This monumental, line-by-line commentary makes Thomas Aquinas's classic Treatise on Happiness and Ultimate Purpose accessible to all readers. Budziszewski illuminates arguments that even specialists find challenging: What is happiness? Is it something that we have, feel, or do? Does it lie in such things as wealth, power, fame, having friends, or knowing God? Can it actually be attained? This book's luminous prose makes Aquinas's treatise transparent, bringing to light profound underlying issues concerning knowledge, meaning, human psychology, and even the nature of reality.

By exploring the philosophical character of some of the greatest medieval thinkers, An Introduction to Medieval Philosophy provides a rich overview of philosophy in the world of Latin Christianity. Explores the deeply philosophical character of such medieval thinkers as Augustine, Boethius, Eriugena, Anselm, Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, and Ockham Reviews the central features of the epistemological and metaphysical problem of universals Shows how medieval authors adapted philosophical ideas from antiquity to apply to their religious commitments Takes a broad philosophical approach of the medieval era by,taking account of classical metaphysics, general culture, and religious themes

This comprehensive reference volume features essays by some of the most distinguished scholars in the field.
Provides a comprehensive "who's who" guide to medieval philosophers.
Offers a refreshing mix of essays providing historical context followed by 140 alphabetically arranged entries on individual thinkers.
Constitutes an extensively cross-referenced and indexed source.
Written by a distinguished cast of philosophers.
Spans the history of medieval philosophy from the fourth century AD to the fifteenth century.

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.

Janet Coleman's two volume history of European political theorizing, from the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance is the introduction which many have been waiting for. It treats some of the most influential writers who have been considered by educated Europeans down the centuries to have helped to construct their identity, their shared "languages of politics" about the principles and practices of good government, and the history of European philosophy. It seeks to uncover and reconstruct the emergence of the "state" and the various European political theories which justified it.

This volume continues the story by focusing on medieval and Renaissance thinkers and includes extensive discussion of the practices that underpinned medieval political theories and which continued to play crucial roles in the eventual development of early-modern political institutions and debates. Throughout the author draws on recent scholarly commentaries written by specialists in philosophy, contemporary political theory, and on medieval and Renaissance history and theology. She shows that the medieval and Renaissance theorists' arguments can be seen as logical and coherent if we can grasp the questions they thought it important to answer. Janet Coleman strikes a balance between trying to understand the philosophical cogency of medieval and Renaissance arguments on the one hand, and on the other, elucidating why historically-situated medieval and Renaissance thinkers, respectively, thought the ways they did about politics; and why we often think otherwise.

The volume will meet the needs of students of philosophy, history and politics, proving to be an indispensable secondary source which aims tosituate, explain, and provoke thought about the major works of political theory likely to be encountered by students of this period and beyond.

This is the second of the three volumes comprising "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe." Focusing on the period from c.1090 to 1212, the volume explores the lives, resources and contributions of a wide sample of scholars and others who either took part in the creation of the scholastic system of thought or gave practical effect to it in public life.

At the beginning of the twelfth century a group of scholars, mostly centred on Paris and Bologna began an enterprise of unprecedented scope. Their intention was to produce a once-and-for-all body of knowledge that would be as perfect as humanity's fallen state permits, and which would provide a view of God, nature, and human conduct, promoting order in this world and blessedness in the next. "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe" reconsiders this enterprise, and its long-term effects on European history.

The first of the three volumes examines the origins of the intellectual enterprise from around 1060 AD. This second volume focuses on the period during which scholars developed the fully-fledged method of absorbing, elaborating, Christianizing and systematizing the whole intellectual deposit of the Greco-Roman past to produce a complete body of doctrine about both the natural and supernatural worlds which would be not only rationally unassailable and doctrinally coherent, but also capable of being given practical application in organizing and governing the whole of western Christendom.

The book discusses the contributions of individual masters involved in the intellectual project, tracing the progress of the enterprise from its scholastic origins under Anselm of Laon, to the main masters in the schools ofParis during the 1090s to c.1160, including men such as Peter Lombard, Peter Abelard, John of Salisbury and the two Peters of Blois. These scholars created a crucial bond between the schools and organized life of European society. The men educated in the great schools during this time brought their scholastic learning to governmental aims and activities, extending the influence of the schools and their intellectual project to the wider world.

