In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:History of Philosophy and History of Ideas PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER THE TF.~MS "history of philosophy" and "history of ideas" are frequently associated in current public and professional discussions, and many statements seem to suggest that the two terms are more or less synonymous, or that the former term, being old-fashioned, might well be replaced with the latter which for many ears appears to have a more fashionable and glamorous (...) ring. Hence there arises the question what each of these terms really means, or what it should mean, and whether and to what extent it is justifiable to identify them with each other, to reduce the history of philosophy to the history of ideas, or to treat the former as a part or subdivision of the latter. I am not convinced that these questions can be answered through an appeal to ordinary usage since this usage is fluid and reflects at best the intellectual formulations and decisions of a remote or recent past. We may have reason to question the very validity of these decisions, and perhaps to suggest or make different decisions, and in case we are successful and obtain a reasonable amount of approval, these different decisions will be reflected in the ordinary usage of tomorrow, though not yet in that of today. The attempt to discuss the meaning and relationship of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas is obviously difficult and hazardous. It involves not only the discussion of such complicated notions as history and philosophy (and idea), but also the shifting balance of the intellectual globe that includes the continents or territories denoted by those terms, and even of the academic globe that purports to be, with varying success, its faithful image. In a short paper, I cannot hope to present an original or adequate discussion of these difficult problems, but merely try to raise a few questions which to my knowledge have not received sufficient attention and may be of interest to philosophers and historians. The history of philosophy has been of recurrent interest to philosophers and other scholars, especially in classical antiquity and again in the Renaissance period. It came to occupy a central place in European thought during the last century, especially in the wake of German idealism. Hegel recognized "history" as a major area of reality and of philosophical concern, as Vico and Herder had done before him, and thus left a living heritage not only to his followers down to Croce and Gentile, but also to Marx and his [1] 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY disciples, and to many other thinkers who cannot be called Hegelians. Hegel also did not conceive political history in isolation, but in his phenomenology and philosophy of the spirit came close to a concept of culture or civilization in which political and social institutions, religion and the arts, the sciences and philosophy are interrelated as manifestations of the same spirit and subject to the same "dialectical" laws of historical development. The vast progress which the historical disciplines made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only in the field of political and economic history but in the history of languages and literatures, of the arts and religions, and of civilization in general was not influenced by Hegel's theories, but rather opposed to them. Yet this vast body of knowledge and of learning imposed itself as an epistemological problem to such thinkers as Dilthey, Rickert, and Cassirer. Finally, Hegel considered philosophical thought itself as dialectical, that is, in a certain sense as historical, and thus foreshadowed not only Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, or Croce's claim that philosophy and history are identical, but also Heidegger's conception of historicity as a basic aspect or dimension of human thought and being. Within such a framework, the history of philosophy occupies a significant and even a central position for the philosopher since it elucidates the basic stages through which philosophical thinking passed before it reached its present situation. Any attempt to grasp or answer our present philosophical prob- ]ems thus presupposes at least a general understanding of the historical developments which have prepared or produced these problems. In the English-speaking world, both... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Myth of Renaissance Atheism and the French Tradition of Free Thought PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER WITHIN THE VAST AND COMPLEX area of Renaissance philosophy, the thought of Pietro Pomponazzi and of the entire Italian school of Aristotelianism of which he is the best known representative has not yet been studied in all its aspects? Apart from a number of recent studies, mostly Italian or American, there is an (...) important body of French studies on the subject that are distinguished by their ample documentation and by a general and consistent tendency of interpretation and that have exercised a predominant influence in this field of research. The fountainhead of this French scholarship on Renaissance Aristotelianism is E. Renan's book on Averroes and Averroism, a remarkable achievement for its time, and a classical study still worth reading after more than a hundred years have passed since it was first published. 2 It is generally recognized that Renan's conclusions about Averroes himself and about the Latin Averroism of the thirteenth century have been superseded by the later studies of P. Mandonnet and others? It is less well known that, for the This paper was read many years ago at the New England Conference on the Renaissance at Brown University, and at the Universit~ de Fribourg. It was published as "El Mito del Ateismo Renacentista y la Tradici6n Francesa del Librepensamiento" in Notas y Estudios de Filoso]la, ed. Prof. Juan Adolfo Vazquez, IV, 13 (Tucums Argentina, 1953), pp. 1-14. The present version has been only slightly revised, and I hope to return to the subject on a later occasion. Among recent studies, I should like to mention G. Spini, Ricerca dei l.,ibertini (Rome, 1950) and D. C. Allen Doubt's Boundless Sea (Baltimore, 1964), who follow on the whole the view criticized in this paper, and L. Febvre, Le problhme del lincroyance au XVI ~ si~cle (Paris, 1947) and R. H. Popkin, "Skepticism and the Counter-Reformation in France," Archiv ]iir Re]ormationsgeschichte LI (1960), 58-88, who seem to concur with my view. See also a paper by Popkin~"Skepticism, Theology and the Scientific Method in the 17th century," in Problem8 in the Phdosophy o] Science, ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1968). 