Chapter 4
From Faith to Humanism
Modified: 2023-12-28 3:10 PM CDT
This outline follows chapter 4 closely and adds material to help you learn and understand it. Please report any problems with the page by e-mailing me. This is another long chapter and will be tested by itself.
FYI: the links on this page worked as of 12/28/2023
ZEITGEST (p. 97)
- Religion is at least as old as the Neolithic (Nielsen, 2020)
- Philosophy began as an attempt to dispense with supernatural explanations
- But that is not a clear distinction as seen by Socrates' death and Aristotle's flight from Athens
- Grecian religion was polytheistic
- Judaism
- Ancient religion (year 5781 = CE 2021)
- Became monotheistic
- Covenant with God
- Rituals: circumcision, Sabbath, Temple
- Dietary laws (Kosher)
- Literate society (Old Testament)
- Christianity
- Began as sect of Judaism
- Jesus
- Paul of Tarsus
- New Testament
- Rapid spread within Roman Empire
- Europe "Christianized" by CE 1000
- Islam
- Begins with Mohammed
- Qur'an
- Rapid spread from Arabia
- Huntington's "Clash of Civilizations"
- Thesis that the West is facing new challenges from China and Islamic countries
- Not universally accepted, however
- Islamic calendar (year 1446 = CE 2024)
- Secularization, the move to separate theology and philosophy
- Slow process in Europe
- Universities status and distance from Rome helped secularization and eventual independence
- Coursework gradually shifted from theology and Scholasticism to a revamped philosophy, Humanism
- Began in Islamic lands but halted by fundamentalism
- Universities under control of local ruler
- Coursework focused on Qur'an
- Slow process that finally emerges in Renaissance and beyond
- Fuller separation in Western world
- However, Dimitrishin (2013, p. 12) argues that the independence of European universities relative to the Islamic ones may be exaggerated:
- "The only distinction that seems to distinguish the European university is the already mentioned particularity of its legal status. Unlike other similar institutions, the university was incorporated as a legal body under the medieval law. This peculiarity, however, seems to have little influence on its actual performance compared to that of other similar institutions. Both the university and its peer organizations were subjected to strict controls of their respective socio-political systems."
- I'll add: the European universities were less influenced early on by the strict controls of their social-political systems in a very practical way. The further the university was from Rome, the more independent it could be.
- Commerce
- The two religious worlds each profited as commerce everywhere grew quickly as new maritime technologies made it possible for entrepreneurs to use sea routes to Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
Note how ship building and seafaring are linked to the success of commerce then and now.
- Medieval Europe
- From ~410 CE to ~1450 CE
- Year 1000
- "Christendom"
- Monks and monasteries
- Technological progress (agriculture, tools, stirrups, metalurgy)
- Recovery of "lost" manuscripts
- European Universities
- Bologna, Paris, Oxford
- Thoroughly Christian and under nominal control of pope
- Practically independent from local governments (e.g., "town and gown")
- Contrast with Islamic universities at same time
- Philosophy again studied for its own sake but still tightly yoked to theology
- Topics: common sense, imagination, dreaming, memory, intelligence (for humans, angels, and God)
- Logic dominant, experimentation still unknown
- The existence of God was taken for granted as an article of faith
- Christian Theologians
- Greek in East, Latin in West
- Schism between Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox
- Monks and founding of towns and cities
- Monks and scriptoria
- Translating Arabic versions of Plato and Aristotle
Scholasticism: the dominant mode of thought in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages that attempted to reconcile faith and reason using scripture and recovered Aristotelian sources.
monasticism-the lifestyle of Christian men and women who chose to live in single-gender religious communities and to devote their time to work and prayer.
Humanism: the study and application of worldly knowledge for and about secular concerns instead of sacred ones, especially as applied to art and literature. Humanism was inspired by a renewed reverence for classical thinking, especially that of Plato and the Neo-Platonists.
PREVIEW (p. 98)
- By 1000 CE Christianity had spread throughout most of Europen and provided a new identity: Christendom
- The seeds of secularism were slowly sprouting.
- Christian scholars struggled to reconcile the works of classic writers such as Plato and Aristotle with revealed knowledge.
- Scholars began to offer logical proofs for the existence of God.
- Universities came into being andto filled the demand for scholars.
- Their curricula, the trivium and quadrivium, eventually led to the establishment of the liberal arts.
- Gradually, in Christian Europe at least, a gap began to grow between religion and philosophy.
- Disputes, however, were always resolved in favor of religious dogma.
- Biology slowly re-emerged as an academic discipline.
- The medical knowledge gained by Islamic physicians spread as did the more scientific study of optics.
- Ockham’s Razor provided a way to pare down theoretical explanations.
- The rise of Humanism also led to the creation of new academic disciplines: anthropology, philology, and history.
- A renewed interest of ancient writers of Latin and Greek works, the development of the printing press, the discovery of “New” worlds, the rise in urbanism, and a new appreciation for secular art and music marked the beginning of the end of the medieval period.
- Humanism also led to the rise of moral philosophy, a direct antecedent to the social sciences.
- The Black Plague, ultimately, opened more doors than it closed. The depopulation it caused shook religious belief and made new opportunities for survivors.
- Astronomy slowly relinquished its handmaiden status to religious beliefs and would soon become the first true science.
- The adoption of Hindu-Arabic numerals led to a new confidence in empirical methods.
