Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

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Dmitri Mendeleev, while not creatively a philosopher of science, nor a student of systematic philosophy, was eminently a philosophical scientist. Concern about the nature and foundations of his science is evident throughout the text and footnotes of the Principles of Chemistry. One has to presume that his conclusions provided him with some direction for “the study of his great generalizations” in chemistry, especially for the greatest fruit of his efforts, the Periodic System of the Elements. At least it is apparent (...) that somehow he acquired a much greater confidence in the feasibility of systemizing extant chemical knowledge than almost any of his contemporaries. (shrink)

Doubts about the origin of Bentham's formula, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’, were resolved by Robert Shackleton thirty years ago. Uncertainty has persisted on at least two points. (1) Why did the phrase largely disappear from Bentham's writing for three or four decades after its appearance in 1776? (2) Is it correct to argue (with David Lyons in 1973) that Bentham's principle is to be differentially interpreted as having sometimes a ‘parochial’ and sometimes a ‘universalist’ bearing? These issues (...) are reopened here with particular reference to textual evidence overlooked in earlier discussions and contextual evidence on the development of Bentham's radicalism in the last two decades of his life. In conclusion some broader issues are raised concerning the character of Bentham's understanding of ‘happiness’ itself. (shrink)

In 209b.c.P. Cornelius Scipio captured the city of New Carthage. The victory was crucial for the Roman war effort in Spain, and indeed in Italy too, but Scipio's campaign is especially memorable—and the subject of much debate—on account of the manner in which the city was taken. New Carthage had in effect been built on a peninsula, with the sea to the south and a lagoon to the north, and with a canal joining the two to the west. The city, (...) therefore, could only be approached by land from the east; but, according to Polybius, Scipio had learnt from some fishermen that the lagoon was shallow and could be forded in most places and, moreover, that the waters in it usually receded each evening (10.8.7). It was this knowledge that Scipio exploited to take the city. But this same knowledge he also kept from his men (10.9.1, 10.9.4–5). In his address to his soldiers prior to the attack, Polybius says, Scipio told them that Poseidon had visited him in his sleep and had promised to assist the Romans in their operations in a way that would be apparent to all (10.11.7). (shrink)

In contrast to certain recent work, which supposes that the fetial priests were always responsible for the swearing of the oaths made upon the striking of a treaty and that the rituals they performed went unchanged for centuries, this paper argues that the treaty-making rituals of the Romans changed and developed, and that the ritual which the fetial priests performed may not have been devised until as late as the third century BC.

From the late 1790s to the early 1890s, Scottish scholars contributed, as translators, commentators, or critics to the ‘reception’ of Kant's philosophy in Britain. The discussion here considers particularly the work of Richardson, Semple, Gillies, MacVicar, Ferrier, Meiklejohn, and Hastie, and attempts to assess the character, quality, and value of their contributions to Kantian scholarship. An important question throughout is whether – and if so, how far and why – the work of Scottish Kantians can be meaningfully discussed apart from (...) their English contemporaries – one relevant consideration being the distinctive rôle of philosophy in the Scottish M.A. curriculum. (shrink)

This volume offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of a complex and varied body of ideas over a period of more than one thousand years. A work of both synthesis and assessment, The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought presents the results of several decades of critical scholarship in the field, and reflects in its breadth of enquiry precisely that diversity of focus that characterized the medieval sense of the "political," preoccupied with universality at some levels, and (...) with almost minute particularity at others. Among the vital questions explored by the distinguished team of contributors are the nature of authority, of justice, of property; the problem of legitimacy, of allegiance, of resistance to the powers that be; the character and functions of law, and the role of custom in maintaining a social structure. (shrink)

Ennead I. 4. 3: Plotinus is arguing that happiness is fullness and completeness of life, and continues, according to the MSS. , οϋτω γρ ν οùδέ έπακτòν τò γαθòν ύπάρΧοι, ούδ' λλο τò ύποκείμενον άλλαΧόθεν γενόμενον παρέξει αύτò ν άγαθεναι. Mr. MacKenna translates the last phrase by ‘a life needing no foreign substance called in from a foreign realm to establish it in good ’; Ficinus by ‘neque aliud quicquam aliunde adueniens efficiet ut subiectum collocetur in bono.’ Ficinus is undoubtedly (...) right. τò ύποκειμέν means ‘the subject,’ which a few lines above has been identified with the λογικ ζωή. The passage should be corrected by writing τ, ύποκειμέν, dependent on γενόμενον, for τò úποκείμενον. (shrink)