Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy

by Bosley, Richard N.; Tweedale, Martin M.

• ISBN13: 9781551117157
• ISBN10: 1551117150
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-10-30
• Publisher: Broadview Pr

Summary

In this important collection, the editors argue that medieval philosophy is best studied as an interactive discussion between thinkers working on very much the same problems despite being often widely separated in time or place. Each section opens with at least one selection from a classical philosopher, and there are many points at which the readings chosen refer to other works that the reader will also find in this collection. There is a considerable amount of material from central figures such as Augustine, Abelard, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham, as well as extensive texts from thinkers in the medieval Islamic world. Each selection is prefaced by a brief introduction by the editors, providing a philosophical and religious background to help make the material more accessible to the reader.This edition, updated throughout, contains a substantial new chapter on medieval psychology and philosophy of mind, with texts from authors not previously represented such as John Buridan and Peter John Olivi.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Introduction	xv
Topic I: Necessity, Contingency, and Causation	1	(84)
Introduction	3	(2)
Aristotle	5	(8)
The four Causes	5	(1)
Senses of the Necessary	5	(1)
Causation, Chance, and Spontaneity	6	(4)
Science and the Accidental	10	(3)
Avicenna	13	(5)
Two Kinds of Existents	13	(1)
Proof of the Necessary of Existence	13	(1)
What is Possible of Existence is Necessary of Existence from something else	14	(2)
Characteristics of the Necessary of Existence	16	(2)
Abelard	18	(4)
That God can only do what He does do	18	(4)
Al-Ghazali and Averroes	22	(15)
Whether the First Cause is simple	23	(3)
About the Natural Sciences	26	(11)
St. Thomas Aquinas	37	(6)
How absolute Necessity can exist in Created Things	37	(3)
That God does not will other things in a necessary way	40	(1)
Difficulties in the Concept of Will	41	(2)
Siger of Brabant	43	(4)
Commentary on Necessity	43	(4)
The Condemnation of 1277	47	(4)
Extending God's Power	47	(4)
Henry of Ghent	51	(2)
The Finiteness of the World's Past	51	(2)
John Duns Scotus	53	(13)
Proof of a First Cause	53	(4)
The First Cause causes contingently	57	(1)
The Omnipotence of God	58	(3)
Impossibility	61	(2)
Could God make things better than He does?	63	(3)
William of Ockham	66	(19)
Essentially ordered Causes	66	(1)
Can it be proved that there exists a first productive Cause?	67	(3)
Can it be proved that there exists a first conserving Cause?	70	(1)
Is God able to do Everything that it is possible for a Creature to do?	71	(4)
Can God do things which He neither does do nor will do?	75	(4)
Does not being able to do the Impossible belong to God before not being able to be done by God belongs to the Impossible?	79	(2)
Can God make a better world than this one?	81	(4)
Topic II: Is There an Infinitely Perfect Being?	85	(40)
Introduction	87	(1)
Aristotle	88	(7)
Why there must be an eternal Mover that is not itself in Motion	88	(2)
The first Mover has no Size	90	(2)
The Principle on which depend the Heavens and Nature	92	(3)
St. Anselm	95	(2)
The Being ``a greater than which cannot be thought''	95	(2)
Al-Ghazali and Averroes	97	(5)
Can we prove that the First Being is incorporeal?	97	(5)
St. Thomas Aquinas	102	(5)
God's Existence is not self-evident to us	102	(1)
The five Ways	103	(2)
A Being which just is its own Existence	105	(2)
John Duns Scotus	107	(6)
The first efficient Cause has infinite Power	107	(4)
The Infinity of the most excellent Being	111	(2)
William of Ockham	113	(12)
Why the first efficient Cause cannot be proved to have infinite Power	113	(4)
Why it cannot be proven that the most perfect Being is infinite in Perfection	117	(3)