- All of these ideas led to the rise of secularism in Christian Europe.
- The Islamic world, however, soon lost its early intellectual lead as its scholars were unable to separate religion from philosophy.
INTRODUCTION (p. 99)
- Christianity and Islam
- Long running conflict between Christianity and Islam
- Two of the three monotheistic faiths
- But, Islam sees Christianity as polytheistic (e.g., "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit")
- Both seek (still) to establish global societies
- Much more conflict since 9/11
- Wars
- Terrorism
- Muslim bans
- Historic intolerance on both sides
- e.g., "infidels" is a term used by both
- Islam
- jizya: Islamic tax on non-Muslims, no need to convert to Islam, but treated as second-class citizens
- could not proselytize, and had to wear special clothing marking them as Christians
- Christianity
- Less tolerant (convert or die)
- Spoiler alert: The Reformation led to 30 Years War and increased Christian intolerance to other Christians (see chapter 5)
- "Dark Ages"
(Middle Ages is better term)
- Greek philosophy goes into dormancy in West
- Barbarian invansions
- Roman Empire splits in two
- Greek works survive in Eastern Roman Empire
- Eastern Roman Empire finally dissolves when Constantinople falls in 1453
- Neo-Platonism and Christianity combined
- Definition of the start of the Middle Ages:
- Any of the following:
- Fall of Rome in 410,
- Closing of Plato's Academy in 529,
- Christianization of Roman Empire 380
- NEOPLATONISM
(p.100)
- Alexandria (not Athens) became the intellectual center of the western world
- Roman Emperor Justinian closes the Academy in 529 CE
- Many of its scholars fled to Constaninople, Alexandria, or to Syria
- Is an amalgam of Greek philosophy and Christian thinking
- Integrated ideas of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Judaism, Christianity
- Rear guard defense of Greek philosophy
- Religion (Christian and Islamic) extirpated Neo-Platonism along with other "pagan" philsophies by year 1000
- FYI "pagan" (Latin "paganus") originally meant "country dweller." Now it meant anyone who did not believe in Judaism, Christianity, or later, Islam.
- Philo
(p. 100)
- Wealthy
- Jew
- Learned Greek and Jewish traditions
- Emissary to Caligula
- Philo influenced early Christians
- Attempted to connect common threads of both traditions
- Paradoxically, Christians accepted his views and Jews did not
- Word of God: Hebrew tradition
- Plato' Forms:
- logos-living, rational universe
- became manifestation of God's mind
- Later Christians incorporated his ideas using:
- the Trinitarian view of God
- redefined the concept of evil
- linked the Hebrew Bible to Stoicism and other Greek philosophies
IDEA: Judaism and Christianity-As Johnson (1988, pp. 144-145) noted (below) there were commonalities between Judaism and Christianity, but there were also points where compromise was impossible.
"The Jews could not concede the divinity of Jesus as God-made-man without repudiating the central tenet of their belief. The Christians could not concede that Jesus was anything less than God without repudiating the essence and purpose of their movement. If Christ was not God, Christianity was nothing. If Christ was God, then Judaism was false. There could be no compromise on this point. Each Faith was thus a threat to the other."
"The quarrel was all the more bitter because, while differing on the essential, the two faiths agreed on virtually everything else. The Christians took from Judaism the Pentateuch (including its morals and ethics), the prophets and the wisdom books, and far more of the apocrypha than the Jews themselves were willing to canonize. They took the liturgy, for even the eucharist had Jewish roots."
- Plotinus
(p. 101)
- Egyptian, moved to Alexandria
- Studied under Ammonius Saccas (philosopher and porter!)
- Accompanied Emperor Gordian III to Persia
- Likely that Gordian was assassinated during that trip by his own troops
- Plotinus eventually went to Rome
- His writings the Enneads helped preserve Plato's ideas
- Synthesized the whole of Greek philosophy
- Porphyry, his student, helped him organize the Enneads
- Helped later generations understand Plato
- Created a complete synthesis of Greek thought, included:
- Plato
- Aristotle
- Stoic philosophy
- Epicurean philosophy
- Preserve search for virtue AND provide for individual salvation
- Wished to provided counterpoint to emerging Christianity
- The One or the Good
- The Good (Christians eventually made that God)
- singular, timeless, abstract
- like an overflowing bathtub
- two souls: personal and world
- Note similarity to Plato's philosophy (Plato's forms preserved)
- Happiness:
- Comes from contemplating the Good (Spoiler Alert: Spinoza, see chapter 6), could lead to ecstasy
- Does NOT come from materialism
- The Good must cooperate
- Very few attain true happiness
- Contributions
- Early Christians adopt his ideas (the "church fathers")
- Led to union of Neo-Platonism and Christianity
- Justinian closed Plato's Academy in 529 CE
- Many of its scholars fled to Syria and Baghdad (taking their books with them)
- Christians destroy Greek works and label them heretical
- Those works eventually recovered via scholars who fled to the East (see below)
THE RISE OF CHRISTIAN FAITH
(p. 103)
- Greek philosophy lost for ~1000 years
- Christianity emphasized:
- Turning away from world
- Heaven or Hell in afterlife
- Revelation took the place of philosophy
- Old Testament prophets
- New Testament prophet:
- e.g., Think of Paul (an apostle of God, bringing that truth to the world)
- Introspective philosophy emphasizing the soul
- Augustine of Hippo
(p. 103)
- Born in Thagaste, North Africa (now Souk Ahras, Algeria)
- Teacher of rhetoric
- first in Carthage and later in Rome (where his students did not pay him!)
