Medieval Philosophy

Con i contributi di: Anthony Kenny · Andreas Speer · Jocelyn Benoist · Francesco Fronterotta · Enrico Berti · Riccardo Chiaradonna · Mauro Zonta · Francesco Marrone · Marco Lamanna · Paul Richard Blum · Siegrid Agostini · Igor Agostini · Alice Ragni · Francesco Campagnola · Jan Čížek · Pietro Montani · Pierluigi Valenza · Antonello D’Angelo · Jean-François Courtine · Marco Damonte · Emmanuel Cattin · Vincent Holzer · Andrea Grillo · Andrea Bellocci · Francesco Valerio Tommasi · Philippe Nouzille

Parmenides is probably the most influential of all Presocratics on the subsequent history of philosophy, yet he has been poorly served by his English translators. They persistently turn his poem into awkward and deadening prose, as if he had written an obscure treatise on logic. By rendering Parmenides’ poetry as poetry, in an English equivalent of its meter, this translation aims to show that his medium is essential to his message — that he is not a would-be analytic logician but a mystical visionary.striving to convey a revelation of ultimate reality.

Abū Yaʻqūb al-Sijistānī’s works might be considered as some of the most clear examples of an Ismaī‘lī reading of the Neoplatonic doctrines. In his Kitāb al-Yanābīʻ there is a dichotomy: even if “mediation” is the main characteristic of the present reality, it seems that some kind of “direct” access to the spiritual dimension is possible for all humans at any moment. Both perspectives seem incompatible: if a human being can reach the universal dimension without any intermediation but his own soul, why would he need to “participate” in the daʻwa al-ʼismāʻīliyya?

The famous argument for the existence of God is analyzed with a survey of the Greek and Arabic influences of Avicenna's system.

Turning to the text, The Salvation, ‘’Metaphysics,’’ II. 12, it is stated that ‘’at any one and the same time there cannot be for anything that is possible in itself a cause that is possible ad infinitum’’ (II.12.2). Here he’s saying that a possible being cannot have an infinite amount of causes at the same time. Because if that infinite totality of causes would itself have either an internal cause or an external necessary cause. It can’t be internal, because it would either be (a) necessary, which is not an option because everything internal to that totality is possible; then (b) an internal possible cause – which is not an option because that would make it a part of the totality and a part can’t be a cause of the whole. So if that cause is not internal, then it has to be external. It can’t be possible, because all of the possible causes have been established in that inner totality. Therefore it has to be necessary. He concludes the argument by stating that:
Thus, things existing possibly terminate in a cause existing necessarily, in which case not every effect that exists as something possible will have simultaneously with it a cause that exists as something possible, and so an infinite number of causes existing at a single time is impossible. (II.12.2)
This argument can be considered as a subsidiary conclusion to Avicenna’s main argument for the proof of God’s existence (McGinnis 166-67). There are considered to be four main categories of arguments: (1) the metaphysical proof from necessity; (2) the proof from movement; (3) the proof from causality; (4) the proof from ontology (Netton 172-73). The themes are similar to the discussions on the problem of infinite causal regress as discussed for example in book two of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ On Aristotle’s Metaphysics. I think that he is essentially concerned with establishing a logical argument that integrates a hierarchy of ontological causality rather than simply natural causality. In that sense, it could be considered similar to the ‘’a posteriori cosmological arguments’’ of the quinque via  of ThomasAquinas (Netton 173).

This ambitious book is about a way of building that for centuries dominated the making of monumental architecture – yet now not only is it lost as practice, knowledge of its very existence is consigned to oblivion. In pre-modern Europe, the architect built not just with imagination, brick and mortar, but with time, using vast quantities of duration to erect monumental buildings that otherwise would have been impossible. Not mere medieval muddling-through, this entailed a sophisticated set of norms and practices. Virtually all the great cathedrals of Europe were built under this regime. In particular, the major works of pre-modern Italy, from the Pisa cathedral group to the new St Peter’s – the apotheosis of the practice – are thus cast in an entirely new light.  Even as ‘Building-in-Time’ flourished, the fifteenth-century Italian architect Leon Battista Alberti proposed a new temporal regime whereby time would ideally be excluded from the making of architecture (‘Building-outside-Time’). Planning and building, which had formed one fluid, imbricated process, were to be sharply divided, and the change that always came with time excluded from architectural facture. Ironically, it was Brunelleschi, as creator of the cupola of Florence cathedral and one of the supreme practitioners of Building-in-Time, who was the lynchpin of Alberti’s turn to the arts in the mid-1430s. That he arrived in Florence just at the moment Brunelleschi’s dome was being completed was crucial to Alberti’s subsequent career in visual culture.  In telling this story, Trachtenberg rewrites the history of medieval and Renaissance architecture in Italy and recasts the turn to modernity in new terms. Recovering this lost element allows us also to see the present in a new way: temporality is not a neutral or secondary factor in modern architecture culture, but an epistemic condition that silently affects all production and experience of the built environment.

