by Bridges, Oxford, 1897), and in the form of
extracts
in his Opus Minus (ed.
Windelband - History of Philosophy
)
Karl Werner, Der hi. Thomas von Aquino. 3 vols. , Regensburg, 1858 ft
Karl Werner, Die Scholastik des spateren Mittelalters. 3 vols. , Vienna, 1881 ft
The felt need for real knowledge, which mastered Western science after the first enthusiasm for dialectic was past, was very soon to find a satisfaction of unsuspected extent. Contact with the Oriental civilisation which at first maintained itself victoriously against the shock of the Crusades, disclosed to the peoples of Europe new worlds of intellectual life. Arabian, and in its train Jewish, science ' made their entry into Paris. They had preserved the tradition of Greek thought and knowledge more immediately and more completely than had the cloisters of the West. A stronger and richer stream of scientific material poured over Bagdad and Cordova than over Rome and York. But the former brought not much more that was new with it than did the latter. Rather, as regards thoughts which dis cover or establish principles, the Oriental philosophy of the Middle Ages is still poorer than the European. Only, in the breadth and quantity of tradition, in the compass of learned material and in the extent of information in matters of science, the East was far superior, and these treasures now passed over into the possession of the Christian peoples.
From the point of view of philosophy, however, the matter of chief importance was that Parisian science became acquainted not
1 The author believes that he may and ought to decline to give a full exposi tion of the Arabian and Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages — ought to, in so far as he is here in great part excluded from penetrating to the original sources, and would therefore find himself forced to reproduce others' expositions at second hand, — may , however, because that which passed over with fructifying influence into European science from this large literature — and it is only this element that could be treated in this presentation of the development of philos ophy as a whole — is found to be, with very small exceptions, the spiritual possession of antiquity, of the Greek or the Hellenistic philosophy. On this account there will be given only a brief survey of the Arabian and Jewish phi losophy in the Middle Ages, which will be found at the close of the introductory material of this chapter, pp. 310-318.
310
-v*?
Chap. 2. ]
only with the entire logic of Aristotle, but also with all parts of his philosophy that furnished material knowledge. By this "new logic " fresh blood was infused into the already dying dialectic, and while the task of rationally expounding the view of the world held by faith was attacked anew and with a matured technique of thought, there was presented at the same time an almost immeasurable mate rial for arrangement in the metaphysico-religious system.
Mediaeval thought showed itself abundantly ready for the problem thus enhanced, and solved it under the after-working of the impres sion of that most brilliant period in the development of the papacy which Innocent III. had brought about. The Neo-Platonic-Arabian Aristotelianism, which at the first, with its naturalistic consequences, seemed only to strengthen the rationalistic courage of dialectic to victorious pride, was mastered with admirable swiftness and bent to the service of the system of the Church. This, indeed, was possible only in a form in which the intellectualistic elements of Augustinian thought and those allied to Neo-Platonism gained a decided pre
ponderance in this now completely systematic development of a philosophy conformed to the doctrine of faith. In this way was completed an adjustment and arrangement of world-moving thoughts upon the largest and most imposing scale that history has seen, and that, too, without the. creative activity of any properly new philosophical principle as its impulse toward the formation of a system. The intellectual founder of this system was Albert of Boll- stadt. It owes its organic completion in all directions, its literary codification, and thus its historical designation, to Thomas Aquinas, and finds its poetical exposition in Dante's Divine Comedy.
But while Hellenistic science and Christian faith seemed to be brought into complete harmony in Thomism, the opposition between them broke forth at once all the more violently. Under the influ ence of Arabian doctrines, the pantheism involved in the logical consequence of Realism from being potential became actual in ex tended circles, and immediately after Thomas, his fellow-Domin ican, Master Eckhart, developed scholastic intellectualism to the heterodoxy of an idealistic Mysticism.
Hence it is comprehensible that Thomism also encountered the resistance of a Platonic-Augustinian tendency, which indeed gladly adopted the increase in the knowledge of Nature (as had been the t-^w VWore) and thp perfection of the logical apparatus, but put aside the intellectualistic metaphysics and developed all the mure energetically the opposite elements of AuKustinianism.
This tendency reached its full strength in the acutest and deepest thinker of the Christian Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, who brought the
Second Period. 311
312 Mediaeval Philo»ophy. [Part ILL
germs of the philosophy of the will, contained in Augustine's system, to their first important development, and so from the meta physical side gave the impulse for a complete change in the direc tion of philosophical thought. With him religious and scientific interests, whose fusion had begun in the Hellenistic philosophy, begin to separate.
The renewal of Nominalism, in which the intellectual movement of the last century of the Middle Ages culminated in an extremely interesting combination, led to the same result with still more last ing force. Dialectic, which had anew obtained the mastery and was flaunting itself in various disputations, developed in its text books on logic the Aristotelian schematism. This was worked out especially on the grammatical side, and there developed to a theory which attached the doctrine of judgment and the syllogism to the view that regarded the concepts {termini) as subjective signs for really existing individual things. This Terminism became united in William of Occam with the naturalistic tendencies of the Arabian- Aristotelian theory of knowledge, and these combined combated
Realism, which had been maintained alike in Thomism and Scotism. But Terminism also became united with the Augustinian doctrine of the will into a powerful individualism, with the beginnings of the empirical psychology which studied the history of develop ment, to a kind of idealism of the inner experience, and with the natural investigation which was conquering wider and wider territory, to an empiricism that was to be fruitful in the future. Thus under the scholastic covering were sprouting the germs of new thought.
Here and there in this extremely diversified movement men still vainly appear with the confidence that they can create a rational system of religious metaphysics, and finally a man of the signifi cance of Nicolaus Cusamis sought vainly to force all these elements of a new secular science back under the power of a half scholastic, half mystic intellectualism : it was just from his system that those elements exercised an influence upon the future, that was all the stronger because of his work.
The reception of Aristotle falls in the century 1160-1260 (for this topic see principally the work of A. Jourdain, cited p. 273). It began with the more val uable parts of the Organon, hitherto unknown 'veins — nova logica), and pro ceeded to the metaphysical, physical, and ethical books, always accompanied by the introduction of the Arabian explanatory writings. The Church slowly admitted the new logic, although dialectic was again set in fluctuation thereby ; for it soon became convinced that the new method which was introduced with the aid of the doctrine of the syllogism, was advantageous for presenting its own teachings.
This scholastic method in the proper sense is as follows : a text used a* the basis for discussion is broken up by division and explanation into a number of propositions ; questions are attached and the possible answers brought to
Cuat. 2. ] Second Period. 813
gether finally the arguments to be adduced for -establishing or refuting these answers are presented in the form of chain of syllogistic reasoning, leading ultimately to decision upon the subject.
This scheme was first employed by Alexander of Halea (died 1245) in his Summa Univerta; Theologicc, with mastery which was far superior to the mode of treatment of the earlier Summists in wealth of contents, clearness of development, and definiteness of results, and was scarcely surpassed even later.
An analogous change in method was worked out with regard to the material in the encyclopedias of natural science by Vincent of Beauvaia (Vincentius Bellovacensis, died about 1265), by his Speculum Quadruple! , and Johannes Ki'lanza. called Bonaventura (1221-1274), did the same work for the doctrines of Mysticism, especially those of the Victorines. Among Bonaventura's works the Reductio Artium ad Theologiain especially characteristic. Cf. K. Werner, Die Psychologic und Erkenntnisslehre ties B. (Vienna, 1876).
