Modern developments in philosophy have provided us with tools, logical and methodological, that were not available to Medieval thinkers - a development that has its dangers as well as opportunities. Modern tools allow one to penetrate old texts and analyze old problems in new ways, offering interpretations that the old thinkers could not have known. But unless one remains sensitive to the fact that language has undergone changes, bringing with it a shift in the meaning of terminology, one can (...) easily perpetrate an anachronism. Yet there is a growing need to bring modern tools and to bear on the struggle for greater understanding of the problems studied and the solutions found by the ancient scholars. If we remain sensitive to the dangers, this openness to new methods can be expected to widen our perspectives and deepen our knowledge of old material. The focus in the present volume is on problems in Medieval and contemporary philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The philosophy of Saadia Gaon.--Three essays.--Studies in pre-Tibbonian philosophical terminology.

In this survey, I should like to present an overview of the scholarly literature that appeared during the last decade or so in the field of fourteenth-century natural philosophy. This survey is partial in both senses of the term: it is fragmentary, and occasionally, it records my disagreements with some of the scholarly literature. Before narrowing down its scope it might be well to raise two methodological problems which one encounters when attempting to deal with the history of late-medieval (...) natural philosophy of the sort with which this survey is concerned. First, the terminology of «natural philosophy», and second, the relation between natural philosophy and theology in the late Middle Ages. (shrink)

It has long been a truism of the history of philosophy that intentionality is an invention of the medieval period, and within this standard narrative, the central place of Arabic philosophy has always been acknowledged. Yet there are many misconceptions surrounding the theories of intentionality advanced by the two main Arabic thinkers whose works were available to the West, Avicenna and Averroes. In the first part of this paper I offer an overview of the general accounts of intentionality and (...) intentional being found in the linguistic, psychological, and metaphysical writings of Avicenna and Averroes, and I trace the terminology of “intentions” to a neglected passage from Avicenna’s logic. In the second part of the paper I examine the way that Avicenna and Averroes apply their general theories of intentionality to the realm of sense perception. I offer an explanation of why Avicenna might have chosen to denominate the objects of the internal sense faculty of estimation as “intentions”, and I explore the implications of Averroes’s decision to attribute intentionality to the external senses and the media of perception. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to AquinasTaina M. HolopainenM.V. Dougherty. Moral Dilemmas in Medieval Thought: From Gratian to Aquinas. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Pp. x + 226. Cloth, $90.00.In this book, M.V. Dougherty challenges the assumption that the medieval period of Western ethical thought has little to say concerning the question of moral dilemmas (while [End Page 138] understanding a moral (...) dilemma generally as “any situation in which an agent cannot fulfill all genuine impending moral obligations” [3]). He aims to show that this is not the case by examining debates on the subject of moral dilemma from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries. According to medieval terminology, an agent in a moral dilemma is considered to be perplexed (perplexus) or to be suffering from perplexity (perplexitas). Dougherty emphasizes the importance to his study of the ontological and objective sense of perplexitas: an agent is said to be confused in the presence of a genuinely dilemmatic situation. The book deals with the topic through a selection of prominent thinkers from the major schools of the period (e.g. Franciscan, Dominican, and Thomistic).Canon law was the first discipline in which systematic discussion of moral dilemmas took place. Accordingly, in chapter 1 Dougherty discusses two opposing views from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries that were equally authoritative and conveyed the canon law tradition to later medieval thinkers. Gratian asserts, in his Decretum, the existence of genuine moral dilemmas (through conflicts within natural law itself) and counsels agents in those situations to choose the lesser of two evils. Gratian’s views were commented on by many glossators who argued against him in the Glossa ordinaria, contending that moral agents can fulfill all moral obligations, as the well-known maxim “ought implies can” asserts, and so avoid moral wrongdoing. If an agent finds himself in a perplexed state, it is due to his own culpable negligence, never the result of the disordered moral order.In addition to canon law there were other forums for discussions of moral perplexitas. In chapter 2, Dougherty expands the theme to two influential thirteenth-century summaries of theology: the Summa aurea, authored by William of Auxerre, and the Summa Halesiana, associated with Alexander of Hales. In these, Dougherty thoroughly examines a number of dilemma cases and shows both works concluding that moral agents can find themselves trapped in such situations, with some degree of moral wrongdoing being inescapable. The maxim “ought but cannot” is evident, then, in these works. Further, their concrete advice for agents in a moral dilemma is to apply the principle of choosing the lesser evil, or, as William of Auxerre specifies in certain cases, “what obliges more greatly is to be done”; however, his connection between these two principles seems not so clear: why would the choice of that which obliges more be identified with the choice of a lesser evil?Chapter 3 is one of the book’s highlights. It presents the distinctive medieval moral dilemma position of Raymond Lull (ca. 1232–1316) through an analysis of four of Lull’s own dilemmas in his autobiographical work, Vita coaetanea. Dougherty argues that Lull is opposed to the traditional solution of medieval commentators on Lombard, since Lull did not claim that a judgment of conscience, which dictates something contrary to natural law or a command of God, had to be in error. Lull thinks that the world truly is such a place where agents find themselves in dilemmatic situations from which they are unable to escape by their own powers and therefore are in need of divine intervention (“the Divine Intervention resolution”). Dougherty also argues that Lull implicitly appeals to “the Lesser Evil resolution” in one dilemma case.In chapter 4, Dougherty considers passages from Aquinas’s texts in which agents appear to be perplexed. The aim is to confirm Alan Donagan’s interpretation of Aquinas and to reveal the misinterpretations by contemporary theorists who have claimed that Aquinas accepted the view that innocent agents could find themselves in situations of genuine moral dilemmas. According to Aquinas, all real moral dilemmas are generated by some prior moral failure (past misdeed) on... (shrink)

