Students of Thomas Aquinas have so far lacked a comprehensive study of his doctrine of the transcendentals. This volume fills this lacuna, showing the fundamental character of the notions of being, one, true and good for his thought. The book inquires into the beginnings of the doctrine in the thirteenth century and explains the relation of the transcendental way of thought to Aquinas's conception of metaphysics. It analyzes 'Being', 'One', 'True', 'Good' and 'Beautiful' individually and discusses their importance for the (...) philosophical knowledge of God. Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas is intended as a contribution to the question 'What is philosophy in the Middle Ages?' It argues that the doctrine of the transcendentals is essential for understanding medieval philosophy. (shrink)
Introduction to Medieval Philosophy combines and updates the scholarship of the two highly successful volumes Early Medieval Philosophy (1983) and Late Medieval Philosoph y (1986) in a single, reliable, and comprehensive text on the history of medieval philosophy. John Marenbon discusses the main philosophers and ideas within the social and intellectual contexts of the time, and the most important concepts in medieval philosophy. Straightforward in arrangement, wide in scope, and clear in style, this is the (...) ideal starting point for students beginning the subject. (shrink)
This book provides for the first time a complete history of the doctrine of the transcendentals and shows its importance for the understanding of philosophy in the Middle Ages.
This paper closely examines Strauss’ conception of “Medieval Enlightenment”. It focuses on the central role that Arab philosophy has played in the development of Strauss’s thought and discusses the validity of the uses he makes of it. It also emphasizes the interest of Strauss’s analyses as regards Arab philosophy while drawing attention to the tensions they create. It claims that Strauss’ involvement in the quarrel between Ancients and Moderns aims at showing that medieval philosophy cannot be reduced simply (...) to the effort to reconcile philosophy and religion. The ideas of some Arab philosophers cropped up throughout Strauss’s philosophical development and determined his interpretation of Maimonides and Plato as well as his stance in opposition to the moderns. However Strauss’s idea of the “medieval Enlightenment” remains fundamentally ambiguous. Is that Enlightenment supposed to be an argument for the preservation of faith alongside reason or does it rather express a kind of atheism or disguised materialism? (shrink)
This collection of readings with extensive editorial commentary brings together key texts of the most influential philosophers of the medieval era to provide a comprehensive introduction for students of philosophy. Features the writings of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Boethius, John Duns Scotus and other leading medieval thinkers Features several new translations of key thinkers of the medieval era, including John Buridan and Averroes Readings are accompanied by expert commentary from the editors, who are leading scholars in the field.
For students of political philosophy, the history of religion, and medieval civilization, this book provides a rich storehouse of medieval thought drawn from Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic sources.
De Wulf's work has been largely supplanted since its first appearance in 1903, but it is still of some use as an introduction and survey. This edition reprints the English translation of 1907. --V. C. C.
Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350) provides an introduction to philosophy in the Latin West between 1150 and 1350. Part I describes the medieval thinker's intellectual and historical context, by examining the structure of courses in the medieval universities, the methods of teaching, the forms of written work, and the translation and availability of ancient Greek, Arab, and Jewish philosophical texts. Part II examines the nature of intellectual knowledge by explaining the arguments given by Aristotle, his antique commentators, and (...) the Arab philosophers, Avicenna and Averroes. (shrink)
The object of the book is to meet and combat false conceptions, to co-ordinate true notions, and so to furnish the reader with some general information on the old and the new scholasticism. The advantage of the book is its two-sided perspective that contains historical investigations about the ancient sources of the scholastic philosophy and the decline from it. But it contains also a systematic perspective by which the doctrines of the scholastic philosophizing are collected systematically. Therefore this book is (...) an scholarly introduction into the scholastic philosophy dedicated for undergraduate’s. (shrink)
PREFACE HE purpose of this book is to present, in as brief and systematic a way, the whole philosophy of Alfarabi and the influence it exerted on Medieval ...