The Church proceeded in a much more hesitating manner in regard to Aris totle's Metaphysics and Physics, because these made their entrance in intimate connection with Averroism, and because this latter theory had developed to open pantheism the Neo-Platonic Mysticism which had never been entirely forgotten since Scotus Erigena. As the defenders of such system appear Amalrich of Bena near Chartres, and David of Dinant. about 1200, concern ing whose doctrines we are informed only by later writers, especially Albert and Thomas. With the widely extended sect of the Amalricans, which, after the Lateran council of 1216, was persecuted with fire and sword, the " Eternal
Gospel" of Joachim Floris was also connected. Cf. on this J. N. Schneider (Dttlingen, 1873).
The judgment of condemnation passed upon the Averroistic Pan-psychism (cf. {27) applied at first to Aristotle also. It the service of the two men- dicant orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, to have broken this connec tion, and to have brought over the power of the Church to the recognition of the Peripatetic system. By a long conflict, which frequently wavered this way and that, they succeeded In founding two chairs of the Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Paris, and finally in having them taken into the faculty (cf. Kaufmann, Gesch. d. Univ. , 276 ft. ). Aft«r this victory in 1264, respect for Aristotle rose fast, until he became the highest philosophical authority. He was praised as the forerunner of Christ in matters of Nature as was John the Baptist in matters of grace, and from this time on Christian science (like Averrofis) held bitn to be in such sense the incarnation of scientific truth, that in the following literature he often cited only as " Philosophus. "
The doctrine of the Dominicans, which has remained until the present time the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, was created by Albert and Thomas. Albert of Bollatadt (Albertus Magnus) was born 1103 at Lauingen in Swabia, studied in Padua and Bologna, taught in Cologne and Paris, became
Bishop of Regensburg, and died in Cologne in 1280. His writings consist for the most part of paraphrases and commentaries upon Aristotle aside from the Summa his Botany is particularly of independent value (De Vegetabilibus, Lihri VII. ed. by Meyer and Jessen. Berlin, 1867). Cf. J. Sighart, Al. Mag. sein l-ebcn und seine Wissenschafl (Regensburg, 1867 v. Hertling, Al. Mag.
J. Bach, Al.
Italy,
TrrtlaU idei Catholica- contra gentiles (Summa contra gentiles). The treatise De Rcgimine Principum belongs to him only In part. From the very copious literature concerning him, the following may be named Ch. Jourdain, La Philosophic deSt. Th. (Paris, 1H68); Z. Gonzalez, Studien uber die Philns. de*. hi. Th. v. A. , translated from the Spanish by Nolte (Regensburg, 1886); R. Eoeken, Die Phllos. d. Th. r. A. und die CnUus der Xeuzcit (Halle, 188»l);
und die Wissenschafl seiner Zeit (in Hist. -pol. Blatter, 1874)
Mag. (Vienna, 1888). Roccasicca, Lower Thomas) of Aquino, born 1225 or 27 in
was edu cated at first in the cloister Monte Cassino, famous of old for study in natural •cience, then in Naples. Cologne, and Paris. After this he taught alternately at these universities and also at Rome and Bologna, and died, 1274, in cloister near Terracina. Besides minor treatises, his works contain commentaries on Aruuotle, on the Liber de Causis and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and In addition to these, principally the Snmma Theologirr and the treatise De
rtohschammer. Die Philosophic de* Th. v. A. (Leips. 1880).
A
:
a
;
;
a
i ;
;
is
I.
a
is
is
a
a
a
;
■".
314 Mediaeval Philosophy. [Paf. t lit
The philosophical importance of Dante Alighieri has heen best recognised among his editors by Fhilalethes in the commentary on his translation of the Divina Commedia. 3esides his great world-poem, the treatise De Monorchia should not be forgotten in a philosophical consideration. Cf. A. F. Ozanam, D. el la Philosophie Catholique au 13"" Steele (Paris, 1845); G. Baur, Boeihius und Dante (Leips. 1873).
Interest in other Thoinists, whose number is great, is only literary -historical .
To the Dominican Order belonged also the father of German Mysticism. Master Eckhart, a younger contemporary of Thomas. Born in the middle of the thirteenth century, probably in Saxony, at about 1300 he was Professor of Philosophy in Paris, became then Provincial of his Order for Saxony, lived for a time in Cologne and Strassburg, and died during the painful discussions con cerning the orthodoxy of his doctrine in 1329. The extant writings (collected by F. Pfeiffer, II. Leips. 1867) are principally sermons, tracts, and aphorisms. Cf. C. Ullman, Refurmatoren vor der Reformation, Vol. II. (Hamburg, 1842); W. Preger, Gesch'. d. dentschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leips. 1876, 1881) ; also the different editions and articles by S. Denifle. On Eckhart in particular, J. Bach, M. E. der Vater der dentschen Speculation (Vienna, 1864); A. Lasson, M. E. *r Mystiker (Berlin, 1868).
In its farther development German Mysticism branched into the heresies of the Beghards and of the " Friends of God " of Basle ; in the case of the former it led to the most radical connection with the Averroistic pantheism. It took the form of popular preaching with John Tauler at Strassburg (1300-1361), and of poetic song with Heinrich Sato of Constance (1300-1366). Its theoretical doctrines maintained themselves, while the heterodoxy was diminished, in the " German Theology" (first edited by Luther, 1616).
The Augustinian Platonic opposition against the suspected Aristotelianism of the Arabians has as its main supporters : —
William of Auvorgno, from Aurillac, teacher and Bishop in Paris, where he died in 1249, author of a work De Universo. He is treated by K. Werner, Die Philosophie des W. v. A. (Vienna, 1873).
Henry of Ghent (Henricus Gandavensis, Heinrich Goethals of Muda near Ghent, 1217-1293), the valiant defender of the primacy of the will against Thomism. Besides a theological compendium, he wrote a Summa QuaMionum
Ordinarium, and principally Quodlibeta Theologica. Cf . K. Werner, H. v. G. als Jieprdsentant des chrUtlichen Platonismus im 13 Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1878).
Richard of Middletown (R. de Mediavia, died 1300) and William de la Marre, the author of a violent Correctorium Fratris Thomm, may also be named here. In the following centuries an Augustinian theology proper main tained itself by the side of Thomism and Scotism. jEgydius of Colonna is regarded as its leader (Mg. Romanus, 1247-1316). Cf. K. Werner, Schol. d. spat. M. -A. , III.
The sharpest opposition to Thomism grew out of the Franciscan order. Roger Bacon's was a mind fruitfully stimulating in all directions, but not appearing in a fixed and definite form in any one of them. He was born in 1214, near Ilchester, educated in Oxford and Paris, several times persecuted on account of his occupations and theories, which were directed in the line of natural research, protected only for a time by Pope Clement IV. . and died soon after 1292. His doctrines are embodied in the Opus Mains (ed.
by Bridges, Oxford, 1897), and in the form of extracts in his Opus Minus (ed. by Brewer, Iiond. 1869). Cf. E. Charles, R. B. , sa vie, ses outrages, ses doctrines (Paris, 1861), and K. Werner, in two articles on his psychology, theory of knowledge, and physics (Vienna, 1879).
Duns Scotus. His home (Ireland or Northumberland) and the year of his birth, which was about 1270, are not certainly known. At first a scholar and teacher in Oxford, he then won high reputation at Paris, where he was active after 1304, and in 1308 moved to Cologne, where he died soon after his arrival —all too early. The edition of his works prepared by his Order (12 vols. , Lyons, 1639) contains, besides the genuine writings, much that is not genuine or that has been worked over, and especially transcripts of his disputations and
The most important thinker of the Christian Middle Ages was Johannes
CaA*. 2. ] Second Period. 815
lectures. To the latter belongs the so-called Opus Pnriritnte, which forms a com mentary upon the Sentences of the Lombard. The Questioned Quodlibctalcs have a similar origin. The Opus Ozoniense, the original commentary upon the Lom bard, is his own writing. Besides this there are his commentaries upon Aristo telian writings and some smaller treatises. His doctrine is expounded in Werner and Stockl. No exhaustive monograph, corresponding to his importance, exists.
