This book argues that the moral quality of an act comes from the agent's inner states. By arguing for the indispensable relevance of intention in the moral evaluation of acts, the book moves against a mainstream, 'objective' approach in normative ethics.

This book investigates the pronounced enthusiasm that many traditions display for codes of ethics characterised by a multitude of rules. Recent anthropological interest in ethics and historical explorations of 'self-fashioning' have led to extensive study of the virtuous self, but existing scholarship tends to pass over the kind of morality that involves legalistic reasoning. Rules and ethics corrects that omission by demonstrating the importance of rules in everyday moral life in a variety of contexts. In a nutshell, it argues that legalistic moral rules are not necessarily an obstruction to a rounded ethical self, but can be an integral part of it. An extended introduction first sets out the theoretical basis for studies of ethical systems that are characterised by detailed rules. This is followed by a series of empirical studies of rule-oriented moral traditions in a comparative perspective. -- .

William of Moerbeke was a prolific medieval translator of Aristotle and other ancient philosophical and scientific authors from Greek into Latin, and he played a decisive role in the acceptance of Aristotelian philosophy in the Latin world. He is often criticized for an allegedly deficient translation method. However, this book argues that his approach was a deliberate attempt to allow readers to reach the correct understanding of the source texts in accordance with the medieval view of the role of the translator. William's project to make all genuine works of Aristotle - and also of other important authors from Antiquity - available in Latin is framed against the background of intellectual life in the 13th century, the deliberate policy of his Dominican order to reconcile Christian doctrine with worldly knowledge, and new trends in book production that influenced the spread of the new translations. William of Moerbeke's seemingly modest acts of translation started an intellectual revolution, the impact of which extended from the Middle Ages into the early modern era. The Friar and the Philosopher will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in Medieval perceptions of Aristotle, as well as other works from Antiquity.

Moses Maimonides-a proud heir to the Andalusian tradition of Aristotelian philosophy-crafted a bold and original philosophical interpretation of Torah and Judaism. His son Abraham Maimonides is a fascinating maverick whose Torah commentary mediates between the philosophical interpretations of his father, the contextual approach of Biblical exegetes such as Saadya, and the Sufi-flavored illuminative mysticism of his Egyptian Pietist circle. This pioneering study explores the intersecting approaches of Moses and Abraham Maimonides to the spark of divine illumination and revelation of the divine name Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, "I am that I am / I will be who I will be.

According to Avicenna, whatever exists, while it exists, exists of necessity. Not all beings, however, exist with the same kind of necessity. Instead, they exist either necessarily per se or necessarily per aliud. Avicenna on the Necessity of the Actual: His Interpretation of Four Aristotelian Arguments explains how Avicenna uses these modal claims to show that God is the efficient as well as the final cause of an eternally existing cosmos. In particular, Celia Kathryn Hatherly shows how Avicenna uses four Aristotelian arguments to prove this very un-Aristotelian conclusion. These arguments include Aristotle's argument for the finitude of efficient causes in Metaphysics 2; his proof for the prime mover in the Physics and Metaphysics 12; his argument against the Megarians in Metaphysics 9; and his argument for the mutual entailment between the necessary and the eternal in De Caelo 1.12. Moreover, Hatherly contends, when Avicenna's versions of these arguments are correctly interpreted using his distinctive understanding of necessity and possibility, the objections raised against them by his contemporaries and modern scholars fail.

The study shows the reception of the views of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite by Gregory Palamas. The author presents the doctrinal context of Palamas' dispute with Barlaam from Calabria on the possibility of knowing God, the most important issue in 14th-century Byzantium. The author distances herself from many previous interpretations of this problem. She proves that, considering how much Palamas succumbed or did not succumb to the Areopagite or "corrected" his position, he has a very weak doctrinal basis. The author notices that over-emphasizing Dionysius' dependence on the Neoplatonic tradition does not lead to a solution to the problem. Palamas' teachings are placed in the context of the traditions of the Christian East and their relation to the thoughts of the Areopagite himself.

Sixteenth century philosophy was a unique synthesis of several philosophical frameworks, a blend of old and new, including but not limited to Scholasticism, Humanism, Neo-Thomism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism. Unlike most overviews of this period, The Routledge Companion to Sixteenth Century Philosophy does not simplify this colorful era by applying some traditional dichotomies, such as the misleading line once drawn between scholasticism and humanism. Instead, the Companion closely covers an astonishingly diverse set of topics: philosophical methodologies of the time, the importance of the discovery of the new world, the rise of classical scholarship, trends in logic and logical theory, Nominalism, Averroism, the Jesuits, the Reformation, Neo-stoicism, the soul's immortality, skepticism, the philosophies of language and science and politics, cosmology, the nature of the understanding, causality, ethics, freedom of the will, natural law, the emergence of the individual in society, the nature of wisdom, and the love of god. Throughout, the Companion seeks not to compartmentalize these philosophical matters, but instead to show that close attention paid to their continuity may help reveal both the diversity and the profound coherence of the philosophies that emerged in the sixteenth century. The Companion's 27 chapters are published here for the first time, and written by an international team of scholars, and accessible for both students and researchers.

