Leading figures at the dawn of the sixteenth-century Reformation commonly faced the charge of "judaizing": 72 In His Name concerns the changing views of four such men starting with their kabbalistic treatment of the 72 divine names of angels. Johann Reuchlin, the first of the four men featured in this book, survived the charge; Martin Luther's increasingly anti-semitic stance is contrasted with the opposite movement of the French Franciscan Jean Thenaud whose kabbalistic manuscripts were devoted to Francis I; Philipp Wolff, the fourth, had been born into a Jewish family but his recorded views were decidedly anti-semitic. 72 In His Name also includes evidence that kabbalistic beliefs and practices, such as the service for exorcism recorded by Thenaud, were unwittingly recorded by Christians. Although the book concerns early modern Europe, the religious interactions, the shifting spiritual attitudes, and the shadows cast linger on.

This collection of essays delineates the history of the rather disparate intellectual tradition usually labeled as "Platonic" or "Neoplatonic." In chronological order, the book covers the most eminent philosophic schools of thought within that tradition. The most important terms of the Platonic tradition are studied together with a discussion of their semantic implications, the philosophical and theological claims associated with the terms, the sources that furnish the terms, and the intellectual traditions aligned with or opposed to them. The contributors thereby provide a vivid intellectual map of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period. Contributions are written in English or German.

The impact of classical thought on Renaissance philosophy is the subject of this volume. In the first part Dr Kraye deals with the interpretations of ancient philosophy put forward by various thinkers of the Italian Renaissance, including the humanist Angelo Poliziano and the Platonist Marsilio Ficino; in the second, she examines the central role of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics within Renaissance moral philosophy and considers the influence of other classical treatises on ethics, especially the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. The final section explores controversies concerning the authenticity of works in the Aristotelian canon, together with the early printing history of Aristotle. All the articles aim to locate philosophical questions within the historical and cultural context of the Renaissance, and particular attention is paid to the importance of philological scholarship within philosophical debates. The collection includes an essay on Philipp Melanchthon's ethical commentaries and textbooks which has previously appeared only in German translation.

Focussing on individuals whose ideas shaped intellectual life between 400 and 1500, Fifty Key Medieval Thinkers is an accessible introduction to those religious, philosophical and political concepts central to the medieval worldview. Including such diverse figures as Bede and Wyclif, each entry presents a biographical outline, a list of works and a summary of their main theories, alongside suggestions for further reading. Chronologically arranged, and with an introductory essay which presents important themes in context, this volume is an invaluable reference tool for all students of Medieval Europe.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401 64), doctor of canon law, church politician and philosopher, was one of the most important thinkers of 15th century Europe. This year marks the sixth centenary of his birth. Scholars from round the globe gathered in Tokyo for the 19th Cusanus Congress last year; this volume makes their contributions more widely available. Major themes examined include tradition and innovation, religion, the relevance of Nicholas of Cusa's thought for today, the relationship between East and West in his thought, and the development of his thought and scholarship as we enter a new millennium. Multilingual text: English, German, French.

A collection of essays on the Renaissance, focusing on humanism and thought. The concept of the Renaissance has always been challenging to define. This book aims to enable a deeper understanding of the essential features of the Renaissance and humanism. Knowledge of Renaissance thought illuminates other key aspects of Renaissance culture such as philology, political thought and scholastic and platonic philosophy. This book explores all the important themes and influential figures including: humanism and scholasticism; the scholarship of Politician; printers and readers in Italy; Ptolemy of Lucca; Petrarch; Florentine constitutionalism and Medici ascendancy; and the humanist challenge to medieval German culture.

Focusing on individuals whose ideas shaped intellectual life between 400 and 1500, Fifty Key Medieval Thinkers is an accessible introduction to those religious, philosophical and political concepts central to the medieval worldview. Including such diverse figures as Bede and Wyclif, each entry presents a biographical outline, a list of works and a summary of their main theories, alongside suggestions for further reading. Chronologically arranged, and with an introductory essay which presents important themes in context, this volume is an invaluable reference tool for all students of Medieval Europe.

