standard propositions (e.g. past, future, modal) and (b) the relation between contents of the divine mind as "arch-truth-makers" and eternal as well as contingent truths. (shrink)

This book is a revised and expanded edition of three lectures delivered by the author as the centerpiece of a symposium on the philosophy of God at Wake Forest University in 1979. Long out of print, in its new edition it should be a valuable resource for scholars and teachers of the philosophy of religion. The first two lectures, after a critique of the incompleteness of St. Thomas Aquinas's famous Five Ways of arguing for the existence of God, explores two (...) lesser-known resources of Aquinas's philosophical ascent of the mind to God. The first is the unrestricted dynamism of the human spirit, both intellect and will, reaching toward the fullness of being as both true (i.e., intelligible) and good. The second is the strictly metaphysical ascent to God from finite to infinite, in the line of Aquinas's later, more Neoplatonically inspired, metaphysics of participation. The third lecture is a critique of Whitehead's process philosophy. It asks: Is process philosophy compatible with Christian theism? This article is heavily revised from its earlier version, distinguishing Aquinas more sharply and critically from Whitehead than in the first edition. (shrink)

Offers an assessment of the place of the Middle Ages in critical theory.

The German Johannes Sharpe is the most important and original author of the so called "Oxford Realists": his semantic and metaphysical theories are the end product of the two main medieval philosophical traditions, realism and nominalism, for he contributed to the new form of realism inaugurated by Wyclif, but was receptive to many nominalist criticisms. Starting from the main thesis of Wyclif's metaphysics, that the universal and individual are really identical but formally distinct, Oxford Realists introduced a new type of (...) predication, based on a partial identity between the entities for which the subject and predicate stood, called predication by essence, and then redefined the traditional post-Aristotelian categories of essential and accidental predication in terms of this partial identity. Sharpe substantially shares the metaphysical view and principles of the other Oxford Realists, but he elaborates a completely different semantics, since he accepts the nominalist principle of the autonomy of thought in relation to the world, and Ockham's explanation for the universality of concepts. Unfortunately, this semantic approach partially undermines his defence of realism, since it deprives Sharpe of any compelling semantic and epistemological reasons to posit universalia in re. Therefore, Sharpe's main ontological theses certainly are sensible and reasonable, but, paradoxically, within his philosophical system they cannot in any way be considered as absolutely consistent. (shrink)

One of Thomas Davidson's lectures on "Leaders of Spiritual Thought in the Middle Ages.".

The context in which medieval theologians discuss 'relation' is nearly always a trinitarian one. They have to solve an awkward problem: to explain how in God the persons are identical with the divine essence, yet different among themselves. In this paper I want to argue that Henry of Ghent's interest in the nature of the Trinity acted as an impetus towards the development of his theory of the nature of relations. In this context the accounts of Thomas Aquinas and Giles (...) of Rome will be considered as important for understand18 ing Henry's account. Henry's positive account of relations stems from Avicenna. For Henry, a relation is not an aliquid but has two modes of being, both as an accident and as a relative. Henry's attempt to think the nature of relation leads to him developing a relational ontology. (shrink)

Medieval Jewish philosophers have been studied extensively by modern scholars, but even though their philosophical thinking was often shaped by their interpretation of the Bible, relatively little attention has been paid to them as biblical interpreters. In this study, Robert Eisen breaks new ground by analyzing how six medieval Jewish philosophers approached the Book of Job. These thinkers covered are Saadiah Gaon, Moses Maimonides, Samuel ibn Tibbon, Zerahiah Hen, Gersonides, and Simon ben Zemah Duran. Eisen explores each philosopher's reading of (...) Job on three levels: its relationship to interpretations of Job by previous Jewish philosophers, the way in which it grapples with the major difficulties in the text, and its interaction with the author's systematic philosophical thought. Eisen also examines the resonance between the readings of Job of medieval Jewish philosophers and those of modern biblical scholars. What emerges is a portrait of a school of Joban interpretation that was creative, original, and at times surprisingly radical. Eisen thus demonstrates that medieval Jewish philosophers were serious exegetes whom scholars cannot afford to ignore. By bringing a previously-overlooked aspect of these thinkers' work to light, Eisen adds new depth to our knowledge of both Jewish philosophy and biblical interpretation. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