The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters takes the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise (...) of the universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volumes illuminate a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike. (shrink)
The Islamic philosophical tradition was the privileged site for the study and continuation of the Classical philosophical tradition in the Middle Ages. An initial chapter on the history of Islamic philosophy sets the stage for sixteen articles on issues across the Islamic, Jewish and Christian traditions. The goal is to see the Islamic tradition in its own richness and complexity as the context of much Jewish intellectual work. Taken together, these two traditions provide the wider context to which Latin Christian (...) intellectuals would turn. The articles are grouped under six topics relevant both to the period and to current philosophical interest: the Islamic philosophical context, the nature of philosophy in the Middle Ages, Neoplatonism and the activity of the soul, creation, virtue, and the Latin reception. Since the nineteenth century Islamic and Jewish philosophy have been neglected in the standard histories of medieval philosophy. The time is right to begin to write a more balanced history of medieval philosophy. In order to begin to write this history, this book focuses on the Islamic, Jewish, and Christian use of - and reaction to - Classical philosophy during the Middle Ages. (shrink)
Classic introduction provides readers with insightful, accessible survey of major philosophical trends and thinkers of the Middle Ages--from the thought of Thomas Aquinas and the Averroists to Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. "A better conspectus of medieval philosophy than this would be difficult to conceive ... a notable achievement." The Tablet (London).
This volume provides a comprehensive historico-doctrinal analysis of the transformation of the concept of time in the transition from the medieval debate to ...
In this sketch of medieval philosophy I hope to show, more by illustration than by explicit argument, that philosophy did exist in the period from the first ...
This volume deals with the development of moral and political philosophy in the medieval West. Professor Nederman is concerned to trace the continuing influence of classical ideas, but emphasises that the very diversity and diffuseness of medieval thought shows that there is no single scheme that can account for the way these ideas were received, disseminated and reformulated by medieval ethical and political theorists.
Emotions are the focus of intense debate both in contemporary philosophy and psychology, and increasingly also in the history of ideas. Simo Knuuttila presents a comprehensive survey of philosophical theories of emotion from Plato to Renaissance times, combining rigorous philosophical analysis with careful historical reconstruction. The first part of the book covers the conceptions of Plato and Aristotle and later ancient views from Stoicism to Neoplatonism and, in addition, their reception and transformation by early Christian thinkers from Clement and Origen (...) to Augustine and Cassian. Knuuttila then proceeds to a discussion of ancient themes in medieval thought, and of new medieval conceptions, codified in the so-called faculty psychology from Avicenna to Aquinas, in thirteenth century taxonomies, and in the voluntarist approach of Duns Scotus, William Ockham, and their followers. Philosophers, classicists, historians of philosophy, historians of psychology, and anyone interested in emotion will find much to stimulate them in this fascinating book. (shrink)
Sir Anthony Kenny here continues his fascinating account of the history of philosophy, focusing on the thousand-year-long medieval period. This is the second volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades. In this volume, Kenny takes us on a fascinating tour through more than a millennium of thought from 400 AD onwards, charting the story of philosophy from the founders (...) of Christian and Islamic thought through to the Renaissance. The Middle Ages saw a great flourishing of philosophy, and the intellectual endeavor of the era reaches its climax in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the systems of the great schoolmen such as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. With Kenny as guide, we see these major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work. Thus we do not simply get an overview of philosophy, but also a penetrating and insightful critique of it. Kenny offers an illuminating account of various thinkers and schools of thought, from Augustine to Maimonides and from Grosseteste to Pomponazzi. And he offers much insight into medieval thinking about logic and language, knowledge, physics, metaphysics, the mind, the soul, and God. Vividly written, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and ideas that shaped the course of Western thought. (shrink)
This book presents in translation writings by six medieval philosophers which bear on the subject of conscience. Conscience, which can be considered both as a topic in the philosophy of mind and a topic in ethics, has been unduly neglected in modern philosophy, where a prevailing belief in the autonomy of ethics leaves it no natural place. It was, however, a standard subject for a treatise in medieval philosophy. Three introductory translations here, from Jerome, Augustine and Peter Lombard, (...) present the loci classici on which subsequent discussions drew; there follows the first complete treatise on conscience, by Philip the Chancellor, while the two remaining translations, from Bonaventure and Aquinas, have been chosen as outstanding examples of the two main approaches which crystallised during the thirteenth century. (shrink)
