Meaning of medieval philosophy (what is it, concept and definition)

What is Medieval Philosophy:

Medieval philosophy is the entire set of currents of thought and philosophical treatises that developed from the fall of the Roman Empire (530 AD) to the Renaissance (XV and XVI centuries).

The main search for medieval philosophy was the cohesion of the beliefs inherited from classical philosophy with the dogmas of Christianity, although there were also very important contributions from Jewish and Islamic beliefs.

Subjects of medieval philosophy

When trying to reconcile different religious beliefs with philosophy, it was natural to try to find answers to questions such as the nature of God, the relationship between faith and reason, as well as the compatibility between free will and the omniscience of divinity, between other topics, such as causality and the limits of knowledge.

However, for medieval philosophy, it was difficult to reconcile issues such as the incarnation or the nature of the trinity, which are the basis of Christian theology.

The problem of the universals

In medieval philosophy, an Aristotelian vision of the problem of universals was inherited, by proposing that universals (the abstract, the world of ideas) exist, but not separate from the particular (the concrete, things, individuals), what was also known as "moderate realism".

However, during the scholastic period, the resolution of this problem returned to the fore with nominalism, which stated that universals simply did not exist.

Existence of God

Most of medieval philosophy was devoted to demonstrating the existence of God as a supreme being, entity, or truth. To do this, sacred texts, Aristotelian logic and ontological argument were used as the main methods to find answers.

Aristotelian logic

Being Aristotle a defender of logic as a method to approach the sciences and philosophy, it was very natural for medieval philosophers to pose classical Aristotelian logic as a legitimate way to respond to the concerns that the era raised.

According to this method, learning certain sets of syllogisms allowed connecting a subject and an object correctly, therefore, it would be a useful tool to generate knowledge.

Characteristics of medieval philosophy

Medieval philosophy was strongly marked by approaches of divine order. The Bible, then, became the primary source of answers to these concerns. However, the holy books of Islam and Judaism also played an essential role in interpreting religious questions.

More than the generation of new knowledge, medieval philosophy was in charge of rescuing, reinterpreting and applying classical philosophical approaches. The emergence of Neoplatonism, which posits the existence of the One or God over all things, and the introduction of Aristotelian logic in the then nascent universities, account for this.

Stages of medieval philosophy

There are two great periods of medieval philosophy: patristic and scholastic.

Patristics

It corresponds to the primary stage in which philosophy was articulated with religious dogma, mainly Christian. One of the most outstanding representatives of this period was Saint Augustine, who developed a current that today is known as Neoplatonism, and which can be summarized as the reinterpretation of Plato's work from a Christian perspective.

Scholasticism

In this stage, spanning from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, attempts are made to explain Christian revelation through reason. It arises as a consequence of the creation of the first universities and the need to apply the Aristotelian scientific method to respond to religious or supernatural approaches.

Saint Thomas Aquinas was one of the main exponents of the scholastic stage when introducing Aristotelian logic in Christian thought.

Medieval philosophy and Judaism

Judaism was also concerned with answering fundamental questions in the light of philosophy.

In this sense, Maimonides took care to integrate Aristotle's logic to demonstrate that there is no such thing as a separation between faith and reason, since faith has a divine origin and reason is based on human knowledge, which turn derives from God.

Medieval philosophy and Islam

In Islam, both Neoplatonism and Aristotle's thought were used to respond to concerns of religion. The arrival of the Arab and Berber people in the Iberian peninsula contributed to enriching medieval philosophy thanks to the translations of their works into Latin and Hebrew. Al-Kindi and Averroes were some of the essential thinkers of medieval Islamic philosophy.

Main authors of medieval philosophy

These are some of the philosophers whose contributions helped enrich the medieval legacy.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

He was one of the philosophers closest to Neoplatonism. He considered philosophy as an auxiliary branch to understand faith, rather than an area of ​​knowledge in itself. And faith was therefore the only possible truth and reason was subordinate to it.

Furthermore, Anselm of Canterbury is credited with creating the "ontological argument", which posits the existence of God as "the one of whom nothing greater can be thought of." If God exists on the mental plane, He also exists in reality.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

Breaking with the Augustinian tradition (and very characteristic of medieval philosophy in general) of imposing faith on reason, Thomas Aquinas considered that faith and reason constituted two different fields of knowledge. However, it leaves room for a common space in which faith and reason interrelate.

William of Ockham (1285-1349)

It went one step further than its predecessors, defending not only the existence of philosophy and theology as two independent areas, but also by decoupling them. For William of Ockham, reason is a faculty of man, while faith belongs to the field of divine revelations, so they are not only separate, but opposite.

Works of medieval philosophy

These are some of the most outstanding texts of medieval philosophy, since they tried to answer the biggest questions of this period, especially those of a religious nature:

Proslogion (1078)

Written by Anselmo de Canterbury, it raises the existence of God through the ontological argument. It is a summary of the Monologion , his predecessor work, in which he tried to demonstrate the existence of God through reason.

The Guide of the Perplexed (1190)

It was written by Maimonides, who argues that there is no such thing as a division between faith and reason, since they both come from the same source: God. Although it was written in Arabic, its translations made the work quickly known in Europe, becoming an influence for philosophers like Thomas Aquinas.

Theological Sum (1274)

It is one of the most important works of theology and was an influence on the development of medieval philosophy. There, Thomas Aquinas answers various questions grouped into categories: God, the human act, theological virtues, incarnation of Christ, sacraments. The work contains other questions that are answered by his disciples, since the author died before finishing his work.