In the course of the long debate on the nature and the classification of signs, from Boethius to Ockham, there are at least three lines of thought: the Stoic heritage, that influences Augustine, Abelard, Francis Bacon; the Aristotelian tradition, stemming from the commentaries on De Interpretatione; the discussion of the grammarians, from Priscian to the Modistae. Modern interpreters are frequently misled by the fact that the various authors regularly used the same terms. Such a homogeneous terminology, however, covers profound theoretical (...) differences. The aim of these essays is to show that the medieval theory of signs does not represent a unique body of semiotic notions: there are diverse and frequently alternative semiotic theories. This book thus represents an attempt to encourage further research on the still unrecognized variety of the semiotic approaches offered by the medieval philosophies of language. (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine a few potential problems when inquiring into the ethics of medieval Christian and Islamic mystical traditions: First, there are terminological and methodological worries about defining mysticism and doing comparative philosophy in general. Second, assuming that the Divine represents the highest Good in such traditions, and given the apophaticism on the part of many mystics in both religions, there is a question of whether or not such traditions can provide a coherent theory of value. Finally, (...) the antinomian tendencies and emphasis on passivity of some mystics might lead one to wonder whether their prescriptive exhortations can constitute a coherent theory of right action. We tackle each of these concerns in turn and discuss how they might be addressed, in an attempt to show how medieval mysticism, as a fundamentally practical enterprise, deserves more attention from practical and moral philosophy than it has thus far received. (shrink)

This book offers a selection of 13 case studies on how the notion of grounding helps illuminate philosophical discussions of our past with a special focus on debates of the Middle Ages. It thereby makes not only the case that the notion of grounding, which has become so widely debated in analytic metaphysics, has a long and venerable tradition, but also shows that this tradition has a lot to teach to contemporary philosophers of grounding. This is because the historical authors (...) discussed in this volume – that is, Aristotle, Fazang, Boethius, Avicenna, Abelard, Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, Buridan, Suárez, Leibniz, and others – suggested different types of non-efficient-causal explanations which are to be carefully distinguished. This volume illustrates how philosophy and history of philosophy can be mutually illuminating by showing that the terminology developed in the contemporary debate about grounding can help reconstruct philosophical discussions from Antiquity up to the Early Modern Period, and that these very discussions enrich, and in part challenge the contemporary debate about grounding. In this vein, it is an important reading for everyone interested in the history of grounding and the philosophical insights that this history might have left to us. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

In 1898 C. S. Peirce declares that the medieval doctrine of consequences had been the starting point of his logical investigations in the 1860s. This paper shows that Peirce studied the scholastic theory of consequentiae as early as 1866–67, that he adopted the scholastics’ terminology, and that that theory constituted a source of logical doctrine that sustained Peirce for a lifetime of creative and original work.

This chapter contains section titled: I Aristotle and Early Modern Philosophy II Medieval Thought in Early Modern Scholasticism III The Philosophical Textbook IV Conclusions.