Among his numerous adherents, Francis of Mayro, who died 1325, is the best known. The controversy between Thomists and Scotists was a very active one at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and brought many intermediate theories into the field ; but soon both parties had to make common cause in defence against Terminiam.
Among the logical school books of the later Scholasticism, the most influen tial was that of Petrua Hispanua, who died 1277 as Pope John XXI. His Summulce Logitales were a translation of a Byzantine-Greek text-book, the In*^i« tit tj)» 'KptarorfKovt Xoyutr)* tTivr^nvr by Michael Psellos (in the eleventh century ) . Imitating the processes in this latter treatise {ypdnimra fypa^t y/n- *iJt r«xrur6t ), the well-known barbarous mnemonic designations for the modes of the syllogism were Introduced in the Latin version (Barbara, eelarent, etc. ). Terminism, developed in the nominalistlc direction from this rhetorical and grammatical logic, contrasted itself as logiea moderna with the logica antiqua of the Realists, including both Scotists and Thomists under this latter title.
In the renewal of Nominalism we find William Durandus of St. Pour- cain, who died 133*2 as Bishop of Meaux, and Petrus Aureolus, who died at Paris, 1321, the former coming from Thomism, the latter from Kcotism. Much more important is William of Occam, the Abelard of the second period. With a broad and keen vision for reality, and with a bold, unresting eagerness for innovation, he unites in himself all the elements with the help of which the new science forced its way out of Scholasticism. Born in a village in the County of Surrey, trained under Duns Scotus, he became Professor at Paris, then took an active part in the conflicts of his time between Church and Stale by joining with Philip the Fair and Lewis of Bavaria in combating the papacy. ( Disputatio inter elericum et militem super potentate eeelesiastica pr<f latin atque ynnripihu* terrarum commissa, and the Defensorium against Pope John XXII. ), and died 1347 at Munich. There is no complete edition of his works, but the most important are : Summa Totius Logics, JCzpositio Aurea super Artem
Vetrrem, Quodlibeta Septem, Ctntilogium Theologicum, and a commentary on Peter Lombard. Cf. W. A. Schreiber, Die polititchen und religibsen Dortrinen nnter LuduHg dem Baier (Landshut, 1868). C. Prantl, Der UniversaUenstreit im dreixeAnten und vierxehnten Jahrhundtrt (Sitx. -Ber. der Miinchener Akad. , 1074). Occam, too, still waits his philosophically competent biographer.
Of the supporters of termlnistic Nominalism in the fourteenth century, Johannes Buridan, ltector of the University at Paris, and co-founder of that at Vienna, and Marsilius of Inghen, one of the first teachers at Heidelberg, are usually named. A union of mystical doctrines with the nominalislic rejection of metaphysics Is found in Pierre d'Ailly (Petrus de Alliaco, 1:160-1426), and in Juhannea Gerson (Charlier, 1363-1429).
The attempt at a purely rational exposition of Church doctrine in the interest of apologetics and propagation was made by Raymundua Lullus of Catalonia (1236-1315), who is principally known by his curious discover)' of the "Great Art. " that is, a mechanical device which by combining the fundamental concepts was intended to present the system of all possible cognitions. An extract from this may be found in J. K. Krdmann, History of Phil. , I. § 206 [Kng. tr. ed. by Hough]. His efforts were repeated in the fifteenth century by Raymund of Bllilinrla a Spanish physician, who taught in Toulouse and gained respect by his
ThetAogia Xaturalis (sire Liber Creaturarum). On him cf. I). Matzke (llreslau, 1M0); M. Huttler (Augsburg. 1861).
The philosophy of Iflcolaus Cusanua ( Nicolaus Chrypffs, born in Kues (Cum) war Trier, 1401, died as Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen, 1404), offers an inter esting comprehensive view of the intellectual condition of the departing Middle Ages. The main treatise bears the title De Dortn Ignorant ia (ed. In German together with his other most important writings by F. A. Scharpff, Freiburg i. B.
1882).
Cf. K. Falckenberg, Urundtugt der Philos. da \. *. C. (Brealau, 1880).
316 Medieval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
Brief Survey of the Arabian and Jewish Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
This period is certainly more interesting from a literary and historical point of view than from that of philosophy, and as yet no competent presentation of the period as a whole has been made. Nor has complete clearness been attained as yet by investigation, but from the literature concerning it the following are to be emphasised : —
Mohammed al Schahrestani, History of Religious and Philosophical Sect* among the Arabs (German by Haarbrlicker, Halle, 1860 f. ); A Schmolders, Documenta Philosophuz Arabum (Bonn, 1836), and Essai sur les Ecoles Phi- losophiqties chez les Ar. (Paris, 1842); Fr. Dieterici, Die Philosophie der Ar. im zehnten Jahrhundert (8 Hefte, Leips. 1866-76). Cf. also Hanimer-Purgstall, Oesch. der arabischen Litteratur.
S. Munk, Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859), and the same author's articles on the individual philosophers in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. [W. Wallace, Art. Arabian Phil, in Enc. Brit. , Utberweg, Krdmann. ]
M. Eisler, Vorlesungen Uber die, j'udischeu Philosophen des Miltelalters (3 vols. , Vienna, 1870-84) ; M. Jo61, Beitrage zur Oeschichte der Philosophic (Bres lau, 1876). Cf. also Furst's Bibliotheca Judaica, and histories of Judaism by Graetz and Geiger.
Close as the relations may be which the philosophy of the two civilised Semitic peoples sustained to their religious interests, Arabian science especially, owes its peculiar character to the circumstance that its founders and supporters were, for the most part, not members of the clergy, as in the West, but physi cians (cf. F. WUstenfeld, Oesch. der arab. Aerzte und Naturforscher, Gottingen,
Thus from the beginning the study of ancient medicine and natural science went on hand in hand with that of philosophy. Hippocrates and Galen were as much translated (in part through the medium of the Syrian. ) and read as were Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists. Hence in Arabian metaphysic* dialectic is always balanced by natural philosophy. But well as this was adapted to afford scientific thought a broader basis of knowledge of facts, we must not, on the other hand, overestimate the independent achievements of the Arabs in medicine and natural science. Here, too, mediaeval science is essentially learned tradition. The knowledge which the Arabs were later able to deliver to the
West had its origin, in the main, in the books of the Greeks. Nor did even experimental knowledge experience an essential extension through the Arabs' own work ; only in some fields, as, for example, chemistry and mineralogy and in some parts of medicine, e. g. physiology, do they appear more independent. In their method, however, in their principles by which they apprehend the uni verse, and in their entire system of philosophical conceptions, they stand, so far as our information on the subject reaches, entirely under the combined influence of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism ; and the same is true of the Jews. Nor can it be maintained that a national peculiarity becomes disclosed in their appro priation of this material. It is rather the case that this whole scientific culture was artificially grafted upon the Arabian civilisation, it can strike no true roots into it, and after a short period of bloom it withers away without vital force. In the history of science as a whole, its mission is only to give back in part to the development of the Western mind the continuity which the latter had itself temporarily lost.
From the nature of the case, the appropriation of ancient science in this case also was completed gradually and by working backward. Beginning with the Neo-Platonism which was still current in Syrian tradition, and which was received with sympathy on account of its religious colouring, the Arabian thinkers proceeded to ascend to the better sources ; but the consequence remained that they saw Aristotle and Plato through the spectacles of Plotinus and Proclus. During the rule of the Abassidse an active scientific life prevailed in Bagdad, stimulated especially by the Caliph Almamun at the beginning of the ninth century. The Neo-Platonists, the better commentators, almost the entire didactic writings of Aristotle, and the Republic, Laics, and Timirus of
1840).
