Late Medieval Philosophy: Abelard, Avicenna, Aquinas, et al.

We've covered early medieval philosophy, so let's move forward to the later part of this era, which is called the Scholastic period. This is marked by a strong Aristotelian influence, as well as the rise of universities as we know them today. Several of the more prominent figures of this time, like Avicenna, came from the Middle East, so let's hear what they had to say!
Script by Luca Igansi
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[@LancerFFS]

Very interesting. I've had a keen interest in philosophy for about 10 or so years and it's nice to see you make content on this topic.

[@Anglomachian]

Do you think if we point out to people who say “atheists just believe in naturalism”, that Thomas Aquinus also believed in naturalism, it’ll make them stop saying that?

[@b.melakail]

Aquinas would be a supernaturalist, not a naturalist

[@enzoarayamorales7220]

@@b.melakailnaturalism meant something different back then

[@quickk.7064]

naturalism is actually a bit vague term, u have to decompose the term into a number of potential meanings, it can mean not believing in anything that exists in the external world that the senses aren't able to interact with (forms, a type of deity that isn't sensed even in the afterworld etc...) or it could mean a physicalist, which is basically believing in nothing but the physical matter, even abstracts don't exist internally let alone externally, and this is what they mean by "atheists are naturalist".

[@ericloscheider7433]

Nice work! Would love to see you cover Giulio Cesare Vanini

[@gardentuber.]

Yay🎉 THANK YOU DAVE

[@PinkBeard9127]

Bro the old intro hits harder ngl

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

it's the same thing

[@PinkBeard9127]

​@@ProfessorDaveExplainsI mean the one that goes "He knows a lot about the science stuff". I mean it still is the same melody and almost the same words but just saying. Not trying to be disrespectful or anything. You are my most respected youtuber especially going through with debating people who are very stubborn and also stupid and uneducated.

[@artophile7777]

​@@PinkBeard9127 I thought this intro was older?!

[@barnabasrsnags4828]

​​@@PinkBeard9127so when i noticed it i thought he uses the science one for things like biology, chemistry, physics and so on While using the all kinds of stuff for history and that kind of thing ( or more general content) though that is just a hypothesis that i am too lazy to check

[@ivoryas1696]

​@@barnabasrsnags4828 I mean... _I_ always figured that was how it worked. Makes sense, and I can't see it much-any other way.

[@nietzschescodes]

When the series continue exactly? I see that 8 videos are hidden. Does it mean the following episodes are already recorded but will be unhidden, like one after the other, one week after another?

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

yes! i have a release schedule

[@thecritiquer9407]

medieval master of arts trivium : rhetoric(cicero), logic & grammar quadriuvium : arithmatic, geometry, astronomy, music

[@verde5738]

The thumbnail: When you achieve Battle Royale for the first time and finally understand what the peak of humanity feels like.

[@MarcelinoDeseo]

7:56 woah, reference to the animation avatar : legend of korra?

[@MrDzoni955]

Look like it, I wonder if he likes the show or if he just googled spirit world because you can def see TLA and LoK screenshots on google images if you search for that

[@waelfadlallah8939]

Donny 😢

[@Jontheinternet]

4:25 Carl Jung took the idea of "active intellect" and called it "collective unconscious" and used a lot of platonic ideas

[@mbberry135]

To be honest I cringed hard when I saw that You were going to cover this subject. I do have to watch the previous video. I was surprised, You did a nice job. One criticism, the way You pronounced Aristotelian. Next try: A Wrist Toe Till Lee Anne or Ahn. Thank You Sincerely in Xto Mike B. B. From Philly, P.A. U.S.A.

[@PaulaBean]

Although Aristotle was wrong about nearly everything he wrote about, I still find him sympathetic.

[@vylbird8014]

Aquinas, on the other hand, was a dick.

