v. 1. Opera Latina B. M. Raimundi Lulli. Studia magistrorum et professorum Maioricensis Scholae Lullisticae.

In this article we are concerned with an analysis of «methodological individualism » that is on the ground of weberian work, as himself states in “Die «Objetivität» sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis”. This individualism means, not only a scientific methodology , but a accurate subjectivity scheme: the subject is constrained in its ability to provide a thorough meaning to life. Also, this study claims that the German Methodensreit was a central discusión in the weberian theory. The global aim of this article (...) is to emphasize the value of methodological individualism as a way of understanding the society in the scheme of the social action drawn by Max Weber. (shrink)

"Der Beitrag reevaluiert die «dogmatische Funktion», eine soziale Funktion, die mit biologischer und kultureller Reproduktion und folglich der Reproduktion des industriellen Systems zusammenhängt. Indem sie sich auf der Grenze zwischen Anthropologie und Rechtsgeschichte des Westens situiert, nimmt die Studie die psychoanalytische Frage nach der Rolle des Rechts im Verhalten des modernen Menschen erneut in den Blick. This article reappraises the dogmatic function, a social function related to biological and cultural reproduction and consequently to the reproduction of the industrial system itself. (...) On the borderline of anthropology and of the history of law – applied to the West – this study takes a new look at the question raised by psychoanalysis concerning the role of law in modern human behaviour. ". (shrink)

Here, I should like to tell a story, beginning with how the works of Aristotelian philosophy came to exist in Latin translations, then moving to the project of transforming Christian theology into an Aristotelian “science.” After that, I would like to look a bit more closely at the case of Br. Thomas of Aquino and his dependence upon the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā. Finally, I shall end by drawing some wider conclusions based upon this important example.

In his catalogue of the manuscripts of Grosseteste's writings S.H. Thomson attributed to him a number of sermons each of which is free standing and none of which belongs to the sermon collection made after the bishop's death. One of these is found in the British Library MS Harley 979, where it occupies fols 37va-39rb. It is written in seven columns, in a hand of the second half of the thirteenth century. This sermon on the commandments is ascribed to Grosseteste (...) in the hand of the scribe, with the words: «Sermo magistri Roberti Lincolniensis Episcopi de decem preceptis decalogi». It has not hitherto been published. (shrink)

Martin Le Maistre , also known as Martinus Magistri, was one of the nominalists at the university of Paris from the watershed between medieval and postmedieval scholasticism. This influential logician, moral philosopher and theologian wrote a repeatedly edited treatise on logical consequence Tractatus consequentiarum. The present paper focuses on this treatise where Le Maistre, influenced by late-medieval logicians, develops a theory of validity based upon postulating abstract compound entities as sentential meanings.

