Medieval Philosophy

Department of Philosophy and Psychology
Lecturer: PhD, docent
Elena Shevchenko
Medieval Philosophy
For all specialities
Lecture’s plan
Medieval Philosophy
Apologetics and Patristic
 The Bible as a the word of God and as an object of faith
 Monotheism and Creationism
 Three periods of apologetics
 The theory of St. Augustine
Scholasticism
 The main provisions of the theory of Thomas Aquinas
 Logical evidence for the existence of God by Thomas
Aquinas
 Nominalism, realism and conceptualism of the Middle Ages
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Requirements for knowledge and skills
Knowledge
 Major religious and philosophical tendencies of philosophical thought of
the Middle Ages.
 Conceptual distinction of philosophical thought the era of Antiquity and
the Middle Ages.
 Tendencies in the development of philosophy of the Middle Ages
 Personalities and Terminology philosophy of the Middle Ages.
Skills
 Be able to identify the similarities and differences of philosophical
concepts of Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
 Be able to identify tendencies in the cultural relationship of being and
consciousness.
 Be able to orientate in variety of beliefs and opinions.
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Material for knowledge recovery
To prepare for the theme of “Medieval Philosophy” to repeat
the basic problems of human on the following topics:
■ Philosophy and its role in human life and society
■ The origin of philosophical thought
■ The problem of being in the early ancient philosophy
■ The classical period of ancient philosophy
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Contents
Medieval philosophy
1. Main concepts
2. Academic material
3. Questions for self-examinations
4. Recommended books
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Ключевые понятия
Средневековая философия
 Apologetics
 Clericalism
 Creationism
 Monotheism
 Nominalism
 Patristic
 Providentially
 Secularization
 Scholasticism
 Theology
 Theodicy
 Theocentricism
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Academic material
Bible
The Bible appears to us as “word of God”. And it is an object of
faith.
The shared vision of reality and human in the context of the
Bible contains a whole series of fundamental ideas.
Some of these ideas have such force that their distribution
among both believers and non-believers, irreversibly
changed the spiritual aspect of the Western world.
Word of Christ, found in the New Testament, which completes
the prophecies of the Old Testament, turned all concepts and
issues in the philosophy, defining their formulation in the
future.
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Academic material
Monotheism and creationism
Monotheism:
Creationism:
Greek philosophy had reached an
understanding of the divine
(God’s) unity as a whole, which
accepts and absorbs a lot of
entities, forces and
manifestations.
Only in the biblical message is the
understanding of God as the one
and unique.
The transcendence of unique God
is absolute, totally different from
anything else.
God creates freely, giving rise to all
by act of will. He dictates of
being good. Everything is given
life as a free gift. Consequently,
the creation is positive because
of the good will.
Creationism has a special way to
solve the problem of ancient
philosophy: how and why a lot of
were born from the One? And
how is born out of the infinite
finite?
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Academic material
Medieval Philosophy
Anthropocentricism
The human, according to the Bible, it is not just the time of
the cosmos, a thing among things. He is recognized as
privileged creature created by God in His image and
likeness. Therefore, human is lord and master of all that has
been created for him
Three period of apologetics
1) This is a period of four Fathers apologists who fought in the II century a systematic
defense of Christianity.
2There is the period of the “Apostolic Fathers” I century, so named because they were
associated with the spirit of the teaching of the Apostles, where there are no
philosophical issues, and there are only a moral issues (Clement of Rome, Ignatius
of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna)
3)This is patristic period from III century to the early Middle Ages, in which the
philosophical element of the Platonic type, played a particularly important role.
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Academic material
Medieval Philosophy
Theological issues.
The main theological issues, which were
connected with main philosophical
concepts:
1) the problem of the Trinity,
2) the problem of the incarnation,
3) relation between freedom and Grace,
4) relation between faith and reason
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Academic material
St. Augustine
St. Augustine -
Рисунок
(Latin Augustinus Sanctus, full name
Aurelius Augustine; 354—430) — He
was a philosopher, a powerful
preacher, a Christian theologian and
politician. Some of the information
about Augustine goes back to his
autobiographical «Confessiones».
Augustine’s doctrine of
predestination
(predetermination)–
pre-ordained by God to human bliss
or a anathema.
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Academic material
St. Augustine
Theory of the state– The human
Рисунок
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story that Augustine sets out in his
book, “The city of God’, is a struggle
between two antagonistic kingdoms
– the kingdom of followers all across
the enemies of God, that is the
secular world (civitas terrena or
diaboli), and the kingdom of God
(civitas dei). At the same time he
identifies the kingdom of God,
according to his earthly form of
existence, with Roman Church.
Academic material
Scholasticism (V-XV centuries).
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a “school philosophy” of the medieval
universities, united the Christian dogma with logical
reasoning.
The basic purpose is to validate the scholasticism, protection
and systematization the religious dogma by logical way.
Dogma (opinion) is the thesis which certainly taken it on faith
and not be questioned and criticized.
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Academic material
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Рисунок
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He created a philosophical concept,
which became the basis of the official
Catholic ideology.
In honor of his name orthodox
philosophical doctrine of Catholicism
called Thomism.
The main books: “The sum of
Philosophy”, “Summa Theological”.
He holds a clear line between faith and
knowledge, religion and science.
Religion acquires knowledge in the
revelations.
Science can logically prove the truth of
revelation, that is its purpose.
Allowing the existence of only theoretical
science. Experimental and science
(sense) knowledge is of the sinful
Logical proofs of God by Aquinas
• Five of the provisions of the cosmological proof
of God he concluded from the fact that every
phenomenon has its cause.
• Following from one cause to another, Thomas
comes to idea of the existence of God as the
supreme cause of all phenomena and
processes, as measure, as form of forms and as
a purpose of all.
• Aquinas was awarded the title of “angelic doctor”
The controversy of Nominalism and
Realism as the academic discussion.
At issue are the
“universals” (this is a
general concepts – the
terms and names).
Realism acknowledged that
universals exist
objectively, independently
of the knowing mind.
• Nominalism admitted
that there are actually
only objects and general
concepts – there are the
names created by the
knowing subject.
• Conceptualism admits
the reality of the general
concepts in the mind of
the knowing subject.
Acquired knowledge
 Knowing the different religious and philosophical tendencies
of the Middle Ages.
 Knowledge about the conceptual differences of philosophical
thought of the Middle Ages and Antiquity.
 Knowledge of tendencies in the Philosophy of the Middle
Ages.
 Knowledge of the names and terminology of Philosophy of
the Middle Ages
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Questions to self-examination
 What are the characteristics of the Philosophy of the Middle Ages
 What philosophical movements arose in the Middle Ages?
 What is the essence of the scholastic dispute about universals



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between realists and nominalists?
Name the logical proofs of God, which led Aquinas?
What are the three periods of apologetics and describe each of
them.
Give the definition of creationism and monotheism.
Recommended books
1. Introduction to Philosophy: Textbook for higher education. –
М., 2003
2.Philosophy: Textbook foe higher education/ edited by V.N.
Lavrinenko, V.P. Ratnikov. – М., 2001.
3.Philosophical Dictionary / Edited by I.T. Frolov. – М., 2001
4. Human. The thinkers of the past and present about his life,
death and no-death. The ancient world – the era of
Enlightmant. М., 1991.
6. Ilyin V. The history of Philosophy: Textbook for higher
education. – St. Petersburg, 2003.
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