The Intercultural, Educational, and Interdisciplinary Borderlines -- Intercultural Encounters, Discord, and Discovery: Medieval Times Amid Evil Times? -- The Dialogical Paradigm -- Al-Kindi on Education: Curriculum Theorizing and the Intercultural Minhaj -- Intercultural Farabism: Towards a Tripartite Model of Dialogical Education -- Rihla as the Sojourner's Deliverer from Error: Al-Ghazali's Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Journey of Epistemic Crisis -- The Averroesian Deliberative Pedagogy of Intercultural Education -- Concluding Thoughts and Implications.

The purpose of this study was to identify the relationship of the philosophy of Moses Maimonides to his educational ideas.It looks at the educational theories and practices that Maimonides advocated and the extent to which these educational ideas related to the philosophical principals expoused by Maimonides.

En las sociedades islámicas medievales, las convenciones culturales y las normas sociales tenían un papel importante en la educación, pero los pensadores musulmanes también prestaron atención a las diferencias individuales entre los estudiantes y a la necesidad de ajustar tanto el contenido de la enseñanza como los métodos educativos al contexto familiar de esos estudiantes, así como a sus habilidades personales, sus inclinaciones y sus aspiraciones. Esto pudo deberse no sólo a la herencia de los "árabes preislámicos y del Islam (...) temprano" como sugirió S. D. Goitein, sino también a la influencia cultural extranjera (por ejemplo, griega), especialmente en el ámbito del pensamiento educativo. En principio, podría parecer que el kuttab ofrecería menos atención individualizada a los que allí estudiaban que otras instituciones educativas. Sin embargo, los ulemas, en general, tenían en mente al estudiante individual cuando discutían asuntos de educación elemental, tales como el currículum, la edad de admisión del niño, la selección de métodos educativos apropiados, los juegos de los niños, la compañía de otros niños, la selección de una profesión para el niño y la participación del padre en la educación formal. (shrink)

In rich detail Jonathan Berkey interprets the social and cultural consequences of Islam's regard for knowledge, showing how education in the Middle Ages played a central part in the religious experience of nearly all Muslims. Focusing on Cairo, which under Mamluk rule was a vital intellectual center with a complex social system, the author describes the transmission of religious knowledge there as a highly personal process, one dependent on the relationships between individual scholars and students. The great variety of institutional (...) structures, he argues, supported educational efforts without ever becoming essential to them. By not being locked into formal channels, religious education was never exclusively for the elite but was open to all. Berkey explores the varying educational opportunities offered to the full run of the Muslim population--including Mamluks, women, and the "common people." Drawing on medieval chronicles, biographical dictionaries, and treatises on education, as well as the deeds of endowment that established many of Cairo's schools, he explains how education drew groups of outsiders into the cultural center and forged a common Muslim cultural identity. Originally published in 1992. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Discusses songs by the troubadours, trouvères, and Guillaume de Machaut, performed live and on the page, in the context of antique, late antique, and medieval thought and poetic practice and in the light of later opera. Topics include cosmology, education, astronomy, breath, beasts, monsters, hybridity, imagination, life, and death.

Based in sociologist Zygmunt Bauman's theory of liquid modernity, this volume describes and critiques key aspects and practices of liquid education--education as market-driven consumption, short life span of useful knowledge, overabundance of information--through a systematic comparison with ancient Greek "paideia" and medieval university education, producing a sweeping analysis of the history and philosophy of education for the purpose of understanding current higher education, positing a more holisitic alternative model in which students are embedded in a learning commutity that is (...) itself embedded in a larger society. If liquid modernity has left a vacuum where, according to Bauman, the pilot's cabin is empty, this volume argues that no structure is better positioned to fill this vacuum than the university and outlines a renewed vision of social transformation through higher education. (shrink)

