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The legend of the Middle Ages : philosophical explorations of medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam / Rémi Brague ; translated by Lydia G. Cochrane

By: Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Original language: French Publication details: Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, ©2009Description: xi, 287 pages, 24 cmISBN:
  • 9780226070810
  • 9780226070803
  • 0226070808
Uniform titles:
  • Au moyen du Moyen Age. English
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • ARCH YNDC 189 B813L 22
LOC classification:
  • B721 .B7213 2009
Contents:
The lessons of the Middle Ages -- The meaning and value of philosophy in the three medieval cultures -- Just how is Islamic philosophy Islamic? -- Is physics interesting? Some responses from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages -- The flesh: a medieval model of subjectivity -- The denial of humanity: on the judgment "those people are not men" in some ancient and medieval texts -- Three Muslim views of the Christian city -- The jihād of the philosophers -- Inclusion and digestion: two models of cultural appropriation, in response to a question of Hans-Georg Gadamer (Tübingen, September 3, 1996) -- The interpreter: reflections on Arabic translations -- The entry of Aristotle in Europe: the Arab intermediary -- The extra-European sources of philosophic Europe -- Some Mediterranean myths -- Was there any dialogue between religions in the Middle Ages? -- Geocentrism as the humiliation of man -- Was Averroes a "good guy"?
Summary: Modern interpreters have variously cast the Middle Ages as a benighted past from which the West had to evolve and, more recently, as the model for a potential future of intercultural dialogue and tolerance. The Legend of the Middle Agescuts through such oversimplifications to reconstruct a complicated and philosophically rich period that remains deeply relevant to the contemporary world. Featuring a penetrating interview and sixteen essaysonly three of which have previously appeared in English this volume explores key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy. With characteristic erudition and insight, Remi Brague focuses less on individual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers than on their relationships with one another. Their disparate philosophical worlds, Brague shows, were grounded in different models of revelation that engendered divergent interpretations of the ancient Greek sources they held in common. So, despite striking similarities in their solutions for the philosophical problems they all faced, intellectuals in each theological tradition often viewed the others ideas with skepticism, if not disdain
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Includes bibliographical references (pages 235-278) and index

The lessons of the Middle Ages -- The meaning and value of philosophy in the three medieval cultures -- Just how is Islamic philosophy Islamic? -- Is physics interesting? Some responses from Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages -- The flesh: a medieval model of subjectivity -- The denial of humanity: on the judgment "those people are not men" in some ancient and medieval texts -- Three Muslim views of the Christian city -- The jihād of the philosophers -- Inclusion and digestion: two models of cultural appropriation, in response to a question of Hans-Georg Gadamer (Tübingen, September 3, 1996) -- The interpreter: reflections on Arabic translations -- The entry of Aristotle in Europe: the Arab intermediary -- The extra-European sources of philosophic Europe -- Some Mediterranean myths -- Was there any dialogue between religions in the Middle Ages? -- Geocentrism as the humiliation of man -- Was Averroes a "good guy"?

Modern interpreters have variously cast the Middle Ages as a benighted past from which the West had to evolve and, more recently, as the model for a potential future of intercultural dialogue and tolerance. The Legend of the Middle Agescuts through such oversimplifications to reconstruct a complicated and philosophically rich period that remains deeply relevant to the contemporary world. Featuring a penetrating interview and sixteen essaysonly three of which have previously appeared in English this volume explores key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy. With characteristic erudition and insight, Remi Brague focuses less on individual Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers than on their relationships with one another. Their disparate philosophical worlds, Brague shows, were grounded in different models of revelation that engendered divergent interpretations of the ancient Greek sources they held in common. So, despite striking similarities in their solutions for the philosophical problems they all faced, intellectuals in each theological tradition often viewed the others ideas with skepticism, if not disdain

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