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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY |
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Select: Introduction - Flaccus Albinus Alcuin - The Formative Period John Scotus Erigena - Roscelin - St. Anselm - Peter Abelard St. Bernard of Clairvaux - Peter Lombard
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The period of Christian thought extending from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fifteenth has come to be known as Scholasticism, a name taken from the school of philosophy of the University of Paris. Background Patristic philosophy reached its climax in the system of Augustine; it was the last great product of classical-Christian civilization. When the Roman empire fell, the only institution that was capable of standing for law and order was the Church. The Goths sacked Rome but respected the Church and offered it protection. The literature and culture of Greece and Rome became almost extinct; the barbarous tribes initiated the Dark Ages. The only philosophy that survived was that which filtered through the writings of the Church Fathers. From Augustine to the ninth century learning consisted of an ecclesiastical dogmatism which was spiritually lifeless and it did little better than preserve the traditions of past; Plato and Aristotle were only partially known. Scholastic philosophy means an organized system of truths which are distinct from the dogmas of faith but not opposed to them. This separation and coordination of reason and faith is not found in all Scholastic philosophy, but only during the period of its greatest splendor achieved under Thomas Aquinas. Scholastic philosophy, then, may be divided into:
The Carolingian Revival of Learning During the period of decadence, following the fall of the Roman empire, culture was restricted to ecclesiastical schools. There were of three types:
It is to Charlemagne's credit to have undertaken the program for the establishment of schools. He summoned the monk Alcuin and entrusted him with the work of organizing the schools. Alcuin reformed the program of studies by establishing the divisions known as the trivium (comprising grammar, rhetoric and dialectic) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music). He established the "scola palatina." Other schools following the program of Alcuin were opened at Tours, Laon, Orleans and Fulda. This cultural movement had no development of any importance after the death of Charlemagne. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
Flaccus Albinus Alcuin (c.735-804) Well-known as a teacher, poet, and monastic, Alcuin (picture) achieved his his greatest fame as the educator of Charlemagne. The emperor probably met him on his journeys through Italy. Alcuin had returned to Parma from England because of a declining interest in education there, and when Charlemagne invited him to take charge of his court school, the Schola Palatina, he gladly accepted. There, and later at Tours, where he had been given the monastery of St. Martin, Alcuin lived the life of a teacher, always abreast of the literary developments of the period. According to him, he "dispensed the honey of the Holy Scripture, intoxicated his students with the wine of ancient learning, fed them the apples of grammatical refinement, and adorned them with the knowledge of astronomy." The erudition of Charlemagne is directly traceable to the influence of his versatile teacher. Alcuin was a lover of poetry, and wrote quite acceptable hexameters. But posterity remembers him best as a great letter writer; more than three hundred of his letters have been preserved. Each was written to a distinguished friend, addressed either by some name which characterized the recipient, or a Latin paraphrase of the real name. They are still interesting for their philosophical content as well as for their references to historic events. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
II. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF SCHOLASTICISM The formative period of Scholasticism (the ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth centuries and the first half of the thirteenth century) developed under the influence of St. Augustine's thought. During this period, because of the prejudice of illumination, it was impossible to have a complete separation of reason from faith. Both mystics and dialecticians consider the intellect as unable to reason without being enlightened by God. With the help of illumination the intellect will be able to penetrate the content of the mysteries of faith. This period can be divided as follows:
a. The Ninth and Tenth Centuries 1. John Scotus Erigena (815? - 877) Scotus Erigena (picture) wrote "De Divisione Naturae," a Neo-Platonic work. According to Erigena, Unity (God) descends into multiplicity, and multiplicity returns to Unity. The degrees of reality are the following: (1) creating, non-created Nature -- God, the Father; (2) created and creating Nature -- the Son; (3) created and non-creating Nature -- the sensible world informed by the Holy Spirit; (4) non-created and non-creating Nature -- God Himself as final cause. The first and fourth degrees coincide with God. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
2. The Problem of the Universals What is the value of concepts, which are universal, in relation to real things, which are particular? Four solutions were attempted:
Click HERE for more details about the problem of universals. See also Dr. Jonathan Dolhenty's essay on The World of Universals. The war waged by Roscelin against Platonism and every kind of realism is interesting because it induced him to adumbrate a criticism of language which impresses one as most modern. Proceeding from the statement that in nature only individuals exist and species are not things, Roscelin has inquired into the generalizing character of words and language. In 1092 he was accused of adhering to Tritheism, i.e., that he conceived of the Trinity as of three distinct deities. He denied such a doctrine but later returned to it. Roscelin taught at the schools of several French towns. Among his pupils was Abelard who later criticized him. Roscelin's thoughts are known to us only by quotations which his adversaries made. Of all his writings only a letter to Abelard is extant. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
b. The Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries At the beginning of the eleventh century the Churchmen showed a renewed interest in a better understanding of the truths of religion. The thinkers of that time are divided into mystics and dialecticians. Both feel the influence of illumination, and hence consider knowledge a gift of God. Faith is thus presupposed and is considered superior to reason. Nevertheless thinkers disagree in determining what is the contribution that reason can make to faith. The mystics see in philosophy a remnant of paganism and the danger of heresy. St. Peter Damian, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Victorines are mystics. The dialecticians, on the contrary, think that once the understanding of religious truths is required reason can be invoked to penetrate the very content of the mysteries of the faith. St. Anselm and Peter Abelard are dialecticians.
