Aristotle And The Ontology Of St Bonaventure

Contemporary scholarship on Bonaventure has characterized him as the Neo-platonic foil to the Aristotelianism of his day. The present book, however, shows a Bonaventure who is highly enthusiastic about utilizing the philosophy of Aristotle and who centers much of his philosophical project around interpreting and understanding the texts of Aristotle. Two goals are central to this book. The first is to shed light on Bonaventure’s greatly understudied ontology and theory of forms, demonstrating how his philosophical system is an important and unique alternative to other medieval Aristotelian systems. The second is to establish, more broadly, how Bonaventure’s interpretation of Aristotle is a resource which should be mined for contemporary efforts in thinking about and reading Aristotle himself.

The great Franciscan theologian St. Bonaventure (c.1217-74) engaged in philosophy as well as theology, and the relation between the two in Bonaventure's work has long been debated. Yet, few studies have been devoted to Bonaventure's thought as a whole. In this survey, Christopher M. Cullen reveals Bonaventure as a great synthesizer, whose system of thought bridged the gap between theology and philosophy. The book is organized according to the categories of Bonaventure's own classic text, De reductione artium ad theologiam. Cullen follows Bonaventure's own division of the branches of philosophy and theology, analyzing them as separate but related entities. He shows that Bonaventure was a scholastic, whose mysticism was grounded in systematic theological and philosophical reasoning. He presents a fresh and nuanced perspective on Bonaventure's debt to Augustine, while clarifying Aristotle's influence. Cullen also puts Bonaventure's ideas in context of his time and place, contributing significantly to our understanding of the medieval world. This accessible introduction provides a much-needed overview of Bonaventure's thought. Cullen offers a clear and rare reading of "Bonaventurianism" in and for itself, without the complications of critique and comparison. This book promises to become a standard text on Bonaventure, useful for students and scholars of philosophy, theology, medieval studies, and the history of Christianity.

Selected for topic and merit from presentations at annual meetings of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy, 14 essays wrangle with the enduring questions and issues of Aristotle's logic, methodology and the Metaphysics, and his view of being and soul. Indexed by names, concepts, and classical passages cited. Also in paper (not seen) $16.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A thorough reconstruction of Aristotle's account of artefacts that is sensitive to modern debates.