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.

Renaissance Thought is a fascinating collection of essays on the Renaissance, focusing on humanism and thought. The concept of the Renaissance has always been challenging to define and this book enables a deeper understanding of the essential features of the Renaissance and humanism. Knowledge of Renaissance thought illuminates other key aspects of Renaissance culture such as philology, political thought and scholastic and platonic philosophy.
Renaissance Thought explores all the important themes and influential figures including:
* humanism and scholasticism
* the scholarship of Politician
* printers and readers in Italy
* Ptolemy of Lucca
* Petrarch
* Florentine constitutionalism and Medici ascendancy
* the humanist challenge to medieval German culture.
This collection of articles is essential reading for students of the Renaissance. The book will allow readers to contribute to the debate on the Renaissance, a theme which has never ceased to stimulate intellectual interest since the earliest days of the Renaissance itself.

This book brings together a diverse and wide-ranging group of thinkers to forge unsuspecting conversations across the humanist and non-humanist divide. How should humanism relate to a non-humanist world? What distinguishes "humanism" from the "non-humanist?" Readers will encounter a wide-range of perspectives on the terms bringing together this volume, where "Humanism" "Non-Humanist" and "World" are not taken for granted, but instead, tackled from a wide variety of perspectives, spaces, discourses, and approaches. This volume offers both a pragmatic and scholarly account of these terms and worldviews allowing for multiple points of analytical and practical points of entry into the unfolding dialogue between humanism and the non-humanist world. In this way, this volume is attentive to both theoretically and historically grounded inquiry and applied practical application.

"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 fourth of a projected six volumes.

E. M. Cioran confronts the place of today's world in the context of human history--focusing on such major issues of the twentieth century as human progress, fanaticism, and science--in this nihilistic and witty collection of aphoristic essays concerning the nature of civilization in mid-twentieth-century Europe. Touching upon Man's need to worship, the feebleness of God, the downfall of the Ancient Greeks and the melancholy baseness of all existence, Cioran's pieces are pessimistic in the extreme, but also display a beautiful certainty that renders them delicate, vivid, and memorable. Illuminating and brutally honest, "A Short History of Decay" dissects Man's decadence in a remarkable series of moving and beautiful pieces.

Although he is one of the most influential Catholic theologians in Europe, very few of Klaus Demmer's writings are available in English. This translation of his well-known work on moral theology introduces Demmer's thought to English-speaking audiences.

In an original synthesis of scholastic and continental philosophy, Demmer brings the Catholic moral tradition into conversation with contemporary philosophical schools -- transcendental, hermeneutical, and analytical -- to fashion a moral theology in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. He shows the richness of the neoscholastic tradition in shaping and being shaped by our contemporary self-understanding.

A complete bibliography of Demmer's works will assist readers in seeking out more of his writings.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This volume offers an important re-evaluation of early modern philosophy. It takes issue with the received notion of a 'revolution' in philosophical thought in the 17th-century, making the case for treating the 16th and 17th centuries together. Taking up Charles Schmitt's formulation of the many 'Aristotelianisms' of the period, the papers bring out the variety and richness of the approaches to Aristotle, rather than treating his as a homogeneous system of thought. Based on much new research, they provide case studies of how philosophers used, developed, and reacted to the framework of Aristotelian logic, categories and distinctions, and demonstrate that Aristotelianism possessed both the flexibility and the dynamism to exert a continuing impact - even among such noted 'anti-Aristotelians' as Descartes and Hobbes. This constant engagement can indeed be termed 'conversations with Aristotle'.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Originally published in 1998, Easels of Utopia presents a discussion of art's duration and contingency within the avant garde's aesthetic parameters, which throughout this century have constructed, influenced, and informed our definitions of modernity. In this context the book reads Umberto Boccioni's Futurism as reminiscent of Thomist realism; proposes Caravaggism's historical relevance to the election of individuality in post-war realism; and draws the readers attention to the aesthetic implications in Carlo Carra's metaphysical art and its reappraisal of the early Renaissance. Following a contextual analysis of the historic avant-garde in Part One, Part Two presents parallel discussions of Italian and British questions, articulated by the works of Marino Marini, Francis Bacon, Renato Guttuso and Stanley Spencer in their return to individuality within art's aesthetic construct. The author argues that this initiates a return to 'lost' beginnings where form seeks knowledge, content regains an ability to anarchize, and art recognizes its contingent condition.

