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.

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.

This series is the first English translation of the letters of the philosopher priest who helped to shape the Renaissance worldview. This volume spans the seventeen months from April 1491 to September 1492. This is a crucial period for Marsilio Ficino and Florence itself, for it witnessed the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In one of the letters Ficino calls him 'the great and god-like Lorenzo'. In a letter to Lorenzo in Volume 1, he had written: 'Almost all other rich men support servants of pleasure, but you support priests of the Muses'.Of the 34 letters in this volume, five are addressed to Martin Prenninger, Professor of Ecclesiastical Law at Tubingen University and counsellor to Count Eberhard. One, the longest in this volume, consists mainly of extracts selected by Ficino from his translation of Proclus' commentaries on Plato's Republic.Another letter to Prenninger gives an insight into Ficino's activities in this period: his work with the Divine Names of Dionysius, the preparation of a copy of his Philebus commentary being made for Prenninger, and the reprinting, in Venice, of his translations of Plato's dialogues and the Platonic Theology.Most interesting and intriguing is Ficino's response to Prenninger's frequent request to receive a list of his friends, with which he complies, requesting him not to infer any ranking from the order in which they are listed.

Can ecstatic experiences be studied with the academic instruments of rational investigation? What kinds of religious illumination are experienced by academically minded people? And what is the specific nature of the knowledge of God that university theologians of the Middle Ages enjoyed compared with other modes of knowing God, such as rapture, prophecy, the beatific vision, or simple faith? Ecstasy in the Classroom explores the interface between academic theology and ecstatic experience in the first half of the thirteenth century, formative years in the history of the University of Paris, medieval Europe's "fountain of knowledge." It considers little-known texts by William of Auxerre, Philip the Chancellor, William of Auvergne, Alexander of Hales, and other theologians of this community, thus creating a group portrait of a scholarly discourse. It seeks to do three things. The first is to map and analyze the scholastic discourse about rapture and other modes of cognition in the first half of the thirteenth century. The second is to explicate the perception of the self that these modes imply: the possibility of transformation and the complex structure of the soul and its habits. The third is to read these discussions as a window on the predicaments of a newborn community of medieval professionals and thereby elucidate foundational tensions in the emergent academic culture and its social and cultural context. Juxtaposing scholastic questions with scenes of contemporary courtly romances and reading Aristotle's Analytics alongside hagiographical anecdotes, Ecstasy in the Classroom challenges the often rigid historiographical boundaries between scholastic thought and its institutional and cultural context.

The conventional opposition of scholastic Aristotelianism and humanistic science has been increasingly questioned in recent years, and in these articles William Wallace aims to demonstrate that a progressive Aristotelianism in fact provided the foundation for Galileo's scientific discoveries. The first series of articles supply much of the documentary evidence that has led the author to the sources for Galileo's early notebooks: they show how Galileo, while teaching or preparing to teach at Pisa, actually appropriated much of his material from Jesuit lectures given at the Collegio Romano in 1598-90. The next articles then trace a number of key elements in Galileo's later work, mainly relating to logical methodology and natural philosophy, back to sources in medieval Aristotelian thought, notably in the writings of Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. La mise en opposition conventionnelle entre l'aristotelisme scolastique et la science humaniste a ete de plus en plus remise en question durant les dernieres annees. Tout au long de ces articles, William Wallace tente de demontrer que l'aristotelisme progressif a en fait pourvu le fondement des decouvertes scientifiques de Galilee. Le premier groupe d'articles fournit la plupart des preuves documentees qui ont mene l'auteur aux sources des premiers cahiers de notes de Galilee; on y voit comment celui-ci, alors qu'il enseignait, ou s'apprAtait A enseigner A Pise, s'etait en fait approprie quantite de donnees issues de cours magistraux jesuites qui avaient ete donnes au Collegio Romano entre 1588 et 90. Les etudes suivantes retracent A leur tour un certain nombre d'elements-clef des travaux ulterieurs de Galilee, se rapportant plus particulierement A la methodologie logique et a la philosophie naturelle, jusqu'A leurs sources dans la pensee aristotelicienne du Moyen Age, notamment dans les ecrits d'Albert le Grand et de Thomas d'Aquin.

Este libro recorre la obra de Maurice Blanchot utilizando la nocion de muerte como hilo conductor. Postula que la lectura que Blanchot realizo de ciertos temas nietzscheanos hizo posible el despliegue de una reflexion acerca de la literatura que conduce a renovar las nociones tradicionales de escritura, imagen e infancia. Inspirado en una perspectiva postmetafisica y posthumana, este libro ensaya una lectura no antropocentrica del pensamiento de Blanchot que retoma sus conceptos fundamentales (afuera, fragmento, neutro, impersonal, morir) y los anuda a una conversacion aun en curso sobre las politicas del vivir y morir con lo otro de lo humano.

