MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY REVISION

MEDIAEVAL AND RENAISSANCE PHILOSOPHY REVISION

The problem of periodization

                Philosophy is made up of epoch i.e periods or ages. We have the ancient, mediaeval and the modern period. But many a times it becomes difficult to ascertain the criteria for periodization.        

What is periodizatio? Periodization refers to the systematic effort to place philosophy into different ages or stages. Periodization is a complex problem in history. History is in fact continuous, and so all systems of periodization are to some extent arbitrary. Almost every dynamic age is an "age of transition" as the cliché has it. It is nevertheless necessary to divide up history in order to make sense of the past and to articulate changes over time. Mediaeval period began from 1100-1500.

Classification of philosophers should be based on the time they wrote but Augustine who lived around the 4^th century is classified as a mediaeval philosopher. This is because of the kind of work he did, centred on God. In the final analysis, periodization depends on the context i.e the set down criteria for periodization.

AUGUSTINE (AD 354)

Augustine joined the Manichaens’s school (a philosophical religion school founded by Mani in the third century) in his quest to get an answer on the source of evil in the world .The Manichaens claimed to  have the answer  to this question . For them, there are two ultimate principles and source of all things namely Ormuzd (the principle of good) and Ahiriman (the principle of evil).  While the soul of man came from the former, the body came from the latter .These two are eternal and always in perpetual conflicts. Abinitio, this was accepted by Augustine but he later rejected it. His continuous search for God led Him to Milan where he was influenced by st Ambrose after which he became a Christian. Augustine taught that all humanity lost the gift of immortality, immunity from physical decay and strong inclination to virtue, instead man was now subject to death, and sickness, darkened in mind and inclined towards sin. Therefore he could not avoid sin without the grace of God. This was diametrically opposed to the teachings of  Pelagianism who taught that however deeply wounded man was in his physical and spiritual condition by Adam’s fall, it does not mean that he has lost his freedom. He also attacked the Manicheans, the Arians and other heresies prevalent at that time.

His Epistemology

Augustine was a Platonist philosopher and in line with the Platonic tradition, he held that the objects of true knowledge are not the material things of this world but eternal truths or idea which are immutable. According to Plato, these eternal land immutable ideas are in the ‘world of forms’ or the ‘world of ideas’, but according to St Augustine, they are in the mind of God, as the examplars or pattern of creation.

The problem of Evil

St Augustine was squarely faced with the problem of evil. If God is infinitely good, why evil? He rejected the dualistic explanation of the Manichaens in favour of that of Plotinus. Under Plotinus he reached the concept of of purely Spiritual reality. They believe that evil is not a positive entity, not a being, but the lack of being. It is a negation or the privation of being. Evil for him is not a thing, therefore it was not, and could not be created.

Concept of Time

Augustine was of the opinion that even though we talk of the past, present, and future, none really exist. For him there is no future, no past, everything is eternally present to him .He neither remembers nor expects, since all things are eternally present to him. For him, it is the human mind which in the present passing moment remembers and expects, thereby constitute the past and the future.

JOHN SCOTUS ERIUGENA

Born around A.D 810. He translated the work of Pseudo Dionysius from Greek to Latin. He also tried to combine Christian doctrine with Neoplatonism . He  speaks of nature as a whole reality and divides it into four kinds namely1. The nature which God creates –This is God, 2. The nature which is created and also creates-This are the divine ideas which are the primary causes of all things. They correspond to the ‘forms’ in the Plato world of forms, 3. The nature which is created but does not create-This are all creatures, all finite beings,3.The nature which creates nor is created- This is also God, not as creator or the source of all things, rather as the ultimate end of all things .He also speaks of approaching God both in the affirmative way- here we predicate of God such qualities as wisdom, truth, goodness. But in doing so, we prefix them with the word ‘super’. Thus we say that God is super wisdom, super beauty, super goodness, etc. And in the negative way-we deny that God is anything that we know and refuse to predicate to him anything that is predicated of creatures. For even when we say that He is super-wisdom, we mean that He is not wisdom as we know it, but something more than the wisdom we know. Similarly, when we say that He is Super-beauty, it means that He is not the beauty we know, but above it.

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS                

A large and influential body of Neoplatonic writing, whose origin has been traced to the Byzantine world but whose author, still remain unknown. It appeared in the West around 500 A.D. For some time, these writings were attributed to the disciple of St Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite. According to the historians of Medieaval philosophy, they have not ignored the influential role of Dionysius the Areopagite in forming the Christian philosophy of the great Scholastics .The doctrine of the Areopagite  immensely influenced the works of Scholastics such as Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, Scotus, Echardt, e.t.c. The doctrine of the Areopagite “acted on Scholasticsm as the yeast which makes the dough rise and gives it air and taste. The treatises of Pseudo-Dionysius attempt to relate Christian thought systematically with Neoplatonic philosophy. According to him we know and speak of God in three fundamental ways namely 1.Positive way: A).we know God because He produced things, He is the principal cause of things and He made things participants of some perfection of His, and He impressed in them some similarity to Himself. B) God wilfully produced symbols with which man can reach Him and speak to Him 2. The Negative way: The use of negative language by the exclusion of the attribution of some property to God e.g “God is finite” we exclude finiteness. Here negation is not privation here but transcendence3. The way of Eminence: An effective approach to the expression of divine reality. It tends towards the nature of God himself .The language of eminence according Pseudo Dionysius helps the mind keep its gaze on God.

