Despite our admiration for Renaissance achievement in the arts and sciences, in literature and classical learning, the rich and diversified philosophical thought of the period remains largely unknown. This volume illuminates three major currents of thought dominant in the earlier Italian Renaissance: classical humanism (Petrarch and Valla), Platonism (Ficino and Pico), and Aristotelianism (Pomponazzi). A short and elegant work of the Spaniard Vives is included to exhibit the diffusion of the ideas of humanism and Platonism outside Italy. Now made easily accessible, these texts recover for the English reader a significant facet of Renaissance learning.

2 ------------------------------------------------------- Scholastik erfahren haben, nicht wiedererkennen -- so wenig wie Aktaeon nach seiner Verwandlung in einen Hirsch von seinen Hunden erkannt wurde. 1) In diesem Urteil hat die neue geistige Bewegung des Humanis mus ihren Frieden mit Aristoteles geschlossen. An Stelle des Kampfes gegen ihn tritt die Forderung seiner sprachlich-geistigen Aneignung. Die Probleme, die hieraus erwuchsen, aber waren selbst eher philologischer als philosophischer Art. Eifrig wird jetzt erortert, ob der Begriff des Aristotelischen . . ' &YOt&ov - wie es in der Ubersetzung Leonardo Brunis geschehen war -- durch die Bezeichnung summum bonum oder durch die Bezeichnung des bonum ipsum wiederzugeben sei. An dem Streit um die Schreibung des Aristotelischen Begriffs der Entelechie (als ente lechia oder endelechia) und um die verschiedenen Deutungsmoglich keiten, die sich aus ihr ergeben, nehmen die bekanntesten Humanisten wie Filelfo, Angelo Poliziano u. and. teiJ. 2) Aber auch ausserhalb des engeren Kreises des Humanismus, -- auch dort, wo in dem neuen Bund nis, das Philosophie und Philologie jetzt eingehen, der Primat der ersteren anerkannt wird, kommt es in der Philosophie selbst zu keiner wahrhaft methodischen Erneuerung. Der Kampf um den Vorrang der Platonischen oder Aristotelischen Lehre, wie er in der zweiten Halfte des 15. Jahr hunderts gefuhrt wird, fuhrt nirgends in die Tiefe letzter prinzipieller Voraussetzungen zuruck. Der Massstab, in dessen Anwendung die beiden gegnerischen Parteien einig sind, liegt auch hier jenseits des systematisch philosophischen Bereichs in religiosen Voraussetzungen und in dog matischen Entscheidungen."

D'Ettore's book is one of the best monographs on this subject in at least the last fifty years, suitably elaborated with the most updated sources and secondary literature and with a true philosophical understanding that, together with a rigorously historical procedure, makes it particularly understandable and useful. It makes us better understand the importance of 'post-Thomasian' Thomism, when his disciples tried to solve a question to which Aquinas had not yet given any or very vague answers and when one has to choose between different texts of Thomas and develop those more sustainable positions with reasonable arguments and independent of his own authority.""-Angelicum ""Markedly valuable as an example of a luminous approach to complex issues, developing coherently all the important ideas and stages of the development of Aquinas' doctrine of analogy in the writings of Thomists. Recommended to all those who are interested in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas (in which analogy maintains a crucial role), in Thomism as such, or in the doctrine of analogy itself, which is still the cornerstone in metaphysics and natural theology when articulating the relationship between God, the world and creatures.""-European Journal for the Study of Thomas Aquinas ""D'Ettore teaches Thomists an important lesson: fidelity to the Thomist tradition is measured not by fidelity to the texts of Aquinas but to the pursuit of truth exhibited by Aquinas's enquiries. Before reading this book, I knew my nescience on analogy ran deep, I am grateful to D'Ettore for helping me sound how many fathoms deeper it is and for trailblazing a way through the tricky terrain of Thomist answers to analogical problems.""-Reviews in Religion and Theology

This new and updated edition of Christopher Shields and Robert Pasnau's The Philosophy of Aquinas introduces the Aquinas' overarching explanatory framework in order to provide the necessary background to his philosophical investigations across a wide range of areas: rational theology, metaphysics, philosophy of human nature, philosophy of mind, and ethical and political theory. Although not intended to provide a comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of Aquinas' far-reaching writings, the volume presents a systematic introduction to the principal areas of his philosophy and attends no less to Aquinas' methods and argumentative strategies than to his ultimate conclusions. The authors have updated the second edition in light of recent scholarship on Aquinas, while streamlining and refining their presentation of the key elements of Aquinas' philosophy.