With the publication of these two volumes the ground has now been prepared for a long awaited event, the critical edition of the works of Henry of Ghent. Henry was one of the outstanding philosophizing-theologians at the University of Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century and, during the period between the death of Thomas Aquinas in 1274 and the ascendancy of John Duns Scotus near the beginning of the fourteenth century, no other Master surpassed him in terms (...) of influence or importance. During his tenure there as Master in the theology faculty, Henry conducted fifteen Quodlibetal disputes. His written versions of these, along with his Summa of ordinary Disputed Questions, constitute his most important surviving works. And of these, his Quodlibets rank first. Henry's philosophical and theological views were highly original and drew considerable reaction from other leading Masters of the time, especially from Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, and somewhat later, from Duns Scotus. While his personal thought cannot be reduced to that of any earlier thinker or tradition, his views were heavily influenced by Augustine, by Avicenna, and by various other Neoplatonic currents. At the same time, while he was quite familiar with the texts and thought of Aristotle, he reacted strongly against the more radical form of Aristotelianism developed by Siger of Brabant, Boethius of Dacia, and other Masters in the Arts Faculty at Paris in the 1260s and 1270s. Aquinas's incorporation of many Aristotelian positions into his own thought was also suspect in Henry's eyes. Given this background, Henry himself may be regarded as an outstanding representative of the Neo-Augustinian philosophical current which surfaced at Paris around 1270, which triumphed with the condemnation of 219 propositions by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, in 1277, and which would continue to be a dominant philosophical force until the end of the century. The need for a critical edition of his Quodlibets and his Summa has long been recognized, since the only printed versions date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In these first two volumes of Henry's Opera omnia Macken has prepared the way for the critical edition of Henry's works and especially of his Quodlibets. Here one finds a valuable catalog, based on first-hand inspection, of the widely scattered manuscripts of Henry's works. The catalog also contains expert codicological descriptions of the contents of these manuscripts, including works whose authenticity remains doubtful. Manuscripts are also considered which contain works that treat ex professo of Henry's doctrine. This is followed by an appendix which surveys ancient references to other manuscripts allegedly containing Henry's works, which manuscripts have not yet been found. Then there is a Répertoire, not of manuscripts but of Henry's works themselves, including certainly authentic works, works of doubtful authenticity, and finally, in another short appendix, works which have been falsely ascribed to him. A third part of this survey of Henry's works is devoted to manuscripts of other writers who discuss Henry's doctrine ex professo. The two volumes conclude with all the necessary indices. One must congratulate Macken for the care, the industry, and the meticulous scholarship with which he has prepared these two volumes. Not only are they of great value to anyone interested in the manuscript tradition of Henry's works and doctrine; they also include helpful descriptions of the writings of many other medieval authors which are contained in many of these same manuscripts. They will undoubtedly be carefully combed for decades to come by other scholars interested in these same authors and manuscripts. These volumes will be indispensable for libraries of institutions making any serious claim to expertise in the history of medieval philosophical and theological thought. One can only wish Macken and his international team of collaborators every success in their next immediate task, the actual edition of Henry's most important works, his fifteen Quodlibetal Questions.--J.F.W. (shrink)

