William of Ockham (d. 1347) was among the most influential and the most notorious thinkers of the late Middle Ages. In the twenty-seven questions translated in this volume, most never before published in English, he considers a host of theological and philosophical issues, including the nature of virtue and vice, the relationship between the intellect and the will, the scope of human freedom, the possibility of God's creating a better world, the role of love and hatred in practical reasoning, whether God could command someone to do wrong, and more. In answering these questions, Ockham critically engages with the ethical thought of such predecessors as Aristotle, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Students and scholars of both philosophy and historical theology will appreciate the accessible translations and ample explanatory notes on the text.

The Late Scholastics, writing in Europe in the Baroque and Early Modern periods, discussed a wide variety of moral questions relating to political life in times of both peace and war. Is it ever permissible to bribe voters? Can tax evasion be morally justified? What are the moral duties of artists? Is it acceptable to fight in a war one believes to be unjust? May we surrender innocents to the enemy if it is necessary to save the state? These questions are no less relevant for philosophers and politicians today than they were for late scholastic thinkers. By bringing into play the opinions and arguments of numerous authors, many of them little known or entirely forgotten, this book is the first to provide an in-depth treatment of the dynamic and controversial nature of late scholastic applied moral thinking which demonstrates its richness and diversity.

By any metric, Cicero's works are some of the most widely read in the history of Western thought. Natural Law Republicanism suggests that perhaps his most lasting and significant contribution to philosophy lies in helping to inspire the development of liberalism. Individual rights, the protection of private property, and political legitimacy based on the consent of the governed are often taken to be among early modern liberalism's unique innovations and part of its rebellion against classical thought. However, Michael C. Hawley demonstrates how Cicero's thought played a central role in shaping and inspiring the liberal republican project. Cicero argued that liberty for individuals could arise only in a res publica in which the claims of the people to be sovereign were somehow united with a commitment to universal moral law, which limits what the people can rightfully do. Figures such as Hugo Grotius, John Locke, and John Adams sought to work through the tensions in Cicero's vision, laying the groundwork for a theory of politics in which the freedom of the individual and the people's collective right to rule were mediated by natural law. Tracing the development of this intellectual tradition from Cicero's original articulation through the American Founding, Natural Law Republicanism explores how our modern political ideas remain dependent on the legacy of one of Rome's great philosopher-statesmen.

The Age of Reason associated with the names of Descartes, Newton, Hobbes, and the French philosophers, actually began in the universities that first emerged in the late Middle Ages (1100 to 1600) when the first large scale institutionalization of reason in the history of civilization occurred. This study shows how reason was used in the university subjects of logic, natural philosophy, and theology, and to a much lesser extent in medicine and law. The final chapter describes how the Middle Ages acquired an undeserved reputation as an age of superstition, barbarism, and unreason.

In this book, Travis DeCook explores the theological and political innovations found in early modern accounts of the Bible's origins. In the charged climate produced by the Reformation and humanist historicism, writers grappled with the tension between the Bible's divine and human aspects, and they produced innovative narratives regarding the agencies and processes through which the Bible came into existence and was transmitted. DeCook investigates how these accounts of Scripture's production were taken up beyond the expected boundaries of biblical study, and were redeployed as the theological basis for wide-reaching arguments about the proper ordering of human life. DeCook provides a new, critical perspective on ideas regarding secularity, secularization, and modernity, challenging the dominant narratives regarding the Bible's role in these processes. He shows how these engagements with the Bible's origins prompt a rethinking of formulations of secularity and secularization in our own time.

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.

This volume brings together articles by sixteen leading scholars on a cross-section of Platonists authors-Christian and non-Christian-from early through late Byzantium philosophy, including the Capaddocians, Cyril, Proclus, Damascius, Dionysius, George of Pisidia, Nicetas Stethatos, Nikephoros Choumenos, Psellos, and George Palamas. The reception of Byzantine thought in the Latin tradition is also considered. The articles collectively show development in the Greek East on ontological issues such as the doctrine of the soul, as well as theological concepts of the One/God and Trinity within a hierarchical universe. The volume considers exegetical questions relating to the use of Plato and the Platonists by Byzantine Christian authors.