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας μελέτης είναι η ταύτιση του οικοδομήματος γνωστότερου με το όνομα «naïsque ionique», που βρίσκεται στην βόρεια πλευρά της επονομαζόμενης Αγοράς των Ερμαϊστών ή Αγοράς των Κομπεταλιαστών. Ο αρχιτεκτονικός τύπος της μνημειακής κόγχης, ομοιά- ζων με πρόσοψη ναού, η παρουσία στο σηκό δύο μικρών βάσεων ιδίων διαστάσεων, καθώς επίσης η τοποθέτηση του ναίσκου σε θέση προπύλαιας λατρείας στο συγκεκριμένο αυτό χώρο, όπου συγκλίνουν τουλάχιστον τέσσερις οδοί, αποτελούν στοιχεία που εμφανίζουν ομοιότητες με ανάλογες μνημειακές και χωροταξικές διαρρυθμίσεις στη Ρώμη (...) και μας επιτρέπουν να αναγνωρίσουμε στο ναίσκο της Δήλου μια λατινική aedicula, αφιερωμένη από τους Ερμαϊστές - Mercuriales στους προστάτες θεούς των σταυροδρομιών (compila), τους απεικονιζόμενους ως δίδυμους αδελφούς Lares Compilâtes. Στη συνέχεια εκθέτονται σκέψεις και υποθέσεις σχετικά με τη νομική φύση, τη δομή και τη λειτουργία των collegia και των magistri στη Δήλο. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:564 BOOK REVIEWS illuminating re-examination of the category of inwardness in Kierkegaard 's writings. The majority of the essays in the hook are similarly suggestive and will prove rewarding and interesting reading-they echo the aim and gift, share by Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, of "making their readers thinkers" (xvi). University of Virginia Charlottesville, Virginia M. JAMIE FERREIRA Let the Future Come. By WILFRED DESAN. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1987. (...) Pp. 152. $9.95 (paper). Toward a lust Social Order. By DEREK L. PHILLIPS. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. Pp. 434. $12.50. After several decades of doldrum thinking, social ethics, i.e., personal and political ethics done on the same canvas, is undergoing a welcome renewal. Perhaps spurred by the growing awareness of the massive problems of our tiny planet, thinkers from diverse areas are beginning to offer what the social sciences call "grand theory." Both Desan and Phillips make valuable contributions to this project and represent the best levels of refleotion from the teleological and deontological perspectives respectively. Desan's essay is the final volume of three, hut may be read independently of the earlier studies, discussed by this reviewer in 1973 in The Thomist (Vol. 37, pp. 249-255). If Desan has a core concept for his thinking it is planetary peace and the human individual as gardener and guardian of this admittedly future state of affairs. Phillips, critically inheriting the Anglo-American rights tradition, focuses on the person, not the planet, on the distinctiveness of the part, not on Desan's projeotion of a whole humanum composed of parts (each a member of the human community yet only a member). The metaphysical background here, then, is the whole-of-parts versus parts·of-awhole dialectic. Read together the two works would truly stimulate a graduate ethics seminar, for we see the renewal of ethical,thinking against some classical ontological themes. For Desan, the person is homo custos, self-aware becoming otheraware ; for Phillips, the person is the source and enactor of rights. He offers heavy criticism of the virtue/community school's orientation towards the common good of society, with subsidiary private rights located within that context. This is the weakest part of his massive survey of recent ethics. Phillips simply cannot see the reality of human community, which is exactly what Desan is determined to project as BOOK REVIEWS 565 our only possible future. Desan's combination of Thomism and Hegel stands to the far side of Phillips's Lockean stress on private rights as the base criterion for any future just public order. We will look first at Desan's final effort to summarize a notion of " planetary " existence that will be valid both individually and communally and then turn to Phillips's detailed, Rawls-like approach. Desan's argument against the primacy of the individual over the world community was carefully nuanced in his two earlier volumes; he has no intention of denigrating the person in order to celebrate the planet, and he is no partisan of the " deep ecology " effort to elevate nature above the sub-category human nature. His planet is social and political, a cosmic existent dependent upon specifically human activitynot individual activity at either the personal or national levels but activity at the level of the total earth population. He is not so much detailing yet another agenda for a New World Order as he is striving to raise modern individualized consciousness to a height where the reality of interdependency is rationally undeniable. Desan's appreciative critique of Husserl's individualized consciousness in his first volume, A Noetic Prelude to a United World, displayed the plight of personalized consciousness as against planetary awareness. In this final panel of his triptych, he synthesizes that critique: "Where the individual Observer is the magister, there are as many worlds as there are magistri." This privatized existence is not to be denied but rather seen for what it is: a limit instead of a secure startpoint for either ethical or epistemological theory. His second volume stressed that our very awareness of this limitation gives rise, perhaps in a Hegelian dialectic, to potential for participation in global existence. To resist this cooperative... (shrink)

After a methodological premise defining the state of the art as regards the relationship between Albert the Great and the Magistri Artium tradition on De anima, this article examines the second part of De unitate intellectus (ed. Coloniensis 1975), in which Albert expounds the rationes in contrarium to the thesis of the unicity of the intellect. In parallel, an analysis is conducted of the Sed contra section of q. 77 (membr. III), tract. XIII, pars II, of the Summa Theologiae (ed. (...) Borgnet 1895). Beginning with an examination of the formal structure of these sections from the two works and a detailed survey of some of the rationes laid out therein, the article highlights both the aspects common to the two redactions and those which most distinguish them, so as to formulate some hypotheses regarding the reasons and methods behind this reworking carried out by Albert. (shrink)

Study of the foreign magistri and protomagistri of the medieval cathedral of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) (ca 1130-1350, rebuilt after 1693) reveals the social dynamics of artists’ travel in Mediterranean ports. Building on previous research of the builders’ artistic contexts and references, this analysis combines close reading and comparison of contract documents, discussion of Ragusa’s foreign citizenship law, and questions informed by the sociology of mobility. The study concludes that the governor patrons of Ragusa Cathedral exploited the increased physical and occupational mobility (...) of Adriatic builders, then arrested that mobility by offering the builders social advantages in the form of professional security and a path to citizenship. This balance of mobility at multiple levels manifested in the cathedral’s cosmopolitan and open-ended design. (shrink)

