V O LU M E I

TH E H I S TO RY O F

P H I LO S O P H Y

I O H ANN ES H I R S C H BE R G E R

TRA NSL ATED B Y

RT . REV . ANTH ONY N . FU ER S T

T H E BR U C E P U BL I S H I N G C OMPANY
M I L WA U K E E
 1mm . O B STA T
J OANNE S A S C H UL I E N , S T D
. . . .

I M P R I M A UR T
4 AL B E R r Us
4 MEY E R' '
G .

Ar chiepiscopu: M ilwau c/z ie mir

fi

5 in ll i, l 95 8
“

Th is w o r k is a tr anslatio n f ro m th e G er man Gamb ia/r te

def P h ilosop bie by J o h annes H ir sch b er ger , p u b lish ed by
Ver la g d
H e r e r 8: C c .
, F b g
r ei u r Br e is au ( er man ) g G y .

Lib r ar y o f C o ng r ess C ata lo g Car d N u mb er : 5 8 — 1 2 45 3

195 8 BY TH E BR U C E P S
UBL I H I NG CO M P ANY
M AD E I N TH E U N I TED su n s O F AM E R I C A
 PREFAC E

THE NATUR E AND TH E V ALUE O F TH E

HIS TORY OF PHILOSOP HY

I . TH EH IS TORY OF P H I LO S O P H Y AS A H IS TORICAL S C IENCE

Th e history of philosophy is both a science of history and philos
o h ; it links two di f fe r ent fields of endea v o r A a science of histo r y
p y s .

it seeks to acquaint us with the wealth of thought bequeathed by

th e philosophers of the past and of the p r esent F o r this reason it .

pro vides us with whate ve r is known of thei r lives thei r works and , ,

thei r systems In so doing it not only po r tr ays what once actually

.
,

existed but also by de veloping the notions and the thoughts that
,

have been o r a re cu r rent seeks to make accessible to us a knowledge

,

of this rich heritage This is accomplished by examining the o rigins

.

of both th e men and thei r works by placing them in their p roper

,

relation to greate r Spheres of thought by correlating them with oth e r

,

contributions and with the all pe rvading spiritual and cultu ral cu r
-

rents among peoples of v arious e ras and finally by unfolding fo r us

,

the fundamental suppositions and the ultimate ass umptions from

which the concepts the problems and the teachings of philosophy
, ,

have o riginally sp r ung as from a ma trix .

S hould the history of philosophy attempt to p r esent things as they

we re in reality it would by that very fact determine fo r itself a definite
,

method : on the one hand a continuous use of sou rces ; and on the
, ,

othe r a demand for obj ectivity o r freedom from bias The use of
, .

sources is a special achievement of the modern Science of histo ry .

Antiquity and the M iddle Ages had to be content with only second
o r thi r d hand repo r ts Today howeve r we not only consult the
-
.
, ,

sou rce s but we also ascertain with c ritical and painstaking diligence
Whethe r the w r itings which appear under the name of a certain ,

philosopher actually stem from him whether his manuscripts ha ve,

been p reserved without fals ification and in which period of his,

creati ve ability they we re w ritten ( textual criticism and chronology ) .

Th e histo ry of philosophy is therefore an introduction to the works

of the philosophers themselves We stri ve to be obj ecti ve in ou r his
.
v i P RE FACE
to r icalpresentation by taking great pains to report what was actually
said and in what sense it is actually to be understood without viewing ,

the matte r through the colored spectacles of a subj ective viewpo int .

We may not fo r example read into P lato a Neo Kantianism or into

, ,
-

Aristotle a blossoming S cholasticism Without a doubt an absolutely .

,

unprej udiced state of mind probably has neve r existed and probably
will neve r exist since e very scientific thinke r is a product of his
‘

times and he pe r sonally cannot play fast and loose with the co n n ve

tions of his own age In pa rticular he will j udge e ve rything brought

.
,

into his purview by his own philosophy of life by his own peculiar ,

evaluations and by his own assumptions of which he himself is

, ,

perhaps not consciously aware This fact does not howeve r lead us
.
, ,

to th e conclusion that we must forego all imparti al ities in thought all ,

freedom from bias as an impossibility We must rather hold to

,
.

obj ectivity as an ideal of which we can be cer tain as we are of every ,

ideal that it can ne ve r be fully realized Bu t we must be determined

,
.

to keep this ideal always before us and calmly strive after it ; in fact ,

we should conside r it our neve r ending task to achieve it and we ,

can approach its r ealization more closely by being ever ready both

to learn and to discuss the findings of our in vestigations Whoever .

seeks after the truth and does not spare himself in its pursuit can
certainly expe ct to dis co v e r it

2 . HI S TOR Y OF P H ILO S OP H Y A S P H ILOS O P H Y

TH E
I S th e histo ry of philosophy only a hi sto ry of error ? Th history e

of philosophy is also a true and real philosophy It is not as some .

,

uninformed individuals have in correctly supposed a history of errors , .

Rightfully and manfully did H egel refute a con ception of th e history

of philosophy th at made of it a disorderly aggregation of opinions
“
.

P rofound thinkers are fully aware that th e history of philosophy ‘

is an ar duous and honorable search for truth N t only is it an . o

hono rable search but it is a constant one as well possessing inner

, ,

conti nu ty i .

O r the tru th in its entir e ty ? Bu t neither is it true that su ch a

history is as H egel who falls into an erro r at th e other extreme so
, , ,

boldly states a system in evolution It is n t a presentation of the

,
“
.
”
o

gradual and progressive self revelation of the mind and of truth in

-
,

which everything follows so logi cally that we may ant pate the i ci

shape of things to come from what has gone before j ust as in a ,

textbook of geometry one proposition is de veloped from th e pre ceding ,

 PRE FACE vii

and thus page by page geometrical truth unfolds for our delight .

Th e history of philosophy is indeed both a growth of th e spi rit and

a pie rcing of its secrets but the way it takes to reach this goal is
,
!

neithe r direct nor always logical and not always obj ectively deter
mined Alongside the milestone s o f truth there are also detours of
.

misunderstanding th e w rong road s of error and the disturbing

, ,

crossroads of chan ce Just as political history is not always a histori cal

.

process of obj ecti vely necessary actions but a narrative in which ,

a dictator s will to power or the caprice O f a mistress has described

’

its cou r se so chance plays a role in the histo ry of philosophy as does

,

everything irrational which springs from the subj ectivity and from
the freedom of the individu al who philosophi z es Whatever kind of .

a philosophy a man proposes depends as Fichte has said to a great , ,

extent upon the kind of a man he is No t a few philosophical p rob .

lems can be shown to trace thei r origin to the pe r sonal contradictions

manifest in the life of the philosopher or in the r i valry of the schools
then in existence Just as we cannot boldly state that the history of
.

philosophy is a history of errors so we may not maintain that it is ,

truth itself S uch a statement would not be true even if in a modern

.

variation of the H egelian concept we interpreted the totality of tru th

as philosophical existence Up to the present philosophy has not .
,

considered itself merely as an active existence but it has always ,

purposed to disco ver theoretical truths not simply truth ; and it ,

”

must continue to do so in the future .

S e lfr e velatio n of th e h uman mind Th e matte r is somewhat dif

-
.

fe en t when we inquire into the nature of precisely what the history

r

of philosoph y adds to actual philosophy O nce we pass th e barrier s of .

personal tempo r al and Spatial limitations by means of knowledge

, ,

that we have acquired of th e opinions of others we are liberated from ,

the th raldom of many subjective presumptions and app roach mo re and

mo re closely to th e consideration of tru th su b specie aete m ( un de r r
'

the app earance of eternity ) AS Ricker t says O nly through the study .
,
“

of history can we rid ou r selves of history Through the histo ry of .

”

philosophy we a rri ve at a histo rically grounded critical analysis of

human reason Th e Instruments of the human spirit its methods of
.
,

g
Th e o r i in al G er man tex t h as
“
Z u -siclz —selbst-Fi nde n des G ez stes
'

, w h ich is a tech

n ical te r m in H e mu st b e inter pr e te str ictly y it H e el mean t th e min th at

gl e an d d . B g d
w as aw aken in and mo v in to w ar
g matu r ity — th e min which in th e e innin did
g d d bg g
no t kn o w o r u n e r stan itse l b u t fi nally in th e co u r se o f th e matu r ing pr ocess b ecame
d d f ,

conscio u s o f itse lf ( Tr a ns lato r

)
’

s no te .
viii PRE FACE
appraisal its notions the tendency of its ideas the p roblems the
, , , ,

hypo theses and theories reveal its essence and its capabilities only
,

after centuries have passed O ften man has w restled with problems .

for decades in fact for centuries only to discove r at last that they
, ,

have in thei r fundamental notions been inco rrectly p ropounded

from the very beginning O n the basis of many such factual exper i .

en ce s we must always r eckon with the possibility that false p remises

have obtruded themselves in ou r thinking Notions such as repose .

and motion continuity and disc retion matte r and fo rm sensuality

, , ,

and Spirituality body and soul to mention onl y relati vely few today
, , ,

have developed into subj ect matte r fo r the most sub tle discussion s .

Ar e we always conscious of the fact that in the g r ay dawn of antiquity

th ese problems were fi r st discussed and de veloped on the basis of
material that today can no longe r p ro ve what it had proved then ?
Yet these notions still retain thei r o r igin al meaning H P oinca ré . .

fi
W I O tC
'

O I I CC
'

In general we kn w th at a s k illf l arrangement f flinty bers

o u o

f rms th s kelet n f rt in sp n ges When th rgani matte dis

o e o o ce a o . e o c r

appears all that rema ns a fragile and rnamental tiss e f spi les
, i IS o u o cu .

In reality these are n th ing m re th an a sili e s material; b t wh at

o o c ou u

is m st inter sting is th f rm wh i h th i material h

o e md W e o c s as assu e . , e

w ld never h ave b en able t u nderstand it h ad we n t kn wn th

ou e o ,
o o e

living sp nge wh i h h d imprinted p n it pre isely th is f rm Th s

o c a u o c o . u

it is with th an ient int itive n ti ns f

e f rebears wh i h even
c u o o o ou r o ,
c ,

th gh we aband n th em n w h ave imprinted th eir f rms p n th

ou o o , o u o e

l gi al framew r k f ideas wh i h we h ave s b stit ted in th ir pla e

o c o o c u u e c .

Devoting ourselves to the history of philosophy we a re enabled to ,

delve to the root of things relating to th e purpose and the worth of

ou r thinking faculties : notions a re being pu rified p roblems are cor ,

r ectl
y stated th e way to the heart
, of the matte r is being cleared .

With this advance the histo ry of philosophy b ecomes of itself a

criti cism of knowledge and thereby constitutes philosophy in the full

meaning of the term .

H isto r i cism F o r this r eason the histo r y of philosophy need not

.

fear the reproach of hi sto r ci sm In past decades it may have been i .

guilty of what the learned designated as Alexandrianism : the b ringing

togethe r of museum pieces of thought which originally rep resented
knowledge but not wisdom because such a collection merely meant
, ,

stoking the mind with historical ballast ; the results for systemati c
philosophical knowledge of problems were not e valuated H owever .
,
 PREFACE ix

if we conside r the histo ry of philosophy as the self r eflection of the

-

human mind this danger no longer exists and we are actually

,

brought face to face with true philosophy ; for we are then enabled
to advance to the obj ecti ve systematic solution of philosophical p rob
lems themsel ves Bu t embarking upon such a solution without the
.

foundation of sound historical philosophy is not seldom reduced to a

mere tilting with windmills Do n Q uixote fashion.
 C O NT E NT S

P refa ce

PA RT I AN C IENT PH ILOSO PHY

.

P r eliminar y Re mar ks

S ec tio n 1. P r e-So cratic P hilosophy

C h apter 1 TH E P RE P H ILO S O P H IC AL P ERI D

-
O

P hilosophy and M yth

2 F RO M TH E M I LES I AN S TO TH E ELEAT I C S
I Th e M ilesians and the P ythagoreans
.

II H eraclitus and the Eleatics

.

3 F R OM TH E MEC H AN I S TS TO TH E S OP H I S T S
I The M echanists and A naxagoras
.

II Th e S ophists
.

S ec tio n 2. Attic P hilo so phy

4 S OCRATES AND H I S C IRCLE

Knowledge and Val e u

5 P LAT O — I : O N TH E GO OD AN D TH E TRU E
Th e G ood
Th e True
6 PLATO II—

M an
Th e Republi c
Th e World
God
Th e O ld A cademy
7 ARI S TOTLE I KN W LED GE
: O AN D S C IENCE
Writings
Knowledge and S cien ce
xi
 8 ARI ST O TLE II : BE IN G AND BEIN GS
9 A RI S TOTLE — I II : ET H I CS AND P OLIT IC AL
T HEOR Y
Th e Good and the C
Th e O lder P eripatetics
om unity m
S ection 3. Th e P h ilo so phy o f H ellenism an d o f th e

Ro man Empire

10 TH E S T O I CS
Th e P hilosophers of Stoicism
Logic
P hysics
E thics

11 EP I CUREANS A C ADEM IC I ANS AND P ERI P ATETIC S

, ,

I Epi cureanism : An Ancient P hilosophy

.

of Life
Th e P hilosophers o fEpicureanism
Logic
P hysi cs
Ethi cs
II Academy and S cepticism
.

Th e M iddle and the Ne w A cademy

P y r rhoni c S cepti cism
III Th e P eripatetics
.

12 N E O P LA T ON I S M : A P H I L O S O P H Y AN D A RELIGI O N
-

The P reparation for N eo—P latonism

Neo P latonism
-

PAR T II . ME D IAEV A L PH I LOSO PHY

P r eli minar y Re mar ks

S ectio n 1 . P h il o so phy o f th e P atr istic P eriod

13 Y O UTH FUL C HRI S T I ANIT Y CONFRONTS ANC IEN T

P H I L O S OP H Y
14 TH E BEGI NNI NGS OF P ATRI STI O P H I LO SO P HY
 CO NTE NTS xiii

ST .A U GUST INE TEAC HER

,
WES T
Tr uth
God
C reation
Th e S oul
Th e Good
Th e C ity of God

16 FRO M BOET H I US To TH E END OF TH E

P ATRI ST IC PERI OD
Boethius the Last Roman
,

Boethius and the M iddle Ages

Dionysius the P seudo Ar eopagite -

Th e En d of th e P atr istic P e r iod

S ection 2. The P hilosophy of Schol asti cism

I n tr o du ctio n : S cholasticism in Gener al

17 EARLY S C H OLA STI CI S M
I O rigins
.

II S t A nselm of C anterbury
. .

III P eter Abelard and M ediaeval

.

S ubjecti v ism
IV Th e S chool of C hartr es and M ediae val
.

H umanism
V M ysti cism
.

TH E DAWN OF TH E G OLDEN AGE OF

S C H OLAS TI C I S M
Introduction : Th e New Fo rces
Th e Re ception A ccorded to Aristotle
The Universities
Th e O r ders
I Th e S chool of O xfo r d : M athematics and
.

the N atural S ciences

II Th e O lde r F ranciscan S chool : Th e M en
.

of Au gu stianism
III S t Albert the G reat Th e Uni ver sal
. .
,

Docto r
 i
x v CO NTENTS
ST . TH O M AS AQ U INA S I : EP I S TEM OLO G Y AND
—

GENERAL M ETAP HY S I C S
Knowledge
Being

S T T H O M A S AQ N s
. U I A — II : T HEOD I CY
,

P S Y C H O LO G Y E T H I C S
,

God
Th e S oul
M orality
Law and the S tate
Th e Rea ction to Thomisti c A ristotelianism
FR O M TH E AVE RRO I S TS To M A S TER EC K H ART
I Th e F aculty of Liberal Arts and the
.

A ve rr oists
II The Younger F r an cis can S chool
.

III M aster Eckhart ( 1260

. M ysti c
and S cholasti c
L ATE S C H O LA S TI C I S M F ROM O C K HA M
:

To CUS ANUS
I O ckham and O ckh anism
.

II N icholas of C u sa
.

Index of Names
Topi cal Index
H IS T O RY P H IL O S OP HY
 P ART I

AN C I ENT P H IL O S OP HY

PREL IM INA RY RE MA RK S

TH E IMPORTANCE OF
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY

We may ask ou r sel ves why we should study ancient philosophy

in this moder n world A query of this kind touching as it does the
.
,

value of ancient philosophy can be disposed of in one sentence :

,

Ancient philosophy has gi v en to mankind the spiritual he ritage

upon whi ch Western philosophy still nourishes itself C onsidered .

merely on a quantitati ve basis ancient philosophy can lay claim to

,

one h alf of the intellectual history of Europe fo r it S tretches from ,

600 B C to AD 6 00 O f g reate r weight even than the quantitative is

. . . .

the intrinsic and qualitative value of this philosophy A ncient philos .

o h
p y never be comes antiquated W hen reading mediaeval autho
. r s we ,

find Aristotle quoted more frequently than any contemporary wri te r .

P latonic Nee P latonic and S toic concepts a r e included among the

,
-
,

fundamental ideas which suppo rt the ideology of the M iddle A ges Th e .

essential ideas of mode rn philosophy and of scientific thinking today

trace their origin to ant iquity Notions such as p rinciple element atom
.
, , ,

body spirit soul matte r and form potency and act substance and
, , , , ,

accident being and becoming causality wholeness meaning pu r

, , , , ,

pose notion idea category j udgment conclusion p roof science

, , , , , , , ,

hypothesis theory postulate axiom

, all we re developed by the
, ,

G reeks We would use them blindly and without due appreciation

.
,

if we Should not study thei r sources and their or iginal meaning We .

are moreover indebted to ancient philosophy not only fo r individual

, ,

basi c notions but we owe it our gratitude also fo r the essential

,

philosophical branches su ch as logic metaphysics ethics psychology, , , ,

and cosmo logy which it formulated and de veloped In addition .

,

antiquity saw the development of the most di verse systems of phil

2 A N C I E N T P H I L O SO P H Y
o sop hought : idealism realism scepticism materialism sensual
h ic t , , , ,

ism and their hybrids With such an understanding we a re able to

, .

piece together the reasons why E H offmann was able to conclude .

a chapte r on Greek P hilosophy C onside red as P ast and P resent

“ ”

with the sentence : It will be shown that in Greek philosophy the

“

fundamental ideological possibilities of thought we re thoroughly de

v e lop ed th e problems which are still valid first p ropounded
,
and ,

the various methods of solving th em methods which we S till pursue , ,

o ffered to the wo rld .

VISION DI
In order to obtain an o verview of the various epo chs we will ,

divide ancient philosophy into four periods Th e first of these covers .

the time before S ocrates and for this r eason it is called th e P e ,

“
r

S ocratic P eriod This is not represented in its essentials in Greece

”
.

itself but in the Greek colonies in Ionia lower Italy and S icily
, , , ,
.

Th e chief element is a philosophy of nature O nly late r when .

,

S ophism appea r s does man himself become the obj ect of ph ilo soph i
,

cal speculation and a problem to be solved Th e se cond period may be .

entitled A ttic P hilosophy because during it the motherland itself

“

,
”

begins to philosophize S oc rates P lato and Aristotle are the leading

.
, ,

thinkers and in them G reek philosophy reaches its zenith The whole
, .

array of philosophical problems nature morality state spirit soul , , , ,

all a re treated with identical intensity Th e flowering of philosophy .

cor r esponds to that period in G r eek history when politi cs dominated

the wo rld scene in the era of P ericles up to the reign of Alexander

the G reat The third period the so called P hilosophy of H ellenism
.
,
-
,
”

lies between the time of Alexander s rise to power and th e downfall ’

of the s ccessor states that is between 300 and 30 B C In this era

u , , , . .

we find the philosophical schools as the centers of attraction : the

A cademy the P eripatos the S toa and the garden of Epicurus Th e
, , , .

fo rth period embraces th e P hilosophy of the Age of th e Emperors

u
“

,
”

dating from th e middle of the first century to A D 5 29 at which . .

,

time Justinian closed th e P latonic Academy at A thens confiscated ,

its property and forbade all future philosophizing in A thens This

, .

period is no longer creative ; it rings the knell of all that h ad preceded .

S OUR CES
In ancient philosoph y we are confronted with the special problem
of sources Th e essential works of a gre at numbe r of ph ilO S Oph Cr S
.
~
4 ANCIE NT P HILOSOP H Y
minster M d : Th e Newman P ress
, .
,
A . W . enn
B ,
Th e Gr ee k
P h ilos oph er s ( L o nd on , 19 l 4 ) .
— E . Br eh ier , H is toir e de la ph ilo s o
ph ic ,

IA é ( aris Al an I Bu rnet, Gr ee k P h i
'
V ol L n ti u it P : c I 926 —
.
, q , .

losoph y P art I : Th ales to P lato ( London,

, Ear ly Gr e e k P h ilos oph y
( 4th cd Lo nd o n — F C C oplest o n, H is tor y ofP hilos oph y V o l 1,

fi
. .
, .
, , .

Gr eece an d Ro me ( We stminster, M d : Th e Newman P ress, .

G omper z , Gr e e k Th in k er s 4 vols ( Lo ndon, 19 01

,
— L
. Rob in , .

Gr eek Th ough t an d th e Or igins of th e S cie n ti c S pir it ( Lo ndon,

A S tock l, H an db oo k ofthe H is tor y ofP h ilos oph y P art I : P r e S ch olas tic
. ,
-

P h ilosophy ( Du bl in
,
 S ECTI ON 1
. P RE S OC RATI C P H I LO SOP HY
-

CHAPTER

TH E P R E P H IL O S OP H I CAL P E R I O D
-

PHILOSOPHY AND MYTH

1 I DEA OF MY TH
.

O n the threshold of Greek philosophy stands something whi ch

in itself is unphilosophi cal the myth A myth is th e belief of a
— .
'

community concerning the great problems of th e world and of life ,

of gods and of men ; it lays down exactly what the people a re to

think and to do Drawn from popula r tr aditions a myth is accepted
.
,

without reflection gullibly and blindly Bu t as Aristotle himself

, .

remarks a philosopher is in a special sense a fr iend of the myth

, ,

because in it he will find problems which are the problems of the

philosopher Fo r this reason whenever A ristotle presents th e historical
.
,

status of a philosophical problem and the attempts that were made

to solve it he always mentions by preference the opinions of the very
,
“

ancient who at the very beginning theologi zed

” “
.
”

2 . THE M Y TH O L O G Y
H OM E R AND HES I O D
OF

H ere we must mention fi r st of all H ome r and H esiod and their

teachings concerning the lineage of th e gods ( theogony ) and the
origin o f the world ( cosmogony ) According to the mythology of
.

H omer th e cause of all becoming should be sought in the sea gods

,
-
,

O ceanus and Th e th ys and also in the water by which the gods were
,

accustomed to swear and whi ch the poets called S tyx In H esiod .

,

the original founde rs of all things are Chaos Ethe r and E ros Bu t , , .

in these mythologies othe r problems are also touched upon : the

transitoriness of life the origin of evil the question of responsibility
, ,
6 A NCIE NT P H I LO S O P H Y
and of g ilt fate and necessity the life after death and similar prob
u , , ,

lems In the solution of such problems there is always manifest a

.

thoroughly imaginative speculation which I ntu i ti vely experienced

con crete reality with the perceptive eye of the poet and by general ,

i zing its intuition transferred its data to life and to the world and
, ,

thus interpreted the whole of being and of act .

3 .ORP H IC DOC TRINE

In the six th cent ry before C hrist a new mythology des cended u

upon Greece from the mountains of Thrace At its center we fi nd .

the god Dionysus ; its priest is O rpheus the Thracian S inger ,

and wonder worker N ietzsche was later to make of Dionysus a

-
.

symbol of life and of acceptance of life in all its sublimity and

depths Dionysus the god of wine was truly a god of life namely
.
, , ,

of productive nature and was venerated in the bacchanalia in a ,

r iotous earthly fashion The teachings of O rpheus however denote .

, ,

something radically di fferent from a mere acceptance of and assent

to life In him we find a curious mixture of asceticism and mysticism
.
,

th e cult of the soul and the longing fo r an afterlife problems —

broached in a manner alien to the thoughts of H omer s contempo ’

raries Th e soul is no longer blood but a spirit ; t ori g nates in a

.
, I i

world different from this ; it is banished to earth as a punishment

fo r an ancient crime ; it is chained to the body and must wander
with it until redeemed from its car n al desires Th e way to arrive at .

purification is through a se ries of food p rohibitions : laws forbidding ,

for instance meat and beans Gold fillets which were placed wi th
, .
,

th e dead in their graves were to be ocular proof that the soul rose “

p re from the pure and had s cceeded in escaping from the onerous
u
”
u
“

c ircle of births .

Th e views of the O rphic school on the fate of souls afte r death

are reflected in th e great eschatologi cal myths in the P latonic ,

Dialogues of G gias P h do and the Repu bli Th e O rphic doctrine

or , ae , c .

possessed at an early stage a well rounded theology and cosmogony -

.

According to it C h aos and N ight were pre sent in the beginning

, .

A understood by the O ph ic
s C haos denotes literally a yawning r s,

abyss or ch asm Th N ight begot an egg the wo rld egg and from
. e , ,

it proceeded winged Eros And he paired with the yawning chasm .

the winged sh adowy far distant Tartarus contrived to free our race
, , ,

and to lead it into the light P reviously there had been no race of .

immortals u ntil Eros united all things ; as he bound one thing to

,
 TH E P RE -P HILO S OP HI CAL P ERIOD 7

another there arose the heavens and the ocean and earth and all
,

the gods of an immortal generation Acco rding to a still late r sou rce .
”
,

the origin of the C osmos was a dragon with the heads of a stee r and
of a lion ; in the middle of the two it bore the countenance of a go d
and on its shoulders wings This was known as the neve r aging god
, , .

of time Th e dragon begot a threefold seed moist e the r the boundless

.
, ,

yawning chasm and cloudy darkness and in addition another

, ,

wo rld egg .

All th is is fan ciful poetical intuition The schola r sees in O rphic

, .

m y thology palpable O riental tradition Th e dualism of b ody and

“ ”
.

soul this worldliness and otherwo r ldliness and in gene ral th e

,
-
,

transitory natu re of life forms are a drop of str ange blood in -

“

H ellenism The original hearth of such concepts may actually ha v e

.

been India where such ideas appea r in th e Upanishads the theological

, ,

commentaries of the Vedas They also may be found in th e religion .

of Zoroaste r on the tablelands of I ran as can be shown from th e ,

oldest C athas of th e Zend Avestas In any event these ideas are — .

part of the Aryan heritage .

4 . M Y TH AN D L O G OS
S till
more important than the questi on of the origin of these
notions is th e question of thei r survival Aristotle correctly info rms .

us (M eta III 4) that these notions were not science because the
, ,

ancient theologians handed down only th e traditional wealth of

“ ”

thought ; they did not advance p roof of thei r assertions H e draws a .

sharp line of demarcation between them and those who use th e “

language of proof ( i Si am ad é w A y ) and

”
from
o whom we can e s
’
e o vr es
, ,

therefore expe t genuine convictions By such expressions he u nder

, c
“
.
”
o

stood the philosopher In stressing th e decisive and methodical mo

.

ments of doubt of proofs and of argumentation he distinguishes

, , ,

between myth and philosophy although we must not forget that at ,

the very beginning he had granted that a friend of the myth was in
a certain sense a philosopher P hilosophy in contrast to the then .
,

c stomary my th
u was truly something novel With philosophy the
, .

individu al no longer lives on the spiritual riches of the community

“

but he is taught to rely on himself ; and by himself he must freely

and wi th mature deliberation disco ver truth for himself all the while ,

investigating and evaluating what he determines and holds to as true .

N aturally this approa ch is entirely di ffe rent from that employed by

the myth We may not howe ver forget that th e problems of the
.
, ,
8 A NCIE NT P HILO SOP H Y
myth as well as its notional intuition whi ch o riginated in the gray
,

dawn of uncritical antiquity per sist in the philosophi cal language

,

of today In this respect it is the task of epistemology to examine

.

whethe r o r not the supposedly rational intellectual faculties employed

in philosophy are all actually trustworthy
.
CHAPTER

FR O M TH E M IL E SI ANS T O TH E EL E AT I C S

I . TH E M ILE SI AN S AND TH E PY THA GORE AN S

M ATTER AND FORM

c radle of Greek p hilosophy was Ionia on the coast of Asia

Th e ,

Mino r It is in M iletus Ephesus C laz o menae C olophon and S amos

.
, , , ,

where we meet up with the majority of the pre S ocratics F or this -

.

reason pre S ocratic philosophy is sometimes te rmed Ionic philosophy

-
.

The chief interest of this group cente red as has repeatedly been ,

pointed out on the problems of nature As a consequence it has also

, .

been called a philosophy of nature Th e consideration of nature was .

exceptionally pronounced but I t would ne vertheless be more co rrect

,

to speak of its metaphysics r a the r than its philosophy of natu re .

Discourses of these pre S ocratics on th e primary causes and elements

—

suggest in gene ral th e principles of being Through the development .

of such ideas the essence of being as such is clarified ; thei r ideas a r e

,

not o ffered merely as an explanation of the ultimate mate rial co nstit

u en ts of natural bodies .

TH E MILESIANS
M iletus
opens the roundelay ; it gives us the first three pre S o cr a -

tics : Thales Anaximander and Anaximenes

, , .

1 . T HALES CF M I LE TU S ( C . 624—5 46

A ntiquity
regarded Thales as one of the seven wise men A ristotle .

canonizes him as the fathe r of philosophy M I ”

( 3 9 8 3b 20
“
eta .
, , ,

T h e Basic Wo r k s o f A isto tle ed by R M cK eo n ( N w Y ork :

[ r , . . e

Random H ouse p and P lato tells u s the S tory of

, .

his meeting with th e Thracian maidse rv ant who is supposed to

have laughed at him because while meditating on some abstruse ,

reality he fell headlong Into a ditch and pick ed himself up wet

,

9
10 A NCIENT PH ILOSOPH Y
and muddy H ere was a man who proposed to tea ch mankind
.

sublime truth but who was so blind that he could not avoid an
,

open ditch I S this an omen for the whole race of philosophe r s ?

.

Thales was however not at all impractical In M iletus he guided

, , .

the destiny of a nautical school built a canal to funnel o ff the water s ,

of the H alys and delive red many a sage piece of political ad vice
,
.

Wate r as Ar ch é or Fir st P rinciple An d what of his philosophy ? .

Aristotle tells us : Th e maj ority of those who began to philosophi z e

busied themselves with primary causes ( dpx i pr incipia) in the a
,

realm of the material These causes constitute the original essence

.

of all things ; from these they would arise and into them
they would return They would therefore be the elements
.

Eve r y particular entity would be merely an a ction a su f fering an , ,

“
undergoing ( 60 ) of this original essen ce C oncerning this pri
”
7 0 9 .

ma ry cause the Ar ch e individual thinkers up to this time had

, ,

entertained di fferent opinions Thales had discove red that this prin .

ci le was wate r
p ( see M eta I 3 ; ed M cK eo n p W h y espe
. cially
, , .
, .

water ? A ristotle himself did not know fo r sure Th is is however .

, ,

not very important .

“
Wisdom The original contribution of this M ilesian is ra ther
”
.

his notion of the primary cause of all being proposed by Thales for ,

the first time in the history of philosophy Ar istotle has said of .

metaphysics (M eta I 2 ; ed M cK eon p 69 1) that it conce rns

.
, , .
, .

itself no longer as a special science with aspects of being but wi th

be ing as such in its enti re ty that it seeks afte r th e p rimary cau ses

fi
, ,

and that by such an attempt it ventures into a hithe rto hidden and
dif cult field and foste rs knowledge pur sued not for any p r actical
purpose but solely fo r the sake of knowledge itself This is pr eciselv .

what Thales attempted to do AS a consequence he did not consider .

his science to be ordinary knowledge but wisdom metaphysics and , , ,

philosophy Was h is an impractical undertaking ? P erhap s it was the

.

most p ractical undertaking inaugurated i n the name of all knowl

edge Fo r human beings be they average citizens or specialists in
.
,

scientific pu r suits who do not wish to dabble di rectly in philosophy

, ,

fashion mental pictures and form concepts which embrace the whole
of the world and of life Without such reflections they would be .

unable to face the world or to initiate any proj ect or to control their
feelings O rdina rily they do this only by fits and starts and without
.

me thod That Thales provided the impetus to put such reflections into
.

scientific form make s h im in fact the fathe r o f Western philosophy .

12 A NCIE NT P HILOSOP H Y
Apeir o n or th e Bo u n dle ss
In his determination of the p rinciple
.

of being he embarks upon a different approach than his predecesso r .

Ac cording to him Ar ch e is Apei r on ( the P r ima r y P r inciple is the

fi fi
Boundle ss ) which we can take to mean eithe r indefinite u nb ou n ded
in nity o r infinite in de niteness because by it we unde r stand not only
,

a logically imperfect limitation but also a spatially and tempo r ally

,

infinite ete rnal and omnipresent matter By such a concept Anaxi

, , .

mande r envisages th e p rinciple of being more uni ver sally than Thales .

This was only logical fo r when a per son fixes upon an ultimate cause
,

which may be verified in all being it must be as indeterminate and ,

indefinite as possible so that it may be come all to all A naximander

, .
,

as a consequence carr ied out the p rocess of abstraction to its ultimate

,

conclusions H e prescinded entirely from the pa rticula r and thus

.

arrived logically at his concept of the Apeiron H e ad vances fu r ther .

along the path that Thales had first opened but perhaps he p roceeded ,

fi
too far fo r that which is entirely unbounded and entirely indefinite

fi
,

cannot be anything real and cannot therefore explain reality Truly , , .

,

then in de n iten e ss cannot be an in nitu m In this respect the logical

,
.

o rde r is mistaken fo r the ontological orde r If we could th ink of the .

Apei ron as a thing e v en though this thing we r e only a ve ry diaph

,

anous and tenuous mate rial substance which is perhaps what ,

A naximande r had in mind then it would no longe r be a true Apei r on

, .

Fo r mation of th e Wo rld The teaching of Anaximande r on the

.

formation of the world re veals a comp rehensi ve and deep sea rching
gift of observation F rom the Apei ron have stemmed p rogressively
.

the antitheses contained in it : warmth and coldness th e moist and ,

th e d r y In the separation there a rose also an infinite numbe r of

.

worlds togethe r with thei r contents These wo rlds a re al ready .

“ ”

conceived as cosmos as we can recognize quite clea rly in the

“

symmetrically a r ranged cosmogony of Anaximande r .

To him the ea rth is a cylinder whose diamete r is th ree times as

great as I ts height Around it revolve at a distance 3 X 3 = 1 X 9
.

of the earth s r adius the sphere of the stars ; at 2 X 9 the spher e of

’

the moon ; and at 3 X 9 the sphere of the sun Upon ou r earth

, .
,

which was o riginally a fluid the process of separating out proceeded

,
“ ”

in much the same fashion as that by which li ving beings were formed
out of the moisture They Were at first surrounded by a thorny rind ;
.

these rinds were torn apart and th ere emerged the new fo rms M an .

himself owes his origin to originally primitive forms H is immediate .

ancestors had been fish which formerly li ved as S harks in the ocean ,
 FROM TH E M ILE SIA NS To TH E ELEATIC S 13

but when they had developed to the extent that they were ab le
to exist outside the wate r they climbed out of the wate r to dry ,

lan d This is the fi r st intimation of a theo ry of the descent of species !

.

All these infinitely v a r ied wor lds we r e concei v ed of by Anaximande r

as li ving beings as demons and as gods ; this is again an ancient
, ,

form of anthropomo rphism r athe r than hylozoism and panth eism .

To see all contr aries reconciled in an original o r fundamental

fi r st p rin ciple and to e volv e and to explain v ariety from it is one
of the greatest ambitions of the histor y of philosophy We will meet .

With it again in P lato P lotinus Er iugen a Nicholas of Cu sa and , , , ,

H egel Anax imande r must ha v e been an outstanding thinke r

. .

3. ANAX I M ENES ( C 5 85 528 .

-

Anax irn en e s was a pupil of An axnn an der H e considered the ai r .

to be the Ar ch ? o r P rima ry P rinciple Th e high degree of abs traction .

e videnced in the Apei ron of A naximande r is again lowe red perhaps ,

to rescue reality from annihilation All things originated out of the .

ai r through the process of solidification and of dilution (mi m nt/cu s

pd m ) Distu rbed the ai r becomes fi r e ; solidified wind ; then

“
s .
,

clouds ; fu r the r through S till greater solidification wate r ; then the

, ,

ear th the n stone ; everything else traces its o rigin to this ( Diels Frag
,
”
,
.

13 A At the same time the ai r again appea r s as something li ving

and as some thing di vine This all lies in the direction which we ha ve .

followed in connection with Thales and Anaximande r .

PYTHAGOREANS TH E
With these we tu rn our gaze from the east to the west of Greece .

Bu t the connection with th e Ionians remains unbroken fo r P y thagoras ,

himself came from Ionia H e was howe ve r born in S amos Under .

, , .

the heading of P ythago rean many widely dive rgent ideas are brought
together in the ancient narrati ves and so we must first of all clarify ,

the exte rnal histo ry of the P yth ago reans .

1 EX TERNAL H I STORY
.

P ythago ras P y thagoras was b orn in S amos in 5 70 B C migrated

. . .
,

when about forty to C roton in Lower Italy where he must have

Th e sou r ce o f th e q u o tatio n s and th e r e f er e n ce to d
i eas co n taine d in th e f
o llo w in g
pa g es ar e k
ta en f
r o m Diels, w h o p e r o r me f d su ch a no bl e w or k to make th em b e tter

kn o wn ( Tr anslator
'
s n ote ) .
14 A N CIENT PH ILO S OP HY
enj oyed his greatest acti vity and moved finally to M etapon t where ,

h e died about the year 496 H era clitus confessed that he knew
“

mo r e than all othe r men but called him the forefather of all ,
” “

swindles This sharp criticism may hav e had its origin in th e an

.
”

tith esis e v ident in their peculiar philosophies O f life The autho r of .

th e statement everything is in flux could not be bothe red with a ”

, ,

world of eternal truths su ch as a kingdom of numbers offe r s In much .

the same fashion N ietzsche would later on cha racterize all idealism
as a sublime swindle P lato on the contrary declared : P ythago ras
“
.
”
, ,
“

was greatly beloved for his wisdom and ( his ) follower s a re to this ,

day quite celebrated for the order which was named after him ”

( p
R e .6 00
,b ; trans of B Jowett . in T h e D i lo gu es.o f P lato [N e w a

York : Random H ouse 1937 2 Vol I p ,

We know , .
, .

nothing more definite about P ythagoras H is personality has become .

shrouded in legend H e is not thought to have written anything

. .

Bu t he gathered around h imself a coterie of followers afte r the ,

fashion of a secret order ( league society o r b rotherhood ) who em , ,

“

b raced in a conservative manne r the theories of the master and

repeated them orally This brotherhood was a rr anged on ph ilo soph ico
.

scientific and religio ethical lines with a ve ry strong ascetical strain

-
.

From the intellectual outlook maintained by this orde r we may in ,

retr ospect conclude that P ythagoras was drawn by O rphic dualism ,

adopted the metempsychosis of th e O ph ics foste red comprehensive r ,

scientific interests and personally must have possessed a pronounced

,

mo ral and political flair fo r leader ship .

Th e o lder P yth ago re an b roth er hoo d Th e brotherhood that P yth ag .

oras himself founded and guided in Croton we call the older ,

P ythagorean brotherhood To it belonged the famous physician

.

A lcmaeon of C roton who had discovered that the b r ain was the
,

central psychic organ as well as the astronomer P hilolaus who

, , ,

taught long before the beginning of the new era that the earth did
not occupy the center of the universe In the seco nd half of the fifth .

century this brotherhood whi ch manifested a decided aristocratic ,

mental attitude and enj oyed great authority was dissolved by the ,

demo cr atic party of Greece but was revived soon thereafter , .

Th e younge r grou p Th e younge r P ythagorean brotherhood

“
.

had its headqua rte r s in Tarentum and existed there until the end
of the fou r th century Th e members of this group and only these
.

are designated by Aristotle when he speaks of the so called P yth ag “

-

o r ean s in Italy In this group we must keep separate two distin ct

”
.
 FROM TH E M ILE SIA N S To TH E ELE A TIC S 15

tendencies : on the one hand the ak u smatik s or the P ythagorists

,

who clung conse rvatively to the traditional rules of life and followed
them quite ascetically They abstained from meat fish wine and
"

.
, , ,

beans refused to bathe held cultu re and science in low esteem and
, , ,

led a life dedicated to wandering and to beggary O n the other hand .

,

the M athematicians who cultivated the friendship of the intelle tual

“

,
”
c

aristo cracy esteemed both philosophy and science highly espe cially
, ,

m u sic mathemati cs geometry astronomy and medicine Among th

, , , ,
. e

members we may number Ar chytas of Tarentum whom P lato ,

ca lled his friend H icetas of S yracuse as well as th e P ythagoreans

, ,

Ecph an tu s and H er aclides of P ontus of the older Academy These .

last three taught e ven in thei r day that the earth re vol ved upon
its own axis Th e P eripatetic A rista rchus of S amos w as influenced
.

by H e aclides through S trato of Lampsacus Aristarchus as we

r .
,

know taught not only that the ear th revolved on its own axis
, ,

but also that it continues to r evolve in an ecliptic way a theo ry

whi ch S eleucus of S eleucia ( c 150 BC ) who is the C opernicus of .
,
“

antiquity then scientifically co rroborated

,
”
.

2 . P Y TH A GORE AN WAY OF L IFE

TH E
The inner mental attitude of the P ythagoreans led them to adopt
a mode of life peculiar to themselves ( Bl w e ydp w ) Its ba ck ground og v a e s .

is the teaching handed down by the O r ph ics concerning the trans

migration o f souls : the soul originated in another world committed ,

S in th ere must now chained to the body lead a life based upon
, , ,

penance and devoted to pilgrimages until it finally succeeds in ridding ,

itself of the body and of sensuality and in becoming again truly

sp iritual Th e body is the grave of the soul ( 3M 6m) C onsequently
.

it is necessary fo r the individual to embark upon a way of pu r i ca

tion This way of life included the following : as ceti cism which
.
G0 ! 0 .

,
fi
involved abstinence from certain foods periodic silence a daily ex , ,

amination of conscience ( generally at night ) on the good and bad

actions of the day ; intellectual pursuits particularly philosophy and ,

mathematics whereby man becomes recollected and spi r itual ; the

,

cultivation of music which S hould de velop man s powers harmoni ’

o u sl
y by its int r insic harmony and by its conformity to laws ra the r

than give him pleasure by its melody ; and gymnastics whi ch helps ,

the individual bring the body u nder the control of the soul An .

additional characteristic of th e P ythagorean way of life was its ideal

of friendship and of th e broth erhood of all men This is but a natural .
16 ANCIE NT PHI LO SOP HY
outcome of the cultur e of the value of the soul and of the spirit .

In all thi s we can discern a strong idealistic concept of life .

3 . MET AP HY S I CS P YT HAG ORE ANS

OF TH E

Numbe r ; P e ras and Apei ro n ; h arm o n y an d co smo s In metaphysi cs .

th e P ythagoreans ha v e won fo r themsel v es undying fame be cause

they taught that number is the Ar ch ? o r P rimary P rinciple of all

things By this doctrine they r ecognized that the principle of being
.

is not to be found in matte r but in form Th e number is what , .

gives fo rm that by which the unlimited is made limited This is at

,
.

least what we can dr aw from the account of Aristotle concerning

th e P ythago r eans ( M eta I 5 ; ed M cKeo n p Aristotle s ac
’
.
, ,
. .
,

count is not entirely unambiguous but we may safely follow h is ,

conclusion fo r his statements con cerning the ultimate elements of

,

numbers the limited ( w p ) and the unlimited

,
'
e as point in
th is di rection We ha ve therefo re two princip les P e ras and Ap ei ron
.
, , ,

( the limited and the unlimited ) T h e decisi v e pr inciple is howe v er

.
, ,

the P e ras This makes numbe r a numbe r and it is hencefo rth the
.

principle with which the P ythagoreans will attack the p roblem of

metaphysi cs Great all perfecting all efficacious and heavenly as
.
,
—
,
-
, ,

the ultimate basis and guide of human life sha ring in all is the , ,

powe r of number without it all is unlimite d confused and ,

invisible ( 44 B 11 ; Diels Frag

”
, .

Th e obser vation which led to this thought may have been extr emely
S imple In mus i c we can appre ciate how the di f
. ferent tones have each
a definite relation to the length of the strings and especially how th e
h ar mo nics of the tones are characte r ized by st rong numerical rela
tio n sh ip s Th e frequency of oscillation of th e octa v e is to the keynote
.

as that of the fifth as that of the fourth note as P ene

tr ating and ingenious is th e t r ansfe r of this theory to the whole of

being AS Aristotle says : They [the P ythagoreans ] supposed the

.
“

elements of numbers to be the elements of all things and th e whole ,

heaven to be a musical scale and a numbe r (M eta I 5 ; 986 a 3; ed .

, , .

McKeon p , This theo r y was the fi r st impetus given to the

.

discussion of the harmony of th e spheres which constantly recurs in

the history of thought .

The great w o rld pe rio ds Th e concept of ha rmony is strikingly

-
.

expressed in the P ythago rean teaching on the great world periods -

.

Acco r ding to the P ythago reans the evolution of the wo r ld was not ,

in a S tr aight line but was accomplished in great cycles Th e star s .

 FROM TH E M ILE SIA NS To TH E ELEATI C S 17

and the uni ve rse retu rn pe riodically to thei r orbits and the clock ,

of the wo rld runs ever on from eterni ty to eter nity This eternal ,
.

regress this everlasting return of all things extends to even the

, ,

minutest particles I will again stand befo re you with staff in hand
.
“

and will again teach you P ythagoras is supposed to have said In,
”
.

the doctrine of the eternal cycle of all things we can find the concept
of the cosmos developed most S harply This concept is widened to .

include all the othe r realms psychology ethics and the philo sophies , , ,

of law and of the S tate And philosophers tell us that communion

.
“

and friendship and o r derliness and tempe r ance and j ustice bind
togethe r heaven and earth and gods and men and t hat this univer se ,

is therefo re called C osmos o r o rder ( Gor gias 5 08 a ; ed Iow ett ”

, .
,

Vol I p
.
, . The basic cosmological concept with the P ythago reans
is nu mber .

H o w fertile the principle of numbers has b een in the histo r y of

th e mind is shown in the development of the mode r n natural sciences ,

which a re nourished eve r mo re and more by th e th eory of number .

A S H eisenberg said The P ythagorean disco ve ry is the strongest

“

impulse e ve r gi ven to human S cience When the mathematical '

structure is recognized as the essential element in musical ha rmony ,

the pu rposi ve order of natu re which surrounds us must be grounded , ,

in the mathematical core of the natural law .

”

Th e P ythago reans neve r taught that all things are shee r numbe r .

N arrati ves which mention that the P ythagoreans looked upon all
things as numbe r s a r e to b e conside r ed as abridged explanations of

thei r theo ry and a re not to be urged too S trongly F or the P yth ago .

reans exp ressly place th e limitant ( th e P e ras ) alongside the unlimited

( the A pei r on ) wi th the,explanation that whe r eve r form and number
are present the re must also be present addition and substance if
, ,

numbe r and form are to have any meaning at all .

The P ythagoreans are a necessa r y supplement and complement

to the M ilesians The M ilesians always stress the common element
.

that is basic in all things b ut o verlook the fact that the specific,

individuality of particula r things must also be explained We should .

not rest content with investigating solely that of which things are
constituted ; we must also see what becomes Of the prime matter
and how this What may be explained These details are supplied
“ ”
.

by the P ythagoreans without neglecting th e former For the first .

time they emphasized th e form which informs matter .

 A NCIENT PHILOSOP H Y

II . HERA C LITUS AND TH E ELEATI C S

ING AND BE ING BEC O M

Thus fa r the p re—S ocr atics ha v e di r ected their investigation to

being : What consti tutes p rime matte r from which e ve rything comes ?
What makes things exactly what they are ? The beginning and the
end were ca refully studied b u t the tr ansition becoming had not
, , ,

itse lf been discus sed This p roblem now enters into the stream of
. ,

thought and immediately gives rise to a sensational thesis : Becom ing ,

motion is eve rything ; it co nstitutes e ve rything that men had to that

,

moment considered as bei ng When H eraclitus adopted this radical .

position he provoked the Eleatics to champion a position anti

,

thetically oppo sed According to them there is no such thing as

.

becoming and motion which men perceive everywhere S ince we

, .

shall study bo th these tendencies it will become cleare r to us what is

actually contained in the p roblem .

HERA CLITUS OF EPHESUS

( 0 . 5 44—484

Th e ancients labeled him the O bscur e H is was not an affable pe r .

so n alit H e kept at an aristocratic distance from the masses ; for

y .

“
what do they know o r understand ? They believe t h e ballad singers ,

and fo r their teache r they take the mob for they do not know that ,

the maj o rity ar e evil and only the minority good ( Diels F rag ,
”
, .

A single individual has more meaning for me than ten th ousand

“

other s p rovided he is W i thout peer ( Diels F rag

, H is teaching
”
, .

is difficult to unde r stand Th e fragments and the epigrams that have

.

been handed down to us are rare jewels fl in tlike and replete with ,

sombe r fire .

1 . T H O U G H T O F HE R A C L I T U S
TH E
Ever yth ing fl ow s Acco rding to Aristotle ( De Caelo III 1 ;
“
.
, ,

29 8 b a basic thesis of H eraclitus was : everything flows ; eve ry

thing is fluid everyth ing is in the state of flux and nothing pe r severes
,

in its unchanged state ( w i m pd ) In the wo r ds of A ristotle : But

“
a l/ .

what these thinke r s maintained was that all else has been generated
and as they said is flowing away nothing having any solidity ( De
,
‘

,
’ ”

Cae lo III I ; 298 b 30; ed M cK eo n p

, , An d P lato remarks :
.
, .

H e r aclitus is supposed to say that all things are in motion and

“
20 A NCI E NT PH ILOSOPH Y
an d self extinction in the eternal becoming the one truly divine
-
,

commandment which r ules everything and by which all human “

laws a re substantiated that is receive the fo rce of law ( Diels Frags

, , , .

2 30, To him Logos means also Go d In a fashion similar

, .

to the theologian from Ephesus Jo hn the Evangelist who wrote , ,

centur ies later : An d the Wo r d was G o d ( m i 0 6 n 6 Aéy )

“ ”
e
~
s v os
,

the philosopher from Ephesus maintained : The one S up reme Being

we address as Zeus Th e differ ence was th at according to the phi
.

loso ph er the di vine coincided completely with the eternally changing

uni verse : God is day and night winte r and summe r wa r and
“

, ,

peace hunge r and satiety H e changes howe ve r ; j ust as fi re when it

, .
, ,

is blended wi th incense is named afte r the sweet odo r of both ,

”

( Diels Frag , Lo gos is.in the work of H e r

“
aclitus th e uni v e r sal”
, ,

law which go ve rns change and becoming Th e Logos is also the .

mind of the wo rld This Logos howeve r is not a transcendent .

, ,

personal spirit but an immanent law that go ve rns change

, .

2 AR IS TO TLE ON TH E RE LA TIVI S M OF HERACLITUS

.

In Opposition to H eraclitus A ristotle main tain ed that if e ve ry ,

thing is in flux there could be no such a thing as science and no

,

such a thing as truth (M ta I 6 ; X III N atu rally ou r concepts e .

, , ,

and ou r scientific j udgments are some thing pe rmanent ; the y a re

s hemata If howe ve r e verything is in th e state of flux whatever
c .
, , ,

these seek to represent eludes us enti rely and as a consequence th ese ,

concepts and j u dgments be come empty te r ms to which nothing in

reality corresponds There could be no knowledge of things which

.
“

were in a state of flux ( M eta X III 4; 1078 b 17 ; ed M cKeon p ”

.
, , .
, .

Is H eraclitus a nominalist ? Fragment 102 ( D iel s) would seem

to point in this direction This states that in the sight of God every .

thing is beautiful everything is j ust ; it is only men who maintain

,

that some things a r e unj ust o thers j ust Tr uly nom inalistic are as , .
,

a consequence only those H er aclitean s fo r example C r atylu s who

, , ,

held to an absolute becoming meaning the reby that there is ab so ,

lu tely nothing that can be found to be common in all S uch an .

absolute relativism is represented by the mode rn vitalist philosophies ,

e
g . those
.
, of N ietzsche and Klages N o matte r how often they appeal .

to H eraclitus in reality he is not thei r p rogenito r fo r although all

, ,

things may be to him in the state of flux he held fast always to ,

counte r pulling harmony law and the o gos

”
( i ) L C
'
“
- dp p w o n se v a , ,
.

quently science is for him still a possibility In his description of .

 FROM TH E M ILE S IANS To TH E ELEATIC S 21

H eraclitus, Ar istotle must ha v e had in mind not H eraclitus but

rathe r the H er acliteans .

H o w then can we be ce r tain of permanent poles in the continuous

fl ow of appea rances ? Th e Eleatics o ffe r us a solution Thei r leade r .

P armenides had heard repor ts of H e raclitus and his teachin gs and

had busied himself with the problems he had raised .

TICS TH E ELEA

Three men brought fame to Elea in lowe r Italy : Xenophanes ,

P armenides and Zeno of Elea

, .

I . X ENOP H ANE S ( 0 . 5 70—4 75

This philosopher was born in C olophon I n Ionia Afte r many .

years of wandering he finally settled in Elea Through him this .

little hamlet became the seat of a famous philosophical school .

Xenophanes is an extremely original and independent thinke r H is .

tr avels had taught him to strike out on his own and to follow
no one s footsteps in his speculation With a c riti cal insight he
’
.

perceived that the gods of ancient mythology were created acco r ding
to th e image and likeness of man : Th e Ethiopians maintain that “

thei r gods are black skinned and flat nosed ; the Thr acians blue eyed
-
,
-

and redheaded ( Diels Frag ”

This S tatement represents the
,
.

fi rst known critical philosophy of religion Th e problem upon which

fi
.

it touched is no pettie r than the question of a possible recognition of

a transcendent God Th e r st fruit of such a philosophy is the retr eat
.
-

of polytheism According to Xenophanes we must concei ve of the

.

gods in a diffe rent fashion than forme rly : O ne G o d the greatest “

among gods and men neither in form like unto mortals no r in

, ,

thought h e is entirely an eye enti rely a spirit enti rely an ear

. .
, , .

he abides ever in the selfsame place moving not at all ; no r doth ,

it beh t h im to go about now hithe r now thither ( Diels F rags 23 ”

, .
,

24,
is no longe r polytheism Is it actually monotheism ? M ore
This .

probably such statements must be interpreted in a pantheistic sense ,

for Aristotle writes : Wi th reference to the whole material universe

“

he [Xenophanes ] says the O ne is God (M eta I 5 ; 986 b 24; ed ”

.
, ,
.

M cK eo n p , S uch a view is also contained in the generally

.

pantheistic line of thought with which the pre S o cratics had co n -

cerned themselves And in the O n e God who abides ever in the

.
“

selfsame place moving not at all whom Xenophanes desc ribes we

, , ,
22 A NCI ENT P HILOSOPH Y
have thus ea rly an intimation of the one continuous cohe rent and ,

immanent Universe which P armenides taught .

2 .P ARM ENIDES ( 0 5 40 470 B C ) .

— . .

This philosophe r was born in E lea H e is supposed to have framed .

a constitution fo r the place of his birth In him as in all the men .

of those early times we find traces of a very practical vi ew of life .

Xenophanes is thought to have been his teacher Bu t in this case the .

pupil is greate r than the master ; he is actually the foremost r epr e

sen tative of the Eleatic philosophy H is writings bore the customary .

title : O n Natu r e ; they were written in heavy albeit stately hexi , ,

ters The first part of the poem of which we possess conside rable
.

portions deals with the way of tr uth This way leads to being ; upon .

this way walk P armenides and philosophy Th e second portion .

points out the way of opinion ; this leads to appearances ; or dinary

mortals may be found upon this road .

Th e w ay of truth 1 ) Being is To unde r stand th e way of tr uth

“
. .
,

three principles must be understood : Being can be spoken of and “

it can b e th e object of thought F or it is th e same thing that can be .

thought and that can be namely being ; contrariwise no thing is

, , ,

nothing or more Simply Being is th at which is ( Diels Frag

, , ,
“ ”
,
.

6 , This is not mere tautology ; nor is it a recognition of the p r in

cip le of identity drawn from logi c but simply a polemic directed ,

against the H eraclitean ontology of becom ing resulting from the ,

contr ary road the w ay of return ( m A p w A G ) ( D iels

“ ” “ ’ ’
cvr o os xe ev o s
, ,

Frag 6 which refutes clearly the notion of be coming advan ced

.
,

by H e raclitus one that is in volved in contradictions ( compare H r acli

,
e

tus Frag , P armenides merely wishes to assert : there is no

.

becoming ; there is only being If ever in ou r j udgments we make .

use of the expres sion is by it we speak expressly of being “

,
”
.

P a rmenides st resses I n his exposition the word being and thinks of

”

it as the opposite of the H eraclitean becoming which for P armenides “

,
”

represents non being because it is fluid and does not continue in

-
”

existence We realize that in this theory ancient spec lation seeks

. u

to express itself a speculation which takes for granted that being

,
“ ”

is something s tati c and po ssesses the meaning f immobility or o

repose just as today un critical thinke rs are accustomed to say : what

,
“

is that is and by such a S tatement attempt to describe a continuously

, ,
”

subsisting being .

This includes naturally the concept of identity ; logically and

 FRO M TH E M ILE S I AN S To TH E ELE A TIC S 23

ontologically being is some thing identical wi th itself something ,

fo r whi h there is neithe r development nor time F ormally unde r

c .

stood it is the antithesis of the concept of H eraclitus An d this an

, .

ti th e sis may stem from the ancient formulation o f the noti on o f

being th at P armenides advanced The explanation that the concept of

fi
.

being has a wider meaning and must include within its extension
not only x i and static self identity will not be advanced in a -

clea r manne r until P lato turns his mind to the subject in his Dialogues
the S oph ist and the P a menid s r e .

"
Thought and being a re the same ( Diels
i

2) Th o u gh t is b eing
“ “
.
,

F rag O r as a parallel passage p r esents it : A tho ught and that

.
“

of which we think a re the same fo r not without being where it , ,

is expressed will you be confronted by speculation ( Diels Frag

,
”
, .

8 34 , H is thought does not as Burnet maintains exp r ess a monism , ,

wherein only material being exists and the spirit is nothing individual
o r special Nor does it as C ohen claims infer that only spirit exists
.
, ,

and that matter is but an illusion Rather it simply expresses the

realistic th eory of k nowledge possessed by a sound h um
.
,

an reason
according to which our thinking is a rep roduction of the objecti ve
wo rld Thought is identical wi th being only insofar as it mir rors
.

an obj ect j ust as a copy mirrors the original maste rpiece By such .

phrases he does not advocate monism ( if we held this we would

only be anti ci pat ng future de velopments ) but he actually p ropounds
i ,

a dualism — a dualism so little infected with doubt that it assumes

that the contents of thought are an identical reproduction of the
contents of obj e ctive reality In this sense A ristotle o f
fer s a fu r th e r ex .

planation To say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is

:
“

not is tr e ( M eta IV 1011 b 27 ; 7 ; ed M cKeon p

, u .
, In the back
, .
, .

ground ho ve r s the metaphysical conviction that think ing and being

are co ordinate Being conceived as a continuou s state of flux does
-
.

not as H eraclitus appeared to assume escape from the fate of a

, ,

notion ha rdened into a mere scheme Th e Logos has its anti thesis .

in th e ontological orde r Aristotle admits this in its entirety when .

he states that the catego ries of the intellect may also be catego ries
of reality Th e philosophical bearing of this position becomes clear
.

when we represent to ourselves the antithetical pos ti on as S tated i

by N ietzsche : P a rmenides has said one cannot think of something

“

th at is not ; we are on th e opposite Side and we say th at which can ,

be thought must be a fiction .

”

3) O ne and all The re is a continuous being that is one and all

.
“
24 A NCIE NT P HILOSOP HY

( am , 6p m? way év iels Frag 8 5

‘
o vve P armenides favo r s a
x s, D
é ,
.
,

u nity in the cosmos in the most radi cal form There are not seve r al .

worlds ; being is only one unive r sal and ubiquitous and everywhere
, ,

the same We cannot pa rtition it into eithe r multiplicity or v ariety

.
,

the individual and the substantial ; no r can We perceive v arious

degrees of intensity in it It is wi thout change and without motion ;
.

it knows nei the r becoming no r dissolution In eternal repose it lies .

befo re us motionless comparable in fo rm to a well rounded globe

,
-
,

en losed unifo rmly within its own p rope r bounda ries

c .

The argumentation he employs to p ro ve the impossibility of becom

ing is extr emely inter esting : H o w could being be destroyed ? H o w
“

could it originate ? Fo r if it did o riginate ( o r begin ) it is not hing ; and ,

in like fashion [it is nothing ] if it should begin to be in the future

, .

Thus its begin nings a re oblite rated and its dissolution forgotten ,
”

( D iels Frag
, 8 19 . This
, appea r s to be a play on words and we ,

are tempted to believe that in it we can detect the first str ir r ings of
th e speech mannerisms of erist i c the art of disputation as the Greeks ,

develo ped it at a late r period Bu t in reality we are faced with a rchaic

.

thoughts which cannot maste r the meaning of or gi ve fitting expres

sion to a continued existence both before and afte r denoted by the ,

con cept of being Being cannot originate because fo r these thinkers

.
,

being denotes what has always been and always will be If we should .

permit something to o riginate o r to dissolve we would acco r ding , ,

to thei r viewpoint deny by that ve ry fact being which we take for

, ,

granted eve ry time we speak of it and thus we would become guilty of ,

a contradi ction Finally we would be fo rced to agree that something

.

originates in something else ; then th e contradiction would be even

mo re striking We will find that the same di fficulty also confron ts
.

Anaxagoras ( compa r e bel o w p To clear up the di ffic lty

, . u

Ar istotle late r on int roduces the concept of p r i v atio n ( pn ) and

’
-
or e o Ls

his distinction between potency and act .

Being as p ropounded by P a rmenides a being which is always the ,

same motionless and persisting in its eternal repose o ffe rs an effecti ve

, ,

polemic to the doctrine of H e raclitus who according to his opponents , ,

recognized only becoming and variety and r efused to acknowledge the

permanent and the uni versal P armenides was led to de velop his .

strange thesis by his mania fo r abstr action which p rescinded enti r ely ,

from any specific determination and consequently resulted in an en

tir e ly undete r mined some thing similar to th e Apeiron of An axi,

mande r only that in his case it was called being Thus we can explain
, .
 FROM TH E MILE S IANS To TH E ELE A TIC S 25

both universal sameness of his being and his denial of multiplicity

the .

Th e repose whi ch he ascribes to his being may be traced again to the

“ ”

ancient assumption that being denotes an existence identi cal with itself .

P a rmenides of set purpose had adopted spe culation as the only

way to arrive at truth In his poem he emphatically warns us through
.

a goddess to beware of sense experiences A void the way of investiga .

“

tion ; do not be enticed by the force of well entrenched habit to —

take this path To let the blind eye and the booming hearing and th e
.

tongue do as they please ; no decidedly no Through speculation

, .

bring to a decisive conclusion the disputatious examination ( Diels ”

,

Frag . This distinction between th e experiences o f the senses and

the knowledge of reason is retained throughout the course of the
history of philosophy Rationalism in manifold guises will always
.

follow the road which P armenides opened up for the first time In .

cont r ast to H eraclitus P armenides had shown the w ay which led

,

to fixed truths which are always ident cal with themselves : abstract i

reasoning By this advance we arrive at a fixed pole in the continuous

.

flow of appearances M any reasons led P armenides to substitute the

.

world of the Logos of thought for reality and to arrive at his own
, ,

peculia r concept of being First he failed to reali z e that all concepts

.
,

reached by abstract r easoning are only artificial c rystallizations and

schemati z ations of artificially stressed aspe cts and partial c rcumstances i

— e v en though these aspects and circumstan ces might be basi c and

essenti al — of a reality that is far more rich and manifold S econd .

,

he erroneously believed th at his world of ideas was the real world .

Those physi cists ( qb m l) to whom the unive r sal is everyth ing

v xo

and th e particula r nothing who deny all individuality and all plural
,

ity all change and all becoming and who permit the world to jell
, , ,

into an eternally unva rying and uniform monotone are called by

Aristotle a—ph ysicists natural scientists for whom nature
no longer exists because they have happily explained away the world
— acosmism .

In the same spirit later on S pinoza and H egel would debase the
individual o r singular because to them reality was a whole and the
,
“ ”

individual only a moment in the cosmic process and not at all true
“ ”

substance O nly the universal is essential to P armenides For H eraclit s

. . u

it is only the individual that has any meaning Wh o is right ? What .

is the true world : the world of the sense which stands in the eternal
flow of time but is itself only transitory a sense world of concrete ,

reality wi th its multiplicity and its fullness ; or the supernal abstract , ,

26 A N C I E NT P H I L O S O P H Y
ideational world of th e Logos and o f scien e with its pale al though c ,

widely valid niversals ? An d if th e essential is to be sought in the

,
u

uni versal in wh at universal must it then be sought ? In the species

,

o r in the gen s or in some still more sublime universality ? If we S hould

u

be asked to name th e essence of an individual dog what would ,

be more correct to say This is Fido or This terrier is a dog or This

:

is a living being or This is being ? P armenides held that this last

denomination was the more correct A ristotle ventured his answer .

to this problem by ma k ing a distinction between first and second

substance and by this distinction he preserved the rights both of the
individual and the universal Furthermore by teaching that being
.
,

is not a concept of genus be cause it must be under stood not univo

,

cally but analogi cally h e saved the multiformity of being at th e

, ,

same time ma k ing it possible to compare it with other s .

Th e w ay o f opi nion Bu t P a r menides does not appear to have

.

been entirely satisfied with his way of truth In certain respe cts h . e

c on edes th at th e way of op n on ( sag ) may also be valid O f the

c i i a .

portion of his poem which treats of this concession not m u ch is

p reserved Bu t from th e remnant wh ich we possess we are able to
.

perceive that an opinion exists not th rough the k nowledge of th e

intellect but through th at of th e senses O n th e basis of th sense . e

faculty arises th e image both of becoming and of m ltiplicity in u

the world In reality this image is h owever a de eption and the

.
, , c

work of the ph antasy or the imagination as S pinoza will say

“

,
”

later when he places h is feet on the path fi rst trod by P armenides .

According to P armenides sense knowledge is not ideal ; nonetheless

, ,

the great maj ority of people th masses are ontent with appear
— e — c

a n ce s and with opinion .

A s the end result of our st dy of P armenides we can draw the u

conclusion that scientific truth ; when it is a tually tru th remains c ,

eternal ; whereas we owe to H eraclitus the view that the actual world ,

insofar as it is present in space and in time flows on forever Th e , .

former is the world of though t the latter the world of sense , .

3 . ZEN O ( c . 460

also came from Elea and h e is thought to have been t h e

He
fa vorite pupil of P armenides Zeno is th e first of a not insigni fi cant
.

numbe r of philosophers who I n the struggle for th e right of free

speculation became th e vi ctims of tyranny H i writings bore th .
\
s e

usual title : Abo u t Natu r e Eleatic philosophy received from h im tha t;

.
 fi
28 A NCIE NT P HILO SOP H Y
th e in nite numbe r of places momentarily occupied into which the
flight of the arrow can be resolved ( 2) When he mentions being.
,

we are to think i mmediately of a positive real quantity of being .

Being can however denote some thing negative for we speak of it

, , ,

i n the p redication is An d the lead which the turtle holds in the

“ ”
.

race is such a negative q uantity S ince the Eleatics stick so slavishly

.

to the wo rd being they insinuate that th e turtle always keeps a

“

,
”

positive real distance ahead of Achilles (3) According to Zeno being

.
,

consists of blo cks of reality that are imm anent and knowable solely

in themselves but which we can perceive directly and immediately .

It is foreign to the speculation of the Eleatics to hold that speculation

c an determine a being by various indirect means and from seve r al

standpoints and consequently they refuse to recognize that a quantity

,

of movement can be measured in a variety of ways .

A ve r y special and final problem is the question of the relationship

between thought and being Th e Eleati cs take fo r granted th e theory
.

of images and assume that there is a complete identity between

knowledge and the object of the knowledge From this arise all .

their difficulties M any statements of theory will still have to be made

.

before the philosophe rs a rriv e at the conclusion that the soul possesses
its own set of laws ; that it avails itself only of certain aspects and
moments of being ; that it can often determine being only indirectly ;
and that it can on occasion bypass and build up a world of pure
thought that is alien to reality .
CHAPTER

FR O M TH E M E C HANIS T S T O TH E S OP H IS T S

I . TH E M E C HA NI S TS
A NAX A GORA S AND

H e r aclitus and the Eleatics adopted some v ery extreme positions

in the theo ries which they propounded It would indeed be strange .

if in the succeeding decades attempts should not ha ve been made to

reconcile the anti theses which had appeared S uch e ffo r ts we re made ; .

and as we have already seen in the case of H e raclitus opposing

, ,

theo ries were in deed thought provoking -

.

TH E ME C HANI S TS
Unde r this title we bring togethe r three philosophers who are
responsible fo r a new type of philosophy the theo ry of M echanism ,
.

F rom this period on this tendency will continue to find ever new
disciples an d follower s i n the history of Weste rn thought We will .

bette r be able to pass j udgment on it afte r we have lea rned to know

its fir st p roponents Empedocles Leucippus and Democritus , ,
.

I E D L S (0
. M P E OC E . 492 432
-

This philosophe r came from Ak r agas the mode rn Agrigento in ,

S icily H e was an extr aordina ry individual pa r tly lustr al priest seer

.
, , ,

and prophet partly wandering preacher and wonde r wo rker and

,
-
,

beyond all this a politician physician poet an d sobe r scienti st H is

, , , , .

era looked upon him as a p rodigy ; like a god he stalked th rough

the world C onsiderable fragments of his H ymns of Repa ration
.
“ ”

K e pp l an d his work on natu re ha v e been p rese rv ed Both we r e

( a a
) to .

written in ve r se .

Elements Th e first problem to whi ch Empedocles sought to r eply

.

was the question of the Ar ch e th e P rima ry P rin ciple Whe reas the , .

M ilesians recognized only one basic element he p roposed fo r con ,

sideration fou r original substances : fire wate r ai r and earth These , , , .

a re the four roots ( p éé p m ) of being To these four all things

“ ”
r i a .

29
30 A NCIE NT PH ILO S OP HY
tr ace thei r origin by the process of either composition or dissolution .

In th ei r quality howe ver they a re something final ; they were neither

, ,

cal led into nor w ill th ey pass out of existence ; only particles are
, ,

splintered from them and ente r into new combinations wi th th e

parti cles of oth er roots What men call becoming and dissoluti on
“
.
”

is therefore composition and separation There is no such thing

, , .
“

as a bi rth among mortal men ; neithe r is the r e an end in accu r sed

death but only composition and in terchange in the materials that a re
,

mixed ( D iels F rag ,

.

Fo r Empedocles becoming is merely a change of place H e con

, .

S ider ed his four roots as something both demoniacal and di vine ;

“ ”

they are named Zeus H ere N estis and Adoneu s The alchemists of , , , .

the Renaissance called th em spirits and they reappea r in the wo rks “

,
”

of Goethe as S alamande r Un dene S ylphe and C obold Th e names , , , .

have indeed disappeared but th e concept roots of being the notion , ,

”
,

of elements “
as we say today has remained F or it is this concept
— .

of elements which Empedocles b rought to light in his teaching on

the ultimate qualitative constituents of nature What he considered to .

be an actual element was not such in r eality and although he had

no ink ling of their actual numbe r he at least correctly perceived the ,

idea of element An d of equal importance is his second idea bound

.

up with this concept of element namely the idea of the eternity of , ,

'

prime matter in the world o r as the mode rns have renamed it the , ,

law of the conservation of matter .

”

Lo v e an d hate E mpedocles endowed his matte ; with force Th e

. .

original substances in some fashion or another must be put into

, ,

motion For him this took place by means of two elemental forces
. .
,

love and hate ( p A d

) T w o things will
c I I tell you
’
ca —: sometimes
v xo s .
“

one substance coalesces from several elements ; sometimes it separates

into its component parts This continuous interchange neve r ceases
. .

S ometimes all are j oined togeth e r in love ; sometimes the indi v idual
substances disuni te in the hatred of strife ( Diels Frag This , .

could be concei v ed almost as hylozoism ; it is r athe r an attempt to

explain being by taking for its basis certain notions of the spiritual
life of man .

M ech anism Bu t this does not give rise to the uncritical an

.

th o po mo ph ism to whi ch we are accustomed in mythology where

r r ,

the gods meddle in the a ffairs of the world as pleasure or caprice

dictates The continuous composition and dissolution takes place
.

“
alternately in the rotation of the cycles i n the rotation of time
,
” “

,
9, C“ ”
 FROM TH E MECHA N ISTS To TH E S OP H ISTS 31

( Diels , F rags 26 1 ; 17 . A ll this is accomplished by th e law

, ,

which is being itself ; it is a ccomplished therefo re by itself ; it is

accomplished automatically .

For mation of th e wo r ld Th e four great epochs of the world .

alternate regula rly with one another in the rotation of the cycles In .

the first of these four periods that of the perfect S phere only love , ,

( harmony ) predominates E ve rything is one ; the re is no separation

. .

In the seco nd period discord interferes ; the unity is broken ; the

elements become divided and multiplicity increases In this pe riod .

the worlds arose We live in this period Finally disco r d is conquered

. .
,

and there is nothing save variety without unity the thi rd period : .

Bu t then in the fourth pe riod love asserts itself again and when
, , ,

it finally prevails at the end unity and ha rmony will again hold ,

sway Thus we have again th e epoch of the S phere and with it the
.

whole process begins all ove r again .

In this account of the cycles of the world it is interesting to obse rve

how Empedocles utilizes the ideas of a vortex spontaneous gene ration , ,

and morphological evolution Insofar as love brings togethe r the .

separated particles of the elements by means of a vortex we arrive

fi
,

at the fo rmation of the first heavenly body or sphere By a fur ther

fi
.

vor tex lik e fo rmation the r mamen t ai r and ethe r we re detached

, , , ,

and by a rotation of the earth water Through the bene cen t influ , .

ence of the sun s rays the first living beings came into existence upon
’

the ea r th Thei r original forms were monst rous ; only late r did th e
.

present fo rms evolve from them .

Th e wo rld o f spir its Empedocles b usied himself not only with

.

th e material world but also with the world of spirits o r of souls .

They should have found a home wi th the gods Bu t because of a .

blasphemy these souls wer e hurled down upon th e earth and here
,

they must undergo metempsychosis through a long series of reinca rna

t ons until they are again purified (
i ,
K fl pp
— cleansed is the title a a
'
oz
“ ”

of one of his books ) and libe rated from their bodies before they
may again enter into the next life H e re Empedocles is p ropounding .

O rphic P ythagorean views

-
.

K no w ledge H is theory of knowledge is worthy of note A t its

. .

core is the thought : we re cognize like by like In sense perception .

there is a meeting between an element in us and a simila r element

outside us With our own matte r we percei ve the earth ; wi th our
.
“

water water ; with our air divine ai r ; with our fire th e sco rching
, , ,

blaze ; with our love the love of the world ; and its hatred with our
, ,
32 A NCIENT P HILO SOP H Y
own sorry hate ( Diels Frag What he means by this becomes
, .

evident when we recall that we are best able to understand the

soul life of a stranger by comparing it with our own ; o r if we
—

remember that p h ilosophy requires that the categories of reason and

of being must in a certain sense he co ordinated and equated In the
, ,
-
.

ba ckground the problem of the relation between th ought and being

can be dis cerned .

Th e speculation of Empedo cles forms an interesting synthesis of

the do ctrine of H eraclitus and the Eleatics H e tend s imth e direction . -

of th e Eleati c philosophy when he teaches that there is a qualitatively

unchangeable being which never became and which is indestructible .

H is first world epoch in parti cular is constru cted on Eleatic prin ciples .

H e moves in the dire tion of H eraclitean thought when he propounds

c

th e theory which holds to a continuous composition and separation

wh ich for him constitutes becoming and which governs the other
world epochs Despite his constant un hangeable being we n d
.

that Empedocles insists upon be oming and motion H is attempt c

, c

.
, fi
to explain be oming as a constantly recu rring automatic happening
c ,

is novel In this as well as in the resolution of becoming to a mere

.

l cal ch an ge of primary parti cles we can perceive the first begi nn i ngs
o ,
,

of mechanisti speculation c .

2 . LEU CI P P US AND DE M OC RI TUS ( 0 . 46 0— 370

A n cient
documents usually consider these two philosophers as th e
typical representatives of atomism and materialism Th e glamour and .

the accomplishments of Democritus have entirely eclipsed Leucippus ,

so that we know s carcely any more of him than his name Democritus .

of Abde ra conseq uently appears to us as much greater than perhaps

, ,

he actually was H e is looked upon as a universal genius at least equal

.

in fame and in rank to A ristotle To warrant such a conclusion we .

nee d only ex amine the long list of his writings on the natural laws ,

nature the planets plants mankind the soul the perceptions of the
, , , , ,

senses color the manifold S tru cture of th e atom the laws of thought
, , , ,

th e appulses of circles and spheres proportionless lines and atoms , ,

numbers rhythm and harmony the art of poetry medical knowledge

, , , ,

agriculture painting tactics th e concept of the soul according to th e

, , ,

wise men life after death etc In this list we can detect the keen
, , .

and limitless curiosity of the scholar Were it not fo r a group of .

fragments all this would have remained unknown to us Democritus

, .

was theoretically a mater ialist ; practically he is one of the gre atest

 FROM TH E MECHA N I STS To TH E SOP H ISTS 33

idealists of all times To be th e first to discove r a causal link between

.

seemingly dispa rate happenings would have made him happier than
to be the hero who captured the throne of P ersia In such feats .

he found rest fo r his soul H is contempo ra ries dubbed him the .

“
laughing philosopher .
”

Being 1 ) Th e ato m Th e fundamental concept in his philosophy

. .

was the ato m Fo r Democritus there was a uniform being wi thout

.

any qualitativ e di fferentiation Bu t this being is no longe r a con .

tin u o u s whole Demo critus breaks up the one being of P armenides

.
,

into very small parti cles whi ch are indivisible and are therefore called
atoms Just as Empedo cles developed the notion of an element so
.
,

Democritus developed the noti on of the atom Th e atom fills space .

,

is impenetrable and heavy ; it is eternal and indestr uctible Th e num .

be r of atoms is infinite It possesses no qualities ; all atoms are of the

.

same kind Bu t there are di fferences of form

. S i ckle shaped -
,

hook—shaped and spheri cal atoms ) as well as di ffe ren ces in size Th e
,
.

atoms furthermo re can be arranged in di fferent ways ; they can

, ,

occupy various positions We can explain the diversity of things .

by purely quantitative moments .

With regard to the qualities of being Demo critus again moved ,

toward P armenides Empedo cles too had not admitted qualitative

.

changes in the elements onl y a quantitative one but he had never, ,

th eless taken for granted four di f ferent basic elements fo r the con
s titu tio n of being For Demo critus as for P armenides being is uniform ;
.

there are no qualitative di fferences because the atoms are all alike ,
.

In opposition to P armenides Demo critus did concede other di ffe rences , ,

such as those i nvolving quantity and change of place The atoms .

possess vari ous forms and different quantities ; they differ in size ;
they onstantly shift from one arrangement to ano the r and from one
c

place to another thereby modifying th e obj ects which are composed

,

of th em We are aware of this change ; for example when the atoms

.
,

lie close together they alter appreciably the hardness and the weight
‘

of objects .

H o w then are we to explain the v arious qualities of things of

, ,

which our sense perceptions make us aware e g sweetness bitter , . .

, ,

ness warmth various colors ? Democritus is entirely logical ; he ma i n

, ,
~

tains that these perceptions are entirely subj ective ( wimp) S ense pe r .

cep tio n s as they appear to us do n o t reprodu ce objective reality In

‘

, , .

the quality of sensation that is experienced in our consciousness these ,

perceptions are absorbed by our sense o rgans which then tr anslate ,

34 AN C I E N T I S
P H LO O P HY

them into their own subjecti ve language O nly insofar as th e senses

fi
.

make known to us differences of quantity ( extension form mass , , ,

hea viness hardness ) ar e they true to nature ( l ) By this Demo c

, ,
C l o et .

ritus anti cipates the differentiation between primary and se condary

sensory qualities advocated by Descartes and Locke in modern times .

H as the development of philosophy proved h im to be correct in his

con cept of the atom ? N o for we have a list of more th an ninety
,

elements and what is synonymous with this a like number of different

, ,

basic qualities of material being If we S hould however mull over .

, ,

the theory that all elements may be reduced to a n cleus of water u

atoms and a corresponding number of electrons we would reali ze ,

that Democritus by his theory had expressed an idea inspired by

, ,

genius .

2) S pace Allied to the notion of the atom is the on cept of empty

. c

S pace
. This must be taken for granted as soon as the postulate of
a S ingle continuous being is denied Non being empty unfilled space .
-
,

lies between being that is broken up into parti cles This con cept is .

as necessary fo r Democritus as the atom itself What is not is j ust .

“ ”

as mu ch real as what is ( Diels Frag This empty spa ce is partly

”
, .

in the bodies themselves because these are of a porou s nature and

, ,

partly outside the bodies .

3) M otio n Th e third component in the analysis of the world is

.

th e con ception of motion whi ch Demo critus proposes Th e atoms .

move about in empty space Thre e things are characteristic of this

.

motion : I t i s eternal takes place violently ( Big) that is under pres “ ”

sure and impulse and is self—caused ( m é p dm ) S implicius gives

, , ,
’
c r a r o v
, .

us an account of it : They contend that the atoms the primeval

“

bodies eternally move themselves in infinite emptiness by S heer

fi
,

violence ( Diels Frag 67 A

”
, An d A ristotle asserts : There are
.
“

some who make the automaton entirely responsible for the m men t r a

and fo r all cosmic realities ; the vortex arises of itself as does that
motion which the universe has through separ ation and composition , ,

imparted to th e present order of things ( Diels F rag 6 8 A Th e

”
, .

basis for this concept of the vortex wh ich appears in his speculation
as well as in that of Empedocles is a simple observation : We may “

observe this in the sifting of seeds and in boulders in th e surf ; for

by the vortex in the sieve the lentils are separated from lentils ,

barley from barley and wheat from wheat ; in th sea on the oth er
,
e ,

hand by the crash of the waves the long S tones are brought loser
, c

to th e long and the round to the ro u nd as if the similarity of things

, ,
36 ANCIE NT P H ILOSOP HY
whethe r or not othe r causes are required in order fully to unde r stand
being And finally it is not difficult to perceive that th e theory of
.

Democritus investigates the parts into whi h being can be resolved c ,

but o verlooks the othe r facto r s that contribute to its unity Goeth e .

would say : You have the pieces in your hand What you nee d
“
.
,

though is th e mental bond that brings them together

,
.

K nowledge Democritus believed that the atoms alone su f

. ficed .

H o w completely he was captivated by this prin ciple we can assay

from his own assertion th at the soul is also composed of atoms .

Thought is simply the atom in motion N aturally sense knowledge .

,

is derived from the image s o r eidol whi ch detach themselves from a

O bj ects S tream into the sense organs then meet the atoms of the soul
, , .

F rom the meeting knowledge results Th e di fference between sense .

knowledge and intellectual knowledge is only a di fference of degree ;

thinking produces a fine r and mo re rapid atomic motion than does
sense perception In such a theory materialism is very apparent
. .

No thing else exists in the world save matter ; soul and spi r it a r e
neither individual no r unique ; they a re only atoms and atomic motion .

E thics M atters appear quite otherwise when we examine the ethics

.

of Democritus H is practi cal rules of condu ct are based upon a high

.

idealism Anyone who feels himself compelled to perform j oyously

.
“

actions which of themselves are upright and lawful will be happy

day and night and will in addition be strong and untroubled Co n .

tr ar iw ise whoeve r neglects j ustice and fails to act as he should

,

will be fi lled with disgust when he remembers his omissions and ,

he will taste remo rse and to r ture himself ( Diels Fr ag

, Valian t ”
,
.
“

is he who not only o v ercomes his enemies but also he who over ,

comes his desires M an y are lords of cities but b o n dsla e s of women

”
.
,
v

( D iels F rag , D o not strive

. after every plea sure but only afte r ,

the pleasure of beauty ( Diels F rag H is theory of a mo ral

”
, .

p rinciple does not appear to be in agreement with such statements .

Fo r when Democritus asks himself what the ultimate principle o f

good what the ultimate essence of good might be the answer
, , ,

state s : Goodness denotes ultimately pleasan tness ( d aw n) or agree

ableness A s a consequence th e Epicureans could press him into
.
,

service as a forerunner in support of their own theories All feelings .

are as all speculation merely atoms in motion In such a concept we

, , .

can plainly dis cern anew the mate r ialist ifonl y in theo r y S uch a code , .

of ethics fi ts in very conveniently with A tomism ; and the w hole

 FROM TH E MECHA NISTS TO TH E S OP H I S TS 37

metaphysics the theory of knowledge and ethics — fo rms a well

, ,

rounded and compact system .

A N A X A G O R A S (0 5 8 . 00 42
—

Although chronologically earlie r Anaxagoras must be studied after ,

the Atomists For only then can S tudents fully app reciate the problems
.

that wer e created by mate rialism Anaxagoras of C laz omenae carried .

the philosophy of Ionia to Ath ens This evoked such a reaction among .

he r leading philosophe r s that he had to undergo a trial on the charge

of impiety F or he had theorized that the sun was not a god only
.
,

a red hot stone Anaxagoras anticipated the sentence that would have
-
.

been meted out and fled to Lampsacus where he died honored by , ,

all When his friends chided him because he was forced by circum
.

stances to die on foreign soil he is supposed to ha v e replied : The ,

“

way into the unde rworld is equidistant from all points of the com
pass H is work On Natu r e was sold in Athens as S o crates tells us
.
”
, ,

fo r a drachma .

1 H O M O I OM E RI ES
.

Th e mater ial
wo rld In A naxago ras we can plainly detect
o f th e .

the efforts which the pre So cratic philosophers made to solve th e -

p roblem of being and of becoming In his writings he o ffers us an .

entirely new solution H is starting point is th e supposition that I t i s

.

impossible for anything to arise out of no thing o r to be reduced to

nothingness C onsequently we should speak not of becoming bu t
.

of a new composition not of dissolution but of di vision Bu t what

, .

is it that is everywhere at the basis of becoming ? What is th e final

constituent element of the world ? Th e solution whi ch he o f fe red w as
derived from a simple obse rvation Th e ideas which are so s triking .

among th e pre S oc ratic philosopher s may usually be traced to j ust

-

such simple considerations Th e P ythagoreans arrived at thei r notion

.

of harmony by an examination of th e relation that exists between

tone and th e length Of a co rd Democritus hit upon th e notion of a .

world shaping vortex and its formati ve powe r by noting the processes
-

involved in the sifting Of wheat and in th e beat of waves on ocean

beaches A naxagoras also reflected long and deeply on human nourish
.

ment and asked himself : H w can hair grow from non hai r and “
o -
,

flesh from non fl esh ? ( Diels F rag -

From this consideration he
”
, .

concluded that the matter which

g av e r is e to S ome thin
g els e mu st
38 A N C I E N T P H I LO S O P H Y
have been germinally that which it later became Th e ultimate ele .

ments are seeds ( pj m ) and conseq uently at least q ualitatively

“ ”
o vr e
’
ua

are in essence like to the finished product ; they are h mo iomer ies o

( én p i
o co
p j o f S
e imilar— parts ) as A ristotle so aptly des cribes them A s , .

fo r Democrit s there was an infi nite number of qualitatively homo

u

en e u s atoms
o so for A naxagoras there is an infinite number of
g ,

qualitatively di fferent h omo iomer ies because the essences of finished

“

,
”

things are q ualitatively infinitely diverse These h o mo iomer ies are .

