This book offers an introduction to medieval economic thought, as it emerges from the works of the twelfth to the fifteenth century academic theologians, lawyers and other sources. Using Italian merchants' writings, vernacular poetry, parliamentary legislation, and manorial court rolls, it discusses property, charity, the role of money, weights, measures, coinage, trade, fair price and fair wage. It makes a relatively neglected subject accessible by exploring the relationship between theory and practice.

The relationship between morality and self-interest is a perennial one in philosophy, at the center of moral theory. It goes back to Plato's Republic, which debated whether living morally was in a person's best interest or simply for dupes. Hobbes also claimed that morality was not in the best interests of the individual; Kant, however, thought that morality ought to be followed anyway even if it was not in a person's interest. Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche all had much to say on the subject, and contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel and David Gauthier discuss it a good deal as well. Little of the contemporary work has been published in book format however. Bloomfield's edited volume is the first such book truly devoted to this important topic, presenting brand new, commissioned articles on this subject by some of the top philosophers working today. Bloomfield provides an introduction to the topic and its place in philosophical history in his introduction. The volume will then be divided into three sections. The first will lay out the two sides of the debate; the second will cover views on morality as external to the self and thus not in our self-interest; and the third will focus on morality as intrinsic to the self and thus in our self-interest. Contributions includes newly published work by 13 top-notch philosophers, among them Thomas Nagel, Julia Annas, Samuel Scheffler, David Schmidtz, and Terence Irwin, as well as a previously published piece by W. D. Falk. The volume will act as a useful collection of scholarship by top figures, and as a resource and course book on an important topic.

An appropriate motto for Augustine's great work On the Trinity is 'faith in search of understanding'. In this treatise Augustine offers a part-theological, part-philosophical account of how God might be understood in analogy to the human mind. On the Trinity can be fairly described as the first modern philosophy of mind: it is the first work in philosophy to recognize the 'problem of other minds', and the first to offer the 'argument from analogy' as a response to that problem. Other subjects that it discusses include the nature of the mind and the nature of the body, the doctrine of 'illumination', and thinking as inner speech. This volume presents the philosophical section of the work, and in a historical and philosophical introduction Gareth Matthews places Augustine's arguments in context and assesses their influence on later thinkers.

Guardians of Republicanism analyses the political and intellectual history of Renaissance Florence-republican and princely-by focusing on five generations of the Valori family, each of which played a dynamic role in the city's political and cultural life. The Valori were early and influential supporters of the Medici family, but were also crucial participants in the city's periodic republican revivals throughout the Renaissance. Mark Jurdjevic examines their political struggles and conflicts against the larger backdrop of their patronage and support of the Neoplatonic philosopher Marsilio Ficino, the radical Dominican prophet Girolamo Savonarola, and Niccolo Machiavelli, the premier political philosopher of the Italian Renaissance. Each of these three quintessential Renaissance reformers and philosophers relied heavily on the patronage of the Valori, who evolved an innovative republicanism based on a hybrid fusion of the classical and Christian languages of Florentine communal politics. Jurdjevic's study thus illuminates how intellectual forces-humanist, republican, and Machiavellian-intersected and directed the politics and culture of the Florentine Renaissance.

The Vatican Mythographers offers the first complete English translation of three important sources of knowledge about the survival of classical mythology from the Carolingian era to the High Middle Ages and beyond. The Latin texts were discovered in manuscripts in the Vatican library and published together in the nineteenth century. The three so-called Vatican Mythographers compiled, analyzed, interpreted, and transmitted a vast collection of myths for use by students, poets, and artists. In terms consonant with Christian purposes, they elucidated the fabulous narratives and underlying themes in the works of Ovid, Virgil, Statius, and other poets of antiquity. In so doing, the Vatican Mythographers provided handbooks that included descriptions of ancient rites and customs, curious etymologies, and, above all, moral allegories. Thus we learn that Bacchus is a naked youth who rides a tiger because drunkenness is never mature, denudes us of possessions, and begets ferocity; or that Ulysses, husband of Penelope, passed by the monstrous Scylla unharmed because a wise man bound to chastity overcomes lust. The extensive collection of myths illustrates how this material was used for moral lessons. To date, the works of the Vatican Mythographers have remained inaccessible to scholars and students without a good working knowledge of Latin. The translation thus fulfills a scholarly void. It is prefaced by an introduction that discusses the purposes of the Vatican Mythographers, the influences on them, and their place in medieval and Renaissance mythography. Of course, it also entertains with a host of stories whose undying appeal captivates, charms, inspires, instructs, and sometimes horrifiesus.The book should have wide appeal for a whole range of university courses involving myth.