Plato, were known in translations.
Chap: 3. ] Arabian and Jewish Philoiophy. 317
The first distinctly emerging personalities, Alkendi, who died about 870, and Alfarabi, who died 960, are scarcely to be distinguished in their teachings from the Neo-Platonic elucidators of Aristotle. A greater importance belongs to Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 080-1037), whose "Canon" became the fundamental book of medieval medicine in the West, as well as in the East, and who also txercised a powerful influence by his extremely numerous philosophical writ ings, especially his Metaphysics and Logic. His doctrine comes nearer again to pare Aristotelianism. and perhaps the nearest among all the Arabians.
But the extension of these philosophical views was regarded with jealous eyes by Mohammedan orthodoxy, and the scientific movement experienced so vio lent persecutions in the tenth century that it took refuge in tin- secret league of the *' Pure Brothers. " Avicenna himself was also persecuted. The above- named league embodied the extremely excellent compass of the knowledge of the time in a number of treatises (on this see above, Dieterici), which neverthe less, in contrast with Avicenna, seem to show a stronger leaning toward Neo- Platonism.
Of the scientific achievements of their opponents we know on the one hand the strange metaphysics of the orthodox Motekallemin. who, as against the' Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic view of Nature as a living whole, developed an extreme exaggeration of the sole causality of God, and resorted to a distorted Atomism in the greatest metaphysical embarrassment ; on the other hand, in the writings of Algazel (1069-1111, Dextructio Philosophorum) there appears a sceptical and mystical analysis of philosophy.
These latter tendencies won the victory in the Orient the more readily, as the spiritual exaltation of Mohammedanism quickly declined in that quarter. The continuance of Arabian science is to be sought in Andalusia, where Mohamme dan civilisation found its short after-bloom. Here, under freer conditions, philosophy developed to vigorous naturalism, which in turn bore a strongly
S'ro- Platonic stamp.
A characteristic exposition of the doctrine of knowledge in this philosophy is
f«und in the Conduct of the Solitary by Avempace, who died 1138, and similar thoughts culminate with Abubacer (Ibn Tophail, died 1186) in an interesting ounparisnn of natural with positive religion. The latter author's philosophi cal romance The l. iriny One, the Son of the Waking One, which sets forth the intellectual development of a man upon a lonely island, excluded from all his torical and social relations, was published in a Latin translation by Pocock as
niti. tr/phu* Autodidactus (Oxford, 1671 and 1700, — not twenty years before the *p|x>arance of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe! ) and in a German translation as /vr Saturmrnsch by Eichhom (Berlin, 1783).
But the most important and independent among Arabian thinkers was Averroe* who was born 1120 in Cordova, was for a time judge, and then {•hyician in ordinary to the Caliph, was driven afterward by religious perse cution to Morocco, and died in 1198. He treated in paraphrases and longer or
shorter commentaries, which were printed in the older editions of Aristotle, almost all the didactic writings of Aristotle, who was esteemed by him as the li nines t teacher of truth. Of his own works (Venice, 1663; some exist now niily in the Hebrew version) the refutation of Algazel, Drstrurtio Destructionis, is moot important. Two of his treatises on the relation of philosophy and the- ••logy have been published in (ierman translation by M. J. MUller (Munich, 1875). Cf. E. Kenan, Averrois et V Arerroisme (3d ed. , Paris. 1869).
With the expulsion of the Arabians from Spain traces of their philosophical activity are lost.
Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages is, in the main, an accompaniment ot the Arabian, and dependent upon it. The only-exception to this is the Cab bala, that fantastic secret doctrine whose fundamental outlines, which, to be sure, were later much elaborated, show the same peculiar amalgamation of Oriental mythology with ideas of Hellenistic science as does Christian Gnosti cism, and go back to the same period and to the same agitated condition of thought attendant upon the mingling of religions. Cf. A. Franck. Systhne de la Kabbale (Paris, 1848; German by Jellinek, Leips. 1844); H. Joel, Dim
Religionsphilosophie des Sohar (Leips. 1849). On the other hand, the main works of Jewish philosophy were originally written in Arabic, and not trans lated Into Hebrew until a relatively late time.
^v <y "^r
tion which forms the presupposition of their thought. In the CP earlier period all knowledge and thought had arranged itself, as it were, of its own accord within the system of relifripng mptnpTiygir-B •
and now there appeared by the side of this a powerful, finely articu lated, coherent body of thought which the age? thirsting after real contents in its barren dialectic, was ready to take up eagerly. The manifold relations between these two systems which mutually laid hold upon one another and interpenetrated, determine the scientific character of the last centuries of the Middle Ages, and the general course of the development was, that these antagonistic systems, starting from an attitude of abrupt opposition, strove toward recon ciliation and adjustment, only to diverge all the more violently after the goal seemed to have been reached. This course of things appeared as necessarily in the conception of the reciprocal relations of the different sciences, as in the view of the ultimate relations of things. In both lines the attempt at synthesis was followed by a separation that went all the deeper.
The religious thought of the West, whose highest problem had been to understand the working of divine grace, was confronted by Oriental philosophy in which the old Grecian philosophical tendency toward knowledge of Nature had at last attained metaphysical
318 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
The book of Saadjah Fajjumi (died 942), Concerning Religions and Philoso phies, which aims to furnish an apology for Jewish doctrine, is related to the earliest Arabian Aristotelianism, and still more closely to the free-thinking
Mohammedan theologians, the so-called Mutazilin. In the Neo-Platonic line we meet Avicebron (Ibn Gebirol, a Spanish Jew of the eleventh century), of whose Fons Vitas, Hebrew and Latin versions are extant. Moses Maimonidea (1135-1204) is regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. In his culture and doctrine be belongs to the phase of Arabian doctrine which has Averrogs as its centre. His main treatise, Ouide to the Perplexed (Doctor Perplexorum), has been published in Arabic and French with a com mentary by Munk (3 vols. , Paris, 1856-66) [Eng. tr. by Friedlander, Trtibner, Lond. l. The attachment to AverroSs is still closer in the case of Hereonides
(Levi ben Gerson, 1288-1344).
The Jews, by means of their widely extended mercantile relations, were the
chief contributors to the extension of Oriental philosophy in the West, by sale and translation ; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries especially their schools in Southern France formed the medium for this wide-reaching activity.
To the Arabian and Jewish literature, which was taken up by Christian science about 1200, belongs finally a number of pseudonymous and anonymous writings, which arose in the latest periods of Neo-Platonism, and in part per haps were of still later date. Among these the principal are the Theology of Aris totle (Arabic and German by Dieterici, Leips. 1882-83), and the Liber de Causis (De essentia pura; bonitatis), an extract from the o-7-oixeWit 0eo\o7«i} ascriLod to Proclus, published in Arabic, Latin, and German by O. Bardenhewer (Frei burg i. B. 1882).
§ 25. The Realm of Nature and the Realm of Grace.
Among all the philosphers of the Middle Ages we find existing, \yJ* vfith greater or less clearness, a lively feeling of the twofold tradi-
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realm* : Averroism. 319
supremacy : and here, too, again the process of appropriation began with the adoption of the last consequences, to ascend only by degrees back to the premises.
1.
