Thomas Aquinas’s views on government, law, war, property, and sexual ethics, but also provide the theological, epistemological, and psychological background for his political and ethical thought, including the Five Proofs on the existence of God and Aquinas’s theories of knowledge, the soul, the purpose of man, and the order of the universe. Throughout the book,footnotes explain technical terms and historical, biblical, and classical references."Backgrounds and Sources" follows the text, with selections from the writings of Aristotle, St. Augustine, and Dionysius the Areopagite."Interpretations" traces Aquinas’s influence on medieval thought, on Roman Catholicism during the Renaissance, on early modern political thought (Richard Hooker and Francisco Suarez), on nineteenth-and twentieth-century papal social thought, and on contemporary Christian Democratic political parties in Europe and Latin America.The volume concludes with "Contemporary Problems in Thomistic Ethics",which contains eight analyses of the influence of Aquinas's thought on modern debates on war, contraception, and abortion.A Selected Bibliography is included.

    Drawing on examples from many fields, it explains how scientists analyze and choose their working facts, and it explores the nature of experimentation, theory, and the mind. 1914 edition.

    Its aim is to liberate people from the tormenting perplexities arising from their understanding of the Bible according only to its literal meaning. This edition contains extensive introductions by Shlomo Pines and Leo Strauss, a leading authority on Maimonides.

    This is the initial volume of a four-book set in which Kenny will unfold a magisterial new history of Western philosophy, the first major single-author history of philosophy to appear in decades.Ancient Philosophy spans over a thousand years and brings to life the great minds of the past, from Thales, Pythagoras, and Parmenides, to Socrates, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Augustine. The book's great virtue is that it is written by one of the world's leading authorities on the subject. Instead of an uncritical, straightforward recitation of known facts—Plato and his cave of shadows, Aristotle's ethics, Augustine's City of God—we see the major philosophers through the eyes of a man who has spent a lifetime contemplating their work. Thus we do not simply get an overview of Aristotle, for example, but a penetrating and insightful critique of his thought. Kenny offers an illuminating account of the various schools of thought, from the Pre-Socratics to the Epicureans. He examines the development of logic and reason, ancient ideas about physics ("how things happen"), metaphysics and ethics, and the earliest thinking about the soul and god.Vividly written, but serious and deep enough to offer a genuine understanding of the great philosophers, Kenny's lucid and stimulating history will become the definitive work for anyone interested in the people and ideas that shaped the course of Western thought.Sir Anthony Kenny is one of Britain's most distinguished academic figures. He has been Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Master of Balliol College, Chairman of the Board of the British Library, and President of the British Academy. He has published more than forty books on philosophy and history.

    Republic is also featured in its entirety.

    ca. 165), a convert to Christianity from traditional Greek religion. The Dialogue purports to be a two-day dialogue that took place in Asia Minor between Justin and Trypho, a Hellenized Jew. Justin argues extensively on the basis of lengthy Old Testament quotations that Christ is the Messiah and God incarnate, and that the Christian community is the new Israel. In the beginning of the work Justin recounts how he converted to Christianity.The Dialogue remains of great, and varying, interest. It has important information on the development of Jewish-Christian relations, on the development of the text of the Old Testament, and on the existence and character of the early Jewish Christian community. Justin's story of how he became a Christian is one of our earliest conversion accounts. The Dialogue is an ideal textbook for classes investigating the development of religion in Late Antiquity since it touches on many aspects of religion in the Roman Empire.This edition of the Dialogue with Trypho is a revision of Thomas B. Falls's translation, which appeared in Fathers of the Church, vol. 6. Thomas P. Halton has emended the translation in light of the 1997 critical edition by Miroslav Marcovich, and he has provided extensive annotation to recent scholarship on the Dialogue. Michael Slusser has edited the volume to bring it into conformity with the new Selections from Fathers of the Church series.ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR:Thomas P. Halton is Professor Emeritus of Greek and Latin at the Catholic University of America. He has served as the general editor of the Fathers of the Church series since 1983.