Aristotle did not intend to prove the Infinity of the First Cause	120	(5)
Topic III: Could the World be Externally Existent?	125	(100)
Introduction	127	(3)
Aristotle	130	(3)
Did Motion ever have a Beginning? Will it ever end?	130	(3)
St. Augustine	133	(9)
What is Time?	133	(7)
How Creatures have always been but are not co-eternal with God	140	(2)
Al-Ghazali and Averroes	142	(20)
Is the Doctrine of the ``Philosophers'' as regards the Production of the World coherent?	142	(20)
Moses Maimonides	162	(21)
Arguments of the Mutakallemim purporting to show that the Universe was created out of nothing	162	(4)
Different views on the Eternity of the Universe among those who believe God exists	166	(4)
That the Universe is eternal has not been proven	170	(9)
The view that God has produced the Universe from all Eternity and how it is to be evaluated	179	(4)
St. Thomas Aquinas	183	(6)
That it is not necessary for Creatures to have existed always	183	(1)
That God could have created an eternal World	184	(5)
Henry of Ghent	189	(7)
That a created thing cannot have existed from Eternity	189	(6)
Contradictions involved in the view that God makes eternal things	195	(1)
John Duns Scotus	196	(15)
Arguments on both sides and their Refutations	196	(15)
William of Ockham	211	(14)
Could God make a World that has existed from Eternity?	211	(14)
Topic IV: Determinism, Free Will, and Divine Foreknowledge	225	(60)
Introduction	227	(2)
Aristotle	229	(2)
Determinism and the Truth of future contingent Statements	229	(2)
Boethius	231	(9)
How can God know everything about the Future?	231	(9)
St. Anselm	240	(8)
The Harmony of Foreknowledge and Free Will	240	(8)
St. Thomas Aquinas	248	(3)
Does God's Knowledge extend to Future Contingents?	248	(3)
Siger of Brabant	251	(11)
How Contingency arises in the World	251	(11)
John Duns Scotus	262	(16)
How God can know Future Contingents by knowing His own Will	262	(16)
William of Ockham	278	(7)
Why Scotus's Solution will not work	278	(5)
Propositions in the Present tense but about the Future	283	(2)
Topic V: Identity and Distinction	285	(28)
Introduction	287	(2)
Aristotle	289	(4)
Senses of `same'	289	(1)
Senses of `One'	289	(2)
How the Motion of the Agent is the same as the Motion in the Recipient, yet different	291	(2)
Boethius	293	(3)
Sameness and Difference in the Trinity	293	(3)
Abelard	296	(8)
How to have many Persons in one God	296	(8)
John Duns Scotus	304	(5)
Qualified and unqualified Distinctions	304	(5)
William of Ockham	309	(4)
No formal Distinction without Real Distinction	309	(4)
Topic VI: Universals and Particulars	313	(90)
Introduction	315	(4)
Plato	319	(6)
A World based on Archetypes	319	(6)
Aristotle	325	(6)
Categories and the things there are	325	(2)
Universals and Particulars	327	(1)
The Problem of Universals	327	(1)
Are first Principles Universals?	328	(1)
Substance and Universals	328	(3)
Porphyry	331	(6)
The five ``Predicables''	331	(6)
Boethius	337	(3)
The ``deeper Questions''	337	(3)
Garlandus Compotista	340	(9)
The Predicables are just Utterances	340	(9)
Abelard	349	(21)
The Existence and the Nature of Universals	349	(13)
Universals and Signification	362	(1)
What Propositions signify	363	(7)
Avicenna	370	(3)
The Nature of Universals	370	(1)
The Essences of things	371	(2)
John Duns Scotus	373	(14)
Natures are not of themselves individuated	373	(5)
What makes a Substance individual	378	(4)
Is a Universal something in things?	382	(5)
William of Ockham	387	(16)
Universals and Distinction	387	(6)
The Distinction of First and Second Intentions	393	(2)
The Synonymy of Concrete and Abstract Nouns	395	(2)
Is a Universal a Singular?	397	(1)
Is every Universal a Quality of the Mind?	398	(2)
Is a Category made up of things outside the Mind or of Concepts of Things?	400	(3)
Topic VII: Skepticism	403	(56)
Introduction	405	(3)
St. Augustine	408	(9)
Arguments against Academic Skepticism	408	(9)
Internal Knowledge	417	(11)
Can we know there is something above Human Reason?	418	(10)
