MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY:

THE VIEWS OF THE PROMINENT PHILOSOPHERS

The Medieval period of philosophy represents a renewed flowering of Western philosophical thought after the
intellectual drought of the Dark Ages. Much of the period is marked by the influence of Christianity and many of the
philosophers of the period were greatly concerned with proving the existence of God and reconciling Christianity with
classical philosophy.
The early Christian theologians St. Augustine and Boethius represent a link between the Roman and Medieval
periods, and arguably had more in common with the later Medieval philosophers than with the earlier Romans (where
they have been included for the purposes of this guide).

PATRISTIC PHILOSOPHY (LATIN PATRISTICS)

(4 - 8 centuries A.D.)

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354 - 430) was an Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian of the
late Roman / early Medieval period. St. Augustine is one of the most important early figures in the development
of Western Christianity, and was a major figure in bringing Christianity to dominance in the previously pagan Roman
Empire. He is often considered the father of orthodox theology and the greatest of the four great fathersof the Latin
Church (along with St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory).
Unlike the later Scholastics who took Aristotle as the classical model to be integratedinto Christian thought,
Augustine developed a philosophical and theological system which employed elements of Plato and Neo-Platonism in
support of Christian orthodoxy. His many works profoundly influenced the medieval worldview.
Augustine wrote over 100 works in Latin, many of them texts on Christian doctrine and apologetic
works against various heresies. He is best known for the "Confessiones" ("Confessions", a personal account of his early
life, completed in about 397), "De civitate Dei" ("The City of God", consisting of 22 books started in 413 and finished in
426, dealing with God, martyrdom, Jews and other Christian philosophies) and "De Trinitate" ("On the Trinity",
consisting of 15 books written over the final 30 years of his life, in which he developed the "psychological analogy" of
the Trinity).
In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was greatly influenced by Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-
Platonism, particularly the "Enneads" of Plotinus (his generally favourable view of Neo-Platonic thought contributed to
its entrance into the Christian, and subsequently the European, intellectual tradition). He was also influenced by the
works of the Roman poet Virgil(for his teaching on language), Cicero (for his teaching on argument)
and Aristotle (particularly his "Rhetoric" and "Poetics").
Augustine argued that Skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge, and he believed
that genuine human knowledge can be established with certainty. He believed reason to be a uniquely
human cognitive capacity that comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity. In a proof for existence similar to
one later made famous by Descartes, Augustine claimed "Si fallor, sum" ("If I am mistaken, I am”). He also adopted
a subjective view of time, arguing that time is nothing in reality but exists only in the human mind’s apprehension of
reality, and that time cannot be infinite because God “created” it.
Augustine struggled to reconcile his beliefs about free will and his belief that humans are morally
responsible for their actions, with his belief that one’s life is predestined and his belief in original sin (which seems to
make human moral behaviour nearly impossible). He held that, because human beings begin with original sin and are
therefore inherently evil (even if, as he believed, evil is not anything real but merely the absence of good), then the
classical attempts to achieve virtue by discipline, training and reason are all bound to fail, and the redemptive action
of God's grace alone offers hope. He opined that "We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone".
In his theological works, Augustine expounded on the concept of original sin (the guilt of Adam which all
human beings inherit) in his works against the Pelagian heretics, providing an important influence on St. Thomas
Aquinas. He helped formulate the theory of the just war, and advocated the use of force against the Donatist heretics. He
developed doctrines of predestination(the divine foreordaining of all that will ever happen) and efficacious grace (the
idea that God's salvation is granted to a fixed number of those whom He has already determined to save), which later
found eloquent expression in the works of Reformationtheologians such as Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) and John
Calvin (1509 - 1564), as well as Cornelius Jansen (1585 - 1638) during the Counter-Reformation.
Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we know
from science and our God-given reason (e.g. he believed that God created the world simultaneously and that the seven-
day creation recorded in the Bible merely represents a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical
way). Although he believed that God had chosen the Jews as a special people, he considered the scattering of Jews by
the Roman empire to be a fulfillment of prophecy, and believed that the Jews would be converted at the end of time. He
associated sexual desire with the sin of Adam, and believed that it was still sinful, even though the Fall has made it part
of human nature.