Thomas Aquinas argues that God can be identified with the truth as such.  He holds that ‘God is truth’ is an analogical claim that asserts, first, that God exemplifies truth to the highest possible degree and, second, that God is the cause of all truth. To understand his arguments fully, one must also understand his claim that created truth “participates in” or “imitates” divine truth.  Creatures participate in or imitate God just by virtue of being created. Thus, these claims simply reiterate that God causes all created truth by causing all created being. Aquinas’s claim that God is truth may seem nonsensical to contemporary readers, but properly understood, it is quite modest, and poses few intellectual obstacles beyond those posed by classical theism itself.

The book deals with Gerbert of Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II) and his investigations in the field of theoretical (philosophy of numbers) and practical (counting) arithmetic. The book represents the comprehensive inquiry of both these aspects of arithmetic in his thought. The analysed sources are Gerbert’s so-called scientific letters written to his friends, colleagues or pupils, and also including some of his other texts. On this basis, attention is paid to arithmetic as the mother of all sciences and as the path to wisdom (e.g., the so-called Saltus Gerberti, relation between arithmetic and other disciplines of the quadrivium, etc.) and also to practical arithmetic (e.g., the introduction of Hindu-Arabic numerals and the re-introduction of a new form of abacus to the Latin Christian West).

Essentialism can be defined as a metaphysical theory according to which things have essential and accidental properties. In this paper, I will address Avicennian essentialism, that is, essentialism as we find it in Avicenna’s own writings and the writings of the immediate post-Avicennian philosophical tradition of the Islamic world. I will consider a number of primary sources, summarize the state of recent scholarship regarding Avicennian metaphysics of attributes, and I will draw comparisons between Avicennian essentialism and modern essentialism. As a result, I will show that Avicennians endorse two different types of essentialism: conceptualist essentialism and de re essentialism. Avicennian conceptualist essentialism only applies to kinds, while Avicennian de re essentialism only applies to particular individuals.

İslâm kültür mirasının en zengin ve geniş parçasını oluşturan İslâm felsefesi, genel olarak Müslüman filozoflar ile İslâm medeniyeti ortamında yetişmiş diğer filozofların ortaya koymuş oldukları felsefî düşüncedir. İslâm felsefesi, İslâm’ın âlem, eşya ve insan, yani dünyaya ve hayata bir bütün olarak bakan temel esasları üzerine inşa edilmiş bir düşünce sistemidir. İnsanlığın inanç ve düşünce sistemlerinin buluştuğu bir zemin üzerinde bu felsefe, İslâm kültürü ortamında ortaya çıkmış, özellikle tercümeler vasıtasıyla çeşitli felsefî sistemlerden de etkilenmiştir.
İslâm felsefesi, bir yandan İslâm toplumunun kendi içinde ortaya çıkan sosyal, siyasal ve dinî meselelerin tartışılmasıyla, diğer yandan klasik Yunan ve Helenistik devir felsefelerine ait metinlerin tercüme edilmeye başlaması ve bu yeni fikirlerin hoşgörülü, eleştirel ve karşılaştırmalı bir zihniyetle bu kültüre mal edilmesiyle Altın Çağı’nı yaşamıştır. Böylece İslâm dininin tesiri altında ve filozofların çabalarıyla çok özgün çalışmalar ortaya konmuş ve tarihte itibarlı yerini almıştır.