Henry of Ghent	428	(7)
Knowledge requires Divine Illumination of the Mind	428	(7)
Siger of Brabant	435	(2)
Some Judgments are to be trusted	435	(2)
John Duns Scotus	437	(16)
Refutation of Henry and of Skepticism generally	437	(16)
Nicholas of Autrecourt	453	(6)
Certainty and the Principle of Non-Contradiction	453	(6)
Topic VIII: Virtue and Reason, Sin and Sex	459	(74)
Introduction	461	(2)
Aristotle	463	(9)
Excellence (Virtue) and the Mean	463	(7)
Ethics and Deliberation	470	(2)
St. Augustine	472	(23)
What is the Supreme Good for Human Beings?	472	(2)
The Ultimate Good is not to be found in this Life	474	(3)
How Order pervades everything	477	(2)
The Works of Reason	479	(5)
Why Adultery is evil	484	(2)
Lust, a Penalty for the Original Sin	486	(9)
Al-Ghazali	495	(11)
Hope	495	(4)
Fear	499	(7)
Abelard	506	(11)
What Sin and Vice consist in	506	(11)
St. Thomas Aquinas	517	(16)
Goodness and Badness in outward Acts	517	(6)
Is Pleasure bad?	523	(1)
Is Enjoyment in the Thought of Fornication a Sin?	524	(2)
Why Lechery is a Sin	526	(4)
Sex in the Garden of Eden	530	(3)
Topic IX: The ``Darkness Which is Beyond Intellect''	533	(70)
Introduction	535	(1)
Plotinus	536	(11)
The One that is the Source of Being	536	(7)
The Intelligence and its Relation to the Soul	543	(4)
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite	547	(9)
The Transcendent Good	547	(2)
How God can be called Wisdom	549	(3)
The Mystical Theology	552	(3)
The Divine Darkness	555	(1)
John Scotus Eriugena	556	(24)
Things that are and things that are not	556	(3)
God as Hyper-being	559	(1)
God's Diffusion into all things	560	(3)
The Return of the Many to the One	563	(2)
The three Motions of the Soul	565	(4)
The Indefinability of God	569	(4)
The Self-creation of the Divine Darkness	573	(2)
Man contains all Creatures	575	(3)
The Return of all things to God	578	(2)
Ibn Tufail	580	(5)
The Experience of total Self-annihilation	580	(5)
Meister Eckhart	585	(18)
On the Names of God	585	(5)
``God is One''	590	(1)
The Intellect perceives God bare of Goodness and Being	591	(3)
The ``Negation of Negation''	594	(1)
The Attraction of the Soul to the One	595	(1)
``On Detachment''	596	(7)
Topic X: Body, Soul, and Intellect	603	(200)
Introduction	605	(8)
Aristotle	613	(11)
What sort of accounts should we give in psychology?	614	(1)
Is there movement in the soul?	615	(1)
What type of entity is the soul?	616	(3)
What accounts for thinking and knowledge?	619	(3)
Is the intellect formed in the process of fetal generation?	622	(2)
Alexander of Aphrodisias	624	(8)
On the Intellect	626	(6)
Themistius	632	(13)
How to understand the potential and active intellects	633	(12)
Avicenna	645	(28)
What does Aristotle's definition of the soul tell us?	645	(5)
Is the soul a substance?	650	(3)
How do there come to be many individual human souls?	653	(2)
Can the soul exist after the body has been destroyed?	655	(4)
How does the human intellect come to know abstract essences?	659	(2)
How does the intellect think?	661	(6)
How does the soul relate to its powers?	667	(6)
Averroes	673	(25)
The nature of the material intellect	674	(14)
The role of the agent intellect	688	(10)
Siger of Brabant and Thomas Aquinas	698	(37)
How does the intellect unite with the body?	700	(11)
Why the intellectual soul must be the form of the body	711	(7)
Why the Averroists are wrong	718	(9)
How Albert and Thomas go wrong	727	(8)
Peter John Olivi	735	(20)
Why the human soul cannot be the form of the body	736	(19)
John Buridan	755	(48)
In what way is the soul an actuality?	755	(11)
How many souls does an individual have?	766	(4)
Is the soul just its powers?	770	(4)
How many powers does the soul have?	774	(3)
Can the soul be spread throughout the body?	777	(6)
Is the intellect passive as regards its objects?	783	(3)
Can what knows something have the character of what it knows?	786	(3)
Three theories about the intellect	789	(14)
Biographies	803	(7)
Glossary	810	(12)
Sources	822	(7)
Bibliography	829