ST ANSELEMN 1033-1109

He was the greatest thinker of the eleventh century. Anselmn was influenced by Pseudo-Dionisius(Areopagite), Plato , and Augustine(conceptual realism).  His work includes the Monologion, the Proslogion and the Cur Deus homo. Anselmn discusses the problem of relation between faith and reason, the problem of God’s existence, and the problem of freedom.

The problem of faith and reason:This problem was expressed with the words “credo ut intelligam”(“I believe in order to understand”).Two things can be deduced from this aphorism.1.The importance of faith in the knowledge of relegious and moral truths hence “credo” 2. The importance of reason so that we may not be clouded by faith alone hence “intelligiam”. While religious and moral truth can only be learnt through faith and morals, it must be demonstrated through reason.

God’s existence: He proved the existence of God in the Monologion and the Proslogion

Monologion:follows the a procedure “aposteriori” using concrete facts. He used the traditional arguments based on the contingency of finite beings and on the grade of perfection

Proslogion: follows the procedure of “a Priori” using the definition of things to discover its existence. Here he seek an undeniable proof of God’s existence, a proof which could not be negated by the fool in Psalm 13 “who said in his heart there is no God”. This proof is based on the definition of God .It says the idea that one has of God is that of a being so great that no greater being can be conceived. Gaunilone critiqued the ontological argument he says-Admitting that the concept of God is one of a most perfect being, His existence cannot be deduced from this concept, just as one cannot deduce the existence of a most perfect island from its concept. Two groups of Philosophers emerged from the the ontological argument. First group: it was defended by Scotus, Descartes, Leibniz etc for them, God can only be thought of as existent. Second group: it was rejected by Thomas Aquinas, Kant etc for them it goes against the rule of logic i.e it is based on the false presumption that we have an adequate conception of divine reality.

MOSES MAIMONIDES 1135-1204

He was born in Cardoba in 1135 of Jewish tradition. He studied the Talmud, grammar, mathematics, astronomy and philosophy. He wrote exegical books, including comment on the Talmud, the guide for the perplexed.

The guide for the perplexed- In the first part of the book, he discusses God, His attributes and His essence, according to the scriptures, Islamic theology, Aristotle and Avicenna. In the second part, He confronts the problem of the creation of the world “ex nihilo”, problems of revelation and prophesies. The third part is dedicated to the study of man, his nature (soul and body), virtues and vice. Maimonides is certain that there can be no disagreement between philosophy and revelation because their common source is one, God.

God’s existence

He formed four proof of God’s existence

1.All the things in  the universe (material things and spiritual intelligence) are composed of matter and form hence cannot have given themselves existence but from God the prime cause, 2.The proof based on movement, 3.The proof from contingency of existents,4. The phenomenon of passage from potency to act.

Man and the universe

In Maimonides view of the structure of the universe, his was a semblance to that of Aviccena.He divides the universe into two great levels:First is superior level-This includes ten pure intelligences without any matter, nine of which presides over celestial movement and the tenth being an intellect exercising a direct influence on the human soul.Second is an inferior level-This include the celestial spheres, the moon, the sub-lunar world.

According to him , man rest at the boundary between the two worlds and hence he is the focal point of cosmic reality. Man for him, must constantly tend towards the proper object of man as man, which is the formation of ideas, and the most beautiful of these ideas should be the idea of God, the angels and the rest of the created world.

PROBLEMS OF THE UNIVERSALS IN THOMAS AQUINAS

There are three major positions have emerged as philosophers tries to demystify the problem of the universals.

1.Nominalism- The view that universals only exist as names, 2.Realism-The view that universals actually exist as more than name and more than mental impression,3.Conceptualism-The view that universals exist as concept in the mind.

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650)

He was a scientist, mathematician, and a philosopher who is often called the Father of modern philosophy because of the new method he propounded in philosophy. His philosophical ingenuity in the application of this method is the supposition of imagining a deceitful demon who presented unreal things to his senses in a perpetual phantasmagoria (a scene that is confused, changing and strange like something from a dream.

Reason for the method doubt

1.       It is to bring into philosophy through an indisputable intellectual speculation the clarity and certainty of ideas.

2.       He despised the Aristetolian logic and adopted intuition and deduction which guarantees certainty and clarity of knowledge and also capable of sweeping away the remnanants of scholasticism

The Cogito

In the light of the new form of reason and his determination to rest his epistemology on a solid foundation, He developed a very strong axiom the corgito. The corgito is an indisputable paradigm by which Descartes aimed at the confirmation of his own existence after series of doubt, of his body, God, and the world at large. Through deduction and the methodic doubt, Descartes was able to confirm his own existence as a thinking being (res cogitans).

Effect of the cogito 1. He proved that innate principle was anchored on the cogito i.e his existence as a thinking thing is squarely innate and does not proceed from external objects.2 The corgito was instrumental in proving of the all powerful, perfect, intelligent, and creating God.

Contribution to the advancement of knowledge

He bequeathed to his philosophical successors a new mathematical method 2. His invented the methodic doubt. 3. He opened a new chapter in philosophy through a rational principle 4.In his philosophy we are able to witness a new picture of human being – composed of 2 diff and separate substance which never react.