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Later Middle Ages
Scholastic Psychology
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?
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
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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
Meister Eckhart
~1260-1328
Dominican Aquinas Dominican, Duns
Scotus and Ockham Franciscan
The zen Christian monk
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.”
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
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
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’
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
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
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
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.
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