With volume 5 the publication of the actual text of Henry's fifteen Quodlibetal Questions begins. Macken's edition is preceded by a valuable introduction, which itself commences with discussions of Henry's life and writings. Macken then surveys the manuscripts containing Quodlibet I and explains in detail the procedure he has adopted in reconstituting the text and the editing techniques he has employed. As he points out, Quodlibet I was given its definitive written form by Henry himself, and is not a mere (...) report drawn up by someone else who would have been present at its oral presentation. It should here be recalled that the Quodlibetal Question developed in Parisian University circles in the course of the thirteenth century as a distinctive literary genre of philosophical and theological writing. The Quodlibets themselves as we have them in written form reflect their origins in those special public oral sessions which were held twice a year in the Theology Faculty, and at which certain Masters would open themselves to questions from one and all about any appropriate topic. After this evidently taxing exercise, a Master would have the right to readdress himself to the questions that had been raised on some following day when meeting with his own students. By then he would have introduced some kind of order into the various topics originally proposed for discussion. And at some subsequent time, probably during the course of the next year, he would release them for publication, but only after having carefully revised them. As one might expect, the very nature of such an exercise opened the way for consideration of a bewildering variety of topics ranging widely over areas such as speculative and moral theology, metaphysics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and canon law. This variety is clearly reflected in the 42 questions examined in Henry's first Quodlibet. Thus one finds him here considering questions treating of Trinitarian theology, the hypostatic union, unicity vs. plurality of substantial form in man, Eucharistic theology, the possiblity of an eternally created universe, the relationship between essence and existence in creatures, and the possibility that prime matter could be sustained in existence by God apart from any substantial form. Questions are also raised relating to the nature of the soul both in its separated state and in its state of union with the body, and the relative priorities of intellect and will and their interrelationship in the act of choice. Finally, a host of other topics of less immediate interest to philosophers are also examined, such as the fate of infants who die without baptism, confessional jurisdiction, the guilt of a teacher who is primarily concerned with his own glory, etc. At the risk of oversimplification, certain positions defended by Henry in this Quodlibet will be mentioned because of their interest to students of metaphysics. In q. 4 he leaves open the possibility of defending unicity of substantial form in man. In qq. 7-8 he eliminates the possibility that any creature could have existed from eternity and, therefore, the possibility of an eternally created universe. In q. 9 he rejects real distinction between essence and existence in creatures and defends his well known "intentional" distinction between them. Here too he has already developed his unusual view of the essential being enjoyed by creatures insofar as they are objects of God's knowledge and have exemplar ideas in God. In q. 10 he denies that prime matter is pure potentiality and maintains that God could, if he should so choose, keep matter in existence without any substantial form. In q. 14 he defends the preeminence of the will over the intellect, and in a number of succeeding questions enters into intricate discussion of the interrelationship between reason and will in the act of choice. Perhaps these indications will be enough to give the reader some idea of the general direction of Henry's thought with respect to the topics in question. Anyone who has already examined earlier printed editions of Henry's Quodlibets will be delighted with Macken's superb edition of Quodlibet I. Apart from its great critical value, this volume is beautifully printed, handsomely bound, and appropriately indexed. This reviewer, for one, is eagerly awaiting the appearance of subsequent volumes in the series. All will be required reading for students of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century philosophy and theology.--J.F.W. (shrink)

In this first volume of a new series, "Duke Monographs in Medieval and Renaissance Studies," three independently published essays by Professor Kristeller have been gathered together in one volume. Though originally written for different occasions, all three develop the theme expressed by the title, that is, "the continued presence of medieval traits in the civilization of the Renaissance". As Kristeller himself explains in the Preface, the presence of medieval traits in the Renaissance does not militate against the acknowledged reality of (...) many nonmedieval and even antimedieval features of this same period. Nonetheless, recognition of these medieval characteristics is of great value for a fuller appreciation of the Renaissance, as each of these essays illustrates in its own way. (shrink)

No. 20 in the Marquette series "Mediaecal [[sic]] Philosophical Texts in Translation," this translation is based on J. R. O’Donnell’s edition of the only extant manuscript of the Universal Treatise, and is preceded by a helpful introduction of 28 pp. plus a selected bibliography. An English version of this work should be welcomed by scholars not versed in Latin who are nonetheless interested in Nicholas’ thought, whether because of his highly critical reactions to Aristotle and Averroes or because of certain (...) similarities between his philosophical views and those of Hume. If the latter are primarily to be found in his two extant letters to Bernard of Arezzo, the former constitute the very heart of this work. It should also be noted that the Universal Treatise was originally intended to recall university professors, especially at Paris, to the study of Christianity and ethics. Written c. 1340, its attacks on Aristotle and Averroes were intended to contribute to this purpose. Nevertheless, some of the positions expressed therein were to bring Nicholas himself into conflict with ecclesiastical authority. Not least among these troublesome views from the standpoint of religious orthodoxy was the suggestion that all things are eternal. The situation was further complicated by Nicholas’ contention that not all the views found in the Treatise represent his own convictions. Many are to be taken as probable or more probable. In his attacks on Aristotle and Averroes he does not claim to disprove demonstratively what they held, but only to show that their opinions are less probable than those he advances. Granted that the chief unifying factor in this work is negative, its anti-Aristotelian and anti-Averroistic thrust, yet, as is suggested in the introduction, some kind of positive unifying theme is also at work, Nicholas’ view of the good. Since the universe must always contain the same amount of goodness, everything in it must remain in existence. Therefore the universe consists of unchangeable atoms. From this atomism follows the view that space consists of points and time of instants. Since change in quantity and place cannot produce or destroy real being, Nicholas must therefore hold that quantity is really identical with material substance and that movement is nothing but change in the position of atoms. Moreover, if things are eternal, it is probable that the same holds for the actions of the soul. As eternal such acts remain unchanged and hence do not vary in degree of intensity. They simply pass from person to person. Consequently, the same object cannot be seen clearly and obscurely. Nicholas also suggests that all things are as they appear, granted that such must be accepted not because it has been proved but because this conviction gives pleasure to the mind. Again, he argues that since a cause can produce only one kind of effect, not all things have been produced by God whether as their total or as their partial cause. He then suggests that because God’s power is infinite, no effect can be produced by him naturally. As finite such an effect would not be proportioned to his infinite power. His arguments against any kind of Averroistic theory of one separate intellect for all mankind are both interesting and unusual. In fact he appears to go to the opposite extreme, not only defending individual intellects for individual men but also suggesting that in one and the same soul there are as many intellects as concepts. That Nicholas himself saw some difficulties with this position may be inferred from his admonition that further thought be given to this matter. If the same might be said of other unusual theories advanced in the Treatise, its translators are to be commended for having made it available to English language readers.—J. F. W. (shrink)

