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.

This book examines the potential of conducting studies in comparative hagiology, through parallel literary and historical analyses of spiritual life writings pertaining to distinct religious contexts. In particular, it focuses on a comparative analysis of the early sources on the medieval Christian Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) and the Tibetan Buddhist Milarepa (c. 1052-1135), up to and including the so-called 'standard versions' of their life stories written by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1221-1274) and Tsangnyoen Heruka (1452-1507) respectively. The book thus demonstrates how in the social and religious contexts of both 1200s Italy and 1400s Tibet, narratives of the lives, deeds and teachings of two individuals recognized as spiritual champions were seen as the most effective means to promote spiritual, doctrinal and political agendas. Therefore, as well being highly relevant to those studying hagiographical sources, this book will be of interest to scholars working across the fields of religion and the comparative study of religious phenomena, as well as history and literature in the pre-modern period.

Central topics in medieval logic are here treated in a way that is congenial to the modern reader, without compromising historical reliability. The achievements of medieval logic are made available to a wider philosophical public then the medievalists themselves. The three genres of logica moderna arising in a later Middle Ages are covered: obligations, insolubles and consequences - the first time these have been treated in such a unified way. The articles on obligations look at the role of logical consistence in medieval disputation techniques. Those on insolubles concentrate on medieval solutions to the Liar Paradox. There is also a systematic account of how medieval authors described the logical content of an inference, and how they thought that the validity of an inference could be guaranteed.

Modern mechanics was forged in the seventeenth century from materials inherited from Antiquity and transformed in the period from the Middle Ages through to the sixteenth century. These materials were transmitted through a number of textual traditions and within several disciplines and practices, including ancient and medieval natural philosophy, statics, the theory and design of machines, and mathematics.

This volume deals with a variety of moments in the history of mechanics when conflicts arose within one textual tradition, between different traditions, or between textual traditions and the wider world of practice. Its purpose is to show how the accommodations sometimes made in the course of these conflicts ultimately contributed to the emergence of modern mechanics.

The first part of the volume is concerned with ancient mechanics and its transformations in the Middle Ages; the second part with the reappropriation of ancient mechanics and especially with the reception of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanica in the Renaissance; and the third and final part, with early-modern mechanics in specific social, national, and institutional contexts.

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.

Abu'l-Barakat is a renowned philosopher of the Arabic-Jewish milieu who composed in his magnum opus the Kitab al-Mu'tabar, a comprehensive metaphysics which challenged the accepted notions of the traditional metaphysical philosophy. 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Metaphysical Philosophy' examines the novel philosophical conceptions of the first book of the Metaphysics of the Kitab al-Mu'tabar. The aim is to present a developed conception of Abu'l-Barakat's systematic metaphysics. This is accomplished by following the order of topics discussed, while translating the relevant passages. These different topics comprise stages of cognition that move from an analysis of time, creation and causality to the conception of a higher spiritual realm of mental entities and a conception of God as the First Knower and Teacher. The epistemological and ontological conceptions are analyzed at each culminating stage. 'Abu'l-Barakat al-Baghdadi's Metaphysical Philosophy' analyzes vast portions of the metaphysical study for the first time. The book will thus be a valuable resource for all those seeking an original and broad metaphysics, and for students and scholars of Jewish and Islamic Philosophy. Furthermore, it is of importance for those seeking a metaphysics related to scientific theories and those interested in the history of science and metaphysics.

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.

Moses Maimonides (1137/38-1204), scholar, physician, and philosopher, was the most influential Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages. In this magisterial biography, Herbert Davidson provides an exhaustive guide to Maimonides' life and works. After considering Maimonides' upbringing and education, Davidson expounds all of his many writings in exhaustive detail, with separate chapters on rabbinic, philosophical, and medical texts. Moses Maimonides has been recognized as the standard work on a towering figure of Western intellectual history.

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.

Petrarch was one of the founding fathers of Renaissance humanism, yet the nature and significance of his ideas are still widely debated. In this book, Gur Zak examines two central issues in Petrarch's works - his humanist philosophy and his concept of the self. Zak argues that both are defined by Petrarch's idea of care for the self. Overcome by a strong sense of fragmentation, Petrarch turned to the ancient idea that philosophy can bring harmony and wholeness to the soul through the use of spiritual exercises in the form of writing. Examining his vernacular poetry and his Latin works from both literary and historical perspectives, Zak explores Petrarch's attempts to use writing as a spiritual exercise, how his spiritual techniques absorbed and transformed ancient and medieval traditions of writing, and the tensions that arose from his efforts to care for the self through writing.

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.

Born in Saxony in 1096, Hugh became an Augustinian monk and in 1115 moved to the monastery of Saint Victor, Paris, where he spent the remainder of his life, eventually becoming the head of the school there. His writings cover the whole range of arts and sacred science taught in his day. Paul Rorem offers a basic introduction to Hugh's theology, through a comprehensive survey of his works. He argues that Hugh is best understood as a teacher of theology, and that his numerous and varied writings are best appreciated as a comprehensive pedagogical program of theological education and spiritual formation. Drawing his evidence not only from Hugh's own descriptions of his work but from the earliest manuscript traditions of his writings, Rorem organizes and presents his corpus within a tri-part framework. Upon a foundation of training in the liberal arts and history, a structure of doctrine is built up, which is finally adorned with moral formation. Within this scheme of organization, Rorem treats each of Hugh's major works (and many minor ones) in its appropriate place, orienting the reader briefly yet accurately to its contents, as well as its location in Hugh's overarching program of theological pedagogy.

Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams offer a brief, accessible introduction to the life and thought of St. Anselm (c. 1033-1109). Anselm, who was Archbishop of Canterbury for the last 16 years of his life, is unquestionably one of the foremost philosopher-theologians of the Middle Ages. Indeed he may have been the greatest Christian thinker in the 800 years between Augustine and Aquinas. His keen and rigorous thinking earned him the title 'The Father of Scholasticism.' The influence of his contributions to ethics and philosophical theology is clearly discernible in figures as various as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, the voluntarists of the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the Protestant Reformers. The prevalence of self-identified Anselmians - and anti-Anselmians - in contemporary philosophy of religion attests to the enduring importance of his approach to the divine nature. Visser and Williams's book falls into two main parts. The first will elucidate Anselm's metaphysics, concluding with an examination of Anselm's account of truth, which serves as a capstone for his metaphysical system. The second part focuses on Anselm's theory of knowledge. Topics considered include Anselm's general account of cognition and his odd but compelling theory of language-acquisition and the role it plays in discourse about the divine. The third section of the book is devoted to the moral life. Anselm's account of the foundations of ethics is philosophically of great interest, the authors show, because it effectively combines insights that contemporary philosophers have thought to be antithetical. In the fourth and last section, they turn to Anselm's philosophical explorations of Christian doctrine, including Redemption, the Trinity, and the Incarnation. They show how Anselm puts his metaphysical system to work in establishing the coherence of Christian doctrine and explain how his philosophical theology rests on his theory of knowledge.

Sandra Visser and Thomas Williams offer a brief, accessible introduction to the life and thought of St. Anselm (c. 1033-1109). Anselm, who was Archbishop of Canterbury for the last 16 years of his life, is unquestionably one of the foremost philosopher-theologians of the Middle Ages. Indeed he may have been the greatest Christian thinker in the 800 years between Augustine and Aquinas. His keen and rigorous thinking earned him the title 'The Father of Scholasticism.' The influence of his contributions to ethics and philosophical theology is clearly discernible in figures as various as Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, the voluntarists of the late-thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and the Protestant Reformers. The prevalence of self-identified Anselmians - and anti-Anselmians - in contemporary philosophy of religion attests to the enduring importance of his approach to the divine nature. Visser and Williams's book falls into two main parts. The first will elucidate Anselm's metaphysics, concluding with an examination of Anselm's account of truth, which serves as a capstone for his metaphysical system. The second part focuses on Anselm's theory of knowledge. Topics considered include Anselm's general account of cognition and his odd but compelling theory of language-acquisition and the role it plays in discourse about the divine. The third section of the book is devoted to the moral life. Anselm's account of the foundations of ethics is philosophically of great interest, the authors show, because it effectively combines insights that contemporary philosophers have thought to be antithetical. In the fourth and last section, they turn to Anselm's philosophical explorations of Christian doctrine, including Redemption, the Trinity, and the Incarnation. They show how Anselm puts his metaphysical system to work in establishing the coherence of Christian doctrine and explain how his philosophical theology rests on his theory of knowledge.

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.

What is a renaissance? This title examines the phenomenon of a cultural re-birth. What causes a society suddenly to review and re-shape its identity and future is an exciting and galvanising thrust which has brought South Africa out from utter isolation to participation in the world community. The stress and advancement of such radical growth has caused many South Africans to call for a complete African renaissance. By investigating the English Renaissance, one detectes elements that are crucial to an appreciation and energetic deployment of the term. The island people of England had to adapt to a new world vision and reassess their place in a new environment of societal upheaval and religious revolution. How to make the most of the challenge of a renaissance and how to avoid some of the pitfalls, is the scope of this exciting new volume. The renaissance takes on a new focus by means of the African context and contemporary scholarly insights.

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.

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.

The relationship between morality and self-interest is a perennial one in philosophy, at the center of moral theory. It goes back to Plato's Republic, which debated whether living morally was in a person's best interest or simply for dupes. Hobbes also claimed that morality was not in the best interests of the individual; Kant, however, thought that morality ought to be followed anyway even if it was not in a person's interest. Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche all had much to say on the subject, and contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel and David Gauthier discuss it a good deal as well. Little of the contemporary work has been published in book format however. Bloomfield's edited volume is the first such book truly devoted to this important topic, presenting brand new, commissioned articles on this subject by some of the top philosophers working today. Bloomfield provides an introduction to the topic and its place in philosophical history in his introduction. The volume will then be divided into three sections. The first will lay out the two sides of the debate; the second will cover views on morality as external to the self and thus not in our self-interest; and the third will focus on morality as intrinsic to the self and thus in our self-interest. Contributions includes newly published work by 13 top-notch philosophers, among them Thomas Nagel, Julia Annas, Samuel Scheffler, David Schmidtz, and Terence Irwin, as well as a previously published piece by W. D. Falk. The volume will act as a useful collection of scholarship by top figures, and as a resource and course book on an important topic.

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.