Es, quiza, la coleccion mas abierta que existe en cuestiones de etica, aunque se ha ocupado tambien de antropologia, estetica, ontologia, teoria del conocimiento e historia de la filosofia. El primer titulo que se publico en la coleccion fue la gran Historia de la filosofia y de la ciencia en tres volumenes de Ludovico Geymonat. A este le han seguido obras de A. J. Ayer, A. MacIntyre, Ernst Tugendhat, Antoni Domenech, Anna Estany, Agnes Heller, F. Fernandez Buey, Carlos Paris, (...) Emilio Lledo, Manuel Sacristan, John Rawls o Ludwig Wittgenstein. Victoria Camps ha dirigido, ademas, una gran Historia de la etica, en tres volumenes, en la que han colaborado los mejores especialistas espanoles. Para el autor solo el analisis de la evolucion biologica permite comprender el concepto de cultura como desarrollo y desembocadura de la vida. Es un proceso que culmina en la realidad humana y que la presente obra examina en sus grandes lineas. (shrink)

Focusing on Meister Eckhart, John Duns Scotus, Hervaeus Natalis, Durandus of St.-PourAain, Walter Burley and Petrus Aureoli, this volume investigates the nature ...

Summary: Because this book has something of the storytelling of cheerful meetings, von Foerster is made more accessible to the novice; however, it does not lose any of its intellectual sharpness. Henri Atlan and Edgar Morin, in particular, greatly influenced by von Foerster and quite famous in French-speaking countries, give a helping hand to those who wish to explore their work further from the perspective of von Foerster's vision and thoughts. And Atlan and Morin take also the credit for the (...) fact that von Foerster has become better known in the French-speaking community. Let us a hope the book will contribute to the further spread of von Foerster's ideas. (shrink)

B.K.Matilal, and earlier J.F.Staal, have suggested a reading of the `Nyaya five limb schema' (also sometimes referred to as the Indian Schema or Hindu Syllogism) from Gotama's Nyaya-Sutra in terms of a binary occurrence relation. In this paper we provide a rational justification of a version of this reading as Analogical Reasoning within the framework of Polyadic Pure Inductive Logic.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Place of the Money Bag in the Secular-Mendicant Controversy at ParisRobert J. Karris O.F.M. (bio)Money bag, money bag. So many Bible-reading Christians don't know of your existence. In their defense I note that you are only mentioned twice in the entire New Testament: John 12:6 and 13:29. If faithful Bible-reading Christians don't know of your existence, what is your fate among the faithful who are less than faithful?! (...) Is ignorance truly bliss?New Testament ScholarsMoney bag, money bag. Perhaps, New Testament scholars are the reason why you are almost unknown among Christians.1 Commentators on John's Gospel give you a passing notice, if that.2 Even when they make mention of you, they [End Page 21] generally don't integrate your existence with other features of John's theology or life situation.3 As for the Jesus Seminar, its members sweep you into the dustbin of history along with 99.9% of John's Gospel.4 You see, you are deemed unhistorical. A couple of scholars involved in the quest for the historical Jesus say "Hi!" to you, but then go on with more important matters.5 Other scholars involved in the application [End Page 22] of social science methodology to the study of the New Testament opine that you were kept as a security measure and contained money to pay for the annual temple tax and such like obligations, but then they hold their peace.6Money bag, money bag. Scholars who have investigated the theme of rich and poor in the New Testament hardly give [End Page 23] you a second glance. You do not play a leading role in their general conclusions.7So, money bag, we have to take leave of New Testament scholarship if we are going to make your acquaintance on a serious level.The Middle AgesFrancis of AssisiAs we move into the Middle Ages, we ask: Did St. Francis of Assisi provide us with guidance on how to treat you with the respect that you, O money bag, so richly deserve? You see, some scholars maintain that John's Gospel was most important to Francis's worldview.8 However, Francis doesn't seem to see the problem you created for his all-consuming embrace of Jesus' missionary command of traveling with no money.9 [End Page 24] Surely Francis knows of your existence, for he refers to you in his Fourth Admonition n. 3:And the more they (superiors) are perturbed about their superiorship being taken from them than they would be over the loss of the office of washing feet, so much the more do they collect for themselves a money bag (John 12:6; 13:29) to the peril of their souls.10Francis is heir to a Benedictine spiritualization of the money bag. See how Roger the Abbot in his Sermo in ultima cena employs the money bag:Woe, how many money bags, woe, how many purses are in the monasteries of St. Benedict! Woe, how many cowls, which cover the ears of the tonsured, enclose private supplies of the mind, the money bag of one's own will, the purse of murmuring, detraction, idleness, pride, envy, jealousy, and bad will! But remember, most beloved brothers, that those who do such things follow Judas the traitor. And therefore, unless you amend your lives, you will not possess the kingdom of God.11O money bag, so Francis goes his merry way, apparently ignorant of your true meaning and leaves the problems created by your existence to his learned followers such as Bonaventure of Bagnoregio. To Bonaventure we now turn, but do so through his responses to his secular opponents, William of Saint-Amour and Gerard of Abbeville. First let's hear from the secular masters. [End Page 25]William of Saint-Amour and Gerard of AbbevilleWilliam of Saint-Amour comments on John 12:6 and argues that it does not permit begging and is the basis for the normative view that the apostles and their successors should have a money bag. He writes:Augustine, 'the Lord had a purse to keep the offerings... (shrink)

