Liber De Causis
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Liber De Causis
The ("Book of Causes") is a philosophical work composed in the 9th century that was once attributed to Aristotle and that became popular in the Middle Ages, first in Arabic and Islamic countries and later in the Latin West. The real authorship remains a mystery, but most of the content is taken from a work by the Neoplatonic philosopher Proclus called '' Elements of Theology''. This was first noticed by Thomas Aquinas, following William of Moerbeke's translation of Proclus' work into Latin. As such it is now attributed to a pseudo-Aristotle. Title The original title in Arabic was , "The book of Aristotle's explanation of the pure good". The title came into use following the translation into Latin by Gerard of Cremona. The work was also translated into Armenian and Hebrew. Many Latin commentaries on the work are extant.Edited (some only partially) in . References Text and translations Arabic * (edition of the Arabic) * (edition of the Arabic with German translation) Latin * ...
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Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum and the wider Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in th ...
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Gerard Of Cremona
Gerard of Cremona (Latin: ''Gerardus Cremonensis''; c. 1114 – 1187) was an Italian translator of scientific books from Arabic into Latin. He worked in Toledo, Kingdom of Castile and obtained the Arabic books in the libraries at Toledo. Some of the books had been originally written in Greek and, although well known in Byzantine Constantinople and Greece at the time, were unavailable in Greek or Latin in Western Europe. Gerard of Cremona is the most important translator among the Toledo School of Translators who invigorated Western medieval Europe in the twelfth century by transmitting the Arabs' and ancient Greeks' knowledge in astronomy, medicine and other sciences, by making the knowledge available in Latin. One of Gerard's most famous translations is of Ptolemy's ''Almagest'' from Arabic texts found in Toledo. Confusingly there appear to have been two translators of Arabic text into Latin known as ''Gerard of Cremona'', the one active in the 12th century who concentrated on a ...
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Neoplatonic Texts
Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ideas that are common to it. For example, the monistic idea that all of reality can be derived from a single principle, "the One". Neoplatonism began with Ammonius Saccas and his student Plotinus (c. 204/5 – 271 AD) and stretched to the 6th century AD. After Plotinus there were three distinct periods in the history of neoplatonism: the work of his student Porphyry (3rd to early 4th century); that of Iamblichus (3rd to 4th century); and the period in the 5th and 6th centuries, when the Academies in Alexandria and Athens flourished. Neoplatonism had an enduring influence on the subsequent history of philosophy. In the Middle Ages, neoplatonic ideas were studied and discussed by Christian, Jewish, and Muslim thinkers. In the Islamic cultu ...
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Theology Of Aristotle
''The Theology of Aristotle'', also called ''Theologia Aristotelis'' ( ar, أثولوجيا أرسطو, Athulujiya Aristu) is a paraphrase in Arabic of parts of Plotinus' '' Six Enneads'' along with Porphyry's commentary. It was traditionally attributed to Aristotle, but as this attribution is certainly untrue it is conventional to describe the author as "Pseudo-Aristotle". It had a significant effect on early Islamic philosophy, due to Islamic interest in Aristotle. Al-Kindi (Alkindus) and Avicenna, for example, were influenced by Plotinus' works as mediated through the Theology and similar works. The translator attempted to integrate Aristotle's ideas with those of Plotinus — while trying to make Plotinus compatible with Christianity and Islam, thus yielding a unique synthesis. Overview ''The Theology of Aristotle'', with ''The Letter on Divine Science'' and ''The Sayings of the Greek Sage,'' a collection of fragments, together form the ''Plotiniana Arabica''. They seem t ...
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Albertus Magnus
Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his lifetime as ''Doctor universalis'' and ''Doctor expertus'' and, late in his life, the sobriquet ''Magnus'' was appended to his name. Scholars such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church distinguishes him as one of the 37 Doctors of the Church. Biography It seems likely that Albert was born sometime before 1200, given well-attested evidence that he was aged over 80 on his death in 1280. Two later sources say that Albert was about 87 on his death, which has led 1193 to be commonly given as the date of Albert's birth, but this information does not have enough evidence to be confirmed. Albert was probably born in Lauingen (now in Bav ...
