In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle suggests that a moral principle 'does not immediately appear to the man who has been corrupted by pleasure or pain'. Phantasia in Aristotle's Ethics investigates his claim and its reception in ancient and medieval Aristotelian traditions, including Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin. While contemporary commentators on the Ethics have overlooked Aristotle's remark, his ancient and medieval interpreters made substantial contributions towards a clarification of the claim's meaning and relevance. Even when the hazards of transmission have left no explicit comments on this particular passage, as is the case in the Arabic tradition, medieval responders still offer valuable interpretations of phantasia (appearance) and its role in ethical deliberation and action. This volume casts light on these readings, showing how the distant voices from the medieval Arabic, Greek, Hebrew and Latin Aristotelian traditions still contribute to contemporary debate concerning phantasia, motivation and deliberation in Aristotle's Ethics.

Personal Autonomy and Social Oppression addresses the impact of social conditions, especially subordinating conditions, on personal autonomy. The essays in this volume are concerned with the philosophical concept of autonomy or self-governance and with the impact on relational autonomy of the oppressive circumstances persons must navigate. They address on the one hand questions of the theoretical structure of personal autonomy given various kinds of social oppression, and on the other, how contexts of social oppression make autonomy difficult or impossible.

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, with special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. Dorothea Frede suggests that this faculty is an 'embarrassment' for Aquinas; to the contrary, the analysis offered in this book argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas's philosophy of mind would be an embarrassment. By means of this faculty of inner sense, Aquinas offers an account of a direct awareness of individuals of natural kinds-referred to by Aquinas as incidental objects of sense-which comprise the principal ontological categories in Aquinas's metaphysics. By using this awareness of individuals of a natural kind, Aquinas can make better sense out of the process of abstraction using the active intellect (intellectus agens). Were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics.

"This is one of the few books on Montaigne that fuses analytical skill with humane awareness of why Montaigne matters."--Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of Humanities, Yale University

"In this exhilarating and learned book on Montaigne's essays, Lawrence D. Kritzman "contemporizes" the great writer. Reading him from today's deconstructive America, Kritzman discovers Montaigne always already deep into a dialogue with Jacques Derrida and psychoanalysis. One cannot but admire this fabulous act of translation."--H?l?ne Cixous

"Throughout his career, Lawrence D. Kritzman has demonstrated an intimate knowledge of Montaigne's essays and an engagement with French philosophy and critical theory. "The Fabulous Imagination" sheds precious new light on one of the founders of modern individualism and on his crucial quest for self-knowledge."--Jean Starobinski, professor emeritus of French literature, University of Geneva

Michel de Montaigne's (1533-1592) "Essais" was a profound study of human subjectivity. More than three hundred years before the advent of psychoanalysis, Montaigne embarked on a remarkable quest to see and imagine the self from a variety of vantages. Through the questions How shall I live? How can I know myself? he explored the significance of monsters, nightmares, and traumatic memories; the fear of impotence; the fragility of gender; and the act of anticipating and coping with death. In this book, Lawrence D. Kritzman traces Montaigne's development of the Western concept of the self. For Montaigne, imagination lies at the core of an internal universe that influences both the body and the mind. Imagination is essential to human experience. Although Montaigne recognized that the imagination can confuse the individual, "the fabulous imagination" can be curative, enabling the mind's "I" to sustain itself in the face of hardship.

Kritzman begins with Montaigne's study of the fragility of gender and its relationship to the peripatetic movement of a fabulous imagination. He then follows with the essayist's examination of the act of mourning and the power of the imagination to overcome the fear of death. Kritzman concludes with Montaigne's views on philosophy, experience, and the connection between self-portraiture, ethics, and oblivion. His reading demonstrates that the mind's I, as Montaigne envisioned it, sees by imagining that which is not visible, thus offering an alternative to the logical positivism of our age.

