The Arguments of Aquinas is intended for readers with philosophical interests, who may not be specialists in medieval philosophy. Some think that a medieval saint must be, as such, wrong, dated, and boring; others feel that a saint, any saint, must be right, relevant, and inspirational. Both groups are likely to misread Aquinas, if indeed they read him at all. The works of great philosophers are products of their times, but that does not lessen their value for us. We profit by reading the works of St Thomas in the same interested but critical way that we read the works of our contemporaries. MacIntosh does not hesitated to compare Thomas's arguments with those of later philosophers as well as with those of his contemporaries and earlier philosophers. He chooses topics from a variety of still interesting problem areas: the existence and attributes of God, including God's foreknowledge and human free will, causality and the origin of the universe, time and necessity, human souls, angels, and the problem of evil. Additionally, the volume looks at his views on honesty and lying, and on human sexuality, on which he is, as ever, philosophically interesting whether or not we accept his conclusions.

Abu'l-Barakat is often considered one of the most comprehensive philosophers of the Arabic-Jewish milieu in the medieval age. His extensive and unique philosophical theories, especially his theories in the particular sciences, were seen as a major challenge for the traditional conceptions of the Aristotelian school of thought during and after this period. 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Scientific Philosophy' explores the core material of Abu'l-Barakat's scientific studies, found in his magnum opus the Kitab al-Mu'tabar. The book then locates these scientific theories within Abu'l-Barakat's philosophy more widely. Whilst providing a comprehensive critique of ancient philosophy, including the work of Aristotle, certain affinities between Abu'l-Barakat's work and that of more modern scientific conceptions are also examined. Containing vast amounts of previously untranslated text, 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Scientific Philosophy' sheds new light on the philosopher's scientific theories, particularly with regards to his logical conceptions. For this reason, the book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Jewish and Islamic Philosophy, whilst the scientific material will appeal to those studying the history of science.

Is Aquinas's Sententia libri Ethicorum an interpretation of Aristotle based on principles of Christian ethics'? Or do we have in that work a presentation of the foundation of Aquinas's moral philosophy? Professor Doig answers these questions through an examination of the historical context within which the Sententia was composed. In Chapters 1-2, the work's role as a corrective of earlier commentaries is established. Chapter 3, by examining philosophy at Paris between 1215 and 1283, reveals that the proposal by Aquinas of a moral philosophy would have been unexceptional. Chapter 4's investigation of the principles underlying the moral theory of the Sententia makes apparent that they were regarded by Aquinas as both philosophical and Aristotelian. The date to be assigned the composition of the Sententia is studied in Chapter 5, and the conclusion is drawn, that with some probability, the Sententia is its author's final proposal of moral doctrines. The closing Chapter offers a summary of that moral philosophy against the historical background brought out earlier.

Published in 1913 as La Philosophie Bergsonienne, this incisive critique of the thought of Henri Bergson was Jacques Maritain's (1882-1973) first book. In it he shows himself already to have an authoritative grasp of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and an uncanny ability to demonstrate its relevance to alternative philosophical systems such as that of Henri Bergson. Volume 1 in the series The Collected Works of Jacques Maritain, this edition faithfully reproduces the 1955 translation published by the Philosophical Library. It would be difficult to overestimate Bergson's role in extricating French philosophy from the deadening materialism that dominated the Sorbonne. It was that cultural milieu that brought Maritain and his wife Raissa to the brink of suicide. They drew back for two major reasons. First were the lectures of Henri Bergson at the College de France, in which the Maritains found a defense of metaphysics, of the transcendent beyond the material, within which they could find meaning in life. The second reason was their conversion to Catholicism, a move they and many of their contemporaries made after being introduced to Bergson's work. Soon after his conversion, Jacques Maritain immersed himself in the thought of Thomas Aquinas and was struck by the comparative weaknesses of Bergson. This book is Maritain's relentless criticism of the philosophy of the man whose lectures had meant so much to him. Its ferocity marks it as a young man's book, written in part to exorcize the defects of Bergson's philosophy as they were understood by one now schooled in Thomism. Twenty-five years later, Maritain, while not retracting his criticisms, regretted their intemperance and, as a result, moderated his assessment of Bergson in a long preface to the second edition. In it, we find a philosopher who mastered his craft and a critic of rare perception and refinement.

the demise of the logical positivism programme. The answers given to these qu- tions have deepened the already existing gap between philosophy and the history and practice of science. While the positivists argued for a spontaneous, steady and continuous growth of scientific knowledge the post-positivists make a strong case for a fundamental discontinuity in the development of science which can only be explained by extrascientific factors. The political, social and cultural environment, the argument goes on, determine both the questions and the terms in which they should be answered. Accordingly, the sociological and historical interpretation - volves in fact two kinds of discontinuity which are closely related: the discontinuity of science as such and the discontinuity of the more inclusive political and social context of its development. More precisely it explains the discontinuity of the former by the discontinuity of the latter subordinating in effect the history of science to the wider political and social history. The underlying idea is that each historical and - cial context generates scientific and philosophical questions of its own. From this point of view the question surrounding the nature of knowledge and its development are entirely new topics typical of the twentieth-century social context reflecting both the level and the scale of the development of science.

