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Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology

Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

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Page 1: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Later Middle Ages

Scholastic Psychology

Page 2: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus

The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

works of Aristotle and the Christian tradition

Problems of Aquinas’ day Can man know God? What are our duties to God? What is sin? What is the nature and status of the

human will? What is the right form of life for

man?

Page 3: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Principally Aristotelian account of nature* Everything of varying degrees between prime matter

and pure form Notion of Essence vs. Existence (Being) While particulars have essences their existence

entails something different Essences have a connection to forms

Return to actuality vs. potentiality Form as actuality matter as potentiality

In this sense existence is the realization of the concept

*Note that our practice of classifying someone as Platonic or Aristotelian is nothing more than we could still do today. While useful to get an immediate sense of their philosophy/psychology, they make unique contributions and not mere recapitulations

Page 4: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

God is pure form and act Essence is existence I am that I am

Although explained in terms of negatives (what he is not), Aquinas thought we could speak of God in terms of our world by means of analogy

We still cannot have a full complete understanding of God, and reason won’t help us in that regard

Rejects Anselm’s ontological argument as an explanation by itself

Page 5: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Empiricist in that our knowledge is based in sense-perception, but the senses can only grasp particulars

Realist with regard to universals, which reason alone has access to

In apprehending a thing there is some immaterial part of it existing in us so to speak

Active reason abstracts the form from the phantasmata (stored sensations)

Page 6: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas Gives his own five arguments based on what we can know from

experience Prime mover

Must have been something to set things in motion Efficient cause

Can’t have causes forever Contingent world

Things exist and cease to, there must be some reason for their being in the first place

We do see that some things are better than others, such that something can be presumed to be ‘best’ Evidentiary rather than conceptual approach of Anselm

Teleological argument (argument from design) There must be something that has given us the intricacies of

existence, they must have some purpose

Page 7: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Good and evil In creating the world God communicated his

goodness, and could do no other So what of evil? There isn’t evil, only good and varying

degrees of its lack Plotinian notion

Page 8: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Psychology Usual 5 senses and common sense 4 internal

Imagination Conserving sensory images/perceptions

(phantasmata) Apprehension (animals) and Cognition (humans)

Ability to understand/distinguish Memory

Ability to store such thoughts

Page 9: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

The soul The form of the body How immortal then? The faculty of the soul which is reason exists

independent of any organ as doing so would limit its capabilities, thus it would survive death anyway

However the entire soul is potential, and becomes actualized upon interaction with the body

The soul thus becomes (remains) potential upon death, as it has no body for actualization

Page 10: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas

Ethics The highest good is happiness

As with Aristotle to act in accordance with the good is to be happy

Doctrine of the mean in effect However perfect happiness only brought

about in the afterlife

Page 11: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Aquinas Summary Synthesized Aristotle’s works and the Christian tradition with the

resultant negative effect. Once Aristotle’s ideas were assimilated into church dogma, they were

no longer challengeable. Aquinas argued effectively that reason and faith are not incompatible

but lead to the same thing – God and his glory.

His influence was substantial but in some sense had the opposite effect than what he desired.

By admitting reason as a means of understanding God, philosophers began to argue that faith and reason could be studied separately and thus reason could be studied without considering its theological implications.

Philosophy without religious overtones once again became a possibility and eventually a reality.

Page 12: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Roger Bacon

1214 – 1294 Science unleashed!

“I now wish to unfold the principles of experimental science, since without experience nothing can be sufficiently known. For there are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience…”

Conducted research in optics, alchemy, astronomy, etc. and had ideas for many things that would eventually be realized during the ‘scientific revolution’ of the Renaissance and beyond

Page 13: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

John Duns Scotus

~1266-1308 Now you know where the term

dunce comes from Works were very difficult and

ideas complex Ideas would have much

influence on other philosophers (e.g. Leibniz, Peirce)

Page 14: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

John Duns Scotus

Argued for existence of God similar to Aquinas God as first cause and infinite An uncaused cause could not be both

possible and incapable of being caused unless it was also actual

Disagreed with his ‘analogy’ approach Cannot know God in his perfection by this

means

Page 15: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

John Duns Scotus Psychology The intellect abstracts the information provided by the senses, though

we do have ‘intuitive’ cognition about the existence of objects Like Ockham but unlike Aquinas’ implication of only indirect knowledge

Intuitive vs. Abstract cognition Abstract

That knowledge of universals we get from apprehension of an object Intuitive

Regards the existence of things as they are now (the validity of empirical knowledge)

Almost takes on an extra-sensory perception sort of feel It is only in this present life that the intellect must turn to phantasms