1See now B. Nardi, Saggi sull'Aristotelismo Padovano dal secolo XIV al XVI (Florence, 1958) and Studi su Pietro Pomponazzi (Florence, 1965); J. H. Randall, The School o] Padua and the Emergence o] Modern Science (Padua, 1961); P. Pomponazzi, De ]ato, de libero arbitrio et de praedestinatione, ed. R. Lemay (Lugano, 1957); Tractatus de immortalitate animae, ed. G. Morra (Bologna, 1954); Corsi inediLi dell'insegnamento padovano I, Super libello de substantia orbis et quaestiones quattuor, ed. A. Poppi (Padua, 1966); P. O. Kristeller, "A New Manuscript Source for Pomponazzi's Theory of the Soul from his Paduan Period," Revue Internationale de Philosophie, V: 2 (16, 1951), 144-157,and "Two Unpublished Questions on the Soul by Pietro Pomponazzi," Medievalia et Humanistica, IX (1955), 76-101,and X (1956), 151. See also: G. Di Napoli, L'immortalit~ dell'anima nel Rinascimento (Turin, 1963); E. GiN ~L,, 3 son, Autour de Pomponazzi, Archives d histoire doctrinale et litt~raire du Moyen Age, c,,,, LXIII (1961, pub. 1962), 163-279and Laffaire de limmortalit~ de ls ~ Venise au debut 9,, du XVI si~cle, in Umanesimo europeo e umanesimo veneziano, ed. V. Branca (Florence, 1963), 31-61. Relevant are also the unpublished Columbia dissertations by William F. Edwards (on Zabarella), Martin Pine (on Pomponazzi and his critics) and Edward Mahoney (on Agostino Nifo). Averro$s et l Averro~me (Paris, 1852). 8Siger de Brabant et l'averroisme latin au XIII ~ si$cle (2nd ed.; Paris, 1908-11); F. Van [233] 234 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY history of Italian Aristotelianism after the thirteenth century, this book by Renan has never been completely superseded, but still constitutes the general basis for a large part of the later literature on the subject. Recent studies have added numerous details, but have failed to correct numerous errors and misconceptions. The main thesis of Renan's book on which we shall focus our attention in this paper is the following: Paduan Averroism... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 99 wir ihn konfrontieren (S.95, 147). Auch wer mit Piepers Stellungnahmen nicht einverstanden ist, wird ihnen schwerlich seinen Respekt versagen k6nnen. PHILIP MERLAN Scripps College Platonismus und Christliche Philosophic. By Ernst Hoffmann. (Zurich and Stuttgart: Artemis-Verlag, 1960. Pp. 502.) Ernst Hoffmann (1880-1952), one of the leading German historians of philosophy of his generation, was best known for his studies on Plato and his influence, and as (...) the chief editor of the critical edition of Nicolaus Cusanus' works which is still being published under the auspices of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences.1He taught for many years at the MommsenGymnasium in Berlin, and at the University of Heidelberg, and this reviewer is proud of having been one of his pupils at both institutions. Hoffmann's numerous publications are widely scattered and difficult of access, and the present volume, edited by W. Riiegg, in collaboration with H. G. Gadamer and P. Wilpert, will be most welcome to all scholars interested in the history of philosophy. It makes available a significant selection of Hoffmann's smaller studies that deal with a number of thinkers and problems from Plato to Kant and were published between 1923 and 1949 (including two papers not previously published). There is an epilogue by Riiegg (pp. 498-499), and a biography of Hoffmann, with a bibliography of his writings, by P. Wilpert (pp. 479-497).' Hoffmann's interpretation of Plato is represented in this volume by a paper entitled "Platon und der Platonismus" (pp. 42-64), and by a large section of his famous study, "Platonismus und Mittelalter" (pp. 230-311). His monograph on Plato was published separately in 1950. Hoffmann's view of Plato is characterized by a strong emphasis on the sharp dualism between the sense world and the Ideas (p. 230 ff.), on the role of mathematics and dialectic in the thought of Plato, and on the ethical message of the dialogues. His interpretation is fortified by a firm mastery of the entire text and animated by a strong personal and philosophical commitment to Plato's thought as he understands it. He shows little sympathy for the recent tendency to bridge the gap between Plato and Aristotle through a reconstruction of the late Plato and the early Aristotle, and does not hesitate to identify the demiurge of the Timaeus with the idea of the good in the Republic (p. 277), xIt is a pity that R. Klibansky in his bibliographical survey on Cusanus, which is essentially limited to books published between 1949 and 1955, found no occasion to mention Hoffmann's contributions to the subject (International Institute of Philosophy, Philosophy in the MidCentury, A Survey, ed. g. Klibansky, IV, Florence, 1959, pp. 88-94). 2To the bibliography, I should like to add Hoffmann's review of J. Burnet's Platonism (Berkeley, 1928), in: Gnomon, V (1929), 641-648. Another collection of Hoffmann's articles appeared in 1955 under the title: Piidagogischer Humanismus. 100 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY a point on which not all interpreters would agree? He expresses some respect for Aristotle, but considers Platonism and Aristotelianism as basic philosophical alternatives between which no real compromise is possible (p. 433). Since his own preference for Plato is obvious, he cannot help rejecting Aristotle and his school, or to include in this rejection also the ancient and later Neoplatonists who in Hoffmann's view were closer to Aristotle than to Plato, and hence should not be included among the Platonists. As a result, the history of Platonism does not include Plotinus or Ficino, but is limited to the occasional traces of "authentic" Platonism encountered in the later history of thought. This reviewer would prefer a broader conception of Platonism that would include its later transformations and even distortions, and of the history of Western thought that would include more than just two alternatives. Hoffmann himself approached a more adequate understanding of Neoplatonism in his important "Platonismus und Mystik im Altertum" (1935), a study which unfortunately could not be included in the present volume. It is also ironic to note that Hoffmann seems to associate the "philosophia perennis" with scholasticism (p. 337), whereas the concept and the term originated with two Renaissance Platonists (whom... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Marsilio Ficino’s Critique of the Lucretian AlternativeJames G. SnyderIntroductionMarsilio Ficino is perhaps most widely remembered by historians of philosophy today as a fifteenth-century Platonist and Hermeticist who advocated the soul’s flight from the sordid world of matter and body. Ficino’s major contributions to philosophy include his Latin translations of Plato and Plotinus, as well as his voluminous and encyclopedic Platonic Theology, where he argues that the immortal soul occupies (...) a privileged midpoint between God and inchoate prime matter. It therefore comes as a surprise to learn that Ficino, for a time in his early twenties, was drawn to the Roman poet Lucretius, who believed that most people are plagued by the superstitions of religiously-minded fable mongers. During this time Ficino composed a short commentary on Lucretius’ didactic Epicurean poem, On the Nature of Things. In 1417 one of the last surviving manuscript copies of this poem was found in a German monastery by the humanist Poggio Bracciolini after several centuries of dormancy.1 Also, in an early treatise on pleasure, Ficino [End Page 165] argues that the Epicurean emphasis on pleasure as the removal of pain is superior to the crass and vulgar hedonism of Aristippus.2 In time, however, Ficino developed into the