Pico, Plato, and Albert the Great: the Testimony and Evaluation of Agostino Nifo EDWARD P
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations
chapter 6 Human Souls and the Triad of Intellectual Operations As we have seen, all animals are superior to plants in that they have not only vegetative powers but also sensory, that is, cognitive powers. The possession of cognition is what establishes a psychological continuity between nonhuman and human animals. However, there is also a crucial discontinuity and it is this discontinuity that brings us closer to theories of animal rationality. In short, the discontinuity between humans and other animals consists in the fact that only the former have rational or intellectual souls. Consequently, humans are not simply animals but a very peculiar kind of animals, namely, ‘rational animals’ (animalia rationalia).1 They are, so to speak, ‘animals plus x’ with ‘x’ being the faculties of intellect and reason. Nonhuman animals are, in turn, ‘animals without x’. This lack of intellect and reason is why they were often called ‘ irrational animals’ (animalia irrationalia) or ‘brute animals’ (animalia bruta), as mentioned before. The possession of a rational soul thus establishes what modern scholars usually call an anthropological difference because it sets humans apart from all other animals. Medieval philosophers stressed this point. In his commentary on De ani- malibus, Peter of Spain, for instance, states that ‘humans excel any other ani- mal by the nobility of intellect and reason’ (homo enim excellit quodlibet animal nobilitate intellectus et rationis).2 In his Sentences commentary, Peter of John Olivi defines human beings as ‘intellectual animals or animals having intellect’ (bestiae intellectuales seu intellectum habentes).3 On the one hand, this shows that the animal nature of human beings was not denied. -
Plotinus and the Artistic Imagination John S
Roger Williams University DOCS@RWU School of Architecture, Art, and Historic School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications Preservation 2015 Plotinus and the Artistic Imagination John S. Hendrix Roger Williams University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp Part of the Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Hendrix, John S., "Plotinus and the Artistic Imagination" (2015). School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications. Paper 31. http://docs.rwu.edu/saahp_fp/31 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation at DOCS@RWU. It has been accepted for inclusion in School of Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of DOCS@RWU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Plotinus and the Artistic Imagination John Hendrix In the thought of Plotinus, the imagination is responsible for the apprehen- sion of the activity of Intellect. If creativity in the arts involves an exercise of the imagination, the image-making power that links sense perception to noet- ic thought and the nous poietikos , the poetic or creative intellect, then the arts exercise the apprehension of intellectual activity and unconscious thought. According to John Dillon in “Plotinus and the Transcendental Imag- ination,” 1 Plotinus’ conception of the imagination led to the formulation of the imagination as a basis of artistic creativity. In Plotinus, imagination operates on several different levels: it produces images in sense perception, it synthesizes images in dianoetic thought, and it produces images in correspondence with the articulation through logos of noetic thought. -
Platonic Theology: Books 1-4 V.1 Pdf, Epub, Ebook
PLATONIC THEOLOGY: BOOKS 1-4 V.1 PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Marsilio Ficino,Michael J.B. Allen,John Warden,James Hankins,William Bowen | 448 pages | 08 May 2001 | HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS | 9780674003453 | English | Cambridge, Mass, United States Platonic Theology: Books 1-4 v.1 PDF Book His Platonic evangelizing was eminently successful and widely influential, and his Platonic Theology , translated into English in this edition, is one of the keys to understanding the art, thought, culture, and spirituality of the Renaissance. This is six-volume edition and translation of Ficino's eighteen- book Platonic Theology. Platonic Theology: v. Platonic Theology Letters Platonic Commentaries. The "notes to the translation" are other possible translations, needed explanations of the text, sources of quotations or allusions. Ficino devoted his life to reviving the philosophy of Plato and gathered around him a group of distinguished disciples and devotees sometimes referred to as the "Florentine Academy. What God is not. The descent of the soul into the body. He had sought to show that revelation was necessary because, although philosophy could demonstrate the existence of God and man's immortality, knowledge of God's essence and man's true destiny was beyond its comprehension and belonged to the realm of supernatural theology. Allen and Hankins have begun a work of scholarship of the highest calibre, whose continuation is eagerly awaited. Book XIII demonstrates the soul's immortality by four signs : phantasy, reason and prophecy, arts, and miracles. Laurentianus Pluteus As previously shown by Marcel Marsile Ficin. This was dangerous ground, obviously shading into magic, and protesting that he was vindicating Free Will against astrological determinism was not much of a cover. -