[@legendre007]

The revival of interest in Aristotle in Europe, before the scholastics rationalistically abused his authority? Exciting! 😊

[@MaxOrthodox]

There was not a revival and Aristotle and Plato weren’t lost The church fathers studied the Ancient Greek philosophers and in the Middle Ages people studied the church fathers for example St. Augustine was influenced by Plato and people were familiar with Plato People also in the west went to schools in the Roman Empire ( Byzantine) which had many works of the philosophers and studied Aristotle at school so Christian’s were always studying Aristotle In the West several works of Aristotle were available to Roman Catholic medieval scholars in Latin translations from Greek dating back to Boethius in the sixth century and Marius Victorinus in the fourth century. By the end of the twelfth century, the Columbia History of Western Philosophy reminds us, “authors of the Latin West were quite familiar with the logical works (Organon) of Aristotle.” 71 As the historian Sylvain Gouguenheim has shown, with the translations made at the monastery of Mont Saint-Michel, medieval scholars hardly needed translations of Aristotle from Arabic into Latin. 72 Moreover, we know that Saint Thomas Aquinas read Aristotle translated directly from the Greek texts into Latin by William of Moerbeke (1215-1286), a Dominican who was Latin bishop of Corinth-that is, a Roman Catholic bishop of a city in largely Christian Orthodox Greece. William produced more than twenty-five translations of Aristotle in addition to translations of Archimedes, Proclus, Ptolemy, Galen, and many other Greek thinkers. In fact, as will be shown, it was Christian scholars who were responsible for bringing Greek knowledge to Islam, and this knowledge came to Islam only because Muslim forces had conquered areas (the Middle East and North Africa) where a rich Greek Christian civilization had developed.

[@Pan-demic]

What a bizarre comment

[@MaxOrthodox]

@@Pan-demic empty comment

[@Pan-demic]

@@MaxOrthodox I would try to respond in more detail, but I can't understand what the comment is supposed to be referring to. (I am referring to the original comment; not yours) (Also, Plato was not lost, but only one work of his survived fully. Medieval peeps had very little but just enough references to know they had very little. Thus was the "Poverty of the Latins." That's why they travelled en masse to the Greek-speaking Romans (Byzantine Empire) centered at Constantinople as well as the Islamic world to collect better and better translations.

[@MaxOrthodox]

@@Pan-demic they always studied Aristotle and Plato they would have to especially the church to understand the church fathers like Augustine because they were influenced by them there was no revival it’s another medieval misconception even Ted talks admit this

[@whattheywontsayiwillsay]

So basically if you meant to just hurt someone and you accidentally kill them, then you’re certainly not a murderer. It’s the intention that counts

[@sunnny819]

you had the intent to hurt someone so you would still be a murderer. if you accidentally slipped on ice and fell on a small baby, killing it, you wouldnt be a murderer

[@mjjoe76]

An almost rabid adherence to Aristotle’s ideas about the natural world seriously hurt the advancement of science in the West for a long time.

[@Pan-demic]

