Arab Christians and the Qurʾan from the Origins of Islam to the Medieval Period. Edited by Mark Beaumont. History of Christian-Muslim Relations, vol. 35. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xiv + 216. $120, €104.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Teaching Medieval Christian Contemplation: An Ethical Dilemma?Kristine T. UtterbackBy its very nature, contemplative pedagogy would seem to be a more solitary undertaking than many other forms of pedagogy. We are asking our students to go inward, producing a special kind of engagement unlike any other teaching methods I employ. For me, teaching in the only four-year state university in Wyoming, where I have never encountered anyone else who (...) employs contemplative pedagogy, that already solitary undertaking becomes even more solitary—to the point of isolation. That was one of the reasons that having an opportunity to appear on a panel with others who use contemplative pedagogy provided a rare and treasured opportunity to discuss what I do and to learn from others. I had such an opportunity at the November 2012 American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting. At the session titled “Contemplative Pedagogy: Pitfalls and Potentials” organized by the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, I described my contemplative pedagogy course titled Medieval Christian Contemplation in History and Practice. The panel members and the engaged audience combined to create a lively and thought-provoking discussion.All four of the panelists, including myself, had contributed to the collection of essays edited by Judith Simmer-Brown and Fran Grace, Meditation and the Classroom,1 and we all use contemplative pedagogy in our teaching. In my case, I teach specific Christian contemplative methods to help my students gain a connection with medieval people by using some of the same practices that they did. In the discussion that followed the presentations, an audience member questioned whether these Christian contemplative methods are appropriately taught to all comers—something that would not have been deemed appropriate by the medieval teachers of these methods. I should add that the question spoke to a much larger issue than my course and the ten or fifteen students I teach in a semester, but he raised an interesting and important point, which I will discuss below. Before I address the potential dilemma my questioner elicited, and my argument that other considerations override it, let me provide context for that discussion by describing what, why, and how I teach twenty-first century students medieval contemplative practices.When I teach medieval history, I struggle to help my students get a “feel” for a world very different from their own. The problems of understanding a world far removed from twenty-first-century Americans is obvious, since I can neither bring [End Page 53] a medieval peasant to class nor take field trips to living medieval sites, and almost every medieval assumption about the world differs radically from ours. In 1999, when I saw a call for proposals from the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, for Contemplative Practice in Teaching Fellowships, I realized that contemplative practices might offer my students first-person experiences of an important dimension of medieval life: spirituality. Although I had no evidence to support this, it seemed to me that what practitioners experienced a millennium or more ago and what someone experiences today doing the same thing might have a great deal in common. When I applied for the fellowship, I had never heard of contemplative pedagogy, so I viewed my endeavor primarily as experiential learning, but as I have taught the course and learned about contemplative pedagogy, the contemplative focus has joined and to some extent subsumed the experiential one.By the time I received the fellowship, I had already been practicing Christian Centering Prayer for several years. This is a modern contemplative practice based on the teachings of the anonymous author of a medieval classic, The Cloud of Unknowing. I was intrigued by the challenge of developing a course that combined the history of medieval Christian contemplative practice with experiential and, later, contemplative learning. Since receiving the grant, I have offered the course Medieval Christian Contemplation in History and Practice several times; it is cross-listed in both the Religious Studies and the History Departments. Pedagogically I want to allow the students to experience the Middle Ages in some small but real way. I have an additional personal hope, shared with the students but certainly not required, that they might find these practices rewarding enough... (shrink)

In this chapter, we examine a few potential problems when inquiring into the ethics of medieval Christian and Islamic mystical traditions: First, there are terminological and methodological worries about defining mysticism and doing comparative philosophy in general. Second, assuming that the Divine represents the highest Good in such traditions, and given the apophaticism on the part of many mystics in both religions, there is a question of whether or not such traditions can provide a coherent theory of value. Finally, (...) the antinomian tendencies and emphasis on passivity of some mystics might lead one to wonder whether their prescriptive exhortations can constitute a coherent theory of right action. We tackle each of these concerns in turn and discuss how they might be addressed, in an attempt to show how medieval mysticism, as a fundamentally practical enterprise, deserves more attention from practical and moral philosophy than it has thus far received. (shrink)

