Timothy Brian Noone

In this second edition of his critically acclaimed Introduction to Medieval Logic, Alexander Broadie has once again given general readers a clear and concise account of two fundamental areas of medieval logic: the theory of terms and the theory of consequences. Confining himself, in the main, to the major developments in logic from 1250 to 1500, Broadie presents medieval logic in a way that is more systematic than historical; yet his approach is remarkable for the manner in which it manages to convey material of an extremely technical nature in nontechnical prose.

In this second revised edition of his now classic history of thirteenth-century philosophy, the late Canon Van Steenberghen has given philosophers and historians of philosophy a masterful restatement of his fundamental outlook on thirteenth-century philosophy. Drawing upon the research of a lifetime and fully cognizant of recent contributions to the field, Van Steenberghen defends in a combative and engaging style the soundness of his interpretations and his historical categorizations, while tracing the development of thirteenth-century thought in a series of chapters devoted to its chief figures and movements. Although one may question his method of organizing parts of thirteenth-century philosophy or his reading of a given philosophical author or movement, the erudition of the author, prominently displayed in his command of the primary and secondary literature bearing on each topic treated, is probably unmatched by any living historian of medieval philosophy.

It is my pleasure to present here ten essays devoted to one of the greatest of medieval philosophers, St. Bonaventure. Quite often, Bonaventure is mentioned prominently within histories of medieval philosophy only to be subsequently ignored; his thought is usually deemed too mystical or theological for serious philosophical reflection and analysis. I am happy to say that the present collection shows Bonaventure’s thought as engaging worthwhile issues both in the medieval and in the contemporary context. I hope that this collection may pique interest in the thought of the Seraphic Doctor, whose writings are now being translated into most modern languages, including English. But since the life and writings of Bonaventure are frequently not as familiar as those of his exact contemporary St. Thomas Aquinas, a brief overview of his life and writings are also in order prior to an overview of the essays presented here.

In this brief volume, Alexander Broadie makes available to the philosophical public a valuable, if succinct, account of late Scholastic epistemology. Focusing his attention on eight philosopher-theologians who taught at Paris around 1500 A.D., Broadie presents their discussions of notions and objects, modes of sense and intellectual cognition, and theories of apprehension, judgment, and assent. Throughout the entire work, Broadie amply demonstrates his command both of the historical sources relevant to his topic and the philosophical and logical issues with which those sources are concerned.

In this remarkably ambitious book, Robert Pasnau has sought to trace out the story of medieval epistemology during its formative years, 1250 to 1350, and to draw conclusions both regarding the tenability of views advanced during the High Middle Ages and regarding the relation of medieval epistemology to early modern epistemology. In the history of cognitive theories, Pasnau discusses mainly the figures of Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Peter John Olivi, and William of Ockham, although brief treatments are also included of Roger Bacon and William Crathorn. The conclusions that Pasnau draws are that none of the epistemological theories advanced by the principal authors treated is altogether satisfactory and that medieval epistemology provides a direct antecedent to early modern epistemology since, on Pasnau’s reading, even the cognitive theory of a figure such as Aquinas relies on a kind of representationalism.

