Medieval Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide

Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)

by Sharon Kaye

Why do good things happen to bad people? Can we prove whether God exists? What is the difference between right and wrong? Medieval Philosophers were centrally concerned with such questions: questions which are as relevant today as a thousand years ago when the likes of Anselm and Aquinas sought to resolve them. In this fast-paced, enlightening guide, Sharon M. Kaye takes us on a whistle-stop tour of medieval philosophy, revealing the debt it owes to Aristotle and Plato, and showing how medieval thought is still inspiring philosophers and thinkers today. With new translations of numerous key extracts from across the centuries, Kaye directly involves the reader with the philosophers’ writings, and introduces the criticisms levied against them. With helpful text boxes throughout the book detailing key figures and philosophical movements, this is an invaluable reference for students of all levels, and will prove an entertaining primer for the general reader. Sharon M. Kaye is Associate Professor of Philosophy at John Carroll University. She is the author of On Ockham and On Augustine.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Medieval

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2008

About the author

Sharon M. Kaye, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. She’s also the author of Big Thinkers and Ideas: An Introduction to Eastern and Western Philosophy for Kids.

Reviews

[Mohaned Essam · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by far the best book I've read in philosophy. The language and the presentation of the ideas are very easy to understand for a non-expert in philosophy, and still, it touches on very important topics such as epistemology, god, time, beginning of the universe, freewill and ethics

[Cee]

Read about 20% of the book. I was hoping Medieval Philosophy would give me more of an insight into the medieval mind. Sadly for me, it dove very deep into logic, and the argumentational structure of medieval philosophy. After listening to over an hour of logical statements and deductions, I returned it to the library.

Also, I found it somewhat odd that the author discusses in the introduction that medieval philosophers are interesting to us today because of their philosophical evidences that god exists - not whether god exists.

[Michael Kenan Baldwin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kaye made some good moves in some of her explanations, especially when discussing classical logic or the ontological argument. But there was too much I couldn’t countenance, like describing Augustine as a temporal anti-realist or her cartoonish depiction of Aquinas vs Ockham.