(Class 11) 5 November: Language and Reality 1 of 2: Divine Names
Text Link and Alternate Text Link
Required of all students for both Part 1 and Part 2: (ps.)Dionysius, On Divine Names, ch. 5 on the name Being, in Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology, tr. C. E. Rolt, 1920, pp.68-74. Better: see the translation of Luibheid in Pseudo-Dionyius. The Complete Works (1987). pp.96-103. Recommended: Dionysius the Areopagite, by Corrigan and Harrington, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Also recommended: William Dunaway, “The Epistemology of Theological Predication,” 20 October 2020, in The Christian West and the Islamic East Lecture Series.
Part 1 : Divine Names and Knowing God in Maimonides
KUL-2 : Nele Vanmechelen & Yutong Li. Handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.
Required : (i) Maimonides, GUIDE of THE PERPLEXED, part 1 tr Pines 1963 (1974 rpt) 1.151-156; (ii) Adamson 2013, “From the Necessary Existent to God”; (iii) Taylor 2019, “Maimonides and Aquinas on Divine Attributes.The Importance of Avicenna”.
Recommended: (i) Maimonides, by Seeskin (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) 2008; (ii) Zonta 2005, “Maimonides’ Knowledge of Avicenna. Some Tentative Conclusions About a Debated Question”, THE TRIAS OF MAIMONIDES ed Tammer; (iii) Alexander Broadie, “Maimonides and Aquinas on the Names of God,” Religious Studies 23(1987), pp. 157–170
Part 2 : Divine Names and Knowing God in Aquinas
KUL-3 : Simon Derudder & Dries Desticker. Handout of absolutely not more than 6 pp. + 2 pp bibliography due Tuesday 5 pm US Central Time/ midnight Leuven. Thursday at class: 8-10 min. oral presentation followed by discussion.
Required: (i) In 1 Sent. d.8, q., a.1. “Whether being (esse) is properly said of God” (last item at http://richardctaylor.info/aquinas-selections-from-his-commentary-on-the-sentences/); (ii) Summa theologae Q.13: The Names of God.
Recommended: (i) Rocca 2004, Speaking the Incomprehensible God, Washington DC: CUA Press, 2004, Ch 10, 291 ff. ; (ii) Burrows 1994, Naming God beyond names; (iii) Symington 2011, “The Aristotelian Epistemic Principle and the Problem of Divine Naming in Aquinas”; (iv) In our studies of Aquinas it would be anachronistic and inaccurate if we were to disregard the most obvious consideration that he was first and foremost a theologian. B. Blankenhorn, “Aquinas on the Spirit’s Gift of Understanding and Dionysius’s Mystical Theology,” Nova et Vetera, English Edition, 14.4 (2016), 1113-1131.
Other: A modern day blogger’s account.