This second edition concentrates on various philosophers and theologians from the medieval Arabian, Jewish, and Christian worlds. It principally centers on authors such as Abumashar, Saadiah Gaon and Alcuin from the eighth century and follows the intellectual developments of the three traditions up to the fifteenth-century Ibn Khaldun, Hasdai Crescas and Marsilio Ficino. The spiritual journeys presuppose earlier human sources, such as the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Porphyry and various Stoic authors, the revealed teachings of the Jewish Law, the Koran and the Christian Bible. The Fathers of the Church, such as St. Augustine and Gregory the Great, provided examples of theology in their attempts to reconcile revealed truth and man's philosophical knowledge and deserve attention as pre-medieval contributors to medieval intellectual life. Avicenna and Averroes, Maimonides and Gersonides, St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure, stand out in the three traditions as special medieval contributors who deserve more attention. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Medieval Philosophy and Theology contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important persons, events, and concepts that shaped medieval philosophy and theology. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about medieval philosophy and theology.

Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) was arguably the single most important Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, with an impact on the later Jewish tradition that was unparalleled by any of his contemporaries. In this volume of new essays, world-leading scholars address themes relevant to his philosophical outlook, including his relationship with his Islamicate surroundings and the impact of his work on subsequent Jewish and Christian writings, as well as his reception in twentieth-century scholarship. The essays also address the nature and aim of Maimonides' philosophical writing, including its connection with biblical exegesis, and the philosophical and theological arguments that are central to his work, such as revelation, ritual, divine providence, and teleology. Wide-ranging and fully up-to-date, the volume will be highly valuable for those interested in Jewish history and thought, medieval philosophy, and religious studies.

Exploring what theologians at the University of Paris in the thirteenth century understood about the boundary between humans and animals, this book demonstrates the great variety of ways in which they held similarity and difference in productive tension. Analysing key theological works, Ian P. Wei presents extended close readings of William of Auvergne, the Summa Halensis, Bonaventure, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. These scholars found it useful to consider animals and humans together, especially with regard to animal knowledge and behaviour, when discussing issues including creation, the fall, divine providence, the heavens, angels and demons, virtues and passions. While they frequently stressed that animals had been created for use by humans, and sometimes treated them as tools employed by God to shape human behaviour, animals were also analytical tools for the theologians themselves. This study thus reveals how animals became a crucial resource for generating knowledge of God and the whole of creation.

This work argues that teleological motives lie at the heart of Kant's critical philosophy and that a precise analysis of teleological structures can both illuminate the basic strategy of its fundamental arguments and provide a key to understanding its unity. It thus aims, through an examination of each of Kant's major writings, to provide a detailed interpretation of his claim that philosophy in the true sense must consist of a teleologia rationis humanae.The author argues that Kant's critical philosophy forged a new link between traditional teleological concepts and the basic structure of rationality, one that would later inform the dynamic conception of reason at the heart of German Idealism. The process by which this was accomplished began with Kant's development of a uniquely teleological conception of systematic unity already in the precritical period. The individual chapters of this work attempt to show how Kant adapted and refined this conception of systematic unity so that it came to form the structural basis for the critical philosophy.

This new introduction replaces Marenbon's best-selling editions Early Medieval Philosophy (1983) and Later Medieval Philosophy (1987) to present a single authoritative and comprehensive study of the period. It gives a lucid and engaging account of the history of philosophy in the Middle Ages, discussing the main writers and ideas, the social and intellectual contexts, and the important concepts used in medieval philosophy. Medieval Philosophy gives a chronological account which: treats all four main traditions of philosophy that stem from the Greek heritage of late antiquity: Greek Christian philosophy, Latin philosophy, Arabic philosophy and Jewish philosophy provides a series of 'study' sections for close attention to arguments and shorter 'interludes' that point to the wider questions of the intellectual context combines philosophical analysis with historical background includes a helpful detailed guide to further reading and an extensive bibliography All students of medieval philosophy, medieval history, theology or religion will find this necessary reading.