Ahhh, the classic pitfall into the common myth of historical progress. The idea that history is about the linear progression of science and all that good stuff going up, up, and away! Historians now longer awkwardly jam the extremely messy and complex reality of history involving many streams of thoughts and events into this simplistic grand narrative of progress. Now this kind of narrative involving things like the Conflict Thesis is considered 18th and 19th century junk. (1, pg 3) (2, pg 70, pg 15 - 16, and pg 184) The great historian of science David C. Lindberg notes a particular flavor of dogmatic polemics, the Conflict Thesis followers of the Draper-White kind, or the modern “I LOVE SCIENCE” meme brigade: “Third, we are convinced that traditional categories- enemies versus allies, conflict versus consensus-are misleading, even pernicious, because they direct us toward the wrong questions. For more than a century historians of Christianity and science like White have wasted their time and dissipated their energies attempting to identify villains and victims, often with polemical or apologetic intent and always within a framework heavily laden with values. They have tacitly assumed that science has been, and continues to be, one of Western civilization's most valuable cultural artifacts-so valuable, indeed, that nothing should be allowed to interfere with it. Then they have proceeded to inquire why the most perfect expression of scientific activity (namely, modern science) was so long in coming into existence, as if its creation were a simple and inevitable matter; they have leapt quickly to the conclusion that science has suffered various indignities at the hand of assorted enemies, of which Christianity was chief. Such scientism must not pass unchallenged. In offering these criticisms, we do not mean to question the significance or value of the scientific enterprise. We mean only to suggest that to start with scientific assumptions is no way to understand the nature and genesis of science. If we are going to celebrate the rise of science, we are not apt to under- stand it. Besides, partisan historians of religion can play a similar game: by supposing religion to be the premier cultural property, to which everything else (including science) must be subordinate, they may discover that science has frequently interfered with the progress of religion. Both games, though seductive for their apologetic function, are of little merit to the historian, because the outcome is, in very large measure, predetermined by the value-laden rules of the game being played. Sound scholarship requires a more neutral starting point.43” (3) This comment oversimplifies the intellectual environment of the Middle Ages to a comical degree. Medieval intellectuals adored Aristotle but they did not rabidly adhere to him. After all, Aristotle argued for the eternal state of the universe. Sure, there were rationalists that were highly devoted to Aristotle but there were also Nominalists and other thinkers who opposed the revivial of philosophical assumptions of antiquity. (1, pg 299) “Clearly, Galileo's early doubts about Aristotle's account of motion were not the thoughts of a lone radical, but part of a scientific milieu where experimentation and criticism of Greek natural [philosophy were becoming increasingly common. Of course, we know that this began with John Buridan way back in the fourteenth century, and that the Jesuits had published well-regarded books on motion with which Galileo was familiar. His earliest attempt to explain projectile motion (that is, what happens to a cannon ball after it is fired, or when you throw something), drew directly on the concept of impetus that Buridan had found so useful.8” (4, pg 306) In a time when science was abstractly expensive and extremely hard to justify via practical purpose, they needed other ways to justify their practices. The metaphysical cornerstone of modern science is often overlooked. Back in premodern times, science was not the automatic and ultimate authority it is today. To understand why science became attractive before it could demonstrate its remarkable expertise at explaining the universe, it is necessary to look at things from the Medieval point of view. The main scientific institution of the Middle Ages was the university. Although these were primarily intended to educate prospective members of the higher clergy, universities also provided a home for natural philosophy, and they considered the subject an essential part of their training. Protected by both Church and state, universities gave students and their professors unprecedented levels of security and intellectual freedom. (5, pg 36) Students enjoyed the same legal status as clerics, and it was difficult for local secular authorities to restrict what they studied. For the Church's part, it never offered unqualified support for all branches of science and set limits beyond which natural philosophers were not allowed to go. But these restrictions were all theological or metaphysical, all things beyond the scope of any Medieval philosopher anyhow. The model of teaching in the Middle Ages, whereby the universities were self-governing corporations, has spread around the world, even to those places that were never colonized by Europeans. (4, pg 348 - 349) For Medieval people, their monotheism meant they thought one supreme God conceived the universe as its ultimate governor out of absolutely nothing. The starting and central assumption, or logical premise, of natural philosophy in the Middle Ages, was that nature had been conceived by God ex nihilo. Medieval people thought that nature followed the divinely ordained rules of a rational and orderly God as God conceived the universe through entirely his own design, and that everything was the product of a perfect and rational mind. Giving birth to one of the core tenets of modern science: consistency; the idea that an experiment conducted on Monday will give results that are still usable on a Tuesday. (2, pg 180 - 197) Because of this, natural laws are constant, could be understood rationally, and thus worthy of scrutiny. (2, pg 191 - 192) And since God invented humanity in his own *likeness*, by being in step with the architect of the universe, it follows that we can comprehend his blueprints. Therefore, this made natural philosophy a legitimate field of study because through nature people could learn about their creator. Which was very much a good thing, that was totally complementary with scripture, exemplified via the two-book metaphor. In doing this Medieval scholars rejected the notion that the rules of nature were bound by necessity or by what mortals such as Aristotle thought, as much as they were authorities, as God was not constrained by anything. In showing these authorities could and were wrong, it opened up a whole new can of worms of various philosophies and theories that criticized the ancients or even went against them. (30) Theology thus played a prominent role in the formation of the models of modern science. Furthermore, due to the Fall of Adam and Eve, and the marring of the world as exemplified in Tolkien and the Silmarillion, humanity had fallen not only morally but also rationally. We could not trust our intuitions alone. Logic and reason were still very useful, but they were inherently flawed and did not guarantee truth on their own. The Fall had impaired humanity; we could be mistaken in our deductions. Not through cognition alone we could make an inquiry of the world around us. Therefore, the only way to find out the true nature of nature was via experience and observation, eventually forming into experimental science. (4, pg 346 - 351) (2, pg 188 - 196) Medieval natural philosophers increasingly began to take up Ockham's nominalist philosophy; his followers rejected realist positions which clung to the belief that a structure of the universe could be provided by reason alone.

