| Abstract | Paper -a:
Scholarship on Maimonides has typically centered on the issues of authorial intent, as well as the Islamic influence upon Maimonides, but has yet to focus on the independent shift that took place across Judaism, Islam, and Christianity during the 12th century. This century saw a particular rise in the defining of orthodoxy across the Abrahamic religions, which I would argue was in part brought on by the imperative necessity of competing religions, in addition to the revival of Aristotle and classical teachings and finally, due to a new anxiety gripping the world. Although Maimonides may not have had significant influence from Christians, it is critical that Jewish and Christian expressions of true belief (faith statements) in the 12th century indicate an incredible similarity in experience. Not only did Jews and Christians live side-by-side, but anxieties and concerns for individual salvation ended up being a preoccupation for both in the 12th century. This paper seeks to explore some of those similarities in an effort to increase the historical vision of a shared experience across the Abrahamic religions.
Paper -b:
In Purgatorio Three, Virgil asks Dante pilgrim to choose between Mary and the philosophers (34-45). For Dante, human salvation depends upon this choice. In choosing Mary, Dante's spiritual journey through poetry participates in God's cosmic architecture as sacrament - in God's choice of Mary as the means through which the radical gift of Incarnation is possible. Mary's wisdom and love fully integrates body with spirit, and so departs from earlier philosophic models of human aspiration. This paper illuminates key aspects of Dante's Incarnational allegory, one dependent upon a Marian theology that should be understood within the context of ancient philosophic traditions.
Paper -c:
In this paper I attempt to offer an explanation for Thomas's initial shift in analogy from reference to proper proportionality and argue that one cannot appreciate fully this first phase of Aquinas's doctrine of analogy without recognizing the role that his master, Albert the Great, played in forming the younger Dominican's early conception of analogy. Building upon Bernard Montagnes' work, I argue that Thomas's initial rejection of an analogy of reference for proper proportionality represents his decided dissatisfaction with Albert's teaching on analogy. This dissatisfaction, as we shall see, ultimately concerns Albert's propensity towards a kind of noetic univocity.
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