- Moved to Milan
- Embraced Skepticism
- Was a Manichean early on
- Existence of good and evil and sin came from the latter (not a personal fault)
- Converted to Christianity while in Rome, wrote Confessions
- At first, was tolerant of the liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, astronomy, and music
- Later, emphasized faith in God over everything
- Tolle, lege (work, read) was his motto
- City of God-his major book, contrasts sacred and profane
- God was source of Platonic Forms
- He created a transcendental, religious philosophy: earth and heaven, move from one to the other (maybe)
- A type of dualism
- World vs Heaven or Hell
- He argued we transcend (move) from the world to heaven or hell
- Changed definition of philosophy: prepare to meet God
- Pessimistic stance
- Virtue unattainable
- All were sinners
- Goal of life to prepare to know God (in Heaven)
- Consequences
- All humans were equal!!! (A new idea at the time)
- regardless of their station
- regardless of their gender
- People responsible for their own conduct
- Impossible to avoid temptations of the world
- Choose your City
- Part of doctrine of free will
- The Worldly-profit while alive, but Hell after
- The Godly-suffer while alive, but Heaven after
- Solution?
- Predestination-the elect
- He invoked predestination late in his life
- The elect, preselected by God, would go to Heaven
- Grace-gift from God
- Both are still part of many Christian church's teachings
- Free will (to explain evil in world)
- Still a major part of Christianity
- Needed to answer question of evil in the world
- Why would an all powerful God allow evil?
- People must choose to avoid evil and to act charitably
- Catholic Church took over moral vacuum created by fall of Rome
- e.g., The structure of the Roman Catholic Church today mirrors that of the Roman Empire
- Antimaterial and anti-intellectual doctrines
- Revelation: Bible, Aristotle, and Neo-Platonic ideas
- Empiricism was considered heretical (Spoiler Alert: Albert the Great, see below)
- The church's job was to convert unbelievers
- e.g., "The great commission"
(convert everyone to Christianity)
- do so by force, if necessary
- Just Wars (think of the Crusades)
- waged against non-Christians or heretic Christians
- Beginning of Medieval Period
- Loss of connection with Greek world and ideas
- Pagan works and customs suppressed (but not totally)
- black cats
- ladders
- and other superstitions (Did you just sneeze? "Bless you.")
- Nixey, The darkening age: The Christian destruction of the classical world
IDEA: dualism- the philosophical idea that there are two types of phenomena, usually described as mental (mind) or physical (body). Augustian dualism consisted of separating matter and soul, a new and radical idea at the time.
IDEA: phenomenology- the philosophical system that examines conscious experience itself directly, intentionally, and from one's own point of view.
- Phenomenology and Cognitive Psychology
- Augustine-forced himself to introspect on his own behavior
- Made cognitive world bigger more important that external world
- Phenomenological methods arise (e.g., introspection) (see chapter 6)
MUHAMMAD AND THE RISE OF ISLAM (p. 106)
- Muhammad was born in Mecca
- Raised by his uncle, Abu Talib
- Married Khadija, a rich widow
- During one of Muhammad's times alone in a cave, the angel Gabriel said, "Recite."
- The written version became the Qur'an and Hadiths were the sayings of Muhammad
- Five Pillars of Islam (Islam means submission to God, Allah)
- Hajj (the visit to Mecca)
- Daily prayers five times per day
- Ramadan 9th month, fast during daylight
- Alms to poor
- Profession of faith
- "There is only one God, and Muhammed is his prophet."
- Islam spread quickly from Spain to shores of Constaninople
- Long term historical consequences
ISLAMIC SCHOLARS (p. 107)
- Three Major Centers
- Baghdad
- House of Knowledge
- Early on, translation of Greek works into Arabic
- Later, research in astronomy, mathematics, and medicine
- Toledo and Cordoba (after 1000)
- Islamic scholars worked with Christian and Jewish ones
- Spoiler Alert: The "lost" works of Plato and Aristotle and others will reach Europe primarily via Spain. (see below).