§1. Introduction. By means of what semantic features is a proper name tied to its bearer? This is a puzzling question indeed: proper names — like “Aristotle” or “Paris” — are syntactically simple, and it therefore does not seem possible to reduce their meanings, by means of a principle of compositionality, to the meanings of more basic, and hence perhaps more tractable, linguistic elements.

With the publication of these two volumes the ground has now been prepared for a long awaited event, the critical edition of the works of Henry of Ghent. Henry was one of the outstanding philosophizing-theologians at the University of Paris in the second half of the thirteenth century and, during the period between the death of Thomas Aquinas in 1274 and the ascendancy of John Duns Scotus near the beginning of the fourteenth century, no other Master surpassed him in (...) terms of influence or importance. During his tenure there as Master in the theology faculty, Henry conducted fifteen Quodlibetal disputes. His written versions of these, along with his Summa of ordinary Disputed Questions, constitute his most important surviving works. And of these, his Quodlibets rank first. Henry's philosophical and theological views were highly original and drew considerable reaction from other leading Masters of the time, especially from Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines, and somewhat later, from Duns Scotus. While his personal thought cannot be reduced to that of any earlier thinker or tradition, his views were heavily influenced by Augustine, by Avicenna, and by various other Neoplatonic currents. At the same time, while he was quite familiar with the texts and thought of Aristotle, he reacted strongly against the more radical form of Aristotelianism developed by Siger of Brabant, Boethius of Dacia, and other Masters in the Arts Faculty at Paris in the 1260s and 1270s. Aquinas's incorporation of many Aristotelian positions into his own thought was also suspect in Henry's eyes. Given this background, Henry himself may be regarded as an outstanding representative of the Neo-Augustinian philosophical current which surfaced at Paris around 1270, which triumphed with the condemnation of 219 propositions by Stephen Tempier, Bishop of Paris, in 1277, and which would continue to be a dominant philosophical force until the end of the century. The need for a critical edition of his Quodlibets and his Summa has long been recognized, since the only printed versions date from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In these first two volumes of Henry's Opera omnia Macken has prepared the way for the critical edition of Henry's works and especially of his Quodlibets. Here one finds a valuable catalog, based on first-hand inspection, of the widely scattered manuscripts of Henry's works. The catalog also contains expert codicological descriptions of the contents of these manuscripts, including works whose authenticity remains doubtful. Manuscripts are also considered which contain works that treat ex professo of Henry's doctrine. This is followed by an appendix which surveys ancient references to other manuscripts allegedly containing Henry's works, which manuscripts have not yet been found. Then there is a Répertoire, not of manuscripts but of Henry's works themselves, including certainly authentic works, works of doubtful authenticity, and finally, in another short appendix, works which have been falsely ascribed to him. A third part of this survey of Henry's works is devoted to manuscripts of other writers who discuss Henry's doctrine ex professo. The two volumes conclude with all the necessary indices. One must congratulate Macken for the care, the industry, and the meticulous scholarship with which he has prepared these two volumes. Not only are they of great value to anyone interested in the manuscript tradition of Henry's works and doctrine; they also include helpful descriptions of the writings of many other medieval authors which are contained in many of these same manuscripts. They will undoubtedly be carefully combed for decades to come by other scholars interested in these same authors and manuscripts. These volumes will be indispensable for libraries of institutions making any serious claim to expertise in the history of medieval philosophical and theological thought. One can only wish Macken and his international team of collaborators every success in their next immediate task, the actual edition of Henry's most important works, his fifteen Quodlibetal Questions.--J.F.W. (shrink)