”

eternal indestru ctible and u nchangeable Th rough the preponderance

, , .

of a definite qualitative form e ve ry single thing is determined in its ,

own peculiar species That of which there is most in a thing that as

.
“

, ,

th e most clearly r e cogni z able factor is and was the individual thing
”
,

( D iels F rag , .

Anax agor as and Dem o c ritu s A naxago ras assumed a position .

diametri cally opposed to that of Democritus In the case of D moc . e

ritus we must deal with a man w h o is biased in favor of analysis ;

in A naxagoras with one who is prej udiced in favor of synthesis
, .

For Anaxagoras the f ormed reality alone should abso rb our attention ,

a primacy which Aristotle himself attributed to it C onsequently .

the h omo i mer ies must be endowed with fo rm For Demo critus only
o .

the unformed the most universal have meaning as they do for the
, ,

M ilesians and P armenides Th e q uestion must eventually be de .

velo ed more fully : Where must the essential be sought in the

p ,

universal or in the parti ular ? c

2 . NO US
world more than matte r S peculation that is oriented by
Th e .

sensory unities univocal meani ngs wholes and substances can be

, , ,

clearly recognized in the se cond cardinal con cept of A naxagoras his ,

doctrine of the spi rit ( 0 ) and its role in being and in the formaV0 9

tion of being By it the doctrine of Democritus is essentially aug

.

men te d and developed Aristotle has outlined clearly th e state of the

.

problem H e writes : For it is not likely either that fire or earth

.

or any such element Should be the reason why th ings manifest good
ness and beauty both in their being and in their coming to be o r ,

that those thinker s [those prio r to A naxagoras ] should ha ve supposed

it was ; nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter to
spontaneity and chance When one man [Anaxagoras ] said then .
, ,

that reason was p resent as in animals so th roughout natu re — as —

,

the cause of o r de r and of all a rrangement he seemed like a sober

 FROM TH E M EC HA N I STS To TH E S OP HISTS 39

man in con trast with the random talk of his predecesso rs (M eta
I 3; 984 b l 1 ff ; ed M cKeo n pp 695
, . .P lato de v eloped this idea , .

in a still mo re concrete fashion when he permitted S ocrates I n pri son ,

to question himself : Do I perhaps sit he r e because my body is made

“

up of bones and muscles or do I assign ten thousand othe r causes

of the same sort forgetting to mention the true cause which is that
,

the Ath enians have thought fit to condemn me and I have thought ,

it better and right to remain here and undergo my sentence ? ”

( P h a e do 9 8, d and ,0 ed Jowett Vol II pp 4

, 8 2 M ate
. r ialistic , .
, .

mechanistic causality does not therefore su ffi ce to explain all reality , , .

There are pro cesses whi ch take pla ce solely because a final o r pur
o siv e cause is operative
p .

Who leness pu rpo se spir it A longside that analytic method of

, , .

examining being which is restricted solely to the material elements

,

of being the re is now arranged a synthetic method which is devoted

,

to dealing with uni vocal meanings wholes and continuities of pur , ,

pose and of order S uch a teleological explanation of being is possible

.

solely on the supposition that there is a principle which is not only

logical but also dynamic ( 7 6 a l x i l X l n yw 1/ for o ec Ka O
‘

t el.
‘
e
'
r ov
,
“

it has all knowledge about everything and th e greatest

A naxago r as finds this prin ciple in a spirit whi ch is at one and
the same time the power both to th ink and to will H is N ou s .

o r Reason is the source of motion in th e universe ( Diels Frag ,

.

12 13) and also the principle of order This N ous is something

, .

infinite self ruling exists for itself is omniscient omnipotent and

,
-
, , , ,

dominant Anaxagoras did not it is true as Aristotle noted make

.
, , ,

a ve ry extensi v e use of this principle Bu t we must c redit him with .

certain original discoveries : he des cribed for the first time a new
( )
1
causali ty the regulative final or purposive cause ; ( 2) he stressed a
,

new k ind of being the spirit ; ( 3) he specified a new and unique

,

origin of motion Anaxagoras is the first dualist even though he did

.
,

not succeed in separating th e sp i ri tual entirely from the corporeal ,

fo r to him spir it is still the s u btlest and the pure st matte r .

”

3. WORLD
F ORM A T I ON O F TH E

What Anaxagoras had to say about the cosmogony is no longer

important In th e beginning when the eternal seeds
.
,
“ ”

wer e huddled together in confused ch aos th e spirit took hold begot ,

motion ( rotary impulse ) and caused a separation of th e seeds one

,

from another In this fashion orde r w as bro u ght into the w orld
.
40 A NCI E NT P H ILO S OP H Y

( D iels ,
Frags 5 9 A 42 ; B . Bu t th e r ole of the spirit was not ,

ended by this action Th e Spirit was not the creator of the world
.
,

r ath e r its architect and its builder ; but not even this completely for ,

th e mechanisti c causes i mmediately began to exert their power These .

causes produ ced certain e f fe ts by rotation ; they separated on the c

one side warmth dryness light thinness and on the other coldness
, , , , ,

moistur e darkness and thickness This separation continued until

, ,
.

the material world was fully organized and arranged ; but this process
was and is alw ays mech an istic ‘
.

O nly in the philosophy of P lato and A ristotle do idea and spirit

become th at power whi ch pervades all things and penetrates the -
’

formation of being down to the minutest organism Bu t it was .

Anaxagoras nevertheless who was the fir st to treat of the spirit and

, ,

its activity namely the power of reflection and the S trength to will
, ,
.

II . TH E SO PH I S T S
REVI S I ON OF TERM INOL O G Y AND OF VALUE S
In comparison to the wisdom of the Ionians the spirit of the ,

S ophists is indeed something quite surprising N o t only be ause it . c

busies itself with other topi cs — man takes the place of the world
but also because in its entire essen ce it is di fferently expressed In .

relation to the ancient w o r ld it is like an orator to a savant a trick

_
,

artist to an arti st a pettifogger to a lawyer

, .

SOPHISTS TH E
Th e fi r st among the S ophists both in time and i n importan ce , ,

is P rotagoras of Abdera ( c 48 1 41 1 Like all the other S ophists .

—
,

he too led a wandere r s life H e appear ed for a S hort while in A thens

’
.
l
,

came into contact with the most influential political personages and ,

exerted influence over public life Because of his writings on th e nature .

of the gods he was summoned for trial on th e harge of impiety

, c .

While fleeing this tribunal he died H is work O n T th contains , . ru

the famous di ctum : h o mo —me ns u r a M an is the measu re of all

things A little younger than P rotagoras was P o dicu s of Chios
.
”
r

( Julis )
. H e was a ctive also in politi c s In his book O n A g the . e

beautiful myth of H eraclitus S tands at the parting of ways A further .

and still younger contemporary of these figures is H ippias of Elis ,

a polyhisto r world travele r pompous orato r j ack o fall trades and

, , ,
- — -
,

p o litician O ne of the most r enowned names is that of Gorgias of

.
 FROM TH E ME CHA NISTS TO TH E SOP HISTS 41

Leo ntini an extraordinarily gifted o rator and teache r

( 48 3 375
—

of rhetoric H e too occupied a prominent place in politics H is dis

. .

ci le s were C allicle s and C itias both typical representatives of the

p r ,

school might is right Th e last named C r itias was a relati ve of

, .
, ,

P lato When the oligarchy seized power in G r ee ce ( 404

. he was
the ringleade r of the Thirty About the year 427 Th r asymach u s he .
,

came known in A thens H e appears in th e first book of P lato s .

’

Repu blic P lato also dedicated Dialogues to P rotagoras Gorgias and

.
, ,

H ippias O n the other hand he neve r mentioned Antiphon of Athens

.
,

most of whose sophistic Fr agments have been p reserved .

1 .P OLI TICS AND R HE TORI C

What obj ecti ve did the S ophists aim at ? Th ey were tea chers of
vi r tue as has Often been said Bu t the Ar ch ? of which they often
,
.

spoke is not virtue but in its original meaning simply a proficiency

fi
, ,

dexterity o r readiness AS used by them it denoted a political pro

, .

cien c
y political
, dexterity W e are now in the era of P e r i clean
.

imperialism This age needed men who are willing to fight and to
.

conque r prepa r ed to lay siege to the latest frontie r s ; this age needed
,

men who willed to su cceed who sought to perform great deeds who , ,

aimed to make names fo r themselves S ophist ry did mean education .

,

as has always been maintained but only political edu cation and the ,

formation of leaders not educati on i e popula r education as we

, , . .
, ,

understand it today Th e new horizons which the S ophists opened

.

naturally inspired the you th of thei r day with enthusiasm S o far .

did these ideas penetrate that it would not have taken much to bring
the populace to ca rry around on thei r Shoulder s the men who taught
the new way of life .

Th e means of achie v ing this goal was speech Bu t what kind of .

speech ? Natu rally it had to be brilliant Th e speake r had to be versed .

in all subj ects and he had to be able to speak always on an y subject

that was o ffer ed to him Bu t the speech also had to be convincing . .

Th e art of conv nci ng others was th e A ete of the S ophists H o w can

'

i r .

we convince others ? P rotagoras replied : The speaker must be able

to tu rn a weak argument into a strong one ( w ij w Ady p m r c
‘
'
rr ov x
’
a r

w i ) Gorgias was of th e opinion that spee ch is a poison wi th which

o re v .

a person can do everything poison or bewitch C onsequently con , .

“

v ictio n does not serve simply to convey truth but to accomplish

”
,

whateve r the speaker might desire S uch use does not imply th at .

other s are con v inced rather that they ar e persuaded The S ophists
, .
42 A NCIENT P HILO SO P H Y
called the art they pu rposed to cultivate soul guidance
P lato retorted : No t soul guidance but soul ensnarement ; it is nothing ,

but disputation word j uggling equivocation ambiguity and verbal

, , , ,

sham battle Th e art is concerned not with obj ective tr uth but with
.
,

personal subj ective interest Because of this the term soph ist y acquired
. r

a disreputable meaning one which has persisted throughout the ,

centuries down to ou r own day .

2 . TH ES OP H I S T O U TLOO K UP ON L IFE
I S sophistry philosophy ? It is not wisdom in the mean ing whi ch
pre S ocratic metaphysics attached to it ; it is also not science in th t:
-

strict sense of the word It is not wrong howe ve r to devote a special

.
, ,

section to it in the history of philosoph y although perhaps too mu ch ,

honor was conferred upon it by declaring that in sophistr y philosophy

turns to man as its subj ect and deals with great problems in connec
tion wi th the theory of knowledge and the theory of value S ophistry .

recogni zed no problems ; it k new only propaganda I t was not too .

concerned with philosophi cal interest ; its primary concern was p r c a

ti cal aspirations Bu t we may speak of th e intellectual outlook that

.

the S ophists cultivated for even politicians may hanker afte r some
,

k ind of world view Behind this outlook there can be discerned

.
,

at least indirectly the looming figure of philosophy And this ar t

,
.
“

,
”

namely to philosophi ze in a p ractical fash ion in terms of a definite

,

outlook and of a standard of life produces a greater effe ct upon ,

the masses than a conscious theory of life even though the former ,

may be less firmly bolstered by argument and less positive in its

conclusions Fu rthermore individual S ophists occasionally took an
.
,

a tive part in direct philosophi cal spe ulation Under stood in this
c c .

sense we may single out two basi c on epts in th eir intellect al

, c c u

outlook their sceptical relativism and their doctrine of might

: .

Scep ticism and relativism Th e Ionians had purs u ed their phil

.

o so h ical tho ght without being disturbed by any doubt as to th

p u e

ability of human reason to arrive at truth Bu t with the S ophists this .

doubt appears P rotagoras contended that th ere are no universally

.

valid objective truths Th truth does not depend on the obj ect ;
. e

objective ontents of reality are not taken intentionally into th e mind

c ,

nor by every mind in the same way ; only th e subj e ct expresses itself .

We can look upon th ings either in this way or in that A S the in .

“

dividual thing appears to be to me so it is for me ; as it appears to ,

be to you so it is fo r you ( Diels F rag By that asse rtion man

”
, .
,
44
‘

A NCIE NT P HILO SOP H Y

whatever was improper what individuals hold to be su ch and — —

from this entire mass choose whate ve r was still p rope r — what indi
vidu als again considered to be such not a single thing would —

remain but all would divide eve rything among themselves ( Diels
,
”
,

Frags 90 2 . Thus N omos signi fi es that a thing exists only by

, , ,

reason of law ( ear ) This leads to far reaching consequences An ti

y .
-
.

phon o ffers as his opinion : man can transgress against th e Nomos ,

but he should not permit himself to be seen H e considered even .

national ties as nonentities : all men ar e to him the same H ippias .

of EliS thinks along th e same lines ( P lato P r otagor as 337 c ) And , .

Alcidame s adds that slaves also ha v e equal r ights with free men .

Finally even r el gi ous no moi ar e rathe r r uthlessly b rushed aside

,
i

C on cerning the gods I am not able to know whether they exist o r

“

not M any obstacles are in th e way the obscu rity of the subj ect and
.
,

th e shortness of life contended P rotagoras ( Diels F rag

,
”
We , .
“

h ave been a ccustomed to hold as divine whate v e r was good o r useful

fo r man declared P r o dicu s And C r itias maintained : gods and
,
”
.

religion in its entirety are only inventions of a prudent man who

wished to frighten men wi th te rrible phantoms and with demons who
were endowed with the power of pee ring into the sec rets of men and
of states so that men would be impelled to obey th e laws of the
,

state even tho u gh the poli ce were not present

, .

3) N tu r l l w Bu t does perhaps the oth er notion the treatment

a a a .
, , ,

of what may be valid by virtue of natu re ( pi ) induce a real c i oa ,

obligation ? Th e S ophists indeed recognized a natural j ustice ( qS i ”

i o eI

Sl )
K a LO VA fter A ntiphon
. went to g r eat lengths to explain that man
was not obliged to obey purely human laws he continued : Whoever ,
“

acts contrary to one of those laws which sp ring from natu re as part
of ou r selves causes no less damage to himself e ven though his act
, ,

remains hidden to his fellowmen and no greater when it is known ,

by all fo r damage is based not only on op i ni on but also on truth

, ,
”

( D iels F rag , B u t the question .may still be asked : how should

we understand the term ph ysis ( pf ) ? M ight it be that which is c i oa
“

in conformity with nature the natural law the unwritten divine ,

” “

law that traces I ts or gi n not to yesterday o r today but has always

i ,

been valid to whi ch man has eve r appealed in vie w of human weak
,

ness from S ophocles ( Antigo ne 45 0 ff) down to H ugo Grotius ? , .

This signifies that eternal law whi ch fo rms the ideal framework
for nature itself according to which the world and man life and ,

histo ry should de velop H ippias speaks of such an unwritten law .

 FROM TH E MEC HA NI STS To TH E S OP H I S T S 45

Xenophon M e m IV 4 r does the r e as Jaege r maintains lu r k

( , O .
, , , , ,

behind this concept nothing more than a weariness of law which is dis
gusted at the many repetitions and contradicto ry stipulations of party
politics and seeks refuge in natu re ra ther than in the capri ce of politi cal
pa r ties ? We could possibly read that into the declar ation of Antiphon
( D iels , Fr ag B u t when
. he explains the natural by the u seful
” “ ”

( vf uc bép )ovwe could think on the other hand that

, to th e S ophists ,

natural law is essentially identical wi th desire and is therefore , ,

cu iditas natur alis

p
'

( 8 7 B 44 ; D iels F rag , .

The notion of powe r Th e second fundamental thought of the

.

S ophists namely the discussion of the idea of power points in this

, , ,

di rection The idea is exp ressed most fo r cefully in C allicles and

“

C r iti as C allicles de v elops this thought in the Gor gias of P lato : In

.

natu re it is apparent that the strong have more than the weak That .

is thei r right ; it is a natural r ight O nly the weak the masses slave .
, ,

natures invent customs and laws to protect themselves O u r educa

, .

tio n al system and ou r culture adopt th ese fictions and with them

cu r b the st r ong Bu t let a st r ong man appea r he immediately seizes

.
,

powe r rides roughshod ove r conventions proj ects himself into the
, ,

fo reground provides well fo r himself and his kin satisfies his desi res
, ,

a rrogantly and without restraint and thus leads a princely existence ,

.

This is the natu r ally j ust man who is delineated fo r us (483 d ) Th e .

natu ral right no longe r denotes a law only nature ; it is individualism ,

and natu ralism because there a re no longe r any ideal obligations

,

which are superio r to nature — only flesh and blood desires and ,

instincts This is howeve r in reality chaos and anarchy This may

.
, , .

be deduced from the words of C r itias who contributes the h istor ic ,

o

e volutionistic theo r y to support his ideology There was a primeval .

state : in that period the life of man was disorganized and animal like -

and it was in subjection to brute fo r ce In that state there was no .

“

such thing as p raise for the noble nor punishment for the evildoer ; ,

only then it appear s to me did men fr ame laws ( Diels Frag

, ,
”
, .

In such a theory we disce r n the original state of Thomas H obb es “ ”

in which war was waged by all against all ( bellu m o mniu m co ntr a
o mnes
) and
, natural desires ( p
cu idi tas natu r alis
) exercised full sway
ove r the human heart while all the inhibitive norms were conside red
to be artistic inventions S heer customs which rested upon co n en
, ,
v

tion ; just as on the other hand we are able to detect something of

N ietzsche if not in the speeches at least in the terminology of
, , ,

C allicles conce r ning the weak the masses the lo r ds of creation their , , ,
46 A NCIE NT PHILO SOP H Y
arbitra r y decisions their lusts and their instincts thei r fulle r and
'

, ,

bette r being From this we are able to conclude that sophist ry was
.

not a mere intellectual movement of th e past but a tendency that ,

is capable e ven now as it was then of making fools of men We

, , .

might howe ve r hea r the obj ection : what has already been developed
, ,

in this secti on I S not sophistry in its entirety S ophistry as a whole

.

system has contributed much to or n ate dic e the liberal a rts er , ,

humanism the science of culture and international politics Th e

, , .

answer to such an obj ection may be found in P lato s P h ae dr u s : there ’

is much that we consider to be beautiful and great but in such ,

matte rs we may easily fall prey to illusion and to false appearance s .

To be able to grasp true beauty and authentic greatness we must

first know what is the true essence of man T discove r this is the. o

task of philosophy true philosophy The S ophists however neve r

, .
, ,

philosophized in the true sense of the word Appearances and words

.

meant more to them than essence and being P hilosophy must .

become more p rofound must delve ever deeper into the essences of
,

things This takes place actually in the succeeding e r a in A ttic

.
,

philosophy .
 S EC TI ON 2 . ATTI C P HI LOSOPH Y

H eights and depths oftentimes in life may lie close togethe r

fi
.

P erhaps the Greek spirit had to pass th r ough the lowlands of

sophistr y through its super ciality its glib speech its pulverizing
-
, ,

criti cism,its relativism and its scepticism so that S hocked and

,

menaced to th e very core it might react with all the power and
,

the strength that were latent withi n it And it was a mighty reaction
.

that sophistry evoked Th e men who o ccupy the cente r of the S tage
.

in this new era S ocrates P lato and Aristotle bring Greek phi
, ,

l soph y to its classi cal perfection and complete a work upon which
o

we moderns still dr aw They occupy themsel ves in part with the

.

S ophists but at the same time dissociate themselves from them Th e

, .

sound of thei r words reaches fa r beyond their epheme ral opponents

and makes itself hea rd in the future ; it penetrates down to our own
era and will continue to reverberate th roughout the centu ries .

CHAPTER

S O C RATE S AND H I S C I R C L E

KNOWLEDG E AN D V A L U E

SOCRATES
T speak of th e S ophists means also to speak of S ocrates S ome
o .

held him to be a S ophist and externally at least he had much in

, ,

common with them In reality h e was however to become their

.
, ,

conqueror In his life and in his speeches t is clear that for him
. i

there are objective universally valid tr uths and values

, .

47
48 A NCI ENT P HILO SOP HY

S OCRA TES TH E M AN
S ocrates was born at A thens 0 470 H is father was a s culptor
, .
,

his moth er a midwife Gainful occupation as such did not interest

.

h im only philosophy H e was not howeve r a philosopher of the

,
.
, ,

old Ionian school For him man is the proper subj ect of thought
.
,

man for whom bo th truth and value are to be found in reality .

S ocrates himself wrote nothing Instead of writing books he cul .

tivate d a living philosophy H e spoke to all whom he encountered

. .

A nd he always touched upon th e same topics Whethe r men were .

clear about themsel ves ( Do you know whether they knew

what tru th was and in what knowledge consisted ; and w hethe r they
,

had examined and understood th e worth of the indi vidual man .

P eople speak and speak about philosophi cal matters S ocrates listen ed g .
a

to the words they used and as k ed H o w do you mean this ? Exactly

'
”
.

what do you understand by that ? H ow would you prove this ? H ave

you reali zed and con sidered well the conclusions to be drawn from
what you have already said ? A e they in accord wi th the universal r

assumptions which you used ?

O ve r and o v er again he discovered that men k ne w nothing This .

was his art of examinat on his elen cti c or ex t is With th ose

i ,
e as .

who were of good will this kind of examination usually led to a

,

clarification of hi therto confused notions and to the adoption of a

health ier viewpoint This was his science of midwifery his maieutic
.
“

,
”
,

the method of learning through doing as we would say today This

“
.

art o r s cience he learned from his mother as he was accustomed ,

to say H e always left his audience with the impression that they
.

had not by any means exhausted the subj ect and that they had not
by any means attained the perfection of virtue H e said e ven of .

h imself : I know that I know nothing Bu t this was his irony

“
. .

It succeeded in disturbing and at th e same time spurring his listeners

to greater efforts H is irony was his best educative tool in dealing
.

with his fellow men .

T be sure those who held fast to traditional meth ods of pro

o ,

ce du e felt annoyed at S ocrates and became indignant at his ever

r

lasting criti cism An d they soon began to avail themselv es of an

.

eve r ready censure labeling him an innovato r and a revolutionary

, .

Even the stage in comedy sought to tear him down Eventually it

, , .

too was forced to confess : H unge r neve r brought him so low as to

“

make a fl atter er of him ( Ameip sias) S oc rates was indeed trouble

”
.
 S OCRATE S AND ms C IRCLE 49

some but he was a person not easily daunted Xenophon recounts

, .

his bravery in the face of the enemy and lauds his endu rance of the
winter cold P lato describes his ability to remain sobe r throughout
.

an entire night of carousing Throughout the A rguis trial he clung

.

to his own personal opinions in defiance of an enraged mob and ,

when the Thirty Tyrants demanded his assistance in a political

assassination for reasons of S tate he refused point blank although ,
-
,

by doing so he endangered not only his own position but also his
life Bu t the hatred and the baiting of his enemies did not wane
. .

And eve r in th e background lurked the lurid figure of politi cs .

S oc r ates had been a friend of Alcibiades C onsequently in 399 .

, ,

politicians arraigned him on the charge of impiety alleging that ,

he corrupted the youth of Athens and had sought to introduce

new gods H e could have escaped from prison but he refused b e
.
,

ca use his inner voi ce his daimo n io n deterred him ; he did not wish
‘

v
, ,

to be unfai thful to the trust that had been imposed upon him by
the Delphic god : to subj ect himself and his fellow citi zens to the
acid test of fidelity M en of A thens he said in his own defense
.
,
”
,
“
I honor and love you ; but I shall obey God rather than you and ,

while I have life and S trength I shall neve r cease from the p ractice
,

and the teaching of philosophy exho r ting anyone whom I meet and
,

saying to him after my manner : You my friend — a citizen of the ,

great and migh ty and wise city of A thens — are you not ashamed
of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and
reputation and caring so little about wisdom and tru th and the
,

greatest imp rovement of the so l whi ch you never regard or heed u ,

at all ( P lato Apology 29 ( 1; ed Jowett Vol I pp 412

”
, .
, .
, .

H e was nevertheless sentenced to die H e drank th e hemlock in .

peace and with resignation philosophizing to the very end with his
,

friends on the immortality of the soul P lato has erected an immortal .

memorial to him in his Apology in C itias and P h aedo as well as in, r ,

the Alcibiades spee ch in the S ymposiu m .

S o crates was philosophy itself come of age H e had philosophized .

not only with his intellect but also with his flesh and blood In him .

we learn co hcr etely what truth and value are H is philosophy was .

existential philosophy .

S OURCE PROBLE M S
Th e chief sour es of our biography of S o crates are Xenophon
c ,

P lato and A ristotle Th e higher the value we place on one source

, .
50 A NCIE NT PHILO SOPHY
th an on another and to the degree to which we exp ress a p refe rence
for one to another the bi ography of S ocrates receives a specific ,

interpretation and is given a defi nite cast C onsequently the various .

lives of S o crates di ffer from one anoth er as fo r instance th ose by _

, , ,

Joel Doering M aier Busse Burnet and S tenzel Th e main diffi culty
, , , , , .

arises from the fact that P lato besides idealizing the portrait of his ,

master oftentimes ascribes to him his own thoughts ; as a consequence

, ,

it is extremely difficult to differentiate between th e P latonic and th e

historical S ocrates In fact it would seem that absolute certitude about
.
-

the historical S ocrates can no longer be obtained It is still possible .

,

however to attempt an examination of the collected sources with a

,
c

careful and exhaustive s crutiny and through it to try to present a

well rounded and auth oritative account of h is speculative and ethical

-

a hievements Th e following presentation is we hope a step in

c .
, ,

th at direction In ou r analysis we can pick out one o r tw o problems

.

from a mass of confu sed traditions Upon these the entire specula .

tion and the entire activity of S ocrates fo cus : Th e question of knowl

edge and the q estion of values u .

1 . KNOWLE DGE
Unive rsal ideas Th e position which S ocrates took in relation to
.

k nowledge is admirably summari zed in the words of A ristotle : There “

are two things whi ch we must ascribe to S ocrates : the one inducti ve ‘

arguments ( Ew
fi
i Adj ) and the other universal definitions
’ ‘ ’
a x r i xo /o r

( ép lg dé
’
o ) (
eo M e ta
ai XIII 4xa
; 107 8 b 27 ; ed M cK eo n
”
p .
, , , . .
, .

Experts have thought that in the éw O Aéy ( inductiv e a r gu ae K S os

ments ) the student of philosophy can di scern I nductive reasoning and

inductive proof This construction and this interpretation are not
.

entirely incorrect but they do express a typical modern nuance to

,

the extent that by the notion of indu ction understood in this sense
, ,

opposition to all rationalism and apri ori sm is expressed a view —

which is actually not fully solved in the mind of S ocrates H is forma .

tion of universal concepts has a much greater significance as A ristotle ,

explains in the Topics ( I put S imply it means : In arriving at , ,

k nowledge we start with concrete individual instances of experience ,

Study these individual cases in their singularity but by so doing we , ,

en ounter something always the same in each of the instan es and

c c ,

th s we pick out and stress that which presents the same char
u

acte r istics In this process we arrive at th e universal idea

. In dozens .

of cases P lato has given us samples of this S o cratic p rocedure and

52 A NCIE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
we can perceive S ocrates was formally interested in knowledge
AS , .

A ristotle expressly tells us that S o crates never philosophized about

nature in its entirety as h ad th e Ionians These philosophers had .

busied themselves with the materials of k nowledge ; S ocrates was

con cerned with methodologi cal and logi cal problems : how may we

arrive at gen ine and certain knowledge ? In this sense S oc rates

u ,

is a modern ph ilosopher .

2 . V AL U E

A gains t
the morality of Hedonism S ocrates adopts q uite a contra ry .

position in the problem of value In this the material aspect is for .

,

h im most important H e so u ght to discover W hat the good par

, .
,

ticu la ly the morally good considered from th e standpoint of content

r , ,

actually is A s a conseq uence for him the problem of value is an

.
,

ethical problem In solving it he had to perform first of all what might

.

be termed a negative task H e had to clea r away false notions .

concerning moral good When his era dealt with the problem of
.

value it did so with the help of the notions of good ( dy flé ) of

proficiency of virtue ( dp fi
,
a v ,

, i) and of happiness These

e
,

notions were capable of a threefold interpretation The term good .

”

could be understood in the meaning which utilitarianism a sc ribed

to it namely the useful the serviceable
, , Xp jm
, / a uo v
,

or in the meaning which hedonism gave it namely the pleasant , , ,

anything that suits the inclinations and desi res or in the mean
ing whi ch naturalism had attached to it to wit th e superiority and , ,

the might of rulers Ex w e i w l ) e

,
'
r r
'
v e l/a t .

O f these notions utilitarianism and naturalism do not o ffe r the

correct or final solution because the serviceable o r the powerful usually
are subservient to a superior purpose What this purpose was for .

the epoch of S o crates especially among the S ophists as well as fo r

, ,

the maj ority of the people can be defined as anything that results ,

in well being o r produces pleasure Fo r this reason men strove after

-
.

th e useful as well as after power Th e fi nal answer may be found .

,

as a conse q uence only in the philosophical system of hedonism With

, .

this ism S ocrates had to carry on a persistent battle H ow he Waged

“ ”
.

it we can deduce from the discussion relative to th e problem of

value which he carries on with C allicles as this discussion is described ,

for us by P lato in the Go gias ( 488 b 509 c ) In this lengthy debater — .

,

S o crates leads C allicl s step by step in his reasoning pro cesses Until
e

the latter reaches the point and actually perceives and concedes th at
 S OCRATE S AND H I S CIRCLE 53

a reasonable person cannot gi ve assent to every inclination O therwise .

the desire for vulgarity o r fo r baseness would also have to be given

th e stamp of app r oval fo r example the desi r e to scratch which a
, ,

pe rson may experience when he su ffe r s from eczema or some kindred

skin disease In su ch circumstances the individual thus afflicted could
.

scratch himself his whole life th rough without feeling the desi red
relief To this C allicles agreed and so S ocrates made a distinction
.
,

between good desires and base desires ( o r lusts ) By so doing he .

administered the dea thblow to hedonism fo r desire and inclination ,

a re no longe r recognized as the final principle of the morally good .

A new criterion is p roposed a c rite rion which is supe r ior to desi re , ,

and a criterion which is divided into good and bad .

Th e go o d as k no wledge What is this new criterion ? S oc r ates now

.

had the task of p ropounding positi vely in what the essence of ethical
value actually consisted In the Dialogues which P lato w rote in his
.

youth we can perceive that his answer was ever this : We should be
,

wise and understanding ( qsé In the Dialogue enti tled

oo s,

Lach es b r a ve r y ; in E u thyph r o piety ; in Ch ar mides prudence ; in

, , ,

P r otago r as vi rtue in gene r al a r e said to be knowledge The person “

.
,

who knows is wise and th e wise man is good is concisely broached

,
”

to us and convincingly proved in the fi r st book of the Repu blic

( 35 0 b ) This. fits in with what A r istotle had to say fo r according ,
'

to him S ocrates was of th e belief that all vi rtues were forms of “

reason ; they consist in p ruden ce ( Nic Eth VI ”

.
,

S ome ha v e labeled this interpretation of the notion of moral v alue

as intellectualism What does this mean ? Th e ethi cs and pedagogy
.

of the age of rationalism inscribed this S ocratism on their banners “ ”

and considered that the statement virtue is knowledge was a con “

vertible j udgment of identity and fo r that reason concluded : Knowl ,

“

edge is vi r tue and avowed that they wer e capable of educating all
,
”

mankind ( especially to virtue ) simply by imparting knowledge and

inculcating rationalism In the past century certain thinkers believed
.

that they could express the thought of S ocrates more clearly by

using the terms n o ocr atic and ideal knowledge Rea son and
“ ” “
.
” “ ”

“
knowledge rightly understood would necessarily lead the individual ”

to perform the good action M ore recently S tenzel proposed another .

interpretation H e suggested that th e knowledge which S ocrates

.
“

envisioned pierced to th e core of reality and by so doing permitted

a mysterious magical attra ction and gra ce to flow from out the
,

substantiality of reality that drew us into th e sy stematic order of the

54 A NCI ENT P HI LO SOP H Y
u niverse around us and thus became a substitute fo r the acti vity of
th e will .

A ll this is however unhistorical and represents a typical mode rn

, ,

interpretation of notions that were characteristic only of ancient

thought Actually this supposed intellectualism of S ocrates is no
.

inte llectualism in the modern sense of th e word but is Simply a term ,

which is used by Greek philosophers when speculating on Tech ne

o r a rtistic a ctivity S ocrates avails himself of examples drawn from
.

the realm of Tech ne o r ar t whene ve r he p roposes a solution for th e ,

problem of ethical v alue We read i n th e Gor gias : Yes by the gods .

“

, ,

you are literally always talking of cobblers and fullers cooks and ,

do cto r s as if this had to do with ou r argument ( 49 1 a ; ed

,
”
.

Jowett Vol 1 p
, In the field of art knowledge is every thing
.
, . .

Under standing here denotes both the ability ( 86 0 ) va 0 at

and the work itself Th e wise and able craftsman ( m O a s

Smv y d ) is also a good craftsman ( dy dO

it s Knowledge a s

and value are identical Even the people of the modern world a re .

accustomed to use the same te rminology : H e knows his trade and ,

by so doing they incorrectly evaluate his ability by placing it entirely

on th e intellectual plane This interpretation and this alone is r e p on
. s

sible fo r terming S oc ratic ethics intellectualism E thical states a re .

looked upon as enti rely parallel to technical states A nyone who has .

learned and understood what it means to bu ild a house is a builde r '

and he builds ; and anyone who has learned of and understands a

parti cula r virtue if we push the analogy a bit fu r ther is virtu ous
, ,

and practi ces i rtue We can readily see how in su ch a con eption
V . c

the impression might be created that virtue may be taught one —

of the many problems which S ocrates dis ussed c .

With this as background we can understand another famous S tate .

ment of S ocrates : No man willingly does evil Understood literally

“
.
”

it would appear as if this statement might be a confession of deter min

ism Bu t we must examine the context from which it is taken and
.

the connection it has with previous statements to arrive at its true

meaning We are forced to admit that this too i s taken literally
.

from the era s speculatio n about Tech ne There the statement is in

’
.

familiar surroundings If in art something is made inco rrectly it is

.
,

always because the person who made it possessed nei th er knowledge

no r the requisite ability to create what he had in mind If he lack s .

these req uirements he must necessarily make it incorrectly Th e

,
.

compulsion which drove the individual in question to make the

 SOCRATE S AND H I S CIRCLE 55

a rticle as he did cannot be traced back to the will that has not been
determined in any way but solely to the fact that the workman did
,

not understand any better the trade he professe d : in other words ,

he could not do better And only fo r this reason did he do the a t

. c
“
unwillingly .

Eu d aemonism Because of its o rigin in art the notion of mo r al

.
,

value which S ocrates propounded possessed th e ch a acte o f a value r r ,

of relation F or every notion of art and of artistic value connotes

.

usefulness fo r a specifi c purpose If you should ask me whether or.

“

not I knew of a value that might not be useful for some purpose I ,

would be forced to reply that I know of nothing of the kind and I ,

would be forced to confess further I do not wish to know anything , ,

as we read so Significantly in Xenophon ( M em III 8 And P lato .

, , ,

writes : We can speak of value when ( we say fo r instance ) that the

“

, ,

eyes are capable of and useful for seeing the body for running and ,

wrestling and in the same fashion for all living beings In this sense .

we have a good horse a good cock good quails good utensils good
, , , ,

instruments fo r music and th e other arts good activities good laws , , ,

and all o the r things of the same sort ( in othe r words we look to ,

the purpose whi ch they are calculated o r intended to serve ) (H ippi s ”

a

M io I 295
a r Thus S oc r atic ethics unde r the p ressure of its own
,

terminology degenerates into utilitarianism and is allied to welfare

morality as we can see especially in Xenophon There we find ( M em
, .

1 2 48 ) that S o crates cultivated the a cquaintan eship of young people

, , c

for the sake of making them good and ind strious so that they
“
u ,

could deal corre ctly with a household servants and guests friends , , ,

states and citizens If you should wish as has been customary to

, .
, ,

chara cterize su ch welfare morality as eudaemonism you co u ld pos ,

sibl
y do so but only if,you explain at the same time that eudaemonism
should then be classed as welfare morality for in itself the notion ,

of e d mo nia has a variety of meanings and serves as a vehicle for

u ae

all possible e thical principles Even the S toic ethics made use of the
.

term although the principles inherent in it had nothing in common

,

with thei r notion of weal o r woe M ore correctly we might say that .

it was hedonism fo r whatever in utilitarianism and in welfare

,

morality appears to produce well being depends as Kant has so —

, ,

c orrectly remarked upon ou r appetitive faculties hence upon desire

, ,

and inclinations even if we retain the notion of a S upreme Goodness

,

( su mmu m b o n u m) .

A lthough S ocrates, as we have already seen refused to accept ,

56 A N C I ENT P HI LO SOP H Y
desire and inclination as eth i cal principles and although he taught ,

the self ru le of the wise man man does not need material goods
— —

to be happy only virtue w e would not wander fa r from the truth

,
—

if we conceived S ocrates as a utilitarian a eudaemonist and perhaps , ,

also on occasion a hedonist Bu t he was su ch ( and deserved such

.

titles ) solely because he drew his basic ethical notions not only from
the sphere of speculation abo u t T ch ne but from his own individual
e

reflection as well A ctually he aimed at something entirely di ffe rent

.

th e pure ideal of a r ealisti c ethics We cannot phrase it more co r

.

rectl
y than it was worded in the G o gias : T h e greatest of all evils
r
“

is not to su ffer unj ustly but to act unj ustly In his own life he .

embodied something other than utilitarianism and hedonism Thus .

the re is manifest in himself a contradiction between his personality

and his will on the one hand and on the othe r the world of his
, , ,

own ethical concepts .

Bu t it was pre cisely this that spurred his greatest pupil P lato to , ,

speculative heights Ar e the ideas of T h ne usefulness for specific

. ec ,

p urposes in,clination and pleasure

, really capable of
, refle cting or of
reprodu cing the idealism of life and of the will as found in P lato s ’

mas ter ? M ust we not invent a new language a whole new set of ,

ideas to express it adeq ately and to be able to understand it all ?

u

In this respect there were indeed certain defi ciencies which had to
be remedied If we should overlook the lacunae of the S o cratic ethics
.

o r if we should hope to correct them artifi ially in ac ordance with c c

modern ideologies we would lose the entire background of problems

,

against which P latonic speculation can be seen to its best advantage .

S O C RAT I C S
TH E
We can best appreciate the uniqueness of S ocratic speculation
when we survey the circle which grouped around S ocrates th e so ,

called S ocratic school In this examination it becomes apparent that

.

the master was less concerned with handing down apodictic doc
trines to his pupils than with encouraging them to philosophize .

E specially is it beyond cavil that his discussion of the problem of

ethical value is capable of various interpretations and offers no final
solution For this reason the S o crati c s chools surprisingly enough
.

dive rge widely in thei r development of his doctrines Among his .

followers we must distinguish the M egarians the Elis Eretrians th e ,

-
,

C yni cs and the C y en aian s

,
r .
 SOCRATE S AND H I S C I R C LE 57

1 . TH E ME G AR I AN S C H O O L
founder of this school was Eu clid of M egara ( 0 45 0 380
Th e .
—

H e sought to bring about a fusion between th e Eleatics and S o crates .

Th e one immovable un changeable being of the E leatics is for him

, ,

the Good of whi ch S ocrates had always spoken By this device

,
.

S o cratism took a detour into the realm of metaphysi cs Th e tenden cy .

of the M egarian s chool became better known through Eu bu lides one ,

of the oldest pupils of S o rates through Dio do u s C ronus ( dc ,

r .

and S tilpo ( c These were th e prominent figures in M egarian

.

diale ctics whi h developed more and more into pure pettifoggery
,
c

and thrived on falla y and paralogism C h ara cteristi c of this school

c .

is the famed horned argu ment What yo do not lose you still
”
. u ,

have Bu t you have never lost a pair of horns ; therefore you still
.

have a pair of horns S cattered among su h sophistry are many

. c

worthwhile ideas ; for example the lordly argument whi ch has been ,
“

as cribed to Dio do r u s C ronus by Aristotle himself This argument .

runs as follows : That alone is possible which really is o r which

really comes into existence By su ch argument a S hadowy world .

of possibles no longer exists alongside the world of realities as

A ristotle thought but the possible is only a modality of reality Th e
,
.

school also honored S ocrates ideal of autarchy or self su fli ciency ’ “ ”

-

wisdom and virtue suffi e for happiness an axiom whi h S tilpo

c —
c

treasured so highly and be q ueathed to the S toa ; for Zeno the founder ,

of the S toa was a pupil of S tilp o

, .

2 . ERETRI AN S CH O OL
TH E EL I s -

This s chool was opened by P h aido of Elis a former S lave who ,

gained his freedom thro u gh the efforts of S o crates From the time .

of his liberation onward philosophy o ffered him the salvation of

,

his soul and the road to freedom In this s chool th e contact with .

S o crates appears to have been very lose With M en edem the entirely c .
,

rationalistic terminology of S o crates reappears .

3 . C YNI CS
TH E
M ore important than these fi rst two schools are the C yni cs Their .

leader was A ntisthenes of A thens ( 445 H e taught in the Gym

n asiu m at C ynosarges This is th e rea son why the entire s chool bears
.

the name it does C ynics T him the weightiest contribution of

—
. o

S o cr atism to philosophy was the ideal of autarchy or self su ffi cien y -

c ,
58 A N C IE NT P H I LO S O P H Y
because to him noth ing was more important than virtue This alone .

S u fli ce s H e carried his rej ection of external goods to the extreme

. .

“
I would rather lose my mind than satisfy my desires This led .
”

him logically to despise cult re science religion national ties and u , , , ,

especially mores and propriety Whatever mankind refrained from .

doing for any of these reasons he practiced openly and without ,

shame merely to S how his utter contempt for and absolute detach
,

ment from material things By su ch an attitude th present day idea .

, e —

of C ynics and cyni cism re eived the nu ance whi ch characteri zes the
’

school itself Among other things he fostered th e cultivation of what

.
,

S o crates considered to be strength ( w p h x ) the narrow and

E e an x s
,

steep path to virtue wh ich became the ideal of self restraint toil and —
, ,

constancy as H ercules had exemplified them in his own life

time H er cu les also was the title f th e chief literary labo r of An
. o

tisth en e s From this it was but a step to the s stin e et abstin e of the
. u

stoical wise men S urprisingly this crass volitional orientation

“
.
”
,

clo thed itself in the language of intellectualism : Whoever lives n i

th is way is indeed a wise man is a person of discernment is a , ,

knowledgeable fellow Th e S oc ratic terminology was retained and

.
,

th rough its preservation we can appreciate how in the histo ry of ,

philosophy a distinction must be made between the exp ression of a

,

thought and the thought itself This is exemplified once again in th e .

philosophy of the C ynics .

Looked at from the standpoint of the theory of knowledge A n ,

tisth en e s is bo th a sensualist and a metaphysi cal materialist These .

deductions are based on an analysis of the argument which he carried

on with P lato of which the ancients give us a vivid ac ount A ccord
, c .

ing to them Antisthenes is supposed to have said : Yes my dear “

P lato I do see a h orse but not horsiness ( the ideal of a horse th

, , ,
e

universal idea of a horse ) To this P lato is reported to have replied

.

This is due to the fa ct Antis thenes that you do possess a good pair
“

, ,

of eyes but not a corresponding intellect This anecdote serves to

, .
”

impress upon us the fact that A ntisthenes admitted sensory impressions

and sensible representations b t considered universal ideas or ideas , u

as su ch mere fictions ( l ml f ) For this reason I t i s meaningless

ux a
’
err vo ca t .

to say : S ocrates is a man We may only declare : S ocrates is

“
.
” “

S o rates that is the S o crates whom I see S uch a view had at least
”
c , .

th is advantage : there can be no su ch thing as a differen ce of opinion .

O n person annot ontradict another

“
e c c .

Besides advo cating sensualism Antisthenes also expounded ma ,

60 ANCIENT P H ILOSOP H Y
and direct experience : O nly that which can be experienced is intel
ligible to us ( ad 60 {1p
”
S p w dj ) ; it is intelligible
vo v
-
71 09 on ( a u evo v

because it deals with direct sensory affection ( mpo w fO ) An d for i iz a os .

A r istippus this can be only desire H e understands this solely su bjec .

tively and sen su ali tically after the fashion of P r otago r ass M an is .

the measure of all things ; for he has the criterion of them in himself ,

and wh en he thinks that th ings are such as he experiences them to be ,

he thinks what is and is true to himself ( Th aet tu s 178 b ; ed e e , .

Jowett Vol II p,
This P lato tells Us grouping togethe r in the
.
, .
,

Th eaetet s P rotagoras Antisthenes and A ristippus because fo r all

u , , ,

three subj ective sensory experience and phenomena a re the decisi ve

elements of truth and of v alue ( see p In this sense Bentham i s .

later to write in the nineteenth century : What happiness is e very ,

man knows becau se W hat pleasu re is every man knows and what
, , ,

pai n every man knows Bu t what justi ce is this is what on every

I s, .
—

o ccasion is the subject matter of dispute ( Bentham Co mplete Wo ks -

”
,
r ,

Vol IX p .
, .

That not everyone knows what desire is and that in this respect
at least a person may be subj ect to the greatest deception may be
seen in the case of H egesias who was so little content with his own ,

type of hedonism that he quickly developed into a pessimist H e .

was given the honora ry title of death s advocate ( dd ) because ’

r eco i va r o s
,

in his lecture he constantly encouraged his listeners to commit

suicide until fi nally P to lemaiu s Lagu ( 323 285 ) forbade him by police
,
—

order to disseminate such propaganda .

H o w strange that the speculation of S ocrates S hould be interpreted

in such diverse ways by the ve ry circle that had gathered so closely
around him Was it because his philosophy was so mysterious o r so
.

fertile or so undeveloped ? Which of these various exegeses correctly

expressed the essence and the wishes of the M aster ? A decision cannot
be reached until we have learned to know something of his greatest
disciple the great figure that emerges from the circle P lato himself
, , .

B iblio graphy
F C C ople
. . st n o ,
A H is tor y o fP h ilos oph y
( Westminster , Md . : Th e New
man P s, res V o l I , pp 9 6 — 1 15 — V er giliu s e m ( . o
) , A H is
. . F r edit r
tor y o f P h ilos oph ical S ys te ms
( N ew o : P h lo o ph c l L b ,
Y rk i s i a i rary
pp 82
.
— 9 2 —Co a M . o ,
S ocr a te s th erM a n W h o Das n
ar e d (
to As k Bos o ,
tn
Be a n co P re ss l 9 53 ) .
— rt r
A hu Ke ny n o ers
Ro g , Th e S o cr atic P r o ble m
( Lo n do n : H . M ilfo r d I 933) , .
—
. . ay r
A E T lo , S ocr ates ( Ne w Yo k : D r .

Appleton 6: CC .
,
CHAPTER

PL AT O —
1 : ON TH E G OO D AND TH E T RUE

LIFE
P latowas born in 427 H e tra ces his lineage to the ancient
A thenian nobility and by this very fa ct he was born into th e cultural
‘ ,

and political turmoil of his time H is set purpose to mold th e world .

,

an d to fashion life is characteristic of his personality In his S eve nth

, .

L tt r whi ch contains many a tobiographical details P lato tells us

e e , u ,

how he resolved to adopt a publi c career as his vo cation in life Bu t .

when around 404 he experienced at firsthand the dictato r ship

of the Thirty and a year late r came to grips with the regime of the
,

democrats and learned of their rapacity through the unj ust co ndemna
tion of S ocrates he became di zz y as he himself writes and co n
,
“

,
”

fesses so that I finally became convinced th at present Republics

,

are woefully constru cted and labor under vi cious governments An d .

SO I saw myself driven to cultivate a true philosophy a r esolution ,

that I can praise in retrospect for it became for me a sou rce o f ,

knowledge of everything that is worthwhile o r at least of that which ,

either in public life or in individual circu mstances may be considered

as j ust M ankind will never succeed in freeing itself of its miseries
.
,

I exp lained to myself until ei ther the representatives of a genuine and

,

au thoritative philosophy are entrusted with the task of ruling the

Republi cs o r the possessors of power in th e Republi cs resolve to
become experts in philosophy under impulse from and in relation to
Divine P roviden ce ( Ep VII 324 b
”
.
, , ,

This theme which he form lates here for the first time will be
,
u ,

repeated throughout his whole life H e hoped his philosophy would .

prove to be the way to truth and as such would o ffer at the same
time a way to the good both in public and private life In pursuance .

of this purpose he took up th struggle against all those who were e

ignorant of the true nature of man especially against the S ophists

and the Rh etoricians To him these were artistic S treet cleaners and
.
“
62 A N CI E NT PH ILO SOPH Y
ooks who had an eye only for what men feel drawn toward and
c

like who flatter and mislead their disciples by glittering a ti cialitie

,

and by enticing ph rases b t who know nothing whatsoeve r of what

, u
r fi s

man really is and what he s hould be or become To teach these .

truth s to mankind is the task of the philosopher This P lato recognized .

as his own life s work ’

.

In his early youth P lato s ambition was to be a poet Afte r he had

’
.

stru ck up a friendship with S o crates he burned all his plays and

dedicated his writings and his life to philosophy that is to th e , ,

scientific investigation of knowledge and of value After the soul .

rending shock occasioned by the death of S oc r ates he fled to Euclid ,

in M egara Around 395 394. he retu rned home and took par t in
—

the Co rinthian War S ometime between 390 388 he traveled exten

.
—

sivel
y In the
. course of his j ourneys he v isited E ypt and C yrene and
g
finally went to Tarentum where he became acquainted with A rchytas,
.

Through this a cquaintanceship he came into contact wi th the

P y thagoreans and this conta ct colored his speculation giving di ec
, ,
r

tion to all his activity : for example his doctrine of the pre existence ,
-

of souls pedagogy his ethicopolitical Vi ews his eschatological myths

, , , ,

and especially the fo rm of science and the manne r in which his

Academ y was condu cted .

Through A rchytas he su cceeded in gaining entry into the court

of S yracuse and there he came to know Dionysius I Du ring his
, .

soj ou rn at the court P lato hoped to pe r suade this p rince to embody

,

his own ethicopoliti cal ideals into th e practical administration of the

S yra san kingdom Bu t this autocrat was too weak and too vacillat
cu .

ing ; h e chose to rule by caprice rathe r than by intelligence P lato s .

’

dreams were rudely shattered when due to th e intrigue of Dionysius , , ,

he was p t up fo r sale in the slave market of Aegina O nly by a

u .

stroke of good fo rtune was he discovered by Annicer is a S ocratic of ,

the C yr enean school and bought from unde r the noses of other
,

bidders When he returned to A thens P lato sought to repay the

.
,

ransom money to An nicer is but that philosopher refused Wi th it , .

P lato then pur chased a garden close to th e shrine of H eros Academos

and there founded his Academy in 387
If th is story is tr e the fi rst university to be established on European
u ,

soil was founded on the strangest of foundations the sum necessary ,

to purchase a philosopher from slavery By his lectures in the Academy .

P lato achieved greater fame than by his writings F or him writing was .

“
a beautiful pastime (P h aedr us 276 e ) Th e subj ects upon which he
”
, .
 PL A TO I 63

discoursed in the were philosophy mathematics mi

Academy ,
e s

l im ( L et no one ignorant of geometry enter here ) is

’
dy wu pn
e er r os c a

s pposed to have been inscribed above the entrance and astronomy

u
—
,

perhaps also zoology and botany We must not however picture to .

, ,

o rselves the P latonic Academy as an institution dedi cated to learning

u

and research according to our concept of the modern university in ,

which the th eoreti cal intellectual development of the students is

,

stressed and their formation and guidance are relegated to the back
,

ground This latter aim was especially cultivated by the P latonic

.

A ademy A S a consequen ce of su ch an or entat i on movements which

c . i ,

influenced public life were generated within its confines In the .

ancient past philosophy was not solely the occupation of intellectuals

,

wh o were estranged from reality ; rather philosophy was considered

as a positive formative action upon reality as it was then known In .

this respect the P latonic Academy surpassed th e othe r schools of

the era Fo r it always had its finger on the pulse of the political
.

events of the times for example in C yrene M egalopolis Elis

, , , , ,

Macedonia A ssos Th e A cademy was especially the refuge and th e

, .

h aven for the opponents of tyrants and di ctators .

P lato himself was by no means a pure theorist H e set his heart .

on proving that his philosophi al ide al of a Republic was workable c .

A r ound 364 be cause of this prepossession and convi ction, he made

,

a second j ourney to S i cily this time to Dionysius II Th e effo rt

, .

resulted in failure H e made a third trip in 361 but this time only
.
,

to do a favor for his friend Dion This too remained sterile of .

results From that time on P lato studio sly avoided publi c a ffairs ;

fi
. u

he lived only for his teaching and for his writing H died in 347 . e .

Immediately after his death legends arose which t an g ed and r s ur

t ansformed him into a son of Apollo

r .

WORK S
All th e works whi ch P lato published have been prese r ved With .

the exception of his Apology and his L ette s all are written in the r ,

form of dialogues Th e literary activity of P lato encompasses a period

.

O f approximately fifty years a full h alf centu ry Today we are able

, .

to a rrange the single works into their respective periods wi th a fair

degree of accuracy and so we can distinguish between the works of
,

his vo u th th ose of the period of transition those of his mature

, ,

years and those whi ch he composed in his old age

, .

Works of h is you th Among the fruits of his pen in his youth

.
64 A N CIENT P H ILOSOPH Y
Lach es treats of bravery ; Ch ar mid s of temperance ; Eu thyph r o of e

pie ty ; Th syma h s whi ch we read today as the fi rst book in the

ra c u ,

R pu blic of justi e ; P r o tago s of the essen ce of virtue in general

e , c ra .

To this period furth ermor e belong I o n H ippias I and I I the

, , , ,

Ap logy and Cr ito Th e dates of composition for these are ertainly

o . c

earlier than P lato s first jo rney to S icily All these Dialogues treat
’
u .

of the S ocratic problems of value and of knowledge in th e So crati c

man ner but all end in an apo ia or philosophical diffculty a
,
— r i

cir cu mstan ce which seems to indi cate that P lato even at this early

date had advanced farther than his master S ocrates .

P e rio d of tr an sitio n There follows a series of writings . those of

the transition period — in which new problems are mentioned more
and more frequently especially the theory of ideas To this gro u p
, .

belong Lysis which deals with friendship ; C atylu s whi ch treats of

, r ,

P lato s philosophy of spee ch ; E u th yde mu s whi ch ridicules the fal

’

lacions con lusions of the S ophists especially those of Antisthenes ;

c ,

and the minor M enexen s These Dialogues may also have been u .

written before the fi rst S i cilian adventure Afte r this misadventure .

,

M en o and G or gi must have been put togethe r because they reveal

as ,

the influence of the P ythagorean teaching concerning the transmigra

tion of souls The former touches upon the possibility of teaching
.

virtue and the latter is a fiery onslaught against the method and the
,

basic philosophi c outlook of the S ophists .

M aturity Th e writings which P lato au thored in his mat re years

. . u

are numbered among th e great masterpieces of the world s literature ’

.

Th e P h ed is a D ialogue on death : we must die to the senses and

a o

to the material world so th at the spirit the immortal soul might , ,

become free to wing its way into th e realm of ideas Th e S ymposi m . u

is a Dialogue on life : we should look for and love the beautif l ; and u

again as in the P h aedo by philosophy and pure knowledge so now

, , , ,

through Eros we are to rise to the kingdom of primeval beau ty and

,

of eternal value In P lato s chief work the ten boo k s of the R p bli
.
’

, e u c

( P o lit i a ) justi ce forms the chief topi c ; a ctually however these books
e , , ,

cove r the whole range of philosophy : th e theory of knowledge ,

metaphysi s e thi s pedagogy th e philosophy of h man rights and

c , c , ,
u

of the ideal republic Th e right and the true the world of ideals .
, ,

S hould be seen and appre ciated wherever they appear so that we ,

might live according to their di tates In heaven th e prototypes lie c .

“

ready so that everyone who is of good will may examine th em an d

,

mold himself after them Th e R p blic was fi nished about 374 .

”
e u
 P L A TO I 65

After this there followed the P h aedr u s the work of consummate ar t ,

which deals with the subj ect of rhetoric but is in reality a summary ,

of th e entire P latonic philosophy and a very facile introduction to it ;

then the P a menides in which P lato gives an account of the
r ,

a or ias fo r hi s tea ching on ideas ; and finally the Th eae tetu s which
p ,

deals principally with p roblems concerning the theo ry of knowledge

and summarizes the views of H e r aclitus P rotagoras Antisthenes and , , ,

Ar isti ppus These works precede his se cond trip to S i cily

. .

O ld Age A fter this se cond j ourney ( 367 ) we ha v e the products

.

of his old age : S ophist S tates man and P h ileb s In these wo r ks we

"

, , u .

can perceive a change in th e interests whi ch oc cupy P lato O nly in .

P h ileb s does the p r oblem of value re cu r

u L ogico dialectical problems
— .

dominate his thinking Th e S ophist carries on and develops the

.

notions of the S ophists Th e S tates man deals with the politician

.

according to several viewpoints of definition content extent division , , , ,

and ramification Timae u s o ffers us an insight into cosmology F o r

. .

centuries this Dialogue a fforded a philosophy of life and presented

a concept of th e world which were held in esteem by th e Western
world To his last years we may trace the work which enri ches us
.

with so many parti lars of the life of P lato himself th e S eventh

cu ,

Letter H is final opus the twelve books of th e Laws ( No moi ) P lato

.
, ,

himself was nable to publish We read it today in a ve rsion which

u .

most probably S hould be as cribed to P hilip of O pus The Laws r esume .

the theme of the Rep blic Th e literary a ctivity of his late r yea r s is
u .

no longe r characterized by th e philosophical verve and th e speculative

flights which are evident in th e Rep blic Instead we find in detail u .

a wealth of politi cal j uridi cal religious and especially pedagogical

, , ,

ordinances Whoever plumbs the dep ths speculatively manifests his

.
,

love for the ri ches of life In them we become acutely aware of the
.
”

life experiences and the ripe wisdom of the true philosopher In his late r .

years P lato grew ever more tole rant H is radical demands fo r a .

common sharing of women and a consequent communal existence of

children and of communal utilization of goods whi ch had been p ro
pounded in th e R pu blic disappear in the L w s In the later works
“
e a .
,

S o crates who had usually led th e dis c ssion in the earlier D ialogues
, u ,

recedes more and more in the background In the Laws he disap .

pears entirely This alteration in the external form of the Dialogue

.

is also symptomati of a change in the speculation of P lato himself

c .

P lato has so far outstripped his tea cher that he can no longer put
his thoughts into his former mentor s mouth ’
.
66 A NCIENT P HIL OSO P H Y

S pu riou s .

In th e C or pu s P lato n icu m h a h as b e e t t n h ande d d wn o to u s th e f o llo w

in g w rk o s ar e co u n terf it e : H EP I Si xa lov .
( O n J u s tice ) , I I epl dper ijs ( O n

Vir tu e ) De modocus Sisyph u s, Er yxias, Axioch u s 3p m ( Th e Bou n dar ies )

, , , ,

Alcibiades I I H ippar ch us E r astai M o l ou b ful M i n es re ess d t are

fi
or , , . ,

Alci biades I Th eages Epi n o mis O f h is l ,

o l 6 , 7, and 8 , . etters n y are
tr u stw o r th y
“

J hn
o Bu rnet ,
rd Univ rsity P ress
P lato nis Oper a 5 , v ls ( Oxf rd
o . o . O xfo e ,

f;
19 00 f O f .d C lain th
i l T t ) —
e F M C
x or r nf rd P l t Th y ss ca ex s . . . o o ,
a o s e or

of K n wl d g ( Lon d n K g an
e P l 1 93
e 5 ; a trans
o lati n f th
o Th t : t e au , o o e eae e u s

and th S phi t with mm ntary ) ; P l t C m l gy ( L nd n Kegan

e o s co e a o s
'
os o o o o :

P l 1937 ; a tra n l ti n f th Ti m
au ,
with mment ry ) ; P l t nd
s a o o e aeu s co a a o a

P m n id
ar
( L nd n
e K gan P a
es l 1 93 9 ; ao trans lati no f th : P m n id e u ,
o o e ar e es

with mm n t ry ) ; Th R p bli f P l t ( Oxf rd O f rd University

co e a e e u c o a o o : x o

Pr 1939 ; a tr n l ti n f th R p b li wi th
e ss, a mm n tary )
s a B J w tt
o o e e u c co e .
— . o e ,

Th Di l g
e f P l t a o 2 v l ( N w
u es Y r ko: R and m H e
a o, o s . e o o ou s ,

Th L b C las i l Libr ry ntains th G reek t t f P lat s Di l g ’

e oe s ca a co e ex o o a o u es

al ng with an En gli h tran lati n

o s s o .

Bibli o gr aphy
R D A ch e H
. . r r ind
-
,
Th e Ti mae u s f P lato ( London : Th e M acmillan o

C o mp an y ,
— F C . . C o plesto n H isto r y ofP hilos oph y ( We stmins ter
, ,

Md Th e Newman P re ss
. : , ,
I 127— 26 5 — R Demo s Th e P hilos oph y . .
,

ofP lato New Yo r k : C h arles S cri b ne r s n i

( G C F eld, P lato
’
So s, — . .

an d H is C o n te mpor ar ies ( L o nd n o : M e th u e n ,
— P . Fri e dlan de r ,
P la
to n ( 28
19 C G . r teo ,
P lato a n d th e O th e r C o mpa ni o n s o fS ocr ates
nd n J h n M rray — W F R H ar di A S t dy i P l t ( O
( L o o : o u , . . . e, u n a o x

f rd O f rd Univ r ity P r s
o : x o W Ja g r P id i V l I I ( N w
e s es ,
— . e e ,
a e a, o . e

Y rk Th M mill n C mpany
o : e ac G K r g r Ei n i h t n d L id
a o , . ue e ,
s c u e

e nsc h f
‘

t a — R C L d e Pl t
g T h y f E t h i .
( L nd n K.
g an
o ,
a o s e or o cs o o : e

Pa l u ,
W L t l wsk i Th O ig n n d G wth fP l t L gi
— . u os a ,
e r i a ro o a o s o c

nd n N at r i z i J
( L o o P , p P l t n I d nl h
—
( p g
L . oR ,
a o s ee e re e ,
— . .

N ttl h ip L t
e es n th , R p bli ( Lond n Th M a millan C mpany
ec u r e s o e e u c o : e c o ,

C Ritter P l t n . in L b n in S h ift n
,
in
a o L h , se e e , se e c r e , se e e re

( M ii n h n
) V cl I e V , l I I o T
. h E n f P l t P h i o . e ss e ce o a o s
'

los op y (
h L n d n A ll n n d U
o nwin o :P S h rey eW h a t P la t S i d ,
— . o ,
a o a

( C h i g U nivcarsi t y f
o:C h i a g P ress e T h U n it y f
o P l t T h gh tc o ,
e o a o s
’
ou

( C h i ag U n iv
c r ity f
o: C h i a g P ress e s J S ten z e l
o P l t M th d c o ,
.
,
a o s
’
e o

Th pl i f h ( f f Pl w i i g ) wh i h J Z h
’
e ex
p i an at o n i or t e s u r o u sn e ss o cer ta n o ato s r t n s c . ur c er

ly d
r e cen t d i h i C p A d mi m
a v an ce n h s m W h or p us ca e cu as n o t et it acce tan ce o n

th e par t o f p h ilo lo ists g .

68 A NCIENT P HILOSO P H Y
he held exactly the same views as his teacher Always even in his .
,

earlier Dialogues H ippi I I and th R pu bli I P lato had t e

,
as e e c ,

fu ted in no mistaken terms the thesis that knowledge and ability

represented th e good with out further q ualifi cations H e says drily .

that the liar m st be the same as a truthful man and th e thief

u ,

would in nowise di ffer from the watchman fo r the liar as well as the ,

thief possess both knowledge and ability In fact anyone who performs .
,

an evil act of his own free will should be considered better than one
who does it against his will because t h e forme r pos sessed more ,

knowledge than the latter In these examples the j udgment of .

,

identity knowledge is value is carried with iron logic to its

,
“

,
”

bitterest conclusion and becomes involved in a r eductio ad absu r du m .

In the H ippi s I ( 296 d ) P lato states quite boldly : Because of these

a

examples we must flatly reject the fallacy that knowledge and ability
represent always and absolutely the good And M en exenu s char .
”

acter iz es shee r knowledge and shee r ability as that is a '

r a vo v
py ca
, ,

faculty capable of e veryth ing In an ideology which is predicated solely

.

on achievement and power the cleverest will de fa to always be the , c

first and always the most powerf l ; and the best liar can in fact u ,

S hould be ome the minister of propaganda

, c .

2 ENDS P URP O SES

.
,

L ate r on Aristotle returns to this problem and teaches also that

,

knowledge as su ch is morally indi fferent ; with it a person can do

everything ( py l ) ; and if we should make a distinction between
n a vov a

a lie and the truth we would be able to do so only b ecause there

,

is something that intervenes namely the intention Intention is

,

an attitude of the will and its evaluation depends upon the end and
the purpose which the will hoo ses If these are good so are the c .
,

intentions knowledge and ability ( M eta V 29 ; Eth Nic VIII

, , .
, , . .
, ,

P lato had already arrived at the same conclusion and as a con

se quence had developed it fo r his own system It is in the E u thyde mu s .

that he refers to something ( 5) to whi ch knowledge and ability

“
7

must be referred if they themselves are to be of any value What

, .

kind of ends these are and why they should be good is not clear
( E thu
yde m s 29 2 0 ; ed Jowett
u , Vol I p Bu t that
. after all is , .
, .
, ,

the whole q u estion .

3 . E RO S
Lysis . Th is problem is fairly well developed in Lysis . If every
 P L A TO I 69

value in tu rn depends upon something else some other

value ) because it is what it is by reason of this some thin g else and ,

this supe rior something possesses its own value again because of
something still higher ( anothe r superio r end ) and this likewise is ,

e valuated by something else and so on into infi nity we must finally ,

a rrive at a dominant value of love ( p f pl ) Upon this dominant n rrr ov c v .

value depend all other existing v alues If we fail to accept such a basis .

fo r value such a source for value su ch a principle of v alue the

, , ,

whole chain of value relationships becomes worthless and meaningless .

What P lato su cceeds in bringing to ou r attention by this reasoning is

the p riority the apriority of evaluation F o r a thing to hav e a value
, .

means in the last instance to be gi ven preference to be able to lay

, , ,

a claim to our treasures and to ou r loves Value is not what is

fi
.

actually loved but only that which by its very essen ce is capable of
being loved and therefore must be loved This is true in the r st .

instance only of supreme value but in deri v ation it holds also for ,

other values .

S ymp osiu m That the good in spite of its apriori nature in th e

.
,

face of all human v alues possesses a relationship to a subj ect and

,

its in clinations is shown in the S ymposiu m which treats of the ,

ph ilosophi cal problem of value in connection wi th the notion of

Eros When in th e E ros a person diligently makes use of th e beautiful
.

and the good he does so because they belong to him ( i i )

,
o xe o v
,

because they represent the p rototype the ideal of his natu re ( dpx l ,
a a

M )
o re — h iS own his best ego whi ch he lo v es e v en as he lo v es him
,

self and in loving which he is made happy and blessed That eve ry .

one should conside r as good that which makes human beings happy
is taken fo r granted and r equires no further explanation ( 205 c ) .

If human needs and the feeling of happiness are discussed in

.

connection wi th this p r oblem we should not immediately conclude

,

that P lato was attemptin g to teach eudaemonism o r even hedonism .

A lready in the Go gias in which S ocrates disputes with C allicle s

r

and his circle P lato had explained his rej ection of morality that is
,

based on th e natural inconstant appetiti ve faculty of man Even in

, .

the S ymposi m not e very Eros is canonized but only that Eros is
u ,

accepted whi h arouses enthusiasm for whateve r S hares in the p roto

c

type of the good and the beautiful ( p o wdy o ) and which fo r e

’
r
ao r
-
v v
,

this reason is itself valuable The prototype is valuable not because

.
,

we love it ; on the contrary we love it because it is valuable Insofar

, , .

as we a e concerned it is e ntirel y apriori ; it is alwa ys a being

r ,
70 A N C I ENT P H ILO S OP HY
without beginning or end without increa se or decrease with out , ,

limits and without a foundation laid down by anoth er A a uniform

,
. s

good it is entirely self sustaining Th e moral good therefore i s not

”
-
.
, ,

a value in the sense in which an obj ect sold in the market place has
value For such a v alue is determ i ned by the law of supply and
.

demand M oral good is absolute

. .

Th e e thi cs of P lato is therefore as objective and normative as

Kant s although it is not as is h i an eth i c of necessity or duty
’

, ,
s, .

Though E ros may be a g reat god the prototype of beauty is never ,

th eless independent of the con cessions or favors of men ; to be sure ,

it precedes them By means of this interpretation of P lato namely

.
, ,

that th e good belongs to man as does his original nature and as

such contributes to his happiness and bliss it becomes evident that ,

there emerges a truth which is not clearly expressed in Kant namely , ,

th at the good exercises an attraction over us and it appears as good

to us and not primarily as a du ty or necessity .

4. BE I NG

Being goo d in the Rep u b lic In what this good consi sts
and .

actually is not discussed in the S ymposi m Bu t how is this central u .

problem solved in P lato s masterpiece ? It is S igni fi ant that in the

’
c

Rep blic whe r e he finally develops ex p o fess th e idea of the good in

u ,
r o

itself 5 dy dd ) upo n which the whole guidance of th e Rep b lic

7 a v u

depends P lato must fin ally confess that he is unable to say dire ctly what
,

th e content of the good r eally is H e can only indirectly arrive at an .

app roximation of the idea of the good insofar as he des ribes W hat ,
c

kind of activity it can unfold Bu t even this definition through in .

direction is possible only by means of a figure of speech This figure .

is the famous comparison of the sun with the idea of the good
( 5 05 Just as in th e visible world the sun makes everyt h ing
perceptible live and grow so in the realm of the invisible the idea
, , ,

of the good is the ultimate reason for the fact that being itself is
known and possesses existence and essence Everything that is exists .

only because of the idea of the good Th e idea of the good itself .

is not being but stands above and beyond it ( é w Tij f f ) far ’

vr e xe a s o io as
,

surpassing everything both in power and in sublimity By this inter .

r etatio n the ethi cal problem glides imper ceptibly into th e provin ce
p
‘

of metaphysi cs In the kingdom of being the kingdom of good S h o u ld

.

sh ine with great brilliance In this way th ere is opened a road by

.

which the content f the goo d can be ma de under sta ndabl e I n the
O .
 P L A TO I 71

world of science we need apprehend only the realm of being and ,

in the truths connected with it we possess also values And when .

we examine these in the light of the one principle in which they are
all included and from which they may be deduced we possess in this ,

supreme principle the source reason of all value and the good in ,

itself is no longer a mere postulate but an infinitely fertile infinitely

, ,

rich idea .

A ssump tions of a metaphysics of value This conception r ests upon .

the theory that the basis of being is good because it is in fact an ,

ultimate basis B t beyond this we c n detect a more profound

. u a

presupposition namely that being itself is good Bu t being and

, , .
—

with th is we arrive fi nally at our last assumption — is good only

because P latonic metaphysi s Vi ews being under its aspect as final
c

cause A s we S hall see later ( cf p

. for P lato every ido ( form )
. . e s

is a wherefore ( ii g ) and therefore a good ; for purpose naturally

“
o
'

uek o

denotes a value for everyth ing that has reference to it or seeks to

achieve it Fo r this reason we find that A ristotle identifies his final
.

c ause with the good and offers as explanation that the final cause is
the ultimate cause of all change and of all motion (M eta I 3; 983 .
, , ,

a and that because of it God moves the whole world as a “

thing beloved ( J ”
and this movement on the part of
ig

God means that all things long for H im This well known statement .
-

of A ristotelian metaphysi cs becomes understandable only through

P lato s teleology of Forms or Ideas In P lato however th e genesis of
’
.
, ,

this parti c lar form of ontologi cal speculation may be found not
u

in an ontological but I n an ethical S tatement of the problem in Lysis .

In it we discover developed for the first time a hierarchy of teleological

val es in whi ch one value depends on the other and th e whole series
u

is an h ored to a supreme value S ince this teleological concept of the

c .

eidos is complete and universal it remains v alid also fo r ontology as

,

su ch and confers upon P latonic metaphysics its distinctive feature ,

so that the principle of being and along with it all being appear as
good S in e P lato created this world of ideas ph ilo ph ia per ennis
. c , so

has always assumed that God the creato r of the wo rld is good j ust
, , ,

as we take for granted for the same reason that being as such is good .

Bu t can we really assume that all being is actually good ? P rescind

ing from th e well —authenti cated atro cities that fill histo r y s pages
’

atrocities which obviously belong to th e category of being even “

in those segments of the world into which man cannot penetrate

with his misery the world still annot be said to be perfect in all
,
c
72 A NCIE NT P H I LO S OP H Y
respects For there is s u h a thing as physical evil Does G o d not
. c .

hold sway over an abysmal pit of horrors ? An d is not the prin iple c

of being from wh i h all reality is derived also a principle of evil

c

and conseq ently cannot be a uniform good ?

u
“ ”

S urprisingly the whole of an ient philosophy when it treats of c ,

being describes only ideal being ; to it evil ( wi kedness ) i s simply

,
‘

non being Th e same is true also of P lato H i system of philosophy

-
. . s

is not as yet onscious that by evolving su h a concept it applies

c c

apriori a selective criterion and for that reason it teaches an ontology

‘

that is itself determined apriori by pri n ciples of value and is con

sequently limited It is certainly not the whole being conceived in
.
‘

theoretical truth that sets the limits upon th e good but it is the ,

ideal being that is being already determined by the principle of

, ,

value Bu t such an idea means that the decisive factor in the knowl
.

edge of the good is not being as such but o nly the criterion of value ,

whi h differentiates being from being In this we can detect the

c .

primacy of practi cal reason Bu t we must not forget that th e .

philosophers of this era knew nothing of such a distinction They .

spoke only of being It is in modern philosophy in the ethi cs of

.
,

Kant and in the philosophy of value that the knowledge of value is ,

made a problem For P lato the way to the concept of the good was
.

beyond being th rough truth

“ ” “
.
”

5 PLEASU RE
.

H is matu re D ialogu es on hedonism A lthough in his Rep blic . u

P lato transferred the ethical problem to the realm of metaphysi cs

and by so doing struck out upon a new path th at would become
chara cteristi c of him he could not rid himself of this purely e th ico
,

phenomenological problem In the Th ea tetu s he busies himself with . e

it and at th e same time takes up a discussion of sensualism ; these

questions are dealt with also in the Laws and in the P hileb u s In .

these works th e q uestion is phrased as follows : 13 good perhaps

identi al with pleasure ? To this question S o crates himself had given
c

a negative reply in the Gor gias Th e question and its definite answer .

occupied the Academy constantly At the basis of the discussion we .

find various Opinions on the q uestion that had been broached both
by A ristippus and Eudoxus To them P lato had to dedicate a special .

treatise .

First O f all he clarifi ed the term P leasure may mean practically

, .

anything Th e debauchee has his own peculiar pleasure as do th e

.
 P LATO I 73

abstemious and the virtuous th e foolish as well as the wise Th e ,

.

common and therefore essential elements of pleasure may be sought

in the cravings th e clamo r ing and the satisfactions which are ex

, s,

er ien ced by ea ch individual ( P hile b u s 12 d ; 34 T h e good

p ,

then would be that afte r whi ch men craved and fo r whi ch th ey

strove In fact such an obj ect was good pre cisely because men longed
.

fo r it and it satisfied them when obtained Value has its sou rce in .

the concept of liking and of relish in a tendency as Kant

“ ” “

,
” “

,
”

has phrased it This had been th e theory of Eudoxus This in turn

. .
, ,

agrees perfectly with that theory placed in the mouth of Theaetetus

but which in reality stemmed from A ristippus who in this matter ,

advocated a theory of values parallel to P rotagoras sensualis m that ’

was based on theoreti al knowledge In matters which concern an

c .

experiencing of v alue and hence in the question of th e useful of ,

the good and the j ust of th e beau tiful and happiness itself every
, ,

thing depends upon purely personal feelings In this every man is .

an auto crat Whatever appears to a person as valuable is truly valu

.

able fo r him Whether or not he enj oys himself and is happy right
.

fully is not a matter of great concern What is important is the fact .

that he is happy and no one can rob h im of the good time he had ;
,

fo r it was at one time directly present to h im present in the sensible ,

pathos which he felt in th e affection of the lower appetiti ve faculty “

,
”

as Kant will express i t I n his philosophy later on For this reason .

it is fo r him always true evident and inamissible ( Th eaetetu s

“

,
” “

,
” “ ”
,

160 c ; 178 b ; P hil b u s 37 a b )e ,

Th e c ri ticism of P lato Although he championed ethi cs based on

.

truth and on j ustice P lato never became a rigorist as did Kant

,
.

Esp ecially in the evening of his life he r ealized how large a role
pleasure and love play in human life In ethi cs we deal as he .
,

said not with gods but with men P leasures and pains and desires
,
.

are a part of human nature and on them every mortal being must ,

of necessity hang and depend with the most eager interest ( Laws ”
,

732 ( 1; ed Jowett Vol II pp

.
,
As a consequence in P h ile b u s
.
, .
,

he decided in favor of a life compounded of pleasure and virtue ,

of pruden ce and passion H e had never chosen pleas re as a moral

. u

principle And no matter how strongly he advo cated happiness as

.

a value in opposition to C ynicism he fought j ust as strenuously ,

against the hedonism of the C yrenaics and every kind of eudaemon

ism according to which th e source and the essence of every value
is to be sought in pleasure and in nothing else .
74 ANCIE NT PH ILOSO PH Y
Headvanced three di fferent arguments to defend his position .

First it is not correct to maintain that the subj ecti ve fleeting sensory
,

feeling should be the criterion of value O ften enough late r on a .

, ,

thing which momentarily appeared to us to be valuable in reality

turned out to be absolutely worthless Fo r this reason he made a .
,

distinction between pleasures whi ch a re true and those which a re

false By so doing he employed obj e tive criteria and he conseq uently
. c

discovered that the experiencing of a pleasure as such is no longer

decisi ve and is neither the source nor the essen ce of value ( Th aetetu s e ,

169 d f ; 18 7 ; P h il b 36 5 3 b ) P leas re is furth ermore an p i n

e u s, c— . u a e ro ,

that is it is something that is undetermined and so permits of

,

increase and of diminution F or this reason pleasure is not univo cal

.
,

and it may sometimes happen that a thing that appears to us as

pleasurable could actually become unpleasant fo r pain also possesses ,

a capacity for increase and diminution ( P hil b us 27 d 31 c ) Finally e ,

—
.
,

pleasure belongs to the realm of becoming to the sphere of change , ,

because it denotes an experience or a su ffering C onsequently it may .

undergo successive stages of appearing disappearing o r changing , , .

Fo r a true good su ch states are impossible because it belongs to the ,

realm of being ( P hil b u s 5 3 c 55 ( I) e ,

—
.

O r de r of p leasu re F or this reason as pleasure should find a place

.
,

in our lives it o ght to be regulated and guided by moderation and

, u

orde r by reason and j udgment This is the conclusion arrived at in

, .

P h ile b s Bu t this means that pleasure is not a principle but a co n

u .

comitant phenomenon of the good Life itself is regulated by the .

ideal order It is at the same time the foundation fo r pleasure and

.

happiness N o t everything that causes pleasure is good but W hatever

.
,

is good causes pleasure F or what good can the j ust man have
.
“

which is separated from pleasure ( L w s 663 a ; ed Jowett Vol II ”

a , .
, .

p . and hence something that is a ccompanied by the pleasant

“
.

In fa t this law holds also for aesthetic satisfaction Th e applause of

c , .

some unquali fied individual is not decisive in the selection of what is

truly and genuinely beautiful but the applause of the cultu red and
,

the morally elite is because they possess an insight into obj ective
,

propriety that constitutes the essence of beauty ( Laws 658 e ) M ore , .

especially in the personal morality of th e individual we find that the

,

foundation for happiness is j ustice and not what a person feels and
th inks it to be : For the goods of which the many speak are not
“

really good health beauty wealth bodily gifts ( k een eye or

, , ,

qu i ck ear ) position and the power to satisfy all his appetites long
, ,
76 A N C I E NT P H ILOSOPH Y
and material world S u ch evil depends of necessity on this ( Th eaet tus
. e ,

176 a ) i e mortal nature and ear thly sphere ( ed Jowett Vol II

“ ”
, . .
, .
, .
,

p . Late r on the re will be proposed as a derivation of this

teaching which P lato o ffers here only as an explanation fo r the
,

defectiv e perfection of the world the theory that matter as such is ,

e vil At this stage of his development howeve r P lato does not as

.
, ,

yet ad vocate this more profound M anichaeism S ometimes students .

of P lato speak of an evil world soul which he was supposed to have —

invented for his system ( Laws 896 e By such a principle e v il

,

could be generated of necessity both in the physical and the mo ral

o r ders P erhaps such tendencies of P arsiism did appear occasion ally in
.

the Academy Bu t in the speculation of P lato they had no place P lato

. .
,

mo reover taught expressly that the operations of the wicked souls

,
“ ”

were meaningless and unimportant in comparison to the operations

of the cosmic soul A s a consequence it is extremely probable that
.
,

the so—called evil world—soul which he is thought to have taught was

nothing more than a passing reflection .

Limitatio ns o f P lato nism Bu t e vil is an incontestable r eality That

. .

it could not be fitted into the philosophy of P lato is a defect a defect ,

howeve r which can be found in all systems of idealism ( see p .

P lato took up this question aga i n 1n connection with his theodi cy .

A question wi th which all later theodi cies busied themsel v es also

caused him mental unrest : If there is a God how is it possible th a t ,

things happen in this world as though H e did not exist or as if H e

did not care to exercise H is providence over it ? In propounding such

problems for dis cussion the whole question of evil was again broached
,
.

TH E TRU E

second notion upon which P lato fo cused his philosophy

Th e
w as tr uth To speak of P lato is to speak of his theory of ideas or
.

forms We can approach this theory only by beginnin g wi th his

.

view of truth .

1 . N OTI ON or TRU TH
Truth
may be a property of our speculation and of our speech
logical truth It consists in having our j udgments co rrespond in
.

content W ith the facts whi ch they seek to rep roduce or express Tru th .

may also be a property of being When a being is as it should be .

,

it is true : ontologi cal truth In this sense we speak of true gold .

,
 P LATO 1 77

true flowe r s tr ue men etc P lato knew both notions of t ru th O nto

, , . .

logical truth however was especially basic to his philosophy Th e

, , .

distinction between a true being ( 6 8 0 706 6 ) and a being that is 19 11 9

’
v
“

not true because it rests midway between being and non being per
,
-
,

vades his enti re speculation Th e p resupposition fo r these two mean

.

ings of the notion of truth is to be found in his view that eve rythin g
that is true must be unchangeable something that is always identical
with itself as he was accustomed to say F o r P lato then truth was
, .
, ,

ete rnal o r more correctly it was without time or beyond time F o r

, , .

centuries this concept of tru th gave direction to the speculation

and the philosophy of the West .

In orde r to understand the unique nature of P lato s teaching we “ ’

need only to examine the standpoint of that philosophy of life which

saw in this concept of t ruth a falsification as it believed of the , ,

eternal fluid reality and as a consequence sought something else as

tru th In such a philosophy truth is for example whatever is genuine
.
, , ,

experience o r whate ver is fruitful Th e historical reasons for P lato s

“
.
” ’

concept of truth must be sought in S ocrates and in his uni versal ideas
as well as in P armenides and his eternally motionless being No t in .

vain did the pionee r s of this new philosophy of life Nietzsche and ,

Klages di rect thei r efforts repeatedly against the philosophy of the

,

ancients Th e basic reason which led P lato to adopt th e position

.

he did was his ideal of a mathematical science which was for him ,

also the ideal fo r scien ce as su ch as it was to be later fo r Desca rtes

, ,

S pinoza and Kant , .

2 . TH E S O U RCE
TRU TH OF

S ensatio n What first interested P lato in his speculation on truth

.

was the question of its source Where do we find the truth ? In his .

solution he excludes fi r st of all the sense faculties as possible sources ;

he does this very decidedly from the very beginning and in a manne r
typical bo th for him and for all later rationalists F or him sensation .

is not only the subjective perception of th e senses but also the objec
tive realm o f the senses the material wo rld in space and in time
,
.

Th e perception of the senses is un reliable We continually experience .

,

for example that our own eyes repeatedly see things in a di fferent
,

light O f special interest is the fact that the same sensible events
.

may appea r di fferently to othe r people than they do to us This .

lack of certitude in matters of sense perception had occasioned

P armenides and especially th e S ophists to stress thei r relativity and ,
78 ANCIE NT P H ILO SOPH Y
in this P lato agrees with them H e also viewed the perceptions of .

the senses with a sceptical eye In the realm of the senses there is .

no knowledge that is ever the same and as a consequence there , ,

can be no truth For thi s reason the philosopher must die to his
.

body and to his senses as we read in the P h aedo ; otherwise he will ,

never be able to contemplate tr uth in all its purity .

In addition the world of the senses is also a world of change and

,

of perpetual motion where everything is in a state of fluidity This .

was the thesis of the H er aclitean s and it made a vivid impression ,

on P lato If everyth ing is in the state of flux in the world of reality

.
,

there can be in this sense wo rld neithe r tr u th no r science because

nothing continues in the same state whereas th e concept of truth ,

demands that a thing be in constant identity with itself .

Th e pe r ceptions of the senses finally neve r rep resented formal , ,

knowledge to P lato ; they were only the materials of knowledge .

Th e contents of these individual sense perceptions are constantly being

subj ected by us to an examination This examination reveals what is .

common to our various sensations and we express this common ,

element through our j udgments of identity It is this common element .

,

moreove r whi ch forms th e Object of scientific knowledge an d of

,

tru th Th e knowledge formed in j udgment can never again be

.

sentient because sensation is limited to one sense faculty ; here the

,

perceptions of the individual sense faculties are examined condensed , ,

and assimilated Fo r this r eason sensation cannot be a source of

.

truth ( Rep 5 23 ff Th eaetet s 185

.
, .
, u ,

Th e m ind The source of truth ought r ather to be sought in the

.

soul : when returning into herself she [the soul ] reflects then she
“

passes into the other world the region of purity and eternity and , , ,

immortality and unchangeableness which are her kindred

, then ,

she ceases from her erring ways and being in communion with the ,

fi
unchanging is unchanging (P h aedo 79 d ; ed Jowett Vol I p ”
, . .
, .
,
.

By th e soul P lato designated the mind pure speculation ( min ,

o rs
,

ém arj n u
, Upon it all knowledge must draw only then ,

does it arrive at truth .

1) Ap ior z s m Bu t the mind needs this knowledge not indeed

'

r .

in orde r first to acquire truth ; fo r the mind has always possessed this
knowledge by virtue of its own nature H o w could he do this .
“

[re ollect
c
] U nless there were knowledge and right r eason al r eady
in him ? ( P h a do 73 a ; ed Jowett Vol I p
”
Knowledge for
e , .
, .
, .
,

example of identities as su ch the large and the small goodness

, , , ,
 P LATO I 79

j ustice holiness man lyre in gene ral of eve r y essence as such

, , , , .

Notions thoughts certitudes ( M57 jp m iju ) are

’
éw
’
at
‘
0 1 o ca e vo r a ra e or
, , , , ,

terms used by P lato to designate these essences In short they are the .
,
“
ideas These are al ways identical with themselves and they neve r
.
”

ch ange j ust as truth does not These ideas have been called innate “ ”
, .

or inborn It would be more correct to speak of them as apriori

“
.

truths or truths of the ideal order P lato himself said th at we wo u ld .

h ave seen these pure thoughts in the pre existen ce of the soul in the -

dwelling place of the gods and we would recall them again prompted ,
”

by th e perceptions of the senses in time and place ( d dp vnm r eco l v e

lection ) We do not regain or recover them solely by means of

.

sensation ; they are already present by reason of the glimpse we have

obtained of them in the state of pre existen ce P recisely in th is sense —
.

do we co nceive the notion of apriority A t the same time we recognize .

th at by su ch a con ception P lato had in mind an ar hetypal knowledge c

which reveals to us all being in ideal form .

