Medieval Thinkers Research Articles

Аль-Газали: Золотое правило нравственности

Золотое правило представляет собой одну из древнейших нравственных за­поведей, восходящих своими истоками к середине первого тысячелетия до новой эры и представленную во всех дошедших до нас великих культу­рах. Она в современных условиях не только сохраняет свою роль, но и при­обретает все возрастающее значение в качестве посредствующего звена и общей гуманистической основы диалога и сотрудничества между людь­ми, принадлежащими к разным культурам. В предлагаемой статье на при­мере творчества одного из крупнейших авторитетных до настоящего вре­мени средневековых мыслителей аль-Газали (ум. в 1111 г.) анализируется своеобразие подхода к Золотому правилу и его понимания в рамках ислам­ской традиции. Золотое правило в исламе, сформулированное в качестве одного из хадисов Мухаммада: а) рассматривается в контексте веры в Бога (Аллаха) как ее продолжение и критерий полноты; б) оно не имеет самодо­влеющего значения и прямо связано с соблюдением конкретных норм пове­дения человека, предписанных Кораном и Сунной; в) индивид в качестве верующего сам задает неограниченный круг ближних, охватываемых обла­стью своих доброжелательных действий; г) правильное отношение к дру­гому реализуется в установке, когда индивид не стремится встать выше него или даже вровень с ним, а считает себя ниже него. Аль-Газали дает такую интерпретацию Золотого правила, которая исключает так называе­мый парадокс мазохиста, ибо он видит в нем не основание нравственно­сти, а ее выражение.

Between disputatio and Polemics: Dialectics as Production of Knowledge in the Middle Ages

At the basis of the medieval production of knowledge, dialectics seems to be one of the primary keys of thought. Medieval thinkers were trained to express and to represent the world according to the disputatio, which is a question of research and a form of academic exercise. They were trained to discuss and to challenge. We can distinguish two kinds of dialectics: an irenic one, ritualized dialectics, as Habermas has shown on the one hand, and a more polemical dialectics, as theorized by Pierre Bourdieu, on the other. Our main aim is to establish that those dialectical techniques of disputatio or polemical treatises are tools to produce doctrines and thought. On the one hand, we analyze the typical scholarly disputationes produced in commentaries on Aristotle’s Ethics, within the Western university sphere. On the other, we focus on political and ecclesiological treatises in the time of the Great Schism, as a case study to understand the difference between irenic disputatio and polemical exchanges. The final thoughts in this article aim at contextualizing the self-awareness of the specialists of scholasticism within the saturation of polemics and the broadening of their audience through reaching a non-academic audience. The example of the well-known university theologian Jean Gerson is particularly relevant in the attempt to move beyond the world of the university.

АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКИЕ МЫСЛИТЕЛИ-ПЕДАГОГИ О ДЕЯТЕЛЬНОСТИ САМООБРАЗОВАНИЯ

The article considers ideas and suggestions about ways of independent study of sciences, reflected in ancient cultural sources and in the works of medieval Azerbaijani thinkers and writers. The research involves the views of Nizami, Khagani, Nasimi, Nasreddin Tusi and others on the secrets of independent learning, and the thoughts expressed in the works of these thinkers on the problem are commented on. The idea is justified that the art of studying science has a broad social and pedagogical meaning and significance in the work of these thinker writers.

Willing Evil

In this article, I present two virtually unknown sixteenth-century views of human freedom, that is, the views of Bartolomaeus de Usingen (1465–1532) and Jodocus Trutfetter (1460–1519) on the one hand and John Mair (1470–1550) on the other. Their views serve as a natural context and partial background to the more famous debate on human freedom between Martin Luther (1483–1556) and Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) from 1524–1526. Usingen and Trutfetter were Luther’s philosophy teachers in Erfurt. In a passage from Book III of John Mair’s commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics from 1530, he seems to defend a view of human freedom by which we can will evil for the sake of evil. Very few thinkers in the history of philosophy have defended such a view. The most famous medieval thinker to do so is William Ockham (1288–1347). To illustrate how radical this view is, I place him in the historical context of such thinkers as Plato, Augustine, Buridan, and Descartes.

