HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

(Introduction to the History of Western Medieval Philosophy)

History

- A systematic study of records and relics of the human past that tries to present the facts and
their relationships at the level of natural causes.

Medieval

- Media tempestas (middle time, period) – first used in 1469 by Giovanni Andrea of Bussi
- Medium aevum (middle age/s) – first used in 1604 by Mechoir Goldhast
- Medieval (Anglicised form of medium aevum) – first used: 19th century
- Why is it called “Middle”? – middle age or in between ancient (classical) and modern ages.
- Why is it called the “Dark Ages”? – fall of Rome;

Boundaries of Medieval Philosophy

- Broadly:
from the decline of the Western Roman Empire to the “Discovery of the Americas” (c.
376-1492
- Narrowly:
The period between the decline of classical culture and the Renaissance (after 313-
1300s)
o Decline of theWestern Roman Empire (c. 376-476)
o “Germans” :Visigoths, Ostrogoths Vandals, Lombards, Franks, etc.
o Vikings’ conversion to Christianity (c. 700-c.1000)
o Rise of Monasteries (c. 500-c.1100)
o Carolingian Reform (c. 700-c.800)
o Rise and Spread of Islam (c. 600 onwards)
o The Crusades (1095-1240s)
o Schism of 1054: separation between the Eastern Christian churches and the Western
church
o The Rise of Gothic Cathedrals
 Notre-Dame de Paris (Paris, 1163)
 Sainte-Chapelle (Paris, 1238)
 Church of the Jacobins (Toulouse, 1230)
o From Monastic and Cathedral Schools to Universities (c. 1088 onwards)
o Rise of Mendicant Orders (1200s onwards)
o Black Death (Bubonic Plague) (1346-1353)
o Humanism and Renaissance in Bloom (c. 1450 onwards)
o Christopher Columbus in the Americas (1492)

Philosophy

- Nominal/Etymological Definition
o From two Greek words philo & Sophia which means the love of wisdom
o Pythagoras: (6th cent BC) philosopher – a philosophos, or “lover of wisdom.” He was
not claiming to be wise. Instead, he was pursuing wisdom.

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 PYTHAGORAS PLATO
Men in Olympic Kinds of Men Tripartite Composition Tripartite Composition
Games of Man of Society
Sellers Lovers of money Body Merchants
Competitors Lovers of success Spirit Soldiers
Viewers Lovers of wisdom Mind Philosopher-King

“All men consider philosophy as concerned with first causes and principles.” (Metaph.,I,i) – Aristotle

“Wisdom (i.e. philosophy) is the science which considers first and universal causes; wisdom considers
the first causes of all causes.” (In Metaph.,Iect.ii) – St. Thomas Aquinas

Real Definition (Scholastic)

- Science
- of all things
- through their first/ultimate/highest causes (principles)
- as known by the light of reason

“Ingredients“ Of Medieval Philosophy

- Here is a recipe for producing medieval philosophy: Combine classical pagan philosophy,
mainly Greek but also in its Roman versions, with the new Christian religion. Season with a
variety of flavorings from the Jewish and Islamic intellectual heritages. Stir and simmer for
1300 years or more, until done.
- EARLY MIDDLE AGES: (c.400 - c. 1100)
o Post-Patristic Era and the “Dark Ages” Rise of Monasticism
o St. Augustine
o Boethius John Scotus Erigena
o St. Anselm
o Islamic and Jewish Philosophers
- HIGH MIDDLE AGES (c. 1100 - c. 1250)
o Scholasticism, New Translations, Rise of Universities, and the Natural Scientist-
Philosophers
o St. Thomas Aquinas
o Franciscans of the Middle Ages: St. Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, and William of
Ockham
- LATE MIDDLE AGES (c. 1250 - c.1500)
o Rhineland Mystics, Renaissance, and the Decline of Scholasticism

Topics In Medieval Philosophy

- the relationship of faith and reason

- existence and nature of God
- God’s foreknowledge
- human will and freedom
- universals and particulars

Beginning: Patristic Era

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 - from the end of the 1st century (when the New Testament was almost completed), up to the
close of the 8th century
- EAST: Justin Martyr, Athanasius of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, John
Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor.
- WEST: Tertullian, Cyprian, Jerome, Ambrose of Milan, Augustine of Hippo, and Gregory the
Great.