2) Ba is of bis apr z o z s m Th e most important element in this

' '

s r .

train of thought is the attempt whi ch P lato made to prove the

apriority of certitude in the ideal order H is proof may be summar .

i e d in this fashion : Y ou cannot perceive sensations without pre

z

v io u sly permitting spiritual contents whi ch did not have thei r origin
in experience to ente r in and be employed by them If we compare .
,

for instance two pieces of wood ( as he mentions in the P h a do )

,
e ,

we find that the two are not entirely th e same but they do approach ,

more or less to the notion of e q uality What took place while making .

this comparison ? We related our representations of each of these

pieces of wood to the idea of equality and by so doing measured ,

j udged and arranged the pieces themselves We would not have

, .

been able to bring these two pieces together for a comparison

if we had not at the start possessed the idea of equality A s he .

phrases it more generally : Before we began to see o r hear or per

ce i e in any way we must have had a knowledge of absolute equality
v , ,

or we could not have referred to that standard the equals whi ch are
derived from th e senses for to that they all aspire and of that—
,

they fall short ( P h do 75 b ; ed Jowett Vol I p

”
ae , The .
, .
, .

Th e etet s further enumerates certain other apriori certitudes : identity

a u ,

difference opposition unity numeri cal precision straightness and

, , , , ,

c rookedness We perceive that these concepts which P lato propounds

.

are fundamental and underlie all knowledge An d if we should O bj ect .

that all universal ontents of knowledge are obtained by abstra ction

c ,
80 ANCIE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
and therefore trace their origin to the perceptions of the senses he ,

would answe r : You would be unable to begin the process of abstrae

tion unless you possessed fr om the very beginning such ideas as
identity equality similarity un ity and plu rality because otherwise
, , , , ,

a comparison which is the fi r st step in abstraction could not be

, ,

initiated In o rde r to be able to compare we must know in advance

.
,
‘

the one and the many identity and diffe rence H ow othe rwise could
, .

we differentiate one representation from another ?

3) Th e extent of th e apr io r i To P lato not only were the funda.

mental notions of all knowledge apriori but advancing along the ,

same path he had already broken he explained th at everything that ,

exists in itself o r as s u h hence e very archetypal notion beauty as

c ,
—

such goodness j ustice piety in itself — in fact every essence is aprio ri

, , ,
- —

to the mind It therefore need neve r be acqui red again by expe rience
.

but can always be brought back into consciousness by recall and

recognition P lato is an exp ressed rationalist and idealist Th e enti re
. .

wo rld of th e senses both in time and in place is t ransferred by

him into the idea and into the pur e concept and it becomes unde r ,

stan dable only because it is viewed f rom this standpoint In or der .

that sense per ceptions as well as experience might became possible

fo r us the idea must first exist O nly by its medium can we in

, .

ter pr et the senses and thei r data .

4) Agains t mater ialis m The proof for the p resence Of apriori

.

elements in the human mind is also used by P lato against the

teaching of P rotagoras that all knowledge is only subj ective appea r
ance and opinion against the asse r tion of A ntisthenes that there is
,

nothing beyond the material senses and against the thesis of Aristippus
that all sense of v alue is a shee r individual experience By proposing .

universally valid non sentient and apriori contents of our mind

,
-
, ,

P lato knocks the props fr om under relativism phenomenalism sen

fi
, ,

su alism and the individualism of value

, Even the most subj ective .

emotions of ou r senses and of ou r cravings ( qb B d i 0m

'
a b vea az
,
e c t/ 6 0
,

w v mi e
a
) are ne
os v er without the uni v ersally v alid non senso r y ,
-
,

logical and ethical categories ; and th is of course renders sensualism

,

and indi vidualism in the realm of values untenable P lato is the fi r st .

great adversary of materialism Late r philosophe r s constantly take .

refuge in his arguments .

S en s ation and reaso nin g Th e relation between sensation and

.

reasoning can now be more distinctly drawn When we present .

P lato as a rationalist and idealist we should not pi cture him as if ,

 P LATO I 81

he were forced to stalk b lindly th rough the world and as if he

did not wish to avail himself of the senses O n the contr ar y they .
,

play a great pa r t in his theory of knowledge H e was accustomed .

to say that we think and we know by means of the senses starting ,

” “

wi th the senses by taking the senses into consideration Bu t what

,
” “
.
”

kind of a role is this ? P Natorp and the neo Kantian interp reter s.
-

of P lato believe that we can think of this role much as we would

think of it in Kantian philosophy Th e senses should furnish the .

material of experience while the mind by means of its apr io ristic

elements should classify this material and thus make experiences
, ,

possible O f course the ideas of P lato are not empty forms and func
.
,

tions but finished contents and we are not dealing with a limited ,

numbe r of original and basic functions ( catego ries ) but with an

unlimited assortment of notions : all knowledge of being and essence
is apriori Fo r this reason the re remains nothing that can be classified
.

o r a rranged The contents of knowledge are complete in their ex

.

istence They must only be made known This is a ccomplished by

. .

the sen ses .

P lato enlarges upon this theme very cleverly in the P h aedo : When
I see th e picture of a friend it reminds me of him insofar as it ,

affords me the oc casion actually to think of him in the way I had

al ready known about him potentially P ictures do not supply me with .

a likeness of my friends ; I already possessed that They are r espon .

sible solely fo r th e fact that I become conscious of the aprioristic

content which I already posse ss And this is also true whenever I .

see a straight line a circle a square a man a beast a plant or

, , , , , ,

anything else As a consequence in the works of P lato sensation is

.
,

considered to be a copy And j ust as we are able to understand a.

picture solely by reason of the obj ect from which it was copied ,

so we must refer all our sense perceptions to a prototype of which

the perceptions are copies To express this idea more clearly P lato .
,

coined the expression par ticipatio n The cognitional theo ,

r etical meaning of this con cept sign ifies that all knowledge in the

experimental dimensional world is an an alogism an interpretation

, {
“‘

of sense perceptions by referring them to a prototypal notion ( d ‘

vcz

Aéy ) as this is stated definitely in Th eaetetu s ( 186 a 10 and C

ov
,

It is e vident then that fo r P lato the role of the senses is a v ery

, ,

limited one Th e senses are not causes Of th e content of our knowl

.

edge They are also not the sources ; they are only the occasions of
.

our being conscious of ideas .

82 A NCIENT PH ILOSO PH Y
It is ve ry instructive to compare P lato and Kant on this particula r
q uestion B oth busy
. themselve s with apriori fa ctors Whereas in .

Kant the forms alone are apriori in P lato thei r conte nt is also In , .

Kant the content of knowledge is acquired ; in P lato it is already

existent According to Kant the senses actu ally a fford material for
.

the content of knowledge ; according to P lato they contribute nothing

to that content Kant represents a uni on of empiricism and rational
.

ism ; P lato is a pure rationalist .

D o xa ( opinio n ) If a person sh ould prove incapable of elevating

.

himself from sense knowledge to the ideas and remain bound by

sense perception as such his knowledge is not true knowledge but ,

rath er opin i on ( S f ) If knowledge r emains stationa ry i n the sense

o a .

world and 1 8 based exclusively on it the possesso r of such kn owledge ,

wo ld deal exclusively within the realm of the changeable and neve r

u

arrive at true knowledge because his knowledge would neve r attain ,

to p r op smon s and truths which remain eternally the same Just

fi
o .

as H ume would later characte rize purely empiri cal and natural scien
ti c knowledge as belief so P lato designates it as sheer belief
,

Both reached this conclusion from the same conside r ation

as starting point namely we can never be su re of the constancy
, ,

of natural events A second reason why according to P lato empirical

.
, ,

knowledge is only opi n on lies in man s lack of insight into the i

’

facts of a case We may accidentally or through divine p r ovidence

.
“ ”

chance upon th e truth but if we do not know positi vely the con
,

n ectio n s existing between the a rguments we do not possess true ,

wisdom but we k now only by conj ecture or by pure chance Bu t we

, .

cannot rely on this P lato however does concede that we mus t be

.
, ,

res gned to the fact that the great maj ority of people do not know
i

bette r If an opinion accidentally true does not present true knowledge

.
,

it is still something more than non knowledge or nescience Th e ideal — .

still would be a true insight into the eternal unchangeable truth s , ,

into ideas and notions .

3 . O B J ECTS
KN OWLEDGE : IDEAS
OF

To the aprio r i notions of our minds cor respond suitable obj ects .

This world of O bjects interested P lato as much as did his sea rch for
the source of knowledge .

Th e fac t O f ideas P lato proved wi th clarity that the un changeable

.

ness of our intellectual certitudes stemmed from the fact that specula
tion concerns itself with obj ects which of themselves are absolutely
84 AN CIE NT PH I LOSOPH Y
‘

eternally unchangeable Objects of true knowledge ar ise by vi r tue ofi

the pre existential glimpse we had of them in the pur e r eason
— .

Q u alities The P
. latonic idea is some thing non spatial timeless -
, ,

unchangeable accessible only to speculation Bu t we would like to

,
‘

k now from the very start what kind of reality the ideas possess It is .

apparent that thei r reality is not the reality of senso ry s patial and , ,

temporal things ( r s extensa) They furthe rmore lack any psychi c

e .

reality ( es ogitan ) Th e S ymposi m 211 a 7 establishes that the

r e s . u , , ,

idea is neither actual thought no r knowledge Its reality is rather of .

the ideal o r der What this ideal reality is we learn by being given
.
,

examples of mathematical and logical associations of validity P roposi .

tions su ch as 2 X 2 are 4 the p roposition that the sides of an equi,

angular triangle are equal to each othe r etc cannot be changed by , .

,

an y powe r in this world They are not in time It would be . .

to ask when they began to be valid and whether if the wo rld ceased ,

to be they too wo u ld lose thei r validity No t e ven God is able to

, .

alte r the significance of their validity As Bolzano exp ressed it they .

,

are propositions whi ch hold true fo r God H imself .

”

M un dus in telligib ilis th e I nte lligible Wo rld This ideal r .

is Stronger than all other reality ; fo r the material world will

long disappeared but these propositions will still be valid
, .

contain furthermore the sublime structu ral plans of the

, ,

out being in any way dependent upon them Th e mate rial .

something else : it has its own gr avity ; it err s and has its
but it is never theless dominated and ruled by the ar tfu lne
idea as H egel will de clare later on P lato would truthfully
”
.

this material world exists by grace of the idea .

1 ) Th e ch ar acter o f r ealit
y i n th e w o r ld 0

P lato recognizes in ideal reality tr ue reality the ,

Leibniz so also for him the true ci r cle is not the one
, ,

on the blackboard but the ideal circle O nly fo r the .

laws of the ci rcle valid The former does not fulfill the .

for these laws because its line is protracted and it can

,

perfectly round ; and thus it is fo r all other ideas H as .

been a man who has fully exhausted th e idea of man an ,

perfect man ? In the kingdom of natu re do not

beasts and even inanimate beings with thei r
,

always h ave room despite thei r ,

the richness Of the idea of spe

the idea itself is inexhaustible
 PLATO I 85

alone is perfect genuine and true reality ; whe reas all else stri ves
, ,

to reproduce it but in the attempt arri ves only at an app roximation

,

and an approximate value of it neve r at its tr ue value and its essence ,

itself From the senses then is de ri ved the knowledge that All
.
“

sensible things aim at an absolute equality of which they fall sho r t ”

( P h aedo 7
,5 b ; ed Jowett Vol I p . Indeed because of
, its .
, .
,

inexhaustibly ri ch produ ctive fruitfulness the wo rld of ideas is the ,

star kest reality Fo r this reason P lato differentiates between the world
.

of ideas q é mu ndu s intelligibilis the intelligible wo rld )

vo
-
r s, ,

and the visible wo rld ( 6 m Op d ma ndns sensibilis the world of

7 7 ; ar s, ,

sense ) and sees in the world of ideas the true and real wo rld while ,

in the sensible wo rld he percei ves only a copy which stands midway
between being and non being Although we might app roach the -
.

meaning of the ideal reality by means of the mathematical notion

of the significance of validity it would ne ver be in consonance with ,

the spi rit of P lato s philosophy if we looked upon the idea simply
’

as logical validity as Lotze has done F o r the mode r n notion of logical

, .

validity denotes a cer tain diminution of the degree of r eality since ,

mode rn speculation is accustomed to see true r eality only in physical

reality It is j ust the opposite fo r P lato : to him ideal reality is not
.

a diminution of the degree of reality but full and perfect reality ,

.

2) Th e co ntent of th e w or ld of ideas Insofar as the content of .

the Wor ld of ideas is con cer ned in the beginning P lato spoke only of ,

the ideas of th e good the beautiful the j ust as such and of , , ,

othe r eth ico aesthetical ideals Bu t the P h aedo r eveals idea s of logico
-
.

ontological r elations fo r example the idea of equality difference

, , , ,

opposition and finally th e idea of all essences in gener al Th rough

, .

this the doctrine of ideas was expanded to include the whole r ealm

of b eing — also natu re and ar t — fo r essen ces are to be found e very

whe re In the P ar menides ( 130 c d ) and the S ophist ( 227 a b ) if
.
, , ,

P lato w r ites as if he we r e fo r ced by ne cessity to a ccept the idea of

a hai r of di r t and of lice and of othe r things of little value we
, , , ,

should not forget that his doctrine Of ideas was originally a doctrine
of ideals ; but we may not believe that he changed the characte r of
“

his doctrine of ideas in his O ld age H e expressed only mo r e clearly .

what he could hav e said earlie r in the P h aedo wher e th e idea al ready ,

represented to him everything without exception — all that we are

able to seal by such terms as in itself o r the essence Th e idea
“ “ ” “
.
”
,

therefore stood fo r the quiddity of a being ; it was what determined a

,

being to a p r ecise and dete rminate mode ( S osein s b estimmth eit) ( 75 d ) .

86 ANCIE NT PH I LOSOPH Y
Q uite logically then we must also assume using modern ter
, , ,

min o logy the idea of S atan Does

, such an idea actually fit into the .

world of ideas and does it trace its origin ultimately to the idea of
the good ? By asking this qu estion w e come into contact with the
problem which we mentioned before ( see p H o w is it possible .

for all beings to be good ? H ere we can see how P lato s notion ran ’

into difficulties ; in the beginning the idea was valid only fo r a

limited area Ofbeing and was useful within it but now it is expanded ,

too b roadly and is extended to emb r ace still more arpas of being and

fi
,

by su ch a generalization it ru ns into grave apor ias o r philosophical

dif culties .

Th e Wo r ld of S cience Fo r P lato the wo rld of ideas considered as

.
, ,

the true world was also the world of science and Of tru th We need
, .

but recall the citation in the P h aedo to which we have already

referred There we learned that when th é soul left to itself seeks to
.
‘

understand being it ceases to err because it is occupied in the realm

, ,

of objects which are always identical with themselves An d this .

“

state Of soul is called wisdom ( P h aedo 79 b ; ed Jowett Vol I p ”

, .
, .
,
.

In the world of ideas tr uth is always in its p rope r place an d ,

it is in this world that the scientific theses and laws are properly
valid Bu t they are not stri ctly true in in the world of sense expe rience
. .

P togo r as said ( Frag 7 ) that the law of tangents might n

ro . o t be

valid because the line of the circle whi ch we draw rests on more , ,

than one point Fo r the physical wo rld this would be true but we
.
,

should nevertheles s not abandon the law By means of it we are

, , .

able to prove that we assume a world of objects othe r than sensible

an expanded world namely the ideal world of objects Fu r thermo r e
, , .
,

it is not true only of the wo rld of mathematics Eve ry natu r al s cience .

takes into account average values With their acceptance we leave .

,

the world of pure factual findings If we were to retain them we .

,

would be forced to adh ere firmly to individual results arrived at by

facts These alone a re act ally given By accepting average value we
. u .
,

exceed the positive given fact If we a ccept fo r examp le the estab .

, ,

lish ed specific weight of antimony then measu rements of actual ,

spe cimens would give figures differing from In one experiment

we might reach a higher in anothe r a lower figure O nly these vary,
.

ing results are discovered as pro ved fact and are tr uly positively
factual Th e average value on the othe r hand is arri ved at by calcu
.
, ,

lation and is actually a coup d etat in view of Sensible reality and its ’

r ights H ere the ideal wor ld is introduced and put in place of th e

.
88 ANCIENT P HIL OSOP H Y
them into the light of day his good intentions might possibly cost ,

him his life .

Th e p risoners nevertheless must be released from the ca ve Thi s

, , .

is the prime duty of th e philosopher : to liber ate men from the

physical material wo rld the wo rld of a ppear ances an d from the
,
— —

shado ws of unreality and to bring them into the realm of true being .

This true being is indeed not the SO called real space—time world -
,

whi ch lies under the earthly sun This is only a copy The really true . .

world of being is the world of ideas Th e first copy of this true .

wo rld corresponding to the obje cts whi ch were carr ied behind the
,

low wall in the ca ve is the space time world A copy O f this last
,
-
.

named kind of being and conse q uently a copy of a copy co r respond

, ,

ing to the sh adows on the wall is the world of imitation and of ,

counterfeit .

Th e co r e of this figur e or allegory is not only the thought that

ther e are various classes o r strata of being but also another idea ,

namely that one strata rests upon another The s hadowy world rises
, .

upon the space—time being of th e physi co real world ; this in tu rn -

, ,

rears itself upon ideal being For P lato that upon which something

fi
.
,

rests and by which it can alone be concei ved and can be is the
, ,

hypothesis ( i mi ) ; that is
c a be ng that
n s
ec must fi r st be postulated , i

if any further being is to exis t at all .

The Absolu te 1) Th e idea ofideas The con cept of hypothesis is

. .

not limited to the relation of the various strata of being but is ,

referred also to the r elation of ideas one to another ( R p 5 09 e .

,

The r e a re subo r dinate ideas depending upon superio r ones on which

,

they are based and suppor ted And since a great numbe r of sub .

ordinate ideas have thei r p resuppositions and foundations in superior

ones and of these superio rs some are founded upon a fur the r and
,

still mo re sublime idea the basic ideas as in a genealogical tree

, , ,

become eve r fewe r and fewe r Bu t by that very fact the basic ideas .

become also mo re powerful because they are both extensi vely and ,

intensi vely greate r Finally we arri ve at th e summit of the pyr amid

.

of ideas at the idea of ideas upon which all othe r ideas depend and
,

are based because embracing as it does all others it also offer s a

, , ,

foundation for all Just as the sun bestows upon all things in th e
.

realm of the visible world being and life and pe rceptibility so in the ,

realm of the invisible the idea of ideas bestows upon being its essence
and its discernibility This supreme idea is dependent upon no other
. .

It is absolute ( dm éfl : Rep 5 10 b ; 5 11 b ) and self s uffi cient

er o v .
,
-
 PLATO I 89

( i e ) A s a consequence i t no longer being in

x a vév : P h ae do , 101 .
, is

the accepted sense For all being there must be a basis ; the absolute
.
,

however is of a different kind It exists of itself and by itself and is

, .

as a result beyond all being ( w s it exceeds all other

’
err e x e
’
a 1
'

being both in power and in dignity With this we arrive again at the .

fi
idea of the good as it is in itself to which we had as cended when ,

dealing with the problems bearing on ethical value .

2 ) Th e ts of this th eo r y o n th
e ec h istor y o f philos oph y With e .

these concepts we find our selves at the source of the philosophical

views which are found in eve ry stage of the histo ry of philosophy .

fi
Related more o r less directly to them a r e the differentiations between
absolute and contingent being the ens a se and the ens ab alia the , ,

notion of a r atio s u iciens for all beings and the postulate of a

‘
,

supreme cosmi c F irst C ause the proofs for the exi stence of God based
,

o n causality and contingency the identi fi cation of the con cept of God
,

with the idea of a s u mmu m ho n m the interpretati on of God as u ,

the implicatio of the wo rld and of the world as the expli atio of c

God the notion of emanation the dis cussion of the one and the
, ,

many ( é m 2 wa ) the p roof fo r the existence of God based on the

‘
v y
,

degrees of perfe ction the idea of the sup r emely perfect being etc
, , .

D i alectics If in the metaphysics of P lato all being depends for

.

existence on and is under stood only by the sup reme idea it is only ,

natural that the first task of philosophy should be to dis cover all those
ide as whi ch are latent in every being and to in vestigate thei r r ange
and ramifi cations This task was the origin of the P latonic dialectic
. .

It is the explanation of being through the Logos as the basis of being .

1 ) Th logi l s ide In the P latoni c dialecti c we first generally view

e ca .

the logi cal aspect ; the later Dialogues in particular show P lato s out ’

spoken interest in diale cti cs in this logical sense This is a ctually a .

fact and in this context the idea fo r P lato has chiefly a logi cal
meaning Th e idea is a notion and as su ch exhibits a series of logi cal
.

contents by whi ch the mode of one being ( w Z q ale q iddita ) o ov

, u , u s

is characterized in contradi ction to something else ( E p liu d ) As r e ov

, a .

a universal Concept the idea is also a genus and a species and is

,

conne cted with other subordinate superior and co—ordinate notions , , .

To examine this intermixture of ideas ( ww f 56 y B com Ko v a 7 1! et/( r

“

2
“

munity o f kinds ) is the task of dialecti cs S hould we not say that

”
:
“

the division acco r ding to classes whi h neither makes the same other , c ,

no r makes the other the same is the business of th e diale cti cal ,

science ? Then surely be who can di vide rightly is able to see

, ,
90 ANCIE NT PH ILOS O PHY
c learly one form [idea ] pervading a scattered multitude and many ,

di fferent forms [ideas ] contained under one higher fo rm [idea ] ; and

again one form [idea ] knit togeth er into a single whole and per
,

vading many su h wholes and many forms [ideas ] existing only in

c , ,

separation an d isolation Th is is the knowledge of classes which deter

.

mines where they can have communion with one anoth er and where
not ( S phist 25 3 d ; ed Jowett Vol II p
”
o , . In this procedure , .
, .

we may follow a des cending s cale ( from top to bottom ) by dividing “ ”

the uni versal notion of genus into various species and by dividing ,

these again until we arrive at the in di idu m that which cannot v u ,

“

be di vided any fu r th ef Di ir e is An example of th is is the definition

”
: a s .

of the notion of an angler which occurs in the S ophist ( 219,

O r this pro cedure may be in the as cending s cale ( from th e bottom to

the top ) by abstracting the uni versal from the particular and from ,

th is universal the S till more universal and so on until we finally ,

arrive at the most universal idea possible whi ch includes all being :
diale cti cs in the stri ct sense .

2 ) Th e metaph ysi al meaning Bu t P lato was les s con cerned with

c .

th e logical relations of notions in regard to content and extension

than with the Logos as hypothesis as the foundational basis of being ,

.

H is dialectics stands in the servi ce of his metaphysics If in his later .

Dialogues P lato turns to logical problems we s h ould not think that ,

this constitutes a break in his philosophical system but rather that , ,

it is the completion of what he had already begun and for which he

had prepared th e way If there are ideas as the Dialogue s of his
.
,

mature years propose — namely the P h aedo the S ymposi m and , , u ,

the R pu blic if these ar e the ontological bases for othe r beings

e —
,

and if as a conseq uence of this inte r dependence of ideas eve r wider .

ontological bases begin to appear ; if finally an idea Of an idea exists , ,

as the ultimate foun dation of be ng P lato is then forced to occupy i ,

himself with the apparat s of his Logos wh i ch supports everything

u .

This is not playing with an idea for the sake of the ideas as we
“

sometimes do in arithmetical games but it is an attempt to explain ,

the whole gamut of being by presenting the stru ctural idea beh ind
the world Diale cti cs is pure physi cs pure biology pure anth ro
.
“ ”
,
“ ”
,
“ ”

p o lo gy be,cause it a ffords us all th e apriori truths ne cessa r y for the

various departments of s cien ce and with this the most fundamental
relationships of being Finally we are dealing here with evidence for
.
,

the footpri nts of God insofar as di alecti cs survey s the whole of being
,
92 ANCIE NT P HILOSOPH Y

Acq uisitive C r eative

I mmedi ate app r o p r i ation Bar ter

Th r ough stealth Th r ou gh w ar

Animate natu r e I nani mate n atur e

Water ani mals L an d ani mals

Fish Fow l

By in str uments By n ets

th at w ound

By day By nigh t

Th r o u gh a th r u st v
fr o m ab o e ( h ar p o o ni ng)
Th r ou gh a thr ust fr om b elow ( angling)

that each un it of all so called multiplicity ( plu r ality ) essentially

-

par ti ci pates in species and idea and thus insofar is identical ; on the
othe r hand th e outline and its systematical di vision show p recisely
that together with the tho ro ughly essential and identical idea there
, ,

appear others di fferi ng from it ( 3) An d finally it becomes clear that

.

ever y being is at the same time a non being I can rightly call what -
.

is a being also a non being in respect to another because it is not

-
,

that othe r H aving tho roughly examined the mys te ry of the com
.

munity of ideas we come to the realization that an either o r is

,
“
-
”

not correct : eithe r H er aclitu s or the Eleatics either one o r th e

z
,

many eithe r identity o r differentiation The right answe r is as

, .
“

well as Each school saw something of the truth ; both aspects do

.
”

positi vely exist : unity and plur ality identity and differentiation being
, ,

and non being And the key which permits the synthesis that bridges
-
.

these antitheses is the idea of parti cipation This key makes us aware .

of identity but it does not over look differentiation

, .

M e anin gs o f the Ide a 1 ) Co ncept F rom what has been said we

. .
,

can finally establish rather easily the di f fe rent meanings which a r e

attached to the idea in th e works of P lato We have already treated .

of its logi cal meaning : Th e idea is a universal concept ( Aéy ) This os .

is the heritage bequeathed it by S ocrates Bu t the concept is not .

“ ”

modern in the sense that it must be understoo d as the sum of certain

notes It is rather to be understood as the uniform spiritual and intui
.
, ,

tive fo rm which posses ses u niv er sal validity .

 PLATO I 93

2) Esse nces To P lato a second meaning is e ven mo re impo rtant

. .

The idea is always also an essence ( é i ) and the refore s ignifies th e o o a

,

thing itself in its true being ( 3 6 5 wpdyp ) It has been already 011 7 7 ta .

stated howeve r that being here means ideal being being of the
, , ,

ideal or de r .

3) Ca s e Third the id ea is a cause ( i i ) It is this as a p r e

u .
,
a r a .

supposition as a hypothesis In this sense it becomes the reason fo r

, .

being C ause in this sense is likened to r atio That which has been
. .

placed as a foundation shares in the being of that which placed the

foundation it exists be cause the reason is p resent in it
(na
p i
o va a
) P lato pe r mits his
. S o crates to explain that he was una b le
to promise himself a t rue enlightenment concerning the wo rld dr awn
from material causes which the p r e S ocratic school had ad vanced —
,

and that fo r this reason he had tu rned to the ideas as a second “

course Th e ideas fo r m a new kind of cause the eidetical o r ideal

”
.
,

cause We can best represent it to ou r selves if we meditate on the

.

relationship of a picture to the O bject that is depicted in it The O bject .

portr ayed is togethe r wi th its form ( 28 ) the cause of the eidos 5 0 9

( form ) of the pictu r e T h e latter partakes of the fo r me r ; the

. fo r me r
is present in the latter Th e Timaeu s establishes quite clea rly that .

the whole world is nothing but a copy The Demiurge cr eated all .

things in accordance with the eternal ideas .

4) P u pos e From this there follows still a fou r th meaning of idea

r .
,

namely its character as goal o r purpose

, Because of it ther e
is always something else It is a that fo r the sake of which ( 5 .
“
0

2m
1 m ) Exp r essed mo r e gene rally : All being has a mean ing and
.

through this meaning it is always r eferred to some thing else superio r

to it It is a striving and a longing ( 6péy 0 wp b l Z O ) fo r the
. e0 ai
,
o vi e a ac

more sublime in the world : all sensible things stri ve to be like the “

idea (P h aedo 75 a b ; ed Jowett Vol I p

”
, S o fa r as the idea
, .
, .
, .

is intended as a purpose it appea rs to be a value ( dy bé ) Th rough ,

a v .

this concept of the idea a teleological feature is intr oduced into ,

P latoni c metaphysics P lato explains the infe r io r by the supe rio r

.
,

not vi ce vei sa Th e highe r species fo r him does not come into being
'
.
, ,

through evolution fro m lowe r fo rms A des cent of species on the .

basis of mechanical causes such as Darwin assumes would rep resent , ,

to P lato not evolution but a tremendous chaos Wher e b rute force .

“

holds sway senselessly fo rmation becomes impos sible As a con , .

”

sequence fo r him all e volution must be guided from above by an

,

anticipation of me ani ng and of purpose P lato is a representative of .

94 A NCIE NT P H ILO SOPH Y
an ideal mo rphology In th is respect th e statement recor ded in the
.

P rologue of S t John s G ospel : In the beginning was the wo r d

’ “ ”
.

o
( g )
L os has a meaning and accords with the facts W h at A naxago r as .

h ad not fully developed in his philosophy namely his failu r e to make ,

th e final cause a cause which would be regulati v e of all things as ,

P lato remarked in criticism P lato himself completed : eve r ything that

,

is subordinated exists because of something more sublime and so forth , ,

until we finally arrive at the absolute Because of this absolute every .

,

thing finally comes into existence And thus the e nti re un i ve rse is a .

cosmos a pyramid of being in whi ch e ve ry thing that somehow exists

, ,

has a relationship to and an association with the summit Eve rything .

on the pyramid endeavors to gain the summit and lo ves it O n this .

love the being of the world is dependent and is nourished Being itself .

is nothing more than a striving after and a quiescence in the idea

and consequen tly in the idea of ideas An d all strength and all .
“

striving are eternal repose in God the Lord , .

Ide as as nu mbers 1 ) I deal nu mbe s Ar istotle informs us mo re than

. r .

onc e and in express terms that for P lato the ideas were numbers In .

the Dialogues of his mature years and especially in th e lectu re of his

old age O n the G ood which has been lost P lato de votes his atten
,
“

,
”
,

tion in an intense fashion to the relation between ideas and number s .

To rea ch a definite conclusion on this vexing problem and con

t o ver sial issue
r we shoul d keep befo re ou r eyes the diair etical
,

o utline which has been sketched on a pre v ious page and we should ,

bear in mind two important statements of P lato which are re ported

for us in the S tates man ( 287 e ; 285 a ff) and the P hileb u s ( 16 .

d e ) According to these statements we may not arbitra rily dis

, .

se ct an idea but must divide it in a manne r that befits its natural

,

structure much after the fashion in which an anatomist dissects a

,

body acco r ding to the technique of his own science This means that .

we may not extract from an idea any mo r e o r any less than what is
actually contained within it If in the dialectical process we should
.
,

furthermore des cend from spe cies to species until we reached the
,

definitely final species ( d p 28 indivisible form ) which can

r o ov £ 0 9 :
“ ”

not be divided into still other more subo rdinate specie s because this
ultimate species embraces only individuals unde r it we wo uld ne ve r ,

be permitted to omit a species o r to add O thers by perhaps o verlooking

the fact that in this or in that object a new species is present o r has
not as yet emerged .

Whatever therefore appears to be new in the way of a new

, ,
96 ANCIE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
principle The Epino mis which p reser ves a great por tion of a lectur e
.
,

th at P lato gave in his old age O n th e Good shows that the natural , ,
”

series of numbers does actually tra ce its rise to th e O ne and to the

“
pacemaker that is to the doubling and the halving nature of duality
,
”
,
-

( 990 c ) T
. h e olde r A cademy fully dis cussed the derivati n of the
o
mathematical from the ideal numbe rs and their recip rocal r elations .

A ristotle espe cially ( M eta XI 6

, showed himself at variance
.
, ,

with h is master on this question .

Ar isto tle o n th e o r igin o f th e doctrin e of ideas C oncerning the

fi
.

origin and the meaning of the doctrine of ideas we possess a v ery

detailed account in the work of Aristotle : H aving in his youth rst “

become familia r wi th C r atylu s and with the H eraclitean doctrines

( that all sensible things are eve r in a state of flux and the r e is no
knowledge about them ) these views he held even in his later years
, .

S o crates however was busying himself about ethical matters and

, ,

fixed thought fo r the first time on definitions ; P lato accepted his

teaching but held that the problem applied not to sensible things but
,

to entities of an other kind fo r this reason that the common de n i

—

tion could not be a definition of any sensible thing as they were always
,

,
fi
changing Things of this o the r sort then he called Ideas and sensible
.
, , ,

things he said were all named after these and in vir tue of a relation
, ,

to these ; fo r the many existed by par ticipation in the Ideas that

have the same name as they (M eta I 6 987 a 31 987 b 10; ed ”
.
, , ,
— .

M cKeo n pp 700 , Looked at historically the doct r ine of ideas

.
,

is actually as Aristotle maintains the result of a controversy between

, ,

H eraclitus on the one hand and S o crates on the othe r F rom H e r a .

clitus P lato derived his evaluation of the visible sensible world ; from
, ,

S ocrates the retenti on of truth and science in general and of

, ,

uni versally valid notions in parti cula r If there are such things as .

universally valid certitudes there also must be corresponding correla

,

tive s to them obj e ctive thinkable ob j e cts the ideas as A ristotle so

, , ,

rightly stresses Th e basic reason that there must be a correspond

.
“

ing object lies in the epistemological realism and dualism which were
”

characte r istic of the whole of ancient philosophy and fo r whi ch ,

P armenides had coined the classical formula : the same obj ect is both
thought and being Thus for P lato there arose an entirely new wo rld
. .

This new land was further developed by his realism in the realm
of the theory of cognition by which he represented to himself as an
O bje ct only that which spe culation had al r eady found to be present and
 P LATO I 97

which is ap riori to his speculation That these ideas ar e unchangeable .

and are eternally identical with themselves follows simply fr om the

same supposition In his own per sonal Obje ctive reasoning he had
.

always been confronted by ideas that wer e identical to themselves .

Fo r this reason the obj ects which per tained to them must be also
of the same kind Th e decisive element in his doctrine of ideas can
.

be foun d the r efore in the proof for the aprio r ity of the content
, ,

of ou r knowledge The world of ideas comes into existence at that

.

moment when the mind r ecognizes th e existen ce of uni versally valid

ap riori ce rtitudes that are opposed to sense experience which is me rely
subj ecti vely valuable Then on th e bas s of a r ealistic theo ry of
.
, i

knowledge objects corresponding to these certitudes are postulated

,

as actually existent It is quite tr ue that in the beginning the ideas

.

were only the eth ico aesthetic ideals Bu t it was p recisely in this sphere
-
.

that for S ocrates as A ristotle notes again so co r rectly and co n

— —

sequently also for P lato the universally valid con cepts become intel
,

ligible for the first time .

C h o r ismo s o r sep ar atio n A ristotle maintains that the idea was

.

sepa rated from sensible obj ects by a chasm S ensible obj ects stand .

alongside and outside of things ( O 83 r ams p} T fi ) By such a T . a o . r a t

. a
‘
ra .

conception the world would veritably be torn in twain Th e ideas .

sway so to speak above the world As a consequen ce the mediae val

, , .
,

thinkers called them separated forms f o r mae sepa atae and so Raphael ,
r

in his masterpiece the S chool of Athens painted P lato with his

,
“

,
”

face raised toward the heavens looking to the supercelestial r egion “

,
”

that is to the world of ideas ; while Aristotle looks at the material

,
’

wo rld re cogni z ing that only ther e is true reality to be found By this
,
.

separation of th e universal and by its conse q uent autonomy P lato ,

differs from S ocrates as Aristotle so aptly remarks Th e latte r ac

,
.

ce pted th e unive r sal but he would have left it in the real space time
,
-

world ; wh er eas P lato separated it from and thus doubled the wo r ld , , .

Acco r ding to P lato the spa ce time world of the senses h as an actual
,
-

share o r parti cipation ( meth exis ) in the world of ideas because it is ,

a copy of th e i deal prototypes and because the Demiurge had created

the universe on the basis of these eternal ideas ; and whatever the
things of the sensible world actually are they exist de facto only by ,

participation in the idea Th e world of ideas nevertheless is always

.
, ,

something distinct something prope r alone being in the true sense

, ,

of the word ; whereas the sensible world is only an illusion a mean ,

98 ANCIENT PH ILOSOPH Y
between being and non being This chasm between the world of ideas
— .

and the sensible world disturbed Aristotle greatly and he thought

of it as a duplication of the world It has been the subj ect of dispute
.

whether or not Aristotle corre ctly interpreted the mean ng of the i

doctrine of ideas In an y case P lato could answer : I did not intend

. ,

to multiply the world fo r to me the visible wo rld does not represent

,

true reality For Aristotle it does ; and so from his standpoint and
.
,

onl y from his standpoint does such a duplication take place

, .
”

For P lato never theless the material wo r ld recedes into an unreal

, ,

illusion This world is not being but only the copy of an idea That
. .

whi ch for Aristotle denoted the real wo rld was to be found fo r

P lato only in the idea and only through it .

Bu t can P lato pe r sist in holding to this explanation ? Is sensible

reality actually nothing more than the copy of an idea ? If with
out it there can be no emergence of any ideas at all and if ,

without a definite perception of the senses there can be no emergence

of a definite idea is its meaning after all so tri vial ? Wheth er this
,

meaning denotes an occas on or a cause is unimportant for at least

i ,

fo r P lato there can be no knowledge o f ideas witho u t sensible reality .

An d if thi s sensible reality i s actually only an illusion why must the

,

idea appea r through a sensible thing at all ? Wh y do we not possess

only ideas if the only really true world is the world of ideas ? S ensible
,

reality created the same kind of a difficulty for P lato that th e problem
of evil had .
100 A NCIENT P H ILOSOPH Y
occasioned by the love of money and money has to be acquired fo r ,

th e sake and in the servi ce of the body b ed Jowett ”

( P h ae d o 66 ; , .
,

Vol I pp 449
.
, .

P lato a ctually repeats the di ctum of the P ythagoreans : the body

is the sepulcher of the soul ( 6 1 m body — mw Thus 0
,
“ '

a
,

we can understand his demand that we become only so closely as ‘

so ciate d wi th the body as i s actually necessary that we should never ,

permit ourselves to become satu rated with it and its nature We should .

hold ou r selves aloof from it until God redeems us completely ,

“

from it .
”

C onsequently the entire inte r est of P lato in man is con een

tr ated on the soul and his philosophi cal anth r opology is essentially
,

psychology Let us listen then to his solution of the problem relating

.
, ,

to the origin of the soul its es sence and its fate Ther e is a great
, , .

deal of mythological phraseology in which it is wrapped this -

readily be discerned but the philosophical kernel can ne er th eles

— v

be laid bare .

2 . TH E O RI GIN O F TH E S OU L

The o rigin of the soul can be traced to the Demiurge H e sow .

the seed and made a beginning ( Tima u s 41 if ed Jowett Vol

,
”
e , .
, .
, .

p . Th e human soul is not drawn from the wor ld soul as a p —

o r an emanation o r an offshoot It is true that some of the co .

out of whi ch the world soul is constituted ha ve been mixed-

“

if not in th e same proportion into its constitution : on the ,

elements that are indivisible eternal unchanging and , , ,

and on the other elements that are di visible as well as

,
"

that is constantly changing Bu t the human soul is truly .

the Demiurge himself just as the world soul originates ,

-

T m lato is the r efore neithe r an e man atio

( i a u s 4 1e P ,

pantheist Each soul is something sin

.

its home ; and there are as many souls as there are

Demiurge h as placed them in these stars as in a char iot
gr anted to each of them a view of the nature of the universe
made known to each of them the unchangeable laws of
This is no astr logi cal fan cy but an expression of P lato s co
’
o ,

that by virt e of its natural powers the soul apriori knows

u

truths and values so that it is able ,

life and for the world P lato was of t .

starry heavens fille d the heart of man

 P LATO II 101

to him an intimation of supermundan e no rms To this extent the . .

soul s coming into existence was in the hands of God If th e soul

’
.

we re entirely th e wo rk of God it would almost necessarily become ,

entirely divine Bu t this could not be C onsequently the Demiu rge

. .

ent rusts it fo r its futu re journey to the car e of the cr eated gods “ ”

that is the ear th and the planets the instr uments of time
,
— S O that ,
“ ”

they might call the souls into existence clothe them with bodies , ,

nourish them and pe rmit them to grow and finally receive back

fi
,

again the child ren of men w hen they disappea red fro m the face of
th e earth This was the
. rst bi rth of the soul in this spa e time world
c — .

O the r births would follow as we shall see immediately ,

.

3. THE ES S ENCE O F TH E S OU L

Th e spirit F irst of all we will try to establish from what

sou l as .
,

has already been said what can be known about the essence of
th e soul A cco r ding to P lato as is manifest from his teaching on its
.
,

immortality the soul is in visible immaterial spi ri tual and supe r

, , , ,

mundane ; and this is true not only of th e wo rld soul but also of -

th e human soul This is warranted by th e explanation that the

.

Demiu rge himself c r eated it What he created is an immo r tal being . .

O nly when it is tr ansfe rr ed to the inst r uments of time does it join

”

itself to a body an d only then do sense expe riences begin Th e im

, .

mate riality and the immo rtality of the soul ar e the themes of the
P h aedo : its supermundane home an d its natu r e are the topics of the
P h aedr u s .

1 ) Th e so u l an dan objection to the immateriality

se nsatio n . As
of the soul it is alleged that P lato held out for a sensory soul The
, .

created deities as he writes [these created gods ] imitating h im

, ,

[the D emiu r ge ] re ceived f r om him

, the immortal prin ciple of the
soul ; and around this they proceeded to fashion a mor tal body and ,

made it to be the vehicle of the soul and constructed within the

fi
,

body a soul of another nature w hich was mo r tal subj ect to terrible ,

an d i rresistible a ections
f
f — r st of all pleasu re the greatest in cite , ,

ment to evil ; Then pain which deters fr om good ; also rashness and , (

fear two foolish counsellors anger har d to be appeased and hope

, , ,

e sily led astray these they mingled with irrational sense and
a —

with all daring love according to ne cessar y laws and so framed man
-
,
”

( Tim u s
ae 6 9 d ; ed
, Jowett Vol II p 48 ) .
, .
, .

2 ) Unity ofth e s o u l This discussion of another of a mortal sensory

.
,

soul should not convey the impression that in man ther e is actually
,
‘

102 A NCIENT P H I LOSOPH Y

mo re than One soul It only means as P lato admits in the Repu blic
.
, ,

that the soul has vari ous distinct parts : ( ) reason o r the rational soul a

( A y w oé ) which
n x vcoincides
, with reasoning and with non senso r y -

meditation ; ( b ) the cour ageous soul to which belong the

noble ( o r highe r ) emotions such as ange r ambitio n courage and
, , , ,

hope ; and ( c) the instincti ve carnally appetitive soul

"

in which are rooted the appetitive and sexual desir es as well as ,

pleasure and a ver sion and the need of rest Although in the Timaeu s
, .

these par ts of the soul are actually lo calized in the head chest and , ,

abdomen P lato p resupposes only one human soul M an is composed

, .

of body and soul This unity of the human soul is clearly apparent
.

i n the P h aedr u s which compares the human soul with a pai r of

,

winged ho rses and a charioteer ( P h aedr u s 226 ; ed Jowett Vol I ”

, .
, .
,

p . Th e cha rioteer is the spirit soul ( reason ) ; the paired ho r ses -

are the othe r tw o parts the more noble the courageous the le ss
, , ,

noble the instinctive par t of the soul If the soul has matured and
, .

grown together it would appear that its immater iality is endangered

,

because sensible r eality is d r awn into the soul O n the othe r hand .
,

it is patent that to P lato the soul is something immaterial H o w .

this still pos sible ? Evidently because the soul in the tr uest sense
o f the wo r d i s fo r him only the spirit—soul This be comes e vident in .

the P h aedo The immor tal spir itual soul of which th e Dialogue
.
,

treats has become independent of all sensible r eality This is of

, .
,

course not possible in this world but it will be after death

, .

An d thus we see that this discussion of the two lowe r po r tions of

the soul attempts to take into account the fact that the spi ritu al
sou l exists in union with the body Th e Neo—P latonists debated very .

fie r cely whethe r o r not the senso ry soul persists in existence after

the death of the body I amblich u s affirmed it ; P lotinus P orphyry and
.
, ,

P ro clus denied it P lato holds with the latter because his discussion
.
,

of the sensory soul reflected his realization that the spiritual soul
‘

could not show itself as pure spirit b u t also had to assimilate

the whole world of the senses Too bad it had to assimilate it as .
“ ”
,

he naturally thought For he would have preferred to deal with

.

man as a purely rational being ; but he was still unprej udiced enough
to realize that in this world we must at least take into consideration
corporeality and its sense per ceptions and its yearnings .

P lato was neithe r a materialist nor a sensualist No r did he align .

himself with the spi ritualists and the pan logists H e held to a r eason .

ab e m
l idd e ofthe roa d position thereby ten ding n atu r ally eno ugh
l “ ”
— - -
,
104 ANCIE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
all mo vement from without must ultimately b e reduced to self motion -
.

S elf motion stands at the ultimate beginning By such a concept the

-
.

psychic becomes an ontologi cal principle or ar ch e: insofar as a being '

is motion and life it is soul Again we come face to face with the
, .

truth : In the beginning

“
but this time the Logos denotes the
soul : In the beginning was the soul .

2 ) Th e ef fect ofth is t aching o n later sp u latio n This view r adi

e ec .

ates P latonic speculation down the centu ries In P lato himself these .

two concepts of soul stand unevenly one alongside the othe r In .

Aristotle they will be r econciled To him self mo v ement den o ted .

-

the fun damental notion of his metaphysi cs : the Unmoved M o ver

whose essence is pure spi rituality thought of thought ( dn ,
”
v o is

vmj w ) An d wi thin the world the soul as entelechy is to Aristotle

oe s .

also a p rinciple of life in all degrees of the o rganic e ven where there ,

is no spi rit or mind This view is held also by the S cholastics

. .

In modern times beginning with Desca r tes the second meaning

, ,

of the soul [as the p rinciple of life ] fades into the background In .

the new era the soul is only consciousness Bu t with the advent of .

Vitalism the othe r meaning [as the principle of life ] again asser ts
,

itself ; and in the vitalist philosophy of recent times especially in the ,

wo r ks of Ludwig Klages the soul is again championed with rene wed

,

emphasi s but in this re vi val the fir st meaning of the soul as the

,

mind is so rry to say positively excluded In his philosophy soul is

, , .
,

exactly the antithesis of the mind and the mind is its distinct ad ,

ver sar
y F or the
. ancients howeve r this created no di f
fi
, culty S oul can, .

be both mind and life .

S ou l as metaxy o r prin ciple o f mediation S ince th e soul is life .

and mo vement it becomes a medium between the idea and sensible

,

reality The human soul as mind is the seat of the knowledge of

.

ideas As a senso ry soul it is also the place into which the contents
.

of sensation flow in o r der on the one hand to awaken ideas and on , , ,

the o the r to be read and interp reted by the ideas Th e soul joins
,
.

the two extremes together The same is true also of the wo rld—soul . .

It is also th e seat of ideas of the ideas acco r ding to whi ch the wo rld
,

was fashioned As such it antedates the world S ince this wo rld soul
. .
-

as the fir st movement is the cause Of all other external motions and ,

as a consequence is naturally connected with the body the world soul ,

-

again b ridges the gap between the world of ideas and the materi al
wo rld By means of it the ideas are the sou rce of the material world
.

and endow it with its p r esent str uctu r e Th rough the soul the sensi .
 P LATO II 105

ti ve faculty of man and of the world can first of all sha re in the
idea and this insofa r as the soul is both mind and movement The
,
.

doctrine of the parts of the soul seeks to symbolize nothing mor e

than this transition from the spiritual to th e sensory It is th e bridging .

over of dualism of the ch or ismu s This may be clearly per ceived in

, .

th e Ti ma s where the appetitive soul is interp r eted as the principle

eu ,

of life ( 77 a b ) .

It would be worthwhile to know how P lato j oins together these

two elements namely mind and movement What do these elements
, .

h ave n common ? Th e similarities and dissimilarities of P lato and

i

Leibniz on this q uestion o f

fer a fruitful fi eld f investigation o .

4 . TH E FATE O F TH E S OU L

I nc arnation especially typi al viewpoint in P lato s speculation

An
’
. c

is his teaching on the transmigration of souls O nce th e soul h as left .

the hands of the Demiurge it is transferred to the instruments of ,

“

ti me : it undergoes its fir st i n carnat on here upon this ear th This

”
i .

first birth is the same fo r all so that no soul can be discriminated ,

against At the conclusion of th is first life the soul appears along

.
,

with its mortal body before the j dgment seat of th e dead to give an u

acco nting of its cond u ct here upon earth Acco r ding to the judg
u .

ment passed upon it th e soul will either enter the land of the blessed
,

o r be expelled to the subterranean prison chamber of the damned .

This wandering las ts for a th sand years ou .

C hoice of life s course After it th ere follows the se cond birth In

’
. .

this rebi r th each soul chooses fo r itself its future lot From the world .

beyond the grave the souls pou r into the meado w of forgetfulness to
,

express their choice and a herald pro claims in a solemn fashion :

,

M o r tal souls behold a new cycle of life and mortality Y our genius
“
.
,

will not be allotted to you b t you will have to choose you r genius ; ,
u

and let him who draws the fi rst lot have the first choice and the life ,

whi ch he chooses S hall be his destiny Virtue is free and as a man .

,

honou r s o r dishonours h e he will have more or less of her ; the r,

responsibility is with th e h ooser God is j u stified ( Rep 6 17 ( 1;

“

c
—
”
.
,

ed Jowett Vol I p
.
, .
, .

The choi ce of a state of life is especially dangerous for men S ome .

choose a lot which to them appears to be beautiful and glorious fo r ,

example a tyranny but th e chooser will late r lament th at in s ch a

, ,
u

choi ce it was his fate to be for ced to wat ch his own children con

sumed by it Then those who have thus chosen re vile the God and
.
106 ANCIE NT PH ILOS O PH Y
a cc se H im of wrongdoing Bu t G o d is innocent ; we are the ones
u .

who have ch osen the Demon Virtue is without a master ; th at is .

,

everyone is able to acq uire it When we fail it is be cause ignorance .

,
“

and inor dinate desire have con q uered us An d these have also a
”
.

decisive voi ce in the election of a state of life because the s oul in its ,

pre vious existen ce had so guided itself and thereby h ad SO formed

itself that in this hoi ce of state it must act in conformity to what it
c

had made of itself The majority express thei r choice a cco r ding to
.

lifelong habits acquired in a p re vious existence ( Rep 620 a ) It be .

, .

comes a matter of self determination when a man at his second

-

birth chooses to assume the nature of a woman ; in his pre vious life
he had permitted his sen sitive faculty to lord over his reason and
thus he h ad be come effeminate If Aj ax should decide to become a .

lion it would be because in his former existence he had lived and

,

acted li k e that beast of prey If Ther sites S h ould choose to become

.

an ape the bu ffoon would have already lived as one

, .

It is impo rtant that in our lifetime the cha rioteer of the soul
,

mind and reason keep the reins firmly in his gr asp and that
—

by heck ing on them master the i r rational and th e emotional feel

c
‘
—

ings sentiments passions and desires and by so doing guide us

, , ,
—

corre ctly and justly t h rough this life : A man must take with him
into the world below an adamantine faith in the truth and right ,

that there too he may be undazzled by the desire of wealth o r the

othe r allu rements of evil lest coming upon tyrannies and similar
, ,

villainies he do irremediable wrongs to others and su ffe r yet wor se

,

himself ( R p 6 19 a ; ed Jowett Vol I p

”
e .
, .Accordingly as , .
, .

the soul during its fi rst life on earth had contemplated to a greater
, ,

o r les s degree the eternal ideas and truth s and had sought to make
them its own to that same extent will th e soul in its later incarnation
,

attain to a higher or a lower stage of existence .

Table of v alu es for th e cho i ce o f life fo rms P lato presents us with - .

a hierarchy of values for life forms and this casts a brilliant light -
,

on his evaluation of man Th e soul that has contemplated as many

.

as possible of these eternal truths will r e cei v e the body of a philosopher

o r of a servant of beauty or of a muse or of an Eros Th e oul of . s

the next high est o rde r will ente r into the body of a king who has
ruled according to law Th e soul of th e following degree will ta k e
.

up its abode in the body of a S tatesman of a good father or of a , ,

good businessman Th at of the fourth stage will ente r into the fr ame
.

of a gymnast who lo ved physical exer cise o r of a zealous ad vocate of

108 A NCIE NT PH ILOSO P H Y
an mo re fixed until they solidify into e ver mo re definite patterns
d ,

until in the end a person is fo r ced into the car eer of his own choosing

fi
.

Fr eedom is of cou rse always p resent wi thin the limits of hi s own

, ,

choice In P lato determini sm was unable to n d a foothold H e was a

. .

true ad vocate of th e freedom of the will C onsequently he was also a .

stanch defende r of th e cons ciousness of guilt H e preached t his doc .

trine with all the earnestness an d the mor al sublimity of an o rdained

p rophet heralding a new r eligion Th e eschatological my ths in the .

Gor gias ( 5 24 the P h aedo ( 107 and the Repu blic ( 614 ff) .

belong among the great monuments of human mo rality and the ,

reade r cannot peruse them without being deeply affected and elevated .

5 . C ONDU CT OF LI F E

Tr u e h appiness If such a fate is at stake it is ve ry impor tant that

.
,

p roper conduct be Observed And P lato was not only a theo retical
.

mor alist ; he was able also to fo rmulate tr uly p r actical no rms of

conduct All men wish to be happy Bu t as P lato de velops the
. .
,

thought they always seek happiness in the wrong places S ome look
, .

fo r it whe re ve r the natu ral appetites the lowe r po r tion of the soul , ,

demand it be sought consequently in ri ches in position in pleasur e

, , , , ,

and in passion But this does not constitute tr ue happiness Men of

. .

this kind are ne ver satisfied neve r content ; they ar e parched by

,

thei r carnal appetites because they a re sla ves to thei r passions and
,

thus become thei r own j ailo r s O the r s imagine that they can find .

happiness in ambition and in lust fo r power In them the cou rage .

ous part of the soul seizes the upper hand They are somewhat better .

Off than those first mentioned Bu t what they actually attain to here
.

on ea rth is at most to the rank of an hono rable soldier o r of a good

sportsman ; O ften enough they end up by being careerists o r success
ful business manage rs True happiness can be foun d only wher e t ruth
.

and values are esteemed highly and actually r ealized P ride and a .

sense of hono r a re wicked counselo rs but worse counselo r s are ,

carnal appet i tes .

O u r fir st task O nly clea r thinking gua r antees genuine happiness

.
,

because it alone leads the way to truth This way leads us onwar d .

by means of the eternal ideas Ignorance is as a consequence a true

.
, ,

sickness of the soul Knowledge and contemplation of the truth are

.

its rightful state When we reflect upon the ideas of God which ar e
.

reprodu ced after a fashion in c reation and when we understand ,

something of the di v ine o r de r ou r soul has the nourishment which

,
 PL AT O n 109

it requ i res Fo r through th is reflection and under standing the soul

.

itself is co rrectly regulated What is still more impor tant the soul
approaches e ver mo re an d m
.
,

o r e closely to the in ne r riches of God

H imself whose essence is manifested in H is ideas and in H is act
,

of c reation and it becomes like to H im To fly away is to become

, .
“

like God as far as this is possible ; and to become like H im is to

,

become holy just and wise ( Th eaetetu s 176 b ; ed Jowett Vol II

, , .
, .
,

p 178 ) — this is the supreme goal of mankind P rotagoras had

. .

maintained : man is the measure of all things P lato says : God .

ought to be to us the measure of all things ( L ws 716 c ; ed Jowett a , .

,

Vol II p
.
, . The whole is an ethos of reality tr uth and righteous ,
, ,

ness P leasu re and pass i on are excluded as are ambition an d p ride

. .

These are indeed only blind leaders S ubj ective caprice with its .

a variciousness ( M w Ex desi r e to be satiated ) must remain silent

-
ri o ei v
,
“ ”
.

I n its place stands the motto which should be insc r ibed abo v e th e
Repu blic : Do your pa r t ( 5 é
“
i} wp d w
) W hat this is”
eve r yone
7 .
-
av r o r r e .

must know F o r learning and mo re learning are the nourishment

.

of the soul .

Th e har m oniou s man Is not this an expression of an oft reviled

.
-

intellectualism ? P lato did speak this language Bu t n reality he was . i

not an intellectualist The man who made Eros the subject of two
.

Dialogues n amely the S ymposiu m and the P h aed u s and fu r the r

, r ,

more declared in the Repu blic that b r ave ry and self master y are the -

basic vir tues of any tr ue community was himself convinced that ,

man cannot become holy th rough knowledge alone P lato favored .

a harmoniously balanced fo rmation of the enti re human being — and

in this there spoke th e voice of mature human experience A dispr o .

portion between the faculties of the body and of the soul is both
ugly and harmful to the whole A sturdy soul can by poorly dir ected .
,

study and resear ch as well as by ambition and passion cause a weak

, ,

body to succumb to si ckness C ontr ar iwise a physical culture prae .

,

ticed to an extreme can ruin both soul and mind because it leads to ,

mental laziness the most serious ailment that can overtake a man AS
, .

a consequence whoe ve r studies and learns should not forget physical

,

exer cise ; on the other hand whoeve r indulges in physi cal exe rcise ,

should not curtail the time devoted to de velopment of the mind ,

otherwise he will neve r a cquire the reputation of being a tr uly

cultu red human being P lato also recognized that fo r a full life man
.

requi res some happiness and joy and also a ce rtain amount of ,

pleasure In the Dialogues th e Laws and the P hileb us he took these

. ,
1 10 ANCIE NT P H I LO s OP H Y

matte rs into con side r ation and de clared himself to be in favor of a

“
mixed life that is to say a life composed of both contemplation
,
”
,

and pleasure In his own mind P lato was clear that no ir r r tional
.
,

element be it blood or race honor or pride instinct or feelin g will

, , , ,

to power o r ty r anny the subconsci ous or orgiasti c frenzy could be a

, ,

mo ral p rinciple that is to say a norm fo r life and its conduct Upon
, , .

the chariot of the soul only reason may stand Reason alone should .

hold the reins in its hands ; it must control everything e ven the sense ,

of hono r pleasure and satisfa tion By th eir hedonism the C yr enaics

, , c .
,

negle cted moral value ; the C ynics by thei r insi stence on virtue dis , ,

regarded the natu ral need fo r happiness which is in man P lato w as .

the first to teach us that man can be both good and happy at one and
th e same time ( f dy fld i S i/ y iy dm p) as A ristotle ’
i ); a s r e Ka . eI J a u ov ve r a t u ,

tells us in his panegyric on his maste r .

6 I M M ORTALITY
.

P lato s thoughts on t h e i mmortality of the soul o f fer a fitting climax

’

to his te aching on man These ideas are developed especially in the

.

P h aedo to which we might add the P h aedr u s 245 c the Repu blic
, ,

608 a and the Laws 8 95 f

, f There are three a rguments which P lato
.

advanced in defense of his position Fi rst i mmortality follows from .

,

the existence of the aprio ri content of ou r knowledge This content .

is not deri ved from our experiences of daily life It ne ver theless must .

have been acquired ; consequently the soul must have had a p revious
existence S trictly speaking such an argument pro ves only the pr e
.
,

existence of the soul not its immortality Th e postexistence ( a pa te

, . r

p )
ost is d r awn f r om a fu r the r consideration namely that all be com i ng , ,

and all dissolution rest upon the transition from one antithetical state
to its opposite : sleep follows an awakening ; Upon awakening sleep ; ,

from the cold warmth is engendered ; from the warmth cold ; and
, ,

so on Thus we can envisage the pre existence of the soul as a sleep to

.
-

which an awakening naturally belongs ; the awakening is again relieved

by sleep and so the process continues without end By such an
,
.

argument immortality is p ro ved .

The soul furthermore must be immo r tal because it is simple A

, , ,
.

thing ceases to be only when it is dissolved into component par ts ,

and things can be dissolved into parts only when they a re bodies .

That the soul is not material o r corporeal we concluded from a con

sideration of its relation to the idea Ideas are unifo rm always .
“

,
”
112 ANCIENT PH ILOSO PH Y
tr anslation Th e City ofGo d
, , 2 vols [New Yo rk : E
. . P Dutton ,
.

Vol I pp 229 230)

.
, .
—

U BL I C TH E REP

P lato wr ote of man not only as an indi vidual but also as a membe r
Of society and his speculation concerning the state is treasured as th e
,

most valuable and most renowned contribution of hi s whole phi

lo soph y which is truly ri ch in original thoughts In this we can
, .

appr eciate an ew how philosophy i n i ts classical period sought to be

a practical guide fo r mankind .

1 . O R I GI N OF TH E S TATE

state arises naturally both in its fir st beginnings and in the

A ,

essential outlines of its late r de velopments It is not free will or .

choice which b rings men to band together ; they follow an instinct

and a law of nature P lato therefore could not ha ve been an ad vocate
.
, ,

of a contract theo ry of a state in which the state is concei ved as tr acing

its origin to a simple choice of its citizenry and in which all de velop
ment is permitted to take place acco r ding to this same free choice .

H e ca rr ied on an effecti v e polemic against the opinion of the S ophists

( L aws 88 9 d
, f
f ) that in connection with
. a form of gove r nment a
man can do exactly as he pleases — as if in this matter there were no
objecti ve norms that wer e greate r than man himself By this theo ry .

P lato became the fathe r of the natu r al law up to the time Of H ugo
Grotius No matter how this theo ry is bolstered late r on Aristotle
.
-

himself gave it anothe r basis and an other interp r etation in any

case P lato was the fir st who challen ged the arbitr ary power of the
tyrant and of the commune with a court of highe r instan ce to which
mankind could appeal again and again whene ver it fell victim to its ,

own want of moderation .

2 . C LAS S ES

Wo rkmen Thus there originates directly from nature a social

.

o r der in the republic Because the individual is not self suppor ting
.
-

self—sustaining insofa r as the necessities of life are concerned he ,

not an autar ch ; he p roceeds to di vide wor k in a way that will

“ ”

beneficial to the whole S ome take upon themselves the task .

pro viding food ; other s manual labo r ; other s business an d commer

, ,

and thus there arises th e working class the p roducers , .

War rio r s S ince the citizens of th e republi

.
 P LATO II 1 13

the dange r of becoming involved in hostilities o r wars from without

and from within they stand in need of guardians or soldier s O f
, .

necessity then there arises a professional military class Th e best of

, , .

these will naturally assume control of the state ; they will be r espo n
sible fo r both internal and external policy and thus they will for m
the ruling class the philosophe r kings P lato devoted a great deal
,
“
-
.
”

of attention to the class which defends the state the soldiers O n them , .

ever ything depends They must be educate d mo st carefully ; this means

.
,

of cou rse that they must become corpo rally fit and mentally able
,
.

1 ) E ducatio n of th e yo u ng A t this point P lato p r opounded his

.

pedagogi cal ideas Even fables with which men regale thei r children
.

should be carefully Chosen They may not fo r example co ntain

.
, ,

anything about the gods which would bring them into disrepute .

Enmities between the deities plots and counterplots in heaven about

, ,

which H omer poetized so gracefully should not be told to children ,

.

H o w can men be properly educated if they enter tain only a low

r egar d fo r th e highest beings there are ? Children should not be made
to listen to anything that smacks of cowar dice dissoluteness or , ,

dishonesty When we recount fo r their benefit the insulting and

.

abusi ve con versations between A chilles and Agamemnon the pas

fi
,

sio n ate love of Zeus fo r H era the adulte ry which Ar es and A ph r odite
,

committed o r in general the moral in r mitie s such as haughty p r ide

, , ,

banality cruelty or rebellion against the gods and finally when

, , ,

telling such stories we make out that such wretches are really he roes ,

or when retailing them it would appear as if injusti ce brought

rewards and justi ce only penalties by so doing we would be con ,

tributing to the delinquency of j uveniles who as it is are all too

prone to be led astray If we should constantly seek to fill the minds
.

o f these young folk with s u ch examples of evil we would harm ,

these future leaders far more than we would inj ure young bulls
if we turned them out to l co w eede d pastures By grazing on o .

patches of such harmful fodder the cattle would suffer fo r the , ,

small por ti ons of the noxious weeds whi ch they mun ched would
t alesce to form a whole and this would fi nally become poisonous
o ,

ifnot death dealing — .

2 ) Th e cu lti atio n o f th e a t Fo r this reason plays mus c and

v r s .
, , i ,

painting must be carefully super vised O nly the deeds of the valorous .
,

should be portrayed In no sense should .

waste thei r t me on the enti cements of i

onate displays in fact any ,

1 14 ANCIE NT PH ILO S OPHY
th ing that is laughable effeminate or ch ildish to say nothing of the , , ,

dr amas which depict bestial li ves Th e sup reme norm of art is not .

the subjective pleasur e the fanatical transpo rt ; it is not the pleasu r ,

able sensation whi ch results from enticement and its satisfaction ; but
it is the objectively beautiful th e ontologically corre ct and the , ,

ethi cally valuable If we should permit pleasure and enj oyment to

.

h ave the fi nal voi ce in determining w h at is be a tiful and what is u

not we would find that a wicked kind of Theatro cracy had seized
,
”

con tr ol and that this in the tr uest sense of th e term denotes a lawless
, ,

libertinism Bu t in music th ere fi rst arose the universal con ceit o f

.
“

omnis cience and general lawlessness (Laws 701 a ; ed Jowett , .

,

Vol II p
.
, .

3) P h ysi al tr aining Greatest emphasis should be pla ced on physical

c .

training Th e guardians must become strong and sturdy in order to

.

be able to wage war For this reason the youth of the state must be .

inured to continence in sex matter s and be reared to moder ation in

eating and drinking They should be taught to take part in sports .

not fo r th e purpose of establishing reco r ds but to learn from them ,

h o w to b r ing the body unde r control A hardy race is one th at does .

not pay much attention to medical care Wounds and si ckness which .
,

the battle of life causes should be tr eated with appropriate remedies ,

.

Bu t to tr eat a b ody that has grown slack th rough la z iness and im

moderation should ne ve r be shown in the modern manner th at is “

,
”
,

to say by means of plasters and sal ves of bandages and baths of

, , ,

compresses and cupping glasses of diets and stri ct regime : this e v er ,

lasting round of docto r s and a hypochondriacal anxiety about the

state of one s health is no life at all ; it is dying by inches and is
’

unworthy of a man .

4) E u ge nics To promote a healthy race P lato o ffered some eugeni c

.
,

regulatives : The best of either sex should be united with the best
“

as often and the inferio r with the inferior as seldom as possible ;

fi
, ,

and that they S hould rear the offspring of one sort of union but not ,

of the other if th e flock is to be maintained in r st rate condition

,
-
”

R
( pe 45
. 9 d
, ; ed Jowett Vol I p M alformed
. children should , .
,
.

be exposed The mentally incu rable and congenital criminals that

.
,

is mo r al degenerates should be put to death The norms which are

, ,
.

set up for communities of men and fo r p roperty in common ser ve

the same purpose namely to p rodu ce a eugenic r ace
, ,
.

5 ) Wo me n an d pr oper ty The guardians should remain unmarried .

and shoul d own no property so that their personal interests mi ght ,

1 16 ANCIE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
of that which is beautiful in itself and to furni sh ideas according
to whi ch the s tate migh t be administered .

1 ) Th e maste y of th b e t For there will never be an end of “

r e s .

wi ckedness among the peoples of the world if the philosophe rs do

not become kings and the kings philosophers What is j ustice ? is the
, .

theme of th e Rep bli Th e answer is given : j ust ce i s righteousness

u c . i ,

th at means everything in th e state among the citizens in the laws , , ,

and within instit tions s h ould be true should correspond to the

u , ,

ideal order No t what man would like to do but what a man sho u ld
.
,
'

do is the order th at is demanded fo r the state In this regard the

,

formula means : Do you r part ( s é m md w ) Truth wisdom and r av fi o

-
n e .
.

, ,

th e pu r est moral conation are the foundations upon which the

ideal polity or commonwealth is constructed C onseque ntly only .

,
“
the best should rule Th e state whi ch absorbed the attention of
”
.

P lato was an aristo cra cy .

2 ) M a te y of th e o ne b e t If only that one who was actually

s r s .

considere d the best headed the state and with this P lato reckons
“ ”

we would have a monarchy Th e man at the head of such a stat e .

Would be all—po w e fu l n t be cause he was a ctually the stron gest but

r ,
°

o ,

because by his wisdom and by his moral conduct he had become a

counselor of justi ce P ersonally he would not speak but justice would
.
,

find a voi ce in h im H e would not be a dictator a man of h oc uolo

.
,

( I will thi s) s ic i
, b o ( thus
u d o I command
e
) sit p r o r atio n e vo l u n tas ,

( let my will take the place of reason ) ; he wo uld be the inte r p r eter
of whatever was good absolutely and his will would be regulated ,

solely by prudence and reason C onsequently no limits would need .

,

to be placed on his j uri sdiction If consequently eithe r he or the .

, ,
“
noctu rnal counsel ( where conditions demand it ) should control
”

the entire political life of a people namely economy justice science , , , , ,

art religion and even marriage and the family and if in the asse rtion
, , ,

of his own th eories the rule r should go so fa r as sentence to de ath

anyone who violently disagreed with h is teaching on the state P lato ,

would consider such an exercise of power as little an encroachment

on individual freedom as another would not consider it an encroach
,

ment on academic freedom if a teacher should refuse to countenance

his pupil making a mistake in arithmetic S uch an all powerful .
-

monar ch P lato holds in the Rep bli would surpass any other r ule r
, u c,

who ruled entirely according to law A monarch is mu ch mor e .

flexible and much mor e adaptable Laws are always a fixed q uantity ; .

life is on the contrary ever di fferent and constantly ch anging O nce

, ,
.
 P LATO II 117

a monarch were in th e possession of correct political prin ciples he ,

could r each th e proper decisions no matter wh at k ind of a situation ,

might confront him We will hear later on what kind of a refutation

.

Aristotle o f
fered to this theory .

3. F ORM S O F S TATES
Timo cr acy Besides the republic P lato mentioned other forms of
.
,

th e state : timo cr acy oligar chy demo cra cy and ty r anny A timocra cy
, , , .

would be r uled not by th e spiritually and morally elite but by those

who are fired by ambition : men who regard themselves as gifted and
”

talented because they are athletes or huntsmen or soldiers These are .

in clined to act on the spu r of the moment rather than with coolnes s and
calculation ; they are prone to wage wa r ra the r than to court peace ; they

are cunning and resourceful experts but without a liberal education ,

of mind and heart They are also avaricious ; consequently they own
.

property and enrich themselves in secret They se rv e their own per .

sonal inte rests rathe r than those of the community In the power of .

the state they are concer ned not S O mu ch with the state as they a re
,

with its power ; and this powe r is thei r s .

O ligarch y E tymologi cally an oligarchy denotes the rule Of the

.
,

few ; actually how ever it is the rule of the rich to the exclusion of
, ,

the poo r If in a timocr acy secret avarice was the ulcerous evil in the
.
,

oliga rchy the profit motive becomes the no rm of government In a .

timocracy at least the honorable and the courageous portions of the

so u l were in as cendancy ; in an oligarchy e ve rything is dominated by
the lower portion of the soul shee r covetousness Th e state is no — .

longer administered in accordance with reality and with righteous

ness but its administration is to be found in the hands of a
,

fe w usurers A S a consequence professional people do not o cc py

.
,
u

any important posts only politicians who pose as all k nowing

,
-
,

although de facto they ar e ignorant Under such a form of govern .

ment we have a primacy of politi cs which is in effect only O ffice ,

seeking and whi ch hinders all worthwhile endeavo r destroys internal ,

unity and con demns the state to impotency because the people no
, ,

longer find representation in the state only th e exploiting class ,

.

Demo cr acy A further deviation from the ideal is en v isaged by

.

P lato in a democracy I n such a state complete freedom of a ction

.

p revails A
. t least
“
they sa
y so as P lato remarked sarcasti
, cally There
”
.

is full freedom especially of speech A s a consequence in su ch a

,
.
,

state w e h ave no bindin g authority n i nviolable rights ; all ar e , o

1 18 ANCIE NT PH ILO SO PHY
equal and eve ryone is able to express himself as he pleases as in an ,
“
old clothes shop These and othe r kindred characteristics are p roper
’
.
”

to democracy which is a charming form of gove rnment full of

,
“

variety and diso r der and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and ,

unequals alike ( Rep 5 58 c ; ed Jowett Vol I p ”

P lato belie ves
.
, .
, .
, .

the real cor ruption of a democ racy is to be found in th e d emocr at

himself : H is life has neithe r law no r order ; and this distracted
“

existence he terms joy and bliss and freedom ( Rep 5 6 1 d ; ed .

, .

Jowett Vol I p ,
Th e souls of the many ha ve no eye which
.
, .
“

can endure the vision of the di v ine ophist 25 4 3 ; ed Jowett Vol

( S , .
,
.

II p, . In this we can discern the born aristocr at In addition .

,

P lato had undergone many ha r rowing expe r iences at the hands of

the democracy as it existed in Greece in his day And sophistry had .

turned both tru th and rights topsy—turvy License was called freedom .
,

rashness bravery shamelessness manliness debau che ry grandiosity

, ,
.

An d so we can ask oursel v es : M ust such conditions always exist ?

An d is it really t r ue that some possess the t r uth with absolute ce r ti
tude wher eas o ther s a re excluded from it with the same ce rtitude ?
,

Ty r an ny The most degene r ate form of the state is found in a

.

tyranny This is not the antithesis of democr acy but results from it
. .

Demo cr acy flourishes by an ex cess of freedom Wi ve s no longe r obey .

thei r husbands ; in fact e ven animals ar e mor e insolent and less ,

restrained in a democracy than under any othe r form of government ,

for as the mistr ess so also the poodle Even horses and other
“

, .
”

draught animals ar e mo re awar e of th e freedom ; thei r pace is more

stately and they cannot be b rought to give gr ound to the pedestr ians
all because the p rinciple of equality pre vails Bu t such excesses lead .

gradually to the downfall of fr eedom itself The tr uth being that .

“

the excessive increase of anything often cause s a reaction in the

opposite di rection ; and this is the case not only in the seasons and in
the vegetable and animal life but abo ve all else in the fo rms of ,

go vernment ( R p 564 a ; ed Jowett Vol I p

”
e In these internal
.
, .
,
.
, .

strifes the people need and dem and a leade r An d because they are .

accustomed to have always some Champion whom they set o ver

“

them se lves and nurse into greatness ( Rep 565 c ; ed Jowett Vol I .
, .
, .
,

p . it may even happen that such a leade r is ele vated still hi gher
by the wily magicians and ty r ant makers of the pa rty until he
“ ”
,

gets a taste of power just as a lion becomes a man eater j ust as soon ,
—

as he samples human flesh S uch a pampered individual becomes .

intoxicated by the powe r that he has tasted and begins to suffer fr om

120 ANCIE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
such governments are not polities at all no r are laws right which ,

are passed for the good of th e parti cu lar classes and not for the good
of the whole S tate S tates whi ch have su ch laws are not polities but
.

parties and their notions of j u stice are simply unmeaning (Laws

,
" ”
,

7 15 b ; ed Jowett Vol II pp 48 6
.
, P lato refused to accept such
.
, .

a totalitarian state ; it is the modern state of M achiavelli N O one .

should submit to su h a government ; a person should if necessa ry

c , ,

su ffer himself to be banished or he should emigrate of his own free

will If at last necessity plainly compels him to become an exile
.
“

from his native land rather than bow his neck to the yoke of sla very
,

and be ru led by inferiors and he has to fly an exile he must be and, ,

endu re all su ch trials rathe r than accept another form of go vernment

whi ch is likely to make men worse (Laws 770 d ; ed Jowett Vol ”
, .
,
.

II p
, .

Th e power o f law There is also a power of law and of truth

. .

This powe r P lato wi shed to be established in his republic H is state .

is a constitutional gove rnment and a powe r whi ch incorpo rates ,

j ustice in its laws and policies appears to him to be without blame :

From t h e fact that the polis of P lato is spatially limited it mu st
— ”

not contain more than 5 040 families w e can readily understand

—

that he did not intend it to become a wo rld p o wer or to gain control

over the whole world Decisive for a correct evaluation of his view
.

p oint is the fact that the P latonic state neither inte r nally nor exte r nally
manifest s any desire fo r material aggrandizement but always and ,

everywhere strove to do its part and the reby to achieve what had
“ ”

been pres cribed by an obje ctive ideal or de r that would be valid for ,

all men and would afford an effective curb to any strong arm policy “
-
”
.

Fo r this reason P lato was not t roubled by the problem s of the indi “

vidual and the community authority and freedom in internal ,

” “ ”

affairs by the poli cy of e conomi cs o r by the problems of nationalism

, ,

and imperialism in foreign affairs Th e eternal ideal order stands .

’

both for necessity and for freedom .

Basis fo r th e s tate If ever the motto i st ti f n d m nt m eg

.
, u i a u a e u r

nor u m had been true of any state it was certainly true of the
, ,

republic C onse q uently, P lato came to the conclusion that the cause
.

that brought about the downfall of any state or kingdom was not to
be sought in the cowardi ce or in the ignoran ce of military strategy
“ ” “ ”

either in the rulers or th e subjects but was due to th ei r general ,

“

degenera cy and espe ci ally to their ignorance of the most important

,

human affai rs (Law s 6 88 c ; ed Jowett Vol II p

”
, And this .
,
.
,
.
“
 PLATO II 12 1

tr adi tion whi ch is tr e declares that cities of whi h some mortal u , c

man not God is th e ruler h ave no es ape from evils and toils , c .

We must hear k en both in private and in publi c life and regulate

, ,

ou r cities and h ouses according to law meaning by the very term ,

‘
law th e distrib tion of the mind ( Law s 7 13 e ; ed Jowett Vol II
’
u
”
, .
, .
,

p .

Utopia H ave we understood correctly what P lato meant by the

.

ideal order ? An d would men hold fast to it once they had become
acq uainted with it ? This would be a supposition for the practi cal
e aa tio n
v of th e P latoni c precepts Be cause we entertain doubts .

about its feasibility we call the blueprint of the P latonic state a ,

Utopia It may be a Utopia but it deserves this name only insofar

.
,

as every ideal is a Utopia : in its full purity it is neither understoo d

nor has it been realized ; neverth eless it illuminates a world of error ,

both as a norm and as an everlasting object ve after which all things i

S trive and upon whi ch all men of good will are nourished .

TH E W O RL D
1 . V IS IB LE WORLD
TH E
Th e work that is ssential for an understanding of P lato s cos
’
e

mo lo gy is the Tim s Th is Dialog e h a influen ced th e world ae u . u s

picture ( W ltbild ) of the West perh aps more t h an any oth er book
”
e .

It was read in the M iddle Ages in the L atin translation of C i ce ro

and C h alcidiu s together with the latter s commentary on it ; it was ’

tapped especially by the mediaeval cosmographies and en cy clopedias ,

as for example those of William of C on hes or H onorius of Autun

, , c .

Even Galileo was inspired by it when h e set down th math emati cal e

draft for his cosmologi cal system A nd espe cially the teleologi cal .
-

study of nature moves in the orbit tra ced out by it down to our day ,

and merges into physi cotheology as it does there As in h is psy .

ch l gy so also in his cosmology P lato made opious u se of the

o o , , c

myth An d h e did th is fi rst of all becau se with in th sph ere of the

. e

space time wor ld there is no su h th ing as a stri t s cien ce as he

-
,
c c ,

h imself said ; and se cond be cause image and symbol permit s to ,

u

conj ecture abo t something th at a mere notion is unable to en compass

u .

P lato sharply and clearly di f ferentiated between th e physical world

and the world of ideas H e designated the ph ysi al as the visible . c

w orld ( d 6 p 6 ) in contradistin ction both to the wo ld of ideas

“
r rr o s a7
‘

9 r

and the wo rld of becoming Th e wo rld of ideas is p rely intelligible . u .

122 ANCIE NT PH ILOS O PHY
The wo rld of becoming stands midway between being and non being ; -

no tr ue and distinct reality may be ascribed to it ; and it is ever

changing and consequently somet h ing manifold di visible indete , ,
r

minate unlimited boundless great and small Bu t what must be kept

, , , , .

in mind is the fact that the physical wo rld is posited n ti me and i

space ; it is only th e appearance of an idea in the sense of being a copy

of an idea Fo r this reason P lato decla red it partakes ( p
. of an r

idea and only for th is reason can it be p rolonged into something like an
apparent existence It is like unmolded wax whi ch is imp rinted with
.

an image by an idea or like a nurse who adopts and cares fo r a child

,

whose real father is the idea Just as sense per ception is possible and .

can be interpreted only by means of the idea so th e physical wo r ld ,

exists only through the idea .

2 F ORM ATI ON OF TH E WORLD

.

Th e myth Th e world exists only because of th e goodness of God

. .

H e was good and the good can neve r be jealous of anything And .

being free fro m j ealousy he desired that all things be as like himself
,

as they could be This is in the tr uest sense the origin of c reation

.
, ,

and of the wo rld as we shall do well in belie ving on the testimony

o f the wise men
( Ti m ae u s
”
29 e ; ed Jowett Vol II p The , .
, .
, .

Demiu rge is not howeve r the c r eator who called out of nothing
, ,

eve rything that exists H e found something p re existent namely

.
-
, ,

matter ; and his work consisted solely in this that finding the whole ,

visible sphere not at rest but mo ving in i rregular and diso r derly ,

fa shion out of the diso rde r b rought o r de r conside ring that this was
, ,

in every way bette r than the other The first thing that the ”

Demiurge formed was the cosmic soul This is a spir ifu al invisible .
, ,

rational and living substance It is a mixture of indi visible and

, .
“ ”

eternally unchanging reality on the one hand ; and on the other of

fi
,

divisible and ever changing reality Just like the human s o ul it is .

,

clothed with a body the matter of the cosmos This soul ivi es
,
. v

th e cosmos and by its providence and its animate powe r forms the

universe : created gods men animals plants and inorgani c matter

, , , , .

Th e unive r se is S tratified : above the kingdom of inorganic matte r is

the plant kingdom ; above this the animals men and ultimately the , , ,

created gods that is the planets ( along with our earth ) an d the
“ ”
, ,

stars Th e higher we as cend so mu ch mo re intelligen ce we meet ; the

.
,

lower we des cend the less intelligence appears in phenomena An d

,
.

as a consequen ce the enti re uni ve rse became a living creature truly “

124 ANC I E NT PH ILO S O PH Y
assures us when it advan ces the theor y of the cosmic soul which regu
lates the universe by its providence ( pé m) and makes it a cosmos r vo

( T i m ae u s 30 b, 5 —c E v en mechanism r ecognizes purpose and

o r de r Th e book of Leucippus is entitled O n the M ind ( H pi ? )
.
“ ”
e van

and it is supposed to have taught that e very happening is a mean ing

ful conformity to law ( mi é Aéy
l/ Ta. m2 i
x d dy j ov all things h r
’
v kr s
,
“

[ happen ] with r ea son and of A r e su ch a r ti culations of

purpose possible without a mind whi h de vises them ? Is there such c

a thing as or de r without itself having been fir st ordered ? M echanism

must assume this Bu t P lato the fath er of the doctrine of idea s and
.
,

thereby also of the eternal propositions before God as far as th e

“

,
”

being of the world was concerned was of the opinion that its orde r
,

presupposes a being whi ch regulates and this being is not only an ,

obj ective goal or purpose but al so subjectively a living spirit Whethe r .

o r not the cosmic soul is the same thin g as God is debated Be that as .

it may in both instances there remains the fu r ther point that the
,

nous which pervades the universe presupposes a living prin iple

fi
“ ”
c

from which it emanates : intelligence ( ) could not be present in vo s

anything whi ch was devoid of a soul ( Timae s 30 b 3; ed Jowett ”

u , .
,

Vol II p
.
, .

3) I n th e b eginning w as th e s o u l We have already tou ched upon

“
.

the theory that the living soul as a source of the intellect may also
be the source of power of causality ( cf p, N t only is the . . o

cosmic soul the ultimate cause of motion but in gener al all true ,

causali ty possesses somethin of the soul C ontempo r a r y philosophy

g .

recognizes in causality nothing mo r e than the regular transient su c ,

ce ssio n of two happenings or explains it by the concept of emanation

o r by the notion of identity P lato interpreted all causality according
.

to psychic experience whi ch is familiar to us in our self experience

,
-
.

Neithe r in his psy chology nor in his cosmology does he trace the
origin of the soul from the body but vice versa the psychic comes
, ,

first and affor ds us an explanation fo r all bodily movement in fact , ,

for all corporeal being Th e L w s place great emphasis on th is vigor

. a ,

o u sl
y attacking the position of the pre S o crati c s who had alway s had
-
,

recou rse to a material Ar ch e ( First P rin ciple ) : Nearly all seem to “

be igno rant of the natu re and the power of the soul especially in ,

what relates to her origin : they do not know th at she is among the
first of things and before all bodies and is the chief author of their
, ,

changes and transpositions (Law s 892 a ; ed Jowett Vol II p

”
, .
, .
,
.

Char acte r s and ma nners wishes and r easonings and t rue

“
, ,
 P LATO II 125

opinions and reflections and re collections are pri or to the length ,

and the breadth and depth and strength of bodies if the soul is ,

prior to th e body ( L w s 896 d ; ed Jowett Vol II p ”

a , .
, .
, .

3 . MATTER
Eter nal m atte r Th e consequence of this theory would be pan
.

psy chism as ad vocated by Leibniz later on in his teaching on the

,

monads Bu t P lato no matter how indi vidualistic and unique we

.
,

may consider his philosophy to be would not willingly adopt such a ,

radical view Just as he has place for a mate rial wo rld in additi o n
.

to his world of ideas and for opinion besides knowledge and a less , ,

perfect state besides Utopia so in the Timaeus he acknowledges in ,

addition to a mind and a soul some thing el se as well The Demiurge .

is no t an omnipotent cr eato r of the world H e found matte r pr e .

existen t eternal With this he was forced to wo rk and it placed

, .
,

limitations on h is will The Demiurge sought to make all things well .

,

and nothing bad God desi r ed that all things should be good and
,
“

nothing bad so far as this was attainable ( Timaeu s 30 a 3; ed Jowett

,
”
, .
,

Vol II p .
, That he was not able to carr y out his will in all
.

respects was due to the matter at his disposal C onsequently beside .

,

th e works of his independent creative acti vity we can find works of

“
necessity To this group of works belongs everything that is
.

dependent upon matter as such P lato did not wish to as cribe to it .

causality in the tr ue sense of the word It is only a co—causality .

”

( and is as su h a blind m lit wandering

' '

) ( i
“
o v va en o v c A k i — ii
-
a e a r a .

cause mechanically ope ative causality as we would desc r ibe it

) , r ,
.

Th e true causality behind all be coming is always only the soul Bu t .

matter is also always present and this has inevitable consequences ,

.

Th e D emiurge cannot fashion the best possible world H ere we .

should also recall the thought expressed in the Th eaetetu s that evil ,

“
ho vers around the mortal nature and this earthly sphere ( Th eae ,
”

t t s 176 a ; ed Jowett Vol I I p

e u , . F o r ced by necessity P lato
, .
, .
,

grudgingly admitted that in his system he could only fit matter

poo rly For this reason he made an attempt to trace its origi n mo e
. r

g e o m e tr i o and hence ideally

c , .

I dealizati on o f matte r P lato derived the fou r elements of Em .

p e d o cle s wate r fire air and earth from the regular polyhedron
— —
, , , .

Th e earth as the heaviest element is made of hexagons ; fire the ,

ligh test and sharpest of tetragons because such bodies have th e fewest
,

p lane s rfaces and

u th e sharpest points By simila r reason air is made .
126 ANC IE NT PH ILO SO PH Y
of o ctahedrons and wate r of i cosahedrons Th e elementary polyhedrons .

in turn consist of original triangles of such a kind that the formation

of th e speci fi c elements is commensurate with them These original .

triangles are made from faces these in turn from lines an d these , ,

ultimately from points Th e points are however measurable and S tem

.

from the O n e This theo r y of original triangles appeared to answer

.

in a special way th e atomic theo ry that had been propounded by

Demo critus P lato o ccupied himself t h erefore with the Ar ch ( F ir st
'

.
, ,
e

P rinciple ) problem of the pre—S ocratics .

