The Renaissance was a period of great intellectual change and innovation as philosophers rediscovered the philosophy of classical antiquity and passed it on to the modern age. Renaissance philosophy is distinct both from the medieval scholasticism, based on revelation and authority, and from philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who transformed it into new philosophical systems. Despite the importance of the Renaissance to the development of philosophy over time, it has remained largely understudied by historians of philosophy and professional philosophers. This anthology aims to correct this by providing scholars and students of philosophy with representative translations of the most important philosophers of the Renaissance. Its purpose is to help readers appreciate philosophy in the Renaissance and its importance in the history of philosophy. The anthology includes translations from philosophers from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, and it ranges from works on moral and political philosophy, to metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy, thereby providing historians and students of philosophy with a sense for the nature, breadth, and complexity of philosophy in the Renaissance. Each translation is accompanied by an introduction by a historian of Renaissance philosophy, as well as select secondary sources, in order to encourage further study. This anthology is a companion to Philosophers of the Renaissance, which included essays on the writings of the same group of philosophers of the Renaissance: Raymond Llull, Gemistos Plethon, George of Trebizond, Basil Bessarion, Lorenzo Valla, Nicholas of Cusa, Leon Battista Alberti, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino, Pietro Pomponazzi, Niccolò Machiavelli, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Juan Luis Vives, Philipp Melanchthon, Petrus Ramus, Bernardino Telesio, Jacopo Zabarella, Michel de Montaigne, Francesco Patrizi, Giordano Bruno, Francisco Suàrez, Tommaso Campanella.

The Philosophy of Religion is one result of the Early Modern Reformation movements, as competing theologies purported truth claims which were equal in strength and different in contents. Renaissance thought, from Humanism through philosophy of nature, contributed to the origin of the modern concepts of God. This book explores the continuity of philosophy of religion from late medieval thinkers through humanists to late Renaissance philosophers, explaining the growth of the tensions between the philosophical and theological views. Covering the work of Renaissance authors, including Lull, Salutati, Raimundus Sabundus, Plethon, Cusanus, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Bruno, SuA!rez, and Campanella, this book offers an important understanding of the current philosophy/religion and faith/reason debates and fills the gap between medieval and early modern philosophy and theology.

The Philosophy of Religion is one result of the Early Modern Reformation movements, as competing theologies purported truth claims which were equal in strength and different in contents. Renaissance thought, from Humanism through philosophy of nature, contributed to the origin of the modern concepts of God. This book explores the continuity of philosophy of religion from late medieval thinkers through humanists to late Renaissance philosophers, explaining the growth of the tensions between the philosophical and theological views. Covering the work of Renaissance authors, including Lull, Salutati, Raimundus Sabundus, Plethon, Cusanus, Valla, Ficino, Pico, Bruno, SuA!rez, and Campanella, this book offers an important understanding of the current philosophy/religion and faith/reason debates and fills the gap between medieval and early modern philosophy and theology.

Description: On Faith, Rationality, and the Other in the Late Middle Ages is an investigation of Nicholas of Cusa that seeks a deeper understanding of this important medieval intellectual and his importance for us today. One of Gergely Bakos's primary aims in this study is to understand Nicholas of Cusa's important and underexamined dimensions of his approach to dialogue with Islam. The framework and the methodology that informs this investigation was inspired by the late Professor Jos Decorte (1954-2001), a Flemish philosopher and mediaevalist at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. Bakos carefully exposits his method of approaching medieval thought (Part One) and then applies and tests this method in practice (Part Two). The most extensive part of this study offers a sketch of the historical background of Nicholas's dialogue with Islam and investigates what possibilities this approach offers. All of this is placed in dialogue with two other mediaeval approaches to Islam (Thomas Aquinas and Ramon Lull). The nal chapters discuss Nicholas of Cusa's project from a perspective offered by his mystical theology. The book culminates in an exploration of the possibilities of Nicholas of Cusa's approach by testing the framework of the study. Finally, the author evaluates the application of his own approach (Part Three). The study ultimately has two purposes: to contribute to a better understanding of Nicholas of Cusa's thought, on the one hand, and, on the other, to test a particular methodology and interpretative framework for the understanding of mediaeval culture. Endorsements: ""This book is a gem. Those who already love the Middle Ages are in for a treat . . . Those less familiar with the Middle Ages will learn enormously. If Europe has a problem to wrestle with, it is not how to sustain her wealth and prestige, but how to think about, and live properly, her contacts with Islam. As Bakos demonstrates, Nicholas of Cusa may have lived long ago, but he is no mean guide for the times."" --G. J. McAleer Professor of Philosophy Loyola University, Maryland ""This book dispels the default position that Cusanus would have forced the Christian agenda down upon everyone else. It turns out, rather, that the main subject of the manuductio is the pious believer himself. As long as religion faces the absolute, this absolute faces every human being."" --From the Foreword by Paul Richard Blum About the Contributor(s): Gergely T. Bakos is a Benedictine monk holding the Chair of Philosophy at the Sapientia Theological School of Religious Orders in Budapest, Hungary.

The play translated in this volume confronts problems and questions similar to our own, but from a gap of over four centuries. Should students fight? Which ones? Why? Why not? What role should teachers play in students' decision to enlist? What about the desires and claims of family and loved ones? What are the claims of the state on its youth? How ready are young people to make decisions of this magnitude? How are the views of veterans to be weighed? All these important questions are raised in this play. We hope to offer a document of student life in the sixteenth century that also stimulates reflection on these issues that, unfortunately, are not bound by time and continue to be relevant. " Pontanus is] one of the most refined educators, dramatists and Latinists of his times." - Jacob Schmutz, Professor at Sorbonne, Paris