When does Renaissance philosophy end, and Early Modern philosophy begin? Do Renaissance philosophers have something in common, which distinguishes them from Early Modern philosophers? And ultimately, what defines the modernity of the Early Modern period, and what role did the Renaissance play in shaping it? The answers to these questions are not just chronological. This book challenges traditional constructions of these periods, which partly reflect the prejudice that the Renaissance was a literary and artistic phenomenon, rather than a philosophical phase. The essays in this book investigate how the legacy of Renaissance philosophers persisted in the following centuries through the direct encounters of subsequent generations with Renaissance philosophical texts. This volume treats Early Modern philosophers as joining their predecessors as 'conversation partners': the 'conversations' in this book feature, among others, Girolamo Cardano and Henry More, Thomas Hobbes and Lorenzo Valla, Bernardino Telesio and Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes and Tommaso Campanella, Giulio Cesare Vanini and the anonymous Theophrastus redivivus.

Byzantinists entered the study of emotion with Henry Maguire's ground-breaking article on sorrow, published in 1977. Since then, classicists and western medievalists have developed new ways of understanding how emotional communities work and where the ancients' concepts of emotion differ from our own, and Byzantinists have begun to consider emotions other than sorrow. It is time to look at what is distinctive about Byzantine emotion. This volume is the first to look at the constellation of Byzantine emotions. Originating at an international colloquium at Dumbarton Oaks, these papers address issues such as power, gender, rhetoric, or asceticism in Byzantine society through the lens of a single emotion or cluster of emotions. Contributors focus not only on the construction of emotions with respect to perception and cognition but also explore how emotions were communicated and exchanged across broad (multi)linguistic, political and social boundaries. Priorities are twofold: to arrive at an understanding of what the Byzantines thought of as emotions and to comprehend how theory shaped their appraisal of reality. Managing Emotion in Byzantium will appeal to researchers and students alike interested in Byzantine perceptions of emotion, Byzantine Culture, and medieval perceptions of emotion.

This book critically explores the development of radical criminological thought through the social, political and cultural history of the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. It follows on from the previous volume which examined Classical Greece until the emergence of the early Christian movement in the Roman empire. Through separate chapters, it discusses the key literature (myths, fairy tales and Shakespeare), religions and philosophers of the era, and the development of early radical views and issues over time. This book examines the links between the origins of radical criminology and its future. It speaks to those interested in the (pre)history of criminology and the historical production of criminological knowledge, drawing on Criminology, Sociology, Classics, History, Philosophy, Ancient Literature and Politics.

This book offers a comprehensive history of the principle of double effect and its applications in ethics. Written from a non-theological perspective, it makes the case for the centrality of the double effect reasoning in philosophical ethics. The book is divided into two parts. The first part thoroughly examines the history of double effect reasoning. The author's history spans from Thomas Aquinas's opera omnia to the modern and influential understanding of the principle known as proportionalism. The second part of the book elucidates the principle and addresses various objections that have been raised against it, including those that arise from an in-depth discussion of the trolley problem. Finally, the author examines the role of intentions in ethical thinking and constructs a novel defense of the principle based on fine distinctions between intentions. The Principle of Double Effect: A History and Philosophical Defense will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in moral philosophy, the history of ethics, bioethics, medical ethics, and the Catholic moral tradition.

This book explores a large variety of topics involved in Arabic philosophy. It examines concepts and issues relating to logic and mathematics, as well as metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics. These topics are all studied by different Arabic philosophers and scientists from different periods ranging from the 9th century to the 20th century, and are representative of the Arabic tradition. This is the first book dealing with the Arabic thought and philosophy and written only by women. The book brings together the work and contributions of an international group of female scholars and researchers specialized in the history of Arabic logic, philosophy and mathematics. Although all authors are women, the book does not enter into any kind of feminist trend. It simply highlights the contributions of female scholars in order to make them available to the large community of researchers interested in Arabic philosophy and to bring to the fore the presence and representativeness of female scholars in the field.

As the concept of recognition shifts from philosophical theory to other fields of the humanities and social sciences, this volume explores the nature of this border category that exists in the space between sociological and philosophical considerations, related as it is to concepts such as status, prestige, the looking-glass self, respect, and dignity - at times being used interchangeably with these terms. Bringing together work from across academic disciplines, it presents theoretical conceptualizations of recognition, demonstrates its operationalization in historical and literary research, considers recognition as a fundamental problem of sociological theory and examines the concept as a marker of social distances and redistribution. An examination and demonstration of the full potential of recognition as a category, Understanding Recognition: Conceptual and Empirical Studies explores the contemporary meanings and manifestations of recognition and sheds light on its capacity to complement the notions of status, class or prestige. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, philosophy, history and literary studies.