Platonist that historians of philosophy are more familiar with today. He turned his back on Lucretius, destroyed his commentary on him, and he became a rigid opponent of those philosophers who, as Plato describes them in his Sophist, “insist that only what offers tangible contact is, since they define being as the same as body.”3Despite the fact that Ficino ultimately rejected Lucretius, and in a letter to the poet Angelo Poliziano claimed to have “followed the divine Plato from my youth,” it appears that he was never able to successfully put the Epicurean poet completely out of his mind.4 The specter of Lucretius—that is, the specter of a potent and fully-articulated materialism and what it entails—casts a long shadow across the eighteen books of Ficino’s Platonic Theology. This work, which was printed in 1482 and remains his most extensive philosophical treatise, gives the impression that Ficino considered Lucretius a relevant and un-eliminated alternative to his own mature philosophical vision. The Lucretian alternative, as it will here be called, aspires to show that anything that exists is a composite of matter and void alone, and that there is no need to countenance the existence of some ghostly third constituent, such as soul, in order to explain adequately the phenomena of nature or consciousness.5 Ficino’s Platonic Theology argues for a profoundly different metaphysical picture of the nature of things. There Ficino wanted to demonstrate the essential immortality of the soul, and to further clarify the best way that it can, as he puts it, “cast off the bonds of our terrestrial chains” so that it may “fly unhindered to the ethereal abode.”6 However, in order for Ficino to accomplish this, he first had to show that the Lucretian alternative is not a living hypothesis, but a dead one. Refuting Lucretius, therefore, is central to the polemical aims and aspirations of this [End Page 166] work, and it is to this end that Ficino addresses several chapters to refuting the materialism of the “vulgar” and “impious” Epicurean poet and philosopher. The Lucretian alternative also explains in part why Ficino discusses, sometimes at great length, the nature of matter and body, especially in the early books of his Platonic Theology. The core argument that Ficino brings against the Lucretian alternative is that its materialist ontology is at best incomplete, and that something else—some ghostly incorporeal principle— is in fact necessary in order to adequately explain the nature of things.Both the Renaissance recovery of On the Nature of Things, and the subsequent role that it played in the advancement of early modern philosophy and science, are familiar to historians of philosophy today.7 Ficino’s fifteenth-century critique of Lucretius, however, is not. Nearly half a century ago Paul Oskar Kristeller noted that in the 1450s Ficino came under the influence of Lucretius, and he further speculated that “a trace... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Valla Our Contemporary:Philosophy and PhilologyBrian P. CopenhaverEven before the Italians knew what to call their Renaissance, they knew the names of its heroes, one of whom was Lorenzo Valla. Accordingly, by the time Count Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere published one of the first modern histories of Italian philosophy in 1834, Valla's place in the story of that subject had long been established-for Italians, at least. "He began by ridiculing (...) blind trust in Aristotle's words," wrote Mamiani,and then went on to show how the highest categories and first predicables had been based on false assumptions, proving this by the correct meaning of terms, by the usage of speakers and by arguments from common sense. Valla overthrew the classifications of Porphyry in the same way. He shows how the basic rules of logic are simple and completely self-evident.1 [End Page 507]In tribute to Salvatore Camporeale of the Order of Preachers, I shall preach a sermon about this celebrated Italian philosopher. My text is an article on Valla that Campo published in 1986, and my contention is that Valla was a remarkably original thinker who has been much underrated in the Anglophone world, in part because he has not been read often enough or carefully enough in a contemporary philosophical framework.2The Philosopher's Index is the most important general bibliography for philosophers now writing in English. The on-line version that gives nearly four thousand references in five languages for Descartes, over nine thousand for Aristotle, and nearly ten thousand for Kant turns up only forty-two for Valla; twenty-five of these are in English, but only two are in major Anglophone journals of philosophy.3 I call that underrated and understudied.The first English-language entry for Valla in the Philosopher's Index dates from 1948, The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, a very influential book of readings (still in print) that presents Valla as a moral philosopher and Renaissance philosophy as not terribly important. The next entry, from 1964, refers to an equally influential book, Paul Kristeller's Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, one of whom is Valla, described by Kristeller not only as a moral philosopher but also, and more importantly, as a philosophical critic of logic and language.4 Around the same time, Hanna Gray, Jerrold Seigel, Charles Trinkaus, and others in this country had begun to study Valla's theory of language in more depth, and a few years later Camporeale's masterful book on Valla appeared in 1972.5Since Camporeale's book was then and is now the best account in any language of a brilliant philosopher, its absence from the Philosopher's Index indicates a kind of oblivion in Anglophone philosophy. In Europe and especially in Italy, by contrast, interest in Valla has been more or less continuous since his death in 1457. Mario Nizolio continued Valla's work in the sixteenth century, and both Valla and Nizolio were well known to Leibniz, who in turn [End Page 508] was the subject of an important book by Bertrand Russell in 1900.6 Russell's most popular work, however, was the History of Western Philosophy that he wrote much later, during the Second World War.7Many people have taken their bearings on the history of philosophy from Russell's exuberant History. Amazon.com still offers five editions by four publishers. And Amazon's rankings of sales of more recent accounts of the Renaissance period, the Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy and the Renaissance Philosophy volume of Oxford's History of Western Philosophy, lag far behind the figures for a single edition of Russell's broader treatment (8,970 Russell; 481,085 Cambridge; 507,316 Oxford).8Despite its great success, Russell's book does not do well by our topic. His treatment of the Renaissance is like Burckhardt directed by Victor Hugo and produced by Macaulay. Cardinals poison each other while free-thinking scholars entertain princes to procure patronage. Humanism meanwhile dozes under the rubble of antiquity, too dazed by the ruins to produce original philosophy. The only philosophical good to come from philology was its odium. Incessant squabbling about which ancient... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 65.1 (2004) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] In Memoriam John F. Callahan John Francis Callahan, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Classics at Georgetown University, died 14 July 2003 after open-heart surgery performed 6 June and was buried with full military honors 17 September at Arlington National Cemetery. His funeral Mass at the Old Post Chapel was concelebrated by his old friend and former (...) colleague, Father Edward W. Bodnar, S.J., who had also concelebrated a memorial Mass in the Jesuit Chapel at Georgetown 5 August.John served on the Board of Editors and the Board of Directors of the Journal of the History of Ideas from 1970 until his death and was Vice-President from 1985. Throughout thirty-three years, during which he never missed a meeting until the last, he devoted unstinted time and energy to the affairs of the Journal, rigorously scrutinizing every problem, from matters of editorial policy through changes in leadership, location, and membership on the Editorial Board to proposals for expenditures and questions of format and style. He was a meticulous reader of manuscripts and applied the most stringent standards to his consideration of both content and modes of expression. No mistake in Greek typography escaped his vigilance. He brought to the annual meetings a distinctive elegance and an unusual sense of collegiality that derived both from his devotion to the Journal itself and from his long friendship with some of the older members of the Board, such as Paul Kristeller and Richard McKeon.John was a life member of the American Philological Association (since 1940) and served with distinction from 1976 to 1986 as its delegate to the International Federation of Classical Studies (FIEC), attending its meetings in Budapest and Helsinki. A scholar of exceptionally wide-ranging interests, he was best known for his studies of the concept of time in ancient philosophy and his critical edition of Gregory of Nyssa, De oratione dominica et De beatitudinibus, which he completed at Dumbarton Oaks after he retired from Georgetown.Born in Chicago 13 May 1912, he began the study of Greek and Latin at St. Ignatius Prep, where he was also introduced to opera, a lifelong passion, by one of his Jesuit teachers. He received the A.B. in 1933 and the A.M. in 1934 from Loyola University, Chicago, which on Founder's Day, 1965, honored him with an award for distinguished contributions to classical scholarship. He received the Ph.D. in 1940 from the University of Chicago, where he studied with Richard McKeon and Werner Jaeger, the two principal, very different influences on his approach to philosophy and philology. Henry Prescott and Carl Darling Buck were two other members of that fabulous generation of classical scholars at Chicago who made a lasting impression on him. His interest in Plautus, Greek and Roman linguistics, and comparative grammar continued throughout his life, contributing to what a former colleague at Dumbarton Oaks has described as an uncanny ability to penetrate beneath the surface of the classical languages, to "peer into their deep structure."John was a Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago, 1936-37, Instructor at Loyola University, 1937-40, Visiting Instructor, Harvard University, 1940-41, Assistant Professor, Loyola University, 1941-43, Associate Professor and Professor of Classics and Philosophy, Georgetown University, from 1946 until he retired in 1978, and Project Director at Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University, 1977-86. He served in the United States Navy from 1943 to 1946, working in Naval Communications. He rarely [End Page 155] spoke of his part in breaking the Japanese code, but often referred to such comrades in arms as Sam Atkins and Richmond Lattimore, who like him returned to teaching as soon as World War II was over.John's teaching was enriched by his research, which was supported by a notable succession of fellowships, from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1947, the Ford Foundation for the Advancement of Education, 1953-54, the Fulbright Commission, 1953-55, the Guggenheim Foundation, 1958-59, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, 1967. He... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aesthetics and Humean Aesthetic Norms in the Novels of Jane AustenEva M. Dadlez (bio)IntroductionThe eighteenth century, Paul Oskar Kristeller tells us, in addition to crystallizing what we now call the fine arts, is also marked by an increased lay interest both in the arts and in criticism.1 Amateurs as well as philosophers ventured critical commentary on the arts. Talk concerning taste or beauty or the sublime was so much (...) a part of general discourse that even novelists of that era incorporated such subjects in their work. Henry Fielding "was able to construct a novel on the true and false sublime in art," according to Samuel Monk, "and to draw an analogy between the sublime in art and the sublime in character."2 So we shouldn't find it surprising that perspectives on aesthetics are sometimes presented in the novels of Jane Austen.3 This subject matter ranges from descriptions of skill in the execution and sensitivity in the appreciation of particular arts to general observations about beauty and taste and what is requisite for the apprehension of the former and the possession of the latter.Consider the following catalog of arts and beauties. Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, and Northanger Abbey contain many references to the beauties of nature, both cultivated and wild. Taste in music is a topic in Persuasion, Mansfield Park, Pride and Prejudice, and Lady Susan. A taste for poetry and literature is the lot of the heroines of Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, and Sense and Sensibility. Taste and talent for drawing is exhibited by characters in Sense and Sensibility, Emma, and Northanger Abbey. Both Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park contain discussions of the merits of effective reading, that is, reading well aloud. Mansfield Park even comments on [End Page 46] acting ability, albeit rather disapprovingly. More general reflections on taste and beauty, as well as their connection to morality, are equally typical.It is possible to venture several different arguments about the philosophical perspective into which such observations best fit. Kantian analyses have already been ventured in the literature. Anne Crippen Ruderman calls our attention to the Kantian flavor of the connection Austen draws between a sensitivity to natural beauty and one's moral disposition, for instance, and David Kaufman compares Austen to Kant, though primarily in regard to ethics.4 Nonetheless, in this article I will argue that the strongest correlations and correspondences are in fact between Austen's and Hume's positions on aesthetics. Evidence in support of a Kantian analysis will first be canvassed and later compared with claims in favor of a Humean alternative.I will establish that the positions on taste and beauty and delicacy that are explicitly stated in or can be inferred from Austen's novels fit a Humean model—and fit it with a fair degree of precision. In