A prominent figure in the struggle for power (in this period) between the secularists and ecclesiastics, Anselm (picture) was of even greater importance as a Christian philosopher. Although he was not a Scholastic, this school of church philosophy embodied many of his concepts. Anselm, first as abbot and later as archbishop, defended the authority of the Pope to William Rufus and Henry I, kings of England. This resulted in his exile. But regardless of whether he was living in poverty or splendor, he always maintained an ascetic existence. His monastic life of contemplation and meditation was frequently interrupted by political activity. His philosophy, largely a justification of Church practices and dogma, was publicized because he felt its position needed strengthening. He was convinced that the comprehension of divine truth was the result of faith, not reason. He stated that believing is a necessary condition of knowledge, and that in order to believe, one need not probe. In his most famous book, Cur Deus Homo (Why God Made Man), he tried to answer questions concerning the doctrine of man's redemption. He stated that man is created for an immortal life but is frustrated by sin, and that the Messiah has the power of redemption because His virginal birth excludes Him from the inheritance of sin. His theory of atonement and satisfaction has determined Christian thought and piety throughout the centuries. St. Anselm is well known for this ontological argument for the existence of God:
This thesis, elaborated in his Proslogium, was accepted by theologians and such eminent philosophers as Descartes and Leibniz. This argument, however, marks an illicit passage from the concept to reality. But, granted the doctrine of illumination, it would be valid. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
Abelard's life is a portrait of the triumphs and vicissitudes of philosophy, faith, and love. He was born in a little town in Brittany, and having been ordained as priest, returned there to tutor Heloise, the niece of Canon Fulbert. His secret love affair with her, and Astrolabius, the son she bore him, caused him considerable misfortune, for when the canon discovered the secret relationship he had the priest physically mutilated. Abelard persuaded Heloise to take the veil: he himself retired to a quiet place near Troyes. His disciples, however, sought him out, and once again the handsome, eloquent schoolman attracted students from all over Europe. He established an oratory called the Paraclete. His subtle argumentation persuaded his listeners to found their beliefs on reason. He tabulated the contradictions of the Bible and the Church Fathers for easy reference; he made freedom of the will the basis of all ethics; he opposed the teachings of the famous schoolmen, and expounded those concepts which hold that the Aristotelian precepts, called universals in scholastic philosophy (such as genus and species), have only intellectual significance. The story of his "calamities" (he wrote a book by that title) was never-ending. His interpretation of the Trinity was twice condemned as heretical. Finally, weary of the fight, he burned his book on the Trinity and lived out his life, a subdued follower of the faith. Upon his death Heloise, twenty-one years younger than he, claimed his body and buried him. The ashes of both lovers now rest at the Pere-Lachaise in Paris. Abelard is the most complex personality of this time. He attempted to penetrate the mysteries of faith through reason, and found in St. Bernard his strongest opponent. In the question of universals, Abelard is considered a nominalist; but he possibly may not be such, as his vocabulary is not absolutely clear. In The Radical Academy
Elsewhere On the Internet
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) "The visionary of the century" was the way St. Bernard (picture) characterized himself, for he felt that he had been selected by God to guide Christianity along the right paths. He sincerely tried to lead the life of a saint, although he was cognizant of those temptations that led men astray. An objective observer, John of Salisbury, noticed that he often lost his temper and behaved unjustly, and Bishop Otto of Freising, a pious church member, accused him of jealousy and habitual weaknesses. Bernard asserted that his inner life was based on the stages of the ascent of his soul toward God, and upon supernatural grace. His book De Gadibus Humilitatis et Superbiae (published c. 1121) established him as the