In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Growth of Mysticism: Gregory the Great through the 12th Century, volume two of The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. By BERNARD MCGINN. New York: Crossroad, 1994. Pp. xv + 630. $49.50. This second volume of the History of Western Mysticism covers the period from the sixth through the twelfth century, from Gregory the Great to the Victorines. It fully (...) lives up to the high expectations raised by the first part and displays the same skill in presenting the fruit of enormous learning in a clear, comprehensible manner. The compact section of notes, occupying onethird of the volume, shows how well the author has succeeded in mastering the abundance of sources, primary and secondary, the current Renaissance of medieval studies has rendered available. Undaunted by the mass of recent literature McGinn's established and constantly renewed acquaintance with the original texts enables him judiciously and critically to compare interpretations and judgments. Method and balance mark this work as much as learning and erudition. Its unadorned but easy style, the language of the lectern, renders his work accessible to a wider public, even if the casual tone does not always reflect the intensity of its subject. The author has structured his study around four major figures: Gregory the Great (sixth century), Scottus Eriugena (ninth), Bernard and William of Saint-Thierry (twelfth). They form the centers of three spiritual epochs of the early Middle Ages. Each one of these periods is introduced by informative chapters on the general conditions of spiritual life. The study concludes with a chapter on visionaries who belong to none of the schools represented by the key figures and a chapter on Victorine writers that already prepares for the next volume on the high season of Christian mysticism. The simple structure allows each of the great ones to be given a full chapter. Rather than drowning his survey in an abundance of forgettable names as encyclopedic histories tend to do, McGinn has accommodated the minor figures in his transition chapters where general headings dominate individual characteristics. By devoting so much space to the great ones, the author has transformed much of what could have remained a mere survey into a series of monographs. It enabled him to highlight the unique significance of at least two previously neglected figures in the rather arid span of time that separates the patristic period from the flowering of the twelfth century: Scottus Eriugena and William of Saint-Thierry. Eriugena's intellectual importance has been established for some time, yet mainly with historians of philosophy and Neoplatonist thinkers. Here he appears as the key thinker who transmits 475 476 BOOK REVIEWS Dionysius's negative theology to the Latin West and who prepares the new mysticism of the divine image that was to culminate in Eckhart and Ruusbroec. Was Eriugena a mystic? The question returns us to the provisional definition given in the general Introduction and consistently maintained throughout volume one and most of volume two. There we learned that "mystical" refers to any belief, system, or practice conducive to the experience of God's presence (vol. I, p. xvii). This definition happily replaces the one adopted through much of the modem period of exclusively private, mostly exceptional, experiences and the unusual expressions (visions, raptures, etc.) that often accompany them. Professor McGinn presents a more objective and more controllable criterion. He extends the mystical to a more or less direct consciousness of the divine presence as evident in texts that witness of, or are conducive to, such a consciousness. This sensible change enables him to include a great many theological texts of the first millennium without having to worry about the degree of their authors' subjective awareness of God's presence and to avoid the predicament to which all attempts to ascertain another person's private experience lead. Before the twelfth century almost no reports of private experiences exist and the ones that do exist, such as Augustine's "vision" of Ostia, so closely follow an established Neoplatonic pattern that they leave us wondering about their private nature. His more objective approach also dispensed the author from having to be overly concerned about the fine, in the early... (shrink)

The question concerning the view of Hugo Etherianus is placed here in a broader context of the processes that shaped and reshaped the Byzantine culture model between the 11th and the 12th century. The newly formed culture determined the cultural situation after the fall of Constantinople in 1204 and remained valid until the end of the Byzantine period. Characterizing the Byzantines relation to the West was the key component of this model. During various theological and philosophical debates between (...) Latin and Romaic thinkers in the 12th century in Byzantium, the nearly 20-year career of Hugo Etherianus occupied a prominent position in Constantinople. Hugo was the best Latin expert on Hellenic and Byzantine philosophy and theology in the 12th century, particularly associated with the new dialecticians. His writings and letters as well as his debates with various Byzantine philosophers and theologians are an important testimony on the parting of the Byzantine and the Latin intellectual traditions during the last quarter of the 12th century. (shrink)

_Philosophy in the Islamic World_ is a comprehensive and unprecedented four-volume reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam, from its beginnings in the eighth century AD down to modern times.

Philosophy in the Islamic world is a comprehensive and unprecedented four-volume reference work devoted to the history of philosophy in the realms of Islam, from its beginnings in the eighth century AD down to modern times. In the period covered by this second volume (eleventh and twelfth centuries). Both major and minor figures of the period are covered, giving details of biography and doctrine, as well as detailed lists and summaries of each author’s works. This is the (...) English version of the relevant volume of the Ueberweg, the most authoritative German reference work on the history of philosophy ( Philosophie in der Islamischen Welt Band II: 11.–12. Jahrhundert. Zentrale und östliche Gebiete, Basel: Schwabe, 2021). (shrink)