Отырар өлкесінің ойшылы

Islam is a great civilization. The contribution of Islam to the history of mankind is especially significant, since under its banners the flowering of education and science took place, humanity soared to the heights of humanism and sanity. The edges, which turned yellow like a dried up steppe, like a dried riverbed, with the advent of Islam turned into meadows with lush and tall grass. Islam began to penetrate into Central Asia, including in the Kazakh lands in the VIII century AD. In the decisive battle between the Chinese troops of the Tan Dynasty and Muslims on the coast of Talas in 751, the victory of Muslims opened the way to Central Asia not only to Islam, but also to the unhindered spread of its culture. Along with the Holy Quran, Islamic civilization came to the Kazakh lands. Science and education revived. Cities were built. They functioned madrassas and research centers. Deeply thinking scholars came out from among the local people who praised humanism in their works – Abu Nasr al-Farabi, Khoja Ahmet Yasawi, Yusuf Balasaguni, Jamal ad-din Said at-Turkistani, Muhammad Khaidar Dulati, Kadyrgali Jalairi and others. They are proud not only the Kazakh people and Central Asia, but also the entire culture of the Muslim East. Their names are given to streets and avenues, universities and research institutes of Kazakhstan. We are proud of them. The valuable heritage left by great scholars is a treasure trove for us and will always inspire great deeds. Our ancestors left a great spiritual legacy. We must not only master them, but also study and read, because Islam is an indestructible part and support of culture and literature, art and moral values of the Kazakh people. Without the traditions of Islam, it is difficult to imagine the Kazakh culture. Islam was at different times and will be the main pillar of our spiritual development. Many different cultural, scientific and spiritual centers functioned on Kazakh soil – Otrar, Sutkent, Turkestan, Syganak, Barshynkent, Kipchak, Arkok, Zhend, Isfijab-Sayram, Taraz, Balasagun. If we talk about only one Otrar, then we can say that he gave the world Abu Nasra al-Farabi and other gifted scientists, who each made their own contribution to world culture. The vast majority of people know one great scientist – Abu Nasra al-Farabi (870-950). Did Otrar give the world only one Abu Nasr? Our studies show that more than 30 scientists, representatives of various branches of science, education, culture and religion were born and raised in only one Otrar. If information about the life and works of some of them has reached our time, then we know only about grains about others. However, they are very expensive for us. The article highlights the life and creative heritage of a medieval thinker, scientific teacher, Islamic scholar, a native of the city of Zernuzh (Zernuk) – [Burkhan ad-din] al-Numan bin Ibrahim bin Khalil Taj ad-din al-Zernuji (1206), author of the religious-pedagogical Arabic-language work “Talim al-mutaallim tarik al-ulum”. He was born in the city of Zernuj (Zernuk) (Farabsky Vilayat), on the banks of the Saykhun River (Syr-Darya) in the middle of the XI century and died in 1206. Until recently, his work as a textbook was used in various madrassas of both the Arab countries and the Ottoman Empire. Key words: Zernuj (Zernuk), Otrar (Farab), Islam, Mavenerennahr, the Holy Quran, ayat, hadith, Taliban, fiqh, Isfijab (Sairam)

Aristotle on the Proper Attitude Toward True Divinity

Aristotle does not explicitly state how it is that one should ideally relate to the true gods of his metaphysics, like the prime mover. He does, however, speak of an unreciprocated relationship of friendship (φιλία) between humans and such gods. I argue that Aristotle’s conception of the magnanimous person sheds light on that relationship. The magnanimous person, who is a philosopher, devalues humanity and devotes her life and efforts to the divine. Thus, contrary to some scholars, Aristotle’s conception of magnanimity resembles quite closely the ideals of humility and even “lowliness of spirit” presented by Aristotelian medieval thinkers such as Moses Maimonides. Aristotle’s endorsement of total devotion to the divine seems to go against the natural tendency of organisms to further their own lives and species. Nevertheless, I argue that this recommendation is consistent with his teleological view of nature.

