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MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY |
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The Perfecting of Philosophy in Medieval Times Part II: From Anselm to Albert the Great Anselm St. Anselm of Lombardy (1033-1109), Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Bec in Normandy, and later Archbishop of Canterbury in England, was the foremost philosopher of the 11th century. One of his chief interests, -- which led to only a partial success in the efforts it engendered, -- was the distinction between theology and philosophy. Anselm disagreed with those philosophers (such as Erigena) who held that these are really one science. But it was left for Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, to show with scientific exactness that there is a clear line of demarcation between them, and that theology (that is, supernatural theology) is one science and philosophy another. Anselm offered reasoned proofs for the existence of God and for the Divine Attributes. He argued cogently in evidence of the truth that the human soul acquires intellectual knowledge by abstracting ideas or concepts from sense-findings, and using these in judging and in reasoning, he inclined to the Platonic doctrine that soul and body are united accidentally and not substantially; in this, of course, he was quite wrong. The heretics of Anselm's day were fond of dialectics, -- that is, of fine logical reasoning; theirs was rather an abuse, than a proper use of logic. Nevertheless, many pious and learned men were led to see in dialectics a kind of snide trickery, and even a devilish device for the spread of error and the confusing of minds. Anselm stood sanely and firmly against this mistaken view of logic. He employed it himself with telling effect, and so routed the heretics with their own weapon. Thus he saved the good name and the splendid service of dialectics for Christian scholars; he justified for all time the use of sheer reasoning and philosophical argument in the exposition and defense of the Christian Faith. Yet he clearly declared that the Christian had no need to rationalize is Faith; possessing the Faith, reason can serve to show its truth and glory, and so attract those who have it not. The motto of Anselm was "Credo ut intelligam," that is, "I believe that I may understand": "I find in my Faith a great light which aids me in understanding other things; I do not need to philosophize about creatures to justify myself in believing." Another motto of Anselm was "Fides quaerens intellectum," "Faith seeking to understand": that is, "If you have the Faith to begin with, you have a head-start in the work of philosophy; you need not philosophize yourself into an acceptance of the Faith." Perhaps Anselm is best remembered in our times for his famous ontological argument for the existence of God. This argument is not a valid one, but it has intrigued the minds of thinkers for nearly a thousand years. Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza were among famous men to study it, reshape it, and present it. Despite its attractiveness it fails to make conclusive proof. Of course, it is in no wise required. The inescapable force of the a posteriori arguments for the existence and attributes of God make other arguments superfluous. But Anselm, like many another since his day, thought that an a priori argument could be developed from the fact that man inevitably has some notion of Deity. The famous argument ran thus:
The fallacy in this argument lies in the fact that it "jumps" from the realm of thought (called the logical order) to the realm of reality outside the mind (called the ontological order), and thus leaves a gap in the reasoning. If we restate the argument, observing the strict rules of logic, we shall see that the conclusion is quite different:
This argument is perfectly legitimate. But the fact that God must be thought of as existing cannot be used as a proof that God actually does exist. Gaunilo, a critic of Anselm's argument, tried to reduce it to absurdity in some such fashion as this:
This nonsense merely proved the fact that Gaunilo did not understand Anselm's argument. For he was speaking of the Fist, the Infinite, the Necessary Being, not of a creatural and limited thing like a floating island. No limited thing can be limitless in perfection. No creature can be envisioned as most perfect. The very concept of a creature is the concept of thing perfectible. Anselm spoke only of that Being which we cannot help thinking of (and which even atheists cannot help thinking of, for they must have an idea of what they are denying when they deny God) as absolutely perfect, as limitless in perfection, as infinite. No one needs to think of a floating island or of any limited reality. But the idea of the absolute is inevitable to normal and mature minds. Indeed, if the ontological argument did not unwarrantedly assume a priori the objective validity of