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 In "The City of God", he conceived of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom, ruled by love, which will
ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are self-indulgent and ruled by pride. He emphasized the church's
strict independence from, and its superiority over, the civil state. Begun in the aftermath of the sacking of Rome by
the Visigoths in 410, it was to some extent written as a defence against those who blamed Christianity for the fall of
Rome, and to restore the confidence of his fellow Christians.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (usually known simply as Boethius) (c. 480 - 525) was a 6th
Century Roman Christian philosopher of the late Roman period.
He is sometimes called the last of the Roman philosophers and the first of the Scholastics, and his final work,
the "Consolation of Philosophy", assured his legacy in the Middle Ages and beyond. His Latin translations of some of
the works of Aristotlewere the only ones available in Europe until the 12th Century.
Boethius' lifelong project was a deliberate attempt to preserve ancient classical knowledge, particularly
philosophy. He intended to translate all the works of Aristotle and Plato from the original Greek into Latin, and his
completed translations of Aristotle's works on Logic were the only significant portions of Aristotle available in Europe
until the 12th Century. However, some of his translations were mixed with his own commentary, which reflected
both Aristotelian and Platonic concepts.
He also produced commentaries on the "Isagoge" of Porphyry (c. A.D.233 -309), an important text on
the Platonic treatment of the problem of universals, as well as several original treatises on Logic. Boethius' theological
works, which generally involve support for the orthodox position against Arian ideas and other contemporary religious
debates, were much studied in the early Middle Ages.
Boethius's most popular and enduring work, though, was the "Consolation of Philosophy", which he wrote
in prison in 523 while awaiting his execution. The work is cast as a dialogue between Boethius himself (bitter and
despairing over his imprisonment) and the spirit of philosophy (depicted as a woman of wisdom and compassion), and is
alternately composed in prose and verse. It teaches acceptance of hardship in a spirit of philosophical detachment from
misfortune, and parts of the work are reminiscent of the Socratic method of Plato's dialogues.
The work takes up many problems of Metaphysics and Ethics, and it treats of the being and nature of God,
of providence and fate, of the origin of the universe, and of the freedom of the will. Interestingly, it contains very little
Christian influence, and its focus is much more on Neo-Platonism and even a recourse to Stoicism.
Many manuscripts survive, and it was extensively edited, translated, commentaried and printed
throughout Europe from the late 15th Century onwards (including translations by Chaucer and Queen Elizabeth I), and
it has been one of the most influential books in European culture. In particular, the concept of the "Boethian
Wheel" (or the "Wheel of Fortune"), depicting the rise and fall of man, was frequently used in the "Consolation" and
remained very popular throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.
Boethius also produced texts on mathematics and the theory of music. His loose translation of Nicomachus'
treatise on arithmetic (and his translations of Euclid on geometry and Ptolemy on astronomy, if they were in fact
completed, although they no longer survive) contributed to medieval education, and his mathematical texts were used in
the early medieval universities. He also introduced the threefold classification of music: music of the spheres/world,
harmony of human body/spirit and instrumental music (including the human voice).

SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY
(11-16 centuries A.D.).

Scholasticism is a Medieval school of philosophy (or, perhaps more accurately, a method of learning) taught by
the academics of medieval universities and cathedrals in the period from the 12th to 16th Century. It
combined Logic, Metaphysics and semantics into one discipline, and is generally recognised to have developed our
understanding of Logic significantly.
The term "scholastic" is derived from the Latin word "scholasticus" and the Greek "scholastikos" (meaning
literally "devoting one's leisure to learning" or "scholar") and the Greek "scholeion" (meaning "school"). The
term "schoolmen" is also commonly used to describe scholastics.
Scholasticism is best known for its application in medieval Christian theology, especially in attempts
to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers (particularly Aristotle) with Christian theology.
However, in the High Scholastic period of the 14th Century, it moved beyond theology, and had applications in
many other fields of study including Epistemology, Philosophy of Science, philosophy of nature, psychology and
even economic theory.