Augustine's Confessions is one of the most significant works of Western culture. Cast as a long, impassioned conversation with God, it is intertwined with passages of life-narrative and with key theological and philosophical insights. It is enduringly popular, and justly so. The Routledge Guidebook to Augustine's Confessions is an engaging introduction to this spiritually creative and intellectually original work. This guidebook is organized by themes: the importance of language creation and the sensible world memory, time and the self the afterlife of the Confessions. Written for readers approaching the Confessions for the first time, this guidebook addresses the literary, philosophical, historical and theological complexities of the work in a clear and accessible way. Excerpts in both Latin and English from this seminal work are included throughout the book to provide a close examination of both the autobiographical and theoretical content within the Confessions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: Translator's Introduction Introduction by Genevieve Rodis-Lewis The Passions of the Sou l: Preface PART I: About the Passions in General, and Incidentally about the Entire Nature of Man PART II: About the Number and Order of the Passions, and the Explanation of the Six Primitives PART III: About the Particular Passions Lexicon: Index to Lexicon Bibliography Index Index Locorum

In seventeenth-century philosophy the mind-body problem and the nature of personal immortality were two of the most controversial and sensitive issues. Nicholas Jolley seeks to show that these issues are more prominent in Locke's philosophy than has been realized. He argues further that Locke takes up unorthodox positions in both cases. Although Locke's official stance on the mind-body problem is agnostic, in places he presents arguments that, taken together, amount to a significant case for a weak form of materialism. Locke also seeks to show that the solution to the mind-body problem is irrelevant to the issue of personal immortality: for Locke, such immortality is conceptually possible even if the same body is not resurrected at the Day of Judgment. Jolley throws new light on such central topics in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding as substance and personal identity: he also pays close attention to such neglected topics as his account of the status of animals and his polemic against the thesis that the mind always thinks. Throughout, the book examines Locke's arguments against the background of Descartes' views. Jolley argues that Locke's criticisms of Descartes are no mere defences of common sense against dogmatism; rather, they are controversial responses to some of the most challenging metaphysical and theological issues of his time.

Hegel's Encyclopaedia Logic constitutes the foundation of the system of philosophy presented in his Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. Together with his Science of Logic, it contains the most explicit formulation of his enduringly influential dialectical method and of the categorical system underlying his thought. It offers a more compact presentation of his dialectical method than is found elsewhere, and also incorporates changes that he would have made to the second edition of the Science of Logic if he had lived to do so. This volume presents it in a new translation with a helpful introduction and notes. It will be a valuable reference work for scholars and students of Hegel and German idealism, as well as for those who are interested in the post-Hegelian character of contemporary philosophy.

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.

It has been over a decade since the first edition of The Cambridge Companion to Augustine was published. In that time, reflection on Augustine's life and labors has continued to bear much fruit: significant new studies into major aspects of his thinking have appeared, as well as studies of his life and times and new translations of his work. This new edition of the Companion, which replaces the earlier volume, has eleven new chapters, revised versions of others, and a comprehensive updated bibliography. It will furnish students and scholars of Augustine with a rich resource on a philosopher whose work continues to inspire discussion and debate.

"This book is nothing less than the definitive study of a text long considered central to understanding the Renaissance and its place in Western culture." -James Hankins, Harvard University Pico della Mirandola died in 1494 at the age of thirty-one. During his brief and extraordinary life, he invented Christian Kabbalah in a book that was banned by the Catholic Church after he offered to debate his ideas on religion and philosophy with anyone who challenged him. Today he is best known for a short speech, the Oration on the Dignity of Man, written in 1486 but never delivered. Sometimes called a "Manifesto of the Renaissance," this text has been regarded as the foundation of humanism and a triumph of secular rationality over medieval mysticism. Brian Copenhaver upends our understanding of Pico's masterwork by re-examining this key document of modernity. An eminent historian of philosophy, Copenhaver shows that the Oration is not about human dignity. In fact, Pico never wrote an Oration on the Dignity of Man and never heard of that title. Instead he promoted ascetic mysticism, insisting that Christians need help from Jews to find the path to heaven-a journey whose final stages are magic and Kabbalah. Through a rigorous philological reading of this much-studied text, Copenhaver transforms the history of the idea of dignity and reveals how Pico came to be misunderstood over the course of five centuries. Magic and the Dignity of Man is a seismic shift in the study of one of the most remarkable thinkers of the Renaissance.

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.

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.