4. S P ACE AN D TI M E
xten sa Th e result is a new A ch e or First P rinciple
Res e . r

space Fo r it is this to whi ch the deri vation of matter from the p ristine
.

triangle inevitably led ; and this space is mathematical space which in ,

P lato is considered as matte r A s late r in the wo r ks of Desca r tes so

.
,

h ere the corporeal appear s simply as extension as if there we r e no ,

distinction between physical and mathematical bodies Rationalism .

s eeks o ve r and over again to r esolve the world into me r e concepts .

P lato howeve r was fully awa r e that his de r i vation was open to
, ,

question To him it was only a spur ious notion by whi ch we master

.
“ ”

for ourselves spatial material ; and to him space and matter wer e
something obscure puz zling and scarcely credible According
“

,
” “

,
”
.
”

to him w e must not always in5 1st that th er e is space We beholding .

,

as in a dream say of all existence that it must of necessity be in

,

some place and occupy a space ( Timaeu s 52 b ; ed Jowett Vol II ”

, .
, .
,

p . Time also is not absolutely necessary Time exists only where .

there is corporeal change Time came into existence only with the
.

world of bodies the material world P lato points out that being
,
.

exists of whi ch it would be meaningless to ask : Where ? and When ?

An d this is the being whi ch P lato considered in the fir st pla ce Bu t .

h e con ceded t h at everything does not end with th e wo r ld of ideas ;

that we also have space and matter e ven if this contingent world of

fi
,

be oming is not true reality

c .

Th e aporia o r philosophic al di f cu lty S hould we d fa to refuse . e c

to a scribe causality to matte r ? If variou s things are der ived by neces

sity from the essen ce of matte r should we not necess arily designate
,

as an effe ct that whi ch is necessarily derived ? And if it is an effect ,

is it not also reality ? H ere he repeats in cosmology the th eo retical

problem of knowledge con cerning the relation that exists between
pure reasoning and sense perceptions In his theo ry of knowledge .
128 ANC IE NT PH I LOSOPH Y
mo ves itself the soul For this reason the soul is prior to the body ;
.

and so it was an unpardonable error on the part of th e pre S ocratics -

not to have recogni z ed this By their materialistic attitude these .

philosophers advan ced th e cause of atheism S ouls are as experience .

,

again demonstrates either good or bad O nly an ordered movement

, .

can proceed from a good soul ; from a wicked one we can expe ct

only disordered move ment Th e great and far reaching cycles o f .

-

movement in nature espe cially those of the heavenly bodies are

, ,

stri ctly regular and we ll ordered Disorderly mo vements in nature are

-
.

exceptions rather than the rule and are limited in their significance

fi
.

As a conse q u en ce we m st assume that the dominant souls fro m

, u

which the cosmic movements derive are b en e cen t and orderly and
thus the s preme soul namely that one wh ich is responsible for
u , ,

the most universal and reliable mo vements is also the most perfect ,

and the best possible S in ce we know that there is disorder in the

.

world we must take for granted that th ere are many souls or at
, ,

least more th an one in order to b e able to explain these disturban ce s

,

and disorders Bu t it is essential that we k now of th e existence of a

.

perfect soul In comparison to it all the exceptions are of no

.

impo rtan ce .

This train of thought in P lato does not result inevitably in a pure

monotheism ; nor does it posit a creator of the world but only a
world constru ctor also possibly only an immanent G d namely the
-
,
o ,
.

world soul Bu t we are not compelled to interpret P lato too stri ctly
-
.
,

fo r the world soul is prior to the cosmos and the spiritual is prior to
—

length and breadth and depth — all of whi ch would lead us to c n o

clu de that God is trans cendent Be that as it may P lato had fur .
,

n ish ed the groun dwor k for the A ristotelian proofs of the existen ce of

God based on motion We an righ tly appreciate and j u tly evaluate

. c s

the proofs for th e existen ce of an U nmoved M over in th e seventh and

eighth books of Aristotle s P h ysi s only when we h ave before us what
’
c ,

P lato wrote on this subje ct in the work of his later years .

Th e dialectical w ay to G o d Th e diale ctical proof or approa ch to .

God is the as cent from hypothesis to hypothesis u ntil we rea ch the

An h ypoth eto n or the Un conditioned First P rin ciple the ultimate
, ,

basi s of being which itself lies beyond being s rpassing everything , u

both in power and in value We have already seen something of .

this ascent ( see p 91 In the history of philosophi cal systems

.

it affords the steppingstone to another histori cally later proof for

the existen ce of G d namely the proof from causality and contingency
o , ,
.
 PLATO II 129

A parallel to the dialecti cal as cent to God whi ch is pe rfected in ,

reasoning is the approach through the beautiful upon which we

,

journey in Eros Th e S ymp i m had sketched it in that section in

. os u

which Diotima t eaches S o crates that art of lo ving which blossoms

into pristine lo ve a love which leaves no appetite unsated but is itself
,

absolutely and entirely self sufficient ( i d ) an absolute in whi ch

- xa v v
,

the soul can take its repose It is a prin ciple upon which S t Augus. .

tine later draws when he coined h is now famous phrase O u r hea rt ,

“

is restless until it rests in Thee Th e dialectical approach gi ves us .

a tr afi scen dent God in a monoth eistic sense P lato had indeed often .

adapted the colloquial usages of popula r religion to his own pu rposes

and had frequently mentioned a variety of gods but without doubt ,

h e w as personally a monotheist In those passages whe r e his earnest .

ness finds outlet and he reprodu ces his innermost thoughts he regu ,

la ly spea k s of God rather th an of the gods

r .

2 . TH E ES S E NCE OF G OD

If someon e had questioned him about the essen ce of God P lato ,

would no doubt have replied as he did when interrogated about ,

the essen ce of goodness Th e subje ct is so sublime that I would

:
“

rather not give a dire ct answer to you r question We can howe ve r .

, ,

ar ri ve at an approximation of his views b y an examination of the

train of th ough t that is pertinent to this subje ct If we should keep .

before our eyes the diale ctical approa ch to God it would be clear ,

to us that as far as P lato was concerned the essen ce of God is to be

, ,

sought in aseity as well as in H is absolute value God is Being itself : .

and H e is also the Goo d If one thinks through the physical approach
.

to God it be comes evident to us that God is pur e actuality God is

, .

life and God is act P lato did not however know a personal God
.
, , .

3 .
I U S TI P I C ATI O N O F G OD

Ancient
deism P lato was well aware of the chief problem of
.

theodi cy the justification of God in view of the disor der senseless

, ,

ness immorality and evil in the world After he had proved the
, , .

exi sten ce of G o d in answer to atheism he turned his attention to ,

those doubting Thomases w h o would indeed be only too glad to

believe that God exists but who in view of their dysteleology ( the
, ,

the purposelessness in nature ) had reached the conclu ,

had inde ed created the world but when H e had ,

( L w s 8 99 d 900 b ; a ,
—
130 A NC IE NT PH ILO S O PHY
908 b c) This is the line of reasoning characterized in modern
.

philosophy as dei sm We have already intimated how this problem

.

in theodicy can be solved ( cf p 76 . .

Th e v iew o f th e w ho le We are told that a speci fi c e rr o r lies

‘

. .

h idden in this objection that is raised against the goodne ss of G o d .

M an is ac customed to judge obje cts and relations by me ans of his

own limited viewpoint which takes into consideration only th e subject
and its momentary situation ; he does not in fact cannot look at , , ,

th e whole If we should keep this n mind we would find that many

. i ,

things would present an entirely di fferent aspect and the accent on

value would change radi cally An d finally we should ponder well .

th at man s life her e on earth does not represent man s whole life
’ ’
.

There is a continued existen ce after death ; and if we should wish to

speak of the j ustice of God we must also take into account what ,

takes place in that other life O nly petty souls are accustomed to .

overlook and neglect facts Noble souls on th e contrary survey eve ry:
.
, ,

thing in their purview even life beyond the grave and nothing that
,

is of importan ce fo r man es capes thei r scrutiny If you say : I am .

small and will creep into the depths of the earth or I am high and ,

will fly up to heaven you are not so small o r so high but that you
,

sh ould pay the fitting penalty either here o r in the world below or ,

in some still more savage place whither you Shall be conveyed ”

( L aw s 90
, 5 a ; ed Jowett Vol II
. p Thi s is the viewpoin t
, .
, .

whi ch we meet with in all C h ristian thinkers when they point to

th e j usti fi cation of God in eternity and whi ch will reappear again ,

with Kant when he tries to corroborate his postulates for the immo r
tality of the soul .

fi
4 . G OD AND M AN
Ben e omnipo tence What relation exists between G o d and
cen t .

man ? In the work done in the e vening of his life when the ph ilo so ,

pher stands on the very threshold of eternity the meaning of God ,

occupies an exceptionally large place in his speculation We human .

beings as we read there are only marvelous masterpie ces shaped by

, ,

the hands of God fashioned perhaps as H is playthings or perhaps f

,
or

a more sublime purpose ; in any case we are H is prope rty , ,

and as it were marionettes in H is hands H e alone hold s .

by whi ch they are played and H e alone di rects our life

affair s are hardly worth considering in earnest ( Law s ”
,
132 ANC IE NT PH ILOS O PHY
reflections ou the existen ce essence providence j usti ce and holiness , , , ,

of God in the Laws P lato became the founder of natural th eology

,

o r theodicy whi ch will in the future play a great role in the history
, , ,

of philosophi cal thought in th e West Today when we busy our selves .

wi th th e notion of natur al theology we con centrate on its antithes is ,

to revealed r e ligion This is however not its original meaning Th e

.
, ,
.

expression itself goes back to Varro th e contemporary of C i cero ,

.

Varro differen tiates three different speeches or dis cour ses abo ut “

God th e poetical ( fab ul ous ) th e poli tical and th e natur al ( or

”
: , ,

ph ilosophi cal ) P oetical theology may be equated with mythology

. .

It has only an aes thetical meaning Th e politi cal is identical with .

the publi c cult of the S tate therefore with the Observan ce of feasts ,

an d ceremonies whi ch the cal endar pres cribes Thi s politi cal religion .

is not con cerned wi th th e tr ue or the false but is practi ced for reasons
of politi o adminis trative nature as M u ciu s S caevola the Rom an
c -
, ,

pontifex said so laconi cally but as onl y a tr ue Roman could In

, .

the case of natur al th eology however more is at stake th an aestheti cal , ,

pleas u re and political expedien cy ; it deals rather with th e philosophical

sear ch for tr uth concern ing God The content of natural theology is .

made up of wh atever man can know and prove on th e basis of his

own experien e and of h i refle cti on on nature an d th e world This
c s .

th eology see k s after real tr uth by the aid of s cien ce Th e ph ilo so .

p h er h ave
s left be h ind many boo k s on cerning this [natural ] theology c
”

( S t. A ugustine D Ci D i ,
B k V I
e h V ) as S
a t . A gustin e e , .
,
c .
, . u

cites from Varro Th e first in this long series of men was P lato
. .

TH E O LD ACADEM Y
Th e men who ta ght in th e A cademy immediately after P lato s
u
’

death ar e grouped together and are known to the history of philosophy

u nder the title th O ld A cademy Th e leaders of th e school in this
,
e .

period were : P lato s nephew and immediate su essor S peu sippu s

’
cc ,

( 34 7 Xeno cra tes ( 338 P o le mo n and C rates

( 269 O n e of the most renowned among the great schola r s
in this O ld A cademy was H er acli des of P ontus ( see above p ,
.

H is presen ce along with that of th e famous math emati ci an ,

P hilip of O pus and th e noted botanist Dio cles leads us to sur

, , ,

mi se th at in th e O ld A cademy various bran ches of science were

foster ed in addition to philosophy Basi cally however the school .
, ,

continued to retain as its essential feature the ch aracteris ti cs of the

P ythagorean Broth erh o d E ven in p h ilosop hi al leadership P yth ago
o . c ,
 P LATO II 133

rean tendencies p revailed more than they had wi th th e mature

P lato F o r this r eason one of the chief problems with which the
.

s chool busied itself was the relation that exists between ideas and
number s P lato had distinguished between ideal numbers and mathe
.

matical numbe rs S peu sippu s retained only mathematical numbers

. .

Xenocr ates maintained that ideal and mathematical numbers were

identi cal Anothe r frequently dis cussed question was the relation that
.

exists between sensible reali ty and thought in which P lato s dualism

,
’

was re vived A third problem had its origin in the theory of pleasure
. .

H ere again the thinke r s mitigated P lato s dogmatism and listed

’

exte rnal goods among th e factors wh ich produce happiness By so .

do ing the Academy e vinced a greater liberalism than the ethics of

the C ynics and S toi cs had permitted Toward the end of the period
.

of development radical tendencies began to assert themselves These

fi
, .

were foreign to genuine P latonism : they were partly mysti cal partly ,

p r e scien ti c atti tudes They. were insti gated by Xenocrates : Th e

Academy b r an ched out into O riental speculation N ature was demon .

iz e d Th e do ctr ine of numbers became imaginative : number one is

.

the first God H e is a spirit the father and the king of the heavens ;
,

number two is femi ni ne the mother of the gods she i s soul and
,
—

sh e r ules the world beneath heaven Th e v arious degrees of knowl

.

edge that P lato had championed were grossly lo calized : the obj ect
of knowledge is to be found at the o ther side of heaven the obje ct ,

of sense percepti on here on earth and th e obj e ct of opinion is

18 ,

h eaven itself O nly in the M iddle A ademy do th e tenden cies again

. c

be come moder ate .

C H A P TE R

A R I S T O TL E I : KN OWL E D G E AND SC I E NC E

IFE L

A ristotle was not a native Athenian ; he came from S tagira in

,

Thrace where he was born in 384 B C H is fathe r was physi cian to

, . .

th e King of M a cedonia Amyn tas Aristotle himself linked his fate

, .

to the M acedonian ideal With it he was to fall At the age of eighteen

. .

he entered the Academy and remained attached to it until th e death

of P lato some twenty years later During his lifetime he gr eatly
, .

admired his maste r In the elegy which he dedi cated to him he

.
,

speaks of the friendship whi ch bound them togethe r and says that ,

P lato was a man who so surpassed the common herd that it was
impossible for anyone indis criminately to sing his p raises save those
who proved themselves worthy of him The fact that late r on Aristotle .

would di ffer appreciably from P lato in his thought in no way

detracted from his veneration and his frien dship for him F or whi le .
“

both [P lato and truth ] are dear piety requires us to honor tr uth above
,

ou r friends wrote Ar istotle in his N ico m ch ean Eth i s ( 1096 a

,
”
a c

Bu t the reade r has the impression nevertheless that Aristotle s

’
, ,

cri t i ci sm of his maste r was not always s n e z a ct t dio O ftentimes i r s u .

it is farfetched ; it is not always basi c and many times it is petty .

Afte r P lato s death A ristotle went to A ssos in the p rincipality of

’

Troas and pla ced himself u nde r the aegis of P rince H ermias of
Atar n eu s There togethe r with other member s of the Academy he
.
, ,

founded a kind of affiliate branch of the P latonic school Bu t Aristotle .

remained in Assos only three year s After a brief stay at M itylene .

in Lesbos where he met his successor Theophrastus he turned his , ,

footsteps to the cou rt of P hilip of M acedonia and at the latter s ’

request assumed th e education of h is so n Alexander then but , ,

thirteen years of age .

When A lexander as cended th e throne in A ristotle

to Athens and in 335 founded in the holy precin cts of Apollo Lyce
his own philosophical school which he named after the place
,

which it was located the Lyceum Like the Academy itself it was
, .

134
136 ANC I E NT PH I LO SO PHY
be buried as she herself had wis h ed it Th e last instru ction r
, .
“

quested and provided that Nicanor his foster brother who had served , ,

as an officer at the headquarters of Alexander fulfill the vow which ,

A ristotle had made for him to carr y out Afte r a safe r eturn to the .

fathe rland he S hould dedi cate in S tagira statues fou r ells high to
,

Zeus the S avior ; and to A thena the prote tre s

, , c s .

WR I T I N G S
M u ch of wh at Aristotle wrote has been lost and even what we do ,

possess is not in ve ry good order O n the basis of the viewpoint he .

had in mind when he wrote we di vide th e works which Ar isfo tle ,

fo rmally published into the so called exoteri c writings ( éfw pm i M y m - r e o

,

M y ) and those not formally published the so called

’
é S S p
x e o e I/ o e er
, ,
-

acroamati c writings ( d p j i Adj im mW ) also known as x o a u a n xo /o z , a / a f er

,

the esoteric or doctrinal writings Intended for the general publi c .

,

the first type dating from the years of his early manhood were
, ,

esteemed as liter a ry masterpieces and were for the most part in the
dialogue form We possess only fragments of these Th e writings of
. .

th e othe r type were hastily drawn u p outlines designed as le ctures —

and delivered in A ssos and especially in the Lyceum They were first
, .

published by Andronicus of Rhodes in 6 0 5 0 E C ; they were lost for —

. .

years After their di scovery antiquity drew its inspi r ation almo st
.
,

exclusively from them and th ereby neglected th e wo r ks of his mo re

youthful years This in turn led eventu ally to an almos
.

of affairs ; the phi

development th at had taken place in Aristotle in the inter val
quoted from h is various wo r ks indiscriminately as if they ha ,

been written from one and the same Vi ewpo i nt and as if they
all of equal value O nly after the appearan ce of W I aege r s
. .
’

( translated by R R .

ofH is D e v elo me nt ( O xford : O xford University P ress

p ,

evaluated the fragments of his earlier works wer e scholars able t

fi
,

a just estimate of the Spe culative growth of Ar istotle and to ,

stand his writings including th e fragments in a manne r be ttin

chronological sequence With t h is important fa cto r in mind we c
.
,

distinguish three periods : th e p eriod of the Academy the period ,

transition and the period of his activity in th e

,

Th pi i
e o h ly 2 5 p
n on f h C p
t at o n A i li m i g i d er ce n t o t e or us r s to te cu s e n u ne an

h
t e h w k f Th p h
r e st t e or ( m i i d by I Z i h i
o eo r astu s as a nta n e . i rc er n

un d G i 19 5 2 ) i
e st, j d b y ph il l gi l h Ai l
s r e ecte o o ca r e sear c on r sto t e .
 AR I S TO TLE I 137

Th eperiod of th e Academy In the fi rst period ( 367 A ristotle .

continued to follow the lines laid down by P lato In the Dialogue .

E u de mo s fo r example ,he tea che s the pre —existen ce and the un ,

mortality of the so ul togethe r with o ther simila r thoughts j ust as ,

th e P latonic dialogue P h ed had outlined them H e also ch ampioned a o .

the intuition of ideas and the doctrine of reminis cen ce ( An mnesis ) a

and saw in the immaterial and solely spiritual existen ce the real and
essential being of man Body and soul are still perfectly dualistic for .
,

they are con sidered to be separate substan ces Aristotle s P ot eptic s .

’
r r u

is an appeal fo r a conduct of life based on pur e philosophy with

reference to the eternal ideas simila r to the motto whi ch P lato had
ins cribed for his Repu blic : In hea ven ther e exists ready made a
prototype th at anyone who is of good will can see it and can mold his
,

own true self a ccording to it O the r works of this period are the .
”

Dialogues O n l st ce P litics the S oph i t the S ympo iu m O n th e

'

u i , o , s , s ,

Goo d O n I d s and O n P ayer

, ea , r .

Th e p eriod of tr ansition Th e transition period is reflected in the .

writings he authored a t A ssos Lesbos and at the M acedonian court , ,

.

C hara cteristic of this pe r iod is the Dialogue O n P h ilo s oph y In the .

second book of this work he offers a criti cism of P lato s theory of ’

ideas In the thir d he begins to unfold the basic con cepts o f h is own
’

cosmology and he gives a faint inkling of a concept basi c to h is own

,

metaphysics that of the Unmoved M over H e continues however to

, .
, ,

u se the concepts cur r ent in late r P latoni c philosophy as we find them ,

expressed in the Epino mis .

In this period th ere originated those earlier portions of his do ctrinal

writings whi ch W I aeger considers as his original metaphysi cs ( M ta
. e .
,

I III XI 1 8 XII with th e exception O f C hapte r 8 XIII 9 and 10

, , ,
—
, , , ,
’
and XIV ) the original ethi cs ( Eth Bu d I II III and VII ) the
, . .
, , , , ,

original politi cal ph ilosophy ( P l II III VII and VIII ) and the o .
, , , , ,

original physics ( P h ys I 11 ; De Co eli H pi p ; D Ge n t Cor .

, ,
s, e . O tJ
’
a V OI i
-

e . e

i ! 00 poi s )
'
H epi y eve O ews '

Ka .

Lyce u m In the period of the Lyceum we can list his oth er doc
.

'

trinal w r itings with the exception of the abo ve mentioned earlier

r
—

p o rtions W e can distinguish fi v e types of writings :

.
( )
1 Th e Wa r /
( s

o n L o gic : K n p i ( Cate
go r iae P ae dica m
ar i n ta) ;
/eH p i écs
p mj i ( D , r e e ve a s e

I nt p et tio n ) ;
er r a p p and ie p ( A n al tica P r ior a et
y 7r
’
or e a.
'
io r e a

P o ster io r a ) ; To m mi T
( p );
i mfw eAey xwv ( D e S oph isticis
'
H epi
’

o ca p O o c to n
'

Ele nchis ) . L ater

on these were , gath ered together and entitled the
Or gan o n , because the philo soph ers recognized that in logic was to be
138 ANC IE NT PH ILO S OPHY
found the co rrect procedure that should be employed by the s ciences .

M eta h ysical Wr itings : P m ?) d p m ( y A u sc lt tio )

’

( )
2 T h e
p P h s ica ( u a n oa s u a ,

the philosophy of the natu ral sciences written from a metaphysical

point of view in eight books ; 6 W e 6 p i ( M etaph y ica) the
,
7 1 . 7 ; c vo ua s ,

gen e ral teaching of A ristotle on being as such its characte risti cs and ,

its causes in four teen books Th e title is purely fo rtuitous and de notes
,
.

only that these books were placed after the eight books of the P h ysics
in the edition of the do ctrinal works p repared by Andr onicus ( 3) .

Wr itings o n th e Natur al S ciences : H pi p pw (M eteo ologi a) a e er eas

’
v r c ,

kind of physical geography ; H pi 6 i pi ( H isto r ic: A n imaliu me

) 7 . O TO at ,

a systematic zoology in ten books : H pi 593W p p w ( De P ar tib us e O

’
i v

Animaliu m) on the parts of animals ; H pZca

,
m w p l ( D e I n essu e e e as c

Animaliu m) on th e gait of an imal s ; H pi Céw

, j w
( D e M o tu e v K cvr o e s

Animaliu m) on the mo vement of animals ; H pi Z

, b y é w D
( e e o r ev o e s

Ge ner atio ne Animaliu m) on the generation of animals ; H pi /v ii ,

e t s

D e Anima on the soul in th r ee v olumes To this may be added a

( ) , , .

whole series of so called lesser writings on the natural S ciences ( P ar va

-

Natu r alia) ( 4) Eth ical and P olitical Wr itings : H 0 & N n fx

’

. u< i xo a aa

ca Nico mach ea a systematic ethi s in ten bo o ks published by

( E th i ) c , ,

Aristotle s son and entitled after him ; I I Am d ( P o liti a) eight books

’
o x c ,

on the sociological political and juridical philosophi cal theories of

, ,

Aristotle ; H k l A 0q ( A e n ie nsiu m Res P u blica ) the only

’
h
’
-
w t
e a va i v ,

fi
constitution of the 15 8 collected by A r istotle that has been prese rv ed .

This was rediscovered in 189 1 ( 5 ) P hilologic l Wr itings : T x ) . a

'
e vr

—
n pm} ( Ar s Rh eto r ica) on the art of oratory ;
m H pi w nm i ( D e
,
e or o ;

P oetica) on the art of poet ry

, .

S pu r iou s
Categor ies 10—15 ( P os tpr aedicamenta ; Boo
) k Fo u r o f th e M ete or ology;
De M u ndo; Boo k Ten of th e H istor y ofAni mals; O n th e A maz in g P er
ce ptio ns of S ou nd; On P lants; O n C olor s; O n I n di visi ble Li nes; M agna
M or alia; M ech anics; Oecon o mics P h ysi ogno mics; Rh e tor ica ad Alexan ,

dr u m M etaphysics I and P h ysics V II are th e wo r k s o f h is p u pils Th e

. .

P r o ble matica are po st Aristo te lian, b u t are based o n Aristo telian no te s

-
.

Academia Regia Bo r u ssica, 5 v o ls , 183 1— 1 8

fi
Ari s totelis Oper a , e didit .

( it
c ati ns o taken
ar e from th is edition ) Fragments : Ar istotelis Fr ag .

edidit V . Rose A selectio n o f th e fr agments with late r

140 ANC IE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
The ultimate elements are to be found in the co n ept ( notion idea ) c , ,

j u dgment and r ea o ning E ven today these form the th re e most im

, s .

por tant topics of logic Everywhere Aristotle sought to define and to

.

divide Even in his logic we can detect the attempt he made to

.

investigate the sense wo rld in all its variety and to arr ange and to
classify the con crete Aristotle examined the elementary forms of the
.

mind not onl y for theoretical but al so fo r very practi cal purposes H e .

sought to Offe r mankind a method for unassailable scientific specula ,

tion demonstration and refutation This occurs especially in the topic

, , .

and elenctic ( indi rect r efutation Ofproof ) H is logic as a consequence .

, ,

is no t only theo retical but also practi cal At the same time he bu sied .
‘

himself with the problem Of how far ou r rational faculties conside red ,

formally as instruments are in o rder as well as whether they actually

,

grasp the mate rials Of knowledge which they should grasp that is his , ,

logic is not only formal but also material ; I t I s as we would say today , ,

a theo ry of knowledge .

Th e co ncept I ) Th e co n ept of co n cept Th e ultimate element

. c .

which Aristotle s analysis Of the mind re veals is the concept : I call

’ “

that a term [concept ] into which the premi se is resolved i e both , . .

,

the p redicate and that Of which it is predi cated ( P r Anal I 1 ; ”

. .
, ,

16 ; ed M cKeo n p
. The concept itself is not a p redication
, .
,

a j udgment and as a consequen ce is neither true no r false

, .

concept stag fo r example is fi r st O f all only a word as ar

“

,
”
, ,

gene ral all representations whi ch Aristotle forms of

especially as viewed from the aspe ct Of language Ar .

Of fered his students a fo rmal teaching on th e con cept H e .

whateve r had already been established by S ocrate

concept 18 always general and embraces th e per manent
sary in short whateve r is essential That the concept
, , .

quiddity the o us a I s constantly

, z ,

the con cept implicitly at least the function O f predication If

, ,
.

concept emb r a ces the essence it must also lead to truth ; for an ess ,

is the essence Of something This however was neve r fo rmally

fi
.
, ,

ceded by Ar istotle but is rather taken for granted and is expla

,

by the role which the idea O f essen ce ( Ad/ 7 l ) pla a

0 9 7 7 g o o ae

fi
whe re it is presupposed as a representatio n of being and not
as a constituent part fpossible judgments O .

2 ) Th e de nitio n Th e con cept that is formed correctly is called

.
.

definition Th e definition is inten ded to determi ne

precisely as possible the essence of an O bject so that its quiddity
 ARI S TOTLE I 141

sh arply differentiated from that of all othe r beings and becomes pe r

fectly intelligible in its own species The r ule fo r such a definition is .

as follows : the definition is given by stating the genus and the

difference which fo rms the species ( the specific difference ) This .

me ans : an O bject is always classified in a uni versal genus which is

presupposed as already known F o r example the numeral three ( 3) .
,

is determined by the uni versal genus number ; since there ar e many ,

numbers the unive rsal genus number must be narrowed down by

, , ,

a further determination so that only 3 can be under stood among th e

,

inany nu mber s that might possibly be mentioned Th is I s done by

G

g i ving t h at dete r minate species which is cha r acte r istic Of 3 an d

differentiates it from all O ther number s n amely the fact that 3 is , ,

“
the first une ven number ( P ost An II 13 ; ed M cKeon pp 175
”
. .
, , .
, .

By the specific differen ce the species itself arises fr om the various

gene ra Th e definition as a consequence always denotes the concept
.
, ,

Of species .

3) G n u s and species In this connectio n A ristotle makes use Of

‘

e .
,

th e concepts O f genus and species What genus is and what species is .

he ne ver expressly de veloped in his philosophy but on one occasion ,

he explained genus by me ans Of specie s : A genus is what is pre “ ‘ ’

dicated in the catego ry Of essence of a numbe r of things exhibiting

differences in kind [species ] ( Top I 5 ; 102 a 31 ; ed McK eo n ”
.
, , .
,

p . H e defin ed species by means of the genus species are com ,

“

p osed of the genus and the di f

f erentiae ( M e ta X 7 10 5 7 b 7 ; ed ”
, ,
.

McKeo n p , A r istotle indicated ( P o st A

. II 13) how we could . h .
, ,

arrive at the genus namely by emphasizing the identity that is com

, ,

m u mto dif ferent O bjects S ince he did not think O f secondary identities
.

O f the identity O f essence fo r its part the essence is more

(
the concept Ofuniversali ty essence is nothing
the genus ) we are constantly running around ,

species ar e not explained materially as fo r , ,

to the uniformity Of str uctu re or to the organs

to hereditary p roperties but only fo rmally by the ,

idea by whi ch the essence is determined by the universal

,

universal in turn by the essence This whole explanation .

,

is not a petitio pr incipii fo r him be cause the notions of ,

d idos or specific form borrowed f om P latoni c dialecti cs

e r

known .

and the spe cies do not need

142 ANC I E NT PH I LOS OPHY
their essence in thei r own content which we are not fo rced fir st to ,

obtain by abstraction from the many but which we already know

ap riori ; as a consequence the problem of the formation of spec1es
,

does not exist at all Without th e method of the diaeres i s ( di vision )

.

there would be no Aristotelian definitio n The defin ition is both a .

logi cal and ontological orientation within the system of concepts into
which the P latonic dialectic arrange s all being It was a P latonist .
,

P orphy ry who developed the genealogical tree of being the so —called

, ,

P orphy rian t r ee which we must keep constantly befor e ou r eyes if

,

fi fi
we wish to understand genus species and definition in thei r o riginal
, ,

meaning The outline fo r the formulation of a defin ition ( genu s

.

p r o xim u m a i er e n
’
tia s
pe ci ca — -
p r oximate genus and “

fer ence ) is th e outline of the P o rphy rian tr ee It is extr emely

”
.

char acte ristic because of its relation to the histor y of philosophy

, ,

that before offering a se ries of r ules fo r the framing of a defin ition ,

Ar istotle de sc r ibes the genus which ente r s into the definition as a

“

prio r by natu re and bette r known This would not be a logical .

”

concept but rathe r the ontological ciaos ( fo rm ) of P lato An d when '

.

Aristotle demands that the definition always mention the

is next closest he again follows in the footsteps o f P lato
, ,

great emphasis on the postulate that in the diaer esis no , ,

eve r omitted ( cf p O nly the concept o f specific

. .

intr oduced by Aristotle .

4) Categor ies Bu t something that is genuinely Ar i

.

classification of concepts The S tagi rite disco ve red .

which we employ in ou r premises can be arranged

With this obse rv ation Aristotle offered us the fi rst
,

It contains ten schemata fo r fo rms that can be

ou r concepts designate an essence ( a substance )
quanti ty quality relation place time situation
, , , , , ,

passion The catego ries themsel ves may be furth

.

broad types O n the one hand there is sub stance

.

in itself and hence p

the othe r hand the r e are the nine
an accident is that which may be
precise determination O n this th .

The accidental determinations of

subst
acci d
able
144 A NCIENT PH ILOSOPH Y
j udgment ] r e veals that a given attribute attaches or does not attach
to a gi ven subj ect ( P ost An II 3; 9 1 a 1 ; ed M cKeo n pp 16 1
. .
, ,
.
, .

The j udgment develops further the genesis of knowledge which

had begun with th e con cept Th e attributes of wh ich Aristotle speaks
p

here ar e nothing other th an the accidents which we have already

mentioned It is impo r tant to obse rv e that the accidents :possess a
.

defin ite relation to substance Aristotle had recognized this and as a

.

conseque nce di vided them accordingly By S O doing we are shown

that at least fo r h imbeing is regulated and put into a definite order
.

by defin ite inner relationships To unco ver these 13 the task of .

scientific judgment S cien ce is not a monologue of the mind on the

.
‘

basis of special r ules as is often supposed in modern times but a

, ,

dialogue of the mind with the world of bei ng with whi ch it e njoys
equality of rights and o ve r against which it S tands .

3) Wh at is tr u th ? To this co rr esponds th e A ristotelian no tion of

tru th This has a decidedly obj ecti ve characte r To say of what is
. .
“

that it is and of what is not that it is not is t rue (M eta IV 7 ;

, ,
”
.
, ,

101 1 b 27 ; ed M cK eo n p
. It is not because we think truly
, .

that you are pale that you ar e pale but because you are pale we w h o
, ,

say this have the truth (M eta IX 10 ; 105 1 b 7 ; ed M cKeon p

”
.
, , .
, .

The truth does not depend therefore upon a subjecti ve view , ,

point upon faith o r a mer e wish upon the usefulness or the fruit
, ,

fulness of a theo r y up o n the spirit of the times or upon blood o r r ace

,
.

This philosopher of ancient Greece was able to represent to himse lf

as truth only a p r oposition whi ch reproduced the obj ectivity of reality .

Modern psy cho logism or pragmati sm would ha ve been possible for

the S ophists but not for A ristotle
, .

4) Logical p edicatio n Bu t how can we be ce r tain of the truth ?

r .

Th e above cited text gives us an explanation : H e w h o thinks the

“
-

sepa rated to be separated and th e combined to be combined has

the truth while he whose thought is in a state contra ry to that of
,

the objects is in er ror ( M eta IX 10 105 1 b 38 40 ; ed M cKeon , ,

—
.
,

p. This corresponds with the defi nition of judgment as a union

o r conj o ining of concepts o r notions What plays the decisive role in .

the uni tive possibilities of con cepts the content of the concept or the , ,

insight into reality ? Neo S cholasti cs who consciously adopt the views
-

of Aristotle speak of a co n uenientia o r a disc epantia o n eptu u r c c

se
( an agreement o r di sagr eement of

and see in the positive or negative

 ARI S TOTLE I 145

if th e meaning of the concept alone wer e decisive Th e judgment .

w ould then co nsist of an analysis of con cepts and the ultimate de cisive ,

principle would not be reality but the principle of identity or of ,

co ntradiction In this r atio nalistic fashion we must understand the

.

j udgment that P lato had before his eyes a j udgment in whi ch the ,

predi cation is actually contained as E H offmann h as so corre ctly , .

m th exis ; that is the predicate s h ar s in o r pa tak es of

e ,
e r

the j udgment copula is means ,

“

,
”

of the concepts inv olved A ristotle .

,

( IX 1 0 ) refers very distin ctly

, to r eality .

or the possible separation of con cepts is

e alit
y and not upon the meaning
, of the
as such By this Aristotle adopted a position di fferent from
.

P lato F o r P lato the Logos is reality itself Ideas are called

. .

Wd M ( things
a Ta themselves ) and here we ca n pass judg
,

tio n ally and analyti cally on the compatibility o r the in co m

the basis of the content of the con cepts

selves By appealing to reality r ather than to the con cept Aristotle
.
,

us clearly to understand that he intends to travel by other paths

those whi ch P lato used Th e Logos is only a means of thin k ing
.
,

a way to reality ; it is not reality itself .

Th e s bject ofju dgmen t M atters are q uite di fferent where the

u .

ct of the j udgment is con cerned A ristotle realized th at the essence .

judgment as a predication necessarily required a subject of

it is predicated but which could not be the predi cate itself
, .

is the subj ect of the j udgment ? P atently it must always be

we cannot predi cate anything of someth ing
evident that an ac cident does not o ffer us
lty For the subje ct of a j udgment presupposes
.
,

e r ef o e it must be the s bstance r u ,

quiddity th e ?
,
ij w —
r ) th at which a thing is for ex
’
r c v s at
,

being o r the quiddity whi ch belongs to man This last inter .

tar tle s us If the quiddity as the subje ct of a judgment must

.

something in this case to a man is it really a subje ct an

, , ,

ate of wh ich someth ing is predicated but which is itself no

r a predicate ? It belongs to the dative case and is predi cated
for example if I say that C allias is a man in thi s instance I
, ,

that humanity belongs to Gallias

fi
.

sto rle ,however found a way out of the difficulty ; he made a

,

ctio n between rst and second substan es O nly the fi rst sub c .
146 ANC I ENT P H ILO SO PHY
stance is something that is un iq lI e and enti rely par ticular preci ’

this man C allias and only the first substance is a substance in

true sense of the word because it alone can ne v e r be pred ,

but conver sely it is itself the subject of a p redication Th is .

judgment which leads A ristotle to a basic concept of his

philosophy and we should ne ve r lose sight of it when
,

to e valuate the Ar istotelian concept of substan ce Th e second .

stance is that which is common to se ve ral individuals ; it is

speci es the specific essence for example man I n general ; this
, , ,
“

also be p r edicated While we would naturally expect that Aris

.

would explain o usz a ( essence ) in the sense of

the ideal subject of a judgment this is surpris ,

case ; r athe r it is the second substance i

to which Aristotle loo ks fo r the
By so doing he pays t r ibute to the P latonic method of rea
A lthough acco r ding to his own philosophy the first substan ce
stance absolutely and to him eve rything particula r S tands
fo reground he ne ver theless permits science to remain in that
,

to which P lato had consigned it : in the realm of uni versal C

An d although Ar istotle r ejects the concept of th e world
( j
x é a uo s
r d ) he still
vo r r r emainssenough
, of a P latonist to
solely the uni ve rsal as th e object of science S cience does not .

itself wi th Callias o r with indi viduals but with man as s ,

in like fashion with othe r substances The particular is an

,
.

i e something inexp r essible which can ne ve r be exhausted

. .
,

of uni ve rsal concepts By this theo ry Aristotle made possibl

.

evaluation of the particula r in its solitar y S ingularity .

Th e syllo gism 1 ) Th e positio n of th e syllogis m

.

logic H is theo r y conce r ning the syllogism in its ideal

.

the solid cente r of Ar istotelian logic H is disciples .

an original contribution and later centu

a rtist ry H is ad versaries ridiculed it as
.

dialecticism In any case Aristotle dev

.
,

described its various forms formulated ,

care to point out various e rrors whi ch might possibly

conclusions This was necessa ry fo r the syllogism was to him
.
,

foundation of all sciences To develop a s cien ce meant to prove .

,

the syllogism was proof absolutely .

2 ) Th e n atio n an d f o r ms of th e syll gis m A syllogism is a o .

cou rse in whi ch certain things being S tated something other ,

148 ANC I ENT P H ILOSOPH Y
of the unive rsal from par ticular instances H e gave to this derivati o n .

the indu ction ) the form of a syllogism but one that is a syllo ,

gism in form only If th e univer sal results from an examination of

.

eve ry individual instan ce Afist tle calls this type of induction an

, o

epagoge ( an argument by indu ction ) If all the indi vidual instances .

cannot be S ifted it is then called a paradigmatic syllogism ( P r An

,
'
. .
,

II 23
, A s a furth er form of the syllogism Aristotle r ecognized the
enthymeme in which a co nclusion is drawn from a S ign which is
,

connected with ce rtain facts ( P r An II the p robable syllogism

. .
, ,

( ci k o s,) I n which only probable p r op o sitions form the basis of the

syllogism ( P r An 11 27 ) the en stase in which one premi se I S
. .
, , ,

contrary to the other ( P r An II furthermore the dialectical

. .
, , ,

otherwise called the epich eir eme which is based not on logical neces
,

sity but on the opinion of expe r ts ( n do x ) ; e a

designed to persuade ; the eristic which employs only fallacious

,

and offers only a fallacious conclusion and is therefore gener al

a fallacy ( a par alogism ) .

Aristotle devo ted a great deal of attention to th e question

syllogism s cientific or not ? O nly the demonstrative syllogism
tic syllogism ) whi ch r esults in a logically
s cientific ; it is th e syllogism as su ch In such a syllogism .

position is that th e basic propositions are certain H o w .

,

soon see In a number of the above mentioned special

.
-

forms this cannot always be verified .

Th e pu r p s e of th e syllogis m In what does the spe

o .

of the syllogism its so called stringency consist ? Its force

,
-
,

this that the final term is contained in the middle and

, ,

the first term ; by this means the derivation of

the first is made possible and follows logically If for examp .
,

following syllogism is valid : All men are mortal Bu t S o cr .

a man Therefore S ocrates is mortal it is valid because the

.
,
”

O f S o crates is contained in his humanity ; it is thus tr uly stated .

to prove a thing means to see that which we seek to prove

thing itself ; whethe r it is identical with it or contained in its
sion is ultimately a matter of indi fference .

4) Ar isto teli n syllo gis m and P lato nic dialectics It is

a .

important for us to possess clear notions on the method of

that has been employed thus far If we S hould keep be .

the explan ation of the first figure of the syllogism t

to Aristotle all other figures can be reduced the
,
 ARIS TOTLE I 149

in the middle term and th e middle in the major term w e are

,
—

reminded almo st unconsciously of P latonic diale ctics which was also ,

concern ed with th e con cept of meth exis ( parti cipation ) Ther e the .

subo r dinate eidos ( form ) is contained in the superio r and proceeds

from it because it is established by it ; on this account the eido s

,

( fo r m ) in the works of P lato is also designated as hypothesis a ,

terminology whi ch appears literally in Aristotle ( P An I 1 ; 24 b r . .

, ,

The Ar istotelian syllogism is P latonic dialectic If we should not .

conceive of the syllogis m in this fashion it would be come meaning ,

less ; to infe r from the univer sal a ssertion that all men are mo r tal
that S ocrates is also mo r tal would be the most useless thing in the
wo rld : it would be entirely supe rfluous Fo r have I not already S tated .

th is when I determined in general tha t all men ar e mortal ? What is

left fo r me to infer ? Aside from the fact that when I S tate the
p roposition that all men are m o rtal I must myself have known ,

unfo r eh an d that S ocr ates was mortal Bu t when I as does P lato know .
, ,

gall individual things by r eason of a supe r io r idea wh en the supe r io r ,

idea itself is not de rived from the particular but the parti cular from it '

g hen it is reasonable to see in the premises the conclusion whi ch is

pdr aw n from them Th e A ristotelian syllogism is fo r this reason a pa r t

a .

b f metaphysi cs not me r ely a chess game with concepts as pieces as

, ,

logic not infre q uently rep resents it .

5 ) Th e ap io i by natu r e an d th e b tter k n o w n We would appr eci

r r e .

rate t his the more if we should ask ou r selves the question : What is

meant by the logically p rio r o r the so called logical demonstr ation

”
“ ”
-
,

o f which mention is made so frequently in all the scien ces Logi cal .

d emonstration as has been so frequ ently stated is proof ; proof deals

”
, ,

w ith the logi cal prio r wi th p remise s through which something

“ ”
«
,

p o sterio r is established This view .i s actually g enuine A r istotelian

his philosophy the logically prio r is called the p p
,
i 1r O T€ 0v Ka

the prior and bette r known ; p p

“ ”
7r 0 re
‘
ov

the prior by nature ; o r p p i AB the wh olly prior

”
7r or e
'
ov c vr t s
,
“
.

S tin gu ish es it from the 6 a i the prio r in regar d “

p p w p é 7r
‘
r e ov s f s,

and offers as an explanation : That which is prior in regard

that means in regar d to ou r knowledge is always the concrete
, ,
‘

of which sense knowledge makes u s cognizant O n the .

d that which is prio r by its very nature and whi ch is also

, ,

known is the universal which in regard to our knowledge

,

posterior because first of all we perceive according to

, ,

the pa rticular ( Top VI 4 ; P hys 1 1 ; P r An II 23;

.
, , .
, , .
,
15 0 ANC I E NT PH ILO SO PHY
P os t An . I M ode rn logic develops this thought by explaining
.
, ,

the universal is prior in the sense of being logical p roof Bu t what .

do es the phrase logically prio r actually mean ? If actually all knowl

“ ”

edge p roceeds from the parti cular and th e sensible it is meaningless ,

to say that the uni ver sal is prio r and it is much mo re wi thout point
to say that it is bette r known o r mo re ce r tain All thi s would be .

true if it were based on th e P latonic theo ry of knowledge accor ding ,

to which e very eidos ( form ) is something prio r or someth ing better

known than that which only shares in o r is a part of it Likewise fo r .

Aristotle that which by nature is prio r o r better known is always

,

the uni versal idos ( fo rm ) of th e 5 ij l e that which it is to be 7 n

’
u e l/a t
,
“

the substance ( Top VI 4; 141 b 22 1f ; M eta VI 3; 1029 a

”
.
, , . .
, ,

In his theories on demonstr ation and on proof Aristotle still thought ,

enti rely in a P latonic manner The classical text for such an asser tion .

is P oster ior Analytics I 2 ; 72 a 25 b 4 whe re he explains : That is , , , ,

bette r known by which something else is that which it is as fo r , ,

example the cause of ou r lo ving anything is clea re r to us than th

,
“

object of ou r love ( ed M cKeon p o r put in ano the r w ay a

”
.
, .

That is mo re gh o ( desirable ) by which a c o ( desi r able

’
i
’

becomes a p o ( desirable thing) And in M etaph ysics V 11 ;

c e
’
.
, ,

2f f it is said directly that the u se of the ter minology by n atur e

“
.
,

is P latonic With this metaphysical reali ty Aristotle also

‘

proof Notions a re in no sense rea sons because always a

.
” “ ”
,

eve ry respect they are poste rior ; only a being is a r eason i

as it is a foundation an hypothesis of the P latonic dialectic , .

logically p rio r S hould have any meaning it would have it ,

this sense N otions or propositions can appear a

.

philosophy of Kant and under the influen ce of ,

actually occurs that change w hereby Ar istotelian

do a and loses its metaphysical content By and .

philosophers lost S ight of the connection of the Aristo

A67 0; i r
( fi
with P lato In the im/m i ( definitions ) thinkers see in place of
bases
s of
.

substance
’

)
O ti o a s

this is true also of Neo—S cholasticism

only modern
t

notions
e o

.
“

,
”

2 . TH E ES SENCE KNOWLEDGE AN D TH E S OU RCE OF

S ince the Ar istotelian syllogism always p roceeds fr om pr e suppo

tions the re natu rally a rises the question concerning the sou rce
,

k nowledge ; fo r we would all like to know to what

pr opositions ,
15 2 ANC IE NT PH ILOS OPH Y
acco rded a far greater importance than th e that S cien ce

fi
.

cei e d by A ristotle is an analysis of essen ce and by su ch rati

v

he again r e i i es a portion of P latonism ; for in the idea the e

v v

reality that is comprised under the what is contained An d “

.

is true not only of the An lytics whi ch we must date fairly early a

also of his later writings as for example M taphysi s VI and , , , e c

( 1 025 b 17 ; 104 1 a 27 ) and D e A n im II ( 413 a 13 Th o se a,

speak constantly of th e empiricism of Aristotle sho u ld not o ve lo r

this point .

M en of today perhaps first S tress in the Ar istotelian con cept

s cience the fact th at for Aristotle s cience exists solely fo r the
of knowledge and of truth h en ce for itself alone It does not , .

any utilitarian purpose Tasks of this type are performed by Tech

.

art
( ) E m
, p i i ( experiment )
re a P h r o n esis
( prudence ) ( M ta I , e .
, ,

Eth N ic VI 3— 8 ; P o l I
.
, Genuine s cience however especia
.
, , , ,

as it is propounded in philosophy the ideal form of knowledge , ,

always a pure theoretical intuition of the truth It is an au .

“

self r uling as noted in Nico mach ean Eth ics X 7 where

-
, , , ,

sings a paean to the philosophical consider ation of tr uth of i ,

renunciation of every utilitarian fixation of pu rpose It is

fi
.

reaso n also a sign of tr ue human freedom ; in fact it is so ,

divine so mething in nitely enraptu ring All this is fo r the S t

, .

matter of course It is much more important to understand

.

h im the essence of scien ce no matter whethe r it is Epis teme ,

edge ) o r N o us ( scientia ) or S oph ia ( wisdom ) is ,

into essential attributes : analys is dedu ction intu , ,

tion of the essence in its ancient meaning This ”

.

his teaching that science I s

is then a state of capacity to demonstrate
, ,

ar gu me ntati va argumentative ,
“
as he
say ( Eth N ic VI 7 ; 1 139 b 31 ; ed M cK eo n p
. .
, , .
, .

Th e p rin ciples o f k no wledge H o w are the essences w .

analyzed in s cience established fo r us ? This is a categorical

which arises as soon as we attempt to construct science on
of the premises of syllogisms We could naturally attempt . ,

the premises be they con cepts o r propositions from prior

, ,

tions that is syllogistically ; we could in turn derive the

, , , ,

from their p roofs and p roceed in the same manner conti nually .

would inevitably lead to an infinite regress Ar istotle reje cted .

a procedure because fo r him there woul d then be no demonstr

,
 ARI S TOTLE I 153

science H e assumes primary immediate insights wh i ch are basic to

.
,

all demonstration and need no further proof Th e premises of .

“

demonstrated knowledge must be true primary immediate better , , ,

known than and prior to the conclusion whi ch is further related to ,

them as effect to cause ( P o st An I 2 ; 7 1 b 20 ; ed M cKeon p

”
. .
, , .
,
.

S ubseq uent s cholars fashioned from th ese the i di i per se u c a

n o ta
, judgments known immediately In this matte r Aristotle is
“
.
”

again in h is element H e is afforded an oppo rtunity to define and

.

to divide Unde r these conditions it would have been ve ry desirable

.

if Aristotle could have fallen back upon revealed notions or proposi

tions as the later C hristian theologians actually did Then the .

scie n tia ar g me n tativa would have been perfect

u H oweve r in th e .
,

ancient period the philosopher s with the aid of the syllogistic

, ,

tech nique could perform a task that was fairly easy n amely analyze
, , ,

that stock of ideas that had been established in other ways in o rder
to be able to interpret them in this connection and to make them
capable of being understood more clearly This would have been .

“
fai th and at the same time s cien ce in fact demon strati ve s cience
”
, ,
“ ”
.

O r if A ristotle could have as had P lato taken fo r granted ce rtain

, ,

aprioristic contents of knowledge this pro edure would have been

fi
, c

practically the same Then dialec ti cs could have begun to function

. .

Bu t th e r st mentioned he did not as yet possess and the last named

—
,
-

was no longer in his possession H e had to turn therefo re to othe r .

, ,

quarters for his principles .

An d so he arrived at the conclusion that there could be and actually

were various principles of s cien ce O n the one hand we have p roposi .

tions which are purely fo r mal and a ctually self evident the S O called -
,
-

axioms These cannot be proved because every proof must take them
.
,

fo r granted The y are to be found everywhere b u t espe cially in

.

mathematics Th e most universal axiom is the prin ciple of c n tr adic

. o

tion It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be when

.
“

it is consider ed from the same point of view Akin to this is the .

”

assertion dr awn from the ex luded th ird : Between two members of c

“

a contradictory dilemma there is no middle Either the one o r the

"
‘ ’
.

o th er is t r ue ; there cannot be a third Bu t by such purely fo r mal

”
w .

principles we cannot advance very far We need material star ting .

points in the realm of knowledge These are given to us in postulates : .

propositions upon whose tru th content we do not pass j udgment ,

whi ch we assume as the basis of our proof in order to asce rtain

whether o r not they hold tr ue F u r the rmor e we have hypotheses : .
,
15 4 ANC I E NT PH ILO S O PHY
p ropositions whi ch tentatively enunciate an assertion concerning
reality Especially noteworthy among these material p rinciples are
.

definitions : declarations of the q uiddity of objects These are the “ ”

.

special criteria of syllogisms It is from what a thing is that .

‘ ’

syllogisms S tart (M eta VII 9 ; 1034 a 31 ; ed M cKeo n p

”
.
, , .
, . .

This sounds enti re ly P latoni c F rom what source do we know wh at

.

a thing is Where does ou r knowledge of man of life , ,

and of the soul o riginate ?

Th e s our ce of k no wledge in general With such queries we a rrive .

at last at the question which deals with the sou rce of ou r knowledge
in gener al And her e it appears as if Aristotle depar ts from P lato
. .

Acco r ding to P lato notions of essence were ap rio ri Th e uni v er sal

, .

is prio r to the par ticular fo r the particular is fir st interpreted and

,

under stood solely by means of the uni versal Aristotle however .

, ,

explains that for our human knowledge the particula r is fir st known ,

and that we gain knowledge of the uni ve rsal through it C oncepts .

and definitions are indeed prin ciples of syllogistic knowledge but ,

they ar e not the final source of k nowledge ; the ultimate sour ce is to

be found in experience : It is clear that we must get to know th e
“

primary p remisses by induction ; fo r the method by which even sense

perception [Epagoge ] implants the uni ver sal is inducti ve ( P ost An ”
.

11 19 ; 100 b 4 ; ed M cKeo n pp 185 O r : The uni v e r sals a r e

“
.
, ,
.

reach ed from par ticular s ( Eth Nic VI 12 ; 1134 b 4 ; ed M cKeon

”
. .
, , .
,

p. From these statements it would seem that induction I s prio r

to and mo re important than deduction .

1 ) S e ns e per ceptio n Fo r A ristotle all knowledge begins with sense

.

pe rception There is nothing in the intellect whi ch is not made present

.

there through the medium of senses If the s cien ce [of metaphysics ] .

“

were actually innate it were strange that we are unaware of o ur

,

pos session of the greatest of sciences (M eta I 9 ; 993 a 1 ; ed .

, ,
.

McK eo n p, . F o r this reason animate beings are equipped with

sense o rgans If one of the senses is missing the knowledge that
.
,

corresponds to it is also absent A blind man for instance has no .

, ,

knowledge of colo r Because of this fact it was Clear to Aristotle that

.

all knowledge has its ori gi n in the senses Aristotle rehabilitates .

sense knowledge whi ch had been attacked by the critique of P lato

, .

To Aristotle it was not so untrustworthy as his

h ad us belie ve O n the cont r a r y every sense so
.
, ,

within its own area is always true It is only th r

, .

which applies its data to determined objects that ,

15 6 ANC I E NT P H ILO SOPHY
previously used for the fir st time the expression abstra tion ( dqb A Z ) c e e v .

An d also her e where he des cribes the ope r ation of th N ous ( i n tel
, e

le ct ) he speak s again of the faculty of abstraction in th e Nous

,
“ ”

and interprets it to mean the origin of spiritual or immaterial

concepts In it there is a ctually a lifting o u t of and a ”drawing
.
“ ”

o t from
u Bu t what kind of abstra ction is this ?
.

We can best understand th essential ideas contained in it by e

comparing I t with modern abstraction as des cribed by Lo ck e and

H u me To them the concept is nothing more tha n th e sensible
.

rep resentation of a universal It is th e average value which emerges .

from a series of experiences because we pass over the individual dif

,

fer en ces and retain only th e typi cal Abstra ction means therefore a .
, ,

purely psy chological process which is concerned with th e development

of representations as such The notion or concept simply binds .
” “ ”

these representations togeth er but abstains from making a pronoun ce ,

ment about th e S tru cture of being S ubstances o r essen ces cannot .

be recogni z ed .

In Ar istotelian abstraction however it is precisely the ideal st u c

, , r

ture of being that is recognized idos ( spe cies ) and mo ph e ( form ) , e r .

Th e concept is the rea son the r oot basis of the substan ce ( M57
, s ,
0 9 7

Fo r th is reason the re is a s cience of metaphysi cs for Aristotle ; ’

fo r Locke and H ume there is none In Aristotelian abstracti o n .

,

furthermore the concept is not first formed in th e course of a psy

,

ch o lo gical p r o cess by the amalgamation or the attrition o r

,

S implification of representations , b u t a fully developed ontolo ,

entity is exposed sometimes even out of a s ,

for th e universal is not apprehended by means

but as a result of an irradiation The uni vers “
.

view under the activity of the Nous j ust as does

light illuminates it Fo r thi s reason we should stop .

abstr action in Ar istotle unless we place some stri ctu res on

H is abstraction is the intuition of the essen ce an ab tr a

fi
, s

gained and performed intuitively T him sense . o

little an ef cient cause as it was with P lato It is

fi
.

cause and conse q uently cannot a ctuate the N o u s N o matter h .

insuf cient the description of the active [agent ] intellect is “ ”

De Anima III 5 it is clear that this intellect is in cont rast

“ ”
, , , ,

sense knowledge unmixed and unbiased ( sw a dw b j ) It

,
“ ”
g, a vs .

self activated and creative as is the artist in contact with his materi
-

And p recisely by Su ch a v1ew is

 R I STOTLE
A I 157

co nception of the so rce of knowledge related to that of P lato To

u .

P lato the idea is not a p r odu ct of sensible reality but an apriority by

essence In the Nous of A ristotle lies concealed P latonic apr io r
.

Ism . That the experience of the senses delive r s materi al is not a

new idea P lato himself made u se of the senses and their data When
. .

Aristotle polemi cizes agai nst P lato in this conne ction we must bear ,

in mind that his argu ment oftentimes is based on peripheral reasons

and realities whereas h e personally was basi cally in a ccord with his
,

master s thought
’

4) A isto tl r mpi i i t In anothe r sense though we are j usti fied

e as e r c s .
, ,

in calling him an empiri cist as opposed to P lato : not I n pri nciple ,

in matters w hi ch are con cerned with the o r igin of kn o wledge — in

th is respect he is a rationalist but in a practical methodo logical —

respect F rom thi s standpoint he employs and utilizes sense exper i

.

e n ces to a greate r extent than did P lato Fo r P lato was a sp i r it gi ven

.

more to spe culative s ynthesis ; conversely Aristotle formally organized ,

individual experimentation and resear ch collected obse r vations and

fi
,

encouraged them to be gathered kept in touch with th e opi ni o ns of ,

others and posed his own aporias or philosophical dif culties in o r der
,

to report experien ce from as many sides as possible We can S till .

observe this in h is a ccoun ts of beasts obse rvations which are S till —

respected today in h is collection of the constitutions of states as

—
,

well as in his outlines of th e history of philosophy and of the history

of civilization In these subj ects he enters eve rywhere into detail in
.
,

e xte ns o, he loves the concrete whereas P lato kept alw ays before h i s
‘

eyes the great universal ideas and by them he understood the

parti cu lars .
C H A P TE R

A R I S T O TL E II : BE I N G AND BE I N GS

B EI N G AN D BE INGS
1 . TH E C ONCEP T OF METAP HYS I CS
E ven Ar istotelian
logic b o r e a r elation to being : the concept was a
r e velation o f essence ; th e j udgment a statement of facts and circum ,

stances ; th e syllogism a means for attaining a mo re complete grasp

,

of reality H ence it is quite un derstandable th at Aristotle s name should ’

fi
.

be as closely connected with metaphysi cs as it is with logic H e .

furthermore wrote th e r st metaphysi cs This again has be come as has .

,

his logic a lodestar down to our day e ven though he did not call his
, ,

work metaphysics“
— this name appears first with Boethius ( d .

A D 5 25
. .
) — but first philosophy “
o r wisdom ”
.

What does he mean by it ? Ar istotle concei ved of a science which

investigated not only par ticula r a reas of being as fo r example , , ,

medicine o r mathematics but also uni versal being which is found

, ,

e verywhere hence of being as such and whate ver might be connected

,

with it There is a science which in vestigates being as being an d

.
“

the attributes which belong to this in virtue of its own natur e ( M eta ”
.
,

IV 1 ; 1003 a 21 ; ed M cKeo n p
, .In this definition metaphysics
, .

is called th e science of being ontology All sciences deal constantly, .

with being and take fo r granted a whole series of notions which

are directly an d immediately connected with it notions fo r example , , ,

of identity variety genus species whole and par ts perfection uni ty

, , , , , , ,

necessity and reality ( see M eta V ) Eve ry scientist not just this one or
, .
, .
,

that one makes use of these notions They are therefore truly uni
,
.

ver sal known quantities alon

,

the s cientists up to Ar istotle s time had examined and subject

’

to a thoroughgoing scrutiny They wer e taken fo r granted .

being analyzed For this reason there was need of a s cien ce

.

i n a critical way these ideas so frequently used th e most ,

15 8
16 0 ANCI E NT P H I Lo sop H Y
‘

them For Aristotle a principle is that from whi ch something pr o

.
,

cee ds in some fas h ion or another In the principles we are shown .

th e substrata and the causes by means of whi ch being is set in motion :

its becom ng i ts forms i cosmic p r o cess are developed for

fi
, ,

us Through these being itself is clarified There are th e substances

.
, .

and the form ( m t wpdnj) matter ( Wh y) th e cause of movement

o
'
a
, , ,

( oT 39 7 dp xi) 7
6V
7 j w
)7and purpose 7
( 5 5 e 9
) ( M t I
K tvr o e
e a
'
s ,
7 0 vexa .
, ,

These were present in philosop h y before the advent of A ristotle Bu t .

in him they are co n ceived anew harmonized and redu ced to an , ,

orderly system which permits being to be developed from the threshold

of no thing to the infinite .

O u sia or su bstan c e If being as su ch is to be developed and .

Cla rified as it s h uld the notion of o usi ( substance ) would present

o , a

itself to us immediately and naturally for o si w as actually called , u a

being and was employed extensively in philosophy before Aristotl e ,

especially by P lato .

I ) An logy f b ing Bu t A ristotle immediately re cogni z ed that

a o e .

this notion is not univocal : There are many senses in whi ch a thing “

may be said to be ( M eta IV 2 ; 1003 a 33 ; ed M cKeo n p

‘ ’

, .
, .

S o crates an individual has being ; the universal concept of man

“ ”
, ,

as such has being a property always accidental to a substance has

“

“
being ; an epistemological prin ciple su ch as that of identity has
”
, ,

being fo r 2 X 2 is 4 A body has one kind of being and the soul

,
” “ ”
.

another ; the actual has being but the possible also h as being ; we ascribe
being to the past which was and also to the future which is not yet .

What is the genuine and prima ry meaning of the notion ? Aristotle

makes use of an example the notion of health : we describe a certain ,

condition of the body as health y ; we say also of the color in a man s

’

face that it is h ealthy but in thi s last sense it is only the S ign of ,

health ; we call a medi cine healthy because it restores health ; a food ,

healthy be ause it preserves health The notion of health is used in

, c .

all these instan ces neith er in exactly the same sense ( univocally ) ,

no r in s ch a way that the meaning contained in it denotes something

u

entirely different ( equivocally ) but rath e in an analogous sense ,

r
“ ”
.

In su ch usages there is present basi cally a genuine and a primary

meaning ; and this is the sense in which we understand it when we
apply th e notion to describe the condition of the body ( M eta IV ,

A n d S O it is with the notion of being : it is predi cated in an analogous

sense Th e being which we assert of God of the world of the soul
.
, ,

and of th e body of substance and of accident does not apply t all

,
o
 ARI STO LE T if 161
in exactly th same sense alth ough we use the same wo r d in calling
e ,

them being It does not apply to them in the same way that the
“
.
”

term reature can be given to men and animals No r when we use

c .
,

th e same word does it possess an entirely di f

, ferent sense as when ,

we call both a fishing l u re and an insect a fly but it is understood ,

”

analogously .

2 ) Th e o igin al mean ing f b ing Bu t in s ch usage there is

r o e . u

present a primary mean ng whi ch is indicative of th e other meanings

i

that are derived from being This primary meaning is implied in the .

being of th e first substan ce hen ce in the con crete individual an tono

, , ,

mous reality Being in its primary mean i ng 3 found in S o crates not

. 1 ,

in man as su ch ; nor is it present in a quality attributed to S ocrates ,

but in a substance which supports qualities as accidents Wh y ? .

Ar istotle answe r s : when we are asked about the essence of a thing ,

we give the best reply not by a general assertion but by a concrete , ,

individual answer This parti cular individual S o crates or this spe cific
.
, ,

h orse would not be correctly des cribed in his or its singularity if I

were to say : This is a man that is a horse The correct pro cedure , .

is to present S o crates or that parti cula r ho r se in all its indi

vidu alit
y . C onse q ently the spe
u cies is m u ch more pre cise than the
,

g enus because it more closely approaches individuality ( C at 5 ; .

,

2 b 7
A fu r ther reason why A ristotle preferred the parti ular may be c

found in th e th eory th at th e fi rst s u bstan ce is the fi nal sub j e t of ou r c

judgments T
. h e s ientifi c subjecct of j udgment is it is true always a , ,

u niversal notion as we have already seen ; but after the universal is

,

dr awn from the parti ular it is always the particular of which some
c ,

predi cated or asserted An d for this reason the particular .

resent being in its strict sense No t only is something logi cal .

h e predicates themselves exist in the

They are supported by it and have in it their being An d .

a third reason for the view that th e fi rst substance is

preferred sense .

u b t n ce a ) Its Notion S pported by this we can better

s s a . . u ,

what Aristotle means by the term first substance ( 1 6 ) “ ”

71 0 0 7 1

S ubsta nce in the truest and primary and most definite sen se
,

word is that whi ch is neither predicable of a subject no r

,

in a subj e ct ; for instan ce the individual man or horse ,

”

d M cK e n p 9 : 6 2 d dpw
.
6 l i
o ,
First
. 7 9 v rr o s
,
l

‘
r s nn

the ultimate subj e t of an assertion and c

162 A NC I E NT PH ILOSO PHY
the ontological basis of ac idents By su ch a defi nition we can readily
detect two ways whi ch lead to the acceptance of r st substance th e,
linguisti c logical and the ontological The mind assumes both in its
-
c .

.
fi ,

reasoning and in its speech but mor e precisely in its j udgments a ,

‘

substr atum of which an asse rtion is valid O f it e ve rything is predi .

cared but it is itself not a predi cate C hapte r 5 of the Categor ies
, .

very clear ly points to this relationship as the underlying r eason

which leads ultimately to th e acceptance of substan ce This .

fo rmally into the defin ition The mind per forms its functions .

way and fo r this reason substance is a fo rm of th ought for A

,

Bu t being itself is co rr espondingly di vided In our expe r ience .

distinguish being in a twofold way :

it is present in something else ( ens in alio ) accident ; and a be ,

of which this is not the case which possesses its own existence ,

in s e ) and consequently fo r ms a p r ope r essential being su b stan c ,

accidents a re found in sub stance substance is natu rally also ,

“
permanent in contradistinction to the transito ry the beare r
” “

,
”

not the thing bo rne the thinkable ( no u meno n ) in contr ast

,

an ce ( ph eno meno n ) In such a des cription nothing is said

.

found ation and the origin of this state of autonomy Th e .

need not be concei ved as it i s in the modern philosophies of ,

‘

and S pinoza also as an ens a se This is an enti rely different

, .

It is not the examination of the basis which leads

between substance and accidents but the exam nat o ,
i i

form of a being F or Aristotle this is determined

.

self e vident Aristotle a ssumes that ou r speaking

-
.
,

thinking sin ce both permit us to presuppose a substr

,

in acco r d with being and its structur e M ind and .

with one anothe r Fo r this reason we mention th.

place in a subj ect because they are actually in ,

r elation of these accidents differ s from time to

al ready seen ( p 142 Th e decisi v e element however is that
.
, ,

accidents S how fo r th an inner relationship to the essence of the

stance AS a consequence they enunciate this essence more o r
.

clearly and immediately F or Aristotle the changes which we .

ceive in ou r experience and assert in ou r j udgments ar e not

one after anothe r i rregularly and u nr elatedly ,

artificially united by speci al laws which are

thei r essence namely mere physical laws as
, ,

to be They are inwardly and ontologically b

.
164 A NC IENT P H I LOSOPH Y
be annihilating but only on one supposition and this is precisely
, ,

the problem A ristotle ass mes that individ u al things form a spe cial
. u

reality in fact reality absolutely A S a conseq uen ce of this the

, , .
,

P latonic ideas are naturally a spe cial world alongside this one Bu t .

P lato could have replied by saying These individual things are not :

actually a special reality and fo r this reason I do not du plicate the

,

world Individual things are what they are only by means of the
.

idea Th e idea does not exist alongside things ; it appears in indi

.

vidual things and only then is the phenomenon at all possible

, .

There is a not a do ble being but only th e being of the idea

u , .

There is however one bene fi t whi ch may be derived from this

, ,

discussion ; the new notion of reality whi ch Aristotle propound in s

opposition to his teacher To him the individual thing is r eal and

.

this individual thing is a thing of the senses ; for the antithesis to

the world of thought conceived by P lato is the visible world of
A ristotle with its particular sensible objects This position of Aristotle .

in opposition to P lato determined the noti on of reality down th e

centuries up to the threshold of idealism propounded in modern

times and it is responsible for the fact that whene ver reality is
,

mentioned thought immediately turns to th e things of nature sensible ,

things Is not the soul something real ? A n d are not logical assumptions ]
.

and values more durable than brass ( e e pe e n ni s ) ? By what right a r r u

can we design ate the sensible world as th only tr e reality ? Aristotle e u

never advances proof for th is position ; it was an assumption a pres ,

en tatio n of a viewpoint .

4) S o n d s b stan e Bu t now we are going to be surprised

ec u c . .

A ristotle does not rest content wit h his theory of first

To him the substance was the essen ce the support and t ,

an entire complexus of phenomena Bu t now he forges .

poses the q uestion : Wh at makes the fi rst s bstance that whi ch it u

By th is question he assumes an essen ce of the essence S o crates .

substance is the nu cleus of all phenomena whi ch are connected w

h im Bu t what is this substan ce of S o crates itself ? Th e answer
.

S o crates is a man S ocrates therefore is understood

.

under the aspect of the universal under a species Th , .

“
specific ch aracter forms his essence ; that is to say
”
,

for th at wh ich it is [for S o crates ] to be

“

y
”
n
’ ’
v

This is the se cond substance ( S i ) A d

’

p f n ev r e a o io a .

that it
k nown
 AR I S TO TLE II 165

known ( M eta VII 3 ; V 11 ; P h ys I 1 ; P An I

.
, , By ven , .
, , r . .
, ,

tu ring this the idos ( form ) reappears Th e universal S actually more

e . I

important than the particular ; for the parti cular is now understood
only by means of the universal We see in Aristotle the ontologi cal .

prio rity of the uni versal very clearly when in the Topics ( IV , ,

he declares that he understands the spe cies by means of something

more universal from the genus itself and perceives in it also an
, ,

apriority and something better known for annul the genus and dif ,

fer eii tia and the spe cies too is annulled S O that these are prior to
, ,

the species ( Top VI 141 b ”

Genus here is not a notion but
.
, , ,

an ontologi cal universal ; for a universal notion does not annul its
subo r dinate notions but itself arises from them O nly the P latonic .

e ido s annu ls what is subo r dinate to it ; be cause e ve r ything that shares

i n t CX S tS only through the eidos ; and only if we look on the uni
I l .

versal idea with P latoni c eyes can the parti cular be annulled by the
a n n u llmen t of the more universal Despite his polemi cs Ar istotle .
,

cannot rid hi mself of his P latonism Just as in his th eory of knowl .

edge so in his metaphysics he ultimately returned to P lato after an

,

initial departur e from him In opposition to the theory of P lato he .

,

introduced the first substance as being in its primary meani ng but ,

he n evertheless permits the se cond sub stan ce to constitute the first .

And in this respe ct he is again a P latonist .

5 ) For m a ) M eaning With the notion of the second substance

. .

whi ch forms the essen ce of the fi rst we arrive at one of the basic ,

con ce pts of Aristotelian philosophy namely the notion of form , ,

( M a
p d j)nInso far as.being is determined in its specifi c S ingularity by
s econd substance we can conceive of this eidos as form natu rally
, ,

not in a visual but in a logico ontological sense as something deter —

,

mining forming bestowing being As in his logi c so also in his

, , .
,

metaphysics A ristotle takes the substrate ( bw lj ) for granted In o xe t eva .

logic the predicates adhere to and inhere in thei r substrates ; in meta

physics the forms — , more precisely the form determines the sub
or , ,

S trate to a definite essen ce A ll beings are beings that have been

‘

“
formed ; all be coming the re ceiving of a form ; all passing away
”
, ,

its loss M atter stands naturally as corr elative to form Both ar e

. .

p rin ciples of a being .

b ) O rigin Th e way by whi ch A ristotle arrived at these two first

.

p rin ciples of being and be coming was again by a consideration of

sp eech and thought Th e P h ysics ( I wh ere matter an d form are
.
,
“

d eveloped for the fir st time p rovides the foun dation for this r efle c ,
16 6 ANC I E NT PH ILO S O PHY
tion : the fact that wheneve r w e speak of becoming we ar e accustomed ,

to say that something will be come this or that It is not only in acci .

dental change that we assum e a sub strate in ou r thought and speech ,

th e substance from which the Change proceeds and is educed S u b .

stances themselves are presumed to arise if they a rise at all from some , ,

basic underlying matte r We percei ve that plants animals houses

.
, , ,

and statues proceed from something from seeds wood stone And , , , .

as a consequence the thing that becomes is always a composite of

,

matte r and of form ; and analytic r easoning can pick out these two
principles th e fo rmal and the material cause and clearly present us
, ,

with the notions of matter and fo rm What Aristotle o ffe r s us here .

is not a nai ve transfer of popular ob ser vations in a rt and in nature

to metaphysics but an analysis of reasoning and of speech hence of
, ,

the human mind in its basic functions the human mind which is ,

accustomed to think in this manner of becoming and of being .

c) H yle mo r ph ism We te r m this matte r form metaphysi cs h ylemo r

.
-

p h ism. It o f
f ers us one of the most enduring philosophi cal systems

that h as e ve r been devised At its cente r stands Aristotle H is fo re

. .

r unne rs wer e the P ythagor eans and P lato his successo rs S cholasticism ,

and the S cholasti cs ; e ven Kant continued to speak of matte r and

form in hi s theo ry of knowledge The essential point of the whole .

theo ry is its tendency to include the whole of being in its examina

tion and explanation In it the whole is prio r to the part The parts
. .

exist because of the whole not the whole because of the parts All
, .

becoming ther efo re is r egulated by the form The form is not merely
, , .

the end product r athe r it dete rmines from the outset the entire pro cess
,

of becoming We always find the fo rm at the co r e of all phenomena

. .

The most extreme antithesis in this qualitative examination of being ,

as we are sometimes accustomed to call it may be found ,

tus fo r whom the re exist only parts and completely

,

groupings ; o r in Locke or H ume fo r whom phenomena ,

without inne r legitimate connection and cohere only b

psy chic o r mental asso ciatio ns until Kant again introdu ce
,

but only as a category of r eason not as an essential structure,

ontological order In the wo rds of Aristotle the whole of being

.
,

intrinsically co ordinated ; it has nuclei of crystallization points

-
,

o rigin life centers stru ctures species genu s degrees in fact p

, , , , , ,

cisely ou r fo rms .

d ) The Idea in the World With this we are again c .

with the P latonic eidos as a metaphysical principle F orm .

168 ANC I E NT PH ILOS O PHY
idea in the world bo th mean exactly the same thing in the end In the
, .

fi rst instan ce the material world participates in the idea ; in the second ,

the form is present in the material world and by its being determines
the beings and phenomena of the material world ( age r e se q uit r esse ) u ,

so that ultimately that whi ch a thing is is what it is by vi r tue of the ,

form Fo r P lato it is always the o usia whi ch saves phenomena

.
“
.
”

“
There exists in the Chief features of their philosophy su ch a surp rising
agreement between Aristotle and P lato N H ar tmann pointed out ,
”
.
,
“
that we can rightfully ask the questi on : where p r ecisely does th e

fi
‘

u nbridgeable Chasm between them lie ? Th at this accord and ’

agreement are not suf ciently recognized is due perhaps to , ,

constant polemi c whi ch Ar istotle directed against hi s teacher T . o

who looks beneath the surface it is evident that his polemic ,

quently was only affected .

6 ) I n di iduatio n Th e true characte r of the Ar istotelian form

v .

pear s again in connection with the problem of individuation .

form is always a universal a se cond substance H o w does the , .

substance the pa rticular originate from it ? asks Aristotle

, , .

for the basis of individuation in matter S ince the form is I m .

in the material world of space and time matter becomes c ,

and particula r and thus there arise the countless exemplars

,

a re classified in a species the numerical one in opposition , ,

spe cieslik e oneness of the form M atter is therefore the .

individuation Everything that exists in spa ce and time

.

a composite of matter and form : neith er matter no r fo r m

itself alone but only the S yno lon ( mi v ) the first su b sta
,
v v
,

is composed of matter and form There is only one pure .

exists fo r itself alone without any admixture of matter the

, ,

M ove r H e is the s b tantia s par ata All other beings are

. u s e .

hand only a compound ( a mixture ) and are therefore

ticu lar That Aristotle took the trouble to inquire how fi r st
.

can originate from second substance S ince to his way of ,

the par ti cula r I s pri mary and from it the universal is derived ,

us that in this matter his viewpoint has again changed First .

is indeed only the universal ; other wise we would not need to

late the p roblem of individuation at all Again P latonism .

through .

7 ) A divided Ar i to tle o r a bipolar ity fb ing S hould

s o e .

as a contradi ction this fluctuating position of Aristotle i

the concept of th e ousia? At one time he sees th e ess
 AR S I T OT L E II 169

substance at ano ther in second and at still another in the par ti cular

fi
, , ,

and finally in the unive r sal itself O r should we in a purely histo ri cal
.

fashion attempt to explain the w hole matte r as an un nished con

tr o ver sy bet w een P lato and hi mself ? A ctually we might emb r ace both

these solutions but we would not be doing justi ce to the subject if we

,

did Could not Aristotle point to a very realistic justification for his
.

viewpoint ? I S not r eality determined partly by the par ticular and

partly by the universal ? Does not being possess a bipolar chara cte r ,

as it we re ? We can see this argument beautifu lly developed and

exemplified in the human characte r We try to under stand a person .

by means of his temperamen t either as sanguine or melancholic etc

‘

, ,
.

Bu t we are neve r able successfully t reduc e any one pers o n to any o

o n e p r ec i se type ; the person defies ou r analysis an d alw ays retains

his individuality Both are essential An d this is true in other branches

. .

as well ; for e ven the schematized objects in the field of technics ne ver
represent a pure type ; even in this highly speciali z ed fie ld the indi
vid al predominates Does not e very auto as well as every fountain
u .

pen ha ve its own peculiarities of which eve ry dri ver and every
penman are cons cious despite the supposed make of the auto and
,

fi
the pen ? Aristotle saw these two extremes of reality They are genuine .

prin ciples by which being as su ch can be explained more fully .

H yle o r matte r 1 ) S eco n d and

. st m tte When we speak of r a r .

the fo rm we must also mention the notion of matter

,
By
means of the fo rm alone says A ristotle no house can be built The
, ,
.

builder needs building material A certain causality m st therefore . u

be ascribed to matter An d if we S hould take into consideration the

;

fact that the durability of any material constru ction di ffers greatly
cording to the material used in its prod ction we would realize u ,

that being and becoming are dependent upon matter and that the ,

material cause co nstitutes an intrinsic principle .

A ristotle distinguishes between two kinds of matter H e defi nes

fi
.

the fir st thus : For my definition o f matter is j ust this the p rimary

“
—

substratum of ea ch thing from whi ch it come s to be without ali ca

, q u

tion ( P h ys
”
.
, 192 a 3 1 ; ed M cK e n p Th e second type of
. o , .

matte r is tha t wh i ch in itself is neither a parti lar thing nor of a

“
“
cu

certain quantity no r assigned to any other of the categor ie s b whi ch

y
'

being i s determined ( M eta VII 3 ; 1029 a 20 ; ed M cK eo n p

”
.
, , .
, .

M atte r in the fir st meaning can also be that which is already formed in

some fashion or another : se ond matter ( S p SM) for examp le c
’
ev r e a
, ,

i b u ilding material which is used for a house o r fo r a statue O nly .

170 ANC IE NT PH ILO SOPHY
matte r in the second sen se constitutes th e principle which Aristotle
opposes to the form : first matter ( p ; Wy) Th e first matte r is ab so n
'
ar r r a .

lu tely undetermined indistinguishable ; it is basic to al l being and

,

becoming ; it is without any fofm but can be p r epared ( fashioned ) to

receive any fo rm Aristotelian matte r is not restricted solely to the
.

material wo rld ; it is not a notion which exclusi vely ser ves th e aims of
the natu ral sciences but it is the correlative of the notion of form with
,

out which it would lose all meaning The difficulties conne cted with .

the notion of first matte r which is without any determination were

, ,

fully r ealized by Aristotle Fo r this reason he expres sed him self most
.

cautiously ; it must be conceived of by means of an analogy to that

matte r which the a rtist uses in his work (P hys 1 7 ; 19 1 a 8 ) .

, ,

2 ) P r ivation If we should examine matte r speci fi cally in r egar d

.

to th e point that in th e cou r se of change it loses its fo r m only to

recei ve anothe r in place of the one lost we would be able to per cei ve ,

in such a dep r i v ation of fo r m ( p ym ) a third p r inciple of becoming

’
or e v e .

A l though this p r inciple is notionally distin ct from matte r it is r eally ,

identical with it Fo r this reason looking at a subject in a truly

.
,

realistic fashion we can distinguish between two principles matter

, ,

and form ; considering the same subject n o tionally howe ver we would , ,

have three : matter pri vation and form

, , .

3) Beco ming By this distinction Ar istotle belie ved that he had

.

ob viated the diffi culty which philosopher s had encountered in con

n ectio n with the p r oblem of becoming when they studied the wo r ks

of the p re S ocr atic s especially the Eleatics They asked : H o w can

-
, .

some thing be deri ved from a being without clashing with th e p rinciple
of contr adiction : fo r a being is this being and therefore not another ;
it would be an other howeve r if it were to become something

fi
, ,

else Much less can something come into existence out of non being
.
— .

We would be confronted with the same dif culty if we should

take as basis the contr adictories of being and becoming as th e ,

H er aclitean s had done H o w do these cont radictories react one upon

.

the other ? Ar istotle resolved the rigid notion of being which actually
recognized only the particular the 68 and bridged ove r the con
,
7 5 n
,

tr adictor ies by introducing matte r whi ch is a medium between being

and non being ( cf p

-
. .

4) Ar istotelian matter and ancie nt ph ilo s oph y O n this matter of .

becoming as oftentimes on othe r s Ar isto tle asso ciates himself with ,

the philosophy of forme r ages P r e S ocrati c philosophy knew th e.

—

Apeir o n o r the Boundless ;

172 ANC I E NT PH ILOSOPH Y
movement Th e concept of change is practically speaking syno nymous
.
, ,

with that of movement We may therefor e di stinguish a qu ntitati e . a v

movemen t, which consists of increase and diminution growth and de ,

cline ( ffn m 2 Mim ) a q ualitative mo vement which is a tr ansfor

a i
'
a s e
,

mation o r a conversion and a spatial movement

(d p )
d ia
,

which consists of a change of place C ha racteristic of these three .

species is the fact that all take place in a subject They a re con .

sequently of an accidental natu re Antithetical to these is substantial .

becoming the generation and corruption of the subje cts themselves

,

( y
’
m
e ve pb mi ) (g
s -c e n er atio co r r
o
p )
tio W hat A r istotle saw in these
-
u .

various species of becoming was the change in the determination of

the form A thing has at one time this and at anothe r that dete rmina
.

tion Fo r this reason he recognized three factors of becoming namely

.
, ,

matte r form and lack of form or privation

, , By su ch a
concept he took into consideration actually only th e begin ning and

the end of the pro cess of becoming not the actual becoming itself , ,

th e transition C onsequently A ristotle did not ad v ance beyond P lato

.
, ,

for the form becomes again something static and stationary What is .

this transition motion itself ? ,

3) Th e esse nce of mo tio n We are told : Th e fulfillment of what .

exists potentially in so fa r as it exists potentially is mo tion (P h ys

, ,
.
,

III 1 ; 201 a 10 ; ed M cK eo n p
, Becoming is fulfillment ; b eco m
.
, .

ing is actuality When a statue is made of bronze be coming is not

.
,

verified in the bronze as bron ze for th is remains bronze ev en in the ,

statue itse lf ; but it is verified in that which is potentially contained

in the bronze Th e es sence of all becoming an d of all motion lie s in
.

the actualizing of this potentiality Becoming is accordingly explained .

by the notion of fulfillment actuality , .

4) P r in ciple ofca sality T explain motion Aristotle made use of

u . o

an axiom basic to his philosophy namely the principle , ,

Everything that m o ves is necessarily moved by some thing els

“

A ristotle considered this axiom self evident Th e p ro o f advanced -

.

the P h ysi s ( V I I 1 ) is actually directed against the teachings

c ,

P lato concerning immanent self movement This argument rests -

.

the thought that even in those instance s in which self movement -

mistakenly conceived to exist there a re present a mover and a thi

moved C on se q uently e ven in such instances the principle ever yth i
.
, ,
“

that moves must ne cessarily be moved by something

good This argument does not prove that causality must

.
 RI STOTLE
A II 173

fo r this p rinciple against self causality but against the lack of all -
,

causality .

Aristotle also recognized a S till more gene r al fo rmulation of the

principle of causality and fo r him this formula was even more im ,

portant It runs as follows : Actuality is prio r to potency ( M eta

.
“ ”

IX 8 ; 1049 b 5 ; ed M cK eo n p
, Th e a ctual is prio r to the
.
, .

potential in thought fo r we a r e able to conceive of a possible only ,

“ ”

on the supposition of the actual To be possible means S imply to .

“ ”

be able to become actual The actual is also prio r to the potential in .

time ; to be sure the actu al comes into existence only by means of

,

a possible b u t it does so only because the causality of something

,

already actually present is exerted : a man comes into existence through

a n already actual man a musician only through an actual musician ,

in whom a fi rst move r is acti ve Fo r from the potentially existing .

“

the actually existing is always produced by an actually existing thing ,

e g. man from man musician by musician ( M eta IX 8 ; 1049 b 23;

.
, ,
”
,

ed M cKeo n p
. A man is consequently prio r to the seed fr om
, .
, ,

which he sp rings Finally the actual is by essence ( t z ) p rio r to

.
, ,
o a a

the potential Even if the actual is chronologically posterio r to the

.

p otenti al it is p r ior in
, the o r de r of the e ido s and the o usia ; the

form of which it is an expression must already exist All becoming .

tends toward an end insofa r as it hasten s towar d the fo rm This .

end or purpose is nothing other than actuality itself And actuality .

lis nothing other than an e f fect a completed perfected being F or , , .

this reason the effected reality ( ener geia) is called entele h eia i e c , . .
,

that which has achieved its purpose Actual S ight is not p resent .

S imply be cause the faculty of sight exists in a given indi vidu al but ,

fi
th e faculty is present fo r the sake of se eing Reality o r actuality .

precedes potentiality .

5 ) Th e e icient cause as th e f or mal cau s e P lato had al r eady

‘
.

ee nu n ciated the prin ciple of causality All motion r esults necessa rily .
“

from a cause as we read in the Timae s ( 28 a ) If A ristotle was

,
”
u .

of th e opinion that motion and becoming could not be explained as

transition and d ynamics by means of the idea and if in opposition ,

to such a theory he appealed to efficient reality it is in cumbent upon ,

u s to learn how h e explains a ctuality o r r eality .

H e called it e n geia or n t lech eia and distin guished between a

er e e ,

first and an imperfect entelechy Th e first is to him the perfe ct

” “ ”
.

actuality of a being ; the second that whi ch is in the process of ,

becoming a reality From this we would naturally expect that th e .

