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In this impressive book, Dmitri Levitin examines the ways in which seventeenth-century English theologians, clerics, philosophers, scholars, and scientists looked at Egyptian, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman thought. Without engaging with these historical debates, one is sure to misunderstand exactly what scientists of the period thought they were doing. Levitin has taken up the challenge of plowing through an incredibly rich body of rebarbative primary Latin sources from all those fields. Levitin is clearly the product of what we might start calling a " school " : a type of historiographical analysis practiced to varying extents by
Contextualizing Premodern Philosophy. Explorations of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin Traditions, 2023
Every tradition of thought, and likewise every tradition of practice-as long as it has not been lost in the black hole of history-seems to remain alive. For this reason, it has been rightly said that history and historiography keep traditions alive. Nonetheless, certain differences seem to arise among the historiographies of traditions. Some historiographies look forward, dynamically adapting, reworking, and molding what they find in their heritage to their own needs. Others look backward, seeking truth in stable origins. Wherever truths are located in such stable origins, traditions seem to be the subject measured against these origins. Do the traditions thus capture the meaning of the original? Or do they defectively deviate from it? Wherever traditions face forward, they seem free to find new expressions, to encounter divergent viewpoints, to multiply in space and time. The aliveness of traditions in this sense does not fall under a single measure; there seems to be no preference for origins over adaptations. 1 Whether traditions come to life in diversity or whether they flourish only in light of their origins, therefore, makes a difference. 2 This book proposes to take a fresh look at the Aristotelian traditions in space and time, finding meaning in those traditions' diverse expressions, viewpoints, and multiplications of perspective without neglecting its thematic and methodological origin. Let us start by explaining more precisely what this fresh look entails and what different aspects it embraces, in order that it might be apprehended how history keeps tradition alive in both senses. History gives an account of individual thinkers, and also groups of thinkers, who constructed or selected discourses from a stable origin-the corpus Aristotelicum as it was known to these thinkers at any one point in time-so as to commend or condemn ideas contained in those discourses. These acts of commending or condemning, seen from the perspective of their historical change, reveal the values and beliefs of the traditions'
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity
2011
The Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity comprises over forty specially commissioned essays by experts on the philosophy of the period 200-800 ce. Designed as a successor to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy (ed. A. H. Armstrong), it takes into account some forty years of scholarship since the publication of that volume. The contributors examine philosophy as it entered literature, science and religion, and offer new and extensive assessments of philosophers who until recently have been mostly ignored. The volume also includes a complete digest of all philosophical works known to have been written during this period. It will be an invaluable resource for all those interested in this rich and still emerging field.
This Oxford Handbook examines the radical transformation of worldview taking place in the period from the middle of the 16th century (from the publication in 1543 of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus) to the early 18th century (the years immediately before Hume and the Enlightenment). The intention of the volume is to cover both well-known and undeservedly less well-known philosophical texts by placing these works in their historical context which includes tight interconnections with other disciplines (e.g., experimental science) as well as historical and political events. By proceeding in this manner the editors hope to recover a meaning of "philosophy" that comes closer to the way its early modern proponents would have understood and practiced it. The editors also point to the reader-friendly character of this Handbook: in addition to grouping chapters in five categories (metaphysics; the mind; epistemology; ethics and political philosophy; and religion), cross-references to chapters or pages dealing with the same (or similar) issues make it possible for readers to consult the book selectively. Due to space constraints, in the remainder of this review I propose to take advantage of this feature and briefly look at the articles
Mnemosyne, 2010
Companions to Philosophy). Oxford, Blackwell Publishing, xxxvi, 791 p. Pr. £95.00 (hb). Meya ßißMov, set in Hongkong, printed and bound in Singapore but still expensive. Edited by two scholars from the United States and France. A chronology from 776 BCE to the 7th century CE, maps, an introduction, and no less than thirty-five capita selecta on different themes (ranging from "The Beginnings of Science and Philosophy" to "Greek Mathematics to the Time of Euclid"), by scholars from the United States and Great Britain (the majority), France (nine names), Italy (two), Hungary (two), Denmark (one), Greece (one), Japan (one),