Hackett Publishing

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Thomas Williams’ revision of Arthur Hyman and James J. Walsh’s classic compendium of writings in the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish medieval philosophical traditions expands the breadth of coverage that helped make its predecessor the best known and most widely used collection of its kind.

The third edition builds on the strengths of the second by preserving its essential shape while adding several important new texts—including works by Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Anselm, al-Fārābī, al-Ghazālī, Ibn Rushd, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus—and featuring new translations of many others.

The volume has also been redesigned and its bibliographies updated with the needs of a new generation of students in mind.


Arthur Hyman is Distinguished Service Professor of Philosophy, Bernard Revel Graduate School,
Yeshiva University.

James J. Walsh was Professor of Philosophy, Columbia University.

Thomas Williams is Professor of Catholic Studies and Professor of Philosophy, University of South Florida.

Table of Contents

    Preface to the third edition
    Introduction

EARLY MEDIEVAL CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY

    Augustine
    The Teacher (complete)
    On Free Choice of the Will 2.3–3.6
    Reconsiderations 1.9
    On the Trinity 15.12.21
    Confessions 2.4–2.10
    Confessions 7.9–7.16
    Confessions 11.3–11.28
    City of God 19.3–19.28

    Boethius
    The Consolation of Philosophy 3.9–end
    Contra Eutychen 1.1–1.71
    On the Trinity 1.7–2.58

    Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
    The Mystical Theology (complete)

    John Scottus Eriugena
    On the Division of Nature

    Anselm
    Monologion 1–4
    Proslogion and the Exchange with Gaunilo

    Peter Abelard
    Glosses on Porphyry
    Ethics, or Know Thyself

ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY

    Al-Fārābī
    The Principles of Existing Things (complete)

    Ibn Sīnā
    The Salvation, "Metaphysics" 2.1–2.5, 2.12, 2.13, 2.18, 2.19
    The Cure, "Metaphysics" 6.1–6.2
    The Salvation, "Psychology" 6.9, 6.12, 6.13
    The Cure, "The Soul" 5.7

    Al-Ghazālī
    The Incoherence of the Philosophers, On the Eternity of the World
    The Incoherence of the Philosophers, Concerning the Natural Sciences

    Ibn Rushd
    The Decisive Treatise (complete)
    Long Commentary on "The Soul" 3.4
    Long Commentary on "The Soul" 3.5, 3.18–3.20
    The Incoherence of "The Incoherence"

JEWISH PHILOSOPHY

    Saadia
    Book of Doctrines and Beliefs 1.1–1.3, 3.1–3.3

    Solomon ibn Gabirol
    Selections from The Fountain of Life

    Moses Maimonides
    Selections from The Guide of the Perplexed

    Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides)
    The Wars of the Lord 3.1–3.6

    Hasdai Crescas
    The Light of the Lord 2.6.1

LATIN PHILOSOPHY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

    Bonaventure
    Conferences on the Hexaemeron 3.7
    Conferences on the Hexaemeron 1.3
    The Mind's Journey into God (complete)

    Siger of Brabant
    Question on the Eternity of the World (complete)

    Thomas Aquinas
    On Being and Essence
    Selections from the "Treatise on God"
    Selections from the "Treatise on Creation"
    Selections from the "Treatise on Human Nature"
    Selections from the "Treatise on Happiness"
    Selections from the "Treatise on Virtue"
    Selections from the "Treatise on Law"

    The Condemnation of 1277
    Condemnation of 219 Propositions

LATIN PHILOSOPHY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY

    John Duns Scotus
    The Existence of an Infinite Being
    The Possibility of Knowing God
    Against Illumination and Skepticism
    Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition
    Universals and Individuation
    Contingency and the Divine Will
    Freedom and the Fall
    The Goodness of Moral Acts
    The Decalogue and the Natural Law

    William Ockham
    Selections from Summa logicae, Part One
    Universals and Individuation
    Intuitive and Abstractive Cognition
    Relations
    Motion
    Projectile Motion
    Efficient and Final Causality
    The Connection of the Virtues

    Nicholas of Autrecourt
    Letters to Bernard of Arezzo

    Marsilius of Padua
    The Defender of Peace

    John Buridan
    Certainty and Truth
    Knowledge
    Essence and Existence
    Motion
    Happiness