doing so, I hope to demonstrate a correspondence strong enough to serve as the staging area for the further speculations that constitute the second thesis of this article. A great deal has already been said by philosophers about the capacity of literature to elicit moral reactions from the reader. Fictions can present ethical endorsements and invite us to adopt ethical perspectives by making it true in the world of the work that some course of action is right or some character is laudable. They can do this not by telling us that an act is right or a person meritorious but by showing us the rightness of the action and the commendability of the individual—by asking us to imagine traits that call forth our own approval and commendation. I will contend that aesthetic norms can be treated in much the same way as moral norms. That is, I will claim that the fiction of Jane Austen, in addition to evidencing the conscription of a Humean aesthetic, so engages and educates us that we are led imaginatively to adopt certain aesthetic perspectives in the course of its contemplation: not just by being told what is aesthetically pleasing or commendable, but by being made to feel pleasure and to experience commendation; not just by being told what constitutes discriminating taste, but by being led... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS Shadow History tl9 Richard Watson's essay looks as if it is breaking new ground, but on re-re-reading it, it seems to me that several incommensurable and unrelated problems and phenomena are being treated together. If separated into constituent parts, there may be less here than meets the eye. First of all, the phenomenon of "shadow history," and its role as foundation for a philosophy or a (...) philosophical position goes back, I think, at least to Aristotle's account of his predecessors, especially of his teacher, and beyond that perhaps to Plato's account of the Sophists. It appears in Maimonides's account of Arabic occasionalism, which was used to justify medieval Aristotelianism (and this account was accepted uncritically by Leibniz, Malebranche, and others in the seventeenth century). Bacon's, Descartes's, and Locke's presentation of Scholasticism is definitely "shadow history" that was used as the start of the "new" way of ideas, and as its justification.. Hegel's view of the history of philosophy is another major "shadow history." Hence the fact that Russell, Ayer, Ryle and Rorty adopted similar strategies of using a spurious or dubious history of their predecessors is not so strange. Any historian of philosophy worth her or his salt is aware that historical philosophical personnages have used their own views of their predecessors' philosophies as ways of making their own "original" philosophical views more exciting or important or credible. We have learned long ago how to separate the alleged past from the historical past, and even to see that the alleged past plays a significant role in the writings of various philosophers. Watson has put it neatly in his four examples, but these are only intriguing because so litde history of analytic philosophy has been written up to this time. We have much, maybe too much, literature about how Kant misrepresented Hume, Hume misrepresented Berkeley, etc. In the decades to come we may have much about Russell, Ayer, Ryle and Rorty as misrepresenters. Then, Watson's point can help separate the charge that they were poor historians from the realization that they used history creatively as "shadow history." And we may even have historical evidence from the Russell papers and other archives that they knew full well what they were doing, and were not pretending to be good historians, or, on the other hand, that they themselves did not realize they were writing "shadow history," but thought they were actually real historians. Watson tries to make the activity of creating "shadow history" a challenge to historians of philosophy, and a plus for the creative philosophers. In the cases he discusses the "shadow histories" have had great influence on the development of twentiethcentury philosophy in England and America. Even though I am a sceptic, I have no doubt that historians of Anglo-American philosophy will explore his points, and distinguish the "shadow histories" from the best available historical interpretations of what previous philosophers said and meant. Both interpreting and understanding the "shadow histories" and the best available histories will change and develop depending on future interests and information. Watson uses "historians" without really making clear who he is talking about. Only three people are mentioned: Gregor Sebba, Etienne Gilson and Paul Oskar Kristeller. 120 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31 : 1 JANUARY 1993 There are many others who consider themselves historians of philosophy, or are considered as such in the profession; I doubt that they are all as objectivist as Watson thinks, believing that they can ascertain exactly what happened in the past. But I think most of us share a view that we can do better or worse at this, depending on materials and techniques used, perspectives employed, etc. Almost all of us would contend that being able to read the basic source material in the original language and being able to understand it in context, yields a better understanding of what a historical philosopher said and meant. Watson appears to agree, but then says this does not matter, because a "shadow history" may be longer remembered and used in creative philosophy than a historian's history. The example he offers is that of Yolton's Locke... (shrink)

The value of this book lies in its aspiration not to be a doxography, but to help us recover the tradition of the humanities or liberal arts, which Kristeller believes is presently threatened. It is easy to agree that this end would be promoted by a recovery of the original meaning of liberal education, as well as how it differs from the humanities and especially from humanism. The author intimates the rise of platonism in late medieval and renaissance thought signifies (...) a turn away from Aristotle's "divine science" and scholastic scientific theology to the study of man. The humanities would then take their origin from a change in orientation toward theology. While these opinions may be sound, this study does not show us that they are, for it rehearses opinion without exhibiting either its ground or import. Kristeller might have fulfilled his aim had he imitated the scholarship of the men he studies rather than that which thrives on the loss of the meaning of "liberal education." The eight philosophers are: Petrarch, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Pomponazzi, Telesio, Patrizi, Bruno. The appendix on the medieval antecedents of renaissance humanism is the best part of the book.—H. C. (shrink)

Oberman, H. A. Quoscunque tulit foecunda vetustas.--Bouwsma, W. J. The two faces of humanism.--Gilmore, M. P. Italian reactions to Erasmian humanism.--Dresden, S. The profile of the reception of the Italian Renaissance in France.--IJsewijn, J. The coming of humanism to the Low Countries.--Hay, D. England and the humanities in the fifteenth century.--Spitz, L. W. The course of German humanism.

