Shlomo Sela

Carlos Steel

Steven Vanden Broecke

David Juste

Critical edition of the earliest known astrological autobiography The present book reveals the riches of the earliest known astrological autobiography, authored by Henry Bate of Mechelen (1246–after 1310). Exploiting all resources of contemporary astrological science, Bate conducts in his Nativitas a profound self-analysis, revealing the peculiarities of his character and personality at a crucial moment of his life (1280). The result is an extraordinarily detailed and penetrating attempt to decode the fate of one’s own life and its idiosyncrasies. The Astrological Autobiography of a Medieval Philosopher offers the first critical edition of Bate’s Nativitas. An extensive introduction presents Bate’s life and work and sheds new light on the reception and use of Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Hebrew texts among scholars in Paris at the end of the 13th century. The book thus provides a major new resource for scholars working on medieval science, autobiography, and notions of personhood and individuality.

Henry Bate's Nativitas (1280-81)

The Astrological Autobiography of a Medieval Philosopher

Gudrun Vuillemin-Diem

First ever edition of the Latin translation of Ptolemy’s masterwork This is the first edition ever of Moerbeke’s Latin translation of Ptolemy’s celebrated astrological handbook, known under the title Tetrabiblos or Quadripartitum (opus). Ptolemy’s treatise (composed after 141 AD) offers a systematic overview of astrological science and had, together with hisAlmagest, an enormous influence up until the 17th century. In the Latin Middle Ages the work was mostly known through translations from the Arabic. William of Moerbeke’s translation was made directly from the Greek and it is a major scholarly achievement manifesting not only Moerbeke’s genius as a translator, but also as a scientist. The edition is accompanied by extensive Greek-Latin indices, which give evidence of Moerbeke’s astonishing enrichment of the Latin vocabulary, which he needed both to translate the technical scientific vocabulary and to cope with the many new terms Ptolemy created. The introduction examines Moerbeke’s translation method and situates the Latin translation within the tradition of the Greek text. This edition makes possible a better assessment of the great medieval translator and also contributes to a better understanding of the Greek text of Ptolemy’s masterwork.

Claudii Ptolemaei Liber Iudicialium

Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos in the Translation of William of Moerbeke

This is the fourth and last volume of the translation in this series of the commentary on Aristotle On the Soul, wrongly attributed to Simplicius. Its real author, most probably Priscian of Lydia, proves in this work to be an original philosopher who deserves to be studied, not only because of his detailed explanation of an often difficult Aristotelian text, but also because of his own psychological doctrines. In chapter six the author discusses the objects of the intellect. In chapters seven to eight he sees Aristotle as moving towards practical intellect, thus preparing the way for discussing what initiates movement in chapters nine to 11. His interpretation offers a brilliant investigation of practical reasoning and of the interaction between desire and cognition from the level of perception to the intellect. In the commentator's view, Aristotle in the last chapters (12-13) investigates the different type of organic bodies corresponding to the different forms of life (vegetative and sensory, from the most basic, touch, to the most complex).

‘Simplicius’: On Aristotle On the Soul 3.6-13

Oliver Primavesi

"The 18th Symposium Aristotelicum, dedicated to the first Book of Aristotle's Metaphysics, was held in Leuven from 7th to 13th July 2008."--Pref.

Symposium Aristotelicum

Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha

Jan Opsomer

Proclus

The first English translation of this important treatise on providence and fate by the fifth-century Neoplatonist Proclus.

Proclus: Ten Problems Concerning Providence

Proclus' On the Existence of Evils is not a commentary, but helps to compensate for the dearth of Neoplatonist ethical commentaries. The central question addressed in the work is: how can there be evil in a providential world? Neoplatonists agree that it cannot be caused by higher and worthier beings. Plotinus had said that evil is matter, which, unlike Aristotle, he collapsed into mere privation or lack, thus reducing its reality. He also protected higher causes from responsibility by saying that evil may result from a combination of goods. Proclus objects: evil is real, and not a privation. Rather, it is a parasite feeding off good. Parasites have no proper cause, and higher beings are thus vindicated as being the causes only of the good off which evil feeds.

Proclus: On the Existence of Evils

John Marenbon

Werner Verbeke

In this volume, the persistence, resurgence, threat, fascination, and repression of various forms of pagan culture are studied in an interdisciplinary perspective from late antiquity to the upcoming Renaissance. The contributions deal with the survival of pagan beliefs and practices as well as with the Christianization of pagan rural populations and with the different strategies of oppression of pagan beliefs. They deal with the problems raised by the encounter with pagan cultures outside the Muslim world and examine how philosophers attempted to "save" the great philosophers and poets from ancient culture notwithstanding their paganism. The contributors also study the fascination of classic "pagan" culture among friars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the imitation of pagan models of virtue and mythology in Renaissance poetry. Contributors: Carlos Steel, KU Leuven–University of Leuven; John Marenbon, Trinity College, Cambridge; Ludo Milis, University of Ghent; Marc-André Wagner, Brigitte Meijns, University of Leuven; Rob Meens, University of Utrecht; Edina Bozoky, Université de Poitiers; Henryk Anzulewicz, Albertus-Magnus Institut, Bonn; Robrecht Lievens, KU Leuven–University of Leuven; Stefano Pittaluga, Università di Genova; Anna Akasoy, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum

Carlos Steel

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