Who were the mean that created the great systems of Christian philosophy in the Middle Ages? How did their thoughts and methods differ from the philosophers who preceded and followed them in history? The author answers these questions by describing the men and outlining the particular greatness that constitutes medieval Christian philosophy. He shows the influence of the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, of the Jewish and Arabian thikers, and of the religious revelations and doctrines to which the Christian (...) philosophers were dedicated. In all this volume presents a handy, compact outline of the scholastics and their religious philosophy. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- It is likely that Boethius (480-524ce) inaugurates, in Latin Christian theology, the consideration of personhood as such. In the Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius Boethius gives a well-known definition of personhood according to genus and difference(s): a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. Personhood is predicated only of individual rational substances. This chapter situates Boethius in relation to significant Christian theologians before and after him, and the way in which his definition of personhood is a (...) particular answer to the question, “Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but is one what?” Among Greek (and Syriac) speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘hypostasis’. Among Latin speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘persona’. It is Boethius’s definition of ‘persona’ that inaugurates personhood as such in Latin speaking theology. Although the Greek and Syriac theologians that I survey come close to a concept of personhood as a distinct category, they do not have such a concept and did not need it for their theological purposes. I show that Rusticus the Deacon is an early witness to this Latin theological invention, and also show that for later Latin theologians, the rationality condition for personhood does very little metaphysical work for their Trinitarian theology or Christology. -/- Further, this chapter surveys Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians’ answers to the question, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, but each is one what?” The same replies as above are typically given by Christian theologians. These two theological questions frame the discussion about personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) and put a boundary around what a satisfying account of personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) would be. -/- In contemporary philosophy, there is a lot of attention paid to the rationality condition for personhood. But if we look at the text in which Boethius defines a person, we do not find any precise criteria for it. In other texts, he says that a rational being is one compatible with (capable of) thought and free choice of the will. What we find is that detailed discussion of personhood shows up in theological questions about the Trinity and Incarnation, but not in e.g., applied ethics. The intrusion of personhood into contemporary applied ethics with a focus on detailed and disputed criteria for rationality as a condition for personhood seems to be a modern development. From a Patristic and Medieval Christian theology point of view, trying to find just the right detailed criteria for rationality in order to define personhood is a wild goose chase. This chapter makes clear another contribution that Christian theology had for personhood. Given the theological issues at play in developing a notion of personhood, Christian theologians came to posit that e.g., an individual human is a person contingently (i.e. not essentially), but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each a person essentially. The contingency for created persons is not based on whether e.g., an individual human has conscious acts (as might be the case for John Locke) but on the possibility of a divine person’s assuming e.g., an individual human nature. -/- This sampling of Christian intellectual history spans over one thousand years. I make no claim of being exhaustive. The chapter consists of six sections, where each section covers significant historical conversation partners who together represent the sorts of things that Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians where concerned with in theorizing about ‘persona’ or ‘hypostasis’. -/- 1. Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa 2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum 3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of Personhood 4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium 5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ware 6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham . (shrink)

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy of disability (and Disability Studies more generally) and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call “disability.” The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new (...) avenues of research for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of “disability” and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part II is on disability in this life, and Part III is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology or disability studies. (shrink)

The High Middle Ages were remarkable for their coherent sense of 'Christendom': of people who belonged to a homogeneous Christian society marked by uniform rituals of birth and death and worship. That uniformity, which came under increasing strain as national European characteristics became more pronounced, achieved perhaps its most perfect intellectual expression in the thought of the western Christian thinkers who are sometimes called 'scholastic theologians'. This book offers the first focused introduction to these thinkers based on the individuals themselves (...) and their central preoccupations. (shrink)

This paper surveys medieval Christian philosophy.

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.

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)

According to their founders, the DVjs, established in 1923, was supposed to develop a specific focus also for medieval literature and culture. This article analyzes how this program was realized and how the relationship between literary studies and intellectual history (›Geistesgeschichte‹) was shaped in different periods from the early articles of Günther Müller, Wolfgang Stammler or Walther Rehm to the reestablishment by Hugo Kuhn around 1950. The authors reconstruct a particular branch of German medieval studies still relevant today.