[@Pan-demic]

Ockham attacked the misuse of definitions, taking as premises terms such as ‘final cause’, which corresponds to nothing that is verifiable. Ockham's insistence on the difference between reason and causes, the latter turning on observable sequences of events, opened up inquiry into the natural world by providing a conceptual basis for distinguishing nature from society. This was a deathblow to traditional teleological thinking, for it separated norms and the conditions of human action from the requirements for explaining external physical events. Medieval philosophers took up an intellectual tradition that was increasingly critical of Aristotle and relied on direct observation. The first response to this was introducing additional assumptions to account for anomalies. Yet the multiplication of such assumptions regarding the metaphysics dealing with the affairs of earth to preserve Aristotle's physics gradually raised doubts about the fundamental assumption of Aristoltiean theory; that everything in the universe tends to find a resting place, its purpose or ‘final cause’ within the great chain of being. Ockham's Razor, the principle that the best explanation is one of the simplest terms that does not multiply assumptions and entities needlessly, took a toll on Aristotelian theory. Aristotle's assumption that everything had a natural place stemmed from the ancient natural law tradition, with its underlying and fundamental assumption of inequality. Thus Aristotle distinguished between natural and unnatural motion, with a thrown stone falling naturally. Ockham rejected this distinction, suggesting the idea of inertia, which was followed up by monumental thinkers such as Nicholas Oresme, Pierre D*Ailly, and Jean Buridan with the idea that motion was measured via impetus, the energy given to an object by its mover, an individual agency. THe idea that motion was as fundamental as natural restwas emerging; by the 14th century, thinkers such as Jean Buridan used impetus to subvert the idea of the ancient cosmos by applying the same principles used to describe motion on earth to explain the movement of heavenly bodies. (See 1, pg 33 - 47 for a detailed description of the ancient conception of the cosmos) There is no need to suppose that the heavenly bodies are made of an increasingly higher and allegedly special element that could only move in a circular motion. (the quintessence or fifth element) Nor is it necessary to postulate intelligence of the spheres to account for the spheres movements. Buridan thus abandoned the ancient assumption that heavenly bodies have a superior nature and that their place was due to a higher intelligence unavailable on Earth (the music of the spheres), the archetypal archetype of ancient theology. It is if moral intuitions generated behind social leveling on earth with Christianity were being applied to the celestial sphere. Nature had no need of artificially imposed aristocracy. Oresme was even bolder; he called into question another ancient assumption - that the heavens move while the earth is stationary. *I conclude that one could not show by an experience that the heaven was moved with a daily motion and that the earth was not moved in this way.* 14th theories on the physical world benefited from the abandonment of the moral assumption of natural inequality. (1, pg 342 - 344) (4, pg 178 - 191) (5, pg 110 - 117) What we moderns would call decidedly unscientific led to the coming of a set of theories regarding natural philosophy that revolutionized the practice within a gradual shift towards empiricism and quantification. These theories were revolutionized through the monumental combination of natural philosophy with mathematics. (4, pg 161 - 176) (5) (8) (9) In this period, a large-scale systematic shift between the two subjects once kept firmly separate began to be seen. These factors, causes, and effects combined allowed Medieval scholars to explore all kinds of differing theories and inferences about the natural world. Said topics of philosophy increasingly began to be seen within great independent centers of learning (Practically their own state entities) fully dedicated to scholarship. As allowed by the mass concentration of literacy along with a common and communal community of academia made possible by the rise of the newly vigorous and literary powerhouse that was the Church. Many of the great thinkers of the Middle Ages were churchmen as they had the resources and patronage from the Church to enact their thoughts into genuine discoveries. This community of scholarship shared a common language and set of academic principles making a kind of cumulative and communal scholarship unseen anywhere until then. (6) (4) (5) (7) (3) (8) (9) Historians such as Brian Terney have trace the origins of our theory of natural