'This sentence is false' - is that true? The 'Liar paradox' embodied in those words exerted a particular fascination on the logicians of the Western later Middle Ages, and, along with similar 'insoluble' problems, forms the subject of the first group of articles in this volume. In the following parts Professor Spade turns to medieval semantic theory, views on the relationship between language and thought, and to a study of one particular genre of disputation, that known as 'obligationes'. The focus is on the Oxford scholastics of the first half of the 14th century, and it is the name of William of Ockham which dominates these pages - a thinker with whom Professor Spade finds himself in considerable philosophical sympathy, and whose work on logic and semantic theory has a depth and richness that have not always been sufficiently appreciated.

In On Machiavelli: The Search for Glory, Alan Ryan illuminates the political and philosophical complexities of the often-reviled godfather of realpolitik. Thought by some to be the founder of Italian nationalism, regarded by others to be a reviver of the Roman Republic as a model for the modern Western world, Machiavelli remains a contentious figure. Often outraging popular opinion with his insistence on the amoral nature of power, Machiavelli eschewed the world as it ought to be in favor of a forthright appraisal of the one that is. Perhaps more than any other thinker, Machiavelli has suffered from being taken out of context, and Ryan places him squarely within his own time and the politics of a Renaissance Italy riven by near-constant warfare among rival city-states and the papacy.

A well-educated son of Florence, Machiavelli was originally in charge of the Florentine Republic s militia, but in 1512 the city fell to papal forces led by Cardinal Giovanni de Medici, who thus restored the Medici family to power. Machiavelli was accused of conspiracy, imprisoned, tortured, and eventually exiled from his beloved Florence, and it was during this period that he produced his most famous works. While attempting to ingratiate himself to the Medicis, the historically minded Machiavelli looked to the imperial ambitions and past glories of the Roman Republic as a contrast to the perceived failures of his contemporaries.

For Machiavelli, the hunger for power and glory was inextricable from human nature, and any serious attempt to rule must take this into account. In his revolutionary The Prince and Discourses both excerpted here Machiavelli created the first truly modern analysis of power."

In this classic work the author undertakes to show how Spinoza's philosophical ideas, particularly his political ideas, were influenced by his underlying emotional responses to the conflicts of his time. It thus differs form most professional philosophical analyses of the philosophy of Spinoza. The author identifies and discusses three periods in the development of Spinoza's thought and shows how they were reactions to the religious, political and economic developments in the Netherlands at the time. In his first period, Spinoza reacted very strongly to the competitive capitalism of the Amsterdam Jews whose values were "so thoroughly pervaded by an economic ethics that decrees the stock exchange approached in dignity the decrees of God," and of the ruling classes of Amsterdam, and was led out only to give up his business activities but also to throw in his lot with the Utopian groups of the day. In his second period, Spinoza developed serious doubts about the practicality of such idealistic movements and became a "mature political partisan" of Dutch liberal republicanism. The collapse of republicanism and the victory of the royalist party brought further disillusionment. Having become more reserved concerning democratic processes, and having decided that "every form of government could be made consistent with the life of free men," Spinoza devoted his time and efforts to deciding what was essential to any form of government which would make such a life possible. In his carefully crafted introduction to this new edition, Lewis Feuer responds to his critics, and reviews Spinoza's worldview in the light of the work of later scientists sympathetic to this own basic standpoint. He reviews Spinoza's arguments for the ethical and political contributions of the principle of determinism, and examines how these have guided, and at times frustrated, students and scholars of the social and physical sciences who have sought to understand and advance these disciplines.

Justus Lipsius' De Constantia (1584) is one of the most important and interesting of sixteenth century Humanist texts. A dialogue in two books, conceived as a philosophical consolation for those suffering through contemporary religious wars, De Constantia proved immensely popular in its day and formed the inspiration for what has become known as 'Neo-stoicism'. This movement advocated the revival of Stoic ethics in a form that would be palatable to a Christian audience. In De Constantia Lipsius deploys Stoic arguments concerning appropriate attitudes towards emotions and external events. He also makes clear which parts of stoic philosophy must be rejected, including its materialism and its determinism. De Constantia was translated into a number of vernacular languages soon after its original publication in Latin. Of the English translations that were made, that by Sir John Stradling (1595) became a classic; it was last reprinted in 1939. The present edition offers a lightly revised version of Stradling's translation, updated for modern readers, along with a new introduction, notes and bibliography.