Selections from Medieval Philosophers Book

The Modern Students Library PHILOSOPHY SERIES THE Modern Students Library has been en larged to include a series of volumes con taining writings of the great philosophers. These volumes are edited by the most competent authorities at home and abroad. The selections are comprehensive and suited to the special needs of students and the general reading public. Each volume contains an introduction giving a brief outline of the system of the author and indicating hisplace in the history of thought. The Philosophy Series is under the general edi torship of Ralph Barton Perry, Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University. For a complete list of THE MODERN STUDENTS LIBRARY see the page following the text CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS THE MODERN STUDENTS LIBRARY SELECTIONS FROM MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS i AUGUSTINE TO ALBERT THE GREAT SELECTIONS FROM MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS i AUGUSTINE TO ALBERT THE GREAT EDITED AND TRANSLATED, WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES BY RICHARD McKEON ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LONDON CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 1980 CONTENTS PAGE GENERAL INTRODUCTION RICHARD MCKEON ix I. SAINT AUGUSTINE Introduction 3 On the Free Will, Book II, 1-46 11 II. BOETHIUS Introduction 65 The Second Edition of the Commentar ies on the Isagoge of Porphyry, Book I . 70 III. JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA Introduction 100 On the Division of Nature Book IV, 7-9 106 IV. SAINT ANSELM Introduction 142 Dialogue on Truth 150 V. PETER LOMBARD Introduction 185 The Four Books of Sentences. Book I, Distinction III 189 VI. PETER ABAILARD Introduction 202 The Glosses of Peter Abailard on Por phyry Introduction 208 viii CONTENTS VII. ROBERT GROSSETESTE Introduction 259 On Truth 263 On the Truth of Proposition 282 On the Knowledge of God 285 VIII. THE PSEUDO-GROSSETESTE Introduction 288 The Summa of Philosophy 290 IX. ALBERT THE GREAT Introduction 315 On the Intellect and the Intelligible. Book I 326 GENERAL INTRODUCTION The reestimation of medieval culture began, about eighty years ago, to make difficult the continued cur rency of the old strictures against medieval philosophy. Judgments of philosophers in the ordinary tradition had, up to that time, continued almost unchanged from the form in which they first appeared in the writings of sixteenth and seventeenth century philosophers who represented themselves in revolt against a scholasticism, vain, authority-ridden, tenuous, repetitious, logic-chop ping, inadequate to the revolutions of modern thought. Only slowly have these opinions been altered until in more recent years increasingly impressive contributions in scholarly research have made possible the return of medieval speculations to a place of dignity in the history of thought. The noises of these changes have by now spread rather generally in literary and philosophical discussions, but the layman, the student who has no access to writings in latin and greek, and the casual essayist of the day who is tempted to generalities con cerning centuries and cultures, are still limited to the vaguest of secondary and tertiary impressions. Little of the material examined in the reestimation has been translated into the modern languages, and the transla tions in english are perhaps fewer than in most lan guages. Between Augustine and the seventeenth cen tury, twelve hundred years which are crammed with the writings of voluminous workers who initiated some of the most significant, though almost forgotten, developments of philosophic thought, there is almost nothing in eng x GENERAL INTRODUCTION lish save some partial and not always satisfactory trans lations of Anselm and Aquinas. So striking is the paucity that,, although the present selections, translated from fifteen philosophers of the middle ages, were made with an eye only to the importance of the pages selected, subsequent inquiry disclosed that none of the passages had ever been translated into english before...Read More