Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters

Absolute Beginners adopts a variety of approaches to study the Absolute as the ultimate source of knowledge in medieval philosophy. From a historical perspective, it examines a forerunner of Spinoza's departure from the Absolute in the Ethics: the doctrine of God as a first object in the generation of knowledge, as formulated by Henry of Ghent (1293) and Richard Conington (1330). Methodologically, it offers a case-study in the construction of an historical object, calling into question the self-evident and spontaneous way in which elements in the history of philosophy - its concepts and theories - are presented as primary givens. In a systematic sense, this study includes a reflection on structural indeterminacy, as pervading and stabilizing the differential system of exclusions which makes up the doctrine of God as a first object in the generation of knowledge.