Mos enim amicorum est ut cum amicus ad suam exaltationem vadit, de eius recessu minus desolentur.

Thomas AquinasThis quotation from Aquinas’s Lectura super evangelium Johannis c. 14, l. 8 appeared as the dedication in Aquinas’s Moral Theory: Essays in Honor of Norman Kretzmann, edited by Scott MacDonald and Eleonore Stump (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1999).

Norman Kretzmann, one of the founders of Medieval Philosophy and Theology and chair of the journal's editorial board since its inception, died on August 1, 1998 in Ithaca, New York. Although he had been under treatment since 1991 for an incurable cancer, he remained actively engaged in his own research and directly involved in the work of the journal until a few weeks before his death.

Forty years ago Norman Malcolm presented a now-famous paper at the Eastern Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association in Burlington, Vermont. Malcolm’s paper, like the symposium itself, was titled “Knowledge of Other Minds.” The paper focused on the Argument from Analogy for Other Minds, which, of course, Malcolm roundly criticized. After making a number of preliminary points, Malcolm stated:

Throughout much of this century the most prominent exegetes maintained that Aquinas’s mature moral psychology is fundamentally voluntarist, that he considers the will an independent cause of action, most conspicuously in his later works. Disagreement over the character of the will’s causal authority and the composition of the list of later works did little to unsettle their shared conviction that Aristotle’s intellectualist moral psychology was improved, indeed saved, by Aquinas’s insistence that the will can move itself, at least in some fashion, apart from the influence of the intellect. See Rene Antoine Gauthier and Jean Yves Jolif, Aristote: L’éthique à Nicomaque, 2nd ed., vol. 2 (Paris: Béatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1970), p. 218; Bernard Lonergan, Grace and Freedom: Operative Grace in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, ed. J.P. Burns (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), pp. 93–97; Odom Lottin, “La Preuve de al Liberté Humaine chez Saint Thomas d’Aquin,” Recherches de Theologie Ancienne et Medievale 23 (1956): 323–30; and Klaus Riesenhuber, Die Transzendenz Der Freiheit Zum Guten: Der Wille in der Anthropologie und Metaphysik des Thomas von Aquin (Munchen: Berchmanskolleg Verlag, 1971), p. 290.

Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293–1381), the most important spiritual writer of the Low Countries, is often associated (with or without some qualifications) with the tradition of the Rhineland Mystics, of which Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327) is the most prominent exponent.For instance O. Davies, The Rhineland Mystics: An anthology (London: SPCK, 1989); O. Davies, God Within: The mystical Tradition of Northern Europe (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1988). L. Cognet, Introduction aux mystiques rhéno- flamands (Paris: Desclée, 1968). To date however, an in-depth study of the influence of Meister Eckhart’s main doctrinal positions on Ruusbroec’s thought has not been published.Colledge and J. C. Marler, “‘Poverty of the Will’: Ruusbroec, Eckhart and The Mirror of Simple Souls,” Jan Van Ruusbroec: The Sources, Content and Sequels of His Mysticism, ed. P. Mommaers and N. De Paepe (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1984), p. 14–47 is a possible exception, although the article focuses primarily on the influence of Marguerite Porete on Eckhart and Ruusbroec and only secondarily on the relation between Eckhart and Ruusbroec. In this paper I want to compare their central ideas concerning the relation between God and his creation (in particular man). More specifically, I hope to make clear that the vocabulary they occasionally share (Birth of the Son in the soul, the spark of the soul, the ground of the soul, the soul as Image, and so on) actually veils two very different theologies.

Giles of Rome analyzed the question of the division and definition of philosophy three times at the beginning of his philosophical career. He devoted to this subject the prologues of two of his Aristotle commentaries, Commentary on the Physics and Commentary on the Sophistical Refutations.Aegidius Romanus, Commentaria in octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis, (Venetiis, 1502); In Aristotelis De sophisticis elenchis commentum, (Venetiis, 1496–1497). The Prologue and I Book of Giles’s Commentary on the Physics dates to 1274; the Commentary on the Sophistical Refutations dates to 1275. See S. Donati, Studi per una cronologia delle opere di Egidio Romano, “Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale” (1990/1), pp. 1–111, pp. 42–48 (esp. n. 106). He then devoted a work exclusively to this subject, De partibus philosophiae essentialibus (De partibus [DPPE]).I provide an edition of De partibus philosophiae essentialibus in the appendix. De partibus belongs to the early period of Giles’s carrier. However, this dating is based on weak foundations, mostly relying on the formal and conceptual similarities between De partibus philosophiae essentialibus and De differentia rhetoricae, ethicae et politicae. See the ed. and intro. by G. Bruni, “The New Scholasticism” VI (1932), pp. 1–18. For the dating of Giles’s letter (ca. 1278), see p. 4. These associations are provoked by the old printed editions, whose editors usually joined both Giles’s works in their publications. Indeed, we have only one sure testimony enabling us to determine the terminus post quem of De partibus philosophiae essentialibus. It is reference made by Giles to his own In Sophisticis elenchis dated 1275. It is possible that De partibus philosophiae essentialibus was written soon after the Commentary on the Sophistical Refutations. The argument for dating De partibus philosophiae essentialibus to 1275 or 1276 rests on similarities between the two works. The last part of De partibus philosophiae essentialibus concerning logic (187–255) is virtually identical to passages from the Commentary on the Sophistical Refutations quoted in nn. 36 and 37. Because of its clear, systematic approach, this text will be the main object of my analysis. I shall, however, discuss material from the two prologues that demonstrates either the evolution of Giles’s thought from the two prologues to De partibus or the changes, corrections, or additions he introduced into the theory of science and philosophy formulated in De partibus.

Maimonides’ arguments for creation ex nihilo are a centerpiece of The Guide of the Perplexed and, like many other issues discussed in the Guide, the question of whether the universe is created or eternal is still a matter of controversy, as is Maimonides’ real opinion regarding it. Then, as now, the Aristotelian theory of an eternal material universe seemed more plausible to many people than did the Biblical view of creation ex nihilo. While creation is the orthodox view in both Judaism and Christianity, the tension between those two explanatory models goes back a long way.Maimonides believed that prior to Abraham, the religion was Sabianism (paganism), believing in an eternal universe and worshipping the stars (Guide III, 29). Referring to the heretical views of Elisha ben Abuya, in the early Talmudic period, David Hartman argues as follows.