Studies in modal notions, such as necessity, possibility or impossibility, have always played an important role in philosophical analysis. The history of these conceptions is a fascinating story of a variety of assumptions which have given shape to one part of rational discourse. A typical modern approach to modality is codified in what is generally known as possible worlds semantics. According to this view, necessity refers to what is actual in any alternative state of affairs, possibility to what is actual (...) in some, and impossibility to what is not actual in any alternative domain. The idea of spelling out the meaning of modal terms with the synchronic alternatives hardly occurred at all in ancient thinkers. They did not draw any sharp distinction between conceptual and real modalities and they were inclined to think that all generic possibilities must prove their mettle through actualization. Why and when did ancient modal conceptions and the modes of thought based on them lose their dominance? The main thesis of this book is that the idea of modality as multiplicity of reference with respect to alternative domains emerged in early medieval discussions and that it was originally influenced by the theological conception of God acting by choice. After a discussion of ancient modal paradigms, the author traces the interplay of old and new modal views in medieval logic and semantics, philosophy and theology. A detailed account is given of late medieval discussions of the new modal paradigms and attempts to apply them to modal logic, epistemic logic, and the logic of norms. These theories show striking similarities to some basic tenets of contemporary approaches to modal matters. This work will thus be of considerable interest to historians of philosophy and ideas, and philosophers of intensional logic and metaphysics. (shrink)
The most comprehensive collection of its kind, this unique anthology presents fifty-four readings--many of them not widely available--by the most important and influential Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers of the Middle Ages. The text is organized topically, making it easily accessible to students, and the large selection of readings provides instructors with maximum flexiblity in choosing course material. Each thematic section is comprised of six chronologically arranged readings. This organization focuses on the major philosophical issues and allows a smooth introduction (...) to the material. The topics covered are: (1) The Existence of God, (2) Ethics and the Problem of Evil, (3) God's Foreknowledge and Free Will, (4) Theology, (5) Political Philosophy, 6) Knowledge and Sensation, (7) Universals, (8) Logic and the Philosophy of Language and (9) Physics. Each text is preceded by a biographical note on the author and a brief analytical introduction. Unlike other anthologies, which present sources as a series of truncated excerpts, this collection avoids intrusive editing and includes many selections in their entirety, thus preserving the rich flavor of the medieval mind at work. (shrink)
By exploring the philosophical character of some of the greatest medieval thinkers, __An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy__ provides a rich overview of philosophy in the world of Latin Christianity. Explores the deeply philosophical character of such medieval thinkers as Augustine, Boethius, Eriugena, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, and Ockham Reviews the central features of the epistemological and metaphysical problem of universals Shows how medieval authors adapted philosophical ideas from antiquity to apply to their religious commitments Takes a (...) broad philosophical approach of the medieval era by,taking account of classical metaphysics, general culture, and religious themes. (shrink)
A peculiarity of early medieval geometrical texts was that alongside Euclid's Elements they transmitted remnants of the corpus of Roman land surveyors and metaphysical digressions extraneous to geometry proper. Rather than dismissing these additions as irrelevant, this essay attempts to elucidate the cultural grounds for the indiscriminate mixture of the three disciplines -- geometry, surveying, and metaphysics. Inquiry into the broader context of early medieval culture suggests that neither geometry nor surveying was treated as an independent discipline. Texts (...) on geometry and surveying were studied mainly because they were thought to provide good opportunities for enlarging the scope of meditation on spiritual subjects. Accordingly, the main concern of this essay is to show how Christian symbolism influenced both the composition and the study of geometrical texts. The essay is based on a wide range of sources: treatises on geometry and surveying, pictorial representations of Creation, and philosophical literature in which geometry was used in arguments about ontological doctrines. (shrink)
This book presents novel formalizations of three of the most important medieval logical theories: supposition, consequence and obligations. In an additional fourth part, an in-depth analysis of the concept of formalization is presented - a crucial concept in the current logical panorama, which as such receives surprisingly little attention.Although formalizations of medieval logical theories have been proposed earlier in the literature, the formalizations presented here are all based on innovative vantage points: supposition theories as algorithmic hermeneutics, theories of (...) consequence analyzed with tools borrowed from model-theory and two-dimensional semantics, and obligations as logical games. For this reason, this is perhaps the first time that these medieval logical theories are made fully accessible to the modern philosopher and logician who wishes to obtain a better grasp of them, but who has always been held back by the lack of appropriate ‘translations' into modern terms.Moreover, the book offers a reflection on the very nature of logic, a reflection that is prompted by the comparisons between medieval and modern logic, their similarities and dissimilarities. It is thus a contribution not only to the history of logic, but also to the philosophy of logic, the philosophy of language and semantics.The analysis of medieval logic is also relevant for the modern philosopher and logician in that, being the unifying methodology used across all disciplines at that time, logic really provided unity to science. It thus presents a unified model of scientific investigation, where logic plays the aggregating role. (shrink)
Jewish learning and thought in Languedoc -- 1250-1300: implications of original philosophic work and the diffusion of philosophic learning in Languedoc -- 1250-1300: Jewish contacts with Christian intellectuals and Jewish thought regarding Christianity -- Meiri's transformation of Talmud study: philosophic spirituality in a halakhic key -- 1300: on the eve of the controversy -- 1300-1304: knowledge and authority in dispute -- 1304-1306: the controversy peaks -- The effects of the expulsion: Jewish philosophic culture in Roussillon and Provence.
