This article analyzes the mystical experience of Hildegard von Bingen to explore how it can support a worldview that encompasses not only the theological but also the political. From the perspective of medieval philosophy, which is grounded in a philosophical anthropology, three key points are addressed: the clarification of essential concepts of mystical experience, the analysis of Hildegard’s visions and their relationship to the worldview of her time, and the evaluation of the political role her teachings may play. In this context, the issue of legitimization is discussed: to affirm the position of the Catholic Church, it is essential to emphasize the preeminence of the Son in dogma and adopt a specific worldview.

The article is devoted to a systematic analysis of the philosophical concepts of the international legal status of the individual in the works of medieval thinkers who laid the foundations for the modern understanding of human rights and freedoms. It examines the formation of ideas about the rights, duties, and moral-legal boundaries of the individual in the context of interstate relations. It is noted that a central role in the development of these concepts was played by natural law, which provided universal moral principles common to all societies regardless of state or cultural differences. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the works of Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Dante Alighieri, and William of Ockham, who developed the notion of the individual as a moral and legal subject endowed with dignity, autonomy, and responsibility. The author emphasizes specific features of the philosophical positions of these thinkers, noting that Saint Augustine viewed justice as a manifestation of divine law, Thomas Aquinas considered it the foundation of a universal moral order, Dante Alighieri stressed the harmony between rights and duties, and William of Ockham laid the groundwork for legal individualism. The article also analyzes the socio-political context of the Middle Ages, which determined the interaction of religious, moral, and political factors in the formation of legal thought. The role of the scholastic tradition is examined, as it contributed to the systematization of moral and legal principles and the rational understanding of law. The significance of the concept of a “just war,” which defined the moral limits of the use of force and influenced the development of humanitarian norms of international law, is also highlighted. The contribution of other thinkers – Ibn Khaldun, Roger Bacon, and Jean Buridan – is considered, who developed ideas of social responsibility, moral autonomy, and universal norms of conduct in the international context. It is concluded that medieval philosophy, combining religious, moral, and legal foundations, created the intellectual basis for modern doctrines of human rights, principles of justice and humanity.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the value criterion of scientific knowledge arising from the principle of ‘human dimension’ of scientific methodology in the post-non-classical paradigm of modern science. Unlike the classical period, which strives for the independence of the result of scientific knowledge from the cognizing subject, science since the beginning of the 20th century has been forced to recognize not only the inextricability of the connection between the result of cognition and human cognitive abilities, but also the relationship of science with all forms of spiritual life of society. Nevertheless, with an ever-increasing interest in religion and spiritual issues in solving practical problems, the determining factor for the human community is the ‘scientific’ ‘rational’ criterion, be it bioethical problems or building models of the structure of the universe. We still think in terms of the ‘dual truth’ of Western medieval philosophy. The article attempts to use the term ‘human-dimensionality’ to substantiate the determining character of human spiritual nature (including cognitive abilities) in relation to the knowledge gained. The problematic field of the article is as follows: since science is ‘human-dimensional’, i.e. determined by the value characteristics of the cognizing personality, what, in turn, should be the criterion of ‘human-dimensionality’? There is an answer to this question in Orthodox anthropology: man is the image and likeness of God. According to the author, only with the assimilation and methodological application of such a moral criterion to any cognitive process is it possible to obtain true knowledge in every sphere of human spiritual activity.

The article attempts to present to the English reader the silhouettes of two outstanding Polish scholars active during the 20th c.: the philosopher and historian of philosophy Konstanty Michalski, and the historian of science, philosophy and of the book, Aleksander Birkenmajer. Among other achievements, both these scholars were instrumental in the coming into being and development of one of the most important international projects concerning the history of medieval philosophy—the Aristoteles Latinus Project.

