The Renaissance is one of the most celebrated periods in European history. But when did it begin? When did it end? And what did it include? Traditionally regarded as a revival of classical art and learning, centred upon fifteenth-century Italy, views of the Renaissance have changed considerably in recent decades. The glories of Florence and the art of Raphael and Michelangelo remain an important element of the Renaissance story, but they are now only a part of a much wider story which looks beyond an exclusive focus on high culture, beyond the Italian peninsula, and beyond the fifteenth century. The Oxford Illustrated History of the Renaissance tells the cultural history of this broader and longer Renaissance: from seminal figures such as Dante and Giotto in thirteenth-century Italy, to the waning of Spain's 'golden age' in the 1630s, and the closure of the English theatres in 1642, the date generally taken to mark the end of the English literary Renaissance. Geographically, the story ranges from Spanish America to Renaissance Europe's encounter with the Ottomans-and far beyond, to the more distant cultures of China and Japan. And thematically, under Gordon Campbell's expert editorial guidance, the volume covers the whole gamut of Renaissance civilization, with chapters on humanism and the classical tradition; war and the state; religion; art and architecture; the performing arts; literature; craft and technology; science and medicine; and travel and cultural exchange.

This volume contains new translations of the essential philosophical writings of Thomas Aquinas from the Summa Theologiae and The Principles of Nature. The included texts represent the breadth of Aquinas's thought, addressing: the fundamental principles of nature; causality; the existence of God; how God can be known; how language can be used to describe God; human nature (including the nature of the soul, free will, and epistemology); happiness; ethics; and natural law. The goal of these translations is twofold: to allow Aquinas to speak for himself, but also to make his thought accessible to the contemporary reader without the burden of unnecessary adherence to convention. A thorough yet accessible introduction is included, as are a series of useful appendices connecting Aquinas's arguments to those of Anselm, Scotus, and others.

Italian Renaissance thought has been gaining ever-increasing recognition as seminal to the thought of the whole Renaissance period, affecting in many subtle ways the development and understanding of artistic, literary, scientific, and religious movements. The importance, then, of this detailed and careful survey of Italy's leading Renaissance philosophers and the intricate philosophical problems of the time can scarcely be exaggerated. Based upon the 1961 Arensberg Lectures, given at Stanford University, this collection of essays offers a genuinely unified interpretation of Italian Renaissance thought by describing and evaluating the philosophies of eight pivotal figures: Petrarch, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Pomponazzi, Telesio, Patrizi, and Bruno. The essays not only discuss the life, writings, and main ideas of these eight thinkers, but also establish through a connective text, the place each of them occupies in the general intellectual development of the Italian Renaissance.

Towards the end of his life, St. Thomas Aquinas produced a brief, non-technical work summarizing some of the main points of his massive Summa Theologiae. This 'compendium' was intended as an introductory handbook for students and scholars who might not have access to the larger work. It remains the best concise introduction to Aquinas's thought. Furthermore, it is extremely interesting to scholars because it represents Aquinas's last word on these topics. Aquinas does not break new ground or re-think earlier positions but often states them more directly and with greater precision than can be found elsewhere. There is only one available English translation of the Compendium (published as 'Aquinas's Shorter Summa: Saint Thomas's Own Concise Version of his Summa Theologiae, ' by Sophia Institute Press). It is published by a very small Catholic publishing house, is marketed to the devotional readership, contains no scholarly apparatus. Richard Regan is a highly respected Aquinas translator, who here relies on the definitive Leonine edition of the Latin text. His work will be received as the premier English version of this important text.

Contemplation, according to Thomas Aquinas, is the central goal of our life. This study considers the epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the contemplative act; the nature of the active and contemplative lives in light of Aquinas's Dominican calling; the role of faith, charity, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit in contemplation; and contemplation and the beatific vision. Rik Van Nieuwenhove argues that Aquinas espouses a profoundly intellective notion of contemplation in the strictly speculative sense, which culminates in a non-discursive moment of insight (intuitus simplex). In marked contrast to his contemporaries Aquinas therefore rejects a sapiential or affective brand of theology. He also employs a broader notion of contemplation, which can be enjoyed by all Christians, in which the gifts of the Holy Spirit are of central importance. Thomas Aquinas and Contemplation will appeal to readers interested in this key aspect of Aquinas's thought. Van Nieuwenhove provides a lucid account of central aspects of Aquinas's metaphysics, epistemology, theology, and spirituality. He also offers new insights into the nature of the theological discipline as Aquinas sees it, and how theology relates to philosophy.