174 A NC IENT PH I LOSOP H Y
actuality o r the entelechy which now appears as a new cause in
opposition to P lato s conception would be explained by some entir ely ’

new facto rs M uch to ou r su rp rise howe ve r we disco ve r that on this

.
, ,

point Aristotle de voted himself to an elabo ration of the notion of ,

fo rm The entelechy is nothing more than the form Th e mo ver

. .
“

o r agent will always be the vehicle of a fo rm either a thi s or such ,

‘ ’ ‘

,
’

which when it acts will be the source and the cause of the change
, , ,

e.
g .the, full formed man begets man -
f r om what is potentially man ”

( y
P h s III 2 ; 202.a 9,; ed M cK
, eo n p A ristotle here r educes the .
, .

fou r causes which he had r ep resented in P h ysics ( 11 3) as separate ,

and distinct to two namely to the mate r ial an d fo r mal cau ses Even, , .

the efficient cause which Aristotle had set up in opposition to the,

idea is called a form ( P h ys II 7 ; 198 a 21 b 9 ; ed M cK eon p

, .
, ,
—
.
, .

S ome might mainta in that this view should be assigned to th e

P latonic period of Ar isto tle fo r the texts cited are found among th e ,

known earlie r por tions of his P h ysics Ne vertheless we find the same .

view p roposed in M etaphysics ( IX 8 ; 1049 b Eve ry thing that ,

“

is produced is something p r oduced from someth i

thing and that [the latter is ] th e same in species
,

fo rme r ] ( ed McKeon p ”
Nor can we hold
.
, .

Aristot
which has become concrete and dynamic and that in this
to tle s di fference f rom P lato It would be a serious erro r to r easo n
’
.

in this fashion The whole co re of the a rgument between P lato an d

.

Ar istotle center s ar ound th e natu r e of this r eality and yet we find ,

that Aristotle like P lato conceives of it as form This is but another

, ,
.

instance o f P latonism r e vealing itself in his thought .

out to uncove r a new reality ; but he was unable to c

diffe rently th an had P lato H e could not finish h is .

him that which is dynamic is also a form This is .

sha rply when in M etaphysics ( XII 8 ; 1074 a 35 ) ,

First M over which is pur est actuality a fir st o r pri

, ,

T i iju ell/at ) .

6 ) P otency the fact that the fo rm

and act . By
actuality ( é épy actus ) matte r is gi ven th e me
v aa
, ,

( S
i

n
l t/a
p o te ntia) I n oppos
ts
,
i ti on to the act .

acti ve principle we ha ve potency ,

and to be realized in sho rt as the , ,

existence of a thing no t in the way

we say that potentially fo r in stan ,
176 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
were enjoying them ? Before and afterward not at all ? This would ,

lead us to conclude that P rotagoras was right when he decl ar ed

that there was no such thing as an obj e cti v e being but that S O called ,
—

being was established solely on the basis of our own subj e ctive “

transitor y and immediately actual experiences Bu t no sane person

, .

could ever believe su ch absurdities and so we would be forced to ,

concede validity to that special fo rm of being which we have just

called potential being ( M eta IX We cannot opines Aristotle , , ,

define the notions of actual and potential being because we are dealing ,

with something that is entir ely primary Bu t all one would need .

to do would be to analyze his o w n experiences when he des cribed his

reactions to S leeping and waking complete and incomplete natural , ,

dispositions and development to realize what is meant by them ,

( M e ta IX .
, ,

7 ) Th e implicatio ns o f th e do ctr in e o f act an d o te n c

p y . a
) Fo r
th e P roblem of Becoming Th e notions of a t and of potency are
. c

as characteristic of the philosophy of Aristotle as are matte r an d

fo rm After developing th em he attempted to explain the meaning
.
,

of becoming If we S hould conceive of being a ccording to the unde

.

ter min e d r igid meaning of the Eleatics we would find that becoming
, ,

could not be explained because things always remain what they are
,
.

We could ne ver permit them to become something else because ,

otherwise we would run headlong into the principle of contradiction .

If we should howe ver make a distinction between actual and pos

, ,

sible being by such a distinction we would build a bridge from one

,

to the other Insofar as some thing is an actual being it is identical

.
,

with itself ; but insofar as ther e are potencies contained n it it can i ,

become something else ( cf p By this explanation A ristotle

. .

refuted both Eleaticism and H er aclitianism a task to which P lato ,

had de voted himself when he propounded his theo ry of the one and
the many In P lato s teaching the many hints at th e other the other
.
’

is contained in the h igher Idea ( Form ) Th e A istotelian

”
. r

is a variation of the P latonic participation o r meth xi e s .

b ) F o r the P roblem of God H ere we touch upon the .

point of the enti r e Aristotelian metaphysics namely the i i , ,

an Unmo ved M ove r This notion received .

from the philosophy of potency and act O n the b a .

direct personal obse rvations A ristotle dis covered that ,

th e realm of being we can distinguish between a

( py q )
’
eve f ie and a
. being in
( v poten cy ( Sm i n O ) A t /f er .
'
v .
 ARIS TOTLE II 177

he found that potentiality and actuality ar e interwoven in the world

whi ch we per ceive with ou r senses because actuality contains p , o

a n tiality and potentiality certain actualities Just as he had worked out .

the notion of absolute potentiality and of fi rst matter so he now ,

prepares the notion of the supreme reality pure act This con clusion .

regarding the idea of potentiality and actuality in absolute purity was

his own h appy inspira tion although the as cent from the imperfe ct to
,

th e perfect was a familia r pra cti ce derived from the P latonic theory of

ideas If we remembe r mo r e over that pure act is a pure form i e

.
, , , . .
,

an idea we would t h en appre ciate the sour ce both ideologically and

, ,

historically to which this Ar istotelian philosophi cal axiom belongs

, .

Where in the whole world is actuality an idea or an idea actuality ?

Naturally only in P latonism O nly because the form possessed for .

him its enti re élan vital was Ar istotle able to represent his matter
form philosophy also as a poten cy act philosophy It is extremely -
.

significant that fo r him ( M eta IX 8 ; 105 0 b 6 ) that which is prior ,

by nature I n the most exact sense ( p w ) are those substan ces which xv
’
i s

ar e sepa r ated fr om all matter For eternal things are prio r in sub “
.

stan ce to perishable things and no eternal thing exists potentially

,
”

( ed
. M cK e o n p Because
, there
. is no matter in these substan ces ,

th ere is likewise nothing potential in them And for this reason they .

ar e eternal This is th e purest P latonic heritage In P lato that whi ch is

. .

separated from matter the pure essen ce is the eternal and the prior
, ,

by nature Th e metaphysical elements in Aristotle are always P latonic

. .

An d for this reason to cultivate metaphysics in the meaning wh i ch

“ ”

Aristotle attaches to it denotes basi cally only to P latonize It is “

.

éh e nderstanding of A ristotle cu r rent in the n ineteenth century whi ch

u

p revents us from seeing the a ctuality proposed by A ristotle with

Greek eyes that is from the standpoint of form because in that cen
, , ,

ai ry in conformity with the development of modern philosophy

, ,

the real world conceived as the world of sensible phenomena is

“ ”

ch aotic and must be r egulated by some thing alien to reality namely , ,

the mind In such a philosophy the logical is purely logical To

. .

ancients th e s u l of reality was the q iddity the form If behind

~

o u , .

becoming there was for these an cients an efli cien t cause this is ,

form be ca u se becoming is noth ing else than the tendency

,

sire ) toward a form ( P h ys 1 An d if behind the world the r e

.
, ,

cause whi ch sets the process of be coming into motion ,

is again a form this time however a fir st form towar d

, , ,
“ ”
,

all things tend and whi ch moves the world as a thing ,

“
178 ANC IE NT PH ILOS O PH Y
beloved ( a ep bp ) This word no longer connotes a contradict
s t tevo v .

in the Ar istotelian system O f be coming in miniature as well as .

becoming in the world process even of eflicient causes the

“

, ,

scheme holds true : beco ming lis a tendency ( a desire ) toward a

Its outline can be found howe ver in P lato Everything seeks , ,
:

as the idea .

fi
P u rpo se Th e fourth prin ciple whi ch illuminate s being is
.

( 67 5
0 E that
venu ,for the sake
“
of whi ch ; A the end ;
”
r e
’
oe
,
“ ”

“
the good ; c u a n lis o r ex e mpl is ) We cannot understand
”
a s a ar .

formations and th e processes of being if we do not take into

sideration thei r purpose P urpose is therefore a true cause .

principle .

1 ) P r po s e in n tu e We meet with purpose today most intim

u a r .

in the plans of men To man a plan is an idea and no .

,

w e S how more Clearly what idea and p u rpose mean than by

th e work of a man who plans Ar istotle clearly re cogni z ed tha .

te h n e o r the o r de r of artistic a ct i vi ty pu r pose is t r uly native

’

c , .

he was also convinced that purpose is native not only to art but
to n atII r e ; in fact art conned it from nature In this respe ct nature
, .

art are not to be di fferentiated from one another If a house S h .

grow of its own acco r d by natural p r

be j ust as the workman would have constructed it ;
nature caused would have i n turn to be produced
would be done sa ve as nature would do it We k .

nature best in animals and plants S wallows ants and spide .

, ,

not pause to refle ct Bu t their nests and their webs are so wonde
.

contrived S O purposeful that we must in all fairness ask our

, ,

whether or not the creatures had planned them beforehand .

when leaves grow in su ch a way as to protect the fruit

on the tree and when roots burrow into the ground so as to
,

to nourish the tree we cannot overlook the finality thus di ,

In gene ral we can say that nature does nothing senselessly and
,

o se lessl D e Cae lo II 1 1 ; 29 1 b
p y ( , ,

2) Accide nt o r pu r po se ? Bu t could it not be possible that

appears to us as purposeful is only the product of chance ?
whatever su r vived precisely because it survived has been
, ,

In P h ysics ( 11 8 ; 198 b A ristotle fo

,

o b e cti n : M an
j o
y things
.
actually take pl
18 0 A NC IENT P H ILOSOPH Y
h
p ysis of par ticula r things is ther eby always to have become some
thing for something / wf P h ys II 8 ; 199 a 8
( , F o r this
n et v e va t n
'
.
, ,

reason he also termed the essence of an actual being an entelechy

“
The action is the end and the actuality I s the action And so e ven
, .

the w or d actuality is derived from action and points to the complete

‘ ’

reality ( M eta IX 8 ; 1050 a 21 ; ed M cKeon p

”
.
, , To have .
, .
'

purpose and end in oneself means to be perfect In contr ast to modern .

ph ilosophy in which teleological p roblems cannot maste r the question :

H o w may we assume that A b elongs necessar ily and pu rposi vely to
B e g an insect to a flowe r ? Ar istotle saw that an essence always in
, . .
,

e ludes another being in the ontological o r de r An d s ince this must also .

be understood in his P h ysics and thus constantly all beings cohe re ,

inwardly essentially and pu rposefully Generati on 15 a p rocess from

, , .
“

something to a something ; that which is generated having a cause in

which it o riginates and a cause in which it ends Th e o riginating
cause is the p rimary ef cient cause which is something already
endowed with tangible existence while th e final cause is some
fi ,
,
.

definite form o r similar end ( De P ar t Anim II 1 ; 646 a 30; ed ”

. .
, ,
.

M cKeon p , .

In such a concept there is no question of the origin of a species

from an actual becoming that o riginated in chance Everything is .

formed by essences and becoming is the result of an essence not the ,

essen ce the result of the becoming Aristotle explained that the primar y .

o rigin of being was fo rm and natu ral disposition ( P h ys II 8 ; 199 b ) .

, , ,

and turns in M etaph ysics XII 7 ( 1072 b 30) against the P ythago rean s
, ,

and S peu sippu s for whom the perfect stands at the end and not “

at the beginning of the p rocess of e volution It is true that a human .

being is at the end of a de velopmental p rocess from seed to maturity ,

but the seed itself originates from an already pe rfected being so that ,

man is accordingly prio r to the seed S ince .

world is eternal he can ventu re such a ,

refutation of a me chanical development of species a

confession of an idealistic mo r phology Idealistic fo r “ ”
.
,

element is the form o r the idea Although this form is a .

fo rm and ope r ates in an extended quantified reality it is , ,

naturally p rio r p i p 37 /nS ( 105 0 a 4

,
n cr e ov 7 c o et

In contrast to an infinite series there can only be an ideal ,

and only then can the explanation that man is prior to the S
any meaning Bu t here again we must approach Aristotle
.

P lato We a r e able to r ecognize the P latonic idealisti

.
,
 ARISTOTLE II 18 1

the Aristotelian
notion of teleology clearest in the fact that in the
P h ysics ( II 9 ; 200 a 3 ff) the final cause is st r essed as mo r e important
, .

than matte r that the pu rpose leads us back to a r ational soul as

, ,
“

it also does in ar t and that Aristotle e ven plays Wi th the notion of

,
”

permitting hyle ( matter ) to be abso rbed by the Logos AS he reflects .

upon it in the case of a tool its p recise being ( qu iddity) was

, ,

ltm determined by the matte r from which it was made ; a saw fo r

n E rnoc
,

instance can be made o n ly of iron fo r this is requi red by the notion

,
‘

of a saw C onsequently ther e is not always the same matter whi ch

.

is co r relative to the form as something enti r ely autonomous P e r haps .

the form is the p ri nciple which determines e verything if everything ,

is a precise being of such and such a kind There is indeed a .

co —cause matter which is at odds with the soul and

“ ” ”
,

its pu rposi ve regulations the necessary of which P lato himself ,

”

speaks Bu t Aristotle asks himself : Cannot this necessar y and this

.
“ ”

“
matter be con ceived as a part of the Logos ? Then there would be no
”

logical amo rphous o r fo rmless mate rial And the undeterminateness .

whi ch is usually called matte r would S imply be a logical dete rmina

tion that had not been drawn out to its ultimate pe rfection .

Ar istotle howe v e r only mulled ove r these thoughts H e held fast

, , .

to matter as did P lato Bu t insofa r as he made an attempt as had

fi
, .
,

P lato to unde r stand it fr om the standpoint of the idea we can

, ,

appreciate his af nity to his master Aristotelian teleology consequently .

has meaning and fo r ce only insofar as it o ffer s supe rempi ri cal notions
of essence be they known aprio ri o r by intuitions of essence Th e
, .

entele chy of Aristotle is not a psychic o r biological emergent but ,

idea and fo rm .

3 . S P EC IAL M ETAP HYS IC S

general ontological problematics of Aristotle may be condensed

Th e
into three special metaphysical pro blems into the questions con cern ,

i ng the soul the world and God , , .

Th e S ou l Th e work which A ristotle w rote on th e soul treats not

.

only of the phenomena of consciousness as do the modern psychol

ogies but of life in general in its source and its essential character
, ,
~

istics ; fo r a ccording to the ancient philosophers to have a soul ,

meant to possess life In connection with life he treats of sensation

.
,

phantasy and memory reason and speculation tendency and will , ,

subjects which are of interest to modern psychologists because the

wo rld of consciousness is concomitant with life What Aristotle s .
’
18 2 ANC IE N T PH ILOS OPHY
views wer e concerning feelings and emoti ons we may discover in his
Rh etor ic

fi fi
.

1 ) Esse nce o What is the soul ? Viewed from the aspect

fth e so u l .

of phenomena it is de neH as that which mo ves itself — a de nition

’

which P lato had already ad vanced The soul dete rmines the life of .

men animals and plants ; life howe ve r is self—mo vement and as a

, , , ,

consequence the soul is essentially self mo v ement -

.

a
) The S oul as S elf M ovement Bu t li v ing
-
beings do not possess .

absolute self—mo vement It only appears as if they mo ved themselves

.

spont aneously In reality their mo vement is initiated by thei r en vi ron

.

ment which affo r d s them nou rishment and consequently m akes

po ssible respiration and growth as well as sense perception and innate
tendency from whi ch the local mo vement of the entire li ving being
,

results local mo vement whi ch permits us to speak of self move -

ment S ince the supplying of nourishment I s Inser ted as a par t of

.

natur e into the process of motion proper to the world and insofar
as this is dependent upon other first movers it is e vident that the “

soul whi ch makes cr eatures living beings can not be termed self
movi ng in the S trict sen se but only in a relati ve sense Th ere is , .

actually only one S elf—M ove r who is neither per se nor per accide ns
moved by something else the first Unmoved M over wp i , ,
‘

u r ov x tvo fi
v

d i q
x v r ov
'

( y
P h s VIII 6 ;.25 9
, a 20—b 31 and 2 25 3 a 7
, ;
b ) The S oul as Entelechy of the Body Viewed metaphysi cally we .

learn that the soul is the first grade of actuality [entelechy ] of a

“

natu ral o rganized body ( De An II 1 ; 412 b 4 ; ed M cKeon p

”
, .
, .

What soul is designated by this definition will be discussed im

mediately F irst of all it is clear from the definition that h ylemor ph ism
.
,

again asser ts itself : the soul is the form of the body The philosophi cal .

as well as the biological S ignifi cance of this con cept may be found in
the teleology p resupposed by it Entelechy for Aristotle means to .

be completed it signifies to have reached a goal or to have ” “

achieved a pu rpos e And this is the case when reality has reached
.
”

that stage where it corresponds to the idea by which its

been established The soul therefore denotes the idea and
.

it denotes the S tructural unity of meaning and pu rpose

body F o r this reason A ristotle explains that the body ex
.

of the soul ( De P ar t An I 5 ; 645 b 14 if) ; that is. .

, , ,

inhering in it is p resent because of the whole ,

to an end or purpose just as in the case of a

explanation we arrive at the primary meaning
184 ANC IE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
beings being mo ved ( VIII 4; 254 b 28 This is the example which
,

o ccasionalism later used to illustr ate its dualism in connection with

soul and body O nly in De Anima does this dualism disappear and
.

body an d soul blend I nto a s ubstantial union Th e soul is a totality

‘

fi
in the whole body and man is a unitary substance composed of body ,

and soul .

2 ) Di er e nt kin ds ofso u ls : a ) P lant S ouls ; b ) Animal S ouls ;

H uman S ouls Analogously to the P latonic the ory of the t ripa r t
.

soul Aristotle distinguishes between a vegetative sen

, ,

soul Th e vegetati ve soul denotes that reality whi ch

.

the capacity fo r growth nou rishment and r ep roduction and , ,

in its pu rest fo rm and most fully complete in the plant w o

s e ns o r
y soul includes the faculties of the v egetati v e soul
addition rep resents still another r eality in which there are
per ception sense appetite and local mo vement ; this reality a
, ,

fo r th e first time in the animal kingdom It is this lowe r 5 .

growth and sensiti vity in which Aristotle percei ves as did ,

befo r e him ( Timae us 77 b ) the entelechy of a creature as

, ,

among men ( De P ar t An I 1 ; 641 a 17 b . O nly .

, ,
—

s ir itu al soul in addition to the se lowe r powe r s of w

p gr o t

S itivit
y This. makes him a man a r ational animal , .

speaks of the soul of man he oftentimes makes 11 ,

fi
and so we can understand both kinds the inferior as life p rinciple ,
-

the super io r spi ritual soul In gener al fo r Aristotle the soul of m

.
,

includes both o r der s w he rein th e spiritual has rst place

, .

What Aristotle expounded on these themes has become the comm

he ritage of Western speculation both in rega r d to the soul and
man A cco r ding to Aristotle man has the power of
.
,

sense knowledge which is di vided into the five faculties o r

,

o te ntiae unimae ) namely sight hea r ing smell

( S
ui/ d u p
ets
, , , , , ,

touch and hen ce fi ve senses which popula r psychology ha

, ,

down to ou r day The data of the senses are joined

.

b rought to ou r consciousness by the common sense

mu nis ) which is supposed to have its seat in the heart
,

to us moderns as consciousness The content of “

.
”

emanating from the common sense does not disappear ,

tion of the sensory stimuli but per sists An d in this , .

consists that is the representation ( ph antas m) a r

, , ,

actual sense perception and also the memo ry if the ,

”
,

rep resentations are retained in great numbe rs S ense .

 ARI S TOTLE II 185

y and memo
an tas r y a,
r e also possessed by animals In .

th ese faculties of the soul denote only an infer io r powe r

knowing and inferio r knowledge Abo ve and beyond .

S pi r it which is the supe r io r and specifically

( g )
lo o s ,

fo r knowledge ; under the aspect of discu rsive reason ‘

n t it is called understanding ( dianoia) and unde r “ ”

,

of ideas and p rinciples it is known as reason “ ”

f the mind can fashion r epresentations and in so

creative activity in contradistinction to which the
S of fe r only the mate rial and a r e not truly eff i cient causes .

reason the philosophe r s of subsequent ages speak of an

agent intellect ( f n d intellectu s age ns ) In such a
vo i s n oz n x s, .

Nous is ete rnal di vine uncaused immortal unmixed pas

“

, , , , ,

r
gy Insofa r as the .data
”
of sense pe r ception and the

speculation and contemplation are imp ressed upon

at the outset is a tabu la r asa it becomes capable of
fi
,

suffering of being acted upon ; hence it is called the passi ve intellect

,
“ ”

( vo s bm é
ar a
) anduc s is thus mo r tal .

Alongside this rational side of the soul life Aristotle r ecognized an -

,

irrational side Especially did he acknowledge and in this respect he

.
,

offered something extremely no vel something that had es caped ,

P lato a psy chology of desire ( 5p f ) This faculty is divided into an

,
e ts .

i nferior and superior desire ( yearning longing ) Th e former is , .

present in the natu ral instinct ( q i ) in the yearning u e ts

,

for food and sexual activity as well as in anger or wra th ( O j é ) ,

vu s

W ith in us which is known to us as ambition cou r age pugna ciousness , , ,

spirit of r evenge rebellion contempt urge to freedom self assertion

, , , ,
-
,

and fondness for power All this is true also of animals There is. .
,

however a highe r faculty of conation o r appetiti ve tendency and

,

this is possessed solely by man This higher conation coincides with .

t h e will ( B éA )
o which ns
ev c is enlightened
, by r eason P resupposition .

for all S tri ving whether of the higher or the lowe r faculty is always
, ,

a good that is desirable to us o r appea rs to be By nature man .

s eeks afte r pleasu r e and flees fr om sadnes s The v aluable and the .

A
valu ele ss constitute as a consequen ce motives of action M an in his
, , .

will life basically possesses freedom of Choice ( p ip m ) ; in reality

-
n oa e s ,

howe ver many circumstances exercise an influence over his will

, ,

circumstances wh i ch more o r less restri ct this freedom This is espe .

ciall
y true of the a f
f e c tions o r emotions su c h as ange r hatred , ,

fear shame compassion indignation en vy They always have as

, , , , .
18 6 ANC IE NT PH ILO S O PHY
concomitants either happiness or sadness and this advances or delimits ,

the freedom of the human will ( Rh et 11 1 Thus in his psy .

, , ,

ch o lo gy we can readi y see that Aristotle ac co r ded to the irrati onal

, l
factors a g eater prominence than had P lato
r ,
.

3) Unity of th s o u l After A r istotle had treated of a v egetative

e .
,

sens itive and rational soul we can very approp riately ask whether
, , ,

in his opinion man possessed a unitary soul Looked at from the

, .

standpoint of concept we can it is true distinguish between various

, , ,

faculties of the soul Aristotle asks ( D e An II 2 ; 413 b 17 ; ed

. .
, , .

McK eo n p I S each of these a soul o r a part of a soul ? An d if

“
.
, ,

a part a part in what sense ? A part merely distinguishable by

,
‘

definition o r a part distinct in local S ituation as well ? Just as in the

case of plants whi ch when divided are observed to continue to live

though removed to a distance from one another ( thus S h o w mg that

in th ir case the soul of each individual plant before di vision was
e

actually one potentially many ) so we notice a S imilar r esult in o th e

, ,
. r

varieties of the soul i e in insects which ha ve been cut in two ;

, . .
,

each of th e Segments possesses both sensation and local movement .

”

H e held howe v er that men possess a unity of soul and polemized

, ,

against P lato for whom the various parts of th e soul were apparently
,

really separate and disti n ct To Aristotle however reason and intel .

, ,

lectual power h ence the spiritual soul are also separable

, ,
“
.
”

nevertheless of one human soul by means of w h

,

ce iv e, and think ( De An II 2 ; 414 a 12 ; ed M cKeon p

”
.
, , .
, .

Is this soul truly one and if so how in man are the inferio r
, ,

related to the superior ? Ar e these other souls only po tenci

faculties which are sublimated in the higher o r superio r soul ?
,

can the spi ritual soul whi ch is capable of ,

eternal is from the temporal be con ceived as th ,

that soul which is the form of the body is not suppo sed to
, ,

capable of such a separati on but represents a speci fi c deter minati

fi
o

of the body as we are expressly assured ? ( 414 a 18

4) O igin an d p i te nc of th so u l These dif culties are raise
r er s s e e .

just as soon as we consider th e origin of th e soul and meditate upo

its survival after death According to A ristotle the inferior s .
,

transferred by the father to t

whereas the active ( agent ) in
door and is of divine origi
”

This does not take pla ce by

held
18 8 ANC IE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
By such an explanation Aristotle adopted a view which
tr ar y to Democ ritus whose theo r y of the atom oblite r ated
,

tative distinctions and fo r whom di f fe r entiation in

made possible and actuaily effected solely by ~

Aristotle r ecognized fou r elements : wate r fir e , ,

are themsel ves qualities and thei r i

qualities In this qualitative idos we should seek the essence
. e

things ; not in some kind of quantitati ve asso ciation To these .

must add as fifth element ether ( q u inta essen tia) of which

, ,

composed the constellations which are imperishable because

materials of which they are made encompass no contradi ctories ; ‘

they know only ideal motion namely eternally ci rcula r motion

, , .

In consideration of the perishability and impe rishability of ma

the wo rld is di vided fundamentally into two halves namely , ,

wo rld beneath the moon ( sublunar wo r ld ) upon whi ch we li ve

‘

the wo rld abo ve the moon ( superlunar

afte r — this is the wo rld of the eternal stars The re is but one wo .

because e verything in motion depends upon the gr eat Un m o

M over ; an d this wo r ld is round in form In its middle the r e is

fi
.

earth which is conceived to be resting This wo rld is enclosed

, .

fty—six con cent ric spheres which r e volve unifo rmly upon
This numbe r was arrived at by a calculation wo rked out
tempo ra ry astronomy taught by P lato Eu do xo s and e , ,

C alippus w h o sought to explain the motion of the seven

,

whose o rbits around the world S hould be a component

the interplay of the motions of the various spheres Far .

was the sphe re of the fix ed sta r s the so —called first ,

was moved di rectly by the F irst Unmoved M over Th e first .

imparted its motion to the inner spheres since the oute r ,

we re related to the inne r as fo r m to matter In orde r to d .

with the absolute uniform motion that was demanded by

,

concept and to make room for the individual

spheres and thei r sta rs Aristotle late r adop
,

unmoved mo ver s the spi rits of the spheres essences sub

, ,
”

themselves separated substan ces

,
“
but all this not in an
—

sense Fo r in those late r years too Aristotle assu med only

v

.
, ,

Unmoved M ove r who is H imself unmo ved and absolute

,

whom consequently these other mover s are

By this devi ce the unity of the wo r ld was
By his geocentr ic con cept of the wo r ld wh
 ARI STO TLE II 189

le Ages , Aristotle
hinde red the development of the modern
the world For this reason philosopher s have severely
.

criti cized him Bu t on the othe r h a

. nd we must not o verlook the fa ct
th at pre cisely by su ch a concept he per fo r med a yeoman s se r vi ce for
’

e m piri cal natural philosoph

y H e is a zoologist botanist and
. an atomist , ,

an d also manifested extensi v e biological interests : systemati cally mor ,

p h o lo gicall
y physiologically
, ecologi cally ch o r o lo gically In these he
, , .

h ad at his disposal an astonishing abundance of detailed knowledge ,

Even though it is oc casionally ma r red b y S ingular views To one who .

is narrow Aristotle may well act as a brake upon development ;

,

di e genuine Aristotle acts as a prima ry stimulant fo r eve r new

ad vances in the investigation of nature A S C harles Darwin said In “
.
,

accordan ce with the quotations which I had r ead I possessed a deep ,

app r eciation of A ristotle s achievements Bu t I had not the slightest

’
.

n otion of what an astonishing indi v idual he was L inn é and C uvier .

had been my two gods although each in his own way and in his ,

own personal manne r In comparison however to the aged Aristotle

.
, , ,

they we r e indeed veritable tyros Bu t these th i ngs should be incor

”
.

o r ated into an en cyclopedia of th e various special s ciences Th e

p .

ideas of A ristotle of purely philosophical interest are those on place

fi
an d time

niteness
on the ete rnity of the world and on the question of its
,

2 ) Th e eter nity o fth e w o r ld To Aristotle the wo r ld is eternal not .

,

only in its matter as the pre S o cratics had always assumed but also
,
—
,

in its forms consequently also in its present fo r ms Birth and death

,
.

n5 fect only individual beings S pe cies on the contra r y are eternal

‘
.
, ,
.

Fo r Aristotle the problem of th e origin of spe cies ( descent ) did not

,

exist There have always been human beings although the re have
.
,

been times when great numbers ha ve been annihilated by gr eat

catastrophes The eidos man has neve r disappeared just as matter
.
, , ,

an d form are ete r nal P atently a P latonic theo ry ! Aristotle neve r

.
,

th eless ca r ried on an a ctive polemic agai nst P lato because P lato had
, ,

assumed a beginning of the world in time F o r A ristotle the ete r nity .

,

fi
of th e world wa s evident not only in its matte r and fo r m but also ,

and espe cially in the eternal S tars as well as in the eternity of

,

l o ti n ( P h ys
o VIII If at some time motion had received an
.
, ,

initial impulse this would have been possible only by means of some
,

motion a motion that had preceded this beginning This in

,
.
,

would have been brought about by another and thus continu ,

until we arrived at a First M over who is self caused pure ,

-
,
19 0 A NC IE NT P H I LosO P H Y

actual ity an d who must be continuo u sly in moti on I n similar fashion

, .

we cannot maintain that there will be an end to motion for a halt ,

would have to be caus ed by another reality which itself had out

lasted the pr evious moti on Th e wor ld as a consequence is eternal .
, ,

eternal not indeed in the sense of timele ssness but in the sen se of
, ,

unlimited unmeasu rable time Absolu te eternity howe ve r is also

, .
, ,

fo r Ari stotle timeles sn es s .

3) P l e P l ace ( P h ys IV 7 an d 8 ) is no t commensurate
ac . .
, ,

m atter as P lato held an d also not with the form of individu al b

, ,

o r with their distance from one another P lace .

the containing body at whi ch it I s I n contact with the contained

body ( P h ys IV 4 ; 212 a 6 ; ed M cKeo n p
”
.
, , Ar istotle thought .
, .

of all bodies as being contained by othe r bodies and thus we ha ve

lo cation ( an individual place ) Th e world as a whole is also contained
within boundaries by th e r mamen t and S O we have place in gene ral
C onsequently the r e is no such thing as an empty place as he shows
fi .

,
.

in various arguments directed against Democritus P lace is concei ved .

ve ry realistically : eve ry thing is occupied by bodies There is no such .

thing as vacant inte rmediate spaces or

remove a contained body from the one containing it purely ci rcum ,

sc iptively p r escinding the while fr om its content

r , do we meet up ,

with a new state o r ci r cumstance whi ch we call place P lace is .

thereby rendered stable and only thus can we know of an abo ve,

and a below Movement is possible only on such a condition because

.
,

only in such a way is contact at all possible In an empty place .

everything would be s catter ed haphazardly and would move itself

elsewhere and everywhere O utside the world whi ch .
,

bodies and beyond whi ch there is nothing there is cons ,

place O nly within the wo r ld are bodies in place Th e world i

. .

and as the univer se is not in a place .

M u ch more than metaphysics proper has this r ealisti c co n cep

place and of bodies advanced by Aristotle and couched in pop
, ,

phrases stru ck the realistic note by which the M iddle

,

him and fo r whi ch modern times assailed him .

4) Time Time ( P h ys IV 10 and 1 1) is S imilarly co n ei

. .
, ,
c

realistically For Aristotle time is the numbe r [the measur e ]

.
“

mo vement in r espect of the befo r e and after ( P h ys IV 11 ; 220 a ”

.
, ,

ed M cK eo n p
. Without motion th ere could be no time ;
, . 0

by passing over the individual stadia of motion can we arrive at

concept of a before and after Th e soul pe ei . rc
192 A NCIENT P H ILOSOP H Y
the spi ritual Aristotle was thinking of his Unmo ved Move r who is
.
,

infinite in being and in life in causality and power ,

G o d 1 ) Th e existe nce of Go d Th e first truth which A ristotle

. .

established concerning G od was the fact that H e exists H e reachede

.

this conclusion because he reasoned out the problem of motion

logically S ince his day his proof based on the idea of mOtion has
.
, ,

occupied th e fir st place among the various p roofs o r way s ( viae )

by which we today demonstr ate the existence of God .

Th e tr ain of thought which Aristotle ( P h ys VII 1 ; VIII 5 and 6 ; .

, ,

M eta XII 6 ) de veloped is the following : If eve rything th at is in

.
, ,

motion requi res that it be mo ved by something else and this again ,

by still something else this may be accomplished in eithe r of two

,

ways : the last mo ver in any series of movements must again be

moved by something else and this in tu rn by something else and , ,

thus indefinitely ; o r this last is no longe r mo ved by something else ,

and so we arrive at th e fir st mo ver We must assume a First Un

“
.
”

mo ved Mover of this kind ( Wpdi w ii d lm ) e ven though e ve r y r ov K

'
o v x r ov
,

thing else is again mo ved by something else ; for we cannot regress

into infinity in a series of things in which one is dependent upon
anothe r precisely because if we S hould take for granted the possi
, ,

fi
b ility of such an infinite r egress we would soon conclude that such ,

a thing as a first ( unmo ved mo ver ) did not exist If we must logically .

reject this r eg ess us in in nitu m and must assume the existen ce of

r

a first ( unmo ved mo ver ) which is in motion without having been

,

mo ved by something else we must then admit that it mo ves itself

,
.

An d thus we are b rought face to face with something that exists

of and by itself something that is unmo ved Th is means of course
, .
, ,

something that is not dependent upon anything else eithe r of itself

o r accidentally and something that must be eternal and necessary
,
.

It I S purest actuality fo r it possesses no potentiality whatsoever

,

within itself If it did it might possibly not be and would therefore

.
,

not be necessary In this way it is diffe rentiated from those relative

.

self mo vers with whi ch we are surrounded in li ving beings and also
-

in the S pirits of the spheres which ar e always I n some fashion o r

another if only accidentally dependent upon one another This
, , .

ultimate and prima ry reality is pure subsistence .

Fo r this reason Aristotle wages war against the P latonic co ne

of self movement H e distinguishes in it a double element
“
-
.

thing moved and the movin

tiality extant
 ARI STOTLE II 193

original p rinciple of pu re actuali ty As S t Thomas Aquinas has . .

remarked in this connection P lato also truly had in mind this ,

same thing .

There are se ve r al leading ideas n this argumentative proof At I .

one time Aristotle bases his refle ctions on the principle of causality .

All be coming is effected by a becoming that has already taken pla ce

through the agency of a cause O r formulated in S till anothe r way : .
,

w hate ver possesses a ctuality can be produced only by another actuality ,

be cause a ctuality is always prio r to potentiality ( see above p , .

As a furthe r basic idea we find the firm conviction that an infinite

,

regress is impossible a thought to whi ch A ristotle gave expression

,

on several occasions An infinite series of causes explains nothing

.
,

because s h a series dispenses with the first cause If that cause

uc .

should not exist then the dependent reality whi ch rests upon so very
,

many intermediate links would also disappear S ince in an infinite .

“

seri es there is no fi rst term here the re will be no first S tage and
,

therefore no following stage either (P h ys V 2 ; 226 a 5 ; ed M cKeo n ”

.
, , .
,

p . Therefo r e we would be without the final proximate cause of

the proximate e ffects of which we are so cons cious in our own every
day life and experien ce An infinite series such as Aristotle represents
.

to himself could never be exhausted and thus we could never arrive ,

at the final or ultimate cause Furthermore it could not be exhausted

.
,

in a limited amount of time and here this would be the case

—

because the motion that has been inaugurated by a cause must

slacken and eventually stop within a fixed amount of time and with ,

it the whole series of causes whi ch are basic to it must be moved

during the same period since according to Aristotle ca se and, u

e ffe ct are always sim ltaneous ( P h ys VII u1 ; 242 a 15 b .

, ,
-

Third we must not forget that the First Unmoved M over is by

,

nature prior N othing I n time can naturally precede an eternal

.
”

motion as Aristotle assumes when he postulates causes an idea that

,
—

he expounded in his proof for the eternity of motion C onsequently .

a pd m
'

i m v vo fi
the fi rst cause of motion takes on the char acter of a reason Th e
d j v m or First Unmoved M o v er may not be looked
v x v
.

upon as something which is mechanistically active but as something ,

whi ch possesses being in the ideal or intellectual order whi ch is basic ,

for whatever pro ceeds from it just as is the P latoni c hypothesis fo r ,

those things which share in it O therwise there would be nothing .

prio r by nature in referen ce to eternal motion .

5
Th e Aristotelian proof of motion is in general only an inflection , ,
194 A NC IE NT P H ILOS OPH Y
of P lato s diale cti cal way to God To h im as well as to P lato being
’
.

is divided into contingent ( dependent ) and necessary ( independent )

being To him as well as to P lato the absolute is far beyond all
.

things both in su b limitu n d power Eve rything else is founded

“
.

u pon the absolute ; all being and all be coming take place because
the lowe r seeks to be like the higher Th e Ar istotelian God also .

moves the wo rld as the idea moves a thing as the beloved the
, ,
“

lover as we shall soon hear ; in fact the oute r spheres are related tn
”

th e inne r as form is to matter and matter as Aristotle explains , ,

in his accustomed manner as a true P latonist desires and yearns

, ,
“ ”

for th e form ( P hys I 9 ; 192 a 16 ff ; ed M cKeo n p

.
, , and . .
, .

thereby r eceives motion .

2 ) Th e n t e o f G o d Th e k nowledge th at there is a God leads

a ur .

us to a knowledge of what H e is if we develop the basic th oughts ,

inherent in it ( M ta XII 7 and e ,

a ) Being According to Aristotle three con cepts are basi c to th e

.
,

nature of God : God is being H e is a spirit and H e is life To this , , .

we must add that H e is absolutely perfect ; ther e is only one God

and H e tr ans cends the world It is not possible to give expression .

to the being of God without first making a distinction for being has ,

a variety of meanings and can be predicated of that which is not

God Fo r this reason this concept must be further refined Bein
. .

true of God in a special manne r and in a special sense God does not .

h ave being H e is being and is th e Being This means : A ll being

. .

in th is wo rld has its source ultimately in God on the basis of causality ,

as Aristotle proved in his argument fo r the existence of God Being .

( in creatures ) is in its essen ce contingent mixed with potentiality , ,

and consequently requires something p rior to I t n order to become i

actual and this again something else and so endlessly until we finally
, ,

arrive at the notion of a Being — if we should not wish to leave

whole matter hanging in mid—air — whi ch has the reason of its be
in itself This being is pure actuality without potentiality and
.

this reason has always existed and is therefore necessary .

In such a con cept the nature of God consists of actuality ( épy ’

ev

t s pu r u s ) aseity eternity and ne cessity O n Su ch a principle

“
ac u , , , .

depend the heavens and the world of nature (M ta 1072 b 13; ”

e .
,

M cKeo n p 880 ; cf also D Caelo 279 a 28 ) Aristo tle conceives

, . . e ,

the nature of God as a pure fo rm ( 6 5 7 m péi ; 1074 a 7 7 1 V e u 7r

‘
rov

Bu t the prima r y essence has not matter ; ed M cK n p

“ ”
. eo , .

thought is understandable because all be coming denotes for

196 AN C IE NT P H I LOS O P H Y

could be visibly rooted he could unco ver only the Nous This is also
, .

ete rnal di vine impassable beyond the tr ansitoriness of this world

, , , .

I n this we can distinctly pe r ceive the influence of Anaxagoras

’

teaching on the Nous and also the reflections of P lato on the ideal
- “

world the d w q d Fo r Aristotle God is a pure spi rit and pure

,
K o os vo
‘
r s.

thought indeed the thought of thought itself ( dn

,
“

j w ) for
”
v o ts vo r o e s ,

how could that whi ch is perfect think of anything besides itself ?

( M eta XII ,

e ) Life God leads an eternally blissful life fo r the actuality of

.
,

thought is life and God is that actuality ; and God s self dependent
,
’
-

actuality is life most good and eternal (M eta 1072 b 27 ; ed M cKeon ”

.
,

p. To the ancients spi rit and life ( soul ) were not contradicto ries ;
,

on the contrary if the soul o r life is self mo vement then th e spi ritual
,
-
, ,

immaterial actuality is life in the fullest sense of the word : di vine and -

immor tal life for all ete rnity That ther e is such a thing as a blessed .

existence is a tr uth der i ved from the perfection of God Aristotle in .

a special way attempted to clarify this thought by means of an

example : If to the human r ace the awakening and the fi rst use of the
senses and of the intellectual faculty are reckoned as pure bliss how ,

much mor e blissful is that Being who is actually purest and sublimest
reason (M eta XII O ete r nal light ! S ole in thyself that
,
— “

dwellest ; and of thyself — S ole understood past p resent and to , , ,

come Thou smilest on that circling which in Thee — S eemed as ,

reflected splendo r ( Divine Co medy III 33 C arey tr anslation

”
, , ,

p.

In the thoughts of Aristotle on the natur e of God we per cei ve

unmistakably the presence of P lato Just as for P lato the idea of good .

in itself is the source of being and of life so also for Aristotle life ,

and being ar e contained in the S upreme P rinciple Bo th like .

admit th e p resence of the spiritual in the natu re of God ; in

concept P lato thinks chiefly of the obj ective spirit whereas Aris ,

has the living spirit in mind In his exposition of the nature .

the S tagirite is more penetrating and more subtle Wher eas .

r eluctant to formulate a direct proposition on the nature of

sup reme principle Aristotle declares forthwith and p recisely : Go
,

the most real being ; H e is a thinking spirit ; and H e is blissful

a ) P e r sonality and e Tr anscenden ce of God These last two
)
’
.

tions might lead us to believe that Aristotle might possibly ha ve

to th e notion of a personal God This is nonetheless not ce r .

There can be no doubt however that God is trans cend , ,

 I TO T L E
AR S n 197

surpasses all creation both in might and sublimity just as did P lato s ,
’

~
c
on ept
c of the good ; for God is ne cessary in contrast to the con

tingent ; independent in contrast to the dependent ; the creator in

, ,

contrast to H is creatures In relation to the world God is something

.
,

different but not enti rely something else In a similar fashion the .
,

unity and the uni city of God become clarified Th e divine p rin ciple .

must be one because par ts exist only in the realm of extended bodies
, .

Th at there is only one God is deduced from the basic teleological

stru cture of A ristotelian metap h ysics according to which all being is
directed to a supreme final end To assume that several prin ciples of
, .

orde r exist as S peu sippu s alleges would lead us to con clude that there
, ,

i s no orde r whatsoever Bu t the uniform orde r dis ce r nible in the whole

.

world is a matter of daily experience Th e world is subordinate to .

uniform guidance just as is an army For this reason we speak con

, .

s tan tl
y of a cosmos .A n d this must be so for as A ristotle quotes
,
from ,

H ome r : Th e r ule of many is not good ; one r uler let there be ( M eta
”
.
,

10 ; 1076 a 4 ; ed M cKeo n p
.
, .
C H A P TER

A R I S T O TL E —
III : E TH I CS AND P O L I T I CAL
TH E ORY

TH E GOOD AND TH E CO MM U N I TY
importance of Aristotle i n the field of ethi cs is as great as h i
Th e s

significance in th e fields of logic and metaphysics Best known of his .

moral teachings are those which the mature older A ristotle advan ed ,
c

in the Nic m ch ean Eth i s The ethics of his early period when he
o a c .
,

spe lated afte r the fashion of P l ato in a more metaphysi al and

cu c

otherworldly manner is not so widely recognized I n the develop

, .

ment of his ethical views A ristotle passed throu gh several distinct

stages as we shall see in th e following section
, .

1 .
Q U ESTI ONS RELATING TO TH E P R INC I P LE OF ETHIC S

first problem he raises is that of the prin iple of ethics In

Th e c .

what does the essence of the moral good consist ? Th e answer he

gives is the one usual fo r th e Greeks : in eudaemonis m in happiness ,
.

This is the sup reme good Greek ethics was always the ethics of the
.

good at least in its te rminology This is however only a preliminary

, .
, ,

answe r for we must ask a further question : Wh at is eudaemonism ?

,

What is happiness ?
H uman n atu re in general is the moral principle A ristotle plunges .

into the problem as was his cu stom by exami n ng and reje ting
, , i c

various opinions one by one ( Eth N ic I Thus happ ness . .

, , , i

cannot be found either in desire or in gratifi cation ; for this would

be true also of animals and our goodness would be nothing more than
,

a feeling of comfort in his hierarchy of value s

—

essentially supe rior to cattle If happiness should consist in pleasure

.
,

we would be compelled to praise th e oxen for being happy when they

mun ch ed th eir fodder of peas as H eraclitu s had maintained Even
,
.

honor wh ich promotes the esteem of others and yields su cces s in

publi c life cannot constitute eudaemon sm ; for if i

19 8
200 ANC IE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
from e ve ry kind of menial wo rk su ch as manual labo rers
keeper s are called upon to perform a recognized position ,

child r en and family friends heal th beauty an ac

, , , ,

a well de veloped culture A nd all these the inwar d

- —
,

values of eudaemonism man must possess and put to wo rk H e

, .

therefore do more than j ust possess them To A ristotle eu daem

, .

is ener geia And all this fo r an entire lifetime That person

. .

truly good and pe rfectly happy who lives such a life only a
time but only he to whom such a life has become a lasting
,

permanent state fo r one swallow does not make a summer

,
“
.
”

H edoni sm? The above sounds a lmost as if Aristotle wer

hedonist Actually Aristotle critici zed P lato fo r his radical r ejec
.

of pleasure ( Eth Nic VII and X ) When we speak of ple

. .
, .

must make a sharp distinction between pleasure in th

desire fo r some thing ( lust concupiscence ) and pleasure ,

of happiness rej oicing o ve r something The pleasure to w .

general obj e cts is pleasure in its first meaning that has ,

displeasure that is only becoming and has its

,

P leasure in the second meaning is something else

obver se of natu ral activity Everything that takes .

not only beautiful bu t is also the cause of j oy and the more g ,

and the more natural something is so mu ch more bliss does it ,

P leasu r e is the r efore concomitant with perfection and the ,

who is mo rally the best will also be the happiest Fo r this .

pleasure does not come unde r the category of the inde

A
( p eir o n ) but
, is essentially determined by the activity
basic to it .

By this explanation A ristotle establishes a hierarchy of pleasu

corresponding to the o r de r of values in goodness First comes .

pleasure which is connected with pure specu lation ; after it ,

pleasu re associated with the moral vi r tues ; and at the very

the sensitive corporeal pleasures insofar as these are necessary
,

a re initiated in the way and in the measure pres cribed by

F rom what has been said it is evident that to Ar i ,

is not the fi rst principle he sought Th e principle of .

is the natural order P leasu re is only a concomitant

.

P leasu r e as long i ng as satisfaction or as inclination i

, ,

cisiv e neither for good nor fo r evil ; pleasur e however , ,

in e ss presupposes the metaphysi cal ethical de cision

p ,

moreo ve r the symptom and the index of th e perfect

 ARISTOTLE IH 201

such a timeless and obj ective o rde r F o r this reason there are good .

M d evil pleasures and within the good also a gradation corresponding ,

to the orde r of being that regulates the acti vity to which pleasures
are joined C onsequently A ristotle carries on an effecti ve polemic
.
,

against Eudoxus of Cnido s and rejects his hedonism ( Eth N ic . .

,

X ,

Th e mo r ally righteous man does good not because it yields him

e but because of the good itself H appiness will not be the
, .
.

pursue it a vidly fo r its own sake but only of ,

right Let us acknowledge then that each one

.
“

has j ust so much of happiness as he has of virtue and wisdom and ,

of virtuous and wise action God is a witness to us of this truth.

,

fo r he is happy and blessed not by reason of any external good but

, ,

in himself and by reason of his own nature (P ol VII, 1 ; 1323 b 21 ; ”

.
,

M cKeon p , In his teaching on ethical principles A ristotle

.
,

in agreement with P lato ; and in what concerns the j u ridical claim

the ethical value he is not any less a rep resentati ve of an O bje ctive
,

and normative ethics than Kant himself without becoming however , , ,

a rigorist H e avoids the taint of rigorism by recognizing that there

.

runs parallel to the natural orientation of life a whole series of

phenomena which we call pleasure and in which the pe rfection of
P lato did j ustice only in his old
age and Kant ne v e r
, .

a Th e sou rce o f ethi c al k now ledge If ideal human natu re cons titutes
.

t h e content of the mo r al good Ar istotle must S how us whe r e and

fi
,

how the v aluableness of this good fi r st fo rces itself up o n ou r minds .

Wh er e does the evidence of value r st appea r ? To P lato it was

l

the idea of good in itself by which all ethical obligation was an

chored In his metaphysics Aristotle rejected this idea and he
.
,

contradi cts it again in his ethics ( Eth N ic I Good c n no . .

, ,
a

mo r e be redu ced to a common denominato r than being itself ; it is

multiple and conseq uently can be understood only in an analogous
sense ; it may possess definite peculiarities in eve ry case but it cannot ,

be a common notion of genus as was the P latonic idea Where man .

strives afte r good even in his own handiwo rk we always take into
, ,

consideration the concrete cause not the good that is th e same fo r ,

all aside from the fact that good in itself cannot be realized because
,

it is separated A ristotle must therefo r e look elsewhere for the

“
.
”

ju r idi cal claim of the good .

I ) l p6w1
<>
(p r u de nce
cn s
) and 2 ) 6 p 06 M 57 ( g
r i h t r eas o n
) Th e
~
s 09 .
202 ANC IE NT PH I LO SOPH Y
notion of pr udence embodies su ch an attempt P rudence or moral .

insight is the source of e thically good actions Th e man who practices .

virtue acts as a prudent man A ristotle therefore explains that the pru .

dent man s viewpoint is Ofext e me importance in deciding what must

‘

’
r

be done and what must be a voided S in ce many things even con tr adic .
,

to ries appear to be prudent Aristotle was obliged to make clear j ust

, ,

what kind of p ru den ce is final and just how we can re cogni z e objec
tively th e p rudent man Furthe r more he had to S how in respe ct to
.
, ,

those instan ces in wh ich an individ u al does not as yet possess pr dence u ,

what migh t be the objective standard whi ch would lead us to tr e u

pruden ce so that among many things th at are designated as prudent

,

we might not choose the wrong one .

H is second attempt at an explanation may be found in his notion

of right reason My atio r eeta) H ere reaso n is defined more
os
,
r .

precisely Th e determination is however abstract rather than concrete

.
, ,
.

What does the word right mean ? M en ar e “ ”

almost everyth ing possible as right Bu t we ask again : H OW ( I .

re ognize true rightfulness ? P erhaps in th e true mean ( p é m) ?

c eo s

this answer gives us the key to his third attempt .

3) p dm r th e go lde n mean In the notion of mes o t s Ar i

eo
‘
s
,
o . e

accepted an element whi ch was widely current among the Gre

philosophers H e developed it by showing how a whole series
.

vi r tues lies in the middle between two extremes not indeed in

m
,

echanisti c sense but in a middle which is precisely p roportioned

,

the exceptional case Thus fo r example bra very does not lie
.
, ,

in the middle between cowardice and foolhardiness b t cl , u

foolhardiness ; just as con versely parsimony is more akin to a

, ,

than it is to prodigality .

To be able to determine howeve r between two extremes we , , ,

know what virtue and what vice actually ar e The notion of .

includes the knowledge of vi r tue neither primarily nor crea

apriori but implies reflection on knowledge already possessed
,
.

mean is therefor e not the sou r ce of mo r al knowledge Finally .

,

might ponde r on the notion of the beautiful and by so doing atte

to clarify the notion of mor al value .

4) xa Aé or th e b e au tif u l
v
, Ar istotle oftentimes uses .

as a synonym for the good especially in his d1scu ss1on o ,

or nobility of char acte r in

This is a recurring though
today in the oft—repeated ph
204 A NC IE NT P H ILOSO P H Y
fo r a phenomenology of human character Theophrastus .

to develop what he had found in A ristotle to be able to write

lives of his char acter s We have alr eady spoken of the impo r ta
“
.
”

of Aristotle s teaching on vi r tue fo r a substantial completion to

’

study of man .

Vi rtu e an d vi rtu es To Aristotle vi rtue is : a state of

.

concerned ivith choice lying in a mean i e the mean r

”

, , . .
,

us this being dete rmined by a r ational principle

“

, ,

by which the man o f p r actical wisdom w

Nic II 6 ; 1 106 b 36 ; ed M cKeo n p 95 9 )
.
, , .
, .

is the natu rally j ust action of a man who

specific nature of man consists in his reason and since reason ,

be divided into speculation and conati on ( the will ) there emerge ,

chief groups of virtues : the dianoetic ( pertaining to speculation )

the ethical ( pertaining to conation )

fi
.

1 ) Diano tical vir tu es Th e forme r a r e the pe rfections O f the

e .

in tellect as we come in contact with them in wisdom (

,
‘ '
o o c ca

reason ( fj ) and in knowledge

vo s
, In them as ,

knowledge fo r knowledge s sake fo r the sake of the shee r ’

tion o f tr uth ( O wpl 7 q O ) puts in an appea r ance ( th eo r eti

e a 77 9
’
eea s
‘

re ason ) We also come in contact with them in the ability to make

.

art ( éxm) and in insight o r p r udence ( qbpémm ) wher e we ha ve

r s

deal wi th acqui red knowledge in the r ealm of p r actical r eason .

In such terminology we can S till sense both S o cratism and P latonis

in which the whole of human life is under stood if not in reality , ,

least in terminology in a purely intellectual fashion P recisely

, .

distinguishing between theo retical and p r acti cal reason Aristo

closely approaches reality .

2 ) E thical vir tu es Bu t he does this much mo r e

.

tr o du cing the notion of ethical v irtue This kind of ’

justice to the will as a spi ritual power which is r adically

from intellect The ethical virtues have to do with the
.

of the soul ove r both the body and its appetites In thi .

A ristotle based his v iews on P latonic psychology which

that man s soul possessed both dominant and sub ser
’

had discarded the S ocratic reduction of all vi r tue

Bu t he also desc r ibed the new r eality mo r e p r ecisely
p r e h en sively when he gi v es us a conspectus of the mor
are b rought into the discussion and delineates them
indi viduality in a manner that
 ARI STOTLE III 205

self mastery gene rosity high spiritednes s magnanimi ty lo ve of hono r

-
, , , , ,

mildness truthfulness u rbanity justice and friendship ( Eth N ic

, , , ,
. .
,

IV V VII VIII IX )
, , , , .

Th e ro ad to v ir tu e S obe r reality finds exp ression again in Aristotle

fi
.

in connection with the origin of virtue H e r ealized the impo r tance .

tach e d to a sound o r iginal natu r e the natu ral dispositions ; he ,

evaluates the knowledge of value which is necessary here emphasizes ,

the conscious stri ving after the good wi thout app ropriating
f the exagge rated thesis of S ocr ates that vi rtue can be taught ,

good education and stre sses both repetition ,

tors both in education and in the acquisition

e An app rentice becomes a builder by building an d he
.
,

a maste r craftsman by erecting structu res of superior quality .

fashion the indi vidual can become temperate by master ing

and by thinking corr ectly and acting justly S oberly he con .

that the p ractical and the most successful way to

is to observe the law which directs man along cer tain ,

virtue is not ide al morality ; but viewed natu rally and

it is very valuable since the a verage man is not usually ,
‘

by philosophical and e thical ideals but generally conducts ,

n accordance with customs and laws .

FREEDOM
AND

Aristotle r efused to characte rize v irtue as had been done ,

im especially by S oc r ates as knowledge or understanding ,

but as a state or habit of the will p p mi) he u oa t

‘
er t
,

the study of moral science in a positive di rection By su ch .

he wrote a new chapte r in the theory of ethi cs namely the , ,

on th e will ( Eth Nic III 1 Th e will di f

. fers from
.
, ,

best describe its exclusi ve p roper ty by saying that

ling denotes an acti vity whose p rinciple lies within us : a will act -

a general sense ( é i the voluntary E very mo ral act must

K O I O to v
'

,
“

essentially of this kind Bu t it must not emanate only from the

.

1 fo r the principle of the act is in th e one performing it A cts

, .

be performed by children and infants as well as by those who

under duress o r who are unconscious A moral act must therefore
, .

a specifically human act and the human act that of a mature ,

ividu al ; it must be a free election Free will ( wp lp m ) is some . oa e s

more than just an act of will in the absolute sense The prin ciple .

act is found to be in us in such a way that we are able to

206 ANC IE NT PH ILO SO PHY
control both ou r own actions and omissions freely and

fi
master y A ristotle is a disciple of th e freedom of the will H e
. .

the reality of that freedom directly from the testimony

consciousness and indir ect ly om the fact of reward and puni x
'

As presuppositions for the choi ce of the will we must assume ,

edge and an object that can be willed To act .

with purpose an d deliberation Reason can actually guide .

and oftentimes as a r esult of a terminology whi ch stems

,

S ocratic s chool it would appea r as if for A ristotle at

, ,

election of the will wer e nothing more than a rati onal in

the motive of value A ctually however A ristotle knew .
, ,

can act a aI n st the dictates of reason and as a co n

g ,

moral judgments of value must be referred ultim

as such Th e result of this reasoning is something that in the in
.

has become the common heritage of the student of ethics nam ,

that knowledge and will are the basic elements in mo ral a cts .

4 . P O LITI CAL S CI ENCE

P u rpo se state Th e consummation and th e totality of morali

of th e .

is p resented to us I n the state Ar i stotle was ignorant of the mod .

antimony between politics and morality ; in fact he recognized ,

politics the sup reme organization of morality O nly in .

does the individual reach his completion and only in th

the good realized on a grand scale (P ol III 9 ; .
, ,

posse ssion of law man is a noble creature ; without it he

,

beast The one who first called th e state into being w a

.
.

benefaction th e c reator of a supreme value ( P ol I 2 ; 125 3 a .

, ,

greatest of benefactors ; ed M cK eon p ”

.
, .

The state is therefore not me rely a p rovision fo r the needs

physical existence o r fo r th e promotion of gr eat enterprises I n e
n o mics and business or an institution supporting the preten sions

power politics Tr ue the state does pursue some if not all th

.
, ,

purposes but its ch ief aim in relation to which all these o thers
,

only auxiliary o r subo rdin ate is the good and perfect life that “ ”
,

mankind elevated both morally and spi ritually The state arose .

the purpose of p rese rving human life but it continues to exist ,

—

th e sake of eudaemonism hence for the sake of moral gr eatn

fi
,

P ure utility i s not its purpose no r is b r ute powe r its b e all ,

-
,
“
noble deeds a happy and beautiful life ( S mé w m 2
,
”
c a v s

P o l III 9 ; 128 1 a
.
, ,
We must work runs one of Ar isto tl ,
208 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOP H Y
On the basis of this Aristotle says that from a metaphysical
point : Th e state is by nature clearly prio r to the family and
“

indi vidual since the whole is of necessity p rio r to th e par t

,
”

I 2 ; 125 3 a 19 ; ed
, .

Aristotle discove r ed that the st rongest a r gument fo r man s

’

propensity fo r a community is to be found in the possesS iOI i of

C onsidered fr om the stan dpo
together S peech re veals that the human
.

thing more than an animal 1nst1nct to her d Animals ar e .

with the ability to make noise so that they can give evidenc
lusts and of thei r suffer ings M en on the other hand possess.
, ,

Thei r words are the means of communi cating to others their

concerning the useful and the harmful justice and injustice , ,

and evil ; in othe r wo r ds they are means men use to make them
,

understood in connection with the pu rpose of the state deri ved ,

a consideration of truth and value .

Th e mo de o f th e state s existence 1 ) Th e state and its co mpo

’
.

( th e i n di vi du al an d th e co mmu nity) E v ery thing that we ha v e .

far written is summarized in Aristotle s theo ry concerning the essen ’

of the state Th e state is an association of citizens To Aristotle

. .

citizen is a free man one who is privileged to use the cou r ts and
,

share in the functions of go vernment .

A ristotle is a realist No matte r how clearly he pe r ceived the ide

.

logical p rio rity of the state to the indi vidual and the f
ne vertheless recognized that the p roper mode of being in
in the sense of real existence is realized only in individuals
and communities which exist i n time and place These form .

elements of the state and constitute its reality They ar e not .

,

were the transitional stages which must be passed through and

,

possess no function othe r than to lapse back into nothingness so ,

the whole might become e verything To disband and to dis .

them o r to rende r them insignificant would lead to the dissoluti

, ,

of the state itself and would despoil it Of its own prope r reality .

Th e idea of a whole howeve r is not ste rile ; it can be realized ;

, ,

remains logically p rio r In like fashion the elements of the S tate

.

individuals families and communities form actual

, ,
—

realities In the Aristotelian philosophy of the state we

.

anew the complete Aristotelian theo ry of kno w led

physics Th e metaphysical ideality constitutes the
.

real Bu t the idea is not everything ; alongside it

.
 ARI STOTLE I II 209

reality of the indi vidual and of th e concrete as p roper and inde

actualities and from these ar e drawn the rights of the
,

as the primary realities to support and to maintain th e

state By and from these elements the state exists just as the second
.
,

Su bstance exists because of the fi r st That obligations and duties arise .

hecau se of these rights is evident from the immanent convergence

Txf these elements on the fo r mation of the state The essential rights .

and duties do not arise by mer e chance o r from the S heer use of
are natural and apriori .

political philosophy Aristotle unites in a most happy fashion

,

ideality and reality the whole and its par ts the community and

fi
, ,

th e individuals rights and duties Th e r esult is a synthesis in whi ch

fi fi
s .
,

one aspect supposes and af rms the other j ust as correlative ,

ons presuppose and af rm one anothe r o r just as in a polar ,

ife n sio n the whole is p r esupposed and af rmed by the contraries

d the contraries by the whole Aristotle transfer red the r eality .

the state to the community Of citizens ; but he considered the state

ither exclusi vely from the viewpo mt of an aggregate no r from that
an integral whole but linked both P ractically his theory of th e .
,

te presupposes the free citizen as a mature indi

the cause of individu alism .

A istotle s iticis m o f th e P lato nic Utopia As a result of his

’
r cr .

y we can better u nderstand Aristotle s criti cism of the P latoni c ’

y of the S tate S olely to p rotect the unity and the power of the
.

state P lato had recommended the community of women and the

,

communism of goods for that class of gua r dians who guided the

destiny of the state C ontra ry to su ch a theory Aristotle a rgues

. :

Through a rejection of the family many noble human values are

lost to the human race Thus fo r example the relation of men to
.
, ,

women would no longer be one of friendship of benevolence and ,

mutual aid but S imply one of natur al sexual sele ction fo r purposes
,

of pro creation There would moreove r no longer be any continence

.
, ,

an d self control and no longe r love and fidelity In fact the unity that
—
,
.
,

P lato had envisaged would become impossible of achievement ; for

Sho u ld a man be faced by perhaps a thousand young men he could
believe only with the possibility of one chan ce in a thousand that
he stood actually in the presence of his own son S uch a man would .

scar cely feel himself drawn o r atta ched to the youth

fi
.

Insofar as co mmu nI S m l s concerned valuable human virtues would ,

no longer be p r acticed e g b en e cen t love ( a lo ve O f bestowing

, . .
,
210 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
gifts ) liberality and charity but espe cially the lo ve of self whi ch
, ,

e ver p resent in the joy awakened by the possession of private proper

S elf love I s V 1 c O u S only in th ose instances in which it is
-
I

with unhealthy extr avagances; in a true concept of right 0

something natur al and morally valuable To this we must .

if e verything belonged to everyone no one would ,

in fa vo r of anything with any S how of in

not be difficult to find ; for we do not bestow ou r usual car
we do not own P ri vate p roperty as such does not p rovoke strife
.

might arise in a state although immoder ation in its acquisition

,

selfishness in its possession do C onsequently the S tate is force

.

frame judicious provisions so that excesses might be avoided .

extreme wealth inclines its possessor to extravagan ce to ,

to tyranny and to lawlessness ; whereas po verty is the

,

se rvile submission of dissatisfaction of corruption and of

, , ,

Just as the acquisition so in a similar fashion the use 0

,

must be go verned by mo r al p rinciples The precept that .

invoked as th e lodestar would run as follows : Among frie

thing is in common .

If we should think through this enti r e criticism of P lato ’

we would finally arrive at the conclusion that Aristotle

cardinal idea always before his mind s eye Indi viduals and ’
:

are the primary realities ; they must neve r be sacrificed in

any idea that could not exist without them ; that is the metaph y ,

of Aristotle determines his theory of the state .

P o liti cs o f the state 1 ) Fo eign poli y The prin ciples that S h o

. r c .

be employed in the political guidance of the people are fixed

ethi cs Foreign policy may not be power politics The task o r fu
. .

of the statesman is not — Aristotle thought it to be absu r d — to

himself lord and master of h is neighbors Does not the wo rd .
,

man mean simply to be the ad vo cate of politics and law ? H o w

,

we think that his p rope r fun ction was to champion injusti ce ?

fi
men appear to think that the art of despotic go vernment is s
manship and what men a ir m to be unjust and inexpedient in
,

own case they are not ashamed of practising towards others ;

demand j ust rule for themselves but ,

th ey care nothing about it ( P ol VI ”

.
,

A ristotle perceived very clearly

would result from su ch power politi cs .

foster the growth of a like do ctrine

212 A NC IE NT PH ILOSOP H Y
remembe r that what he expounds is no longer the ph ilosoph
p er e n nis
, but only the spirit of the time and a token of its cu ltu

wh ich seeks to express itself .

K in ds of s tates A istOtl e would not be A ristotle if in this

. r

h e did not try to des cribe and to o r de r the r eality which he

Thus he offe r s us an over view of the possible forms of th
in which the life of the community could
by which we are enabled to di er entiate among the
of the S tate are : th e numbe r of r uler s thei r wealth an
fi
fi
,

and the purpose fo r which they seek to exer cise thei r

s h ould nd that the rule r s rule fo r the welfare of t
would be dealing with an optimum form of the
state ther e wer e but one ru ler and he the best the form of , ,

would be a mo nar ch y If there wer e se veral per sons and the

.

better class it would be an ar istocr acy If all the c1ti z en

, .

S h a r e in the government because all were simila r ly gifted i ,

be a co mmo n w ealth ( republic ) If we S hould find that the .

ment was being run simply fo r the benefit of those who

power we would be faced with an evil with a degenerate
, ,

the state If in such a S tate there should be only one ruler

.
,

of government would be called a tyr anny which rep resents t ,

possible kind of decadence If there wer e several who .

a regime and these were drawn from the moneyed c

have an o ligar ch y; but if it we re not a group of the privileged
but on the contrary a motley of penurious r abble and these s
, ,

in the government in thei r enti rety we would ha ve a d mo ,

e

There are of course in all these forms always several or

, ,

variants Thus for example Aristotle enumerates fi ve

.
, ,

of a democr acy four types of oliga rchy three kinds

, ,

and two species of commonwealth ( P ol IV 3 He .

, ,

that the ideal form of the state was a monarchy but he ,

th at it could neve r be achieved H is second choi ce was .

This form is feasible but it would be better if it were

,

th e forms of an oligar chy and a demo cra cy in which st r

placed on the creation and the support of a well to do — -

Ex cessive wealth an d excessive poverty are extremes and are th

worthless We S hould ne ver be biased in our judgment but we
.
,

try to discover the good points in the o th er systems something ‘

,
“
political bigwigs are in capable of doing because they kno
”
,
 ARI S TOTLE I II 213

d eath Th e resea r ch whi ch Aristotle conducted in connection

. with
ithe origin, p r ese rvation , and decline of the seve r al fo rms of the state
reveals a deep unde rstanding of reality .

If we still possessed and could still examine the 15 8 different con

sti tu tio n s of states which were based on an extensi v e analysis O f

experiential material we would be convinced that this philosophe r

,

could be called the anatomist of social life as we have already come ,

now him as the anatomist of the structure of the logical mind

o f metaphysical being An d how zealously he developed not
.

his so cial theo ry but also philosophy as a practical force which

es life itself would be re vealed to us if we possessed his writings
essed to Alexande r treating of bo th th e monarchy and coloniza
n In an exceptionally beautiful harmony the philosophy of A ristotle
.
,

a happy union of theory and p ra ctice tr uth and life , .

TH E O LDER P ERI P AT ETI C S

Just as a definite s chool arose in the Academy around P lato so ,

one rose in the Lyceum around Aristotle This school bea rs the name .

P eripatos or P eripatetic p robably because of the arcade whi ch was

,

a landmark on the grounds in whi ch it was located In con tr adistinc .

tion to the late r P eripatos whi ch lasted until the third centur y O f the
,

C hristian era we call the school which existed within the first fifty
,

years afte r Aristotle the older P eripatos Th e per sonages who guided
.

its destiny were Theophr astus of Er esu s ( d 287 B C ) on the island of . . .

Lesbos who succeeded Aristotle himself in the condu ct of the s chool

, ,

Eu demu s of Rhodes Ar isto xen u s of Tarentum Diciar ch u s of M essene

, , ,

the physi cian M enon and Demetrius of P haleron

, .

This s chool fostered the investigation of the v arious special s ciences

as this had been inaugurated by Ar istotle himself Theophrastus .

sought to develop the histo ry of philosophy ethical characterology , ,

botanical S tudies histo ry of law and both the philosophy and the
, ,

history of religion Ar istoxenu s cultivated the theory as well as the

.

history of music Diciar chu s wrote a cultu ral history of Greece ;

.

Menon a history of medicine and astronomy Demetrius en couraged

, .

the founding of the renowned library at Alexandria .

In this conne ction we must not forget that philosophical specu lation
is synthesis and superstructure O n the whole the s chool remained
.

faithful to its master in cosmology ethics and psy chology but in

fi
, , ,

metaphysi cs Theophrastus p ropounded a whole series of philosophical

dif culties o r puzzles which wer e fo reign to the spi rit of Ar istotle ,
2 14 ANC IE NT PH I LO SO PHY
and by so doing he paved the way fo r a tendency whi ch will appear
even stronger in the later course of the P e ripatos This tendency had .

its basis in an ambiguous position adopted by A ristotle Th e S tagirite .

,

on the one hand h ad rejected the P latonic idea and in opposition

,

to it had int r oduced a new idea of reality based on the materi al

natu re of space and time ; on the other hand he sought to introduce ,

the idea as a form at least in the world Was the form of any con
, .

se quence if it had lost its P latonic character ? An d what did Ar istotle

think was the decisive element ? Th e sensory material reality or
the metaphysical form ? S hould we explain A ristotle in an Ar is “

to telian or i n a P latoni c sense ? Eu demu s appears to ha ve adopted

” ”

the latter position ; Ar isto xenu s the fo rme r for he refused to assume
, ,

the existence of the individual soul and saw in it only a harmony

of forces Even Theophrastus may be said to have tu rned toward
.

naturalism H e criticized Aristotle s teleology the relation of God

.
’

to th e world and the idea of the N ous In S trato of Lampsacus we

, .

will become better acq uainted with the se concepts as they become
more completely developed .

Bib lio graphy

Wilh elm Kn o ge l, D e r P e r ipate ti k
Ar iston vo n Ce os b ei P hilo de
er

( Le pi zi
g : H ar r a sso w itz , — E Z ll .
( e er tra
n sla e b y B C O td . F.

and I H. M u . h ) ,
ir ead
A r is to tle an d th e Ear lier P er i ate tics
p 2 o l , v s .

don : Lo n gman s, G ee 8: C o , r n .
2 16 A NC IENT PH ILOS OP H Y
ologies acted as nuclei of crystallization in the H ellenistic perio ,

they promoted the founding of striking scholastic institutions an

were typical of the epoch : the S toa and the Gar den of Epicu
took thei r place alongsi de the still flou rishing Academy and
P eripatos .

Th e Rom an Emp ir e Du e to the appearan ce of the Roman empe

.

the times became ever more turbulent men grew interiorly eve r
,

restless and were filled with e ver greate r longings When a .

,

nadi r of the decaden ce an historical per sonage appears in the p

,

of Ch rist who says of H imself that H e is the light of th e w “

the resu r rection and the life we arrive at the great turning
“

in secular a ffairs In fact Christianity eventually succeeded in e

.
, ,
S

lish ing itself and gradually wrested the guidance of man fr om

hands of philosophy During the er a of the Roman emperors
.

old philosophical schools however still continued to exist Bu t

, , .

became ene rvated and collapsed one after anothe r From time .

time he roic e ffo r ts were made to resuscitate the spirit of the

cultu r e especially in the r evi val known as Neo P latonism Bu t
,
-
.

histo rical pro cess could not be stopped In A D 5 29 when the Emp
. . .

Justinian closed the doo r s of the Old schools of phi losophy

p rohibited the teaching of philosophy itself in Athens his edict m ,

have appeared to the gene ral public as an act of violence In r ealit .

it was only the r atification of alr eady existing conditions .

S ince the role of C hristianity was not that of a conque r o r but

means of searching fo r th e truth it did not uproot G reek philosoph
,

but absorbed it The enduring truths and genuine values

.

ancient schools were appropriated What was unable directly

.

produ cti ve of results be cause of the course of external historical

placed itself under the protection of the great minds of Christ
and flou rished again in the soul of C h r ist anI ty itself in its i ,

and I ts culture True by so doing it lived a life in a cha

.
, ,

but it li ved never theless a new life .

C H A P TE R

TH E S T O I CS
‘

TH E I LO S O P H ERS O F S TO I C I S M
P H

Th e early S to a Again it was A thens where this new branch of

.

speculation flourished and it was again the meeting

,

gave the school its name : the colorful hall painted by

philosophers are divided into the early the middle and , ,

cs Th e founder of the early s chool was Zeno of C itium

.

300 H e was a pupil of the C ynic C r ates of S tilpo , ,

M egaric and of Zeno cr ate s the Academician C ynicism left the

, .

st lasting impression on him — and indeed it is typi cal of th e

ire S toa We meet this influence in their theory of knowledge
.
,

thei r metaphysics and in their ethics Zeno was r evered for his
, .

chara cter H e depa r ted this life of his own free will in
.

H is successo r was C leanthes of A ssos likewise a man of rare ,

on str ength of will mo ral forthrightness and religious piety

, , ,
.

ssess those first hymns to Zeus which are so

to ics hymns whi ch pulsate wi th deep religious

,

H e died fr om self imposed S tar v ation in 233

-
A mong his
us renowned students we find Arat of S oloi in C ili cia T . o

trace a hymn to Zeus whi ch S t P aul quoted in the following

.

AS indeed s ome of you r own poets ha v e said : For we are

“ ‘

offspring ( Acts ’
Th e most famous among the
belonging to the early S toa is Ch rysippus of S oloi ( 208
as the second founde r of the S toa ; he was a
a prolific writer .

Th e middle S toa may be dated midway between

first centuries befo r e C hrist Its two chief r epr e .

aetiu s of Rhodes and P o se ido n iu s of A amae a

p .

d 110 . assumed charge O f the school at Athens in

lived for a conside rable length of time in Rome While .

o ved in the intellectual circles of S cipio Afr icanus M inor ,

2 17
218 ANC I E NT PH I LO SO PHY
of his friend L aelius and of the chief priest M u ciu , s

h is sojourn there and perhaps because of it philosoph ,

a new rating in Rome : it began to be recognized

essentials of highe r cu ltu e If philosophy actually
to Rome this must be ascribed primarily to the
fi ‘

was tailor made for the Roman genius F or this reason the works
-
.

fi
P an aetiu s on commission and omission on peace of mind and ,

providence we re drawn upon by C icero especially for his treatise

, ,

duties De O iciis
,
f
.

P o seido n iu s of Ap amaea ( d 5 1 B C ) lived in Rhodes It was th . . .

th at C i cero attended his lectures and ther e that P ompey visited

After D emo critus and A ri stotle he was the last polyhistor of
‘

H is influence upon his contemporaries and upon su cceeding

tions was great Julian the Apo state quoted him in his p
.

in honor of King H elios as did the C hristian Bishop , ,

in his tra t on the nature Ofman Th e pseudo Aristotelian d

'

c .
-

O n th e W ld imitates him or , .

Th e late r S to a Among the later members of the S toa th

.

S tand out prominently First is S eneca the teacher of Nero .

, ,

obedien ce to the latter s command opened his veins in A D 65 ’

. . .

the treatises most characteristic of his views are the

ti n s ( problems of the natural sciences ) his disser tat
o e ,

Cle m n y and Ange as well as his twenty books

e c , r,

in which he paints a very dreary pi

of his era N ext is Epi ctetus a S lave
.
,

mitted freeman lived in Rome ( A D 138 ) and from wh om we t . .

the famous H andb o o k ofM or lity ( inventoried by his pupil Fla a ,

Ar r ian u s ) The third member Of this group is M arcus A urelius

.
,
“
philosophe r on the emperor s throne ( A D To him we
’
. .

th e renowned twel v e books of M e ditatio ns written in Greek ,

entitled To M yself the Aph r is ms and the Di i s in part

“

,
”
o ar e ,

on th battlefield These do as mu ch credit to his sublime sentim

e .

as they are typical of S toicism itself .

B ibliography
I .n Arn i m
vo ,
S toicor u m vete r u m fr agme nta ( 19 03 — E V A . rn o l
Ro man S toicis m ( Lo nd n o ,
P . B arth G d — oe ec k eme yer , Die
— H . E . B evan S t ,
o csi an d S ce pti cs( O xf rd o : Ox f rd
o

P rs
e s, W .

C o ple st no ,
H is tor y
220 ANC IE NT PH I LOS OPHY
may be explained by th e uni versal materialism of the S toics It w o .

be a rewa r ding task to in vestigate how profoundly in succeed

centuries the A ristotelian theo r y of knowledge was influen ced

this con cept for Ar isto tl E s theo ry was also a theo ry of images
,
’
.

theory was however based upon an entirely different b ackgr o

, ,

Th e eid s o r form of which the Ar istotelian N ous availed itself

o

not a senso r y residue of S till another sensory phenomenon but ,

the spi ritual stru ctu ral fo rm of the metaphysical being of th e obj
itself In A ristotelianism the eidos could fun ction as a str u ctu
.

form antecedent to space time objects and could be endowed w

—

apriority because Aristotle taught that the Nous insofar 513

, ,

is creative also possesses an apriori aspect which fo r him is typi

, ,

of the knowledge of an essen e In su ch a theory w c .

features which a re prope r both to P latonism and to

p. 15 6 T hat these fa cts were not evaluated later on
have been S tems from the fact
exposed to S toic influences Th e .

and the S toics we re neithe r

ing e r as those of the P a the
,

within the ambit bo th of the Aristotelian and the S toic

this connection Aristotle connotes often only th e school
“ ”
,

p atos ,and this in turn is frequently covered ove r by S toi c

C rite rio n of tru th If knowing consists in the formation of

.

we must natu r ally attempt to arri ve at a guarantee fo r the

of truth We can be deceived in ou r sense perceptions Wh a
. .

an ces do we have that ou r images co rr espond to the original

We may find such a c rite rion of the truth in the catalepsis ,

in that quality of ou r representations which we

that is to say a certain something that overwhelms us
,
“
.

representations possess e vidence ( dpy ) o r clarity This ’

ev aa .

its roots not only in the S toic but also in the Epicurean theo ry
knowledge whereas it is significantly missing in the work
,

Ar istotle Th e former a r e sensualists and nai ve r ealists ; the latter

.

not According to the S toics e vidence ( o r clarity ) is p resent w h

.
,

the following conditions are verified : the distance both ,

in space between the object that is perceived sensorily

,

e ct per ceiving it is not too great ; the act of per ception lasts
j
sufficient length of time and takes place i n a sufficiently tho
manne r ; no medium obtr udes itself disturbingly between the s
and the object ; repeated per ceptions both those of oneself and ,
 TH E STO ICS 221

of other s have the same result Unde r these ci rcumstances we cannot

,
.

refuse to give assent to such a rep resentation From this concept of .

assent ( approval ) ( y dfl m ) we easily perceive that in the r ealm

ov xa r
‘
e s

of knowledge the S toics were also aware Of the p resence and the
importan ce of th e will By this we can also appreciate how great a
.

role their system acco r ded it We become convinced that to them .

man is not a mere speculative perfectly objective being They were , .

acutely aware that man b rings his will and his wishes to bear on
those things whi ch he holds to be tr ue N everth eless it should be
,
.
,

evident that by the notion of assent the S toa did not introduce a
subjecti ve voluntaristic theory of truth especially if one wer e to ,

examine their formal logic and their teaching concerning the elements
of speculation .

2 . ELE M ENTS OF S P E C U LATI O N

elements of formal r easoning were fo r the S toics the same as

Th e
th ey had been for Ar istotle : j udgment con cept and syllogism , , .

Th e judgmen t Th e j udgment represents a viewpoint of th e

.

s bj ect his personal attitude toward a representation This results from

u , .

an assent to the representation This assent denotes the co n viction : .

Th is is something real which I represent to myself S ince the j udgment .

is th e s pport of truth we might think that the S toic theory of judg

u ,

ment left it entirely up to the subj ect to decide what was tr ue and
what false This is not the case Th e S toic logician makes a distinc
. .

ti on : By means of the assent the factual judgment is tr uly enunciated ,

but the decision as to its truthfulness or fallacy does not lie within
th e provin e of the will whi ch perfe cts the assent but is fo rmulated
c

on th e basis of the diver sity of content found in the rep resentation .

If it is in accordan ce with the facts ( or the ci rcumstances ) the ,

judgment is true ; if not it is false In the division of j udgments the

, .

S toi cs pro ceeded afte r the fashion of Ar istotle but they enlarged ,

upon his groupings by di fferentiating between simple and compound

judgments Th e latter are then subdivided into copulati ve disjuncti ve
.
, ,

an d hypoth etic :

Th e concep t Th e j udgment is composed of concepts In this the

. .

S toi cs agree with A ristotle but they perfect h im by thei r greater

,

pre ision According to Aristotle a concept was always examined and

c .

explained from the standpoint of words Bu t among the S toics a .

distinction was made between the word as a bare S ign th e concept ,

as the designated content of the thought and the obj ect th at was ,
222 A NCIE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
denoted by it F rom their views futur e logi cians will elabo r ate the
.

distinctions between ter min s ( term ) r atio ( concept ) and es ( thing ) u , , r .

Wi th th e first of these grammar is concerned ; with the second logi

, , c

o r dialectics ; and wi th th é Th ir d metaphysics Universal ideas in such

‘

, .

a theo ry are considered to be merely altered re presentations They are .

artificially deduced generalizations in the sense of ave rage types If .

they are not pure fab ri cations the obj ect to which they adequately ,

correspond is only a phantasm not a r eal being as P latonism taught ,

.

A s the C ynics S O also the S toics held that only an individual r ep e se n

,
r

tatio n corresponds to a real obj ect In this we may see anew their .

kin ship with th e C ynics S u ch an assumption is logical fo r sensualism

.
,

and it does actually express a part of the t ru th whi ch in modern times

Be r keley will allege against the general ideas of Lo cke
“ ”
.

Among concepts there are some which appear to arise of themselves .

These are such as can be found among all men : common concepts
i o tio n es o mmu n es ) and they are at the same time
(
’
éw
K o cva
; n oiai c ,

basic i e they are presupposed by all knowledge and are therefore

, . .
,

called prenotions ( pr olepsis ) To these proleptical notions we may .

as cribe th e same cognitional value as we did to the cataleptical or

rep resentational They are all acquired something that becomes pos
.
,

sible at the age of se ven fo r at that age reason is supposed to awaken

,
.

An d not only that ! Th e complete individual Logos is also identical

with the chief featu res of the Uni versal Logos of the wor ld reason ,

and because the latte r fashions the matter of th e world our Logos is ,

enabled to become acquainted wi th the world Upon such a foun da .

tion rests the a rgument of co nsensu s o mniu m ( uni vers al consent)

which C i cero regar ded so highly and apparently upon it depends also ,
-

the assumption of C anon Law that the child attains the use of
reason at the age of seven .

Th e syllogism The se rvice which the S toi cs performed in connec

.

tion with their teaching on syllogi sms is only today being e valuated
correctly contrar y to th e negative judgment of P r an tl Following
, .

the p rocedu re of Theophr astus and Eu demu s the S toics fu rther ,

perfected the Aristotelian syllogism and syllogistic fo rm by postulating

both the disjunctive and the hypotheti cal syllogisms By these addi .

tions they enriched philosophy by a more complete description of th e

forms of the mind Behind these novelties we can in addition
.
, ,

dete ct still another feat that of laying the co rnerstone for an ,

elementary logic of predicates that is fo rmal in type By classifying .

p ossible if so assertions
“
a ccording to the v iewpoints of truth and
”
 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOPH Y

2 . TH E EX P LORATI ON OF BEING : P ANTHE IS M

I mmanent W rld Re ason Th e essential pantheism of the S toics

o -
.

confr onts us in the robl m touching upon the ultimate basis of

p e
being They knew and appreciated this problem but in their search
.

after the ultimate basis of being they flatly rejected to place its source
outside the material wo rld It is perfect nonsense says P liny to .
“

,
”
,
“

try to transport oneself beyond and outside the world and there to

fi
study the cosmos as if e verything within the world had already been
suf ciently well known ( Nat H ist II
1 8 to be found in the wo r ld itself
-
,
”
The cause of the world
.

The world is eternal immeas u r .

.
, ,

able and S O infinite that it is fertile enough to supply an explanation

,

fo r itself C onsequently the S toics o ffer us an explanatory principle

.

for the world and fo r the wo r ld process This principle is however -

.
, ,

an immanent one It is its p rimeval power whi ch may also be desig

.
,

mated as p rimeval fire primeval pneuma o r t , ,

may also be called the World Reason ( logos ) world law -

,

lex n atu r alis

) providence
, (p r o n o ia
p o vide n tia) and fate , r ,

mene fatu m) By it matte r is fo rmed and motion is gi ven its

, .

impetus in accordance with definite laws and norms The .

Reason contains within itself eternal thoughts for the entire

so that its ideas a re the seed of the future ( Aéy pp m l oz au e ar
‘
o
,

se min ales
) T hrough
. this a strict o r der is introduced in
that happens even in the exagge rated form of a return of all
,

( r ein carnation ) E v e r ything

. that happens is arranged in great
By reason of its content of ideas the World Reason fashions C -
I

and cosmic events Bu t at the expi ration of definite periods a

.

co n fla atio n will consume all that exists and will r eturn all
r
g
by means of a monstrous mass of fiery miasma to the p rimeval
fire Th is fire will e ventually permit them to return Then
. .
,

same o rientation of heavenly bodies S ocrates and P lato will be ,

again to exist among us and eve ry human being will di ,

again among his old friends and fellow citizens This r esu r gen .

all things ( dw d m 3 w 6 ) will be repeated not only

o xa r or a s 7 01 a r/7 9

but many times in fact an infinite number of times This

, ,
.

thing will recur o ver and o ve r again because it will ne ver be ,

to be fully completed ( Arnim S toicor u m Veter u m Fr agmen ,

C osmic reason and providence which

ar e not the thought and the commands of
spirit but the orderly arrangement of matt
,
 TH E STO I CS 225

and its mo vements that is to say in an infinite series of causes

, ,

( ser ies i m plexa ca sa a m) M atter is the ufinal reality ;rS toi cism .

remained adamantly materialisti c .

Ratio n es semin ales o r semin al principles Even the atio n es . r

se minal s are material causes not ideas E ven here the S toi cs appro
e , .

r iate d only the bare word altering its meaning Genuine ideas as
p , .

distant O bje ctives and placed in the future hove r over development ,

his development hastens toward them M atter yearns after a .

as Aristotle had said Th e S toic r atio nes se minales howe ver .