Birds in Medieval English Poetry: Metaphors, Realities, Transformations by Michael J. Warren

Reviewed by: Birds in Medieval English Poetry: Metaphors, Realities, Transformations by Michael J. Warren Jenny Smith Warren, Michael J., Birds in Medieval English Poetry: Metaphors, Realities, Transformations (Nature and Environment in the Middle Ages), Cambridge, D. S. Brewer, 2018; hardback; pp. 269; 6 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £60.00; ISBN 9781843845089. Combining ornithological and literary history, this book is an important contribution to environmental history and ecocriticism, unpacking the complex relationships between human and other creatures and their shared environments. As Michael Warren points out, 'natural and cultural histories overlap': ornithological knowledge deepens our understanding of birds in medieval and modern culture (pp. 5–6). The five chapters analyse a range of texts chosen to show where 'metaphor and realities fuse and collide' (p. 10), allowing Warren to discuss natural and cultural history together. While 'a full exploration of how and why birds mattered' (p. 3) cannot be achieved in five case studies, other birds in other texts are mentioned throughout, and the choices and analyses bring out five distinct 'ways […] feathered physicality and transformation is embraced […] as part of poetic strategy' (p. 23) in England from the tenth to fifteenth centuries. In turn, each chapter illuminates a different aspect of metaphor. Birds have always been a powerful metaphor for human experience, being both like humans (voice, bipedality) and unlike (flight, feathers). As Warren [End Page 297] notes, medieval thinkers understood metaphor as an interrelation of likeness and unlikeness, making birds as a metaphor a rich study. The book focuses on particular ways birds both resemble and differ from humans, both physically and in social and ecological roles. Adaptability is another characteristic that could usefully have been discussed in a concluding chapter, had scope allowed. Chapter 1 discusses the flight of seabirds in The Seafarer as a metaphor for the pilgrimage of the soul. The argument's originality lies in its construction: Warren shows how the familiar littoral environment and the voices of the seabirds—which recall, but are not, the human voices of the hall—reframe the poem as homecoming, as well as exile (as in the more traditional reading). Chapter 2 explores how disguise and trickery among birds such as the cuckoo and jay illustrate and interrogate the boundaries of knowledge in the riddles of the Exeter Book. The focus on resemblance and illusion, on what we can and cannot know, drives a discussion of metaphor's uses in medieval pedagogy. Chapter 3 considers the (human) values attached to different species, embedded in metaphors like the owl's night-sight for spiritual blindness. In The Owl and the Nightingale, the problematic nature of such metaphors as both inaccurate and harmful to birds (owls are neither blind nor evil) is debated in the birds' own voices. Warren's analysis prompts us to think critically about medieval observation of animal kinds, and about what such observations can tell us about birds and about human–nonhuman relations. Throughout, Warren gives the Old English names of species, grounding the reader's understanding in the primary sources and allowing the non-specialist a richer experience. The cultural specificity of onomatopoeic bird names hints at another form of 'in-betweenness' between the metaphorical and the literal (p. 16). The cultural and linguistic moments embedded in such names could also inform studies of sound, accent, and rhyme, as well as of historical semantics, such as Warren's forthcoming work on birds in place-names. Chapter 4, on Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, explores the limits of language and cross-species translation (translatio being the Latin for Greek metaphora). Like the poet's struggle to express birds' voices in English, mystical language, allegory, and metaphor attempt the impossible. Warren's book asks, and his choice and analysis of texts attempts to show, 'what […] we lose, overlook or misrepresent that […] cannot be transferred' (p. 222). In Chapter 5, literal transformations in Gower's Confessio Amantis enable a discussion of desire and identity across species, recentring the physical in the cultural. This last chapter is for me one of the most striking and successful, as it shows how the metaphor of transformation establishes a more nuanced understanding of the physical and human world. 'In all aspects...

Проблема соотношения сущности (essentia) и существования (existentia) у Ф. Суареса в толковании М. Хайдеггера

The article is devoted to studying the problem of the relationship between essence and existence – one of the most important problems of medieval philo­sophy and at the same time one of the basic problem lines of M. Heidegger’s “fundamental ontology”. The author aims to reveal why it was so important for Heidegger to note the scholastic difference of essence and existence; why he ap­peals to and how he works with the texts of medieval thinkers what he pays spe­cial attention to and what conclusions comes to. Heidegger’s work focuses on F. Suarez’s treatise “Disputationes metaphysicae”. In his lecture course “Die Grundprobleme der Phänomenologie” Heidegger circumstantially and in detail analyses the thesis of medieval ontology about the relationship between essence and existence, paying particular attention to Suarez XXXI “Disputationes meta­physicae”. These works have served as the main source for this article. Analysing Heidegger’s reading of the Suarez’ text and its use in Heidegger’s on­tological constructions, the author comes to conclusion that Suarez’s and his forerunners’ reasoning could provide Heidegger with support in developing phe­nomenological ontology. The article shows that a comparison of F. Suares’ XXXI “Disputationes metaphysicae” with Heidegger’s Marburg lectures can help resolve the issue of to what extent new interpretations of medieval ap­proaches to the relationship between essence and existence have opened up the horizons for Heidegger’s radical ontological research.