Fathers of the Church

- orthodoxy
- holiness of life
- ecclesiastical approval
- antiquity

Concerns of the Church Fathers

- Christianity's relationship with Judaism;

- the establishment of the New Testament canon;
- explanation of Christianity;
- doctrinal discussions that sought to achieve consistency of faith

St. Catherine of Alexandria (c. 287 – c. 305)

Patron Saint of the Faculty of Philosophy

- When the persecutions began under Emperor Maxentius, Catherine went to the emperor
and rebuked him for his cruelty. The emperor summoned fifty of the best pagan
philosophers and orators to dispute with her, hoping that they would refute her pro-
Christian arguments, but Catherine won the debate.
- The furious emperor condemned Catherine to death on a spiked breaking wheel, but, at her
touch, it shattered. The emperor ordered her to be beheaded.

SAINT AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO (Sanctus Augustinus Hipponensis: 354 – 430)

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Late have I loved you! And, behold, you
were within me, and I out of myself, and there I searched for you.” -Confessions Book 10 chap. 28

Life of St. Augustine

- born in Tagaste (modern Souk-Ahras, Algeria) on Nov. 13, 354.

- His mother was St. Monica;
- his father Patricius, a pagan, was converted in later life.
- attended school at Tagaste and Madaura
- in 370 was sent to Carthage for higher studies.
- fell in with evil companions:
- as he puts it, he became ashamed not to be shameless.
- In 373 he read Cicero's Hortensius, now lost. This work, an exhortation to philosophy,
inspired him with an intense love of wisdom.
- From 373 to 382 he was a follower of the Manichaean religion.
- In 383 he was won over to the moderate skepticism of the New Academy.

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 - While teaching rhetoric at Milan in 384, he heard St. Ambrose preach, and the same year he
read some works of the Neoplatonists.
- He was converted to Christianity in 386, and after a year's retreat and study at Cassiciacum,
outside Milan, he was baptized by St. Ambrose. After St. Monica's death at Ostia in 387 he
went to Rome and the following year returned to Africa.
- At Tagaste he sold his property and lived a monastic life.
- He was ordained a priest in Hippo in 391 and became co-bishop of Hippo in 395, sole bishop
in 396. He died Aug. 28, 430.

Augustine’s Philosophy

Highlights in the Philosophy of St. Augustine

- WISDOM: THE GOAL OF LIFE

- FAITH AND REASON
- ON KNOWLEDGE
o PROBLEM OF CERTITUDE
o DIVINE ILLUMINATION

Wisdom: The Goal of Life

- His life: long quest for wisdom

- Influences:
o Manichaean religion- boasted that human reason by itself could make men wise.
o Skepticism
o Neoplatonists: Plotinus and Porphyry
o Christianity
- A personal approach to philosophy

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests on you.” -Confessions
Book 1 par. 1

- concerned with his own unhappiness, the fruit of his disordered thinking and moral life.
- God: the source of all order and happiness.
- Philosophy for St. Augustine is consequently inseparable from religion. True philosophy,
accordingly, is identical with true religion.

Faith and Reason: The Means to Wisdom

- Two guides to wisdom:

o the authority of Christ
o human reason
- Human reason, left to itself, is not enough.
- “Unless you believe, you shall not understand.” (Isaiah 7:9).
- PHILOSOPHY: a loving study and meditation on sacred Scripture, aiming at a mystical
experience of God and an ultimate vision of him.
- All the resources of the human mind are brought into its service.

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 - St. Augustine never thought of developing a philosophy for its own sake, independent of
theology. He philosophized abundantly and profoundly, but always in the service of Christian
wisdom.

Knowledge: Problem of Certitude Divine Illumination

The Problem of Certitude

- Movement in St.Augustine:
o From skepticism to certitude
o From materialism to the recognition of spiritual reality.
- We are sure that the world appears to us as we perceive it.
- We may be wrong in judging that an oar in water is really broken, but not that it appears to
be broken. The senses are indeed trustworthy. They report things to us just as they should,
even though the mind sometimes judges incorrectly that reality is just as it appears to be.
- The “judgment of truth” is rather to be found in the intellect and interior mind.
- Granted that the senses do not give us certitude, truth is still possible. Indeed, a state of
absolute doubt is contradictory. At least we are certain that we are and that we think.
- What will remain is the “I”.
- To overcome skepticism:
o Platonic, philosophical interiorism
o Introspection
- But how are we to explain the presence of true knowledge (non-sensible )in our souls?
o Truth which transcends us.
o Truth exists above the human mind and that it is necessary, immutable, and eternal.
o Path to God: exterior → interior → superior