Brentano is perhaps most famously renowned for his re-deployment of Scholastic terminology of ‘intentional act’ and ‘intentional object’ in the elaboration of his novel science of ‘descriptive psychology’ in the mid-1870s and 1880s. In this re-deployment, however, Brentano adapted the original Scholastic meanings of both of these terms. Thus Brentano advanced not one but two descriptive-psychological theses of intentionality.1 These theses, however, are often not properly distinguished, and consequently they are more often confused. Nevertheless, once the two theses are distinguished, (...) Brentano’s basic descriptive-psychological tenet of the intentionality of consciousness is more readily understandable on its own terms. Whether Brentano’s descriptive-psychological tenet is entirely acceptable philosophically, or not, of course, is another matter but this presupposes understanding in a straightforward sense what Brentano’s doctrine is. In this article, I will be concerned mainly with Brentano’s re-introduction of ‘what the Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the intentional (or mental) inexistence of an object’ in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint (1874),2 even though it is Brentano’s (second) thesis on ‘intentional act’, one that he developed after his 1874 publication, that is more generally well known and examined. While acknowledging that many versions of ‘Brentano’s thesis’, as it is usually (and loosely) referred to by commentators today, have been re-worked in modern philosophy of mind, this article focuses attention on some of the main points of convergence and deviance between the original Scholastic concept and Brentano’s ‘new’ concept of intentionality in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:It is difficult to do justice to a monumental study such as PJDS in a short review: only time will determine its real significance. We can only offer some preliminary comments, and in spite of anything we have to say, the mere fact that the book contains such a wealth of information justifies for it a permanent place on a bookshelf of a student of medieval thought.The title (...) of PJDS deserves special attention. While we have books on Scotus's theology or particular topics of his thought, there has been no comprehensive study of his "philosophy," seemingly for a good reason: Scotus is clearly a "fundamental" and systematic theologian who simply uses some classic tools of ancient philosophers and some of their texts and ideas as material for his own discussions. So first of all one needs to determine what constitutes "philosophy" in such a case. V. devotes considerable attention to this question, but unfortunately only at the very end of the study, in Part III, which constitutes almost a separate monograph on the historiography of the debate about "medieval philosophy" and Scotus's role in it. Dichotomizing medieval thought into "philosophy" and theology in recent debates comes from the post-Enlightenment habit of seeing "philosophy" , as opposed to "theology," as something positive in itself. In Chapter 14 V. makes a good observation that "philosophy" and "theology" in ancient and medieval thought are simply two systems that can be coherent in themselves but differ fundamentally as far as their premises are concerned. Using the terminology of contemporary hermeneutical-postcritical analysis, one could say that both disciplines are intratextual systems, with their own internal logic but with different "starting points," opened to a conversation ad extra to various degrees. The classification "intratextual system" based on a solid theoretical foundation in the hermeneutical-postcritical tradition would eliminate the unnecessary dichotomy in ancient and medieval thought. Indeed, it is difficult to see why some of Plato's, Aristotle's or Stoic texts should be classified as "philosophy," not to mention those of Plotinus and Proclus that are often clearly "theology." As a whole, V.'s verdict is that Scotus has his own coherent system of thought based on contingency, as opposed to the "necessitarianism" of ancient philosophers. As for the role of "philosophy," V.'s analysis of recent scholarship shows that "medieval philosophy" is often understood as the logical tools in the service of theology: the interpretation that explains the recent interest in the fourteenth-century thought where those tools were best developed.The book in general is quite readable, despite occasional infelicities in the English and some typos. V. employs a variety of styles, from purely scholarly, which includes a straightforward exposition of relevant texts, with some analysis of the diachronic development of issues, to more literary, ornate and emotional. Similarly varied is his presentation of issues: from dry exposition to creating prolonged "mystery plots" that lead to "discoveries." Unfortunately there is also some unevenness in the text flow: from very smooth to abrupt transitions from one statement to another .Although the book will definitely benefit a variety of readers, the exact readership is difficult to pinpoint. Some sections, such as the extended discussion of distinctions and relations in the section on logic, presuppose a very basic audience; often much of the material from previous sections is repeated . Yet other sections presuppose a rather sophisticated reader who is familiar with the context of the discussion and is able not only to follow but also anticipate the author's train of thought.PJDS provides an excellent coverage of Scotus's work, with one notable exception: the Reportatio tradition. Even though the Wolter/Bychkov edition-translation of Rep. I-A appeared perhaps.. (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of "meaning in life" developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of "purposes" that make "human life" meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of "ultimate goal of man"? Significant points of Metz’ conception of "meaning in life" in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of "ultimate goal of man." As it turns out, these conceptions are only superficially similar. (...) In fact, they are profoundly different: (1) Aquinas is talking about the "goal of man", which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ "naturalism", and is not talking about "meaning in life" (and even "purpose of life"); (2) "ultimate goal of man", for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life "significant" in this world. -/- Thus, Metz and Thomas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question (about the "meaning in life"). Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of "meaning in life" in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

In the ninth century, Arabic philosophy was in ferment, and an inquisition of heretics was in process. Al-Kindi, a court scholar, physician, and philosopher functioning at Baghdad, courageously produced, in that context, a treatise, Fi al-Falsafah al-Ula, in which he attempted to unify the philosophical tradition, starting from Aristotle, with basic Islamic concepts. Part One of the treatise is here published for the first time in a non-Arabic language. Al-Kindi, in this treatise, tries to show, by philosophical reasoning, that the (...) world could not have come spontaneously into being ex nihilo, that there must be a unique, eternal being, and that the ad hoc unity and plurality of individual things rest on a prior, creative, self-subsisting, and eternal unity, which is the Ultimate Cause. This volume contains a résumé of al-Kindi studies, a description and analysis of the text, On First Philosophy, a "reevaluation" of al-Kindi’s relation to the Mu'Tazilah sect of Moslem theologians, a translation of On First Philosophy, and a learned passage-by-passage commentary on it, with perspicuous discussions of nuances in Arabic terminology. This is primarily a book for medieval specialists, but students of ontology and theology will find some of al-Kindi’s argumentation relevant to their concerns.—W.G. (shrink)

In the latter part of the fifteenth century, a Jewish translator, working together with a Slavic amanuensis, translated into the East Slavic language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania three medieval Hebrew translations of Arabic philosophical texts: the Logical Terminology, a short work on logic attributed to Maimonides (but probably by a different medieval Jewish author); and two sections of the Muslim theologian Al-Ghazali's famous Intentions of the Philosophers. Highlighting the unexpected role played by Jewish translators as agents (...) of cultural transmission in the heady messianic atmosphere leading up to the year 1492, these texts drew the attention of the Orthodox Church authorities as being in the possession of the enlightened heretical sect known as the Judaizers, which had emerged in Novgorod and spread to Moscow. Reflecting three and even four layers of translation, Prof. Moshe Taube's new triple-language critical edition of the Logika of the Judaizers displays the Slavic texts alongside the Hebrew translations on which they are based and accompanies them with a modern English translation. In his comprehensive introduction and commentary, Taube surveys earlier scholarly efforts to identify the provenance and purport of the translations, discusses the linguistic and textological issues raised by these early Ruthenian texts, puts forward the likely dissimilar motivations of the Jewish translator and the Christians who commissioned the work, and reveals the translator's probable identity. The present publication, a long-awaited desideratum, will be of interest not only to historians of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and of the principality of Muscovy, but also to scholars of Jewish history and of the history of philosophy and science, as well as to linguists studying the history of the Belorussian, Ukrainian and Russian languages. (shrink)

