Medieval Aristotelianism and its Limits

Cary J. Nederman

• Contents: Introduction; Aristotelian ethics before the Nicomachean Ethics: alternative sources of Aristotle's concept of virtue in the 12th century; Aristotelianism and the origins of political science in the 12th century; Nature, ethics, and the doctrine of ’habitus’: Aristotelian moral psychology in the 12th century; To the court and back again: the origins and dating of the Entheticus de Dogmate Philosophorum of John of Salisbury; The changing face of tyranny: the reign of King Stephen in John of Salisbury’s political thought; The physiological significance of the organic metaphor in John of Salisbury’s Policraticus; A duty to kill: John of Salisbury’s theory of tyrannicide; The Aristotelian doctrine of the mean and John of Salisbury’s concept of liberty; Knowledge, virtue and the path to wisdom: the unexamined Aristotelianism of John of Salisbury's Metalogicon; Aristotelian ethics and John of Salisbury’s letters; Nature, sin and the origins of society: the Ciceronian tradition in medieval political thought; The union of wisdom and eloquence before the Renaissance: the Ciceronian orator in medieval thought; Bracton on kingship revisted; Kings, peers and parliament: virtue and corulership in Walter Burley’s Commentarius in VIII Libros Politicorum Aristotelis; Aristotle as authority: alternative Aristotelian sources of late medieval political theory; Conciliarism and constitutionalism: Jean Gerson and medieval political thought; Humanism and empire: Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, Cicero and the imperial ideal; Index.