This chapter contains sections titled: Augustine Aquinas.

Die vorliegende Studie fragt nach der Relevanz, mittelalterlicher' Sujets in der Oper der frühen Neuzeit und versucht mithin den Beitrag des Genres, das sich mit Blick auf seine humanistisch-renaissancezeitlichen Wurzeln gemeinhin eher als Sachwalter und Vermittler antiker (Stoff-)Traditionen darstellt, für eine Rezeption des, Mittelalters' als einer historischen Periode an der Wende vom 17. zum 18. Jahrhundert zu bestimmen. Ihren Ausgangspunkt nimmt die interdisziplinär angelegte Untersuchung von einer ausgreifenden heuristischen Erschließung entsprechender Stoffe und Werke an 15 bedeutenden Opernzentren im Reich, in (...) Italien, Frankreich und England. Ein signifikantes Resultat dieser Bestandsaufnahme ist der speziell für das norddeutsche Musiktheater um 1700 charakteristische Typus der, dynastischen Mittelalteroper', der sich für die Fragestellung und Perspektive der Arbeit als überaus fruchtbar erweist und dem sich die detaillierten Analysen des Hauptteils in ihrer jeweiligen Zusammenschau von konkretem Libretto (Haupt- und Paratexte), Partitur, zeitgenössischer Inszenierungspraxis und kulturgeschichtlichen Kon-texten eingehend widmen. Dabei werden nicht nur die Verschiebungen aufgezeigt, die zwischen höfischer (Braunschweig, Hannover) und städtischer bzw. stadtrepublikanischer (Hamburg) Repräsentations- und Memorialkultur zu Tage treten, sondern auch Spielräume des Dramma per musica - das im Anschluss an den aktuellen historisch-wissenschaftlichen Diskurs der Zeit auf das, Mittelalter'als Ursprungs- oder Frühraum der je eigenen Geschichte rekurriert - zwischen politisch motivierter Funktionsoper einerseits und genuiner Historienoper andererseits offengelegt. (shrink)

Oppositional constructions of peace and war and simplistic equations of peace with justice obscure the importance of activities primarily geared toward the limitation of harm. The medieval and patristic legacy of thinking with peace restricts peace to variants of a singular concept that dictates the diplomatic and domestic policy of modern states. At the same time, secular political theory has moved away from medieval clerical acknowledgment of compatibilities between turbulence and peace, producing temporally bounded categories of peace and (...) war that facilitate damage or at best allow harm to endure. In this discourse, social disruption must act as signifier for more general violence—but then is repressed on exactly the same terms, making it difficult to arrive at solutions for conflict on the ground without renouncing calls for justice and equity in the long term. (shrink)

The majority of The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam has been published previously in different forms, but this edition has been completely revised by the author, the well-known French medievalist and intellectual historian Rémi Brague. It was first published in French under the title Au moyen du Moyen Âge in 2006. The book consists of sixteen essays ranging from Brague’s early years at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) in the 1990s (...) up until 2005. As a collection of articles, therefore, The Legend of the Middle Ages is not designed to be a monograph; one should not expect a single argument from the book, although it does explore key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy that I will touch upon later. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of (...) modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

In the context of Eddic mythological poetry, Rígsþula is strikingly anomalous. The poem speaks of an otherwise unknown god, Rígr, whom the prose preface identifies with the Norse god Heimdallr. He visits in sequence three households. The first is that of Ái and Edda, whose names mean “great grandfather” and “great grandmother”; the second that of Afi and Amma, “grandfather” and “grandmother”; the third that of Faðir and Móðir, “father” and “mother.” Rígr spends three nights in bed with each couple, (...) and from these unions spring þræll, Karl, and Jarl, forebears of the races of slaves, freemen, and nobles. The poem concludes with an account of Konr, youngest son of Jarl, who is apparently about to establish himself as a king when the poem breaks off. (shrink)

