Customer Reviews

Basic Issues Medieval Philosophy

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I am currently using this book in my college course on Medieval philosophy, which is very interesting. The book is divided up by the major issues of Medieval philosophy, and is put in good reading order. For example, the editor will put selections from Aristotle and Plato at the beginning of a section, and follows that with Augustine's text. The editor sees that you view things in a progressive order. There are good notes to help guide through the thick reading, including a glossary of Medieval terms in the back. The text is almost completely primary sources. This is a good text to use if you have someone to explain Medieval philosophy.

Basic Issues in Medieval Philosophy is anything but basic. Don't let the title fool you. What I do like about this book is that it is organized by topics so you can compare and contrast various philosophers. It also contains a glossary with explanations of certain terminology, but it is not very extensive. If you have never taken any philosophy before, you will find this book very, very, very hard to read, to the point where you will read a whole section and not understand a single thing. If you have a great professor who can make sense of the book for you, then you may understand the reading and learn how to interpret this text. It is written in English, but it is not the English we are accustomed to. However, there are a few philosophers in this book who are not as confusing as others and therefore can be read understandably. Medieval philosophy was my 3rd philosophy class and I had to suffer through this book trying to figure out what it was saying for hours. But on the other hand I had a terrible professor. So overall, I think this is an okay book. It contains interesting topics such as divine foreknowledge, free will and determinism, universals and particulars, contingency and necessity, virtue and reason, sin and sex. It is definitely good if you study this book in an upper-division course of Medieval Philosophy, but definitely not a lower-division.