unreasonable.

The Dark Ages

The Early Middle Ages in Europe – the period of around 600 years after the fall of Rome – are often referred to as the ‘Dark Ages’. Philosophy during these centuries is scarce.

A brief revival of learning occurred in the Latin West under Charlemagne. Crowned as the new Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III in 800, Charlemagne effected a significant change in school curricula, standardised the Medieval Latin language and increased the number of monastic schools and scriptoria. Although these changes were mostly confined to the clergy and the Carolingian court, their long-term effect was to help safeguard classical learning through difficult times and eventually lay the foundation for the scholastic revival in the thirteenth century.

Charlemagne
The Coronation of Charlemagne by Kaulbach

Nevertheless, a few extraordinary individuals emerge during this period and make a significant contribution to medieval philosophy. It is also important to note the contribution of the Islamic world in transmitting Greek philosophy back to the West.

The Carolingian court

Perhaps the most extraordinary individual of the Carolingian period was John Scottus Eriugena. Born at the start of the ninth century, Eriugena was an Irishman who, unusually for a scholar at this time, was familiar with Greek. He was invited to join the court of Charlemagne’s grandson, Charles the Bald, and under the protection of Charles he used his gifts to engage in the philosophical and theological disputes of the time, including the controversy (stemming from Augustine) over the predestination of sinners. Eriugena used dialectical reasoning to emphasise God’s goodness, His existence outside of time and the essential freedom of human beings. This solution pleased no one and was condemned by a council of Bishops as ‘Irish porridge’ (pultes scottorum), not least because of its reliance upon logical, rather than scriptural, arguments.

Eriugena’s understanding of Greek gave him access to a theological tradition unknown to most scholars. He translated the Neoplatonic ideas of Pseudo-Dionysius into Latin, and then developed his own Neoplatonic cosmology in his Periphyseon (On the Division of Nature). This highly original work was considered heretical because of Eriugena’s insistence that religious authority derives ultimately from reason, and that philosophy is therefore not in the service of theology. By the thirteenth century Eriugena was being accused of pantheism and in 1225 Pope Honorius III ordered (unsuccessfully) all copies of the Periphyseon to be burnt.

The Islamic world

Throughout the Dark Ages in Western Europe, several centres of Islamic learning kept the apparatus of civilisation intact: education, books and particularly translations and commentaries of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers. These were, in the thirteenth century, retransmitted to the Western tradition and had a profound effect upon the development of philosophy, although the Islamic tradition itself was soon suffocated by an increasingly rigid religious orthodoxy.

The first of the great Muslim philosophers was Avicenna (Ibn Sina) who was born in Persia around 980. Educated in Arabic, he discovered philosophy as a young man while struggling with Aristotle’s Metaphysics. In turn, his own great work was known in the West as the Metaphysics although it was, in fact, the fourth part of his ‘Book of Healing’. Avicenna’s commentary upon, and extension of, Aristotle’s work was an attempt to reconcile ancient philosophy and Islamic teaching: since it made no appeal to the authority of the Qur’an, it was able to influence Catholic philosophers when it was translated into Latin in the twelfth century. Avicenna also introduced into Western thinking the distinction between existence and essence: knowing every detail about what kind of thing something is does not imply that it exists. This is true for every creature except God, whose essence entails existence – that is to say, God is a necessary being.

Within a couple of generations Avicenna’s ideas were attacked as an affront to the teachings of Islam by the theologian Al-Ghazali in his Incoherence of the Philosophers, but they were soon to be defended by the second great Muslim philosopher, Averroes.

Averroes (Ibn Rushd) was born in Cordoba in Spain in 1126, and trained in medicine and the law. His admiration of Aristotle took him further even than Avicenna: he purged his predecessor’s work of Neoplatonic influences and argued that the existence of God could be proven by reason alone (a view later held by Thomas Aquinas). He also held with Aristotle that the soul was not immortal. Averroes combated Al-Ghazali’s attack on Avicenna in a work entitled Incoherence of the Incoherence in which he argued for the right of reason to investigate theological matters, insisting that religion contained philosophical truths in allegorical form.

Most important of all, however, were Averroes’ 38 commentaries on the works of Aristotle (and Plato’s Republic). These were translated into Latin in the early thirteenth century and contributed greatly to the scholastic revival of philosophy. Averroes’ works set the agenda for many of the most important philosophers of the next century.

The last significant thinker to emerge from Islamic Spain was, in fact, a Jewish philosopher. Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon), like Averroes, was born in Cordoba although he was forced to leave and eventually settled in Cairo. Trained in medicine, he was deeply immersed in Greek philosophy and Islamic learning, and wrote extensively on Jewish law.

