1st Edition

Medieval Aristotelianism and its Limits Classical Traditions in Moral and Political Philosophy, 12th–15th Centuries

By Cary J. Nederman Copyright 1997
    350 Pages
    by Routledge

    This volume deals with the development of moral and political philosophy in the medieval West. Professor Nederman is concerned to trace the continuing influence of classical ideas, but emphasises that the very diversity and diffuseness of medieval thought shows that there is no single scheme that can account for the way these ideas were received, disseminated and reformulated by medieval ethical and political theorists.

    Contents: Introduction; Aristotelian ethics before the Nicomachean Ethics: alternative sources of Aristotle's concept of virtue in the 12th century; Aristotelianism and the origins of political science in the 12th century; Nature, ethics, and the doctrine of ’habitus’: Aristotelian moral psychology in the 12th century; To the court and back again: the origins and dating of the Entheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum of John of Salisbury; The changing face of tyranny: the reign of King Stephen in John of Salisbury’s political thought; The physiological significance of the organic metaphor in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus; A duty to kill: John of Salisbury’s theory of tyrannicide; The Aristotelian doctrine of the mean and John of Salisbury’s concept of liberty; Knowledge, virtue and the path to wisdom: the unexamined Aristotelianism of John of Salisbury's Metalogicon; Aristotelian ethics and John of Salisbury’s letters; Nature, sin and the origins of society: the Ciceronian tradition in medieval political thought; The union of wisdom and eloquence before the Renaissance: the Ciceronian orator in medieval thought; Bracton on kingship revisted; Kings, peers and parliament: virtue and corulership in Walter Burley’s Commentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum Aristotelis; Aristotle as authority: alternative Aristotelian sources of late medieval political theory; Conciliarism and constitutionalism: Jean Gerson and medieval political thought; Humanism and empire: Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Cicero and the imperial ideal; Index.