Nicolas of Cusa s notion of God as not-other is one of the most spectacular ideas in the history of metaphysics the negative self-reference of the Absolute. In this study, Max Rohstock examines this concept historically and systematically. For the first time, he shows Johannes Scotus Eriugena was the true progenitor of the concept."

The Legacy of Aristotelian Enthymeme provides a historical-logical analysis of Aristotle's rhetorical syllogism, the enthymeme, through its Medieval and Renaissance interpretations. Bringing together notions of credibility and proof, an international team of scholars highlight the fierce debates around this form of argumentation during two key periods for Aristotle's beliefs. Reflecting on medieval and humanist thinkers, philosophers, poets and theologians, this volume joins up dialectical and rhetorical argumentation as key to the enthymeme's interpretation and shows how the enthymeme was the source of a major interpretive conflict. As a method for achieving the standards for proof and credibility that persist across diverse fields of study today including the law, politics, medicine and morality, this book takes in Latin and Persian interpretations of the enthymeme and casts contemporary argumentation in a new historical light.

The new series of Ideen&Argumente subscribes to the ideal of a pluralist and open culture of argument and debate and presents well-produced volumes on topics and questions which make substantive or methodologically important contributions to contemporary philosophy. The publications are designed to effect a productive synergy between the Anglo-Saxon and Continental European philosophical traditions. Ideen&Argumente provides a platform for outstanding systematically oriented original editions and German first editions from all areas of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. A welcome is extended to programmatic monographs from whatever philosophical direction. The aim is to highlight anew the thematic and methodological richness of contemporary philosophy.

The three early descriptions of analytic action theory sharethe fundamental premise that physical behavior is characterized as intentional action by semantic rather than physical features. Hart, Anscombe, and Melden each cite essential conditions for the possibility of attributing actions. Their concepts can be integrated into a model of action whose emphasis lies on the social dimension of understanding action.

This book is a study ofthe psychology of Averroes and its influence on Roman philosophy. It addresses his famous doctrine of the intellect, and its critical defence by the English 14th-century theologian Thomas Wylton. The major questions related to the body-mind problem are tackled: the relation between soul and body, the status of imagination, the nature of the intellect s power, and the autonomy of the thinker."

ein wichtiges Anliegen der grossen Konzilien des Spatmittelalters war die Reform des monastischen Lebens. Ausgehend von der italienischen Benediktinerabtei Subiaco fanden diese Bestrebungen besonders in den deutschsprachigen Klostern ein breites Echo. Es bildeten sich Reformzentren heraus (Melk, Tegernsee, St. Gallen), in denen die Benedikt-Regel eine neue spirituelle und kulturelle Kraft entfaltete."

Die Bedeutung des Spiels in der Lebenswelt der mittelalterlichen Kloester und Orden ist bislang nicht als Phanomen von kultureller Tragweite eroertert worden, denn der (scheinbare) Antagonismus aus kontemplativem Leben einerseits und heiterem Spiel andererseits verhinderte, dass der religiosus ludens wissenschaftlich Beachtung fand. Die im Band vereinigten, interdisziplinaren Analysen der theologischen, liturgischen, kunstgeschichtlichen, rechtlichen und sozialen Dimensionen von Ball-, Wurfel-, Brett-, Karten- und Wissensspielen verdeutlichen erstmals die gestalterische Kraft der Ordensleute zur Erfindung, Adaption und Vermittlung von Spielen wie deren Sinngehalten innerhalb der vormodernen Gesellschaft. Im Aufzeigen der innovativen und mannigfaltigen Wege der Legitimation und Delegitimation monastischen und aussermonastischen Spiels, aus denen Ordensleute zudem wegweisende und gesamtgesellschaftlich tragfahige Kategorisierungen des ludus entwickelten und nahezu samtliche Lebensentwurfe der Vormoderne erklarten, stellt der Band nicht nur eine neuartige Perspektive auf das Spiel und die vita religiosa vor. Zugleich oeffnet er ein noch unbekanntes Fenster zum Verstandnis kultureller Mechanismen im Mittelalter.