thought, it would be a cogent and irrefutable proof of God's existence. Abelard Peter Abelard or Abaelard (1079-1142), a native of Brittany, became in early manhood the outstanding teacher of his age. He was universally regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest of living philosophers. In this opinion Peter Abelard wholeheartedly concurred. He was a fiery teacher and speaker, a clever dialectician, a man too intent on triumph in debate. There were few questions in philosophy upon which he failed to touch; there were few to which he gave thorough and complete treatment. His great service to philosophy is that he stirred up the thinkers; he awoke enthusiasm. Even his errors, championed so earnestly, aroused opposition that led to the clear exposition of many a truth that had been only half understood or but murkily explained. Abelard rightly maintained that the use of reason is of the greatest value in setting forth the truths of Faith. Yet, despite his tendency to run to extremes, he did not declare that reason is all-sufficient (rationalism) for the full understanding of every truth. Hence it is not just to call Abelard a Rationalist, as too many have done. In the matter of universals Abelard came near the right doctrine of Moderate Realism. In his day the terminology of this question had not been finally formulated, and hence there is some obscurity in his position. Abelard says that God is so far above expression that all our speech about Him is figurative. Here he is wrong. God is infinite, and our minds and our mode of speech are finite. But, for all that, we can have a knowledge of God that is literally true knowledge, not figurative knowledge, even though it is never exhaustive. All that we know of as absolute perfection (that is, pure or unmixed perfection) we attribute to God literally, though in a transcendent or eminent way. Abelard thought that God is compelled by His goodness to create, and to create the best of all possible worlds (theological necessitarianism and cosmological optimism). Now, compulsion in God is unthinkable, since He is infinite and supremely independent, and, being the Source of all reality, there is nothing outside God which could conceivably work an independent influence upon Him. Nor is there anything within God to compel creation. All that God has, He is. God's Goodness is God Himself eternally subsisting. Hence the idea of compulsion in or upon God is a self-contradictory notion. God is not obliged in any way to create, nor, freely choosing to create, is He obliged to create the best of all possible worlds. It is sufficient that His work be worthy of Him; that it be splendidly suitable for achieving the end for which it is made. In his studies upon the ethical question, Abelard rightly holds that God is the Supreme Good towards Which man of necessity tends. God is the ultimate end of man in all human acts. And the possession and enjoyment of this objective End is the subjective last end of man: that is, beatitude in the possession of the Supreme Good. In trying to fix the norm of morality, Abelard hesitates, and finally sets down two opinions, neither of which is correct. He thinks that the law or line which marks off good from evil (the norm of morality) is either God's will alone, or man's intention. Now, the true norm of morality is God as Eternal Law, that is, God as Divine Understanding and Will, not God as Will alone. God's will is, humanly speaking, consequent upon His knowledge of what is in line, and what is out of line, with Himself. Man's intention cannot be the norm of morality. It is a determinant of morality in so far as a bad intention can spoil a good act and make it evil; but a good intention cannot save a bad act and make it good. The norm of morality is The Eternal Law; it is applied by human reason judging on the objective right or wrong of a situation here and now to be decided; in this service, human reason is called conscience. The Arabians Two notable philosophers among the Mohammedan Arabs of the Middle Ages must be mentioned here. These are Ibn-Sina (more commonly called by the Latinized form of his name Avicenna) and Ibn-Roschd (usually called Averroes). Avicenna (980-1037) was a native of Bokhara; his parents were Persian-born Arabians. He was a man of intellectual gifts. A physician of renown as well as a philosopher, he is forever memorable for his book, The Canons of Medicine, which served for many years as the standard textbook for students of medical science. Averroes (d. 1198) was a Spanish=born Arab. He was a notable commentator on Aristotle as well as a distinguished thinker in his own right. The fact that the question of universals was of burning importance in the Middle Ages explains the enduring of these Arab names. For the Arabians were deeply interested in the origin of ideas, and their theories touched the very heart of the controversy on universals. The true doctrine on ideas may be summed up thus: there are no inborn ideas; man acquires