St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033 - 1109) was an Italian philosopher and theologian of the Medieval period. He
is often called the founder of Scholasticism, and is considered by many to be the first scholarly philosopher of Christian
theology.

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 He is particularly known for his attempt to elaborate a rational system of faith, and as the originator of
the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. He exercised an important influence on later Scholastics, as
well as on subsequent Church doctrine on various theological matters.
He held the important position of Archbishop of Canterbury during a particularly turbulent period in English and
Papal history.
Although Anselm wrote prodigiously throughout his life, his works are generally unsystematic tracts or
dialogues on detached questions, not elaborate treatises like the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He makes very few
references to previous thinkers in his work, and his originality and freshness has often been remarked upon. Arguably,
his only major influences are St. Augustine, and to a lesser extent Boethius.
Anselm sought to understand Christian consciousness through reason, although he insisted that faith was
a prerequisite, and not a result, of such understanding. In "De Veritate" he affirms the existence of an absolute
truth (God) in which all other truth participates, and so, before expanding on his theories, he first needed
to rationalize the existence of God.
Anselm's philosophical proofs of God are the main contents of his "Monologion" and "Proslogion". Following
from St. Augustine, he believed that relative concepts like "good", "great" and "just" would be meaningless without
some absolute standard, and the the absolute being which represents these absolute standards is what we know as God.
However, Anselm was aware that this argument uses inductive reasoning from a posteriori grounds, and was
dissatisfied with it.
What has become known as the Ontological Argument for the existence of God, Anselm's attempt to prove the
existence of God through a priori abstract reasoning alone, was presented in his "Proslogion". Briefly, if (as he
believed) God can be defined as "that than which nothing greater can be conceived", then God cannot be a merely
abstract, intellectual notion because a God that really exists would be greater. Therefore, God’s existence is implied by
the very concept of God, and to say that God does not exist is a contradiction in terms.
The argument is certainly ingenious, but has the appearance of a linguistic trick, and the same ontological
argument could be used to prove the existence of any perfect thing at all. For example, Anselm's contemporary, the
monk Gaunilo, used it to show that a perfect island must exist. Anselm’s responses to Gaunilo were long, detailed and
dense, but the argument has been contentious ever since.
Anselm also authored a number of other arguments for the existence of God, based
on cosmological and teleologicalgrounds, but this was not his only contribution ot Christian theology. In other works, he
strove to state the rational grounds of the Christian doctrines of the creation, the Trinity, original sin, free
will and atonement.
Discussing the mystery of the Trinity, for example, he started from the standpoint that human beings could not
know God from Himself but only from analogy (the memory and intelligence of man represent the relation of
the Father to the Son, and the the relation they hold to one another symbolizes the Holy Spirit). Regarding atonement,
he argued in his "Cur Deus Homo" that, because God is infinite, any wound to his honour caused by the sins of Man
must also be infinite, and the only way infinite satisfaction for these sins can be granted on behalf of man is by the
voluntary death of Jesus, who is both God and Man. His works were copied and disseminated during his lifetime, and
he exercised an important influence on later Scholastics, including St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns
Scotus and William of Ockham, as well as on subsequent Church doctrine on various matters.

