This volume explores emotion in medieval and early modern thought, and opens a contemporary debate on the way emotions figure in our cognitive lives.

This volume offers a new and comprehensive study of a central aspect of Henry of Ghent's (+ 1293) philosophical thought: his understanding of metaphysics.

Alberti Magni Ordinis Fratrum Praedicatorum Physica, ed. P. Hoßfeld; id., Quaestiones, edd. A. Fries, W. Kübel et H. Anzulewicz; id., Super Dionysium de caelesti hierarchia, edd. P. Simon et W. Kübel.

L'A. esamina in primo luogo l'origine del problema metafisico in Enrico. Il tema del subiectum metaphysice è inquadrato nel contesto della problematica del soggetto scientifico e ciò che interessa l'A. è soprattutto il procedimento argomentativo di Enrico ed il significato delle conseguenze di tale procedere. Lo studio si chiude con uno sguardo sul commentario alla Metafisica di Pietro di Auvergne, evidenziando la relazione fra soggetto della metafisica e dottrina del primum cognitum nell'intelletto umano. Riferimenti alle posizioni di Avicenna, Averroè e (...) Tommaso. (shrink)

Lo studio verte in primo luogo sul commento di Pietro alle Sentenze, in cui viene proposto un «catalogo» delle sette parti della metafisica, intesa come disciplina scientifica. L'A. propone un'indagine dettagliata sul tema, partendo dalla considerazione che il rapporto problematico fra la metafisica intesa come ontologia e la dottrina dell'essere in Aureolo sembrerebbe mettere in discussione lo statuto scientifico della metafisica. Nelle sezioni successive dello studio l'A. si concentra sulla gnoseologia e il significato in Aureolo e Ockham del modus cognoscendi, (...) in particolare mettendo a fuoco il concetto di circumflectio e della metafisica come scientia circumflexiva e della sua possibile fondazione come scientia realis. (shrink)

Biographical note: Martin Pickavé ist wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Thomas-Institut der Universität zu Köln.

This is the first book-length treatment of the philosophical thought of one of the major thinkers at the University of Paris in the late thirteenth century. The book examines all major areas of James’s philosophical thought, exploring his connections with other important masters of the time and highlighting his originality in the context of late medieval philosophy.

In this comment on Thomas Nisters’ “Gratitude, Anger and the Horror of Asymmetry” I propose a different reading of Schnitzler’s short story that serves as a basis for Nisters’ reflections. On my interpretation, the behaviour of Franz is best understood on the background of a traditional understanding of gratitude, one that we can find, for instance, in Thomas Aquinas.

In the Middle Ages more than in other periods, eschatology informed the way people understood humankind and the world. The papers in the present volume are devoted to the complexity and interconnectivty of the eschatological orientation of the Middle Ages. Central topics are questions of the influence and formation of eschatological themes in philosophy and the significance of ideas of the final end in medieval political thought. In addition, there is a consideration of further themes from history, theology, art and (...) literature. The 29th volume of the Miscellanea Mediaevalia contains the papers delivered to the 32nd Cologne Medieval Studies Conference plus additional contributions. The volume includes five papers on the 50-year history of the Thomas Institute, which has been organising the Cologne Medieval Studies Conference for the last half century. (shrink)

In recent philosophical debates about the nature of human emotions the intentionality of emotions plays a key part. The article explores how medieval philosophers of the late 13th and early 14th centuries accounted for the fact that our emotions, such as love, hate, anger and the like, are intentional mental states, states that are ‘of’ or ‘about something’. Since medieval philosophers agree that emotions are essentially movements of the appetitive powers, the intentionality of emotions is part of the broader problem (...) of the intentionality of our appetitive acts. Do emotions and other appetitive acts derive their intentionality from the relevant cognitive acts on which their occurrence depends? And if so, how? Are appetitive acts intrinsically intentional states? The contribution discusses these and similar questions, while special attention is given to authors such as Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Thomas of Bailly, Adam Wodeham and Gregory of Rimini. (shrink)