The philosophy of virtues, being a phraseological part of philosophical knowledge, underwent a significant change from Antiquity to the middle Ages and early Modern period. Socrates, Aristotle, and Plato laid the foundations of the so-called cardinal (civic) virtues necessary for a good life. One of them becomes the main carrier of hardiness – courage, which is the central subject of research in this work. The further development of arethalogy, then pedagogy, psychology and other modern disciplines, and philosophical trends up to the present day repeatedly turns to the idea of hardiness, which is designed to give a person support in a changing world, in borderline existential situations, to find the strength of the spirit and strengthen the body to withstand life's troubles and adequately face death.. Earlier, Modern Periods, having inherited and combined much of ancient and medieval arethalogy, proposed a number of ideas that laid an active foundation in courage, transforming reality, including political. The research methodology is based on the principle of historicism, which made it possible to trace the development of the idea of hardiness through the philosophy of virtues from ancient and medieval philosophy to Renaissance philosophy, to determine the specifics of their perception. The analysis of the discourse made it possible to correlate the terminological component and the context of the word usage of the idea of hardiness. Using the comparative method, the concepts of courage in philosophical and theological systems are compared. An interpretation of the history of the concept of hardiness is proposed within the framework of the philosophy of virtues (arethology), which developed in the Socratic philosophical tradition as courage, one of the main cardinal virtues guided by reason; in the Christian tradition, theological virtues are added, which determine its orientation by faith and hope for divine grace and mercy. The novelty of the work lies in the study of courage as a manifestation of hardiness throughout Antiquity, the middle Ages and the Renaissance within the framework of the dichotomies of that time: body – soul / spirit, mind – passions, inner – outer, active – contemplative life, and state – private life. Depending on the philosophical system, courage manifests itself through a different combination of three basic hardiness strategies: enduring, transforming, and avoiding reality.

The subject of the study in this article is the problem of the God-Man in Medieval Eastern philosophy. The author addresses the history of the formation of this concept, as well as the specific models of incarnation presented by theologians such as Athanasius the Great, Maximus the Confessor, and Gregory the Theologian. Special attention is given to the model of incarnation proposed by Athanasius the Great. His concept of the enpersonment represented a unique combination of epistemological and anthropological approaches, emphasizing not only the divine nature of Christ but also his function as a means of restoring the lost knowledge of God by man. The concepts of Maximus the Confessor and Gregory the Theologian, which developed the ideas of Athanasius the Great, pushed the apophatic content of the process of deification to its maximum, infusing the process of incarnation with mystical meaning, which found further development in the hesychasm of Gregory Palamas. The methodology of this research is based on a comprehensive theological and philosophical analysis of the texts of theologians of the Eastern Christian tradition of Medieval philosophy, as well as on the interpretation of their teachings. The author of the study concludes that the theological content of the Athanasian concept, as well as other models of incarnation (Maximus the Confessor, Gregory the Theologian), is closely related to the Christian idea of salvation as the victory of life over death, as well as the role of the historical event of Christ’s coming in the context of the spiritual renewal of man. The incarnation appears not only as a manifestation of divine love but also as an epistemological act, revealing the path for man to participate in divine life through knowledge and union with God. Unlike Western traditions, the Eastern emphasis is on the victory of life over death through spiritual knowledge. The historical coming of Christ serves as a key event that opens for man the possibility of returning to the original state of knowledge about God and achieving the state of the God-Man. Analyzing these aspects allows for a fuller understanding of the specificity of Eastern Christian teaching on the God-Man and its significance in the history of medieval philosophy.

Githa Hariharan has exposed the operations of power in families, society and the state through the thought provoking book In Times of Siege. Shiv simultaneously has to face allegations by a group of religious bigots regarding the article he has written on Basava, the medieval philosopher. Shiv Murthy’s lesson ‘module’ on a twelfth-century poet and reformer named Basava, offends the political functionaries. Basava is portrayed as a rebel who fought against caste systems and worked to establish social equality. Thus the demand for curriculum revision by the Ithihass Surakhsa Manch that sees Shiv Murthy’s history module as blasphemous because it foregrounds the radical political actions of Basava. Githa Hariharan has given a historical insight to his predicament. History becomes alive once again and she portrays the same old problems that were prevalent ages ago was explored in this novel. She tries to portray that it is impossible for a simple, honest person to live on the same plane with prejudiced and biased religious bigots. She exposes the raw truths of self-destruction across various Indian social groupings. Despite its short length, the work contains a lot of thought-provoking material. There are many parallels throughout the work, and Meena acts as Shiv’s spark. This study is an examination of the breakdown of secular ideals as represented in two contemporary texts that explore, from very different perspectives, the civil disorder and violence stemming from religious fundamentalism.

The paper is about the ethics of Thomas Aquinas, and focuses especially on the concept of Prudence, one of the four cardinal virtues according to Christian thought. The study considers the debt of the medieval philosopher to ancient philosophy (especially Aristotle) and the previous authorities of the Christian intellectual tradition, reconstructing Aquinas’ conception of Prudence.

Abstract The standard gloss of ‘intentionality’ as ‘aboutness’ may be insufficiently fine-grained to capture the complexity of medieval theories of intentionality. Using Thomas Aquinas as a case study, I show that he provides distinct accounts of two aspects of the phenomenon, which could be called ‘intentional presence’ and ‘intentional directing’. These distinct accounts are joined together through his theory of imitation into what I call a ‘theory of intentionality as active imitating’, but without giving relations of likeness any work to do in the account. In each part of the account, Aquinas draws on a general metaphysical schema that applies to both mental and non-mental being, contra interpretations that view intentionality as a sui generis feature of mental states.

