We tell you what medieval philosophy is, its history and its thinkers. Also, its influence on the emergence of the Renaissance.
Saint Augustine was one of the most important philosophers of medieval philosophy.
What is medieval philosophy?
Medieval philosophy is the philosophy produced between the 5th century, with the patristics and the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, and the 16th century, with the rise of the Renaissance.
Although he addressed different philosophical problems, it is generally considered that During this period there was an attempt to reconcile the dialogue of the three great religions (Jewish, Christian and Muslim) with Greek and Roman philosophy..
This dialogue occurred, mainly, with the emergence of Christianity in the West. The Roman Empire adopted Christianity as its official religion, and this forced philosophy to take a backseat, in some cases, or even (and this happened on a large scale) to integrate with the various monotheistic thoughts of both Christianity and Islam. and of Judaism.
However, this integration did not result in obscurantism, as many thinkers maintain, but rather the period was illuminated with the appearance of great thinkers and theologians from Latin and other parts of the West. Among them we can name figures such as Saint Augustine, Saint Anselm or Saint Thomas, as well as other equally significant characters necessary to understand the current development of philosophy.
Medieval filosophy’s history
The rise of Christianity brought many changes to the Western world. Its emergence onto the political scene forced the Roman Empire to accept Christianity as its official religion, and this meant that philosophy was relegated to the background and, in many cases, to total banning.
Nonetheless, The Christian religion used philosophy to explain and defend the faith.This can be seen in some antecedents of Late Antiquity, for example, from the link between philosophy and Christianity given in Alexandria by philosophers such as Justin, Tertullian, Clement and Origen, and also in the works carried out by some Neoplatonic philosophers.
Many of these works, attributed to a group of thinkers often called the “fathers of the Church,” attempted to reconcile both forces by rejecting different philosophical schools. Examples of this are skepticism, which is irreconcilable with the truth of faith, or Epicureanism, which is opposed to Christian austerity and sacrifice.
The main sources of the patristics (the Church Fathers) were Stoicism and Neoplatonism. Among the most widely read authors are Cicero, Seneca, St. Ambrose, Proclus, Plotinus and Gregory of Nyssa, among others.
San Agustin
Augustine of Hippo (354-430), better known as Saint Augustine, is the most representative of the patristic thinkers. He incorporated into his thought many elements of the Platonic and Neoplatonic currents, as well as various refutations of other schools in force at the time, such as Manichaeism.
In his thinking, intellectual intuition predominates over scientific reasoning.and is considered a wise man by many of his contemporaries and even later disciples. He wrote numerous works of undisputed relevance and validity, such as Confessions and City of God.
Bishop of Hippo and prolific author, during his life he worked on many topics. Among them we can find beauty, good, evil, order, love of God, time and memory.
He took up Plotinus, one of the founders of Neoplatonism, to develop a theory of time as a dimension of the soul and embarked on various theological-intellectual controversies of the time, as can be seen in his letters to the Manicheans, Arianism and the Pelagians.
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
The figure of Pseudo Dionysius Areopagite is a controversial mystery of the 5th and 6th centuries. For a long time it was believed that his work actually belonged to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, an Athenian bishop and martyr who appears in the accounts of the Acts of the Apostles in the Christian New Testament.
Today we know that these works were written by a Byzantine theologian identified as Pseudo-Dionysius, who probably lived in Egypt between the 5th and 6th centuries.
However, and despite all the confusion generated around the biographical figure of Pseudo-Dionysius, His work was widely read and commented on throughout the period of medieval philosophy.l. Its influence on medieval scholasticism is particularly notable.
Many of the ideas professed by negative theology (or mystical theology) are attributed to Pseudo-Dionysius, which is a branch of theology that denies the possibility of accessing any positive knowledge of God, that is, being able to preach any attribute of God. On the contrary, negative theology only affirms what it’s not God.