The endowment of religious, charitable, and educational enterprises by the establishment of trusts in land, the income from which could be devoted to such uses, was an immensely popular form of pious expression in both medieval Christendom and the Islamic world. The motives for, and applications of such endowments differed markedly, however, between the two religious cultures. The endowment of prayers and masses for beneficiaries, living and dead, exemplified the sacramental and sacerdotal quality of pre-Reformation Christianity. This ritualistic and (...) ecclesiastical use of endowments in Latin Christian Europe and the Orthodox East, a use dependent on the existence of a sacramental system and an institutional church, contrasted sharply with the broader application of the Muslim waqf, by means of which pious individuals and groups sponsored a wide variety of charities, explicitly life-oriented and quite unconnected with a corporate clerical establishment. The infinite multiplication of private acts of charity by devout Muslims manifested the moralistic bent of Islam, which aspired to recast society according to the norms of the Qur'an and sacred law. The contrasting uses to which the two religious systems put the gifts and legacies of the faithful reflected the operation of fundamentally different religious premises, whereas the institutionalization of these premises in a shared legal fiction, the trust, assured their enforcement in society and life. (shrink)

This article examines an uncommon materialist argument preserved in late medieval Prague quodlibets by Matthias of Knín (1409) and Prokop of Kladruby (1417). The argument connects the Galenic claim that the human body has the noblest and best-balanced complexion possible with the Alexandrist claim that the human rational soul emerges from such well-balanced matter without any supernatural intervention. Of the various medieval renderings of these claims, John Wyclif’s De compositione hominis is singled out as the most probable source (...) of the argument. Far from attributing plain materialism to Wyclif, the article highlights a semimaterialist position, mentioned in two fifteenth-century De anima commentaries of Prague origin, grafting the immortal spirit postulate onto an Alexandrist-like doctrine of the intellect as educed from the harmoniously complexioned body. Finally, it is argued that this semimaterialist position may not only encapsulate how Bohemian masters read Wyclif, but also be close to Wyclif’s actual anthropological stance. (shrink)

Boethius’s De arithmetica, a Latin adaptation of Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic, was the only truly neo-pythagorean text available in the Latin Middle Ages. It played a major role in medieval education and thought, but its influence has not yet been fully explored. Studying the material remains is the best way to show the real place of the De arithmetica. Here is published for the first time a handlist of medieval commentaries on Boethius’s De arithmetica. This is (...) the first step toward writing a history of medieval neo-pythagoreanism. (shrink)

Lejos de los tópicos sobre el llamado "oscurantismo" medieval, la dinámica global socio-cultural de los siglos XI-XIII es de signo inequívocamente humanista, aunque su principal problema reside en conservar la tradición cristiana heredada, actualizándola y finalmente enriqueciéndola con las aportaciones de la ciencia árabe y el pensamiento aristotélico conocido en su esplendor. La creación de la Universidad, la reestructuración de los saberes bajo la guía de la ciencia aristotélica, los conflictos recurrentes por mor de mantener la hegemonía de la (...) teología en la formación del hombre medieval, se entienden mejor vistos desde la básica confrontación de dos concepciones del hombre en cuanto "imagen de Dios", una propendiendo a la sumisión y otra conducente a la autonomía. Entre ambas mediarán las grandes figuras: así Anselmo, Tomás o Escoto lo harán en distintos momentos del proceso y desde supuestos distintos, transmitiéndonos un modelo basado en la complementariedad jerarquizada de ambas perspectivas.Far of the topics about the so called medieval "obscurantism", the global sociocultural dynamic of the XI-XIII centuries is unequivocally humanist, although its main problem consists in conserving the inherited Christian tradition, rejuvenating as well as enriching it with the Arabian science and the aristotelian thought, known in their splendour. The creation of the University, the reconstruction of the knowledges with the guide of the Theology in the education of medieval man, can be better understood, looking at them from the basic confrontation of two conceptions of the man as "image of God": one of them, tending to the submission, and the other one tending to the autonomy. Between both tendencies, the great figures as Anselmo, Thomas or Scot will mediate an agreement. They do it in different moments of the process and from different suppositions. But they all transmit to us a model based in the complementary hierarchization of both perspectives. (shrink)

Theodore Metochites, a distinguished figure in the intellectual and political landscape of the early Palaiologan period (1261-1341), was born in Constantinople in 1270. The On Morals or Concerning Education is an extensive disquisition about the significance and status of cultural education (paideia) in the context of Palaiologan society. The oration might also be seen at least partly as an autobiographical narrative exposing Metochites's inner reflections and anxieties. The On Morals belongs to the genre of the protreptikos, a hortatory speech designed (...) to encourage its readers to study philosophy and attain virtue. With the On Morals Metochites sought to establish himself as a continuator of ancient moral philosophy in late Byzantium. (shrink)

