What is thinking? What does it feel like? What is it good for? Andrea Gadberry looks for answers to these questions in the philosophy of Rene Descartes and finds them in the philosopher's implicit poetics. Gadberry argues that Descartes's thought was crucially enabled by poetry and shows how markers of poetic genres from love lyric and elegy to the puzzling forms of the riddle and the anagram betray an impassioned negotiation with the difficulties of thought and its limits. Where others have seen Cartesian philosophy as a triumph of reason, Gadberry reveals that the philosopher accused of having "slashed poetry's throat" instead enlisted poetic form to contain thought's frustrations. Gadberry's approach to seventeenth-century writings poses questions urgent for the twenty-first. Bringing literature and philosophy into rich dialogue, Gadberry centers close reading as a method uniquely equipped to manage skepticism, tolerate critical ambivalence, and detect feeling in philosophy. Helping us read classic moments of philosophical argumentation in a new light, this elegant study also expands outward to redefine thinking in light of its poetic formations.

Thomas Aquinas is widely recognized as one of history's most significant Christian theologians and one of the most powerful philosophical minds of the western tradition. But what has often not been sufficiently attended to is the fact that he carried out his theological and philosophical labours as a part of his vocation as a Dominican friar, dedicated to a life of preaching and the care of souls. Fererick Christian Bauerschmidt places Aquinas's thought within the context of that vocation, and argues that his views on issues of God, creation, Christology, soteriology, and the Christian life are both shaped by and in service to the distinctive goals of the Dominicans. What Aquinas says concerning both matters of faith and matters of reason, as well as his understanding of the relationship between the two, are illuminated by the particular Dominican call to serve God through handing on to others through preaching and teaching the fruits of one's own theological reflection.

This collection of essays showcases the most important and influential philosophical works of the ancient and medieval period, roughly from 600 BC to AD 1600. Each chapter takes a particular work of philosophy and discusses its proponent, its content and central arguments. These are: Plato's Republic; Aristotle' Nichomachean Ethics; Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe; Sextus Emperiicus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism; Plotinus' The Enneads; Augustine's City of God; Anselm's Proslogion; Aquinas' Summa Theologia; Duns Scotus' Ordinatio; William of Ockham's Summa Logicae .

This collection of essays showcases the most important and influential philosophical works of the ancient and medieval period, roughly from 600 BC to AD 1600. Each chapter takes a particular work of philosophy and discusses its proponent, its content and central arguments. These are: Plato's Republic; Aristotle' Nichomachean Ethics; Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe; Sextus Emperiicus' Outlines of Pyrrhonism; Plotinus' The Enneads; Augustine's City of God; Anselm's Proslogion; Aquinas' Summa Theologia; Duns Scotus' Ordinatio; William of Ockham's Summa Logicae .

This book addresses an emblematic case of a potential faith-reason, or faith-science, conflict that never arose, even though the biblical passage in question runs counter to simple common sense. Within the context of Western culture, when one speaks of a faith-science conflict one is referring to cases in which a "new" scientific theory or the results of empirical research call into question what the Bible states on the same subject. Well-known examples include the Copernican theory of planetary motion and the Darwinian theory of evolution. The passage considered in this book, concerning the "waters above the firmament" in the description of the creation in the first book of Genesis, represents a uniquely enlightening case. The author traces the interpretations of this passage from the early centuries of the Christian era to the late Renaissance, and discusses them within their historical context. In the process, he also clarifies the underlying cosmogonic model. Throughout this period, only exegetes belonging to various religious orders discussed the passage's meaning. The fact that it was never debated within the lay culture explains its non-emergence as a faith-reason conflict. A fascinating and highly accessible work, this book will appeal to a broad readership.

Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in Rome in 1600, accused of heresy by the Inquisition. His life took him from Italy to Northern Europe and England, and finally to Venice, where he was arrested. His six dialogues in Italian, which today are considered a turning point towards the philosophy and science of the modern world, were written during his visit to Elizabethan London, as a gentleman attendant to the French Ambassador, Michel de Castelnau. He died refusing to recant views which he defined as philosophical rather than theological, and for which he claimed liberty of expression. The papers in this volume derive from a conference held in London to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Bruno's death. A number focus specifically on his experience in England, while others look at the Italian context of his thought and his impact upon others. Together they constitute a major new survey of the range of Bruno's philosophical activity, as well as evaluating his use of earlier cultural traditions and his influence on both contemporary and more modern themes and trends.