Divine Illumination

- Eternal truths or things that man knows exclusively through his intelligence and never with
the help of the senses, are made “visible” to the intelligence by means of a “divine light”
that comes from God.
- The mind is bathed in intelligible light, and in this light it sees the truth. It cannot be doubted
that God is the source of this light.
- Elements of Divine Illumination:
o God is spiritual light and he illumines all men. This illumination is given to all men,
although in varying degrees.
o There is a world of intelligible truth illuminated by God.
o There are minds that know this world of truth under the divine illumination.
- Divine Illumination: explanation how we, contingent and mutable creatures, can make
necessary and immutable judgments.
- Sensations can only lead to the knowledge of extramental sense-perceptible reality if they
are compared with the ideas impressed in the soul by the divine light.
- Faith is the starting point of epistemological analysis. Faith is in fact the guarantee of the
truth of our knowledge.
- The God who created us in need of divine light in order to know would not deceive us. The
divine light would be our protection in the face of possible sensorial illusions

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Conclusion

- Augustine sees all things, not in the specific light of philosophy or even of theological
science, but in the light of the highest Christian wisdom and of charity.
- The works of St. Augustine involved the gathering, assimilation and transmission of the
Greco-Roman culture together with the Judeo-Christian to the Middle Ages. It was a
landmark showing a new path for man’s thinking: the relationship of faith and reason.
- His was an example of the effort of Christian faith seeking a great understanding of its own
content with the aid of a philosophical instrument- based principally in the Neo-Platonism of
Plotinus- and proclaiming the supremacy of the human spirit over nature, and the
supremacy of God over the human spirit.

BOETHIUS – Beatus Severinus Boëthius (477 - 524 – Feast Day: October 23)

Life of Boethius

- Born in Rome about 480; he was sent to study at Athens.

- There he came into contact with the various types of Greek philosophy: Aristotelianism,
Neoplatonism, and Stoicism.
- At Athens he also learned Greek – a fact of great importance, for it enabled him to translate
Greek philosophical works into Latin and thus become one of the most important channels
by which Greek philosophical ideas were passed over to the Latin-speaking world.
- On his return to Italy he became a consul at the court of Theodoric, King of the Ostrogoths,
who showed him favor and honor.
- Accused of treason by Theodoric, he was imprisoned and put to death at Pavia, in northern
Italy, in 524 or 525.
- During his imprisonment he wrote The Consolation of Philosophy.
- There are over 400 extant manuscripts of this work, attesting its great popularity in the
Middle Ages.
- He is honored as a martyr, and his cult as a Beatus was confirmed by the Church in 1883.
- SAN PIETRO IN CIEL D’ORO (PAVIA, LOMBARDY)

Boethius’ Philosophy

Time of Boethius

- During the time of Boethius, Italy was then under the rule of the Germanic tribe Ostrogoths
(East Goths), who had been converted to Arian Christianity.
- Boethius became one of the most important channels by which Greek philosophical ideas
were passed on to the Middle Ages.
- He was an orthodox Catholic but was shown favor by the Arian King Theodoric, who raised
him to a high position at his court. There Boethius soon learned the fickleness of fortune.
- Accused of treason, he was imprisoned and executed on the orders of the king.
- His long imprisonment gave him an opportunity to set in order his thoughts on human
happiness, chance, freedom, and God's foreknowledge of our free acts. The fruit of his
meditation was The Consolation of Philosophy, one of the most popular books in the Middle
Ages.