İslâmî dönem tercüme faaliyetleri (9. ve 10. asır) kapsamında Aristoteles'e atfedilen siyasete dâir ilk eser Sırru'l-Esrâr'dır. Bu eserin Ortaçağlarda Doğu'da ve Batı'da sıkça başvurulan ve bilinen bir eser olma hüviyetine sahip olmasında Aristoteles'e atfedilmesi ve İskender'e hitaben yazılması önemli bir rol oynamıştır. Ortaçağdaki yaygın kullanımına ve bilinilirliğine rağmen bu kitabın menşei üzerine sorunlar günümüze kadar gelmiştir. Her ne kadar bir sözde-Aristo metni olduğu kesinse de eserin girişindeki diğer iddialar da sorgulanmaya muhtaçtır. Söz konusu kitabın elimizdeki en eski nüshası Arapçadır ve bu nüshada tercümenin Batrîk oğlu Yuhanna tarafından yapıldığı bilgisi bulunur. Eser, Arapçadan sonra Latinceye ve birçok Avrupa lisanına tercüme edilmiş; birçok sultanın ve kralın, Doğu'nun ve Batı'nın devlet idaresi konusunda başucu kitaplarından biri olmuştur. Sırru'l-Esrâr ilgi alanı yalnızca devlet yönetimi olmayan bir siyasetnâmedir. Ele aldığı konular başta devlet yönetimi olmak üzere sırasıyla, ahlâk, devlet memurlarının tayini ve idaresi, savaş taktikleri, tıp, fizyoloji (ilm-i kıyâfet), kimya, astroloji, taşlar ve bitkiler… olmak üzere oldukça geniş bir muhtevaya sahiptir.

İslâm felsefesini Yunan, Yeni-Eflâtuncu veya Helenistik felsefenin tercüme edilmesinden doğmuş bir felsefe olarak görmek, Orta Çağ ile Batı felsefesi arasında bir köprü olduğunu iddia edip onun özgün yönlerini görmezden gelmek, büyük ölçüde oryantalistlerin bakış açısıdır. İslâm felsefesi, sadece geleneksel birikimi aktaran bir felsefe değil, bu felsefeyi yorumlayan, bu düşüncelerden hareketle özgün düşünceler ortaya koyan bir felsefedir. Dolayısıyla İslâm felsefesi anlaşılmadan Batı ve diğer felsefelerin anlaşılması neredeyse imkânsızdır. Orta Çağ’da İslâm dünyasında, yüksek düzeyde bir felsefe hareketi olmuştur. “Müslümanların Mucizesi” denilebilecek bu felsefe hareketi, Orta Çağ Hıristiyan felsefesinden çağdaş felsefeye kadar birçok düşünce, filozof ve akımı derinden etkilemiştir.
Bu çalışmamızda İslâm felsefesi, doğuşundan günümüze kadar olabildiğinde kronolojik bir şekilde ana hatlarıyla ele alınmıştır. Böylece bir zincir oluşturularak, ileride yapılacak olan çalışmalarla bu zincirin hiç de göz ardı edilmeyecek göz kamaştırıcı bir düşünce geleneği olduğunun ortaya konması hedeflenmiştir.

The final Book of The Mind’s Journey into God is unlike the earlier six in several ways. One is that a substantial portion is quotation from the Mystical Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite. It is important, although Bonaventure did not know this, that the quotation carries the theology of the great pagan philosopher – theologians: Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus, and the last of the “successors” of Plato at his Academy in Athens, Damascius. Damascius was driven to Persia with his colleagues by Christian persecution in the 6th century, closing the Neoplatonic Academy. These two considerations require us to think about quotation and the transmission of ideas. We shall do so under the dictum of the Postmodern philosophers: “nothing is repeated identically,” a law medieval theology confirms ceaselessly.
We shall approach this through a series of questions. The first is one we have already asked: Why after the introduction is the peace supposed to be described in this Book never mentioned again? This question leads to the next: What is the theology governing the quotations from the Mystical Theology? This philosophical theology is central for Bonaventure’s mysticism, although he transforms it. What do they derive from their pagan sources? How does placing the Platonic theology within Dionysius’ work transform it? Again how does placing Dionysius in Bonaventure’s text here change it? Finally, what does this continuity and difference between pagan and Christian, Greek Patristic and Medieval Latin tell us about philosophy, theology, and Christianity? These questions we shall consider this week.

Recent studies pay particular attention to literarily staged religious disputations
in the Middle Ages. In these recent it seems to be politically correct or polite to criticize the way these fictional dialogues present the other religions ant the truth-claim of one's own religion. The following paper tries to put forward some critical remarks in regard to this recent trend. To this end, it compares mediaeval colloquies with the German Enlightenment's philosophy of religion and, as a result, analyzes by which means we are able to characterize reasons put forward in that kind of discussions as objective
reasons.