Aristotle's Politics is widely acknowledged as a classic and one of the founding texts of political theory and philosophy. Written by a leading expert in ancient philosophical thought, Aristotle and the Politics is a coherent guide that makes sense of an often difficult and disorganized work, carefully explaining its key themes. Jean Roberts introduces and assesses: Aristotle's life and the background to Politics the ideas and text of Politics the continuing importance of Aristotle's work to philosophy today. Aristotle is one of the most important figures in Western thought and Politics contains some of our earliest ideas about democracy. This is essential reading for all students of philosophy and political thought.

The third volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow access, for the first time in English, to major texts that form the debate over mind and knowledge at the center of medieval philosophy. Beginning with 13th-century attempts to classify the soul's powers and to explain the mind's place within the soul, the volume proceeds systematically to consider human knowledge, divine illumination, intentionality and mental representation. This volume will be an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, theology and literature.

The third volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow access, for the first time in English, to major texts that form the debate over mind and knowledge at the center of medieval philosophy. Beginning with 13th-century attempts to classify the soul's powers and to explain the mind's place within the soul, the volume proceeds systematically to consider human knowledge, divine illumination, intentionality and mental representation. This volume will be an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, theology and literature.

This book is the first systematic study of Descartes' relationship to Augustine. It offers a complete reevaluation of Descartes' thought and as such will be of major importance to all historians of medieval, neo-Platonic, or early modern philosophy. Special features include a reading of the Meditations, a comprehensive historical and philosophical introduction to Augustine's thought, a detailed account of Plotinus, and a contextualization of Descartes' mature philosophical project.

The problem of moral luck is that there is a contradiction in our common sense ideas about moral responsibility. In one strand of our thinking, we believe that a person can become more blameworthy by luck. For example, two reckless drivers manage their vehicles in the same way, and one but not the other kills a pedestrian. We blame the killer driver more than the merely reckless driver, because we believe that the killer driver is more blameworthy. Nevertheless, this idea contradicts another feature of our thinking captured in this moral principle: A person's blameworthiness cannot be affected by that which is not within her control. Thus, our ordinary thinking about moral responsibility implies that the drivers are and are not equally blameworthy. In Defense of Moral Luck aims to make progress in resolving this contradiction. Hartman defends the claim that certain kinds of luck in results, circumstance, and character can partially determine the degree of a person's blameworthiness. He also explains why there is a puzzle in our thinking about moral responsibility in the first place if luck often affects a person's praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. Furthermore, the book's methodology provides a unique way to advance the moral luck debate with arguments from diverse areas in philosophy that do not bottom out in standard pro-moral luck intuitions.

The three ancient commentaries on Aristotle's On the Soul (De anima) are interesting because the commentators, as neo-Platonists, understand the soul completely differently than Aristotle. For them, the soul is the inseperable life principle of the body, a spiritual entity. In response to this challenge, the commentator Priscian (ca. 530 AD) develops the most detailed antique theory of human self-consciousness, which is reconstructed here for the first time.