- Cairo
- Shi'a Muslims
- More tolerant
- Ismailis-missionaries
- Failed to unite Shi'a and Sunni parts of Islam
- Large cities and prosperity
- Unlike European cities at same time
- Al-Kindi
(p.108)
- Called the "first philosopher" of Arab world (falsafa is Arabic word for philosophy)
- Worked in the House of Knowledge
- Trademarks of falsafa
- Philosophy is systematic whole
- He and the Greek philosophers agreed on cosmos, soul, and first principle (e.g., metaphysics)
- Wide range of interests
- Mathematics
- Metaphysics
- Ethics
- Medicine
- Physics
- Optics
- Astronomy
- Even perfumery and music
- Translated Greek works to Arabic
- Revelation and philosophy conmensurate
- Philosophy never ahead of the Qu'ran
- Philosophy supported relevation
- Notice that both points above are evidence of theology and philosophy intertwined
- No independent (e.g., secular) universities
- A later point of conflict in Islam (see Averroës below)
- Al-Farabi
(p. 108)
- Born in Turkestan
- Worked in Baghdad
- Polymath, studied:
- With Yuhanna ibn-Haylan, a Nestorian Christian
- Learned of Neo-Platonist and Aristotelian traditions
- Systematized cosmology, psychology, and education
- Modified philosophies of Aristotle, Plotinus, and Ptolemy
- Added reason and education
- Changed prime mover to God
- Kept Ptolemy's astronomy but removed pagan aspects
- Soul contained nutritive, sensitive, and appetitive faculties (shared with animals)
- Only human soul was capable of reason
- Philosophy for philosophers and revelation for the masses
- Meaning, not everyone could be educated
- Philosophers could reconcile the truth found with the revelations in the Qu'ran
- Non-philosophers had to use prophecy and revelation
- Again notice the conflict between religion and philosophy
- Political scientist: ideal state would be run by Islamic philosophers
- Humans could not live in isolation
- Levels of communities (like sociology today)
- Communities: worldwide, intermediate (national), and small (city-states)
- Was known as the "Second Teacher" (to Aristotle, that is)
- Avicenna
(p. 110)
- Born in Uzbekistan
- Rejected early religious training from the Fatimid missionaries
- Became a successful doctor
- Personal physician to a prince
- Had early access to prince's large library
- Medicine and philosophy
- His medical texts used in Europe for 500 years
- Made him famous for medicine
- Little influence in Europe from his philosophy
- Conflict with Al Ghazali
- Al Ghazali was severe critic of Islamic philosophy
- Wrote The Incoherence of the Philosophers
- Ghazali's p oints of disagreement were:
- World was not eternal
- God was all knowing
- Both body and soul are eternal
- "Floating man"thought experiment
- His “floating man” thought experiment argued for the existence of the soul. It was convincing and powerful. In it, he posited that a fully mature, freshly created human being, deprived of all sensory input and suspended in the air, would yet be cognizant of existence without any physical stimuli and thus have a soul.
- Cognition
- Expanded on Aristotle's five senses, adding: interior senses and common sense and instincts
- Linked them to parts of the brain
- The common sense too
- According to Avicenna, the function of common sense is to receive and relate the perceptions of the external senses."
- Instinctive faculty: fear, attraction
- Major influence on Western medicine
- Averroës
(p. 111)
- Born in Cordoba (Spain)
- Well educated: religion, philosophy, and law.
- Became court physician
- Caliph asked him to explain Aristotle
- Read all of Aristotle except the Politics
- Wrote short, intermediate, and long versions
- Exiled for two years because of Islamic fundamentalism
- Attacked Al Ghazali's critiques (he wrote The Incoherence of the Philosophers)
- Averroës wrote The Incoherense of Incoherence
- In it he repudiated all three of Al Ghazali's critiques
- Universe was not eternal but God was
- God does not think as humans do (universals vs. particulars, and see next chapter)
- Philosophers could know the truth (Sura 3:7 allows it)
- Cause and effect was necessary for reason
- Arguments:
- Demonstrative-could prove the truth, restricted to philosophers
- Rhetorical-argument
- Dialectical-opposites (see Hegel later) (e.g., life and death, good and evil)
- Philosophy and religion saw the same truths
- Only one truth and both the Qu'ran and demonstrative method would yield same result (eventually)
- Especially for those "well founded in knowledge" or in other words: philosophers
- Little influence with Islam
- Commented on Aristotle, became "The Commentator"
- University of Paris, late 13th Century
- Altered Averroës's approach
- The Double Truth
- One set of truth from Bible or Qu'ran
- One set from demonstrative argument
- Labelled a Christian heresy (Averroism)
- Led to rise of securalism in Christian circles
- e.g., the "double truth"
- Paved the way for separation of religion and philosophy in the West (only)
- Most influential of the Arabic philosophers to Western thinkers
BORDER WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE: LANGUAGE (p. 113)
- Arabic was language of the Qu'ran
- Also used in commerce, communication, and scholarly works in Islamic world
- Greek and Latin used early on in Europe
- Later, Greek in the East and Latin in the West
- Latin became the language of the Church and of European scholars
- Vernaculars arose outside of those spheres:
- French
- Spanish
- Italian
- Romani
- In Europe, the use of Latin by scholars allowed communication of ideas (see chapter 5)
- That lingua franca (Latin for common language) allowed scholars from different parts of Europe to communicate effectively (in Latin, that is or ipso facto "by that very fact" in English)
- FYI: When I was 11 to 14 I went to a school that taught classic Latin and Greek as routine subjects. It was Thorndike and Woodworth (see chapter 8) who changed that curriculum in the United States when they demonstrated that learning such ancient languages did nothing to improve the learning of other academic subjects. Unfortunately for me, I left that school before I took Greek :-(
BORDER WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE: THE ROLE OF WOMEN (p. 113)
- Greek
- Plato
- highly restrictive to women (but few exceptions)
- sex unity
- unity of souls (genderless)
- reincarnation as women for living life without virtue
- Aristotle
- sex polarity
- males more important to reproduction
- no reincarnation
- Cynics, Stoics, and Epicurians
- more open to allowing women to be philosophers
- Neo-Platonists
- Mostly only male philosophers
- Hebrew
- Strict separation of genders
- Women as chattel
- Early Christian
- Cosmopolitan
- Women as equals
- No infanticide (leaving newborn exposed to die)
- Attractive to women because of difference with pagan ideas
- Post Augustine
- Closing of openings to women in church and daily life
- Recent Past
- Coverture and Chattel
- FYI: In 1981 Louisiana was the last state to drop its laws related to a husband's power over his wife.