Elegantly written, enlivened with wit and vivid anecdote, "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe" will be a work of seminal importance for the understanding of the civilization of the Middle Ages, and of the evolution of modern European societies.

In this classic work, Frederick C. Copleston, S.J., outlines the development of philosophical reflection in Christian, Islamic, and Jewish thought from the ancient world to the late medieval period. A History of Medieval Philosophy is an invaluable general introduction that also includes longer treatments of such leading thinkers as Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham.

The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781351116022, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 licence. DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351116022 Published with the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation. This volume is an investigation of how Augustine was received in the Carolingian period, and the elements of his thought which had an impact on Carolingian ideas of 'state', rulership and ethics. It focuses on Alcuin of York and Hincmar of Rheims, authors and political advisers to Charlemagne and to Charles the Bald, respectively. It examines how they used Augustinian political thought and ethics, as manifested in the De civitate Dei, to give more weight to their advice. A comparative approach sheds light on the differences between Charlemagne's reign and that of his grandson. It scrutinizes Alcuin's and Hincmar's discussions of empire, rulership and the moral conduct of political agents during which both drew on the De civitate Dei, although each came away with a different understanding. By means of a philological-historical approach, the book offers a deeper reading and treats the Latin texts as political discourses defined by content and language.

Michael Clanchy introduces the reader to medieval life through the experience of Peter Abelard, the master of the Paris schools whose career included seducing Heloise (his student), being castrated, accused of treason, condemned as a heretic (twice) as well as writing his memoirs - his "story of calamities."

Because Abelard touched so many aspects of life, this book is structured naturally around the roles he played. The author describes in vivid and concrete terms what it meant in the twelfth century to be a famous scientist (the master of Latin, logic and philosophy), then a dedicated monk and pioneer of the discipline of theology - and yet one who was at various times a wandering scholar, courtier and jester. The author's many new findings include the discovery that it was Heloise who inspired many of Abelard's most profound ideas. "She" educated "him: " up to now historians have assumed it to be the other way round.

This, the first biography of Abelard for over 30 years, combines the most recent international research with a re-reading of the sources line by line.

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.

Written and edited by leading scholars in the field, this collection explores Aquinas' continuing relevance to contemporary theology and his ability to enlighten inter- and intra-faith dialogue.
Explores Aquinas' continuing relevance to contemporary theology.
Looks at how Aquinas illuminates dialogue both among Christians and between Christians and non-Christians today.
Written by both scholars of Aquinas and those who are actively involved in ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue.
Topics range from Aquinas and Eastern Orthodoxy to Aquinas and atheism.
Helps us to think rigorously about what is required to speak truthfully to people with different beliefs.

Written by the great medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed attempts to explain the perplexities of biblical language-and apparent inconsistencies in the text-in the light of philosophy and scientific reason. Composed as a letter to a student, The Guide aims to harmonize Aristotelian principles with the Hebrew Bible and argues that God must be understood as both unified and incorporeal. Engaging both contemporary and ancient scholars, Maimonides fluidly moves from cosmology to the problem of evil to the end goal of human happiness. His intellectual breadth and openness makes The Guide a lasting model of creative synthesis in biblical studies and philosophical theology.

In this volume leading contemporary philosophical historians of the Renaissance and Early Modern periods examine the works of important figures of the fifteenth through the eighteenth century. While "Midwest Studies in Philosophy" has produced other volumes devoted to historical periods in philosophy, this is the first to offer such extensive and focused original materials on specific crucial figures as this volume. Original papers by twenty contemporary philosophers writing about the works of the major philosophers of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth centuriesThis historically and philosophically broad collection extends from such fifteenth century figures as Ficino, Machiavelli, and Pompanazzi to the work of Montesquieu in the eighteenth century

This volume contains selections of Ockham's philosophical writings which give a balanced introductory view of his work in logic, metaphysics, and ethics. This edition includes textual markings referring readers to appendices containing changes in the Latin text and alterations found in the English translation that have been made necessary by the critical edition of Ockham's work published after Boehner prepared the original text. The updated bibliography includes the most important scholarship produced since publication of the original edition.

The "Platonic Theology" is a visionary work and the philosophical masterpiece of Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus who was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato.

A student of the Neoplatonic schools of Plotinus and Proclus, he was committed to reconciling Platonism with Christianity, in the hope that such a reconciliation would initiate a spiritual revival and return of the golden age. His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his "Platonic Theology," translated into English for the first time in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance.