Karl Werner, Der hi. Thomas von Aquino. 3 vols. , Regensburg, 1858 ft
Karl Werner, Die Scholastik des spateren Mittelalters. 3 vols. , Vienna, 1881 ft
The felt need for real knowledge, which mastered Western science after the first enthusiasm for dialectic was past, was very soon to find a satisfaction of unsuspected extent. Contact with the Oriental civilisation which at first maintained itself victoriously against the shock of the Crusades, disclosed to the peoples of Europe new worlds of intellectual life. Arabian, and in its train Jewish, science ' made their entry into Paris. They had preserved the tradition of Greek thought and knowledge more immediately and more completely than had the cloisters of the West. A stronger and richer stream of scientific material poured over Bagdad and Cordova than over Rome and York. But the former brought not much more that was new with it than did the latter. Rather, as regards thoughts which dis cover or establish principles, the Oriental philosophy of the Middle Ages is still poorer than the European. Only, in the breadth and quantity of tradition, in the compass of learned material and in the extent of information in matters of science, the East was far superior, and these treasures now passed over into the possession of the Christian peoples.
From the point of view of philosophy, however, the matter of chief importance was that Parisian science became acquainted not
1 The author believes that he may and ought to decline to give a full exposi tion of the Arabian and Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages — ought to, in so far as he is here in great part excluded from penetrating to the original sources, and would therefore find himself forced to reproduce others' expositions at second hand, — may , however, because that which passed over with fructifying influence into European science from this large literature — and it is only this element that could be treated in this presentation of the development of philos ophy as a whole — is found to be, with very small exceptions, the spiritual possession of antiquity, of the Greek or the Hellenistic philosophy. On this account there will be given only a brief survey of the Arabian and Jewish phi losophy in the Middle Ages, which will be found at the close of the introductory material of this chapter, pp. 310-318.
310
-v*?
Chap. 2. ]
only with the entire logic of Aristotle, but also with all parts of his philosophy that furnished material knowledge. By this "new logic " fresh blood was infused into the already dying dialectic, and while the task of rationally expounding the view of the world held by faith was attacked anew and with a matured technique of thought, there was presented at the same time an almost immeasurable mate rial for arrangement in the metaphysico-religious system.
Mediaeval thought showed itself abundantly ready for the problem thus enhanced, and solved it under the after-working of the impres sion of that most brilliant period in the development of the papacy which Innocent III. had brought about. The Neo-Platonic-Arabian Aristotelianism, which at the first, with its naturalistic consequences, seemed only to strengthen the rationalistic courage of dialectic to victorious pride, was mastered with admirable swiftness and bent to the service of the system of the Church. This, indeed, was possible only in a form in which the intellectualistic elements of Augustinian thought and those allied to Neo-Platonism gained a decided pre
ponderance in this now completely systematic development of a philosophy conformed to the doctrine of faith. In this way was completed an adjustment and arrangement of world-moving thoughts upon the largest and most imposing scale that history has seen, and that, too, without the. creative activity of any properly new philosophical principle as its impulse toward the formation of a system. The intellectual founder of this system was Albert of Boll- stadt. It owes its organic completion in all directions, its literary codification, and thus its historical designation, to Thomas Aquinas, and finds its poetical exposition in Dante's Divine Comedy.
But while Hellenistic science and Christian faith seemed to be brought into complete harmony in Thomism, the opposition between them broke forth at once all the more violently. Under the influ ence of Arabian doctrines, the pantheism involved in the logical consequence of Realism from being potential became actual in ex tended circles, and immediately after Thomas, his fellow-Domin ican, Master Eckhart, developed scholastic intellectualism to the heterodoxy of an idealistic Mysticism.
Hence it is comprehensible that Thomism also encountered the resistance of a Platonic-Augustinian tendency, which indeed gladly adopted the increase in the knowledge of Nature (as had been the t-^w VWore) and thp perfection of the logical apparatus, but put aside the intellectualistic metaphysics and developed all the mure energetically the opposite elements of AuKustinianism.
This tendency reached its full strength in the acutest and deepest thinker of the Christian Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, who brought the
Second Period. 311
312 Mediaeval Philo»ophy. [Part ILL
germs of the philosophy of the will, contained in Augustine's system, to their first important development, and so from the meta physical side gave the impulse for a complete change in the direc tion of philosophical thought. With him religious and scientific interests, whose fusion had begun in the Hellenistic philosophy, begin to separate.
The renewal of Nominalism, in which the intellectual movement of the last century of the Middle Ages culminated in an extremely interesting combination, led to the same result with still more last ing force. Dialectic, which had anew obtained the mastery and was flaunting itself in various disputations, developed in its text books on logic the Aristotelian schematism. This was worked out especially on the grammatical side, and there developed to a theory which attached the doctrine of judgment and the syllogism to the view that regarded the concepts {termini) as subjective signs for really existing individual things. This Terminism became united in William of Occam with the naturalistic tendencies of the Arabian- Aristotelian theory of knowledge, and these combined combated
Realism, which had been maintained alike in Thomism and Scotism. But Terminism also became united with the Augustinian doctrine of the will into a powerful individualism, with the beginnings of the empirical psychology which studied the history of develop ment, to a kind of idealism of the inner experience, and with the natural investigation which was conquering wider and wider territory, to an empiricism that was to be fruitful in the future. Thus under the scholastic covering were sprouting the germs of new thought.
Here and there in this extremely diversified movement men still vainly appear with the confidence that they can create a rational system of religious metaphysics, and finally a man of the signifi cance of Nicolaus Cusamis sought vainly to force all these elements of a new secular science back under the power of a half scholastic, half mystic intellectualism : it was just from his system that those elements exercised an influence upon the future, that was all the stronger because of his work.
The reception of Aristotle falls in the century 1160-1260 (for this topic see principally the work of A. Jourdain, cited p. 273). It began with the more val uable parts of the Organon, hitherto unknown 'veins — nova logica), and pro ceeded to the metaphysical, physical, and ethical books, always accompanied by the introduction of the Arabian explanatory writings. The Church slowly admitted the new logic, although dialectic was again set in fluctuation thereby ; for it soon became convinced that the new method which was introduced with the aid of the doctrine of the syllogism, was advantageous for presenting its own teachings.
This scholastic method in the proper sense is as follows : a text used a* the basis for discussion is broken up by division and explanation into a number of propositions ; questions are attached and the possible answers brought to
Cuat. 2. ] Second Period. 813
gether finally the arguments to be adduced for -establishing or refuting these answers are presented in the form of chain of syllogistic reasoning, leading ultimately to decision upon the subject.
This scheme was first employed by Alexander of Halea (died 1245) in his Summa Univerta; Theologicc, with mastery which was far superior to the mode of treatment of the earlier Summists in wealth of contents, clearness of development, and definiteness of results, and was scarcely surpassed even later.
An analogous change in method was worked out with regard to the material in the encyclopedias of natural science by Vincent of Beauvaia (Vincentius Bellovacensis, died about 1265), by his Speculum Quadruple! , and Johannes Ki'lanza. called Bonaventura (1221-1274), did the same work for the doctrines of Mysticism, especially those of the Victorines. Among Bonaventura's works the Reductio Artium ad Theologiain especially characteristic. Cf. K. Werner, Die Psychologic und Erkenntnisslehre ties B. (Vienna, 1876).
The Church proceeded in a much more hesitating manner in regard to Aris totle's Metaphysics and Physics, because these made their entrance in intimate connection with Averroism, and because this latter theory had developed to open pantheism the Neo-Platonic Mysticism which had never been entirely forgotten since Scotus Erigena. As the defenders of such system appear Amalrich of Bena near Chartres, and David of Dinant. about 1200, concern ing whose doctrines we are informed only by later writers, especially Albert and Thomas. With the widely extended sect of the Amalricans, which, after the Lateran council of 1216, was persecuted with fire and sword, the " Eternal
Gospel" of Joachim Floris was also connected. Cf. on this J. N. Schneider (Dttlingen, 1873).