His works were translated into Latin by Juan Scoto Eriúgena. Thanks to this translation, his work was very well received by Franciscan scholasticism. It was also translated back into Latin by Ambrose in the 15th century.
Saint Severinus Boethius
Saint Boethius (480-524) was a Roman philosopher and poet who translated several works of Greek philosophy and wrote various treatises on music, arithmetic and astronomy. He studied the ideas of Aristotle, the Stoics and the Neoplatonists in Athens.
In addition to reading and translating Aristotle, He devoted himself to the thought of Porfirio, especially around the problem of universals. (whether or not there is a universal linguistic entity for each concept), and to the thought of Cicero.
His most famous work is Of consolation through philosophywhich he wrote in prison after being accused of treason by the Ostrogothic king Theodoric, an accusation from which he was saved by renouncing his Catholic faith.
Of consolation It is a work in which a lady, associated with philosophy, helps Boethius to understand that happiness lies in wisdom and in the contemplation of God. Providence is characterized in it, an element that made Boethius famous, especially among the philosophers who followed him in the history of philosophy.
John Scotus Eriugena
Juan Scotus Eriúgena (810-877) was a Christian philosopher of the Carolingian Renaissance. Of Irish origin (his name can be translated as “John the Irishman of Ireland”), he translated the work of Pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory of Nyssa. He was a philosopher of the Augustinian neoplatonic school, as well as of apophatic theology (vianegativa).
His best known work is On the division of naturebetter known as Periphyseon, considered by many thinkers as the last great work of ancient philosophy. The work is anchored in the idea that everything comes from the physis or nature, which structures, in an integral way, reality.
His work is known for its high level of speculation and for having set a precedent, as a transitional stage, of the first part of medieval philosophy, that is, of the patristics to the scholasticism.
Saint Thomas and scholasticism
Saint Thomas Aquinas was born in 1225 in Naples and died in 1274 at the Abbey of Fossanova. His work was influenced by Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, Plato and Socrates.
He is one of the most important theologians of medieval philosophy and the one who goes the furthest He was able to carry out the systematization of theology as a unified philosophical thought.
His best-known writings are the commentaries on the work of Aristotle and his Theological sumwidely studied by his colleagues and followers. He is considered the greatest representative of scholasticism, which was a doctrine of theological thought that flourished during the 10th to 14th centuries.
Among the most famous scholastics, besides Saint Thomas, we can find Eriugena as a precursor, Duns Scotus, Bernard and Thierry of Chartres and Anselm of Canterbury. The main occupations of the scholastics were the study of universals, the recovery of Aristotle thanks to Arabic and Jewish texts, and the separation of faith and reason.
The philosophy of Saint Thomas was greatly influenced by Aristotle. and the thinkers who promoted their works, of Arab philosophy and the works of the patristics in general, especially of Saint Augustine and Boethius. He dedicated much of his work to reconciling reason and faith, relied on Aristotelian methodology and attempted to synthesize Augustinian speculation.
The Renaissance
During the Renaissance, humanist currents emerged.
The Renaissance is a period of transition between medieval philosophy and modern philosophy that occurred between the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Renaissance humanism emerged.
At this time, humanist studies, university professors of rhetoric, and the resurgence of classical Roman culture gave rise, especially in relation to its laws, grammar, rhetoric, and oratory. Also in the printing press was created, which led to the Renaissance heyday.
The greatest representatives of the Renaissance were Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, Leonardo Bruni, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More, Niccolò Machiavelli and Michel de Montaigne.
Follow with:
References
- Grabmann, M. (1928). History of medieval philosophy. Barcelona: Labor.
- From Libera, A. (2007). Medieval Philosophy (Vol. 93). University of Valencia.
- Guerrero, R.R. (1996). Medieval filosophy’s history (Vol. 2). AKAL Editions.
- Beuchot, M. (2013). Medieval filosophy’s history. Fund of Economic Culture.
- Le Goff, J. (2017). Intellectuals in the Middle Ages. Gedisa Publishing House.