Philosophy Archive
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Thomas Bradwardine: Forgotten Medieval Augustinian
Posted on May 20, 2012 | No CommentsIn spite of this dearth of scholarly publications on Bradwardine, he deserves serious consideration. From a church historical perspective, he represents a resurgence of a relatively pure Augustinianism in the late Middle Ages. -
Religious and Scientific Duality of Thought: How Ibn Rushd and al-Ghazili Set the Agenda for Medieval Scholastic Debates
Posted on May 17, 2012 | No CommentsIbn Rushd’s response to al-Ghazili ’s rather specious use of logic introduces the differentiation of religious and “scientific” or philosophical truths: an important, necessary, and previously unarticulated distinction which reverberated in the cathedrals and universities of Europe and which remains relevant for contemporary thinkers faced with similar dilemmas. -
The Originality of Machiavelli
Posted on May 3, 2012 | No CommentsThere is evidently something peculiarly disturbing about what Machiavelli said or implied, something that has caused profound and lasting uneasiness. -
Marsilio Ficino: Magnus of the Renaissance, Shaper of Leaders
Posted on May 1, 2012 | No CommentsThis article describes the life and work of Marsilio Ficino, a philosopher and leader of 15th century Florence who helped spark the Renaissance and the relevance of his ideas for the challenges we face today. -
Jerusalem in Medieval Christian Thought
Posted on April 29, 2012 | No CommentsIn the prophetic tradition, the dwelling of God is understood as a spiritual one. Yet, in spite of the expressed manner in which Jerusalem was called The Holy City, an element of imperfection remained. -
Faith and reason: charting the medieval concept of the infinite
Posted on April 23, 2012 | No CommentsI would like to start with some assumptions. First, I take it for granted that the apposition of negative terms to the Almighty God became quite early an accepted practice in Christianity, which caused in turn that the infinite, as an opposite term to something easily convenient to positive delineation, was admitted in the repertoire of God’s adverbial description. -
William of Ockham’s Early Theory of Property Rights: Sources, Texts, and Contexts
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis is nominally about William of Ockham, a theologian who did not care to read potentially damning papal constitutions until tapped to do so by a superior (superiore mandate). Following a suggestion of R. G. Collingwood, a proper first question we should ask, is what was this supposedly unwilling theologian trying to do by composing the longest defense of Franciscan poverty ever written? -
A medieval Arabic analysis of motion at an instant : the Avicennan sources to the forma fluens/fluxus formae debate
Posted on April 22, 2012 | No CommentsThe first and foremost topic of classical and medieval physics is the concept of motion (Grk. kine ̄sis, Arb. h ̇ araka, Lat. motio). Within the complex of issues and problems associated with motion, the question ‘in which category does motion itself belong?’ occupied a position of considerable importance in scholastic natural philosophy. -
When was medieval philosophy?
Posted on April 11, 2012 | No CommentsDuring the Middle Ages! But it is precisely because I think that this obvious answer is the wrong one one that I have chosen to pose the question. -
A study in early medieval mereology: Boethius, Abelard, and pseudo-Joscelin
Posted on April 10, 2012 | No CommentsThe twelfth-century philosopher Peter Abelard makes the bold claim that no thing can ever gain or lose a part. This has the remarkable consequence that should, for example, the broom that is in my closet lose a hair, that very broom would no longer exist. This remarkable consequence has prompted many commentators, both medieval and contemporary, to suggest that Abelard has made a serious mistake -
Knowledge for Its Own Sake? A Practical Humanist in the Carolingian Age
Posted on March 8, 2012 | No CommentsAlthough recent studies have shed important light on the broader political and social context in which Lupus worked, this interesting figure's literary activities continue to merit further examination within the cultural milieu of his own day -
The Failure of Ockham’s Nominalism
Posted on March 3, 2012 | No CommentsIn this paper I want to explore the reasons for Ockham’s surprising vacillation—not as an historical or biographical exercise, but to uncover the insights which nourished his positive views about nominalism and which also cast him into such uncertainty. -
“Neither Mine Nor Thine”: Communist Experiments in Hussite Bohemia
Posted on February 20, 2012 | No CommentsBecause of such circumstances the intoxicating influence of idealism and utopia continued to be pressed forward. One pervasive ideal was communism. -
Literacy, reading, and writing in the medieval West
Posted on February 19, 2012 | No CommentsOf course, literacy, reading, and writing are also overlapping and interdependent cultural forms and practices, and no historical treatment can study one in isolation from the others. Yet because they are not exactly the same things, so too scholars have tended to concentrate upon one or the other. -
The German Reformation and Medieval Thought and Culture
Posted on February 9, 2012 | No CommentsAfter Luther’s death in 1546, it was said, the seeds mostly fell dormant in Germany, where leaders failed to rally around the philosophical core of Luther’s message, retreating into political division and older authoritarian patterns of thought.