The judgment of condemnation passed upon the Averroistic Pan-psychism (cf. {27) applied at first to Aristotle also. It the service of the two men- dicant orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, to have broken this connec tion, and to have brought over the power of the Church to the recognition of the Peripatetic system. By a long conflict, which frequently wavered this way and that, they succeeded In founding two chairs of the Aristotelian philosophy at the University of Paris, and finally in having them taken into the faculty (cf. Kaufmann, Gesch. d. Univ. , 276 ft. ). Aft«r this victory in 1264, respect for Aristotle rose fast, until he became the highest philosophical authority. He was praised as the forerunner of Christ in matters of Nature as was John the Baptist in matters of grace, and from this time on Christian science (like Averrofis) held bitn to be in such sense the incarnation of scientific truth, that in the following literature he often cited only as " Philosophus. "
The doctrine of the Dominicans, which has remained until the present time the official doctrine of the Catholic Church, was created by Albert and Thomas. Albert of Bollatadt (Albertus Magnus) was born 1103 at Lauingen in Swabia, studied in Padua and Bologna, taught in Cologne and Paris, became
Bishop of Regensburg, and died in Cologne in 1280. His writings consist for the most part of paraphrases and commentaries upon Aristotle aside from the Summa his Botany is particularly of independent value (De Vegetabilibus, Lihri VII. ed. by Meyer and Jessen. Berlin, 1867). Cf. J. Sighart, Al. Mag. sein l-ebcn und seine Wissenschafl (Regensburg, 1867 v. Hertling, Al. Mag.
J. Bach, Al.
Italy,
TrrtlaU idei Catholica- contra gentiles (Summa contra gentiles). The treatise De Rcgimine Principum belongs to him only In part. From the very copious literature concerning him, the following may be named Ch. Jourdain, La Philosophic deSt. Th. (Paris, 1H68); Z. Gonzalez, Studien uber die Philns. de*. hi. Th. v. A. , translated from the Spanish by Nolte (Regensburg, 1886); R. Eoeken, Die Phllos. d. Th. r. A. und die CnUus der Xeuzcit (Halle, 188»l);
und die Wissenschafl seiner Zeit (in Hist. -pol. Blatter, 1874)
Mag. (Vienna, 1888). Roccasicca, Lower Thomas) of Aquino, born 1225 or 27 in
was edu cated at first in the cloister Monte Cassino, famous of old for study in natural •cience, then in Naples. Cologne, and Paris. After this he taught alternately at these universities and also at Rome and Bologna, and died, 1274, in cloister near Terracina. Besides minor treatises, his works contain commentaries on Aruuotle, on the Liber de Causis and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, and In addition to these, principally the Snmma Theologirr and the treatise De
rtohschammer. Die Philosophic de* Th. v. A. (Leips. 1880).
A
:
a
;
;
a
i ;
;
is
I.
a
is
is
a
a
a
;
■".
314 Mediaeval Philosophy. [Paf. t lit
The philosophical importance of Dante Alighieri has heen best recognised among his editors by Fhilalethes in the commentary on his translation of the Divina Commedia. 3esides his great world-poem, the treatise De Monorchia should not be forgotten in a philosophical consideration. Cf. A. F. Ozanam, D. el la Philosophie Catholique au 13"" Steele (Paris, 1845); G. Baur, Boeihius und Dante (Leips. 1873).
Interest in other Thoinists, whose number is great, is only literary -historical .
To the Dominican Order belonged also the father of German Mysticism. Master Eckhart, a younger contemporary of Thomas. Born in the middle of the thirteenth century, probably in Saxony, at about 1300 he was Professor of Philosophy in Paris, became then Provincial of his Order for Saxony, lived for a time in Cologne and Strassburg, and died during the painful discussions con cerning the orthodoxy of his doctrine in 1329. The extant writings (collected by F. Pfeiffer, II. Leips. 1867) are principally sermons, tracts, and aphorisms. Cf. C. Ullman, Refurmatoren vor der Reformation, Vol. II. (Hamburg, 1842); W. Preger, Gesch'. d. dentschen Mystik im Mittelalter (Leips. 1876, 1881) ; also the different editions and articles by S. Denifle. On Eckhart in particular, J. Bach, M. E. der Vater der dentschen Speculation (Vienna, 1864); A. Lasson, M. E. *r Mystiker (Berlin, 1868).
In its farther development German Mysticism branched into the heresies of the Beghards and of the " Friends of God " of Basle ; in the case of the former it led to the most radical connection with the Averroistic pantheism. It took the form of popular preaching with John Tauler at Strassburg (1300-1361), and of poetic song with Heinrich Sato of Constance (1300-1366). Its theoretical doctrines maintained themselves, while the heterodoxy was diminished, in the " German Theology" (first edited by Luther, 1616).
The Augustinian Platonic opposition against the suspected Aristotelianism of the Arabians has as its main supporters : —
William of Auvorgno, from Aurillac, teacher and Bishop in Paris, where he died in 1249, author of a work De Universo. He is treated by K. Werner, Die Philosophie des W. v. A. (Vienna, 1873).
Henry of Ghent (Henricus Gandavensis, Heinrich Goethals of Muda near Ghent, 1217-1293), the valiant defender of the primacy of the will against Thomism. Besides a theological compendium, he wrote a Summa QuaMionum
Ordinarium, and principally Quodlibeta Theologica. Cf . K. Werner, H. v. G. als Jieprdsentant des chrUtlichen Platonismus im 13 Jahrhundert (Vienna, 1878).
Richard of Middletown (R. de Mediavia, died 1300) and William de la Marre, the author of a violent Correctorium Fratris Thomm, may also be named here. In the following centuries an Augustinian theology proper main tained itself by the side of Thomism and Scotism. jEgydius of Colonna is regarded as its leader (Mg. Romanus, 1247-1316). Cf. K. Werner, Schol. d. spat. M. -A. , III.
The sharpest opposition to Thomism grew out of the Franciscan order. Roger Bacon's was a mind fruitfully stimulating in all directions, but not appearing in a fixed and definite form in any one of them. He was born in 1214, near Ilchester, educated in Oxford and Paris, several times persecuted on account of his occupations and theories, which were directed in the line of natural research, protected only for a time by Pope Clement IV. . and died soon after 1292. His doctrines are embodied in the Opus Mains (ed.
by Bridges, Oxford, 1897), and in the form of extracts in his Opus Minus (ed. by Brewer, Iiond. 1869). Cf. E. Charles, R. B. , sa vie, ses outrages, ses doctrines (Paris, 1861), and K. Werner, in two articles on his psychology, theory of knowledge, and physics (Vienna, 1879).
Duns Scotus. His home (Ireland or Northumberland) and the year of his birth, which was about 1270, are not certainly known. At first a scholar and teacher in Oxford, he then won high reputation at Paris, where he was active after 1304, and in 1308 moved to Cologne, where he died soon after his arrival —all too early. The edition of his works prepared by his Order (12 vols. , Lyons, 1639) contains, besides the genuine writings, much that is not genuine or that has been worked over, and especially transcripts of his disputations and
The most important thinker of the Christian Middle Ages was Johannes
CaA*. 2. ] Second Period. 815
lectures. To the latter belongs the so-called Opus Pnriritnte, which forms a com mentary upon the Sentences of the Lombard. The Questioned Quodlibctalcs have a similar origin. The Opus Ozoniense, the original commentary upon the Lom bard, is his own writing. Besides this there are his commentaries upon Aristo telian writings and some smaller treatises. His doctrine is expounded in Werner and Stockl. No exhaustive monograph, corresponding to his importance, exists.
