'It remains astonishingly radical ... one of Utopia's most striking aspects is its contemporaniety' Terry Eagleton In Utopia, Thomas More gives us a traveller's account of a newly-discovered island where the inhabitants enjoy a social order based on natural reason and justice, and human fulfilment is open to all. As the traveller describes the island, a bitter contrast is drawn between this rational society and the practices of Europe. How can the philosopher reform his society? In his discussion, More takes up a question first raised by Plato and which is still a challenge in the contemporary world. In the history of political thought few works have been more influential than Utopia, and few more misunderstood. Translated and introduced by Dominic Baker-Smith

Global Justice and the Mind of Our Epoch explores the mind of our epoch, defined as the period since the Nuremberg Trial and the establishment of the United Nations in 1945. Xunwu Chen examines four defining ideas of this epoch—global justice, cosmopolitanism, crimes against humanity, and cultural toleration—as well as the relationships among these ideas. Chen argues that the mind of our epoch is the mind of humanity. Its world view, horizon, standpoint, norms, standards, and vocabularies are all embodied in human institutions and practices throughout the globe. Furthermore, our epochal mind has a dialectical relationship with particular cultures and peoples, bearing normative force. As a metaphysical subjectivity and substance, humanity is the source of all human values and defines what can and should be human values and virtues. Humankind, therefore, is a people with socio-political and legal sovereignty, sharing a common fate. This novel study brings a cross-cultural approach and will be of great interest to students and scholars of philosophy, political science, sociology, and the humanities more broadly.

While Spinoza is often interpreted as an early secular or liberal thinker, this book argues that such interpretations neglect the senses of order and authority that are at the heart of Spinoza's idea of God. For Spinoza, God is an organized and directed totality of all that exists. God is entirely immanent to this totality, to such an extent that all things are fundamentally of God. Appreciating the full extent to which God permeates and orders every aspect of reality, allows the full sense of Spinoza's theories of tolerance and the social contract to come into view. Rather than assuming that human beings involved in political relationships are independent, autonomous individuals, for Spinoza they are parts of a larger whole subject to distinct natural laws. Spinoza maintains that such laws manifest themselves equally and identically in the seemingly distinct realms of religion and politics. In this respect, Spinoza's theories of religion and biblical interpretation are not properly secular in character but rather blur the standard boundary between the religious and the political as they try to recognize and codify the inviolable laws of nature - or God.

The letters of Heloise and Abelard will remain one of the great, romantic and intellectual documents of human civilization while they, themselves, are probably second only to Romeo and Juliet in the fame accrued by tragic lovers. Here for the first time in Mart Martin McLaughlin's edition is the complete correspendence with commentary.

Following a scholarly account of Thomas Aquinas's life, Davies explores his purposes in writing the Summa Theologiae and works systematically through each of its three Parts. He also relates their contents and Aquinas's teachings to those of other works and other thinkers both theological and philosophical. The concluding chapter considers the impact Aquinas's best-known work has exerted since its first appearance, and why it is still studied today. Intended for students and general readers interested in medieval philosophy and theology, Davies's study is a solid and reflective introduction both to the Summa Theologiae and to Aquinas in general.

Thomas Aquinas (1224/6-1274) lived an active, demanding academic and ecclesiastical life that ended while he was still comparatively young. He nonetheless produced many works, varying in length from a few pages to a few volumes. The present book is an introduction to this influential author and a guide to his thought on almost all the major topics on which he wrote. The book begins with an account of Aquinas's life and works. The next section contains a series of essays that set Aquinas in his intellectual context. They focus on the philosophical sources that are likely to have influenced his thinking, the most prominent of which were certain Greek philosophers (chiefly Aristotle), Latin Christian writers (such as Augustine), and Jewish and Islamic authors (such as Maimonides and Avicenna). The subsequent sections of the book address topics that Aquinas himself discussed. These include metaphysics, the existence and nature of God, ethics and action theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind and human nature, the nature of language, and an array of theological topics, including Trinity, Incarnation, sacraments, resurrection, and the problem of evil, among others. These sections include more than thirty contributions on topics central to Aquinas's own worldview. The final sections of the volume address the development of Aquinas's thought and its historical influence. Any attempt to present the views of a philosopher in an earlier historical period that is meant to foster reflection on that thinker's views needs to be both historically faithful and also philosophically engaged. The present book combines both exposition and evaluation insofar as its contributors have space to engage in both. This Handbook is therefore meant to be useful to someone wanting to learn about Aquinas's philosophy and theology while also looking for help in philosophical interaction with it.

This is an exploration and analysis of Aquinas's contribution to the philosophy of religion. It examines Aquinas's contexts, his views on philosophy and theology, as well as faith and reason. His arguments for God's existence, responses to objections against God's existence and his characterization of the nature of God are examined.