A period in history which the Renaissance scholars pejoratively called the «Middle Ages» was marked by the emergence of Europe— the rise and development of the Western civilisation. The centuries from the fourth to the fifteenth proved essential for the moulding of today's Europe, but equally so for Croatia, as they witnessed the adoption of specific cultural values and the concentration of extraordinary creative and intellectual energy. The Middle Ages represent the foundations of the processes that followed, their proper understanding being possible only by tracing them to their medieval roots. It was then that Europe acquired its main features: the unity that was effectuated through the Christianity and culture, the opulence of differences, the schism between the East and West, deep-seated contrasts between the North and South, growth of institutions and diverse government bodies, technological and scientific advances, the value of labour and the rise of productivity, affirmation of the new.
The medieval period, however, is often erroneously described as 'dark', 'spiritually and materially backward', 'barbarian', 'a period of obscurantism and persecution', etc. On the other hand, there exists just as distorted romantic perception of the Middle Age as a period of idealism epitomised by chivalry, 'courtly love', monastic mysticism and asceticism, along with most refined human virtues. Apart from the bipolar view, some historians tend to refer to this thousand-year time span as a period of immobility. The truth lies elsewhere: it was a period of profound changes and reforms. The Middle Ages are characterised by a complexity and diversity of facets and meanings. Moreover, this period is defined through a coexistence of different identities, features and phenomena that together create a medieval world. It is more than an interesting, exotic, if obsolete, world of the past—it is a living legacy. The surviving architectural achievements, artefacts and other material remains of the Middle Ages represent the core of European identity. Equally inherent in our today's life and world is its invisible spiritual legacy

Resumo: No Monologion, publicado em 1077, temos a primeira demonstração anselmiana da existência de Deus. Esta é desenvolvida nos capítulos I-IV. Santo Anselmo constitui então um conjunto de provas a partir de três caminhos diferentes: a) a perfeição verificada nos diferentes seres, b) a perfeição que eles, em graus diversos, possuem em comum e que é o ser; c) os graus de perfeição que as coisas possuem. Elas correspondem as chamadas provas anselmianas cosmológicas ou a posteriori da existência de Deus, pois Santo Anselmo procura então demonstrar que se partindo do mundo (efeitos) pode se chegar a Deus (causa). Palavras-chave: Santo Anselmo, Monologion, Demonstração da existência de Deus. Santo Anselmo e a Disputa entre Dialéticos e Antidialéticos no Século XI É preciso situar historicamente a personagem filosófica de Santo Anselmo, para que possamos compreender o sentido de sua obra e, inclusive, entender sua proposta de demonstração da existência de Deus. Isto, naturalmente, implica em compreendê-lo a partir das preocupações filosóficas de seu tempo. Muito especialmente devemos entender o seu posicionamento na querela dita entre os dialéticos e os antidialéticos. Foi durante os dez anos de seu priorado em Bec (1063-1073) que Anselmo desenvolveu sua atividade filosófica mais intensa, compondo suas obras principais, incluso o Monologion. Santo Anselmo tomou então atitude na questão das relações entre a razão e a fé e, assim, imiscuiu-se na querela dita entre os dialéticos e antidialéticos. Com efeito, como estudam Philoteus Boehner e Etienne Gilson (1991, pp. 249 e 250), o duelo entre dialéticos e antidialéticos marca uma escolástica ainda insipiente, caracteriza-se por uma disputa transformada num "mero brinquedo", porém perigoso. Perigo, aliás, de proporções tanto mais alarmantes quanto mais lhes faltava uma distinção clara entre fé e razão e uma noção nítida de suas relações mútuas. Tal fato explica a existência simultânea de, por um lado, um racionalismo rígido e, por outro, um fideísmo simplista. Tal dialética, assim constituída, revelou-se totalmente estéril. A reação, que não fez-se esperar, como era natural, caiu no extremo oposto, condenando radicalmente toda a Dialética. Desta maneira, por algum tempo, dialéticos e antidialéticos defrontaram-se numa luta improfícua, de fato até que Santo Anselmo primeiro, e depois Abelardo, viessem a obter sínteses mais ou menos satisfatórias.

espanolEn terminos intelectuales, Bernardo de Claraval es uno de los hombres masimportantes de su tiempo, el siglo XII. Ademas de eso, sus textos influyeron decisivamente enla conciencia de sus contemporaneos. Por lo tanto, es necesario conocer su obra para definir elconcepto de “intelectualidad” de los pensadores pre-escolasticos que escribieron tratadosfilosoficos, en este caso, acerca del concepto de Naturaleza, uno de los mas tradicionales de laFilosofia. Nuestra propuesta de analisis es comprender el modo en que Bernardo desarrollo eseconcepto en su obra, sus definiciones cristianas mas humanisticas (por ejemplo, “?Por que todoslos hombres son iguales por naturaleza?”) hasta las nociones especificamente metafisicas;tambien sus consideraciones acerca del imperativo que rige la colaboracion entre laNaturaleza y la Gracia, ya que para Bernardo las facultades de la Naturaleza humana soniguales para todos, pero son inutiles sin la Gracia. EnglishIn intellectual terms, Bernard of Cla...