Peter Abelard (AKA Petrus Abaelardus or Pierre Abélard) (1079 - 1142) was a 12th Century
French philosopher, theologian and logician of the Medieval period. He is mainly associated with the dominant Medieval
movement of Scholasticism. He is probably most famous, however, for the story of his love affair with his
student Héloïse which has become legendary as a romantic tale.
Much of Abelard's legacy lies in the quality of his Scholastic philosophizing and his attempt to give a formally rational
expressionto the received ecclesiastical doctrine. Although much of his work was condemned at the time, he paved the
way for the ascendancy of the philosophical authority of Aristotle (rather than the Realism of Plato), which became
firmly established in the half-century after his death.
Aberlard's attempt to bridge the gap between Realism and Nominalism became known as Conceptualism, the
doctrine that universals (qualities or properties of an object which can exist in more than one place at the same
time e.g. the quality of "redness") exist only within the mind and have no external or substantial reality. Immanuel
Kant later developed a modern Conceptualism, holding that universals have no connection with external things because
they are exclusively produced by our a priori mental structures and functions.
In theology, Pope Innocent III (1161 - 1216) accepted Abelard's Doctrine of Limbo, which amended St.
Augustine's Doctrine of Original Sin, and which held that unbaptized babies did not, as at first believed, go straight to
Hell, but to a special area of limbo, where they would feel no pain but no supernatural happiness either (because they
would not yet be able to behold God).
Perhaps Abelard's best known work is "Sic et Non" ("Yes and No"), dating from between about 1121 and 1132,
in which he pointed out apparently contradictory quotations from the Church Fathers on many of the traditional topics

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of Christian theology (such as multiple significations of a single word), and outlined rules for reconciling these
contradictions. This work rekindled interest in the dialectic as a philosophical tool, and Abelard argued that dialectic (in
addition to the Scriptures) was the road to the truth, as well as being good mental exercise.
He made contributions to the field of Ethics, an area rarely touched on in Scholastic teaching, anticipating
something of modern speculation with his idea that the moral character or value of human action is, at least to some
extent, determined by subjective intention.
Abelard was also long known as an important poet and composer, although very little remains of his work in this field.

Albertus Magnus (AKA St. Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne) (c. 1200 - 1280) was a 13th Century
German philosopher, theologian and scientist of the Medieval period. He is mainly associated with the dominant
Medieval movement of Scholasticism, and his influence on the development of Scholastic philosophy in the 13th Century
was enormous, especially his incorporation of Aristotelianism into the Christian west. He is also known as an early
advocate for the peaceful coexistence of science and religion.
Albertus wrote prolifically (his collected writings were collected into 38 volumes in 1899), and was perhaps the
most widely readauthor of his time. He was famed for his literally encyclopedic knowledge of topics as diverse as logic,
theology, psychology, botany, geography, astronomy, astrology, mineralogy, chemistry, zoology, physiology, phrenology
and others. Most modern western knowledge of the works of Aristotle was preserved and presented by Albertus, and he
digested, interpreted and systematized the whole of Aristotle's works (from the Latin translations and notes of Arabian
commentators such as Averroës and Avicenna) in accordance with church doctrine, and with
occasional divergences from the opinions of the master. His approach to this task, however, was clearly influenced
by Neo-Platonism. His principal theological works are a commentary in three volumes on the "Books of the
Sentences" of Peter Lombard (c. 1100 - 1160), and his "Summa Theologiae" in two volumes.
Albertus's knowledge of physical science was considerable and (for the age) remarkably accurate, aided by his
protracted study of Aristotle, which gave him great powers of systematic thought and exposition. He is credited with the
discovery of the element arsenic, and there is much speculation on his work as an alchemist. He was certainly deeply
interested in astrology, as were many scientists of the time, arguing that an understanding of the celestial
influences affecting us could help us to live our lives more in accord with Christian precepts.
Albertus is also known for his enlightening commentary on the musical practice of his times, and wrote
extensively on proportions in music, on the ways in which music worked on the human soul, and on his categorical
rejection of the popular notion of the "music of the spheres".