An important milestone of 20th Century philosophy was the rise of personalism. After the crimes and atrocities against millions of human beings in two World Wars, especially the Second, some philosophers and other thinkers began to seek arguments showing the value of each human being, to expose and denounce the folly of political structures that violate the inalienable rights of the individual person. Karol Wojty?a appeals to the ancient concept of 'person' to emphasize the particular value of each human being. The person is unique because of their subjectivity by which they possesses an unrepeatable interior world in the history of humanity. Their rational nature grants them a special character among living beings, among which is the transcendence to the infinite. Wojty?a magisterially shows how each human being's personhood is rooted in a conscious and free subjectivity, which is marked also by personal and social responsibility. Wojty?a's original philosophical analysis takes for its starting point the human act, in which consciousness and experience consolidate voluntary choices, which are objectively efficacious. By their acts, the person determines their own personhood. This self-dominion manifests the person and enables them to live together in a community in which one's neighbor can be a companion on the voyage of life. This work provides a clear guide to Karol Wojty?a's principal philosophical work, Person and Act, rigorously analyzing the meaning that the author intended in his exposition. An important feature of the work is that the authors rely on the original Polish text, Osoba i czyn, as well as the best translations into Italian and Spanish, rather than on a flawed and sometimes misleading English edition of the work. Besides the analysis of Wojty?a's masterwork, this volume offers three chapters examining the impact of Wojty?a's anthropology on the relationship between faith and reason.

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

This book examines the studies of Aristotle's Poetics and its related texts in which three Medieval philosophers - Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes - proposed a conception of poetic validity (beauty), and a just relation between subjects in a community (goodness). The work considers the relation of the Poetics to other Aristotelian texts, the transmission of these works to the commentators' context, and the motivations driving the commentators' reception of the texts. The book focuses on issues central to the classical relation of beauty to truth and goodness.

Carl Vogta (TM)s quarrel with Rudolph Wagner is considered to be a culmination of the materialism dispute in the 19th century. Out of this basically academic issue on the nature of human mental functions, a personal dispute quickly developed which was unrivalled in thematic incisiveness and expression. The aim of this study is the detailed linguistic analysis of the polemics and argumentation in this dispute based on extensive text excerpts, in which for the first time detailed linguistic studies on Vogt and Wagner are presented.

The problem of moral luck is that there is a contradiction in our common sense ideas about moral responsibility. In one strand of our thinking, we believe that a person can become more blameworthy by luck. For example, two reckless drivers manage their vehicles in the same way, and one but not the other kills a pedestrian. We blame the killer driver more than the merely reckless driver, because we believe that the killer driver is more blameworthy. Nevertheless, this idea contradicts another feature of our thinking captured in this moral principle: A person's blameworthiness cannot be affected by that which is not within her control. Thus, our ordinary thinking about moral responsibility implies that the drivers are and are not equally blameworthy. In Defense of Moral Luck aims to make progress in resolving this contradiction. Hartman defends the claim that certain kinds of luck in results, circumstance, and character can partially determine the degree of a person's blameworthiness. He also explains why there is a puzzle in our thinking about moral responsibility in the first place if luck often affects a person's praiseworthiness and blameworthiness. Furthermore, the book's methodology provides a unique way to advance the moral luck debate with arguments from diverse areas in philosophy that do not bottom out in standard pro-moral luck intuitions.

First published fifteen years ago, Ethica Thomistica is widely recognized as one of the finest introductions to St. Thomas's moral philosophy. Though the book has been out of print for several years, scholars and students still refer to it as the standard resource on Thomistic ethics. In this much-anticipated, revised edition, Ralph McInerny revisits the basics of Thomas's teachings and offers a brief, intelligible, and persuasive summary.

Which language should philosophers use: technical or common language? In a book as important for intellectual historians as it is for philosophers, Lodi Nauta addresses a vital question which still has resonance today: is the discipline of philosophy assisted or disadvantaged by employing a special vocabulary? By the Middle Ages philosophy had become a highly technical discipline, with its own lexicon and methods. The Renaissance humanist critique of this specialised language has been dismissed as philosophically superficial, but the author demonstrates that it makes a crucial point: it is through the misuse of language that philosophical problems arise. He charts the influence of this critique on early modern philosophers, including Hobbes and Locke, and shows how it led to the downfall of medieval Aristotelianism and the gradual democratization of language and knowledge. His book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the transition from medieval to modern philosophy.

Copleston, an Oxford Jesuit and specialist in the history of philosophy, first created his history as an introduction for Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries. However, since its first publication (the last volume appearing in the mid-1970s) the series has become the classic account for all philosophy scholars and students. The 11-volume series gives an accessible account of each philosopher's work, but also explains their relationship to the work of other philosophers.

