Abstract
This book studies medieval theories of angelology insofar as they made groundbreaking contributions to medieval philosophy.
The discussion of angels, made famous by the humanist caricature of ‘how
many angels can dance on the head of a pin’, was nevertheless a crucial
one in medieval philosophical debates. All scholastic masters pronounced
themselves on angelology, if only in their Sentence commentaries. The
questions concerning angelic cognition, speech, free decision, movement,
etc. were springboards for profound philosophical discussions that have to
do with anthropology and metaphysics no less than with angelology. Angels
qua separate substances were of central importance in medieval metaphysics
(with questions on universal hylomorphism, the esse- essentia composition
of creatures, and those regarding individuation of material and immaterial
substances). The doctrine of angels has not been the subject of much study
in the history of medieval thought, and the volume fills an important gap
in the literature. The chapters offer a well-rounded, if not encyclopedic
discussion in the chronological or doctrinal sense. They cover the history
of debate from Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius until the later middle
ages, but instead of an author-by-author approach, focus rather on seminal
ideas with demonstrable relevance to “secular” and modern philosophical
concerns.