St. THOMAS AQUINAS (AKA Thomas of Aquin or Aquino) (c. 1225 - 1274) was an Italian philosopher and
theologian of the Medieval period. He was the foremost classical proponent of natural theology at the
the peak of Scholasticism in Europe, and the founder of the Thomistic school of philosophy and theology.
The philosophy of Aquinas has exerted enormous influence on subsequent Christian theology, especially that of
the Roman Catholic Church, but also Western philosophy in general. His most important and enduring works are
the "Summa Theologica", in which he expounds his systematic theology of the "quinquae viae" (the five proofs of the
existence of God), and the "Summa Contra Gentiles".
Aquinas was a Christian theologian, but he was also an Aristotelian and an Empiricist, and he substantially
influenced these two streams of Western thought. He believed that truth becomes known through both natural
revelation (certain truths are available to all people through their human nature and through correct human reasoning)
and supernatural revelation (faith-based knowledge revealed through scripture), and he was careful to separate these
two elements, which he saw as complementaryrather than contradictory in nature. Thus, although one
may deduce the existence of God and His attributes through reason, certain specifics (such as the Trinity and the
Incarnation) may be known only through special revelation and may not otherwise be deduced.
His two great works are the "Summa Contra Gentiles" (often published in English under the title "On thr Truth
of the Catholic Faith"), written between 1258 and 1264, and the "Summa Theologica" ("Compendium of Theology"),
written between 1265 and 1274. The former is a broadly-based philosophical work directed at non-Christians; the latter
is addressed largely to Christians and is more a work of Christian theology.
Aquinas saw the raw material data of theology as the written scriptures and traditions of the Catholic church,
which were produced by the self-revelation of God to humans throughout history. Faith and reason are the two primary
tools which are both necessary together for processing this data in order to obtain true knowledge of God. He believed
that God reveals himself through nature, so that rational thinking and the study of nature is also the study of God
(a blend of Aristotelian Greek philosophy with Christian doctrine).
From his consideration of what God is not, Aquinas proposed five positive statements about the divine qualities or
the nature of God:
God is simple, without composition of parts, such as body and soul, or matter and form.
God is perfect, lacking nothing.

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 God is infinite, and not limited in the ways that created beings are physically, intellectually, and emotionally
limited.
God is immutable, incapable of change in repect of essence and character.
God is one, such that God's essence is the same as God's existence.
Aquinas believed that the existence of God is neither self-evident nor beyond proof. In the "Summa Theologica",
he details five rational proofs for the existence of God, the "quinquae viae" (or the "Five Ways"), some of which are
really re-statements of each other:
The argument of the unmoved mover (ex motu): everything that is moved is moved by a mover, therefore there
is an unmoved mover from whom all motion proceeds, which is God.
The argument of the first cause (ex causa): everything that is caused is caused by something else, therefore
there must be an uncaused cause of all caused things, which is God.
The argument from contingency (ex contingentia): there are contingent beings in the universe which may either
exist or not exist and, as it is impossible for everything in the universe to be contingent (as something cannot
come of nothing), so there must be a necessary being whose existence is not contingent on any other being,
which is God.
The argument from degree (ex gradu): there are various degrees of perfection which may be found throughout
the universe, so there must be a pinnacle of perfection from which lesser degrees of perfection derive, which is
God.
The teleological argument or argument from design (ex fine): all natural bodies in the world (which are in
themselves unintelligent) act towards ends (which is characteristic of intelligence), therefore there must be
an intelligent being that guides all natural bodies towards their ends, which is God.
Aquinas believed that Jesus Christ was truly divine and not simply a human being or God merely inhabiting the
body of Christ. However, he held that Christ had a truly rational human soul as well, producing a duality of natures that
persisted even after the Incarnation, and that these two natures existed simultaneously yet distinguishably in one real
human body.
Aquinas defined the four cardinal virtues as prudence, temperance, justice and fortitude, which he held
are natural (revealed in nature) and binding on everyone. In addition, there are three theological virtues, described
as faith, hope and charity, which are supernatural and are distinct from other virtues in that their object is God.
Furthermore, he distinguished four kinds of law: eternal law (the decree of God that governs all creation), natural
law (human "participation" in eternal law, which is discovered by reason), human law (the natural law applied by
governments to societies) and divine law (the specially revealed law in the scriptures).
For St. Thomas Aquinas, the goal of human existence is union and eternal fellowship with God. For those who
have experienced salvation and redemption through Christ while living on earth, a beatific vision will be granted after
death in which a person experiences perfect, unending happiness through comprehending the very essence of God.
During life, an individual's will must be ordered toward right things (such as charity, peace and holiness), which requires
morality in everyday human choices, a kind of Virtue Ethics. Aquinas was the first to identify the Principle of Double
Effect in ethical decisions, when an otherwise legitimate act (e.g. self-defence) may also cause an effect one would
normally be obliged to avoid (e.g. the death of another).
The Dominican religious order, of which Aquinas was a member, quickly adopted his ideas as an official
philosophy of the order, and the Dominicans always remained his most ardent supporters, through to the 16th Century.
The Franciscan order, on the other hand, including John Duns Scotus, Henry of Ghent (c. 1217 - 1293)
and Giles of Rome (c. 1243 - 1316), vehemently opposed Thomism. Some of his theses were condemned in 1277 by the
important ecclesiastical authorities of Paris and Oxford, although this condemnation was revoked
after Aquinas was canonized in 1323. William of Ockham and his adherents also expressed strong opposition to
Thomism.
In the late 19th Century, Pope Leo XIII (1810 - 1903) attempted a revival of Thomism (Neo-Thomism),
emphasizing the ethical parts of Thomism, and this held sway as the dominant philosophy of the Roman Catholic
Church until the Second Vatican Council in 1962, and remains a vibrant and challenging school of philosophy even
today.