In A Comparative Analysis of Cicero and Aquinas, Charles P. Nemeth investigates how, despite their differences, these two figures may be the most compatible brothers in ideas ever conceived in the theory of natural law. Looking to find common threads that run between the philosophies of these two great thinkers of the Classical and Medieval periods, this book aims to determine whether or not there exists a common ground whereby ethical debates and dilemmas can be evaluated. Does comparison between Cicero and Aquinas offer a new pathway for moral measure, based on defined and developed principles? Do they deliver certain moral and ethical principles for human life to which each agree? Instead of a polemical diatribe, comparison between Cicero and Aquinas may edify a method of compromise and afford a more or less restrictive series of judgements about ethical quandaries.

"All rising to great place is by a winding stair," wrote Sir Francis Bacon. It wasn't until he was 45 that Bacon's feet found the first step on that staircase, when King James I made him Solicitor-General, from where he rose through the ranks to become Lord Chancellor. Many accounts of the life of Sir Francis Bacon have been written for scholars, but du Maurier's aim was to paint a vivid portrait of this remarkable man for the common reader. In "The Winding Stair, " she illuminates the considerable achievements of this Renaissance man as a writer, lawyer, philosopher, scientist, and politician. Dame Daphne du Maurier wrote more than 25 acclaimed novels, short stories, and plays, including "Rebecca" and "The House on the Strand. "She was also a passionate and skillful biographer.

Mappa mundi texts and images present a panorama of the medieval world-view, c.1300; the Hereford map studied in close detail. Filled with information and lore, mappae mundi present an encyclopaedic panorama of the conceptual "landscape" of the middle ages. Previously objects of study for cartographers and geographers, the value of medieval maps to scholars in other fields is now recognised and this book, written from an art historical perspective, illuminates the medieval view of the world represented in a group of maps of c.1300. Naomi Kline's detailed examination of the literary, visual, oral and textual evidence of the Hereford mappa mundi and others like it, such as the Psalter Maps, the '"Sawley Map", and the Ebstorf Map, places them within the larger context of medieval art and intellectual history. The mappa mundi in Hereford cathedral is at the heart of this study: it has more than one thousand texts and images of geographical subjects, monuments, animals, plants, peoples, biblical sites and incidents, legendary material, historical information and much more; distinctions between "real" and "fantastic" are fluid; time and space are telescoped, presenting past, present, and future. Naomi Kline provides, for the first time, a full and detailed analysis of the images and texts of the Hereford map which, thus deciphered, allow comparison with related mappae mundi as well as with other texts and images. NAOMI REED KLINE is Professor of Art History at Plymouth State College.

Like any other group of philosophers, scholastic thinkers from the Middle Ages disagreed about even the most fundamental of concepts. With their characteristic style of rigorous semantic and logical analysis, they produced a wide variety of diverse theories about a huge number of topics. The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy offers readers an outstanding survey of many of these diverse theories, on a wide array of subjects. Its 35 chapters, all written exclusively for this Companion by leading international scholars, are organized into seven parts: I Language and Logic II Metaphysics III Cosmology and Physics IV Psychology V Cognition VI Ethics and Moral Philosophy VII Political Philosophy In addition to shedding new light on the most well-known philosophical debates and problems of the medieval era, the Companion brings to the fore topics that may not traditionally be associated with scholastic philosophy, but were in fact a veritable part of the tradition. These include chapters covering scholastic theories about propositions, atomism, consciousness, and democracy and representation. The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy is a helpful, comprehensive introduction to the field for undergraduate students and other newcomers as well as a unique and valuable resource for researchers in all areas of philosophy.

Nicholas of Cusa is known as one of the most original philosophers of the 15th century, but by training he was a canon lawyer who received his degree from the University of Padua in 1423. The essays in this book analyse his legal and political ideas against the background of medieval religious, legal and political thought and its development in the Renaissance. The first two pieces deal with the legal ideas and humanism that affected Cusanus and with some of the problems faced by 15th-century lawyers, including his friends. The central section of the book also discusses how he reacted to the religious, legal and political issues of his day; Cusanus as reformer of the Church is a theme that runs through many of the essays. The final studies look at some of Cusanus' contemporaries, with special emphasis on Gregor Heimburg, the sharpest critic of Cusanus.

