The Longman Standard History of Medieval Philosophy

Garrett Thomson, Daniel Kolak

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780321235145
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315508757
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

With selections of philosophers from Plotinus to Bruno, this new anthology provides significant learning support and historical context for the readings along with a wide variety of pedagogical assists.

Featuring biographical headnotes, reading introductions, study questions, as well as special "Prologues" and "Philosophical Overviews," this anthology offers a unique set of critical thinking promtps to help students understand and appreciate the philosophical concepts under discussion. "Philosophical Bridges" discuss how the work of earlier thinkers would influence philosophers to come and place major movements in a contemporary context, showing students how the schools of philosophy interrelate and how the various philosophies apply to the world today.

In addition to this volume of Medieval Philosophy, a comprehensive survey of the whole of Western philosophical history and other individual volumes for each of the major historical eras are also available for specialized courses.

SECTION VI

THIRTEENTH CENTURY AND LATE MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS

PROLOGUE

The second thousand years of philosophy, from Plato-inspired Augustine to Aristotle-inspired Aquinas, resulted in what is generally classified under the rubric of “Scholastic” philosophy. If ancient philosophy can be characterized as philosophical systems built by individuals (Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle), the great metaphysical systems that had been developed during the early and middle part of medieval times was by and large the corporate product of vast social networks each organized under a different religious order. The guiding light was tradition, revealed religion, and respect for authority. As a result, philosophical work was done under the auspices of theology, which set the standards and problems. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, however, this so-called via antiqua—the ancient way—gradually gave way to what would be called via moderna— the modern way—led in large part by philosophers such as Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Nicholas of Cusa, and Giordano Bruno, heralding the advent of modern thought and philosophy’s return to the work of individuals.

ROGER BACON (APPROX. 1220–1292)

Biographical History

Roger Bacon was born to a wealthy aristocratic family in England; the place of his birth is unknown, though probably it was Ilchester in Somerset. His early education was the quadrivium, which then consisted of geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy; his favorite ancient figure, he said, was Aristotle, whose works he read at a young age (though which works we don’t know). He spent much of his fortune buying all sorts of secret books and built laboratories where he experimented in all areas, though we have no records as to his actual research. He employed assistants and also savants, brilliant and eccentric (sometimes pathological) minds to help him in his quest to know everything. At the University of Paris he was well known for his stunning and detailed lectures on Aristotelian philosophy and science. This was all in his twenties; at around the age of 30 he returned to Oxford and met Robert Grosseteste (1168–1253), the world’s greatest expert at the time on light and optics. Under Grosseteste’s influence, Bacon branched out his studies to mathematics, optics, and astronomy.

Bacon was extremely critical of authority, which he saw as a way of oppressing people’s native intelligence and propensity to discover for themselves what is true and actual. He wanted not only to achieve knowledge but to share it openly with everyone, and so he turned his energies to the writing of an encyclopedia that would contain all knowledge of all the sciences, including mathematics and philosophy. He organized the greatest minds and savants of the time to help him with the project, which the Church then ordered him not to publish. He appealed to Pope Clement IV, who agreed to see some of Bacon’s writings; as a result, Bacon wrote his Opus Majus, Opus Minus, and Opus Tertium in an incredibly short time and sent them to Rome. But Clement died before he could finish reading it. Bacon was thrown into prison, where he continued to write until his death. Only parts of his massive encyclopedia were ever published, in three volumes, Communia Naturalium, the Communia Mathematica, and Compendium Philosophiae, on science, mathematics, and philosophy, respectively.

Philosophical Overview

The most significant aspect to Bacon’s philosophy is his advocacy of the experimental method. At the time, the only experimentalists as such were astrologers and alchemists, the avatars of modern astronomy and chemistry. Many of their results and conclusions were erroneous, but the techniques they developed for the observation and codification of experience laid the foundation for the empirical methods of science that followed. Bacon, instead of disregarding their methods, sought to integrate them with a better eye toward the rational and conceptual analysis that philosophy and mathematics make available.

OPUS MAJUS

Roger Bacon

This work was a persuasio, a form of writing in which the author tries to persuade a religious authority, in this case the pope, of the merit of publishing some work, in this case the encyclopedia that would have made knowledge of science, mathematics, and philosophy available to the public. His Opus Majus includes instructions as to how to integrate experimental method with reason, and calls for educational reform in which students would be allowed not only to question authority but test the claims authorities make.