John Duns Scotus (often known simply as Duns Scotus) (c. 1266 - 1308) was a Scottish philosopher and
Franciscan theologian of the Medieval period.
He was one of the most important Scholastic theologians of the High Middle Ages, along with St. Thomas
Aquinas, William of Ockham and St. Bonaventure (1221 - 1274), and the founder of a special form of Scholasticism,
which came to be known as Scotism. He was also an early adopter of the doctrine of Voluntarism.
He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought, and had considerable
influence on Roman Catholic thought. In the 16th Century, however, he was accused of sophistry, which led to the use
of his name (in the form of "dunce") to describe someone who is incapable of scholarship.

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John Duns Scotus (often known simply as Duns Scotus) (c. 1266 - 1308) was a Scottish philosopher and Franciscan
theologian of the Medieval period.
He was one of the most important Scholastic theologians of the High Middle Ages, along with St. Thomas
Aquinas, William of Ockham and St. Bonaventure (1221 - 1274), and the founder of a special form of Scholasticism,
which came to be known as Scotism. He was also an early adopter of the doctrine of Voluntarism.
He was nicknamed Doctor Subtilis for his penetrating and subtle manner of thought, and had considerable influence
on Roman Catholic thought. In the 16th Century, however, he was accused of sophistry, which led to the use of his
name (in the form of "dunce") to describe someone who is incapable of scholarship.