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the text which had the single greatest influence on Aquinas's ethical writings, and the historical and philosophical value of Aquinas's appropriation of this text provokes lively debate. In this volume of new essays, thirteen distinguished scholars explore how Aquinas receives, expands on, and transforms Aristotle's insights about the attainability of happiness, the scope of moral virtue, the foundation of morality, and the nature of pleasure. They examine Aquinas's commentary on the Ethics and his theological writings, above all the Summa theologiae. Their essays show Aquinas to be a highly perceptive interpreter, but one who also who also brings certain presuppositions to the Ethics and alters key Aristotelian notions for his own purposes. The result is a rich and nuanced picture of Aquinas's relation to Aristotle that will be of interest to readers in moral philosophy, Aquinas studies, the history of theology, and the history of philosophy.

Historical Imagination defends a phenomenological and hermeneutical account of historical knowledge. The book's central questions are what is historical imagination, what is the relation between the imaginative and the empirical, in what sense is historical knowledge always already imaginative, how does such knowledge serve us, and what is the relation of historical understanding and self-understanding? Paul Fairfield revisits some familiar hermeneutical themes and endeavors to develop these further while examining two important periods in which historical reassessments or re-imaginings of the past occurred on a large scale. The conception of historical imagination that emerges seeks to advance beyond the debate between empiricists and postmodern constructivists while focusing on narrative as well as a more encompassing interpretation of who an historical people were, how things stood with them, and how this comes to be known. Fairfield supplements the philosophical argument with an historical examination of how and why during late antiquity, early Christian thinkers began to reimagine their Greek and Roman past, followed by how and why renaissance and later enlightenment figures reimagined their ancient and medieval past.

The Latin Middle Ages were characterised by a vast array of different representations of nature. These conceptualisations of the natural world were developed according to the specific requirements of many different disciplines, with the consequent result of producing a fragmentation of images of nature. Despite this plurality, two main tendencies emerged. On the one hand, the natural world was seen as a reflection of God's perfection, teleologically ordered and structurally harmonious. On the other, it was also considered as a degraded version of the spiritual realm - a world of impeccable ideas, separate substances, and celestial movers. This book focuses on this tension between order and randomness, and idealisation and reality of nature in the Middle Ages. It provides a cutting-edge profile of the doctrinal and semantic richness of the medieval idea of nature, and also illustrates the structural interconnection among learned and scientific disciplines in the medieval period, stressing the fundamental bond linking together science and philosophy, on the one hand, and philosophy and theology, on the other. This book will appeal to scholars and students alike interested in Medieval European History, Theology, Philosophy, and Science.

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call 'disability.' The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new avenues of research for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part One addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of 'disability' and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part Two is on disability in this life, and Part Three is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology, or disability studies.

Bede and the Cosmos examines Bede's cosmology-his understanding of the universe and its laws. It explores his ideas regarding both the structure and mechanics of the created world and the relationship of that world to its Creator. Beginning with On the Nature of Things and moving on to survey his writings in other genres, it demonstrates the key role that natural philosophy played in shaping Bede's worldview, and explores the ramifications that this had on his cultural, theological and historical thought. From questions about angelic bodies and the destruction of the world at judgement day, to subtle arguments about free will and the meaning of history, Bede's fascinating and unique engagement with the natural world is explored in this comprehensive study.

This book is a study into the intellectual oeuvre of Juan Luis Vives, scholar and Renaissance humanist / The author analyses the political and philosophical aspects of Juan Luis Vives' writings and arguments, which will appeal to all those interested in Renaissance humanism / This book also brings to light Juan Luis Vives' arguments on legal and spiritual reform in Christendom, which will appeal to all those interested in the European Renaissance and it's effect upon the philosophical thinking of its contemporaries.

This book offers a new reading of Aquinas's views on faith. The author argues that the theological nature of faith is crucial to Aquinas's thought, and that it gives rise to a particular and otherwise incomprehensible relationship with reason. The first part of the book examines various modern and contemporary accounts of the relationship between faith and reason in Aquinas's thought. The author shows that these accounts are unconvincing because they exhibit what he calls a Lockean view of faith and reason, which maintains that the relationship between faith and reason should be treated only by way of evidence. In other words, the Lockean view ignores the specific nature of the Christian faith and the equally specific way it needs to relate to reason. The second part offers a comprehensive account of Aquinas's view of faith. It focuses on the way the divine grace and charity shape the relationship between evidence and human will. The final part of the book ties these ideas together to show how Christian faith, with its specifically theological nature, is perfectly compatible with rational debate. It also argues that employing the specificity of faith may constitute the best way to promote autonomous and successful rational investigations. Aquinas on Faith, Reason, and Charity will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas, philosophy of religion, Christian theology, and medieval philosophy.