In Alfonso de Cartagena's 'Memoriale virtutum' (1422) María Morrás and Jeremy Lawrance offer a new edition from the manuscripts of a compilation of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics addressed by the major Castilian intellectual of the day, bishop Alfonso de Cartagena, to the heir to the throne of Portugal, crown prince Duarte. The work was a speculum principis, an education for the future king in the virtues suitable to a statesman; Cartagena's choice of Aristotle was thus a significant index of the advent (...) of new Renaissance ideas. This edition shows how the "memorial" throws light on the ideological transformation of society those ideas would bring, setting new ethical guidelines for the ruling class at the crossroads between medieval feudalism and Renaissance absolutism. (shrink)

Liturgy and ritual -- Structure -- Curriculum.

A Companion to Medieval Christian Humanismexplores Christian humanism in the writings of key medieval thinkers. It explores questions pertaining to human dignity, the human person's place in the cosmos, and the educational ideals involved in shaping the human person.

Although this paper is a written version of an inaugural lecture given at the University of Sheffield in December 1995, its central thesis is that, in a postmodern age, the practice of professors of education giving inaugural lectures is incoherent. To advance this thesis in an inaugural lecture entails an obvious contradiction which, it is proposed, can only be resolved by examining the historical origins of the inaugural lecture in the early medieval university. What emerges from this examination is (...) not only that there is a pre-modern version of the inaugural lecture but that the virtue-based understanding of education which it presupposed can be revised and advanced in the postmodern world. (shrink)

An awareness of the wide scope of medieval logic and the role it played in university education at all levels, together with the way it was used in writings on both science and theology, is crucial for the historian of medieval thought. The growth of this awareness since the mid-twentieth century is shown by the ongoing expansion of editorial work, together with the discussion of the logic actually found in such prominent authors as Aquinas and Scotus. It has (...) gone hand in hand with the use of developments in modern logic. First came the realization that medieval logic extended beyond basic Aristotelian syllogistic, and could be related to modern developments in propositional and quantificational logic in... (shrink)

Whereas feminist theory has revitalized our understanding of the culture of medieval Europe, gay theory has only recently begun to review and rewrite that period of our past. Simon Gaunt, writing in 1992, offered several explanations for this state of affairs—including the homophobia of many educational institutions and a notable lack of visible gay scholars in the field. But the following explanation, I think, goes deepest, and is historically the most intractable. However much medieval women may have differed (...) from modern women, he reminds us, they are “clearly and prominently visible within [medieval] systems of representation.” Though we need to reconstruct their experience with care, since most of the records were produced by men, there is nonetheless no shortage of material. Not so for men whose desire was stirred by other men: “one of the prime difficulties in conducting research on the experience of gay people in the Middle Ages is simply lack of data. With whose experience do we identify?”. (shrink)

"The role of logic in the Middle Ages. Regarding the role of logic within the framework of arts and sciences during the Middle Ages, we have to distinguish two related aspects, one institutional and the other scientific. As to the first aspect, we have to remember that the medieval educational system was based on the seven liberal arts, which were divided into the trivium, i.e., three arts of language, and the quadrivium, i.e., four mathematical arts. The so-called trivial arts (...) were grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and during a period of several centuries virtually every educated person, at least every university graduate, received a training in these matters, especially in logic. Students in the medieval faculty of arts probably spent more time studying logic than any other discipline. This first -- institutional -- aspect concerning the role of logic is explained by the second -- scientific -- aspect. The trivial disciplines provided techniques of analysis and a technical vocabulary that permeate philosophical, scientific and theological writings. Logic, as mentioned before, was referred to and was generally regarded as the art of arts and the science of sciences. The increasing cultural dominance of the universities with their obligatory disputationes and their hierarchy of examinations on the one hand and the outstanding status of logic on the other were corresponding features of the educational world of the 13th century. The core of the logic curriculum from the 12th century onwards was provided by the logical works of Aristotle. These represented the material for the study of types of predication, the analysis of simple propositions or statements (2) and their relations of inference and equivalence, the analysis of modal propositions, of the structure and the types of the syllogism, dialectical topics, fallacies and scientific reasoning as based on the demonstrative syllogism. Medieval logicians, however, realized that there were other, non-Aristotelian, approaches to logical subjects, questions and methods that could be investigated.. (shrink)