Roger Bacon (AKA Doctor Mirabilis, meaning "wonderful teacher") (1214 - 1294) was a 13th Century
English philosopher, scientist and Franciscan friar of the Medieval period, and certainly one of the most eminent
scholars of the times.
Inspired by the works of early Muslim scientists like Avicenna and Averroës, he is sometimes credited as one of
the earliest European advocates of Empiricism and the modern scientific method (although later studies have
emphasized his reliance on occult and alchemical traditions). He decried the prevailing Scholastic system, based as it was
solely on tradition and prescribed authorities.
Bacon called for a radical reform of theological study, with less emphasis on the minor philosophical
distinctions that Scholasticism pursued, and more of a return to the study of the scriptures and the classical philosophers
in their original languages. He urged theologians to study all sciences closely, and strongly championed experimental
study over reliance on authority, and was an enthusiastic proponent and practitioner of the experimental method of
acquiring knowledge about the world. Always direct and outspoken, he openly criticized his much-admired
contemporaries Alexander of Hales (c. 1183 - 1245) and Albertus Magnus as mere preachers who had not fully studied
the philosophy of Aristotle.
Bacon was fluent in several languages (unlike most of his contemporaries) and lamented the corruption of the
holy texts and the works of the Greek philosophers by numerous mistranslations and misinterpretations. He also
argued that, under the prevailing Scholastic system, physical science was not carried out by experiment, but
by arguments based solely on traditionand prescribed authorities, rather than by the initial collection of facts before
deducing scientific truths as Aristotle had taught.
Bacon's most important work was the "Opus Majus" (Latin for "Greater Work"), written in Medieval Latin at the
request of Pope Clement IV in 1267. This was a huge, 840-page treatise in seven main sections, ranging over all
aspects of natural science, from grammar and logic to mathematics, physics, and philosophy (and particularly his views
on how the philosophy of Aristotleand the new science could be incorporated into a new theology). It contains detailed
treatments of mathematics, optics, alchemy, the manufacture of gunpowder, astrology and the positions and sizes of the
celestial bodies. It anticipates later inventions such as microscopes, telescopes, spectacles, flying machines, hydraulics
and steam ships.
However, it should be remembered that Bacon was also a Franciscan monk, and the work was also a plea for
reformaddressed to the Pope, and was designed to improve training for missionaries and to provide new skills to be
employed in the defence of the Christian world against the enmity of non-Christians and of the Antichrist.
It was followed later the same year by a smaller second work, the "Opus Minus", which was intended as an abstract
or summary of the longer work, and then by the "Opus Tertium", intended to complement the other two and expand on
some sections which had only been covered cursorily (unfortunately, over half of this work has been lost). In addition, he
had planned to publish a comprehensive encyclopedia, although only fragments ever appeared.
Bacon is the ascribed author of the controversial alchemical manual "Speculum Alchemiae" (later translated into
English as "The Mirror of Alchemy"), and possibly (although less likely) also the mysterious encrypted "Voynich
Manuscript".
Bacon performed and described various experiments which were, for a time, claimed as the first instances of
true experimental science, some five hundred years before the real rise of science in the West, and his popular image is
as an isolated figure in an age supposedly hostile toward scientific ideas. However, this interpretation (of both Bacon's
work and of the prevailing medieval attitudes to science) has been challenged more recently, and he has been portrayed
more as a brilliant and combative (if somewhat eccentric) scholar, endeavouring to take advantage of the new
learning which was just then becoming available, while still remaining true to traditional notions and attitudes, and not
as isolated as had been supposed.

William of Ockham (or William of Occam) (c. 1285 - 1348) was an English Franciscan friar, philosopher and
theologian of the Medieval period.
Along with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and Averroës, he is one of the major figures of late
medieval Scholastic thought, and was at the centre of the major intellectual and political controversies of the 14th
Century. He is sometimes called the father of Nominalism, strongly believing that universals are merely mental
conceptsand abstractions which do not really exist, except in the mind.

