| Main themes |
The course requires a direct and frequent exposure to Medieval texts. We shall either study a particular text (from beginning to end or jumping around in it), or extracts from different authors addressing a specific problem.
We shall examine these texts from a historical perspective. We shall shell out their sources, insisting on the fact that Medieval thinkers believed they were on the threshold of different traditions and heritages: biblical and theological, patristical, philosophical (Ancient, Arab, and Jewish thought). From a doctrinal point of view, we shall also show what was innovative in these texts when they were written and in their cultural context. If the need arises, we shall underline their posterity, especially their influence on Modern thought.
On top of this historical approach, we shall also examine the argumentative strategies of the texts themselves, highlighting their logical and conceptual rigor, which makes for excellent training for the students' reading skills.
The texts will be explained by the lecturer: the goal is to give examples of reading methods and to indicate the necessary tools for a proper reading of these texts.
The students will be asked to do complementary readings.
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| Content |
The lectures will be devoted to an introduction to Dante's philosophy. Dante is famous as a great poet but he was also an outstanding philosopher of the Middle Ages. Beside his poetical works like the New Life and the Divine Comedy, he left some strictly philosophical works as The Banquet,The Monarchy, The Dispute of Water and Earth, and so on. These works contain a quite original thought, although inspired by Thomas Aquinas and Averroes.
We will survey his whole philosophy and study his love poetry and the influence of the court love, his conception of philosophy and of its learning; We will also give a general introduction to the Divine Comedy and develop more particularly some philosophical topics (freedom, virtues, relationship between philosophy and theology, happiness of man, philosophy of language, etc') and we will end with a study of Dante's political philosophy.
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| Bibliography |
Basic Bibliography
- E. Gilson, Dante et la Philosophie, Vrin, 1939
- E. Gilson, Dante et Béatrice. Etudes dantesques, Vrin, 1974.
- R. Imbach, Dante, la philosophie et les laïcs, (Vestigia 21), Fribourg/ Paris, Editions Universitaires/ Cerf, 1996.
- D. Ottaviani, La Philosophie de la lumière chez Dante, 2004
- B. Pichard, Pour Dante, Honoré Campion, 2000.
- C. de Callataÿ - van der Mersch, Le déchiffrement de Dante : t. I : l'unité-trine,
Leuven 1994 ; t. II : le livre scellé, Leuven, 1996 ; t. III : le sur-sens, Leuven, 1997.
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