Purpose: This paper aims at identifying how the Medieval Christian history provides insights, and suggests solutions in regard to present corruption-related social problems in in the modern world. The study is expected to show that the Church is a human organization that is dynamic rather than static, a community that does not have immunity over other forces operating on earth such as corruption. Methodology: Key data was acquired from literature materials dealing with the history of Christianity during the Middle (...) Ages or medieval period. The second group of literature materials provided information that has to do with the current social moral issues, with special focus on corruption. The study applies narrative method of literature review to fill the gaps on what corruption entails. Both qualitative and quantitative study designs were engaged. Findings: The desire for power and prestige, simony and investiture, feudalism, sale of indulgences, and nepotism are all identified with the medieval period church history. The Church must be given credit for the effort it put in eradicating those evils, and the modern Church’s challenge is to continue fighting for the same. The modern Church has been challenged to learn from the mistakes of the medieval Church and make sure that they are not repeated. Moral depravity, lack of proper education, poverty, land issues, and love of money have been highlighted as the key factors that contribute to the increase of corruption in Kenya and many other countries in Africa. Change of values, instilling of accountability systems, playing a mediating role, and establishing anti-corruption education are stated as the key methods that Christians should incorporate in their fight against corruption. Unique Contribution to theory, practice and policy: The Church of the medieval period portrayed a clear picture that the whole human society was subject to the will of God. In spite of the many pitfalls that accompanied Christianity, there still remained many faithful people who were true ambassadors of Christ. It must also be known that Christianity deserves unreserved credit for her forefront participation in the development of the modern societies. The church is recommended to take a forefront position in the fight against corruption. (shrink)

The paper delves into manuscript sources connected with various disputations held at Prague University from around 1390 to 1420 and singles out a set of hitherto unknown quaestiones dealing with the nature of the human intellect and its relation to the body. Prague disputations from around 1400 arguably offer a unique vantage point on late medieval anthropological issues, since they encompass an entanglement of numerous doctrinal influences from Buridanian De anima commentaries to John Wyclif’s theories. The paper delineates several (...) conceptual tensions regarding the nature of the intellect, e.g., between materialism (entailed by the emphasis on the intellect’s inherence in the body) and personal immortality. It presents several strategies Prague masters employed to overcome these tensions. For example, an anonymous participant of the 1409 quodlibet develops the Buridanian distinction between the rationally demonstrable materialist tendency and the indemonstrable “catholic truth” about the intellect both inhering in and separable from the body. On the other hand, Wyclif’s adherents (Jacob of Mies and another anonymous master) postulate an immortal spirit hypostatically united to each human being beside the human soul educed from the potency of the matter. Yet, the boundaries between the doctrinal standpoints in question seem permeable, whereby a rigid definition of antagonistic groups in late medieval Prague intellectual milieu (e.g., Buridanians vs Wycliffites) is rendered ineffective. (shrink)

One of the essential features of the history of Islam and Muslim religious spirituality is the cult of knowledge. Islam has developed a completely different model of the relationship between faith and knowledge, knowledge of God and knowledge of the universe, religion, and science than that which was characteristic of Christianity. For centuries, this difference will be startling: we will see the European civilization, where the church authorities brutally destroyed the germs of free thought and scientific thought and Muslim civilization, (...) where the cult of knowledge acquired a sacred dimension. The widespread development of medieval Muslim culture, science and art, which has made a significant contribution to the development of world scientific thought, has been posited as the embodiment of Muslims in the life of one of the main religious duties - the acquisition of knowledge, since the path to knowledge is interpreted in Islam as a way to comprehend power and the mercy of the Almighty. "There is no better worship for Allah than gaining knowledge" - it will be written on Maktabas and madrasah. Teachers and students will quote the verses of the Qur'an: "O Lord! Increase my knowledge "! Each new Muslim ruler - from the Caliph to his advisers and ministers - had to build a mosque, his own mausoleum and... a library. (shrink)