In this introduction, we briefly introduce the concept of social ontology, a fertile sub-field of contemporary analytic metaphysics, and present the motivation for the present volume, which is largely though not exclusively historical in scope. We explain that philosophers in the ancient, medieval, and early modern world, with an emphasis on the medieval tradition, likewise took up questions and issues that are now discussed by philosophers working in social ontology. We then present the contents of the volume and (...) suggest further lines of research. (shrink)

This book offers a collection of contributions on medieval, early modern, and contemporary perspectives on social ontology. Since the 1990s, social ontology has emerged as a vibrant research area in contemporary analytical philosophy. Questions concerning the nature and properties of social groups, institutions, facts, and objects like money and marriage, have been thoroughly discussed. However, the historical perspective has been largely neglected. One of the central aims of this volume is to show that relevant views on social ontology can (...) be found in medieval and early modern philosophy (ca. 1200-1700 C.E.), when, for example, the ontological status of money, law, and the sacraments was hotly debated. We see, furthermore, diverging positions between Aristotelian-inspired authors, who resort to a more naturalistic view of the emergence of the social realm, and authors like Olivi and Ockham, who emphasize the role of human free will and contractualist agreements. This book is the very first to address historical and contemporary social ontologies. Both historians of philosophy and philosophers will benefit from this juxtaposition, which fosters a better understanding of historical positions and approaches by using today’s conceptual and analytical tools, and allows the contemporary debate to gain new perspectives by confronting its own medieval and early modern history. (shrink)

For theologians, to conceive of God in terms of light has some undeniable advantages, allowing a middle-of-the road position between the two extremes of thinking about God in terms of a purely disembodied, unfathomable, unsensible being, and of crediting Him with a body, possibly even a human body. This paper first reviews the reasons why God, in early medieval Islam, was never fully theorized in terms of light. It then proceeds to discuss light-related narratives in two major, late-medieval (...) compilations of hadiths about the afterlife, by al-Suyuti and al-Majlisi, suggesting that eschatology was the area in which God’s light continued to shine in Islam, and the backdoor through which a theology of light, in the thought of al-Suhrawardi and his followers, made a triumphant re-entry into Islamic thought. (shrink)

Alors que l'enseignement de la theologie s'organise dans l'universite naissante, les premiers maitres de cette discipline s'interrogent sur son statut noetique.Il ne s'agit pas seulement d'en faire une science comparable aux autres sciences aristoteliciennes, mais de s'interroger sur les capacites de l'intelligence humaine a connaitre Dieu a l'aide de la raison naturelle, de la Revelation, voire d'une lumiere plus specifique. Les premiers maitres ont des preoccupations communes, speculatives et pedagogiques concernant leur discipline naissante et il est interessant de voir naitre (...) alors les grandes tendances interpretatives de leur anthropologie generalement implicite. Mais la question demeure de penser ensemble la possibilite d'une connaissance de Dieu imparfaite ici-bas et sa vision beatifique dans l'au-dela. (shrink)

Can we find true bliss in any kind of knowledge or is it proper to wisdom only? In this essay I consider different medieval models of the relationship of knowledge to wisdom and pleasure, beginning with Augustine, then to monastic models, before turning to Scholastic models: the early Scholastic model of the relationship between knowledge is very different from the Aristotelian understanding of intellectual felicity developed by Scholastic philosophers and theologians in the thirteenth century. For Nicholas of Cusa intellectual (...) pleasure is above any pleasure that can be attained by discursive reason; finally, I discuss Charles Bovelles’ synthesis between the neo-Platonic model of the relationship between knowledge and wisdom, which he himself devised, and Augustine’s understanding of the distinction between the two. Thus, after a long historical development we return to the beginning. (shrink)