Philosophy in the medieval Latin West before 1200 is often thought to have been dominated by Platonism. The articles in this volume question this view, by cataloguing, describing and investigating the tradition of Aristotelian logic during this period, examining its influence on authors usually placed within the Aristotelian tradition (Eriugena, Anselm, Gilbert of Poitiers), and also looking at some of the characteristics of early medieval Platonism. Abelard, the most brilliant logician of the age, is the main subject of three articles, and the book concludes with two more general discussions about how and why medieval philosophy should be studied.

Chris Schabel presents a detailed analysis of the radical solution given by the Franciscan Peter Auriol to the problem of reconciling divine foreknowledge with the contingency of the future, and of contemporary reactions to it. Auriol's solution appeared to many of his contemporaries to deny God's knowledge of the future altogether, and so it provoked intense and long-lasting controversy; Schabel is the first to examine in detail the philosophical and theological background to Auriol's discussion, and to provide a full analysis of Auriol's own writings on the question and the immediate reactions to them. This book sheds new light both on one of the central philosophical debates of the Middle Ages, and on theology and philosophy at the University of Paris in the first half of the 14th century, a period of Parisian intellectual life which has been largely neglected until now.

This volume deals with the psychological, metaphysical and scientific ideas of two major and influential Aristotelian philosophers of the Italian Renaissance - Nicoletto Vernia (d. 1499) and Agostino Nifo (ca 1470-1538) - whose careers must be seen as inter-related. Both began by holding Averroes to be the true interpreter of Aristotle's thought, but were influenced by the work of humanists, such as Ermolao Barbaro, though to a different degree. Translations of the Greek commentators on Aristotle (Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius and Simplicius) provided them with new material and new ways of understanding Aristotle - Nifo even put himself to learning Greek - and led them to abandon Averroes, especially as regards his views on the soul and intellect. Nevertheless, both Vernia and Nifo engaged seriously with the thought of medieval scholars such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas and John of Jandun. Both also showed interest in their celebrated contemporary, Marsilio Ficino.

Professor Gutas deals here with the lives, sayings, thought, and doctrines of Greek philosophers drawn from sources preserved in medieval Arabic translations and for the most part not extant in the original. The Arabic texts, some of which are edited here for the first time, are translated throughout and richly annotated with the purpose of making the material accessible to classical scholars and historians of ancient and medieval philosophy. Also discussed are the modalities of transmission from Greek into Arabic, the diffusion of the translated material within the Arabic tradition, the nature of the Arabic sources containing the material, and methodological questions relating to Graeco-Arabic textual criticism. The philosophers treated include the Presocratics and minor schools such as Cynicism, Plato, Aristotle and the early Peripatos, and thinkers of late antiquity. A final article presents texts on the malady of love drawn from both the medical and philosophical (problemata physica) traditions.

This volume brings together Professor Cranz's published studies on Nicholas of Cusa with a set of seven papers left unpublished at the time of his death. Their subjects are the speculative thought of Cusanus and his relationship with the broader themes of the Renaissance. Particular attention is given to patterns of development in Cusanus' thought as he wrestled with problems of divine transcendence and the limits of human capacities. Overall, these studies also reveal Professor Cranz's interest in the larger changes in Western modes of thought during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, which define our ways of thinking as different from those of Antiquity.

Charles Trinkaus can be counted among the eminent intellectual and cultural historians of the Renaissance. This new collection of his articles brings together pieces published since 1982. The studies are concerned with Italian Renaissance humanists and philosophers who tended to affirm human capacities to shape earthly existence, despite the traditional limitations proposed by some scholastics and astrologers. Professor Trinkaus holds that, without abandoning their Christian faith, or their acceptance of physical influences from the cosmos, these writers, in their stress on human capacities, were responding to the vigorous activism of their contemporaries in all aspects of their existence. The final four papers also provide a series of reflections on the modern historiography of the Renaissance.