Parmi les études, de plus en plus nombreuses, consacrées à l’histoire des jeunes, les travaux centrés uniquement sur la jeune fille médiévale sont rares. On a tenté de construire son histoire en exploitant des sources qui, a priori, offraient davantage de renseignements : contrats d’apprentissage, récits de miracles, sources littéraires, traités de médecine ou de pédagogie, etc. De précieux renseignements ont été obtenus sur sa vie quotidienne : relations familiales, éducation, travail, et su...

The Byzantine influence was at the very origins of the formation of various philosophic ideas in the medieval Russia. A major factor responsible for this influence was the Orthodox Church. Thus, it was owing to Byzantium that the foundations of Russian philosophy were laid and all its subsequent developments cannot be properly understood without considering the Byzantine influence.

Introduction. Higher education plays a particularly important role in the development of a country. The goal of the article is to describe the development of concepts about education in general and higher education in particular to explain the role of education in social life. Humboldt sees higher education as a process toward freedom and the search for true truth. Humboldt's philosophy of higher education is an indispensable requirement in the context of people struggling to escape the influence of the state (...) and church forces. The purpose is to find out the content and principles of higher education, especially meaningful suggestions for building an autonomous education in Vietnam today. Materials and Methods. The article uses materialist dialectic to analyze Humboldt's philosophy of higher education. In addition, the article also uses methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and contrast to clarify views on education in the history of human thought from ancient, medieval, modern and modern times, from which to draw the basic contents and principles in the philosophy of higher education of Humboldt. Results and Discussion. Humboldt is the founder of the University of Berlin - known as the mother of modern universities. It is a new university model based on the philosophy of upholding freedom in learning and teaching, upholding the scientific spirit to seek and discover the truth, and at the same time, combining teaching with scientific research. His liberal education philosophy has contributed to affirming the strength and position of universities. He criticized state intervention in university institutions. Based on the anthropological foundation of emphasizing human diversity, Humboldt's higher education philosophy is truly liberating when it comes to bold views. Humboldt believes that a university is a pure place of science and research, so it is not influenced by any outside force, even from the state. A university is where academic freedom, scientific freedom and other autonomy are guaranteed so that the institution can run smoothly. Universities must have unity between research and teaching. However, Humboldt's philosophy of higher education still contains many issues that need to be considered thoroughly. Specifically, the promotion of internal self-determination requires financial autonomy while the state's investment capital in universities is still quite large; Calling for education to be privatized is still inadequate. The elitist spirit in the Humboldt model is no longer fully relevant in the context of a market economy that tends to lead to the pursuit of targets, which are often related to quality. Practical significance. Humboldt's liberal philosophy of higher education has a strong influence, dominates and becomes a reality in many countries with advanced education. For Vietnam, Humboldt's higher education philosophy is a meaningful suggestion to build an autonomous education under the country's socio-historical conditions. (shrink)