Scholarship in Heideggerian philosophy can be broadly differentiated into three groups, which evolved in the European and Anglo-American discourses after WWII, namely, first a transcendental (idealist Kantian) approach; second, an Aristotelian approach; and third, a Christian approach to Heidegger’s analytic of Dasein and his fundamental ontology. All of these basic positions are a result of Heidegger’s philosophy on his way to Being and Time (1927) which he developed both in his broad ranging and fascinating lecture courses in Freiburg, where he (...) taught as Husserl’s assistant between 1917 and 1923, and in Marburg, where he taught between 1923 and 1927 (before he returned to Freiburg in 1928 as Husserl’s successor). Interestingly, the analytic reception of Heidegger focuses on Heidegger’s main work Being and Time, whereas the European and “Continental” discourse is oriented towards larger issues, which include philosophical anthropology, theology, hermeneutics, and the history of philosophy. McGrath’s study belongs to the theologically motivated studies on Heidegger’s phenomenology and ontology and thereby contributes to the recent renewed interest in Heidegger’s early philosophy, which arose after his early lecture courses were published in his Collected Works and after it became clear that Heidegger’s way to Being and Time (and his later thinking) not only was heavily influenced by Scholasticism, especially by Duns Scotus, but also by Augustine, Eckhart, and Luther, all of which took effect before Heidegger encountered Husserl’s phenomenology, Neo-Kantianism or Aristotle’s philosophy. The greatness of Being and Time is indeed a result of the ingenious transformation of all these sources into something new. (shrink)

This paper will examine how the prominent image of the witch in Christian thought during the early modern period emerged from earlier images of the non-Christian Other, Jews and heretics for example. To do so the beliefs surrounding the ―rituals‖ and ―practices‖ of witches seen during the witch-craze of the fifteenth century are compared and contrasted with the images of Others within medieval Christian society. To do so a variety of both primary and secondary scholarship on the persecution of (...) witches, heretics, and Jews during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. (shrink)

This collective volume gives an exemplary overview over the philosophical reactions William of Ockham has provoked and also serves to better understand not only Ockham s thought in its historical context, but also the philosophy of the 14th century in general.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist MonkChristian P. B. HaskettThe Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk. By Georges B. J. Dreyfus. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 445 + xv pp.Georges Dreyfus is a uniquely valuable contributor to the academic study of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the first Westerner to have received the Geshe degree, signifying (...) a thorough mastery of the curriculum of the Geluk (dge lugs) school, and in his latest work, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping, he not only displays the critical acumen produced by that education, but also candidly reveals the personal details of life as a monk in a Buddhist monastic university. This alone should commend this project to the attention of readers seriously interested in Buddhism; however, Dreyfus also gives us a work of scholarship of religion that is exemplary in its capacity to use a single topic as a starting point to explain vast swathes of religion and culture. A brief overview of the chapters precedes my assessment of the book's successes and its importance for Buddhist-Christian studies.The first chapter gives a brief historical overview of Tibetan Buddhism. Those with a passing acquaintance with Tibetan history will find little new information here, but Dreyfus does manage to succinctly and accurately present 1300 years of religious history in a mere fifteen pages. Chapter 2, "Tibetan Monasticism," takes up the context in which most Buddhist scholastic activity occurs, "describing...some of its characteristics and discussing its strengths without hiding its drawbacks" (p.33). Dreyfus moves from a depiction of the Indian precedents and textual foundations of monasticism in general to a discussion of the mass monastic movement in Tibet. His assessment is unsparing but nonjudgmental as he describes monks as tax collectors, ritual actors, priests, and even "punk-monks." In the third chapter "Becoming a Monk," the personal and autobiographical nature of Two Hands Clapping begins to emerge as Dreyfus relates his own personal experience of entering [End Page 192] monastic life interwoven with accounts of both the normative Tibetan standards and the present-day situation of Tibetan monastics. These vivid reports detail the sleep deprivation, poor diet, and rigorous lives of exiled monks, and the genuine affection that those who endure these circumstances feel for one another. This chapter also examines the differing roles of teachers as housemasters, scholastic preceptors, and gurus, and begins introducing several teachers with whom Dreyfus studied. These three chapters comprise the first section, "The Context."Despite the title and cover picture of a debating monk, this book is a study of the full range of scholastic monastic practices. Dreyfus begins his far-ranging comparisons to other religious educational traditions such as yeshivas and medieval European monasticism in the second section, "Tibetan Scholastic Practices." Chapter 4 looks at reading and memorization, considering literacy and education in Tibet first. His discussion of memorization comprises details of memorization practices and a good but not overwhelming discussion of modern psychological theory on memorization and mind. Chapter 5 presents the curriculum followed by Tibetan monks and identifies a key element of scholasticism: commentary. The section on comparative perspective is particularly good, comparing Shi'ite, Christian, and Tibetan models and citing theorists including Foucault and Halbertal to elucidate how commentary is used to create sectarian positions out of shared canonical texts. While the sixth chapter begins by comparing curricula and practices followed by both Ge-luk and non-Ge-luk monasteries, it concludes with a detailed section on the role of scholasticism in the production of authority and orthodox, accounting for the emergence of sectarian divisions within Tibetan Buddhism within a sociopolitical context. This return to the history provided in chapter 1 explains the history of sectarian divisions in Tibet and demonstrates both the centrality and scope of the impact of scholasticism in Tibetan religion. In chapter 7, "Scholasticism and Orality," Dreyfus gives the sort of detailed and nuanced testimony that only a long and careful observer of and participant in Buddhism could. He carefully dissects the role of orality in memorization and recitation on the one hand, and of oral commentary in pedagogy on the... (shrink)