Bacon begins by outlining the major causes of error in our judgments concerning nature and ourselves. Wisdom is not just a rational or intellectual ability but something balanced by a keen eye for observation and experiment. He refers often to the secrets of the sciences and the arts, because the techniques of experiment were widely regarded as the “dark arts,” magic and demonology. His source is Aristotle, in whom he sees the perfect balance of reason and experience. Even what the scriptures say must be tested by reason and experience; to accept anything merely on faith, Bacon suggests, is itself contrary to the will of God and verges on sin. He argues that “the power of philosophy is not foreign to the wisdom of God.” He urges Christians not to destroy the works of the philosophers but to learn from and study them.

The First Part of This Demonstration¹

THE CAUSES OF ERROR

In which the four universal causes of all human ignorance are removed. There are four distinctions in this part, and in the first distinction there are four chapters. In the first chapter, after the intention of the whole demonstration has been stated, these four causes are criticized in general.

Chapter I

The perfect consideration of wisdom consists of two things, namely, in perceiving what is required for wisdom that it may be known best, and then, in perceiving how wisdom should be related to all things that they may be directed by it in proper ways. For by the light of wisdom (1) the Church of God is directed; (2) the commonwealth of the faithful is disposed; (3) the conversion of unbelievers is procured; and (4) by the excellence of wisdom those who are obstinate in evil can be curbed that they may be thrust far from the bounds of the Church more effectively than by the shedding of Christian blood. All matters, in fact, which need the guidance of wisdom are reduced to the above four, nor can wisdom be related to more. Wherefore, that this wisdom be known not only relatively but absolutely, I shall try here to present to Your Holiness, following the tenor of your recent letter, whatever I can at the present time in a probable demonstration, until a more certain and fuller writing is completed. But, since the subjects under consideration are weighty and uncommon, they demand for human frailty, grace, and favor. For according to the Philosopher in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, those things which are of greatest understanding in themselves are of least apprehension to us. Indeed, enveloped truth is concealed in the depths and deposited in the abyss, as Seneca says in the seventh book on Favors and in the fourth of Natural questions; and Cicero says in the Hortensius that all our understanding is obstructed by many difficulties, since our understanding is related to what is most manifest in its own nature, as the eye of the owl and the eye of the bat are to the light of the sun (as the Philosopher says in the second book of the Metaphysics²) and as one deaf from birth is related to harmonic delights, as Avicenna says in the ninth book of the Metaphysics. Wherefore we are sufficiently impressed with the weakness of our own intellect in the investigation of truth, to want to remove, as much as possible, extraneous causes and occasions of error from the imperfection of our perception.

There are, indeed, four chief hindrances to the understanding of truth, which stand in the way of every man, however wise, and permit hardly any to arrive at the true title of wisdom; to wit, (1) the example of frail and unsuited authority, (2) the long duration of custom, (3) the opinion of the unlearned crowd, and (4) the concealment of one’s own ignorance in the display of apparent wisdom. Every man is involved in these difficulties, every condition of man is held by them. For everyone in all the acts of life and study and every occupation uses three of the worst arguments to the same conclusion; namely, (1) this has been exemplified by our ancestors, (2) this is the custom, (3) this is the common belief: therefore, it must be held. But the opposite to the conclusion follows far better from the premises, as I shall prove in many instances by authority and experience and reason. But if these three arguments are sometimes refuted by the splendid power of reason, the fourth is always before the eyes or on the lips of every one to excuse his own ignorance; and although he knows nothing worth knowing, nevertheless what he knows he magnifies shamelessly so that he over-whelms and shatters the truth in the consolation of his unhappy stupidity. Moreover, all the evils of the human race come from these deadly plagues; for the most useful and the greatest and most beautiful instances of wisdom and the secrets of all the sciences and arts are ignored; but what is even worse, men blinded by the mist of these four arguments do not perceive their own ignorance, but cover and conceal it with all caution so that they find no remedy for it; and finally, what is worst of all, they think they are in the full light of truth when they are in the densest shadows of error; because of this they hold the most true to be in the bounds of falsity, the best to be of no value, the greatest to possess neither weight nor worth; and on the contrary they honor the most false praise the worst, extol the most vile, blind to the truth that all the brightness of wisdom is other than these, disdainful of what they can attain with great ease; and because of the greatness of their stupidity they spend most considerable labors, consume much time, pour out vast expenditures on things which are of no, utility or little and of no merit in the judgment of the wise man. Hence it is necessary that the violence and harm of these four causes of all evils be known in the beginning and be condemned and put off far from the consideration of wisdom. For where the first three of these causes dominate, no reason moves; no right judges; no law binds; the injunctions of religion have no place; the dictates of nature perish; the face of things is changed; order is confounded; vice prevails; virtue is extinguished; falsity reigns; truth is puffed away. And, therefore, nothing is more necessary to this consideration than the sure condemnation of these four causes of error by chosen arguments of wise men which shall not possibly be contradicted.

