unreasonable.

The thirteenth century

Three major developments conspired to change the philosophical landscape in the thirteenth century. The end result was a specialised and academic form of philosophy known as Scholasticism, marked by the use of dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge gained from canonical authors and to reconcile Catholic orthodoxy with the teachings of Aristotle.

The first development was the recent availability of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin. The twelfth century onward saw new translations of Aristotle and, in the second half of the century, translations of Arabic commentators like Avicenna and Al-Ghazali. Averroes was translated at the beginning of the thirteenth century. These new works became the dominant stimulus to the development of philosophy and the relation of faith and reason once more became an open question.

The second change was the establishment of the great medieval universities, particularly in Paris and Oxford. The universities traditionally contained four faculties: the Arts, Theology, Law and Medicine. Each faculty taught through standardised texts, which in the Arts faculty were the works of Aristotle and the Sentences of Peter Lombard. These universities were the natural descendants of Charlemagne’s monastic and cathedral schools and became the main centres of teaching and learning in the thirteenth century.

The third important development was the creation of the Franciscan (1209) and Dominican (1216) orders. With their fanatical devotion to orthodoxy, both orders quickly established schools in the main centres of learning. It is noteworthy that the most important philosophers of this century all belonged to these orders.

Two Dominicans

Albertus Magnus was born in Germany at the beginning of the thirteenth century and taught as a Dominican across Europe, including in Paris and Cologne where he tutored Thomas Aquinas. Albertus played a major role in the synthesis of Christianity and Aristotle’s philosophy, a project that was brought to completion by Aquinas. His interests were wide and his works include the obligatory commentaries on the Sentences and on Aristotle, but also on the Neoplatonist Porphyry. He was an advocate of experimental science and close observation of the natural world, and in 1941 Pope Pius XII made him the patron saint of the natural sciences. Highly respected in his time, he was known as Doctor Universalis for his learning; but he is now best known through his association with his more famous student.

Thomas Aquinas was the most important philosopher of the thirteenth century. Born in Roccasecca in 1225, he studied in Naples and then became a Dominican Friar, much to the disappointment of his family who imprisoned him and tried to deflect his ambitions by sending a prostitute into his cell. Aquinas drove her away and renewed his determination to live a life of celibacy. Once released, he travelled to Paris and Cologne to study under Albertus Magnus. Reserved and overweight, he was nicknamed ‘the dumb ox’ although his brilliance was quickly apparent. He went on to teach in Paris and Italy, where he died in 1274 only a few miles from Roccasecca.

Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas by Zubarán

Aquinas wrote a great deal, from commentaries on Lombard’s Sentences and many of Aristotle’s works, to theological treatises. But his most important works are his two Summae, which provide a comprehensive and systematic treatment of scholastic philosophy and theology.

The Summa Contra Gentiles is of particular interest to philosophers as it is ostensibly written to persuade non-believers about the nature of the Catholic faith. Aquinas therefore refrains (in the first three parts) from basing his argument on scriptural claims, insisting instead on justifying his positions with rational argument. The work is thus a prime example of natural theology with its emphasis on reason over scripture. The final part covers matters that Aquinas believes are accessible only by revelation, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation and the nature of resurrection. This last topic includes discussion of a point that interested Augustine: if a man has eaten human flesh, to whom does that flesh belong at the resurrection? Aquinas agrees with Augustine in restoring the flesh to the victim.

Aquinas’ masterpiece is the Summa Theologica, a compendium of all theological teachings and an expanded version of the earlier Summa. The articles are approached in a typically scholastic manner: first, objections are raised to a point of doctrine; then the orthodox position is stated in a quotation from an authority; Aquinas then develops the philosophical reasoning behind the position; and finally the initial objections are refuted. At the start of the Summa Theologica are the ‘Five Ways’ to prove the existence of God, the first three of which are variations of the Cosmological Argument. Some of the principles that Aquinas formulated in this work are still influential today – for example, his definition of a Just War (based on Augustine) and his meditations on Natural Law.

It is hard to overstate the influence of Aquinas on later thought. His reconciliation of Aristotle and Catholic theology defined the orthodox approach for the following centuries. In 1879 Pope Leo XIII anointed Aquinas as the official authority for Catholic doctrine, and in 1914 Pius X mandated 24 theses of his philosophy to be taught in Catholic schools. Modern opinion of Aquinas’ merits has been divided: some, like Bertrand Russell, see his achievement as systematising doctrine rather than offering much original thought. Others are now finding in his works more complexity than his official position would suggest.

Four Franciscans

Bonaventure was a contemporary of Aquinas and took his degree at the same time in Paris where he was lecturing on the Sentences. In 1257 he became head of the Franciscan order and spent much of his later life reconciling various factions. Unlike Aquinas, he was of a mystical turn of mind and was more influenced by the Neoplatonism of Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius. According to Bonaventure, rejecting the Forms of Plato leads to the common errors of Aristotelianism, namely: the world is eternal, there is no providence and no personal immortality, therefore no heaven and hell. He is best known today for his mystical treatise Journey of the Mind to God in which he interprets the vision of St Francis to achieve union with God.

