This volume explores the tremendous influence of Plato’s Phaedrus on the philosophical, religious, scientific and literary discussions in the West. Ranging from Plato’s first readers, over the Church Fathers and the Platonic commentators, to Byzantine and Renaissance thinkers, the papers collected here introduce the reader to the first two millennia of the dialogue’s reception history. Thirteen contributions by both junior and established scholars study the engagement with the Phaedrus by such major figures as Aristotle, Galen, Origen, Clemens of Alexandria, Plotinus, Augustine, Proclus, Psellus, Ficino, Erasmus, and many others. Together, they cover the wide range of topics discussed in the dialogue: the value of myth and allegory, religion and theology, love and beauty, the soul and its immortality, teaching and learning, metaphysics and epistemology, rhetoric and dialectic, as well as the role and the limits of writing. By placing the dialogue in this broad perspective, the volume will appeal to readers interested in the Phaedrus itself, as well as to classicists, literary theorists, and historians of philosophy, science and religion concerned with the dialogue’s reception history and its main protagonists.

This fourth volume traces the history of Renaissance philosophy and seventeenth century rationalism, covering Descartes and the birth of modern philosophy.

The Darker Vision of the Renaissance explores political, literary, social, religious, medical, and artistic events between 1300 and 1670 that led beyond the bounds of reason into the nonrational, irrational, and suprarational phenomena of the European Renaissance. Robert S. Kinsman’s introduction examines Renaissance uses of ratio, “fancy” and “folly,” melancholy, anxietas, and alienation. Lynn White Jr. presents the essential thesis of the collection in his view that the years 1300–1650 constituted one of the most psychically disturbed eras ever in European history. The “world-alienation” of the period is analyzed by Donald R. Howard, illustrated by two poems of the late fourteenth century: Gawain and the Green Knight and Toilus and Criseyde. The flourishing of hermetic, magical, cabalistic, and astrological practices in the Renaissance is described by John G. Burke. The gentleman and courtier’s physical and psychological tensions resulting from literal exile or from psychic alienation from his lesser fellows are investigated by Lauro Martines. An analysis of the “structures” of Renaissance mysticism is provided by Kees W. Bolle. Gilbert Reaney’s essay examines ratio as the basis for the “measured” music of the fourteenth century, against which the newer duple and triple rhythms that came into prominence in the later half of the century were assessed. An essay by Marc Bensimon concerns itself with Renaissance modes of perception—as illustrated in works of art, of literature, and of philosophic speculation—that seem shaped by primordial anxieties caused by the passing of time and the fear of death. The reflections of theological notions about the “dreadful hidden will of God” in such pieces as Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus are given full background and perceptive treatment by Paul R. Sellin. Robert Kinsman concludes with his study “Folly, Melancholy, and Madness: Shifting Styles of Medical Analysis and Treatment, 1450–1675.” This title is part of UC Press’s Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

In Mystics of the Renaissance, Rudolf Steiner examines the thought of eleven European mystics (Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, Ruysbroek, Nicholas of Cusa, Agrippa von Nettesheim, Paracelsus, Weigel, Boehme, Giordano Bruno, and Angelus Silesius) through a collection of essays and explains their ideas and how they relate to modern concepts. Scriptoria Books has transcribed this edition word for word from the original text. It was then edited, formatted, typeset, and proofread through each revision. Our procedures are not automated. Our editions are not facsimiles and do not contain OCR interpreted text. Our books are carefully created new editions of classic works.

The original idea for a conference on the "shapes of knowledge" dates back over ten years to conversations with the late Charles Schmitt of the Warburg Institute. What happened to the classifications of the sciences between the time of the medieval Studium and that of the French Encyclopedie is a complex and highly abstract question; but posing it is an effective way of mapping and evaluating long term intellectual changes, especially those arising from the impact of humanist scholarship, the new science of the seventeenth century, and attempts to evaluate, to apply, to reconcile, and to institutionalize these rival and interacting traditions. Yet such patterns and transformations cannot be well understood from the heights of the general history of ideas. Within the ~eneral framework of the organization of knowledge the map must be filled in by particular explorations and soundings, and our project called for a conference that would combine some encyclopedic (as well as interdisciplinary and inter national) breadth with scholarly and technical depth.

Reform is one of the most significant themes, spiritual and intellectual, of the Middle Ages; and it has both institutional and individual dimensions. The Reformation crisis led to further variations on this crucial theme. This volume examines the theme of Reform from a variety of viewpoints while covering more than four centuries. Some contributions look at Apocalyptic dimensions in writings on reform. Another focuses on the influence of Gerhart Ladner on the study of reforming themes and reform movements. These articles will be useful for the study of intellectual history, ecclesiastical history, the history of spirituality and the study of Apocalypticism. Contributors include: Gregory S. Beirich, Christopher M. Bellitto, Gerald Christianson, Thomas C. Giangreco, William V. Hudon, Lawrence F. Hundersmarck, Thomas M. Izbicki, Daniel Marcel La Corte, Thomas E. Morrissey, Francis Oakley, Joseph F. O’Callaghan, Gilbert Ouy, Robert Somerville, Phillip H. Stump, and Morimichi Watanabe. Publications by Louis B. Pascoe, S.J.: • Jean Gerson: Principles of Church Reform, ISBN: 978 90 04 03645 1 (Out of print) • Church and Reform: Bishops, Theologians, and Canon Lawyers in the Thought of Pierre d'Ailly (1351-1420), ISBN: 978 90 04 14062 2

This collection of essays offers a fresh look into Christian-Jewish cultural interactions during the Renaissance and beyond. Christian scholars, it is shown, were deeply immersed in a variety of Hebrew sources, while their Jewish counterparts imbibed the culture of Humanism.