The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. A member of the minor aristocracy, he worked as a judicial investigator, served as mayor of Bordeaux, and sought to bring stability to his war-torn country during the latter half of the sixteenth century. He is best known today, however, as the author of the Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt, self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne's masterpiece has been continuously and powerfully influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin provides an overview of Montaigne's life, thought, and writing, situating the Essays within the arc of Montaigne's lived experience and focusing on themes of particular interest for contemporary readers. Designed for a broad audience, this introduction will appeal to first-time students of Montaigne as well as to seasoned experts and admirers. Well-informed and lucidly written, Hamlin's book offers an ideal point of entry into the life and work of the world's first and most extraordinary essayist.

Translated into English for the first time, the writings of the twentieth-century scholar Annelise Maier on late medieval natural philosophy are here made accessible to a broader audience. The seven selections represent both Maier's earlier and later works. Her perceptions as a trained philosopher, coupled with her familiarity with the full range of primary source material, result in these rare insights into the historical importance of medieval science.

An inquiry into the origins, dissemination, and consequences of the modern belief that humans can solve any problem and overcome any difficulty, given time and resources enough.

This study began as a paper. It got out of hand. It had help doing that. Oswaldo Chateaubriand, Ronald Haver, Paul Horwich, Bernie Katz, Norman Kretzmann, Stanley Martens, Stephen Pink, Michael Stokes, Eleanor Stump, Bill Ulrich, Celia Wolf, and a lot of other people questioned or criticized or helped reformulate one or another of the arguments and interpretations along the way. In spite of (maybe partly because of) their efforts, the book is full of mistakes. At least, induction over previous drafts indicates that irresistibly. But I do not, right now, know of any particular mistakes. All but a couple of the translations are mine (the exceptions are noted). That is not because existing translations are bad, but because some uniformity was essential. The translations often make unpleasant reading. So, often, does Aristotle; I have tried to be literal. A text and translation of the passage on which the book centers is in Appendix III. Footnotes cite literature by author and (sometimes abbreviated) title. Details are in the bibliography. I do not profess to have covered all the literature. An enormous amount of editorial work was done by Margaret Mundy. She was not able to undo the errors that remain. In particular, the footnotes are often numbered oddly: '4', '4a', '4b', etc.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the key themes in Greek and Roman science, medicine, mathematics and technology. A distinguished team of specialists engage with topics including the role of observation and experiment, Presocratic natural philosophy, ancient creationism, and the special style of ancient Greek mathematical texts, while several chapters confront key questions in the philosophy of science such as the relationship between evidence and explanation. The volume will spark renewed discussion about the character of 'ancient' versus 'modern' science, and will broaden readers' understanding of the rich traditions of ancient Greco-Roman natural philosophy, science, medicine and mathematics.

The Vatican Mythographers offers the first complete English translation of three important sources of knowledge about the survival of classical mythology from the Carolingian era to the High Middle Ages and beyond. The Latin texts were discovered in manuscripts in the Vatican library and published together in the nineteenth century. The three so-called Vatican Mythographers compiled, analyzed, interpreted, and transmitted a vast collection of myths for use by students, poets, and artists. In terms consonant with Christian purposes, they elucidated the fabulous narratives and underlying themes in the works of Ovid, Virgil, Statius, and other poets of antiquity. In so doing, the Vatican Mythographers provided handbooks that included descriptions of ancient rites and customs, curious etymologies, and, above all, moral allegories. Thus we learn that Bacchus is a naked youth who rides a tiger because drunkenness is never mature, denudes us of possessions, and begets ferocity; or that Ulysses, husband of Penelope, passed by the monstrous Scylla unharmed because a wise man bound to chastity overcomes lust. The extensive collection of myths illustrates how this material was used for moral lessons. To date, the works of the Vatican Mythographers have remained inaccessible to scholars and students without a good working knowledge of Latin. The translation thus fulfills a scholarly void. It is prefaced by an introduction that discusses the purposes of the Vatican Mythographers, the influences on them, and their place in medieval and Renaissance mythography. Of course, it also entertains with a host of stories whose undying appeal captivates, charms, inspires, instructs, and sometimes horrifiesus.The book should have wide appeal for a whole range of university courses involving myth.