A milestone in the study of value in human life and thought, written by one of the world's preeminent living philosophers The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is a philosophical investigation of the moral potentialities and sensibilities of human beings, of the meaning of human life, and of the place of death in life. It is an essay in philosophical anthropology: the study of the conceptual framework in terms of which we think about, speak about, and investigate homo sapiens as a social and cultural animal. This volume examines the diversity of values in human life and the place of moral value within the varieties of values. Its subject is the nature of good and evil and our propensity to virtue and vice. Acting as the culmination of five decades of reflection on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, ethics, and human nature, this volume: Concludes Hacker's acclaimed Human Nature tetralogy: Human Nature: The Categorial Framework, The Intellectual Powers: A Study of Human Nature, and The Passions: A Study of Human Nature Discusses traditional ideas about ethical value and addresses misconceptions held by philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists The Moral Powers: A Study of Human Nature is required reading philosophers of mind, ethicists, psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and any general reader wanting to understand the nature of value and the place of ethics in human lives.

Emotions are the focus of intense debate both in contemporary philosophy and psychology and increasingly also in the history of ideas. Simo Knuuttila presents a comprehensive survey of philosophical theories of emotion from Plato to Renaissance times, combining rigorous philosophical analysis with careful historical reconstruction. The first part of the book covers the conceptions of Plato and Aristotle and later ancient views from Stoicism to Neoplatonism and, in addition, their reception and transformation by early Christian thinkers from Clement and Origen to Augustine and Cassian. Knuuttila then proceeds to a discussion of ancient themes in medieval thought, and of new medieval conceptions, codified in the so-called faculty psychology from Avicenna to Aquinas, in thirteenth century taxonomies, and in the voluntarist approach of Duns Scotus, William Ockham, and their followers. Philosophers, classicists, historians of philosophy, historians of psychology, and anyone interested in emotion will find much to stimulate them in this fascinating book.

The Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy is a reference work on the philosophy of Greek and Roman antiquity. It includes subjects and figures from the dawn of philosophy in Ionia in the 6th century BC to the demise of the Academy in Athens in the 6th century AD. Scholarly study of the texts and philosophical thought of this period has been, during the last half of the 20th century, amazingly productive and has become increasingly sophisticated. The 269 articles in the encyclopedia reflect this development. While the majority of the articles are devoted to individual figures, many of the articles are thematic surveys of broad areas such as epistemology, ethics, and political thought. Some articles focus on particular concepts that evoked significant philosophical treatment by the ancients, and have proved central to later thought. Other articles treat fields that are no longer considered part of philosophy proper, such as mathematics and science. There are articles examining areas of intellectual or cultural endeavour, such as poetry or rhetoric, or genres of philosophical expression, such as dialogue and diatribe. Still others describe the historical developments of philosophical schools and traditions. The encyclopedia includes a chronology and guide to further reading. Best Reference Source

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.

Study of the life, works and legacy of Shihab al-Din Yahya Suhrawardi, also known as Shaikh al-ishraq or the Master of Illumination.

Beginning with the earliest philosopher of the Middle Ages, Saadiah ben Joseph al-Fayyumi, this work surveys the writings of such figures as Solomon ben Joseph ibn Gabirol, Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda, Abraham ben david Halevi ibn Daud, Judah Halevi, Moses Maimonides, Gersonides, Hasdai Crescas, Simon ben Zemah Duran, Joseph Albo, Isaac Arama, and Isaac Abrabanel. Throughout an attempt is made to place these thinkers in an historical context and describe their contributions to the history of Jewish medieval thought in simple and lucid terms. The book is directed to students enrolled in Jewish studies courses as well as to those who seek an awareness and appreciation of the riches of medieval Jewish philosophical tradition.