Bishop Robert Grosseteste and Lincoln Cathedral provides a much-needed and in-depth investigation of Grosseteste’s relationship to the medieval cathedral at Lincoln and the surrounding city. The architecture and topography of Lincoln Cathedral are examined in their cultural contexts, in relation to scholastic philosophy, science and cosmology, and medieval ideas about light and geometry, as highlighted in the writings of Robert Grosseteste - bishop of Lincoln Cathedral. At the same time the architecture of the cathedral is considered in relation (...) to the roles of the clergy and masons; the policies of the bishop; matters of governance, worship and education; ecclesiastical hierarchy, church liturgy, politics and processionals. Investigations include parallel studies of Salisbury Cathedral and Charlemagne’s Palatine Chapel at Aachen, highlighting important connections in regard to ceremonial itineraries and political/religious hierarchies. Finally, the book explores Grosseteste’s ideas in the broader context of medieval and Renaissance cosmologies, optics/perspective, natural philosophy and experimental science. The contributors to this volume make an important contribution to our current understanding of the relation between architecture, theology, politics and society during the Middle Ages, and how religious spaces were conceived and experienced. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humanism, Female Education, and Myth:Erasmus, Vives, and More's To CandidusA. D. CousinsWhen considering pleasure and chance as aspects of human experience, Thomas More sometimes gendered them female; that is to say, at times he represented them by drawing from the mythographies of Venus and of Fortune. But what did he suggest that actual women, as distinct from goddesses, were or should be or might become: what were his notions (...) of being a woman, of femaleness? Further, what did he suggest that women might contribute to the common weal? A useful way to start answering that question is to look at what More seems to have thought about educating women: in particular, women who were entering adult life—entering into what was agreed to be the major female role—by marrying for the first time and therefore newly taking upon themselves the management of a household. In one of his most ambitious Latin poems, as nowhere else, More wrote elaborately, concisely and problematically on the education of women who were in just those circumstances. My discussion attempts a repositioning of that poem, To Candidus: How to Choose A Wife A Poem in Iambic Dimeter Brachycatalectic (Versvs Iambici Dimetri Brachycatalectici ad Candidvm, Qvalis Vxor Deligenda). To make the attempt involves examining More's other Latin poems on women, as would be anticipated; however, I am mainly concerned here with affinities between To Candidus—then, to a lesser extent, some of More's associated Latin poems—and notions about female education that were or were to become part of the already long, and mostly male, debate about the nature of femaleness.1 To be [End Page 213] specific, I am chiefly concerned with affinities between More's poem and writings by Erasmus and by Vives on the education of prospective or of recent brides.Because the primary concern in my discussion is to clarify the relations between More's To Candidus and humanist notions on female education, especially notions put forward by two of More's humanist friends about young brides, I want initially to revisit the early modern debate on educating women, of course an important element of the wider debate about femaleness itself. One medieval and thence early modern idea on female education was that, in addition to what their mothers taught them, most women needed merely to receive religious and ethical instruction from their husbands, who would likewise instruct them in how to govern a household.2 After all, it was often pointed out, the household was women's natural domain: since, therefore, they would not normally engage with the world at large as would men—since, for example, they would not normally be educators, or writers, or politicians—women did not usually need the broad education appropriate to men.3 Assertion to the contrary was variously argued—and differences between or among those contrary assertions did not always depend on whether an author was male or female. In The Book of the City of Ladies (1405), a response to Boccaccio's De Mulieribus Claris and, perhaps unknowingly, also to Plutarch's The Virtues of Women, Christine de Pizan attempted to construct at once a refuge and a resource for [End Page 214] women, whom she recognized as having been misrepresented to themselves no less than to men throughout generations of misogynistic male fictions, ranging from satire to epic, from fable to history.4 Her City, in so far as it is a revisionist history of women, forms a textual space which does indeed offer a refuge as well as a resource, for Christine advocates that women, fulfilling their capabilities as women, aim at "cultivat[ing] virtue" and thereby gaining inclusion in the true, illustrious record of female achievement: membership of a textual community within which they will see themselves reflected and which is at one with the City of God.5 Inseparable from their seeking to do so, she emphasizes, will be their receiving education.6 Despite that emphasis—and despite her emphasizing that women are men's intellectual equals or, not infrequently, superiors—Christine nevertheless defends the concept that the domestic sphere and not the public is in general that "appropriate" to women.7... (shrink)

This chapter discusses the reception of The Classic of Filial Piety (Xiaojing孝經) from medieval to late imperial China. Based on the records found in Scripta Sinica database, we see the way in which female biographies indicate the increasing importance of The Classic of Filial Piety in female education during late imperial China. Male biographies, however, demonstrate the opposite trend. I suggest this phenomenon does not reflect the decline in its male readership, but rather a change in the status of (...) the book. I then discuss how the text played a significant role in political culture before medieval period and became mainly a primer after Southern Song. The marginalization of the text in political and elite circles caused it to figure less prominently in male biographies. In addition, this chapter also discusses certain aspects related to The Classic of Filial Piety and female education, as well as the revival of the study of the Canon during the late Ming and how the book regained its political importance by the support of the Qing state. (shrink)