Since it was first published, Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell has quickly established itself as the most accessible and comprehensive introduction to this profound and deeply fascinating area of theoretical physics. Now in this fully revised and expanded edition, A. Zee covers the latest advances while providing a solid conceptual foundation for students to build on, making this the most up-to-date and modern textbook on quantum field theory available. -/- This expanded edition features several additional chapters, as well as (...) an entirely new section describing recent developments in quantum field theory such as gravitational waves, the helicity spinor formalism, on-shell gluon scattering, recursion relations for amplitudes with complex momenta, and the hidden connection between Yang-Mills theory and Einstein gravity. Zee also provides added exercises, explanations, and examples, as well as detailed appendices, solutions to selected exercises, and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

Ex interiore ipso exeas. Preface. This book reconstructs the history of a still open dialectics between several ethoi, that is, shared codes of unwritten rules, moral traditions, or self-aware attempts at reforming such codes, and ethical theories discussing the nature and justification of such codes and doctrines. Its main claim is that this history neither amounts to a triumphal march of reason dispelling the mist of myth and bigotry nor to some other one-way process heading to some pre-established goal, but (...) instead to a chain of controversies where the partners’ will to win unintentionally yields a wealth of insights on human existence that has still something to teach us. -/- 1. The Hellenic moral tradition. -/- Two different traditions of morality in vi-v century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. -/- 2. Plato and the Good. -/- Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates rejoinder to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 3. Aristotle and practical philosophy. -/- Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistency in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater families, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics, is illustrated. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexes, or ‘dispositions’. Prudence, or better, practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with boùleusis or deliberation is discussed, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 4. Cynics and Stoics: ethics as therapy. -/- The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place that was given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of the science of well-being aiming, more than pleasure understood as in the popular view, the reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Roman and Imperial Moralists. -/- The chapter is dedicated to the reconstruction of a particular kind of literature, whose specific features have long been under-stressed, namely the Roman and Imperial moral literature. Cicero is treated at some length, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is given pride of place, stressing the novelty of his approach to ethics as cognitive therapy, in this case just following an already existing new wave of interest after nineteenth-century oblivion justified by alleged lack of authentic ‘philosophical’ character. -/- 6. The Hebrew moral tradition. -/- A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torah (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Levitic is stressed as the turning point when the stress on mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, starts being combined with legal tradition yielding the change in the sensibility of the Second Temple time. -/- 7. Second Temple Judaism. -/- This chapter describes the Long March leading from the post-exile Zadokite restoration to the first-century aevi vulgaris. The first topic reconstructed is the Zadokite theology of the double retribution. The second is the alternative Enochic tradition consistently rejecting the central role of the Temple, the Priesthood and worship as atonement for sins and offering as an alternative God’s unlimited mercy and preaching mercy, not sacrifice as the way of behaving requested by God. Wisdom literature, the third subject discusses, is a kind of third way, on the one hand increasingly critical towards the double retribution and ruling theology’s optimism facing the world as it is and on the other mocking at the Enochic current as a band of dreamers and visionaries. The third way consists in disenchantment facing the word as it is combined with a refusal of vain and childish hope of prizes for the righteous, suggesting instead the leading idea of right deeds for righteousness’s sake. Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Yeshua and Philo of Alexandria are described as the three leading figures at the culminating point of such process of emergence of a new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This starting point consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, whose meaning is, arguably, more consistent than a long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine made us believe. And Christian morality, vis-à-vis allegedly legalist ‘Ancient Testament’ teachings, is less of a novelty than most early Christian writers announced. -/- 8. Talmudic moral doctrines and proto-Christian paraenesis. -/- The first three sections examine the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirke Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deot, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexes and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was "the tool by which the world was built"; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous, but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The last two sections examine first the various Christian currents and then Gnostic para-Christian or non-Christian currents as well as Manicheism. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure, purest Judaism. The last section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manicheism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. -/- 9. Christianity as “philosophy”. -/- The chapter reconstructs the stormy story of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and several rhetorical topics from the Stoic and Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua himself had been influenced by cynical preachers, is a proof of the necessity to translate the original Christian message in a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 10. Ethics in the Arabic-Islamic Philosophy. -/- The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on the retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince, had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries, a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with the disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 11. Ethics in the Jewish philosophy. -/- The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place for the first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed too a few traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Tora and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirke Avot could be translated. -/- 12. The practical philosophy revival in Latin Europe. -/- A reconstruction is carried out of a fresh start of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium rescuing a Platonic and Augustinian legacy, with Anselm and Peter Abelard. In this phase remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions, gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of a full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. -/- 13. Scholastic practical philosophy: Thomas Aquinas. -/- Aquinas’s ethics is theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to the repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave pure nature incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too ambitious, and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Prima Secundae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas was able to solve the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from the knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethics, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of the death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not the Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is no way an ethical ‘absolutism’, as both the traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularists tend to believe, but rather an ethic of prudential judgment on the individual case. Exceptions to this approach – or better the result of logical fallacies – are provided by the thesis of the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of so-called intrinsically evil acts, a thesis that would simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences that Thomas did not live long enough to draw. -/- 14. Scholastic practical philosophy: John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. A reconstruction is carried out of the ethical doctrines by both most authoritative Franciscan doctors. Their continuity with Aquinas is vindicated against prejudice carried by centuries of polemics within the Catholic Church and tendentious disparaging of both as forerunners of execrable Reformation. Besides aspects of continuity, also the important novelties are illustrated, first John’s abandonment of Aquinas’s and Augustine’s eudemonism, asserting righteousness for righteousness’s sake, and then William’s explicit defence of the philosopher’s virtues, that is, natural morality, and his solution to the dilemma of God’s omnipotence and the universal validity of natural law extending to God himself. -/- 15. Aristotelianism interpreted by the Magistri Artium. -/- A reconstruction of the until recently forgotten ethical doctrines by the Parisian Magistri Artium, falsely depicted as ‘Averroists’ and either deprecated as heretics or mistaken for predecessors of modern secularism. In fact, they illustrate a view of ‘natural’ virtue as may be understood by human reason without the assistance by Revelation. -/- Etiamsi daremus Deum non esse. Intermediate considerations. Three considerations may be suggested by the story told in the book. The first one is that intellectual histories have been mounted in the past with the same state of mind as one may mount a war chariot. Such constructions are not very helpful as tools for understanding the past. Wars waged in the past have left the field obstructed by ruins not easy to remove even by those historians who have animated by an impartial academic motivation. They have been influenced too by consequences of past emphasis on some authors and damnatio capitis suffered by others, by stratifications left on sources by secondary literature and translations, by allotment of originally close sources to different literary genres, by the monopolization of religious texts by churches with full cooperation by secular scholars who still fear contamination. The second one is that aware or unaware ethnocentrism has carried various calamities to our comprehension of the past. Their last vestiges have surfaced again in the semi-scholarly discussion on the idea of Europe occasioned by the debate on a project of a European Constitution. Mention of Europe’s Christian roots has been the clumsiest move. Proclamations of such roots were so obvious in what they affirmed as they were totally off-path concerning what they omitted, namely that he modern European moral tradition included legacies from Middle-Eastern wisdom, Hellenic philosophy, Roman Imperial legal literature, and, besides, a Jewish legacy in turn incorporating other more ancient Middle-Eastern legacies and which has been partly conveyed by Christianity. And the Islamic-Arabic philosophy too, in so far it made the Nicomachean Ethics available to Latin Christian scholars, is one more of Europe’s roots. The third is that religious traditionalists and secularist fundamentalists have gone hand in hand for a couple of centuries in either extolling or deprecating the allegedly Modern idea of Ethics without God, first formulated by Hugo Grotius with the claim that natural law would still be valid ‘etiamsi daremus – quod sine summo scelere dari potest – Deum non esse’. The facts are, firstly, that this is not an irreligious claim and Grotius was just a pious and meek Christian and, secondly, that it is not a ‘modern’ claim but rather one more formulation of the claim that there is a natural morality, independent of divine revelation, a claim shared by Moshe ben Maimon, Aquinas and William of Ockham. -/- . (shrink)

The late Archbishop Temple regarded Berdyaeff as one of the most important writers of the present time, and several good judges have said the same. He is a lonely, original, combative thinker, nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri , whose philosophy is based solely on his own spiritual experience. Contradictions and ambiguities may certainly be found in his writings, but the same may be said of every philosopher who recognizes what Heraclitus calls the fathomless depths of human personality, the clash (...) of Yes and No in which Boehme says that all things consist. For him omnia exeunt in mysterium . He does not attempt an ambitious and coherent system, or disguise his transient obligations to the various currents of thought which he has followed and in part rejected. As he says himself, “the contradictions which may be found in my thought are expressions of spiritual conflict, of contradictions which lie at the very heart of existence itself.”. (shrink)