Among his numerous adherents, Francis of Mayro, who died 1325, is the best known. The controversy between Thomists and Scotists was a very active one at the beginning of the fourteenth century, and brought many intermediate theories into the field ; but soon both parties had to make common cause in defence against Terminiam.
Among the logical school books of the later Scholasticism, the most influen tial was that of Petrua Hispanua, who died 1277 as Pope John XXI. His Summulce Logitales were a translation of a Byzantine-Greek text-book, the In*^i« tit tj)» 'KptarorfKovt Xoyutr)* tTivr^nvr by Michael Psellos (in the eleventh century ) . Imitating the processes in this latter treatise {ypdnimra fypa^t y/n- *iJt r«xrur6t ), the well-known barbarous mnemonic designations for the modes of the syllogism were Introduced in the Latin version (Barbara, eelarent, etc. ). Terminism, developed in the nominalistlc direction from this rhetorical and grammatical logic, contrasted itself as logiea moderna with the logica antiqua of the Realists, including both Scotists and Thomists under this latter title.
In the renewal of Nominalism we find William Durandus of St. Pour- cain, who died 133*2 as Bishop of Meaux, and Petrus Aureolus, who died at Paris, 1321, the former coming from Thomism, the latter from Kcotism. Much more important is William of Occam, the Abelard of the second period. With a broad and keen vision for reality, and with a bold, unresting eagerness for innovation, he unites in himself all the elements with the help of which the new science forced its way out of Scholasticism. Born in a village in the County of Surrey, trained under Duns Scotus, he became Professor at Paris, then took an active part in the conflicts of his time between Church and Stale by joining with Philip the Fair and Lewis of Bavaria in combating the papacy. ( Disputatio inter elericum et militem super potentate eeelesiastica pr<f latin atque ynnripihu* terrarum commissa, and the Defensorium against Pope John XXII. ), and died 1347 at Munich. There is no complete edition of his works, but the most important are : Summa Totius Logics, JCzpositio Aurea super Artem
Vetrrem, Quodlibeta Septem, Ctntilogium Theologicum, and a commentary on Peter Lombard. Cf. W. A. Schreiber, Die polititchen und religibsen Dortrinen nnter LuduHg dem Baier (Landshut, 1868). C. Prantl, Der UniversaUenstreit im dreixeAnten und vierxehnten Jahrhundtrt (Sitx. -Ber. der Miinchener Akad. , 1074). Occam, too, still waits his philosophically competent biographer.
Of the supporters of termlnistic Nominalism in the fourteenth century, Johannes Buridan, ltector of the University at Paris, and co-founder of that at Vienna, and Marsilius of Inghen, one of the first teachers at Heidelberg, are usually named. A union of mystical doctrines with the nominalislic rejection of metaphysics Is found in Pierre d'Ailly (Petrus de Alliaco, 1:160-1426), and in Juhannea Gerson (Charlier, 1363-1429).
The attempt at a purely rational exposition of Church doctrine in the interest of apologetics and propagation was made by Raymundua Lullus of Catalonia (1236-1315), who is principally known by his curious discover)' of the "Great Art. " that is, a mechanical device which by combining the fundamental concepts was intended to present the system of all possible cognitions. An extract from this may be found in J. K. Krdmann, History of Phil. , I. § 206 [Kng. tr. ed. by Hough]. His efforts were repeated in the fifteenth century by Raymund of Bllilinrla a Spanish physician, who taught in Toulouse and gained respect by his
ThetAogia Xaturalis (sire Liber Creaturarum). On him cf. I). Matzke (llreslau, 1M0); M. Huttler (Augsburg. 1861).
The philosophy of Iflcolaus Cusanua ( Nicolaus Chrypffs, born in Kues (Cum) war Trier, 1401, died as Cardinal and Bishop of Brixen, 1404), offers an inter esting comprehensive view of the intellectual condition of the departing Middle Ages. The main treatise bears the title De Dortn Ignorant ia (ed. In German together with his other most important writings by F. A. Scharpff, Freiburg i. B.
1882).
Cf. K. Falckenberg, Urundtugt der Philos. da \. *. C. (Brealau, 1880).
316 Medieval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III
Brief Survey of the Arabian and Jewish Philosophy of the Middle Ages.
This period is certainly more interesting from a literary and historical point of view than from that of philosophy, and as yet no competent presentation of the period as a whole has been made. Nor has complete clearness been attained as yet by investigation, but from the literature concerning it the following are to be emphasised : —
Mohammed al Schahrestani, History of Religious and Philosophical Sect* among the Arabs (German by Haarbrlicker, Halle, 1860 f. ); A Schmolders, Documenta Philosophuz Arabum (Bonn, 1836), and Essai sur les Ecoles Phi- losophiqties chez les Ar. (Paris, 1842); Fr. Dieterici, Die Philosophie der Ar. im zehnten Jahrhundert (8 Hefte, Leips. 1866-76). Cf. also Hanimer-Purgstall, Oesch. der arabischen Litteratur.
S. Munk, Melanges de philosophie juive et arabe (Paris, 1859), and the same author's articles on the individual philosophers in the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques. [W. Wallace, Art. Arabian Phil, in Enc. Brit. , Utberweg, Krdmann. ]
M. Eisler, Vorlesungen Uber die, j'udischeu Philosophen des Miltelalters (3 vols. , Vienna, 1870-84) ; M. Jo61, Beitrage zur Oeschichte der Philosophic (Bres lau, 1876). Cf. also Furst's Bibliotheca Judaica, and histories of Judaism by Graetz and Geiger.
Close as the relations may be which the philosophy of the two civilised Semitic peoples sustained to their religious interests, Arabian science especially, owes its peculiar character to the circumstance that its founders and supporters were, for the most part, not members of the clergy, as in the West, but physi cians (cf. F. WUstenfeld, Oesch. der arab. Aerzte und Naturforscher, Gottingen,
Thus from the beginning the study of ancient medicine and natural science went on hand in hand with that of philosophy. Hippocrates and Galen were as much translated (in part through the medium of the Syrian. ) and read as were Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists. Hence in Arabian metaphysic* dialectic is always balanced by natural philosophy. But well as this was adapted to afford scientific thought a broader basis of knowledge of facts, we must not, on the other hand, overestimate the independent achievements of the Arabs in medicine and natural science. Here, too, mediaeval science is essentially learned tradition. The knowledge which the Arabs were later able to deliver to the
West had its origin, in the main, in the books of the Greeks. Nor did even experimental knowledge experience an essential extension through the Arabs' own work ; only in some fields, as, for example, chemistry and mineralogy and in some parts of medicine, e. g. physiology, do they appear more independent. In their method, however, in their principles by which they apprehend the uni verse, and in their entire system of philosophical conceptions, they stand, so far as our information on the subject reaches, entirely under the combined influence of Aristotelianism and Neo-Platonism ; and the same is true of the Jews. Nor can it be maintained that a national peculiarity becomes disclosed in their appro priation of this material. It is rather the case that this whole scientific culture was artificially grafted upon the Arabian civilisation, it can strike no true roots into it, and after a short period of bloom it withers away without vital force. In the history of science as a whole, its mission is only to give back in part to the development of the Western mind the continuity which the latter had itself temporarily lost.