, ,

at th e beginning of the development They do no t form an .

ideal telos ( end ) but are physi cal causes of a material kind within
,

fth e framework of a universal series of causes Even a predisposition .

in its biologi cal meaning is a physical cause and the biologi cal pre ,

disposition appears among the S toi cs to have been originally an ill s u

ion for the logos sper maticos ( seminal prin ciple ) In any case .
,

explanation whi ch Acti ns and S extus Empi i u s O ffer is important ’

r c ,

fo r they give us to understand th at the causes advan ced by the S toi cs

ar e of a material corporeal kind ( Arnim op ,
it II 119 18 , . c .
, , ,

rE pecially
s chara cteristi c are the words of C r ito lau s th at Fate
( h eima m n e
) is rwithout dire
e ction and without purpose ( é px i
’
va os Ka

d A i j
r e
) (
eI n
'
A rnim
'
o p
r os it II 26 5 N atural predispositions
,
. pro
c .
, , ,

S toics are ac cordingly something oth er than the natural

s propounded by Aristotle Th e latter con ceived ideal .

nature as an ideal telos ; the former the biologi cal predispositions ,

as physi cal ca sality That sa vants late r on interpreted the Aristotelian

fi
u .

ethi cal prin ciple as something determined by nat u ral predisposi tion
is not only an u nju Sti ab le modernization ( W I aeger ) but also an .
,

aftere f fe ct produ ced by the S toi cs and thei r con ception of the tio n es ra

se minales .

Theogony as cosmogony If pri mary and primeval P ower is called .

Ze s and divine th is must be understood only within its own context

u , .

God Reason Fate and N ature are one and the same thing ; this is
, , ,

xp es l repeated over and over again ( A rnim p it II 2 73 25

f
r
y s o c ; , . .
, , ,

79 35 ; I 28
, If fo r this reason and in connection with th e do c
, ,

trine of cosmic cy cles it is said that Zeus matures until he consumes ,

all things within himself ( Arnim op cit II 185 this des cription ,
. .
, , ,

of a theogony is in reality a cosmogony Th e S toics are in no sense .

theists but pa ntheists If th e world created itself if it is an autarch

- “ ”
, .
, ,

it o ccu pies th e ni ch e that should be reserved only fo r God and is

itself God .
 A NCIE NT P H ILOSOPH Y

3 . S TO I C RELI GI O S ITY

D espite
the interpretation of f n m ( th e sacred ) as p ofan a m
a u r

worldly ) S toic r eligiosity i s a genuine warm and deep seated s

, _ , ,
—

ment as we can see for ou rselves in the hymns to Zeus that

been preser ved E Norden has termed an an cient Glor ia tha
. .

of praise to th e God of the universe whi h begins with th e c

phrases : It is only fitting to conside r the cosmos and all

“

whi ch we attribute that other name heaven by wh ose , ,

the universe has its living existence as God as ete n , , r

immense unbegotten and immo rtal Th e

, , .

wh i ch are employed in these anci ent hymns to

and which have their origin chiefly in the my
nonetheless mere metaphors and should creat
than that the religious sentiment of the S to ics was purely na
fo r thei r God remains th e uni verse Even th e words which S t .
l
.

qu o tes in Acts originally had a pantheistic meaning .

4 . H I S TOR ICAL BAC KGR O U ND

THEIR P HILOS OP HY OF

From the physics of the S toics we gain the impression that this i
a school with a very long philosophical tradition behind it wh i
it was compelled to turn to account Influence was exerted upon .

from all S ides From the C ynics the school

.

of materialism F rom H e raclitus it took the treatment

.

intellect and of cosmi c law as well as the notion of prime val fire .

Again from H eraclitus and also from the P ythago reans it borrowed
the idea of cy cles in the world pro cesses F rom P lato s world of .
’

ideas and from the world of Aristotelian forms it developed its

teaching on the r atio n s se min l s By dr awing furthe r consequences
e a e .

from these principles the S toics revised the meanI ngs of the older
,

terms and in their revised form fitted them into thei r own system .

C r itics have cha rged that Zeno had established a school of his
without justification ; he should not have done S O because
me rely app ropriated and plagiarized the teachings of the
minds of the past Those who attend only to verb al
.

might possibly agree with such a charge Those who .

th oughts behind the words realize howeve r that when two p , ,

say the same thing the meaning which they seek to convey is
,

necessarily the same in both instances ; they may not n ecess

express the same thought
228 ANC IENT P H IL OSOPH Y
anthropology was its teaching concerning the dri ves o r impulses
( p
i m e tu s
) In itself
. the impetus ( bp mj) belongs to the sensory soul .

In it however are active th e body the senses and reason Insofar

, , , , .

as th e body is concerned man recei ves r ep r esentations through sensa

,

tion and these in turn gi v e rise to the impulses automatically and

spontaneously For this r eason an impulse means to suffer to be
.
“
,
” “

affected ; it is an affection ( path os ) o r passio

” “ ”

pre cisely only the excessi ve o r violent impulse is an affection o

,

emotion That an impulse becomes excessive is due to the fact

.

reason no longer accompanies and controls it F or reason pla .

part in the impulse ; in fact the S toics oftentimes delineate its ,

in such a way that it would appear that the affections

j udgments According to Zeno the emotions follow upon
.
,

C hrysippus identifies them with j udgments When reas .

the emotions so that the mo vements of the soul which are

,

in every impulse are well o r dered and man the reby becomes
of the macrocosm a microcosm governed by reason as is a mac
,

we then have the will which “ ”

assumption whi ch prevailed throughout the M iddle Ages .

sense even Kant distinguished between an infe rio r con

appetitive faculty whi ch can only be affected and a superior
, ,

or appetiti ve faculty whi ch is practi cal reason that can d ,

itself if it SO choses
, .

E ve r so O ften however the guiding portion of the

, ,

perform its function and the impulse is thrown back upo

we are confronted with the antithesis of r eason namely folly , , ,

is always a fals e rep resentation and a falsehood P ain fear .

, ,

and lusts are forms of su ch folly distortions of reason P ,

.
”

as the S toics always wer e they realized that it was these ,

th oughtless impressions and r ep resentations that

j dgments and for this reason they termed passion a
u ,

P ain fo r example is a v igo rous folly caused by the

“ ”
, ,

evil ; lust a vigorous folly aroused by the p r esence of

,
“ ”

S h ould be our task to overcome th e narrowness of

moment and to aid O bjective truth to a chieve victo ry .

manico n o r r uling faculty is of cou r se always fr ee It , ,

.

refuse its consent In eithe r of two ways reason can

.

task Th e fir st way is to stall o r to gain time by

.

“
vigorous folly to die down and thus to deprive
Th e best antidote against danger is time ( S ene ca
”
,
 TH E S T OI C S 229

We should then attempt to dissolve th e false representations for

the purpose of ar riving at the true facts of the case These representa .

tions are only emotional j udgments j udgments of a ffection as we

“

,
”
,

would say today Wipe out the imagination as M arcus Aurelius

.
“

,
”

would say (M editatio ns VII 29 ; in Whitney I O ates ,Th e , .

S to ic and Epicu e n P hilo s oph e s [N ew Y ork : Random H ouse

r a r ,

p O nly in this way shall we be able to find pea ce of

.

h ea r t Regarding physical e vil and suffe r ing the S toics were of the
.

opinion that only prej udi es and imaginations rob us of peace c .

“
What disturbs men s minds is not events but their judgments on
’

events F o r instance death is nothing dreadful or else S ocrates would

.
, ,

ha ve thought it so No the only dreadful thing about it is men s

.
,
’

judgment that it is d readful ( Epictetus M n ual V ; ed O ates ”

,
a , .
,

p . Th e truly wise man is abo v e su ch weakness In su ch a man .

reason alone rules and it makes him independent O bjecti ve and , ,

faithful .

Th e life value of su ch views is clearly evident They a r e philos oph i . a

p er e nnis In ou r.customa r y way we caution a pe r son who is in the

fi
grip of emotion Be reasonable In such words a portion of ancient
,
“
.
”
,

espe cially S toic psychology lives on

, .

2) N o ble a ecti ns O ve r against the emotions understood as

o .

passions the S toi cs arrayed the noble r emotions : th e opposite to

,

desi re is the upright will which in one respect may be eithe r sheer
well wishing o r simple sentiment ; to fear prudence which is divided
—
,

into reveren e and chastity ; and to pleasu re the pu r e j oy whi ch

c ,

springs from the consciousness of a virtuous life In this division we .

can readily see how st r ongly S toic psy chology was uided by ethi cal
g
interests H ere it appear s as a doctrine of virtue A similar tendency
. .

is evident in S pinoza who views the affections from the standpoint

,

Of the S toi cs ; he also sought to heal them in a p r oper manne r and ,

like th em placed th e noble his active emotions over against th e

, ,
“

,
”

ignoble emotions .

3) Th e immo r tality ofth e so u l The philosophy of antiquity whose .

,

con cept of man was turned to good account by the S toics generally ,

treated of the problem Of the immortality of the soul At least the .

rational portion of the soul always appeared to them to be something

eternal and something divine In consonance with their materialism .

the S toics were forced to embark upon another course and to adopt
another view Zeno conceded that the base r portion of the so l s
. u
’

matter was transitory and thus perish able ; reason on th e contra ry as , ,

230 ANCIE NT PH ILOS OPHY
th e most ten uous kind of matter could be immortal C leanthe s and , .

Chr ysippus exp r essed them selves in like fashion ; P an aetiu s on the con ,

fifi
tr ar y maintained wit h out reserve that the soul was mortal In any
, .

ca se in Epictetus and N i c s Aurelius we cannot find a trace of

,

personal immo rtality P o seido n iu s on the other hand borrowed

.
, ,

and this is also typi cal of th e partial syncretism which can be observed
in S toicism — the P latonic proofs fo r the continued su rvival of the
soul afte r death In S eneca the immortality of the soul formed the
.

basic dogma of his teaching H e chose language whi ch appea rs to .

be almost Christian Afte r the soul puri fying and divesting itself
.
“

of the Imperfecti o ns whi ch it has acq uired and of the sorrow of

,

mortal life with which it has been affli cted has tarried for a while ,

above us it as cends to the heights of the universe and ho ver s among

,

the blessed spirits Th e blessed company receives it among its own

.
”

A d M iam H s thoughts on the immortality of the soul are

( a rei ,

frequently cited by the F athers of the C hurch Against this general .

anthropological background the tr ue ethics of the S toics at last makes ,

its appearance .

2 . TH E P ROBLEM AN ETHICAL P RINC I P LE

OF

For mu las for th e telo s Th e fi rst problem is that of principles . .

In what does mo ral good consist ? To answer this question C leanthes

fi
,

fi
evol ved the notion of a life lived in conformity with nature
his norm is usually designated as the

fi
Z ) T
'

( O h y w 77 j i 7 ( u c er v

fi
p o u o ov ev s . .

goal of life ( A ni )
r eAnother formula runs : Good is wh atever
’
os
,
s .

I S due a thing o r whatever is fitting ( ofl iciu m

) ince man is ‘
S Ka xo v
, .

a r ational being the k th ek on is fo r all a well—reasoned act that

,
“
a
” “

is suited to man s rational nature This and the othe r explanations

’
.
”

Vi rtue 3 right reason ( 6p06 Aéy r atio ecta) o r Virtue is pruden ce

1 s os
,
r

( moral i nsight ) a r e practically all only formal f r ameworks for

definitions which remain empty of meaning as long as we do not
know what the content of human nature or of right reason is or
what is denoted by these terms .

O ik eio sis o r tru e self lo v e Th e S toi cs recogni z ed th e problem and

- .

sought to solve it by describing the basic goods of nat re ( pa u a r t;

m} pf w ) These a r e de ri ved from the notion of oi heiosis o r tr ue

fr o c z o

selflove ( literally appropriation ) to which Zeno attributed a unique

-
,
”

p roper ty which is extremely typical of the

,

school was characteri z ed for its enti re ex is

Theophrastus reminds us only slightly f o
232 ANC IE NT PH ILOSO PH Y
Kator th o ma ( igh t ac tio n
r
) an d d u t y There appears to be .

notion whi ch seemingly transcends a natu ralistic foundation

morality namely the notion of a truly right moral actio n ( 6p0
, ,
Ka 7
“
that which is done In this notion
which is already contained in the h th e ho n o r a

obtrudes itself in its purest form A person .

which viewed realistically is right but whi ch happens to

, , ,

co r re ct no r m of righteousness perhaps only by chan e or c

of a positive inclination does not possess mo ral perfect ,

he who does good precisely fo r the reason that he thinks it

be done because it is his duty to do so can be said to be
, ,

By this concept we gradually app r oach the ideal no rmative c

of morality This concept w as what Kant treasur ed SO highly
.

ethi cs and because of it we are ac

,

a traditional fashion as an ethics of duty .

solely an ethics of duty because the ,

r th o ma r ight action is deri v ed is

h at o
( )
not imply that antithesis between being and value
istic of the ethics of mode r n times eve r since ,

breach between theoretical and practi cal r eason ,

the forme r and duty ( the should ) and values “ ”

sequently the ethics of the S toics is essentially

Its ethics does however emphatically stress the
, ,

we are accustomed to say It would however .

, ,

S toic ethics as one of interio r dispositions

reality an e thics that is simultaneously one of inwardness and
,

being Bette r than in theory we can arri ve at a j ust appr eciat

.

of the genuine mo ral p rofundity of S toic ethi cs by a scrutiny

its practical p recepts S eneca demands : You must live for
.
“

othe r if you want to li ve fo r your self (Ep 48

,
Epi c .
, ,

maintains : I hold it to be bette r to do as God wills and

“

as I will ; I seek to be subj ect to H im as a servant and dis

are to thei r maste rs ; I will try to confo rm myself to H im b
intentions and in my actions ( Disser t IV M ar cus .
, ,

ex claims : Everything harmonizes wi th me which is harmonious

“

thee O Universe N othing for me is too early nor too late which
, .
,

in due time fo r thee ( M ed IV 23 ed O ates p”

H ere we sen
,
.
, .

ve ry clearly genuine ethical r esignation .

Natu ral law and h u m anitar ianism 1 ) Divine law O ne of

“
. .

nobl est f ruits of S toic ethics is th e concept of the natu ral law
 TH E STOICS 233

the ideal of humanitarianism associated with it The positi ve law .

formulated by states o r by go vernments is neither uniq ue nor

omni potent This law deri ves its validity ultimately from an unwritten
.
,

eternal law whi ch serves at the same time as the norm fo r all
positive laws from the natural law whi ch is nothing else than the
,

u ni v ersal cosmic law identical with cosmic reason This convi ction is .

numbered among the unshakable dogmas of the S toic school Even .

C ice ro and P h ilo demas reaf firmed in a S imilar strain what had been
e stablished by the founders of the school Zeno in one of his famous .
,

dicta exclaimed : Th e natural law is a divine law and as such

,
“

possesses the powe r to regulate what is right and what is wrong ”

op cit I 42 . C hrysippus in one of his utte r ances

.
, , , , ,

Zeus the common nature of all things and necessity are

“

, ,

and this is also j ustice unity and peace ( A rnim op cit , ,

”
, . .
,

8 In the background S tands H e ra clitus with his pro

ent : A ll human laws are nourished by the divine ( F rag .

E ven P lato with his world of ideas and Aristotle belong to this
g r oup A.ristotle expressly distinguished between the positive law and
she law of nature and quoted in defense of its p owe r and v alidity
a verse from S ophocles Antig ne whi ch r uns something like the ’
o

following : No t of today o r yester day it is — but lives eternal ; none

“

can date its birth r istotle b ed M eo n p

”
( A Rh e t 1373 12 ; cK , .
, .
, .

Th e S toic was of the Opinion that the law of nature is self e vident -
.

It is present with r eason as su ch Whoever possesses it has with it .

also knowledge a conscience to decide what is right and what is

,

not T him upon whom nature bestows reason to him right reason
. o ,

is also given ; consequently also the law ; and if the law then also ,

the right ( Arnim op cit II 78

”
, . .
, , ,

2 ) Unive sal Reaso n Th e law of nature r ests essentially upon the

r .

no tion of the Univer sal Reason ( 6 Aéy ) S ince we as members R o n/ 9 os .

,

of the human race share in it we can conclude that all men are like
, ,

o ne another all possess the same rights and laws They must as a
, .

consequence act acco r dingly : S lave will you not bea r with you r own
“

brother who h as Zeus for his forefather and is born as a son of the ,

same seed as you are the same heavenly des cent ( Epi ctetus Dis ,
”
,

co u s es ; cd O ates pp 249
r . Th e native land of the S toic is the
, .

whole wor ld H e felt himself to be a cosmopolite For this reason the

. .

S toi cs bound th ei r dis ciples to practi ce universal charity benevolen ce , ,

mildness and patien ce In S ene ca we find this precept incorporated

, .

into the titles o f his books ; and M ar cus Au relius repeatedly urged
_
234 A NC IE NT PH ILOS OPHY
like—minded men to th ink and to act humanely In behalf of .

be rs of different races as well as of slaves women and childre , ,

had been much discriminated against in Roman law the ,

raise the plea for equal j u st1cel ‘

3) S to i is m and Ro man ju ispr d nce

c O n ce S to icis
r u e .

indigenous to the Roman Empire legal con cepts sl ,

change Roman j urists such as Gaius Ulpian and M

.
, ,

postulates of the natural law

extolled them as ideal norms for the i n terpretation
The natu ral law is also made th e foundation of i
A whole se ries of empe rors sympathetic to S toici
conclusio ns fr om the S toic con cept of law and of

them definite fo rmulation Whereas in Roman jurisprudence

.

were ruled incapable of possessing rights Augustus abrogated ,

ian sh ip at least for widows with children S la v es were o r .

treated as tools or implements ; unde r Nero however

“ ”
, ,

regulations wer e enacted whi ch protected slaves agai

of thei r masters H adrian punished by law master s
.

thei r sla ves Antoninus P ius bestowed upon them

.

to the sanctuaries of the gods for haven M a rcus .

gla diato rial games In the thi r d century of the Ch

.

of the S tate were empowered to dispose of half of t

by last will and testament An d in the fourth century
.

humanitarianism had progressed so far that sla ves were accorded

right to cite thei r master s befo re the civil cou r ts The con cept 0 .

uni ve rsal law that was synonymous with human natur e itself
nobled human life immeasurably Fo r this reason we may .

S toic natu r al law as humanisti c .

4) S toicis m an d Ch r istianity Logi cally the S toi cs re ckoned

.

r elationship to God among the pr es criptions of the natural law

and the same Universal Reason binds them together O n the .

hand an animal cannot be considered as the subject of righ ts

, ,

it does not share in this Logos or Reason Both con cepts lived .

the fo rmulas by which C hristianity presented its moral teac

just as the ethos of duty right and humanity
, ,

ground upon which C hristianity could come into contact

S toicism The F a the r s of the C hurch could study points of agre

fi
.

to be found in S toi c teachings and co u ld b o th evaluate and ‘

them The spiritual af nity that was thu s revealed in these

.

ideals appear s to have

236 ANC IENT P H ILOS OPH Y
factors that contribute to happiness Th e S toics were of .

In thei r view the virtuous life did not need these even as concomita
phenomena th ey foun d thei r happiness without them
: .

fi
3 P RACTI CAL TEAC HING O N V IRTUES
.

Th e S toics were convinced that theory alone was not su f ci

They reproached the P eripatetics because they esteemed the
contemplative life abo v e pra ctical actions In pursuance of .

do ctrine the S toics did not linger long over the discuss
'

ethical problems connected wi th principles ; rather they ,

practi al doctrine of virtue Tw o basic postulates are emph

c .

The acti ve life 1 ) A man of deter minatio n The firs

. .

dealt wi th the active life Th e S toic was .

H e loved self exertion and S trict discipli

-

contests and actual battle the S ocratic Vigor and the pan “

, ,

of wa r ) of the Cynics F o r this r eason Diogenes and H er cu l

.

held up as models for 1m1tat1o n Th e way to virtue is not th .

road of the indolent but ra ther the narrow path of th e resolu

,

A lthough the S toics employed th e language of in tell

thei r do ctrine of virtue — virtue is right reason ; there is
one virtue and this consists in mo r al insight ( ph r o nesis )
— they were less inte r ested in the essen ce and

spiritual ideals and backgrounds than we re the enlightened me

of the P eripatos and still less than those of th e Academy H ere .

we must distinguish between a wo r d and the reality denoted

Despite the language of intellectualism virtue itself was not ,

lectu aliz e d Th e S toic was a realist and knew what was imp
.

fo r a p r actical life : a powerful approa ch and a res

“

Deny and bear ( i x

” ' '
i w x su stin e et b tin e )
“ ’
c ve ov Ka c re ov a s
,

motive fo r a virtuou s life H e could also say : Where t .

there is a way What do we need ? What reduces

.
“

orde r ? The will What saves man from hunge r the

.
,

abyss ? The will Is there anything stronger in man ?

.
’

Disc ur ses Book II c x v11 ) P hilosophy does not cons

o , , . .

and theo rems but in life and in action : O n no o ccasion

,
“

a philosopher nor talk at large of you r prin ciples amo

,

titu de but act on your prin ciples For instance at

, .
,

say how one ought to eat but eat as yo u ought ,

’

M an ual; ed O ates p . The , .

contains
 TH E STOICS 237

occupied has not time to become invol ved in foolishness ;

the su rest means of banishing the vice of slothfulness ”

man o f ch ar acter . S ince

the S toic was a man of will of ,

he was also a man of character Th e logi cal consequences .

essence and of his actions were considered as bulking largely

his chief duties We can detect this refrain in the moral

fi
.

r mu la fo r a goal end as it had been enunciated by the founde r

( )
the school : To live in concord ( bq y n w C ) The later
“
o ov
’
ev s v .

s ciples S tressed it still mo re emphatically : Befo r e all else see to “

th at you always remain the same ( S eneca Ep 35 ) and he lays ”

, .
,
“

ide all distracting and busy pur suits and desires nothing else than ,

t cou rse through the law and by accomplish ,

the straight cou rse to follow God ( M arcus Aurelius M editatio ns ”

, ,

1 1 ; ed O ates p
.
,P r ecisely for this reason he reje cted sor r ow
.

fi
contrition The wise man never repents his actions ; he never
“
.

nge s what he has done ; he neve r alters his resolutions ene ca

( S ,

b ne
e , IV ,

3) Th e man of politi s Th e best opportunity for such an active

c .

life opens to us in ou r participation in public life Th e S toi c could not .

,

if h e wished to be virtuous isolate himself but he had to throw him

, ,

self into the hustle and bustle of the active life O n this point he was .

animated by way of exception by different sentiments th an the

, ,

Cyni c who r emained in this r espect an individualist and also di f

, ferent ,

from the Epi curean who followed the p 1 n c ple : Live in retirement
“ ”
r 1 .

Th e S toic app reciated the fact that man was a social being that even ,

when he seeks himself he must seek others since there is only one ,

Logos which adapts itself both to him and to his fellow beings AS .

a conse q uence he cannot lead a private life of comfort b u t must

, ,

necessarily plunge into the acti vity of a public life and in it fulfi ll
his O bligations .

A witness of unimpea chable v alue fo r this cha r acteristic attit u de of

the S toi cs is found in the M editatio n of M arcus Aurelius : In the s
“

morning when t hou risest unwillingly let this thought be present

-

I am rising to the wor k of a human being Why th en am I dis .

satisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for

which I was b rought into the world ? O r have I been made for this ,

to lie in the bed lothes and keep myself warm ? Bu t this is more
-
c —

pleasant — Dost thou exist then to take thy pleasu re and not at all ,

for action o r exertion ? Dost thou not see the little plants the little ,
238 ANC IE NT PH ILOSO P H Y
bir ds the ants the spider s the bees working togethe r to put
, , ,

or der their se ve ral pa rts of the uni ve rse ? An d a rt thou unwilling

do the wo r k of a human being and dost thou ,

is according to thy natu r e ? ( M ditatio ns V ”

e , ,

In this statement of the Empero r we can r eadi

a philosophy most in consonance with the politi cal aspi rations
an empi r e And not only in the Roman Empire Frederick II
. .

fi
P r ussia waxed en thusiastic about these men of law of deed , ,

decision and of trustworthiness and by personal preference he tri

,

to make C icero s volume De O iciis which is a ctually a

’

,
’
,

re vision of P anaetiu s work On D u ty the groundwork of in st u

’
, r

on mo rality within his kingdom .

Apath y The second constantly recurring S tipulation of S toic

.

trine on vi r tue was the admonition to culti vate apathy This .

p resupposition for the fi r st In orde r that the way of virtue .

of deeds in accordance with natu r e might not in any way be Impe

the affections ( emotions ) must be brought into subjection The .

was a man of sentiment and was not unaware of the

pleasu re and of the r eluctance caused by a ve r sion Bu
, .

permit himself to be overpowered by his passi ons .

pr omonto ry against which the wa ves continually b reak ,

firm and tames the fury of water around it

{

M editatio ns IV 49 ; ed O ates p
, , Inordinate desire anger
.
, .
, ,

fear should not gain the upper hand ; neithe r should co mpassio
sorrow Th e highest faculty of the soul reason alone should 3
.
, ,

to exp ress itself ; not the emotions : This is the chief thing “

not perturbed Then M arcus Aurelius immediately offers a rea

.
’

fo r this advice : Fo r all things ar e acco rding to the nature of

“

universal ; and in a little time thou wilt be nobody an

H adrian and Augustus ( M editatio ns VIII 5 ; ed O ates
”
.
, , ,

The study of the whole cannot help but make us great ;

law and of necessity strong and unshakable It is th e S toic
, .

apathy whi ch H or ace extols in an heroic fashion in his famo

“
Si fr actus illab atu r o r b is , impavidu m f er iu nt r u i nae
”
;
Yea if the globe should fall he ll stand serene ami
, ,
’

( H orace , C III
ar min a , ,

more in conformity with

sequently
240 A NC IENT P H ILOSO P H Y
able paradoxes of the S toics With it the ancients busied themselv .

O n the one hand freedom is defined in all its manifestations By .

was meant however the freedom of the inner man that is the
, , , ,

of reason This freed .

connected with the material wo r ld with the ,

the ailments of the soul a re only so many ,

We are howe ve r master s of our r epr esen

fi
, ,

consent and this is always in

n i v
,
within us ) ( Arnim op cit I I 283 2
“ ”
, . .
, , ,

h at th
a e i s o rs consent we know that f r eedom can exist
lib e m a b it iu m) By it we can adopt o r reject we can
ru r r .
,

wheth e r we are in favo r of o r against the law ; by it we can

between good o r evil .

The re are two di fferent kinds of causes : those which ar e

beginning of ever y process and denote a mere impulse ( p p r o xa r a
'

and those which are capable of generating from thei r very essen
pro cess complete and entire ( b A Z) O f this last species is a r or e e s .

s
y n k atath e is or consent
(
s A r nim op c it II 29 1 21 f
f ; 292 1 , . .
, , , .
,

Fo r this reason M arcus Aurelius thought : That which r ules w i

fi
“

the spirit o r soul ) makes a material for itself out of that

is opposed to it as r e lays hold of what falls into it by w, ,

small light would have been extinguished ; but when the

strong it soon appropriates to itself the matte r which is
,

it and consumes it and rises higher by mean s of this ve r

, ,

M o ns IV ed ates p pictetus gi v es us
( di
e t t i a 1 ; O , E , .
, .

particular s : You ha ve the faculty of being mo ved in you r

“

your intelligence by countless objects sometimes assenting som , ,

rej ecting sometimes doubting ; you guard in your own mind

,

many imp ressions der ived from so many and various obj ects
co u r ses I 14 ; ed O ates p
, , All these are bestowed upon
.
, .

the gods and they belong to us O ve r these we possess mast .

contrast to material realities by which we ,

( D isc o r s s
u I 1 7 e o r , as he puts
, it burdened
,
by , ,

dragged down In view of su ch exp ressions philosophers such

.
,

Barth have been wont to speak of the om nipotence of the mi

which the S toics are supposed to have taught .

Fate O n the othe r side stands fate Th e S toic was a fatalist A

. . .

the omnipotence of fate is not any less vividly described

omnipotence of the mind Fate is the law of the cosmos .
“

to which all thing s have taken p lace are to take p lace and , ,
 TH E STOICS 241

things will transpi re ( Arnim op cit II This fate is an u nco n

, . .
, ,

u e r ab le i rr esistible unavoidable cause ( ibid 292 15 ) — in fact it is a

q , , .
, ,

whole series of causes ( ibid 293 22 ff ; 305 it is cosmic reason

.
, , .
, ,

the Universal Reason o r Logos ( ibid 264 18 ; 265 27 ; I 24 31 ; 42 .

, , , , , ,

It is one and the same thing whethe r I speak of an eternal ,

se ries of causes of a cosmic law or a law of natu re of fate o r of

, ,

pro vidence or of Zeus

fi
.

C onfl ict Through such a concept there r esults an insu rmountable

.

dif culty namely the conflict between freedom and necessity We

, , .

need only keep befo r e ou r eyes the de v elopment of the S toic formula

for telos to be able to recognize this In his writings Zeno demanded .

,

fi
that We live in concord This could still be reconciled with the
“
.

an cept of freedom : w e could freely choose the means by which we

.

ho ped to regulate ou r lives and remain tr ue to them Bu t in C leanthes .

there is an addition made to this : we must li ve in a cco rd with “

nat u re If we could understand nature in this instance as an ideal

.
” ”

meaning of a teleological ethics let us say afte r the fashion ,

of Ar istotle we could still hold fast to the concept of fr eedom Bu t to

, .

live in accord with nature as propounded by the S toics has its origin
, ,

in the o i/( eios is and this is only a natu r al impulse as we ha v e al ready ,

seen. If to exhaust the subje ct we should study the third stage of

, ,

fi
are development of the telos fo r mula as advanced by C hrysippus ,

we may ask ou rsel ves whethe r reason has a place any longer By .

atu r e he did not understand individual human nature but universal

nature which is identical with cosmic reason because the indi vidual ,

so u l is synonymous with cosmi c reason this cosmic reason is nothing

more than the eternal unchanging cosmic law What purpose does
, .

it serve fo r C h rysippus to assur e us that only in the material wo rld

do necessity and fate rule whe reas the impulse to form our own
,

re solutions de r ives from our wills Arnim op cit II if

( 294 , .
, ,

mu Logos is nevertheless identical with the eternal unchanging ,

Th ere is no doubt as P hlen z so clearly ,

o

states that the S toics included in the causal nexus of the h eima mene
,
“
r

[fate ] the interior life o f the soul .

Viewed from the standpoint of th ei r opponents su ch as P lutarch , ,

Alexande r of Aphrodisias Neme siu s and C h alcidiu s it is customary

, , ,

to point out that fate disposes of the apparent freedom of man Fo r .

if we should be perfectly free only when we remained entirely u h

influenced by external causes then an external influen ce on our ,

conative faculty and the phantasy is acknowledged namely in those , ,

242 ANC IE NT PH I LOSO PHY
instances of imperfect freedom And accor ding to the law of cau
.

like causes will always p roduce like effects So that freedom , ,

that of the interio r man would be subjected to fate ( ibid 290

, .
, ,

29 1
,
The fac
a negation of ft c
beforehand is it possible to predict future events so ,
'

pro ves that acts of our interio r life simply put into
“

has already been decreed when we act as the result

,

tial a rrangements of fate ( ibid 272 25 ) .

, ,

Th e problem is not in any way simplified by

that C hrysippus sought to p reserve fre edom by r et
Afte r he has fo r med his own cha r acte r the wise ,

the fool cannot act in any othe r way than i

,

pres cribes Bu t that a wise man became what he is now is som

.
,

that we must ascribe to his own merits and in the case of th ,

to his own guilt At one t1me it was in his powe r to become

.

what h e is now o r something else For this reason and to this .

men ar e r esponsible fo r thei r

to an equal degree there exist
p roposing this solution ,

step farthe r from eventual solution The .

o r not in a uni ver sal series of causes it would have been possi
an indi vidual to have developed his natural dispositions in th
o r in some other than he actually did S toic responsibility is .

or exto r ted ; that is to say it is no responsibility at all F or this

, .

p r aise and blame admiration and warning punishment

, ,

cannot be r es cued f r om oblivion Just as many other .

from traditional philosophy so also these words have lost t

,

meaning fo r the S toi cs In fact they had to lose them in this

.
,

context .

Attempts at a so lu tio n The S toic believed he could resol ve

.

conflict by changing the meaning of freedom In reality fo r .

,

freedom is synonymous with necessity O nly the fool wishes .

something othe r than that which must be The W i se man on .

,

contr ary recognizes in the lawful cha racter of e vents so meth

,

peculia r to them a lawfulness typically thei r own H e loo ks

,
.

no thing else and conseq uently assents to his own fate An y ot .

will act on his part would be S hee r capri ce

-

manifestation of th e affections of passion and

244 A NC IENT PH ILOSO PH Y
to him and he consoles h ,

just as it does It was not by accident that

.

S eneca w as placed at the end of S pengle r s book Th e Decline o f

’

West : If you consent

“

, guide s you ; if you do not it forces

, you ’
C H A P TE R

EP I C UR E ANS A CADEM I C I ANS AND , ,

P E R I P AT E T I C S

I . EP I CUREANI S M : AN ANC IENT P H ILO S O P H Y

OF LIFE

TH E P H I L O S O P H ERS O F E P I C U REAN I S M
Th e Epicureans were he r edita r y foes of the S toics The polem i c .

between them was carried on endlessly Th e founde r o f the school .

as Epicu r us of S amos ( 341 270 H is teache r was Nau siph an es

-
,

e Democritean The atomistic ancestry of Epicureanism I s one of

.

its hallmar ks Epicurus began his lectures to a group in his own

.

g a r den in A thens in 302 B C Be cause of its origi n in.the.garden ,

th e pupils of the school we re called those fro m the garden

”
( b
“
i d o a

7 6 1: mj w ) The pe r sonage of the founder molded the school more

‘
lr v .

than did eithe r the method which was followed or the dogma whi ch
was taught Epicu rus was a sensiti ve soul char acte ri z e d by a r efined
f
.
,
,

attracti ve per sonality H e was p raised fo r his modesty his

.
,
-

mildness his goodness and fo r his lofty concept of fr iendship H is

, , .

utterances were considered as so many dogmas O f his writings of .

,

which the re were supposed to be mo re than three hundred only ,

a few fragments remain .

Among othe r renowned schola r s of this school we might mention

a close con tempo r ary M etr o d r u s of Lampsacus who ponde rously
, o ,

e lab o r ated the doct rine of pleasure In the second hal f of the second .

centu ry befor e Ch r ist we must make allusion to Apollodorus a

d , ,

prolific writer who was popularly known as the tyr ant of

,
“

the garden ; Zeno of S idon and P haedrus whose lectures were

”
,

attended by C icero who thought highly of them ; S i ron the teache r

, ,

of Virgil ; and P h il demus of Gadara a conside rable number of

o ,

Whose writings we re discovered in H e r culaneum .

Th e most info rmati ve sou r ce fo r a knowledge of Epi cu reanism is

246 ANC IE NT PH I LO SO PHY
L ucretius C arus ( dida ctic poem O n 96 55
— H is ,

posed to delineate liter ally the resu rgence of Demo cr i

th rough Epicur us H e was an .

whom thou as a b rilliant li

in deepest darkness and who hast delineated ,

life Thee I follow step by step not indeed to maste r

.

solely to imitate Thee from sentiments of deepest love and

( D e R er N at III . .
, ,

Th rough Lucretius Gr eek philosophy was again transplanted ,

Rome Epicur eanism was the kind of speculation which coul d

fi
.

appreciated to the full by that race of th en th is time in its 111 ,

nished p roducts the ci r cles around Virgil M aecenu s H orace , , , ,

A ugustus Bu t it was not only Rome that benefited fr om the

.

of Lucretius fo r atomism but also mode rn philosophy which ,

drawn upon it fo r much source material By this we think ch .

of Gassendi the p recu r sor of moder n atomism an d of his mo re

, ,

follower s In this histo ri cal fact anothe r arch which connects ant1q u i
.

with th e modern era is brought to completion .

B ibliograph y

fifi
C Bailey Th .
,
e G r ee k Ato mists an d Epicu r u s ( O x f rdo : r
O x fo d
ver ity P r s
s e s, Bign o n e , — E . Epic u r e ( B ari ,
’
L A r is
per d u to e la for maz io ne los o ca di Epicu r o ( F irenz e, 19
C o ple sto n, H is tor y ofP h ilo s oph y ( W m e , Md est inst r . : Th e

I , 40 1—4 1 1 .
— A Er n o u t, L ucr ece
.
, De la n atu r e .

rad it ( P ari
t u s, R . D . H i ks
c ,
S toic an d E
Y rk L ngm
o : o an s, G r en and
e Co .
,

die Le h r e Epi u r s k — Wh itney I .

Epicu r e an P h ilos oph e r s ( N ew Y rk : o R and m H se 1940)

o ou ,

S ch m id ,
Eth ica Epicu r ea — H . Usen Epi et ,
( 1 88 cu r ea

Zeller , Th e S toics Epicu r e ans , an d S ceptics ( N w Y r

e k L n gm an o : o

and Co .
,

In Epi cureani sm philosophy I S again divided i nfo logic , ,

and ethics In this division eth ics signifies the goal of thee ntir e syste
.
,

LO GIC
1 . S O U RC E KN OWLEDGE AN D M EAN ING OF

Usefu lness Logi c is also called canonics because it is suppos

.
,

to fur nish us w ith sta nda r d s of t r ue k nowledge Among the .

 A NC I E NT PH ILOSOPH Y

2 . C RITER I ONTRU TH OF

Th e tru th o f sen sib le r eality When treating of t rue and fal .

images the Epicu reans w er e matu r ally fo rced to look fo r a cri

,

which would assu re them of the genuineness of thei r kn

actual necessity had not forced them to perfo rm this task
opponents the S toics would have d riven them to it by thei r
, ,

sive discussion of the p roblem of evidence Epicur us dispose .

with a reasonably facile pen S ense per ception so he explained .

, ,

always be t rue To the representations of the

.

respond certain influences from without : fo r they mo ve the

This would mean that the veracity of each sense per ception c
in the psychological reality of such per ceptions and only in the ,

The logical ontological ver acity of ou r knowledge depends up

,

something else namely upon ou r judgments and ou r opinions ( 86

, ,

swa m / ) Th rough these the possibility of erro r may a rise This

m . .

an assertion that Aristotle himself had made and in his wo r ks it

a ve ry definite meaning but he re it is repeated only ve rb ally
,

is no longe r in confo rmity with the whole i e wi th the w , . .

,

theo ry F o r in Ar istotle the theory of knowledge pr esupposed

.

anothe r norm which passed judgment on sensible reality a ,

that was however unknown to the Epicureans .

A viciou s c ircle When we are told that in o r de r to be su re 0

.
,

truth of the judgments we ha ve made we must take into consi ,

tion whethe r o r not reality confirms them o r at least does not

tr adict them this is only superficial prattle be cause it
,

what is actually questionab le If ou r knowledge is .

the senses and if sense perception is only a rep r

,

imagination who can guarantee that that

,

supe r vise othe r pe rceptions does not itself bl

in turn need super vision and so without en ,

which is ascribed to e very sense perception

it too is nothing mo re than psychical reality conce rning which
is no dispute C anonics is rathe r shabbily treated in the Epic
.

system Th e position of Epicurus in regard to the p roblem of

.

which is basic fo r e ver y philosophi cal system was car elessly ,

and defended M o reover this carelessness is symptomatic

.
,

enti re speculation .
 E P IC UREANS ACADEM I CIA NS , ,
AND P E RIP ATETI CS

P H YSICS

1 . REVIVAL OP ATO M IS M
Th e onto logy of ato mism
In metaphysics Epicurus and his school

fi
.

r e vived the atomism of Democritus As with him so also with the .

,

Epicu reans the re a re an in nite numbe r of ultimate indi visible

, , ,
“
solid elements the atoms They possess no qualities and are dif
”
,
.

fer en tiated from one anothe r only quantitati vely by S hape and by ,

weight Th ey are not however ab so lu te ly differ ent for by reaso n

.
, , u ,

of the similarities they possess we are able to speak of specific kin ds .

The numbe r of these species is limited but in each group are to ,

be found an infinite numbe r of atoms ( Lucretius De Rer Nat ,

.

II 478 ff; 522

, . Fo r them we must assume empty space in which _

they exist and mo v e Thi s space is without limits and without .

( ib id I 95 1 B y means of these
. two
, elements
, body ,

ce the Epi cu reans were able to explain all being Beings of

, .

an othe r kind that is beings of a third kind do not exist ( ib id

, , ,
.
,

430 This of cou r se is patent materialism The soul and the mind
, , .

are also bodies ; they are of the finest kind to be su r e but nonetheless ,

they a r e matte r The soul is a pa r t of the body as a r e the hands

.

and the feet ( ibid 111 94; 16 1 Th e soul is divisible and con
.
, ,

sequen tly as mortal as the body itself ( ibid 417 ff 634 The .

atoms are ete r nal and will endu r e fo r ever Thei r total numbe r will .

always remain constant ( ibid II 294 This p roposition enunciates .

, ,

the law of the conse r vation of substance always a basic dogma of ,

materialism .

M ech anist v iew of becoming Upon the ontology of atomism is .

based the explanation of becoming and with it the whole of the

cosmic p rocess All becoming d raws upon the already extant infinite
.
, ,

and impe r ishable substan ce of matte r The fi r st p r inciple of co smogony .

implicit in this new atomism is that nothing can come from

ng can r eturn to nothing N I ”
( D e Rer at . .
, ,

becoming is only a regrouping of the atoms The .

then reunite now in this fashion now in another ; , ,

and then ente r into ever new combinations and ,

from one ete rnity to another In a S imilar fashion We .

the fo rms of inanimate nature as well as life in its

ess its species and its genera ultimately mankind
, ,

story F o r we realize that matte r is not inextri cably

.
“
25 0 ANC IE NT PH ILO SO PHY
bound together when we see in natu re how all things spring up
,

a ne ver ending flood and continuously renew themsel ves before

, 0

very eyes . Fo r e verything that is taken from a body and ,

a consequen ce makes ir matter is added

,
—
,

something else to mature so that wh en one thing wi lts through , ,

very wilting something else can take its place In the end lever yt .

is ta k en away ; nothing will r emain An d so it is that the sum

fi
.

of being is constantly being renewed In this fashion mortals . _

o ut theif ef lik e existence and thei r peo nlik e gift of life H ere , .

S c i on ga 1 ns ascendancy ; there anothe r sinks into decline .

periods th e generation of breath ing beings fluctuates ,

speedy sprinters at the O lympic gam

( ibid .II , , A n d what is the la
O nly two things so we ar e r eassured are resp onsible fo r this ete
, ,

motion : the weight of the atoms themselves and the pressure ,

the I mpact of other atoms ( ibid 84 This is patent mechanism .

,

it is Democritean mechanism .

C hance 1 ) Th e declinatio n Bu t the master of the s hool is S

. . c

c orrected and an enti rely novel theory is proposed the ,

d lin atio ( pey Mm ) i e the abrupt deviation of the a

ec r a K s , . .
,

the str aight line of descent F rom all eternity the atoms .

S ink S lowly downward Abruptly and of themsel ves w .

,
“

know when and we do not know why the atoms deviate ,

and slightly from the str aight line of des cent ; there is
swerving in the direction of thei r motion and the atoms begin ,
”

react upon one another Thus new combinations and constant .

changes are introduced If we should not accept this declinatio

. ,

Luc r etius alleges against Democ r itus acco r ding to the tea ching
Epicurus creation oul d ne ver ha ve taken place ( De Re Nat
,
c r . .
,

216
2) Lack f o oncept
cau salof d li
ity
n atio denotes a str
. Th e c ec

con cept of ch ance ( ac cident ) in the sense of a la ck of causality C i .

exp ressly clarified th e Epi curean concept of chance ( 6x37 7

,

saying that in the declination we are dealing with an event

“

a cau se ( Usenet Epicu r ea p ,

By such an explanation , .

introduced a novel concept into the h isto r

philosophy before his time had r ecogn ized

but Ar isto tle for example who urged that the notion be use
, ,

dis cretion did not understand it in the meaning of a lack of ca

,

According to him chan ce is a h appening fo r which we are

,
252 A NCIE NT PH ILOSOPHY
that Epicurus introduced the declination simply to save
dom and in Lucretius we read the same thing : That
,
‘ “

not fo r ced to follow th e compulsion of its weight an d o ve

it to endu re and to su ffeT t h at such is not the case we
L -
,

to the declination ( De Rer Nat II Th e Epicu r eans .

,

in behalf of hu man freedom a continuous war agaI nst S toic

In this battle thei r theo reti cal rear guard was the concept of ch
I n o r de r to appreciate the replies to thei r a r guments made by t
adve r saries consult what C ice ro has to say in De fato 46
, , .

3 . BATTLE AGAINS T RELI GI O U S M YTHS

Age lightenment Th e Epicu reans conducted another c

o f en .

i n
p g ,
a this time against religiou s myths To them these we .

i rksome as the concept of fate Any discussion of the .

the gods in the affai r s of men especially the legend ,

immortality after death wi th th e j udgment of the ,

places of eternal punishment as well as stories ,

of the gods whom mortals we re forced to appea

and thei r p ro vidence which men must merit fo r themselves
these exe rted a baneful e ffect upon a fe r vent enjoyment of life ,

the will and upon man s capacity to dete rmine his own actions a
,
’

omissions as he pleased .

In this campaign th e Epicureans enlisted the aid of the theory

atoms All e vents take place necessarily by means of the laws
.

natu re as Democritus had already p roved As a consequence th

, .
,

is no need fo r the gods to intervene ; the atoms and

to inherent laws su ffice Thus the Epicureans are responsible
.
,

Introducing the age of e nlightenment to ancient G reece Fo r .

reason Luc retius w rote his didactic poem O n Natu r e : In o r de ,

“

banish fea r and to dispel all religious darkness we do not need ei ,

the rays of th e sun o r the light of day only the S ight of nature ,

its laws ( De Rer Nat I

”
. .
, ,

A gr eat many thinkers among them H o ffmann attr ibute an e

, ,

mous amount of good to this act by which Epicurus libe rated

ancients from thei r superstitions and portray it as if not “

chimera had been reduced to nothingness but also incarnate mons ,

had been slain and mankin d rescued from slave labo r .

”

In this twofold battle against fate and against the gods w e ,

f

confronted with a startling contradiction To do away with fate .

,

the one hand recou rse must be had to chance and to the freed
,
 E P IC UREANS ACADEM ICIANS , ,
AND PERIP ATETICS 253

that is inextricably bound up with it ; and on the othe r hand to ,

slough off the arbitrary intervention of the gods appeal to the ,

necessity of a causal nexus must be made This contradiction how .

,

ever disturbed the Epicureans as little as did the opposition of thei r

,
“
emended theory in gener al to the basic thought of atomism pro
”

pounded by De mocritus which afte r all they tried to revi ve , , .

Belie vers in the gods To them it was of little moment and th ey

“
.
,

t it was not to be held against them that in thei r public ,

S they still gave unmistakable

gods that in their teaching they had ,

exiled them to an intermundane realm a place midway between the ,

cosmi c spaces where they dwelt in th e state of repose in a state of ,

inactivity which we might liken to being pensioned In the Ga r den

”
.

the disciples did not hold as had the S toics before them to the unique
, ,

ness of the cosmos ; they assumed a multiplicity of worlds In the spaces .

between the di fferent wo rlds empty othe rwise o f cosmic matter , ,

th e gods dw elt n d led a blissful existence They lived only for them .

Selves without intervening any further in the cosmi c ma chinery

, .

Fo r all p ractical purposes this meant : We do not belie ve in the

we should W ish howeve r on the basis of our newly found
, ,

ment of life whi ch our teaching o n pleasure has envisaged and

,

promised to live as gods among men ( Epicurus Letter to M enoe

“ ”

t e s C onclusion ) Bu t why S hock m

, ,

'
u , ankind by publicly proclaiming
.
”

th ei r atheism ? To get around this difficulty they decided in favor ,

of a deism o r even fo r something less : they were respectful ; they

invoked the gods as did fo r example Lucretius I n h is didactic
, , ,

poem Venus ; they lived and they permitted the faithful also to
,

live Th e Epicureans were not dangerous to society They knew

. .

how to live ; they spoke with skilled o r atory ; they wrote with literary
flourish ; and they did not carp Thei r philosophy was not charged .

with melancholy couched in ponderous speculative thought but ,

revealed a pleasing kind of lighter muse This we can app reciate .

best in thei r ethics of which we chiefly think when we speak of

,

the Epicureans .

E TH ICS
1 . H EDONI S M

P le asu re final end Ethics is particularly th e special

as te lo s or .

concern of hedonistic philosophy To this tend all their thoughts as .

,
25 4 ANC I E NT PH ILOSO PHY
we have already seen Th e core concept is the proposition
.

moral good consists in pleasure This Democritus had at least .

upon in his doctrine of j oyousness It was however A “

.
”
, ,

who expressed clearest th ir do ctr ine of plea

that will indicate to the Epi cureans the road to
a life lived enti rely in accord with nature was ma
demanded in addition that their disciples b
, ,

and mortify their appetites in order to fulfill

h ighest pu rpose entailed Bu t the .

as the specific human telos and in conformity wit

followers to seek after pleasure and to enjoy it
was tr uly a new attitude towa r d life A ccording to the .

th e original meaning of the wo r d go o d did not denote

with any known order eithe r the ideal o r real but exp ressed basic
, ,

a relationship to ou r faculty of desi re Because a thing pleases .

and causes us pleasure we may say it is good ; becaus e something

displeases us and awakens in us an a version to ward it we may
that it is bad .

Aristotle howe ver had belie v ed and declared : Because a thin

, ,

good it pleases us We can thus see how Epi cu ru s tu rned

, .

topsy—tur vy Fo r him an objecti ve good in itself is not

.
“ ”

principle ; on the contra ry it is a subj ecti ve pleasure that i

,

of good P leasure is the beginning and the end of a

.
“

"
read in th e letter o f Epicurus to M enoe ceus w h
essentials of his ethi cs in a nu tshell ; on reading
letter we discover All choice and all effor t
:
“

the well—being of the body and the peace of so ul for ,

telos of a happy life Whate v er we do we do solely to avoi

.
,

ness and to find peace of soul .

”

Ata raxy or freedom from p as sion In this explanation .

the same time appre ciate what kind of pleasure Epicurus

when he des cribed his hedonism By pleasure he unders .

of suffering and freedom from spiri

from peace and quiet of mind
of pleasure in mind : to him pleasure
experien ce ; in all things we should seek
Epicu r us conceived of a pleasure of repose
“
.

E ssenti al weaknesses To us this appear s to be finer and

.

advanced than the statement of Aristippus espe cially when in ,

tion we consider what Epi cu rus spoke of so fondly We mu .

256 A NC I ENT P H ILOSOPH Y
co rresponds a sensualism in the theo ry of value It was not .

the Bible nor the S toics strong in vir tue no r Kant the rigo rist
, ,

characterized the life of pleasure by the p redicate sensuou sn “

the specialists in h edo nism pr opo se this classification Goethe

~
~
.

self thought in a like fashion and even today some artists,

that they wish to be sensualists Bu t I S I t really true that th e

.

ment which we experience while listening

is constituted ultimately by the relation it bear s to sensualism
to the stomach ? In this connection the hedonists would ha
a splendid piece of wo r k if they had ventured a solution
difficulty They ought to ha ve gi ven us a fitting description o fpleas
.

and pleasu re as it appeared in di fferent gu I ses ; they ought to h

classifie d pleasu re acco rding to thei r actual peculiarities with
further pu rpose of offering a final categorical and car dinal de , ,

mination of various kinds ,

sensual and spiritual joys B .

thei r par t and e ven in thei r own spe cial field they show no p
, ,

lar relish fo r that logical speculation by which they might th

through to thei r ultimate conclusion s the motives and the reason
for holding the positions which they had adopted .

2 . WISDO M
P RACTICAL

P erhaps histori cal facts are capable of o f

fering a di fferent explan
tion fo r thei r actions P erhap s the Ep1cur eans were less in ter es
.
'

in offering an exact theoretical philosophy than practical dictates

reason fo r the conduct of life S cholars such as H offmann ha ve
.

v an ce d the hypothesis that Epicu r eanism is mo r e a mode of life ,

fact a religion more what we would call today an ideology

,
—
”

than a strict philosophy Viewed in this light many featu res

.
,

Epi cureanism become more understandable .

Acceptan ce of life Th e Epi cu r ean had a knowing eye for

.

ri ches and the beauty of this wo rld H e accepted life in all its .

ness in its ve rve with all its o vermastering powe r By it he

, , .

ce eded in r aising himself above a purely worldly level avoided ,

seamy side of life was in no way biased in his o utlook an d so

, ,

enabled to form a mo r e positive concept of his existence Th e tho .

of death in no way hampered him no r repressed his way of

Even in the inane argument that death does not concern us as
“ ”

as we are alive death does not exist ; and when it does

,

will no longer be here — there is something extremely

 E P ICUREANS ACADE M IC IANS
, ,
AND PERIPATETIC S 257

namely a j oyful acceptance of life an acceptance which views only

, ,

the positive S ide of reality and can acco r dingly put every day to a
profitable use Th e phrase of H orace ca p die m does not spring
.
,
r e ,

from a j ealous greediness for the j oys of this life but is derived ,

from a receptiveness for the v alues of existence Fo r the Epicureans .

,

Venus is th e symbol of this attitude As she so ou r entire existen ce .

,

is a fertile creative love of life S heer charm and enraptured bliss

, , , .

Because our existen ce and only our existen ce is able to bestow these
gifts upon us we S hould live every day to the full
, .

Mo de ratio n P r actical wisdom as taught by the Epicureans en vis

.
, ,

aged the possibility o f man s limiting his desires and of practicing

’

moderation of acting calmly and of possessing interior peace And

, , .
“

again independence of desire we think a great good not that we —

may at all times enjoy but a few things but that if we do not ,

possess many we may enjoy the few in the genuine persuasion that
,

those have the sweetest pleasure in luxury who least need it and ,

th at all that is natu r al is easy to be obtained but that which is ,

s uperfluous is hard pi curus etter to M e n o ece u s ; ed ates p

”
( E L O
, .
, .

Even the famous li v e in retirement had a profound meaning

“ ”
.

This phrase does not denote a flight from th e distressing reality of

everyday life and from the o verwhelming distractions of public call
ing so that we may better enj oy our peace ; on the contrary the state
, ,

it describes arises from the knowledge that in our solitude and in

our retirement and in our peace we can discover an entirely novel
i e ality namely the world of v alues contained in man s interio r life
'

, ,
’

peace and the pur fication of th e soul and the fi rst glow and joyous
, i

peace of mind and quiet of heart : Th e crown of our peace of soul “

is inco mpa r ably more pre cious than even the exalted post of a
mighty ruler ( Epicurus Frag ”
, .

Fr iendship Th e cult of friendship also points in this direction

.

a cult that was so typical of E pi cureanism Th e S toics proj ected .

th emselves into public pla ces in the outer world ; they chose for their
acti vities the cities and sought to be cosmopolites Th e Epicureans on .
,

the contrary tried to fi nd happiness in little things in seclusion in

, , ,

the company f a few chosen friends their kindred spirits I hate

o , .
“

th e uninitiate crowd and bid them avaunt , wrote H orace ( Od s , e ,

III i
, , Th e Epi cureans withdrew within themselves P olitical .

conditions for ced them to adopt su ch an attitude and to choose su ch

a course M an is an individualist but he is not an egoist M an lives

.
, .

for his friends and spends himself for them Among the many .
“
25 8 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOP H Y
th ings whi h wisdom contributes to the happiness of life there is
c ,

noth ing greater nothing more fruitful noth ing mo re j oy ful than
, ,

friendship ( Epicurus F r ag
”
We choose our friends because
, .
“

of the pleasure they affo r d i g , but we are willing to undergo much

.

suffering for them ( Frag ”

A group of men who express them
.

selves in this way are no t prima rily intent upon enj oyin g themselves .

This s chool whi ch clearly re cogni z ed th e un certainties th a

, t exist in
men and in connection wi th life ove came th em by an even greater ,
r

faith in these same men and in th is very same life

Th e wise man Friendship is a fr u it of wisdom In this S tatement
. .

we are confronted again with th e oft quoted notion of wisdom All -

.

G reek philosop h ical s chools had busied th emse lv es with the notion
of the wise man Bu t each had advanced its own concept Th e
“
. .

schooling in critical speculation wh ich we acq u ire by

discove r in the one term the various meanings whi ch had been
attached to it in the course of time cann ot be underestimated or in
any sense despised To the Epicureans the wise man was a co n
.

n o isse u r of life There are not many who can find fault with his
.

maxims Those gifted with a speculative bent will naturally pose

.

the question : What does the ar t of living actually mean ? What

does life in general signify ? Ar e not a variety of diffe rent
suggested by these several topics ? If we should seek
art of living acco r ding to the Epi cureans so that we m
such a uniform meaning we would be forced to rec ,

superficially their ethical principles h ad been thought

obj ection will not in any way o ffset th e value of the
which the Epi cureans formulated for condu ct ; for
oftentimes mere symbols behind whi ch there
stronger than the logi cal summari z at on of the 11 i

its influen e felt over wide areas and instinctively pursu

c ,

course even in those instan ces in whi ch the explanation of its co n cep
“

is at variance with the truth Dear friend gr ay indeed is theory .

,

b t green the golden t ree of life

”
u ,
.

II . AC AD EM Y AN D S C EP TI C I S M

In spite of all polemi s both the Epicureans and the S to cs wer

c ,
i

in agreement on one po nt namely on their dogmatic method

i , , .

the hi sto ry of philosophy we find that an unyielding dogmati “

alway s arises as a reaction to doubt In H ellenism al .

260 A NC IE NT P H ILOSOPH Y
not sufficient actually to guarantee the truth Th e S toics furthermo re .
, ,

did not offer a secure foundation o r a sufficient war rant for experience ,

because the mistakes against which the cri te rion of truth was supposed
to protect them could appea r in it as well as in those other representa
tions over which it was supposed to supervise .

C ar n e ades C arneades rej ected evidence for reason s which were

.

very detailed H e entered into minutiae and cast considerable doubt

.

upon the method of proof which had been taught by traditional

In addition he attacked the reasoning by which the S toics s
,

to j ustify the existence providence, and j usti ce of God not to

, ,

that he personally was an atheist but S imply to S how ,

h ad not yet su cceeded in ac complishing that of which

such rich promise In ethics C arneades pointed up
.
,

weaknesses that were contained in traditional views of

did this in a ver y emphatic fashion since he was co ,

o ffering tangible evidence of the forme r uncritical

accompanied a delegation of philosophe r s to Rome in
one day he spoke in praise of j ustice Because of the .

he had advanced he was commandeered the

,

but this time against ju

c larity of the arguments which
occasion he maintained that there was
this world A ccording to him the coer ci ve
.
,

IS th e very antithesis of justi ce as was v erified in the politi cs of

,

Roman Empire If they should r eally wish to p r actice j ustice

.
,

Romans would be forced to return their vassal states to the conque

from whom they had wrested them and they themselves would ,

compelled to return to the rude huts fr om whi ch they h

forth over the whole known world This was too much .

straightforward C ato If we S hould subj ect the convictions o

.

the state r ests to intellectualism of this kind we would in ,

endanger public se uri ty F o r this reason C ato introduced

c .

c e t r u m e n s o and this time it ran as follows : All philosophers

e c e ,

be banish ed from the city as quickly as possible (ph ilosoph as

celer r ime ess T o worlds had clashed : an obj
ex elle n do s
p e
) w .

striving to attain to truth and practical reality , .

Ep o ch e o r the s u spension o f j u dgment A n d what was the .

of this criticism and this scepticism ? If it is so difficult to arr

absolute certitude con cerning the tr th it sh ould be u ,

to all that they be discreet in their j udgments ; th at i

 E PIC UREANS ACADE M I CIA NS , ,
AN D PER IPATE TICS 26 1

should practi ce the so called é x j or suspension of judgment We do

- uo t .

no t as yet possess the truth only probability And in p robability ,

.

there are sever al differences of degree : probabilities which can be

fi
believed ; others that can be believed and are uncontested ; and
nally such as can be believed and are both uncontested and fully
,

supported by proof This sho u ld call to mind the terms belief and
.
“
,

p roof as they
”
were used by D avid H ume who fre q uently appeals ,

to the s cepti cism of the Academy .

2 . THE NEW ACADE M Y

In the New Academy the po h e de veloped into an I ron attitude e c ic

toward all systems Its members adopted eclecti cism and drew their
.

notions of the good from wherever they could fi nd it Antio chus of

“ ”
.

As calon fo r example showed that the A cademy the P eripatos and

, , , ,

the S toa agreed on fundamentals Typical of such eclecti cism was .

C ice ro ( 106 43 H e claimed that he belonged to th Academy

-
e .

This is true only insofar as it con cerns his theory of knowledge in

which he ma k es room fo r the epo h e In his ethi cal views however c .
, ,

the rational heritage of the S toa played a major formative role as it ,

did in his anthropological and theologi cal doctrines H e also drew .

upon the P eripatos for many concepts and theorems In fa t he is . c

s u pposed to have edited the dida ctic poem of the arch Epi c rean — u ,

Lucretius e ven though he may not have personally endorsed either its
,

thoughts or its sentiments C i cero was not an original th inker but he.
,

was unbelievably well read and continuously o ffered his contempo

r ar i es ever new ri ches of thought H e says of his own writings : th ey .

are plagiarized and they were rather easily composed I h ave added .

only th ose words wh ich suggested themselves at the moment of

writing ( Ad Att XII 5 2 . Espe cially in this respe ct he h as
.
, , ,

become for us a rich source of philosophi cal history O f mu ch the .

s ame type of thinker was h is friend Varro ( 116 27 from whom ,

—

S t A ugustine drew much of h is k nowledge of an cient philosophy

. .

P Y RRH ONIC S C E P TI C ISM

TH E C HIE F P ERS ONAGES OF P YRRHONIC SC EP TI C I S M

P yrrhoni c
s cepti cism forms anoth er bran ch of critical specu lation ,

even tho gh in the course of its development many stray strands are
u

interwoven Th e founder was P yrrh o of E lis ( 360 270

. M ore —

understandable for us is his pupil Timon of P h liu s ( d 230 , .

26 2 ANC I E NT PH ILOSO PHY
Among the younger s ceptics we can list Anesidemu s ( fir st cent
after C hrist ) and S extus Empir icu s ( one half centu ry after C hri -

1 . EP OC HE J U DGM ENT
OR S U S P EN SI ON O E

In P yrrho doubt was mu ch more radically developed th an it

been in the Academy In him we can find it quite categori cally.

plained : We can ne ver know things as they actually are but o n l

they appear to be ; phenomena are however subjective Th e .

again the epoch e Bu t in P yrrho doubt received also a positi ve

'

ing : it becomes as H offmann says an ethi cal doubt Doubt

, , .

help us to libe r ate the ego from the compulsion and the constraint
envi ronment so that it can be entirely the proper ego and c
,
“ ”
a

remain entirely u nr u flle d .

2 . ATARAX Y FREEDO M FRO M P AS S I N

OR O

Th e epo h e was bound up with the ideal of the ata r axy or f edo
c re

from passion whi ch was as mu ch at home he re as it was

the Epi cu reans or as apathy was among the S toi cs We .

these notions the soul q ua vering of the Greek people who nde
-
u

blows of political catastrophe d reamed the wishful dream of their ow

desires the mirage of indestru ctibility and sought salvation in phi
, ,

l h
p y
o so whi ch the politics of th e era was unable to e f
fe ct .

III . TH E P ERI P ATETI C S

Th e P eripatetic
school stanchly adhering to its model the matur
, ,

Aristotle appeared at the very beginning as en y clopedi c

,
c

in parti c lar and in detail ( see p

u L ater on .

develop the study of the experimental s cien ces and by this

itself in a typi al fashion apart from both th S toics and the Ep
, c ,
e

cu r e an s as well as from the Academy whi ch had cultivated chiefly ,

general philosophy of life .

TH E LEADING P ERIP ATETI CS

In the cent ries old history of the s chool most prominent wer
u
’

S trato of Lampsa cus the great physicist who headed the school
,

28 7 26 9 B C ; his pupil Ar ista r chus of S amos the great astron

— . .
,

who prepared the way for C operni cus and

( see p .C it lau s who alongr with a o ,

5 9 11 0 0 1 an d o f the Aca
26 4 ANC IE NT PH ILOSO PHY
topics which concerned the notion of empi ricism and of
A ristotle can be interp r eted in a sense othe r than the p
is proved by the fact that according to th e P er ipatetics
'

tatio n of A r istotle was us urp d by the

e
o ther Aristotle with which we come

the M iddle Ages

tion of Aristotle In such an effort we would be forced to rely not 0
.

upon those auth ors and those citations that ha ve already been
van ce d b u t also upon the light which would be a f forded us by
general culture of the era into which the spiritual heritage of
H ellenisti c philosophi cal schools had been so transformed th
no longe r quoted it but upon whi ch they nevertheless reli
,

depended Bu t befo re this could be done we would r st have

.

examine the commentaries on A ristotle first given the world by

,
fi
Berlin Academy These ha ve sca r cely been opened
. .
C H A P TE R

NE O P LAT ON I S M : A P H I L O S O P H Y AND
-

A R E L IGI O N

Whereas all the othe r philosophical s chools during the era of the
oman emper ors gradually disappea red in the resu rgence of Neo
,

m we witness an exactly antithetical phenomenon Through it .

,

ened to a new flowering This was how .

,

of a dying plant rathe r than an indication

Upon it there followed an ab rupt disintegr a
Neo P latonism its prepa ration as well as its
-
,

upon the spiritual mien of the ep och a ve ry

namely the sharp delineation of strong religious
,

turned into a pronounced mysticism into a ,

an extreme mysticism and here ,

to a pseudo mysticism That H ellenistic philosophy was

-
.

introduction of such a religious element is well known .

about piety ; Aristotle about p raye r ; Theophrastus and

,

ou t the gods and thei r wo r ship Bu t the r eligious feelings

.

e came incorporated into the philosophical

up still loftie r waves turned into ,

lly ended in mystic a r do r or a formal

otalways draw its material from the writings

turned to the traditions of the P latonic school ,

which had remained unbroken from the time of P lato

down to P lotinus and one W hose characteristics can be easily traced
also in the specii latio n which is typical of S eneca P o seido niu s Anti
, ,

ac h u
, s and C i ce r.o B u t behind all this we can dete ct some thing
still more powerful and genuine ,namely the remarkable almost
, ,

frenzied religious spi rit of the era which can be disce rned in the
p henomenon of N eo P ythagoreanism and in the writings of P hilo of
-

Alexandria which served as a direct prepa r a tion fo r NCO P latonism

,
-
.
 N E O P LA TO N I S M -

1 . TH E NE o P YTHAGOREANS -

O riginal
sou rces At one time P lato expanded his system pon
. u

P ythagorean basis In like fashion N eo P latonism bran che d out

.
-

Neo P yth agorean beginnings S cholars do

-
.

this
of the P ythagorean secret societies in Italy .

and especially the continuity of descent fro

can readily understand its ba sic structure

asceticism flight from reality longing for th

, ,

manticism or divination and magic , .

Neo —P yt hago re an s and P lato nists Among .

of the school we may name the following

45 a friend of C i cero who wrote a book on the gods ; ,

of Tyana from the first half of the first century after C h rist who
, ,

an autho r an itinerant prea cher a wonder worker and a p ph

, ,
-
,
ro e

in one ; Nico mach u s of Gerasa ( c A D and others . . . .

S piritually akin to the N eo P ythagoreans are a number of person -

who are described in the history of phil

or E l ti P l to nists : Th r asyllu s co u
-
c ec c a ,

P l u tarch of C haeronea ( A D 45 the . .

of renowned G reeks and Romans of the ,

w ri ti ngs ; and somewhat late r Theon of ,

Apuleius of M adau r a M aximus of Ty ,

r

C elsus who in A D 179 wr ote an attack against the C h r is

, . .

O rigen refuted ; N umenius of Ap amea ( se cond half of

century after C hrist ) who authored a unique doctrine of ,

gods namely th e Father the Demiurge of the world and

, , ,

world itself ; and those works which have been hande

posterity under the name of H ermes Tri smeg stus dating i ,

from about the end of the third century after C h ris

writers drew heavily upon the Neo P ythagorean sour es and b -
c

doing became nwittingly the cause of ertain aftereffects In

u c .

connection we should compare for example Eu sebius and his , ,

p ar atio E van
g lic with the Nee o P ythagor ean documents
a — .

Ba sic no tio ns Th e basis of N CO P ythagorean views was the

“

—
.

P ythago r ean dualism of her e and hereafte r flesh and sp i r i t pur ty , , i

26 8 ANC IE NT PH ILOSOPH Y
instances to be interpreted in a figurative sense F o r a .

Greek philosophy especially the S toic had applied thi s

, ,

interpretation to the dogmas of popula r

the pe riod naturally led h i t his di rection and so P hilo
—

in pur suing such a course but in addition he had falsely assumed

,

the G reek philosophe r s had known the O ld Testament =From .

the re arose a legend which was frequently repeated by the F at

namely that P lato was a kind of Greek speaking M oses an d
,
-

possibly acquired his knowledge from the histo rical M oses .

Go d th e e ntire ly diffe ren t O ne

, Th e fu ndamental co .

P hilo s philosophy was the notion of God I n cont r ast t

’
.

H e is absolutely transcendent We cannot describe what H .

that H e is At most we may say of H im that H e is Being

. .

cate any other attributes of H im is impossible b ecause H e ,

surpasses all of them H e is better than good mo re pe rfect

.
,

fectio n In these and similar asse r tions which we r e fr e

.

h asiz e d by the Neo P ythagoreans we meet fo r the first time w h

p
-
,

late r on will be called negative theology .

Th e sinfu l wo rld Th e second fundamental concept of P hilo

.

revealed in his view of matter i e the c reated world around us Th e , . .

, .

was a c reation We read of it in the Bible Bu t creation

. .

involve making something out

pre—existent matter S o much .

M atte r is the evil principle In men .

is the tomb of the soul It is possi .

of this matte r Th e emoti ons should not only be lessened and

.

fo rmed ; they should be entirely uprooted A ll these a re well kno .

-

overtones drawn from P ythagoreanism P latonism and S toicism , , .

Th e Lo gos Dualism must however disappear A bridge must

.
, , .

built An d thus we have the thi r d the most famous

.
,

concepts of P hilo s philosophy the do ctrine of the

’

beings fo r ces o r powers ( 8 in ) are postulated At

,
“ ”
vva as
, .

are called the p rope r ties of Go d namely H is ideas and , ,

at othe r times they are set apart by such titles as H i

H is emissa r ies as angels and demons who execute H is
,

these middle beings a re active in the world O n earth .

the gene ra and the species and through them as str u ,

cos mos arises out of chaos Naturally these powers .

 N Eo - PLATONIS M : A P H ILOSOPH Y AND A REL IGION 269

the entire speculation of P hilo Th e Logos is the idea of ideas the

fi
.
,

force of forces the supreme angel the representative and ambassado r

, ,

«
Of God the r st begotten S o n of God th e second God ( the thi r d is
,
—
,

the world as we are taught by N umenius ) This Logos is one with

,
.

the wisdom and intellect of G o d By it the world was created and .

,

it is the soul which animates the world Th e Logos is the rep resenta .

tive of the world before God as its high p riest its inter cesso r and , ,

its paraclete In such a concept the Logos i s neithe r an exclusi vely

.

personal no r an exclusi vely impersonal being H o w we are actually .

to concei ve of it remains a matter of conj ecture An d our notion of .

it mus t remain in abeyance because the Logos should occupy a

,

iiniddle position S hould be a mediator and as a conse q uence S hould

, ,

be integral in form in both respects the personal and the impersonal ,

.

concei ve the Logos as a mediator who should

t between two widely separated worlds is explained
in h is epistemological treatment of the wo r d the ,

ver b m A word S tands midway between two worlds

u . between the ,

world of the senses and th e wo rld of the spirit A word is neither .

a shee r matter of sense ( sound ) no r S hee r spirituali ty ( only an idea )

,
.

A wo r d that is pronounced ( Aéy is on the one hand

“ ”
os
, ,
'
something that pertains to the senses because it is spoken and can ,

the refore be h eard ; but on the othe r hand because by it we can ,

th ink of something it is begotten by the spirit and exists by reason

,

of the interior word ( A67 0;so that in the wo r d we can

readily pe r ceive that two distin ct spheres are truly united In acco rd .

with this explanation we can picture to ou r sel ves the senso ry char
o f the uni v erse as the word made flesh We have he r e also a .

ld Logos : one which is related to the incorporeal and exempla r y

“

He as which form the st r uctu r e of a conceivable world and the ”

Othe r which is related to material objects which are imitations and

copies of those ideas by which th e cosmos is perfected ( Vita M oesis ”

,

I I,
Ecstasy and w i sdom There
must certainly be a Logos also in man
. .

If th e Logos is the measure and the archetype and the flesh is the
-
,

tomb of the soul it is evident that our task in life consists in liberating
,

oursel ves from the trammels of the body and in withdrawing from it
in ecstasy and th rough the Logos whi ch is eternal wisdom to become , ,

one with the divinity itself B means of our own meage r strength
y .

We could neve r attain to such a union but a power which emanates ,

fr om out of the Godhead the divine P neuma will make this

, ,
270 ANC IE NT PH ILO S O PHY
possible fo r us This then is the way of arriving at the u n allo
.
, ,

hea venly wisdom H ere again we are confronted with S till anoth
.
”

notion of wisdom .

Bib lio gr a h y
p
F erdin nd H D la nay P h il n d Al n d i ( P ris Didi r t
a . e u ,
a
’
ex a r e a : e e C ie
James Dr mm nd P h il I d ( L nd
u n W i lliaom s 8 N ,
o u ae u s o o : : or

M — Fre denth al Di E k n n tn i l h
ax u P h il n A ,
e r e s e re os vo

r in r a vary arry n W
( B
e l V :l g neS C l 8 C vo H . A t y
a : o .
,
— us r o

P hil : F n d ti n
o ou fR ligi a P hil
o h
p y 2 v
s o l ( C m b rid
e g H ous os o , o s . a e: ar v ar

Univer ity P rs e s s,

NI S M N E o P L A TO -

Th vitality of Ne P latonism can best be seen in th light of th

e o- e

fact that its r epresentatives were to be fo nd in all the enters u c

H ellenistic ultu r e in A lexandria R ome A thens A ntioch

c —
, , , ,

P ergamon From this we an also appre iate anew this time at

. c c ,

end of antiquity how awesome a spiritual stature P latonism it

,

must h ave had when it underwent a resurre tion on su h a c c c s

It was as it were almost a new mythos whi ch appeared True

, ,
.
,

whole was something artifi ial only a revival and as c ,

“

,
”
,

today N o P latonism was not true P latonism b t rather

, e -
u

Th e Ne P latonists howeve r regarded themsel ves as genuine

o— , ,

of P lato C oncepts notions and even literary turns of p e

.
, ,
ex r

adopted by P lato a tually reappea r in N P latonic writings wit

c eo —

inexhaustible richness In P lotinus we might imagine that we .

many formal par aphrases of P latonic

treatise on beauty ( E nn I 6 ) we can r ecognize .
, ,

expanded rep roduction of the P latonic Dialogue ,

There were however many new elements that wer

, ,

do we kno w that the ideas of other philosophers

which had appeared in the meanwhile g P eripateti s A ademic , e . .
, c , c

S toi s and Epi ureans were assimilated and digested but we

c , c , ,

also onfronted with a new inner buoyancy with religious

c , ,

mystical sensitivity that was c haracter istic of the per iod and
stituted the spiritual life p lse of N P latonic writings -
u eo — .

The way in whi h we ultimately view the relationship of P lato

c

to N P latonism depends enti rely upon the manner in

CO -
272 A NC IE NT P H ILOSO P H Y
able to devote himself unstintingly to scientific inve
dedicate himself to the pursuit of the S up reme G
he is credited with having experienced an ecstatic union with
Divinity C lairvoyance w as also ascribed to him
.
~

Wo rk s H is writings which he began to compose only afte r

.
,

had reached the age of fifty were gathered together by his pu ,

P orphyry and ar r anged so that ea ch of the S ix books has nine

,

( hence the deri v ation of

, the name E nn e ads
) Th e latest edition .

E Br eh ier P lotin E n néades Texte établi et tr aduit six volum

.
, , , ,

P aris 1924 1938 Th e E n neads have been tr anslated into English i

,
- .
,

five volumes by S M acKenna and B S P age ( 19 17 , . . .

Biblio graph y

A P A m o g, Th e Ar ch itectu r e
. . r str n f
o th e I u telligi ble Univer se in th

P h ilos oph y of P loti nus ( C b g , am rid e — E Br eh ie r , P h ilan d A

.
'

an dr e i ( P ari s, La P hilos ophie

est n
l o , H is tor y of P h ilos oph y ( We s
I
, 4 63 — 4 7 4 -
F H m.
, . eine ann
'
l Occide n t
v o s.l ( 3rd

Ne mesias van Emesa -

W.

Ne uplato nis mus — G . H . Tu

( Lo nd n oK H V o lkmann S chlu ck , P lo tin
,
— . .

O n tolo gie P latos ( 194 1 ) ( fo r a r esu me in English , see P H enry, .

tine and P lo tinu s, in [o ur nal ofTh eological S tudies 38 ,

M Wu ndt, P lotin
.

The philosophy of P lotinus is the result of two in tellectu a

ments O n the one hand being is r udely broken into two
.
,

orde rs the one su pr asen so r y and the othe r sensory ; and

,

other hand an attempt is made to weld them together

,

whole series of subdivisions in an endeavor to derive the last from

fi rst the subsequent from th e p rior Dualism and monism thus
, .

sepa rated by this dialectical device and are united in a new synth
G o d Th e process begins with the thesis that God is separated
.

only from the wo rld but also from being in general H e is .

abo ve Being the S uper Being In S hort ,

-
.

predication which we may ha ve come to k

wo rld that t an be applied to him or used
of the senso ry world can be p redicated of
described b
 NEO— PLATONISM : A P H ILOSO P H Y AND A RELI GIO N 273

a spirit but something p rio r to the spi rit ; fo r a sp i ri t 18 something

,

present in existing things ; but that first Being is not just something ,

fo r it is p rior to eve rythin g And it is not a being ; fo r a being has as

.

its fo rm likewise the fo rm of a being ; that first Being is howeve r with

out a spiritual fo rm S ince the essence of the O ne is the Begette r of all
.

things it is itself not one of these Thi s fi r st Being is the refo re neither
, .

no r a qualitative being no r a qu antitati ve being neither ,

a soul F urthermore it is not something that is mo ved

.
,

ame time it is not something in repose This Being is .

is not in time but the unique fo rm as such ; or ,

any fo rm since it w as in existence before any ,

and before repose for these are bound up with ,

g and make of it a variety (Enn VI 9 ”

.
, , ,

is only this O ne ( E ) which P lotinus will call God H e conceives

v .

O n e both in the sense of a negation of many o r of multiplicity

,

in the sense of an absolutely F i r st H e al so called the O ne the .

d as such O f the fai rly p recise S tatements of A ristotle concern

.

ing the S up reme P rinciple everyth ing has disappeared We are .

br ought face to face again with a negati ve theology with which we

h ave become acquainted in P hilo and the othe r NeO P y thagoreans -
,

and we S hall find this theme repeated in subsequent centu ries .

Emanation If we cannot define God by means of concepts de r i ved

.

from the world of reality around us would it be possible to do the ,

opposite that is to lea rn some thing of the world of reality by

, ,

meditating upon God ? P lotinus was of this opinion If in this wo rld .

,

we fo r example should speak of the O ne we would do so only

, , ,

because everyone shares in th e original O ne And so it is in regard .

to all o ther notions With the knowledge that to explain being we

.

must proceed no t from below to above but from above to below ,

and wi th the knowledge that eve r ything is determined by God

insofar as being itself and existing realities are concerned the entire ,

p hilosophi al p r o ess again mo v es fo r ward lotinus did not howe v e r

fi
c c P .
, ,

permit the deri vati ve to be dete rmined by an hypothesis as had

P lato no r as had Aristotle by his sup reme ef cient cause ; on th e
,

cont r a r y he simply intr oduced anothe r concept as a foundation for

,

his notion of being namely the notion of eman ation

, , .

1 ) Th e notio n ofe manatio n Beca use of its ve ry fullness the O ne .

,

overflows into reality without howe ve r exh austing itself j ust as the ,

sun gives off light without undergoing any decrease in its powe rs o r
in its b rilliance o r j ust as an original painting provides indefinite
,
274 ANC IE NT PH ILO SOPHY
mate rial for copies or j ust as a well supplies wate r fo r the
,
“

which spouts from it o r j ust as the perfe ct posits the imperfect

,

as necessary Th e thing deri ved always be comes something else but

.
,

always inheres I n I ts Origina l source If we S hould leave out of con.

sideration the figures and the examples which are used here and turn
ou r attention solely to the thought expressed by them — th e perfect
determines the imperfect with necessity it would become evident —

that P lotinus th eory is nothing more than th e P latonic hypothesis

’ “ ”

and the con cept of par tic pat n whi ch P lato had advanced We must
i ro .
,

however make this reservation : these concepts a e in danger of being

, r

misunderstood because of the emphasis given to the intermediate

beings wh ich consequently appear as true reality something that —

is S till further stressed by the mediator role which these intermediary

beings must play This gives rise to the impression that there might
.

possibly be other realities besides the O n e in fact many such realities , , .

Indeed P lotinus sought as did P lato before him to establish e very

, ,
“ ”

thing from abo ve namely from the first being and P lotinus recog
, ,

n iz e d only one r eality th e reality of the O n e This reality becomes

, .

less and less the lowe r we descend just as the intensity of light
, ,

diminishes the farthe r removed it is from its sou rce until finally ,

we ha ve only shadows in the r ealm of the mate rial Bu t e ven these .

shadows are only reflected shadows of the O n e Th e matter of the .

world becomes reality only by means of the fo rms ; these a re derive d

fr om the soul and this in turn draws its form from the spirit
, ,

that in it ther e is to be found everything that is transmitted ( Enn ”

fi
V 9
, , An d S ince the spi r it is determined by the origi nal O n e ,

everything ( the all ) is also p r esent in It .

2 ) Th e apo r ia o r a i ic lty r egar ding e manatio n Is this every

’ ‘
u .

thing of which we speak something di fferent or not ? What must

we hold ? A t one time the S ame is the S am e ; and at o ther times it

fi
, ,

is not entirely the S ame A t one time the O the r is truly the O ther ;
.
,

again at times it is n o t entirely di er en t from the S ame Both panthe

, .

ism and monism thrive on the equivocal character of th e con cepts to “

be identi cal and to be di fferent In this respect the intermediate

” “
.

S tages do not o f fe r much help They do not solve the pro blem but
.

S imply relegate it to the backg round for a time Fo r before e xam ining .

each indeterminate stage we are forced to ask the q uestion : I s this

stage really identical with the previou s one o r is it s meth in o

ent ? If the forme r is true the latter is not and vi ce versa

,
.

reason to turn to something else which Should be an inherent

,
276 A NC IENT PH ILOSO P H Y
do rmant o r sterile The world is gener ated in
with the storehouse of ideas enclosed in the Demiurge .

only to read this in orde r to unde rstand immediately how

P latonic S ymposiu m Tim us and the S toic \ y m p/ semi '

(
'

, ,
z o oc a t a n xo c

reasons ) p rodu ced such after ee cts At the same time we stand .

that hallowed ground from which the C hu rch F athers drew their
spiration when they located the P latonic ideas in the mind
Th e S oul Th e fi r st reality that is assumed in the cr eatio
.

world is the soul The pro duct of the spirit is in s ome way
.
“

and this begins to exist in that par t of the soul that reflects ; it is
which ci rcles around the spirit ; it is the light that goes out from
spirit ( Enn I l
”
.
, , ,

Th e cosmic soul is the fi r st that comes into existence C ontai .

in it and consequently bound to it by bonds of eternal sympathy

the individual souls Th e .

ligibles whose three essen ses ( hypostases ) we have become

u ain te d with in the O n e in the N ous and in the S oul — and
q , ,

realm of the sensory This soul fo rms a bridge by means of th e

.

that it itself is always a whole and as a consequence is akin to

O n e and on the o the r hand it has a relatio n to
,

related to the many The soul is p rimarily no .

“

become s di visible in bodies ( Enn IV 2 By

”
, ,

app roaches closely to the multiple and at the same

because the multiple
Greek philosophy the soul was always
ing to the P h aedr u s of P lato the soul ,

as such also to Aristotle S o also her e Th e lowe r the soul . .

from the heights of the an gels and demons to mankind ,

and plants so much the less is its unity and so much mo

, ,

does it approa ch to the many to the divisible ; so much ,

the pleasu re it finds in change .

Th e sensible w o rld Th e lowest stage to which th e soul

.

that stage where it clothes itself with a body is natu re , .

a copy of the intelligible wo rld and in this respect pe rfect .

all it is only a copy ; as a consequence less a spi r it less a ,

-

freedom and less an activity ; in thei r place ther e is substi

,

siv ity No w there a r ise both time and place

. Instead of .

find instinct In itself the soul is free and initiates of its

.

and spontaneously an entirely new series of causes Th .

“
 NEo- P LATON ISM : A P H ILOSOP H Y AND A REL IGI ON 277

u which fi rst of all mo ves itself ( Enn III 1

ca se The soul ”
, , ,

howeve r is maste r of itself only SO long as it remains outside the

,

in the body it loses its independence and becomes inte r

the law of causality that governs the visible wo rld .

confronted with this ancient typically P latonic in fact , ,

concept of the soul in Kant when he dis

intelligible and the empiri cal cha racte r s ; the
forme r is free the latte r is not
, .

emanation is matte r This matte r is no longer .

but rathe r negati ve C onsequently it becomes .

,

good the principle of evil and so the antipode , ,

ne Th e chasm has been bridged ; all being is

.

principle ; we have the one and the all the “

,
”

Z m 2 mi Bu t this chasm reopen s in a genuinely dialecti cal fashion

‘

v v. ,

at the end when matte r appears as an antipode

, .

Th e r etur n to the O ne With this the cosmic process is not fin ished

. .

Just as the O ne does not remain static so reality must also find its ,

way back to its original sta rting point This is reached by means of .

th e individual soul An d he r e it is that P lotinus begins to expound

his ethical views S ince the individual soul exists only as a mom
.

. ent
on the cosmic soul this p rocess becomes a cosmic event By reason
, .

of the fact that the soul was j oined to a body it became sinful , .

C onsequently it is faced with the task of f r eeing itself fr om the

,

b ody of pu ri fy ing itself of aligning itself with the Nous and of

, , ,

becoming enlightened by it of becoming one wi th th e ideas and by , ,

means of the Nous of becoming one with the abo riginal O ne itself .

Th e soul then in ecs tasy depa r ts from the body loses its conscious
, , ,

ness of self and is abso rbed by a kind of mystical union into the
,

uni verse M an and the uni ve r se ha ve finally reached that ha ven

‘

from which they had emba rked This reunion is pictured in the most .

glowing terms ( Enn VI 9 ) and by it we become conscious of a new

.
, ,

element that has been introduced the kinship of philosophy wi th ,

religion and with mysticism a kinship which is so cha racte ristic ,

of NCO P latonism To unde r stand the concept of ecstasy we do not

-
.

need to consider exclusively O riental influences We hav e already .

seen how greatly Greek philosophy was inte rested in religious que s
tions and H Leisegang has demonstrated that the concept of ecstasy
, .

was not fo reign to the Greek genius By reading the shor t P latonic .

Di alogue I on we can easily Obtain clari ty on this poin t

, , .
278 ANC I E NT PH ILO SO PHY
3 . TH E NE O —P LATO NI C S C HOO LS
thoughts of P lotinus we re taken up and further developed b
Th e
a great number of Ne d latonic s chools We distinguish here : ( a o
l
.

Th e S ch o l ofP l tin s himself with I ts subsequent leaders

o o u

and P orphyry ( 233 the renowned autho r of the introduction

the A ristotelian C t go i s With it the re begins a long ser e
a e r e . i

Neo P latonic commentaries on P lato A ristotle and Th eoph r ast

-
, ,

T h e S y ian S h o l with I amblich u s whose P r o tr e ticu s had p

( )
b r c o
p ,

found effect on Augustine by way of th e H or tensius of C icero .

