The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam

by Brague, Remi

• ISBN13: 9780226070803
• ISBN10: 0226070808
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-15
• Publisher: Univ of Chicago Pr

Summary

Modern interpreters have variously cast the Middle Ages as a benighted past from which the West had to evolve and, more recently, as the model for a potential future of intercultural dialogue and tolerance.The Legend of the Middle Agescuts through such oversimplifications to reconstruct a complicated and philosophically rich period that remains deeply relevant to the contemporary world. Featuring a penetrating interview and sixteen essaysonly three of which have previously appeared in Englishthis volume explores key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy. With characteristic erudition and insight, RemiBrague focuses less on individual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers than on their relationships with one another. Their disparate philosophical worlds, Brague shows, were grounded in different models of revelation that engendered divergent interpretations of the ancient Greek sources they held in common. So, despite striking similarities in their solutions for the philosophical problems they all faced, intellectuals in each theological tradition often viewed the others' ideas with skepticism, if not disdain. Such divisions, Brague contends, debunk notions that the medieval Mediterranean world was a European or Islamic cultural center in which different groups of people harmoniously mingled. His clear-eyed and revelatory portrayal of this misunderstood age brings to life not only its philosophical and theological nuances, but also its true lessons for our own time.

Author Biography

Remi Brague is professor of philosophy at the Universite Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne and at the University of Munich.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Translator's Note	p. xi
Interview	p. 1
Generalities
The Lessons of the Middle Ages	p. 25
The Meaning and Value of Philosophy in the Three Medieval Cultures	p. 41
Just How Is Islamic Philosophy Islamic?	p. 57
Common Themes
Is Physics Interesting? Some Responses from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages	p. 73
The Flesh: A Medieval Model of Subjectivity	p. 91
The Denial of Humanity: On the Judgment "Those People Are Not Men" in Some Ancient and Medieval Texts	p. 107
Comparisons
Three Muslim Views of the Christian City	p. 121
The Jihad of the Philosophers	p. 131
Filiations
Inclusion and Digestion: Two Models of Cultural Appropriation, in Response to a Question of Hans-Georg Gadamer (Tubingen, September 3, 1996)	p. 145
The Interpreter: Reflections on Arabic Translations	p. 159
The Entry of Aristotle in Europe: The Arab Intermediary	p. 169
The Extra-European Sources of Philosophic Europe	p. 175
Pricked Balloons
Some Mediterranean Myths	p. 185
Was There Any Dialogue between Religions in the Middle Ages?	p. 193
Geocentrism as the Humiliation of Man	p. 203
Was Averroes a "Good Guy"?	p. 221
Appendix: Original Texts	p. 231
Notes	p. 235
Index	p. 279
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