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Adriaan Pattin
Adriaan Pattin (1914–2005) was a Belgian historian of medieval philosophy. His 1966 edition of the Pseudo-Aristotelian ''Liber de Causis'', although intended to be "provisional", was for decades the best version available to scholars. Life Pattin was born in Hasselt, Belgium, on 17 June 1914 and joined the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate at the age of 19. He made his vows in 1935 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1941. In 1947 he graduated Licentiate from the Higher Institute of Philosophy in the Catholic University of Leuven. In 1952 he obtained his doctorate with a thesis on being and essence in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. He also graduated Master of Arts from the University of Ottawa, where he later returned as a visiting professor. From 1962 until his retirement he was a researcher attached to the De Wulf-Mansion Centre for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy in Leuven. He died in Veurne on 15 August 2005. Works * ''De verhouding tussen zijn en wezenheid en de ...
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Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ...
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Armenian Language
Armenian ( classical: , reformed: , , ) is an Indo-European language and an independent branch of that family of languages. It is the official language of Armenia. Historically spoken in the Armenian Highlands, today Armenian is widely spoken throughout the Armenian diaspora. Armenian is written in its own writing system, the Armenian alphabet, introduced in 405 AD by the priest Mesrop Mashtots. The total number of Armenian speakers worldwide is estimated between 5 and 7 million. History Classification and origins Armenian is an independent branch of the Indo-European languages. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological changes within that family. Armenian exhibits more satemization than centumization, although it is not classified as belonging to either of these subgroups. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Armenian, Greek (and Phrygian) and Indo-Iranian were dialectally close to each other;''Handbook of Formal Languages'' (1997p. 6 wit ...
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Arabic Language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston, 2011. Having emerged in the 1st century, it is named after the Arab people; the term "Arab" was initially used to describe those living in the Arabian Peninsula, as perceived by geographers from ancient Greece. Since the 7th century, Arabic has been characterized by diglossia, with an opposition between a standard prestige language—i.e., Literary Arabic: Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) or Classical Arabic—and diverse vernacular varieties, which serve as mother tongues. Colloquial dialects vary significantly from MSA, impeding mutual intelligibility. MSA is only acquired through formal education and is not spoken natively. It is the language of literature, official documents, and formal written m ...
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Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and transitioned into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, the collapse of centralized authority, invasions, and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in late antiquity, continued into the Early Middle Ages. The large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—most recently part of the Eastern Ro ...
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Pseudo-Aristotle
Pseudo-Aristotle is a general cognomen for authors of philosophical or medical treatises who attributed their work to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, or whose work was later attributed to him by others. Such falsely attributed works are known as pseudepigrapha. The term Corpus Aristotelicum covers both the authentic and spurious works of Aristotle. History The first Pseudo-Aristotelian works were produced by the members of the Peripatetic school, which was founded by Aristotle. However, many more works were written much later, during the Middle Ages. Because Aristotle had produced so many works on such a variety of subjects, it was possible for writers in many different contexts—notably medieval Europeans, North Africans and Arabs—to write a work and ascribe it to Aristotle. Attaching his name to such a work guaranteed it a certain amount of respect and acceptance, since Aristotle was regarded as one of the most authoritative ancient writers for the learned men of both Chris ...
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William Of Moerbeke
William of Moerbeke, O.P. ( nl, Willem van Moerbeke; la, Guillelmus de Morbeka; 1215–35 – 1286), was a prolific medieval translator of philosophical, medical, and scientific texts from Greek language into Latin, enabled by the period of Latin rule of the Byzantine Empire. His translations were influential in his day, when few competing translations were available, and are still respected by modern scholars. Biography Moerbeke was Flemish by origin (his surname indicating an origin in Moerbeke near Geraardsbergen), and a Dominican by vocation. Little is known of his life. In the spring of 1260, he was at either Nicaea or Nicles, in the Peloponnese; in the autumn of the same year, he was at Thebes, where the Dominicans had been since 1253 and where he dated his translation of Aristotle's '' De partibus animalium''. In turn he resided at the pontifical court of Viterbo (with evidence for his residence here in 22 November 1267, May 1268, and 15 June 1271) and met the ...
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