This book of fifteen essays is presented in honor of one of the premier historians of medieval philosophy, Armand Maurer of the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies and the University of Toronto. The authors, internationally recognized scholars in the field of medieval philosophy and theology, are friends, colleagues, and students of Fr. Maurer. They are united in a common love of medieval thought and a common appreciation of philosophizing through the study of the history of philosophy. Their interests and methodologies, however, are diverse, and cover a range from Justin Marytr, who died during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, to Bartholomew Mastrius, a contemporary of Descartes. The contributions are arranged chronologically, beginning with John Rist's essay on Christian philosophy during the patristic era. Richard Taylor demonstrates the importance of Arabic philosophical thought for the Latin West during the scholastic era, which began in the thirteenth century. R. James Long treats the early scholastics Richard Fishacre and Richard Rufus. Following Maurer's central interest, the majority of the essays (by R. E. Houser, Leo Elders, Lawrence Dewan, David B. Twetten, Mary C. Sommers, and James P. Reilly) treat aspects of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. But just as Maurer did not confine himself to Aquinas, this volume reaches out to other thirteenth-century figures and topics. John Wippel looks at Godfrey of Fontaines, Timothy B. Noone studies the Franciscans Matthew of Aquasparta and Peter John Olivi, and Stephen Brown adds the Franciscan Peter of Candia. Reflecting Maurer's own interests in fourteenth-century philosophy are the contributions of Calvin Normore on logic and Girard Etzkorn on the Franciscan Francis of Mayronis. The essay by Norman Wells focuses on the Franciscan Batholomew Mastrius. The volume concludes with a wonderful autobiography of his education by Maurer himself and a biliography of Maurer's writings.

The long-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts offers first-time English translations of major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most fruitful periods of speculation and analysis in the history of Western thought. The seventeen texts in this anthology offer late medieval treatments of fundamental issues in human conduct that are both conceptually subtle and of direct practical import. This is an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, political science, theology and literature.

The long-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts offers first-time English translations of major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most fruitful periods of speculation and analysis in the history of Western thought. The seventeen texts in this anthology offer late medieval treatments of fundamental issues in human conduct that are both conceptually subtle and of direct practical import. This is an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, political science, theology and literature.

Jacques Maritain was deeply engaged in the intellectual and political life of France through the turbulent decades that included the two world wars. Accordingly, his philosophical reflections often focus on an attempt to discover man's role in sustaining a social and political order that seeks and maintains both liberty and peace. "Scholasticism and Politics", first published in 1940, is a collection of nine lectures Maritain delivered at the University of Chicago in 1938. While the lectures address a variety of diverse topics, they explore three broad topics: the nature of modern culture, its relationship to Christianity, and the origins of the crisis which has engulfed it; the true nature and authentic foundations of human freedom and dignity and the threats posed to them by the various materialist and naturalistic philosophies that dominate the modern cultural scene; and, the principles that provide the authentic foundation of a social order in accord with human dignity. Maritain championed the cause of what he called personalist democracy - a regime committed to popular sovereignty, constitutionalism, limited government, and individual freedom. He believed a personalist democracy offered the modern world the possibility of a political order most in keeping with the demands of human dignity, Christian values, and the common good.

The Franciscan William of Ockham was an English medieval philosopher, theologian, and political theorist. Ockham is important not only in the history of philosophy and theology, but also in the development of early modern science and of modern notions of property rights and church-state relations. This volume offers a full discussion of all significant aspects of Ockham's thought: logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics and natural philosophy, epistemology, ethics, action theory, political thought and theology. It is the first study of Ockham in any language to make full use of the new critical editions of his works, and to consider recent discoveries concerning his life, education, and influences.

The great Franciscan theologian St. Bonaventure (c.1217-74) engaged in philosophy as well as theology, and the relation between the two in Bonaventure's work has long been debated. Yet, few studies have been devoted to Bonaventure's thought as a whole. In this survey, Christopher M. Cullen reveals Bonaventure as a great synthesizer, whose system of thought bridged the gap between theology and philosophy.
The book is organized according to the categories of Bonaventure's own classic text, De reductione artium ad theologiam. Cullen follows Bonaventure's own division of the branches of philosophy and theology, analyzing them as separate but related entities. He shows that Bonaventure was a scholastic, whose mysticism was grounded in systematic theological and philosophical reasoning. He presents a fresh and nuanced perspective on Bonaventure's debt to Augustine, while clarifying Aristotle's influence. Cullen also puts Bonaventure's ideas in context of his time and place, contributing significantly to our understanding of the medieval world.
This accessible introduction provides a much-needed overview of Bonaventure's thought. Cullen offers a clear and rare reading of "Bonaventurianism" in and for itself, without the complications of critique and comparison. This book promises to become a standard text on Bonaventure, useful for students and scholars of philosophy, theology, medieval studies, and the history of Christianity.