The multi-author Essays in Later Mediaeval Metaphysics focuses primarily on 13th and 14th century Latin treatments of some of the most important metaphysical issues as conceived by many of the most important thinkers of the day. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) are among the figures examined here. The work begins with standard ontological topics-e.g., the nature of existence, and of metaphysics generally; the status of universals, form, and accidents. Here, a number of questions are considered. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Furthermore, does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and if so, are they anything more than general concepts? There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, discussions of theories of mediaeval logic, epistemology, and language are added to provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later mediaeval worldview. Many questions are raised in this context as well. What are the objects of propositional attitudes? How does Aristotelian logic stand up against modern predicate calculus? Are infinite regress arguments defensible in metaphysical contexts? How are the notions of analogy and equivocation related to the concept of being? Contributors include scholars of mediaeval philosophy from across North America: Rega Wood (Indiana), Gyula Klima (Fordham), Brian Francis Conolly (Bard College at Simon's Rock ), Charles Bolyard (James Madison), Martin Tweedale (emeritus, Alberta), Jack Zupko (Winnipeg), Susan Brower-Toland (St. Louis), Rondo Keele (Louisiana Scholars' College), Terence Parsons (UC-Irvine), and E. J. Ashworth (emeritus, Waterloo).

Machiavelli has been among the most commented upon, criticized and feared thinkers of the modern world. Infamous for his support of brutality and repression as valid political instruments, he is often portrayed as the pantomime villain of political theorists. In this whirlwind tour of Machiavelli's writings and eventful life, Nederman highlights the complexities in his thought, showing that he actually advocated democracy as much as dictatorship, debate as much as violence, depending upon prevailing political conditions.

This volume casts a new light on Byzantium as a geographical and cultural intersection. For nearly a millennium, Byzantium was an important crossroads where cultures, people, and institutions from the entire Mediterranean area came together. Key subjects of interest explored by this volume include reciprocal cultural and epistemic processes of reception and transformation and the forms of knowledge associated with them.

In einer dynamischen Zivilisation erhoht sich in Wissenschaft und Technik, in Wirtschaft und Kunst die Neuerungsrate. Die Zeitdauer konstanter Arbeits- und Lebensverhaltnisse nimmt ab, der Aufenthalt in der Gegenwart verkurzt sich. Zeit wird knapp und organisationsbedurftig. Hermann Lubbe beschreibt und analysiert die kulturellen, wirtschaftlichen und zeitumgangstechnischen Folgen dieser "Gegenwartsschrumpfung" und zeichnet ein umfassendes Panorama der Zeit-Verfassung unserer modernen Kultur.
"Der Autor stellt dem Leser den mehr als fraglichen Beschleunigungscharakter unserer modernen Kultur facettenreich und anschaulich vor. Spricht aus, was wir in unserer Angst, uns auf der schnellen Reise selbst zu verlieren, schon fast gar nicht mehr wahrnehmen wollen..." "Das Buch versucht eine Phanomenologie unserer Kultur, deren Ausserungen sich standig und mit wachsender Geschwindigkeit verandern. Seine Belege sind uns in ihrer Alltaglichkeit uberraschend, aber in ihren Einzelheiten plausibel..." (VDI nachrichten magazin bzw. Physikalische Blatter)
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In her never-finished My Life's Travels and Adventures, the eighteenth-century Polish doctor Regina Salomea Pilsztynowa plays a myriad of roles, including child bride, wife, mother, lover, adventuress, slave trader, writer, and home-taught physician. She successfully carved out a viable niche for herself, navigating the multicultural, multiethnic, and varied religious environment of Europe's eastern periphery. Despite limited expectations for female professionals, she became a highly sought after and well-respected practitioner of the medical arts and rose to the position of court physician to Turkish pashas and Hungarian princes, and even to Sultan Mustafa III. My Life's Travels and Adventures-part memoir, part autobiography, and part travelogue-provides a view into eighteenth-century social, professional, and gender interactions and weaves a rich narrative replete with vignettes of love, travel, and popular superstitions important to our historical, ethnographic, and religious understanding of the era. This edition brings the entirety of this personal and idiosyncratic memoir to English for the first time.

