Author: Peter S. Eardley
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 0826498809
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
A student's guide to the life and thought of Thomas Aquinas, the most widely read and studied medieval thinker.

Author: Simon Oliver
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 056765608X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Judaism, Christianity and Islam claim that the universe is not a brute fact. It is 'created'. But what do we mean by 'creation'? Do we mean that the universe is 'designed'? Is it the product of an evolutionary process? How are creatures related to God, and does God act within creation? Simon Oliver begins with the background to the Christian doctrine of creation in Greek philosophy and the Old Testament. This provides a route into understanding the claim that we are part of a created order that is also the theatre of God's redemptive action in Christ. He examines different understanding of creation, with close reference to the work of patristic and medieval theologians such as Augustine and Aquinas. This leads to an historical guide to the relationship between theological, philosophical and scientific approaches to nature in the modern period including Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Some of the ethical issues concerning humanity's place within, and treatment of, creation and our environment are also examined. Finally, a distinctive yet traditional theology of creation is proposed focused on the concepts of gift and participation as ways of understanding more fully the meaning and implications of the claim that the universe is created.

Author: Daniel Davies
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199768730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
This book investigates the substance and presentation of major metaphysical themes in Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed. Using rigorous philosophy it seeks to refute the view that the Guide hides an ''esoteric'' philosophical meaning beneath a traditional veneer, and offers a new explanation of his esotericism.

Author: Daniel Frank
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108480519
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
This is the first scholarly collection in English devoted to Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed.

Author: E. F. Schumacher
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0060906111
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
The author of the world wide best-seller, Small Is Beautiful, now tackles the subject of Man, the World, and the Meaning of Living. Schumacher writes about man's relation to the world. man has obligations -- to other men, to the earth, to progress and technology, but most importantly himself. If man can fulfill these obligations, then and only then can he enjoy a real relationship with the world, then and only then can he know the meaning of living. Schumacher says we need maps: a "map of knowledge" and a "map of living." The concern of the mapmaker--in this instance, Schumacher--is to find for everything it's proper place. Things out of place tend to get lost; they become invisible and there proper places end to be filled by other things that ought not be there at all and therefore serve to mislead. A Guide for the Perplexed teaches us to be our own map makers. This constantly surprising, always stimulating book will be welcomed by a large audience, including the many new fans who believe strongly in what Schumacher has to say.

Author: Saint Thomas (Aquinas)
Publisher: PIMS
ISBN: 9780888442857
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
The six articles that comprise Book 2, Distinction 1, Question 1 of Aquinas' Writings on the "Sentences" of Peter Lombard represent his earliest and most succinct account of creation. These texts contain the essential Thomistic doctrines on the subject, and are here translated into English for the first time, along with an introduction and analysis. In Article One Aquinas argues, against Manichean dualism, that there is one ultimate cause of all created being; in so doing he gives three proofs for the existence of the Creator and the essential features of his answer to the problem of evil. Thomas establishes his definition of creation in Article Two, providing the needed distinctions between philosophical and theological senses of creation. Emanationism and the problem of whether there can be any intermediary causes in God's act of creation are the subject of Article Three. The next article demonstrates that although God is the cause of all created being, nevertheless creatures are true causes in nature. Article Five argues that it is from revelation alone that we know that the world had a temporal beginning, and that the philosophical arguments that purport to show either the necessity or impossibility of the temporal beginning are not persuasive. A detailed exposition of the meaning of the first sentence of the Bible, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," follows in Article Six.

Author: Simon Blackburn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198037570
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The author of the highly popular book Think, which Time magazine hailed as "the one book every smart person should read to understand, and even enjoy, the key questions of philosophy," Simon Blackburn is that rara avis--an eminent thinker who is able to explain philosophy to the general reader. Now Blackburn offers a tour de force exploration of what he calls "the most exciting and engaging issue in the whole of philosophy"--the age-old war over truth. The front lines of this war are well defined. On one side are those who believe in plain, unvarnished facts, rock-solid truths that can be found through reason and objectivity--that science leads to truth, for instance. Their opponents mock this idea. They see the dark forces of language, culture, power, gender, class, ideology and desire--all subverting our perceptions of the world, and clouding our judgement with false notions of absolute truth. Beginning with an early skirmish in the war--when Socrates confronted the sophists in ancient Athens--Blackburn offers a penetrating look at the longstanding battle these two groups have waged, examining the philosophical battles fought by Plato, Protagoras, William James, David Hume, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, and many others, with a particularly fascinating look at Nietzsche. Among the questions Blackburn considers are: is science mere opinion, can historians understand another historical period, and indeed can one culture ever truly understand another. Blackburn concludes that both sides have merit, and that neither has exclusive ownership of truth. What is important is that, whichever side we embrace, we should know where we stand and what is to be said for our opponents.

Author: Saint Thomas (Aquinas)
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 9780813208442
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Thomas's Commentary on the Book of Causes, composed during the first half of 1272, offers an extended view of his approach to Neoplatonic thought and functions as a guide to his metaphysics. Though long neglected and, until now, never translated into English, it deserves an equal place alongside his commentaries on Aristotle and Boethius. In addition to the extensive annotation, bibliography, and thorough introduction, this translation is accompanied by two valuable appendices. The first provides a translation of another version of proposition 29 of the Book of Causes, which was not known to St. Thomas. The second lists citations of the Book of Causes found in the works of St. Thomas and cross-references these to a list showing the works, and the exact location within them, where the citations can be found.

Author: Josef Stern
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022645763X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 490

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Book Description
Moses Maimonides’s Guide of the Perplexed is the greatest philosophical text in the history of Jewish thought and a major work of the Middle Ages. For almost all of its history, however, the Guide has been read and commented upon in translation—in Hebrew, Latin, Spanish, French, English, and other modern languages—rather than in its original Judeo-Arabic. This volume is the first to tell the story of the translations and translators of Maimonides’ Guide and its impact in translation on philosophy from the Middle Ages to the present day. A collection of essays by scholars from a range of disciplines, the book unfolds in two parts. The first traces the history of the translations of the Guide, from medieval to modern renditions. The second surveys its influence in translation on Latin scholastic, early modern, and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, as well as its impact in translation on current scholarship. Interdisciplinary in approach, this book will be essential reading for philosophers, historians, and religious studies scholars alike.

Author: Mercedes Rubio
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402047479
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
This in-depth study of Thomas Aquinas’ Quaestio de Attributis binds together the findings of previous research on the unique history of this text by reconstructing the historical circumstances surrounding its composition, shows that the Quaestio contains Aquinas’ final answer to the dispute on the divine attributes, and thoroughly examines his interpretation of Maimonides’ position on the issue of the knowledge of God by analysing this and other texts related to it chronologically and doctrinally.