rights back to the 12th century canon lawyers, a fascinating tory. (21, pg 245) Reason ahd began to lose the ontologically privileged position it had been accorded by an aristocratic society. Reason cased to be something that used people, and became something that people used. Reason was democratized during the Middle Ages, a resulting from the understanding of society as an association of individuals "carried' by the papal revolution. Appealing to 'nature' or natural law (jus naturale) as the foundation for justice became standard for the canonists. But this not 'nature' as understood by the stoics. The canonists' egalitarian concern for individual conscienceand free will led them gradually to recast natural law as a system of natural rights; pre-social or moral inherent to the individual. In this way the canonists converted the primordial Christian concern with 'innerness' into the language of law. This conversion laid the foundation of modern liberalism. The canonists drew on the Stoic conception of natural law, a language that had been a means of speculation about social conventions, into an instrument of moral reformation. The content is urgently moral for the canonists; as seen by the strong distribtuive principle of the golden rule. As seen in Gratian's Decretum, equality and reciprocity, the claims of the individual soul, wereits hallmarks. The assumption of moral equality gave rise in turn to the claim of equal liberty. Thus the canonits moved away from the idea of a preordained external ordering of things with its implict emphasis on 'fate' to the assertion of subjective rights, the rights of individuals. Instead of associating 'nature' with an objectively intrpetated and harmonious hierarchy ('everything in its place'), they interpreted it as a forceo r power inherent in human personality. THe result was a conception of natural rights that privileged human freedom. BY associating 'right reason' with the individual will, Paul and Augustine put forward a 'democratic' vision of rationality. Rationality lost its association with hierarchy. Instead, through its association with the conscience and will of the indiudal, rationality gave a new dignity to the human self, the gift and burden of freedom. (1, pg 243 - 244) The preoccupation with the difference between 'words' and 'things' was no mere accident. The Christian preoccupation with 'innerness' and human agency - an intensified awareness of the difference between 'inner' and 'outer' experience, between the will and the sense - contributed to a veritable outburst of logical studies in the 12th and 13th centuries. It reflected a growing distrust of the coercive potential of general terms or concepts, if an extra-mental reality is attributed to them. (1, pg 251) As seen by Medieval logicians taking logic far beyond the achievements of the ancient Greeks, taking it to an advanced logic that was not rediscovered until the 19th century. (4, pg 215) In their quest to find any possible ancient manuscripts, the Humanists cleared away all the Medieval commentaries that built upon and criticized Aristotle. Scholasticism was too recent to preserve as far as they were concerned, so they dumped it. What James Hannam says: "The effect was rapid and nearly disastrous for natural philosophy." (4, pg 215) Thus wiping the slate clean of Medieval philosophy. (4, pg 216) If anything, the Renaissance Humanists were rabid in their adherence towards the ancients, "a time when, in order to be up to date in writing or architecture, artists had to model their work on a prototype that was over 1,000 years old." (4, pg 210) See (4, pg 207 - 228) for a full summary of the Renaissance Humanists' madness for the ancients. Bibliography and Further Reading: Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Allen Lane, 2014) (1) Of Popes and Unicorns: Science, Christianity, and How the Conflict Thesis Fooled the World, David Hutchings and James C. Ungureanu, 2022 (2) Beyond War and Peace: A Reappraisal of the Encounter between Christianity and Science (www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1987/PSCF9-87Lindberg.html) (3) Hannam, J. (2011). The genesis of science how the christian middle ages launched the Scientific Revolution. Regnery Publishing, Inc. (4) Grant, Edward. The Foundation of Modern Science in the Middle Ages: Their Religious, Institutional, and Intellectual Contexts. 8th ed., New York City, Cambridge Univ. Press, 2008 (5) Grant, Edward. God and Reason in the Middle Ages. Digital printing. ed., Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2001 (6) historyforatheists.com/2020/03/the-great-myths-8-the-loss-of-ancient-learning/ (7) historyforatheists.com/2021/08/the-great-myths-13-the-renaissance-myth/ (8) The Measure of Reality: Quantification and Western Society, 1250-1600 (Cambridge, 1997) (9)

