Table of Contents

Bibliographical Note

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Sources

Outline of Chapters

Chapter I. Marsilius’ Life and Works

Chapter II. Major Intellectual Influences on Marsilius

Albertino Mussato and Paduan Politics

Peter of Abano and Late Medieval Natural Philosophy and Medicine

Averroes Goes West: John of Jandun

Muslim and Jewish Influences

Chapter III. Marsilius’ Political Theory

Marsilius and Aristotelian Teleology

The Origins of Social Life

Rhetoric and the Genesis of Civil Life

The Purpose of the Political Community

The Peace and Tranquility of the Political Community

The Unity of the Political Community

The Organization of the Political Community

Marsilius’ Classification of Human Acts

Marsilius and Aristotle

Marsilius and Aquinas

Marsilius and Maimonides

Plato Transformed, Avicennian Echoes, and the Ideal Social Organization

The ‘Circle of Justice’ and Functional Specialization

The Idea of the Mean and the Parts of the Political Community

The Emergence of Religion and the Civic Function of the Sacerdotal Part

Marsilius’ Notion of Citizenship

Chapter IV. Marsilius’ Legal Theory

The Definition of the Law

Giants on the Shoulders of Dwarfs: Legislation and a Well-ordered Political Community

Cyclops with Many Eyes: Laws and Collective Prudence

The legislator humanus

The legislator primus

The primus legislator and Sovereignty

Medieval Echoes

Beyond Aristotle

Chapter V. Marsilius’ Theory of Government

The Taxonomy of Constitutions

The Five Modes of Establishing Monarchy

The Appointment of the Government

The Political Community as a Living Organism

Conclusions

Bibliography

Index of Subjects

Index of Places and Proper Names

About the Author

Vasileios Syros is a Senior Research Fellow of the Academy of Finland at the Finnish Centre of Political Thought & Conceptual Change.