The subject of the research article is the philosophical-theological model of man as God's image and likeness by Anselm of Canterbury, presented in his treatise "Why God Became Man." Anselm, unlike Eastern theologians, asserts the necessity of the incarnation of man in the person of the Word (Logos), which allows for the preservation of the integrity of each nature and the union of God with man without transformation or displacement of natures. The incarnation of God in man is considered by him as a necessity (necessitate) that comes from God Himself to "restore life to the world." The death of the God-Son in Anselm's model acts as a divine necessity to realize His own being through man, which in turn makes the existence of man possible. This anthropocentric view opens a foundation in the Middle Ages for the subsequent development of discourse about man in the Renaissance. The article employs methods of philosophical and theological analysis, as well as a comparative-historical approach to study the concepts of deification in medieval thought. It also uses methods of conceptual analysis and interpretation of metaphors. These methods allow for tracking the development of ideas about differentiation, freedom, and self-knowledge within the framework of medieval philosophical-theological tradition. The scientific novelty of this research lies in the comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of the concepts of deification and the God-Man, integrating historical-theological, philosophical, and methodological approaches. In particular, it systematically compares Eastern and Western traditions for the first time, revealing their similarities and differences in understanding the role of the Incarnation, the nature of man, and the process of deification, as well as analyzing the metaphysical foundations of these teachings in light of the development of scholastic thought. Furthermore, the work proposes a new interpretation of the Incarnation as the ontological foundation of the being of both man and God, and it reveals the influence of this concept on the formation of contemporary views about man in the context of Christian anthropology and theodicy. Thus, the research makes a significant contribution to the development of theological and philosophical discourses, expanding the understanding of the relationship between the divine and human principles through the lens of deification and the Incarnation.

Time perception is one of fundamental categories in theology and philosophy. The formulation of such a question, in the paradigm of the Armenian philosophical and theological tradition, remains superficially researched. Although insignificant, the legacy of Armenian Medieval thinkers on the concepts of time remain almost untouched by civilisation up to this day, which removes it from the general history of the development of secular discourse on the matter of time and mostly simply questions national characteristics and traditions. As a result the concepts of time and eternity in Armenian medieval philosophy were not studied for a long time as an independent discipline of medieval philosophy, but were only mentioned as an auxiliary means for building a peace picture of the world. Тhe article is dedicated to identification and consideration of the main aspects of the ideas about time and eternity of the Armenian medieval philosopher-theologian Gregory Tatevatsi, set out in the scientific endeavour “Ոսկեփորիկ”. The article makes an attempt of a logical and philosophical analysis of eternity and time in order to outline the main current issues. The relationship between the categories of time and eternity in Armenian medieval philosophy with the philosophical tradition of antiquity and with the medieval Eastern Christian tradition is shown. This article is written at the intersection of philosophy and theology, where time and eternity are analyzed from the point of view of ontology in the book “Ոսկեփորիկ” authored by Grigory Tatevatsi, and an attempt is made to show their axiological orientation.

<b>Book Reviews</b> Edited by Lydia AmirWith Pierre Destrée (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy) and John Marmysz (Modern and Contemporary Philosophy)

This Article discusses the life and intellectual contributions of Ibn Sina or Avicenna, one of the greatest figures in the history of Islamic philosophy and medicine. The main focus of this article is his thoughts on existence and essence, as well as the theory of emanation, which successfully synthesized Greek philosophy with Islamic thought. The Article also highlights Ibn Sina’s influence on the development of medieval philosophy and science, both in the Islamic world and the west, makin his legacy remain, relevant to this day.

Abstract This paper examines the problems of studying and teaching early medieval philosophy in the framework of the three teachings, illustrated with examples from the writings of the 7th-century Daoist Cheng Xuanying. While in early medieval and medieval China the three teachings were institutionalized as separate entities, we find ideas and terminologies from all three teachings in Cheng Xuanying’s writings, like in other early medieval texts. This liberal use of ideas from all three teachings poses challenges to our teaching and understanding of medieval texts. I will address the issue with an image of labels and boxes, which allows me to illustrate the problems in our understanding and treatment of the three teachings and their interactions. I will also show how the same image of labels and boxes offers a constructive solution for engaging with medieval texts in the framework of the three teachings.1

The article considers the function of a linguistic sign that forms an intelligible integrity from the point of view of their systemic interrelations arising in the essential center of the one-to-one correspondence between being and thinking. The ontognoseological horizon determines the effectiveness and feasibility of the functions of a linguistic sign in the context of the opposition of the ideal and the real. The difference between two ways of problematization is formulated - aporetic in ontology and antinomic in epistemology. The article proposes to consider the functional ensemble of a linguistic sign. Seven main functions are identified and their system-forming oppositions are differentiated. The difference in functional dominants is shown in the course of solving the problem of universals as the main issue of medieval philosophy. A new interpretation of the “semiotic triangle” model is proposed in the light of the principles of N. Hartmann’s critical ontology according to the criteria of “stepping” and “layering”. Constitutive and regulatory factors of differentiation of linguistic functions of nomothetic minimalism are identified.