- It took a Supreme Court action to do so.
- Today
- Sex neutrality (in most characteristics)
CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS (p. 116)
Scholasticism-the dominant mode of thought in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages that attempted to reconcile faith and reason using Scripture and recovered Aristotelian sources.
- Overview
- As the Medieval Period dawned Christian scholars "lost" access to classical knowledge from Greek and Roman sources
- Waves of invaders from Asia made life difficult and travel unsafe
- In other words, it was easier and safer to travel from Rome to Jerusalem in the year 1 than in the year 1000
- Schism between Roman Church and Orthodox Church
- Took place in 1054
- The Roman Pope excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople
- The Patriarch responded in the same manner
- This was the first major break up in Christianity (but see also the Reformations, chapter 5)
- The two churhes reconciled in 1965
monasticism-the lifestyle of Christian men and women who chose to live in single-gender religious communities and to devote their time to work and prayer.
- Monasticism
- First monks in Egypt
- Hermits
- Life withdrawn from the world
- Ascetic lives and prayer
- Benedict
- First monastery
- Benedict's Rules
- Scriptoria
- Rooms where monks devoted themselves to producing handwritten texts
- Black Shield of Falworth movie (1954)
- This is the point in class where I reference one of truly most horrible movies of all time. But, there is a redeeming point. There's a scene where Tony Curtis, Falworth, visits an Earl's library with its 24 books, all produced by hand by hardworking monks. Each book is displayed on a stand and secured to it. The point being that back then books were rare and expensive. Here's a picture of that scene. There were only a handful of books in that library. Notice that the book is chained to its stand. The printing press changed all that. (see below)
- Most of the texts copied were religious
- The Irish monks played an especially prominent role because Ireland is the most westward point in Europe and was thus less plagued by invaders (mostly Vikings, fyi)
- Cahill's book, How the Irish Saved Civilization, details how those monks wrote and saved classic works and later began to write down Irish folk tales creating the first national literature. I strongly recommend reading the book. You will need to scroll down the page to see that volume.
- Christianization
- By the year 1000 Europe had converted to Christianity
- Christendom was used as a descriptive term for majority of Europe
Medieval Universities
- Anselm of Canterbury
(p. 116)
- Benedictine monk
- Bishop of Canterbury (Britain)
- First scholastic thinker
- "faith seeking understanding"
- Use reason to confirm mysteries of Christian faith
- Faith, however, must prevail
- Notice the same conflict here as in the Islamic world between religion and knowledge (I cannot yet call it philosophy or science)
- Ontological argument for the existence of God (logic alone is necessary)
- Idea of painting vs. the painting
- God = "that than which nothing greater can be thought"
- Anselm reasoned nothing could be greater, therefore God existed
- Others criticized his proof of God's existence
- Set the stage for others attempts at proof of God's existence
- Peter Abelard
(p. 118)
- Born in Brittany, France
- Feisty student
- Chose to become a teacher rather than a knight
- Excellent teacher
- Returned to Paris and taught at the cathedral school at Notre Dame
- Abelard and Heloise
- Tutee
- Daughter of the Canon Fulbert
- They fell in love
- Married in secret
- Had a child, named him Astrolabe, after the astronomical instrument
- Family attacked him
- Famous love story
- Now buried together thanks to Josephine Bonaparte
- Stealing Heaven (trailer), review
- Self exile to wilderness
- Returned to Paris
- Accused of heresy
- Stayed at Cluny Monastery until he died a few years later
- Use logic to improve upon the truths of revelation
- Platonism and Neo-Platonism (at that time)
- Aristotle's works slowly appearing in translation
- Troubled by universals
- Nominalism vs. Realism
- Used mind to solve the issue (argued that words such as "man" or "animal" were placeholders (names) and not universal)
- Nominalism was a revolution in medieval logic
- Realism leads to logical problems
- For example, "man" could apply to a person or to a class
- Realism posits that universal, ideal entities exist (e.g., the ideal cat)
- Note the Platonic residue here (horsehood)
- Resolved problems in realism
- Wrote the Sic et Non
- Demonstrated that the truths of revelation were not so clearcut
- 158 cases from scripture where contradiction found
- Abelard inspired Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas (see below)
IDEA: nominalism-the belief that universals are cognitive categories of mind, not rigid relationships between universals and particular events.
IDEA: realism-the belief that universals are real entities and possess physical existence.
- Peter Lombard
(p. 120)
- From a poor family
- Studied at Bologna, Reims, and Paris
- Worked with Lombard student at the Notre Dame cathedral school
- Wrote the Four Books of Sentences
- Used well into 17th century
- Book 1: God and Trinity
- Book 2: Creation and Angels
- Book 3: Nature of Jesus
- Book 4: The Sacraments
- Wanted to confirm the truths of scripture through logic
- You should be noting a pattern here: logic should support faith
- Steered middle course through theological conflicts
- Augustinian organization
- Aristotle's works replaced Augustine's after translations became available
BORDER WITH SOCIAL SCIENCE: RELIGIOUS VS CIVIL LAW (p. 120)
- Revealed knowledge, or religion, was central to Islamic and Christian thinking during the Middle Ages.