In this innovative book, Gloria Frost reconstructs and analyses Aquinas's theories on efficient causation and causal powers, focusing specifically on natural causal powers and efficient causation in nature. Frost presents each element of Aquinas's theories one by one, comparing them with other theories, as well as examining the philosophical and interpretive ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and proposing fresh solutions to conceptual difficulties. Her discussion includes explanations of Aquinas's technical scholastic terminology in jargon-free prose, as well as background on medieval (...) scientific views - including ordinary language explanations of the medieval physical theories which Aquinas assumed in formulating his views on causation and causal powers. The resulting volume is a rich exploration of a central philosophical topic in medieval philosophy and beyond, and will be valuable especially for scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas and on medieval natural philosophy. (shrink)

This book examines 13th century views about time, particularly the views of Thomas Aquinas and his contemporaries in the middle of the century. As medieval thinkers considered time to be just another duration alongside the durations of aeviternity (the aevum) and eternity, the scope of the study covers all three durations, culminating in an examination of God’s relationship to time. Chapter 1 opens the discussion by examining some of the key language and terminology which 13th century thinkers used. Chapters (...) 2-5 examine the topological properties of time: the properties that determine its shape and structure. Chapter 6 investigates the metrical properties of time: the properties pertaining to time when it is considered as a measure. Chapter 7 looks at the criteria, factors, and language which 13th century thinkers typically took as entailing that a particular would be in time. Chapter 8 explores how 13th century thinkers discussed existence outside of time, particularly as it was applied to aeviternity and aeviternal beings. Chapter 9 examines the content of the medieval concept of eternity, and how these ideas are best rendered in contemporary language. Chapter 10 examines the specific question of how 13th century thinkers viewed God’s relationship to time. (shrink)

[826 pages] Nicolaus Cusanus und Wáng Yángmíng philosophieren an der Grenze möglichen Denkens. Die Komparatistik der basalen Problemhorizonte und Kernthemen ihrer epochalen Reflexionen weist auf die Unterschiede beider Philosophiekulturen hin. Als wichtige Vordenker der Moderne entwickeln beide jeweils eine umfassende Logik der Selbsterschließung. Dabei werden unabhängig voneinander acht komparable Problemhorizonte ersichtlich: umfassende Kreativität, menschliche Selbstreflexivität, die Unsagbarkeit des Grundes der Sprache, Möglichkeiten und Grenzen des Wissens, Selbstperfektion, Gewissen, Moralität und Liebe. Mittels einer innovativen Reflexionsbegrifflichkeit werden zentrale Paradigmen, Begriffe und Metaphern (...) beider Denker umfassend analysiert, erstmals aufeinander abgebildet und beispielhaft erschlossen. [Nicolaus de Cusa and Wáng Yángmíng philosophize at the limit of possible thought. The comparative study of the fundamental problem horizons and core themes of their epochal philosophies points to the differences between the two philosophical cultures. As important pioneers of modernity, both develop a comprehensive logic of self-development. In the process, eight independently comparable problem horizons emerge: comprehensive creativity, human self-reflexivity, the ineffability concerning the foundation of language, the possibilities and limits of knowledge, self-perfection, conscience, morality, and love. Using an innovative terminology, central paradigms, concepts, and metaphors of both philosophies are comprehensively analyzed, mapped onto each other for the first time, and made accessible in an exemplary manner.]. (shrink)

The article analyses whether it is correct to extrapolate the concept of “meaning in life” developed by Thaddeus Metz to the doctrines of ancient philosophers, including Thomas Aquinas. Is Metz’ concept of “purposes” that make “human life” meaningful analogous to Aquinas’ concept of “ultimate purpose of man”? Significant points of Metz’ conception of “meaning in life” in our article are described and compared with Aquinas’ conception of “ultimate purpose of man.” As it turns out, these conceptions are only superficially similar. (...) In fact, they are profoundly different: Aquinas is talking about the “purpose of man”, which implies objective teleology incompatible with Metz’ “naturalism”, and is not talking about “meaning in life” ; “ultimate purpose of man”, for Aquinas, is intended to provide salvation and eternal life for man, not to make life “significant” in this world. Thus, Metz and Aquinas not only use different terminology, but also address different problems. They deal with different questions, not just give different answers to the same question. Metz’s extrapolation may be correct, when viewed as a kind of rational reconstruction. However, Metz does not make appropriate reservations and groundlessly unifies heterogeneous problems. The article shows that more historically oriented methodology avoids impropriety in the exercise of rational reconstruction of “meaning in life” in the field of ancient and medieval philosophies. (shrink)