founder of Christian mysticism of the Middle Ages. Here, he condemned the acquisition of knowledge for merely the sake of knowledge. To him, knowledge is only justified when it promotes the purification of the soul and leads it toward union with God. Humility is the basic condition for this union, and it, in turn, engenders love. He stated that there are twelve degrees of humility -- the highest constitutes the cognition of truth, and this is identical with union with God. This stage is psychologically characterized as the extinction of all sensitive life, but it does not remove the essential difference between man, a finite being, and God. With this reservation, Bernard's philosophy separates him from the monism of later mystics. Bernard excelled as an ecclesiastical ruler, as the organizer of a monastic order, as an irresistibly persuasive orator and an experienced administrator. As abbot of the monastery at Clairvaux, he was incapable of imposing his will on popes, kings, and emperors, but his ascendency over the masses was unfailing. However, shortly before his death, the terrible disasters of the Second Crusade took place. Because he had agitated for this crusade with all his power, its failure aroused doubt and opposition. His abhorrence of knowledge for the sake of knowledge made him a grim adversary of Abailard and Gilbert de la Portée. He succeeded in persecuting the former, but was defeated in his controversy with the latter. Bernard wrote many sermons, epistles, and hymns. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On The Internet
For more than two centuries, Peter Lombard's (picture) Four Books of Sentences had been used as the chief textbook by students of theology. Born in the town of Lumello in Lombardy, Peter became a professor of theology at the Cathedral School of Notre Dame, Paris, and in 1159, he was Bishop of Paris. He was associated with St. Bernard and the teacher of Abelard, his later adversary. He though little of logic and epistemology. According to him, human knowledge is bound to remain fragmentary, but true knowledge is higher than faith which, on its part is higher than opinion. The tenets of metaphysics are to be verified by the study of the Holy Scriptures and thereupon defended by "Catholic reason." In order to offer his pupils a reliable basis for disputations, he compiled his collection of Sentences from the Fathers and early teachers of the Church. In The Radical Academy Essay: Trinity, by Peter Lombard Elsewhere On The Internet
c. The First Half of the Thirteenth Century 1. The Establishing of Universities: As a consequence of the interest in studies, some ecclesiastical schools were reinvigorated and rose to great fame. This is the origin of many universities; the most celebrated of them is the University of Paris, then Oxford University. While the universities were being organized, two religious Orders -- namely, the Franciscans and Dominicans -- obtained the faculty to teach in them, and made a large contribution to the development of Scholastic philosophy. 2. The Discovery of the Works of Aristotle: The major factor in the development of Scholastic was the discovery of the works of Aristotle, which happened during the first half of the thirteenth century. These works first reached the universities through the commentaries of Jewish and Arabian philosophers. Among the famous commentators on Aristotle in Spain were two Jewish philosophers, Avicebron (died about 1058), and Maimonides (died 1204) (picture). The Arabian physician Avicenna (picture) enjoyed greater fame. He attempted to reconciled Aristotle with the religion of Islam, and hence affirmed the immortality of the soul. The most famous commentator was the Spanish-Arabian philosopher Averroes (1126-1198) (picture). He too was a physician and Thomas Aquinas gave him the designation "The Commentator." Later what was called the "translatio nova" of Aristotle, made directly from the Greek, was attempted. The attitude of thinkers in regard to the works of Aristotle was threefold:
Siger of Brabant (died about 1281) in his work "De Anima Intellectiva" holds the theory that the world is eternal, denies providence, and admits the existence of the acting intellect as something separate and the same for all men. Siger defended himself by having recourse to the principle of the double truth. In The Radical Academy Elsewhere On the Internet
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Introduction & Directory |
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