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.

La naturaleza de la abstraccion ha sido uno de los topicos mas estudiados dentro de la historia del tomismo, donde se la ha interpretado como el termino especifico que designa el proceso intelectual segun el cual el hombre conoce una realidad inteligible partiendo desde los datos sensibles; o bien, mediante el cual capta determinadas caracteristicas de un objeto sin considerar otras. De un modo particular, la exegesis del siglo XX en adelante anadio sobre esta interpretacion un cariz particularmente epistemologico al colocar la abstraccion como la causa de la distincion de las ciencias especulativas y sus objetos. El presente libro tiene como objetivo demostrar que el termino posee en Tomas un significado mas amplio que el expuesto en tanto es tambien utilizado en numerosos casos para designar una propiedad de las esencias de las cosas. Esta abstraccion de las esencias resulta un elemento clave dentro del corpus metafisico del Aquinate ya que la operacion intelectual depende de ella como de su causa formal. De este modo, lo que queda expuesto es el sentido analogico que posee el termino abstractio en la obra de Tomas y sus implicancias. A su vez, este descubrimiento se vuelve relevante toda vez que las interpretaciones mas difundidas hasta el momento han puesto demasiado enfasis en la faz intelectual dificultando la interpretacion de algunos textos importantes. De esta manera, la obra constituye una pieza importante para avanzar en la comprension de un tema central en la filosofia tomasiana.

What had to happen so that the Middle Ages could come to pass? This book traces the transition from antiquity to the medieval period through the spiritual development of Augustine. The philosopher and rhetoriciana (TM)s change to priest, bishop, and, finally, church father gives a face and vivid story of lived philosophy to the decline of roman antiquity.

If Saint Thomas Aquinas was a great theologian, it is in no small part because he was a great philosopher. And he was a great philosopher because he was a great metaphysician. In the twentieth century, metaphysics was not much in vogue, among either theologians or even philosophers; but now it is making a comeback, and once the contours of Thomas's metaphysical vision are glimpsed, it looks like anything but a museum piece. It only needs some dusting off. Many are studying Thomas now for the answers that he might be able to give to current questions, but he is perhaps even more interesting for the questions that he can raise regarding current answers: about the physical world, about human life and knowledge, and (needless to say) about God. This book is aimed at helping those who are not experts in medieval thought to begin to enter into Thomas's philosophical point of view. Along the way, it brings out some aspects of his thought that are not often emphasised in the current literature, and it offers a reading of his teaching on the divine nature that goes rather against the drift of some prominent recent interpretations.

the "Third Humanism" is a term signifying the holistic, national pedagogical movement in reaction to the criticism of modernity in the legacy of Nietzsche. A new meaning for the present and a future "Germanness" was to arise on the basis of a vitalistically understood philhellenism or "Greekness" through the amalgamation of aesthetic, culture-critical and political considerations, conveyed through a humanistic paedeia. Due to its reference to the paradigms of the period around 1800, this "Third Humanism" is part of the reception history of Weimar classicism; due to its provision of possible links to Nazi educational policy it belongs to the mental prehistory of the "Third Reich."

