The Space of Time


Book Description

From Robert Grosseteste to Jean-François Lyotard, Augustine’s suggestion that time is a “dilation of the soul” (distentio animi) has been taken up as a seminal and controversial time-concept, yet in The Space of Time, David van Dusen argues that this ‘dilation’ has been fundamentally misinterpreted. Time in Confessions XI is a dilation of the senses—in beasts, as in humans. And Augustine’s time-concept in Confessions XI is not Platonic—but in schematic terms, Epicurean. Identifying new influences on the Confessions—from Aristoxenus to Lucretius—while keeping Augustine’s phenomenological interpreters in view, The Space of Time is a path-breaking work on Confessions X to XII and a ranging contribution to the history of the concept of time.




Memoriæ Vis


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Ancient and Medieval Memories


Book Description

This book is an analysis of thinking, remembering and reminiscing according to ancient authors, and their medieval readers. The author argues that behind the various medieval methods in interpreting texts of the past lie two apparently incompatible theories of human knowledge and remembering, as well as two differing attitudes to matter and intellect. The book comprises a series of studies which take ancient texts as evidence of the past, and show how medieval readers and writers understood them. The studies confirm that medieval and renaissance interpretations and uses of the past differ greatly from modern interpretation and yet betray many startling continuities between modern and ancient and medieval theories.




Dialectical Disputations


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Lorenzo Valla (1407–1457) ranks among the greatest scholars and thinkers of the Renaissance. He secured lasting fame for his brilliant critical skills, most famously in his exposure of the “Donation of Constantine,” the forged document upon which the papacy based claims to political power. Lesser known in the English-speaking world is Valla’s work in the philosophy of language—the basis of his reputation as the greatest philosopher of the humanist movement. Dialectical Disputations, translated here for the first time into any modern language, is his principal contribution to the philosophy of language and logic. With this savage attack on the scholastic tradition of Aristotelian logic, Valla aimed to supersede it with a new logic based on the actual historical usage of classical Latin and on a commonsense approach to semantics and argument. Valla provides a logic that could be used by lawyers, preachers, statesmen, and others who needed to succeed in public debate—one that was stylistically correct and rhetorically elegant, and thus could dispense with the technical language of the scholastics, a “tribe of Peripatetics, perverters of natural meanings.” Valla’s reformed dialectic became a milestone in the development of humanist logic and contains startling anticipations of modern theories of semantics and language. Volume 1 contains Book I, in which Valla refutes Aristotle’s logical works on the categories, transcendentals, and predicables, with excursions into natural and moral philosophy and theology.




Confessions: Commentary on Books 8-13 ; Indexes


Book Description

Chihuahuas are the world¿s tiniest dogs¿but that doesn¿t stop them from being some of the bravest and boldest canines around! Right off the bat, you¿ll meet Zoey, a five-pound Chihuahua who saved her one-year-old companion from a rattlesnake bite¿by getting bitten herself! Where did this courage come from? Perhaps it came from the Chihuahua¿s ancestors, who lived with the Toltecs and Aztecs of Mexico as far back as 1,000 years ago. Today, the little dog is found in the homes of everyday citizens, in movies such as Legally Blonde, and even in Taco Bell commercials. Chihuahua: Señor Tiny is a narrative treat for dog lovers that includes amazing, real-life stories about these little pups while also recounting the breed¿s history and its relationship to the animal¿s physical characteristics, personality, and suitability as a pet. Chihuahua: Señor Tiny is part of Bearport¿s Little Dogs Rock! series.




Lectures on metaphysics


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