In the next we will have an understanding of objects’ ‘thisness’ Argued that we can come to some certainty (logical) without divine

intervention Anti-skeptical/illuminationism

Page 16: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

William of Ockham

~1285-1349 He argued that in explaining

things, no unnecessary assumptions should be made – explanations need to be kept as parsimonious (simple) as possible

Page 17: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

William of Ockham

More deliberately psychological in his approach than previous than the others of the ‘Scholastic’ period we’ve discussed

Engages the concept of habit, an acquired disposition or condition

Argued that they cannot be innate as habits are dispositions toward specific states which would first require experience

Page 18: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

William of Ockham

Regarding universals, notes that the mind creates them out of experience of particulars but that did not entail an essence or reality beyond those Convenient wordplay Saw the nominalist position as simpler

Mind habitually relates to a number of objects which resemble each other

Moral acts, like other habits, are acquired Any absoluteness must be derived from God not the

experiences of man

Page 19: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

~1260-1328

Dominican Aquinas Dominican, Duns

Scotus and Ockham Franciscan

The zen Christian monk

Page 20: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

On time Eckhart gives the notion of an eternal now as we’ve seen

elsewhere, however here we’re not using as an attempt to understand free will, but as just the way things are

“A day, whether six or seven ago, or more than six thousand years ago, is just as near to the present as yesterday. Why? Because all time is contained in the present Now-moment.”

“To talk of the world as being made by God tomorrow, yesterday, would be talking nonsense. God makes the world and all things in this present now.”

Page 21: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

God as pure being “Being is God… God and being are the same” “There is nothing prior to being, because that

which confers being creates and is a creator. To create is to give being out of nothing.”

God as being is at once being and not-being God’s self-love as the love of all

Page 22: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart Eckhart’s psychology 5 senses, and common sense Means to knowledge

Senses Reason Interior sense, residing within the spirit, which is unaffected

by senses and allows for contemplation of God Will

Contingent Free

Habitual That which seeks union with God

Two operations, desire and love

Page 23: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

Intellect Searching vs. Resting

Active vs Passive Active abstracts the universals and feeds into

Passive which contemplates and knows them

Potential State before active or passive

Greater than Will as the means for ‘seizing God’

Page 24: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart The goal of the rational form of life is living in and from the

Absolute One If the ground of the soul, as something uncreated and

uncreatable—is one with the divine nature or ground then man is no longer simply on the way towards unity, instead, unity is something that has always already been achieved. “Here, God’s ground is my ground and my ground God’s

ground” “What is life? God’s being is my life, but if it is so, then what is

God’s must be mine and what is mine God’s. God’s is-ness is my is-ness, and neither more nor less” Heretic!

Man cannot be without God, as long as he is love, the creator, he can never be outside his creation

Page 25: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

On emptiness “I have earnestly and with all diligence sought

the best and the highest virtue whereby man may come most closely to God and… I find that it is no other than absolute detachment from everything that is created”

This is so God can take hold of the soul without any part of the individual

Page 26: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart

The Godhead “God comes and goes”

God as activity With the Godhead we find the unmoved, a

‘nothing where there is no path to reach’ Inactive

This may be likened absolute nothingness of the Tao of Lao Tzu, the ground of all being from which things come

Page 27: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

Meister Eckhart The just For the just man, there is no why to his just action, no purpose or goal

of this action. The action of the just man has justice as its goal, and this goal is

identical with the just man. Therefore, the just man has no goal external to himself. Instead, as

justice, he is his own goal. With the just man and with justice, there is no multiplicity. Justice is

one, and the just man is one Even if there are many just men: As just men, the many just men are

one indeed, they are even justice itself. Justice, which is the just man, knows neither where nor when, that is, it

knows neither space nor time, neither size nor quality, neither inside nor outside, neither over nor under, neither this side nor that side, neither above nor below, neither the activity of effecting nor the passivity of being effected.

Hence, justice is indeterminate and does not accrue to anything else as an accident.

Justice is something whose purpose lies in itself.

Page 28: Later Middle Ages Scholastic Psychology. Aquinas Aquinas ~ 1225 – 1274 Studied under Albert Magnus The great synthesizer Synthesized recently recovered

The Cloud of Unknowing Anonymously written mid to late 14th century Continuing the mystical tradition of Pseudo-Dionysius and Eckhart Practical spiritual guidebook that suggests one seek God not through

knowledge but through love Anti-Intellecutalism

Here one may interpret reason as a hindrance to union with the ineffable God "Our intense need to understand will always be a powerful stumbling

block to our attempts to reach God in simple love, and must always be overcome”

"And so I urge you, go after experience rather than knowledge. On account of pride, knowledge may often deceive you, but this gentle, loving affection will not deceive you. Knowledge tends to breed conceit, but love builds. Knowledge is full of labor, but love, full of rest."

Also provides a means of practice, yoga, meditation Repetition of a monosyllabic word