199 Henry of Ghent Summa of Ordinary Questions: Articles Six To
Philosophy in Review XXXIII (2013), no. 3 Henry of Ghent Summa of Ordinary Questions: Articles Six to Ten on Theology, translated and with an introduction by Roland J. Teske, SJ. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press 2011. 226 pages $25.00 (paper ISBN 978–087462255–3) This translation of selected articles from Henry of Ghent’s Summa of Ordinary Questions is part of the Medieval Philosophy Texts in Translation series from Marquette University. The translator, Roland Teske, is the current series editor, and he is to be commended for including this volume in the series as it makes available in English an invaluable text for those with a professional interest in medieval philosophy and theology. Henry of Ghent is a little known figure outside the (growing) circle of professional philosophers with an interest in Scholasticism. But he was pivotal in the last thirty years of the 13th century, playing a major role in one of the key events of the period, viz., the Condemnations of 1270 and 1277. Anyone interested in understanding Henry’s thought, particularly his views on the relationship between theology and philosophy, will thank Teske for making this text available at such an affordable price, and for his accurate rendering of Henry’s Latin. The translated articles contain Henry’s considered views on meta-theology. The leading issue of the day concerned the place of theology within the sciences. Prior to the 13th century, theology enjoyed pride of place in the curriculum, with all the other disciplines being seen as preparatory to work in theology. This position came under threat in the 13th century as all the works of Aristotle were gradually rediscovered and assimilated by scholars working in the universities. -
The Political Regard in Medieval Islamic Thought Yavari, Neguin
www.ssoar.info The Political Regard in Medieval Islamic Thought Yavari, Neguin Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Yavari, N. (2019). The Political Regard in Medieval Islamic Thought. Historical Social Research, 44(3), 52-73. https:// doi.org/hsr.44.2019.3.52-73 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY Lizenz (Namensnennung) zur This document is made available under a CC BY Licence Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden (Attribution). For more Information see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.de The Political Regard in Medieval Islamic Thought ∗ Neguin Yavari Abstract: »Der politische Aspekt im Islamischen Denken des Mittelalters«. Glob- al intellectual history has attracted traction in the past decade, but the field remains focused on the modern period and the diffusion of Western political concepts, ideologies, and methodologies. This paper suggests that juxtaposing political texts from the medieval Islamic world with their Christian counterparts will allow for a better understanding of the contours of the debate on the space for politics, framed in primary sources as the perennial tug of war be- tween religious and lay authority. The implications of this line of inquiry for the history of European political thought are significant as well. Many of the prem- ises and characteristics that are considered singularly European, such as conti- nuity between past and present, as well as a strong performative regard to po- litical thought, are equally present in non-European (in this instance Islamic) debates. -
Neoplatonism: the Last Ten Years
The International Journal The International Journal of the of the Platonic Tradition 9 (2015) 205-220 Platonic Tradition brill.com/jpt Critical Notice ∵ Neoplatonism: The Last Ten Years The past decade or so has been an exciting time for scholarship on Neo platonism. I ought to know, because during my stint as the author of the “Book Notes” on Neoplatonism for the journal Phronesis, I read most of what was published in the field during this time. Having just handed the Book Notes over to George BoysStones, I thought it might be worthwhile to set down my overall impressions of the state of research into Neoplatonism. I cannot claim to have read all the books published on this topic in the last ten years, and I am here going to talk about certain themes and developments in the field rather than trying to list everything that has appeared. So if you are an admirer, or indeed author, of a book that goes unmentioned, please do not be affronted by this silence—it does not necessarily imply a negative judgment on my part. I hope that the survey will nonetheless be wideranging and comprehensive enough to be useful. I’ll start with an observation made by Richard Goulet,1 which I have been repeating to students ever since I read it. Goulet conducted a statistical analy sis of the philosophical literature preserved in the original Greek, and discov ered that almost threequarters of it (71%) was written by Neoplatonists and commentators on Aristotle. In a sense this should come as no surprise. -