This volume is based on the ongoing studies on post-Avicennian philosophy in the context of naturalising philosophy and science in Islam from the 12th to the 14th century - a topic that deserves the special attention of historians of Islamic intellectual history. The contributors address the following questions using case studies: What was philosophy all about from the 12th to the 14th century? And how did Muslim scholars react to it during the period (...) under consideration? The present volume approaches complex philosophical topics from different angles and is structured around six main sections: 1. Historical and Social Approaches to Philosophy, 2. Knowing the Unknown, 3. God, Man and the Physical World, 4. Universals, 5. Logic and Intellect, and 6. Anthropomorphism and Incorporealism"--Back cover. (shrink)

According to Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī, al-Ghazālī was the renewer of the Muslim faith at the end of the 5th / 11th century, whereas al-Rāzī was the renewer of faith at the end of the 6th / 12th century. That al-Ghazālī deserves such an honour can hardly be disputed, and his importance in the history of Islamic thought is generally recognised. However, the same cannot, as easily, be said of al-Rāzī, whose historical significance is far from being truly (...) appreciated, and some of the most important books of whom still await publication. Much is known about his views on particular philosophical and theological problems, and about the historical backgrounds to, and the relations amongst, some of these views. Some rather general observations on his thought are also common; for instance, that he is a heavily philosophising Ash‘arī mutakallim, a master dialectician, and an influential critic of Ibn Sīnā. (shrink)

While the history of Western philosophy as a whole can be seen as the appropriation by philosophers of the discourse of truth from the poets and makers of myth, of the replacement of the narrative form by the 'properly philosophical' form of argument, it is an appropriation that also takes place within medieval thought, particularly in the construction of theology as a legitimate academic discipline. Whether that appropriation constitutes progress or loss was as much debated in the Middle Ages (...) as it is in recent thought. I offer this medieval chapter not to take a side on the issue, but as an example of some of the presuppositions and dangers awaiting both sides of the polemic. The particular example I would like to examine is a well-known one, the conflicts over and changes in the nature of theology in the Latin twelfth century, beginning with the even more familiar conflict between Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux. I offer this essay with fully knowledge that characterizations of this conflict are cliché-ridden. It has often been seen as the conflict between the first stirrings of the modern critical spirit and the conservative, fideistic opposition, between an emerging ‘Scholastic’ and a revised ‘monastic’ theology, and/or between ‘systematic’ and ‘mystical’ theologies. (shrink)

RésuméCet article part d'une lecture inhabituelle, inégalitaire, du terme fiṭra dans le Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān d'Ibn Ṭufayl ; cette lecture modifie de façon conséquente notre compréhension de l'ensemble de l’œuvre. Nous verrons qu’à des moments cruciaux de la démonstration, il n'utilise le terme fiṭra que pour décrire la capacité des êtres à raisonner, ce qui implique qu'un fossé divise l'humanité et défie les acceptions ordinairement égalitaires de la fiṭra. Ce fossé éclaire, selon moi, les implications politiques du conte. Alors qu'Ibn (...) Ṭufayl insiste sur la compatibilité entre la philosophie récemment parvenue en Andalousie et celle, plus établie, de la religion révélée, il montre, à l'aide de la fiṭra, que la vie philosophique n'est destinée qu’à un petit nombre. Prêter attention à l'usage qu'Ibn Ṭufayl fait de la fiṭra peut aider à expliquer l'une des raisons pour lesquelles il écrivit ce conte pour la cour. Son message global accentue le rôle de la religion et tempère l'importance politique de la philosophie de deux façons : d'une part, en avançant que seuls quelques individus choisis sont capables d'accéder à la vérité indépendamment de la révélation ; d'autre part, en refusant à ces êtres exceptionnellement doués la capacité de communiquer leurs découvertes aux masses. (shrink)

This volume brings together the studies by the late Gabriel Nuchelmans (1922-96) on the history of logic and semantics from the 12th to the 17th century. They exemplify his conviction that the study of problems of modern analytical philosophy can help in understanding the authors of earlier centuries - and that the study of earlier solutions can stimulate modern discussions. The first articles deal with medieval theories of the proposition and predication; the final section is concerned with (...) Renaissance philosophy, from Lorenzo Valla to Locke. (shrink)

This volume deals with the development of moral and political philosophy in the medieval West. Professor Nederman is concerned to trace the continuing influence of classical ideas, but emphasises that the very diversity and diffuseness of medieval thought shows that there is no single scheme that can account for the way these ideas were received, disseminated and reformulated by medieval ethical and political theorists.

This is the first of several sourcebooks charting the reception of Avicenna in the Islamic East in the 12th-13th centuries CE. It translates and analyzes hundreds of passages on topics like existence, universals, free will, and proofs of God.