John Baconthorpe (c.1290-1345/8) was the best-known of the Carmelite scholastics in the Middle Ages. This article is a brief study of his solution to the philosophical problem of how the soul may be wholly present in the human body and present whole and undivided in each part. Baconthorpe’s account is of great interest for a number of reasons. He takes issue with one of his fellow Carmelite masters, alerting us to diversity of opinion within that ‘school’. Furthermore, in using terminology (...) and illustrative analogies drawn from terminist logic and the mathematical sciences, Baconthorpe is an important witness to what has been described as the ‘mathematization’ of philosophy and theology in late medieval England. Finally, study of Baconthorpe’s texts provides further evidence of the emergence of the theme of extension in fourteenth-century thought in which we can discern the roots of modern philosophical debate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Possible Worlds in the Tahâfut al-tahâfut:Averroes on Plenitude and PossibilityTaneli Kukkonen1.It has become customary to credit John Duns Scotus with having first systematically laid out the basis for treating the modal terms as referring to synchronic alternative states of affairs. This has been viewed as constituting a genuine shift in modal paradigms, as no former model had included the idea of genuine synchronic alternative possibilities. Historians of modal logic (...) and contemporary logicians alike have found it interesting that certain key features of Duns Scotus's theory and subsequent late medieval work markedly resemble the so-called possible worlds semantics approach of modern modal theory.1Duns Scotus' innovations were not completely without precedent. Several key elements in Scotus' theory were foreshadowed by twelfth-century developments. Perhaps somewhat amusingly, one of the most important forerunners to the Latin discussion was one in whose context the expression "possible worlds" would have made sense in a very special way.2 This is the medieval Arabic debate on the eternity of the world and its modal status. In this paper I propose to take stock of the positions the Arabs reached, and to do so by way of [End Page 329] consulting one of the documents central to the debate, the Tahâfut al-tahâfut or the "Incoherence of the Incoherence," by Abû al-Walîd Ibn Rushd (the Latin "Averroes," 1126-1198). In the first part I examine Averroes' exposition of the received Aristotelian tradition; in the second I assess the revisions to modal theory suggested by al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111), in the latter's comprehensive critique of philosophical doctrine. Though the two inquiries are obviously complementary, they can be accomplished independently of each other.It will be seen that Averroes' and his formidable adversary's views on the interpretation of the modal concepts differ quite fundamentally. What makes the ensuing debate, often fraught with misunderstandings and misrepresentation, so engaging is that both parties, in spite of their differences, refer to a common Aristotelian backdrop in questions of terminology and mode of argumentation. Both Averroes and al-Ghazâlî are well-placed to present a considered and balanced account of what they take to be crucial in the issues involved. It is on account of this that the complex interplay between the old and the new comes to the fore with exceptional force and clarity in the Tahâfut debates.2.The Tahâfut al-tahâfut, first published in 1180, is a philosophical rejoinder to an attack on philosophy, Abû Hâmid al-Ghazâlî's Tahâfut al-falâsifa or "The Incoherence of the Philosophers" (1095). In that celebrated work al-Ghazâlî had claimed to expose certain philosophical doctrines as not only contrary to orthodox Muslim belief, but also internally incoherent.3 Averroes' reply in turn was written in order "to show the different degrees of assent and conviction attained by the assertions in The Incoherence of the Philosophers, and to prove that the greater part has not reached the degree of evidence and of truth."4 The work is thus of a doubly dialectical nature. Whereas al-Ghazâlî tries to show the philosophers' reasoning to be defective, Averroes has to show both that al-Ghazâlî is likewise lacking in intellectual rigor and that philosophy, properly understood, is innocent of the charges leveled at it. If the Islamic philosophers (al-Fârâbî and, above all, Avicenna) have in fact erred, this is only to the extent that they have misrepresented correct Aristotelian doctrine. [End Page 330]Averroes' presentation is appropriately delicate considering the complexity of the task at hand. Averroes quotes al-Ghazâlî exclusively in full, lengthy passages, with the result of incorporating almost all of the Tahâfut al-falâsifa in his own work. In so doing he gives us an adequate and comparably fair representation of al-Ghazâlî's views. Averroes then goes on to discuss what al-Ghazâlî says both in the philosophers' name and in his own, and points out their respective deviations from Aristotelian doctrine. The text thus comes laid out in three successive layers, with Averroes' own... (shrink)

This paper closely examines Strauss’ conception of “Medieval Enlightenment”. It focuses on the central role that Arab philosophy has played in the development of Strauss’s thought and discusses the validity of the uses he makes of it. It also emphasizes the interest of Strauss’s analyses as regards Arab philosophy while drawing attention to the tensions they create. It claims that Strauss’ involvement in the quarrel between Ancients and Moderns aims at showing that medieval philosophy cannot be reduced simply (...) to the effort to reconcile philosophy and religion. The ideas of some Arab philosophers cropped up throughout Strauss’s philosophical development and determined his interpretation of Maimonides and Plato as well as his stance in opposition to the moderns. However Strauss’s idea of the “medieval Enlightenment” remains fundamentally ambiguous. Is that Enlightenment supposed to be an argument for the preservation of faith alongside reason or does it rather express a kind of atheism or disguised materialism? (shrink)

This paper follows up a suggestion by Paul Vincent Spade that there were two Medieval theories of the modes of personal supposition. I suggest that early work by Sherwood and others was a study of quantifiers: their semantics and the effects of context on inferences that can be made from quantified terms. Later, in the hands of Burley and others, it changed into a study of something else, a study of what I call global quantificational effect. For example, although (...) the quantifier in ‘¬∀xPx’ is universal, it can be seen globally as having an existential effect; this is because the formula containing it is equivalent to ‘∃x¬Px’. The notion of global effect can be explained in terms of the modern theory of normal forms. I suggest that early authors were studying quantifiers, and the terminology of the theory of personal supposition is a classification of kinds of quantifiers. In this theory, to say that a term has distributive supposition is to say, roughly, that it is quantified by a universal quantifying sign. Later authors turned this into a theory of global quantificational effect. In the later theory, to say that a term has distributive supposition is to say that the overall effect is as if the term were universally quantified with a quantifier taking (relatively) wide scope. The difference between these two approaches is illustrated by the fact that the term ‘man’ is classified as having distributive ("universal") supposition in ‘Not every man is running’ in the earlier theory, whereas in the later theory that term does not have distributive supposition; it has determinate ("existential") supposition. In the paper I explain these options, and I argue from several texts that the earlier and later medieval theories actually worked like this. In an appendix I make further efforts to clarify the obscure early accounts, as well as the nineteenth century "doctrine of distribution". The last section of the paper discusses the "purpose(s)" of supposition theory. (shrink)