Aristotle's Politics is widely acknowledged as a classic and one of the founding texts of political theory and philosophy. Written by a leading expert in ancient philosophical thought, Aristotle and the Politics is a coherent guide that makes sense of an often difficult and disorganized work, carefully explaining its key themes. Jean Roberts introduces and assesses: Aristotle's life and the background to Politics the ideas and text of Politics the continuing importance of Aristotle's work to philosophy today. Aristotle is one of the most important figures in Western thought and Politics contains some of our earliest ideas about democracy. This is essential reading for all students of philosophy and political thought.

'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 three ancient commentaries on Aristotle's On the Soul (De anima) are interesting because the commentators, as neo-Platonists, understand the soul completely differently than Aristotle. For them, the soul is the inseperable life principle of the body, a spiritual entity. In response to this challenge, the commentator Priscian (ca. 530 AD) develops the most detailed antique theory of human self-consciousness, which is reconstructed here for the first time.

'There are no substantive rights for subjects in Hobbes's political theory, only bare freedoms without correlated duties to protect them'. This orthodoxy of Hobbes scholarship and its Hohfeldian assumptions are challenged by Curran who develops an argument that Hobbes provides claim rights for subjects against each other and (indirect) protection of the right to self-preservation by sovereign duties. The underlying theory, she argues, is not a theory of natural rights but rather, a modern, secular theory of rights, with something to offer current discussions in rights theory.

Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), widely considered the most important original philosopher of the Renaissance, was born in Kues on the Moselle River. A polymath who studied canon law and became a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote principally on speculative theology, philosophy, and church politics. As a political thinker he is best known for "De concordantia catholica," which presented a blueprint for peace in an age of ecclesiastical discord.

This volume makes most of Nicholas's other writings on Church and reform available in English for the first time, including legal tracts arguing the case of Pope Eugenius IV against the conciliarists, theological examinations of the nature of the Church, and writings on reform of the papacy and curia. Among the works translated are an early draft of "De concordantia catholica" and the "Letter to Rodrigo Sanchez de Arevalo," which discusses the Church in light of the Cusan idea of "learned ignorance."

Biomedical ethics raises a host of humanistic issues. Among these are human dignity, personal autonomy, quality of life, and access to care for all. Now, more than ever, scientific discoveries and medical technologies prompt us to rethink older perspectives. Humanists have an unprecedented opportunity to shape the moral agenda of the future. In this collection of thoughtful articles from the Humanist Institute, humanist scholars from various fields explore a number of critical issues in bioethics. The moral status of the human embryo, scientific medicine versus Eastern concepts of caregiving, the human genome project, eugenics, contraception, and the economics of healthcare are just some of the topics considered in this enlightening volume. The contributors include: Berit Brogaard, Vern Bullough, Carmela Epright, Faith Lagay, Mason Olds, Howard B. Radest, Philip Regal, Andreas S. Rosenberg, Harvey Sarles, David Schafer, Robert B. Tapp, Stephen P. Weldon, and Michael Werner. For students of ethics, healthcare practitioners and policy makers, and everyone who wishes to participate intelligently in decisions involving cure and care, this work is of great value.

This book of fifteen essays is presented in honor of one of the premier historians of medieval philosophy, Armand Maurer of the Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies and the University of Toronto. The authors, internationally recognized scholars in the field of medieval philosophy and theology, are friends, colleagues, and students of Fr. Maurer. They are united in a common love of medieval thought and a common appreciation of philosophizing through the study of the history of philosophy. Their interests and methodologies, however, are diverse, and cover a range from Justin Marytr, who died during the reign of Marcus Aurelius, to Bartholomew Mastrius, a contemporary of Descartes. The contributions are arranged chronologically, beginning with John Rist's essay on Christian philosophy during the patristic era. Richard Taylor demonstrates the importance of Arabic philosophical thought for the Latin West during the scholastic era, which began in the thirteenth century. R. James Long treats the early scholastics Richard Fishacre and Richard Rufus. Following Maurer's central interest, the majority of the essays (by R. E. Houser, Leo Elders, Lawrence Dewan, David B. Twetten, Mary C. Sommers, and James P. Reilly) treat aspects of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. But just as Maurer did not confine himself to Aquinas, this volume reaches out to other thirteenth-century figures and topics. John Wippel looks at Godfrey of Fontaines, Timothy B. Noone studies the Franciscans Matthew of Aquasparta and Peter John Olivi, and Stephen Brown adds the Franciscan Peter of Candia. Reflecting Maurer's own interests in fourteenth-century philosophy are the contributions of Calvin Normore on logic and Girard Etzkorn on the Franciscan Francis of Mayronis. The essay by Norman Wells focuses on the Franciscan Batholomew Mastrius. The volume concludes with a wonderful autobiography of his education by Maurer himself and a biliography of Maurer's writings.