JOHN E. MURDOCH AND EDITH DUDLEY SYLLA INTRODUCTION Conferences and colloquia are held and their results often published, but very rarely is any account ...
This book is an introduction to debates in philosophy within the medieval Islamic world. It discusses a number of themes which were controversial within the philosophical community of that period: the creation of the world out of nothing, immortality, resurrection, the nature of ethics, and the relationship between natural and religious law. The author provides an account of the arguments of Farabi, Avicenna, Ghazali, Averroes and Maimonides on these and related topics. His argument takes into account the significance of (...) the conflict between faith and reason, religion and philosophy. The book sets out to show how interesting these philosophical debates are, and criticizes the view that these arguments are of no more than historical interest. (shrink)
Introduction : what is medieval Jewish philosophy? -- The existence of God -- God and creation -- Divine attributes -- Prophecy -- Rationalising the commandments -- Freewill and omniscience -- The good life -- The bad life.
Spanning a millennium of thought extending from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas and beyond, this volume takes its readers into one of the most exciting periods in the history of philosophy. It includes not only the thinkers of the Latin West but also the profound contributions of Islamic and Jewish philosophers such as Avicenna and Maimonides. Leading specialists examine what it was like to study philosophy in the cultures and institutions of the Middle Ages. Supplementary material includes chronological charts and biographies (...) of the major thinkers. (shrink)
It has long been a truism of the history of philosophy that intentionality is an invention of the medieval period, and within this standard narrative, the central place of Arabic philosophy has always been acknowledged. Yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the theories of intentionality advanced by the two main Arabic thinkers whose works were available to the West, Avicenna and Averroes. In the first part of this paper I offer an overview of the general accounts of intentionality and (...) intentional being found in the linguistic, psychological, and metaphysical writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and I trace the terminology of “intentions” to a neglected passage from Avicenna’s logic. In the second part of the paper I examine the way that Avicenna and Averroes apply their general theories of intentionality to the realm of sense perception. I offer an explanation of why Avicenna might have chosen to denominate the objects of the internal sense faculty of estimation as “intentions”, and I explore the implications of Averroes’s decision to attribute intentionality to the external senses and the media of perception. (shrink)
William of Auvergne and His Treatise De Anima I. Introduction William of Auvergne, Bishop of Paris from until his death in, is of interest to us chiefly ...
Medieval philosophy redefined: the Latin age, c. 400-1635 -- The geography of the Latin age -- The fading light of antiquity: Neoplatonism and the tree of Porphyry, c. 3rd-5th cent. AD -- Founding fathers of the Latin Age: Augustine ([d.] 430) and Boethius ([d.] c. 525) -- The five centuries of darkness, c. 525-1025 -- Dawning of the main development : Anselm ([d.] 1109), Abaelard ([d.] 1142), Lombard ([d.] 1160) -- Enter Aristotle, c. 1150 -- Albert ([d.] 1280) and (...) Aquinas ([d.] 1274): focusing the challenge of reason -- After Aquinas ([d.] 1274) but before Fonesca ([d.] 1599): Bacon ([d.] 1292), Scotus ([d.] 1308), Ockham ([d.] 1349), D'Ailly ([d.] 1420), Soto ([d.] 1560) -- Poinsot's triumph (1632): the success and failure of the Latin Age -- The crash and burn of scholasticism, c. 1600-1650 -- After Poinsot ([d.] 1644): Peirce ([d.] 1914). (shrink)