This Festschrift in Professor Kristeller’s honor consists of contributions by scholars who have had some connection with Columbia University, his "intellectual home in the United States for three decades." It also includes a Tabula Gratulatoria listing many other friends from the United States and Europe. The editor’s opening essay provides an interesting and informative account of this scholar’s academic career, and should be read together with the complete annotated bibliography of his publications through 1974. The latter lists 149 "major publications" (...) and 220 "minor publications." Kristeller’s contributions to the history of Renaissance philosophy are well known to historians of philosophy, and deservedly so. Here reference should be made to his groundbreaking studies on Marsilio Ficino and Pomponazzi, and on others such as Pico della Mirandola and Petrarch, as well as on Renaissance Platonism, Aristotelianism in the Renaissance, Thomism in the Renaissance, Paduan Averroism, and Alexandrism. But he has also contributed greatly to the fields of medieval and Renaissance history, and especially to our understanding of Renaissance humanism, Renaissance music, and Renaissance art. He is universally recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on manuscript research, as is witnessed, for example, by the cooperative project, Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum, which he founded, and by his Iter ltalicum. In all of these enterprises he has set an enviable example for other scholars by the exacting standards and the breadth of his expertise. It is only fitting, then, that the many essays in this Festschrift should reflect the breadth and depth of the scholarship so evident in the man to whom they are dedicated. Limitations of space will only permit us to list them here, with a few remarks reserved for those of more special interest to philosophers and historians of philosophy: Eugene F. Rice, Jr., "The De magia naturali of Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples" ; Donald R. Kelley, "Louis Le Caron Philosophe", on Le Caron’s effort to bring together jurisprudence and classical, especially Platonic, philosophy; Richard H. Popkin, "The Pre-Adamite Theory in the Renaissance", with fascinating material about theories concerning men before Adam in La Peyrère and widely scattered earlier sources; Richard Lemay, "The Fly against the Elephant: Flandinus against Pomponazzi on Fate", on an unedited attack by an Augustinian Bishop against Pomponazzi’s espousal of the Stoic doctrine of fate; Martin Pine, "Pietro Pomponazzi and the Medieval Tradition of God’s Foreknowledge", on Pomponazzi’s solution to the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom inlight of his familiarity with earlier discussions by Boethius, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham; F. Edward Cranz, "Editions of the Latin Aristotle Accompanied by the Commentaries of Averroes", helpful to all who wish to consult late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century versions of the Latin Aristotle and especially the Latin Averroes; Josef Soudek, "A Fifteenth-Century Humanistic Bestseller: The Manuscript Diffusion of Leonardo Bruni’s Annotated Latin Version of the Aristotelian Economics" ; Edward P. Mahoney, "Nicoletto Vernia on the Soul and Immortality", which details a radical shift on Vernia’s part from an earlier Averroistic reading of Aristotle; Joan Kelly-Gadol, "Tommaso Campanella: The Agony of Political Theory in the Counter-Reformation", which attempts to account for some of the shifts and inconsistencies in Campanella’s political writings by placing them within the troubled personal and political circumstances of his life; Charles Trinkaus, "Protagoras in the Renaissance: An Exploration" ; Maristella de Panizza Lorch, "Voluptas, molle quoddam et non invidiosum nomen: Lorenzo Valla’s Defense of voluptas in the Preface to his De voluptate" ; Neal W. Gilbert, "Richard de Bury and the ‘Quires of Yesterday’s Sophisms"’, with much interesting material on the medieval tradition of sophismata, especially at Oxford; Malcolm Brown, "A Pre-Aristotelian Mathematician on Deductive Order" ; John H. Randall, Jr., "Paduan Aristotelianism Reconsidered", on evidence for influence of the Italian Aristotelian tradition on Galileo; William F. Edwards, "Niccoló Leoniceno and the Origins of Humanist Discussion of Method" ; C. Doris Hellman, "A Poem on the Occasion of the Nova of 1572" ; Edward Rosen, "Kepler’s Mastery of Greek" ; W. T. H. Jackson, "The Politics of a Poet: The Archipoeta as Revealed by his Imagery" ; John Charles Nelson, "Love and Sex in the Decameron" ; George B. Parks, "Pico della Mirandola in Tudor Translation" ; Richard Harrier, "Invention in Tudor Literature: Historical Perspectives" ; Helene Wieruszowski, "Jacob Burckhardt and Vespasiano da Bisticci " ; Morimichi Watanabe, "Gregor Heimburg and Early Humanism in Germany" ; Raymond de Roover, "Cardinal Cajetan on ‘Cambium’ or Exchange Dealings" ; and a series of text editions with introductions including Julius Kirshner, "Conscience and Public Finance: A Questio disputata of John of Legnano on the Public Debt of Genoa" ; John Mundy, "The Origins of the College of Saint-Raymond at the University of Toulouse" ; Charles B. Schmitt, "Girolamo Borro’s Multae sunt nostrarum ignorantionum causae " ; Guido Kisch, "An Unpublished Consiliumof Johannes Sichardus" ; Patricia H. Labalme, "The Last Will of a Venetian Patrician " ; Felix Gilbert, "The Last Will of a Venetian Grand Chancellor" ; Herbert S. Matsen, "Giovanni Garzoni to Alessandro Achillini : An Unpublished Letter and Defense" ; Theodore E. James, "A Fragment of An Exposition of the First Letter of Seneca to Lucilius Attributed to Peter of Mantua". The editor, his collaborators, and the contributors are all to be commended for the high quality of this volume.—J.F.W. (shrink)