This is the second of the three volumes comprising "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe." Focusing on the period from c.1090 to 1212, the volume explores the lives, resources and contributions of a wide sample of scholars and others who either took part in the creation of the scholastic system of thought or gave practical effect to it in public life.

At the beginning of the twelfth century a group of scholars, mostly centred on Paris and Bologna began an enterprise of unprecedented scope. Their intention was to produce a once-and-for-all body of knowledge that would be as perfect as humanity's fallen state permits, and which would provide a view of God, nature, and human conduct, promoting order in this world and blessedness in the next. "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe" reconsiders this enterprise, and its long-term effects on European history.

The first of the three volumes examines the origins of the intellectual enterprise from around 1060 AD. This second volume focuses on the period during which scholars developed the fully-fledged method of absorbing, elaborating, Christianizing and systematizing the whole intellectual deposit of the Greco-Roman past to produce a complete body of doctrine about both the natural and supernatural worlds which would be not only rationally unassailable and doctrinally coherent, but also capable of being given practical application in organizing and governing the whole of western Christendom.

The book discusses the contributions of individual masters involved in the intellectual project, tracing the progress of the enterprise from its scholastic origins under Anselm of Laon, to the main masters in the schools ofParis during the 1090s to c.1160, including men such as Peter Lombard, Peter Abelard, John of Salisbury and the two Peters of Blois. These scholars created a crucial bond between the schools and organized life of European society. The men educated in the great schools during this time brought their scholastic learning to governmental aims and activities, extending the influence of the schools and their intellectual project to the wider world.

Elegantly written, enlivened with wit and vivid anecdote, "Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe" will be a work of seminal importance for the understanding of the civilization of the Middle Ages, and of the evolution of modern European societies.

The whole work will be in three volumes . This first volume explores the social, intellectual, and political conditions behind the establishment of the new system in the great schools of learning in France and Italy, and the rewards that attracted experts who could both administer the system and make it known and acceptable to the generality of people whose lives were affected by it.

Janet Coleman's two volume history of European political theorizing, from the ancient Greeks to the Renaissance is the introduction which many have been waiting for. It treats some of the most influential writers who have been considered by educated Europeans down the centuries to have helped to construct their identity, their shared "languages of politics" about the principles and practices of good government, and the history of European philosophy. It seeks to uncover and reconstruct the emergence of the "state" and the various European political theories which justified it.

This volume continues the story by focusing on medieval and Renaissance thinkers and includes extensive discussion of the practices that underpinned medieval political theories and which continued to play crucial roles in the eventual development of early-modern political institutions and debates. Throughout the author draws on recent scholarly commentaries written by specialists in philosophy, contemporary political theory, and on medieval and Renaissance history and theology. She shows that the medieval and Renaissance theorists' arguments can be seen as logical and coherent if we can grasp the questions they thought it important to answer. Janet Coleman strikes a balance between trying to understand the philosophical cogency of medieval and Renaissance arguments on the one hand, and on the other, elucidating why historically-situated medieval and Renaissance thinkers, respectively, thought the ways they did about politics; and why we often think otherwise.

The volume will meet the needs of students of philosophy, history and politics, proving to be an indispensable secondary source which aims tosituate, explain, and provoke thought about the major works of political theory likely to be encountered by students of this period and beyond.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the key themes in Greek and Roman science, medicine, mathematics and technology. A distinguished team of specialists engage with topics including the role of observation and experiment, Presocratic natural philosophy, ancient creationism, and the special style of ancient Greek mathematical texts, while several chapters confront key questions in the philosophy of science such as the relationship between evidence and explanation. The volume will spark renewed discussion about the character of 'ancient' versus 'modern' science, and will broaden readers' understanding of the rich traditions of ancient Greco-Roman natural philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics.

Unfolding as a series of materially oriented studies ranging from chairs, machines and doors to trees, animals and food, this book retells the story of Renaissance personhood as one of material relations and embodied experience, rather than of emergent notions of individuality and freedom. The book assembles an international team of leading scholars to formulate a new account of personhood in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one that starts with the objects, environments and physical processes that made personhood legible.