Th e P er gamo n S h o ol to which the teache r of Julian the Apo

c ,

belonged and which be ame the cente r of the struggle that

, c

P latonists waged
h eathen cult re ( a ) Th e Ath e nian S ch o o l with
'
u .

p liciu s
( ) T h.e Ae le x an dr ia n S ch o o l with S yn es iu

be came Bishop of P tolemy in 411 togethe r with ,

As clepius O lympio do r u s Elias D avid etc Th e

, , , , .

N mesiu s of E mesa ( c 400) came into contact with the

e .

s chool ( f ) Th e Neo P l to nists of th e Latin West with M acr o b

.
— a

( c . C h alcidiu s
( fifth century ) M arius Vi ctorinus ( fourth cc ,

t ry ) and Boethius ( d 5 25 )
u , .

4 . P R OCLU S

P roclu s
and th e subsequ ent centuries In the school at A then .

Neo P latonism ( 41 1 485 ) was developed by P roclus into a

- -

and well rounded system H e is the first S cholasti c and

-
.

model both for M ohammedan and media

his I nstit ti Th eologi a ( x wm O k y mj) exercised
u o c a r oc a
'
s eo o c

flu en c on S cholasti cism by way of the Lib er a e Cau sis

’
e ,

tain ed ex cepts of it S in ce the Lib a e Ca i was fo r a lon

’
. er us s

considered the work of A ristotle and as such enjoyed great

lar ity P ro clu s became one of those men who brought it

,

that the Aristotelianism of the M iddle Ages un consciously and

were by accident retai ned that fundamental orientation toward
which today 1 S agaI n being as cribed to the histori cal Aristotle ,

the s cholars both in moder n times as well as n the M iddle

,
I

had been misled — by a fault of whi ch Aristotle himself was

as a res u lt of his constant polem c agai nst P lato into seeing i i —

only an antithesis of P lato .

Th e philosoph y o f i dentity Through P roclus .

,
 PART I I

ME D I AEV AL P H I L O S OP H Y

P RELI MI NARY REM ARK S

NO TI ON OF MEDIAEVAL P HILOSOP HY
H isto ric al What the philosophy of the M iddle Ages was may be
.

i
defined in terms of time o r chronology as that philosophical specula
tion of the West which dominated the period between the close of
antiquity which is linked by historians with the downfall of th e
,

Roman Empire of th e West and the beginning of the so—called

o der n e r a which scholars a r e accustomed to date either from the
p ,

conquest of C o nstantinople ( 145 3) o r from the beginning of th e

Reformation S cholars sometimes classify all mediaeval phi
lo so ph y as S cholastic philosophy True S cholasticism however begins
.
, ,

only in the ninth century What took place befo re this may be called
.

the gradual preparation for S cholasti c philosophy by way of the

speculative acti vity of the Fathe rs of the C hurch We shall co nse .

,

divide e philosophy of th e M iddl e Ages into two fairl y

P
u en tl
y, th
arge periods : ( a) the philosophy of th e P atristic period and ( b ) the
p hilosophy of S cholasticism .

E sse nti al If we S hould wish to stress the specific attribute of

.

3
n ediae val philosophy in te rm s of its int r insi c nature that is in terms
If , ,

of its spiritual content we would describe it as that philosophical

,

s eculation of the West which from the time of S t Augustine — and

p
.

especially from S t Anselm of C anterbury was animated by the

.
—

principle : Know so that you may believe believe so that you may ,

know — I ntellige u t cr ea as cr ea c ut intelligas ( S t Augustine S er mo

'
,
’
.
,

43 c 7 n
, .
, P hilosophy which hith erto had sought to w r estle
.
,

with the great problems of th e world of man and of God solely , ,

li the light of unaided natu r al reason is in this period combin ed

yi th li iou faith F ai th togethe r with philosophy is a phenomenon ,

w r e g s .
28 2 I AEVAL PH ILO SO P H Y
M ED

which in this era is also characteristic of A rabian and I

philosophy .

The combination of faith and knowledge in its impact

speculation of the mediaEVaL C h r istian man can be u n der sto
on th e ass mption of an ideological unity Upon it rests the geni
u .

and the spirit O f the entire epoch and nothing is more significant
it than pre cisely its spi ritual unity As never before in any period .

the histo r y of philosophy there prevailed in this epoch a sense

security a certitude in relation to the existence of G o d H is wisd
, , ,

power and goodness ; to the origin of the world its purposive

, ,

rangement and its providential rule ; to the nature of man and

,

place in the universe ; to the purpose of his life the capacity of ,

so ul to acq ire a knowledge of being and th

u ,

existence ; to his essential nobility freedom and , ,

foundation of righ ts th e g n of civic power and ,

or 1 1 ,

history U nity and order were indeed signs of the times Wh

. .

the present day b u sies itself with investigating h w order and o

are possible and how they are able truly to coexist in the M ,

Ages order was loo k ed upon as a matter of course and the

lo so p h e task was imply to re ogni ze it wh erever it was
r s
’
S c

Afte r a few un certain steps at the very beginning of

period the M iddle Ages found its bearings and S tuck clos
,

th e very end There is no doubt th at the C hristian religion

. -

sible for this un i ty If anywhe re th en certainly here it is

.
,

Karl Jaspers says up to the present religion has

, ,

help of reason effected a most enduring and substantial or

,

it is tr ue through direct precepts but by means of believing ,

thei r ea rnestness and their fidelity .

P hilosophy or theology ? S cholars have oftentimes asked

o r not we ar e dealing with genuine philosophy in the M idd
since reason eased to be the supreme mast
c

guidan ce from religion — a subordination as has often been ,

demanded by this marriage o f philosophy and religion P hilo .

was no longe r compelled to solve its own peculiar and spe cial
lems ; their solutions h ad already been o ffered by faith P hilo .

was forced to rest on the basis of faith Upon this foundation .

lo s ph y had to perform its tasks ; and it oftentimes happened

o

philosoph i cal speculation was re q uired to render assistance to

deposit of faith by proof and argument by s cientific analysis ,

synthesis P hilosophy the h andmaid of the

.
,
28 4 I VAL PH ILOSOPH Y
M ED AE

must always follow — a doctrine which in p rinciple signified

sanctioning of pe rsonal freedo m .

3) Fr eedo m fr o m ass u mptio ns If the mediaeval man failed

“
-
.

make any app reciable use Of h is freedom if in certain respects ‘

actually followed th e assumptions O f his own personal ideology a

of public opinion he did SO not because he had bowed
‘

pressu re but simply because he did not consider as an

what appears to us moderns to be such H is bondage .
“ ”

of an ideological and religious nature was in reality on

Fo r this reason to ridicule mediaeval man and
,

his philosophy as sp
not our sel ves suffe r
could philosophize without such assumptions M any .

this to be true fo r themselves When in the fir st thi r d .

century it was proved that this belief was itself an a

pendulum began to swing in the opposite direction and ,

began to embrace a general relativism : they despai red of th e p

of ridding thems el ves of such assumptions and demanded pere
thei r acceptan ce for the sake of ch aracte r thus making “

,
”

of necessity To reject the M iddle Ages because of these pr

.

tions as not without assumptions is in any case paradoxi cal

“
.
,

has been done

. .

As a matte r of fact this freedom from assump tions could

,

have been verified Bu t it has always remained as an ideal ; it I n

.

sought afte r fo r the sake of truth Th e mediaeval philosoph .

possessed of such a S tri ving They also attempted to .

sel ves of all self deception and to arrive at objective t ruth

— .

advanced this obj ecti v e fa r thest they o r we future ages , ,

able to j udge In any case we must exercise caution

.

the Middle Ages Since we ou r selves are constan

,

of the fact that modern mass man is both in his -

sentiments O ftentimes mo re mediaeval than “ ”

himself Th e mode rn philosophe r is a child of

.

he may even fall unde r the wheels of its fate

fact that the histo ry of philosophy can re

fi
any gi ven philosophe r actually belongs and this not fo r
cial r easons O u r task is therefore to strive constantly to
.

This O bjecti ve was aimed at also by the mediaeval philo

,

as a result his speculation was genuine philo sophy .

 PRE LIM I NARY REM ARK S 285

2 . I M P ORTANCE O F MEDIAEVAL P HILOS OP HY

TH E
In any event present day philosophy is spawned by the modern
,
-

era and it feels and acts as if it were something differ ent something ,

genuinely no vel Does mediae val p hilosophy have any meaning for
.

us today ? Indeed it does First of all the M iddle Ages b ridge .

,

antiquity and modern times These Ages did not only copy the old .

codices and thereby preserve both the knowledge and th e art of

antiquity but also in thei r schools they kept alive the continuity of
,

philosophical problems Th e fundamental themes those concern ing

—
.

substance causality reality finality uni ve r sality and individuality

, , , , ,

sensor y r eality and the r ealm of phenomena unde r standing and ,

reason soul and spirit world and God — did not eme rge only with
, ,

humanism and the Renaissance no r did they come directly from ,

antiquity ; they were bequeath ed to modern philosophy by the M iddle

Ages We cannot read Descartes S pinoza Leibniz o r Locke Wol ff
.
, , ,

o r even Kant without understanding mediaeval notions concepts

, , ,

and problems In fact where the anti thesis is brought out into the
.
,

open and where novelties are sought by conscious e ffort frequently ,

this othe r can be fully and co rrectly appreciated only if we see how
the old thes is finds a cceptance in one form o r another in the antithesis
‘

and perhaps e ven becomes creati ve Finally the M iddle Ages is in .

,

many r espects exemplar y : formally by r eason of the logical acuity

and the absolute s tringency of its thought processes and the objective
character of its concept of science according to which the per son ,

ine vitably takes up a position behind the thing ; materially by reason ,

of its sound knowledge O f man which protected it against those ,

extravagances which are so typical of modern philosophies and which

permitted it to follow that direct line it guarded so faithfully fo r
so many centuries N t only did its do ctrine of the natural law
. o

experience a perpetual rebi rth but also its philosophical axioms

“

,
”

concerning substance r eality the soul truth the rights of man the
, , , , ,

essence of the state etc enshrined such valuable treasures of thought

,
.
, ,

that we are ab le with j ustice to designate the fundamental content

of mediaeval philosophy as the philosoph ia per ennis .

T rue we cannot return to the M iddle Ages as to a paradise lost

These Ages ar e and always will remain of th e past Bu t we m
, .

ust .

have a feeling fo r the eternally tr ue that was contained in them and

must try to make this clear to ou r own age in eve r new fo rm and
286 M ED IAEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
in conformity which changed ci rcumstances A s M aritain says We .
,

hope that in a new world and in the formation of a new material ,

there may be evident those spiritual principles and eternal norms by ,

which mediaeval culture rr i ts b est periods presented a unique his ‘

I i

to r ical a ccomplishment even in fact of its appreciable shortcomings

— in fa ct achie ved a s u blime greatness but whi ch h as nev tably I i
, ,

disappear ed .
”

P rincipal C ollec tion s

I M igne P atr ologia Gr aeca 166

.
, , v ls ( P aris
o .
,
18 5 7 1866 ) -
an d P atr ologia
Latina 22 1 ,
v ls ( P aris
o .
,
18 44 Die gr i ech isch e n ch r is tlich e n S ch r ift
s tel er l der blis h e d b y th e Berlin A k ademie der
er s te n dr ei jah r h u n der te , p u

Wi ssen sch aft ( Berlin, C or pu s S cr ipto r u m Ecclesiasticor u m La tin or

u m p u blis h ed b y th e V ie n n a Ak a demie der Wi sse n sch aften ( V ie n na,
,

M De Wu lf, Les P h ilos oph es Belges 15 vo ls ( P ari s ) ; Re ith mayer Th alh o fer ,
.
, .
-

Bi blioth e k v l ; B d n h w Weyman Zelling r

der Kir ch e n vater
'

, 80 o s ar e o er - -
e ,

Bibli th /Q d Ki h n at 6 1 v ls ( 2n d s ri s 1932 f f ) G Ra s h en
’

o e er rc e v er , o . e e , . . u c ,

Fl il gi m P t i ti m ( B nn H nstein
or e u a r s G ra bmann P l t cu Op o : a ,
— e s er , us

l
cu a e t t t ( M u n ster A h n
ex u s d f
f ); A R b rts and I D na lds n T h : sc e or . o e . o o ,
e

An t Ni n Lib e—
y 2 5 v l ce
( E din b er gh 1 8 6 6 — 1 8 72
r ar P S,
h a f
f and o s . u , , . c

H Wa e A S l t Li b
. c y f N ,
i n n d P t N i
e ec n F th f th C h i
r ar o ce e a os — ce e a er s o e r s

ti n C h
a h 2 8 v ls ( B ff l and N w Y r k 1 8 8 6
ur c , o W I S parr w
. u a o e o , . . o

S i mps n and W K L wth r C lark e T n l ti n

o f Ch i ti n W it
. . o e ,
ra s a o s o r s a r er s

( L nd on 1 9 1
o 7 1 : Q asten and I C P l m p e A n i t C h i . u . . u ,
c en r s

ti n W it W estm inst r M T N ew m an ress f )

a
( r d h
er s P 19 4 6 f ; L S h pp e , . : e ,
. c o ,

Th F th e f th C h a h ( N w Y r
er s o k T h F th rs f t
eh C h r h I n ur c e o : e a e o e u c ,
c .
,

19 47

Bib liogr aphy

Cl . Baeu mk er , Die patr is tisch e P hilos oph ie des M ittelalte r s ( 2n d e d , .

Die ch r is tlich e P h ilosoph ie des M ittelalter s ( 2n d cd , 19 13 ) ( b o h . t

v l m
o u e are f nd in
K u ltu r der Gegen u/ar t ) — C l Baeu mk er M
s ou . .
-
. G rab
m ann ,
Beitr age z u r Gesch ich te der P h ilosoph ie u n d Th e ologie des M ittel
alter s
( 1 8 9 1 f
f ) — F C Co l est n
p o ,
H is to r y of P h ilos o h y V o ls I I an d
.
p . .
, .

M ediaeval P h il s ph y ( Westmin ter M d Th Newman P r ss

“ ”
I II , o o s , . : e e ,

—M D W lf H i t i M r ns
19 5 0 d l P h il p hi . di l ( t e u ,
s o re e a os o e e e va e a

lated int Englis h by E M ess nger nder th title H i t y fM di

o l . e u e ,
s or o e e va

P h il h
p y 3 v l
os o 6 th d 19 3 4 1,9 3 6 l 94 7 ) —
I G o syser D.i ,
m i tt l c .
, , , . . e , e e

a lt li h P h il
er
p h ic in M D e i L h b h d
os o P hi l phi e . e ss o r s
’
e r uc er oso e

E G ils n H i t y f C h i ti n P h il
. o p
,
h y i n th M id dl
s or A g ( N w o r s a os o e e es e

York Rand m H se : Th S pi it fM dio l P h il ou h

p y ; trans ,
e r o e e va oso

l t d b y A H C D wn ( N Y r k ar es ri ner s ns ’
a e w . C h l S . b .S o es e o : c o ,
 S ECTI O N 1 . P H ILO SO P H Y O F TH E P ATRI STI C
P ERI O D

H AFTER

YOUTH F UL C H R I S T I AN I TY C O NF RO NT S
AN C I E NT P H I L O S OP H Y

When C hristianity made its appearance it sought to present both ,

theoreti
a cal truth and a pra cti cal course of human conduct I am th e .
“

vay the tr uth and the life declared its Founder ruth is considered
”
T
g
a l
, , , .

as absolute and ete r nal be cause it is not only human but it is al so

divinely revealed H eaven and earth will pass away but my words
.
“

will not pass away ( M t An d this p r a ctical fo r mation of life

”
.
,

the way and the life is absolutely certain not involved in wa vering
“

,
”
,

or doubt ; it leads un conditionally to eternal salvation Ancient phi .

loso ph y could not O ffer such se cu ri ty ; it had ne ve r thought of itself

as the Incarnation of th e Logos and of E ternal Wisdom Itself ; it
for wisdo m .

attempted to O ffer truth and to present

smank in d with a guide to corre ct condu ct This it had done from the .

very beginning and especially in the H ellenistic period when ancient

mythology was shattered and in its S tead philosophy compelled to
cure for souls F rom this partly S imilar partly dis
.
,

attitude from this identity of purpose and from this diffe ren
, ,

tiatio n in the choice of ways and means to a common end we can ,

bette r dis cern the position of youthful C hristianity in relation to

ancient philosophy : on the one hand the latte r is rejected on the ,

other han d accepted .

1 . S T P AU L
.

This was true even of S t P aul A t

. . one time he expressed contempt
289
290 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OP H Y
fo r the wisdom of the world and at other times again he recogni zed
the validity of its claims and appealed to its testimony for the
substantiation of his own case In 1 C orinthians he writes : Fo r it .
“

is written I will destroy t he wisdom of the wise and the pr udence

of th e prudent I will rej ect Where is the wise man ? Where is the
, ,
‘ ’
.

s cribe ? Where is the disputant of this wo rld ? H as not God tu rned

to foolishness the wisdom of this world ? ‘
Th e Jews ask for
’

signs and the G ree k s look fo r wisdom ; but we fo r ou r part preach

,
‘ ’

a cru cifi ed hrist to the Jews indeed a stumbling block and to the
C —

Gentiles foolishness but to those who are called both Jews an d

, ,

G reeks C hrist the power of G o d and the wisdom of God

”
, ,

In Romans however we read S eeing that what may be known

, , :

about God is manifest to th em For God has manifested it to them . .

For since th e creation of the wo rld his in visible attr ibutes are clearly
seen — his everlasting power also and divinity being understood —

thr ough the things that are made By such statements the
”

rights of natural reason are fully re cognized In his speech at the .

A reop agus S t P aul goes so far as to cite Greek philo sophers as

, .

proofs fo r his C hristian thesis ( Acts

2 . FATHERS
TH E
Negative atti tu de This course of action reappeared among the
.

fi rst ecclesiasti cal wr iters S t Justin M ar tyr was discontented wi th

. .

ancient philosophy and with the ancient philosophi cal sch ools : th e
S toics knew nothing of God ; the P eripatetics were too a vari cious ;
the P ythagoreans too theoretical ; the P latonists too daring in their
, ,

utterances O nly fo r C hristians had truth become a reality for they

—
,

knew how to die fo r it M in u ciu s Felix saw in S o crates only an

.

A ttic buffoon Tertullian considered P lato the father of all heresies

fi
. .

What had A thens and Jerusalem the Academy and th e Church the , ,

in dels and th e faithful to do with one another ? What had th ey in

common ? he asked Tertullian had further widened the breach
.

between th e C hristian religion and ancient philosophy S O that faith

and r eason appear in h is work as the sharpest antinomies In .

D e Car n e C h r isti he wrote : Th e S o n of God was cruci fi ed We

“
.

are not ashamed because it was so shameful The S n of Go d died

, . o .

This is tr ly c redible because it is so foolish ( p r s u s c edibl e t

u ,
ro r e s ,

m est ; and having been b ried rose again T is is

q i
ua in e
ptu ) H h u , e .

certain be cause it is impossible These statem ents to which Tert llian

,
. u

gave voi ce when he was no longer a member of the C hurch but ,

292 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO S OPH Y
3) Th e Cappad o cians A thi r d factor which fostered a mo r
.

attitude on the part of C hristianity toward philosophy was

adopted by the three famous C appadocians
of N a ian z en and G rego ry O f N yssa who utilized the e
’
‘

z , ,

of Greek philosophy when they preached the C hristi

fact Basil wrote a special treatise : To a young man
,
“

wish to a vail himself of the heathen philosophy ( S ee .

Wisdo m ofC th oli i m ed A C P egis New York : Ra

a c s , . . .
,

4) S t A gu stine Th e de cisive choice was made by

. u .

If an ancient philosopher ga ve voi ce to a con cept or used

to des cribe a doctrine that was in conformity with a truth
he believed that we should not only not be ashamed bu
actually appr o pr l ate I t from its rightful owner and turn it to
use and in a twofold sense In the fi r st place it would
— .

‘
,

formally to school our own minds so that we might ar ri ve a ,

clarity order and beauty both in speculation and in spee ch

, , .

the re was the splendid example of C i cero from whom ,

himself had learned and borrowed so much In the .

philosophy should aid us to scrutini z e e ver more se

dogmas of faith that is to say to help us
-
, ,

possible both logically and rationally th eir mea

construction systematization foundations
, , ,

means of s ch a pro cedure ther e gradually

u ,

sacred theology It was S t Augustine who fo. .

whi ch was to become the l itmo tif for the whole of media e

philosophy : I n tellig t r edas c ed u t in telligas e u cS tudy , r e

innermost re cesses of being so that you may believe belie ve so tha , ,

you may understand the most h idden reaches of being .

”

3 . C ONSEQ U ENC ES AND P RO BLE M S

final development of th e relation between religion an

Th e
philosophy in favor of a positive synthesis was made possible by S
Augustine H is contr ibution was decisive fo r th e w h
.

history of the philosophy in the West Th rough it faith .

to theology ; the preaching of its do ctrines became a litera

C hristianity itself a culture Th e proponents of these views .

forced to retreat into the ghettos but were able to mount the ,

of the forum to enter the lectu re halls of

,

become familiar with the chambers

 C H RI S TI AN IT Y CON F RO NTS ANCI E NT P H ILOSO PH Y 293

r C hristianity
had taken its rightful place in the intellectual world .

Th e tensions within C hristian philosophy itself howe v e r we r e

(

, ,
}

not in any sense relieved Th e problems remained If natural specu

. .

lation and supernatural revelation we re a ctually diver se did they ,

”

possess nothing at all in common ? Th e concealed antitheses raised

thei r h ydr alik e heads in definite and set di ffe r ences ; we meet them
“

fo r example in the an tidialectician s gathered around S t P ete r Damian

, .
,

in the v arious eclectic circles of my stics as well as in their antipodes , ,

th e representatives of an autonomous culture and the antinomies of

politics and later on in the dialectical theology in which faith again

,

became a paradox as it once was fo r Te rtullian Basically the entire

, .

p roblem is of the kind which we have already considered in the

do ctrine that God is transcendent yet may be known as the creator ,

t hrough the creatures of which H e is the supreme author ; or in the

teach ing that the human soul is immaterial but is ne vertheless the ,

form of the body ; o r that man is in cluded in the uni versal causality of
the worl d but his will is at the s ame time free In these problems
, .

scholars have discovered a dualism and are forced to span its extremes .

In a methodology of the mind which seeks to reach one obj ective

without neglecting another at the same time we disco ver the most ,

profound unce r tainties of the matter .

4. S O U RCES FATHERS
OF TH E

Th e acceptance of an cient philosophy was ne vertheless not uniform .

No t all speculative systems could be examined and eval u ated as

sources in exactly the same way .

m w wlh Th e S cep tics and Epicu re an s Th e contributions of th e S cepti cs and

.

Epicureans we r e of little value O nly their arguments against the

.

polytheism still found in the popular religions of the heathens could

be pressed into service and these only occasionally
, .

A ris to tle A ristotelianism also survived Even though its influence

‘

. .

was not so slight as was fo rme rly believed it was not of de cisive ,

impo rtance fo r th e P atr istic period In contrast to the bibli cal concept
j
.

of God and of religious morality Aristotle s idea of God was too ,

’

undeveloped and his ethics too much that of a man of the world
, .

Evidences of his earlier works may nonetheless be detected in , ,

C lement of A lexandria Basil A ugustine S ynesiu s H is concepts of

, , , .

essence substance and natu re ve ry early played an impo rtant role

, ,

in the doctrine of the Trinity and in the Ch ristological controver sies

294 M ED I AE VAL PH ILO SO PHY
of the third and fourth enturies O nly at the end of the P atristic c .

however was the rich heritage of Ar istotelian speculation f

,

recognized and properly evaluated by Joh n P h ilo po nu s and

D amascene Th e former wrote commentaries for many of
.

works These were translated into S yrian Th e S yrian

. .

sought to defend with Aristotelian concepts thei r heres y th at th er e f

two persons in C hrist because H e had two natures and th e S ,

M onop h ysites their heresy that there was only one nature be
C hrist was but one person arguments whi ch did not endear —

to tle to the Fathers of the C hur ch .

S to ics The S toics on the other hand wielded a very great in fl u

.
, ,

on the thought of infant C hristianity directly through S eneca ,

Epictetus and indirectly through su ch Roman e clecti cs as C i ce r o

,

Varro Ambrose copied C icero s work O n D ties ( D e

.
’
u

C lement of A lexandria quoted entire passages from M uso

in his own speculation Au gustine used su ch
as the do ctrine of eternal law of th e r ati n min les a ,
o es se a ,

th eo cratic state S strong was this contact with the S toi cs

. o

people of the era were able to fabricate a legend of a corresp

carried on between S t P aul and S ene ca

P l ato Th e P latonists appear to be a

. st class sour ce up

the C hristians drew No one has eve r approached us as .

.

“
.

fi
r —

did these ventured S t Augustine Their sane e thics th

,
”
. .
,

tion of this world thei r preferen e for the supernat ral ,

c u

world of ideas and metaphysi cs their e sch at ,

fo r God aroused in Christians feelings of

the hereafter especially rendered the Fath
“ ”

them Bu t they understood that hereafter (

.
e d — literally ther e “ ”
n
’

genuine P latonism in the palpably realistic sense in which it was

in the Bible Bu t we look for a new heaven and a new e
.
“

a cording to his promise wherein dwells justice ( 2 P et 3

c ,
”
.

It is not easy to j udge how widely the works o f P I .

and how far his thoughts were incorporated into

g eneral educational content of the period wherein they had
immersed for a long time C onseq uently an influence is possible .
,

though some works are unable to be identified directly o r

as such Th e method of compiling citations which has been a
.

customary in the histo ry of lite r ature is n Ot enough to

insight into the extent of P latonism s influence on the ’

r eligiou s thought and o r ator y of H ellenism for , .

,
296 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO SO P H Y
mus of Ty re and N umenius — opened still othe r gateways for Ch
,

tian thought among the ancient philosophies .

NCO P lato nists Fr om these and othe r sou rces N eo —P latonism was
- .

evol ved ; and in turn its r epr es entatives performed a yeoman s service
‘
’

fo r P atristic philosophy When one reads the E nneads of P lotinus one

.
,

is astonished at their Similarity of language and thought to that of

C hristianit y especially at the kinship revealed in thei r eth ical r e
,

, ,

li giou s and mystical mode of life and in their inne r flexibility of

,

spirit The E nneads molded to a great extent the thinking of Grego ry

.

of Nyssa Gregory of Naz ian z en Basil C yril of Alexandria and

, , , ,

especially Augustine who read them in the translation of M ariu s

,

Victorinus Through a great many other channels Neo P latonism

.
,
-

emptied its content into C hristianity through P orphyry I amblich u s , ,

Th eo dor e t of C y rene S implicius M a crobius M ar tiamis C apella

, , , ,

C h alcidiu s Boethius and chiefly through Dionysius the Ar eopagite

, , ,

by whom P roclus finally addressed C hristianity At the end stand .

John P h iloponu s and John Damascene who were al ready beginning ,

to evaluate Aristo tle .

Th e NCO P yth agor ean s Th e NCO P latoni c influen ces are oftentimes
-
.
-

so abso rbed by NCO P ythagorean movements and tendencies as for

-
, ,

example those p resent in Apollonius of Tyana N umenius Longinus

, , , ,

M ode r atus Nicomach u s that it is di fficult to determine precisely the

, ,

source in the history of philosophy from which they derive .

5 . S YNCRETI S M ?

We live in an age of syn cretism and as Br éh ier says nowhere was ,

there greater confusion in the history of philosophy than duri ng the

fir st two centuries of the C hristian era An example of this is offe red .
”

us in the text of Jerome on O rigen that we have already cited Accord .

ing to Jerome we find in O rigen everything running together

, ,

everything that the ancients sought to diffe r entiate In spite of this .

handicap C hristian speculation advanced with assurance along a

,

pathway peculiarly its own We can apply to the almost ser vile .

dependence of P atristi c philosophy upon Greek philosophy those

phrases which S t Thomas A q uinas used to describe the relation of
.

S t Augustine to the P latonists : Wheneve r Augustine who was

“
.
,

imbued with the doctrines of the P latonists found in thei r teaching ,

an y thing consistent with faith b e adopted it : an d those things which ,

he found contr a ry to faith he emended ( S T I 84

”
.
.
, , ,
 CH RIS TIA NITY CON F RO NTS ANCIENT PH ILOSOPH Y

R Arno n, art , P lato nisme des pér e s, in Diction nair e de Th eologi

. .

liq u e — K P r ii m, Der ch r istlich e Glau be u nd die alte h eidnisch

. .

Das C h r iste n tu m als Ne u h eitser le b nis

i iz
‘
m
dstand
C H A P TE R

TH E BE GI NN I N G S O F P AT R I S T I C
P H I L O S OP HY

When we speak of P atristi c philosophy we should not th ink as ,

ordinarily would solely of th e wor k of philos o phers w h o were ex

,

sive l
y philosophers Th e philosop h y of this period.is rather to be
buried in the writings of pastors preachers exegetes theologian , , ,

apologists While carrying on th eir work of propagating C h

.

they were compelled to tou ch upon problems which actu ally belon
to philosophy and whi ch h ad naturally to be approa ch ed from
standpoint of philosop h i cal method .

M EN AND WO RK S
G reeks . Th ese
in l de A ristides of A th ens with h is Ap l gy
c u : , o o

C h ristianity written about A D 140 ; J u stin the philosopher and ma . .

( d c
. A D . with
. h is
. two Ap g
o l i s and his D ial g w ith o e o ue

l w T yph n ; C lement of A lexandria ( d c A D

e r o who . . . .

exhortation to the G reeks ( P r otr eptic s ) and a M iscellany u

“

P hilosoph y ( S t mat i ) ; O rigen ( d A D of whose

”
ro e s . . .

most important for philosophy are th e D P r incipii and e s

C ls m; the t h ree C appado ians G regory of N a ian en ( d

e u c : z z .

of whom we have addresses letters and poems ; Basil th e , ,

who in his H mili n th e H exa m n s k etch es a C hristian c

o es o e er o

of th e world ; and h i brother G regory of N yssa ( d A D s Wh ,

. . .

his great C t h sis in h is Di logu w ith M acr ina con cerning

a ec e , a e

soul and res rrection and in his book O n th Cr atio n ofM an

u ,
e e

sents us with his teach ing on G o d man the soul and immor ta , , ,

Nemesiu of Emesa w h o wrote a C hristian anthropology O n

s , ,

Natu e of M n ( pi d i w d opé
r a c whi ch
r e n oe s r rr o v
, .

tak en ly as cribed to G regory of Nyssa ; and finally ,

Gnostics of the second and third centuries after C hrist

ides Valentine M ani C e in th u s and M arcion who bus
, , ,
r , ,

29 8
300 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OP H Y
P h ilosoph y in the m H o u se
M iddle Ages ( New Y rko : R and o ,

5 3— 19 0 Th Kla u s er Reallexi k o n f
. ur A n ti/( e u n d C h r iste ntu m ( 19
.
,

—
J Q u asten P atr ology 2 vo ls ( Westminste r M d : Th e Newman
.
, , .
, .

19 50 ,
— H arry A Wo lfs on Th e P h ilos oph y ofth e C h ur ch
.
,

amb ridge M ass : H arvard Unive rsity P ress

( C ,
.
,

points about which P atristic philosophy revolved mo r e

Th e
more as around a cente r of crystallization were : the relation of
, ,

and reason knowledge of God the essen ce and acti vity of

, ,

the Logos creation man the soul and the moral o r der
, , , , .

1 FAITH AND REAS ON

.

Th e ancien t v iew Th e relation between fai th an d r eason

.

more o f an axiological than a logical problem Th e novelty .

tian ity as well as its fundamental attitude as a way of

it about that faith was con ceived to be so supe rio r to

it threatened to absorb it S peculation is only the b .

is the authentic way and the completion The divine Logos .

the philosophical Logos so that as it was often explai , ,

C hristians could be classified as philosoph er s in the truest

the wo r d C hristians possessed that wisdom fo r which the h
.

philosophers had searched in vain In order to bolste r such a .

p u blicly the ancient phrases of P hilo that the G reek philos

,

had known the O ld Testament and that P lato himself was a

who spoke A ttic Greek were repeated There was no fu .

distinction made between faith and reason This is clea .

by examining them logically and in accordance with the

knowledge Acco r ding to H M eye r A har d and fast ( 1
. .
,
“

between faith and reason was foreign to the whole

period as well as to S t Augustine The scholars did . .

su ch a division ; they did not think it was ei the r desir ab l

longe r possible fo r C h ristian faith O nly to a degree can we .
”

a kind of break between the two somewhat after the fashion i ,

we can dete ct a gap between the perfect and the imper fe

view had two consequences : on the one hand the sub li ,

re vealed faith was p reser ved intact and on the other the , ,

of a future science of faith ( theology ) was in no sense jeop

Thus the groundwo r k was laid fo r both a negative and a
,

theology .

M o dern v iewpo in t The sha rp di fferenti ati on implied in

.

statement I h ad to push r eason aside in o r de r to mak

,
“
 TH E BEGINNI NGS OF PATRI STIC P H I LOS O PH Y 301

for faith was not a subj ect open to discussion du ring the P atristic
,

p eriod The
. inne r life of th e indi v idual had not as yet been split into

the rational and th e i rrational In this pe riod faith was still specula
.

tion c m assensu cogitar e as S t Augustine will late r declare but a

u , .

speculation which draws upon sou rces othe r than unaided reason By .

such a view the mode rn problematic is indeed sketched but it is in no

'

sense completed O nly within Gnosticism which in certain respe cts

.
,

its many mode rn features do we gain the impression that this ,

11 eventually be introduced .

Reflectionon the foundations and the possibility of knowing God

y always close to the surface in the thinking of th e P atristic age .

e key to it is o ffe red us by S t P aul in Romans where we .

,

told that man is able to know o f the existence of God not only
by faith but also by nature i e through th e things that are made
“

,
”
. .
“
.

Th e philosophy of the S toics with its doctrine of unive r sal funda

mental notions supplied the necessa ry philosophical terminology S t . .

Justin had already app rop ri ated it as had S t Clement of A lexandria , .

,

and even the great C appadocians under stood the S toic concept of the
se nsu s co mmu nis In face of the o r der and beauty manifest in the
.

wo rld this sensu s natu r ally begot the idea of a di vine ar chitect as the
,

cause of such ha r mony Teleological and causal ideas led them to

.

assume the existence of God .

3. TH E ES S ENCE OP G OD

AS fa r as the essence of God is concerned it was maintained from ,

the very beginning that man can best define God by decla ring what
H e is not ( negative theology ) rathe r than by S tr essmg what H e is .

As a consequence schola r s early began to philosophize about the

,

possibilit y of applying to God the notions whi ch we draw from the

sensible wo rld of reality These men recognized H is transcendency

.
,

but they percei ved it with a N eo—P latonic eye as is evident in S t , .

C lement who c alls God the O n e but at the same time assures us
,
-

that H e fa r su rpasses the O ne and the Unique .

Ter tullian e ven found it difficult to present God othe r than ma

te r ially God is indeed a spirit Bu t is not all reality so he asks in
. .
,

imitation of the S toics in the last instance in some fashion or

,

anothe r of a mate rial nature ? Th e M anichaeans conceived H im as

some thing material namely as a luminous body — an opinion which
, ,
302 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OPH Y
th e young Augustine shared Bu t O rigen answered this obj ection by
.

pointing out that the Eter nal God is neithe r mutable no r changeable
as is the material world and that H e both as spirit and as unextended
, , ,

is not confined to a ny one place As a consequence H e is indi visible

—
.

and hence cannot be of a co rpo real nature With the C appadocians .

,

the immateriality and the transcendency of God appear as fu lly\

accepted and r ecei ved doctrines and are held most tenaciously Very .

early despite the inroads of a negati v e theology we ar e confronted

, ,

with a whole series of definite and precise pr edications concerning

God namely the knowledge of H i s uniqueness of H is eternity of
, , , ,

H is absoluteness of H is infinity and of H is omnipotence O f this

, , .

last O rigen noted that it is not referable to anything hateful unj ust , ,

o r evil and not to anything that is contrary to nature but only to

, ,
-

whatever is abo ve and beyond nature .

4. C REATI O N

A special and specifically C hristian problem was th e concept of

creation This p r oblem became v ery a cute because of the a ccount of
.

creation contained in the Bible H ow may we interp ret this account

.

philosophically
I de as Unde r P latoni c influence S t C lement of A lexandria r ecog
.
, .

ni z ed that exemplary ideas formed the groundwork fo r creation and

made possible the realization of the intelligible world mu ndus intelli ,

g i bilis B u
. t he di f
f e r ed fr om P lato and N eo P latonism in that in —
,

confo rmity with the biblical na r rative he introduced the concept of ,

c reati on as a production out of nothing which took place in time as ,

the result of an act of the divine will

fi
.

Time Bu t it was precisely the time element whi ch a fforded such

.

dif culties that its proponents became irresolute and vacillating when
they taught the doctrine of creation out of nothing S ome championed .

an eternal creation but only insofa r as the divine act of the will is
conce r ned whereas its realization took place in time This was the
, .
_

view of S t C lement O the r s held that not only the will act but also the
. .
-

world itself were eternal in the sense that eve r new worlds are
,

constantly a rising and disappeari ng from eter nity to eternity This .

was O rigen s view In this concept it is e vident that Aristotle s in flu

’
.
’

ence is paramount O thers maintained that time began only with this
.

world whereas the creative act itself is t imeless A cco rdingly we

,
.
,

have on the one hand worlds such as those o f immaterial be ings

, ,
'

which have nothing at all to do with t me ; and on the other hand 1 ,“

304 M ED AE A I V L P H ILOSOPH Y
a wo rld of objective immanent and imper so
, ,

into the notion of a pe r sonal G od These .

enti re essence of God and in H im we find

is the ete rnal wi sdom I n which

the L ogos is the Word through which God exp resses H imself
Logos is consequently considered as the S o n of God in whom
begets H imself again .

Th e Lo gos and th e w o r ld Th e Logos is b rought into r el

.

also with c reation H e is its original exempla r

.
,

its law of de velopment Just as in th e Timaeus the wo rld

.

by the Demiu rge by means of the ete rnal ideas so he re ,

that is c reated owes its c reation to the Logos Whateve r .

and of law we find in the wo rld p roceeds from the Logo

reason the wo rld is not
H is r eflection and we can inte rpret it
and as a path that leads to God H imself The Logos b ridges .

chasm b etween God and the wo r ld as the NCO P latonic middle bei -

had been designed to do .

Th e Logo s an d man In S till a thi rd respect the Lo gos ha

.

meaning fo r man H e is fo r him the o riginal exempla

.

itu al ideal the moral measu r e o f duty which ele v ate

,

th e S hee r wo r ldly and all too human and unites him to God

the late r teaching conce rning the divine in man concerning ,

science as the voice of God o r as a di vine S tandar d o r rule ,

cerning the sparks of the so ul is in fact sketched out fo r us in

conceptions .

Th e Logo s and b ec omin g F inally th e concept of the Logos

.
,

fies the beginning of a theo ry of evolution Th e contents of the .

a re seedlike tendencie s o r p redispositions ( A67 w pp i) 0; o e a n xo

,

S toics had alr eady decla r ed Acco r ding to S t Justin these are
. .

of Ch ristianity al ready present in heathen philosophy In Chris .

these seeds would reach thei r full growth but ,

always been p resent in it so that we can with ,

title Ch r istian to heathen philosophe rs In such .

again indicates a uniti ve role No t only in .

but also in the

outlines of all progress
beginnings all fo rms a
,

D e P r in i iis I
( c
p , ,S
in the Godhead it is e ,
 TH E BEG INNINGS OF P ATRISTIC PH ILOSO PH Y 305

that renowned teaching lex eter na which through Augustine has ,

a ,

become the common he ritage of C hristian speculation .

6 . MAN
Ro yal cr eatu re
philosophy devoted special attention to
. P atristic
man Nemesiu s ( De Natu r a H o minis c 5 32 ; P G Vol X L) sum
.
, . . .

mar iz ed the essen tials of this teaching in his P anegyr icus M an is a .

royal creature In the gradations of being which both S t Gr egory of

. .

Nyssa and Nemesius conside red to be str atified in ino rganic bodies ,

plants and men man stands at the apex O nly th e angels surpass
, , . ,

h im M an completes the vi sible material wo r ld because he r ec apitulates

.

w ithin himself all othe r beings below him Thus he is actually a .

,

w orld in miniatu r e a mic r ocosm H e was created acco r ding to the , .

image of God ; then as a consequence of his par ticipation in the ,

Logos he is akin to the mind and spi r it of God so that he is able

, ,

in a way to under stand the di vine essence by considering himself ,

especially I f he has su cceeded in liberating himself from the fle sh and

lives entirely acco r ding to the spi rit .

M iddle being M an belongs to a still mo r e sublime kingdom

.
,

standing as a mediator between the sensory and the spiritual We .

can moreove r recognize his intermediate position between good and

, ,

evil : M an can choose either the sensory material or th e supernatu ral -

Spiritual wo rld and by his choice eithe r fall to the earth or become
,

a heavenly man
“ ”

fi
.

Freedom P recisely fo r this reason we know that man is free

.

( a f ém fe subjecto to his own

os
,
“
that he possesses self
determination and is by natu re not subser vient to any othe r powe r .

O rigen and in dependen ce on him Grego r y of Nyssa explain that

, ,

man may abuse his freedom to perform evil because man s being ’

is created contingent Whereas God possesses the reason fo r H is

, .

Be ing in H imself and as a consequence is necessary and immu t

able created beings have had a beginning and hence are mutable
, .

In this mutability grounded in the essential contingency of th e ,

E eat e we possess the metaphysi cal reason fo r evil Another tea ch

r ur , .

ing that has oftentimes been propounded since th e days of O rigen

is one patently influenced by th e biblical narrative namely that , ,

the mortality of man as well as his sexuality are the result of sin .

7 . TH E S O U L
I ts e ssence In man the subj ect of most interest has always been the
.
306 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO S OP H Y
soul In the P atristic period man was viewed first of all as a soul Bu t
. .

what is th e soul ? Tertullian encountered difficulties when he attempted

to defi ne it ; he considered it to be nothing more than a body , co r

porcal matter though of a finer quality

, .

1 ) Bo dy o r spir it ? Th e r efle ctions of the S toi cs were among the

decisive elements with regard to this questi on Another was th e .

consideration H o w can sensation whi ch is corporeal in n aiu e a ffe t

: ,
r , c

th e soul ? In O rigen it was already clear that the soul is a spirit ; it is

a k in to God S t Gregory of Nyssa proved the I mmateriality of the so u l

’

. .

by means of man s thinking and plan ning These are spiritual act I
’
. IV

ties so that the seat of these activities the Nou s must also be
, , ,
.

immaterial .

2 ) S bstance o r f r m? The unity individuality and substantiality

u o , ,

of the soul are stressed in P atristic philosophy more strongly than

th ey were in Greek philosophy As S t Gregory of Nyssa states . .
,

Th e soul is a created livi ng rational substan ce whi ch of itself

“

, ,

bestows upon an organi c and sensitive body the power of life and
of perception as long as the nature whi h is capable of s pporting
, c u

it perdures in existen ce ( M a r 29 B) A s a consequen ce Nemesiu s

”
c .
, .
,

was opposed to the do ctrine that would divide the sOu l into vegeta
tive and sensitive parts for these would be only potencies of the
,

rational soul and would not adequately represent the soul in itself
as the principle of life as P lato and Aristotle con ceived it to be
,
.

H e is also adverse to the A ristotelian des cription of the soul as a n

entelechy be cause this would reduce it to a mere quality or form

,

of the body and would not delineate it as something existing by

,

itself and possessing independence ( D e N at H ist A very . .

,

keen observation ! Act ally within the P eripatos of Ar istotle it was

u

definitively proved that Ar istotle had not con ceived of a substantial

soul as we have already seen S ome critics have said th at s carcely
, .

any other C hristian philosopher before N emesiu s revealed in su ch a

manner the weakness of the Aristotelian con cept of the
recognized the impossibility of r e conciling it with the C
notion We are acutely aware that in C hristian spe ula
. c

was thought to be more than a form When later the .

des cribed as the form of the body we must understand that ,

notion must be con ceived in a m h more substantial sense tha uc

had been by Aristotle Th is notion must be taken rather in

.

meaning of the P latonic eido wh i ch alone can be considere s,

308 M ED AEVA I L PH ILOSOP H Y

8 . MORALITY
Th e good . N owhere
can we so easily discern the synthesis of
H ellenis m and Ch r i stI anI ty as in ethics in which P lato and the
“

,
i

S toics appea r as the fo rerun ne r s as it we r e of C hristianity P lato , , .

u rged men to become like to God The same c r y is rai sed in the .

Bible : Yo u the r e fore are to be perfect e ven as you r hea venly Father
“

is pe rfect ( M t ”
In o r de r to gi ve a philosophical basis to their
.

ethics the schola r s had recou rse to a P latonic motif : Th e life of

,

man and his way of life a r e tr aced fo r him by the Logos This Logos .

of which he wrote is the di vine Lo gos As O rigen declared : There .

“

is no other Logos than C hri st the Logos of God who I S with the , ,

Father and by whom all things we re made ; and ther e is no other

life than the S on of God who says : I am the way the truth and ‘

the life S t C lement writes that the S toic moral fo rmula which is
.
’
.

comp rised by the ph rase right reason denoted nothing more than “

the di vine Logos ; it is the o r der of nature with which we must be

in acco r d And when S t Grego r y of Nyssa recognized that man s
. .
’

purpose in life was to share in the archetype of all good in God , ,

what is possible through this is the fact that the human spirit con
tain s all those goods which are p rope r to the di vine spirit even ,

though they are only copies shee r imitations Just as the sun is , .

reflected in the mirro r so in this conception P latonism and P latonic

,

doctrine unmistakably r eappear P r ecisely how much S toic ph ilo so .

phy contr ibuted in particula r to the development of C hristian mor al

doctrine is well known Lactantiu s howe ve r realized that the o bjec
.
, ,

ti ve mor al law is not unequi vocally established by recourse to either

the natu re o r to the reason of man .

Co ns cienc e O nly when there is a question of a better nature

.
,

that natu r e of which we become aware by means of our cons cious

ness of value and of ou r conscience are we able to perceive th e ,
'

mo r al good in a life that is lived in accord with the di ctates of

natu re S toic philosophy had already touched upon this topic Epi c
. .

tetus possessed the notion of conscience ( S yneidesis ) as h ad P hilo ; ,

it was C icero however who introduced the term co ns ience into

, ,
c

philosophical terminology S t P aul himself had d r awn his notion

. .

from popular S toic philosophy then current Under the influence .

of these stimuli a p rominent place was accorded conscience in

,

mo r ality by the F athers of the C hu r ch To them conscience is the .

subjecti ve exp ression of the objective mo ral law and at the same
 TH E B EGINNI NGS O F PATRI STIC P H ILOSOPH Y 3

time the voice of God AS S t Grego r y of Naz ian z en said In al

. .
,

things permit me to be counselled by reason and the j udgment 0

God O ften I will be convinced by it even when no one r aises a
.

accusi ng finger at me By it I will be liberated even when many co n

.
,

demn me No one can es cape this court which has its t r ibunal w ith i
.
,

we should not fail to heed it and by it we should strike out upo

right road in life .
C H A P TE R

ST . AU GU S T I NE TE A C H E R OF TH E WE S T

S t A ugustine
. is the embodiment of P atristi c wisdom As Grabmann .

points o t P atristic influence upon mediae val philosophy is synony

u ,
“

mous with the continued existence and the continued influence of

S t Aug stine on the M iddle Ages
. u That we are able to give him .

the title Teacher of the West proves that his greatness was not
“ ”

limited to the M iddle Ages H e is one of the pillars of C hristian phi

.

lo s ph y for all time In G ilso n s words With S t Augustine we rea ch

’ “
o .
, .

the apex of P atristic and perhaps of all C h ristian philosophy .

”

IFE L

M ore than ordinarily in the case of S t A ugustine we find that

, .

human and natural antecedents play an important role in an under

standing of his thought O ver and ove r again he discloses the
.

temperament with which h e was endowed by his P unic blood the ,

stanchness of his Roman will and especially the nobility of that

,

heart to whi ch nothing human was foreign but which never became
fixed on the plane of the sheerly human .

S t Augustine was born at Tagaste in 35 4 the son of a heathen

.
,

father and a C hristian mo ther Th e vi ctim of the spirit and the.

mor als of his age he spent anything but an uneven tful youth While
,
.

speaking of his days as a student of rhetori c at C arthage he tells ,

us : following the normal order of study I had come to a book of

“

C icero That particular book is called H o t n si s and contained

. r e u

an exhortation to philo sop h y Q uite definitely it changed the dir ec

.

tion of my mind altered by prayers to You O Lord and gave me

, , ,

a new purpose and ambition S uddenly all the vanity I had hoped
.

in I saw as worthless and with an in credible intensity of desire I

longed after immortal wisdom I had begun that .

by whi ch I was to return to You H o w did I then .

God how did I b rn to wing upwards from earthly d

,
u

310
312 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
in the fo rm of a dialogue between S t A ugustine and .

reason conce rning knowledge truth wisdom and immortality , , , .

Ver a Religio ne an essay on faith and knowledge De Lib .

Ar bitr io ( 388 on th e freedom of the will and the o rigin

e vil De Tr initate ( 400
. a voluminous work on the relation
between r e velation and reason and at the same time an attempt with
the aid of inte rio r contemplation to explain the M ost Blessed Trinity .

D e Civitate D ei ( 413 in twenty books S t Augustine s master , .

’

piece which contains a discussion of the Roman Empire of the West ,

which was about to disappear an d at the same time presents mankind ,

a philosophy of uni versal history .

Editions

M igne Patr ologia Latina XXXI I XL VI I C or pu s S cr iptor u m

, ,
— ’

asticor u m Latin or u m; X I I X X V XX VI II XXXI I I XXXI V X L , , , , , ,

XLI V LI —LI I I , , LX , L I II X . O e u vr es de S aint A u gu stin ( P aris : De scle e

'

Br wer 19 36ou ,

English Tr an sl atio n s

Th e Wor ks of Au r eliu s A u gu stin u s ed M , . . Dob bs ( Ed in b u r gh ,

18 7 1
1 8 76 , 1 6 Re p rinted with c h anges in S elect Li br ar y of th e Nic
and P ost Nice ne Fath er s
-
a o f th e C h ur ch ( New Y rk :
o P . S ch ff, 18
14 v ls — A new t anslati n f s me f S t A g stine s
’
o . r o o o o . u u

f und in An i nt Ch i ti n Wr it a series edit d by J annes Q asten

o
‘

c e r s a er s , e o u

and J seph C P l mpe ( W stminster M d Th Newman P ress 19 47 ff)

o . u e , . : e ,
.

and in Th F th f th C h h
e a series edited
a b y L dwi
er sg S chopp e ur c , u o

( N w Y r
e k Fat h ers f t h
o C h r h I n
: 1 9 4 8 B i W i ti n go f e u c ,
c.
,
— as c r s o

S t A g tin edited b y W J O ates ( N w Y r k Rand m H

. u us e, se . . e o : o ou ,

Se veral translati ns f th C nf i n am ng th em th ft reprinted

o o e o ess o s, o e o -

translati n by P sey and th re ent n b y Frank S h d ( N w Y rk

o u , e c o e ee e o :

S h d and Ward I n S me f S t A g stin e s w r k s are avail

’
ee , c
.
,
o o . u u o

able in vari s p ket editi ns ou oc o .

Bib liography

J rke A ugu stin e s f Wis do m ( M ilwau k ee : Th e r

’
V . . Bou , Q u es t o B u ce

P u bl sh i ing C o mp any ,
— F . C ayre I nit ti ,
a on it la ph iloso ph ie de S .

Au gu stin ( P aris F C Co lest n H i p y (W

or y ofP h ilos o h est
— t
, . .
p o , s

minster M d , . : Th
et al A M o n u me n t S t A u gu s tin e ( Lo
to . nd n o : S h ee d and Ward ,

E . G il sn o , I n tr oductio n d l étu de de S
’
. A u gus tin ( 2 d P ari c .
,
s,

H istor y o f C h r is tian P h ilos oph y in th e M iddle Ages ( New Y o r k

Random H o u se, 70 8 , 89 5 96
1—
5 — .
— M Grabmann,
. Der go ttlich e
 ST . AU GUSTI NE TEAC H ER OF ,
TH E WE ST 313

Gr u nd me nsch lich es Wah r h eitser k enntnis

Augustin u nd Th o mas nach

fi
fi
vo n Aq u in Die G r u ndgedan k e n des heilige n Augustinus ber
l
Se e e u n d Go t ( 2 d cd ,
t n — G eo rg vo n H erd ing, Au gu stin
.

— H S M arro u S A u ustin e t la
. .
, g n . d e la cu ltu r e cla ssi q u e
( 2n d cd , .

P aris, —
J M arti n , S t .A u gu s ti n ( P aris , .
— An to n P e is
g ,
“
Th e M ind of S t Au gu stine , M e d
.i a e va l S tu di es V I ,
1 944 ,
1 —61 , .

H P ope, S t Au gustine of H ippo ( Westminster, M d : Th e Newman

. . .

P ress, — E P o r talie art Au gu stin, in Dictionnair e de Th éologie

” “
. .
,

Cath oliq ue I , 226 8 2472 — E P rzywara, A n Au gu stin e S ynth esis ( New

,
-
. .

Yo rk : S h eed and Ward, — A C V ega, S t Augus tine ( P hilade l . . .

h ia P eter R ei lly C m any H Z i m m er m ann A u f de m Wege

p : o p , , .

z u Augustinus

TRU TH
Viewed histo rically as well as systematically the fir st p roblem ,

touched upon in Augustinian speculation is tr uth Is the re such a .

thing as t r uth ? H o w do we a r ri v e at it ? What is it ?

1 . THERE S UC H A THING As TRU TH ?

Is

Afte r S t Augustine had been led astr ay by M anichaeanism he

.
,

began to doubt about t ruth in general H e asked himself : S hould .

we not exercise mo r e caution in ou r speech because we a re not ,

able to discove r certain truth ? And should we not content our sel ves
instead with opinions whose r elativity is clea r to us as did the
“ ”
,

members of th e Young Academy in thei r scepticism C icero fo r , ,

example who wished only to have magnificent opinions ?

,
“ ”

Augustine had not only in this period but th roughout his life
, ,

ponde red on this p roblem of the possibility of absolute truth ( Co ntr a

Acade m III 11 ; S olil II 1 1 ; De Beata Vita II 7 ; D e Lib Ar bit
,
.
, , , , , .

II 3 7 ; De Ver a Religio ne 39 72 ; De Tr in X 10 ; De Civ Dei

, , , , , .
,

XI , H is so lution appears to be almost modern H e did not .

begin with tr anscendental truths as had ancient philosophy b u t with ,

the clearly given fa cts of experience as Descar tes will do later ,

on O ne may doubt about things beyond one s conscious perception

.
’

but no one can doubt about the fact that he li ves remembe rs
“

, ,

e nte r ta i ns opinions thinks knows and j udges Fo r when he doubts

, , , .
,

h e li ves when he doubts he knows that he may not give his ,

assent to a proposition without ha ving a reason S hould he t ry to .

doubt about whatever else he may choose of this final doubt he ,

cannot doubt ( De Tr in X ”
O r as he stated so concisely in .
, , ,
314 M ED IAEVAL PH ILOSO PHY
D e Civitate De i XI 26 : If I err I am ( S i ni m fullor s u m) By
, , ,
e , .

this theo r y S t Augustine un covered a new spe ies of truth the

. c ,

truths of cons ciousness and through them he belie ved that he had,
‘

at least in principle o ve rcome sceptI CI sm; for in them we possess

that against which scepticism had in general always struggled .

2 . N O TI O N OF TRU TH
In this matter S t Augustine assumes a clear and pre cise co ncep
.

of truth : tru th must always be necessary and eternal This .

ment of course holds true only for those tr uths that

, ,

with ideal facts facts of the ideal order as found in

, ,

such as 7 l 3 10 Everyone who possesses the use of

—
.

that this is a uni ve r sally v alid proposition 1 affirmed .

“

changing mathematical truth is commonly possessed b

any othe r thinking person ( h anc er go in r r u ptibilem ”
co

tate m dixi mihi et alicu i r atiocin an ti es se co mmu ne m — De Lib .

II 8 , This would not be true of those things which we exp

,

by means of concrete sense perception in conne ction with this

body We cannot be certain that they will always remain true
.

future even if they are t rue now Like P lato in the

, .

Th eaetet s so he arrived at his notion of truth in the idea

u ,

by means of mathematics By this method S t Au gustine had . .

pated not only De scartes s C gito e go s m b u t al so H ume s ’

o , r u ,
’

of the validity of sense experien ce and Leibniz distinction b etw ee ’

factual and rational t ruths .

3 . S O U RCE OF TRU TH
S en se
exper ience By this concept we tou ch upon th e problem 0
.

the source of truth Bu t we must understand that fo r S t August

. .

this sou r ce is not to be found in the realm of sense experience

one thing the material world is contingent ; the propositio
,

H e r aclitus ( material real ty 5 I n a state of flux ) is endor sed not on

i 1

by P lato but also by S t Augustine The soul fu rthermore must len. .

, ,

as it were something of itself to these sense perceptions so that

, ,

can become cons cious of them and that they can have being ( D

en im is f o r man dis g iddam s u bst n tiae s ae

e D e Tr in X 5
u a u — .
, , ,

soul does not accept these perceptions passively but devotes to

special activity ( p o er

possesses rules and r

316 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OPH Y
to become visible j ust as th e sun r enders visual all things within
,

r ays This meaning was shared by P lotinus as were in general t

.
,

Neo P latonic analogi es of ligh t

-
.

AS a c o nsequence we may n o t hold that S t A ugustine follow

“

.
,

only his religious convi ctions calls upon God for help like , ,

machina to bolste r his doctrine of the theo ry of knowledge

,

cedu t e was rather inhe r ent I n th e whole P lato

lation which always saw the perfe ct standing

,

This permi
which a re only partial truths truth itself or truth as such just , ,

in the individual good r ecognized good itself S t Augustine . .

supposes concepts rules and ete rnal exemplar y ideas ( idea

, ,
e,

r atio nes aeter n ae r e u lae

g ) which
, enter into the constitution,of ,

the foundation fo r all truth Acco r ding to him howeve r t

, .
, ,

longe r belong exclusively to the human mind by virtue of

essence but to a much more sublime foundation the Divine
, ,

S pi r it This Mi nd forms the mu ndu s intelligibilis the inte “

.
,

wo rld From this world as from a sta rting point these ideas S
.

human mind into motion by means of direct illuminations “ ”

n atu r a inter o s ita as he expresses it ( D e M u s VI 1 1 )

p , .
, , ,

I nter p retati o ns o f th e theo ry of ill uminatio n 1 ) O nto logical .

tatio n The interpretation of thi s di v ine illumination has bee

p r e .

subject of mu ch debate M any expressions of S t Augustine . .

,

natur a in ter pos ita fo r example a r e closely akin to

, ,

doctrine that ou r reason directly contemplates the idea

of God and as a conseq uence a rrives ultimately at the
changeable and eternal Truth This is the View of
, .

Gioberti Ub agh s H essen To refute this interp retation

"

, , .

allege the fact that by it we would no longe r need

existence of God S t Augustine however frequently
. .
, ,

o ffers us such demonstrations Lik ewis .

make sense kn
tine we S tand in di re need of such knowledge .

capable of contemplating the things of God in thei r eternal exem

causes : in ipsis r atio nib s q u ibu s facta s nt ( De G n ad u u e .

V 16, , Th e intuitive immediate vision of God furthermore i , ,

“
final end not in this world but in the next here upon “ ” “

we encounte r intuitive vision only in the ra re instan ces of my

visionaries such ,

o n S t Au ust in
g
.
 ST A UGUSTINE TEAC H ER O F
.
, TH E WEST 317

C ayr é understand by these ontologistic sounding phrases only figures ,

an d not statements that a r e to be taken lite r ally .

2) Co ncor distic inter pr etatio n This view of S t Augustine may . .

also be explained by the con cor distic inte rpretation This exp lanation .

reduces the di vine illumination to the intellectu s agens but at the same
time attenuates it app reciably This is the view of such s cholars as .

Zigliara Lepidi C h Boyer F C ay re This interp retation was initiated

, , .
, . .

by S t Thomas Aquinas ( S T I 84
. who in the lu men intellect ale . .
, , ,
u

of S t Augustine tried to see only anothe r formulation fo r the intel

.
_

lectu s age ns Aquinas was accustomed to say that it irradiated the

“ ”
.

phantasms and thus became the source of spi ritual truth This intel .

lectu s agens sha r ed in the unc r eated light just as all c r eated beings
parti cipate in the Fi r st C ause which p reserves all things in existence ,

and co —operates eve rywhere and with eve rything As P o r talié has .

so co rrectly maintained howe ver we should hold that God an d not , ,

man assumes the role of the intellectu s agens if we wish to do justice ,

to S t Augustine
. .

3) Th e histo r ical inter pr etatio n Th e hi sto r ical inte rpretation seeks .

t
o u nde r stand S t Augustine through the medium of his own writings
. .

It begins by declaring that S t Augustine sought to explain the copy .

of the original image by mean s of illumination and not conve rsely , ,

the highe r by the lower as every theo ry of abstraction must do and , ,

also as must the doctrine of the intelle tu s agens at least in its t radi c ,

tio n al N eo S cholasti c interpretation

-
Th is historical explanation is .

represented by such autho ritie s as Grabmann Gilson and Joli vet The , , .

last named Speaks of a moderate intuitionalism he found in S t Augus .

tion C onsequently we can maintain that S t Augustine by his theo ry

.
, .
,

of divine illumination sought to teach an epistemological apriorism as ,

basic to his philosophy H e could not however refe r only to supreme .

, ,

principles fo r the eternal reasons ( o r types ) in the mind of God

,

are all inclusi ve We therefore must find the sou rce fo r his do ctrine
-
.

in the gene ral direction of his position which was P latonism In his , . -

literary formulation however S t Augustine remaining always the , , .

,

vigorous orato r used rather vivid figures plu s dicens et min s volens
r , u

intelligi as Bonaventure w as ac customed to say of him

, .

4. TH E ESS ENCE OF TRUTH

We are now able to state what the essence of truth is according to
S t Augustine In general we must hold that truth is a property of
. .

ou r j udgments ; we must furthermore recognize its essence in the , ,

318 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS O PHY
conformity of our propositions with th e obj e ctive facts of the case or

fifi
the objective cir cumstances of a thing ( logi cal tr uth ) This was in .

A ristotle s mind when he said to quote the mediaeval ver sI o n of his

’

views : Ver u in de nientes icimus esse q o d est au t no n esse qu od u ,

n o n es t
( In de fi ning“
the tr u th we say that what is is or that what , , ,

is not is ,
S t Augustine also recognized this logi cal t r uth ;
.

in fact he star ted from it in his speculation Bu t he permitted it to .

recede into the background in order to clarify exactly what the source
of truth actually is namely the eternal ideas and eternal types in the
, ,

mind of God Tr uth then consists in the conformity of things with

.
, ,

th ese ideas and these the r atio nes the ide e th

,
—
, a ,

constitute the p r ope r essence of truth S in ce these ideas belong .

are God we may say that God is truth I n su ch a theory tr

, .

comes mo reo ve r something of the ontological order Truth is that “

.
, ,

which is ( ver u m est id q o d est) by which th e qu ad est no longer

”
u ,

denotes the conformity of the judgment with the true facts but ,

with the exemplary ideas in the mind of God In them S t Augustine .

detected as had P lato befo r e him true being

, ,
“
.

GOD

According
to what has been written the problem of God stands ,

in closest proximity to th problem of truth I there a God ? and e . S

what is H e ?
1 . TH E E X I S TENC E OF G OD

existence of God was as well established fo r S t Augustine as

Th e .

it was for the other F athers of the Ch urch by reason of the fact
that r concept of H im must be numbered among the fundamental
ou

notions of the mind as the S toi cs and S t P aul ( Rom

, assume . .

it to be H e fu rnished us n evertheless with several proofs for H is

.
, ,

existen e c .

Th e noological ( intu itive ) p roof for th e existence of God (p ro of

of God from ete rn al tr u ths ) O f these the noological proof was the .

one the most dear to him Th e essen ce o f this argument can be . -

found in De Lib r o A bit io 11 3—13 and De Ver a Religio ne 29 31

e r r , , , ,
—
.

H is r easoning runs as follows : M an finds in the a cts of h is soul s

’

spiritual life in his thinking feeling wi lling the eternal im

—
, , ,

mutable and necessary tr uths

, .

1 ) Abso lu te t u th M an may o ccasionally ove r look them err con

r .
,
320 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOP H Y
by logical thought Bu t it is fa r mo re than this Logical v alidity is
. .

only one of the many notes that belong to spirit The whole actual .
,

spirit is always a living spirit And S t Augustine in addition saw . .

, ,

in life as did an tiquity in gene r al something abo ve and beyond

, ,

mere self motion which of itself is non intellectual and irr ational
-
,
-
.

H e saw in life an essential kinship with the Logo s whi ch info rms ,

it and in a special way nou rishes the life of the soul H e realized
, , .

that the soul in its life and in its actions shared in the necessa ry
, , ,

eternal unchangeable truth of God When for this reason he speaks to

, .

God in his Co nfessio ns : Yet all the time You wer e mo r e inwa r d than “

the innermost place of my hea r t and loftie r th an the highest ( Co nf ”

,

III 6 ; ed S h eed pp 48
, .and again : Late have I lo ved Thee O
, .
“

Beauty so ancient and so new ; late ha v e I lo v ed Thee ! F or behold ,

Thou wer t within me and I outside ; and I sought Thee outside ,

”

( ibi d X 28 ;
. ed
, S h ee d ,p 23 6 ) o r when he calls
. God the Life of, .

ou r life : You r God is the Life of you r life ( ibid X 6 20; ed

“
.
, , , .

S h ee d p , these ar e not mere rheto rical expressions but are

.
,

P latonisms and must be unde r stood as such We become ce r tain of .

this when we examine his teaching on memo ry ( ibid X 18 It is .

, , ,

from P latonism that Augustine s teaching receives its importance ’

.

P r ecisely in thi s fashi o n is the li ving soul a pathway to the living

God We ha ve here the Ch ristian de velopment of the P latonic
.

dialectical approach to God .

Oth er proo fs In addition to the no etical p roof fo r the

.

of God S t Augustine de veloped also the teleological p syc

, .
,

and mo ral p roofs F o r an insight into them consult fo r .

, ,

what G rabmann Gr u ndgedan ken des h l Au gu stinus u b er die

, .

u nt Gott o f fers on the subject S ee also Vernon Bou r ke Augu stin e

, .
,

Q u est of Wis do m pages 94 ,

2 . TH E ESS ENCE OF G OD

Th eribu tes of G od When S t Augustine speaks of the essene

att . .

of God he both app reciates and stresses the fact that the i nfinite
,

is ab o ve and beyond the comprehension of ou r finite

co mpr eh e ndis n o n est De u s ( If you comp r ehend
“

P r ecisely because of this our concepts may be ,

only analogically We must as fa r as we are able .

“

, ,

good without belonging to the category

,

without pertaining to the category of qua

without need ; as abo ve all things but wi ,
 ST . AUGUSTINE , TE ACHE R O F TH E W E ST 321

taining all things but H imself not contained ; as truly pr esent e very
,

wher e but without a where as eternal but without time ; as a

,
‘

,
’

creato r of all things changeable but without undergoing any change ,

in H imself ; as fr ee from all su ffering ( D Tr in V Taking ”

e .
, ,

these notions at thei r face value God is both O ne and Unique ; H e ,

is infinitely perfect and eternal ; and especially is H e Being Itself :

Ev eryth ing that is in God is being ( I n P s serm 2 n
“ ”
. .
.
,

God is furthermore th e archetypal good that b n m o mnis b o ni , o u

( D e Tr in VIII 3 th
. r ough
, whom e ve,r ything, is good that is
oo d o r has been good H e is finally th e F irst C ause of the world
‘

g .
, , .

I deas in th e Divin e M ind A ll beings outside of God are only .

rep roductions of the o riginal exemplars ( xempla ia f mae ideae e r , or , ,

s ecies
p ti n es
) existing
, ra in H is mind O nly by parti cipation in the
o .

Di vine Being do other beings come into existence S t Augustine is . .

an adherent of the do ctrine of ideas but following the example of ,

P hilo he transfe r red the ideas to the mind of God Th ey no longer

, .

form an impersonal logical world as they did for P lato but are ,

conceived as belonging to God This marks a significant advance in .

philosophical speculation O n the one hand the ideas now have a .

,

basis and on the other we ar e enabled to arrive at an approach

, ,

which leads us to the fullness and the richness of the D ivine Nature .

Without falling victim to the pantheistic doctrine of emanation as

advanced by the Neo P latonists which renders all things identical-
,

z: anistcncc everyone can conver se intelligently about God fo r the whole world ,

mirrors the ri chness of H is innermost being it reprodu ces the divine ,

exemplars ( exemplarism ) Anyone who knows how to interpret .

thei r symbolism can e verywhere dis cern di vine wisdom a thought ,

which was a fertile source of meditation for the mystics .

CREAT ION
C reation
is thus a realization of the idea s whi ch are contained in
what is in itself a still ri cher fullness of God .

1 WH Y ?
.

Why did creation take place ? No better author can the re be “

than God ; no better art than H is word ; no better cause why than ,

a good God S h ould make a good creature A n d this P lato praised .

as the j ustest cause of th e world s creation ( De Civ Dei XI 2 1 ; ’

.
, ,

ed Dent Vol I p 330)

.
, .
, .
 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO SO PHY
2 . WHAT ?
OF

O f what was it made ? I n an sw er to this question Augusti n e dif

fers
f

from P lato For a C hr istian philosopher there can be no such thing

.

as eter nal matter H e took Upon himself as a consequence the

.
, ,

further development of the only two other possibilities : t h e N eo

P latonic theory of emanation and the C hristian tea ching of creation
fi
,

out of nothing S ince the first theory ultimately leads to the iden ti ca
.

tion of the finite and contingent with th e nature of God for Aug ustine ,

only creation out of nothing remained plausible ; it was the theory

h e advanced In this way he rejected all emanation and at the
.

same time discarded all connection with Neo P latonism on a po I n t -

where C hristian speculation can toler ate it least .

3 WHEN ?
.

The when of creation lies in eternity i e outside t1 me Time ,

. .
,
.

begi ns only with the creation of the material world Th e q uestion .

,

why the world was not created earlier o r later thus be comes mean
ingle ss S u ch a q uestion presupposes by the use of the terms earlier
“ ”
.
,

and later th at time was already in existence ; but th is j ust as

“

,
”
,

space is present only with creation If anyone S hould wish to ask

, .
“

fi
What would God have done before creation ? we would answer
H e has prepared a pla ce in hell for those who want to know too
much ( Co n XI O r as Luther translated th e original state
, ,

ment into Ge rman : God sat down behind a ha z el b u s h and made

S wit ches to punish those who asked idle uestions
q .

4 . TH E C OS M I C P ROCES S
M atter . S t A ugustine
explained the co rse of the cosmic pro ess
. u c

whi ch began with creation by means of three factors : matter time , ,

and eternal forms M atter ( Co nf XII 6 8 ) is the substratum of all

.
,
—

created being Reality s h ould n ot be denied created being be cause

.
,

in that case the idea alone would be real In this respe ct the C h ristian .

philosopher was of a different mind from P lato although he too , , ,

was of the opinion that only the original exemplars in th e mind

of God are genuine and full truth and alone possess complete
actuality Imitations are only imita tions but they are realities even
.
, ,

though of a lesser kind Despite this con cept matter appears to

.
,

S t Augustine to be practically nothing ( pr ope nihil) We can see

“ ”
. .

very clearly how P latonism made its influence felt in later times .
324 M ED IAEVAL PH ILOSOPHY
the p resent . Bu t present is without continuity : pr aesens au tem
th e

n u llu m h ab et s atiu m says S t A ugustine as will Klages later on

fi
p , . .

Bu t if it should be sp read o v e r a pe r iod it would become divisible ,

and be cause of its divisib i fy would have to be tr a versed and then ,

the re would be a past and a future and the moment would not ,

be enti rely this p resent moment ( Co nf XI Wh y ar e we con .

, ,
.

s cious of time in the sense of some thing extended ? I S it perhaps the , ,

soul whi ch is extended by r eason of its memory and its p revision ?

This is the answe r maintains S t Augu stI ne And when he names
, . .

and explains the per ception of time in terms of spiritual extension

ste n tio i siu s animi and asse r ts that time is measured by the
( di p )
spirit itself he app roaches ve ry closely to the modern notion — on this
,

occasion to the Kantian view of time .

Fo rm 1 ) P imacy of th e idea Bu t the most important item in

. r .

the cosmic p rocess is the form This facto r is not only at the very .

cente r of the Augustinian theo r y of knowledge but also at that of

h is metaphysics There are ideas There a r e distinct basic fo rms ; they
“
. .

are also the permanent unchangeable essences of things They them

, .

selves are not formed As a consequence they remain eternally the

.

same and ar e to be found in the mind of God Whereas they them .

s elves neithe r had a beginning no r will have an end eve rything else ,

is fashioned afte r thei r likeness that is everything else that can either
, ,

begin o f end and actually begins and ends (De Div Quaes 83 qu ”
. .
, ,
.

46, E ve ry c r eated being even matte r requires a form A lth ough we

, , .

must conceive matte r to be without a fo rm it has actually never existed ,

without a fo rm That the species and gener a of created beings are

.

forms is quite e vident Bu t S t Augustine appears to have been

. .

inclined to the opinion that the individual at least every human ,

individual is based upon a p aeco nceptio divina Th e formation of

,
r .

matter in cr eation as S till existing outside of time took place all

, ,

at once ( simultaneous creation ) because succession is possible only ,

if time begins with cr eation For this reason according to Augu stine . , ,

the biblical account of c reation with its wo rk of six days must be

under stood figur ati vely In the cr eation of forms however we can

fi
.
, ,

at least detect this diffe rence many things such as the day the
—
, ,

r mamen t,
the earth the ocean ai r fire and the human soul
, , , , ,

appeared immediately in their final definitive form wh ereas other ,

fo rmed objects such as li ving beings and the b ody of man appeared
, ,

only gradually and at the end of an evolutiona ry pro cess .

2) S ee d f o r ces ( ger minal r easo ns ) Th e fo rms are t h erefore seed .

, ,
 ST . A U GUS TI NE TEACHER O F,
TH E WE ST 325

forces ( atio nes se minales seu causales ) which reach maturity only
r

afte r some time has elapsed Augustine here appropriated for him .

self the Aéy pn of the S toics and thereby introduced the

oc a rr e a n xoc
'

idea of e volution into the cosmi c p rocess This is however not the .
, ,

modern version of evolution whi ch teaches that species as such came

into existence by chance or by purely fo r tuitous development ; it is
'

rather the ancient con cept which taught that evolution S tarted from
already existent species This concept of e volution returns to the .

dialectics of P lato by way both of the Stoics and of Ar istotle and in

modern times by way of the diale ctics of H egel What S t Augustine . .

sought to S tress in the cosmic process was the fo rm and its powe r .

By so doing he also emphasized the omniscien ce and the omnipotence

of God In the cosmic process space and time can be edu ced and
.
,

supported only from what God has begotten by the Wor d of H is

S pirit As they were fo r P lato space and time are fo r S t A ugustine
.
, .

only the nu rse the place where becoming tr anspi res Bu t God how
, .
,

eve r is the F athe r and from H im come both being and life
, , .

TH E S O UL
Among
the chief con cerns of S t Augustine we may numbe r his .

interest in the soul I desire with great longing to know God and
.
“

my soul Nothing else besides ? No nothing else ( S ol 1 2

.
,
”
.
, , ,

Th e manne r in which he busied himself with the soul his p r ofound ,

insight his skill in the description and classification of spi ritual emo
,

tions and his sympathetic understanding S how S t Augustine as a

, .

man of rare psy chologi cal talent What we cannot say of m any .

modern textbooks of psychology we can without fear of contr adiction

maintain of his Co nfessio ns that they proceed from and r e veal a ,

genuine and solid knowledge of man H e did not however remain .

, ,

immu red in psy chology but he inter ested himself in those great ,

philosophical p roblems which are conne cted with it What is the .

relation of the soul to the body ? What is the soul itself ? What is its
o rigin ? What is its du ration ?
1 . BODY AN D S OUL

sou l S t Augustine thought of man as a unity a doctrine

M an as . .

which P atristic philosophy had stressed even before his time M an .

is not a new substance ( u nio su bstanti lis ) which results from the a

q ion of two sub stances as will b e mai nta ine d la te r in the Mi ddle
,
326 M ED IAEVAL PH I LOSO PHY
Ages in dependence on A ristotelian terminology H is nity consists . u

in this that the so u l possesses uses and governs the body Th e soul
, , , .
“

is a certain kind of substan ce sharing in reason fitted to r u le th , ,

e

body ( De Q ant A nimae7 13 22 ; ed S chopp Vol II p

”
u . M an , .
, .
, .

is as a consequence truly soul ; the body is not a constituent part

, ,

of the composite nor equal to the soul in importance Thus man is .

“

a rational soul whi ch makes use of a mortal and material body

,
”

( D e Mo E l s Cath o li ae 1
r . cc e If S t A ugustine
. taught that th e c , , .

soul does not reside in a part of th e body b t is in th wh ole as a u e

“
vital tension ( intensio vitalis ) he is obviously tilizing anew S toi c
”
, u

terminology ( é ) M o re basi c for the understanding of his attitI I de

r vo s .
’

toward psychology is th e universal P latonism of th e F ather s Th . e

pessimisti c note which is S till struck by O rigen — th e so l lives in u

the body as in a prison was rejected by S t Augustine as it h ad been .

by others before him The doctrine of man as essentially soul as I t .

,

was intensively cultivated in this period continued to be defended ,

and be came through S t Augustine th e common heritage of th e .

C hristian attitude toward man in general .

Th e body in C hr istiani ty A s G eorg von H er tling has S hown this .

,

View persisted both in practi ce and in reality as the pr edo mI n an t one

even after the adoption of A ristotle in the thirteenth century when his ,

language was used and the unity of body and soul was u nderstood
in th e sense that we must recogni z e in th e body a genuine constituent
of man as essential to him as th e soul Because this view of the body
, .

persisted in C hristian tho ght we an see why so much attention u , c

was given to developing an ethi cal do ctrine of val u es and virtues

and why little attention was paid to a corresponding doctrine on th e
values of the corporeal and material world Th e S ituation is far .

otherwise today when sociologists see in histori cal materialism a

,

ne cessary adj un ct to ed cation and so great stress is laid in modern u

physi cal culture on the value of sports and sex in the development of
the individual s life Bu t we can ask whether this modern trend
’
.

reflects the tr e spirit of Ar istotle Especially after the investigations

u .

of Jaeger with regard to Aristotle s teaching on body—soul relation ’

s h i ps we can j u stly inquire whether the so called antithesis betw een

,
-

P lato and A ristotle on this matter is really quite as anti theti cal as
usually represented .

2 . S U B S TANTIALITY

Be cause of th e position whi ch S t Augustine

. adopted towar d the
 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO SO PHY

4 I M M ORTALITY
.

Ete r n al tr u th It is precisely s ch a soul whi ch must be irn mo

. u rt

Th e chief points in th e r li s u ssio n of the soul s immortality

_

’
’

_ c

be found in Book II of the S olil q i s and in the smaller o u e

D e immo r talitate animae Th e basi c thought contained in his .

fo r the immortality of the soul is the following : S ince truth is

changeable and eternal and sin ce the h u man mind is united inse,

ably to it the human mind must also be eter n al Th e core of

, x

p roof is the inseparable union of the mind with truth Th e fo u nda .

fo r this conside r ation is neither that the soul is the beare r of

no r that it permits tr uth to be found in it S uch asser tions .

nothing because we may also dis cover error in the soul Erro r
, .
,

e ver is not an ultimate ; it can be reje cted S ingle tr uths may a

, .

lost Bu t above all these vagaries in searching for the truth

.
,

stands the powe r to detect truth the law of truth in g ,

remains as something that is found natu rally wher eve r

th e mind In it both eternity and the absolute proclaim thei r
.

Th e soul connected with time by reason of its acts passes

, ,

reason of its contents into the eternal wo rld into the world
,

Th e li v ing s ou l An d it is the living soul to whi ch this is e

.

as cribed — not only to a transcendental consciousness S t . .

did not hold obstinately to an abstr action in order to un co v

eternal validity H e realized that it must be the living
.

must so r emember think will and love in orde r that the

, , ,

union with truth and with values might generally become kno
This inseparable union therefor e reaches into the substance of
living ego and consequently the soul is immortal
,
.

5 . O R I GIN O F TH E S OU L

S t A ugustine
. experienced di ffi culty when b e explored the probl
of the soul s origin In his own mind he w as convin ced that the
’
.

could not emanate from God in the sense in which N eo P la -

pantheism explained it because the soul would then necessarily ,

part of God H imself H e emended O rigen whose doctrine of .

,

existen ce had not sufficiently adapted an cient P latonism to

speculation For S t Augustine th e soul must be created O n
. . .

various possibilities were left open for in vestigation Eit .

pro ceed from the soul of A dam ( generationism ) or ,

individually created ( creationism ) o r the souls existed in ,

 ST . A UGUSTINE TEAC H ER ,
O F TH E WE ST 329

are dispatched into bodies o r they existed in God and of their own ,

accord freely entered into bodies of thei r own choi ce ( a notion of

p re—existence held by some early C hristian thinkers ) C reationism
occasioned a spe cial dif culty fo r S t Augustine s theology because
by it the doctrine of original sin could not be explained sufficiently
fi .
’
.

well Generationism appeared to him to be much more suitable but it

.
,

ran the dange r of lapsing into materialism Even the matu re S t

fi
. .

Augustine admitted that he had not ar ri v ed at personal clarity on

this point ( Retr I 1 The dif culty may be found in P lato to
.
, , , ,

whom on the one hand the soul was of the body — it was the
, ,

principle of senso ry life and on the other hand it was radically

—
,

di fferent from it ( cf p 103 Th e t r ouble appea r s later also in A ris

. .

to tle and in the P eripatetic S chool ( cf pp 186 and 263) and is en . .

h an ced by an increased emphasis being placed on the substantiality

of th e soul in C hristian speculation .

TH E GOOD
1 . TH E P R INC I P LE OF M ORALITY
Ete rnal law
The r atio nes aeter nae in the m i nd of God are for S t
.
,
.

Augustine the foundations of both knowledge and being They are

, .
,

as we will now see also the basis fo r mor ality In this connection they
, .

a re called by preference the eternal law In itself however the “

.
, ,

concept eternal law is much b roade r Eternal law is the world—plan

“ ”
.

o r the will of God which enjoins that th e natural law be obser ved
and forbids that it be transgressed : Th e eternal law is the divine “

reason o r the will of God commanding that the natu ral order be
maintained and forbidding it to be disturbed (Lex aeter na est r atio ”

divina ve l volu ntas Dei or dine m natu r ale m co ns er var i iu b ens et

p er

tu rbar i vetans ) ( Cas

o n it
t stands
r a Fau st in 22, Or , the De
Lib er o Ar bitr io I 6 15 : Th e concept of ete rnal law which is im
“
, , , ,

pressed upon u s denotes in sho rt that j ustness th rough which e very

,

thing is orde red in the best way possible Th e eternal law therefore .
”
, ,

includes the whole ontological order In this concept being must be .

unde rstood in its widest sense so that under it as parts we may ,

co r por ate the being of nature as the material world ex n tur alis )
i
gn ( l a ,

th e ideal being of logical v alidity ( lex r atio nis ) and the being of ,

obligato ry moral p recepts ( lex volu ntatis ; or do ama i ) By prefe r r s .

ence S t Augustine designated the mo ral law as the eternal law H e

. .
330 M ED I AE VAL PH ILOSO PHY
was able to do this by substituting the whole for the part ; an
he did this he simultaneously proposed the fi nal and u
,

pr nciple of moral value To express th is though t he used th e

i .

sion natur al law ( lefl atu r alis ) in which the word

“ ”
,

( n at r
) in
u aharmony
, with its traditi o nal meaning denotes .

of the ontological order Thus S t Augustine . .

of the etern al law by which the natural law is p rese r ved for
,

are able to live correctly ( morally ) ( Co nt a Fau st loc cit ”

r .
, . .

is S toic terminology as S t Augu stine found it in C i cero

, . .

background we can nonetheless discern Aristotle and P lato

, , ,

as the cosmic law of H eraclitus In any case the eternal .

,

ideal universal order becomes the principle of morality for

S in ce this law coincides substantially with the essen ce
more precisely with divine wisdom ( t r ati ) Augustine can al u o ,

that God is the ultimate principle of moral good Everything is .

but only through H im j ust as everything is true solely through

,

and every being has its being only through H is Being H e .

b o n u m o mnis b o n i in the sense of P latonic m th e

Th e will of God S t A ugustine also co mplemen

. .

principle of morality which basi cally had been co

ordinan ce of reason By so doing we can clearly
.

influen ce of the C hristian r eligion In addition to th e wisdom .

God the divine will is assumed also as a prin ciple of morality T

,
.

will of G od is laid down fo r us in the Decalogue To understand t .

aright we must be mindful that the will of God is not S heer capri

fi
,

actually it is synonymous with divine wisdom

v lu ntas D e i are the words used in the de n i
o

advanced — and also the essence of God itself ,

change no r encompass a powe r that is foreign to and op ,

since our own being traces its origin to it This was some .

O ckham and Kant overlooked and something that led

misunderstand th eo no mic morality Th e recognition of the .

in pre cepts of moral obligation is basic to the development of reli

morality and especially for the cultivation of a metaphysi cs of
,

2 F REEDOM
.

Does genuine human freedom exist ? Does it exist even if by ,

of the ideas in th e mind of God o r life s course is cate u

’ “

determined for s from all eternity ? Aug stine did no

”
u u

freedom was endangered in any way by this b cau s ,

e
332 M ED AE I VAL P H ILOS OPHY
2 ) An a God is primal lo ve upon
p i
r or ity o fvalu e .

draw We reali z e in Augustinian loving that we are dealing

.

apriori declaration o f value Just as ou r soul before we .

“

happiness had borne a c ncept of that happiness upon it so

,
‘

might be bette r able to know something about sup reme happi

we could say in the spiri t of faith and without doubt
, ,

to be fo re ver happy so also we possessed before we —

a knowledge of the wisdom in our soul by reason of w h ic

one of us is able to answe r the question whether we wish to
o r not without any doubtful obscurity ( De Lib A b II
, . r .
, ,

By such a view S t Augustine had anticipated a number of .

con cepts P ascal was able to develop from this b e gi n n I n

.
g
on the logic of the hear t ; Brentano h is idea of rightful ,
“

S chele r his apriori v alue In th e background howeve r we can

,
.
, ,

P latonism with its Eros from whi ch the S ymposiu m dra ,

conclusion and its inspi r ation that the Er os makes man r e stles

he finds his way from th e fo reign land the d p back ,

‘
r to v
,

good in itself as his own true home ( i i ) whe re man is both o xe o v

and peaceful This idea pe rsists in the S toic philosophy

.

o ihe io sis o r S toic concept of t ru e self love although in a pu -

,

natu ralisti c version In connection wi th the P latonic Eros and

.

i i
o xe o v we can plainly pe rcei ve that Augustinian lo ve 13 not meant
be irr ational .

3) Ch a ity an d w isdo m Just as the S ymposiu m is the parallel

r .

the P h a do the er o s the parallel of the ph r o nesis S O Augustini

e

cha r ity is the pa r allel of sa ie ntia or wisdo mThese a r e

, ,

p .

to the same obje cti ve The decisive element is .

final end the good in itself and its objecti ve or

,

to us at one time r ationally at another time ,

man did not lend himself to such an extreme

still r ecognize variety as diffe rent aspects of a
so fo r S t Augustine it is neithe r love wi thout cogn ti ve
.
,
i
i

nor reason without emotional references H e wh o knows .