- Revelation ruled the dynamics between faith and government.
- But, early Christians did not all hold the same beliefs.
- They argued over the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.
- Islam, too, spread quickly.
- Islam split into two groups, the Sunnis and the Shias.
- The Sharia, Islamic law, saw no distiction between religion and daily life.
- In Christian Europe, the Bible and commentaries on it were the main sources of revealed knowledge.
- However, Roman law predated the founding of Christianity and persisted afterward so a Christian counterpart to the Sharia never evolved.
- In Western Europe two systems of law developed: civil law for lay matters and canon law for church matters.
- The popes, in principle, had no legal force over rulers and rulers had no legal force over the church.
- Popes, however, could and did excommunicate rulers, while rulers could and did depose popes through military force.
- Albert the Great
(Albertus Magnus in Latin) (p. 121)
- Born in Bavaria (now part of Germany)
- Dominican (mendicant)
- Franciscans and Dominicans were the main early mendicant friars
- Unlike monks in monasteries, the mendicants ventured our into the world
- Love Offerings are a modern form a funding similar religious work
- University of Paris (now Sorbonne)
- Albert was a Dominican assigned to the faculty of the University of Paris
- Thomas Aquinas was his student (see below)
- Translated all of Aristotle into Latin
- Remember, the works of Aristotle were latecomers to Europe
- One of the first empiricists of his era
- Observed natural phenomena
- Collected specimens
- Was able to do so because of his reputation
- Theology should be separate from natural philosophy (e.g., science)
- First to separate theology from philosophy (in his era, and prominent enough to get away with it)
BORDER WITH BIOLOGY: MEDICINE AND OPTICS (p. 122)
- During the Middle Ages biology also developed as a borderland for a yet-to-emerge psychology.
- Two specific biological areas that developed early were medicine and optics.
- The practice of medicine in Europe during the Middle Ages deserved the adjective “medieval.”
- Physicians routinely bled patients with leeches, prescribed herbs as medicines, and prayed for divine intercession.
- Women, too, were physicians, especially before the founding of faculties of medicine in the universities.
- Women also served as midwives and nurses.
- Later, women who provided medicines or made diagnoses were branded as witches; many paid with their lives by being burned at the stake.
- The newly minted male doctors from the universities also contributed to the exclusion of women as Ehrenreich and English (2010, p. 31) pointed out:
- "The other side of the suppression of witches as healers was the creation of a new male medical profession, under the protection and patronage of the ruling classes. This new European medical profession played an important role in the witch hunts, supporting the witches’ persecutors with “medical” reasoning.
- Scientific approaches to medicine did not begin until the 17th century."
- The study of optics had a long history too.
- The Islamic natural philosopher Alhazen was the first to persuasively argue that the eye must be receiving information as light and analyzing it after refracting it through the lens of the eye (Dallal, 1999).
- Roger Bacon (1214–1292), an English Franciscan friar, added much to the study of optical phenomena including measuring the maximum angle of a rainbow (42°) and experimenting with pinhole images (Hackett, 2007).
- Bacon was one of the first European thinkers to combine logical analysis with empirical observations and manipulations as a method of study.
- Medicine would continue to develop slowly and become more scientific.
- The study of optics first led to progress in physics, not psychology.
- The psychological aspects of light—in vision and perception—began to be understood in the middle of the19th century (see Chapter 7).
- Dominican
- Eventually went to the University of Paris, was Albert the Great's student
- Helped settle the Averroist's "two truths" issue (he argued for one truth) (see above, too)
- Saw no conflict between revelation and philosophy
- But, philosophy could never disagree with theology
- Philosophy could not support or confirm theological issues such as the nature of Trinity.
- Some "truths" had to be accepted on faith
- Metaphysics trumped philosophy for Aquinas
- Used philosophy not theology to refute religious arguments
- He reconciled Christian faith with Aristotelian logic
- Perverse effect, however: Led to codification of Aristotle, not to science as we know it
- Dogma now included Scripture AND Aristotle!
- How many teeth in a horse's mouth? Illustrates scholastic thinking
- It would take many years and much personal sacrifice before European thinkers could address empirical issues without fear of the Catholic Church. (see chapter 7)
- Examples of Aristotle's "Facts":
- Earth was center of the universe
- Heavier objects fell faster than lighter ones
- Arrows only travelled in straight lines: /\ (no parabolas)
- Thanks to Aquinas, Aristotle's old data become part of the Catholic Church's dogma
- William of Ockham ("Occam" often) (p. 124)
- Franciscan (another mendicant order)
- Never completed his theological training
- Had to go to Avignon for over four years to undergo trial
- Got in trouble with pope
- Could Franciscans choose not to own property? (Yes, according to Scripture)
- Pope did not like answer
- Fled to Munich
- Died of Black Plague (see below)
- Ockham's Razor
- Similar to Morgan's Canon (see chapter 7)
- Basically, Ockham's Razor "cuts away" any unnecessary explanation
- Example: the dog who could tell time. The man's dog always showed up at 4 pm at the factory gate and walked home with him. Could the dog really tell time? Not likely. But, a 3:50 pm, Monday through Friday the factory whistle blew. Maybe the dog had learned to use that cue to walk to the factory (e.g., some kind of conditioning, see chapter 7)
- Helped open the door to secularism
- His writings emphasize Aristotle, argued against universals, no "humanity" instead 7 to 8 billion individual people instead
IDEA: Ockham's Razor-the modern interpretation of "entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily" revolves around explanatory simplicity, sometimes called the "Law of Parsimony." In modern science this means using the minimum amount of explanation necessary. So, if two theories each adequately explain a set of phenomena, modern scientists will accept the simpler theory.