Uszanowanie charakteru władzy w średniowieczu

CEL NAUKOWY: Celem naukowym niniejszego artykułu jest ukazanie charakteru władzy i szacunku do niej w pierwszych wiekach nowożytnej ery.
 PROBLEM I METODY BADAWCZE: Ponieważ dzisiaj władzy politycznej raczej się nie szanuje, warto się zastanowić nad tym fenomenem, analizując pierwsze wieki chrześcijaństwa i stawiając pytanie: jaki był charakter ówczesnej władzy? Odpowiedzi będziemy szukać, analizując główne nurty myśli teolo‑giczno‑politycznej tamtych czasów.
 PROCES WYWODU: Wychodząc od początków ludzkiego istnienia i potrzeby uporządkowania świata z chaosu spowodowanego grzechem, przeanalizowany zostanie charakter władzy pierwszych wieków chrześcijaństwai średniowiecza. Począwszy od Jezusa Chrystusa, naukę św. Pawła, a później trzech wariantów rządów według Euzebiusza z Cezarei, św. Augustyna oraz św. Ambrożego i św. papieża Gelazego I, będziemy dowodzić, iż władza bierze swój początek w Bogu, by później poprzez władzę Kościoła i cesarza zaprowadzać porządek i pokój w świecie.
 WYNIKI ANALIZY NAUKOWEJ: Analiza poglądów schyłku starożytności i średniowiecza dowodzi, iż istniały trzy rodzaje rozumienia władzy: prymat cesarza przy współudziale Kościoła (Euzebiusz z Cezarei), wyrazista wyższość władzy kościelnej nad świecką i pogańską (św. Augustyn) oraz rozdział pomiędzy władzą kościelną i świecką (św. Ambroży i św. papież Gelazy I).
 WNIOSKI, INNOWACJE, REKOMENDACJE: Analiza charakteru władzy z pierwszych wieków chrześcijaństwa i średniowiecza dowodzi, iż powszechnie okazywano szacunek zarówno władzy kościelnej, jak i świeckiej, uzasadniając taką postawę jej boską naturą i jednocześnie troską o dobro wspólne. Mądrość, która płynie od chrześcijańskich i średniowiecznych myślicieli, winna być zatem poważnym bodźcem do refleksji nad charakterem i stosunkiem do władzy we współczesnej cywilizacji demokratycznej.

Porwanie do „trzeciego nieba”. Tomasz z Akwinu o doświadczeniu mistycznym

The author of the present paper tackles the questions related to mystical experience in St. Thomas’ Aquinas writings. He demonstrates that according to the medieval thinker, assuming the belief of impossibility of experiencing vision of the divine essence in this life, mystical experience of Moses and St. Paul (raptus) should be considered as temporary and transient, that only happens once. Such experience transcendshuman natural powers since it is God who takes the initiative in rapture. It also remains passive in itself as it occupies only human intellect which is the one to see the divine essence, while the body remains in dormant state. What is more, this experience is limited because someone who experiences rupture is unable to communicate accurately what exactly had happened to him. Therefore, mystical experience in this life was not of primary importance for St. Thomas. He was more attracted by the direct visual perception of God promised in the Holy Scripture, its implication being that in the supernatural domain the eternal act of knowing God and communion with Him persists. During the visio the object of cognition is more active than its subject. By the infusion of divine light (lumen gloriae) human cognitive abilities are intensifi ed until raptus becomes able to see the divine essence. Naturally, the bestowed grace of seeing God and its intensity depends on experienced intensity of love (caritas) and desire of receiving such grace. It results from the above that saints do not have the same knowledge of God and do not reach the same level of happiness. The chosen can reach it in accordance with their merits and God’s will. However, in the state of salvation the nature of human cognition will not change, since the same human being strives for happiness on earth and reaches it in heaven, realising at the same time his non-self-suffi ciency in reaching this state. This problem lies at the core of Thomas’ inquiry into visio beatifi cans.