The new series of Ideen&Argumente subscribes to the ideal of a pluralist and open culture of argument and debate and presents well-produced volumes on topics and questions which make substantive or methodologically important contributions to contemporary philosophy. The publications are designed to effect a productive synergy between the Anglo-Saxon and Continental European philosophical traditions. Ideen&Argumente provides a platform for outstanding systematically oriented original editions and German first editions from all areas of Theoretical and Practical Philosophy. A welcome is extended to programmatic monographs from whatever philosophical direction. The aim is to highlight anew the thematic and methodological richness of contemporary philosophy.

This remarkable book shows the seminal Western mystic Meister Eckhart as the great teacher of the birth of God in the soul. It is at once an exposition of Eckhart's mysticism -- perhaps the best in English -- and also an exemplary work of contemporary philosophy.

Schurmann shows us that Eckhart is our contemporary. Writing from experience, he describes the threefold movement of detachment, releasement, and "dehiscence" (splitting open) that leads to the experience of "living without a why" in which all things are in God and which is sheer joy. Going beyond that, he describes the transformational force of approaching the Godhead, the God beyond God.

Im Zentrum dieses Bandes steht die Untersuchung des Wechselspiels und der Eigenlogik von Politik, Religion und Philosophie im Mittelalter und in der Fruhen Neuzeit. Untersucht wird die Differenzierung religioser und politischer Diskurse im Medium der aristotelischen Philosophietradition. Den Leitgedanken bildet dabei die Frage nach der Art und Weise, in der verschiedene Autoren jener Epoche teils affirmativ, teils polemisch auf Aristoteles und seine Philosophie Bezug nahmen und so zur Herausbildung einer bestimmten Form von Politischem Aristotelismus beitrugen, der religiose und philosophische Argumentationen in ihren Geltungsanspruchen kritisch gegeneinander abhebt. Die diachrone Perspektive und die Gleichzeitigkeit von historischer und philosophischer Betrachtungsweise der Studien dieses Buchs fordern nicht nur bedeutende Ergebnisse im Hinblick auf die jeweils untersuchten Autoren und Problemzusammenhange zutage, sondern erproben anhand des Politischen Aristotelismus zugleich ein Deutungsmuster fur das Verhaltnis von Wissenskultur und gesellschaftlichem Wandel uberhaupt."

The notion that human thought is structured like a language, with a precise syntax and semantics, has been pivotal in recent philosophy of mind. Yet it is not a new idea: it was systematically explored in the fourteenth century by William of Ockham and became central in late medieval philosophy. Mental Language examines the background of Ockham's innovation by tracing the history of the mental language theme in ancient and medieval thought. Panaccio identifies two important traditions: one philosophical, stemming from Plato and Aristotle, and the other theological, rooted in the Fathers of the Christian Church. The study then focuses on the merging of the two traditions in the Middle Ages, as they gave rise to detailed discussions over the structure of human thought and its relations with signs and language. Ultimately, Panaccio stresses the originality and significance of Ockham's doctrine of the oratio mentalis (mental discourse) and the strong impression it made upon his immediate successors.

The first collection of essays devoted to the Arabic philosopher Averroes's brilliant Commentary on Plato's "Republic," which survived the medieval period only in Hebrew and Latin translations. The first collection of essays devoted entirely to the medieval philosopher Averroes's Commentary on Plato's "Republic" includes a variety of contributors from across several disciplines and countries. The anthology aims to establish Averroes as a great philosopher in his own right, with special and unique insight into the world of Islam, as well as a valuable commentator on Plato. A major feature of the book is the first published English translation of Shlomo Pines's 1957 essay, written in Hebrew, on Averroes. The volume explores many aspects of Averroes's philosophy, including its teachings on poetry, philosophy, religion, law, and government. Other sections trace both the inspiration Averroes's work drew from past philosophers and the influence it had on future generations, especially in Jewish and Christian Europe. Scholars of medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, Jewish studies, and the history of political thought more generally will find important insights in this volume. The anthology is also intended to provide the necessary background for teachers aiming to introduce Averroes's commentary into the classroom. With the Republic regularly appearing near the top of lists of the most frequently taught books in the history of philosophy, this volume shows how the most important medieval commentary on it deserves a place in the curriculum as well.

