SOURCE: Crowe, M. B. “Paradiso X: Siger of Brabant.” In Dante Soundings: Eight Literary and Historical Essays, edited by David Nolan, pp. 146-62. Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981.

In the following essay, Crowe provides intellectual and philosophical context for the Paradiso, suggesting that Siger of Brabant, a controversial thinker whose ideas St. Thomas Aquinas vigorously disputed, is the “philosopher” to whom the poet often refers.

Who is the philosopher in the Paradiso? Is it, perhaps, Dante himself? To say so would demand an investigation far beyond the scope of this paper; for it would mean a study of Dante's philosophical opinions and all their far-reaching applications in the Divine Comedy. The scope of this study is the more modest, but still difficult one of identifying “the philosopher” among the great variety of personalities that people Dante's Paradiso. Is it Thomas Aquinas, for whom he had such a regard? Or...