From the nature of the case, the appropriation of ancient science in this case also was completed gradually and by working backward. Beginning with the Neo-Platonism which was still current in Syrian tradition, and which was received with sympathy on account of its religious colouring, the Arabian thinkers proceeded to ascend to the better sources ; but the consequence remained that they saw Aristotle and Plato through the spectacles of Plotinus and Proclus. During the rule of the Abassidse an active scientific life prevailed in Bagdad, stimulated especially by the Caliph Almamun at the beginning of the ninth century. The Neo-Platonists, the better commentators, almost the entire didactic writings of Aristotle, and the Republic, Laics, and Timirus of
1840).
Plato, were known in translations.
Chap: 3. ] Arabian and Jewish Philoiophy. 317
The first distinctly emerging personalities, Alkendi, who died about 870, and Alfarabi, who died 960, are scarcely to be distinguished in their teachings from the Neo-Platonic elucidators of Aristotle. A greater importance belongs to Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 080-1037), whose "Canon" became the fundamental book of medieval medicine in the West, as well as in the East, and who also txercised a powerful influence by his extremely numerous philosophical writ ings, especially his Metaphysics and Logic. His doctrine comes nearer again to pare Aristotelianism. and perhaps the nearest among all the Arabians.
But the extension of these philosophical views was regarded with jealous eyes by Mohammedan orthodoxy, and the scientific movement experienced so vio lent persecutions in the tenth century that it took refuge in tin- secret league of the *' Pure Brothers. " Avicenna himself was also persecuted. The above- named league embodied the extremely excellent compass of the knowledge of the time in a number of treatises (on this see above, Dieterici), which neverthe less, in contrast with Avicenna, seem to show a stronger leaning toward Neo- Platonism.
Of the scientific achievements of their opponents we know on the one hand the strange metaphysics of the orthodox Motekallemin. who, as against the' Aristotelian and Neo-Platonic view of Nature as a living whole, developed an extreme exaggeration of the sole causality of God, and resorted to a distorted Atomism in the greatest metaphysical embarrassment ; on the other hand, in the writings of Algazel (1069-1111, Dextructio Philosophorum) there appears a sceptical and mystical analysis of philosophy.
These latter tendencies won the victory in the Orient the more readily, as the spiritual exaltation of Mohammedanism quickly declined in that quarter. The continuance of Arabian science is to be sought in Andalusia, where Mohamme dan civilisation found its short after-bloom. Here, under freer conditions, philosophy developed to vigorous naturalism, which in turn bore a strongly
S'ro- Platonic stamp.
A characteristic exposition of the doctrine of knowledge in this philosophy is
f«und in the Conduct of the Solitary by Avempace, who died 1138, and similar thoughts culminate with Abubacer (Ibn Tophail, died 1186) in an interesting ounparisnn of natural with positive religion. The latter author's philosophi cal romance The l. iriny One, the Son of the Waking One, which sets forth the intellectual development of a man upon a lonely island, excluded from all his torical and social relations, was published in a Latin translation by Pocock as
niti. tr/phu* Autodidactus (Oxford, 1671 and 1700, — not twenty years before the *p|x>arance of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe! ) and in a German translation as /vr Saturmrnsch by Eichhom (Berlin, 1783).
But the most important and independent among Arabian thinkers was Averroe* who was born 1120 in Cordova, was for a time judge, and then {•hyician in ordinary to the Caliph, was driven afterward by religious perse cution to Morocco, and died in 1198. He treated in paraphrases and longer or
shorter commentaries, which were printed in the older editions of Aristotle, almost all the didactic writings of Aristotle, who was esteemed by him as the li nines t teacher of truth. Of his own works (Venice, 1663; some exist now niily in the Hebrew version) the refutation of Algazel, Drstrurtio Destructionis, is moot important. Two of his treatises on the relation of philosophy and the- ••logy have been published in (ierman translation by M. J. MUller (Munich, 1875). Cf. E. Kenan, Averrois et V Arerroisme (3d ed. , Paris. 1869).
With the expulsion of the Arabians from Spain traces of their philosophical activity are lost.
Jewish philosophy of the Middle Ages is, in the main, an accompaniment ot the Arabian, and dependent upon it. The only-exception to this is the Cab bala, that fantastic secret doctrine whose fundamental outlines, which, to be sure, were later much elaborated, show the same peculiar amalgamation of Oriental mythology with ideas of Hellenistic science as does Christian Gnosti cism, and go back to the same period and to the same agitated condition of thought attendant upon the mingling of religions. Cf. A. Franck. Systhne de la Kabbale (Paris, 1848; German by Jellinek, Leips. 1844); H. Joel, Dim
Religionsphilosophie des Sohar (Leips. 1849). On the other hand, the main works of Jewish philosophy were originally written in Arabic, and not trans lated Into Hebrew until a relatively late time.
^v <y "^r
tion which forms the presupposition of their thought. In the CP earlier period all knowledge and thought had arranged itself, as it were, of its own accord within the system of relifripng mptnpTiygir-B •
and now there appeared by the side of this a powerful, finely articu lated, coherent body of thought which the age? thirsting after real contents in its barren dialectic, was ready to take up eagerly. The manifold relations between these two systems which mutually laid hold upon one another and interpenetrated, determine the scientific character of the last centuries of the Middle Ages, and the general course of the development was, that these antagonistic systems, starting from an attitude of abrupt opposition, strove toward recon ciliation and adjustment, only to diverge all the more violently after the goal seemed to have been reached. This course of things appeared as necessarily in the conception of the reciprocal relations of the different sciences, as in the view of the ultimate relations of things. In both lines the attempt at synthesis was followed by a separation that went all the deeper.
The religious thought of the West, whose highest problem had been to understand the working of divine grace, was confronted by Oriental philosophy in which the old Grecian philosophical tendency toward knowledge of Nature had at last attained metaphysical
318 Mediaeval Philosophy : Second Period. [Part III.
The book of Saadjah Fajjumi (died 942), Concerning Religions and Philoso phies, which aims to furnish an apology for Jewish doctrine, is related to the earliest Arabian Aristotelianism, and still more closely to the free-thinking
Mohammedan theologians, the so-called Mutazilin. In the Neo-Platonic line we meet Avicebron (Ibn Gebirol, a Spanish Jew of the eleventh century), of whose Fons Vitas, Hebrew and Latin versions are extant. Moses Maimonidea (1135-1204) is regarded as the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. In his culture and doctrine be belongs to the phase of Arabian doctrine which has Averrogs as its centre. His main treatise, Ouide to the Perplexed (Doctor Perplexorum), has been published in Arabic and French with a com mentary by Munk (3 vols. , Paris, 1856-66) [Eng. tr. by Friedlander, Trtibner, Lond. l. The attachment to AverroSs is still closer in the case of Hereonides
(Levi ben Gerson, 1288-1344).
The Jews, by means of their widely extended mercantile relations, were the
chief contributors to the extension of Oriental philosophy in the West, by sale and translation ; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries especially their schools in Southern France formed the medium for this wide-reaching activity.
To the Arabian and Jewish literature, which was taken up by Christian science about 1200, belongs finally a number of pseudonymous and anonymous writings, which arose in the latest periods of Neo-Platonism, and in part per haps were of still later date. Among these the principal are the Theology of Aris totle (Arabic and German by Dieterici, Leips. 1882-83), and the Liber de Causis (De essentia pura; bonitatis), an extract from the o-7-oixeWit 0eo\o7«i} ascriLod to Proclus, published in Arabic, Latin, and German by O. Bardenhewer (Frei burg i. B. 1882).
§ 25. The Realm of Nature and the Realm of Grace.
Among all the philosphers of the Middle Ages we find existing, \yJ* vfith greater or less clearness, a lively feeling of the twofold tradi-
Chap. 2, § 25. ] The Two Realm* : Averroism. 319
supremacy : and here, too, again the process of appropriation began with the adoption of the last consequences, to ascend only by degrees back to the premises.
1.