These Disks Contain My Version of Paul Spade's Expository Text and His Translated Texts
These disks contain my version of Paul Spade's expository text and his translated texts. They were converted from WordStar disk format to WordPerfect 5.1 disk format, and then I used a bunch of macros and some hands-on work to change most of the FancyFont formatting codes into WordPerfect codes. Many transferred nicely. Some of them are still in the text (anything beginning with a backslash is a FancyFont code). Some I just erased without knowing what they were for. All of the files were cleaned up with one macro, and some of them have been further doctored with additional macros I wrote later and additional hand editing. This explains why some are quite neat, and others somewhat cluttered. In some cases I changed Spade's formatting to make the printout look better (to me); often this is because I lost some of his original formatting. I have occasionally corrected obvious typos, and in at least one case I changed an `although' to a `but' so that the line would fit on the same page. With these exceptions, I haven't intentionally changed any of the text. All of the charts made by graphics are missing entirely (though in a few cases I perserved fragments so you can sort of tell what it was like). Some of the translations had numbers down the side of the page to indicate location in the original text; these are all lost. Translation 1.5 (Aristotle) was not on the disk I got, so it is listed in the table of contents, but you won't find it. -
Gereby/Riedl
Political Theology – Ancient and Modern Winter 2013, History / Medieval Studies MA course, 2 credits Time: tba Location: tba Instructors: György Geréby/Matthias Riedl Course description: Carl Schmitt’s “Political Theology” is one of the most influential works of the 20th century. Its basic claim is: “All significant concept of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts,” implying a concealed theological link to legitimacy even in the modern period. On a truly global scale, Schmitt influenced theory, terminology and methodology of the social sciences and historiography. The course will evaluate the concept, its explanatory value, its validity and applicability, together with its historical forms. Schmitt was by no means the first theorist to apply the term political theology (although he gave a new meaning to it). Already in antiquity it formed part of the Hellenist tripartite theology (besides natural theology and mythical theology). Polybius and Panaitios defined it as a type of theology that serves the interest of the polity. More generally, it could be understood as a theology which is constitutive for a given political order, the basis of which was the city-state. In the Hellenistic realm, especially with the expansion of Rome, and the development of the Roman Principate theories of legitimacy increasingly turned to the cosmic structure for the justification of the monarchy of the emperor. Judaism, and emergent Christianity, however, looked at the Old Testament for ideas of political legitimacy, which differed significantly from the surrounding Hellenistic theories. These latter, however, suggested a Christian version of political theology to some of the Church Fathers, but not without opposition. -
Transmission of Mystical Light from Greek Christian East to the West
TRANSMISSION OF MYSTICAL LIGHT FROM GREEK CHRISTIAN EAST TO THE WEST Seweryn Blandzi DOI: 10.17846/CL.2021.14.1.59-64 Abstract: BLANDZI, SEWERYN. Transmission of Mystical Light from Greek Christian East to the West. Plato’s and Aristotle’s investigations based on the very concept of wisdom and the relationship between sophia and saphia lead us to the metaphysics of light, developed later in Christian thought and neoplatonism, the beginnings of which we observe in the early Greek thinkers and authors and exegesis writers of books that are the foundation of various religions. The metaphor of light permeates the entire Mediterranean philosophical and mystery reflection from Parmenides and Plato to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. First and foremost light was the essential element in the philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagite who provided Christian thought with rich presuppositions and themes. His metaphysics of light contained imagery that inspired Abbot Suger, the builder of first French gothic cathedral in Saint Denys abbacy. Suger applied the Dionysian vision and transformed mystical wisdom into the real world. The main purpose of the article is to highlight the gnostic aspect of the reflection on the light in the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. Keywords: Parmenides, Plato, neoplatonism, metaphysics of light, Ps. Dionysius the Areopagite, abbot Suger, St. Denis monastery a)gaqo\n ga\r ei]rhtai dia\ a]gan qe/ein e)p ) au)to\ pa/nta Elias, Prolegomena philosophiae One could say that symbolism of light permeates Greek philosophy from its very beginnings. See, for instance, Parmenides’ proemium where Eleatic poet and thinker describes his upwards journey to the gates of Night and Day to see the eternally luminous brightening realm of transcendent Truth-Being expressed in Plato’s language as u(peroura/niov to/pov of ou)si/a o]ntwv ou)=sa (Plato. -
The Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting
CHICAGO 30 March–1 April 2017 RSA 2017 Annual Meeting, Chicago, 30 March–1 April Photograph © 2017 The Art Institute of Chicago. Institute The Art © 2017 Photograph of Chicago. Institute The Art © 2017 Photograph The Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting The Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting Program Chicago 30 March–1 April 2017 Front and back covers: Jacob Halder and Workshop, English, Greenwich, active 1576–1608. Portions of a Field Armor, ca. 1590. Steel, etched and gilded, iron, brass, and leather. George F. Harding Collection, 1982.2241a-h. Art Institute of Chicago. Contents RSA Executive Board .......................................................................5 RSA Staff ........................................................................................6 RSA Donors in 2016 .......................................................................7 RSA Life Members ...........................................................................8 RSA Patron Members....................................................................... 9 Sponsors ........................................................................................ 10 Program Committee .......................................................................10 Discipline Representatives, 2015–17 ...............................................10 Participating Associate Organizations ............................................. 11 Registration and Book Exhibition ...................................................14 Policy on Recording and Live -
INTRODUCTION Agostino Nifo Was a Prolific Writer. During His
INTRODUCTION Agostino Nifo was a prolific writer. During his lifetime, thirty-five works were published, and after his death another five came out. His books appeared in more than one hundred and sixty editions, from to , at Venice, Pavia, Lyon, Paris, Naples, Florence, Augsburg, Bologna, Rome,Leiden,Basel,Marburg,Troyes,Rouen,Parma,andGenoa.1 In , Nifo published De intellectu,themajorworkofhisearly career, touching on questions of philosophical psychology. Based on a detailed assessment of the views of his predecessors, Nifo in this work presented an analysis of the main issues of Peripatetic noetics, namely origin and immortality of the intellect or rational soul, its relation to the body, its unity and parts, the speculative intellect, and intellectual beatitude. Although the bulk of the work was presumably composed in the early s at Padua, there is good evidence that it was completed and drastically reorientated before publication. This introduction offers a cursory view of Peripatetic noetics and the doctrinal context of Nifo’s work, as well as a short analysis of his shift toward anti-Averroism. It also dwells on Nifo’s use of philosophical and other sources, and on the issue of the ‘lost’ works of Siger of Brabant quoted in De intellectu. Subsequently, the general structure of the work, i.e. its main themes and issues, recurring argumentative strategies, and the fortune of the work are discussed. Finally, I present a note on the transcription of this text and on the works quoted or cited by Nifo. The Introduction is followed by an extensive analytical summary ofthe contents of the work. -
Platonic Mysticism
CHAPTER ONE Platonic Mysticism n the introduction, we began with the etymology of the word I“mysticism,” which derives from mystes (μύστης), an initiate into the ancient Mysteries. Literally, it refers to “one who remains silent,” or to “that which is concealed,” referring one’s direct inner experi- ence of transcendence that cannot be fully expressed discursively, only alluded to. Of course, it is not clear what the Mysteries revealed; the Mystery revelations, as Walter Burkert suggested, may have been to a significant degree cosmological and magical.1 But it is clear that there is a related Platonic tradition that, while it begins with Plato’s dialogues, is most clearly expressed in Plotinus and is conveyed in condensed form into Christianity by Dionysius the Areopagite. Here, we will introduce the Platonic nature of mysticism. That we focus on this current of mysticism originating with Plato and Platonism and feeding into Christianity should not be understood as suggesting that there is no mysticism in other tradi- tions. Rather, by focusing on Christian mysticism, we will see much more clearly what is meant by the term “mysticism,” and because we are concentrating on a particular tradition, we will be able to recog- nize whether and to what extent similar currents are to be found in other religious traditions. At the same time, to understand Christian mysticism, we must begin with Platonism, because the Platonic tra- dition provides the metaphysical context for understanding its latest expression in Christian mysticism. Plato himself is, of course, a sophisticated author of fiction who puts nearly all of what he wrote into the form of literary dialogues 9 © 2017 Arthur Versluis 10 / Platonic Mysticism between various characters.