I would be scandalously remiss were I not to preface my remarks on translation with two expressions of gratitude to the Franciscan Institute. First of all, I am very pleased to have been invited to participate in this celebration of Ockham, not merely for professional reasons but also because I have thereby been afforded the opportunity to return to the Southerntier, as this part of New York State is known to those of us who trace our roots to the Buffalo (...) area. In my all too distant youth I worked for several years as a camp counsel lor down the road in Allegany State Park, and yesterday's drive through the Allegany River valley rekindled my love for this enchanting region and occasioned many fond memories as well. Second, I feel obligated to acknowledge publicly my own deep personal debt to those who have labored so diligently to produce the critical edition of Ockham's works. It is remarkable, indeed well-nigh astonishing, that the critical edition of Ockham's.. (shrink)

According to the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation, the Son of God is truly but only contingently a human being. But is it also the case that Christ’s individual human nature is only contingently united to a divine person? The affirmative answer to this question, explicitly espoused by Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, turns out to be philosophically untenable, while the negative answer, which is arguably implicit in St. Thomas Aquinas, explication of the Incarnation, has some surprising and significant (...) metaphysical consequences. (shrink)

Although most predicates may be truthfully predicated of only some beings, there are others that seem to apply to every being. The latter, including being itself, were known as the transcendentals in the Middle Ages and gave rise to the much disputed doctrine of the transcendentals. This article explores the main tenets of the doctrine and the difficulties that they face, the reasons why scholastic authors were interested in these issues, and the origins of the doctrine.

This book aims at beginning the rewriting of the history of skepticism by highlightening the medieval sources of the modern skeptical discussions.

Not much of this work was done at Leip ig.

Choice without preference : the problem of "Buridan's ass" -- Nicholas of Cusa on the Koran : a fifteenth-century encounter with Islam -- On learned ignorance and the limits of knowledge -- Unanswerable questions and insolubilia -- Omniscience and our understanding of God's knowledge -- Issues of infinite regress -- Being qua being -- Nonexistents then and now -- Thomism : past, present, and future -- Respect for tradition and the Catholic philosopher today.

Abstract. Scholars have long debated the possibility of a mystical or illuminationist strain of thought in Ibn Sīnā 's body of writing. This debate has often focused on the meaning and contents of his partly lost work al-Mashriqiyyūn (The Easterners), also known as al-Ḥikma al-Mashriqiyya (EasternWisdom), mentioned by Ibn Sīnā himself as well as by numerous Western writers including Ibn Rushd and Ibn Ṭufayl. A handful of references to what is called Ibn Sīnā 's “Oriental Philosophy” are also found in (...) the Castilian and Hebrew works of the Castilian Jew Abner of Burgos (ca. 1270-ca.1347), known after his conversion to Christianity as Alfonso of Valladolid. Although the content of these citations has not been identified, it has been proposed that they may preserve otherwise unknown passages from Ibn Sīnā's lost work. This study considers the references to Ibn Sīnā 's so-called “Oriental Philosophy” within Abner's writings and concludes that rather than preserving lost passages from Ibn Sīnā's writing, Abner's references were drawn primarily from Ibn Ṭufayl and offer no support for the argument of a possible mystical or illuminationist strain in Ibn Sīnā 's thinking. -/- Résumé. Depuis longtemps, on a discuté de la possible présence d'une orientation mystique ou “illuminative” dans l'oeuvre d'Ibn Sīnā . Le sens et le contenu de son ouvrage (partiellement perdu) al-Mashriqiyyūn (Les Orientaux), également connu comme al-Ḥikma al-Mashriqiyya (La Sagesse orientale), mentionné par Ibn Sīnā lui-même et par des écrivains occidentaux comme Ibn Rushd et Ibn Ṭufayl, ont souvent été au centre de ce débat. On trouve aussi quelques références à ce qui est appelé la “philosophie orientale” d'Ibn Sīnā dans l'oeuvre du juif castillan Abner de Burgos (ca. 1270-ca. 1347) connu après sa conversion au christianisme sous le nom d'Alphonse de Valladolid. Sans avoir au préalable identifié le contenu de ces citations, on a fait l'hypothèse qu'elles auraient permis de conserver des passages, inconnus par ailleurs, de l'ouvrage perdu d'Ibn Sīnā. Cette étude porte sur les références à la “philosophie orientale” d'Ibn Sīnā dans l'oeuvre d'Abner de Burgos. Elle montre que les références d'Abner semblent avoir été essentiellement tirées d'Ibn Ṭufayl et ne renvoient donc pas aux passages perdus de l'ouvrage d'Ibn Sīnā. En conséquence elles ne peuvent servir d'argument pour confirmer la présence d'une orientation mystique ou “illuminative” dans l'oeuvre d'Ibn Sīnā. (shrink)

