The Aristotelian Tradition
Aristotle's Works on Logic and Metaphysics and Their Reception in the Middle Ages
Description
The twelve essays in this volume all began their existence as contributions to workshops held between 2009 and 2011 by a Danish-Swedish research network called The Aristotelian Tradition: The reception of Aristotle's works on logic and metaphysics in the Middle Ages, headquartered in Gothenburg and funded by the Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation. Most of them were written by members of the network, some by invited speakers. While the volume amply illustrates the set of scholarly approaches characteristic of the "Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy" (notably a strong philological foundation and an interest in ancient as well as medieval and Greek as well as Latin texts), its thematic diversity reflects a great breadth of interests. What unites the collection in this respect is simply a concern with different historical manifestations of Aristotelian thought on logical and metaphysical matters. The volume includes studies of texts by, among others, Apuleius, Boethius, Anonymus Aurelianensis III, Michael of Ephesus, Averroes, Anonymus Cantabrigiensis, Nicholas of Paris, Robert Kilwardby, Anonymus O, Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, and Francisco Suarez, relating to themes and passages in Aristotle's Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics 1, Posterior Analytics 1, Sophistical Refutations and Metaphysics A and Z. The book concludes with a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the first part of a fiercely anti-Aristotelian work, which has been described as the starting-point for Renaissance Platonism and Aristotelianism alike: George Gemistos Plethon's On Aristotle's Departures from Plato.
Reviews
"This impressive and wide-ranging volume, the product of a research programme at the University of Gothenburg, illustrates the scholarly strengths that have come to distinguish the 'Copenhagen School of Medieval Philosophy.' Although its disciplinary base is both philological and philosophical, with a strong focus on the logico-semantic Aristotelian tradition as it developed from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, it is also informed by an openness to both analytic and European approaches. The individual contributors to the collection are all leading scholars of Aristotle and his intellectual heirs from Porphyry to Suarez. Successive chapters make ground-breaking contributions to the study of Aristotle's Organon and Metaphysics, the reception of these works in the Latin West and Byzantium, and the influence of Arabic thought in Latin Christendom. The book concludes with a new edition, translation, and commentary, of George Gemistos Plethon's On Aristotle's Departures from Plato, a work that was highly influential on Renaissance thought." -- Paul Thom, University of Sydney