Bøger af Gerd Van Riel

Philosophy is essentially historical. The element of wonder that drives philosophical inquiry, as well as the timeless nature of questions about humanity and the world, are both intertwined with their specific contexts of origin. The answers to these questions are historically situated interpretations of reality.Moreover, historicity itself is part of philosophical reflection. Any engagement with history (including this book) is inherently situated within a historical framework. A comprehensive understanding of the history of philosophy is, therefore, indispensable if one wishes to function as a philosopher.This historical introduction to European philosophy addresses the historicity of philosophy in its twofold sense. The first part provides insight into the vicissitudes of philosophical rationality from antiquity to the present day, with an emphasis on the relation between philosophical reflection and other domains of European intellectual history, such as science, politics, art, and literature. The second part deals with philosophy as a ¿historical-hermeneutical¿ discipline.The book functions both as a handbook for introductory philosophy courses and as a monograph on European philosophy and intellectual history for a non-specialist audience.Gerd Van Riel is professor of ancient philosophy at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy. Guy Claessens is postdoctoral researcher at the KU Leuven Institute of Philosophy.

A new five volume critical text edition of the only surviving ancient commentary on Plato's Timaeus, in which Proclus encompasses seven centuries of philosophical reflection on Plato's cosmology. Each volume is preceded by a substantial introduction.

In the month of June, 1995, the Society for the Promotion of Eriugenian Studies held its ninth International Colloquium at Leuven and Louvain-la-Neuve. The Colloquium was devoted to Eriugena's hermeneutics and his interpretation of the Bible. The feature of Biblical hermeneutics is of main interest for a thinker like Eriugena. For him the source and the end of all truth is the understanding of Sacred Scripture. To unravel this inconcussa auctoritas diuinae Scripturae all hermeneutical skills have to be brought into play, in order to give rise to a true spiritual understanding of the Bible.This volume contains the contributions presented at the Colloquium, which shed light on numerous aspects of Eriugena's hermeneutics of Scripture. Without imposing too rigid a classification, the contributions to this book can be listed under four headings. The first two studies present large-scale tableaux, establishing the context within which Eriugena undertook his biblical studies. In a second group of articles, attention is paid more directly to the specifically Eriugenian method of understanding Sacred Scripture. The theoretical aspects of Eriugena's exegesis, as established in the second part, are adapted in the third, in which Eriugena's interpretation of particular Biblical texts is investigated. The fourth and last heading, then, would contain studies in the range and method of Eriugena's exegesis, with particular attention to manuscript sources, and to new texts to be included into the opera of John Scottus.

This book presents a comprehensive study into Plato's theological doctrines, offering an important re-valuation of the status of Plato's gods and the relation between metaphysics and theology according to Plato. Starting from an examination of Plato's views of religion and the relation between religion and morality.