The early medieval Scottish philosopher and theologian John Duns Scotus shook traditional doctrines of universality and particularity by arguing for a metaphysics of 'formal distinction'. Why did the nineteenth-century poet and self-styled philosopher Gerard Manley Hopkins find this revolutionary teaching so appealing? John Llewelyn answers this question by casting light on various neologisms introduced by Hopkins and reveals how Hopkins endorses Scotus claim that being and existence are grounded in doing and willing. Drawing on modern responses to Scotus made by Heidegger, Peirce, Arendt, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, Derrida and Deleuze, Llewelyn's own response shows by way of bonus why it would be a pity to suppose that the rewards of reading Scotus and Hopkins are available only to those who share their theological presuppositions.

The idea that there once existed a language which perfectly and unambiguously expressed the essence of all possible things and concepts has occupied the minds of philosophers, theologians, mystics and others for at least two millennia. This is an investigation into the history of that idea and of its profound influence on European thought, culture and history.

From the early Dark Ages to the Renaissance it was widely believed that the language spoken in the Garden of Eden was just such a language, and that all current languages were its decadent descendants from the catastrophe of the Fall and at Babel. The recovery of that language would, for theologians, express the nature of divinity, for cabbalists allow access to hidden knowledge and power, and for philosophers reveal the nature of truth. Versions of these ideas remained current in the Enlightenment, and have recently received fresh impetus in attempts to create a natural language for artificial intelligence.

The story that Umberto Eco tells ranges widely from the writings of Augustine, Dante, Descartes and Rousseau, arcane treatises on cabbalism and magic, to the history of the study of language and its origins. He demonstrates the initimate relation between language and identity and describes, for example, how and why the Irish, English, Germans and Swedes - one of whom presented God talking in Swedish to Adam, who replied in Danish, while the serpent tempted Eve in French - have variously claimed their language as closest to the original. He also shows how the late eighteenth-century discovery of a proto-language (Indo-European) for the Aryan peoples was perverted to support notions of racial superiority.

To this subtle exposition of a history of extraordinary complexity, Umberto Eco links the associated history of the manner in which the sounds of language and concepts have been written and symbolized. Lucidly and wittily written, the book is, in sum, a" tour de force" of scholarly detection and cultural interpretation, providing a series of original perspectives on two thousand years of European History.

The paperback edition of this book is not available through Blackwell outside of North America.

At the beginning of the twelfth century a group of scholars, mainly centred on Paris and Bologna, began an enterprise of unprecedented scope. Their intention was to produce a once-and-for-all body of knowledge that would be as perfect as humanity's fallen state permits, and which would provide a view of God, nature, and human conduct, promoting order in this world and blessedness in the next. Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe reconsiders this enterprise, and its long-term effects on European History. It describes the creative intellectual impulse that brought it into being and sustained it for two centuries, and shows how it was able to bring into existence a systematic body of knowledge of the natural and supernatural worlds, including the whole area of human relations, which together embraced all areas of possible truth and defined the conduct required of all members of western Christendom. The whole work will be in three volumes. This first is concerned with the beginnings, in the years between 1060 and 1160, when the main lines of scholastic thought were laid down and its agenda established. It examines the intellectual principles of enquiry and the sources used in developing the whole field of assured knowledge. It seeks to provide an understanding of the new outlook on the world, the supernatural and an organized Christian society, and to show why this proved so powerful and so attractive to the time. The book explores the social, intellectual, and political developments that provided the conditions to create the new system in the great schools of learning in France and Italy, and the rewards that attracted experts who could both administer the system and make it known and acceptable to the generality of people whose lives were affected by it. Elegantly written, enlivened with wit and vivid anecdote, Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe will be a work of seminal importance for the understanding of the civilization of the Middle Ages, and of the evolution of modern European societies.

The act of eating is a basic human need. Yet in all societies, quotidian choices regarding food and its consumption reveal deeply rooted shared cultural conventions. Food goes beyond issues relating to biological needs and nutrition or production and commerce; it also reveals social and cultural criteria that determine what dishes are prepared on what occasions, and it unveils the politics of the table via the rituals associated with different meals. This book approaches the history of food in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy through an interdisciplinary prism of sources ranging from correspondence, literature (both high and low), and medical and dietary treatises to cosmographic theory and iconographic evidence. Using a variety of analytical methods and theoretical approaches, it moves food studies firmly into the arena of Late Medieval and Renaissance history, providing an essential key to deciphering the material and metaphorical complexity of this period in European, and especially Italian, history.