Ethics with Buridan

Although John Buridan was one of the most influential philosophers of the late Middle Ages and his commentary on Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics was one of his most influential works, that work is little studied today. This is unfortunate not only from a historical point of view, but also from a philosophical point of view. Unlike Thomas Aquinas and most of his well-known contemporaries, Buridan writes not as a theologian, but as a philosopher, whose thoroughgoing nominalism and debt not only to Aristotle, but also to the Stoics sets the stage for a unique, magisterial treatment of ethics. The overarching aim of my project is to work on two levels to help bring Buridans ethical views the attention they deserve. First, in conjunction with an international team that I have already formed for this purpose, I will translate Buridans commentary into English. Although virtually all of the translating itself remains to be done, that translation is already under contract at Cambridge University Press. When published, the text will be significantly easier to work with for specialists and non-specialists alike. Second, I will provide a philosophically rigorous treatment of Buridans ethics with an eye toward its medieval competitors and its contemporary counterparts. In this connection, the main objective is to produce a monograph tentatively entitled, Ethics with Buridan, that will offer the first sustained treatment of Buridans entire ethical system. In order both to refine the work that I am doing in preparation for the monograph and to begin to draw greater attention to Buridans ethics, I intend to publish a series of papers and to present at relevant conferences.