Maimonides
Maimonides

Maimonides’ most important philosophical work was completed in 1190. His Guide for the Perplexed was an attempt to reconcile philosophy and religion by acknowledging the limits of theology. The nature of God, Maimonides argued, is such that we cannot talk meaningfully about Him but can only describe what He is not. In the face of these difficulties, compromises must be made: sometimes in Aristotle’s system, and sometimes in faith itself by understanding scripture as allegorical and not literal. Such compromises predictably earned the enmity of conservative believers, but Maimonides’ work would have a great influence on European thought in the coming centuries.

The Latin West

By the eleventh century, the Latin West was emerging from the Dark Ages and philosophy was reviving. Everything was about to change with the rediscovery of Aristotle and the advent of scholasticism, but two great philosophers were still able to make their mark on the medieval tradition.

Anselm of Canterbury is still remembered for his formulation of the ontological argument for the existence of God, and he was perhaps the most important Christian philosopher of the eleventh century. He was also sufficiently orthodox to be appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093 and later canonised as Saint Anselm.

The most important influence upon Anselm’s thought was the work of Augustine, and consequently his philosophy is Neoplatonic which gives him more in common with his predecessors than with later medieval thinkers. The scholastics would soon draw a clear distinction between the roles of reason (natural theology) and of faith (revealed theology). Anselm does not recognise this distinction: instead, reason is subordinate to faith. In the opening chapter of the Proslogion he states:

I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe even this: that unless I believe, I shall not understand. Proslogion 1

But, importantly, reason has a key role to play: theology for Anselm is a matter of argument and analysis, and not merely of scripture – hence the ontological argument which helps to reinforce faith by giving the believer rational grounds for belief. The ontological argument starts from the definition of God as ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’. An atheist understands this concept but believes that such a being does not exist. If such a being did exist, however, it would be greater than the mere concept: an existing being is greater than a mere idea. Therefore the atheist is contradicting himself as he can conceive of a being greater than ‘that than which nothing greater can be conceived’, ie one that actually exists. Anselm’s argument is a reductio ad absurdum: assuming the premise that God does not exist leads to a contradiction. Therefore God must exist.

The ontological argument has continued to be refined and developed to the present day, although it is certainly not valid. A number of other theological works by Anselm were influential, particularly his analysis of the doctrine of the Incarnation, and he was also involved in the first debate over the problem of universals. Roscelin of Compiègne originated the position now known as nominalism: generic terms like ‘human’ or ‘green’ do not refer to real entities, and only particulars (this human, this grass) exist. Anselm, as a Platonic realist, rejected this position not least because of its implications for the Christian Trinity, the three parts of which must share the predicate ‘God’. Roscelin was declared a heretic but the argument was far from over, and nominalism would be further developed by Roscelin’s more famous pupil, Abelard.

Peter Abelard was argumentative, arrogant and a charismatic teacher. He was also an original and remarkable philosopher who, it was said, never lost an argument. In modern times his colourful story is better known than his philosophical writings. After setting up a school in Paris, he began an affair with Heloise, the scholarly niece of Canon Fulbert of Notre Dame. After Heloise became pregnant, Abelard married her in secret. When Fulbert found out, he banished Heloise to the convent of Argenteuil and had Abelard forcibly castrated. After that, Abelard went to the monastery of St Denis, but the two lovers continued to write to each other and their letters would become a medieval classic.

Abelard and Heloise
Abelard and Heloise

Like Anselm, Abelard believed that reason had only a limited role to play in matters of Christian faith. Nevertheless, his achievements in logic and linguistic analysis were remarkable for his time. As a student of Roscelin, he provided the first full account of the nominalist position, and his later theological writings led to the Pope condemning him to perpetual silence. But perhaps his most influential book was Sic et Non (For and Against). Abelard chose 158 theological topics and compiled arguments on each side, providing opposing quotations from patristic authors. There is no attempt to reconcile these opposing views: Abelard merely uses them to develop a method of investigation. This dialectical technique of ‘disputation’ would become a hallmark of the later scholastic philosophers, and it can be traced directly to Abelard’s handbook:

Though never himself more than a schoolmaster, Abelard imposed a style of thought on academic professors right up to the Renaissance. Anthony Kenny

The most important example of that style would be the Sentences of Peter Lombard, a collection of authoritative quotations from church fathers organised into categories: Book I deals with the existence of God; Book 2 with the creation of humans and angels; Book 3 with the incarnation and redemption of Jesus; and Book 4 with the sacraments. The Sentences became the standard theological textbook at universities until the sixteenth century, and commenting upon it was an academic requirement for a Master of Theology.

When Peter Abelard died in 1142 Western philosophy was on the verge of a transformation. The twelfth century saw the works of Aristotle rapidly translated into Latin along with their Arabic commentaries. By the end of the century almost all of Aristotle was available to the Latin world and medieval philosophy was about to reach its culmination.

Sources

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