In this model critical edition, Professor John Magee of the University of Toronto has provided specialists in the philosophy of the Middle Ages with one of the classical texts of their period, Boethius’s De divisione. Surviving in over seventy manuscripts, and practically required reading both in monastic schools and universities, Boethius’s De divisione treats the modes of division commonly discussed in ancient philosophy: the per se divisions of genera into species, a whole into its parts, and a spoken sound into its significates; the accidental divisions of a subject into its accidents; an accident into its subject, and accidents into other accidents. With its clear examples and carefully argued rationale for the manner of dividing and defining, the work remained a canonical text to the end of the Middle Ages when Aristotelian learning declined in importance.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LaudatioTimothy B. Noone (bio)On Sunday, July 26, 2009, the Franciscan Institute was pleased to award to Dr. Girard J. Etzkorn its 22nd Franciscan Institute Medal in recognition of a lifetime of scholarship, editing and publication of texts on medieval philosophy and theology, with a special emphasis on the Franciscan intellectual tradition. The ceremony was held in the Trustees Room of Doyle Hall on the campus of St. Bonaventure University and attended by over 100 scholars, students, friends and members of Dr. Etzkorn's extended families. The award ceremony began with a personal appreciation by Dr. Thomas Shannon, Ph.D., emeritus of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Worcester, MA), former member during the 1960s with Dr. Etzkorn of the Sacred Heart Province of Friars Minor (St. Louis, MO). It was followed by the formal laudatio of the honorée presented by former colleague and friend, Dr. Timothy B. Noone, Ph.D., of the Catholic University of America, the text of which is printed here. The event concluded with personal remarks by Dr. Etzkorn on his life as a scholar of the Franciscan tradition."Let us praise men of renown and our fathers in their generation." Sirach 44:1The wisdom of Sirach, the last of the Solomonic books of the Old Testament, would seem an appropriate place to begin this evening's festivities. No doubt, Gerry is squirming a bit in his chair, thinking in his customary humility that the words of Sirach are a bit too high for him. But we must learn to acknowledge what is true and great wherever it is, even when (or to put the matter correctly, especially when) the truth and greatness are found in ourselves. So there will be [End Page 259] no holding back on the present occasion, since the text from Sirach points out our path.We should start with a brief sketch of Gerry's life. Born in Kirkwood, Missouri in 1927, Gerry received his primary and secondary education in Missouri before attending the University of Dayton in the fall of 1944. After three semesters studying chemical engineering, he was drafted into the military, serving in the U.S. Army as part of the occupation forces of Japan after the surrender of August, 1945. This seeming irrelevancy actually became quite important in Gerry's life, for it was during his service in Japan that he encountered the Franciscans and decided to enter the Order after returning to the U.S. Once he had completed his degrees in philosophy and theology and been ordained, Gerry was sent to the University of Louvain, where he took his doctorate, producing a thesis that contained a partial edition of Roger Marston's hitherto unpublished Quodlibetal questions.This work at Louvain presaged in many ways the bulk of Gerry's work: he edited and studied a Franciscan medieval text from Latin manuscripts and studied its philosophical and theological doctrines. After returning from Louvain, Gerry taught for ten years at Quincy College and Seminary before leaving the Franciscans in 1971. But the Franciscans and he were far from being through with each other. Within two years Gerry arrived here to work with Fr. Gedeon Gàl on the Ockham Edition, then in the throes of its labors. Initially working as an Associate Editor on the Ockham Edition, Gerry eventually became Chief Editor of the Scotus Project, the successor project at the Institute to the Ockham Edition.During his twenty-two years at the Institute, Gerry kept up a steady pace of editions, some connected with the Institute's research projects and others springing from his own interests. Among the former, we must note three volumes of the Opera theologica of Ockham and four volumes of the Opera philosophica of Scotus; among the latter, we find the complete edition of Roger Marston's Quodlibetal questions, the edition of John Peckham's Quodlibetal questions, numerous articles containing briefer editions of lesser figures, and a volume of manuscript descriptions, analyzing manuscripts never before described in the Vatican Library. [End Page 260]What I have mentioned so far would be enough for any one human being within the scope of one lifetime. But God had more in store for Gerry...

In this remarkable book, Jorge Gracia has assembled a rich collection of essays treating the problem of individuation in what is perhaps its most critical period in the history of philosophy. Each of the essays is devoted to a particular philosopher or group of philosophers whose work is chosen for consideration either for its originality or its influence on the development of theories of individuation; all but a few of the essays are authored by scholars who are the leading experts on the subjects considered in their essays. The entire collection of essays is, moreover, prefaced with a masterful and succinct introduction to the problem of individuation, crafted by Gracia himself, which provides the reader unfamiliar with the problem of individuation a conceptual framework for approaching the study of the philosophers surveyed in the book. It is, indeed, a book which unites both historical scholarship and philosophical acumen so as to provide readers with "an introductory, selective account of the major developments in the period".

In this preliminary volume of the forthcoming edition of Richard Fishacre’s opus magnum, his Commentary on the Sentences, Professor Long and Dr. O’Carroll review in an informative and engaging manner Fishacre’s life and writings. Composed of five chapters supported by a substantial bibliography and graced with an appendix, the volume treats successively Fishacre’s life, painstakingly reconstructed from local archival, episcopal, and royal records, the range of his writings, the scope of the Sentences in particular, and the manuscripts in which that work is preserved as well as the general editorial principles for the edition.

In this, the second edition of his classic study, Albert Zimmermann has once again provided scholars with a remarkable collection of otherwise unavailable texts along with penetrating studies on that perennial metaphysical question: what is the subject of metaphysics. As indicated by the title, Zimmermann’s treatment of the medieval discussion on the object of metaphysical knowledge ranges over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, covering authors from the generation of Richard Rufus and Roger Bacon up to John Buridan. The new edition takes account of most of the considerable literature that has appeared since the original publication in 1965. Inaugurating the Bibliotheca series being edited under the direction of the illustrious review Recherches de théologie et philosophie médiévales, this volume sets an exceptionally high standard for remaining volumes in the series, which appears likely to produce studies of enduring significance for the study of medieval philosophy.

In this book, John Rist aims to give a "fresh perspective" on the entire range of Augustine's thought so that Augustine may speak to us more readily. To the mind of the present reviewer, Rist has indeed succeeded in doing just that, although the contemporary perspective provided is largely one derived from the renewed interest taken by Anglo-American philosophers in the history of ancient and medieval philosophy; within the programmatic limits of such a perspective, the author has accomplished his task masterfully.

En este artículo el autor examina qué teoría de la voluntad se delinea en el Tractatus de actibus humanis escrito por Juan Iribarne Uraburu. La discusión abierta por Juan Iribarne acerca de la voluntad se sitúa en el contexto de los planteamientos tomistas de la península ibérica en el siglo XVII y manifiesta tanto continuidad como innovación dentro de la tradición escotista. La conclusión que se alcanza es que la teoría de Juan Iribarne muestra desacuerdos fundamentales que distinguen las teorías escotistas respecto de otras teorías escolásticas acerca de la voluntad, sean de corte tomista o suareciano, y, por tanto, es un ejemplo muy instructivo para el actual debate filosófico.