Three Concepts of Tyranny in Western Medieval Political Thought

During the Latin Middle Ages, as today, “tyranny” connotes the exercise of power arbitrarily, oppressively, and violently. Medieval thinkers generally followed in the footprints of early Christian theologians (e.g., Gregory the Great and Isidore of Seville) and ancient philosophers (especially Aristotle) regarding the tyrant as the very embodiment of evil rulership and thus as the polar opposite of the king, who governed for the good of his people according to virtue and religion. However, examination of the writings of some well-known and influential authors from ca. 1150 to ca. 1400—including John of Salisbury, Ptolemy of Lucca, William of Ockham, Bartolous of Sassoferrato, and Nicole Oresme—reveals three very diverse and distinct conceptions of tyranny, each of which justified the tyrant in one way or another.

Manuscript copies of Navoi’s “Arba’in”

It was a tradition to interpret Arba’in's "Chihil Hadith" in the Oriental classic literature, that is, to compile a total of 40 hadiths and explain its meanings to ordinary people. Observations show that each era has its "Arba’in", which has a clear theme and purpose. From the Prophet Muhammad (saas): "Whoever memorizes the forbidden I of my hadiths and teaches it and teaches it to others, it will be under my shade on the Day of Judgment." Therefore, they have sought to memorize 40 of the hadiths and convey them to the people. The word "Arba’in" means: -40. It also means to sit for 40 days, that is, for 40 days of sufis, and 40 days after the death of the Sufis and 40 days after their death. Forty days are called the period of purification.
 The medieval thinkers have selected more than 40 of the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) with respect to different moral and Islamic rules. They have tried to explain the meaning and meaning of the forty hadiths to the public. They used the prose and the verse in a productive way.
 In this article we aim to provide some information about manuscripts of Arba’in, which is kept in the main fund of the Abu Reikhan Beruniy Oriental Manuscript Center at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies.

A thirteenth-century theory of speech.

This historical paper examines a pioneering theory of speech production and perception from the thirteenth century. Robert Grosseteste (c.1175—1253) was a celebrated medieval thinker, who developed an impressive corpus of treatises on the natural world. This paper looks at his treatise on sound and phonetics, De generatione sonorum [On the Generation of Sounds]. Through interdisciplinary analysis of the text, this paper finds a theory of vowel production and perception that is notably mathematical, with a formulation of vowel space rooted in combinatorics. Specifically, Grosseteste constructs a categorical space comprising three fundamental types of movements pertaining to the vocal apparatus: linear, circular, and dilational-constrictional; these correspond to similarity transformations of translation, rotation, and uniform scaling, respectively. That Grosseteste's space is categorical, and low-dimensional, is remarkable vis-a-vis current theories of phoneme perception. As well as his description of vowel space, Grosseteste also sets out a hypothetical framework of multisensory integration, uniting the production, perception, and representation in writing of vowels with a set of geometric figures associated with “mental images.” This has clear resonances with contemporary studies of motor facilitation during speech perception and audiovisual speech. This paper additionally provides an experimental foray, illustrating the coherence of mathematical and scientific thinking underpinning this early theory.