Desde el origen de la Universidad de París en la segunda década del siglo XIII, los enfrentamientos entre los _magistri artium_ y teológos, además de ser muchos, tuvieron fuertes consecuencias contra los primeros: condenas por parte de la Iglesia, excomulgaciones, prohibiciones, y numerosos exilios de aquellos que seguían divulgando las tesis condenadas entre sus estudiantes. El siguiente estudio está basado en la única edición disponible, del _De Laudibus Parisiis_ 1 de Juan de Jandún, uno de los tantos maestros parisinos que (...) se vieron obligados al exilio _._ A lo largo del trabajo se introducirá a este polémico personaje abordando brevemente su biografía, las controversias en las que tuvo participación y, principalmente, el elogio de la ciudad parisina que surgió como respuesta a una de esas disputas vividas. Se mostrará también de qué manera su formación como maestro de artes lo llevará a defender posturas heterodoxas. 1 Iohannes de Janduno : _Tractatus de laudibus Parisius, _ on Le Roux de Lincy, L. M. Tisserand, _Paris et ses historiens aux XIV et XV siécles, _ Paris, 32-79. (shrink)

Méthode d'étude du latin – et plus tard aussi du grec – pour grands débutants, les Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana (HP) – ainsi improprement appelés parce qu'ils sont placés, dans le Codex Sangallensis 902, immédiatement après l'Ars Dosithei magistri – étaient destinés à des Grecs de l'Empire romain qui voulaient apprendre le latin. La connaissance de la langue de Rome était en effet indispensable pour accéder à des postes importants dans l'administration, l'armée ou la justice, surtout après les réformes dioclétiennes. Composés sans (...) doute au IIIe s. – la 4e section de la recension de Leyde date du 11 septembre 207 (CGL, III, 56, 30–34), ces manuels bilingues très diffusés dans l'Europe carolingienne font penser à notre méthode moderne Assimil. Sorte de Lehrbuch à finalité pratique, ils nous sont parvenus non dans un texte unique, mais dans neuf recensions différentes, conservées par une cinquantaine de manuscrits occidentaux: Hygini Herm. (HH), Herm. Montepessulana (HMp), Herm. Bruxellensia (HB), Herm. Stephani (HS), Herm. Leidensia (HL), Herm. Monacensia (HM), Herm. Einsidlensia (HE), Herm. Vaticana (HV), réédités récemment par G. Brugnoli et M. Buonocore, dont l'auteur est sans doute chrétien, et Hermeneumata Celtis (HC). Vu l'impossibilité de reconstituer les rapports de dépendance entres ces diverses recensions, elles ont été éditées séparément dans le troisième volume du Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum de G. GOETZ (Leipzig 1892). Ce n'est que tout récemment que FLAMMINI (F.) a tenté un examen de la recensio plenior Leidensis en vue d'établir le texte critique des HP. Après avoir présenté les résultats de cette enquête dans un article intitulé Prolegomena alla recensio plenior degli ‘Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana’, dans Giornale Italiano di Filologia 42, 1990, p. 3–43, il publie maintenant le texte dans la Bibliotheca Teubneriana. (shrink)

much can be said about what the early twelfth-century debate on universals is not. For instance, it is not a discussion of which genera or species grasp the truth of things, or which genera or species a certain individual belongs to, or how one knows that this is so. Twelfth-century magistri thought that the genera and species for which nouns are found in ordinary language, such as 'animal' or 'man,' "cut the world at its joints." They considered it unproblematic both (...) that Socrates belongs to the genus Animal and the species Man and that one knows that he does.1 Similarly, the debate is not about properties of all sorts, or about things of all sorts. It focuses, rather, on substantial properties to the detriment of... (shrink)