In middle to late Byzantium, one finds dogmatic-style sceptical arguments employed against human reason in relation to divine revelation, where revelation becomes the sole criterion of certain truth in contrast to reason. This argumentative strategy originates in early Christian authors, especially Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–215 CE) and Gregory Nazianzen (c. 329–390 CE), who maintain that revelation is the only domain of knowledge where certainty is possible. Given this, one finds two striking variations of this sceptical approach: a “mild” variant (...) (represented by Clement), where knowledge derived from human reason admits partial access to truths manifested in revelation, if imperfect; and a “strict” variant (represented by Gregory), where knowledge derived from human reason does not admit any access to truths in revelation. This paper analyzes the three Byzantines, Nicholas of Methone (d. 1160/66 CE), Theodore Metochites (1270–1320 CE), and Gregory Palamas (1296–1357/59 CE), who each display certain tendencies toward these two “poles” in their respective epistemological positions on knowledge through reason and faith. (shrink)

Written in the 12th century in Arabic by a faithful Jewish man, "The Guide" is a work that explores the contradiction a very intelligent mind clearly saw between the tradition he was raised to believe inherently and the growing philosophy of Arabian and Western culture. In Maimonides' time, there was an emerging disparity between the Law and a new level of philosophical sophistication, which he attempts to bridge in this work, primarily through the use of metaphor, though (...) also acknowledging this method's limitations. "The Guide" follows the form of a three-volume letter to a student, which was quickly translated to Hebrew and spread throughout the known world and carefully read by Jews and non-Jewish philosophers alike well through the Middle Ages. This work was so successful in its organization and arguments that it has long been a classic of the Jewish religion and of the secular world of philosophy. (shrink)

During the 12th century, certain questions came into focus and inspired speculation about the heavens and the earth, namely, “mobile being”. In other words, nature was “discovered” in the 12th century. It is in the wake of this discovery that, in the 1250s, Bonaventure developed his view of the created world while commenting on the interpretation of the Genesis account of creation found in the church fathers, as these had been anthologized in Peter the Lombard's Sentences.

Starting from theories on dreams, the innovative philosophical atmosphere of the Western 12th century are examined here. It is shown that the integration of Arabic medical know-how eventually opened perspectives which brought about the new interest in the Byzantine and Arabic Aristotle. Anhand der Traumtheorien untersucht der Autor das innovative philosophische Klima des lateinischen 12. Jahrhunderts. Es zeigt sich, dass die Aneignung arztlicher Fachbucher zu jenen neuen Perspectiven gefuhrt hat, die sich schliesslich im Interesse am byzantinischen und arabischen (...) Aristoteles niedergeschlagen haben. (shrink)

This English translation of William of Conches's Dramatican Philosophiae, makes available a synthesis of western thought concerning the structure of the physical universe, as it was understood in the 12th century.

In the 12th century the "Book of the Soul" by the philosopher Avicenna was translated from Arabic into Latin. It had an immense success among scholastic writers and deeply influenced the structure and content of many psychological works of the Middle Ages. The reception of Avicenna's book is the story of cultural contact at an imipressively high intellectural level. The present volume investigates this successful reception using two approaches. The first is chronological, tracing the stages by which Avicenna's (...) work was accepted and adapted by Latin scholars. The second is doctrinal, analyzing the fortunes of key doctrines. The sense of the original Arabic text of Avicenna is kept in mind throughout and the degree to which his original Latin interpreters succeeded in conveying it is evaluated. (shrink)

This book collects most of the invited papers presented at the 12th International Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science in Oviedo, August 2003. It contains state of the art accounts of ongoing work by a selection of the most renowned researchers in the field. The papers in the Logic section deal with topics in mathematical logic, as well as philosophical logic, and the area of logic and computation. The section on General Methodology contains articles on models, (...) theories, probability, induction, causation, and other topics. A number of papers discuss Philosophical Issues of Particular Sciences, such as mathematics, physics, linguistics, psychology, biology, and medicine. There is also a section on Ethics of Science, and papers from a special symposium on the Emergence of Scientific Medicine in the 19th-20th Century. (shrink)

One of the most important texts in the history of medieval philosophy, the Book of Causes was composed in Baghdad in the 9th century mainly from the Arabic translations of Proclus' Elements of Theology. In the 12th century, it was translated from Arabic into Latin, but its importance in the Latin tradition was not properly studied until now, because only 6 commentaries on it were known. Our exceptional discovery of over 70 unpublished Latin commentaries mainly on (...) the Book of Causes, but also on the Elements of Theology, prove, for the first time, that the two texts where widely disseminated and commented on throughout many European universities (Paris, Oxford, Erfurt, Krakow, Prague), from the 13th to the 16th century. These two volumes provide 11 editions (partial or complete) of the newly-discovered commentaries, and yields, through historical and philosophical analyses, new and essential insights into the influence of Greek and Islamic Neoplatonism in the Latin philosophical traditions."--P. [4] of cover. (shrink)

Held on Monday 12th October 2009, 5.30 - 7.00 pm, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Participants Dr Robert Sinnerbrink (Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia) Dr John Mullarkey (Philosophy, University of Dundee) Professor Berys Gaut (Philosophy, University of St Andrews) Dr David Martin-Jones (Film Studies, University of St Andrews) Dr William Brown (Film Studies, University of St Andrews)Over the course of at least the last hundred years the intellectual study of cinema has experienced a number of shifts (...) towards and away from theoretical or philosophical attempts to understand the moving image. The twenty-first century sees film-philosophy resurgent, in part due to the interest in cinema that has flourished recently in disciplines like philosophy, and in part due to the interdisciplinary nature of Film Studies. At a time when it is increasingly in vogue to return to theoretical questions previously pushed off the agenda by the dominance of historical approaches to cinema, such as the perennial "What is Cinema?", we are taking this opportunity to ask, "What is Film-Philosophy?" In a context that is witnessing the rise of digital cinema, the global dominance of multi-national media conglomerates, and the worldwide spread of "world cinemas", what role does theory or philosophy play in helping us understand cinema, and indeed, what role can cinema play in transforming philosophy? [The audio recording is of variable quality as we have had to remove a lot of background hiss and static. Please accept our apologies] Thanks to Rachel Brewster at Liverpool John Moores University for extracting the original audio. (shrink)