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The Consolation of Philosophy

- An allegorical picture of Philosophy, appeared to him as a noble lady

- In prison, bad fortune
- Muses of poetry inspired him to write verses

Highlights in the Philosophy of Boethius

- DEFINITION AND DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY

- ON GOD (THE CONSOLATIONS, BOOK III)
- FREEWILL AND PROVIDENCE (THE CONSOLATIONS, BOOK V)

Definition and Divisions of Philosophy

Philosophy

- love of wisdom

Wisdom

- highest of all realities: God

o Causing all things to exist
o Illuminating minds with truth
o Drawing human beings to himself by love

Philosophy - pursuit and love of God

Theoretical Philosophy

- knowledge for its own sake.Their object of study are the “forms”.
o Natural philosophy- forms of physical bodies with matter (motion) → (ratio)
o Mathematics- forms of bodies without matter and motion (although in reality they
exist together → (disciplina)
o Theology- forms of bodies separate from matter and motion → (intellectus)

Practical Philosophy

- knowledge for action

o Ethics- how an individual should conduct himself virtuously
o Politics- state is ruled according to virtues
o Economics- virtuous conduct of the family

Trivium (liberal arts) Quadrivium (Boethius’ contribution)

Grammar Arithmetic
Rhetoric Geometry
Logic Astronomy
Music

On God (The Consolations, Book III)

On God

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 - God is the being who is supremely good and the source of all good things.
- Nature does not make a beginning with things mutilated and imperfect; she starts with what
is whole and perfect and falls away later to these feeble and inferior productions.
- Since God is supremely good, he is supremely happy. For happiness is that perfect state in
which everything good is united. God is happiness itself, for he is goodness itself. And just as
no being can be good except by sharing in God's goodness, so no being can be happy unless
he shares in God's happiness.
- Man's natural desire for happiness cannot be fulfilled by any partial goods, such as fame,
riches, or pleasure, but only by the total good or God.
- Only by participating in God, and in a sense becoming divine, can man possess all that is
good, and only then is he happy.

Freewill and Providence (The Consolations, Book V)

Freewill and Ptrovidence

- Lady Philosophy consoled Boethius by telling him that he would be happy if he accepted the
will of God. His sufferings were a part of God's providence. If he accepted them freely, he
would still enjoy liberty even though he were confined to prison.
- We are most free when we submit ourselves to God's providence.We are slaves to the
degree that we turn to the sensible world and let our souls be dominated by the passions of
the body.
- If God exercises providence over all things, including our actions, can we consider ourselves
free?

JOHN SCOTUS ERIGENA – Johannes Scotus Eriugena (c. 815 – c. 877)

- Born in Ireland c. 810

- Irish = Scot
- Erigena = of the people of Erin
- 845- he became master of the Palace School of Emperor Charles the Bald in France
- c. 877- returned to England and died. According to legend, he was stabbed by the pens of his
students.
- After the death of Boethius, three centuries elapsed before another philosopher of
outstanding genius and originality arrived on the scene: Erigena, the only Irishman in our
history of medieval philosophy.
- A speculative thinker of bold and comprehensive views, he produced one of the greatest
theological and philosophical syntheses in the early Middle Ages—a forerunner of the
immense Summae of the thirteenth century.
- Major Work: Periphyseon (“De Divisione Naturae”)
- Translations:
o works of the Greek Neoplatonists.
o Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: De Divinis Nominibus
- Like Boethius, as a translator, the journey of classical thought from Athens to western
Europe as the "transference of learning" (translatio studii)

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Erigena’s Philosophy

Highlights in the Philosophy of Erigena

- PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH

- ON THE DIVISION OF NATURE

Philosophy and Faith

ON HAPPINESS: Philosophy and Faith

- Philosophy is about understanding the Sacred Scriptures.

- “What else is philosophy except the explaining of the rules of true religion, by which God,
the highest and principal cause of all things, is both worshipped humbly and investigated
rationally?”
- Like St. Augustine, Erigena identifies philosophy with religion:
o “No one can enter heaven except by philosophy!”
- The aim of philosophy is thus wholly spiritual and religious:
o it is the illumination of faith through human reason, moving toward the vision of
Christ's divinity.

On The Division of Nature

PERIPHYSEON (“ON THE DIVISION OF NATURE”)

- a vast synthesis of Christian thought organized by Neoplatonic dialectic.

