Augustinianism

By Jordan, Mark D.

The influence of Augustine on Western philosophy is exceeded in duration, extent and variety only by that of Plato and Aristotle. Augustine was an authority not just for ...

Giles of Rome (c.1243/7–1316)

By Del Punta, Francesco; Trifogli, Cecilia

Giles of Rome was one of the most eminent theologians and commentators on the works of Aristotle at the University of Paris in the second half of the ...

James of Viterbo (c.1255–1308)

By Mahoney, Edward P.

James of Viterbo’s writings reveal a loyalty to Augustine combined with an interest in Neoplatonic sources such as Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius and Boethius. He also reveals a strong interest ...

Bradwardine, Thomas (c.1300–49)

By Sylla, Edith Dudley

Thomas Bradwardine was a leading figure in fourteenth-century philosophy and theology from 1328, when he completed De proportionibus velocitatum in motibus (On the Ratios of Velocities in Motions), ...

Sin

By Quinn, Philip L.

The most archaic conception of human fault may be the notion of defilement or pollution, that is, a stain or blemish which somehow infects a person from without. ...

Bonaventure (c.1217–74)

By Kent, Bonnie

Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of ...

Henry of Ghent (early 13th century–1293)

By Marrone, Steven P.

Perhaps the most influential theologian between Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure in the third quarter of the thirteenth century and John Duns Scotus at the beginning of the fourteenth ...

Port-Royal

By Pearce, Kenneth L.

Port-Royal-des-Champes was an abbey in France, initially located near Versailles, but later moved to Paris. Its importance to the history of philosophy is due primarily to a group ...

Gregory of Rimini (c.1300–58)

By Brown, Stephen F.

Gregory of Rimini was for a long time known primarily for his doctrine of predestination and for his notion of ‘the complexly signifiable’ in the semantics of propositions. ...

Aquinas, Thomas (1224/6–74)

By Kretzmann, Norman; Stump, Eleonore

Aquinas lived an active, demanding academic and ecclesiastical life that ended while he was still in his forties. He nonetheless produced many works, varying in length from a ...

Duns Scotus, John (c.1266–1308)

By Dumont, Stephen D.

Duns Scotus was one of the most important thinkers of the entire scholastic period. Of Scottish origin, he was a member of the Franciscan order and undertook theological ...

Medieval philosophy

By MacDonald, Scott; Kretzmann, Norman

Medieval philosophy is the philosophy of Western Europe from about ad 400–1400, roughly the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance. Medieval philosophers are the ...

Platonism, medieval

By Moran, Dermot

Medieval Platonism includes the medieval biographical tradition, the transmission of the dialogues, a general outlook spanning commitment to extramental ideas, intellectualism in cognition, emphasis on self-knowledge as the ...

MacIntyre, Alasdair (1929–)

Alasdair MacIntyre has contributed to the diverse fields of social, moral and political philosophy. He is one of the leading proponents of a virtue ethical approach in moral ...

William of Auvergne (c.1180–1249)

By Marrone, Steven P.

Active in Paris during the third and fourth decades of the thirteenth century, when universities were emerging as centres of Western European intellectual life, William played a decisive ...

Johnson, Samuel (1696–1772)

By McCracken, Charles J.

Johnson was the first important philosopher in colonial America and author of the first philosophy textbook published there. He derived his views largely from others, combining in one ...

Grosseteste, Robert (c.1170–1253)

By MacDonald, Scott

Grosseteste’s thought is representative of the conflicting currents in the intellectual climate of Europe in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. On the one hand, his commitment ...

Memory

By Deutscher, Max

Memory is central to every way in which we deal with things. One might subsume memory under the category of intellect, since it is our capacity to retain ...

Isaac of Stella (d. c.1177)

By Wetherbee, Winthrop

Like other twelfth-century Cistercians, Isaac of Stella was well versed in secular learning. Centrally engaged with the contemplative life, he expresses his spiritual insights in terms of the ...

Joachim of Fiore (c.1135–1202)

By Murphy, Sean Eisen

Joachim was a charismatic monastic reformer and inventive scriptural exegete whose study of the Bible led him to propound complex theories of history. Especially interested in the Apocalypse ...

Kilwardby, Robert (d. 1279)

By Conti, Alessandro D.

Robert Kilwardby is one of the most remarkable thinkers of the thirteenth century. He is the champion of the traditional approach to philosophy and theology, which developed the ...

Averroism

By Ebbesen, Sten

‘Averroism’, ‘radical Aristotelianism’ and ‘heterodox Aristotelianism’ are nineteenth- and twentieth-century labels for a late thirteenth-century movement among Parisian philosophers whose views were not easily reconcilable with Christian doctrine. ...

Education, history of philosophy of

The philosophy of education may be considered a branch of practical philosophy, aimed ultimately at the guidance of an important aspect of human affairs. Its questions thus arise ...

Thomism

By Haldane, John J.

Deriving from Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century, Thomism is a body of philosophical and theological ideas that seeks to articulate the intellectual content of Catholic Christianity. In ...

Malebranche, Nicolas (1638–1715)

By Nadler, Steven

Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), a French Catholic theologian, was the most important Cartesian philosopher of the second half of the seventeenth century. His philosophical system was a grand synthesis ...