Thomas Aquinas & John Duns Scotus

Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-0-8264-8589-2
Verlag: Bloomsbury 3PL

Buch, Englisch, 192 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 452 g

Reihe: Continuum Studies in Philosophy

A philosophical/historical examination of natural theology in the 'Golden Age' of scholastic philosophy, involving fundamental issues in metaphysics, the philosophy of language and the philosophy of religion.

The first book ever to focus on a key historical debate over the ability of reason to demonstrate the tenets of faith.
- Also of great interest to contemporary metaphysicians and philosophers of religion.
- Includes an introduction to Aristotle's conception of scientific knowledge.
- Explanation is given for the technical vocabulary of medieval natural theologians.

Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus are arguably the most celebrated representatives of the 'Golden Age' of scholasticism. Primarily, they are known for their work in natural theology, which seeks to demonstrate tenets of faith without recourse to premises rooted in dogma or revelation. Scholars of this Golden Age drew on a wealth of tradition, dating back to Plato and Aristotle, and taking in the Arabic and Jewish interpretations of these thinkers, to produce a wide variety of answers to the question 'How much can we learn of God?' Some responded by denying us any positive knowledge of God. Others believed that we have such knowledge, yet debated whether its acquisition requires some action on the part of God in the form of an illumination bestowed on the knower. Scotus and Aquinas belong to the more empirically minded thinkers in this latter group, arguing against a necessary role for illumination. Many scholars believe that Aquinas and Scotus exhaust the spectrum of answers available to this circle, with Aquinas maintaining that our knowledge is quite confused and Scotus that it is completely accurate. In this study, Alexander Hall argues that the truth about Aquinas and Scotus lies somewhere in the middle.

Hall's book recommends itself to the general reader who is looking for an overview of this period in Western philosophy as well as to the specialist, for no other study on the market addresses this long-standing matter of interpretation in any detail.

Zielgruppe

Academics, Libraries, Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hall, Alex

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Mittelalterliche & Scholastische Philosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Sonstige Religionen: Theologie, Doktrine
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte Theologenbiographien, Religiöse Führer

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of abbreviations
List of translations
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Aquinas and scientia
Chapter 3: Scientia, analogia, and the Five Ways
Chapter 4: Duns Scotus on naming
Chapter 5: Scotus, divine names, and deliberate equivocity
Chapter 6: Transcendental signification and analogy
Bibliography
Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Dr Alex Hall is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Clayton State University. His most recent publication is Aquinas, Scientia, and a Medieval Misconstruction of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics'(Proceedings of the Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics, 2004).