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In addition to formulating his famous methodological principle commonly known as Occam's Razor, he
produced significant works on Logic, physics and theology. His philosophy was radical in his day and continues to
provide insight into currentphilosophical debates.
As a Scholastic, Ockham was strongly committed to the ideas of Aristotle, and advocated reform both in method
and in content, the main aim of which was simplification. He was strongly influenced by John Duns Scotus, from whom
he derived his views of divine omnipotence, grace and justification, as well as much of
his epistemological and ethical convictions, although he also disagreed with Scotus in the areas
of predestination, penance, his understanding of universals and his view of parsimony.
The French Franciscan philosopher Peter John Olivi (1248 - 1298), an extremely original thinker and pioneer
of many of the same views that Ockham defended later in his career, was clearly an important influence on Ockham,
although he never acknowledged it (possibly because Olivi himself was condemned as a heretic). Ockham has often been
cast as the outstanding opponent of Thomism and St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Medieval "synthesizer” of faith and
reason, although in reality he did not criticize Aquinas any more than he did others.
Ockham was a pioneer of Nominalism, and he argued strongly that only individuals exist (rather than supra-
individual universals, essences or forms), and that universals are the products of abstraction from individuals by the
human mind and have no extra-mental existence.
Conceptualism. Ockham’s view is perhaps more accurately described as Conceptualism rather
than Nominalism, as Ockham held that universals were mental concepts (i.e. mental substitutes for real things, which do
exist, even if only in the mind) rather than, as Nominalists would have it, merely names (i.e. words, rather than existing
realities). He even extended this belief to mathematics, so that it was not necessary for him to suppose the real
existence of such mathematical entities as points and lines in order to make useful use of them.
One important contribution Ockham made to modern science and modern intellectual culture was his principle
of ontological parsimony in explanation and theory building, which has become better known as "Occam's Razor" (or,
less commonly, "Ockham's Razor").
Essentially, the principle states that one should not multiply entities beyond the necessary ("Entia non sunt
multiplicanda sine necessitate"). Or, alternatively, one should always opt for an explanation in terms of the fewest
possiblenumber of causes, factors or variables. Or, again, one should always take a bias towards simplicity when
constructing a theory, and not construct unnecessary and over-elaborate explanations.
Theologically, Ockham was a Fideist, maintaining that belief in God is a matter of faith rather than knowledge and,
against the mainstream, he insisted that theology is not a science and rejected all the alleged proofs of the existence of
God. He believed that human reason can prove neither the immortality of the soul nor the existence of God (nor his
unity and infinity), and that these truths are known to us by Revelation alone. For Ockham, the only truly necessary
entity is God (everything else being contingent).
In Ethics, he was a supporter of Divine Command Theory, a deontological and absolutist approach
to Ethics which believes that an action is right if God has decreed that it is right, and that that an act is obligatory if and
only if (and because) it is commanded by God. Thus, in answer to Plato's question: "Is something good because God
wills it, or does God will something because it is good?", Ockham (against the majority view) resoundingly asserts
the former. In his view, God does not conform to an independently existing standard of goodness; rather, God
himself is the standard of goodness.
He contributed to an important development in late medieval Epistemology with his rejection of
the Scholastic theory of species(which he held was unnecessary and not supported by experience), in favour of a theory
of abstraction. He also distinguished between "intuitive cognition" (which depends on the existence or non existence of
the object) and "abstract cognition" (which "abstracts" the object from the existence predicate). In effect, he defended
direct realist Empiricism, according to which human beings perceive objects through intuitive cognition, without the help
of any innate ideas.
In Logic, he came very close to stating what would later be called De Morgan's Laws (expressing pairs of dual
logical operators in terms of negation), and also considered the concept of ternary logic (a logical system with three
truth values: true, false and some third value), a concept that would only be taken up again in the mathematical logic of
the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Ockham is also increasingly being recognized as an important contributor to the development of modern
Western constitutional ideas (especially the idea of government with limited responsibility), and to the emergence
of liberal democratic ideologies. He was one of the first medieval authors to advocate a form of Church-State
separation, and was important for the early development of the notion of property rights and freedom of speech.
Ockham also wrote a great deal on natural philosophy, including a long commentary on Aristotle's physics. One
important view he held, contrary to the contemporary theory, was that motion is essentially self-conserving in itself,
without need of any causal force (an application of his "razor" or the principle of parsimony).
The divorce of philosophy and theology and the influence of modern science in the work of later philosophers,
such as F. Bacon, Hobbes, and Descartes, marked the end of medieval philosophy. Many issues of medieval logic, ethics,
and philosophy of language still excite interest among contemporary philosophers .

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