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), humanist and colleague of Martin Luther, is best known for his educational reforms, for which he earned the title Praeceptor Germaniae (the Teacher of Germany). His most influential form of philosophical writing was the academic oration, and this volume, first published in 1999, presents a large and wide-ranging selection of his orations and textbook prefaces translated into English. They set out his views on the distinction between faith and reason, the role of philosophy in education, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, astronomy and astrology, and the importance of philosophy to a true Christian, as well as his views on Classical philosophical authorities such as Plato and Aristotle and on contemporaries such as Erasmus and Luther. Powerfully influential in their time, inspiring many Protestant students to study philosophy, mathematics and natural philosophy, they illuminate the relationship between Renaissance and Reformation thought.

Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), humanist and colleague of Martin Luther, is best known for his educational reforms, for which he earned the title Praeceptor Germaniae (the Teacher of Germany). His most influential form of philosophical writing was the academic oration, and this volume presents a large and wide-ranging selection of his orations and textbook prefaces, many of which are here translated into English for the first time. They set out his views on the distinction between faith and reason, the role of philosophy in education, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, astronomy and astrology, and the importance of philosophy to a true Christian, as well as his views on Classical philosophical authorities such as Plato and Aristotle and on contemporaries such as Erasmus and Luther. Powerfully influential in their time, inspiring many Protestant students to study philosophy, mathematics and natural philosophy, they illuminate the relationship between Renaissance and Reformation thought.

Adelard of Bath was one of the most colourful personalities of the Middle Ages. He travelled to the Crusader kingdoms, to Sicily and south Italy, and translated texts on astronomy, astrology and magic from Arabic into Latin. He acquired a lasting reputation as a pioneering mathematician, and he was a gifted teacher. He addressed one of these works, on cosmology and the astrolabe, to the future King Henry II, and it is in the context of the education of the nobility that the three works edited in this book are to be viewed. Adelard meant them to be both entertaining and instructive. They deal with all kinds of topics, from the nature of the soul to the cause of earthquakes, from the effects of music to how to train a hawk. A preface provides the results of research on Adelard's life and work.

This book concerns the nature of time and ordinary cases of persistence in Spinoza. The author argues for three major interpretive claims. First, that Spinoza is committed to an eternalist theory of time whereby all things (whether they seem to be past, present, or future) are equally real. Second, that a mode's conatus or essence is a self-maintaining activity (not an inertial force or disposition.) Third, that modes persist through time in Spinoza's metaphysics by having temporal parts (that is, different parts at different times.) If the author is correct, then a significant reinterpretation of Spinoza's modal metaphysics is required. The book also puts Spinoza into dialogue with some recent work in analytic metaphysics.

The Renaissance, known primarily for the art and literature that it produced, was also a period in which philosophical thought flourished. This two-volume anthology contains forty new translations of important works on moral and political philosophy written during the Renaissance and hitherto unavailable in English. The works, originally written in Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and Greek, cover such topics as concepts of man; Aristotelian, Platonic, Stoic, and Epicurean ethics; scholastic political philosophy; theories of princely and republican government in Italy; and northern European political thought.

The Renaissance, known primarily for the art and literature that it produced, was also a period in which philosophical thought flourished. This two-volume anthology contains forty new translations of important works on moral and political philosophy written during the Renaissance and hitherto unavailable in English. The works, originally written in Latin, Italian, French, Spanish, and Greek, cover such topics as concepts of man; Aristotelian, Platonic, Stoic, and Epicurean ethics; scholastic political philosophy; theories of princely and republican government in Italy; and northern European political thought.

This book offers a revisionary account of key epistemological concepts and doctrines of St Thomas Aquinas, particularly his concept of scientia (science), and proposes an interpretation of the purpose and composition of Aquinas's most mature and influential work, the Summa theologiae, which presents the scientia of sacred doctrine, i.e. Christian theology. Contrary to the standard interpretation of it as a work for neophytes in theology, Jenkins argues that it is in fact a pedagogical work intended as the culmination of philosophical and theological studies of very gifted students. Jenkins considers our knowledge of the principles of a science. He argues that rational assent to the principles of sacred doctrine, the articles of faith, is due to the influence of grace on one's cognitive powers, because of which one is able immediately to apprehend these propositions as divinely revealed. His study will be of interest to readers in philosophy, theology and medieval studies.