It has long been considered that Arabic algebra scarcely left any traces in mathematical literature of Hebrew expression. Thanks to the unpublished sources we have discovered, and to an attentive examination of already-known texts, one can no longer subscribe to such a judgement. The evidence we examine in this first article sheds light on the circulation, in erudite Jewish circles, of Arabic algebraic knowledge in Spain, Italy, Provence, and Sicily, between the 12th and the 14th centuries. The Epistle on (...) number by the Castillian astronomer Isaac ben Salomon al-A[hudot]dab was written in Sicily at the end of the 14th century, and based on the Talkhi[sudot] a'mal al-[hudot]isab of Ibn al-Banna' (1256-1321). That part of the Epistle that is devoted to algebra follows the tradition of al-Karaji. It offers, for the first time in Hebrew, a rational presentation of arithmetical operations extended to algebraic expressions. (shrink)

Yehuda Halper examines Jewish depictions of Socrates and Socratic questioning of the divine among European and North African Jews of the 12th-15th centuries. Without direct access to Plato, their understanding of Socrates is indirect, based on legendary material, on fragmentary quotations from Plato, or on Aristotle. Out of these sources, Jewish authors of this period formed two distinct views of Socrates: one as a wise, ascetic, monotheist, and the other as a vocal skeptic. The latter view has its roots (...) in Plato's Apology where Socrates describes his divine mandate to question all knowledge, including knowledge of the divine. After exploring how this and similar questions arise in the works of Judah Halevi and the Hebrew Averroes, Halper traces how such open-questioning of the divine arises in the works of Maimonides, Jacob Anatoli, Gersonides, and Abraham Bibago. (shrink)

ʻAyyānī, Yaḥyá ibn Ḥumaydān, ca. 12th century; Muslim scholars; Yemen; views on Islamic philosophy.

Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (d. 1188 C.E.) was one of the most prominent representatives of the emerging reception of Basran Muʿtazilism in 12th century Yemen. He composed highly sophisticated works on ontology, causality and the specific theory of attributes that has become known as the theory of "states" (aḥwāl). He is therefore a rare case of a Muʿtazilī thinker who left a comprehensive and systematised account of his natural philosophy. Jan Thiele's study makes extensive use of hitherto unexplored manuscripts, (...) thereby providing new insight into a largely unknown chapter of Zaydī and Muslim doctrinal history. Focusing on the later Muʿtazila, this book conveys a nuanced understanding of diachronic developments in the school's teachings in order to refine a rather static perception that prevails in modern scholarship. Al-Ḥasan ar-Raṣṣāṣ (st. 1188) war einer der einflussreichsten Vertreter der im 12. Jahrhundert einsetzenden Rezeption der Basraer Muʿtazila im Jemen. Er verfasste ausgefeilte Werke zur Ontologie, Kausalit t und zu jener Attributenlehre, die als Theorie der "Zust nde" (aḥwāl) bekannt ist. Somit ist er einer der seltenen muʿtazilitischen Denker, der eine umfassende Systematisierung seiner Naturphilosophie hinterlassen hat. Jan Thieles Studie beruht weitestgehend auf unerforschten Handschriften und gibt dadurch neue Einsichten in ein nahezu unbekanntes Kapitel zayditischer und muslimischer Geistesgeschichte. Durch den Schwerpunkt auf die sp tere Muʿtazila vermittelt das Buch ein differenziertes Verst ndnis f r diachrone Entwicklungen und revidiert dadurch eine in der Forschung verbreitete statische Wahrnehmung ihrer Schullehre. (shrink)

Yehuda Halper examines Jewish depictions of Socrates and Socratic questioning of the divine among European and North African Jews of the 12th-15th centuries. Without direct access to Plato, their understanding of Socrates is indirect, based on legendary material, on fragmentary quotations from Plato, or on Aristotle. Out of these sources, Jewish authors of this period formed two distinct views of Socrates: one as a wise, ascetic, monotheist, and the other as a vocal skeptic. The latter view has its roots (...) in Plato's Apology where Socrates describes his divine mandate to question all knowledge, including knowledge of the divine. After exploring how this and similar questions arise in the works of Judah Halevi and the Hebrew Averroes, Halper traces how such open-questioning of the divine arises in the works of Maimonides, Jacob Anatoli, Gersonides, and Abraham Bibago. (shrink)

In 12th-Century France, political Augustinianism inherited from Gregory and Isidore was based on the absolute supremacy of spiritual power over temporal power in the name of the absolute primacy of grace over fallen nature. This could easily solve the question of what should true dominium be in a society based on Christian values. Just rule was connected with a ruler who was sanctioned by the Church: the king of France, defender of the Pax Dei. The Siege of Germigny (...) shows how cynical realpolitik finds philosophical justification in political Augustinianism. (shrink)

