Early Medieval Philosophy
Early Medieval Philosophy
Generalization
You will find Platonic and Aristotelian influences not only in Christian philosophy, but also in Jewish and Muslims, mostly because they are three major theistic religions, religion with a personal transcendent creator God, therefore they face similar problems. The second generalization is that main lasting contribution of early medieval philosophy is in defining and exploring philosophical issues having to do with the relationship between those religions and philosophical traditions.
Platonic Influence
Basic distinction between Platonic and Christian, Jewish and Islamic philosophy is the distinction between a creation that emanates from the divine being and a creation out of nothing. It took a long time for the crucial nature of that distinction to pervade the whole philosophical movement of the period. We see that in a number of figures in the Platonic development, like Dionysius the Areopagite, John Scotus Eriugena and Anselm of Canterbury. Anselm follows Augustine more closely more than Plato, so he is more inclined to theory of creation rather than emanation. The thing for which Anselm is best noted is his attempt to develop an ontological argument for the existence of God, which works with the metaphysical framework of the Augustinian Christianistic way. We have degrees of being and goodness, that which is the highest of all beings of hierarchy is identical with that which is perfect goodness of the hierarchy. Ontological argument goes like this, I have the idea of a perfect being and that being necessarily exists. It wouldn’t make sense apart from this framework. But the problem is whether existence is a proper predicate. If existence is not another quality that you can predicate God, then adding existence is not adding another perfection. Kant mentioned this point in his Critique of Pure Reason. In the aftermath of the scientific resolution, in a world of bare physical facts, existence is value neutral, it’s not a quality that one has. But for the medievals, being can be described in terms of unity, that gives something identity, truth, that means it must embody some intelligible nature and goodness, it is talking about transcendental qualities of all beings and there is no such thing as bare existence. Kant contradict Anselm because he has a different metaphysical framework, different presuppositions about the nature of being. And there are several more representatives in this category: Avicenna(Muslim) and Avicebron(Jewish) and Bonaventure.
Aristotle Influence
Boethius(Christian), best known by his work the consolation of philosophy, whose best contribution is his formulation of the universals, posing the key questions to do with the theory of Forms. Maimonides(Jewish), best known by his work The Guide for the Perplexed, tries to do for Aristotle what Philo of Alexandria did with Plato in relationship with Jewish faith. Averroes(Muslim) thinks the human soul is a part of hierarchy and at death it is united with cosmic soul so there is no individual immortality. He introduces Aristotle to Christian philosophy in the middle of middle ages. Emanation rather than Ex nihalo creation meant that matter is eternal and the loss of individual immortality.
Faith and Reason
What Averroes is developing two fold truth, the truth of faith and the truth of reason. Theological truth is distinct from philosophical truth. Faith speaks allegorically and philosophy speaks with precision. That poses question of relationship of faith and reason. In Augustine, there is a tradition that faith seeks understanding, or as Anselm puts it, credo ut intelligam, I believe so that I can understand. This is the starting position for the medieval discussions. Augustine and Anselm see philosophy not as a neutral understanding, but a religious undertaking, not starting from scratch but start with what on believes. Siger of Brabant argues that religion and philosophy are about different kinds of truth. Religious’ way of talking are imaginative and dramatic rather than strictly logical. Bonaventure introduces a doctrine of individuality which makes it possible to talk about God creating individuals and individual immortality. There is body and soul in individual, and what unites them is a material basis which is neutral to both physical and rational. What you have addition is a Form of bodily qualities and the Form of rational soul, because you have both matter and form, now it is possible for matter and rational soul to survive death and individual immortality is possible.
The Problem of Universals
Boethius Formulation of the Problem of Universals
- Do genera and species really exists in nature, or are they mental constructs? Or, are there real Forms? A positive response results in realism.
- If they are realities, are they material or immaterial entities? Are they transcendent in some Platonic sense or are they materialized in particulars?
- Do they exist apart from the particular or within them?
- Are universal concepts thought separately from particulars? Whether we can think of abstract ideas without reference to particulars. This distinguishes the Conceptualism and Nominalism.
Exaggerated Realism
Exaggerated Realism means that Forms, species and genera exists in reality and particulars participates in them. But Forms not only exists in transcendent fashion, they exists in particulars as well, so there is an identity between particulars by virtue of participating the same Form. The thing that individuals is the privation of Forms. And we know the Forms by dialectic and the illumination of the mind of the divine Logos.
Indifferentism
An alternative position called indifferentism says that Form exists in reality, but only in reality of particulars, not in the transcendent sense. Each particular then participates in that Form indifferently. In essentials we share the same Form, in accidents we are different. These Forms are known by virtue of the fact that all member of the species share the essential properties, which is possible to think of in abstraction from the recurrent similarities in member of the class. The retreat was to an imminent realism, Forms are imminent rather than transcendent, and Forms are known by abstraction rather than dialectic.
Nominalism
According to nominalist, there are no real Forms of transcendent sort or imminent sort, nothing exists outside of the mind. Within the mind, there are no abstract general ideas, no universal concepts. Although there are words that seems to be general, but they are only general because they refer to the members of a certain class, the term is particular term, but it is used universally for the class without reference to particulars. The only thing universal is the way the name is used in referring universally to the class. Theologically, Nominalist Roscelin was accused of tri-theism, three Gods, similar, but not one. In addition to the theological problems, you also have philosophical consequences, if there is no universals, there is no natural moral law inherent in the essence of human nature. Nature law are within us by virtue of Forms, which gives us the essential nature and the essential intentions. In effect, what nominalism is saying is that the classic kind of metaphysical explanation for orderliness of nature and for the cosmic justice is false, it would destroy the whole metaphysical substructure for Greek and Medieval thought.
Conceptualism
A compromised position began to emerge represented by Conceptualism by Abelard, who was prepared to agree that no Forms exists in reality, but he disagrees with Roscelin about whether we think about universal concepts. He thinks that we are able to conceive universal concepts abstractly, and it makes it possible to conceptualizing of universal principles without corresponding to real Forms.
Remarks on Ethics
William of Ockham developed Roscelin’s theoy into what we call Divine Command Theory, ethic is the obedience to God’s command, if God didn’t give command, then we will resort to the Right Reason, which is figuring out the consequences to see if it contributes to things that God tells you to contribute. Outside of theistic settings, all you have without that metaphysic, is likely to be a pure empiricism, and we have consequentialists like John Mill’s utilitarianism or alternatively they might turn to develop ethics rooted in moral feelings, like David Hume who develops ethical subjectivism. These are typical outcomes of an empiricist approach rooted in nominalist objection of real universals. But it is not necessarily relativistic.