In his Kitab al-ḥuruf, al-Fârâbî exposed a problem: Arabic language doesn’t have a word corresponding to the Greek verb einai. This paper examines the way Arabic philosophers managed to practice me...

The concept of hexis, in Latin habitus, is of great importance in Aristotle’s ethics. In this paper, I ask the question whether habitus has its place, and which one it is, when the will is said to be free. I examine the doctrines of three thinkers in whose thought the idea of the freedom of the will occupies a crucial place. Firstly, Augustine knows the moral sense of habitus, but does not use it to explain freedom; reading the Categories, he (...) understands that the term “habitus” refers to an accident, and uses this concept to explain modification. Secondly, describing the will, Anselm favours the word affectio, which designates a disposition which is not permanent; indeed, Anselm focuses on the dependence of the rational creature. Finally, Duns Scotus uses the Aristotelian concept of habitus, when he shows how the will, which is a rational power, determines itself freely. Thus, it can be said that Aristotle was a central and unavoidable source for the medieval developments of the concept of habitus and its use in relation with the doctrine of the will. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in unethical work behavior. Several types of survey instruments to collect information about unethical work behavior are available. Nevertheless, to date little attention has been paid to design issues of those surveys. There are, however, several important problems that may influence reliability and validity of questionnaire data on the topic, such as social desirability bias. This paper addresses two important issues in the design of online surveys on unethical work behavior: the (...) response scale for questions regarding the frequency of certain types of unethical work behavior and the location of the background questions in an online survey. We present the results of an analysis of a double split-ballot experiment in a large sample (n = 3,386) on governmental integrity. We found that, when comparing response scales that have labels for all categories with response scales that only have anchors at the end, the latter provided answers with higher validity. The study did not provide support for the conventional practice of asking background questions at the end. (shrink)

Cet article revient sur les rapports entre catégories et métaphysique chez les aristotéliciens de Bagdad. Contre les grammairiens contemporains, l’école de Bagdad a développé une interprétation métaphysique des catégories. Dans ses traités théologiques, Yaḥyâ ibn ‘Adî exhibe une multiplicité de « choses » ( ashyâ’ ) et d’ « intentions » ( ma‘ânî ) dans une même « substance » ( jawhar ). Ces deux concepts se retrouvent chez al-Fârâbî convoquant dans son Kitâb al- ḥ urûf les catégories pour mettre (...) en place une métaphysique. La « chose » que considère la métaphysique se laisse alors appréhender à partir de ce qui se donne à penser. (shrink)

Kristell Trego | Résumé : Qui agit quand j’agis ? Cet article s’intéresse à la réception philosophique de deux versets scripturaires, Jn 15,5 et Ph 2,13, qui, l’un comme l’autre, énoncent une certaine intervention de Dieu dans les actes que l’homme effectue. On prend en premier lieu en considération l’occasionnalisme malebranchiste. On envisage ensuite, au sein du kalâm, le courant asharite, souvent présenté comme « occasionnaliste », et sa réfutation par le philosophe chrétien de l’école de Baghdad Yaḥyâ ibn ‘Adî. (...) On regarde enfin comment la tradition médiévale a, à la suite d’Augustin, concilié nos deux versets avec l’affirmation de la libre volonté humaine. |: Who acts when I act ? The present essay is concerned with the philosophical reception of two scriptural verses, John 15, 5 and Philippians 2, 13, which both set forth a certain intervention of God in the acts performed by man. We first take into consideration Malebranche’s occasionalism. We then consider, within the kalâm, the ashrahit current, often presented as “occasionalist,” and its refutation by the Christian philosopher from the Baghdad school Yaḥyâ ibn ‘Adî. We finally take into account how the medieaval tradition has, in the wake of Augustine, conciliated our two verses with the affirmation of the free human will. (shrink)

Greek Philosophers of the Hellenistic Age examines an important but frequently neglected group of philosophers writing after Aristotle between the third and first centuries B.C. The work of a distinguished intellectual historian, this book is based on an erudite reading of a vast number of primary sources: the Greek and Latin writings of the philosophers, and the fragments, paraphrases, and testimonies from their lost works. Kristeller explores the thought of Epicurus; Zenon and Cleanthes, the founder of the Stoic school and (...) his successor; Pyrrhon and Arcesilaus, the founder of Skepticism and the philosopher who introduced it into the Platonic Academy; and Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school and its most important representative. Other figures include Carneades and Philo of Larissa, the second and third representatives of Skepticism in the Platonic Academy, respectively; Panaetius, the first leader of Middle Stoicism; and Antiochus of Ascalon, the head of the Academy, who led it back from Skepticism and prepared Middle Platonism, which paved the way for Neoplatonism. Originally presented as a series of lectures before the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, Greek Philosophers of the Hellenistic Age assesses a group of philosophers who exerted an enormous influence upon pagan and Christian writers of late antiquity - including Cicero and St. Augustine - and on many medieval and early modern philosophers, theologians, and other thinkers. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 5, May 2019, Page 80-81.