William of Ockham (d. 1347) was among the most influential and the most notorious thinkers of the late Middle Ages. In the twenty-seven questions translated in this volume, most never before published in English, he considers a host of theological and philosophical issues, including the nature of virtue and vice, the relationship between the intellect and the will, the scope of human freedom, the possibility of God's creating a better world, the role of love and hatred in practical reasoning, whether God could command someone to do wrong, and more. In answering these questions, Ockham critically engages with the ethical thought of such predecessors as Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Students and scholars of both philosophy and historical theology will appreciate the accessible translations and ample explanatory notes on the text.

How did people in the early modern period deal with the question of how to lead a good life in order to also experience a good death? This discourse, deeply rooted in antiquity, continued during the Middle Ages, and then grew significantly in intensity in the 16th and 17th centuries, primarily as a result of the impact of the Protestant Reformation and of innovative medical research, especially the work of Theoprastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus. Theological, philosophical, ethical, moral, medical, and hygienic considerations all intersected and, at times, blended with each other.

The University of Basel was founded in 1460 on the basis of a privilege from Pope Pius II. As a young man, this pope had spent several years in the town and felt a strong affinity with it throughout his life. This volume begins with an examination of this prominent humanist and describes the contexts of the founding of the university in a series of further articles. The other examined dimensions are the urban and university contexts, as well as the church and art.

Seit einem Paradigmenwechsel in Griechenland um 400 v. Chr. wird der Mensch als Produkt der Zusammensetzung von Koerper und Seele verstanden. Zwischen ihnen wurde der ohne Beistand von Sehen und Tasten spurbare Leib vergessen, zu dem Schreck, Angst, Schmerz, Hunger, Durst, Wollust, Entzucken, Mudigkeit, affektives Betroffensein von Gefuhlen, gespurte Bewegung und Richtungen (wie der Blick) gehoeren. Das damals Vergessene wird hier ans Licht gezogen und mit neuen Begriffen durchleuchtet. Das betrifft die Eigenart der Ausdehnung und Dynamik des Leibes. Die leibliche Dynamik erweitert sich zur leiblichen Kommunikation, der Grundform der Wahrnehmung und sozialer Kontakte. Anschliessend wird die Bedeutung des Leibes in vielen Bezugen eroertert: als Grundlage des Personseins, als Resonanzstatte fur Gefuhle als ergreifende Atmospharen, als pragende Kraft in Kunst und Geschichte, als Faktor der Strukturen von Raum und Zeit, ferner mit Bezug auf die Seelenvorstellung und den Koerper. Eine Skizze der Stationen des Denkens uber den Leib als Thema von Homer bis zur Gegenwart schliesst das Buch.

Kants kritischer Philosophie wird bis heute von prominenter Seite der Vorwurf gemacht, sie unterstelle ein im Kern subjektivistisch-monologisches Individuum. Tatsachlich aber liegt ihr nichts ferner als ein solcher Subjektivismus. Kants Vernunft ist eine durch und durch oeffentliche Vernunft, sie ist, wie er selbst sagt, existenziell angewiesen auf oeffentliches Rasonnement. Kant verwendet den Begriff "OEffentlichkeit", anders als das Adjektiv "oeffentlich", in seinem schriftlichen Werk zwar kein einziges Mal, die Funktion der OEffentlichkeit aber sieht er als fur sein Denken elementar an. Entscheidend dabei: OEffentlichkeit ist nicht nur eine Bedingung allen kritischen Vernunftgebrauchs, sondern gerade auch dessen Folge. Trager der Vernunft sind freie, empirische Individuen. Machen diese Individuen Gebrauch von ihrer oeffentlichen Vernunft, konstituieren sie bestimmte OEffentlichkeiten des Vernunftgebrauchs - namlich neben der politischen, die theoretische, die praktische und die asthetische OEffentlichkeit. Die vorliegende Arbeit geht dieser OEffentlichkeit der Vernunft unter anderem in den drei Kritiken nach - und zeigt dabei, wie eng insbesondere Kants theoretische Philosophie mit seinen politischen Schriften verbunden ist.