Recent research has challenged our view of the Abrahamic religious traditions as unilaterally intolerant and incapable of recognizing otherness in all its diversity and richness; but a diachronic and comparative study of how these traditions deal with otherness is yet to appear. This volume aims to contribute to such a study by presenting different treatments of otherness in medieval and early modern thought. Part I: Altruism deals with attitudes and behaviors that benefit others, regardless of its motives. We deal with (...) the social rights and emotions as well as the moral obligations that the very existence of other human beings, whatever their characteristics, creates for a community. Part II: Religious recognition and toleration considers identity, toleration and mutual recognition created by the existence of religious or ethnic otherness in a given social, religious or political community. Part III: Evil deals with religious otherness that is considered evil and rejected such as heretics and malevolent, demonic entities. The volume will ultimately inform the reader on the nature of religious toleration (including beliefs and doctrines, even emotions) as well as of the self-definition of religious communities when encountering and defining otherness in different ways. (shrink)

Ockham’s theory of natural rights was based on a careful definition of the basic juridical terms dominium and ius utendi, as well as on the idea of human agency and morality. By defining a right as a licit power of action in accordance with right reason (recta ratio), Ockham placed rights firmly in the agent. A right was a subjective power of action. Ockham’s theory of natural rights was influential for later natural rights theories. Its advocates included leading thinkers of (...) the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, whose views on the right to life, its relation to the right to property, and the state of nature resembled those ideas already developed by Ockham approximately three hundred years earlier. (shrink)

Dopo un'introduzione che delinea lo status questionis relativo alla discussione sul diritto di proprietà nel sec. XIII, l'articolo si divide in tre parti: nella prima si discute la relazione tra gli ideali della fede cristiana e la proprietà comune, con particolare riguardo per l'origine dei diritti di proprietà; la seconda tratta gli argomenti che concernono il diritto alla proprietà privata, mentre la terza approfondisce il tema della proprietà condivisa. I testi sui quali viene condotta l'indagine sono il Tractatus brevis de (...) periculis novissimorum temporum di Guglielmo di Saint-Amour, il Contra adversarium perfectionis di Gerardo di Abbeville e le questioni quodlibetali di Enrico di Gand e di Goffredo di Fontaines, scritte a Parigi dal 1280 al 1290. Si mette in risalto l'uso della concezione aristotelica della proprietà contro l'ideale di assoluta povertà promosso da parte degli ambienti francescani. (shrink)

New Perspectives on Aristotelianism and Its Critics traces Aristotelian influences in modern and pre-modern discourses on knowledge, rights, and the good life. The contributions offer new insights on contemporary discussions on life in its cognitive, political, and ethical dimensions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Individualization of Crime in Medieval Canon LawVirpi Mäkinen and Heikki PihlajamäkiIn The Mourning of Christ (c. 1305, fresco at Cappella dell'Arena, Padua, Italy), Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267-1337) depicts the Virgin Mary embracing Christ for the last time after he has been taken down from the cross. Whereas his predecessors in the devotional Byzantine tradition concentrated on flat, still figures, Giotto emphasizes their humanity and individuality. The grief (...) on the Virgin's face is touching and convincing but in a slightly different way than the sorrow experienced by St. John or the other accompanying figures. Even the ten angels following the scene seem to grieve for the Redeemer in their own personal way. The individuality of Giotto's figures may not seem much if we compare it with the seventeenth-century Flemish masters. Giotto's Virgin and her company still show a restraint in their grief which does not seem entirely natural. In late medieval art, however, Giotto's approach was fresh and new, reflecting a trend toward individualization which was not peculiar merely to art but was taking over many other areas of late medieval life as well. Philosophy, theology, and law—the medieval scientiae—were all putting increasing emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of the individual.Nor does this trend leave criminal law and the law of evidence untouched. The medieval development of law was just as revolutionary as the development of other branches of knowledge. Starting in early twelfth-century Bologna, the Corpus Iuris Civilis became an object of systematic academic research and teaching for the first time in history. The development of canon law was perhaps even more striking. Positive, enacted law first became not only an object of academic studies but also an instrument of social engineering in the domain of church law. The hierarchical structure of the worldwide Catholic Church was built and run in conjunction with positive, enacted legislation.1 [End Page 525] The development of criminal law was just as innovative as the changes that took place in other branches of law, with canon lawyers taking the lead. Aspiring for universal power and competing for it with secular rulers, the Church was in need of an efficient system to control disobedient priests and monks and suppress heretical movements.2 The traditional system of criminal control was clearly not sufficient. Canon law, making use of the contemporary trend toward increased individualization in theology, philosophy, and Roman law, was developed to meet the church's need to master the situation.One of the most important and influential developments in thirteenth-century criminal law concerned the individual's criminal intention and responsibility. Before the change criminal responsibility was mainly based on the consequences of a crime. The canon lawyers began to determine different modes of subjective responsibility. In the law of criminal evidence the individual was also shifted from the margins to the center of attention. Earlier criminal evidence had been produced from sources external to the individuality of the defendant, such as oaths, compurgators, and ordeals. In the thirteenth century and with the development of the so-called statutory or legal theory of proof, increasing attention was paid to the stories of both the defendant (in the form of confessions) and the witnesses. The development of criminal law and criminal procedure in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries can be understood in the context of the simultaneous trend toward individualization that took place in moral philosophy and theology as well as in canon law.3 These connections are not the only way of understanding the modernization of canon criminal law, for the prevailing view sees the transformation in conjunction with the twelfth-century hierarchization and centralization of church bureaucracy. The particular form that the criminal law and law of proof assumed in these changes did not arise out of a vacuum but, however, has to be understood in relation to the neighboring fields of thought.The Human Will and the Individual in Medieval Moral PhilosophyThe primus motor of medieval philosophy, Aristotelianism, encountered its first competing theories in the thirteenth century. One of the most far-reaching ideas concerning human psychology and behavior, developed by the Franciscans... (shrink)