IDEA: secularism-the search for explanation within the confines of the world and its reality combined with a rejection or diminishment of revealed or otherwordly concepts.
IDEA: Humanism-the study and application of wordly knowledge for and about secular concerns instead of sacred ones, especially as applied to art and literature. Humanism was inspired by a renewed reverence for classical thinking especially that of Plato and the Neo-Platonists.
THE RISE OF HUMANISM
(p. 125)
- Old texts (Greek and Roman) discovered
- Language and knowledge (Cicero)
IDEA: Philology-the study of texts with the goal of determining authorship, priority, authenticity, and relationship to other texts. The term originally meant love of learning. Today the term "linguistics" has largely replaced it.
- Adapting to new lands, peoples, and technologies
- Reaction to Medievalism (e.g., Scholasticism)
- Urbanism
- Gradual switch from Latin to vernaculars (e.g., English, French, German, Polish, etc.)
- Language over philosophy
- Grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, history, and poetry = Humanism
Secular Humanism
- Original humanists were devout believers
- Modern humanists may argue against religious beliefs
- Humanities need not be divorced from religion
- Printing press and humanism
- Printing presses everywhere (like web servers today)
- In class I ask if they have ever noticed new menus at a restaurant. Then I ask why the new menus? The answer is usually the prices are now higher :-)
- More: Most businesses now have web pages and QR codes
- See if you can read this QR code (don't worry if you cannot). It says: "This is an example of a QR code"
- New World and humanism
- Newly discovered peoples were NOT Christians, Moslems, or Jews
- But, they were people
- They could be converted
- Oratory re-emphasized (law and business)
- Early origins of Reformation
- Moral Philosophy (precursor to the Social Sciences)
- New look at biology, geology, and psychology
- Astronomy an exception (see next chapter)
- Petrarch
(p. 128)
- Italian
- Studied law at University of Bologna
- Cleric (not a priest)
- Gave him an income and free time
- Moral philosopher
- Discovered Cicero's letters
- Struck by quality of the Latin and sagacity of his exposition of pagan ideas
- Against Scholasticism
- People should live simply
- Need not be so tied to logic
- Reintroduced Pagan ideas but in Christian guise
- Introduced:
- Alienation
- Personal Autonomy
- Urbanity
- Usefulness of Solitude
- All still topics in psychology
- Set stage for the Renaissance
- Some call him the father of the Renaissance
- Separaration of moral philosophy from natural philosophy
HUMANISM AND SCIENCE (p. 129)
- Humanism changed philosophy
- Scholasticism passed its high water mark
- Neo-Platonic revival
- Ficino translated Plato's works
- Fusion philosopher
- Humanities and Science each require:
- Generality
- Precision
- Accuracy
- But few disciplines achieve all three
- Modern psychology has two sides
- Scientific
- Humanistic
- APA Logo
- The Psi character is sharp and angular on one side and curved and smooth on the other
- The sharp angular side represents science and the curved smooth side represents practice
THE BLACK PLAGUE (p. 131)
- First pandemic (compare to influenza in 1918 and Covid)
- Began in 1348
- About 1/3 died
- Yersinia pestis was the vector
- Buboes
- symptom
- death followed soon
- Profound sociological effects
- depopulation
- communities disrupted
- opportunies opened
- Pogroms
- Out groups blamed
- Jews persecuted by Christians and Moslems
- Still around but controllable
BORDER WITH COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE: NUMERALS (p. 132)
- The introduction and spread of the Hindu-Arabic numerals in Europe changed the European mindset.
- Ancient and first used in India, they spread westward through the Islamic world, entered Christian Europe through Spain, and were widely used in commerce before being adopted for widespread general and academic use by the 17th century (Smith & Karpinski, 1911).
- Before the use of Hindu-Arabic numerals became common they had to displace the counting board, or abacus.
- The use of Hindu-Arabic numerals was championed by the Italian mathematician, Leonardo of Pisa or Fibonacci (1170–1250).
- His book, Liber Abaci, provided the common pencil-and-paper algorithms still in use for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing numbers.
- Printing was the final impetus for their use and standardization.
- The use of Hindu-Arabic numerals greatly accelerated the progress of mathematics in Christian Europe. Previously, mathematics was at a more advanced state in the Islamic world.
ASTRONOMY (p. 132)
- Important to both Christians and Moslems
- Christians: calculate the date for Easter (a moveable feast)
- Moslems: orient the mosque toward Mecca
- Becomes the first science and leads to a new worldview
- Leaves its "handmaiden" status
- In other words, astronomy for its own sake, not as servant of religion
- Also, Hindu-Arabic numerals, printing, and collection of astronomical data were precursors to science
- Astronomy led to large-scale conflicts between empiricism and religion (see Chapter 7)
- New instruments
IDEA: empiricism-the view that holds that knowledge comes from experience.
