This paper suggests that Dante’s writings on language provide elements for the construction of a philosophy of language. The main emphasis is on the theoretical treatment of language in De Vulgari Eloquentia, but it also considers La Vita Nouva and Il Convivio, earlier works providing insights into the development of Dante’s views on the nature and use of language. De Vulgari Eloquentia is an extended justification for the use of a vernacular language capable of treating the worthiest topics in a (...) manner appropriate to them. Two main purposes of language are to instruct and delight. Dante shows that others must be addressed in a language they understand, but if it is to lift them, it must have a beauty and power beyond them. (shrink)

The central questions addressed in this paper are: (1) how are forms related to predication? And (2) what role do forms and predication play in the discovery and articulation of truth? The first section of the paper provides—in broad strokes—a synopsis of Plato’s account of forms. The second section considers predication in relation to forms showing that the existence and nature of forms is a necessary condition for predication, and that Plato’s account of predication is consistent with, in fact, anticipates, (...) Aristotle’s treatment of reality in the Categories. The conclusion of the paper is that forms and predication are central to philosophical hermeneutics, to the discovery and articulation of truth. (shrink)

IT IS NO LONGER UNUSUAL to find ethical or moral relativism defended, yet there remains some uneasiness about the position, even among its defenders. Richard Brandt, for example, who offers a version he finds "somewhat plausible," admits that he and most other philosophers "have an anti-relativist predilection, at least when we come to moral issues which are important.".

The argument of this paper is that the Aristotelian analysis of justice and related concepts provides the best framework for understanding the structure and importance of justice in Dante’s Commedia. After giving a synopsis of the principle features of Aristotle’s account of justice in Book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics, I consider a few scenes from the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, showing how the punishments and rewards Dante describes are based on the Aristotelian analysis of justice. Finally, I (...) show that Dante, following Aristotle’s views on the metaphysics of the human person, recognizes that argument alone is inadequate to the task of educating the reader on the proper care of the soul, and that Dante’s effective use of images, makes the abstract Aristotelian concept of justice vivid and attractive, and its opposite repulsive. (shrink)

The argument of this paper is that the Aristotelian analysis of justice and related concepts provides the best framework for understanding the structure and importance of justice in Dante’s Commedia. After giving a synopsis of the principle features of Aristotle’s account of justice in Book 5 of the Nicomachean Ethics, I consider a few scenes from the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, showing how the punishments and rewards Dante describes are based on the Aristotelian analysis of justice. Finally, I (...) show that Dante, following Aristotle’s views on the metaphysics of the human person, recognizes that argument alone is inadequate to the task of educating the reader on the proper care of the soul, and that Dante’s effective use of images, makes the abstract Aristotelian concept of justice vivid and attractive, and its opposite repulsive. (shrink)

The central thesis of this treatment of Aristotle's philosophy of mind is that Aristotle's writings contain a coherent theory of perception which is explanatory of a variety of psychological activities such as sense perceiving, imagining, remembering, dreaming and thinking. The approach taken rejects the developmental theory of Jaeger and others, and assumes that the psychological theses found in the De Anima and the Parva Naturalia form a continuous exposition of one psychological theory.

This collection of twenty two essays, with an introduction by Ralph McInerny, is selected from papers presented to the 1999 meeting of the American Maritain Association.

Die Idee des Guten zwischen Plato und Aristoteles, of which the present work is an English translation, was first published in Heidelberg in 1978.