When Brentano introduces the notion of immanent objectivity or the intentional inexistence of objects in Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint, he cites Scholastic theories of intentionality and suggests that his own view is continuous with medieval and ancient theories of objective being. Very few philosophers of the middle ages used the terminology of esse objectivuum and those that did, such as Peter Aureol, do not appear to be among the primary Scholastic sources for Brentano’s theory of immanence. To a (...) modern ear moreover talk of things existing in the mind objectively is confusing. But the contrast which is important for understanding Brentano’s theory of intentionality is not that between objectivity and subjectivity as commonly understood nowadays, as if having something objectively in mind excluded its being a subjective phenomenon, but something like Descartes’s opposition between that which objectively exists and that which formally exists. Hence for Descartes, whose characterization of immanent objectivity Brentano often cited approvingly in his lectures, any two thoughts, for example, a thought about God and a thought about a horse, will have exactly the same formal reality but may differ enormously in their degree of objective being. (shrink)

Although Brentano generally regarded himself as at heart a metaphysician, his work then and subsequently has always been dominated by the Psychology. He is rightly celebrated as the person who reintroduced the Aristotelian-Scholastic notion of intentio back into the study of the mind. Brentano's inspiration was Aristotle's theory of perception in De anima, though his terminology of intentional inexistence was medieval. For the history of the work and its position in his output may I refer to my Introduction to (...) the reprinted English translation. Alongside Aristotle the work shows influences of Descartes, Comte and the British empiricists. The theory of intentionality presented in the Psychology is much less modern and less plausible than almost all recent commentary would have it, and was in any case not where Brentano's main interest lay. Intentionality simply served to demarcate mental phenomena from physical, in Book One, but the main aim was a classification of the mental, outlined in Book Two. Books Three to Five were to have dealt in detail with the three main classes of presentations, judgements and feelings, with the final book considering the metaphysics: mind-body and the immortality of the soul. Brentano's shifting views, recently documented in English with Benito Muller's translation of Descriptive Psychology, a work from the transitional 1890s, made the original plan obsolete. The role of an a priori, philosophical or descriptive psychology, methodologically prior to empirical-experimental genetic psychology, foreshadowed and influenced Husserl's notion of phenomenology, and Brentano's Comtean methodological epoche of desisting from controversial metaphysical statements in favour of an examination of the phenomena likewise presaged Husserl's more ponderous phenomenological reductions. Brentano's other work covers most areas of philosophy, notably ethics, where he upheld a form of a priori intuitionism much admired by G. E. Moore, the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, philosophy of language, deductive and inductive logic, and the history of philosophy. I shall mention just two areas. In his logic lectures from 1866 onwards (a compilation published 1956) Brentano rejected the subject-predicate analysis of simple judgements and proposed instead (for which he apparently secured written assent from Mill) that all judgements are logical compounds of positive and negative existential judgements. For example the universal judgement All men are mortal becomes the negative existential There are no immortal men. On this basis Brentano radically simplified the inference rules of deductive logic. While unlike de Morgan, Frege and others he does not go beyond logic's traditional scope by recognising relations, within its bounds his reformed-term logic is simple, elegant and easily teachable. Some of his ideas in logic influenced the young Husserl. Unfortunately Brentano took against mathematical logic, which he wrongly associated exclusively with Hamilton's confused doctrine of the quantification of the predicate. His inductive logic, which takes up by far the greater part of his logic lectures, remains unresearched to this day. (shrink)

Too often the study of philosophical texts is carried out in ways that do not pay significant attention to how the ideas contained within them are presented, articulated, and developed. This was not always the case. The contributors to this collected work consider Jewish philosophy in the medieval period, when new genres and forms of written expression were flourishing in the wake of renewed interest in ancient philosophy. Many medieval Jewish philosophers were highly accomplished poets, for example, and (...) made conscious efforts to write in a poetic style. This volume turns attention to the connections that medieval Jewish thinkers made between the literary, the exegetical, the philosophical, and the mystical to shed light on the creativity and diversity of medieval thought. As they broaden the scope of what counts as medieval Jewish philosophy, the essays collected here consider questions about how an argument is formed, how text is put into the service of philosophy, and the social and intellectual environment in which philosophical texts were produced. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

Both ways of looking at the history of logic as well as some of the issues that plague contemporary disputes over the nature of logic are illustrated in three recent books. Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic turns to a medieval Aristotelian philosophy as providing the framework for an adequate account of logical subject matter. Ernest Moody's Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic borrows from the technical apparatus of present-day logicians in an endeavor to reassess what was once dismissed as fourteenth (...) century logic-chopping. Benson Mates' Stoic Logic is a similar study in the logic of an earlier period. (shrink)

Peter Adamson presents a lively introduction to six hundred years of European philosophy, from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. The medieval period is one of the richest in the history of philosophy, yet one of the least widely known. Adamson introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition, including Peter Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Roger Bacon. And the (...) medieval period was notable for the emergence of great women thinkers, including Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. Original ideas and arguments were developed in every branch of philosophy during this period - not just philosophy of religion and theology, but metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, moral and political theory, psychology, and the foundations of mathematics and natural science. (shrink)

Annotation Scholars of medieval scholastic philosophy as well as those who study semiotics will appreciate this side-by-side translation, with introduction, by Doyle (Saint Louis U.) of a late 16th-early 17th century Jesuit text. The text (its name is taken from the U. of Coimbra, in Portugal, where the authors taught) contains commentaries on Aristotle, as part of a course in philosophy, particularly logic. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

