From the flip of the 5th century to the start of the eighteenth, Christian writers have been interested and afflicted by means of the "Problem of Paganism," which this ebook identifies and examines for the 1st time. How might the knowledge and advantage of the nice thinkers of antiquity be reconciled with the truth that they have been pagans and, many idea, damned? comparable questions have been raised via encounters with modern pagans in northern Europe, Mongolia, and, later, the USA and China.
Pagans and Philosophers explores how writers--philosophers and theologians, but additionally poets similar to Dante, Chaucer, and Langland, and tourists similar to Las Casas and Ricci--tackled the matter of Paganism. Augustine and Boethius set its phrases, whereas Peter Abelard and John of Salisbury have been vital early advocates of pagan knowledge and advantage. collage theologians resembling Aquinas, Scotus, Ockham, and Bradwardine, and later thinkers comparable to Ficino, Valla, extra, Bayle, and Leibniz, explored the trouble extensive. in the meantime, Albert the nice encouraged Boethius of Dacia and others to create a relativist perception of medical wisdom that allowed Christian academics to stay trustworthy Aristotelians. while, early anthropologists reminiscent of John of Piano Carpini, John Mandeville, and Montaigne constructed different types of relativism based on the problem.
A sweeping and unique account of an incredible yet missed bankruptcy in Western highbrow heritage, Pagans and Philosophers presents a brand new viewpoint on not anything below the whole interval among the classical and the trendy world.