[...]... Thomas Aquinas presents initial diYculties to a reader brought up on Livy and Cicero, and Aquinas is a model of simple lucidity by comparison with most of his colleagues and successors It is only in recent years that translations into English of medieval writers have become widely available, and the task of translation is not a trivial one Scholastic Latin is full of technical neologisms which are hard... younger scholars who in recent years have published widely and well on many topics of medieval philosophy Paradoxically, one eVect of the new medieval interest was a downgrading of Thomas Aquinas In the Cambridge History, for example, his index entry is not as long as the entry for sophismata Kretzmann came to realize and remedy this defect, and spent the last years of his life writing two magisterial books... Thomas’ Summa contra Gentiles Aquinas, in my view, retains the right to be classed as the greatest philosopher of the high Middle Ages But he is an outstanding peak in a mountain range that has several other resplendent summits Medieval philosophy is above all a continuum, and when one reads an individual philosopher, whether Abelard, Aquinas, or Ockham, one is taking a sounding of an ongoing process And... Deventer Canterbury Cologne Aachen Soissons Louvain Paris Sens Poitiers Munich Basel Lyons Avignon Constance Padua Milan Ravenna Florence Rome Fossanuova Cordoba Naples C o C nst ha an lc ti ed no on pl e Bec Ephesus Hippo Carthage Marrakesh 0 0 500 miles 400 Alexandria 800 km The world of medieval philosophy Edessa Jerusalem INTRODUCTION ost histories of philosophy, in this age of specialization, are the... of 7 PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH obedience to God they would have passed into fellowship with the angels without death intervening It was because of Adam’s sin in Paradise that humans became mortal, subject to the bodily death that had always been natural for beasts After the Fall death would be the common lot of all humans; but after death some, by God’s grace, would be rewarded by admission to the company... the analytic tradition at that time were very similar to those studied, often with no less sophistication, by medieval philosophers and logicians In many ways, indeed, the keen interest in the logical analysis of ordinary language which was characteristic of Oxford in the latter part of the twentieth century brought it closer to medieval methods and concerns than any other era of post-Renaissance philosophy. .. Abelard, and even Anselm are closer to the romantic paradigm of the philosopher as a solitary genius than they are to any ideal of a humble operative adding his stone to the communal cairn A history of Western philosophy in the Middle Ages must include a treatment of philosophers who are not Western in any modern sense, because the intellectual frontiers of medieval Latin Europe were, fortunately, porous... Council as a den of robbers Heartened by the support of Rome, Constantinople struck back at Alexandria, and at a council at Chalcedon in 451 the doctrine of the dual nature was aYrmed Christ was perfect God and perfect man, with a human body and a human soul, sharing divinity with his Father and sharing humanity with us The decisions of Chalcedon and Wrst Ephesus henceforth provided the test of orthodoxy... Augustine also invented a new art-form to which he gave the name ‘Soliloquies’ He wrote a dialogue with himself in which the two characters are named Augustine and Reason Reason asks Augustine what he wishes to know ‘I want to know God and the soul,’ Augustine replies ‘Nothing more?’ ‘Nothing at all’ (S 1 2 7) I PHILOSOPHY AND FAITH The earliest portrait of St Augustine, from the Papal Library in the Lateran,... Descartes, leaping over late antiquity and the Middle Ages There was a widespread belief in academic circles that medieval philosophy was not worth studying This belief was not usually based on any close acquaintance with the relevant texts: it was more likely to be an unexamined inheritance of religious or humanist prejudice There were, however, many genuine obstacles that made medieval philosophy less accessible . Islamic Thought 22 3 Avicenna on Intellect and Imagination 22 5 The Psychology of Averroes 23 0 Aquinas on the Senses and the Intellect 23 3 Aquinas on the Will 23 8 Scotus versus Aquinas 24 2 Ockham. Scotus 24 5 Pomponazzi on the Soul 24 7 8. Ethics 25 2 Augustine on How to be Happy 25 2 Augustine on Lying, Murder, and Sex 25 5 Abelard’s Ethic of Intention 26 0 Aquinas’ Ethical System 26 3 Aquinas as. years that translations into English of medieval writers have become widely available, and the task of translation is not a trivial one. Scholastic Latin is full of technical neologisms which are