[@aristotlespupil136]

Interesting works. Will delve into it.

[@Pan-demic]

@@aristotlespupil136 It really is such a fascinating and complex intellectual environment, something often utterly obscured by the constant blabbering of non-historians that do not specialise in this area regurgitating and making new myths left and right

[@TheJoshissaxy]

​@Pan-demic homie wrote the Bible 2 to disprove a KZbin comment holy shit

[@Sheeko447]

First

[@SqualidsargeStudios]

Question, how are these tutorials? You explained stuff sure, but a tutorial is commonly referred to as to teach a person a skill based on knowledge and examples

[@ProfessorDaveExplains]

Look up the definition of tutorial

[@waelfadlallah8939]

Why i got the feeling that Prof Dave converted to Islam ?

[@MaxOrthodox]

You think Prof Dave will convert to Islam who makes videos about atheism you think prof Dave will convert to a religion that believes the earth is on a whale called nun [Ibn Kathir’s Tafsir on the meaning of Surah 68:1]: It was said that Nun refers to a great whale that rides on the currents of the waters of the great ocean and on its back it carries the seven Earths, . . . Then Allah created the “Nun” (Whale) and He caused steam to rise out of which the heavens were created and the Earth was then laid flat on nun’s back. . .

[@Catholictomherbert]

Maybe it’s a metaphor and there are these big animals floating around in the vast spiral galaxy.

[@MaxOrthodox]

@@Catholictomherbert it’s not a metaphor Muslims don’t use metaphors and if you look at other Muslim commentaries on the Quran about nun it’s a whale Just like Indians and Chinese believe a turtle and 4 elephants hold up the earth

[@MaxOrthodox]

@@Catholictomherbert Christians are one of the only ones who believe the world is round And the Greeks and Romans believed the earth was round See St. Basil, St Gregory of Nyssa, Saint Bede, Saint Ambrose, St. John Chrysostom, etc

[@scottselenak]

@@MaxOrthodoxDave doesn’t really make videos about atheism. I’ve never really heard him discuss it. It’s just that most of his topics are things religious people don’t want to hear.

[@noahcole6856]

The Bible is truth

[@kentheengineer592]

The Degree Reflects your Worldviews

[@silvaskiproductions3937]

you convinced me noah. time to quit watching this guy's videos because of your persuasive and compelling comment

[@noahcole6856]

@@silvaskiproductions3937 I felt the need to comment that not sure if it was the Holy Spirit or ocd but I commented anyway

[@artophile7777]

The truth is whatever I want it to be.

[@MaxOrthodox]

@@noahcole6856 watch Jay Dyer