As I write these words, I can see on my shelves an attractively bound set of sixteen volumes, each bearing on its spine the words “J. Duns Scotus Opera Omnia.” One would be tempted to assume that these are The Complete Works of John Duns Scotus. Unfortunately, in medieval philosophy things are rarely so simple. Some of the works included in this set are not by Scotus at all, but were once attributed to him. Some of Scotus’s genuine works, including (...) his early Lectura on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, are not included. And what this set presents as Book 1 of Scotus’s late (and very important) Reportatio is actually not the Reportatio at all, but another work whose authenticity and authority are vigorously disputed. And there are further problems. The attractive modern binding belies the age of the edition itself. Open up any of the books, and what you will see is a photographic reprint of an edition first published in 1639. That edition (known as the Wadding edition, after its editor) is not a critical edition, made by weighing all the manuscript evidence according to established principles of textual scholarship in order to determine, with as much precision and certainty as possible, exactly what Scotus said or wrote. In many cases the editor simply looked at the one or two manuscripts he had handy and transcribed what he found there, sometimes without much attention to whether the resulting text even made good sense. Sadly, for much of Scotus’s work this faulty edition is the best one we have. So one has to use it: but one has to use it with great care. The pitfalls of the Wadding edition illustrate a general feature of the study of medieval philosophy: the gap that separates the authentic words of the medieval thinker one wishes to study from the Latin words one sees on the pages of a printed edition — and further still from the English words one sees in a translation. The aim of this essay is to make clear both the nature and the size of that gap, not in order to dismay prospective students of medieval philosophy, but in order to explain the hazards in such a way that students can equip themselves properly to meet them. I will begin by discussing in a general way the channels of 1 transmission by which medieval philosophy has made its way down to us. I then turn to three specific cases by which I illustrate some of those general points as they apply to texts of different sorts and from different periods. Along the way I draw attention to the kinds of errors that are liable to be introduced at the various stages of transmission between a medieval lecturer’s spoken words and the text of a modern critical edition, and I outline the tools and techniques that the careful historian of medieval philosophy will use in order to minimize such errors, especially where no critical edition is available. In the second half of the essay I turn to problems of translation. I provide an example that shows how a reader can sometimes detect errors in a translation even without checking the Latin text, and another to illustrate how translations sometimes reflect controversial views about how a text is to be interpreted. I then conclude with a look at the translation of particular terms, discussing a number of standard translations that are apt to be misleading, and giving some idea of the range of translation of certain key terms.. (shrink)

The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts are meant to be companions to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy,1 which appeared in 1982. They have been slow in coming, however: the first volume, Logic and the Philosophy of Language,2 appeared in 1988, and this second volume, Ethics and Political Philosophy, in 2001. The connection between the History and the Trans- lations is somewhat loose in any case. For example, a volume on Philosophical Theology is planned for the Translations series (...) even though the History notoriously avoided philosophical theology altogether.3 And the volume now under review provides texts on such topics as self-sacrifice (in translations 5–8) and resistance to authority (in translations 9–11), which were not treated in detail in the History. Even so, the History is not entirely forgotten. For example, the History’s coverage of the reception of Aristotle’s Ethics and especially the debate about the ultimate end can be profitably studied in connection with this volume’s two extended treatments of book 10 of the Ethics (Albert the Great in translation 1 and Jean Buridan in translation 16); and the History’s discussion of conscience is fleshed out in translation 2, which presents Bonaventure’s analysis of conscience and synderesis. It would have been useful, I think, to have another text on conscience for purposes of comparison, although as McGrade points out, Bonaventure’s “conclusion that one ought (in conscience) to comply more with the command of a superior than with one’s own conscience … is implicitly contested by Ockham in Translation 15” (170), which asks whether an errant individual is bound to recant at the rebuke of a superior. (shrink)

It is somewhat misleading to think of the Franciscans as forming a “school” in ethics, since there was a fair bit of diversity among Franciscans. Nonetheless, one can identify certain characteristic tendencies of Franciscan moral thought, and certain “celebrity” Franciscans whose views in ethics and moral psychology are particularly noteworthy. I shall first offer an overview of the general character of Franciscan moral thought in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and then turn to a more detailed examination of (...) the thought of John Duns Scotus (1265/66-1308) and William Ockham (c. 1288-1347) on three central matters of debate: the nature of the virtues, the relationship between intellect and will, and the relationship between moral requirements and the divine will. (shrink)