COSMIC POTENTIAL OF THE HUMAN BEING

The article analyzes the conceptual certainty of the cosmic basis of humanexistence. Man is considered as an organic and active part of the Cosmos. Moreover, human personality manifestations are various, they are not reduced to any one way of being. They realize the connection of a man with the environment, with other people, with himself in different being states and, finally, with Cosmos in its universality. The last connection is carried out at the spiritual level in the form of knowledge and other spiritual forms.The author focuses on the fact that the spirit is the space in which the human personality is formed as a spiritual being. Spirit, in turn, is associated with the cosmic existence of man, because it is a specific formation, which accumulates the spiritual energy of mankind, above its manifestation, through which the process of self-development of the Cosmos is carried out.By asserting itself in the world, a person is constantly searching foropportunities to take root in it. The universe opens boundless horizons before it, but they must be understood, mastered, appropriated. This is what determines the constant spiritual exploration, measurements of infinity, polyphonic silence voiced by means of philosophy.In theoretical explanations of the appearance of human, there are more and more people who, first of all, connect human existence with space. In antiquity and the Middle Ages, man was determined by the fact that he belonged to the general structure of the space. Thus, for example, the problem of all neoplaton anthropology, starting with Plato and Proclus, was the ratio of the human mind to the world mind.The famous medieval thinker Ibn Gebirol expressed confidence in the identity of human and the universe. In Ukrainian philosophical thought, the idea of human cosmic origin is essentially traditional. It is most vividly expressed by Hryhori Skovoroda. The relationship between macro- and microcosmos is constantly being clarified on the pages of his works.The fundamental difference between the philosophers’ desire for wisdom and the scientists for erudition is hidden in their relation to knowledge. The undervaluing of philosophy and philosophical knowledge has led to the fact that modern research in cosmology, biology and neuroscience is completely unrelated and does not enrich each other through explorations. In the philosophical tradition, knowledge is the way to the Divine, or, in the terminology of Modern philosophy, it is the way to the ontology of the cosmos. Thus, there’s a lot of evidence of human cosmic origin and cosmic connections.By space in this case, we mean the universe, what is beyond it, including the latter as part of it. This world of space is represented by science as a set of galaxies, star clusters, processes of transformation of one material state into another. And only the ability of an individual to assert himself under any conditions makes a human being a real beginning of human existence. It is potentially contained in the cosmic origin of man, but it is realized by him in the personal space between and non-existence.

Die Bewältigung der Welt

Summary Coping with the World. How Medieval Latin Authors Described the Size and Density of World’s Population This paper takes a dual approach to the topic of medieval demographic thinking between the 13th and 15th century. In a first step, the analysis focusses on travel accounts (e. g. those of John of Plano Carpini, William of Rubruk and Marco Polo) and their depiction of foreign regions and populations. Many Latin Christian travellers shared the impression that the Mongolian steppe was only sparsely populated, quite in contrast to the urban centres in eastern China, which they described in great detail. While most travellers were fascinated by the densely populated areas of the East, other authors and cartographers (e. g. Bartholomeus Anglicus, Roger Bacon, Andreas Walsperger), who did not travel themselves, reacted rather pusillanimously. The paper analyses their rather theoretical statements in a second step. It shows that the huge number of Non-Christians worried those who stayed back. They felt that ‘Christianity’ was under threat. Even more, they equated Christianity with Europe and compared ‘their’ part of the earth to the (infidel) continents of Africa and Asia. Thus, the knowledge that the travellers gained on their journeys was stripped of its admiring character and condensed into a much more negative and anxious point of view. The empirical experience might have given the impulse to think afresh about the distribution of the population of the world, but it was not necessary for the interpretation of this observation. The paper serves as a case study about how knowledge was adapted and interpreted in quite different contexts.

Fernando de Roa y la recepción de la filosofía práctica de Aristóteles

En este trabajo se expone la manera como Fernando de Roa, catedrático salmantino del siglo xv, recibe la filosofía práctica de Aristóteles. El artículo desarrolla la explicación roense de tres de los tópicos principales de la ética y política clásica: la justicia como virtud social, la servidumbre natural y la felicidad como fin del hombre. Roa, en sus repeticiones, así como en sus comentarios a la Política, se centra en estos problemas y los aborda con un aristotelismo renovado y moderno, que tiene como base las ideas de Pedro de Osma y de los grandes pensadores medievales.

Mental disorder and mysticism in the late medieval world.

During the later Middle Ages, a number of religiously oriented people behaved in ways that we would consider unusual, yet it was unusual for them to be regarded as mentally disordered. This article reviews late medieval thinking and practice with regard to mental disorder and also with regard to the discernment of spirits, that is, how it could be decided whether an experience or impulse to do something was the consequence of God or a good spirit, an evil spirit, or some purely human cause. Many of the criteria for discerning a good spirit were behavioral, for example, consistently showing humility and discretion, and were clearly distinct from those displayed in mental disorder. A comparison of the criteria for mental disorder with those used to discern spirits shows how the distinction between mental disorder and religious experience could have been made and why confusion of the two seems to have been rare. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Simplicity and Language: Bonaventure's Semiotic Asymptoticism

