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...

In The Political Animal in Medieval Philosophy Juhana Toivanen investigates what medieval philosophers meant when they argued that human beings are political animals by nature. He analyses the notion of ‘political animal’ from various perspectives and shows its relevance to philosophical discussions concerning the foundations of human sociability, ethics, and politics. Medieval authors believed that social life stems from the biological and rational nature of human beings, and that collaboration with other people promotes prosperity and good life. Toivanen provides a detailed...

Richard Kilvington was one of the most talented Oxford Calculators. His influence on late medieval philosophy and theology remains unquestionable. He made a name for himself with his logical treatise Sophismata, which was soon followed by a series of three commentaries on Aristotle’s works and a commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences. Richard Kilvington on the Capacity of Created Being, Infinity, and Being Simultaneously in Rome and Paris by Monika Michałowska presents a critical edition of question 3 from Kilvington’s Quaestiones super libros Sententiarum, complete with an...