Concept of ethics in Ādi-Granth, Sikh canon.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.1 (2003) 137-141 [Access article in PDF] Qvomodo Stemma Gladiatoris Pellicvlae More Philologico Sit Constitvendvm Martin M. Winklersive Martinvs Satiricvs Philocinematographicvs [Figures]Poetae rervmqve scriptores et antiqui et recentiores lectoribus fabulas suas sententiis vel versibus bene textis soliti sunt adferre. Sed hodie novum exstat narrandi genus, quod fabulas hominibus adfert praecipue picturis eo modo compositis et inter se coniunctis ut oculi humani imagines singulares celerrime et (...) sine ulla motus intermissione ipsas moveri percipiant, personarum dialogis et arte musica sonisque diversis comitantibus et iuvantibus. Adeo enim progressa est ars magna lucis et umbrae, quam primum photographiam deinde cinematographiam nominare consuevimus, ut fabulae cuiusvis modi—breves longae, novae antiquae, laetificae tragicae—imitatione veri paene perfecta spectatoribus persuadeant tempora iam praeterita in vitam novam esse recreata.In ipsa arte narrandi non multum interest inter eos qui verbis utuntur, ut poetae ac scriptores, et eos qui imaginibus, ut cinematographi. Praeclare Horatium in arte poetica exponenda dixisse recordemur ut picturam poesin esse. Qua in re Simonidem illum Ceum aliosque poetas Graecos secutus est Flaccus noster. Utroque enim modo, et verbis et picturis, auctores antiqui atque hodierni homines docent delectant movent. 1 Facillime ergo intellegimus fabulam cinematographicam genus quoddam esse textus, sed textus non tantum legendi aut audiendi sed imprimis videndi vel spectandi. Peritissimus quisque talium fabularum [End Page 137] auctor omne tulit punctum, nam miscuit utile dulci. Is quoque non aliter ac poeta antiquus aut prodesse vult aut delectare.Sed editiones nonnullarum fabularum cinematographicarum inter se differunt et lacunas corruptelas vitia alia exhibent. Non enim raro pelliculas adfectas esse constat eius generis damno quod textuum antiquorum docti in editionibus suis obelis indicare solent. Itemque quomodo fabulae cinematographicae originem suam trahant ab antiquioribus quaerere et explicare haud absurdum est. 2Ergo editorum usum secutus his paginis originem pelliculae Gladiatoris anno MM editae exempli gratia stemmate quasi philologico explicabo. Deinde stemmatis sigla brevibus adnotationibus percurram. 3 Hoc modo me demonstraturum spero principia artis philologicae, quae litterarum Graecarum Romanarumque docti adhuc solum soliti sunt textibus adhibere, fabulis quoque cinematographicis magno cum fructu admoveri posse. In stemmate infra dato titulos fabularum cinematographicarum et auctorum eorum nomina Latine reddidi.Ridlius Scotus, pelliculae Gladiatoris auctor, magna cum acclamatione publica, minore criticorum, narrare studet quae imp. Caes. M. Aurelii Commodi Antonini Aug. aetate in imperio Romano gesta sunt. Sed stemmate monstrabo Gladiatorem imprimis ortum esse a nonnullis fabulis cinematographicis prioribus, quibus sons aut insons copiosissime usus sit ille Scotus. Qua de causa pellicula eius nobis indicat quemadmodum res Romanae temporibus nostris undique floreant. Cum ipsa et ceterae huius modi fabulae falsa inventione abundare soleant, tamen rerum et linguarum Romanarum Graecarumque magistri hodie hoc artis popularis genere in scholis saepius niti consueverunt, ut discipulos a falsa ad veram adducant rerum gestarum scientiam et rebus antiquis accuratius instruant. Quibus igitur magistris hoc offero stemma, nam amicus Scotus, sed magis amica veritas. 4 [End Page 138] [Begin Page 140] Conspectvs Siglorvm WPellicularum res antiquas tractantium archetypus, qui est summa rerum Romanarum a scriptoribus antiquis et recentioribus expositarum.AConsensus fabularum quae vel litteris vel ludis scaenicis vel picturis cinematographicis praecipue Italicis Americanisque res Romanas narrant depinguntque.TTriumphus Animi Helena Riefenstahle auctore anno MDCCCCXXXV editus. 5SSpartacus Antonio Viro—nomine suppresso—et Stanlio Cubrico auctoribus anno MDCCCCLX editus.CCasus Imperii Romani Antonio Viro auctore anno MDCCCCLXIIII editus. 6B1-3Triga Georgii Lucae Bella Galactica inscripta et annis MDCCCCLXXVII MDCCCCLXXX MDCCCCLXXXIII primum edita, quae his picturis cinematographicis constat: Pars Quarta: "Spes Nova" (B1), Pars Quinta: "Imperium Referit" (B2), Pars Sexta: "Iedi Reversi" (B3). 7 Editio trigae altera anno MDCCCCLXXXXVII edita itemque Bellorum Galacticorum trigae novae Pars Prima: "Simulacri Minae" anni MDCCCCLXXXXVIIII nihil ad rem.M1-3Triga Georgii Molitoris Maximus Furens inscripta, annis MDCCCCLXXVIIII MDCCCCLXXXI MDCCCCLXXXV edita et his picturis cinematographicis constans: Maximus Furens (M1), Maximi Furentis Pars Altera vel Bellator Peregrinans (M2), Maximus Furens Vltra Tonitrus Tholum (M3). 8GGladiator Ridlio Scoto auctore anno MM editus. 9 [End Page 140]His alias poteram et plures subnectere causas vel philologicas vel cinematographicas. Qui de Scoti Gladiatore plurima cognoscere velint... (shrink)