Schelling’s masterpiece investigating evil and freedom.

Traduçáo do original alemáo: Schelling, F. W. J. "Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie oder über den Begriff der speculativen Physik und die innere Organisation eines Systems dieser Wissenschaft". In: Schelling, K. F. A. (Org.). Sämmtliche Werke. 14 Bdn. 1 Abt. I-X; 2 Abt. I-IV, Stuttgart/Augsburg: Cota, 1856-1861.

Schelling's 1806 polemic against Fichte, and his last major work on the philosophy of nature. The heat of anger can concentrate the mind. Convinced that he had been betrayed by his former collaborator and colleague, Schelling attempts in this polemic to reach a final reckoning with Fichte. Employing the format of a book review, Schelling directs withering scorn at three of Fichte’s recent publications, at one point likening them to the hell, purgatory, and would-be paradise of Fichtean philosophy. The central (...) bone of contention is the understanding of nature: Fichte sees it as lifeless matter in motion, sheer opposition to be overcome, while Schelling waxes poetic in his defense of a living, organic nature of which humanity is a vital part. Indeed, we do not know ourselves without understanding our connection to nature, argues Schelling, anticipating many thinkers in contemporary environmental ethics. Dale E. Snow’s introduction sets the stage and explains the larger context of the conflict, which was already visible in the correspondence of the two philosophers, which broke off by 1802. Notes are included throughout the text, providing background information and identifying the many references to Fichte. Dale E. Snow is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University of Maryland and the author of Schelling and the End of Idealism, also published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

A new English translation of Schelling’s unfinished magnum opus, complete with a contextualizing introduction by the translator.

This is an English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the revisions of (...) 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science. (shrink)

Makes Schelling’s dialogue Bruno readily accessible to the English-language reader, with valuable commentary on the work itself, which details Schelling’s account of his differences from Fichte.

Schelling's first systematic attempt to articulate a complete philosophy of nature.

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

On the History of Modern Philosophy is a key transitional text in the history of European philosophy. In it, F. W. J. Schelling surveys philosophy from Descartes to German Idealism and shows why the Idealist project is ultimately doomed to failure. The lectures trace the path of philosophy from Descartes through Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, to Hegel and Schelling's own work. The extensive critiques of Hegel prefigure many of the arguments to be found in Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, (...) and Derrida. This is the first English translation of On the History of Modern Philosophy. In his introduction Andrew Bowie sets the work in the context of Schelling's career and clarifies its philosophical issues. The translation will be of special interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and theologians. (shrink)