all his knowledge. Ideas result in man's intellect from the action of the mind on the findings of sense. From these ideas others may be worked out by a further process of abstraction. So the mind rises from those ideas immediately formed upon sense-action (physical ideas) to concepts of pure quantity (mathematical ideas) and concepts of being considered apart from all the limitations of materiality (metaphysical ideas). In a word, ideas have their origin in the native power of the human mind or intellect to abstract understandable essences (called intelligible species) from sense-findings, and to hold these within itself as representations of reality. Each human being has a mind or intellect. The intellect, in so far as it abstracts ideas (or intelligible species) from sense-findings (and from ideas already formed) is called the intellectus agens or active intellect; in so far as it expresses within itself the abstracted essences or intelligible species and holds these as representations of reality (thus knowing reality), it is called the intellectus possibilis or understanding intellect. Now, the Arabians who followed Avicenna held the strange doctrine that there is a common intellectus agens for all men, jus as there is one sun in the sky to lend light to all eyes. Averroes and his followers went further; they taught that the intellect, both agens and possibilis, is a common possession, a reality outside all individual men. Individual man has no intellect at all. His knowing-power is merely that of the senses. And, since the senses are organic (that is, dependent on bodily members), there is no justification for the conclusion that man has spiritual element in his make-up. Therefore, man has no spiritual soul; when he dies he perishes utterly. So far Averroes the philosopher. But Averroes the theologian, holding fast to the Koran, teaches that man has an immortal soul. Here we have the beginning of that most disastrous of all doctrines, against which the mighty Thomas Aquinas was to rise in towering strength: the doctrine of a twofold truth. This pernicious doctrine holds that what is true in philosophy may be false in theology, and vice versa. The twofold-truth doctrine was taught in the 13th century by Siger of Brabant in the University of Paris. The doctrine is wholly indefensible, and it leads directly into the insane self-contradiction of skepticism. It is ruinous of all knowledge, of all science, of all philosophy. The doctrine of twofold-truth is no longer defended by theorists; Aquinas put an enduring end to all discussion of the matter. But it endures in practice, especially in the form of a twofold morality. Thus there are people who will justify sharp practice and open savagery by quoting as sound principles the silly clichés, "Business is business," and "All's fair in war," -- as though the businessman and the soldier had a set of moral laws for office hours or term of service, and another set for private life. Truth is one, constant, consistent. One truth cannot come in conflict with another truth. And the truth of morality is like all other truths. There can be no such thing as a diversity of moral principles to suit diversity of persons or circumstances. Albert Albert the Great, known to his contemporaries as Albert of Cologne, and frequently called by the Latin form of his name, Albertus Magnus, was born in Swabia, part of present Germany, in the last years of the 12th century or the first years of the 13th. He died in 1280. Albert was a member of the Order of St. Dominic; he was made Bishop of Ratisbon in 1260. Preeminently a student and teacher, he resigned his bishop's see after three years of office. Most of his teaching was done at the universities of Paris and Cologne. Albert is called "The Universal Doctor," and the name is justified, for he was a man of enormous capacity for learning and of tireless diligence in study and research. His works are many, and they cover wide and various fields -- philosophy, theology, Scripture, natural science. His genius was analytical; he worked out an amazing amount of scientific knowledge. The synthetical power which collates, integrates, focusses, and refines the fruits of analysis, was not so marked a gift of Albert, although he certainly possessed it in good measure. Albert was an Aristotelian. He purified the translations of Aristotle of much Arabian interpolation. In his treatise on Aristotle's Physics, as well as in his own studies and experiments, Albert contributed more to the development of physical science than did the much lauded Roger Bacon. Albert's work was notable and it was nobly done. It stands upon its own merits. But, looking upon it in retrospect, we must judge that Albert's greatest service to philosophy was the fact that he prepared the ground, so to speak, for the work of his illustrious pupil, Thomas Aquinas.
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Introduction & Directory |
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