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Philosophy Archive
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George Gemistos Plethon on God: Heterodoxy in Defense of Orthodoxy
Posted on September 3, 2012 | No CommentsThe Emperor, John VIII Palaeologos, knew they were going to face some of the finest minds in the Roman Church on their own soil; he therefore wanted the best minds available in support of the Byzantine cause to accompany him. Consequently, the Emperor appointed George Gemistos as part of the delegation. -
The Symbolical Career of Georgios Gemistos Plethon
Posted on September 2, 2012 | No CommentsThus Gemistos was the first who in an authoritative way attacked the hegemony of Aristotle in western thought. -
Hellenism and the Shaping of the Byzantine Empire
Posted on August 27, 2012 | No CommentsWhile the role of Byzantine Hellenism on the art, literature, and society of the Empire has been the subject of tremendous study, the question of its origins has, nonetheless, rarely been raised, and the strongly Hellenic Byzantine identity seems, to a large extent, to have been taken for granted historiographically. -
Eriugena: The Medieval Irish Genius Between Augustine and Aquinas
Posted on August 17, 2012 | No CommentsCarolingian thinker Johannes Scottus Eriugena (810-877 CE) is the author of numerous philosophical and theological works. -
The Evolution of Natural Rights Tradition, 1100-1400
Posted on August 9, 2012 | No CommentsAs early as the late Middle Ages, both civil and canon lawyers put increasing emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of the individual. -
Moses Ibn ‘Ezra’s “Treatise of the Garden” and Maimonides’ “Guide of the Perplexed”
Posted on July 23, 2012 | No CommentsThe Spanish poet Moses Ibn 'Ezra (1055-1138 ca.) is also known for a Judeo-Arabic book dealing with philosophical and philological questions, the Treatise of the Garden. -
A Goliard Witness: The De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii of Martianus Capella in the Methamorphosis Golye Episcopi
Posted on July 13, 2012 | No CommentsAnother twelfth-century poem in the same goliardic metre as the two lines just cited, the Methamorphosis go lye episcopi, goes far beyond this passing mention of Martianus and makes a most unexpected use of the De Nuptiis. -
Sovereign Subjects, Feudal Law, and the Writing of History
Posted on July 8, 2012 | No CommentsThe early historiography of feudal law coalesced as the point of articulation for a discourse of time (the rejection/reclamation of a “barbaric” past) and a discourse of power (the theorization of the sovereign relation), and ultimately yielded a period concept foundational to “modern” theories of state. -
The emotion of Shame in Medieval Philosophy
Posted on June 20, 2012 | No CommentsIn his Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas presents a very detailed taxonomy of emotions which is influenced by some earlier medieval theories. -
Where to Live the Philosophical Life in the Sixth Century? Damascius, Simplicius, and the Return from Persia
Posted on June 17, 2012 | No CommentsWhen establishing an endpoint for the classical philosophical tradition in the Greco-Roman world, scholars often choose the closing of the Athenian Neoplatonic school by the emperor Justinian in 529. -
Natural Philosophy and Theology in the Late Middle Ages: A Surprising Relationship?
Posted on June 17, 2012 | No CommentsA significant problem in the early years of Christianity was what attitude to adopt toward traditional pagan learning. Should they shun it as potentially dangerous to the faith? Should they wholeheartedly embrace it as offering important knowledge and insights about the world? Or would it be more advantageous to adopt an intermediate position? -
Petrarch’s “Conversion” on Mont Ventoux and the Patterns of Religious Experience
Posted on June 14, 2012 | No CommentsPetrarch’s letter, with its moments of meditation, its allegorical exploitation of the features in the physical ascent, and its program of classical allusions informing even the geographical descriptions, is much more than a travel narrative. -
![Since the advent of Hintikka’s Knowledge and Belief [8] in 1962, epistemic logic has become a vibrant and exciting subfield of modal logic. However, like its sister alethic modal logic [18], epistemic logic is not a new invention or dis- covery of the 20th century. In the Middle Ages, philosophers were concerned with many of the same problems in epistemology that exercise us today, and logicians were correspondingly interested in what types of inferences containing epistemic modes or operators are licet](http://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/images-23-115x115.jpg "Paul of Venice on a Puzzle About Uncertainty")
Paul of Venice on a Puzzle About Uncertainty
Posted on June 10, 2012 | No CommentsSince the advent of Hintikka’s Knowledge and Belief [8] in 1962, epistemic logic has become a vibrant and exciting subfield of modal logic. However, like its sister alethic modal logic [18], epistemic logic is not a new invention or dis- covery of the 20th century. In the Middle Ages, philosophers were concerned with many of the same problems in epistemology that exercise us today, and logicians were correspondingly interested in what types of inferences containing epistemic modes or operators are licet -
The Idea of Natural Rights – Origins and Persistence
Posted on June 10, 2012 | No CommentsBefore turning to this early history there is one more aspect of the contemporary situation that I need to mention. Even in the Western world, the original homeland of natural rights thinking, there is no consensus—and sometimes overt skepticism—about the existence and grounding of such rights. -
Charity as the Perfection of Natural Friendship in Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae
Posted on June 6, 2012 | No CommentsWithin western civilization, there is a long-running dispute over which authority, the Christian tradition or Greek philosophical tradition, is the more trustworthy and comprehensive. Like other topics written about by Plato and Aristotle, friendship became part of this controversy. During Thomas Aquinas' time, this struggle was focused on whether the works of Aristotle could be reconciled with Christianity. -
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