Ethics & moral philosophy
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Peter Abelard, Know Yourself (Scito te ipsum)
Peter Abelard (1079-1142) famous for his unhappy love story with Heloise which he wrote down in his autobiographical work Historia calamitatum was among the most respected scholars of his time. Brilliant as a philosopher and theologian he was one of the co-founders of scholasticism seeking to elucidate theological facts through logic.Scito te ipsum is one of the most important texts of the twelfth century. Only in the later phase of his life and work did Abelard decide to separate moral themes from his overall theological schema and to dedicate a monograph to them under the guiding concepts of "sin" (First Book) and "obedience before God" (Second Book unfinished). As Ethica nostra it was intended to provide a Christian conception alongside a philosophical ethics and to summarise the results of his previous studies.
Along with Abelard’s entire theology this treatise was also condemned as heretical by Pope Innocent II and was long considered lost. Since its rediscovery in the 18th century it has met with lively interest both from a theological and also from a philosophical point of view. The historical aspects of the work and its integration into Abelard’s complete works receive special attention in the introduction to this volume which presents the Latin text from the Corpus Christianorum (CC CM 190) with a new English translation.
Learning to Be Noble in the Middle Ages
Moral Education in North-Western Europe
This book explores for the first time the moral education of the Western European nobility in the high Middle Ages. The medieval nobility created and utilized values and ideals such as chivalry and courtliness to legitimize their exalted position in society and these values were largely the same across Europe. Noble codes of conduct communicated these ideals in everyday interactions and symbolic acts at court that formed the basis of European courtly society. This book asks how noble men and women were taught about morality and good conduct and how the values of their society were disseminated. While a major part of moral education took place in person this period also produced a growing corpus of writing on the subject in both Latin and the vernacular languages addressing audiences that encompassed the lay elites from kings to the knightly class men as well as women. Participation in this teaching became a distinguishing feature of the nobility who actively promoted their moral superiority through their self-fashioning as they evolved into a social class. This book brings together analyses of several major European didactic texts and miscellanies examining the way nobles learned about norms and values. Investigating the didactic writings of the Middle Ages helps us to better understand the role of moral education in the formation of class gender and social identities and its long-term contribution to a shared European aristocratic culture.
Les Passions de l’âme et leur réception philosophique
Les Passions de l'âme sont le dernier livre publié par Descartes. Quand il paraît en 1649 à la fois à Amsterdam et à Paris le philosophe est déjà à Stockholm à l'invitation de Christine de Suède. Mais c'est sans doute la discussion avec Elisabeth quelques années auparavant qui fournit l'occasion de sa rédaction même si Descartes considérait vraisemblablement qu'il fût requis pour achever le plan d'études prévu pour les Principia philosophiae. « Mon dessein dit Descartes en le présentant n'a pas été d'expliquer les passions en orateur ni même en philosophe moral mais seulement en physicien ». En annonçant le 15 avril 1649 à Henry More la publication prochaine d'un court traité de affectibus il précisait déjà qu'il montrerait « comment tous les mouvements des membres qui accompagnent nos passions se produisent en nous-mêmes non par l'âme mais par le seul mécanisme du corps ».
Pour autant Descartes ne s'est pas contenté de parler des passions en physicien. Il a pris d'autres décisions philosophiques capitales qui le distinguent de tous le moralistes du Grand Siècle : doter la physique mécaniste d'une théorie de passivité ; faire de l'admiration la première des passions primitives ; proposer une définition inédite de l'amour ; substituer le principe de l'estime de soi aux condamnations traditionnelles de l'amour de soi ; donner à la liberté la figure de générosité etc. Les Passions de l'âme sont donc à plus d'un titre une œuvre singulière.
En réunissant les communications prononcées lors du double colloque qui s'est tenu en 2014 à Paris et Lecce le présent volume clôt un riche ensemble d'études initié en 1987 à l'occasion du 350e anniversaire du Discours de la méthode systématiquement consacré aux œuvres publiées par Descartes lui-même. Les articles qui composent ces actes ajoutent à l'analyse méticuleuse des Passions de l'âme l'examen de leur contexte contemporain et font droit à la réception du traité de Malebranche à Husserl. S'ensuivra une intelligence renouvelée de l'œuvre qui livre les derniers fruits de la philosophie cartésienne. Elle n'en dissipe cependant pas l'énigme : car elle est celle même de son objet « la nature de l'homme ».