Another contemporary of Aquinas was Roger Bacon who was a leading proponent of the recent interest in experimental science. He taught at Oxford and Paris and became a Franciscan friar in middle age, around 1257, no doubt hoping for a teaching appointment. Unfortunately his views were seen as too heterodox, and he was forbidden by Bonaventure from teaching “on account of certain suspected novelties”. Later in his life he was condemned and imprisoned, probably for his heretical views on astronomy and magic.

Bacon wrote his most important work, the Opus Maius, for Pope Clement IV to explain his ideas and respond to the prevailing Aristotelianism. He proposed a new model of philosophical studies which included an emphasis upon language learning so that scholars could read the original texts of scripture and classical philosophy; and a new programme of experimental science which was currently unavailable at the universities. Bacon’s understanding of science was mainly informed by his studies in Optics. He also practised alchemy, although he allowed that experimental science could refute the false claims of magic.

John Duns Scotus is generally considered second only to Aquinas in terms of his ability and his influence on medieval philosophy. Born in the village of Duns on the Scottish border around 40 years after Aquinas, he joined the Franciscans as a boy and studied at Oxford from where he was sent to teach in Paris. Much of his work is in the form of lecture notes, including the obligatory commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences, and as a result of this – as well as his subtlety – he is difficult to read. Nevertheless, his work refined the orthodox position in a number of important ways.

Scotus disagreed with Aquinas on several issues. Perhaps most fundamentally, he argued for the univocity of being: that is, he insisted that there is no real distinction between existence and essence, and that the term ‘being’ is applied in the same fundamental way to all things that are. This includes God, which allows that we can talk of God as we talk of other creatures: another departure from Aquinas, who insisted that any discussion of God is meaningful only as analogy. Another key topic for the scholastics was the problem of universals, and Scotus made an important contribution here too. As a realist, Scotus believed that universals exist which raises the interesting question of how particulars differ from each other. The question of individuation was a hot topic at the time, and Scotus claimed that what sets individual humans (say) apart from each other, despite their common humanity, is their haecceitas, that is to say the ‘thisness’ of an individual.

Scotus’ thoughts on these and other matters were intricate and original, and during his lifetime he was christened Doctor Subtilis, the subtle doctor. His arguments effected a significant shift in thinking, and were later to influence Luther and Calvin in their arguments for Reformation. Ironically, once Scotus’ teachings were supplanted in the Renaissance, his later followers were mocked as ‘Duns-men’ which eventually gave rise to our modern term ‘dunce’ – an unfortunate legacy for one of the foremost thinkers of the High Middle Ages.

William of Ockham was born in England and educated by Franciscans in London and Oxford. He then taught in London until he was summoned to Avignon in 1324 to face charges of teaching heresy. The problem seems to have been his unorthodox commentary on the Sentences, but while at Avignon he became embroiled in a dispute with the Pope over the question of Apostolic poverty. The Franciscans were a mendicant order and believed that Christ and the apostles owned no property and survived by living off the generosity of others – the Franciscan lifestyle was thus closer to the practice of Christ. Pope John XXII disagreed, and William was forced to flee after condemning the Pope’s views as heretical. He sought protection from the Holy Roman Emperor and lived the rest of his life in Munich, writing political works examining the basis for secular authority and supporting the Emperor against the Pope. He died during the plague, still excommunicated by the church, although he was rehabilitated ten years after his death.

William of Ockham
William of Ockham

Many of William’s philosophical claims were defined in opposition to those of John Duns Scotus. Most importantly, he was a nominalist and denied the existence of universals. In fact, he was an advocate of ontological parsimony: that is, he sought the simplest and most economical explanations in metaphysics. This also led him to believe that many truths are not accessible to reason but can be known only through revelation (in this he also disagreed with Aquinas). The principle of ontological parsimony is often represented as ‘Occam’s Razor’ although the canonical formulation – entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate (entities should not be needlessly multiplied) – never appears in his works.

By the time of William’s death in the middle of the fourteenth century, the landscape was once more beginning to change. As Bertrand Russell puts it:

In the thirteenth century the Middle Ages reached a culmination. The synthesis which had been gradually built up since the fall of Rome became as complete as it was capable of being. The fourteenth century brought a dissolution of institutions and philosophies, the fifteenth brought the beginning of those that we still regard as modern.

Across Europe, vernacular tongues were beginning to supplant Latin as the preferred language (Dante and Chaucer were writing in the fourteenth century) and the Hundred Years’ War placed a barrier between Oxford and Paris. With the dawn of Renaissance humanism in Florence and closer connections with the Eastern church, Aristotle’s star waned and Plato became, once more, the favoured ancient. The medieval project was complete and the modern era was beginning.

Sources

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