Eternal Life and Human Happiness in Heaven treats four apparent problems concerning eternal life in order to clarify our thinking about perfect human happiness in heaven. The teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas provide the basis for solutions to these four problems about eternal life insofar as his teachings call into question common contemporary theological or philosophical presuppositions about God, human persons, and the nature of heaven itself. Indeed, these Thomistic solutions often require us to think very differently from our contemporaries. But thinking differently with St. Thomas is worth it: for the Thomistic solutions to these apparent problems are more satisfying, on both theological and philosophical grounds, than a number of contemporary theological and philosophical approaches. Christopher Brown deploys his argument in four sections. The first section lays out, in three chapters, four apparent problems concerning eternal life-Is heaven a mystical or social reality? Is heaven other-worldly or this-worldly? Is heaven static or dynamic? Won't human persons eventually get bored in heaven? Brown then explains how and why some important contemporary Christian theologians and philosophers resolve these problems, and notes serious problems with each of these contemporary solutions. The second section explains, in five chapters, St. Thomas' significant distinction between the essential reward of the saints in heaven and the accidental reward, and treats in detail his account of that in which the essential reward consists, namely, the beatific vision and the proper accidents of the vision (delight, joy, and charity). The third section treats, in five chapters, St. Thomas' views on the multifaceted accidental reward in heaven, where the accidental reward includes, among other things, glorified human embodiment, participation in the communion of the saints, and the joy experienced by the saints in sensing God's "new heavens and new earth." Finally, section four argues, in four chapters, that St. Thomas' views allow for powerful solutions to the four apparent problems about eternal life examined in the first section. These solutions are powerful because, not only are they consistent with authoritative, Catholic Christian Tradition, but they do not raise any of the significant theological or philosophical problems that attend the contemporary theological and philosophical solutions examined in the first section.

The essays in this book discuss a number of the central metaphysical and ethical themes that engaged the minds of Platonist philosophers during late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages. One particular theme is that of the structure of reality, with the associated questions of the relations between soul and body and between intelligible and sensible reality, and the existence of mathematical objects. Other topics relate to evil and beauty, political life and its purpose, the philosophical search for the absolute Good, and how one can speak about this Absolute and have union with it. Going from Plato to Eriugena, the ways in which Platonist philosophers understood and developed these themes are analysed and compared.

We turn to Machiavelli at every tumultuous period in history - he is the one who knows how to philosophize in dark times. In fact, since his death in 1527, we have never stopped reading him, always to pull ourselves out of a torpor. But what do we really know about this man? Is there more to his work than that term for political evil, Machiavellianism? It was Machiavelli's luck to be disappointed by every statesman he encountered - that was why he had to create his paper Prince. Today, the question that remains is not why he wrote, but for whom - for princes or for those who want to resist them? What is the art of governing? Is it to take power, or to keep it? In this timely book, Patrick Boucheron undoes many of our assumptions about Machiavelli, showing how his rich, complex thought is key to understanding his time, and may be crucial to interrogating our own.

The volume results from a seminar sponsored by the 'Foundation for Intellectual History' at the Herzog August Bibliothek, WolfenbA1/4ttel, in 1992. Starting with the theory of regressus as displayed in its most developed form by William Wallace, these papers enter the vast field of the Renaissance discussion on method as such in its historical and systematical context. This is confined neither to the notion of method in the strict sense, nor to the Renaissance in its exact historical limits, nor yet to the Aristotelian tradition as a well defined philosophical school, but requires a new scholarly approach. Thus - besides Galileo, Zabarella and their circles, which are regarded as being crucial for the 'emergence of modern science' in the end of the 16th century - the contributors deal with the ancient and medieval origins as well as with the early modern continuity of the Renaissance concepts of method and with 'non-regressive' methodologies in the various approaches of Renaissance natural philosophy, including the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions.

The papers collected in this volume fall into three main groups. Those in the first group are concerned with the origin and early development of the idea of natural rights. The author argues here that the idea first grew into existence in the writings of the 12th-century canonists. The articles in the second group discuss miscellaneous aspects of medieval law and political thought. They include an overview of modern work on late medieval canon law. The final group of articles is concerned with the history of papal infallibility, with especial reference to the tradition of Franciscan ecclesiology and the contributions of John Peter Olivi and William of Ockham.

This volume deals with the development of moral and political philosophy in the medieval West. Professor Nederman is concerned to trace the continuing influence of classical ideas, but emphasises that the very diversity and diffuseness of medieval thought shows that there is no single scheme that can account for the way these ideas were received, disseminated and reformulated by medieval ethical and political theorists.