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Byzantine and Renaissance Philosophy

A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 6

Peter Adamson author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:10th Feb '22

Should be back in stock very soon

Byzantine and Renaissance Philosophy cover

Peter Adamson explores the rich intellectual history of the Byzantine Empire and the Italian Renaissance. Peter Adamson presents an engaging and wide-ranging introduction to the thinkers and movements of two great intellectual cultures: Byzantium and the Italian Renaissance. First he traces the development of philosophy in the Eastern Christian world, from such early figures as John of Damascus in the eighth century to the late Byzantine scholars of the fifteenth century. He introduces major figures like Michael Psellos, Anna Komnene, and Gregory Palamas, and examines the philosophical significance of such cultural phenomena as iconoclasm and conceptions of gender. We discover the little-known traditions of philosophy in Syriac, Armenian, and Georgian. These chapters also explore the scientific, political, and historical literature of Byzantium. There is a close connection to the second half of the book, since thinkers of the Greek East helped to spark the humanist movement in Italy. Adamson tells the story of the rebirth of philosophy in Italy in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. We encounter such famous names as Christine de Pizan, Niccolò Machiavelli, Giordano Bruno, and Galileo, but as always in this book series such major figures are read alongside contemporaries who are not so well known, including such fascinating figures as Lorenzo Valla, Girolamo Savonarola, and Bernardino Telesio. Major historical themes include the humanist engagement with ancient literature, the emergence of women humanists, the flowering of Republican government in Renaissance Italy, the continuation of Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy alongside humanism, and breakthroughs in science. All areas of philosophy, from theories of economics and aesthetics to accounts of the human mind, are featured. This is the sixth volume of Adamson's History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, taking us to the threshold of the early modern era.

Each brief chapter immediately captures the interest of the reader in a way that is entertaining, informative, and a genuine pleasure to read. Excellent notes and bibliography of further reading. * P. A. Streveler, CHOICE *
The understanding that philosophy is a purely rational endeavor is a form of presentism that arises out ofmodern rationalism and, more generally... we should be grateful to Adamson for addressing the issue and for providing students of Byzantine and Renaissance philosophy with an accessible overview of the respective material. * Speculum 98/4 *

ISBN: 9780192856418

Dimensions: 242mm x 165mm x 42mm

Weight: 750g

512 pages