The MS. hie tunc of V. 6 has no friends. L. Mueller's hoc tunc is weak and flat, and L. Rank, Mnemosyne 40. 51, is justly dissatisfied with the hietans of M. Havet's larger and smaller editions, to which the hians of Verg. Aen. 12. 754 lends no sufficient support, as there the dog is opening its mouth before it bites. Add to this that it is by no means certain that Phaedrus would either have used the word or used (...) it in the simple sense of opening the mouth. Rank's own proposal, ‘heu’ tunc, fails also to carry conviction. There is however a word which belongs to our author's vocabulary and is as near to the manuscripts as either of the above, and which hits the sense at which hietans aims. This is rictus. The word is often used of the opened mouths of dogs, Lucr. 5. 1064, Ovid Met. 13. 568. Juvenal 10. 271 sq. ‘canino latrauit rictu,’ and of other animals. That it is appropriate with dimisit ‘let go’ may be seen from the counterpart expression of Martial 1. 48. 1 ‘rictibus his tauros non eripuere magistri.’. (shrink)

The MS. hie tunc of V. 6 has no friends. L. Mueller's hoc tunc is weak and flat, and L. Rank, Mnemosyne 40. 51, is justly dissatisfied with the hietans of M. Havet's larger and smaller editions, to which the hians of Verg. Aen. 12. 754 lends no sufficient support, as there the dog is opening its mouth before it bites. Add to this that it is by no means certain that Phaedrus would either have used the word or used (...) it in the simple sense of opening the mouth. Rank's own proposal, ‘heu’ tunc, fails also to carry conviction. There is however a word which belongs to our author's vocabulary and is as near to the manuscripts as either of the above, and which hits the sense at which hietans aims. This is rictus. The word is often used of the opened mouths of dogs, Lucr. 5. 1064, Ovid Met. 13. 568. Juvenal 10. 271 sq. ‘canino latrauit rictu,’ and of other animals. That it is appropriate with dimisit ‘let go’ may be seen from the counterpart expression of Martial 1. 48. 1 ‘rictibus his tauros non eripuere magistri.’. (shrink)

Estudio sistemático sobre la imagen y sus complejas relaciones con el lenguaje verbal, partiendo de una crítica al logocentrismo en su vertiente racionalista -que reduce el conocimiento y el pensamiento al discurso lingüístico- para desembocar en una teoría de la representación. El autor sostiene que la imagen va más allá de la representación al tornarse presencia, basándose en el examen de pensadores clásicos y teóricos actuales que han abordado cuestiones afines. Propone una teoría de la imagen que no se ciñe (...) sólo a lo visual, sino que reconoce las dimensiones no visuales de lo imaginal: "el principal objetivo de este libro es contribuir a la construcción de una filosofía de la imagen. Hoy en día es ya una necesidad urgente contar con un aparato conceptual que nos permita afrontar las distintas modalidades de lo imaginal, que aparecen en ámbitos tan diversos como la intimidad psicológica, la ciencia, la filosofía, la comunicación masiva, la religión, la educación, la propaganda o el arte". (shrink)