While for a long time the study of medieval logic focused on editorial projects and reconstructions of central medieval doctrines such as the theories of signification, supposition, consequences, and obligations, nowadays the spectrum of analysis has broadened and is increasingly informed by modern logical research, whose perspective is then applied to medieval logic. Promoting this tendency, logicians and researchers concerned with semantics in the Gesellschaft für Philosophie des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (GPMR) founded a working group bringing (...) together medieval logic and modern applied logic. The present volume is a seminal document of these interests and activities. It analyzes theories in medieval logic which are useful for solving questions of recent logic and explains crucial parts of medieval logic, philosophy, and theology by applying techniques of present-day logic. (shrink)

This collection of papers written in the last 30 years illustrates Bainton's rare combination of detailed scholarship and witty, urbane style. Although the level of generality is uneven, with an essay on the origin of date for Epiphany following a study of the ideas of history in Patristic Christianity, certain common themes unify the collection: philosophy of history, attitudes toward scholarship, the interplay of secular, moral, and pious interests, and the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and (...) Reformation. The title is a bit misleading, since only four of the essays treat periods prior to the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. A selected bibliography of Bainton's works is included.--R. C. N. (shrink)

This innovative collection points to the need for a reevaluation of the origins of toleration theory. Philosophers, intellectual historians, and political theorists have assumed that the development of the theory of toleration has been a product of the modern world, and John Locke is usually regarded as the first theorist of toleration. The contributors to Difference and Dissent, however, discuss a range of conceptual positions that were employed by medieval and early modern thinkers to support a theory of toleration, (...) and question the claim that Locke's theory of toleration was as original or philosophically adequate as his adherents have asserted. (shrink)

Franciscus de Prato hat sich immer wieder mit der Philosophie Ockhams auseinandergesetzt. Diese Arbeit zeigt auf, wie bedeutsam fur beide Philosophen die Sprachtheorie ist. Der Angelpunkt ist dabei die Annahme entweder eines Satzes im Geiste oder einer Proposition, die aus Dingen besteht. Diese Entscheidung wirkt sich dann auf verschiedenste Gebiete der Philosophie aus. Am Beispiel der Kategorienlehre wird dies deutlich: Kategorien sind Aussagbares. In Satzen aussagbar sind aber fur Ockham nur mentale Begriffe, keine Dinge. Also ist fur ihn die Kategorienordnung (...) keine Ordnung von extramentalen Dingen, sondern nur von mentalen Zeichen. Anders Franciscus: Fur ihn sind Gegenstande, nicht Zeichen primar aussagbar. Also ist fur ihn die kategoriale Ordnung eine reale Hierarchie. Welches Licht wirft diese Auseinandersetzung auf das Verstandnis der Philosophie Ockhams und der des Franciscus? Weitaus wichtiger als der universalientheoretische Unterschied zwischen Nominalismus und Realismus ist fur beide Denker ihre satztheoretische Ausrichtung. Ausgezeichnet mit dem Preis an Studierende der Ruhr-Universitat Bochum. (shrink)