The concept of human dignity seems to be closely connected to the idea of human rights. But whereas human rights are at least from an institutional point of view well established, the concept of human dignity is often seen as either arbitrary and superfluous or fundamen-talistic. The paper shows that human rights and human dignity had different histories for a long time but are nowadays intrinsically connected. The concept of human dignity implies a certain core of human rights and offers (...) the chance to understand that there is not one overall view of human rights for all times and places, but that human rights discourse always has to be open to modifications according to the conditions of application. After first mentions in Cicero and Seneca, more diversified uses by Aquinas and Pico della Mirandola, the talk of human dignity finds its current meaning in Kant’s philosophy, often connected to the formula of persons as ends in themselves. This seems to be one of the systematic connections to the tradition of human rights which has its roots in the semantic shift of the word ius in 11th and 12th century from an objective order to claims of different kinds. This kind of argument is used in different contexts throughout the following centuries and transformed in 16thand 17th century into claims of citizen’s rights and human rights. Another connection between the two concepts is given by Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach which is not restricted to human reason. The criticisms against the two conceptions are also different, but connected: Human rights are accused to foster individualism and egoism against the community and declared to be an erroneous development of western culture. Human dignity is seen as an indicator of human hubris towards other creature, based on metaphysical assumptions and a part of “slave morals”, contempt by men like Nietzsche. Both criticisms seem not to be adequate. In the end, the concept of human dignity gives an instrument to defend as much as possible of human integrity in situations where human rights are violated, limited or in one or the other way under pressure. (shrink)

Mahadeviyakka was a radical 12th century Karnataka saint of whom surprisingly little has been written. Considered the most poetic of the Virásaivas, her vacanas are characterized by their desperate searching for iva. I attempt to convey Mahadevi's epistemology and its struggle to 'know' Shiva, necessitating a lifetime of searching for him; offer an interpretation of the innate presence of Shiva in the world and its consequences for epistemology; and explore the sense of tragic love inherent in devotional searching (...) for Shiva. My primary goal is to offer a powerful and positive, yet critical, interpretation of Mahadevi's beautiful prose on her relationship with Shiva. . (shrink)

Maimonide, philosophe dans la mouvance d'al-Farabi, etait medecin, informe des mathematiques et maitre de la litterature talmudique. Ce livre a pour ambition d'examiner les liens entre philosophie et science dans l'oeuvre de Maimonide, et aussi de placer celle-ci dans son veritable contexte historique entre Cordoue et Le Caire au XIIe siecle. Les etudes rassemblees ici explorent plusieurs facettes de cette oeuvre: logique, savoir et philosophie mathematiques, ecrits medicaux, conception du libre-arbitre ou des rapports entre nature et loi... Elles examinent aussi (...) l'impact qu'a eu l'oeuvre de Maimonide en arabe, en hebreu et en latin. Maimonides, a philosopher in the tradition of d'al-Farabi, was a physician, well-informed in mathematics, and a master of Talmudic literature. The goal of this book is to examine the links between philosophy and science in Maimonides' work, and also to situate it within its genuine historical context, between Cordoba and Cairo in the 12th century. The studies collected here explore several facets of this work: logic, mathematical knowledge and philosophy, medical writings, conception of free will and of the relations between nature and law, etc. They also examine the impact of Maimonides' work on Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin scientific and philosophical literature. (shrink)

From an epistemological perspective, the "discovery of nature" in the 12th century represents a fundamental change in the speculative understanding of nature. It provides an important philosophical impetus for the wider assimiliation of the Aristotelian corpus. At the same time, it leads to the development of an original and distinctively medieval model of natural philosophy.

The focus on the Logica Nova in the research on 11th and 12th century Quaestio-literature is misleading. It seems to derive from a particular view of the Logica Vetus, which takes Boethius seriously only as a translator and perhaps a commentator of Aristotle. The puzzlement dissappears when Boethius is taken seriously as a logician and dialectician in his own right. Two Boethian works are of particular importance for early medieval as well as for Boethian dialectic, namely the commentary (...) on Cicero's Topica and the De Differentiis Topicis. While all great historians and medieval philosophy acknowledge the early presence and importance of these works, the extent of their influence on the development of the Quaestio has yet to be appreciated. The first section develops the problem by giving an outline of the important features of Bazàn's account of the Quaestio and its place between Lectio and Disputatio. The second section studies Boethius account of dialectic, with particular consideration of teh commentary on Cicero's Topica and the De Differentiis Topicis. The third section argues that Bazàn's and Grabmann's assumption that the 'old logic' did not provide the necessary means for the development of the Quaestio is unjustified. The fourth and final section offers some remarks on the relation of Abelard's Sic et Non to the method of the Quaestio. (shrink)

