Olivier Boulnois

Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes | EPHE · UMR Laboratoire d'Etudes sur les Monothéismes

Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent pe...

What is Negative Theology? The theology of divine names, in Dionysius, is not a negative theology but a meditation on transcendence. The expression has been added in ancient manuscripts, but in symmetry with affirmative theology. That symmetry is based on the more general symmetry between affirmation and negation. To reduce Dionysius’ thought to af...

This chapter deals with Aristotle’s, Aquinas’s and John Duns Scotus’s doctrines of habitus, and their relation with the freedom of habituated agents. Even if the word habitus is close to the idea of habit, it is not the same thing. Aristotle describes habitus as an acquired reflex, a mediation between potency and act. In the case of science, the ha...

Generally attributed to Duns Scotus, as the correlate of formal distinction, and as the minimal component of being, the concept of reality is older than that. It arose during the twelfth century, under the name of realitas, probably by Odo of Tournai, in order to designate what was created from nothing; soon after, William of Liege uses it to desig...

In this work, the author has two complementary objectives. Firstly, to demonstrate the contemporaneity of the Middle Ages and secondly, the false novelty of the Modern Times. The author shows the medieval horizon of modernity and, therefore, the false disjunction established between its origin, as rupture and break, considering the Middle Ages as D...

Dieu peut-il être nommé ? Si Dieu est créateur, au-delà de l’espace et du temps, comment l’appeler sans nier sa transcendance ? Entre le silence et l’idolâtrie, une troisième voie est-elle possible ? Les « Noms divins » répondent à ces questions : ils recouvrent les termes désignant une divinité, mais dans la mesure où ces noms se justifient eux-mê...

This article offers a critical balance of the tendencies of the philosophical historiography on John Duns Scotus in the Twentieth century, from its first period defined by the fight between the schools (Thomists versus Scotists) on the light of the enciclical Aeterni Patris, to the most recent academic research working on the critical edition of Sc...

Symbolic theology confronted with theology as science Symbolic theology covers the entire range of metaphorical images referring to God, first in the Holy Scripture and then in theological discourse. Within Neo-Platonism, these symbols are first and foremost imprints of the divine, that allow us, through their contact, to come into union with the d...

Symbolic theology covers the entire range of metaphorical images referring to God, first in the Holy Scripture and then in theological discourse. Within Neo-Platonism, these symbols are first and foremost imprints of the divine, that allow us, through their contact, to come into union with the divine in a theurgical act. Denys insists on their dis-...

While the theology of icons was based on a christological justification, the augustinian doctrine of image is based on the image of the divine essence, common to the Trinity. Therefore, the image is a fiction, freely made up by the human mind, when he interprets Scripture. This theory paves the way to the freedom of the medieval artist.

Résumé Le Sermon 52 d’Eckhart se situe au croisement de l’aristotélisme et de l’augustinisme : l’homme accède à la béatitude par la contemplation, il a pour modèle la divinisation du chrétien. Pour Eckhart, seul le détachement permet à l’homme d’y accéder, par un triple renoncement : à la concupiscence de la chair, à la convoitise du savoir et au d...

Augustine and the Theories of Images of the Middle Ages Augustine is the only ancient thinker to have drafted a treatise on the concept of images, Question 74, where he shows the possibility of an image (invisible) of the invisible. This conception sheds light upon the reticence of the Libri Carolini towards the theology of icons developed by the S...

Augustine is the only ancient thinker to have drafted a treatise on the concept of images, Question 74, where he shows the possibility of an image (invisible) of the invisible. This conception sheds light upon the reticence of the Libri Carolini towards the theology of icons developed by the Second Council of Nicaea. The Augustinian doctrine of the...

One cannot insert Duns Scotus directly into contemporary debates of theology without first of all recalling and recounting his place in the history of metaphysics understood as a transcendental science. It is only then, and starting from philosophical arguments, that one will be able to engage thoughts about God—i.e., do “theology”—in such as way a...

This study aim at exploring the splits and transformations which the theory of freedom of indifference has undergone during the 17th century. This theory has a Scotistic origin, but it was modified by the controversies around Molina. It is primarily directed against the "Thomistic" theories of physical predetermination. The works of Gibieuf, for wh...

This introduction insists on the need to study the hidden presence of Duns Scotus in the XVIIth century. Such a study requires an other approach than the simple search for influences, or an erudite rehabilitation of unfairly unrecognized authors : an enquiry dealing with long lasting structures and drawing up the inventory of concepts and propositi...

This study aims at exploring the splits and transformations which the theory of freedom of indifference has undergone during the XVIIth century. This theory has a scotistic origin, but it was modified by the controversies around Molina. It is primarily directed against the « thomsitic » theories of physical predetermination. The works of Gibieuf, f...

This introduction insists on the need to study the hidden presence of Duns Scotus in the 17th century. Such a study requires an other approach than the simple search for influences, or an erudite rehabilitation of unfairly recognized authors: an enquiry dealing with long lasting structures and drawing up the inventory of concepts and propositions w...

Tout ce qui nait perit. Dieu doit-il a son tour obeir a cette loi? Appele a «entrer dans la philosophie» (Heidegger), serait-il du coup destine a y mourir (Nietzsche)? 1. La constitution de la metaphysique se dit de plusieurs manieres, ce qu'atteste specialement l'histoire de la philosophie medievale. La diversite des figures historiques concurrent...

Whatever comes into existence, perishes. Must God in turn obey this law? Called upon to «enter philosophy» (Heidegger), is he thereby destined to die there (Nietzsche)? l.The constitution of metaphysics is expressed in several ways, as the history of mediaeval philosophy in particular attests. The diversity of competing historical figures in metaph...

When the answer precedes the request : the paradoxical dialectics of Christian prayer Christian prayer involves a set of paradoxes. As an act of communication, prayer invokes an invisible interlocutor and convokes a virtual community. All its rhetoric empowers the one who prays to receive a gift which is offered him ; its pragmatic aspect opens up...