New investigations on the content, impact, and criticism of Aristotelianism in Antiquity, the Late Middle Ages, and modern ethics show that Aristotelianism is not an obsolete monolithic doctrine but a living and evolving tradition within philosophy. Modern philosophy and science are sometimes understood as anti-Aristotelian, and Early Modern philosophers often conceived their philosophical project as opposing medieval Aristotelianism. New Perspectives on Aristotelianism and Its Critics brings to light the inner complexity of these simplified oppositions by analysing Aristotle's philosophy, the Aristotelian tradition, and criticism towards it within three topics - knowledge, rights, and the good life - in ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy. It explores the resources of Aristotle's philosophy for breaking through some central impasses and simplified dichotomies of the philosophy of our time. Contributors are: John Drummond, Sabine Foellinger, Hallvard Fossheim, Sara Heinamaa, Roberto Lambertini, Virpi Makinen, Fred D. Miller, Diana Quarantotto, and Miira Tuominen

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.

Bernard Lonergan's theological writings have influenced religious scholars ever since the first publication in the 1940s of the series of five articles which make up "Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas." These articles first appeared in "Theological Studies" and were subsequently republished in book form in 1967 under the present title. This volume contains a new preface by the editors and full translations of all Latin texts.

"Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas" is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology and a foundation upon which his later contributions were constructed. Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.

"Verbum: Word and Idea in Aquinas" is a vital component of Lonergan's oeuvre, and of continuing relevance to trinitarian theology, Aquinas studies, and inquiries into human cognition.

Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), a professor of theology, taught at Regis College, Harvard University, and Boston College. An established author known for his Insight and Method in Theology, Lonergan received numerous honorary doctorates, was a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1971 and was named as an original members of the International Theological Commission by Pope Paul VI.

More than any other early modern text, Montaigne's Essais have come to be associated with the emergence of a distinctively modern subjectivity, defined in opposition to the artifices of language and social performance. Felicity Green challenges this interpretation with a compelling revisionist reading of Montaigne's text, centred on one of his deepest but hitherto most neglected preoccupations: the need to secure for himself a sphere of liberty and independence that he can properly call his own, or himself. Montaigne and the Life of Freedom restores the Essais to its historical context by examining the sources, character and significance of Montaigne's project of self-study. That project, as Green shows, reactivates and reshapes ancient practices of self-awareness and self-regulation, in order to establish the self as a space of inner refuge, tranquillity and dominion, free from the inward compulsion of the passions and from subjection to external objects, forces and persons.

Tackling the question of why medieval philosophy matters in the current age, Stephen Boulter issues a passionate and robust defence of this school in the history of ideas. He examines both familiar territory and neglected texts and thinkers whilst also asking the question of why, exactly, this matters or should matter to how we think now. Why Medieval Philosophy is also provides a introduction to medieval philosophy more generally exploring how this area of philosophy has been received, debated and, sometimes, dismissed in the history of philosophy.

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.

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. OSMP is an essential resource for anyone working in the area.

Ficino's commentary on Plato's Timaeus offers the English reader, for the first time, an opportunity to share the insights of this highly influential Renaissance philosopher into one of Plato's most important and controversial works. Here are discussed the perennial questions which affect us all: What is the nature of the universe? How did it begin? Does it have a cause outside itself? What is our place in it? What is the nature of mind, soul, matter and time? The central portion of the work, focusing on number, harmony, and music, has exerted a strong influence on the history of Western musical theory. Ficino added an appendix which amplifies and elucidates Plato's meanings and reveals fascinating detail about Ficino himself. This volume provides rich source material for all who are interested in philosophy, the history of cosmic theory, and Platonic and Renaissance studies. This completes the four-volume series, including Gardens of Philosophy, 2006 (ISBN 978-0-85683-240-6), Evermore Shall Be So, 2008 (978-0-85683-256-7) and When Philosophers Rule, 2009 (978-0-85683-257-4), which contain all Ficino's commentaries not previously translated into English.