bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cyrenaics
Authors: Tsouna Voula 
Published: September 2018

The Cyrenaic school was a Greek philosophical school which flourished in the fourth and early third centuries bc. It took its name from the native city of its founder, Aristippus of Cyrene, a member of Socrates’ entourage. His most important successors were his grandson, Aristippus the Younger, and Theodorus, Anniceris and Hegesias, the heads of three separate Cyrenaic sects.
The basis of Cyrenaic philosophy is physiological and psychological. It focuses on the individual feelings of pleasure and pain which are classed as pathē, experiences produced in a subject by its contact with an object. They are described, respectively, in terms of smooth and rough movements, of the flesh or of the soul. A third category of pathē, described as intermediate between pleasure and pain, is also defined as movements and related to one’s perception of individual properties or qualities. All pathē are short-lived and have no value beyond the actual time of their occurrence.
These physiological characteristics are encountered both in the ethics and in the epistemology of the school. Although the Cyrenaics differed in their ethical doctrines, all of them attributed a central role in their systems to the individual bodily pleasure experienced in the present moment, and some of them considered it the moral end: it is pursued for its own sake, whereas happiness, conceived as the particular collection of pleasures that one experiences during a lifetime, is sought for the sake of its component pleasures. The goodness of individual pathē of pleasure is supported by an elaborate epistemological doctrine whose central claims are that we are infallibly and incorrigibly aware of the occurrence and content of our own pathē, but that we cannot apprehend the properties of external objects. A striking feature of this doctrine is the neologisms designating the perception of qualities, such as ‘I am whitened’ and ‘I am affected whitely’. This, and other features of Cyrenaic subjectivism, anticipate some modern philosophical analyses of subjective experience.
Philolaus (c.470–380/9 BC)
Authors: Schibli Hermann S. 
Published: September 2018

The Greek philosopher Philolaus of Croton, a contemporary of Democritus and Socrates, was a pre-eminent Pythagorean. His book counts as the first written treatise in the history of Pythagoreanism. Surviving in fragments, it constitutes an important source for our knowledge of fifth-century Pythagoreanism and supplements the picture given by Aristotle of Pythagorean doctrine.
Like earlier Presocratics Philolaus sought to furnish a comprehensive cosmology. Arguing from logical propositions, he posited two pre-existing principles: ‘unlimited things’ and ‘limiting things’. United by harmony these two principles account for the formation of the cosmos and its phenomena. Since Philolaus also invokes number as an all-powerful explanatory concept, it is likely that he associated his first principles and the things originating from them with numbers. The emphasis on harmony and number accords with early Pythagoreanism.
Philolaus also wrote on musical theory and astronomy. A noteworthy feature of his astronomy is the displacement of the earth from the centre of the cosmos by fire, pictured as the ‘hearth’ of the universe. The fragments further attest Philolaus’ interest in embryology, the causes of diseases, and physiology combined with psychological functions.
It was not unusual for early Greek philosophers to treat such a wide variety of topics. The distinctive elements of the thought of Philolaus are the logical arguments evinced in the fragments and the epistemological role of number for understanding the structure of reality.
Socratic schools
Authors: Tsouna Voula 
Published: September 2018

For approximately one and a half centuries after Socrates’ death in 399 bc, several Greek philosophical schools and sects each claimed to be the true intellectual heirs of Socrates. Later doxographers emphasized the Socratic pedigree of each of these schools by establishing an uninterrupted succession (diadochē) between its alleged founder, who was invariably a member of Socrates’ own entourage, and the philosophers who succeeded him as leaders of the school.
Leaving aside Plato, the founder of the Academy, the members of the Socratic circle who left a succession behind them are Antisthenes, Aristippus of Cyrene, Euclides of Megara, and Phaedo of Elis, considered respectively the founders of Cynicism, and of the Cyrenaic, Megarian and Elian schools. It is these groupings, plus several of their offshoots, that are conventionally known as the ‘Socratic schools’. All can be seen as, in their own ways, developing Socrates’ ethical outlook, and several were concerned with exploring the logical and metaphysical implications of his dialectical principles.
Telos
Authors: Brennan Tad 
Published: September 2018