In this paper we examine the functional anatomy of volition, as revealed by modern brain imaging techniques, in conjunction with neuropsychological data derived from human and non-human primates using other methodologies. A number of brain regions contribute to the performance of consciously chosen, or ‘willed', actions. Of particular importance is dorsolateral prefrontal cortex , together with those brain regions with which it is connected, via cortico-subcortical and cortico-cortical circuits. That aspect of free will which is concerned with the voluntary selection (...) of one action rather than another critically depends upon the normal functioning of DLPFC and associated brain regions. Disease, or dysfunction, of these circuits may be associated with a variety of disorders of volition: Parkinson's disease, ‘utilization’ behaviour, ‘alien’ and ‘phantom’ limbs, and delusions of ‘alien control’ . Brain imaging has allowed us to gain some access to the pathophysiology of these conditions in living patients. At a philosophical level, the distinction between ‘intentions to act', and ‘intentions in action’ may prove particularly helpful when addressing these complex disturbances of human cognition and conscious experience. The exercise and experience of free will depends upon neural mechanisms located in prefrontal cortex and associated brain systems. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is first to enrich the exposition on the contribution of the magistri artium in Claude Panaccio’s Le Discours intérieur by an in-depth scrutiny of a quotation from the Latin al-Fārābī ending the presentation of logic in the Divisio scientiarum (ca. 1250) of the Parisian Arts Master Arnoul of Provence (Arnulfus Provincialis). Once accomplished this revision using the various Latin versions or adaptations of the Farabian Enumeration of the sciences (Iḥṣāʾ al-ʿulūm) by Gerard of Cremona and (...) Gundissalinus, it is clear that, despite a certain duality in its manuscript tradition, the relevant passage in Arnulfus Provincialis’s Divisio scientiarum does not merely distinguish inner logos and external logos, but also considers, like its source, a third logos, and that in a way susceptible to refine the characterization of al-Fārābī’s triadic logos as Le Discours intérieur reports this triade at the occasion of its judicious comparison with a parallel doctrine in John Damascene (Ekdosis akribès tès orthodoxou pisteôs alias De fide orthodoxa) interpreted differently by Thomas Aquinas following Albert the Great. (shrink)

HSÜN Tzu's essay on "Rectifying Terms" is justly considered a work of "great logical interest." For in this essay, one finds a remarkably modern concern with such topics as the rationale for having terms; the empirical and pragmatic bases for the classification of terms; the formation of generic and specific terms; the importance of observing established linguistic practices; the necessity of complying with proper standards for the institution, ratification, and regulation of the uses of language ; the nature of argumentative (...) discourse ; and the problems inherent in successful linguistic communication. A careful examination of some passages in other essays also suggests an awareness of the distinction between deductive, inductive, and analogical inferences, though Hsün Tzu provides us no explicit discussion of the nature of reasoning and its validating rules. (shrink)

Despite the title, this book is really an introduction to the study of the later philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the significance of his way of philosophizing for problems in social and political thought. As the author points out, Wittgenstein was not a political theorist; he "did not write about society or history or revolution or alienation". The author, obviously conversant with the work and methodology of Wittgenstein, has written a work ad mentem magistri, not attempting to isolate specific doctrine (...) but to indicate how a philosopher, convinced of the centrality of language in human life, would reflect on the problems of associative life. Language is seen, not as a system of labels, but as the carrier of human culture that both asserts the individuality and communality of men, and illuminates "the nature of innovation and continuity in human affairs." The author sees the later Wittgenstein as rejecting his earlier satisfaction with the Tractatus, being careful to point out that Wittgenstein did not question ethical aesthetic and religious values, as much as to claim that they could not be talked about in a philosophically meaningful way. Roughly, the second half of the book concerns itself with social and political implications, the quarrel between Socrates and Thrasymachus on the nature of justice being seen as paradigmatic of contemporary concerns about the objectivity of social values. The book is significant not because it develops a political philosophy, for it quite obviously does not; but because it suggests possibilities and indicates a developing respect in Wittgenstein for metaphysics and objectivity, and a desire to know and understand that objectivity by means of language analysis.—R.P.M. (shrink)

International Relations and the Philosophy of History examines the concept of civilization in relation to international systems through an extensive use of the literature in the philosophy of history. A. Nuri Yurdusev demonstrates the relevance of a civilizational approach to the study of contemporary international relations by looking at the multi-civilizational nature of the modern international system, the competing claims of national and civilizational identities and the rise of civilizational consciousness after the Cold War.

On the philosophy of death in Hindu traditions; study based on Mr̥tyupurāṇa of Svāmī Mr̥tyujayānanda.

Terence was studied, though not so much as Virgil, in monastery-schools. Their magistri bestirred themselves to get aid for pupils. Some famous magister— we know not who—had written, between the lines or in the margins, interpretations of difficult words in at least the three opening plays of the MS. which he used—Andr., Ad., Eun.—if not in all. These interpretations were collected from his MS. and found their way into many monastery-libraries. Goetz has published these glossae collectae of Terence from a (...) tenth century MS. in Vol. V. of his Corpus Glossariorum Latinorum, pp. 529–539; Mr. Austin has added more from a Leyden MS. , written apparently in Belgium or Holland, c. 800–815 A.D. . Probably Dr. Theander will add a further batch from a Paris MS. (shrink)