Robert Pasnau

The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters takes the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise of the universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volumes illuminate a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike.

After an initial, highly difficult question on the metaphysics of the bad, Aquinas turns his attention to bad action, and then very quickly turns to focus on the sort of bad actions most relevant to theology: voluntary bad action. At this point we are squarely in the moral domain, and so we might as well speak of bad actions as sins. In question 2, Aquinas takes up questions regarding the character of sin, assessing the way in which intentions, actions, objects, and circumstances contribute to the moral status of an action, and exploring questions about omissions and neutral actions. In question 3, he takes up the causes of sin, distinguishing among temptation, ignorance, weakness, and malice. Questions 4–5 turn to original sin; question 6 contains his most extensive and sophisticated treatment of free will; question 7 discusses venial sins ; questions 8–15 discuss the seven deadly sins ; finally, question 16 rounds out the volume with a fascinating discussion of the psychology of devils, and their relationship to us.

The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters take the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise of the universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volume illuminates a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike.

The Cambridge History of Medieval Philosophy comprises over fifty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of this period. Starting in the late eighth century, with the renewal of learning some centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, a sequence of chapters take the reader through developments in many and varied fields, including logic and language, natural philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and theology. Close attention is paid to the context of medieval philosophy, with discussions of the rise of the universities and developments in the cultural and linguistic spheres. A striking feature is the continuous coverage of Islamic, Jewish, and Christian material. There are useful biographies of the philosophers, and a comprehensive bibliography. The volume illuminates a rich and remarkable period in the history of philosophy and will be the authoritative source on medieval philosophy for the next generation of scholars and students alike.

Scholastic philosophers in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries advanced original and sophisticated accounts of the nature of cognition and mental representation. This dissertation analyzes some of the debates of that period, beginning with Thomas Aquinas and going on to consider a number of his most penetrating critics: Henry of Ghent , Peter John Olivi , William Ockham , and William Crathorn . The study begins with some of the theoretical foundations of scholastic theories of cognition, such as the nature of cognition, the link between cognition and immateriality, and the sense in which mental representation rests on a similarity between our ideas and the external world. Debate over these issues led later scholastics to give increasing attention to epistemology and the threat of skepticism. Henry of Ghent's epistemological focus led him to formulate an interesting and original argument for the Augustinian theory of divine illumination. Other scholastics--in particular Olivi and Ockham--were similarly concerned that the standard Aristotelian theory of cognition, as formulated by Aquinas, would lead to skepticism. Their response was to reject a central feature of Aquinas's account: that our knowledge of the external world is mediated by internal impressions . Olivi and Ockham eliminate such intermediaries entirely. For them our knowledge of the external world is throughly direct, and they reject the distinction, which I argue is central to Aquinas's account, between acts of cognition and internal objects for those acts. I conclude that the work of Olivi and Ockham is significant primarily because it challenges the picture of mind that comes so naturally to us: that the mind is a repository of images and ideas that are the inner objects of our perceptions and thoughts. ;The dissertation's second volume contains translations of the central texts

There is some temptation to say that the history of Aristotle in medieval Latin philosophy is just the history of medieval Latin philosophy, but this would be to oversimplify matters. The fountainhead of Christian philosophy, Augustine, betrays almost no familiarity with Aristotelian thought, and describes in the Confessions how he was underwhelmed by a reading of the Categories at the age of twenty. Boethius aspired to translate into Latin and comment upon the whole Aristotelian corpus, and reconcile it with Plato as well, but only a fraction of the project was completed. Moreover, even once the influence of Aristotle was felt in its full force—and even more so before then—Platonism remained a strong influence on Latin philosophy. This article discusses the rise of scholastic Aristotelianism and its eventual decline, the history of Aristotelianism in the Latin West, the distinctive character of scholastic Aristotelianism, and disagreements within scholastic Aristotelianism.

The third volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow scholars and students access in English, to major texts that form the debate over mind and knowledge at the center of medieval philosophy. Beginning with thirteenth-century attempts to classify the soul's powers and to explain the mind's place within the soul, the volume proceeds systematically to consider the scope of human knowledge and the role of divine illumination, intentionality and mental representation, and attempts to identify the object of human knowledge in terms of concepts and propositions. The authors included are Henry of Ghent, Peter John Olivi, William Alnwick, Peter Aureol, William Ockham, William Crathorn, Robert Holcot, Adam Wodeham as well as two anonymous Parisian masters of arts. This volume will be an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, theology and literature

Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy showcases the best scholarly research in this flourishing field. The series covers all aspects of medieval philosophy, including the Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew traditions, and runs from the end of antiquity into the Renaissance. It publishes new work by leading scholars in the field, and combines historical scholarship with philosophical acuteness. The papers will address a wide range of topics, from political philosophy to ethics, and logic to metaphysics. OSMP is an essential resource for anyone working in the area.

Beginning with a brief overview of Aquinas’ life and philosophical career, the authors introduce his overarching explanatory framework in order to provide the necessary background to his substantive theorizing in a wide range of areas: rational theology, metaphysics, philosophy of human nature, philosophy of mind, and ethical and political theory. Although not intended to provide a comprehensive evaluation of all aspects of Aquinas’ far-reaching writings, the volume does present a systematic introduction to the principal areas of his philosophy, attending no less to his methods and argumentative strategies than to his ultimate conclusions.

This is a major new study of Thomas Aquinas, the most influential philosopher of the Middle Ages. The book offers a clear and accessible guide to the central project of Aquinas' philosophy: the understanding of human nature. Robert Pasnau sets the philosophy in the context of ancient and modern thought, and argues for some groundbreaking proposals for understanding some of the most difficult areas of Aquinas' thought: the relationship of soul to body, the workings of sense and intellect, the will and the passions, and personal identity. Structured around a close reading of the treatise on human nature from the Summa theologiae and deeply informed by a wide knowledge of the history of philosophy and contemporary philosophy, this study will offer specialists a series of novel and provocative interpretations, while providing students with a reference commentary on one of Aquinas' core texts.