This book offers a comparative study of emotion in Arabic Islamic and English Christian contemplative texts, c. 1110-1250, contributing to the emerging interest in 'globalization' in medieval studies. A.S.Lazikani argues for the necessity of placing medieval English devotional texts in a more global context and seeks to modify influential narratives on the 'history of emotions' to enable this more wide-ranging critical outlook. Across eight chapters, the book examines the dialogic encounters generated by comparative readings of Muhyddin Ibn 'Arabi (1165-1240), 'Umar Ibn al-Farid (1181-1235), Abu al-Hasan al-Shushtari (d. 1269), Ancrene Wisse (c. 1225), and the Wooing Group (c. 1225). Investigating the two-fold 'paradigms of love' in the figure of Jesus and in the image of the heart, the (dis)embodied language of affect, and the affective semiotics of absence and secrecy, Lazikani demonstrates an interconnection between the religious traditions of early Christianity and Islam.

This volume re-examines some of the major themes at the intersection of traditional and contemporary metaphysics. The book uses as a point of departure Francisco Suarez's Metaphysical Disputations published in 1597. Minimalist metaphysics in empiricist/pragmatist clothing have today become mainstream in analytic philosophy. Independently of this development, the progress of scholarship in ancient and medieval philosophy makes clear that traditional forms of metaphysics have affinities with some of the streams in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The book brings together leading contemporary metaphysicians to investigate the viability of a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics.

John Duns Scotus is commonly recognized as one of the most original thinkers of medieval philosophy. His influence on subsequent philosophers and theologians is enormous and extends well beyond the limits of the Middle Ages. His thought, however, might be intimidating for the non-initiated, because of the sheer number of topics he touched on and the difficulty of his style. The eleven essays collected here, especially written for this volume by some of the leading scholars in the field, take the reader through various topics, including Duns Scotus's intellectual environment, his argument for the existence of God, and his conceptions of modality, order, causality, freedom, and human nature. This volume provides a reliable point of entrance to the thought of Duns Scotus while giving a snapshot of some of the best research that is now being done on this difficult but intellectually rewarding thinker.

Modern physics has accustomed us to consider events which cannot give rise to certainty in our knowledge. A scientific knowledge of such events is nevertheless possible. The method which has enabled us to obtain a stable and exact knowledge about uncertain events consists in a kind of changing of plane and in the replacing of the study of indi vidual phenomena by the study of statistical aggregates to which those phenomena can give rise. A statistical aggregate is not a collection of real phenomena, among which some would happen more often, others more rarely. It is a set of possibilities relative to a certain object or to a certain type of phenomenon. For example, we could consider the differ ent ways in which a die, thrown in given conditions, can fall: they are the possible results of a certain trial, the casting of the die (in the fore seen conditions). The set of those results constitutes effectively a set of possibilities, relative to a phenomenon of a certain type, the fall of the die in specified circumstances. Similarly, it is possible to consider the different velocities which can affect a molecule in a volume of gas; the set of those velocities constitutes effectively a set of possible values which a physical property, namely the velocity of a molecule, can have."

With selections of philosophers from Plotinus to Bruno, this new anthology provides significant learning support and historical context for the readings along with a wide variety of pedagogical assists. Featuring biographical headnotes, reading introductions, study questions, as well as special "Prologues" and "Philosophical Overviews," this anthology offers a unique set of critical thinking promtps to help students understand and appreciate the philosophical concepts under discussion. "Philosophical Bridges" discuss how the work of earlier thinkers would influence philosophers to come and place major movements in a contemporary context, showing students how the schools of philosophy interrelate and how the various philosophies apply to the world today. In addition to this volume of Medieval Philosophy, a comprehensive survey of the whole of Western philosophical history and other individual volumes for each of the major historical eras are also available for specialized courses.