Telos is the ancient Greek term for an end, fulfilment, completion, goal or aim; it is the source of the modern word ‘teleology’. In Greek philosophy the term plays two important and interrelated roles, in ethics and in natural science; both are connected to the most common definitional account of the telos, according to which a telos is that for the sake of which something is done or occurs.
In ethical theory, each human action is taken to be directed towards some telos (i.e. end), and practical deliberation involves specifying the concrete steps needed to attain that telos. An agent’s life as a whole can also be understood as aimed at the attainment of the agent’s overall telos, here in the sense of their final end or summum bonum (‘highest good’), generally identified in antiquity as eudaimonia (happiness). Rival ancient ethical theories are distinguished primarily by their rival specifications of the end; the Epicurean telos is pleasure, the Stoic telos is life according to nature, and so on.
In the natural science of Aristotle, the telos of a member of a species is the complete and perfect state of that entity in which it can reproduce itself (so, insects reach their telos when they become adults). The telos of an organ or capacity is the function it plays in the organism as a whole, or what it is for the sake of; the telos of the eye is seeing. Carrying on the tradition of Anaxagoras and Plato, Aristotle centres his scientific methodology around the claim that there are ends in nature, i.e. that some natural phenomena occur for the sake of something; Galen and the Stoics enthusiastically second this; Epicurus rejects it.
Abelard, Peter (1079–1142)
Authors: Tweedale Martin M. 
Published: September 2018

Among the many scholars who promoted the revival of learning in western Europe in the early twelfth century, Abelard stands out as a consummate logician, a formidable polemicist and a champion of the value of ancient pagan wisdom for Christian thought. Although he worked within the Aristotelian tradition, his logic deviates significantly from that of Aristotle, particularly in its emphasis on propositions and what propositions say. According to Abelard, the subject matter of logic, including universals such as genera and species, consists of linguistic expressions, not of the things these expressions talk about. However, the objective grounds for logical relationships lie in what these expressions signify, even though they cannot be said to signify any things. Abelard is, then, one of a number of medieval thinkers, often referred to in later times as ‘nominalists’, who argued against turning logic and semantics into some sort of science of the ‘real’, a kind of metaphysics. It was Abelard’s view that logic was, along with grammar and rhetoric, one of the sciences of language.
In ethics, Abelard defended a view in which moral merit and moral sin depend entirely on whether one’s intentions express respect for the good or contempt for it, and not at all on one’s desires, whether the deed is actually carried out, or even whether the deed is in fact something that ought or ought not be done.
Abelard did not believe that the doctrines of Christian faith could be proved by logically compelling arguments, but rational argumentation, he thought, could be used both to refute attacks on Christian doctrine and to provide arguments that would appeal to those who were attracted to high moral ideals. With arguments of this latter sort, he defended the rationalist positions that nothing occurs without a reason and that God cannot do anything other than what he does do.
Albert the Great (1200–80)
Authors: De libera Alain 
Published: September 2018

Albert the Great was the first scholastic interpreter of Aristotle’s work in its entirety, as well as being a theologian and preacher. He left an encyclopedic body of work covering all areas of medieval knowledge, both in philosophy (logic, ethics, metaphysics, sciences of nature, meteorology, mineralogy, psychology, anthropology, physiology, biology, natural sciences and zoology) and in theology (biblical commentaries, systematic theology, liturgy and sermons). His philosophical work is based on both Arabic sources (including Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes) and Greek and Byzantine sources (such as Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael of Ephesus). Its aim is to insure that the Latin world was properly introduced to philosophy by providing a systematic exposition of Aristotelian positions.
Albert’s method of exposition (paraphrase in the style of Avicenna rather than literal commentary in the style of Averroes), the relative heterogeneity of his sources and his own avowed general intention ‘to list the opinions of the philosophers without asserting anything about the truth’ of the opinions listed, all contribute to making his work seem eclectic or even theoretically inconsistent. This was compounded by the nature and number of spurious writings which, beginning in the fourteenth century, were traditionally attributed to him in the fields of alchemy, obstetrics, magic and necromancy, such as The Great and the Little Albert, The Secrets of Women and The Secrets of the Egyptians. This impression fades, however, when one examines the authentic works in the light of the history of medieval Aristotelianism and of the reception of the philosophical sources of late antiquity in the context of the thirteenth-century university.
Bonaventure (c.1217–74)
Authors: Kent Bonnie 
Published: September 2018

Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of Aristotle, Bonaventure’s thought includes some Aristotelian elements. His criticisms of Aristotle were motivated chiefly by his concern that various colleagues, more impressed by Aristotle’s work than they had reason to be, were philosophizing with the blindness of pagans instead of the wisdom of Christians.
To Bonaventure, the ultimate goal of human life is happiness, and happiness comes from union with God in the afterlife. If one forgets this goal when philosophizing, the higher purpose of the discipline is frustrated. Philosophical studies can indeed help in attaining happiness, but only if pursued with humility and as part of a morally upright life. In the grander scheme of things, the ascent of the heart is more important than the ascent of the mind.
Bonaventure’s later works consistently emphasize that all creation emanates from, reflects and returns to its source. Because the meaning of human life can be understood only from this wider perspective, the general aim is to show an integrated whole hierarchically ordered to God. The structure and symbolism favoured by Bonaventure reflect mystical elements as well. The world, no less than a book, reveals its creator: all visible things represent a higher reality. The theologian must use symbols to reveal this deeper meaning. He must teach especially of Christ, through whom God creates everything that exists and who is the sole medium by which we can return to our creator.
Bonaventure’s theory of illumination aims to account for the certitude of human knowledge. He argues that there can be no certain knowledge unless the knower is infallible and what is known cannot change. Because the human mind cannot be entirely infallible through its own power, it needs the cooperation of God, even as it needs God as the source of immutable truths. Sense experience does not suffice, for it cannot reveal that what is true could not possibly be otherwise; so, in Bonaventure’s view, the human mind attains certainty about the world only when it understands it in light of the ‘eternal reasons’ or divine ideas. This illumination from God, while necessary for certainty, ordinarily proceeds without a person’s being conscious of it.
Gilbert of Poitiers (c.1085–1154)
Authors: Jacobi Klaus 
Published: September 2018

Gilbert’s most important work is his commentary on the theological treatises of Boethius. His contemporaries valued him not only as a theologian but also as a philosopher, especially as a logician. Their estimation was well-founded. Although today we possess only theological writings from his own hand, these allow us to reconstruct a body of rich and independent philosophical thought.
The most salient characteristic of Gilbert’s thought is the precise, analytical reflection that he brought to bear on the linguistic and conceptual means by which we think about whatever exists. In Gilbert’s thought, two things go hand in hand: a philosophy of the concrete and the particular and an intellectual viewpoint whose conceptual resources are manifestly Platonist. In the history of philosophy, these two things are not usually found together.
Grosseteste, Robert (c.1170–1253)
Authors: MacDonald Scott 
Published: September 2018

Grosseteste’s thought is representative of the conflicting currents in the intellectual climate of Europe in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. On the one hand, his commitment to acquiring, understanding and making accessible to his Latin contemporaries the texts and ideas of newly discovered Arabic and Greek intellectual traditions places him in the vanguard of a sweeping movement transforming European thought during his lifetime. His work in science and natural philosophy, for example, is inspired by material newly translated from Arabic sources and by the new Aristotelian natural philosophy, especially the Physics, On the Heavens and Posterior Analytics (Aristotle’s treatise on the nature of scientific knowledge). Similarly, in his work in metaphysics, ethics and theology Grosseteste turns to ancient sources previously unknown (or incompletely known) to Western thinkers, prominent among which are Aristotle’s Ethics and the writings of Pseudo-Dionysius. His work as a translator of and commentator on Aristotle and Pseudo-Dionysius places Grosseteste among the pioneers in the assimilation of these important strands of the Greek intellectual heritage into the mainstream of European thought.
On the other hand, Grosseteste’s views are in significant respects conservative. His greatest debt is to Augustine, and his most original ideas – such as his view that light is a fundamental constituent of all corporeal reality – are extensions of recognizably Augustinian themes. Moreover, although his work on Aristotle is groundbreaking, his approach is judicious and measured, lacking any hint of the crusader’s zeal that marks the work of the later radical Aristotelians. In general his practice conforms to the traditional Neoplatonist line, viewing Aristotle as a guide to logic and natural philosophy while turning to Platonism – in Grosseteste’s case, Augustinian and Pseudo-Dionysian Platonism – for the correct account of the loftier matters of metaphysics and theology.
Origen (c.185–c.254)
Authors: Hause Jeffrey 
Published: September 2018

An ascetic Christian, prodigious scholar and dedicated teacher, Origen devoted his life to exploring God’s revelation. Much of his work takes the form of commentaries on Scripture. He argued that Scripture has three levels: the literal, the moral and the spiritual. The literal level veils the others, and we need God’s help to find the divine mysteries behind the veil. His commentaries directly or indirectly influenced the practice of exegesis throughout the patristic period and the Middle Ages.
Origen used his spiritual exegesis, as well as arguments, concepts and models drawn from philosophy, to tackle the theological problems of his day: the compatibility of providence and freedom, the relation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to each other and to rational creatures, the problem of evil, and the origin and destiny of the soul. He is famous – or infamous – for arguing that the souls of angels, demons and human beings enjoyed a previous heavenly existence, but that they sinned and fell. God created the world to punish and remedy their faults.
Richard Rufus of Cornwall (d. after 1259)
Authors: Wood Rega 
Published: September 2018

A thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian, Rufus was among the first Western medieval authors to study Aristotelian metaphysics, physics and epistemology; his lectures on Aristotle’s Physics are the earliest known surviving Western medieval commentary. In 1238, after writing treatises against Averroes and lecturing on Aristotle – at greatest length on the Metaphysics – he joined the Franciscan Order, left Paris and became a theologian.
Rufus’ lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences were the first presented by an Oxford bachelor of theology. Greatly influenced by Robert Grosseteste, Rufus’ Oxford lectures were devoted in part to a refutation of Richard Fishacre, the Dominican master who first lectured on the Sentences at Oxford. Though much more sophisticated philosophically than Fishacre, Rufus defended the more exclusively biblical theology recommended by Grosseteste against Fishacre’s more modern scholasticism.
Rufus’ Oxford lectures were employed as a source by Bonaventure, whose lectures on the Sentences were vastly influential. Returning to Paris shortly after Bonaventure lectured there, Rufus took Bonaventure’s lectures as a model for his own Parisian Sentences commentary. Rufus’ Paris lectures made him famous. According to his enemy Roger Bacon, when he returned to Oxford after 1256 as the Franciscan regent master, his influence increased steadily. It was at its height forty years later in the 1290s, when John Duns Scotus was a bachelor of theology. Early versions of many important positions developed by Duns Scotus can be found in Rufus’ works.
Siger of Brabant (c.1240–c.1284)
Authors: Wippel John F. 
Published: September 2018

Born probably circa 1240 in the Duchy of Brabant, Siger of Brabant studied philosophy in the arts faculty at the University of Paris and became regent master there in the 1260s. Various positions which he defended were included in Bishop Etienne Tempier’s condemnations of 1270 and 1277, and he appears to have fled France when cited to appear before the French inquisition. He probably spent his final days in Italy, and died there before November 1284.
As a professional teacher of philosophy, Siger regarded it as his primary mission to lecture on Aristotle and other philosophers and to present their views on the points at issue. Early in his career he defended some of the positions condemned by Bishop Tempier, but after 1270 he often nuanced his exposition of such views by noting that he was only presenting the views of the philosophers or of Aristotle, or that he was proceeding philosophically in these discussions. Often regarded as a leading Latin ‘Averroist’, he agreed with Averroes that there is only one human intellect, though he eventually reversed his view on this. His personal philosophy is strongly Aristotelian, but with various elements derived from Neoplationism.
On the relationship between essence and existence in created beings, Siger denies that existence is something added to a thing’s essence and holds that the existence of such entities belongs to their essence. He holds that one can demonstrate God’s existence, but insists that Aristotle’s physical argument for a First Mover must be completed by metaphysical argumentation. While denying that human beings in this life enjoy any direct knowledge of the divine essence, he seems open to Averroes’ view that they can reach some knowledge thereof.
Aristotelianism, Renaissance
Authors: Mahoney Edward P. , South James B. 
Published: September 2018

By the Renaissance here is meant the period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries during which there was a deliberate attempt, especially in Italy, to pattern cultural activities on models drawn from antiquity. However, Aristotelianism during that period was not cut off from medieval developments, since earlier interests and topics of discussion still held the attention of philosophers, theologians and non-academic intellectuals. Moreover, given that Aristotelianism was embedded in the university curriculum, the approach and activities of Renaissance Aristotelians often reflected earlier institutional developments. The educational reforms of the German Lutheran Philipp Melanchthon and of the newly-founded Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) ensured that Aristotle remained central to the curriculum. On the other hand, deliberate attempts to divorce themselves from earlier structures and approaches can be discerned in some Renaissance Aristotelians. Owing to the influence of humanism, professors of philosophy whose loyalty was to Aristotle came to study Greek and explicate Aristotle from the Greek text, to imitate the style of classical models, and to prefer the Greek commentators over the medieval Latins because their language was Greek.
Renaissance Aristotelianism did not constitute a uniform, coherent school of thought with a clearly defined body of doctrines shared by all adherents. A careful reading of the many commentaries, paraphrases, textbooks and treatises based on Aristotle’s works reveals a surprisingly wide variation in interpretation and a strong tendency to modify or supplement the Stagirite’s teachings with tenets derived from other philosophical or scientific sources or from contemporary interests and discoveries. It is perhaps wise to speak of a variety of Aristotelianisms rather than to perpetuate the long-standing caricature of ‘modern’ philosophy and science arising by throwing off the shackles of a monolithic Peripatetic orthodoxy. The various Aristotelianisms included Albertism, Thomism, Scotism and Averroism, but as a result of the new translations of the Greek commentators on Aristotle there were also Renaissance Aristotelians who approached Aristotle by way of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius and John Philoponus. Another current is best described as ‘eclectic Aristotelianism’. Some Aristotelians adopted a ‘philological’ approach, approaching Aristotle simply through analysis of the Greek text and not as a philosophical challenge. This approach made Aristotelianism irrelevant to the enterprise of philosophy, but fortunately did not predominate.