In this article, the meaning of concept of sharʿī science gained in the conception of education, which was established in Islamic civilization, was studied. The main problem of the research is to evaluate the idea of education in Islamic Civilization, which is closely related to the concept of sharʿī science, with a false perception that it consists entirely of religious education. The beginning of Islamic Civilization is traced back to descent of the Qur'an. The conception of education that started to (...) emerge after this period is based on the understanding of the Qur'an and hadiths at first. In later times, a wide variety of fields, such as language, literature, logic, wisdom, riyāzat, nature, and astronomy, have been included in the concept of education to encompass the whole existence of the entity. In the following centuries, these fields, which were included in the course curriculum of the madrasahs, were examined in detail in the works of classification of sciences. Therefore, the false perception needs to be reconsidered. For this reason, the article focuses on how the concept of sharʿī science is defined. Historical data analysis method was used to solve the problem. The claim of the article is that the concept of shar′i science has wide perspective to cover the world of meaning, mind and essence of man. As a result, this article, it was determined that the concept of sharʿī science has a meaning to cover the majority of information fields that are subject to instruction in our educational conception.Summary: The formation of the conception of education in Islamic civilization has emerged in the long term through a scientific process. During this time, a rich curriculum on the concept of education was shaped. The sciences that form the curriculum have been diversified in later periods compared to the early periods of Islam. With the advent of the different sciences, which provided this diversification and which were not at first, all the existing sciences were classified according to different perspectives by the ulama (muslim scholars). In the classifications, which have important contributions to the conception of education, the sciences were tried to be introduced and their position in the education life was tried to be explained. The sciences classified have not been dealt with against each other but rather to complement each other in different ways. The distinction of sciences in classification; different approaches such as linguistically, religious, secular, mental, transportation, philosophical and sharʿī have been developed.The concept of sharʿī science, which can be expressed as a general definition of the sciences, is given in almost all of the works related to the classification of sciences, even under the name or different titles. When we look at the classification, it is seen that sharʿī sciences are handled in four different approaches. As the first approach, the sharʿī sciences are among the main elements of main division in the classification. Here, the sharʿī sciences, in general, with the linguistic sciences and mental sciences were included in the top title. In the second approach, there are works in their classification that do not include the sharʿī sciences and the distinction between it. In addition, these works collect the sciences within this scope under other scientific compositions or other names. In the third approach, among the works that give information about the general of the sciences, there are those who mentioned all together without classifying these sciences and others. In the last approach, the sharʿī sciences are seen as the upper description of the knowledge fields that are included in the teaching, which covers the majority of the other sciences except for the linguistic sciences.The approaches presented in the classification of sciences indicate the diversity of the issue. In order to have better understanding of the issue, it is useful to look closely at the meaning of the concept of sharʿī sciences. At this point, three definitions of 2nd, 4th and 12th centuries are given respectively. Firstly, for Jābir b. Hayyān sharʿī science is the most useful politics in terms of religion and the world, because it contains the benefits of the world's interests after death.Secondly, al-Ghazali (d. 505/1111) describes the sharʿī science as the knowledge learned from Şārī ʿ and prophets, but not by the experience and hearing. According to this, the sharʿī science is defined as the knowledge of the sunnah that only gives information about revelation. The information fields outside this definition are also considered as the sciences, which are instrumental in reaching to sharʿī science.The perspective of the third definition of sharʿī science is given by Saçaklızāde (d. 1145/1732). He lists the three definitions made before the time of his life from the specific (hās) to the general (ām). Saçaklızāde gave the aforementioned definition of al-Ghazali in the first sense of the concept of sharʿī science. He points out that the meaning given here is allocated. The second definition belongs to Molla Husraw (d. 885/1480). According to him, the sharʿī science is the sciences that can be reached through the sciences of the Şārīʿ. In other words, it is the sciences that are not used except for obtaining the sciences obtained from Şārīʿ itself. This meaning is a bit more extensive since there are no records as described in al-Ghazali. This definition is also included in the sciences benefited from it. Although it is not the first, there is usūl-i fiqh (Islamic legal theory) within this meaning.In the third definition, sharʿī science is the sciences that form the basis for things arising from Şārīʿ or originating from Şārīʿ. This definition belongs to Ibn Hajar el-Haytamī. He did not consider the partial allocation of the second meaning as given above, and included all the instrument sciences in the definition of sharʿī science. Based on the definitions he gave, three sharʿī science approaches made before the time he lived were listed from specific to general. Thus, in a sense, he depicts the general shape of the sharʿī science perspective. With the approach to generalization, we can say that a sharʿī science perspective that encompasses the majority of the fields involved in education is developing. In the third meaning of sharʿī science, it is seen that the majority of the fields of knowledge in education and training are gathered under one roof. The most important factor gathering the sciences together is the effort to understand the purpose of Şārīʿ, who owns the whole area of existence. The fields of knowledge and sciences needed to achieve this aim can be included in the definition of sharʿī science. The effort to understand the purpose of Şārīʿ is also at the center of the idea of Islamic education. Since there are various dimensions of being, each step taken to understand and learn them is directed in a way to Şārīʿ itself. Whether it is language and literary sciences or other sciences, such as mathematics, physics and philosophies, the aim is to recognize and understand Şārīʿ for the collection of things that fall within the scope of all educational activities. With sharʿī science approach, teaching the whole of the area of existence owned by Allah is possible within the concept of education. In the works written for the education curriculum, it is seen that the perspective covering the majority of the sciences in the definition of third sharʿī science is preserved. First of all, the meaning integrity of the sharʿī science concept has been determined. In the definitions of three different periods given here, it is seen that the approach to the sciences, which are the subject of instruction in education is not exclusive but inclusive. Especially because of the width in the third sense, the majority of the instrument sciences and mental science fields in the curriculum are included in the definition of sharʿī science. (shrink)