- God, the cause of all things = supreme Unity
- Creation = procession of the many from this Unity.
- It is a process of division, by which reality descends from the divine unity, unfolds in a
cascade of essences of decreasing universality and increasing multiplicity until individual
things are reached.
- Creatures are finally described as retracing their path and returning to God by a process
called analysis.
- Erigena calls this a division of nature, not of being or reality. The reason for this is that
“nature” is a broader term than “being”; some things are included in nature that are not
beings in the strict sense of the term.
- A being is anything that can be understood by the intellect or perceived by the senses. This
excludes God, for he cannot be the object of intellect or sense.
- Sensible things can be perceived by the senses, but, unlike ideas, they cannot be grasped by
the intellect. So they too are not being, relative to the divine Ideas.
- Following division and analysis as laws of nature itself, nature falls into four divisions:
o nature which creates and is not created (God)
o nature which is created and which creates (Divine Ideas)
o nature which is created and does not create (Man and Universe)
o nature which does not create and is not created (Return to God)
1. GOD: nature which creates and is not created
a. God as the creator of all things
b. Like Pseudo-Dionysius: via negativa approach to God

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 2. DIVINE IDEAS: nature which is created and which creates
a. the divine Ideas, which are created by God and which in turn create individual things
3. MAN and UNIVERSE: nature which is created and does not create
a. the individuals created by the divine Ideas
4. GOD: nature which does not create and is not created
a. Analysis: God as the end of all things
b. God as no longer creating but drawing all things back to him

PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS: WAYS OF SPEAKING ABOUT GOD

Kataphatic (Positive Theology) (“affirmation”)

- affirmed something of God, either as a result of speculation about the divine or as an

affirmation of revelation about God
e.g.: God is all-good, omniscient, omnipotent

Apophatic (Negative Theology) (“denial”)

- emphasizing the mysteriousness of the divine, leading to the negating of any affirmations
about God → inadequacy of any human conception of God
- God is beyond any human description
- Neo-Platonism (including Erigena), mysticism

ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY – Sanctus Anselmus Cantuariensis (c. 1033 – 1109) Feast Day: April
21

St. Anselm

- 1033- born in Aosta (Northern Italy)

- Educated by the Benedictines at Aosta
- 1059- arrived at Norman abbey of Bec (France)
o He wrote his famous works.

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 - 1093- Archbishop of Canterbury (England)
- 1109- He died on Holy Wednesday, 21 April.

St. Anselm’s Philosophy

Context of St. Anselm’s Time:

- Two centuries after Erigena

- After the reign of Charlemagne
- France was under war and violence
- Viking invasion
- The papacy was dominated by secular powers
- There were two extreme intellectual movements:
o Reformers – philosophy is a comprising influence in Christian life; it is a tool of the
devil.
o Dialectics – use logic even in dealing with the mysteries of faith, a discourse between
two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to
establish the truth through reasoned arguments. During the Middle Ages, it was
under the liberal art of logic.
 Dialectic (quaestio disputata) was formed as follows:
 The question to be determined ("It is asked whether...");
 A provisory answer to the question ("And it seems that...");
 The principal arguments in favor of the provisory answer;
 An argument against the provisory answer, traditionally a single
argument from authority ("On the contrary...");
 The determination of the question after weighing the evidence ("I
answer that...");
 The replies to each of the initial objections. ("To the first, to the
second etc., I answer that...")
- Amidst the two movements, St. Anselm had a balanced mind.
- Following St. Augustine, St. Anselm advocated the method “fides quaerens intellectum”
(faith seeking understanding).

Main Highlights in the Philosophy of St. Anselm:

The Discourse on the Existence of God

PROSLOGION

(Faith Seeking Understanding / Discourse on the Existence of God) (1077–1078)

- a prayer, or meditation
- reflect on the attributes of God and endeavors to explain how God can have qualities which
often seem contradictory.
- In the course of this meditation, the first known formulation of the “ontological argument”
for the existence of God was set out.

