Medievalists Flashcards
What years does the middle ages incorporate?
About 1100-1600AD, but goes further back.
When were the dark ages?
600 AD onwards for the Western world, there are very little records. Much more from Islamic countries. Then ideas moved back into the west!
When did St Augustine live?
354-430 AD.
Describe the life of St Augustine.
Algerian, born to Christian mother and pagan father. Followed Manichaeism. Had an interesting life - many sexual partners and at least one son by a concubine. Later converted to Christianity.Wrote that sin is disordered love, and is inevitable.
What is Manichaeism?
A religion based on the writings of Mani primarily known for its striking dualism between light and dark (we are both, can do both). Souls are particles of light that have become trapped in a dark physical world
What is the sensible world?
World of senses - private and transitionary, governed by desire
What is the intelligible world?
Public, eternal. Humans can find unity and avoid transitory nature of sensible world
What is the soul?
From Greek tradition - what makes us living Immaterial and immortal
What is Augustine’s psychology of the soul and senses?
Cognitive capacity begins with senses and goes up to reason Hierachy of senses based on publicity - smell and taste at bottom, hearing and vision at top Inner sense collates and passes judgement on information acquired by other senses Reason above senses and inner sense
Origins and development of the soul - Augustine
Soul is given by God for the sake of God No isolated soul, only in relation with God Development of soul is to work out its identity with God Free to define soul without God but this will ultimately fail
What was St Augustine the first to do?
Use empirical observation of children and case studies to attempt to understand human nature.
What was St Augustine’s idea of the wilful child?
A baby begins to have wishes and communicates them - they get angry when they don’t get what they want, and cry. Children desire to control adults.
What was St Augustine’s idea of the sinful mind?
Everything is seen as a source of instant gratification. Anger, greed and jealousy are all important. Personality traits don’t actually change. Human nature is essentially sinful
What is key to St Augustine’s theory?
The idea of original sin - that we have no free will to abstain from sin except through God’s grace (hence the need for baptism, without which one can’t go to Heaven).
What did St Augustine think about Plato?
He was correct in that:• god is not anything material• all things have their being through god• god is immutable• perception is not a source of truth• the sensible world is inferior to the eternal• there are things that can be discovered by reason alone.All other knowledge, if it is to be true, must be based on religious writings.
What did Augustine introduce to understanding of motivation and behaviour?
Christian ideas of will (avoiding sin) and purpose (serving God)
What did Augustine believe about reason?
Reason should dominate baser urges Inner reason is more important than sensory impresssion for achieving an understanding of God and his creation.
When did Ibn Sina live?
980-1037 AD.
Where did Ibn Sina live?
Persia.
What were Ibn Sina’s most important works?
The book of healing - scientific encyclopaedia
The canon of medicine.
What did Ibn Sina’s work discuss?
Reason and reality.
What did Ibn Sina claim about God?
That God is pure intellect and that knowledge consists of the mind grasping the intelligible. Both reason and logic are required,
What was Ibn Sina’s psychology an extension of?
Aristotle’s facultative psychology.
What kind of souls did Ibn Sina distinguish between?
Plants, animals, then humans - vegetative soul, sensitive soul, rational soul.
What does Ibn Sina’s idea of the rational soul involve?
Two processes: divine guidance and reason
Divine guidance - ability to know things without having to feel or sense them
Reason - creates knowledge through processing of perceptions
Describe the sensitive soul
Animal
Two main senses - exterior and interior
Exterior = five senses
Interior = picturing power, remember-reserving power, imaginative power, conjecturing power
Describe the vegetative soul
Plants
Has three main powers: reproduction, growth and nourishment
These three powers are essential to exist - given by divine providence
When did St Thomas Aquinas live?
1225-1274.
Describe the life of St Thomas Aquinas.
Educated in Benedictine Abbey at Cassino and University of Naples. Became a Dominican monk at 17,
What were St Thomas Aquinas’ opinions of Aristotle and Plato?
Had a thorough understanding of Aristotle, disliked Plato. Used the Aristotlean argument for existence of God - God is the unmoved mover.
What did Aquinas challenge?
The Augustinian acceptance of Plato
Aquinas and Aristotle’s philosophy
Adopted Aristotle’s philosophy - demonstrated that it is not in conflict with Catholicism
A person’s ability to reason about the world of Nature and God is limited by Aristotlean empiricism to nature
Did Aquinas follow the nature or nurture scheme of thought?
Nurture - we have no innate beliefs and knowledge about the world.
What did Aquinas state that all thinking requires?
Imagination - that’s the key difference between humans and animals.
What did Aquinas say about the soul?
Soul is united to the body
Soul is immortal, body is not
There is only one soul (unlike Ibn Sina)
Soul is created new by God with each man
What are the problems with Aquinas’ views on the soul?
Birth out of wedlock - why would God involve Himself in sin?
Original Sin - if each soul created new, how is it passed on?
How can God be known according to Aquinas?
Through attempts to understand his creation
How does Aquinas say we can gain knowledge of God?
Through a combination of introspection and reason - not either alone
Thomistic Thoughts on Science
Faith alone provides an insufficient account of world - account must also be open to scrutiny by reason
If knowledge based on faith alone fails tests of reason then it is not true
When did Roger Bacon live?
1219-1294.
Who was Roger Bacon?
Franciscan monk
Aristotlean
What did Bacon first introduce into Western thought?
Scientific empiricism
Described repeating cycle of observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and need for independent verification
Purpose to further understanding of God
What was Bacon’s hierachy of knowledge?
Distinguished between three ways of acquiring knowledge:
Authority, Reason, and Experience
Explain authority, reason and experience
Authority - belief but not understanding
Reason - understanding but canot detect between truth and things that appear to have truth
Experience - through the senses and divine illumination
What were Bacon’s three functions of science?
Experimental support/refuting theoretical claims aids in process of attaining doubt free knowledge
Provide observations and instruments to assist in the development of other sciences
Investigate secrets of nature (e.g. understanding antidotes, technologies for warfare)
What did Bacon believe about happiness?
Goal of human life is happiness
Philosophy and faith needed to attain happiness
Stems from:
Moral practice in relation to God, towards neighbours and towards one’s self - pursuit of virtue
When did William of Ockham live?
1290-1350.
Who was William of Ockham?
A Franciscan monk, little known about him. May have been brought before the pope in Avignon to face charges of heresy. Eventually fled to Bavaria after a dispute with Dominicans about Franciscan poverty.
What aspects of William of Ockham’s ideas live on today?
Occam’s razor and Nominalism
Outline the premise of Occam’s razor.
The theory that has the most parsimonious explanation is likely to be true
Theories with fewer assumptions are preferred over more complex theories
What issues are there with Occam’s razor?
Does not guarantee truth of outcome
Does not help choose between equally simple, competing hypotheses
Sometime difficult to identify the simplest solution
Some systems might be inherently complex
Background to Nominalism
Occam proposed third way between scepticism and meta-physical realism
What is scpeticism?
The world is in a constant state of change and flux - therefore how can we be certain of anything
What is meta-physical realism?
There is a universal essence that underlies the changing and varying structure we perceive
What is nominalism?
No universal exists outside the mind - universals do not have a corresponding reality
What is a universal?
An intention of the mind - a symbol representing several objects of a kind
Mental symbols created from sense-impressions of objects
Symbols represent reality but they are subjective