This paper focuses on how Thomas Aquinas’s theory of individuals explains that God has the only one essence and three individual persons. Aquinas’s theory of individuals has long been studied with a strong focus on material substances. Joseph Owens and Lawrence Dewan are rare scholars who consider seriously the individuality of immaterial entities. Are we not allowed to view various individual beings in these entities at all? This is one of the questions we are trying to answer.

The paper focuses on the theory of number and its importance in Augustine's philosophical thinking. Through the analysis selected Augustine's works (mainly De ordine, De musica, De libero arbitrio, De doctrina christiana and De civitate Dei) this text deals with the number as a way to the cognition of immortality of human soul and to the necessity of God's existence. Further, the number is presented as the needful aid to the correct understanding of Scripture. In all this cases the number and arithmetic are guarantee of true knowledge.

Niniejsza praca ma na celu przedstawienie teorii mitotwórczej J. R. R. Tolkiena, z perspektywy jej wymiaru duchowego. Od czasów antycznych teorie, tudzież filozofie, opierały się na myśleniu abstrakcyjnym i miały za zadanie wyjaśnienie ówczesnemu człowiekowi otaczającej go rzeczywistości. Nie inaczej było z Tolkienowską teorią, na potrzebę której ukuł swój termin Mitopoeia. „Duchowy wymiar Tolkienowskiej Teorii Mitotwórczej” – tłumacząc tytuł tej pracy na język Polski – przekłada się na wiele sfer życia Tolkiena. Pierwsza z tych płaszczyzn, to przypisywany mu przez niektórych krytyków program filozoficzny. Na tym wymiarze skupia się pierwszy rozdział tej pracy: „The Philosophical Disenchantment.” Jednak jak sugeruje tytuł, stanowi on zaledwie tło wszelkich dalszych poszukiwań, gdyż oferuje badaczom Tolkienowskiej myśli jedynie jej racjonalizację i demitologizację. Życiowa pasja Tolkiena, filologia komparatywna, daje wystarczające zrozumienie jego fenomenu, a przynajmniej zdaniem kilku krytyków. Niezaprzeczalnie stanowiła ona inspirację, a zarazem była narzędziem, którego Tolkien użył podług swej ogromnej wiedzy z zakresu językoznawstwa. Pomimo, iż w tej pracy „Comparative Philology” jest omawiana w drugiej kolejności, to właśnie ta dyscyplina była źródłem znajomości filozofii u Tolkiena. Podążając krokami Tolkieniany nie można jednak na tym poprzestać. Trzeci wymiar, jakże metafizyczny i filozoficzny w swych założeniach i implikacjach to odkrycie Owena Barfielda, znajomego Tolkiena. Barfield odkrył Teorię „Jedności Semantycznej,” co Tolkienowi przyszło łatwo przyjąć do wiadomości: język jako narzędzie może również być transcendentny, ze względu na swe początki. Dla Tolkiena była to jedna z tych rzeczy, która pozwoliła mu uwierzyć w smoki. „Philological Philosophy: Let There Be Dragons” – jest zatem łącznikiem między dwoma światami. Jednakże Tolkien nie był byle fantastą, oderwanym od ziemi. Teoria Barfielda, obudziła w nim nadzieję. Pomimo to, tak jak każdy rozsądny i racjonalny człowiek Tolkien musiał dowiedzieć się, „czy to prawda.” Potrzebował czegoś, aby idee odnieść do nie tyle rzeczywistego doświadczenia, ile prawdy. Prawda, bowiem wyzwala. Mimo nieustannego negowania jego wiary, to właśnie ona umożliwiła mu dalsze rozważanie tych teorii. I nie da się inaczej wytłumaczyć jego mitotwórstwa, jak przez uznanie jego wiary. Miłości do Boga, która była tak głęboka, że aż sięgała wiedzy teologicznej. Tego, między innymi, tyczy ostatni rozdział tej pracy: „Myth Becomes Truth.”
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