In this short contribution I argue that the history of philosophy has much to gain from an engagement with the questions and conceptual tools of contemporary philosophy. In particular I argue against the view that the historian of philosophy’s engagement with contemporary philosophy necessarily leads to anachronism. Whatever the risks of failure, they seem to be outweighed by the potential for insight. Advocates of a “purely” historical approach to the history of philosophy defend their approach by pointing to the idea (...) that the history of philosophy can and should be studied on its own terms and independently of our current philosophical interests. I try to show that this is an illusion. (shrink)

This short chapter explores Aquinas’s teaching on the vegetative soul. At first glance, Aquinas does not seem too interested in the vegetative soul, and this type of soul certainly takes last rank compared with the sensory and the intellectual souls, which are of more relevance when it comes to human perfection and morality. However, this does not mean that Aquinas’s teaching on the vegetative soul lacks sophistication. The chapter first examines why there is a need to posit a vegetative soul (...) in the first place. It then turns to the three main functions of the vegetative soul – nutrition, growth, and generation – and how they are related. After addressing in what sense, according to Aquinas, human beings possess a vegetative soul, the chapter closes with a reflection on the relative obscurity of the activities of the vegetative soul. (shrink)

This contribution looks at how the topic of sleep, prominent in the Parva naturalia, is picked up by philosophers and theologians of the late thirteenth century in texts that are not directly commentaries on the Parva naturalia. In particular, the chapter looks at the question of what sort of activity sleep is and whether it is possible to have higher-level cognitive activities during sleep. While most authors deny outright that we can perform acts of thinking while we are asleep, others (...) defend the occurrence of thought during sleep. Authors discussed include Henry of Ghent, Richard of Middleton, Thomas Aquinas, Peter of Tarentaise, and Peter John Olivi. (shrink)

Nach wie vor wird das Verhältnis des späten Mittelalters zur anbrechenden Neuzeit kontrovers diskutiert. Manche sehen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert eine Periode des Verfalls, andere betonen die prägende und innovative Rolle dieser Epoche für die Neuzeit. Der 31. Band der Miscellanea Mediaevalia wirft einen interdisziplinären Blick auf diese Zeitspanne und wendet sich dabei auch kritisch klassischen Einschätzungen zu. Die über dreißig Beiträge behandeln die Philosophie des Spätmittelalters, spätmittelalterliche Wissenschaftsinstitutionen, die Architektur, die Wirtschafts- und Rechtsgeschichte, die Spiritualität im Spätmittelalter, aber (...) auch so prominente Figuren wie Jean Gerson und Nikolaus von Kues. (shrink)

Lange war die philosophische Mediävistik über die Lehre und Person des in die universitären Verurteilungen von 1210 und 1215 verwickelten Magister David von Dinant nur äußerst schlecht unterrichtet. Spärliche Erwähnungen in mittelalterlichen Chroniken und vor allem das Zeugnis Alberts des Großen stellten den einzigen Zugang zu einer Person dar, die — wie die gesamte frühe Geschichte der Pariser Universität — weitgehend im Dunkeln lag. Die quaternuli, ein im Verurteilungsdekret von 1210 genanntes Werk des Dinanter, galten als verschollen, und Gabriel Théry (...) unterzog sich der mühevollen Arbeit, aus den Erwähnungen Alberts einen Rekonstruktionsversuch derselben vorzulegen. (shrink)

Peter Auriol is a good example of the debate over the nature of habits, moral habits in particular, that raged at the University of Paris in the early fourteenth century. This chapter examines Peter Auriol’s basic understanding of habits and virtues in his quodlibetal questions and his commentary on the Sentences. The first part is devoted to the ontological status of virtues and other habitual dispositions and examines why, according to Auriol, habits are qualities. The second part turns to the (...) unity of virtues. Since Auriol holds that one and the same moral virtue belongs to different psychological powers, the question arises of how to account for the unity of virtues and other similar dispositions. In the last part, the chapter turns to the question of what role virtues and practical habits have in the causation of action. Interestingly, Auriol denies that virtues have any direct causal role. (shrink)

The discovery of the reportatio of Giles of Rome’s lectures on the Sentences by Concetta Luna is without doubt one of the most important contributions to the history of medieval philosophy and theology in the last years. This note reviews Luna’s edition of the reportatio and draws attention to what seems to be its earliest indirect witness: the anonymous Dominican Sentences commentary in ms. Bruges, Stadsbibliotheek, 491.