    Tho the names refer to it as a unity, each name is different & so, taken together, they differentiate it. The implicit distinction between the godhead's unity & the multiplicity of the names is reflected in the names' structures themselves. Each includes a Greek prefix: hyper-, which indicates the unity of the godhead to whom names are applied. But each name is different, indicating the self-multiplication of the godhead. The result is a set of names like “over-good,” “over-being” & “over-life.” Dionysius also makes use of a 2nd, equivalent prefix: pro-. God is “pre-good” & “pre-being,” meaning it has the attributes of creatures in a way that transcends both creature & attribute. The prefixes must be applied strictly to the names when they're used of God itself. On the other hand, when the names are used only of God as cause, the prefixes may be left off, since the causality of God is already a procession into the differentiation properly signified by each of the different names. The most proper object of the names is the highest creature. The exemplary instances of goodness, being & life are the highest of the angels or intelligible minds. For this reason, he frequently refers to this type as an “intelligible name.” He incorporates into the number of intelligible names the traditional Neoplatonic intelligible categories: being, identity, difference, rest & motion, as well as the being, life & intellect triad. The fact God transcends the proper meaning of these names doesn't mean it ought be called “non-being,” “non-life” or “non-intellect.” He prefers to say God is “over being,” “over life” & “over intellect.” Few can contemplate the intelligible names in their purity. We require the names to be incarnated in visible things. Unable to see being, life & wisdom in themselves, we need a visible being who is living & wise. Such a person can then become the means by which we contemplate the intelligible. The teacher Hierotheus is one such visible incarnation of the names. But Hierotheus may do more than incarnate the names. He can also unfold them in speech, taking the unitary name of “being” & describing it at length, as is done in chapter 5. As he describes it, the name unfolds itself into a form that is more multiple, because of the many words used in his description. It thus approaches the multiple character of the human way of knowing & becomes more easily understood. When Dionysius praises “dissimilar similarities” over seemingly more appropriate symbolic names for God, he explains that negations are true to God & such dissimilar names serve as such negations. The Mystical Theology has this last, most arcane form of theology as its subject. Negations are properly applied not only to the names of the symbolic theology. Any & all of the divine names must be negated, beginning with those of the symbolic theology, continuing with the intelligible names & concluding with the theological representations. The godhead is no more “spirit,” “sonship” & “fatherhood” than it's “intellect” or “asleep.” These negations must be distinguished from privations. A privation is simply the absence of a given predicate, which could just as easily be present. The absence of the predicate is opposed to its presence: “lifeless” is opposed to “living.” But when we say that the godhead isn't “living” we don't mean it's “lifeless.” The godhead is beyond lifeless as well as beyond living. For this reason, he says our affirmations of the godhead aren't opposed to our negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated. The most arcane passages of Mystical Theology revolve around the mystical as taken in itself & not as the act of negating the other forms of theology. Dionysius says that after all speaking, reading & comprehending of the names ceases, there follows a divine silence, darkness & unknowing. All three of these characteristics seem privative, as tho they were simply being the absence of speech, sight & knowledge respectively. But Dionysius doesn't treat them as privative. Instead, he uses spatio-temporal language to mark off a special place & time for them. Using as example Moses' ascent up Mt Sinai, Dionysius says that after Moses ascends thru the sensible & intelligible contemplation of God, he then enters the darkness above the mountain's peak. The darkness is located above the mountain. Moses enters it after his contemplation of God in the various forms of theology. Dionysius leaves the relation between Moses & the darkness obscure. Some commentators reduce it to a form of knowing, albeit an extraordinary form of knowing. Others reduce it to a form of affective experience, in which Moses feels something he can never know or explain in words. Dionysius himself does not give decisive evidence in favor of either interpretation. He speaks only of Moses' “union” with the ineffable, invisible, unknowable godhead.--Stanford Encyclopedia (edited)

    You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

    Originally written in 1897 by the 28th president of the United States, this essay underlines the necessity for everyone in the modern world to embrace humane behavior.