Contents Acknowledgements vii Illustrations ix Preface xi Further Bibliography of A.C. Crombie xiii 1 Designed in the Mind: Western visions of Science, Nature and Humankind 1 2 The Western Experience of Scientific Objectivity 13 3 Historical Perceptions of Medieval Science 31 4 Robert Grosseteste 39 5 Roger Bacon [with J.D. North] 51 6 Infinite Power and the Laws of Nature: A Medieval Speculation 67 7 Experimental Science and the Rational Artist in Early Modern Europe 89 8 Mathematics and (...) Platonism in the Sixteenth-Century Italian Universities and in Jesuit Educational Policy 115 9 Sources of Galileo Galilei’s Early Natural Philosophy 149 10 The Jesuits and Galileo’s Ideas of Science and of Nature [with A. Carugo] 165 11 Galileo and the Art of Rhetoric [with A. Carugo] 231 12 Galileo Galilei: A Philosophical Symbol 257 13 Alexandre Koyré and Great Britain: Galileo and Mersenne 263 14 Marin Mersenne and the Origins of Language 275 15 Le Corps à la Renaissance: Theories of Perceiver and Perceived in Hearing 291 16 Expectation, Modelling and Assent in the History of Optics: i, Alhazen and the Medieval Tradition; ii, Kepler and Descartes 301 17 Contingent Expectation and Uncertain Choice: Historical Contexts of Arguments from Probabilities 357 18 P.-L. Moreau de Maupertuis, F.R.S. : Précurseur du Transformisme 407 19 The Public and Private Faces of Charles Darwin 429 20 The Language of Science 439 21 Some Historical Questions about Disease 443 22 Historians and the Scientific Revolution 451 23 The Origins of Western Science 465 Appendix to Chapter 10: 479 Sources and Dates of Galileos Writings [with A. Carugo] Pietro Redondi, Galileo eretico [with A. Carugo] Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier Corrections to Science, Optics and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought 495 Index 497. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Meaning of “Aristotelianism” in Medieval Moral and Political ThoughtCary J. NedermanI. “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” are words that students of medieval ideas use constantly and almost inescapably. 1 The widespread usage of these terms by scholars in turn reflects the popularity of Aristotle’s thought itself during the Latin Middle Ages: Aristotle provided many of the raw materials with which educated Christians of the Middle Ages built up (...) the edifice of medieval thought. From 1100 it was difficult to receive a good education in Europe without reading at least some Aristotle, along with authors such as Boethius and Cicero who were heavily indebted to the Philosopher’s teachings. After 1200 no university-trained cleric was likely to be wholly unfamiliar with the essential characteristics of the Aristotelian world-view. 2 Thus, Aristotelianism constituted an indispensable common currency of intellectual intercourse during the Middle Ages.Yet at the same time medieval Aristotelianism could never be all-embracing or complete. Given the centrality of Christian religion to medieval Latin thought, it was effectively impossible for Western thinkers to accept basic tenets of Aristotle’s philosophy, such as the nature of the soul, the powers of God, and the source of ultimate human happiness. 3 In view of the [End Page 563] incompatibility of primary Aristotelian and Christian doctrines, no author in medieval Europe could faithfully or safely espouse an unalloyed Aristotelianism.The “Aristotelianism” of the Middle Ages thus possesses something of a paradoxical quality: it is everywhere and yet nowhere. Such uncertainty about the precise meaning and appropriate application of the ascriptions “Aristotelian” and “Aristotelianism” has led some intellectual historians to raise fundamental questions about the validity of these classifications. In a provocative article on the interpretation of “Aristotelianism” in medieval and Renaissance natural philosophy, Edward Grant poses this problem quite pointedly: “What criteria have to be met for one to be considered, say an Aristotelian...? Can such criteria even be formulated? Is there an essence of Aristotelianism... that might provide a means of determining who is, and who is not, a legitimate member of [this group?]” 4 Grant’s own attempts to solve this problem are geared to the particular circumstances of medieval cosmology and physics, fields in which the Aristotelian paradigm entered Latin thought rapidly and reigned unchallenged for three centuries. 5 Consequently, his solutions do not generalize well to other areas of philosophical discourse, such as moral and political philosophy, which experienced rather different processes of Aristotelian transmission and reception.It may therefore be fruitful to examine more carefully the meaning of Aristotelianism as applied specifically to the fields of ethics and politics, and indeed to question whether (or in what ways) the ascription of an Aristotelian outlook to medieval moral and political thought is warranted. In particular I propose to consider the two standard definitions of “Aristotelianism” that have emerged from the literature on the moral and political ideas of the Latin Middle Ages: a strict, essentialist account which holds that Aristotelianism requires endorsement of some salient core of Aristotelian writing or doctrine; and a looser approach which maintains that mere citation of Aristotle’s work or adoption of his language is sufficient to earn the label “Aristotelian” for a medieval text or thinker. While both of these conceptions of Aristotelianism enjoy certain distinct merits, each ultimately proves inadequate to cope with the complexities of the use of Aristotle’s moral and political ideas and texts during the Middle Ages.Does the failure of attempts to define “Aristotelianism” coherently mean that the term itself is a spurious or irrelevant category for the analysis of medieval ethics and political philosophy? I shall ultimately argue that it is possible to identify a coherent meaning of Aristotelianism in the political and moral realms that avoids the shortcomings associated with previous interpretations. Specifically, I claim that the medieval “Aristotelian” tradition is [End Page 564] held together by a particular organization of and orientation towards the kind of knowledge necessary for achieving human good in its moral and political dimensions. Stated succinctly, Aristotelianism posits the practical quality of the study of ethics and politics and hence the value of such knowledge insofar as it guides action. In my view the Aristotelianism... (shrink)

