12191 - History of Medieval Philosophy (1)

Course contents

 

Philosophy and interreligious dialogue in the medieval thought

The interreligious dialogue seems to be hampered by the fact that each religion claims to be the one and only Truth, regarding the others as either false or, at best, less true. In this context, a critical inquiry of contextual and historical philosophy can be given the task of ensuring communication between believers of different faiths by identifying formal and fundamental knowledge or rules that can be shared by all rational beings. Usually a typical (fake) judgement about thinking in the Middle Ages is associates to this dark ages of this ideological modes to answer to the religious beliefs. This course aim to answer to these overinterpretations discussing in a longue durée a lucid and well-documented accounts of the principal issues in the philosophical genre of dialogue between faith and reason in the middle ages, showing in this that times the adherence to a religious faith was a quite natural thing (lumen naturalis). Philosophers, like Peter Abailard, and theologians (islamic, jewish, christians) tried to accomplish this task, reasoning in a compatbilistic way and so, without affirm the primacy of their religion on others. Will be analyzed the debate between Celsus and Origen, as one of the first examples of controversy between Christian religion and ancient philosophy; the focus will be on the medieval literature on interreligious dialogue originating from Anselm of Canterbury’s theological proposal, and includes essays on the writings of Peter Damian, Gilbert Crispin, Rupert of Deutz, Peter Abelard, Peter the Venerable, Frederic of Swabia, William of Ockham and Ramond Llull. Especial attention is also paid to Jews and Islamic philosophers who tried to engage a dialogue (or a controversy) with Christian theologians. To conclude, some short analysis will also be devoted to the search for universal concordia in Renaissance philosophy, as it can be traced in Nicholas of Cusa’s De Pace fidei, in Pope Piccolomini’s Epistola to the Turkish sultan Muhammad II, and, in the so called second Scholastic, in the debate between Bartolomeo Las Casas and Juan Ginés De Sepúlveda on the conversion of the Indios.

Readings/Bibliography

1)
Primary sources:

Peter Abelard: Collationes a.k.a. Dialogus inter Philosophum, Iudaeum, et Christianum. Edited by Giovanni Orlandi, with introduction, translation, and notes by John Marenbon, in Peter Abelard: Collationes, Oxford University Press 2001.

 

2)
Secondary literature:

J. Marenbon, (1997) The Philosophy of Peter Abelard. Cambridge University Press.

ou

J. Jolivet, Medievalia et arabica, Vrin, Paris, 2012

 

3) History of Early Medieval Thought/Histoire de la philosophie médiévale

J. Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy, Routledge, 1998

ou

A. de Libera, La philosophie médiévale, PUF, Paris, 2014 (jusqu'au XII siècle compris).

 

Teaching methods

Frontal lessons, partecipate lessons, workshops, charts, use of visual references both papery and multimedia.

Assessment methods

The skill of students' knowledge will be tested with oral (or an agreed paper of 15 pp.) exams about the texts - sources and secondary literature - listed in bibliography or agreed after an interwiev with the professor.

Teaching tools

Primary sources, secondary literature, multimedia sources, online instruments, charts, reference to digital Archives, lectures given by scholars of XII century thought and/or historian of medieval theology. 

Office hours

See the website of Riccardo Fedriga