This review note surveys some important aspects of a recent publication by Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola’s Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy. While focus over the last decades has been placed on Pico’s thought in relation to Jewish Kabbalah and mysticism, Edelheit hopes to emphasize the importance of the scholastic tradition (or, rather, the pluriform and various tradition of late medieval and Renaissance scholasticism) in Pico’s thought, and the ways in which this intellectual context (...) places this unique Renaissance thinker at a sort of ‘crossroads’. Beyond providing a brief overview of the three main parts of the text, this note examines more closely Edelheit’s study of Pico’s 900 Theses and the methodological approach which involves a reconstruction of the dialectical context for each thesis. The Latin scholastics are real conversational partners for Pico: he is versed in the 13th-century scholastic sources, is certainly familiar with contemporaneous scholastic thought, and is able to employ scholastic methods and terminology within his wider philosophical project. While scholastic philosophy was very much alive at the end of the fifteenth century, Pico’s new and inclusive approach to philosophy and the history of philosophy, never eschewing the Latin masters, departs from both scholastic and humanist trends. (shrink)

Combining the latest scholarship with fresh perspectives on this complex and rapidly changing area of research, this work considers the rich traditions of medieval Arab, Jewish and Latin philosophy. Experts in the field provide comprehensive analyses of the key areas of medieval philosophy and its most influential figures, including: Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Eriugena, Anselm, Abelard, Grosseteste, Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, Peter Aureoli, William of Ockham, Wyclif, Suarez, and the enormous and enduring influence of Boethius on the (...) medieval Latin West. Special attention is devoted to the seminal, but lesser-known figures in each period, and to the cultural context of medieval philosophy in Islam and the Christian West. Medieval Philosophy can be purchased individually or as part of the 10 volume Routledge History of Philosophy series. There is a 10% discount off each volume with all standing orders. (shrink)

New translations of the central mediaeval texts on the problem of universals are presented here in an affordable edition suitable for use in courses in mediaeval philosophy, history of mediaeval philosophy, and universals. Includes a concise Introduction, glossary of important terms, notes, and bibliography.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Avicenna’s Metaphysics in ContextTaneli KukkonenRobert Wisnovsky. Avicenna’s Metaphysics in Context. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. Pp. ix + 305. Cloth, $65.00.The challenges facing the contemporary writer on Arabic philosophy are many, but none more daunting than that of striking a satisfying balance between faithfully reproducing what is there in the text (alongside a lineage of likely sources, perhaps), and actively engaging the materials philosophically. From among the (...) current crop of scholars, the more cautious will argue that as long as we lack critical editions of even basic works, and as long as ambiguities remain concerning who was reading what, where, and when, any ambitious statements regarding the substance of Arabic thought, its development, and (especially) what its distinctive contributions might be, must remain hopelessly premature. The counterargument goes that by refusing the philosophically impatient the licence to speculate, at least, about the relevance of the materials at hand—however rough and ready—one will end up stifling just those endeavours the philologist hopes to promote. For without the promise of philosophical rewards, what incentive remains for the thankless and endless task of textual refinement and identification of sources? Strides made in late ancient and Latin medieval scholarship seem to indicate that philosophical curiosity serves to feed historical acuity, rather than hinder it. Yet with the study of Arabic philosophy the perceived opposition between philosophy and philology has led to a precious few works escaping charges of being found lacking either in textual or philosophical sophistication, or indeed both.To this select company one may now add Robert Wisnovsky's aptly titled Avicenna's Metaphysics in Context. The author pursues a particularly deft course of action: honing in on themes for whose evaluation sufficient materials are available, then infusing his exposition at every turn with philosophical insight and a scholar's eye for detail, Wisnovsky demonstrates by example what a resourceful scholar can accomplish in this day and age. Wisnovsky takes it as his task to situate the very doctrines Abû 'Alî Ibn Sînâ (980-1037) is most famous for—the essence-existence distinction, the distinction between contingent and necessary existence, and the created and embodied yet ultimately separable perfection of the human soul—in a continuous line of discussion stretching from Alexander of Aphrodisias to the kalâm theologians of Avicenna's own age.The resulting narrative threads together a dizzying array of thinkers and discussions, showing just how fertile the scholarship ranging from late antiquity to Arabic thought was, both considered in its original setting and in terms of the contemporary scholarly imagination. Among other things, Wisnovsky's book constitutes the fullest study to date of the [End Page 112] evolution of the concepts of final and efficient causality in the increasingly Neoplatonising interpretations of Aristotle. The cosmological and metaphysical motifs behind these developments are rightly pointed out by Wisnovsky, and their impact on Avicenna's metaphysics of the soul and his views on process and return receive thorough attention.In the midst of all this, sight may be lost of Avicenna's original achievement, and it has to be said that Wisnovsky does not play this aspect up by much. But this, the reader suspects, is part of the point. In order to appreciate a thinker's intellectual prowess it is not necessary to insist that he or she be conjuring up concepts out of thin air. A great mind may instead be a synthetic one, one that is able to negotiate between various conceptual schemes and commitments, and this is the picture Wisnovsky paints of Avicenna. Avicenna's deep engagement with the Peripatetic tradition is evident to any scholar, yet it is often difficult to determine exactly whose opinions he references, as contending viewpoints are typically introduced by enigmatic preambles such as "if it is said... " or, "some contend." Wisnovsky's attention to how terminological shifts reflect philosophical ones succeeds in demonstrating Avicenna's reliance in general not only on ancient sources, but on al-Fârâbi and the kalâm as well. His subtle analysis of the development of key Avicennian doctrines simultaneously serves to lend credence to the picture that is currently emerging concerning the... (shrink)

