Abelard in Four Dimensions: A Twelfth-Century Philosopher in His Context and Ours by John Marenbon, one of the leading scholars of medieval philosophy and a specialist on Abelard's thought, ...originated from a set of lectures in the distinguished Conway Lectures in Medieval Studies series and provides new interpretations of central areas of Peter Abelard's philosophy and its influence. The four dimensions of Abelard to which the title refers are that of the past (Abelard's predecessors), present (his works in context), future (the influence of his thinking up to the seventeenth century), and the present-day philosophical culture in which Abelard's works are still discussed and his arguments debated. For readers new to Abelard, this book provides an introduction to his life and works along with discussion of his central ideas in semantics, ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion. For specialists, the book contains new arguments about the authenticity and chronology of his logical work, fresh evidence about Abelard’s relations with Anselm and Hugh of St. Victor, a new understanding of how he combines the necessity of divine action with human freedom, and reinterpretations of important passages in which he discusses semantics and metaphysics. For all historians of philosophy, it sets out and illustrates a new methodological approach, which can be used for any thinker in any period and will help to overcome the divisions between historians based in philosophy departments and scholars with historical or philological training.
In this paper, I consider the possibility that Abbot Isaac of Stella may have known Maximus the Confessor's writings directly or, more likely, indirectly, thanks to Scotus Eriugena's translations. Of ...all the texts preserved from Isaac, I think I can best argue for this (possible) influence based on the Epistola de anima ad Alcherum and the Epistola de canone missae, recently published in the prestigious series Sources Chrétiennes. Even though the Cistercian abbot conceals his sources very well, rarely citing clear sources such as Augustine and Dionysius the Areopagite, I nevertheless believe that we can detect some clues leading to the conclusion that he was familiar with the texts of Eriugena and, by extension, with the teachings of Maximus the Confessor.
Tal como Étienne Gilson señaló, el siglo XII asiste a lo que denominó “socratismo cristiano”: una revalorización teórica y práctica de la sentencia délfica “Nosce te ipsum”. Uno de los filósofos que ...suele ser incluido en esta corriente es Pedro Abelardo, autor de una obra llamada Scito te ipsum (Conócete a ti mismo). Rainer Ilgner, sin embargo, guiado por un espíritu primordialmente filológico, ha denunciado que el maestro palatino no hizo más que “usurpar” la máxima a partir de la cual pensadores como Hugo de San Víctor o Bernardo de Claraval sí edificaron sus respectivas propuestas morales. Nuestro objetivo principal, pues, es contrastar su tesis desde un punto de vista filosófico. Para ello, hemos dividido este artículo en dos grandes momentos: en el primero, explicaremos en qué consiste el socratismo cristiano y cuál es la relación que, según diferentes autores, guardaría con él la teoría ética de Abelardo; en un segundo momento, realizaremos un análisis filosófico de las principales premisas de la teoría ética abelardiana de modo tal que nos permita corroborar o refutar la acusación de Ilgner.
...a book would shed light on what Christians were saying about Judaism at the very moment one of our most significant thinkers was commenting on Christianity, and it might help us glean insights ...into how to respond to Christian counterpoints to the Jewish arguments. Because Christian scholars had to live lives of celibacy, and because Abelard did not want to interrupt his career, he secretly married Heloise but then arranged for her to enter a convent so as to hide their union from the public. ...he sought to demonstrate that Judaism possesses a superior source for its theology, which is the unbroken chain of prophecy and Torah transmission. Kuzari opens in the actual first-person voice of Halevi, explaining that he was asked to provide proofs for the veracity of Judaism's faith claims.
Peter Abelard (1079–1142) is still considered one of the giants of philosophy, theology, and psychology, and the unsurpassed master of dialectical debate. Born in Le Pallet, near Nantes, Abelard ...became an academic and wandering cleric of great fame, founder of several schools that attracted students from all countries, arousing the admiration of his contemporaries and the profound envy of his colleagues. Around 1115, Abelard became master of the school of the Cathedral of Notre‐Dame. Shortly after, the canon Fulbert asked him to take his niece, the equally famous and highly cultured Héloïse d'Argenteuil (1092–1164), as a pupil. Thus a relationship began, celebrated for centuries to come, characterized by burning sexual and intellectual passion, by the famous correspondence, which will be the archetype of sentimental education and the template of romantic love letters, bythe birth of a son and consequent marriage, and by the cowardly revenge of Fulbert, who, together with a band of servants, mutilated “those parts of my body with which I had done what was the cause of their pain,” as Abelard wrote. While this unclear self‐description has suggested to contemporaries and to posterity that Abelard was castrated, we aim to question this belief by analyzing in‐depth this historical‐andrological clinical case to understand if there is any evidence that could suggest that Abelard was instead the victim of an even more brutal punishment: penectomy. Signs and symptoms gleaned from the personal writings and historical perspectives of Abelard and his time are used here to provide a possible answer to a thousand‐year‐old question: what makes a man … a man?
This article argues that traditional presentations of Heloise focus on her image as a heroine of love rather than giving sufficient attention to her status as abbess of the Paraclete. In particular, ...there has been unjustified neglect of the final dossier in her exchange, known as the Institutiones nostre, written in response to Peter Abelard's Institutio, or Rule for the Paraclete. These observances were formulated to establish uniform practices at both the Paraclete and its first daughter‐house at Trainel, dedicated to Mary Magdalen. This neglect of Heloise's role as an abbess encouraged a tendency in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to focus on themes of erotic rather than religious longing, as well as a subsequent tendency to question the authenticity of the letters of Heloise, without full appreciation of her role as abbess of the Paraclete. A translation of the Institutiones nostre is included as an appendix.
This book offers a major reassessment of Abelard's modal logic and theory of modalities, and provides a comprehensive study of the 12th-century context in which his views originated and developed, by ...analysing many logical sources that are still unedited and mostly unexplored.
In diesem Artikel soll Peter Abaelards (1079–1142) Moralphilosophie vorgestellt werden, wie er sie in seiner Schrift Ethica – scito te ipsum (ca. 1139) entworfen hat. Besonderheit dieser Ethik ist ...es, dass Abaelard ausschließlich die Absicht einer Handlung als Gegenstand der moralischen Beurteilung zulässt. Von dieser sehr fortschrittlichen Position aus stellt sich allerdings die Frage, wie nach Abaelard der Fall zu behandeln ist, bei dem jemand einem Irrtum unterliegt, wie dies der Fall bei den Peinigern Jesu zu sein scheint, um deren Vergebung Jesus nach Lk 23 bittet. Ein Vergleich mit der Irrtumslehre des modernen Strafrechts zeigt die Aktualität und Grenzen des Ansatzes Abaelards.
In the late twelfth century, Bartholomew, bishop of Exeter (1161–84), identified astrology as the most serious heresy facing the English Church. The evidence of Bartholomew's writing suggests that ...astrology became more widely accepted among the English clergy during his episcopal tenure. It also supports the view that popular heretical movements enjoyed little success in England during this period, in contrast to some regions in mainland Europe. Instead, it was scholars deemed guilty of intellectual error, and above all the astrologers, who became the focus of Bartholomew's anxieties about heresy and the intellectual culture of his day.
Textual Transvestism analyzes the flourishing of imitative versions of Heloise's and Abelard's love correspondence in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
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