Est-on encore libre lorsqu'on agit mal? Nos actes determinent-ils ce que nous sommes et devenons? L'homme s'excepte-t-il du monde? Ou bien, a l'inverse, en releve-t-il essentiellement? L'ethique d'Anselme se situe a la croisee des chemins. Si la liberte a pour fin la justice, c'est parce qu'elle ne se presente plus comme la fin de cette derniere, mais qu'elle demeure quoi que l'on fasse. Si l'ethique porte sur les actes de l'homme, qui font de lui ce qu'il est, ce n'est pas (...) pour refuser toute idee d'une nature essentielle que nous aurions recue. En un mot, l'homme echappe au cours naturel des choses, en faisant un certain usage des pouvoirs qu'il possede par nature. La liberte elle-meme, par laquelle l'homme se distingue des autres etres du monde, se pense ainsi comme un pouvoir naturel, et donc inamissible. Invoquer la superiorite de l'ame sur le corps ne suffit des lors plus pour penser la liberte; Anselme nous invite a la penser a partir d'une certaine interpretation de la constitution de ce qui est. En d'autres termes, la reflexion ethique appelle une exploration des sens de l'etre. Le present ouvrage montre comment, en l'absence d'une metaphysique etablie, Anselme recourt, pour fonder son ethique, a l'enseignement de la logique, ou dialectica, laquelle ne saurait etre reduite a une semantique. Les multiples remaniements des concepts ethiques, mais aussi logiques, revelent une pensee latine qui s'ouvre a l'interrogation metaphysique. (shrink)

La pensée d'Aristote a-t-elle encore quelque chose à nous apprendre aujourd'hui? Elle peut nous inviter à nous interroger sur ce qu'être homme, et sur notre rapport au monde. Mais les aristotélismes qui se sont construits à partir de ses oeuvres transmises, et traduites, dans l'Occident comme en terre d'Islam, ont donné un nouveau tour à ses interrogations. Il a fallu faire place au donné révélé. Une "voie romaine" a ainsi fait l'Europe. Une contribution autour du philosophe Rémi Brague.

Cet article s’attache à l’émergence de l’idée d’une cause agente, en lieu et place de la cause motrice aristotélicienne. Si Avicenne a dédoublé la cause agente en reconnaissant un principe du mouvement et un principe de l’être, la tradition exégétique grecque puis la falsafa d’expression arabe s’étaient d’abord attachées à reconnaître une cause rendant compte de l’advenue à l’être.

S'il reprend des thèmes chers à la patristique, Érigène adapte ces notions théologiques afin de penser non plus tant l'être divin, que l'être créé, en sa condition même de créature. Ainsi Érigène reconnaît-il aux êtres créés, qu'il nomme «existants» (existentia), une subsistence qui, si elle se fonde dans l'essence divine, s'en distingue toutefois.Quoi qu'il en soit du contexte néoplatonicien dans lequel intervient le terme subsistence (utilisé notamment pour traduire l'huparxis du Ps-Denys ou de Maxime le Confesseur), l'on ne saurait le (...) réduire à la nomination de la venue à l'être (c'est l'existence qui évoque cette idée). Réinvestissant la notion de subsistence qui s'est construite chez ses prédécesseurs latins, notre auteur s'en sert pour faire signe vers l'idée d'une permanence de ce qui est au-delà de la procession qui luia permis d'accéder à l'être. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Généalogie de la liberté by Olivier BoulnoisKristell TregoOlivier Boulnois. Généalogie de la liberté. Paris: Seuil, 2021. Pp. 496. Paperback, €24.00.The author starts from an apparently simple question: are we free? But such a question is not as simple as it seems. This book shows that it is neither eternal nor universally asked; rather, it is a question linked to a specific culture (the West), and it has a (...) history. This is why the author intends to draw up its genealogy.In order to draw up a genealogy of the concept of freedom, we must leave aside the standard theoretical framework that assumes freedom as a given. Rather, we should ask: Does [End Page 152] freedom exist? What is its nature? Should it be described as the absence of compulsion or as the power of choice? We must also be wary of any systematic approach to these questions, such as those that have opposed partisans of freedom to determinists or intellectualists to voluntarists throughout the ages. If we want to draw up a genealogy of freedom, we should rather think about the theoretical conditions that made possible the birth and the development of this theoretical "artifact," as Boulnois calls it (23). Contemporary discussions about freedom tend to debate its nature without wondering why such a concept was forged in the first place. By contrast, Boulnois takes a step back and tries to discover the nature of freedom by turning to the moment of its birth.Boulnois has adopted a genealogical approach in his previous books. He used it in his Être et représentation, whose subtitle is une généalogie de la métaphysique moderne à l'époque de Duns Scot (Paris: PUF, 1999). He also mentioned it in the title of a collection of edited essays, where he preferred to talk of "genealogies" in the plural in order to accommodate the diversity of approaches adopted by the authors of the contributions to that volume (Olivier Boulnois, ed., Généalogies du sujet: de saint Anselme à Malebranche [Paris: Vrin, 2007]). In his new book, Boulnois explains his choice of the genealogical method as an attempt to give a history of freedom that might reconcile the so-called continental and analytic approaches (18). Instead of giving a simple description of theories of freedom, by his genealogical method Boulnois intends to show how the Western approach to freedom has resulted in an aporia—the very aporia that Kant diagnosed as an insoluble problem in his Critique of Pure Reason. Boulnois's genealogy should be distinguished from the so-called archeology as heralded by the French scholar of the Middle Ages Alain de Libera. Although both the genealogical and the archeological methods originate in the writings of Michel Foucault, and as such are undeniably connected to each other, the genealogical enterprise is intended to "deconstruct" past philosophers' claims not in order to leave them behind and reject them (as the archeological method intends to do), but rather to become fully aware of those philosophers' theoretical choices and commitments (see Boulnois, Être et representation, 16). Genealogy is thus supposed to "liberate" our thought by making apparent the framework in which we think.To deconstruct the problem of freedom, Boulnois proceeds in four main steps. First, he shows how the problem of freedom is constructed by examining a cluster of related concepts (free will, will, power, and action) and discovering the aporia of free will, which appears to be both indubitable and impossible to conceptualize. Second, Boulnois turns to Aristotle's ethics and theory of action, which conceives of human choices without appealing to the idea of freedom. Third, he considers the "invention of freedom," or better of free will (in Latin, liberum arbitrium voluntatis), by highlighting three main moments: the Stoics' assent to the order of the world; Alexander of Aphrodisias's cogitations, which make room for free will in an Aristotelian framework, even without ever naming it; and finally, Augustine's reorganization of ethics around the very concept of free will. Fourth and finally, Boulnois focuses on the medieval debates concerning freedom and the way they contributed to contrasting human beings with the... (shrink)