Presents the history of medieval philosophy and includes profiles of notable philosophers, Jewish and Arabic medieval philsophy, and the age of the schoolmen.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas’s Natural Theology inSumma contra gentiles I by Norman KretzmannJohn F. WippelNorman Kretzmann. The Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas’s Natural Theology in Summa contra gentiles I. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. Pp. xii + 302. Cloth, $45.00.In this book Kretzmann intends to contribute to our understanding of Aquinas’s natural theology as it is presented in Bk I of his Summa contra gentiles(SCG). He hopes that it (...) will be of value to medieval philosophical scholarship. Because he regards Aquinas’s natural theology as an ongoing active enterprise, he also wants to present a viable metaphysics of theism along the lines laid down by the medieval Doctor. Thomas himself indicates that in Bks. I–III of the four Books of this work he will set forth those aspects of Christian belief about God which can be established by unaided human reason. Kretzmann views Aquinas’s project in these three Books as the most promising and “most fully accomplished natural theology” of which he is aware.In ch. 1 Kretzmann discusses the relationship between philosophy and theology and suggests that a philosophical theology might be regarded as theology from the top down. Philosophy from the bottom up would seem to be the only kind of philosophy that can be distinguished from it. Kretzmann mentions the “philosophical theology” produced by many medieval theologians and by current philosophers of religion but, in a departure from Aquinas’s own terminology, regards this as a part of revealed theology. Kretzmann reserves the name “natural theology” for the theology that is a part of philosophy, and refers to it as theology from the bottom up. But, he suggests, if one were to take a metaphysically grounded natural theology as the first phase in a systematic presentation of the rest of philosophy, one could then refer to philosophy as proceeding from the top down, i.e., from an original demonstration of the existence of God and discussion of his nature to an examination of created reality and human nature and behavior as following from God as the first principle. It is this approach that he finds Thomas following in SCG I–III and which Kretzmann will subsequently refer to as his “natural theology.”In ch. 2 Kretzmann examines Thomas’s efforts in SCG I, c. 13 to demonstrate God’s existence. He thinks Aquinas is too demanding in requiring demonstrative argumentation for God’s existence at this point. For Rretzmann it will be enough initially to offer argumentation to show that the existence of God is an acceptable working hypothesis, and to move from this to an investigation of the divine nature. Thomas offers five a [End Page 528]posteriori arguments for God’s existence in c. 13, of which the first two, by far the lengthiest, are based on motion and deeply indebted to Aristotle. Kretzmann notes the close relationship between this first argument from motion and the later “first way” of Summa theologiae1, 2, 3. But because this argument has been ably analyzed and defended by Scott MacDonald, Kretzmann unfortunately bypasses it here and concentrates on the more complicated second argument. After submitting this to close analysis, he concludes that it has some fatal flaws which prevent it from being accepted as demonstrative.This result forces him in ch. 3 to move forward in his presentation of Thomas’s natural theology without having a conclusive argument for the existence of God or even of an extraordinary first being. But he is willing to use its conclusion, that there is an ultimate explanatory principle, as a working hypothesis, even though at this point he is not ready to identify this with even a hypothetically existing God. Instead, he will refer to it as “Alpha.” He follows Thomas’s employment of the way of negation in cc. 14–28 in removing a series of names that should not be predicated of God. As part of his effort in c. 15 to prove that God is eternal, Aquinas introduces a special argument based on the difference between possible (=corruptible) and necessary (=incorruptible) beings. Kretzman correctly takes this as in effect another argument for the existence of God... (shrink)

One of the distinguishing features of modern and contemporary philosophy is the fact that they are consistently grounded by the epistemological outlook. The essence of this outlook is the modern conception of knowledge, which could not exist without a proper evaluation of a systemic success — or, even more importantly, in some sense a successful failure — of modern science. The only way for us to perceive the lack of error as the basis of a reliable knowledge is to recognize (...) our own fallacies. In such a way the ancient cosmocentrical worldview and the medieval theocentrical epistemology have been changed by the scientistic agnoiological approach, which had its origins in the modern times and includes the primary requirement to treat the fundamental ignorance as a reliable foundation of knowledge. In this article the reader is provided with a detailed exposition of the phenomenon of self-grounding of epistemological modernity. Adopting the terminology used in the metaphilosophical reflexion, we could reveal the dual origin of contemporary philosophical discourse, the basic principles which ground the epistemological claims, and also demonstrate the necessity of constant efforts when seeking to avoid solipsism and the paradoxical nature of modern epistemology. (shrink)

The story Wippel tells in this brief but valuable volume is a familiar one, of how the early medieval consensus on the relationship between faith and reason collapsed in the thirteenth century under siege from radical Aristotelians at the University of Paris. Wippel gives his account in clear terms especially well suited to beginning students. Although there are few novelties in this volume, everything is based on the most up-to-date research, and a third of the volume consists of detailed (...) notes that will be the most valuable resource here for scholars already familiar with the basic story. (shrink)

Rabbi Solomon ibn Gabirol (Avicebrón) was perhaps the greatest Neo-Platonist in the medieval Arabic philosophic tradition, and the greatest medieval Hebrew poet. In the following discussion, the author studies a short poem (Ahabtikha: "I Have Loved You") from Ibn Gabirol's classic philosophy work Fons Vitae, and he tries to clarify some of the poem's enigmas. The poem does relate to the teachings of the Fons Vitae, but does so in a nonphilosophic manner, making no use of philosophic terminology (...) or argument. (shrink)