This book investigates Aristotelian psychology through his works and commentaries on them, including De Sensu, De Memoria and De Somno et Vigilia. Authors present original research papers inviting readers to consider the provenance of Aristotelian ideas and interpretations of them, on topics ranging from reality to dreams and spirituality. Aristotle's doctrine of the 'common sense', his notion of transparency and the generation of colours are amongst the themes explored. Chapters are presented chronologically, enabling the reader to trace influences across the boundaries of linguistic traditions. Commentaries from historical figures featured in this work include those of Michael of Ephesus (c. 1120), Albert the Great and Gersonides' (1288-1344). Discoveries in 9th-century Arabic adaptations, Byzantine commentaries and Renaissance paraphrases of Aristotle's work are also presented. The editors' introduction outlines the main historical developments of the themes discussed, preparing the reader for the cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives presented in this work. Scholars of philosophy and psychology and those with an interest in Aristotelianism will highly value the original research that is presented in this work. The Introduction and Chapter 4 of this book are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

There are two great traditions of natural-kinds realism: the modern, instituted by Mill and elaborated by Venn, Peirce, Kripke, Putnam, Boyd, and others; and the ancient, instituted by Aristotle, elaborated by the "medieval" Aristotelians, and eventually overthrown by Galilean and Newtonian physicists, by Locke, Leibniz, and Kant, and by Darwin. Whereas the former tradition has lately received the close attention it deserves, the latter has not. The Aristotelian Tradition of Natural Kinds and its Demise is meant to fill this gap. The volume's theme is the emergence of Aristotle's account of species, what Schoolmen such as Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham did with this account, and the tacit if not explicit rejection of all such accounts in modern scientific theory. By tracing this history Stewart Umphrey shows that there have been not one but two relevant "scientific revolutions" or "paradigm shifts" in the history of natural philosophy. The first, brought about by Aristotle, may be viewed as a renewal of Presocratic natural philosophy in the light of Socrates's "second sailing" and his insistence that we attend to what is first for us. It features an eido-centric conception of living organisms and other enduring things, and strongly resists any reduction of physics to mathematics. The second revolution, brought about by seventeenth-century physics, features a nomo-centric view according to which what is fundamental in nature are not enduring individuals and their kinds, as we commonly suppose, but rather certain mathematizable relations among varying physical quantities. Umphrey examines and compares these two very different ways of understanding the natural order.

This edited volume presents new lines of research dealing with the language of thought and its philosophical implications in the time of Ockham. It features more than 20 essays that also serve as a tribute to the ground-breaking work of a leading expert in late medieval philosophy: Claude Panaccio. Coverage addresses topics in the philosophy of mind and cognition (externalism, mental causation, resemblance, habits, sensory awareness, the psychology, illusion, representationalism), concepts (universal, transcendental, identity, syncategorematic), logic and language (definitions, syllogisms, modality, supposition, obligationes, etc.), action theory (belief, will, action), and more. A distinctive feature of this work is that it brings together contributions in both French and English, the two major research languages today on the main theme in question. It unites the most renowned specialists in the field as well as many of Claude Panaccio's former students who have engaged with his work over the years. In furthering this dialogue, the essays render key topics in fourteenth-century thought accessible to the contemporary philosophical community without being anachronistic or insensitive to the particularities of the medieval context. As a result, this book will appeal to a general population of philosophers and historians of philosophy with an interest in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and metaphysics.

"Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity" was intended to be the first volume of a four-part series of books covering the history of primitivism and related ideas, but the outbreak of World War II, and, later, Lovejoy's death, prevented the other books from being published as originally conceived by the two authors. A documentary and analytical record, the book presents the classical background of primitivism and anti-primitivism in modern literature, historiography, and social and moral philosophy, and comprises chapters that center around particular ancient concepts and authors, including cynicism, stoicism, epicureanism, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, and Cicero. According to the authors in their preface, "there is some reason to think that this background is not universally familiar to those whose special field of study lie within the period of the Renaissance to our own time"; this book, in which the original Greek and Latin sources stand side by side with their English translations, will prove useful to scholars from a variety of disciplines who study this period.

This monograph details a new solution to an old problem of metaphysics. It presents an improved version of Ostrich Nominalism to solve the Problem of Universals. This innovative approach allows one to resolve the different formulations of the Problem, which represents an important meta-metaphysical achievement.In order to accomplish this ambitious task, the author appeals to the notion and logic of ontological grounding. Instead of defending Quine's original principle of ontological commitment, he proposes the principle of grounded ontological commitment. This represents an entirely new application of grounding. Some metaphysicians regard Ostrich Nominalism as a rejection of the problem rather than a proper solution to it. To counter this, the author presents solutions for each of the formulations. These include: the problem of predication, the problem of abstract reference, and the One Over Many as well as the Many Over One and the Similar but Different variants. This book will appeal to anyone interested in contemporary metaphysics. It will also serve as an ideal resource to scholars working on the history of philosophy. Many will recognize in the solution insights resembling those of traditional philosophers, especially of the Middle Ages.