Infanticide, Secular Justice, and Religious Debate in Early Modern Europe
On 5 December 1709 in Bologna Lucia Cremonini is accused of a terrible crime: the murder of her newborn son. This tragic episode exhumed from the depths of time is placed at the centre of an enthralling study by one of the leading scholars of modern history and the history of religious beliefs. During the course of a dramatic trial the crime is debated by representatives of religious philosophical moral and scientific culture all characteristic of the formative period of the modern world and all seeking a convincing answer to fundamental questions. When does life begin? When can a human being first be described as such so that his or her killing is a crime punishable by the maximum penalty? What is the true role of baptism in the formation of the human person? These are all highly topical questions in an age like our own where belief is subject to the powerful assaults of scientific research and new questions are being raised about the essence and the limits of human existence.
This is a translation from the original Italian publication 'Dare l'anima' (Einaudi 2005).
Translation by Hilary Siddons.
Rethinking Virtue, Reforming Society
New Directions in Renaissance Ethics, c.1350 - c.1650
Moral philosophy and particularly ethics was among the most contested disciplines in the Renaissance as philosophers theologians and literary scholars all laid claim to it while an expanding canon of sources made the ground shift under their feet. In this volume eleven specialists drawn from literature intellectual history philosophy and religious studies examine the configuration of ethics and how it changed in the period from Petrarch to Descartes. They show that the contexts in which ethics was explored the approaches taken to it and the conclusions it reached make Renaissance ethics something worthy of exploration in its own right in distinction to both medieval and early modern ethics. Particular attention is given to the development of new audiences settings genres (essays dialogues commonplace books biographies short fiction) and mediums (especially the vernacular) in ethical discussions as well as the continuities with the formal exploration of ethics through commentaries. Renaissance ethics emerges as a highly eclectic product which combined Christian insights with the Aristotelian and Platonic traditions while increasingly incorporating elements from Stoicism and Epicureanism. This volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers who wish to gain an overall view of how ethics developed throughout Europe in response to the cultural historical and religious changes between 1350 and 1650.
Ad notitiam ignoti
L’ 'Organon' dans la 'translatio studiorum' à l’époque d’Albert le Grand
Située au milieu du XIIIe siècle la paraphrase d’Albert le Grand à l’Isagogè de Porphyre constitue un point de départ pour le présent volume. Son premier livre un traité indépendant intitulé « Préalable à la logique » fournit un cadre de lecture qui s’étend bien au-delà des sources grécolatines habituelles à l’époque et contribue à la fixation d’un questionnaire nouveau engageant une véritable philosophie de la logique. Il porte sur l’essence de la logique ses fonctions comme logique de la découverte (inventio) et logique de la justification (iudicium) son statut - art science instrument - sa valeur de méthode enseignant comment « passer de l’inconnu au connu » (ad notitiam ignoti) à toute partie de la philosophie de manière immanente comme logica utens ou réflexive comme logica docens. L’étude des diverses traditions de l’Organon en domaines grec syriaque arabe et latin montre que la mise en ordre des matériaux aristotéliciens fixée par l’édition d’Andronicos de Rhodes (Ier s. av. J-C.) a sans cesse été renégociée tandis que le corpus logique a connu divers formats. Ce livre collectif explore les interactions qui s’opèrent entre les différentes définitions de la logique et les métamorphoses successives du corpus aristotélicien dans un cadre ancien et médiéval où l’histoire de la logique est indissociable d’une histoire de l’Organon.
Hervaeus Natalis O.P. De quattuor materiis sive Determinationes contra magistrum Henricum de Gandavo
Vol. II: De esse et essentia. De materia et forma. A Critical Edition from Selected Manuscripts
This second volume of Hervaeus Natalis’s polemical work De quattuor materiis contains his De esse et essentia. In this work the author criticizes the rival systems of the metaphysics of creation that were upheld by Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent and presents an exposition of his own notion of being. To explain Harvey’s antagonistic attitude to Henry of Ghent and his simultaneous rejection of Giles’s positions (the rigid Aegidian real distinction between essence and existence in particular) it was necessary to provide a thorough investigation of the ontological positions of both Henry and Giles. Hence the lion’s part of the Introduction is devoted to these two rivals of Harvey’s.
The selection of the manuscripts used for the present edition of De esse et essentia as well as the ratio edendi orthography punctuation and headings employed are explained in the General Introduction to volume one De formis (SA 30).
This second volume had been finished by the editor L.M. de Rijk just before his sudden death on July 30. The final version has been read by Joke Spruyt and Olga Weijers.
The third and last volume of the edition of Hervaeus’ work already well advanced by the editor will be finished by two of his main disciples: Henk Braakhuis and Onno Kneepkens. Thus we will have kept our promise in respect and friendship for our master.
