Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
Do you need
volunteer, community service, work, military or court hours?
|
|
Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997.
|
|
Click here and add this page to your favorites!
|
Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CHR-CLI |
|
|
CLASSICS and ARABIAN PHILOSOPHY). The doctrines and the works the works of Aristotle had been transmitted by the 0fArts. Nestorians to the Arabs, and among those kept alive by a tone. succession of philosophers, first in the East and afterwards intheWest. The chief
series of Neoplatonic emanations. In the course of the 12th century the writings of these men were introduced into France by the Jews of Andalusia, of Marseilles and Montpellier. " These writings contained," says Haureau, " the text of the Organon, the Physics, the Metaphysics, the Ethics, the De anima, the Parva naturalia and a large number of other treatises of Aristotle, accompanied by continuous commentaries. There arrived besides by the same channel the glosses of Theophrastus, of Simplicius, of Alexander of Aphrodisias, of Philoponus, annotated in the same sense by the same hands. This was the rich but dangerous present made by the Mussulman school to the Christian " (i. 382). To these must be added the Neoplatonically inspired Fens Vitae of the Jewish philosopher and poet Ibn Gabirol (q.v.), or Avicebron.By special
chief
The first effects of this immense acquisition of new material were markedly unsettling on the doctrinal orthodoxy of the time. The apocryphal Neoplatonic treatises and the First views of the Arabian commentators obscured for the effects of first students the genuine doctrine of Aristotle, and the the new 13th century opens with quite a crop of mystical knowledge. heresies. The mystical pantheism taught at Paris by Amalrich of Bena (d. 1207; see AMALRIC and MYSTICISM), though based by him upon a revival of Scotus Erigena, was doubtless connected in its origin with the Neoplatonic treatises which now become current. The immanence of God in all things and His incarnation as the Holy Spirit in themselves appear to have been the chief doctrines of the Amalricans. They are reported to have said, " Omnia unum, quia quicquid est est Deus." About the same time David of Dinant, in a book De tomis (rendered by Albertus De divisionibus), taught the identity of God with matter (or the indivisible principle of bodies) and nous (or the indivisible principle of intelligences)an extreme Realism culminating in a materialistic pantheism. If they were diverse, he argued, there must exist above them some higher or common element
original
distinguish the genuine Aristotle from the questionable accompaniments with which he had made his first appearance in Western Europe. Fresh translations of Aristotle and Averroes had already been made from the Arabic (IIepi-rd 'uta io-ropias from the Hebrew) by Michael Scot, and Hermannus Alamannus, at the instance of the emperor Frederick II.; so that the whole body
This unquestioned supremacy was not yielded, however, at the very beginning of the period. The earlier doctors who avail themselves of Aristotle's works, while bowing to his authority implicitly in matters of logic, are generally found defending a Christianized Platonism against the doctrine of the Metaphysics. So it is with Alexander of Hales (d. 1245), the first Scholastic who was acquainted with the whole of the Aristotelian works and the Alexander Arabian commentaries upon them. He was more of a of Hates. theologian than a philosopher; and in his chief work, Summa universae theologiae, he simply employs his in- creased philosophical knowledge in the demonstration of theological doctrines. So great, however, did his achievement seem that he was honoured with the titles of Doctor
monarcha. Alexander of Hales belonged to the Franciscan order, and it is worth remarking that it was the mendicant orders Mendicant which now came forward as the protagonists of Christian learning and faith and, as it were, reconquered Aristotle friars. for the church. During the first half of the 13th century, when the university of Paris was plunged in angry feuds with the municipality, feuds which even led at one time (1229) to the flight of the students in a body
movement
De anima, on which Haureau lays particular stress, is interesting as showing the greater scope now given to psychological discussions. This was a natural result of acquaintance with Aristotle's De anima and the numerous Greek and Arabian commentaries upon it, and it is observable in most of the writers that have still to be mentioned. Even the nature of the universals is no longer discussed from a purely logical or metaphysical point of view, but becomes connected with psychological questions. And, on the whole, the widening of intellectual interests is the chief feature by which the second period of Scholasticism may be distinguished from the first. In some respects there is more freshness and interest
charact istics of Aquinas no doubt stood on a higher level than Anselm second and Abelard, not merely by their wider range of knowledge period. but also by the intellectual massiveness of their achieve- ments; but it may be questioned whether the earlier writers did not possess a greater force of originality and a keener talent. Originality was at no time the strong point of the middle ages, but in the later period it was almost of necessity buried under the mass of material suddenly thrust upon the age, to be assimilated. On the other hand, the influence of this new material is everywhere evident in the wider range of questions which are discussed by the doctors of the period. Interest
End of Article: CLASSICS If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/CHR_CLI/CLASSICS.html"> CLASSICS </a> |
|
|
(Previous) CLASSED GROWTHS OF THE |
(Next) CLASSIFICATION (Lat. classis, a class, probably... |
|
Sponsored Advertisements