In this article, I address Rousseau's evolution as a political thinker between the years 1750 and 1753, during which time his critics challenged him to square the radical implications of his Discours sur les sciences et les arts with the realities of eighteenth-century European life. It was in the course of replying to his critics that Rousseau first adopted what I refer to as a more contextual orientation to political institutions. I argue that Rousseau's ostensibly Montesquieuian turn in the replies (...) sustained his claim in the Lettre a d'Alembert that theatre, the scourge of Geneva's republican simplicity, might nevertheless serve a useful function in Paris, where meurs, in Rousseau's estimation, had lapsed already to a point of irreversible corruption. I conclude that this contextual orientation to institutions guided much of Rousseau's subsequent thought about political reform in the modern republic. (shrink)

No. 20 in the Marquette series "Mediaecal [[sic]] Philosophical Texts in Translation," this translation is based on J. R. O’Donnell’s edition of the only extant manuscript of the Universal Treatise, and is preceded by a helpful introduction of 28 pp. plus a selected bibliography. An English version of this work should be welcomed by scholars not versed in Latin who are nonetheless interested in Nicholas’ thought, whether because of his highly critical reactions to Aristotle and Averroes or because of certain (...) similarities between his philosophical views and those of Hume. If the latter are primarily to be found in his two extant letters to Bernard of Arezzo, the former constitute the very heart of this work. It should also be noted that the Universal Treatise was originally intended to recall university professors, especially at Paris, to the study of Christianity and ethics. Written c. 1340, its attacks on Aristotle and Averroes were intended to contribute to this purpose. Nevertheless, some of the positions expressed therein were to bring Nicholas himself into conflict with ecclesiastical authority. Not least among these troublesome views from the standpoint of religious orthodoxy was the suggestion that all things are eternal. The situation was further complicated by Nicholas’ contention that not all the views found in the Treatise represent his own convictions. Many are to be taken as probable or more probable. In his attacks on Aristotle and Averroes he does not claim to disprove demonstratively what they held, but only to show that their opinions are less probable than those he advances. Granted that the chief unifying factor in this work is negative, its anti-Aristotelian and anti-Averroistic thrust, yet, as is suggested in the introduction, some kind of positive unifying theme is also at work, Nicholas’ view of the good. Since the universe must always contain the same amount of goodness, everything in it must remain in existence. Therefore the universe consists of unchangeable atoms. From this atomism follows the view that space consists of points and time of instants. Since change in quantity and place cannot produce or destroy real being, Nicholas must therefore hold that quantity is really identical with material substance and that movement is nothing but change in the position of atoms. Moreover, if things are eternal, it is probable that the same holds for the actions of the soul. As eternal such acts remain unchanged and hence do not vary in degree of intensity. They simply pass from person to person. Consequently, the same object cannot be seen clearly and obscurely. Nicholas also suggests that all things are as they appear, granted that such must be accepted not because it has been proved but because this conviction gives pleasure to the mind. Again, he argues that since a cause can produce only one kind of effect, not all things have been produced by God whether as their total or as their partial cause. He then suggests that because God’s power is infinite, no effect can be produced by him naturally. As finite such an effect would not be proportioned to his infinite power. His arguments against any kind of Averroistic theory of one separate intellect for all mankind are both interesting and unusual. In fact he appears to go to the opposite extreme, not only defending individual intellects for individual men but also suggesting that in one and the same soul there are as many intellects as concepts. That Nicholas himself saw some difficulties with this position may be inferred from his admonition that further thought be given to this matter. If the same might be said of other unusual theories advanced in the Treatise, its translators are to be commended for having made it available to English language readers.—J. F. W. (shrink)