Die Studie, im Sinne der Intellectual History angelegt, rekonstruiert und dokumentiert den originaren wie konzeptionellen Beitrag Leo Loewenthals zur fruhen Kritischen Theorie, wie sie in den 1930er Jahren von den engsten Mitarbeitern des Instituts fur Sozialforschung - Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Friedrich Pollock und Walter Benjamin - entwickelt und in der Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung publiziert wurde. Als verantwortlicher Schriftleiter der Zeitschrift sicherte Loewenthal dem hier gebotenen Forum fur kritische Sozialforschung den Fortbestand auch in politisch schwierigen Zeiten. Diese besondere Rolle Loewenthals schmalert nicht die Bedeutung seiner theoretischen Beitrage zur Zeitschrift fur Sozialforschung, stehen sie doch in enger inhaltlicher Beziehung zu den Arbeiten der anderen Institutsmitglieder und waren wie diese fur die Entwicklung der Kritischen Theorie unentbehrlich.

This book critically explores the development of radical criminological thought through the social, political and cultural history of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It follows on from the previous volume which examined Classical Greece until the emergence of the early Christian movement in the Roman empire. Through separate chapters, it discusses the key literature (myths, fairy tales and Shakespeare), religions and philosophers of the era, and the development of early radical views and issues over time. This book examines the links between the origins of radical criminology and its future. It speaks to those interested in the (pre)history of criminology and the historical production of criminological knowledge, drawing on Criminology, Sociology, Classics, History, Philosophy, Ancient Literature and Politics.

Philosophy Bites Back is the second book to come out of the hugely successful podcast Philosophy Bites. It presents a selection of lively interviews with leading philosophers of our time, who discuss the ideas and works of some of the most important thinkers in history. From the ancient classics of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, to the groundbreaking modern thought of Wittgenstein, Rawls, and Derrida, this volume spans over two and a half millennia of western philosophy and illuminates its most fascinating ideas. Philosophy Bites was set up in 2007 by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton. It has had over 12 million downloads, and is listened to all over the world.

Die Beitrage dieses Bandes richten einen umfassenden, interdisziplinaren Blick auf das Thema des Rationalen und des Irrationalen im deutschen Sprachraum. Um dem Phanomen naher zu kommen, werden die Ausdrucksformen dieses Begriffspaares vom Mittelalter bis in die Gegenwart pluriperspektivisch herausgearbeitet. Bemerkenswert ist die allgegenwartige Aktualitat des Themas sowie dessen Vielfalt an Facetten, Bedeutungen und Auswirkungen. Dabei fungiert das irrational Erscheinende oft als dasjenige Element, das die Existenz des Rationalen uberhaupt erst ermoeglicht. Dieses von Nachwuchswissenschaftlern getragene und herausgegebene Projekt geht zuruck auf einen deutsch-franzoesischen Workshop, der 2010 an der Universitat Strassburg stattgefunden hat und die Wechselbeziehungen von Rationalitat und Irrationalitat zum Thema hatte. Der vorliegende Band wird durch weitere Beitrage zu diesem Thema erganzt.

Der Sentenzenkommentar des Durandus von St. Pourcain nimmt, was seine Originalitat und seine Bedeutung fur die philosophische und theologische Mediavistik angeht, eine herausragende Stellung unter den Sentenzenkommentaren des 14. Jahrhunderts ein. Zum einen ist er ein einzigartiges Dokument fur die Debatten vor allem innerhalb des Dominikanerordens um die Bedeutung des Thomas von Aquin und die Verbindlichkeit seiner Lehrmeinungen fur den Orden. Zum anderen steht der Sentenzenkommentar des Durandus fur die wachsende Bedeutung, die dieses Genre am Ende des 13. und zu Beginn des 14. Jahrhunderts wiedererlangt. Von einem Pflichtstuck am Beginn der akademischen Karriere wie etwa bei Thomas von Aquin wird der Sentenzenkommentar nun zu einer wichtigen Schriftgattung eines Magisters der Theologie, die ihn seine ganze akademische Karriere uber begleitet. Buch IV, Distinktionen 26-42 Die Distinktionen 26-42 des vierten Buches enthalten die Ehelehre des Durandus. Der Dominikanertheologe behandelt hier eine Fulle von Themen, darunter den Ehekonsens als konstitutiven Akt der Ehe, die Marienehe, die Eheguterlehre und damit verbunden die Sittlichkeit des ehelichen Aktes sowie schliesslich das breite Feld der Ehehindernisse (impedimenta matrimonii). Theologiegeschichtlich besonders beachtenswert sind seine Ausfuhrungen zur Sakramentalitat der Ehe und insbesondere zur Polygamie. Durandus bietet hier eine Sonderlehre, die nicht nur von Thomas von Aquin, sondern von der gesamten zeitgenoessischen theologischen communis doctrina abweicht. Der Ehetraktat des durandischen Sentenzenkommentars ist in drei Redaktionen uberliefert, von denen die erste und zweite Redaktion hier erstmals in kritischer Edition vorgelegt werden.