It is a commonly held assumption among cultural, social, and political psychologists that imagining the future of societies we live in has the potential to change how we think and act in the world. However little research has been devoted to whether this effect exists in collective imaginations, of social groups, communities and nations, for instance. This book explores the part that imagination and creativity play in the construction of collective futures, and the diversity of outlets in which these are presented, from fiction and cultural symbols to science and technology. The authors discuss this effect in social phenomena such as in intergroup conflict and social change, and focus on several cases studies to illustrate how the imagination of collective futures can guide social and political action. This book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from cultural, social, and political psychology to offer insight into our constant (re)imagination of the societies in which we live.

In discussions of the works of Donne, Milton, Marvell, and Bunyan, Early Modern Asceticism shows how conflicting approaches to asceticism animate depictions of sexuality, subjectivity, and embodiment in early modern literature and religion. The book challenges the perception that the Renaissance marks a decisive shift in attitudes towards the body, sex, and the self. In early modernity, self-respect was a Satanic impulse that had to be annihilated - the body was not celebrated, but beaten into subjection - and, feeling circumscribed by sexual desire, ascetics found relief in pain, solitude, and deformity. On the basis of this austerity, Early Modern Asceticism questions the ease with which scholarship often elides the early and the modern.

This volume features essays that explore the insights of the 14th-century Parisian nominalist philosopher, John Buridan. It serves as a companion to the Latin text edition and annotated English translation of his question-commentary on Aristotle's On the Soul. The contributors survey Buridan's work both in its own historical-theoretical context and in relation to contemporary issues. The essays come in three main sections, which correspond to the three books of Buridan's Questions. Coverage first deals with the classification of the science of the soul within the system of Aristotelian sciences, and surveys the main issues within it. The next section examines the metaphysics of the soul. It considers Buridan's peculiar version of Aristotelian hylomorphism in dealing with the problem of what kind of entity the soul (in particular, the human soul) is, and what powers and actions it has, on the basis of which we can approach the question of its essence. The volume concludes with a look at Buridan's doctrine of the nature and functions of the human intellect. Coverage in this section includes the problem of self-knowledge in Buridan's theory, Buridan's answer to the traditional medieval problem concerning the primary object of the intellect, and his unique treatment of logical problems in psychological contexts.

This book examines William Langland's late medieval poem, The Vision of Piers Plowman, in light of contemporary intellectual thought. David Strong argues that where the philosophers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham revolutionize the view of human potential through their theories of epistemology, ethics, and freedom of the will, Langland vivifies these ideas by contextualizing them in an individual's search for truth and love. Specifically, the text ponders the intersection between reason and the will in expressing love. While scholars have consistently noted the text's indebtedness to these higher strains of thought, this is the first book-length study in over thirty years that explores the depth of this interconnection, and the only one that considers the salience of both Scotus and Ockham. It is essential reading for medieval literary specialists and students as well as any cultural historian who desires to augment their knowledge of truth and love.

This book argues that Levi Gersonides articulates a unique model of virtue ethics among medieval Jewish thinkers. Gersonides is recognized by scholars as one of the most innovative Jewish philosophers of the medieval period. His first model of virtue is a response to the seemingly capricious forces of luck through training in endeavor, diligence, and cunning aimed at physical self-preservation. His second model of virtue is altruistic in nature. It is based on the human imitation of God as creator of the laws of the universe for no self-interested benefit, leading humans to imitate God through the virtues of loving-kindness, grace, and beneficence. Both these models are amplified through the institutions of the kingship and the priesthood, which serve to actualize physical preservation and beneficence on a larger scale, amounting to recognition of the political necessity for a division of powers.