From the Proslogion

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 - I am not trying, O Lord, to penetrate your loftiness, for I cannot begin to match my
understanding with it, but I desire in some measure to understand your truth, which my
heart believes and loves.
- "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam" (For I do not seek to
understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand.)
- For this too I believe, that ‘unless I believe, I shall not understand.
- Well then, Lord, You who give understanding to faith, grant me that I may understand, as
much as you see fit, that You exist as we believe You exist, and that You are what we believe
You to be. Now we believe that you are something than which nothing greater can be
thought. Or can it be that a thing of such a nature does not exist, since ‘the Fool has said in
his heart, there is no God’ (Ps. 13:1;52:1)?
- But surely, when this same Fool hears what I am speaking about, namely, ‘something-than-
which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought’, he understands what he hears, and what he
understand is in his mind, even if he does not understand that it actually exists. For it is one
thing for an object to exist in the mind, and another thing to understand that an object
actually exists.
- Thus, when a painter plans beforehand what he is going to execute, he has (the picture) in
his mind, but he does not yet think that it actually exists because he has not yet executed it.
However, when he has actually painted it, then he both has it in his mind and understands
that it exists because he has now made it.
- Even the Fool, is forced to agree that something-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought
exists in the mind, since he understands this when he hears it, and whatever is understood is
in the mind. And surely that--than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought cannot exist in the
mind alone. For it exists solely in the mind, it can be thought to exist in reality also, which is
greater.
- If then that--than-which-nothing-greater-can-be-thought exists in the mind alone, this same
that--than-which-nothing-greater-cannot-be-thought is that--than-which-a-greater-can-be-
thought. But this is obviously impossible. Therefore there is absolutely no doubt that
something--than-which-nothing-greater-cannot-be-thought exists both in the mind and in
reality.

Summary: Anselm’s Argument in the Proslogion

- One can imagine a being than which none greater can be conceived.
- If the being we imagine exists only in our mind, then it is not a "being than which none
greater can be conceived".
- We know that existence in reality is greater than existence in the mind alone.
- A being than which none greater can be conceived must also exist in reality.
- Failure to exist in reality would be failure to be a being than which none greater can be
conceived.
- Thus a being than which none greater can be conceived must exist, and we call this being
God.
- Although Christian thinkers believe as a matter of faith that God exists, in the Middle Ages,
thinkers Anselm were keen to show that God’s existence could also be proved by rational
argument:
o that God is “that than which nothing greater can be thought”
o that existence is superior to non-existence.

“In Defense of the Fool”: Two Objections to St. Anselm's Argument

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Gaunilon

- an astute Benedictine monk from Marmoutier (Tours)

First Objection

- Gaunilon denies that he really has in his mind the idea of a being than which a greater
cannot be thought.
- He hears the spoken words, but he cannot conceive of this being any more than he can
conceive of God himself. He does not know the reality which is God, and he cannot form a
notion of him from other realities because, as St. Anselm himself says, there is no reality like
him.

Second Objection

- Even if we could conceive of a being than which none greater can be thought, it does not
follow that this being exists in reality,but only in thought.
- We can think of any number of unreal things, and even impossible ones, which certainly
have no existence outside the mind.
- For example, we can form the notion of an earthly paradise, the Isles of the Blessed, but that
does not warrant our concluding that the islands really exist.

St. Anselm’s Reply: In What Way We Can Conceive God

Reply to the First Objection:

- We form a notion of him beginning with the knowledge of less perfect things and raising our
mind to the notion of a most perfect being.
- Gaunilon claims that we neither know such a being in itself, nor can we form an idea of it
from anything like it.
- Everything that is less good, insofar as it is good, is like the greater good. It is therefore
evident to any rational mind that by ascending from the lesser good to the greater we can
form a considerable notion of a being than which a greater is inconceivable.

Reply to the Second Objection:

- We can reason from existence in thought to existence in reality in one case only. For there is
only one being which cannot be thought not to be; namely, the being than which none
greater can be thought. This being alone necessarily implies existence in reality.
- The idea of the Isles of the Blessed does not resemble it in this respect, for there is nothing
in the notion of these Isles that compels us to affirm their real existence.

St. Anselm is a realist:

- If we think of the being (real being) signified by the word, we cannot say that God does not
exist.
- For he is the being than which none greater can be thought, and it is impossible to think of
such a being and to deny its existence. The very being conceived compels the mind to assert
its existence not only in thought but in reality.

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 I. Cathedral Schools and the “Coming of Schoolmen”

From Monastic Schools to Cathedral Schools:

- The new urban schools showed a spirit of independence and freedom and an insatiable
curiosity in contrast to the conservatism of the older schools.
- One of the famous masters of cathedral schools was Peter Abelard (1079-1142)
- Major works: Sic et Non (Yes and No), a major contribution to dialectics.

II. Islamic and Jewish Philosophers of the Middle Ages

Islamic and Jewish Philosophy

- Important development: contact of the Christian West with Arabian and Jewish thought in
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
- The Moslem world possessed the main works of Aristotle long before the Christian West and
many of the first Latin translations of these writings were from Arabic manuscripts.
- Along with Aristotelian treatises, Arabic scholars passed on to the Chr

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