Analytic Panpsychism has been brought into contact with Indian philosophy primarily through an examination of the Advaita Vedānta tradition and the Yogācāra tradition. In this work I explore the relation between Rāmānuja, the 12th century father of the Viśiṣṭādvaita Vedānta tradition, and analytic panpsychism. I argue that Rāmānuja’s philosophy inspires a more world affirming form of cosmopsychism where there are different kinds of reality, rather than one fundamental reality of pure consciousness and an ordinary wrold that (...) is illusory from the perspective of fundamental reality. (shrink)

Was Maimonides a radical philosopher who subtly argued for a naturalist world and who saw the obligation to keep the Torah's commandments as a social and moral obligation - or was he a conservative Jewish believer who only tried to formulate philosophical arguments in favour of a revealed religion? This question has been central to the interpretation of Maimonides from the 12th century until modern times. In the four chapters of this book, Shalom Sadik argues for a radical (...) philosophical interpretation of Maimonides. (shrink)

In this book, 11 leading scholars contribute to the understanding of the scientific and philosophical works of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), the most luminous Jewish intellectual since Talmudic times. Deeply learned in mathematics, astronomy, astrology (which he strongly rejected), logic, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and jurisprudence, and himself a practising physician, Maimonides flourished within the high Arabic culture of the 12th century, where he had momentous influence upon subsequent Jewish beliefs and behavior, upon ethical demands, and upon ritual traditions. (...) For him, mastery of the sciences was indispensable in the process of religious fulfilment. (shrink)

Juan Cepeda finds, in texts of the greek mythology, elements that helps to locate the origin of the western philosophy, like a pre-classic thought, quite a lot of ages before the classic philosophy development around the 12th century B.C., besides he proposes his hypothesis in the literature’s ph..

Suhrawardi was a Persian philosopher of the 12th century and the founder of the school of "illumination" . He not only critically analyzed the rationalistic philosophy of the Peripatetics but by drawing from a variety of traditions such as Zoroastrianism, Pythagoreans, Hermeticism and Neo-Platonic philosophy he created an entirely new philosophical paradigm whose influence is still strong in many parts of the Islamic world. ;The central task of my thesis was to undertake an indepth and detailed (...) study of Suhrawardi's theory of knowledge. The question I was concerned with is what does Suhrawardi mean when he says he knows the truth? To analyze Suhrawardi's epistemology I have first considered most of his writings in Persian and Arabic where his theory of knowledge is discussed. I have then considered his critique of empiricism, rationalism and other means of gaining knowledge. ;Following a philosophical analysis of Suhrawardis ideas I have elaborated on his mystical writings and then attempted to demonstrate the following: The means by which illumination is attained. The rational basis of illumination as a pure methodology for the knowing of truth. The scope and limits of this type of knowledge. The nature of the type of knowledge that is attained through illumination. The relationship between illumination, knowledge, truth and certainty. Suhrawardi's theory of knowledge known as "knowledge as presence". ;Following an extensive discussion of the above topics I have considered the influence of Suhrawardi and his school of illumination on Islamic philosophy in Iran and other regions. This discussion which is historical in nature also explains the roots of some of the philosophical movements which were inspired by Suhrawardi ;Finally, I have offered a critical analysis of Suhrawardi's philosophy and some of the charges which have been made in regards to his philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper the author examines the ontology of Byzantine music in its self, its aesthetical ground, the philosophical and cultural principles of creation, its episteme, the epistemological field that produced its forms from the 12th till the 14th century, and why that musical ontology hasn’t change through the centuries. The paper discusses in partucular Ernst Bloch’s view that the only evolutionary expression of the Absolute spirit as far as music is concerned, is Western classical music. The author (...) claims that the Western and the Byzantine music stand for two totally distinct and diverse ontologies of the musical being, something that Bloch seems to overlook; this, according to the author, is mostly due to the different systems of representation that have been used, and especially the representational ideas of the time-space relation. The author supports the view that while Western music is spatially-modeled, Byzantine music is time-modeled. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 53, Issue 2-4, pp 221 - 248 One of the peculiarities of Peter Abelard’s analysis of incomplete and non-assertive sentences is his use of the notion of desire: in both _Dialectica_ and _Glosses on Peri hermeneias_ the terms _desiderium_ and _desidero_ move to the foreground side by side with _optatio, expectatio, suspensio_ and the related verbs. Desire plays a structural role in Abelard’s descriptions of the compositional way in which the linguistic message is received, changing step by (...) step from incomplete to complete: the person who receives the incomplete message desires to get further information through other words since he knows that the purpose of such words or sequences of words is to combine with other words in order to form a complete sentence. On the other hand, the expression of the speaker’s attention to his inner affections renders the same semantic content a different complete sentence. (shrink)