This article aims to consider the permanence of the Greek term ousia, sometimes transcribed as usia, during the early Middle Ages, when the translation by substantia was imposed. We consider two figures of the Carolingian period, John Scottus Eriugena and Ratramnus of Corbia. We suggest that the word ousia/usia may express aspects of being that the Latin term substantia does not support.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Greening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis, and: The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of CreationKristel ClayvilleGreening Paul: Rereading the Apostle in a Time of Ecological Crisis David G. Horrell, Cheryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2010. 333 pp. $34.95The Bible and Ecology: Rediscovering the Community of Creation Richard Bauckham Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2010. 226 pp. $24.95Both (...) Greening Paul and The Bible and Ecology are timely entries into the ongoing conversation about the use of the Bible in ecological ethics. Given this shared focus, the books have much in common. First, and most superficially, all four authors have academic posts in the United Kingdom; they have been [End Page 200] citing each other’s work for years and have published books with the same press. Second, all four authors are motivated by a deep concern for stemming the anthropogenic ecological crisis through a positive reformulation of Christian anthropocentrism, eschatology, and relationship to science. Third, the authors see biblical interpretation as having a central role in this reformulation. Even with these commonalities, the books approach the problem of using the biblical text in constructive Christian ethics from vastly different perspectives. David Horrell, Cheryl Hunt, and Christopher Southgate are openly skeptical about the impact biblical exegesis can have in ethical constructions, whereas Richard Bauckham writes under the assumption that his exegetical work will be efficacious in adjusting Christian ethical responses to the ecological crisis.In Greening Paul, the authors develop an ecological hermeneutical lens from an exegesis of two Pauline texts (Rom. 8:19–23 and Col. 1:15–20), a lens that they then use to read the entire Pauline corpus. What emerges from this reading is a focus on Paul’s own extension of the Christian community to include non-Christians, which, ecologically speaking, becomes a biblical warrant for ethical extensionism. Additionally, this reading emphasizes Christ’s kenosis, which is expanded and transformed by the authors into other-regard, the idea that humans can and even should place the survival needs of others above their own. Extensionism and other-regard are not radical or new ideas in ecological ethics, but rarely are they given a biblical foundation. Moreover, the authors’ development of an ecological hermeneutical lens for reading Pauline texts contributes much more to the discussion of the use of the Bible in ecological ethics than any particular readings it produces.Horrell, Hunt, and Southgate devote six of their eight chapters to the development of their ecological hermeneutical lens. They situate their lens both in context of and contradistinction to recent ecotheology and hermeneutical scholarship on the Bible, such as feminist hermeneutics, while also drawing on the strengths of these positions and incorporating the tools of critical biblical scholarship, such as narrative criticism. The authors identify a typology of ecologically motivated readings of the Bible: recovery of the Bible’s positive ecological meaning, resistance to the Bible due to its negative ecological message, and resistance to ecological ethics due to the Bible’s authority. The authors construct a revisionist lens and situate it between recovery and resistance, thereby “enabl[ing] a positive, creative, and critical rereading of tradition” (43). This rereading entails reconstructing the creation narratives behind the Romans and Colossians texts, comparing them to each other, and then limiting their normative reach by putting them in conversation with scientific narratives of the world. While the authors see Pauline theology and ethics as linked through the category of narrative, such that character formation is at the heart of Paul’s ethics, the question remains as to why the epistolary genre needed to be augmented for their analysis. The turn to narrative seems somewhat reductionistic [End Page 201] in a work that is so theoretically sophisticated, and it focuses attention once again on creation narratives as the source for thinking through human relationships to nature.Even at the end of their book, the authors of Greening Paul remain skeptical about the move from exegesis to ethics, but they have done the exegetical work of preparing Pauline texts for use in ecological ethics. On their reading of Bauckham’s work, The Bible and... (shrink)

Pétrarque.--Valla.--Marsile Ficin.--Pic de la Mirandole.--Pomponazzi.--Telesio.--Patrizi.--Bruno.

Résumé On sait comment le choix du terme latin substantia est inséparable d’une interprétation de l’ ousia aristotélicienne comme d’un sujet (stable) recevant des propriétés ou accidents. Cette interprétation de l’étant n’a toutefois pas été exclusive chez les premiers auteurs latins qui se sont approprié la doctrine aristotélicienne des catégories. Marius Victorinus et Boèce se sont en effet attachés, l’un comme l’autre, mais selon des approches distinctes, à un autre sens de l’être : dans cette optique, ce qui est demande (...) à être envisagé, non pas en termes de sujet (subiectum), mais en termes d’acte ( actus, mais aussi opus/operatio ). L’article examine la manière dont cette attention portée à l’acte transmet sans doute, mais en même temps modifie la thématique aristotélicienne de l’ ousia hôs energeia. (shrink)