Online research in philosophy

The double truth question is located at the center of an extensive debate on the relationship of theology and philosophy—on the epistemic order of reason and scientific knowledge on the one hand and revelation and faith on the other. While this field of tension has been a crucial topic for the self-perception of Christian theology ever since, the disputes largely intensified in the 13th century within the scope of both the growing influence of the rediscovered Aristotelianepistemology and the condemnation of (...) 219 articles by the Parisian bishop Étienne Tempier. In this context, the present article investigates the accounts offered by Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Meister Eckhart, discusses their mutual relation, and traces significant aspects in their interpretation of the Early Christian authors Augustine and Boethius. (shrink)

The title of this Festschrift to Stephen Brown points to the understanding of medieval philosophy and theology in the longue durée of their traditions and discourses.

The paper aims to relocate Bonaventure within the paradigm shift towards the Aristotelian conception of philosophy, which also had a deep impact on theology.But the standard narratives of a mere antagonism overlook to what extend the meeting of both the Aristotelian and the Augustinian tradition led to a mutualinfluence and transformation. This is especially true in epistemological matters, as I will show in this paper dealing with the central question of the foundation ofknowledge and its certainty. The paper focusses on (...) three topics: the rationes aeternae, illumination and exemplarism, and analysis (reductio) vis-à-vis the question of the first known. While Bonaventure’s claim for a foundation of our understanding based on natural reasoning goes beyond the Aristotelian standard model, he also displays the critical attitude of the Augustinian epistemology with respect to natural human understanding, which reveals the boundaries of philosophical wisdom. His epistemological criticism leads to a fundamental critique of a metaphysics of the Aristotelian type from the point of view of an exemplaristic metaphysics, which goes hand in hand with a renewed concept of a sapientia christiana. (shrink)

This article deals with the ambigous situation of philosophical aesthetics, which now seems to have lost its proper object. Moreover, Arthur C. Danto has popularized talk of an end of art, in which he ties that end to the end of any aesthetic master narrative. Comparing modern and medieval approaches to art, this paper tries to reformulate the question of philosophical aesthetics, which has to be understood in a hermeneutical way. Taken in a heuristic manner 'art' and 'beauty' remain the (...) principal aesthetic categories able to keep the understanding of what belongs to aesthetics open to different historical approaches. (shrink)