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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Western philosophy > Western philosophy, c 500 to c 1600
The name Erasmus of Rotterdam conjures up a golden age of scholarly
integrity and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge, when learning
could command public admiration without the need for authorial
self-promotion. Lisa Jardine, however, shows that Erasmus
self-consciously created his own reputation as the central figure
of the European intellectual world. Erasmus himself--the historical
as opposed to the figural individual--was a brilliant, maverick
innovator, who achieved little formal academic recognition in his
own lifetime. What Jardine offers here is not only a fascinating
study of Erasmus but also a bold account of a key moment in Western
history, a time when it first became possible to believe in the
existence of something that could be designated "European thought."
In the history of Western thought, men have persistently asked
three questions concerning the habitable earth and their
relationships to it. Is the earth, which is obviously a fit
environment for man and other organic life, a purposefully made
creation? Have its climates, its relief, the configuration of its
continents influenced the moral and social nature of individuals,
and have they had an influence in molding the character and nature
of human culture? In his long tenure of the earth, in what manner
has man changed it from its hypothetical pristine condition? From
the time of the Greeks to our own, answers to these questions have
been and are being given so frequently and so continually that we
may restate them in the form of general ideas: the idea of a
designed earth; the idea of environmental influence; and the idea
of man as a geographic agent. These ideas have come from the
general thought and experience of men, but the first owes much to
mythology, theology, and philosophy; the second, to pharmaceutical
lore, medicine, and weather observation; the third, to the plans,
activities, and skills of everyday life such as cultivation,
carpentry, and weaving. The first two ideas were expressed
frequently in antiquity, the third less so, although it was
implicit in many discussions which recognized the obvious fact that
men through their arts, sciences, and techniques had changed the
physical environment about them. This magnum opus of Clarence
Glacken explores all of these questions from Ancient Times to the
End of the Eighteenth Century.
Alone among Thomas Aquinas' works, the Summa Theologiae contains
well-developed and integrated discussions of metaphysics, ethics,
law, human action, and the divine nature. The essays in this
volume, by scholars representing varied approaches to the study of
Aquinas, offer thorough, cutting-edge expositions and analyses of
these topics and show how they relate to Aquinas' larger system of
thought. The volume also examines the reception of the Summa
Theologiae from the thirteenth century to the present day, showing
how scholars have understood and misunderstood this key text - and
how, even after seven centuries of interpretation, we still have
much to learn from it. Detailed and accessible, this book will be
highly important for scholars and students of medieval philosophy
and theology.
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.
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.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536) was a Dutch humanist, scholar, and
social critic, and one of the most important figures of the
Renaissance. The Praise of Folly is perhaps his best-known work.
Originally written to amuse his friend Sir Thomas More, this
satiric celebration of pleasure, youth, and intoxication
irreverently pokes fun at the pieties of theologians and the
foibles that make us all human, while ultimately reaffirming the
value of Christian ideals. No other book displays quite so
completely the transition from the medieval to the modern world,
and Erasmus's wit, wisdom, and critical spirit have lost none of
their timeliness today. This Princeton Classics edition of The
Praise of Folly features a new foreword by Anthony Grafton that
provides an essential introduction to this iridescent and enduring
masterpiece.
Rethinking humanity as a concept in our age of globalization and
its relevance to the social and political reality of our times are
the topic of this book. It calls for the reclaiming of humanism as
an effective response to the conflict, turmoil, and violence we
witness in the world today. Concepts of humanity and humanism have
become suspect of naivete at best, and guilty of bad faith and
repressive ideologies at worst. Yet, hope for improvement is
incorrigibly human; the concept of humanity still holds enormous
attraction to intellectuals and humanistic scholars. At the same
time, it is important to realize that the critique of humanism is
very much based on - and limited to - Western social and historical
experience. To re-conceptualize humanity and humanism from a truly
global perspective will help in relclaiming a more inclusive kind
of humanism. In this sense, a cross-cultural perspective is
important for reclaiming humanism in our age of globalization. The
present volume is the result of such an effort. The diversity of
the authors views speaks eloquently to the complexity of the
concept of humanity or what constitutes the distinctly human, and
therefore the necessity to have an in-depth dialogue on the fate of
humanity.
In her Letters on Natural Philosophy, published originally in
Krakow in 1584, Camilla Erculiani proposed her new theory of the
natural causes of the universal flood in the biblical book of
Genesis. Erculiani weaves together her understanding of
Aristotelian, Platonic, Galenic, and astrological traditions and
combines them with her own observations of the world as seen from
her apothecary shop in sixteenth-century Padua. This publication
brought Erculiani to the attention of the Inquisition, which
accused her of heresy, silencing her for centuries. Â This
edition presents the first full English translation of
Erculiani’s book and other relevant texts, bringing to light the
cultural context and scientific thought of this unique natural
philosopher.
Critically engaging the thought of Heidegger, Gadamer, and others,
William Franke contributes both to the criticism of Dante's "Divine
Comedy" and to the theory of interpretation.
Reading the poem through the lens of hermeneutical theory, Franke
focuses particularly on Dante's address to the reader as the site
of a disclosure of truth. The event of the poem for its reader
becomes potentially an experience of truth both human and divine.
While contemporary criticism has concentrated on the historical
character of Dante's poem, often insisting on it as undermining the
poem's claims to transcendence, Franke argues that precisely the
poem's historicity forms the ground for its mediation of a
religious revelation. Dante's dramatization, on an epic scale, of
the act of interpretation itself participates in the
self-manifestation of the Word in poetic form.
"Dante's Interpretive Journey" is an indispensable addition to the
field of Dante studies and offers rich insights for philosophy and
theology as well.
In this classic work, Frederick C. Copleston, S.J., outlines the
development of philosophical reflection in Christian, Islamic, and
Jewish thought from the ancient world to the late medieval period.
A History of Medieval Philosophy is an invaluable general
introduction that also includes longer treatments of such leading
thinkers as Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham.
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