Background

The history of modern philosophy can be schematized in terms of the intersection of two lines of thought, on the hand in the British empiricism tradition and on the other hand the continental and rationalist tradition. These two traditions representing the extensions of all the areas of inquiry of the inductive method of science and the deductive mathematical type of method. We will start in the British stream with Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes in 17th century England.

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为什么要跑步

首先，我们需要问自己的问题是为什么要跑步。也许你是为了锻炼身体，养成健康的生活习惯，提升有氧能力以便于从事其他你热爱的运动，也许是因为跑步可以缓解精神压力，或者你只是为了达成一些人生成就(e.g. 完成一场马拉松)。凑巧前几天Youtube网红跑者Sage Canaday发了一个Why Do You Run的视频，大家有兴趣可以看看。

Duns Scotus

On the map of will and intellect, there are two major terms that have been developed, voluntarism and intellectualism. The one stresses the primacy of will and the other stresses the primacy of intellect. The question is when one chooses to do something, is that action a result of intellect or will-free from intellectual necessity. Duns Scotus read Aquinas as an intellectualist, in the sense that God acts in accordance with eternal Forms so that God’s act of creation was not in that sense free. In regards of the human nature, moral action is again guided by the intellect, and consequently one is not free from the moral causes. This compromises the sovereignty of God, and the responsibility of humans.

Metaphysics

Aquinas thinks that since Aristotle’s metaphysic with his teleology in other ways preferable to the Platonic tradition, can we then doctor up Aristotle’s metaphysic to make it compatible with Christianity. Aquinas add to Aristotle’s metaphysic the examplarism of Augustine, the views that Forms are exemplars, archetypes in the mind of Logos. With that, the assertion that God is good. God is the exemplar for all creation and all creation seeks to like God. He also wants to add that God knows his creatures in advance, so he creates them out of nothing. One of his major works “Summa Theologica” was written in response to averroesists, people with that interpretation of Aristotle. Averroesism is to handle the problems of Aristotle of the doctrines of two fold truth, truth of faith and truth of reason. The first topic in Summa Theologica is about faith and reason. Second is the conception of God. There are five proofs of the existence of God in the book and what he establishes is that you can use Aristotelian premises to argue for non-Aristotelian God. In the conclusion of his proofs, is a God whose essence is to exist, source of being as well of order, who knows exemplars and Forms in his mind, a intelligent God who directs all things for a purpose.

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.