AbstractLuy engages in a close reading of Bonaventure's doctrine of divine simplicity. He offers this reading in light of a keen awareness of contemporary critiques of the doctrine, especially from philosophers of religion who suggest that divine simplicity either means that our human words really cannot say anything intelligible about God, or that divine properties that are surely distinct (such as justice and goodness) are in fact absolutely identical. In sum, Luy recognizes that the doctrine of simplicity challenges the intelligibility of religious language. He points out that medieval thinkers, too, recognized this challenge, but they regarded it as a salutary reminder that God is ultimately incomprehensible to finite minds, even though we can speak true things about God. In expositing divine simplicity according to Bonaventure, Luy shows that Bonaventure expects that creation itself is designed to reveal God's limitless self‐communication. Divine simplicity, then, serves to affirm divine perfection, in a manner limited by the effort of finite words to express the infinite; but divine simplicity also reflects the “semiotic universe” that allows for, and exalts in, the wondrous expression of the divine plenitude.

Middle English Marvels: Magic, Spectacle, and Morality in the Fourteenth Century. Tara Williams. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018. Pp. vii+176.

<i>Middle English Marvels: Magic, Spectacle, and Morality in the Fourteenth Century</i>. Tara Williams. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018. Pp. vii+176.

Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies

Reviewed by: Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies Raymond Hain Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary by Brian Davies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), xxviii + 485 pp. Brian Davies's Thomas Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles: A Guide and Commentary comes two years after the publication of his delightfully (some would say quixotically) ambitious Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae: A Guide and Commentary. Like the first, this second book "aims to be introductory, if also comprehensive, and it does not presume that its reader is already familiar with medieval thinking" (xvii). But while both volumes run close to five hundred pages, the much shorter length of the Summa contra gentiles [SCG] allows Davies a little more breathing room, and the result is a smooth and thoughtful overview of the entire text immensely useful for nonspecialists and worth consulting for specialists. After a brief discussion of Aquinas's life and writings, Davies rejects the view that the SCG was written to aid missionaries, Dominican or otherwise, and instead claims (with the help of the opening chapters of the SCG) that Aquinas has provided "an extended essay in natural theology" in books I–III and then offers "defenses of the articles of faith" in book IV. "And that," he concludes, "is all that we can confidently refer to [End Page 1291] when it comes to the question 'Why did Aquinas write the SCG?'" (15). (But why the need to remark in a footnote that Aquinas "does refer to Islam" in these sections, offering "a brief tirade against Mohammed," even though this "little anti-Islamic outburst" is hardly evidence of a missionary purpose? [397]) Of the remaining seventeen chapters, eight address God's existence, nature, and creative power, six address creatures and their relation to God's providential plan, and the final three address the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the sacraments and salvation. Each chapter follows the same plan: a section of the SCG is explained, with copious quotations and sometimes exhaustive (and exhausting) lists of arguments with lots of examples to make Aquinas's claims both clear and attractive. Each expository section is then followed by Davies's own evaluation of the text. These are the most interesting and readable sections (and worth perusing for a specialist working on the topic at hand), and they make many references to contemporary challenges one might offer to Aquinas, as well as arguments in defense of, and occasionally critical of, Aquinas's views. Davies is most comfortable, and confident, in the eight chapters on God. These make up more than one third of his text (though treating about one fifth of the SCG), and an entire chapter is spent on SCG I, chapter 13 (arguments for God's existence). Davies is certain that Aquinas's arguments for God's existence are not obvious failures, but stops short of calling them successful demonstrations. "My view is that [whether or not they are successful demonstrations] is not an easy question to answer since some of the arguments contain stages that are difficult to understand" (45). Like most defenders of Aquinas, he constructs an example of a causal chain with two types of causes. If my hand holds a stack of books, then each book keeps the book above it from falling to the ground. But my hand is a cause of a different sort, something "whose causal power runs through the chain in such a way as to make the members of the chain do what they do or be what they are" (52). But does Davies think the arguments work? As he often does throughout the commentary, he ends only by quoting from another Aquinas scholar, in this case Edward Feser's defense of this type of argument, and then concludes: "I take it that Feser is suggesting that something that actually exists, but does not have to exist, is potentially nonexistent, and that its sheer existence depends on it being actualized by what cannot not-exist" (55). The remaining chapters on God focus on the divine attributes, which flow (as they do in the parallel questions in the Summa theologiae) from...