Robert Pasnau traces the developments of metaphysical thinking through four rich but for the most part neglected centuries of philosophy, running from the thirteenth century through to the seventeenth. At no period in the history of philosophy, other than perhaps our own, have metaphysical problems received the sort of sustained attention they received during the later Middle Ages, and never has a whole philosophical tradition come crashing down as quickly and completely as did scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth century. The thirty chapters work through various fundamental metaphysical issues, sometimes focusing more on scholastic thought, sometimes on the seventeenth century. Pasnau begins with the first challenges to the classical scholasticism of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, runs through prominent figures like John Duns Scotus and William Ockham, and ends in the seventeenth century, with the end of the first stage of developments in post-scholastic philosophy: on the continent, with Descartes and Gassendi, and in England, with Boyle and Locke.

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of medieval philosophy--does justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy.

This anthology provides a set of distinctive, influential views that explore the mysteries of human nature from a variety of perspectives. It can be read on its own, or in conjunction with Joel Kupperman's text, Theories of Human Nature .

Our world s cultural circles are permeated by the philosophical influences of existentialism and phenomenology. Two contemporary quests to elucidate rationality took their inspirations from Kierkegaard s existentialism plumbing the subterranean source of subjective experience and Husserl s phenomenology focusing on the constitutive aspect of rationality. Yet, both contrary directions mingled readily in common vindication of full reality.

In the inquisitive minds (Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Stein, Merleau-Ponty, et al.), a fruitful cross-pollination of insights, ideas, approaches, fused in one powerful wave disseminating throughout all domains of thought.

Existentialist rejection of ratiocination and speculation together with Husserl s shift to the genesis of rapproches philosophy and literature (Wahl, Marcel, Berdyaev, Wojtyla, Tischner, etc.), while the foundational underpinnings of language (Wittgenstein, Derrida, etc.) opened the "hidden" behind the "veils" (Sezgin and Dominguez-Rey)."

Die Beachtung, welche die Gattung Moralische Wochenschrift bisher erfahren hat und aktuell erhalt, entspricht bei Weitem nicht ihrem tatsachlichen Stellenwert in der Aufklarungsepoche als Multiplikator und Katalysator aufklarerischer Ideen und Schreibweisen. Die 19 Beitrage dieses Bandes untersuchen exemplarisch bekanntere und bislang weitgehend unerforschte Moralische Wochenschriften sowie ihnen nahe stehende Periodika aus der Zeit zwischen 1720 und 1790. Die Aufsatze werfen nicht nur ein neues Licht auf die anthropologische, philosophische, theologische, padagogische, politische und asthetische Positionierung der Zeitschriften innerhalb der Aufklarungsepoche, sondern zeigen auch ihre narrativen Verfahren, ihr Verhaltnis zur literarisch-kulturellen Tradition und zu den regionalen Spezifika ihres Erscheinungsumfelds auf. Zudem machen sie auf Desiderate der Wochenschriftenforschung und auf die Unhaltbarkeit weit verbreiteter Vorurteile gegenuber der Gattung aufmerksam. Der Band dokumentiert die Ergebnisse einer im Herbst 2011 an der Universitat Heidelberg veranstalteten Tagung.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit and specialist in the history of philosophy, first created his history as an introduction for Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries. However, since its first publication (the last volume appearing in the mid-1970s) the series has become the classic account for all philosophy scholars and students. The 11-volume series gives an accessible account of each philosopher's work, but also explains their relationship to the work of other philosophers.

The third volume of The Hackett Aquinas, a series of central philosophical treatises of Aquinas in new, state-of-the-art translations accompanied by a thorough commentary on the text.

St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, is one of the central figures in the history of Christianity, and City of God is one of his greatest theological works. Written as an eloquent defence of the faith at a time when the Roman Empire was on the brink of collapse, it examines the ancient pagan religions of Rome, the arguments of the Greek philosophers and the revelations of the Bible. Pointing the way forward to a citizenship that transcends worldly politics and will last for eternity, City of God represents a dramatic turning point in the unfolding of Christian doctrine.

The new introduction by Gill Evans examines the text in the light of contemporary Greek and Roman thought and political change. It demonstrates the importance of religious and literary influences on St. Augustine and his significance as a Christian thinker.Includes new introduction, chronology, and bibliography