In an earlier piece, written for the on-line journal, Geltung, I argued that in the wake of two world wars the analytic-Continental divide has left us with two incomplete philosophical worlds, that a reconciliation is required for philosophy to become whole again. Here I propose to show that a further reconciliation is needed, that between the subjectively oriented philosophy of Descartes’s cogito and the objectively oriented philosophy of ancient and medieval substantialism. Rather than seeing contemporary philosophy as evidence of progress in philosophy, somewhat as we see science and technology as having progressed over time, we ought rather to see contemporary philosophy, indeed much of philosophy since Descartes, as complementary to ancient and medieval philosophy. Each of these two philosophical worlds begins with one of the two possible philosophical starting points – outer reality or inner reality – and philosophy first becomes complete when these are properly distinguished and related. This is, of course, a very broad claim, and I certainly do not anticipate that it would be accepted without further ado. Thus, in order to make it at least somewhat manageable and plausible, I focus on Franz Brentano’s later so-called reistic ontology which provides an example from the roots of contemporary philosophy of a kind of Cartesian Aristotelianism, i.e., a blend of substantialist outlook and phenomenological methods, which I think shows the need for greater clarity in the future about the ramifications of our starting points.

The aim of the paper is to analyze the “metaphysics of the heart” in Russian thought, to identify its preconditions and origins. The article considers two types of cognition of being: the “metaphysics of reason” and the “metaphysics of the heart”, which appeal to rational-judgmental, reflexive and existential-imaginative, intuitive ways of comprehending being. It is noted that the idea of the “heart” as a deep symbol of spiritual culture and the fundamental beginning of man came to Russia together with Orthodoxy, through the assimilation of Byzantine holy theological texts. The Russian medieval philosophy developed the doctrine of cardiognosy – a special vision of the heart as the center of spiritual, soul and bodily life of people. Scientific novelty is associated with the analysis of the main conceptual models and doctrines of the domestic cardiognosis. As a result, it has been established that the “metaphysics of heart” in interrelation with the “metaphysics of light and love” is a spiritual and mental comprehension of being, through which reflections on the ultimate foundations of the world and man are realized. It encompasses the phenomena of spiritual, mental, and physical life of people, and also contains solutions to the most important philosophical problems.

The article compares the interpretations of two medieval philosophers – Moses Maimonides and Meister Eckhart – on the first verse of the book of Genesis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth." An attempt is made to understand to what extent Maimonides' point of view influenced Johann Eckhart. Maimonides claiming a philosophical justification for the creation of the world ex nihilo actually justifies with the help of reason not the logical and philosophical consistency and persuasiveness of the concept of creation but the philosophical certainty of the biblical story of creation. However, Meister Eckhart offers a variant of philosophical exegesis based to a much greater extent on logical argumentation. He is not afraid to recognize the numerical multiplicity of things in the universe which at the same time is one in its various parts since the Creator is one. The analysis shows that monotheism has a theoretical core common to Judaism and Christianity but the variants of its understanding arising as a result of the hermeneutics of the text fundamentally separate the medieval philosophy of Judaism and Western Christian scholasticism from each other.

The range of mercy in ancient and medieval philosophy

This article explores Maimonides' philosophy, focusing on his innovative integration of Socratic and Platonic ideals through what will be referred to as Maimonides' Dual Allegiance. By examining how Maimonides reconciles individual enlightenment with social responsibility, the study sheds light on his distinctive approach. It presents a comparative analysis of Maimonides and medieval philosophers like Al-Farabi, Ibn Bajja, Ibn Tufail, and Ibn Rushd, highlighting Maimonides' unique stance on balancing personal and communal duties. Additionally, the article connects Maimonides’ philosophical concepts to contemporary issues such as leadership and ethics, demonstrating their relevance in today's context. Through a detailed examination of his “Eight Chapters” and allegorical interpretations of biblical texts, the study provides fresh insights into Maimonides' views on intellectual and ethical development. This research contributes to a deeper understanding of Maimonides’ thought and its practical applications, bridging historical philosophy with modern challenges.