Search results for ""author lydia schumacher""

DIVINE ILLUMINATION “An important and ground-breaking study which links growing interest in Augustine and medieval philosophy with cutting-edge questions in contemporary philosophy of religion, particularly concerning epistemology and the ‘rationality’ of religion.” Janet Soskice, University of Cambridge “In this lucidly argued and solidly documented study, Schumacher uncovers the roots of problems notoriously besetting modern theories of knowledge in conflicting medieval interpretations of Augustine’s assumptions about knowledge as divine illumination: an intriguing thesis, which she handles with delicacy and flair.” Fergus Kerr, O.P. University of Edinburgh “Challenges the traditional history of theories of knowledge. A bold and provocative reading.” Olivier Boulnois, École Pratique des Hautes Études (University of Paris, Sorbonne) Divine Illumination offers an original interpretation of Augustine’s theory of knowledge, tracing its development in the work of medieval thinkers such as Anselm, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. Although Scotus is often deemed responsible for finally pronouncing Augustine’s longstanding illumination account untenable, Schumacher shows that he only rejected a version that was the byproduct of a shift in the understanding of illumination and knowledge more generally within the thirteenth-century Franciscan school of thought. To reckon with the challenges in contemporary thought on knowledge that were partly made possible by this shift, Schumacher recommends relearning a way of thinking about knowledge that was familiar to Augustine and those who worked in continuity with him. Her book thus anticipates a new approach to dealing with debates in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of religion, and theology, even while correcting some longstanding assumptions about Augustine and his most significant medieval readers.

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A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris. Modern scholarship has often dismissed this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of Aristotle, paving the way for truly revolutionary figures like John Duns Scotus. But as the selections in this reader show, it was this earlier generation that initiated this break with precedent. The compilers of the Summa Halensis first articulated many positions that eventually become closely associated with the Franciscan tradition on issues like the nature of God, the proof for God’s existence, free will, the transcendentals, and Christology. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the ways in which medieval thinkers employed philosophical concepts in a theological context as well as the evolution of Franciscan thought and its legacy to modernity. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

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A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology presents for the first time in English key passages from the Summa Halensis, one of the first major installments in the summa genre for which scholasticism became famous. This systematic work of philosophy and theology was collaboratively written mostly between 1236 and 1245 by the founding members of the Franciscan school, such as Alexander of Hales and John of La Rochelle, who worked at the recently founded University of Paris. Modern scholarship has often dismissed this early Franciscan intellectual tradition as unoriginal, merely systematizing the Augustinian tradition in light of the rediscovery of Aristotle, paving the way for truly revolutionary figures like John Duns Scotus. But as the selections in this reader show, it was this earlier generation that initiated this break with precedent. The compilers of the Summa Halensis first articulated many positions that eventually become closely associated with the Franciscan tradition on issues like the nature of God, the proof for God’s existence, free will, the transcendentals, and Christology. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the ways in which medieval thinkers employed philosophical concepts in a theological context as well as the evolution of Franciscan thought and its legacy to modernity. A Reader in Early Franciscan Theology is available from the publisher on an open-access basis.

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