Was man in der alteuropaischen Metaphysik "das Wesen" des Menschen genannt hat, ist historisch zugrunde gegangen. Die Spezifik des Menschen wurde in seiner dualistischen Aufspaltung, entweder Seele oder Korper zu sein, und in seiner monistischen Auflosung, ganz Natur oder Geist zu sein, verfehlt. Gleichwohl sind wir alle in unserem Common sense praktisch der Frage ausgesetzt, wie wir die naturlichen, sozialen und kulturellen Aspekte unserer Existenz in der Fuhrung eines menschlichen Lebens sinnvoll berucksichtigen konnen. Die neuen Reproduktions-, Umwelt-, Kommunikations- und Sozialtechnologien werfen taglich die Frage auf, was es heisst, als vergleichbare Person und als Individuum ein menschliches Leben zu fuhren. Die "Philosophische Anthropologie" (Helmuth Plessner) hat die Spezifik menschlicher Phanomene naturphilosophisch als eine Besonderheit im Spielverhalten hoherer Saugetiere erschlossen. Im Spielen kann Verhalten von seinem ursprunglichen Antrieb abgelost und an einen neuen Antrieb gebunden werden. Dies gelingt seitens des Organismus um so besser, je ruckbezuglicher seine zentrische Form (Gehirn) der Selbstreproduktion wird. Dadurch entsteht aber eine Ambivalenz in den Zentrierungsrichtungen des Verhaltens, namlich spontan aus der leiblichen Funktionsmitte des Organismus heraus oder von den korperlich moglichen Funktionsmitten der Umwelt her. Diese Ambivalenz bedarf zur Stutzung entsprechender soziokultureller Losungsformen, in denen sie lebbar verschrankt werden kann. Wer wie z. B. Kinder spielt, lebt in der Differenz, sein Verhalten verkorpern (von einem Zentrum ausserhalb des eigenen Leibes her koordinieren) und verleiblichen (auf seinen eigenen unvertretbaren Leib hin zentrieren) konnen zu mussen. Die (kategorische) Not solcher Lebewesen, ihre beiden Zentrierungsrichtungen ausbalancieren zu mussen, kann aber auf kontingente Weise (konjunktivisch) befriedigt werden. Dieser "Kategorische Konjunktiv" (Plessner) der Lebensfuhrung macht Menschen einer geschichtlich zu erringenden soziokulturellen Natur bedurftig. Im ersten des auf zwei Bande konzipierten Werks wird Plessners "Kategorischer Konjunktiv" als ein Spektrum menschlicher Phanomene vorgefuhrt, in denen sich unsere verschiedenen leiblichen und korperlichen Sinne zu einer Funktionseinheit verschranken. Der Zusammenhang unserer Sinne ergibt sich daraus, dass jeder Mensch lebensgeschichtlich eine soziokulturelle Elementarrolle spielt. Dank dieser kann man sich personalisieren (vergleichbar werden) und im Unterschied zu ihr individualisieren. Das Schauspielen der Rolle gerinnt in Ausdrucks-, Handlungs- und Sprachformen, unter denen die westliche Modernisierung hochst einseitig solche der Selbstbeherrschung durch Selbstbewusstsein ausgezeichnet hat. Das Ausspielen der Rolle findet aber seine Verhaltensgrenzen in Phanomenen ungespielten Lachens und Weinens, in denen die Zuordnung zwischen Individuum und Person nicht mehr gelingt. Das Eingespieltsein zwischen sich als Person und Individuum kann im ungespielten Lachen zu mehrsinnig oder im ungespielten Weinen sinnlos werden. Die soziolkulturell zu bestimmter Zeit anerkannten Rollen werden aber individuell durch Suchte und Leidenschaften und geschichtlich durch kulturelle Entfremdung der Nachwachsenden und gesellschaftliche Offnung der Gemeinschaftsformen wieder aus der Balance gebracht. Daraus resultiert das Problem der geschichtlichen Selbstermachtigung von Individuen und Generationen. Plessners neue Konzeption souveraner Formen von Macht, die aus der Relation zur eigenen Unbestimmtheit zu gewinnen sind, und im Hinblick auf die moderne Emanzipation der Macht fur plurale Gesellschaften als Minima moralia erortert. In den Verhaltensgrenzen des angespielten Lachen und Weinens werden wir uns unbestimmt. Wer diese Grenzen uberschreitet, begeht der Moglichkeit nach Unmenschliches."