Originally published in 1973,this book describes the medieval origins of the British education system, and the transformations successive historical events – such as the Reformation, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution – have wrought on it. It examines the effect on the educational pattern of such major cultural upheavals as the Renaissance; it looks at the different parts played by church and state, and the influence of new social and educational philosophies.

In this volume, Randall B. Smith provides a revisionist account of the scholastic culture that flourished in Paris during the High Middle Ages. Exploring the educational culture that informed the intellectual and mental habits of Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure, he offers an in-depth study of the prologues and preaching skills of these two masters. Smith reveal the intricate interrelationships between the three duties of the master: lectio, disputatio, and praedicatio. He also analyzes each of Aquinas and Bonaventure's prologues from their (...) student days to their final works, revealing both their artistry and their instructional character. Written in an engaging style, this book serves as an invaluable resource that will enable scholars and students to read thirteenth-century sermons, prologues, and biblical commentaries with greater understanding and ease. (shrink)

Originally published in 1973,this book describes the medieval origins of the British education system, and the transformations successive historical events – such as the Reformation, the Civil War and the Industrial Revolution – have wrought on it. It examines the effect on the educational pattern of such major cultural upheavals as the Renaissance; it looks at the different parts played by church and state, and the influence of new social and educational philosophies.

The Bible in the Middle Ages, much like the Bible today, consisted for the laity not of a set of texts within a canon but of those stories which, partly because of their liturgical significance and partly because of their picturesque and memorable qualities, formed a provisional “Bible” in the popular imagination. Even relatively devout and educated moderns may be surprised by what is, and what is not, biblical. The medieval popular Bible took shape within an encyclopedic tradition largely (...) responsible for the variety of materials now associated with the Bible. Prior to and even after full-scale Reformation translations, biblical material was disseminated in the vernaculars through sermons, homilies, commentaries, universal histories, picture Bibles, the drama, and a large corpus of biblical paraphrases. Each of those literary forms owes debts to the others, but a significant influence on them all, and especially those produced in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century France and England, is Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica. (shrink)

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION B he Vedas tell of a conversation between a young man, Shvetaketu, and his father concerning what the son had learned in his education ...

In Volume One of Ernest Fortin: Collected Essays, the renowned theologian and political philosopher examines various facets of the unique encounter between biblical religion and Greek philosophy during the early Christian centuries and the Middle Ages. Fortin's aim is to uncover the crucial issues to which this encounter gave rise, such as the sometimes troubling but immensely fruitful tension between divine revelation and philosophic reason. The book includes sections on St. Augustine and the refounding of Christianity; the encounter between Jerusalem (...) and Athens; the medieval roots of Christian education; and Dante and the politics of Christendom. (shrink)