Contemporary scholarship on Bonaventure has characterized him as the Neo-platonic foil to the Aristotelianism of his day. The present book, however, shows a Bonaventure who is highly enthusiastic about utilizing the philosophy of Aristotle and who centers much of his philosophical project around interpreting and understanding the texts of Aristotle. Two goals are central to this book. The first is to shed light on Bonaventure’s greatly understudied ontology and theory of forms, demonstrating how his philosophical system is an important and unique alternative to other medieval Aristotelian systems. The second is to establish, more broadly, how Bonaventure’s interpretation of Aristotle is a resource which should be mined for contemporary efforts in thinking about and reading Aristotle himself.

Table des matières :

Acknowledgements 

Abbreviations for Editions and Translations of Primary Texts

Introduction 

Chapter 1. Historical Background 

1. The Neoplatonic via Proclus: The One and the Many 

2. The Problem of Neoplatonism in the Christian Tradition 

3. Aristotle via Avicenna and the Early Franciscan Tradition, or What Exactly Is Aristotelianism? 

Chapter 2. The Theory of Forms in Thomas Aquinas 

1. The Structure of Creation 

2. Participation 

3. Participation in the Fourth Way? 

4. Participation in Exemplar Causes? 

5. Conclusion 

Chapter 3. The Controversy: Bonaventure and Aristotle

1. History of Scholarship on Bonaventure 

2. The “Anti-Aristotelianism” of the Collationes

Chapter 4. An Aristotelian Account of Universals 

1. Form, Esse, Actuality, Goodness 

2. Universal Forms and Seminal Reasons

3. Universals 

4. Conclusion 

Chapter 5. Forms as Caused by God

1. God Beyond Being 

2. Exemplar Causation 

3. A Multiplicity of Ideas? 

4. Conclusion 

Chapter 6. Forms in the Natural World 

1. Individuation 

2. Light and the Question of a Plurality of Substantial Forms 

3. Causation 

4. Evil 

5. Conclusion 

Conclusion 

Bibliography 

Primary Sources 

Secondary Sources 

Index 

Informations pratiques :

Franziska van Buren, Aristotle and the Ontology of St. Bonaventure, Louvain, Leuven University Press, 2023 ; 1 vol., 226 p. (Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Series 1, 63). ISBN : 978-9-46270-356-8. Prix : € 49,50.

Source : Leuven University Press