This volume deals with the philosophical approach of thirteenth-century masters to concrete, practical manifestations of specifically human life quantum ad naturalia in their commentaries on Aristotle's works on natural philosophy, both the genuine ones and the ones then considered genuine. It inquires into what they deemed worthy of philosophical debate regarding this topic and how they tackled it. This volume completes as Teilband II the researches initiated in a previous volume (Teilband 1) and describes the scholars' discourses on the peculiarity of human body constitution, the...

This is the first critical edition of the earliest known Latin commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, the Anonymus Aurelianensis III. In addition to the critical text, Christina Thomsen Thornqvist's edition contains a comparative analysis of the anonymous commentary and the extant Greek commentaries as well as a full comparison between Boethius' translation and the translation used by the commentator. The edition provides a solid foundation for further study on the earliest medieval exegesis on the Prior Analytics and is an essential resource for any scholar who wants...

The Renaissance philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) is mostly known for denying the human mind's immateriality (and immortality) in accordance with his radical understanding of Aristotelianism. Pomponazzis Erkenntnistheorie attempts to reconstruct his theory of cognition. The author, Paolo Rubini, focuses on Pomponazzi's scattered views about the mind's ontological status and cognitive capacities, puts them into the context of Aristotelian-Scholastic psychology, and interprets them by reference to Pomponazzi's 'naturalistic' approach to the human soul. Particular interest is...

The French Franciscan Peter Auriol (c. 1280-1322) is regarded as one of the most innovative thinkers of 14th century philosophy and theology. In Theologie und Wissenschaft bei Petrus Aureoli, Florian Woller offers an account of Auriol's theory of science and his view on theology as an academic discipline as they emerge from his commentaries on the Sentences. Auriol conceived theology not as a science in any strict sense, but he nonetheless believed that scientific disciplines and theology share their most fundamental features. Florian Woller presents Auriol in the context of...

This study examines Thomas Aquinas s contribution to the systematic field of animal philosophy. It applies various models from the current philosophical debate (especially from that concerning the mind of animals) as interpretative aids to tap the potential of the Thomistic approach. Thomas draws a clear line of demarcation between animals and human beings (= anthropological difference). However, he also considers it important to work out the similarities between humans and animals, insofar as they are both so-called animalia, i.e., living beings possessing senses (= animal...

Among the commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics produced in the Middle Ages, that of Richard Kilvington is one of the most thought-provoking. Kilvington adopts a unique perspective of argumentation in which he applies concepts and terminology from the fields of logic and physics to ethical dilemmas. This unprecedented approach allows him to formulate original solutions to various ethical problems. He concentrates on the will, moral weakness, the relationship between the will and prudence, the change of virtues and vices, and the nature of ethical objects. The presented...

In Erzahlte Argumente. Exempla und historische Argumentation in politischen Traktaten c. 1265-1325, Jacob Langeloh describes how medieval political writers around the year 1300 employed historical arguments. Scholastic authors are commonly thought to be oblivious tohistory. This study shows that they not only showed great respect to historical arguments, but that they also displayed a refined technique in using them. In addition to case studies ranging from Thomas Aquinas to Dante Alighieri and up to Marsilius of Padua, Jacob Langeloh also offers a functional description of both...

Gerard of Abbeville (d. 1272) was the foremost secular theologian at the University of Paris during the third quarter of the thirteenth century. Significantly, Gerard's corpus includes the most comprehensive treatment of the nature and extent of human knowledge from the generation before Henry of Ghent. Stephen M. Metzger's study presents Gerard's complete theory of human knowledge, which is a hierarchy extending from the knowledge acquired in faith, through scientific thought and culminating in the full vision of God by the blessed in patria. It is the fullest exposition of the life, works...

This volume collects essays which are thematically connected through the work of Kent Emery Jr., to whom the volume is dedicated. A main focus lies on the attempts to bridge the gap between mysticism and a systematic approach to medieval philosophical thought. The essays address a wide range of topics concerning (a) the nature of the human soul (in philosophical and theological discourse); (b) medieval theories of cognition (natural and supernatural), self-knowledge and knowledge of God; (c) the human soul’s contemplation of, and union with, God; (d) the tradition of “the modes of...

How advanced students in the 15th century learned to understand Latin with the help of Middle Dutch becomes clear in Master Simon’s (?) commentary in the form of questions on the famous medieval didactical poem on grammar Doctinale of Alexander de Villa Dei. The master discusses notions such as the six cases of Latin (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative and ablative), construction, impediments of construction, and participles. The author has a conceptualist approach of language and criticizes interpretations by realists (Modists). He refers to other important medieval...