EMPIRICISM (p. 133)
- Ancient philosophers were empirical as were ancient physicians
- Faith displaced empiricisms in both Christian and Islamic worlds
- Makes its reappearance in late Middle Ages in Europe
- But, it would take many years before it again became a safe doctrine to espouse (see chapters 7 and 8)
- Boxes
- Religious and civil law
- Revealed knowledge important to Christians and Moslems
- No separation in Islam
- Roman law predated Christianity
- Led to two law systems in Europe
- Canon Law for church matters
- Civil Law for lay matters
- Technically, Pope had no jurisdiction over rulers (but could excommunicate them)
- Medicine and Optics
- Biology begins to carve out parts from philosophy
- Medicine
- "medieval" good adjective
- bleeding
- herbs
- divine intercession
- Women as physicians, midwives, and nurses
- Boxed out after universities founded
- Old riddle: A man and his son are in a terrible accident and are rushed to the hospital in critical care. The doctor looks at the boy and exclaims "I can't operate on this boy, he's my son!" How could this be? (answer at bottom of page)
- Optics
- Extromissive theories
- Intromissive theories
- Alhazan and Roger Bacon first studied optics scientifically
- Led to progress in physics first
- Became issue in psychology in 19th Century
- Humanism and Science
- End of Scholasticism
- Replaced by Neo-Platonic revival
- Hierarchical view of Universe
- Humans as shapers of their own destiny
- Early science forces changes
- Mathematics and Mechanism
- Split between moral and natural philosophy
- Cosmic forces, no shaping of destiny
- Today
- Both are important and dependent on each other
- Both believe that generality, precision, and accuracy are important
- Difficult for any discipline to achieve all three
- Numerals (e.g., MMXXIV vs. 2024)
- Hindu-Arabic numerals
- Ancient
- Entered Europe via Spain
- Displaced abacus
- First used in commerce
- Printing promoted their use
- Accelerated the progress of science
- Fibonacci
- Learned them as a child in Africa
- Wrote Liber Abaci
- Created arithmetical paper-and-pencil algorithms still in use
SUMMARY
- The earliest philosophers were thoroughgoing materialists; they wanted to explain how the universe worked.
- The Greek medical doctors were materialists and empiricists.
- After Plato, however, much of Greek philosophy became idealistic.
- Neo-Platonic philosophers revived Plato’s idealism. They, along with Jewish thinkers and philosophers, were very comfortable with idealist notions such as the Forms and the soul.
- The early Christian movement had little use for materialist philosophy.
- In Europe, around 600 ce, however, the Christian Idealists had won the day, thanks to Augustine’s writings.
- Islam arose in Arabia and spread quickly and gave primacy to revealed knowledge.
- The so-called Dark Ages evinced a universal repudiation of materialism and empiricism.
- In Islam, fundamentalism snuffed out any independent and secular philosophical traditions.
- In Christian Europe, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas established the independence of philosophy.
- Aquinas purged Aristotle’s works of any and all items that did not conform to Christian doctrine.
- The long-term effects of the relationship between religion and philosophy in both cultures were enormous and far-reaching.
- In Europe, philosophy gave rise to science and technology.
- In the islamic world, a long and gradual indepebdebt intellectual decline began.
- In Europe astronomical science led to a revolution in thought and to the earliest manifestations of science.
- Islam’s built-in resistance to change prevented a similar move toward science and its empirical methods.
- Humanism arose in the 14th century as a response to Scholasticism.
- Humanists were inspired by classic Roman and Greek writers.
- Humanists concentrated on language and its evolution over time.
- The invention of the printing press gave Humanism a tremendous boost.
Riddle Answer: The doctor is his mother! So, the tradition of excluding women from medicine lives on...
GLOSSARY
- humorism: the belief that health was maintained by a balance of the four humors: blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm.
- dualism: the philosophical idea that there are two types of phenomena, usually described as mental (mind) or physical (body).
phenomenology: the philosophical system that examines conscious experience itself directly, intentionally, and from one’s own point of view.
- exegesis: the critical analysis of texts.
- Monasticism: the lifestyle of Christian men and women who chose to live in single-gender religious communities and devote their time to work and prayer.
- Scholasticism: the dominant mode of thought in Christian Europe during the Middle Ages that attempted to reconcile faith and reason using scripture and recovered Aristotelian sources.
- nominalism: the belief that universals are cognitive categories of mind, not rigid relationships between universals and particular events.
- realism: the belief that universals are real entities and possess physical existence.
- trivium: the basic curriculum of the medieval university consisting of the three courses: grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
- quadrivium: the advanced curriculum of the medieval university consisting of the four courses: arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy.
- Ockham’s Razor: the modern interpretation of “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily” revolves around explanatory simplicity, sometimes called the “Law of Parsimony.” In modern science this means using the minimum amount of explanation necessary. So, if two theories each adequately explain a set of phenomena, modern scientists will accept the simpler theory.
- secularism: the search for explanation within the confines of the world and its reality, combined with a rejection or diminishment of revealed or otherworldly concepts.
- Humanism: the study and application of worldly knowledge for and about secular concerns instead of sacred ones, especially as applied to art and literature. Humanism was inspired by a renewed reverence for classical thinking, especially that of Plato and the Neo-Platonists.
- philology: the study of texts with the goal of determining authorship, priority, authenticity, and relationship to other texts. The term originally meant love of learning. Today the term linguistics has largely replaced it.
- empiricism: the view that holds that all knowledge comes from experience, especially from sensory experience.
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