Christian readings of Aristotle from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance
Widely recognized as one of the main characteristics of Latin Aristotelianism the ‘Christianisation’ of Aristotle from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century has received as yet little attention. Aiming to answer the need for a more systematic investigation the articles here collected approach Christian readings of the Stagirite’s works from different perspectives. Setting aside abstract discussions about ‘degrees of orthodoxy’ they address a few specific questions: which ‘images’ of Aristotle were offered by Medieval and Renaissance interpreters and in particular how did some of them argue that — far from being a pagan or even an impious thinker — he did not contradict the truths revealed by Holy Scripture? Which strategies did they adopt to harmonize Aristotelian philosophy with Christian religion or at least to avoid their clash? How did they conceive the task of expounding Aristotle’s thought? How did they understand and apply the distinctions developed since the mid-thirteenth century between the point of view of the philosophers and that of the believers between what is true ‘speaking naturally’ and what is true ‘according to faith’? Were these distinctions — and other disclaimers or cautionary statements — effective in protecting masters that taught Aristotle’s texts from accusations of heresy? To what extent were ideas issuing from Christian theology integrated within the Peripatetic worldview or even treated within Aristotelian commentaries?
Discussing these and related questions the ten contributors to this volume examine relevant doctrines of outstanding thinkers – Roger Bacon (Chiara Crisciani) Siger of Brabant and Henry of Ghent (Pasquale Porro) Dante Alighieri (Gianfranco Fioravanti); offer a fine analysis of some commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics (Iacopo Costa) the Politics (Stefano Simonetta) and the libri naturales (Amos Corbini); suggest innovative interpretations of the genesis of the Liber de bona fortuna (Valérie Cordonier) and of the condemnation of 1277 (Dragos Calma); inspect minor but significant figures of the Italian Renaissance such as Ludovico Beccadelli (Pietro Rossi) and Cesare Crivellati (Luca Bianchi).
Hervaeus Natalis O.P. De quattuor materiis sive Determinationes contra magistrum Henricum de Gandavo
Vol. I: De formis (together with his 'De unitate formae substantialis in eodem supposito'). A critical Edition from Selected Manuscripts
The aim of the present edition of Harvey Nedellec's De quattuor materiis is to make a collection of texts available that can throw some more light upon the ongoing debates around 1300 about some highly controversial issues including the plurality of forms the relationship between being and essence the significance (or superfluity) of the intelligible species and the intellect's priority to the will. Harvey's polemic interventions which are explicitly directed against the ontological positions held by Henry of Ghent are the more interesting as they are coloured by a manifest animosity against his opponent and the Ghentian way of doing philosophy in general. The author's attitude is most prominent in the first tract of the collection presented in the first volume De formis. In order to put the impact of this tract into a larger perspective Harvey's extensive treatise De unitate formae substantialis in eodem supposito has been added.
About the author: L.M. de Rijk (1924) is emeritus professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy of Leiden University. He was a member of the Dutch Parliament (Senate 1956-1991) and is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW). He is the author of a large number of publications particularly on Ancient and Medieval philosophy including John Buridan's Lectura Erfordiensis in I-VI Metaphysicam (Brepols 2008).
Le 'questiones' di Radulfo Brito sull’ « Etica Nicomachea »
Introduzione e testo critico
Radulfo Brito oggi conosciuto e studiato principalmente per la sua produzione logica è stato senza dubbio uno dei maestri in arti più influenti e fecondi tra la fine del XIII secolo e l'inizio del XIV. Commentatore di una parte notevole del corpus aristotelicum i suoi scritti toccano tutti gli ambiti del sapere medievale. La maggior parte delle sue opere è al giorno d'oggi ancora inedita. Con il presente volume ci si propone di colmare in parte questa lacuna. Il commento di Radulfo all’Etica Nicomachea di Aristotele scritto intorno al 1290 è un testo estremamente importante per la nostra conoscenza della produzione filosofica alla facoltà delle arti di Parigi e della ricezione della morale aristotelica nell’Occidente latino.
Lectura Erfordiensis in I-VI Metaphysicam, together with the 15th-century Abbreviatio Caminensis
Introduction, Critical Edition and Indexes
The aim of the present edition is to make two texts available which can throw some more light on the role of Aristotle's Metaphysics in 14th-15th academic teaching. One of them contains part of an early (hitherto unknown) version of John Buridan's Questions on Metaphysics the other is a 15th century abbreviation of precisely this early version. Remarkably both texts belong to the East European tradition of Buridan's works which is the more interesting as they testify to the master's earlier activities as a Parisian teacher on the subject of metaphysics. In particular they elucidate Buridan's ongoing semantic approach to matters of metaphysics and ontology as well as his attitude to Aristotle's authority.
L.M. de Rijk (1924) is emeritus professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy of Leiden University. He was a member of the Dutch Parliament (Senate 1956-1991) and is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (KNAW}. He is the author of a large number of publications particularly on ancient and medieval philosophy.