    In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people - from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists - agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the most common justification for religious faith. It is also the primary reason why so many secularists and religious moderates feel obligated to "respect" the hardened superstitions of their more devout neighbors.In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape." Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape, Harris foresees a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of "morality"; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible.Bringing a fresh perspective to age-old questions of right and wrong and good and evil, Harris demonstrates that we already know enough about the human brain and its relationship to events in the world to say that there are right and wrong answers to the most pressing questions of human life. Because such answers exist, moral relativism is simply false - and comes at increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality.Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our "culture wars," Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.

    In his apologetical treatise, Contra Celsum, Origen argues against the ideas set forth by Celsus and quotes from Celsus' The True Doctrine at length. Through this treatise, Celsus has come to represent the detached pagan voice of the ages. In this translation, Professor Hoffmann has, for the first time, painstakingly reconstructed the main order of the philosopher's argument. Celsus' discourse shows him to be an eclectic philosopher--a dabbler in various schools of thought, including Platonism and Stoicism, and a student of the history and religious customs of many nations. Hoffman supplements this definitive translation with an informative introduction, summarizing Celsus' premises and placing the identity of Celsus in its historical context.

    Volume 1 presents twenty-five key texts, chronologically arranged, beginning with Peirce's "On a New List of Categories" of 1867, a highly regarded alternative to Kantian philosophy, and ending with the first sustained and systematic presentation of his evolutionary metaphysics in the "Monist Metaphysical Series" of 1891-1893. The book features a clear introduction and informative headnotes to help readers grasp the nature and significance of Peirce's thought system. Bringing together all the writings needed for the study of Peirce's systematic philosophy and its development, Volume 1 is ideal for classroom use. Volume 2, covering the period from 1894 until Peirce's death in 1914, will highlight the development of his system of signs and his mature pragmatism."...a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces.... all the Peirce most people will ever need." --Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books"The Monist essays are included in the first volume of the compact and welcome Essential Peirce; they are by Peirce's standards quite accessible and splendid in their cosmic scope and assertiveness." --London Review of Books

    The author of "Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic" has unearthed a sensational, true story of a mystical and esoteric tradition that lies hidden at the roots of Western culture--and that gave rise to the world we live in.

    Iamblichus' biography is universally acknowledged as deriving from sources of the highest antiquity. Its classic translation by Thomas Taylor was first printed in 1818 and is once again brought to light in this edition.During Iamblichus' life, the depth and sublimity of his writing and discourse attracted a multitude of associates and disciples from all parts of the world. The Emperor Julian wrote of him, "that he was posterior indeed in time, but not in genius, to Plato," and all the Platonists who succeeded him honored him with the epithet of "divine."Iamblichus' account of the life of Pythagoras begins with the great philosopher's birth on the island of Samos, his youth, and his wide renown in Greece. It briefly covers his early travels and his studies with the philosophers Anaximander and Thales, his twenty-two years of instruction in the temples of Egypt, and his initiation into the Egyptian and Babylonian mysteries. The later life and work of Pythagoras are richly elaborated, with humorous and profound anecdotes illustrating his philosophy and providing a unique view of community life under his tutelage in Crotona.Included are excerpts from his teachings on harmonic science, dietetic medicine, friendship, temperance, politics, parenthood, the soul's former lives and many other topics. The book also contains substantial sections on the Fragments of the Ethical Writings (the work of very early Pythagoreans) and the Pythagoric Sentences.Sage of Samos, initiate of the mysteries, and transmitter of the ancient wisdom, Pythagoras was a pivotal figure in all of Western philosophy and thought. His life is as much an example for us today as it was for his students nearly twenty-five centuries ago.

    The subjects of his plays were drawn from mythology and legend. Each play contains at least one heroic figure, a character whose strength, courage, or intelligence exceeds the human norm—but who also has more than ordinary pride and self-assurance. These qualities combine to lead to a tragic end. Hugh Lloyd-Jones gives us, in two volumes, a new translation of the seven surviving plays. Volume I contains Oedipus Tyrannus (which tells the famous Oedipus story), Ajax (a heroic tragedy of wounded self-esteem), and Electra (the story of siblings who seek revenge on their mother and her lover for killing their father).