"The Mind is not a Vessel to be Filled but a Fire to be Kindled", and "Education is Not the Filling of Pail But the Lighting of a Fire", and ... Something About a Horse ... You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it smile? Because of the long face and all? (No, that can’t be it). Anyway, borrowing a bit from Plutarch and Yeats (maybe, there is no agreement on whether he said that about pails (...) and fires), and some idiom from 12th Century Old English about horses walking on water, I assume, we can glean the following gem: learning requires active participation by learners. It is almost embarrassing to have to write that, but here we are with education today, mostly unloading facts into unlit receptacles. This doesn’t work, and not just because the metaphor is mixed. Genuine learning requires focus, which requires motivation, which is cultivated by interest, which needs curiosity, which is not something teachable through the typical educational curricula. I can, as Aristotle tells us, teach students the basics of some ethical theory, but I cannot make them virtuous. Ah-ha! I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make it abide by the categorical imperative (No, that’s not quite right. Although it’s true--most horses are utilitarians). One way that seems to work in piquing student interest in learning philosophy is to use humor as you make the case that a philosophical attitude is very similar to a humorous attitude. Both rely heavily on questioning our collective presuppositions, both cultivate rational skepticism, and both are never content with accepting traditions and values that are mindlessly received. I’ve got it now: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it an iconoclast! (still not it). Friedrich Nietzsche published a book in 1889 titled Twilight of the Idols: Or How to Philosophize with a Hammer. This was during his most frenetic and fecund period, just before the syphilis set in rendering him somewhat less than his lauded Ubermensch. The “Idols” for Nietzsche were “false gods” or the ubiquitous errors that philosophy should expose. He is likely borrowing (without citation!) from sir Francis Bacon, whose “idols” are fetishes which can divert us from the pursuit of truth. Learning is hard, but it doesn’t have to be gloomy, hence, I advocate for a different sort of hammer to act as a “tuning-fork” sounding out the hollow and dangerous idols handed down to us that have passed for sagacity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Possibility and Necessity in the Time of Peter Abelard by Irene BininiWolfgang LenzenIrene Binini. Possibility and Necessity in the Time of Peter Abelard. Investigating Medieval Philosophy Series. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Pp. xii + 326. Hardback, $166.00.This book is an impressive work written by a young Italian scholar who received her PhD only five years ago in Pisa. It is divided into three parts. Part 1 gives a (...) survey of "Early 12th-Century Debates on Modal Propositions"; part 2 is devoted to "Abelard's Modal Logic"; [End Page 327] part 3 deals with the views of "Abelard on the Metaphysics and Epistemology of Modalities." The author displays a profound knowledge of the relevant literature. The primary sources comprise twenty manuscripts preserved in various European libraries, plus forty-eight printed works (from Abelard to William of Sherwood). The list of secondary sources contains altogether 136 items from A (Astroh) to Z (Zagzebski), but, interestingly, it does not mention a monograph that, by its very title, claims to give an exposition of Abelard's logic, namely Maria Teresa Beonio-Brocchieri Fumagalli's La Logica di Abelardo (Firenze: La Nuova Italia, 1964).As far as I can judge (as a nonnative English-speaker), the linguistic quality of Binini's book is quite good. The explanations in the main text, including the translations from Latin sources, are easily comprehensible, and the many quotations (distributed over no less than 655 footnotes) are almost without any fault. Thus, the book rightly deserves inclusion in the prestigious series Investigating Medieval Philosophy. Yet, at least according to my taste, the book contains many redundancies. Again and again, the author first explains a certain issue at some length, then confirms the correctness of her interpretation by means of a longer (English) quotation, and finally reconfirms it by fully quoting the Latin text in the footnotes.As Binini explains in the book's concluding chapter, her aim is to present "an all-encompassing reflection on [Abelard's] works on modalities" and "a comparison between these works and the parallel reflections advanced by other masters and logicians in the early 12th century" (308). She undoubtedly achieves this goal. The comparison of Abelard's views on possibility and necessity with the views of other logicians is mainly carried out in chapters 1–3. Ancient and early medieval logicians such as, in particular, the Stoics and Boethius favored the basic idea that "something," p, is necessary if and only if p is always the case (or true). Accordingly, p is possible if and only if p is at least sometime the case. Abelard, however, was not willing to accept that each possibility has to become realized at some time. He instead offered a "nature-based characterization of possibility" that can "account for unrealized, past, counterfactual, and even unactualizable possibilities" (308). Abelard's idea is that something, x, is possibly a P if and only if the property of being P is compatible with the nature of x. Hence this view basically amounts to a de re conception of possibility that attributes modalities to things, while the temporal view attributes modal properties primarily to propositions (or states of affairs) and hence can be labeled de dicto (or de sensu).Let us now turn to Binini's twofold aim (as formulated on the back cover of her book) to present a "uniform and consistent" reassessment of Abelard's theory of modalities and of his modal logic. The former task is tackled in chapters 8–10. After summarizing, in chapter 8, Abelard's general views on "Nature and Modalities," chapter 9 is devoted to a detailed discussion of the "Many Senses of Possibility." In five consecutive sections, Binini investigates the conception of (1) possibility as "non-repugnancy with nature" (illustrated by the thesis that "any man can be a bishop" [235]); (2) unrealizable but "conceivable" possibilities (such as the existence of humans lacking the ability to laugh [240]); (3) determinate potencies (like that of an amputee who nevertheless "can walk" [248]); (4) past and counterfactual potencies (like that of a blind person who might be able to see); and (5) other puzzling de re possibilities (such as "irrational humans" [261]).The final... (shrink)