Medieval Philosophy.

During the Middle Ages, Western philosophy developed more as a part of Christian theology than as an independent branch of inquiry.

The philosophy of Greece and Rome survived only in its influence on religious thought.

Saint Augustine (354-430) was the greatest philosopher of the early Middle Ages. In a book entitled The City of God (early 400's), Augustine interpreted human history as a conflict between faithful Christians living in the city of God and pagans and heretics living in the city of the world. Augustine wrote that the people of the city of God would gain eternal salvation, but the people in the city of the world would receive eternal punishment. The book weakened the belief in the pagan religion of Rome and helped further the spread of Christianity.

A system of thought called scholasticism dominated medieval philosophy from about the 1100's to the 1400's.

The term scholasticism refers to the method of philosophic investigation used by teachers of philosophy and theology in the newly developing universities of western Europe. The teachers were called scholastics. The scholastic method consisted in precise analysis of concepts with subtle distinctions between different senses of these concepts. The scholastics used deductive reasoning from principles established by their method to provide solutions to problems.

Scholasticism was basically generated by the translation of Aristotle's works into Latin, the language of the medieval Christian church. These works presented medieval thinkers with the problem of reconciling Aristotle's great body of philosophic thought with the Bible and Christian doctrine. Scholasticism was a philosophical system that emphasized the use of reason in exploring questions of philosophy and theology. The scholastics particularly tried to prove the truth of Christian doctrine. They also tried to reconcile contradictory viewpoints in Christian theology.Scholasticism had its greatest influence from the 1000's to the 1400's, especially during the 1200's. Most scholastics taught in the schools and universities of western Europe.

The scholastic method. The scholastics developed an extremely formal and sophisticated procedure of investigating philosophical and theological questions. The method they developed became known as the disputed question. The disputed question started with a problem stated by the teacher. The students then listed the arguments for and against a certain solution to the problem. Next, the students took a position on the problem. Finally, they dealt, one by one, with the arguments on all sides of the problem. Using this method, the teacher and students tried to reach a balanced solution.

Scholastics analyzed philosophical and theological questions in books called books of sentences. A book of sentences contained quotations or summaries of dogma compiled from the Bible, from works by early Christian writers, and--less often--from the works of other medieval writers. If the quotations or summaries conflicted, the compiler tried to reconcile the conflicts by his own commentaries based on reason.

The Four Books of Sentences (mid-1100's) by Peter Lombard became the standard theological textbook.

Scholasticism trained its followers to consider every side of a question logically and rationally. It also trained them to state their arguments briefly and clearly. However, critics claimed that scholasticism relied so much on formal systems that it became artificial and inflexible. Critics also complained that the scholastic method led to the assumption that every problem could be solved by reasoning.

History. Scholasticism originated during the 1000's in schools operated by cathedrals and monasteries. The writings on logic by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle had an important early influence on scholasticism. Aristotle had used logic to try to prove the existence of God. His approach attracted many scholastics, especially Peter Abelard.

Scholasticism reached its high point during the 1200's in western European universities. Many works by Aristotle that had been unknown to medieval philosophers were translated into Latin. For the first time, scholars could study a complete body of philosophy based on experience and reason alone. Until the translations of Aristotle's works, medieval philosophy had been based largely on the Bible and on writings by early Christian theologians. The scholastics tried to reconcile Aristotle's philosophy with Christianity. They also applied his philosophy to theological problems.

The major scholastics of the 1200's included Saint Albertus Magnus, Alexander of Hales, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Saint Bonaventure, and Robert Grosseteste.

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225?-1274), the most famous scholastic, developed a philosophy that claimed to lead through reason alone to basic truths about God and the soul. But Aquinas believed that human beings need divine revelation to fill out and expand such knowledge. His philosophy combined Aristotle's thought with theology, and it eventually became the official philosophy of the Roman Catholic Church.

The great contributions of the scholastics to philosophy included major development of the philosophy of language. The scholastics studied how features of language can affect our understanding of the world. They also emphasized the importance of logic to philosophic inquiry.

In the 1300's, the scholastics John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham rejected Aquinas' emphasis on reason. They believed that God's actions and purposes are unpredictable and must be learned through revelation.

John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), was one of the greatest theologians and philosophers of the Middle Ages. His ideas on God, knowledge, salvation, and the nature of being influenced many thinkers of the late Middle Ages.

He was born in Duns, Scotland, and entered the Franciscan religious order as a youth. His most important work was the Opus Oxoniense (Oxford Work). The book grew out of lectures Duns Scotus presented at Oxford University on The Four Books of Sentences, an influential medieval theological book by Peter Lombard. Duns Scotus also produced commentaries on Aristotle's ideas on logic and wrote Quaestiones quodlibetales (Various Disputations), which examines a variety of controversial philosophical and theological questions.

Duns Scotus also became known for his defense of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. According to this doctrine, the Virgin Mary was conceived free of original sin. His defense contributed to its recognition, centuries later, as an official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

William of Ockham (1284-1347), also spelled Occam, was an English philosopher and theologian. He was the most influential scholastic thinker of the 1300's. His attitudes toward knowledge, logic, and scientific inquiry played a major part in the transition from medieval to modern thought. Ockham believed that the primary form of knowledge came from experience gained through the senses. He based scientific knowledge on such experience and on self-evident truths--and on logical propositions resulting from those two sources.

In his writings, Ockham stressed the Aristotelian principle that "entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary". This principle became known as Ockham's Razor. In philosophy, according to Ockham's Razor, a problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.

Ockham was born in southern England. He joined the Franciscans and eventually became prominent in that religious order. Ockham studied at Oxford University and then taught theology. In 1324, Pope John XXII called him to Avignon, France, to answer charges of heresy (teaching false doctrine). Ockham remained there four years. In 1328, he fled to the protection of Louis of Bavaria, an enemy of the Pope.

Not once have literature and cinema referred to Ockham’s personality. In 1986 a famous film “ The Name of the Rose” directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud was released . That was a screen version of the novel by Umberto Eco, a professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, who combined his interest in signs with a concern for historical accuracy in Il nome della rosa (1980); this murder mystery, set in a medieval monastery, achieved international best-sellerdom. The main character of this book a monk-franciscan William Baskerville had the similar features with the prominent philosopher of the Middle Ages .

Protestant universities also adopted many scholastic methods. But in the 1600's, scholasticism gradually lost its influence in many universities. Some of its features were revived by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. Many modern Roman Catholic thinkers reflect the influence of scholasticism.