Bøker i Studien Und Texte Zur Geistesg-serien

This volume examines a selection of late medieval works devoted to the intensive infinite in order to draw a comprehensive picture of the context, character and importance of scholastic efforts to reason philosophically about divine infinity. As Dominican masters face Franciscan 'spirituals' and as university-trained theologians face evangelical laymen, the purpose and meaning of divine infinity shift, reflecting a basic tension between the Church's Petrine vocation for geopolitical orthodoxy and its more Pauline mission to promote Christian orthopraxis. The first part of the book traces the scholastic defense of divine infinity from the holocaust of Montsigur up to John Duns Scotus. The second part examines the semiotic breakthrough initiated by William of Ockham and the subsequent penetration of infinist theory into a wide variety of disciplines.

This book attempts to explain the functioning of the combinatorial, semi-mechanical demonstrative techniques of Ramon Llull's 'Art', how it began as an apologetic instrument, how it developed through two main stages, and how it ended trying to reformulate key aspects of medieval Aristotelian logic.