A thoroughgoing examination of Maximus Confessor’s singular theological vision through the prism of Christ’s cosmic and historical Incarnation. Jordan Daniel Wood changes the trajectory of patristic scholarship with this comprehensive historical and systematic study of one of the most creative and profound thinkers of the patristic era: Maximus Confessor (560–662 CE). Wood's panoramic vantage on Maximus’s thought emulates the theological depth of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Cosmic Liturgy while also serving as a corrective to that classic text. Maximus's theological vision may be summed up in his enigmatic assertion that “the Word of God, very God, wills always and in all things to actualize the mystery of his Incarnation.” The Whole Mystery of Christ sets out to explicate this claim. Attentive to the various contexts in which Maximus thought and wrote—including the wisdom of earlier church fathers, conciliar developments in Christological and Trinitarian doctrine, monastic and ascetic ways of life, and prominent contemporary philosophical traditions—the book explores the relations between God’s act of creation and the Word’s historical Incarnation, between the analogy of being and Christology, and between history and the Fall, in addition to treating such topics as grace, deification, theological predication, and the ontology of nature versus personhood. Perhaps uniquely among Christian thinkers, Wood argues, Maximus envisions creatio ex nihilo as creatio ex Deo in the event of the Word’s kenosis: the mystery of Christ is the revealed identity of the Word’s historical and cosmic Incarnation. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of patristics, historical theology, systematic theology, and Byzantine studies.

'It remains astonishingly radical ... one of Utopia's most striking aspects is its contemporaniety' Terry Eagleton In Utopia, Thomas More gives us a traveller's account of a newly-discovered island where the inhabitants enjoy a social order based on natural reason and justice, and human fulfilment is open to all. As the traveller describes the island, a bitter contrast is drawn between this rational society and the practices of Europe. How can the philosopher reform his society? In his discussion, More takes up a question first raised by Plato and which is still a challenge in the contemporary world. In the history of political thought few works have been more influential than Utopia, and few more misunderstood. Translated and introduced by Dominic Baker-Smith

The multi-author Essays in Later Mediaeval Metaphysics focuses primarily on 13th and 14th century Latin treatments of some of the most important metaphysical issues as conceived by many of the most important thinkers of the day. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina (Avicenna) are among the figures examined here. The work begins with standard ontological topics-e.g., the nature of existence, and of metaphysics generally; the status of universals, form, and accidents. Here, a number of questions are considered. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Furthermore, does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and if so, are they anything more than general concepts? There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, discussions of theories of mediaeval logic, epistemology, and language are added to provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later mediaeval worldview. Many questions are raised in this context as well. What are the objects of propositional attitudes? How does Aristotelian logic stand up against modern predicate calculus? Are infinite regress arguments defensible in metaphysical contexts? How are the notions of analogy and equivocation related to the concept of being? Contributors include scholars of mediaeval philosophy from across North America: Rega Wood (Indiana), Gyula Klima (Fordham), Brian Francis Conolly (Bard College at Simon's Rock ), Charles Bolyard (James Madison), Martin Tweedale (emeritus, Alberta), Jack Zupko (Winnipeg), Susan Brower-Toland (St. Louis), Rondo Keele (Louisiana Scholars' College), Terence Parsons (UC-Irvine), and E. J. Ashworth (emeritus, Waterloo).

This volume belongs to the new critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume contains Bacon's earliest known writings, dating from 1584 to 1596, comprising position papers, commentaries on printed works, legal readings and opinions, and discourses of advice, usually written in response to specific events or demands, and circulated in manuscript. Bacon's writings to 1596 generally reflect his professional occupations: legal, political, and parliamentary. They include substantial writings on the Martin Marprelate controversy of 1588-1589, Roman Catholic attacks on Elizabeth's government (1593); dramatic entertainments put on at Gray's Inn and the court; tracts on important legal cases of the period; notes from his extensive reading; and letters of advice written for and to Bacon's patron, Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex. Despite the 'occasional' nature of these writings, there is clearly visible across them the early signs - 'seeds' as their author would call them-of the philosophy Francis Bacon would later come to write. The writings are presented with substantial introductions, and full commentaries and glossaries

Leo Strauss argued that the most visible fact about Machiavelli's doctrine is also the most useful one: Machiavelli seems to be a teacher of wickedness. Strauss sought to incorporate this idea in his interpretation without permitting it to overwhelm or exhaust his exegesis of "The Prince" and the "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy." "We are in sympathy," he writes, "with the simple opinion about Machiavelli [namely, the wickedness of his teaching], not only because it is wholesome, but above all because a failure to take that opinion seriously prevents one from doing justice to what is truly admirable in Machiavelli: the intrepidity of his thought, the grandeur of his vision, and the graceful subtlety of his speech." This critique of the founder of modern political philosophy by this prominent twentieth-century scholar is an essential text for students of both authors.