Since moreover the wise bring the first three together and condemn them at the same time and since the fourth requires a separate investigation because of its special stupidity, therefore, I shall try first to disclose the harm of the three. But although authority is one of them, I speak in no wise of the solid and true authority which is bestowed by the judgment of God on the Church or which arises from the merit and dignity of some one among the saints and perfect philosophers and other wise men who are expert to the full measure of human possibility in the cultivation of wisdom; but I speak of that authority which many men seize upon violently in this world without the help of God, not from the merit of their wisdom, but because of their own presumption and their desire for fame; and I speak of the authority which the unlearned multitude grants (to its own destruction in the just judgment of God) to many. For according to the Scripture the hypocrite often rules because of the sins of the people; I speak, in fact, of those Sophistical authorities of the insensate multitude which are authorities in an equivocal sense, as a stone eye or a painted eye has the name of eye but not its power.

Chapter II

The sacred Scripture, moreover, reproves these three causes of error; the holy doctors condemn them; canon law forbids them; philosophy reprehends them. But for reasons touched upon before with reference to philosophic treatments and because the opinions of philosophers concerning these three are very little known, I shall treat principally of the philosophic opinions, Seneca, of course, in the second book of his Letters (near the end) condemns all three of these banes in a single phrase. He says, “among the causes of our ills is that we live according to model; we are not regulated by reason but are carried along by custom; that which we would not care to imitate if few were to do it, we do when many begin to do it rather because it is more frequent than because it is more honorable: and error holds the place of right among us when it has been made general.”¹ The Philosopher moreover, attacking throughout his philosophy unworthy authority, asserts in the second book of the Metaphysics that the principal causes of human error are custom and the influence of the masses.² And again Seneca in the book on the Happy Life says, “no man errs for himself alone, but he is the cause and author of another’s error, and error transmitted from one to another turns us aside and throws us down and we perish by the examples of other men.”¹ And in the second book on Anger, “because of the evil of custom, he says, vices which have grown with us are removed with difficulty.”² And in the book on the Happiness of Life he contends against the opinion of the crowd,

Nothing implicates us in greater evils than that we adapt ourselves to rumor and think those things best which have been received with great approval; nor do we live according to reason but according to likeness and precedent. Thence is that great heaping together of men rushing upon other men. For this befalls man in a great massacre, since people so press upon one another that no one falls without drawing another with him, and the first are the cause of destruction to those who follow. You may see this happen in every life.

And again he says in the same book, “the people, defenders of their own evil, stand against reason”; and further on, “human affairs are not so well ordered that the better pleases most”; and then follows, “the crowd is the worst argument.”³ And Cicero in the third of the Tusculan questions says, “when we have been handed over to school masters, we are so filled with a variety of errors, that truth yields to vanity, and nature itself yields to established opinion.”⁴ And he says in the Lucullus, “some, having accommodated themselves to a friend or having been captivated by only the speech of some one whom they have heard, judge of unknown things and into whatever art or discipline they are borne as by a tempest, they hold fast to that judgment as to a rock; most would rather err and defend the opinion which they had liked, than investigate without obstinacy what they say most surely.”⁵ And because of the depravity of custom he asks in the first book on Divine Nature, “does it not shame him who speculates on nature, to seek from minds steeped in custom the testimony of truth?”⁶ And against the opinion of the mob, he says in the introduction to the second book of Disputations, “philosophy ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• General Introduction
• I: Plotinus
• II: Augustine
• III: The Early Medievals
• IV: Islamic and Jewish Philosophy
• V: Aquinas
• VI: Thirteenth Century and Late Medieval Philosophers
• Sources
• Credits