“

knows that Light and he who knows the Light knows , ,

C ha r ity knows it O eternal truth and true lo v e and beloved e te n

. r

O aeter na ve it s et ve a c itas et car a aeter nitas ( Co nf VII

r a r ar .
, ,

ed S h eed p
.
, .

4 .

Th e ful llment fi
ETERNAL H AP P INE S S

o f lov e . I f we posit th e soul of mo ral life as l

 ST A UGUSTI NE TEACH ER OF
.
,
TH E WE ST 333

achie ve a clari fi cation of man s last end and its consummation

fi
’
.

Augustine saw this fulfilled in eternal happiness in the b eati c ,

on Th e entire teaching of antiquity con cerning eu dae mo nia the

.
—

a P lato of an Aristotle of the S toics of a C icero of a

, , , ,

and of a P lotinus — was known to S t Augustine and he .

ed it effectively Bu t he again embarked upon an entirely new

.

and this resulted from his consideration of morality as will

love If our life is one of love and yearning vita n ost a
.
— r

est — its perfection is a r epose in and an enjoyment of

ss E te r nal bliss is not a thought of a thought a thinking of

.
,

e fulfillment of love in a union of the will wi th its

express his thought on this subject S t Aug stine

To , . u

of the exp ression fr u i ( enjoy ) This means not only the .

f lo ve in contrast to the intellect but also the absolute value ,

state Just as Aristotle pe r ceived in eu daemo nia an absolute

.

value so Augustine cont rasted fr u i ( to enjoy ) with u ti ( to

,

n d r e cognized in the latte r interdependent v alues brought to

These continuously point to something highe r and of them

cannot give us peace To them we must add e verything .

This earthiness may not be entirely dependent upon itself .

uently we can by this con cept perceive the objective chara cter
,
“
eudaemonism Understood in this S tr I ct sense there can be
.
,

ae mo n ism F o r goodness does not in any way depend on an

.

ion but the inclination gravitates towar d the good : I nde

,

u n de b o n u s O nly an inclination uided by the good n lead

.
g ca

true happiness H appiness sought after from a motive of

.

ve inclination b r ings im its wake more unhappiness than

desolation than consolation ( Epist 130 or to .
, ,

the Co nfessio ns ( XIII M inu s or dinata in q u ieta ,

et q u iescu n t O n e has often grossly misinterpreted

.

and the ethics which result

personal welfare In reality it is as normative .

of Kant It avoids all rigo rism howeve r because it does

.
, ,

so lute onl y ce r tain features of morality but recognizes

refe rences to a whole S t Augustine in whom persists . .

,

ancient speculation on law and th e an cient do ctrine of

constructed on it ; S t A ugustine to whom nothing human .
,

g n bestowed
, upon it this balanced attitude as his contribution .

Through this view we can bette r understand the favorite

334 M ED I AE VAL PH ILO SO PHY
notion of S t Augustine to wh ich he r eturns ever and anon : the id
.
,

of peace P eace is th e great goal of the C ity of God and also the goal
.

the individual life If man succeeds in conquering his unruly pass

.

and in discovering th e way t o tr ue life that is to the good he , , ,

find fulfilled that which the Lord had promised : P eace upon pe “

( p
E ist 130 . Behind
, this ideal
, there is hidden no e f
f ete quiet
to amelio rate whi ch we must exercise fau stlik e activity .

of peace on the contrary denotes the fulfi llment of

, ,

teleological ethics according to which all living and all st

toward a final end which at o n e an d th e same t me s ‘
1 I

tion and happiness mu ch after the fashion in which Goethe ,

concei v ed of it : An d all struggling and all st r iving are eternal r epos

in God the Lord of all

, .

I TY O F G O D TH E C

S t A ugustine made his ideas on the philosophy of value and

.

happiness particularly useful fo r concrete life by his philosophy

sociology and histo ry which he presented in his City of Go ,

1 . O R I GIN OF TH E C ITY

St . A u gustine
appreciated the naturalness of th e state had ,

remarkable understanding of the psy ch ology of th e masses and to ,

into account in his definition of people the arbitrary factors in “ ”

social development A people is a multitude of re .

“

conj oined in a general agr eement of those things it

Civ Dei XIX 24 ; ed Dent Vol II p

. .
, , In this definition .
, .
, .

showed himself opposed to all subjective capri ce as well as to

tyrannical will In it he bases h is sociologi cal and historical ph ilo sop
.

on the concept of order A tyr anny that jettisons j ustice cannot .

disting ished in any way from the rule of a pack of thieves o r o

u

a band of robbers ( ibid IV To S t Augu stine men and citie .

, , .
,

denote wills but they must represent regulated wills

, .

2 . TH E C ITY OF G OD AN D TH E EARTHLY C I TY

St . A ugustine
extended his con cept to in clude th e whole 0
universal history Its social formation could be the City of G
.

or the C ity of this world This compariso n is not ful .

with the C hurch and the civil state ; r ath er it denote

'

which are in accord with the

C H A P TER

F RO M BO E TH I U S T O TH E E N D O F TH E
P AT R I S T I C P E R I O D

BO ETH I US

TH E L A S T RO MAN

Next to S t Augustine in impo rtance for the

. M iddle Ages lo oms
the figure of Boethius .

L I FE WORKS
AN D

M anlius S er ver in u s Boethiu s of the an cient Roman line of the

,

Anicii was born in A D 470 Under Theodoric he held many

, . . .

portant civic posts among them those of consul and M aster of

,

P alace For his pa rt in a political intrigue he was seized and t

.
,

into pr I son After a lengthy imprisonment in P a via he was final

.

brutally executed by the King of the O strogoths in 5 25 .

Boethius set himself the goal of t r anslating into Latin th e comple

wr itings of both P lato and Aristotle We have however only .
, ,

versions of the Categor ies and of the P er ih er meneias ( The .

lation of the Analytics Topics and the S oph istical Refu tatio ns
, , ,

exist in various editions are spurious Late ly, .

James of Venice was thei r autho r has been

H e w r ote commentaries to supplement his
authored S imilar works fo r the I sagoge of
latter s translation by M arius Victorinus and one for
’

lation To this we may add a numbe r of smalle r 1

.

espe cially one on the syllogism in general and another on

hypotheti cal syllogism in particular In these wor ks we can rea .

see how familiar he was with e ven the S toic philosophers H e .

wrote on music and arithmetic H is masterpiece upon which .

,

worked while in prison is : Th e Co nsolatio n of

,

336
 B OETH IUS To TH E END OF TH E P ATRI a PERIOD 337

Co nso latio ne P h ilosoph iae ) onsists of five books and forms a . This c

very sound theodicy in which he touched upon and discussed the ,

problems of the world G o d happiness providence faith free will and , , , , , ,

especially the problem of evil and the j ustice of G o d .

Editions

J M. i gne P atr o lo gia La ti na V o

,
ls 6 3—6 4 G , . . . Weinb erger , C or pu s
S cr iptor u m Ecclesias ticor u m Latinor u m V o l 6 7 , . .
-
H . F . S t wart
e an d

E K R
. . and , Boe thius : Th e Th eological Tr actates a nd th e C o ns olation o f
P h ilos oph y L , atin and is
Engl h , Lo b C l e assi al Library ( N
c ew Y rko : P ut
nam s ’
So ns ,
— L C oop
. er , A C o ncor dance of Bo eth iu s : Th e Five
Th eological Tr actates an d th e C o nsolatio n of P h ilosoph y ( C mb dge : a ri
H arvard University P re ss , — Boo ks
f th e C o ns olatio n
IV and V o

ofP h ilos oph y are f nd in Th ou e Wis dom ofCath olicis m edited by A C , . .

e is ( N
P g e w Y rk Rand m H se
o : o ou ,

Bibliography

H M Barrett B thi : S m A p ts fH i Ti m

b i B thi
e
.

(oe
:

Inns b
.

bridge H arvard University P ress

r k —
us F C C p l
,

H J Br s h D
est n H i
oe

tuc
nd W k

y f P h i
us

l
,
(
S in b g i
C m

h
p y
o e

,
s

.
ec

.
o
-

o
.
s

o
.

,
o c
es a

s or
,
er

o
or

e s

os o
e
a

r fi
( W estm inster M d : Th New man P ress , I I 1.0 1 1 04 — E G ils n
e , ,
-
. . o ,

H i t y ofCh i ti n P h il
s or h
p y i n th M i d dl
r s A ga
( N w Y r k R andos o
o m e e es e o :

H se ou 9 7 106 603 6 05 — H R P at h Th T diti n fBo th i

,
—
,
— . . . c , e ra o o e us

( N w Y
e r k o ,

I U S A N D TH E M I D D L E A G E S
BO E T H

Boethius left the M iddle Ages a wealth both of original thought

and of problems H e set for himself the task of making his age .

a quainted with the whole of P lato and A ristotle No r did th e S toics

c .

fare badly in his amb itio u s p lans .

A ris toteli an elemen ts It was Boethius who int roduced the basic .

notions of Aristotelian logic and metaphysics into S cholasticism as , ,

fi
fo r example the terms act

fi
s ecies
po te ncy
, p
i8 ea ) , pr inciple
’

( v
d i) , u niver s al ( Ka dék o v ) , s u b ect
j
co n t n i gent ( is p r actically the accide n t w p e
n ésx
) . He
only source of mediae val Aristotelianism before the thirteenth cen
tury Up to that century he was also the sole instr ucto r in logic o r
.

dia lectics .

P lato n ic elements In addition Boethius t r ansmitted to poste r ity .

,

fundamental P latonic notions and axioms P latonic in o r igI n 15 his .

concept of God his inte rpretation of eternal bliss the notion of

, ,
338 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OP H Y
participation his pre ise grasp of universals Th e second book of
, c .

Th e Co nsol tio n ofP h ilos ph y contains a rendering of part of P lato s

a o
’

Timae u s .

elements Th r o uge oeth iu s mu ch S toic materi al entered into

S to ic .

S cholasticism as fo r example the concepts of nature of the natural

, , , ,

law of the order of causality of the S toic problem dealing iwith fate
, ,

and providence and especially the notion of reality which contributed

,

substantially to bringing it about that philosophers i n the succeeding

age recognized reality primarily in the material sensible world .

A lthough A ristotle in contradistinction to P lato had introdu ced a new

notion of reality scholars could still interpret his metaphys cs I n a
, i

P latoni c sense because Aristotle considered the universal and the

,

form as apriori by nature It was the naturalistic interpretation of .

A ristotle which was later advan ced by the P eripateti cs and the con
cept o f reality proposed by the S toi cs whi ch permitted the M iddle

Ages to interpret Aristotle di f ferently and make of him a representa

tive of an empiri cal an d the foe of an idealisti c metaphysi cs ( cf
“ ”
.

p . S in ce Boethius spoke the language of th e S toi cs he also ,

contribut ed his share to this interp r etation A side from the fa ct that .

on the one hand he suggested in his writings P latonic viewpoints and

on the other hand he was con vinced that P lato and Aristotle were in
basic agreement Boethius interpolated this convi ction into his trans
,

latio n s and commentaries In conne ction with the problem of knowl

.

edge and metaphysics he oftentimes unwittingly but never theless

, ,

actually and effectively made the influen ce of that other Aristotle s

,
’

n ten tI o n s felt by his readers We have said th at o th er A ristotle of “ ”

I .

whom we have come to know ever S ince Jaeger that he was the first ,

G reek who taught us to look at the world with the eyes of P lato .

Boethius is therefore ambiguous in his meanings and capable of being

interpreted in va riou s senses H e is however one of the fir st .
, ,

autho rities of S cholasti cism H e also offers the system as many .

solutions and stimuli as he sketched for its philosophy lines of

,

de velopment

P e r so nal Go d
of the chief problems of theodicy that fascinated
. O ne
Boethius was the idea of God Alth ough in his writings on God he .

drew much material from the great heritage of the past he made it ,

clear that for him at least G o d is a personal being H is theism sets .

him apart as a distin ctly C hristian th inker on this point basically ,

340 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
e sse can be unde rstood only if I t I S examined in the light of P latonism .

In it we can detect no u nwarr anted passage from the logical to the

o ntologica l o r de r ; fo r — a nd by I t a P latoni sm be comes apparent — all

impe rfection subsists by r eason o f the perfect because the nature of ‘

,
“

things began not from that which is defecti ve and not complete but ,

proceeding from the enti re and absolute so that all that is said ” “

to be impe rfect is SO termed fo r the want it hath of perfection and ,

”

“
it is well known that all pe rfection connotes an aprio ri in contrast
to the imperfect ( ibid 111 10; ed :Loeb p
”
.
, We could not
, , .

concei ve of the imperfect if we did not take fo r granted perfection

as its p r esuppositio n ( loc S ince the impe rfect is a r eality the
.
,

perfect as the p resupposi ti on of the imperfect is al so truly a reality ;

in fact it is th e Reality and the reb y the imperfe ct becomes possible
, .

C onsequently we a r e no t dealing he r e with a n d/B i iM y

’ ‘
a rn s
; er e s o o e vo s

that is we ar e not in vol ved in an illicit transference from one genus

,

to anothe r The ne rve cente r of this enti re syllogistic proof d rawn as

.
.

it is from the various S tages of pe rfection is to be found rather in the ,

P latonic assumption that the idea of the impe r fect presupposes the
idea of the pe rfect .

2 . UNIVERSAL
TH E
A thing o f tho u ght We encounte r this solution of the problem
.

again in the matte r of the uni ve rsals In his commentary on the .

I sagoge of P o rphy r y Boethius app r op r iated the interp r etation proposed

,

by Alexande r of Aphrodisias : the uni ve rsal — man virtue goodness , ,

is in this form of univer sality not a reality but simply a subject

of thought which is based on reality Th e truly real and the apriori by .

nature is the individual object o r thing Fr om this our reasoning .

abstracts the universal by emphasizing and stressing the features and

notes whi ch ar e e verywhe re and in e verything identical in the co n ,

victio n that by so doing we are at gr ips with the essenti al .

Natu ra in co rp o rea This essential and this universal Boethi s calls

. u

the form the intelligible species ( species intelligibilis intellectual

, ,
“

the immaterial natu re ( nat r a incor por ea) H e maintains u .

,

furthe rmore that in these spi ritual co ntents there are ideas which
,

take on a concrete fo r m in materi al things This sounds as if the .

univer sal we r e an ap ri o ri by natu r e fo r it does take on a concrete ,

form C hapte r F ou r of the fif th book of the Co nsolatio n confirms

.

this conjectu re Ther e we find that the universal fo rms cannot be

.

abs tracted from par ticular things but that our mind recalls apriori
 O T IUS TO
B E H TH E END OF TH E PA TRI STIC PE R IOD 341

fo rms S ense knowledge has fo r its special task the conjuring up and
.

separ ating Of these memories In such a theory the universals again

.

become apriori by nature to use the language of Aristotle

, .

A Boeth iu s di vided in tw ain ? Did Boethius adopt a double v iew ?

A t one time he became the victim of the natu r alistic empirical ,

interp retation O f Aristotle advocated by Alexander and spoke his

language as well as wrote it In reality howeve r he retained a tr u e
.
, ,

sense fo r th e genuine Aristotle who indeed in his polemics against ,

P lato Oftentimes appeared to fa vo r th e view Of A lexan de r but who ,

o n the most impo r tant point s O f his metaphysics was accustomed

alway s to P latonize as we no w realize once mo re due to recent

,

studies S O also did Boethius By this procedu re he had not only

. .

pointed out to the M iddle Ages the way to the spiritual homelan d
of Aristotle but also opened tO those Ages the possibili ty O f a
,

synthesis b etween Aristotelian and P latonic Augustinian philosophy -

.

Bu t to those intellectuals who we r e concerned more with words than

with r eality he at the same time had suggested especially in his com
, ,

men tar ies on the I sago ge the temptations O f Alex ande r

, .

3. TH E P ARTI C U LAR
F o r him the particular is also real which is so much grist for the ,

mill Of an empirical interp retation of Ar isto tle We are able to see .

his e valu ation Of the par ticular in such sentences as : Div r s u m est e

esse et id q u ad est — Omni ca mpasito aliu d est esse , aliu d ips u m es t

— O mne q u ad est par ticipat eo q u o d

’
, est esse — I ps u m ess e n a n du m
est, at ue rjo q ua d e st, acce
pta esse ndi far ma est atq u e ca nsistit (Q uo

mo do S u bst c 1131 b c ; ed Loeb p 40

.
, . Even th ough we
.
, .
,

see in this that Boethius did not conside r the universal a r eal being ,

as had genuine P latonism but paid tribute to the new concept Of

,

reali ty fo rmulated by Ar istotle we neve r theless perceive in the dis ,

tinction O f what is concrete (id qu ad est) in contrast to wh at is the

essence ( esse for ma) that the idea Of participation reappears and
, ,

is fundamental fo r the concrete existing O bject and as a consequence ,

denotes more than the product of abstr action In these statements .

there is in emb ryo the whole M iddle Age s with its problems centering
on the universal and the particula r essence and existence idealism , ,

and realism Augustinianism and A ristotelianism Boethius is an

,
.

Aristotelian Bu t when he espou sed the Aristotelian metaphysi cs Of

.

form he was able to do so only because he P latonized and saw in the

,

uni versal an aprio ri by natur e p recisely as Ar istotle had done when

,
342 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO SO P H Y
he explained first substance by means of se cond ( cf p 167 and . .

as everyone else must do when he wishes to speculate on metaphysics

acco rding to Ar isto tle s ex eunple and to see in the form more than
’

the produ ct of sheer abstract on ; i

4 . P R OVIDENCE ,
FATE AN D FREEDO M ,

We a r e confronted by this p roblem again in the sphere of human

actions Th e eternal forms determine everyth ing th at takes place I n
.

the world or in nature as Boethius was acc stomed to say when

“

,
”
u

h e wis h ed to avail himself of the terminology of the S toics The .

properties of th ings whi ch are exhibited in their actions ( ager e ) do

not come from matter It is therefore the form which dete rmines
.
, ,

natural place ( D e Tr in c 2 ; P L XL IV Th e earth de ri ves

.
, . . .
, , ,

fo r example its properties O f dryness and heaviness from the form

,

and not from matter In the world the etern al plan which pervades
.

even th e most minute details and circumstan ces rules all being ,

namely the pro viden ce of God Th e forms are nothing mo re than

, .

the ideas whi ch exist in the mind of God of which S t Augustine had , .

always spoken : P ro vidence is the ver y divine reason itselfseated in

the highest P rin ce whi ch dispo seth all things ( De Cans P lz il IV
,
”
. . .
, ,

6 ; ed Loeb p
.
,
.

An d must we not again ask ourselves the q uestion as we al r eady ,

had of S t Augustine : Does freedom exist for man ? Boethius

.

allo cated a place for it by di fferentiating between two di fferent classes

of beings : the irrational world and the world of ration al beings .

In the first class everything that happens o ccur s ne cessarily through

the categori cal causal determination on the part of the form This .

a sal connection is limited only to the province of the space time

c u -

World and only this is called fate To the S toi cs on the oth er hand .
, ,

fate embraced absolutely everything In contrast in the wo rld of .

,

reason and of mind that is in the world of men the eternal forms
, , ,

are operative only as ideals whi ch we should indeed follo w but to _

whi ch we can refuse our consent In general and in this a Neo .

,

P latonism again asserts itself the more the spirit so mu ch the more , ,

freedom Th e freedom of the will becomes then a fun ction and an

.
, ,

exercise of reason proximately of practical reason The mind of man

, .
,

in contrast to the instin ct of the animal is always faced with a ,

mu ltipli city of possibilities because of its knowledge of universals .

This mind can choose from among them when reflecting on its ,

choi ce it rai ses judgment Freedom consists not in th e will b u t in “ '

.
,
.
344 I VAL P H ILOSOP H Y
M ED AE

because they must take place with necessity but because that which
actually an d freely does happen can be known necessarily in its con
tingen cy at the v e ry mo ment that it takes place if I t 1 3 only r ightly ,

app r ehended .

Th e e Bo e th iu s The greatest problem with regard to

th o r y o f .

di vine p ro vidence is the fact of e vil in th e wo r ld That the re is

'

such a thing as evil that i t may sometimes go unpunished that

, ,

inferio rity oftentimes triumphs and vi r tue not only is passed o ver
but its p ractitioner s reduced to servitude by its tr ansgressors e ven ,

though God is j ust we r e questions asked by Boethius as he languished

,

in p rison We can well app reciate how h is own fate pe rmi tted him
.

to pose such queries with pe rhaps mo r e justification than is usually

the case H is solution ru n s as follows : The powe r of e vil is only
.

illuso ry ; the virtuous are always stronger The happ i ness of th e .

wicked is likewise only a spurious happiness ; that of the v irtuous ,

who may be compa red to tra velers who would tra vel on foot to those
who seek to reach thei r destination by walking on thei r hands is ,

genuine P rovidence remains unshakable Every happening wi thin th e

. .

se ries of causes which go ver n the whole of nature is regulated by

di vine know ledge Whe reof it ensu eth that though all things
.
“

seem confused and diso rder ed to you who a re not able to conside r ,

this o r de r notwithstanding all things ar e disposed by thei r own

,

prope r measure di recting them to good Fo r the r e is nothing whi ch .

is done fo r the lo ve of e vil e ven by the wicked themselves ( D ”

e

Cau s al P hil IV 6 ; ed Loeb p

. .
, , .
, .

It is only ou r own pe rsonal inability to recognize the interrelation

ships of events that cause s us to doubt In reality whateve r takes .

place is adapted to the needs of the individual no matte r what it is ,

that happens O nly the ignorant yearn for sweets when the physici an
.

know s that bitte r must be p rescr ibed as an antidote : H e whom thou “

thin keth most just and most obser vant of equity seemeth o therwise ,

in the eyes of P rovidence which knoweth all S h e mixeth for .

othe r s sou r and S weet according to the dispositions of thei r souls ; she
troubles some lest they should fall to dissolutio n by long prospe rity ,

others are vexed with hardships that they may confirm the forces ,

of thei r mind with the use and exe r cise of patience F or a certain .

orde r embr aceth all things so that even that which departeth from
,

the o r de r appoin ted to it though it falleth in to another yet that

, ,
 B O ETH IUS TO TH E E ND OF TH E PATRI STIC P ERIOD 345

is order also lest confused rashness should bear any sway in the
,

kingdom of P rovidence ( ibid ; ed Loeb p O r more briefly

”
.
, .

“
It is only a divine S trength to whi ch even evil things are good ,

when by using them in due sort it draweth some good effect out ,

of them ( ibid ; ed Loeb p

”
.
, .

I ts pre su ppo sitio n s This entire explanation is a v ariation on the

.

theme that Augustine had already sounded when in his Co mment r y ,

a

o n th e P s lms
( 5 4 a he w r ote that evil is present
, in the wo r ld for
the purpose of punishing of converting the wicked from their ways , ,

o r of testing th e good — and here Boethius applies the mo ral to

himself ( ibid IV Behind this we can dete ct S toi c and Neo
.
, ,

P latoni c reasoning on our theme together with the conviction that ,

only virtue can make us happy and only the good has being whereas ,

evil represents a deficiency a non being a privation ( pr iv tia ) O nly ,

-
,
a .

on the basis of the assumption of the notions of happiness of value , ,

and of being does this whole consideration have any meaning and
make sense ; it loses it as s oon as this idealisti c wholeness of concept is
disregarded Boethius becomes again the representative of a great
.

philosophical tr adition We see here how he binds together th e various.

an d numerous dis cussions on theodicy beginning w ith P lato and

continuing to L eibniz .

7 INDIVIDUAL RES P ONS I B ILITY

.

Neither e vil no r fate a r e consequently able to weaken the idea of

.

fi
the good God 15 good and men can become good In p u rsuing good
ness we can n d the pu rpose of our lives In the face of such a
task we must gi ve an accounting of oursel ves each according to his
.

,
.

individual responsibility and autonomy For in spite of the great .

,

value he placed on the universal in cosmic events Boethius did ,

not fail to realize the place or the importance of the indi vidual in
reality as we have already seen N t without reason then does the
, . o , ,

renowned defin ition of a human person trace its origin to him : P er son a
est r atio n alis natu r ae individua s u bstantia ( D e P er s o n a et D u ah u s
Wt c 3 ; t he other name of this tr actate is Co nt a Eu ty h eu
i
a u r s, . r e ,

C III ; ed L oeb p 85 : P e r son is the individual substan ce of a

“ ‘
. .
, .

rational nature Endowed with freedom and charged wi th r e spo n

’

sib ilit
y the person
, stands before God and the good In the fa ce of .

death this was the fi nal word that the philosopher had to say to
his fellow men even though expe rience taught him that they could
,

become veritable beasts if they rejected thei r responsibility ( De

346 M ED AE I VAL PH ILO S O PHY
Cau s al P hil IV . With stanch assurance and with classical as
.
, ,

well as edifying clarity he ph r ased the following senten ces : All of

“

which being so the free will of mo rtal men remaineth unviolated

,

neither are the laws u nji t whi ch propose punishments and rewar ds
to our wills whi ch ar e free from all necessity The re remaineth also
,
‘

fi ‘

.
,

a beholder of all things whi ch is God who fo reseeth all things and , ,

the eternity of H is wisdom whi ch is always present co ncu r r eth , ,

with the future quality of our acti ons distributing rewards to ,

good and punishments to the evil Neither do we in vain put .

hope in God or p r ayer to H im; for if we do this well and as ,

ought we shall not lose our labor o r be without effe ct Wh

, .

fly vices embrace virtues possess your minds with worthy hop
, ,

offer up humble prayers to your H ighest P rince There is if y .

,

will not dissemble a great necessity of doing well I mposed up ,

you sin ce yo live in the sight of your J u dge who beh oldeth l
,
u ,
a

things ( De C al P h il V 6 ; ed Loeb p
”
au s . .
, , .
, .

DIONYS IUS TH E P S EUDO — AREO P AG I TE

( c . A D
. . 5 00)

TH E P SE U DO —ARE O P AGITE AN D TH E S U C OE EDI N G P ER I OD

Among the great authorities of the M iddle Ages we number

whole series of writings which were falsely as cribed to Dio ny SI

fi
th e A r eopagite who iS men tio n e d in A cts They a

fi fi
’

ma s iepa pxia s ( D
’
o
p a e

wep i q iepa pxia s

’
T eK O La O T LK
' '

. s s

On th e Ecclesiastical i Gala)
“
ne
p
N o miu ib u s O n th e Divin e mj s Gec k o s la s
“ '
r e c uv a n /
, p j
M ystica Th e alogia O n M ystical and ten other letters
,
“
.

reality they borrow from P r oclus and belong to the beginning of

sixth century S ince they were often translated and frequently
.

subj ect of commentaries tr anslated by the Abbot H ildu in of

—

Denis ( c John S cotus Er iu gen a ( c

. John the S ara .

( c . R obert Gro s seteste of L in coln ( thirteenth

A mbrose Tr aver sar i ( fifteenth centu ry ) ; commented
gena H ugh of S t Vi ctor John the S aracen Thomas
, .
, ,

G rosseteste S t A lbert the Great S t Thomas A quinas P eter O li

, .
, .
,

Fran cis of M ayr o nis Dionysius the C arthusian they be came a fert ,

source of N eo P latonic ideas especially for the mysti al writers

-
,
c .

N icholas of C u sa we still glimp se th e P seudo A reopagite -

.
348 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOP H Y
tains all beginnings and all limitations at one and the same tim
j ust as the sun with its one light emb r aces within itself all that
re vealed as va riety and through whi ch this variety can alone exi \

( H is all things as the ca use of all within

“
e su staI n I n g H i ,

p r ofer r ing [ to all ] the begin ni ngs and limitations of all

( BS miw wv a lmo s , Ka i év
. waf
aas d d
px s, mi l/f a .

De Div N a m I ,
'
O
'
-w
i wp o éxwv,
'

r a w Vr v '

a vve w
x v Ka .

Just as all light and all life pa rtake of the sun so all being ,

all life all values and all beauty pa rticipate in God This b
, .
“

contained is that being contained in the di vine exemplars I n

” “
,

mind o f God for in the S upreme Cause p re exist as a result 0

\
,
‘

supernatu ral unity the pro totypal likenesses of all beings Th e P seu .

Dionysius Offers us a p recise definition of this archetype ; it is o

kind that is typi cal of the eh ti e work : We call by the name r

e m la s a ade igmat all those pre or reasons

p [p r
] r e x st n
g lo
go i a -
I I

things united in God and formative of thei r

,
’

lo gi ans call p re conceptions as fo r example the divine a , , ,

l
manifestations of H is will ; they deter mine a being and cr e
through them the S uper essential being has predete rmined all -

and b r ought them into existence ( ibid ) ”

.

The p ro ce ssio n of th e wo rl d from G o d God wills all things .

proceed from H imself and by so doing gives existence to the worl

“
It is of cou r se proper to the cause of all as the S up r eme Good
, , , ,

call all things to share in itself insofa r as they a r e capable ,

so F o r this reason all things share in di vine providence w h i

.
,

from the supernatu ral cause Beings would of course not .

, ,

they did not par ticipate in the essen ce and the source of all
( D e Cael H ier IV . In this p r o cession we are dealing ,

fifi
emanation : H e [the Fi r st C ause ] leads fo
“

an emanation from [H is own ] essence mm mp iy K a

’ '
— us i a et ar

o l E
a ae m ( De Div No m V
x a v Bu t this notion should . .
, ,

under stood in a pantheistic sense To a void such a dange r Dio ny .

,

stressed the fact that things even if they were eternal in ,

sense of the summation of all time would not be eternal in ,

same sense as God is eternal because H e is befo re and abo ve ,

infinite time ( ibid IX In addition we are constantly be

.
, ,

reassured that God is supe r essential super goodness super being -

,
-
,
-

that which is beyond being ) As is stated in the conclusion of .

Divinis N miu ib u s in a sho r t summa r y of t

a

r e mains utte rly beyond in spite of

’ ’ “ ”
w evr exe a
,
 B O E TH I U S TO TH E END OF TH E P ATRISTIC P ERIOD 349

ion If we should howe ve r conside r that this emanation is essential

fi
t .
, ,

and so takes place necessarily as necessarily fo r instance as the rays

, , ,

of light s tream from the sun it would be dif cult to see how we ,

could avoid pantheism The fact that Dionysius was no pan theist is
.

based on his intention not to be one Above all else he was a .

C hristian an d his Neo P latonic thought mediums we r e not employed

,
- -

in acco rdance with thei r actual intrinsic meaning but were p ressed
into the service of a C hristian outlook and after all has been said , ,

received from it a totally different meaning as is tho roughly e vident ,

in the indi vidual quotations .

H i er ar chy o fVariou s cl asses of be ing Th e procession of things from .

God is completed in a series of steps and through them we a rr ive ,

at a hierarchical o r dering Of being at an ontology of classes Things , .

o r entities participate in God in a variety of ways The close r a being .

stands to God the mo re fully it shares in H im an d so much th e

,

greater is its inne r unity The further a thing is removed from God
.
,

so much the more meager is its parti cipation and so much the more
is it disintegrated into vari ety — an illustration of this are the con
cent r ic ci r cles whi ch fan out from the cente r of the circle D
( e

Div No m V All inanimate cr eation shares in God S imply by

“
.
,

the fact that it exists Animate creatures howeve r pa r ti cipate

.
, ,

also in H is su per animate and life creating powe r Eve rything that -
.

possesses mind and soul in addition partakes of H is complete supe r ,

perfect Wisdom (De Cael H ier IV

“ ”
Naturally participation
.
, ,

in God become s more profound in immaterial spiritual beings in ( ,

th e p ure intelligen ces in the realm of the angels These beings are .

also hierarchical and are di vided into nine choirs .

S cholastici sm o f th e P se u do A reop agi te 1 ) Th e o nto logy ofclasses

- . .

Th e idea of classification is not entirely novel Bu t as formulated .

by Diony sius in the very title of his works and as further developed
“

in the com mentary of M aximus the Confessor this notion becomes ,

fundamental to S cholastic ontology The schematic division of being .

,

which M aximus the C onfessor proposes for De Caelesti H ier ar chia ,

IV 1 I s as follows
, ,

I nanimate ( S to nes)
With ou t S ensation ( P lants)
I r r atio n al ( Ani mals)
With S ensation
Wi th ou t Bodies

Ratio n al ( Th e I n telligences Angels) ,

With Bodies
( M en )
 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
2) Th eor y o f par ticipatio n , th e go o d, an d th e n o tio n o f cau sality .

Th e same is true of Dionysius tho ughts on participation of his ’

, ,

axiom that the Goo wills to unfold itself P ach ymer es in his
d s
—
,

paraphrase of C hapter O II é O ft h e four th book of De Divinis N o miu i

‘

b s attributes this axiom to Gregory the Th eologian — an d ab o ve all

u , ‘

of his concept of cau sality whereby the eidetical or fo rmal element

fi
,

predominated o ver the mechanical dynamic in the matter of efficient -

causality Dionysius formally identified the ef cient cause with the

.

exemplar y : I n every cause there is an element of a striving for

“

the beautiful and the good ( De Div N am IV A n d again

”
.
,
.

Every rest and every motion i s from the beautiful and th e go Od

“

IS I n It is toward it is on its behalf

, , Also eve ry potency .

( S it r/ a
p ) and
es every act e v ery contact
whatever is and whateve r will be is and will be on account of it ,

h e good a n d the beautifu l and is always r eferable to it

[ t ] By I t 1 3 .

set in motion and held together and maintained in existence eve ry

exemp lary final efficient formal and material cause ( ibid
fi
”
, , , , .
,

No t only can God as the first ef cient cause become the ultimate
“

final cause not only d oes H e natu r ally move the world by means
,

of love since e very motion is explained as a stri ving after H im

—

but also in all particular causes the effect H e cause s is in e ve ry

instan ce a molding Th e S cholastic efficient cause may not therefo re
.
, ,

be confused with the modern mechanical cause which is subj ect ,

to chan ce F o r this r eason Darwin was forced to search fo r new

fi
.

laws whi ch would enable him to explain the development of species .

Th e S cholastic ef cient cause is always determined by the form .

Aristotle had already proposed a simila r doct r ine To form a co rr ect .

estimate of the situation we must recognize how P latonism str uck

the keynote in this matte r It was tr uly P latonism whi ch permitted
.

Aristotle to r educe the cause of motion which he had introduced ,

primarily against P lato to the formal cause Through th e P seudo

,
.

Dionysius and his undeniable influence on S cholasti c philosophy th e ,

P l atoni z ing interpretation of causality was pushed into the foreground

by a thousand tu rns of expression It happened as if by a happy .

accident however that in the Aristotelian notion of causality the

, , ,

P latonic heritage never was lost Y et on th e basis o f its unhi storical .

position S cholasticism was not able to app reciate the true conne ction
,

which existed between A ristotelian and P latonic reasoning but was ,

rathe r induced to understand and to de velop th e antith esis whi ch

existed in su ch a distin ct manner in external tradition as one th at
35 2 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
the faithful pupil of Augustine P rosper of Aquitaine ( d c who , . .

collected some 392 S entences of his teachers and by so doing laid ”

the foundation fo r th e liter ary classi fication known as Boo ks of

S e nte nces Then we must mention the pupil of Boethius C assiodo rus
.
,

the S enato r ( d In addition to his famous historical and

.

exegetical works he w rote a compendium of the seven liber al a rts

which was widely used in the M iddle Ages Under this title were .

taught extr ath eo logical science s : the t iviu m ( gr amma r dialectics r , ,

and rheto ric ) and the q u adr iviu m ( a rithmetic geometry astronomy , , ,

and music ) C assiodo rus made accessible to the M iddle Ages also
.

the accomplishments of Boethius in logi c arithmetic astronomy and , , ,

music and for centuries his contributions sketched the path of all
development The P seudo Dionysius was fortunate enough to have pos
.
-

sessed as a faithful interpreter M aximus the Confesso r ( d .

Through his commentaries on the pseudo ar eop agitical writings he -

became a pioneer of Neo P latonic movements An important mine -

.

of info rmation fo r the M iddle Ages was the p rolific lite rary output
of Isido re o f S eville ( d
'

F rom him stems a Boo k ofS entences

.

which drew upon both Augustine and Gregory the Great S till more .

influentia l were his Etymologies — a kind of encyclopedia which

transmitted to posterity the knowledge available from antiquity
and the P atristic period For the A nglo —S axon world Bede the .

Venerable ( d 735 ) was of special importance H e promoted study

. .

of the natu ral sciences In conclusion we must mention John .

Damascene ( d A lthough he rightly belongs to the Greek

.

P atristic period he was nevertheless adopted by the Latins as had

,

been the Areopagite before him after Burgundio of P isa had trans ,

lated into Latin in the twelfth century the third pa r t of his pr1n
cipal work S o u r ce of K n o wledge ( mi) y unde r the title ’

,
w
) n / vaxr e s

De Fide Or th o doxa M any N CO P latonic ideas are contained in his

.
—

works as well as many A ristotelian ideas ; the latter are drawn ,

howeve r from the S y rian tradition of Aristotle As in a recapitula

, .

tion we find united in him the chief intellectual movements which

,

impar ted to the P atristic period its special features : the C hristian
treasu ry of the Bible and the F athers P latonism and Neo P latonism ,
-
,

Ar istotelian philosophy Th e latter however for a time re ceded into

.
, ,

the background Bu t from this period on it moves more an d mo re

.

to the fo re so that in the golden age of S cholasticism it will dominate

,

the enti re scene .

 I NTRO D UC TI O N : S C H O LA S TI C I S M I N GEN ERAL

1 . TH E C ONCEP T OF S C HOLAS TI C IS M

Unde r S cholasti cism

defined in the strict sense we understand that
h il h i —theological speculation which was forged in the schools
p o so
p co

of the Middle Ages beginning with C harlemagne and continuing up

to the Renaissance and with which we come into co n tact especially
,
’

in the literary forms known as the S u mmae and the Qu estio ns The .

s chools in which it originate d were originally cathedral or monastic

institutions later on uni versities In a somewhat broader sense
, .
,

S cholasti cism signifies the spe culation that bu r geoned in this pe r iod
but did not utilize the rationalistic conceptional method a specula
—

tion whi ch is modeled nevertheless upon the same metaphysical

, ,

and religious pattern as fo r example mysticism By this ter m we

, , , .

may also understand the Arabo Jewish philosophy insofar as this

-
,

hyb rid was brought into contact with the tr ue S cholasticism of the
period .

2 . TH E S C HOLAS TI C M ETHOD
M etho d in stru ction Th e method of instruction employed in
o f .

the schools of the M iddle Ages was based on two fundamental fo rms :
the l cti and the dispu tatio In the former ou r moder n lecture the
e o .
, ,

teacher alone was pe rmitted to speak In fo rm this type of instr u c .

,

tion followed the order presented in th e various books of S entences

and was designed for the purpose of commenting on the opinions ”

( e n
s t n ti
eae ) whi ch had been advanced by recogni z ed authors In .

theology the basic text was the S entences of P eter Lombar d ; in

ph ilosophy the works of Boethius or Aristotle The di p tatio was
, . s u

a free discu ssI on carried on between teacher and students in which

th e arguments for and against ( p r o and con ) were proposed and

thoroughly examined .

Lite rar y fo r m s 1 ) Co mme ntar ies O u t of these types of in str u c

. .

tion al methods there arose co rr esponding s cholasti c literary fo rms .

From the lectio there gr ew the Co mmentar ies of which the M iddle ,

35 3
35 4 M ED I AEVAL P H ILO SOP H Y
Ages possessed legions e g th e Co mme nta i on Lombard Boethius
, . .
, r es , ,

P seudo —Dionysius and espe cially Ar istotle , .

2 ) S u mmas Fr om the Co mme ntar ies there de v eloped the S u mm s

. a .

In these the authors gradual ly emancipated themselves from th e

stri tures of the standard textbooks and followed the systematic
c

realistic viewpoint in the presentation of subj ect matter .

3 ) Qu estio n s F rom the dispu t tio there r esulted the literary genre
. a

known as the Qu e tio ns This category was again divided into two
s .

spe cies : the Qu aestio nes Disp tatae and the Qu o dlib etalia The fo rmeru .

contained the results of the dispu tatio or din a ia which was held regu r

lar ly about every two weeks or so ; these disputatiou s pursued a ’

single theme for longe r periods of time the D e Ve itate De r ,

P o t ntia D e M ala of S t Thomas ) Th e latter i e the Qu o dlihetalia

e , . .
, . .
, ,

reported the outcome of the exercises in disputation which took place

twi ce yearly before C hristmas and befo re Easte r These biennial
, .

exercises dealt now with one and now with anothe r subj ect ( Qu aes
tio n es de q u o lib et) ; they served as reviews or as r e presentations of -

spe cial topics .

4) Th e tech niq u e of th e S u mm s The technique of the disputa a .

tion namely the P r o and the Co u t a and the answers to the difficulties
,
r ,

whi ch were advanced after the disputation itself determined broadly

the external structu re of the mediaeval S mmas Thus for example in u .
, ,

his S u mma Th eologiae Thomas Aquinas offers first several arguments

whi ch seemingly r un counte r to the solution that he proposes to Offer
( o bj ctio u es )
e B y the
. phrase se d co n tr a in which a text is generally
, ,

quoted from a recognized authority he introduces and p ropounds the ,

contrary opinion Th is opinion is then developed in the body of the

.

article that follows ( co r pus a ticu li) Fr om this is drawn the r efuta r .

tion of those a rguments which were p resented at the beginning as

being in opposition to the solution proposed .

5 ) O pu sc la S cholasticism was not una cquainted with the free

u .

themati c treatment of a problem The smaller individual works whi ch .

,

dealt with them were called op s la u cu .

3. TH E S P IRIT OF S C HOLAS TIC I S M

Aucto ritas ( u th o r ity

et an d r e son
r atio
a ) A ccordingato th . e

foregoing the spirit of S cholasti cism was signified by two basic

,

elements : au to r itas and r atio tradition and th e speculation whi h

c , “
c

per vaded it Aucto r itas is one mainspring of the S cholasti c method

. .

I n theology such authorities were the texts of th e Bible of ,

356 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS OPH Y
again is an advantage whi ch accrues to those who foster reverence
for the t raditional S cholasticism has therefore become a great museum
.

of the spi rit At a time when the manus cripts of antiquity were
.

being carefully preserved S cho lasticism in its speculation took pains ,

to lose nothing of what the great figures of philosophi cal history

had produced If S cholasticism frequently misinterpreted its own
.

autho rities it has nevertheless transmitted to posterity the opinions

,

of antiquity and has placed no obstacles in the way of understanding

,

again the well prese r ved wo r d s in thei r original historical meaning

-
.

S cholasti cism is one of the most rewarding fields for the history of
ideas ; concealed n it are many treasures still to be uncovered
I .

Bibliography

E . Br éh ier , La ph ilos oph ic d u M oye u Age ( rev . d ; P aris ,

c .

M . H C . arr
é, Re alis ts an d N o miu alis ts ( Lo do n n : O x fo rd University
Pres s, — F C C plest n H i t . . o o ,
s or y o f P h ilosoph y , Vol . II ( We st

minst r M d Th Newman P r ss
e , . : e e ,
M e dieval P h ilos oph y ( New
Y rk P h il s ph i al Lib rary
o : o o c ,
— S .
J rtis A
. Cu ,
S h or t H isto r y o f
West er n P h ilos oph y i n th e M iddle Ages ( Westm inster ,
Md . : Th e New
man P res s ,
— M De . Wu lf , H is tor y o fM e diae val P h i lo s o h
p y V o ls , .

I and II ( Lond n o : Lo n gman s, G r ene 8: Co .

,
1935 and is n — E G l
. o ,

H is tor y o fC h r is ti a n P hil os o
ph y i n th e M iddle A es
g ( N w Y r
e k Rand m o : o

H ou se , Th e S pir it of M e die val P h ilos oph y ( N w Y er k C h ar l s o : e

ri r s S ns
S c bn e R
’
o ,
eas o n a n d Re velatio n in th e M iddle Ages ( New
Y rk Sh d and War d
o : ee ,
— M . G rabmann , Die G esch ich te der
sch olas tich eu M e th o de I , II M ittelalter lich es Geis tesle be n ,

I II — D .
J . B H aw k I n S ,
. A S k e tch o f M e diae val P h il
oso h
p y ( Ne w Y rk o : S h ee d an d Ward ,
— A M Landgraf Ein
. .
,

f
ii h r u u
g i n di e G e s c hic h te der th e o lo gisch e n Liter a tu r der Fr il sch olas ti
k
— H . Rash dall, Th e Uni ve r sities o f E u r ope in M iddle Ages
th e ,

3 v ls ( O
o f rd : O xfo rd Univer sity P ress , l 9 36 )
. x o .
— E C Th o mas Th e
. .
,

H is tor y ofth e S ch oolme n ( Lo nd o n,

C H A P TER

E A RL Y S C H O LA S T I C I S M

I . O RI G I N S

1 . CAR OLINGIAN RENAI SSANC E

first beginnings of S cholasticism may be found in the

Th e
a ccomplishments of C harlemagne With him begin s not only a new .

political but also a new intellectual life With j ustice we can speak .

of a C arolingian renaissance In those schools which were founded

.

in his kingdom a great and magnificent group of pioneering scholar s

,

plied thei r sp eculati ve ar ts The Anglo S axon monk Alcuin left

.
-
, ,

Yo rk in 78 1 to take up his tea ching acti vity at C ologne At the .

monastic school of F ulda Rh ab an u s M aurus ( d 85 6 ) taught a group

, .

of students P asch asiu s Radber tu s ( d 860) and Ratr amnu s made

. .

famo us the monastery of C orbie on the S omme river True in this .

,

period we cannot discover any outstanding philosophi cal accomplish

ments but we can dis cern that a new springtime hovers in the air
,
\

and we may expect that it will bring fo r th abundant fruit .

2 . ERI U CE N A

We reali z e this immediately in en countering John S cotus Er iu gen a

( d 8 77
.
) of Ireland ( Ireland S o ti m i E r iu gen a is therefore
— c a a or
’

a pleo nasm ) At the instigation of C harles the Bald he translated

.
,

into Latin the works of the P seudo Areopagite which had been -
,

sent from C onstantinople to the cou r t of Louis the P ious This .

translation pr ovided fo r Neo P latonism an opening into S cholasticism

-
.

H is ch ief work bears the title D e divi i ne natu r a ( O n th Di isio n s o e e v

o fN at e ) In this he treats of God as the S upreme C ause of ideas

ur .
,

of created things and the retu rn of all things to God

,
.

H is Neo— P lato nism 1 ) Class es of h eiu gs In these themes we can

. .

detect the N O P latonic views that he espoused and actually the

e - —

ph ilo sophy of Er iugena is NCO P latonic Being is p resumed to be -

.

35 7
35 8 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO SO PHY
capable of being divided into various classes and in his classification ,

we have his hierarchy of values At the apex stands God as the .

uncreated all creating First C ause ( natur a cr eans incr eata) By con
,
-
.

templating H imself God gives r ise to ideas from all eternity in sheer
,

timelessness In them God exhibits H imself and thereby produces

.

the principles of becoming for these ideas are the true causes of the ,

being of things the aus e pr imor diales o r pr ototypae An d these form

, c a .

the second class of beings : the created creati ve being ( n tu a cr eat a r a

cr eans
) W hen . then the thi r d
, class of beings , the spa ce time world ,
-
,

is created it is these ideas which bestow upon it its being By virtue

, .

of it all acti vity all efli cien t causes exist ; for the beings of the thi r d
, ,

class cannot of themselves be creative

( n at r a c eata n ec cr eans
) u r .

Fo r this reason God is all in all and the world is a pure manifestation
,

of H im We may not conceive of two different things of things

.
“

differing from one another when we meditate upon the creato r an d ,

the creature but only of one an d the s ame The material sensible
, .
”

world does not po r tr ay the ideas in their pu rest fo rm ; it seeks how ,

e ver to do this In the tendency of his concept of being we can

, .

discover a reason to assume a final step upon which the appr oxima
tion to the pure and the supernatu ral is successfully achieved and
“
the completion is reached wher e being has again r eturned to
”
,

its true principle ( natu r a u ec cr eata u ec cr eans ) In su ch a conception .

this metaphysi cs of being appears to be come an identity philosophy “ ”

in the style of P roclus .

2 ) Allege d panth eis m of Er iu gen a In certain qua r ter s it has been .

argued that Er iu gen a de veloped a system of pan theism ; and as a ,

matte r of fa ct as early as 1225 P ope H onorius III actually condemned

,

his work on this parti cular count when Amal ic of Benes sought to ,
r

bolste r his own pantheism by that of S cotus Er iu gen a We may not .

,

however o verlook the fact that true pantheism especially th e modern

, ,

variety and it is from th is starting point that we form our con cept
—

seeks to do away with G o d Th e work of E iu gen a on the contr a ry . r , ,

sought the exact o ppO S I te it attempted to lead us to a knowledge of

:

the omnipoten ce of G o d Er iu gen a said noth ing more than had .

Gregory of Nyssa Dionysius the P seu do—Areopagite and M aximus

, ,

the C onfessor by whom he was strongly influenced H e did not

,
.
,

perh aps stress S trongly enough the di fferen ce between God and th e
,

world Bu t basi cally this distin ction is present, because for Er iu gen a
.

as well as for the P seudo A reopagite the ideas in th e mind of God -

ar e not as eter nal as Go d H imself and thi s bec aus e the y a r e c r eat ed ,
360 M ED IAEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y
teachings of faith in a pur ely mechanical fashion the counterp arty ,

acted equally highhandedly and rejected all philosophy Th e leader .

of the opposition was S t P ete r Damian ( 1007 Just as the “

.

other s made e ve rything subse rvient to philosophy P eter fo r ced e ve ry ,

thing unde r the yoke of theology In the sight of God the r ules of .

logic we r e in valid : H e could make actual happenings unhappen “

.
”

M an does not need the aid of philosophy to save his soul Basically .

philosophy is an I n ven tI o n of the devil ; only as handmaid of theology

can it possibly find any application and use Th e occas o n which . I

led to the coining of the frequently quoted maxim philosophia au cilla ,

th eologiae was the r efore not in any way deepl y p r ofound We co f

, r .

sequently should r efrain from seeing in it a motto fo r the spirit of

S cholasticism Actually it was voiced only on its pe r ipher y
. .

II . S T AN S ELM O F C AN TERBURY
.
( 1033—1 109
)
FATH ER OF SC H O LAS TI CI SM
Anselm of C anterbu ry ( 1033—1109 ) was bo r n in Aosta, elected
abbot of the monaste ry of Bec in Normandy, and later consecr ated
Ar chb ishop of C ante rbu ry In him early S cholasticism found itself . .

What had been done befo re his time should really be termed P r e
S cholasticism as Grabmann has r ecommen de d H is two most r e
, .

n o w n ed works are the M o u o logiu m which deals wi th the wisdom of ,

God and the P r oslogiu m which treats of the existence of God

, , .

Editio n s

J . M igne P atr ologia Lati na V o ls

, , . 15 8— 15 9 .
— R . r Alle s, A nsel m vo u

Canter b u r y L b . e en , L h e re un d Wer ke, ii b er se tz t, e e e u n d er lau ter t ingel it t

A n selmo d A osta M o n o logi a ( Tu rin,
’ ’
— A . Beccar i, S an t ,

— E . B ian h i c ,
M o nologia ( S ienna — S N Deane S t A nselm , . .
, .

P r oslogiu m; M o u ologiu m; A n Appen dix in Beh alf of th e F ool by

C u r De us H o mo ( La S ll a e ,
I ll . : O pe n C rt P ou u bl h is ing C o .
,

A Ko . yre , S A ns elme dc Cau tor b er y Fides

.
, Q u aer e ns I n tellectu m ,

id es t P r os logio u liber Gau nilou is pr o in sipie u te

, atq u e li ber a
p olo ge ticu s

co n tr a Gau u ilou e m ( P ,
1930) ( x aris te t and Fren h
c translati n ) o .
— R .

McKe o n De V er itate , o f Anselm in S ele ctio ns fr o m M e diae val P h ilos o

ph e rs , I ,
1 5 0— 184 ( Lo nd n o ,
P g , th e P r oslogi o n
— A C . . e is of St .

A nselm in Th Wi d m e s o o f Cath olicis m 202— 228 ( Ne w o : R , Y rk ando m

H se ou — P Fr S
, . . . S ch m itt ,
A nse lmi o p er a o mu ia , 6 vo ls .

o n don and Edinb r gh 1946 ) a new riti a editi n t

( L u , ( l ) c c o .
— A . S l
o z ,
 E ARLY S CHOLASTI CISM 36 1

Anselm vo u Canter b ur y S e . in Le be n seine Bed t

,
e u u n g, sein e H au p tw rke e

Bibliogr aphy

K . B arth Q , Fides uaer e u s I ntellectu m: A nsel ms Be u/eis der Exis te n z

i m Zu ssammen h au g M u nich P r ogr amms
Go ttes seines (
th e ologisch e n ,

-
F . C . C opl est no ,
H istor y of P h ilos oph y ( We stminster, M d : .

Th e Newman P re s s, 11, 15 6— 16 5 . C F
. i sc he r ,
Die Er k e nn tnisle h r e
A nsel ms van Canter bur y ( M u nster, — C Filliatr é, La ph ilos oph ic
.

de sain t A nselme p i , p es sa natur e s o n

ses r nci , , i nflu e nce ( P s, ari
E is n. G l o , H istor y of C h r istian P h ilosoph y i n th e M iddle Ages ( N ew

Y rk Rano : do m H o u , se
129— 139 , 6 1 6— 6 19 A Le ,
.
-
vasti S an t
'

A nselmo Vita , e P ensier o ( Ba ri ,

1 F IDES Q U AERENS I NTELLECTU M

.

S t Anselm is a philosophe r who became great be cause of his co n

.

fi
nectio n with Augustine From S t A ugusti ne s genius was coined the
’
. .

motto that supplied S cholasticism wi th the directive fo r further

development : des q u aer e ns iu tellectu m What had been in the .

wor ks of S t Augustine a grandiose ideal was in S cholasticism so

.

con ceived and so develop ed in detail that it became a s chool of

thought Th e dogmas of faith are developed rationally ; they are
.

explained in accordance with logi cal points of view both in r egard

to thei r content and to thei r contexts and associations and are dr awn ,

up in such a system that we ar e enabled to dedu ce one from the

other and thus to understand them m ost thoroughly This rationalism .

does not do away with the mysteries of faith but seeks to give the ,

deposit of faith a logi cal fo rm as far as that is possible We may for ,

.
,

this reason ask whether o r not S t Anselm was also a philosopher

, .
,

because his premises wer e always in the last analysis religious theses .

“
I do not wish to know in o rder to believe but to believe in order ,

to be able to know is the explanation he offers for his position H i . s

wo r ds concisely state the attitude toward philosophy by all the S cho

lasti cs Anselm s thought nited philosophi cal with theological prob
.
’
u

lems Even th ough he speaks as a theologian he never theles s covers

.
,

the entire field of philosophy in his works .

2 . TH E AN S EL M I AN P RO O F
'

F O R TH E EX I S TENCE OF G OD

a rgument We are made aware of th is immediately in the

H is .

p roblem which brought S t Anselm such definite r ecognition in the .

36 2 I AE VAL PH I LOSO PHY
M ED

histo ry of philosophy in his p roof fo r the existence of God as

,

is developed in the P r oslogiu m Kant pinned to this proof the n .

o n to lo gi al ar g me nt
c H e had in mind however only the
u .
, ,

whi ch Des ca rtes and Leibni z had gi ven it The thought had em .

in the work of S t An selm and there it has

.

Reason dis covers within itself an idea that a

“
concei ved
( q
id
”
u a m aiu s co gitar i u on
p o

nothing greate r an be c If this Being existed

the thoughts of the reasoning faculty it would not be the ,

Being because a still greate r Being could still be conceived

, ,

a Being whi ch had its existence not only in though t but also in re
Th e idea of a S upreme Being as a consequence requires that it, ,

not only in the reason but also in reality .

C ritici sm o f th e Anselrn ian argument Th e monk G au n ilo .

obj ection to this reasoning I think of a perfe ct island he

: ,

does not follow from my mere thought that the island its
is basically the same obj e ction as that whi ch Kant will
Th e notion of a thing does not bestow
think of a hundred dollars I do not ,

cou r se Anselm knew this himself F or he .

up within himself the idea of a future p

fact does not begin to exist ( P r oslogi m u ,

defended his argu ment for the existen ce of God ; and to

whi h G au n ilo had raised he ga ve as answer that in
c

of the perfe ct island he had failed to give the true state

,

tion In the idea of God we ha ve a unique and unpa

.

be cause in it we conceive of a Being which possesses n e

from all eternity all perfe ctions with in itself whereas in the isla ,

we are dealing only with a limited a contingent being By this , .

points out the unique featu re of his argument ; its core is to be fou “

in the concept A Being that contains all perfection in itself

,
“
.
”

H i sto r ical origin of th e proof This concept is no di f ferent

.

that of Boeth ius who called God the Being possessing within
,
“

the sum of all good and all good things su mm m o mniu m b an , u

cu n cta e
q u

concept of God as the good of ever y good b ,

the same as the P latonic idea of Good and

un conditioned first prin ciple the d m éo Of ,
v r er o v
,

the { a This appears even more clearly in

Ka i/ v.
 M ED IAEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y

I II . P ETER ABELARD AND

M E DI AEVAL S UBJ EC TI V I S M

P ERS ONALI TY ANDWORK

The p rogram of S t Anselm namely to delve deeply into the trut
.
, ,

of faith found an essentially techni cal challenge in the wo r k

,

Abela r d ( 1079 a man w h o was conspi cuous as mu ch fo r

per sonality and his fas cinating life as he was fo r his creati ve abi
and his self willed speculation In o rder to raise problems and
-
.

encou rage a more p rofound S tudy of them he ,

dialectically the method which had been autho red

as Ber nold of C onstance according to which cont ,

ities were compared with one another This is th

”
.

wo rk : S ic et No n ( Yes and N a) This tr actate .

influence upon the de velopment of the S cholastic

on the technique of the disputation which as we ha ve already , ,

fo rmed the framewo r k of the S u mmas H is chief ethical treatise .

the title Eth ica S eu S cito Teipsu m H is wr itings on logic rec .

,

disco ve red by Ge ye r and Grabmann place him as G r abmann s , ,

“
in the forefront of the philosophical greats of the M iddle
Bibli ography

F C C . . op lesto n, H istor y o fP h ilos o h

p y ( Westminster , M d : Th e
.

man P ress , II 148—15 1 —

,
. B G
. eyer , Die ph ilos oph isch e n S ch
P ete r A belar ds , 4 v ls ( M iin t
o . s er , 19 19 — E . is n
G l o ,
Th e
f P hilos oph ical f Th e Lo gicism
“
o Exper ie nce , o

Yo rk : C h arles S cribner s S ons,

’
H eloise an d
Regner y C o mpany, H is tor y ofC h r istian P h
Age s ( New Yo r k : Rando m H o u se, 1
McC allu m, A belar d s Ethics ( O xfo rd : O xfo rd University P ress, 1
'

R McKeo n , Th e G lo sses o f P eter Ab elard, in S elections fr o m

“ ”
.

diae val P h ilos oph er s ( Lo nd n o ,

1 . TH E Q U ES TI ONUN IVERS ALS O F TH E

O ccasion The impo rtance of Abela r d fo r the histo ry of ph ilo so p

.

is marked by the position he adopted in rega r d to the problem

uni ve rsals which was much discussed in his day
,
.
 E ARLY SC H OLASTI CISM 365

( see above p S in ce scholars were constantly studying his writ

, .

ings they en countered this fertile and as yet unsolved question To

, .

this impetus we may add its actuality in theological matters Th e .

doctrine of the Trinity fo r example treats of th ree P ersons in one

, ,

God ; and the doctrine of the redemption enunciated the fact th at

original sin tainted mankind in its origin H o w should th e uni ve rsal .

concepts divinity o r mankind be unde rstood in these connections ?

, ,

Tr aditional th eo ries 1 ) Realis m Ther e had been conflicting opin

. .

ions o n this point fo r a long time The two extremes wer e realism .

and nominalism Realism which has also been caHed ultra realism in
.
,

contradistinction to critical realism was the olde r solution ( antiq i , u

doctor es ) P lato had assumed uni v e r sals which existed independently

.

in themsel ves before all things else to use the language of his
—

opponents ( u niver salia ante r es ) The mediae val realists were not .

advocates of this doctrine of ideas but placed the universals in ,

existing things we detect here the new notion of reality They .

were however of the belief that all particulars in contradistinction

, , ,

to the species denoted nothing new but we re al ready present in the

,

u niversals The soul of the individual huma n being for instance would
.
, ,

not be a special substance when God created it but only a peculiarity ,

o r a char acteristic of an already existing mankind O riginal sin as “

.
”

th e guilt of eve ry indi v idual human being could thus be mo r e readily

explained and understood O do of Turin ( before 1092) as well as .

G er b er t of Rheims w h o late r became P ope S yl veste r 11 ( d

, .

were of this opinion The most renowned champion of this view

.

was William of C hampeaux ( 1070 Th e universal essen ce

spec es constituted fo r him an entirely particular substan ce so
i ,

at the individual was no longer peculiar or distinctive but was at

most only a modification S imilarly the spe cies is only an accident of
.
,

th e genus and hence possesses no special substantiality .

2) No miu alis m Th e more modern mo v ement whi ch as early as

.
,

the ninth century was represented for example by H eir ic OfAuxerre , , ,

refused to see in the uni versals any universal real entities ( es ) but r

only obj ects ( thi ngs ) of thought ( u u da iu tellecta) Whate ver exists .

must always be particular In the eleventh century a group o f anti .

realistic maste rs maintained that the universals were nothing more

than mere names ( voces u o mina) hence anything but things ( es )
, ,
r .

Their chief r epresentati ve was Roscelin of C ompiegne ( c 105 0 .

c
. To him the unive r sals were me re sounds (flatus voeis )
this was a somewhat str onge r exp r ession and by it he sought on ly
36 6 M ED I AEVAL I
P H LO SO PHY
to in stitute a compa rison between the names and the
by them We must not think that this primiti ve n
.

fi
p r ompted by and flo urished in the scepticism of the
tur y no r by modern can fpt u alism according
, ,

are not in contact with being itself and co n seq

me r e con cepts O n the contrary Ro scelin was
.
,

by the concept of logic proposed by Boethius Thi s concept in .

,

tradition of Ar istotle was strongly conditioned by grammatical c

,

siderations ; and it considered esp ecially names and thei r custom

relationships In accordance with this he could assume that
.

vo ces adequately reprodu ced the circums tances of being

belonged to them In any case his thesis that all reality
.
,

ne cessity individual reality led in theologi cal matters to Tr i

for a di vinity w hich could be as cribed in the same manner uni
of all three P ersons could in conformity with such a co
,

conceived to exist without being multiplied .

Abel ar d 1 ) Dispu te w ith William of Ch ampeau x

. .

to the p roblem was constr ued di ffe rently by his pupil

outlook was mo r e critical and more subjecti ve Behind .

to realism and to his heated d

we can detect something more tha
Actually we come to grips w ith the
tain e d in rega r d to metaphysics In the beginning he made spo r t
.

William of C hampeaux H e a rgued : If the specific essence r eprese

.

e ve rything that belongs to the indi vidual then there would be ,

such thing as differ ent men but always only one man th e man ; ,

fact there would and could exist only the ten catego ries In th .

all being is exemplified and exhausted .

Ab ela r d then asks his opponent : H o w can the r e arise tho -

en ces whi ch we see plainly with ou r own eyes ? Would

be fo rced to assume that one and the same essence was th e s ust
of mutually contradictor y pr oper ties for example wo ul d not
—
‘

stance be b o th li ving and dead good and bad at one and the
,
.

time ? Is not this contrary to the pr inciple of contr adiction ?

if the species is all in all why then is that not also true
,

genus and the sup reme genera th e ten catego ries or God as
, ,

that goes as Er iu gena had maintained

,
.

We have not advanced a single step forwar d Under the p .

of these arguments William of Champeaux altered his

taught thenceforth that e v e r y pa r ticular thing is actu all
368 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
Ar istotle and Boethius abstr action did not take place at the
the subjecti ve image but rep rodu ced the inne r fo rms of “ ”

and that this uni versal fo rm in turn formed the obj ect of kno
Late r on S t Thomas AqTI in as will espouse
, .

he holds fast to the basic principle that we

in acco r dance with the special forms of our
we read the text of being but only in a tr ansla ,

tongue ; th e text remains the same however no , ,

into which it has been tr anslated We hear not .

o r ou r own constr uctions but we a lso read the o ,

thinks othe r wise A cco r ding to him natu r e no

.

but we speak about natu re and we express

to his own su bjectI ve V I eWpOI nt In any case .

ou r opinion of being We do not create being as modern r.

,

expresses it ; w e only interp ret it To this extent Abelard is .

,

mediae val man although he had advanced far beyond

,

tempo raries when he dealt with the knowledge of subjecti ve eleme

in these opinions
“
.

2 . ETHICS

e ching In his speculation on ethics Abela r d also gr eat

H is t a .

distinguished himself What had been looked upon as a matte r

.

course in P atristic times namely that mo r al actions co u si , ,

the aspect of value p roceeded from knowledge and from t

intention and freedom had to a great extent become ,

generations befo r e Abelard In the fu ry unleashed by the .

the nations the Ge rmanic races reached thei r maturity

,

and the Anglo S axon in vasion made plentiful use of a s

-

and this administration of j ustice ( in its

the concept of morality In the penitential books .

which served as a kind of catechism of mo r al

mo ral action was j udged S imply on the basis of
th e case Th e juridical r athe r than the mo r al
.

mitte d to become the deci si ve facto r in the

“
the deed mu r der eth the man was a pr inciple ”

its Germanic acceptation This material l x talio n

'

. e

in the justice of the O ld Testament continued to exe r t an influ e ,

In the S ynod s O f P aris Wo rms and Tribur

C hu r ch opposed su ch practices but it still continued to haunt ,

minds of men .
 ARL Y S C H OLAS TI CISM
E 369

Abela r d now a rose to assail it ; his purpose was to return the

intention to its rightful place in morality H e distinguished clearly .

between the will ( intentio co nsensu s ) and the act ( opus ) Th e judge
, .
“

who orde r s an innocent man executed whom he belie ves he must

legally condemn th e groundkeeper who looses an arrow at a dee r and
,

with it kills a man a husband who sleeps with a stran ge woman

,

whom he belie ves to be his wife and a man who marries his own sister
,

without recognizing her as such a mothe r who while sleeping suf ,

fo cates her child ; none of these have committed a sin because of th e

intention wi th which they performed th e actions The alleged ex .
”

amples a re drawn almost exclusi vely from the penitential manuals

Through them w
.

e can bette r r ealize what was at S take for Abelard .

In his usual impulsive fashion he o vershot the mark If in matters .

pertaining to good and evil intention and consent are questionable ,

the sinful action according to his explanation is without sub

, ,
“

stance ( n llam esse s u bstantiam pe cati) An d th e next step : If

”
u c .

th e intention is good the act itself must be good

, We call an act .
“

good not because it contains in itself something good but because it ,

is performed with a good intention

‘

.
”

I ts limitation s O f th is we can say that it is at least not p recise

. .

That the intention does constitute a ne cessary assumption for moral

goodness is evident ; that it comprises everything that is to say that

fi
, ,

it contains all the constituents of a morally right action we cannot

admit Would that morality suf ce which fo r an entire lifetime con
.

tente d itself mer ely with activating the intention wi thout ever arriving
at a life that was led in conformitywith its principles ? Th e intention
has no value in itself but is only the path to the act and can best
,

be judged by the act itself We make an intention simply because

.

a certain action must be performed ; this is the actual and the natural
asso ciation fo r th e existen ce of an intention Without an a ction to .

which it is j oined the intention is inane O f itself it could neve r .

generate a good a ction o r produce a good deed If in many instances .

we permit the will to pas s for the a tion in good deeds as well as c ,

in bad we do so not because we are not at all concerned about the

,

action but because the act itself would never have taken place were
it not for some defin ite reason In this case the will would by way of
.

exception pass for the act itself P recisely in this by way of exception
.
“ ”

we recognize that the most impor tant element in morality is normally

th e act itself .

Does not a mo r ality fu r thermo r e which always str esses th e i mten

, ,
370 M ED AE I VAL P H ILOS OPH Y
tion r un the risk of becoming lost in subje ctivism and individualism ?
Abela r d fo r esaw this dange r and tr ied to avoid it Th e intention is
“
.

not good simply because it appear s to be good but be cause it is ,

actually what we think it to be By this distinction he clamped the

._
.
”

b r akes on subjectivism There are O bj ecti ve no rms by whi ch we must

.

be guided As in the theory of knowledge so also in ethi cs Abelard

.
, ,

held to a metaphysi cal order whi ch we must attempt to interpret and

to understand H e saw the influence of the subjective in these
.

attempts but did not by that fact b ecome a pure subj ectivist It is
, .

as logical as it is characteristic of him that he withdrew his thesis

the Jews did not sin when they crucified C h rist and stoned S tephen .

M ediaeval subj ectivism was not modern perspe ctivism or relativism ,

in which truth is no longer held to exist and whi ch allows men now ,

the rabble now the individual to determine what truth should be

, , .

3 . AF TERE FFE C TS

A bela r d
succeeded in gathering ar ound himself enth siastic students u ,

and his influence upon the development of S cholasti cism was great .

Th e future P opes A lexander 111 and C elestine II sat at his feet ;

, ,

so did John of S alisbury and P eter Lombard E ven Gratian the .

,

renowned canonist was dependent upon him Above all else it was
, .

his S ic et N o n method which formed the basis of his s chool and

actually contri buted to its formation This techni q ue was simply .

absorbed by the S cholasti c method Abelard strongly influenced not .

only the theologi cal literatu re known as the S entences but he also ,

made a lasting impression on the still unpublished commentaries of

th e Ar istotelian Boethian logi c of the twelfth century ( see M Grab
-
.

mann Bearbeitungen der aristotelischen Logik aus der Zeit von P eter
,
“

Abelard bis P etrus H ispan u s in Ber liner A kade mieab h dlu ngen
,
”
au ,

IV . TH E SC H O O L O F C H ARTRE S AN D
M ED IAEVAL H UM AN I S M

1 . C HARACTER O F TH E S C HOOL

founding of the school was due to the efforts of F u lb er t of

Th e
C hart r es toward the end of the tenth century Th e golden epo ch of .

the school was reached in the twelfth century in those years whi ch ,

immediately preceded the building of the great cathedral of C hartres .

With it we stand dire ctly befo re the portals of the G olden Age of
372 M ED AE I VAL P H ILOSOPH Y
Berna r d also tr easured Aristotle highly and with almost ti reless
energy tried to effect a comp romise between these two great phi
lo so ph er s of ancient times Bernard supplied new argument s fo r the
.

intensi ve reading of the classics and of classical liter ature on th e

—

whole and in so doing ushered humanism into the s chool of C har tres
, .

Thier ry H is younge r brother Thierry ( or Theodoric ) of C hartre s

.
, ,

guided the destinies of the school from 1140 onward In his com .

mentary on Genesis ( De sex dier u m oper ib us ) he recon ciled the ,

tradition of P lato and C h alcidiu s with the Bible H is H eptateu ch ou .

,

a textbook on the se ven liberal arts contains excerpts from o ver ,

forty di ffer ent works and thus fu rnishes us with a treasury of informa
tion on the literary life of the fir st half of the twelfth centu ry Thierry .

also culti vated a P latonizing philosophy Th e elements of his meta .

physics are unity ( the one ) and plu r ality ( numbers ) Th e one is .

ete rnal and unchangeable it is identi cal with God N umber s ar e .

changeable fo r change is number ed ; and so b y numbers we prove

,

the existence of created beings Just as all number s begin with and
.

pro ceed from the one $0 the whole world comes forth from God
,
.

Bu t if the fo r ms of all things a r e also in the mind of God and if ,

the di vinity thus molds the form of individual things ( divinitas

singu lis r e b u s f o r ma ess e n di est) the di fference between c r eato r and
,

creatu r e is not obliterated because God cannot become matter ( divini

,

tas immater iar i u o u potest) Thie rry therefore expounded his thesis in
.

the sense of Augustinian exemplarism We are also r eminded im .

mediately of the P seudo—Ar eopagite and still mo r e of the P yth ago r iz

'

ing speculation Of the mature P lato concerning ideas and numbers ;

the same views will also be represented in Renaissance times by
Ni cholas of C u sa Th e school of C hartres formed then an impo r tant
.
, ,

link in the great idealistic chain whi ch stret ches from P lato to H egel .

Gilbe rt de la P orree Anothe r important figure in this school was

.

Gilbert de la P orree ( d . with his tract on the six final categories

of Aristotle ( lib er sex pr incipor u m) which supplied the groundwo rk
fo r logic in the University of P aris during the thirteenth centu ry .

William of C onches William of C onches ( d 1145 ) w rote a com

. .

mentary on the P latonic Dialogue Timaeu a gloss to De Consola ,

s,

tio n e P h ilos o ph iae of Boethius and three di f,

fe r ent presentations O f
philosophy ( philosophia m n di) u .

John of S alisbury John of S alisbu ry ( d 1180) in his M et logicu s

. . a

gives us invaluable information on the logi c Of his day and on the

various tenden ies discernible in the dispute o ve r the un i versals and
c ,
 A L Y SCHOLASTI CI SM
E R 373

through his P oli r tic s exercised some influence on the theories of

c a u

politi cal philosophy propounded in the M iddle Ages especially in ,

whatever concerns the attitude of subje cts towar d a tyrant whose ,

forceful deposition he held to be lawful and j ustifiable .

O tto o f Freisin g Bishop O tto of Freising ( d 1 15 8 ) was closely

. .

associated with the school H e was th e one who fo r the first time
.

introduced th e whole Aristotelian logic into Germany Th e tenden cies .

of the s chool were turned into pantheisti c channels by Amalr ic of

Benes and David of Dinant in the se cond half of the twelfth century .

Th e fo rmer held that God was the form ; the latter the mat i p ima , er a r

of all things .

V M YS TIC I S M .

O ur picture of early S cholasticism would not be complete if we did

not mention mysti cism We must not think that S cholasti cism under
.

stood only the language of r eason and lacked warmth of feeling ;

on th e other hand we must not hold that in its religious elau
,
’

mysticism placed itself beyond the pale of S cholastic theories .

1 . S T BERNARD
. OF CLAI RV AU x
We must name fi rst of all the C ister cian S t Bernard of C lairvaux , .

( 109 1 H e left his imprint on the twelfth century much as had

Abelard Bernard assailed th e windy babblings of the philosophers
“
.
,

not because he personally despised knowledge b u t simply be cau se he ,

wished to place it upon sure r footing Th e beginning of all knowledge

.

of the truth does not o r I gI nate in the intellect b u t in humility In .

it all the interests of the ego are redu ced to silen ce and wh en silen ce
prevails we can be come candid and re ceptive of the tru th Faith and .

resignation to the will of God are more important th an dialectics .

For this reason true philosophy was for S t Bernard the love of .

C h rist and H im cru cified In and through H im S t Bernar d be came

. .

mo st intimately united with divine wisdom O n this road S t Bernard . .

distinguished three S tages : the co nsider atio n in wh ich we collect and ,

search ; the co ntemplatio n in whi ch we grasp the truth in tr ustful

,

surrender and contemplation ; and the ecstasy in whi ch we divest ,

our selves of our personal ego and in mystical union lose ourselves in
God as does a drop of water in wine S t Bernard was as S t Augus
,
. .
, .

tine before him a religious genius who envisaged the possibilities of

,

human nature and thereby affor ded the philosoph er many other wise
latent insights and vantage points .
374 M ED IAEVAL PH ILOS OP H Y
2 . V ICTORINES
TH E
H o w w r ong it would be to believe th at mysti cism trod a di f
ferent
intellectual path from S cho lasticism is demonstrated fo r us by the
"

Augustinian canons of the monastery of S t Victor outside the gates .

of P aris H ugh of S t Victor ( d

. a German C ount O f Blanken
. .

burg sought to culti vate all worldly s cien ces When the An ti Dialec
, .
-

tician s maintained Th e study of philosophy is useless b e countered

“ ”
, ,

by saying Learn everything and you will soon dis cover that nothing
,
“

is in vain Whereas the mysti cism of Bernar d is founded more on

.

P auline and on Jo ann in e do ctrine, in the Victorines Neo—P latoni c

views we r e revived H ugh wr ote a wonderful commentary on the
.

Celestial H ier ar h y in which profound religious spe ulation and

c , c

mystical depth of feeling are cleverly intermingled Its influence on .

late r philosophy and theology was conside rable Thus for example .
, ,

P ope Boniface VIII d r ew the prin cipal statements of his Bull Un m ,

a

S an tam from the w r itings of H ugh Ri chard of S t Vi ctor ( d 1173)

c , . . .

was of the same mind Especially dear to him was the do ctrine of
.

“
the sparklets of the soul whi ch will later on play s u ch a great role
,

in mysticism .
376 M ED AE I VAL PH ILOSOPHY
well as the I nt o du ctio n Of P orphy r y and the wor ks of P seudo
r

D ionysius tr anslated into S y r iac and Implemented by the com

,

men tar ies Afte r the Ar abs had conquered S yria and P ersia they
.
,

exprop riated the ph ilo so phy o f thei r victims Th e Abb asides invited ‘

S yrian schola r s to the court of Baghdad and saw to it that the wo r ks

of the Greeks were translated into Ar abic pa rtly from S yrian partly , ,

from Greek texts and sour ces Th e C aliph El M amoun set up a .

-

S pe cial sta f
f of t r anslators in Baghdad Besides the A ristotelian
works the Ar abs del ved into still othe r types of Greco S y rian litera
,
—

tu re into Theophrastus Galen H ippocrates Euclid Archimedes

, , , , , ,

and also into a whole series of commentaries on Aristotle fo r ex ,

ample those o f Alexander of Aphrodisias P o rphy ry Th emistiu s and

, , , ,

Ammo n iu s .

2) Ne o P lato nic
-
co mme ntar ies
F rom this we can on Ar istotle .

see that with the exception of Alexander all the authors used and
consulted were exclusi v ely N eo P latonists who explained Aristotle -
,

acco r ding to thei r own lights In fact A rabian philosophy became .

,

the channel as it were through which re vived NCO P latonism pou red
, ,
-

into the M iddle Ages and this afte r the M iddle Ages had al ready
,

become acquainted with it as a po r tion of its P atristic he ritage The .

doctrine of intelligences and emanation the idea of a gradation of ,

beings the idea of the oneness of intellect in all men the con cept
, ,

of eternal matte r the do ctrine of a mystical union were spread

,

abroad in a special manner by the Arabs .

3) Th eolo gy o fAr isto tle an d th e Lib er de Cau sis The NCO P latonic .
—

inte rp retation of Ar istotle was still furthe r influenced by two war ks

with whi ch the M iddle Ages be came familia r through the Ar abian s
and whi ch scholars held to be Ar istotelian : the so called Theology -
“

of Aristotle which was in reality an excerpt from Books F ou r and

”

S ix of P lotinus E n n eads and the Lib er de Causis whi ch rep r esents a

’
,

portion of the Elementatio Th eologica ( E x wm (O k y m” of r oz a

’
s sa a
-
a

P ro clus — a work which S t Thomas Aquinas himself consulted . .

4) Alf ar abi A cross fertilization of Ar istotelian and N o P latonic

.
-
e —

ideas was incorporated into the S peculation of Arabian philosophy .

For Alfar ab i ( d fo r example beings of various degrees emanate

.
,

from the Divine Being Among the fi r st of these grades we can find
.

the spiritual substances or intelligences which as souls set the spheres ,

into motion O f these intelligen ces one is the A ristotelian agent

.

intellect .

5 ) Avicenn a S imila r thoughts were ente rtained by A vicenna ( Ibn

.
 TH E G OLDE N AGE O F S CHOLASTICI SM 377

S ina, 980 who was frequently quoted by the S cholastics .

According to him the wo rld is the eternal product of an ete rnal

,

God In this theory the idea of emanation again finds use and
.

application From God p roceed the highest of the intelligences From

. .

them in turn emanate one after another the subordinated spirits of

, ,

th e sphe r es who by thei r pro viden ce ( thought and will ) govern the
,

world in all its minute detail God does not trouble H imself about .

the individual but onfines H imself to and knows only the universal
, c .

In addition matter is conceived to be eternal To Avi cenna matter is

, .

also the prin ciple of individuation .

6 ) Av r r o es Aver r o és of C ordoba ( Ibn Ro sch id d 1 198 ) appears

'

e .
, .

to be mo re Aristotelian fo r acco rding to him the intelligences owe

,

thei r existen ce to a creative act The Word was cr eated by God .

,

but It is eternal In his philosophy the intelligences also impar t motion

.

to the spheres and fo r him the last of these intelligences is also the
intellectu s agens This is the cosmic force which starts on its orbit
.

the created moon Bu t this intellect is only one in all men so that
.
,

the indi vidual human being does not possess a distinct substantial
soul no r is he endowed with personal immortality O nly the soul .

of mankind is immortal M atte r is likewise eternal and contains within

.

itself the fullness of all natural dispositions and forms Thei r actualiza .

tion ( extr actio ) is responsible for e very happening both in the natural
orde r and in the cosmic process These theses espe cially the one .
,

dealing with monopsychism fu rnished S cholasticism with subj ect ,

matte r fo r protracted debates S t Thomas refuted it in h is work .

,

De u nitate intelle tu s co nt a Aver r oi tas Aver r o és enjoyed great

c r s .

esteem among his contemporaries and was looked upon as the

commentato r of Ar istotle par excellence There we re three versions of .

h is commentaries : the large ones th e small ones and th e P ar aph ses , , ra .

7 ) Algaz el Aver r o és quarrel with A lgazel ( Ghazali d 1 111 ) is

’
.
, .

inter esting because it r epresents a parallel to the incidental conflict

between religion and philosophy within the framework of C hristian
S cholasticism To preser v e the r eligious content of Islamism against
.

the encroachments of philosophy Algazel wrote the work Dest tio , r uc

P hilo so ph o u m ( D st ctio n ofth e P h ilo s oph s ) Nothing daunted

r e ru er .
,

Averro es defended the rights of reason ( tio ) in his famous D e ra

st uctio D e t uctio is D est uctio n o f th e D es t u ctio n ) Th e basic

r s r
( u r r .

thought of this work was that philosophy does not propose to

supplant religion ; both philosophy and religion search for and
examine truth each in its own way This is not the doctrine of the
,
.
378 M ED I AE VAL PH ILOSO PHY
late r Ave rroists on two kinds of truth A ccording to Averroes .

words diffe r the matter remains the same ; whe reas fo r the Aver r
,

religion and philosophy have for their own proper object inco
mensurable goals .

Bibliography
T .
J D B er
. e o ,
Th e H is tor y o fP h ilos oph y in I sla m ( L o nd n
o ,

G a th ier I n t d u ctio n l E tu de de la P hilo s oph ie M u s u lman e

'
L . u ,
ro a

1923 ) La Th e or ie d I b u Roch d
’
sur les Rappor ts de
P h ilos oph ie ( P aris : E L . er o u x, 19 09 )
tian P hilos oph y in th e M iddle Ages
pp 18 1
. i i ra i a material
— 225 B b l o
g ph c l .
,

P hilos oph y ( New Y rk

o : Ch arles S ri c

b y A H C D wn s A M G i h n La P h ilos ophie d A vice n

’
. . . o e . . . o c o ,

I nfl n ue n E pceM di el ( P aris ur o e e e va e ,
— M H o rten .
,
“
I
P h i l s ph ie in Di R ligi n in G ”
o o ,
e e o es ch ic h te uu d G ege n u/ar t ,

( 2n d d T b in
c
g n.
J ,C B M h r
u e : . . . o , co l s
429—433. .

O Lear y, Ar abic Th o u gh t
’
an d its P lace in H istor y ( Lo nd n
o

Trench , Tr u bn er 8: C o , — H P ir e n n e , M o h amme . .

magu e ( New Yo rk : W W No rton, pp 4 7 — 1 85

,
translate . . .

Bernard M iall — G Q u adri La P h ilos oph ie Ar ab e D ans l E u r ope

’
. .
,

die vale ( P aris ,

transl ted by a R . Hu rt
e .
— C arra de V a x
u ,

P e ns e u r s d I slam 5
’

, v ls ( P ari 192 1
o . s,

Jewish philosophy I ) Avencebr ol Th e Jewish philosophy w . .

exe r ted p ressure on S cholasti cism was essentially influenced by A

philosophy As a consequence it was again a N eo P latonic in ter pr e
.
,
-

tion of Aristotle whi ch asserted itself anew A en c b o l ( Avi cebron . v e r

S alomon ibn G eb ir o l d 1070) championed a pantheism based , .

emanation In his chief work Fo us Vitae he establishes that God

.
, ,

the source of life from whi ch all being flows being that is di vid ,
—

natur ally into various degree s of value ( a hierar chy of value ) T .

cosmic spirit pro ceeds dire ctly from God This spirit is compo sed .

matte r and form two principles whi ch characteri z e being in all ,

various guises From time to time they merge to form a u n

.

form substance but they are two real and distin ct principles
,
.

ing from this cosmic spirit in a downward scale emanation ,

two directions : into the corporeal and into the spiritual

these worlds matter and form remain the principles of
a great variety of forms can be found in individual
these two theses Avenceb o l gave a definite impetus t ,
r
380 M ED IAE VAL PH I LOS OPH Y
Nati naleo ,
B b l o g ph c l mi i ra i a aterial .
— H . A . Wolfso n ,
C
Cr itiq u e of Ar is to tle
( C m b g : H a rid e arvard University P ress ,

2 . DIRECTTRANSLATI ONS FR OM TH E GREE K

Renewed philosophical a tivity became in cr easingly great afte
c

scholars became acquainted with A ristotle in his entirety throu

translations from the original Greek Until the middle of .

fi
century th e S cholasti cs had known of
,

P orphyry s introduction
’

and De Di er entiis Topici ) along with the latter s co mmen t r ie

s
’
a

the Categor ies and the P er ih er meu ias In fact it was only the .
,

two works of A ristotle which were accessible and then only in ,

translation of Boethius These were all th e e t ngS with which

. I

West could work From them it would have appeared as if

.

S tagirite had been only a logician Th e A rabian Jewish ph ilo sop .

-

gave only an indirect approach to Ar isto tl

them his philosophy had been splintered into a thousand fr agm
and had been v iewed in a myriad of ways mu ch as th e light of ,

sun is split by a prism into a variety of colors H is thought .

been translated from the Greek into S yriac ; from the S yriac
A rabi c ; from A rabi c — when possible also by way of O ld S pa h is
into Latin F rom this we can well imagine how difli
.

have been to determine the spirit and meaning

especially sin ce the N eo P latonic commentaries o ffered entirely u
—

interpretations of his thought We can also r eadily pe rceive the .

advan ce that was made when A ristotle was directly translated

the Greek into Latin and when all his works not only those on ,

were available This undertaking began as early as the middle

.

twelfth century In regard to it there is only one name of wh i

.

can be certain and that is H enric s A ristippus of C atania d

, ( u .

who tr anslated the fou r th book of M eteo ology r

et Co r r u ptio u e Bu t
.

P h ysics De A n ima
, and M taphysi s , e c

si ma
) among others we r e already known in the
entire work was brought to completion only at the beginning of
thirteenth century .

Th e most famous of these translators were Bartholomew of M ess

Robert Grosseteste and William of M oerbeke The latte r wor
,
.

especially for S t Thomas Aquinas To these we may also add

. .
 TH E GOLDEN AGE O F SCH OLASTICI SM 38 1

Th emistiu s, S implicius , Eu str atius, Aspasiu s, Ammo n iu s M ichael

John P h ilopo nu s Literary and histori cal researches I nto the in ltr a
.

tion by the Greek Aristotle of the M iddle Ages are S till in progress
,

fi
and

Fo r details of this monumental task consult the authoritati ve works

of M Grabmann A P elz er F P elster A M ansion G Lacombe
.
, .
, .
, .
, .
,

and many others ( general su rvey by M De Wulf H istoir e de ph il .

, .

m d I [6e . f ; II [6
64 f 25 f f ; cf English translation [E . . . .

M essenger ] Vol I pp 5 8 72 ) , .
, .
—

3 . SC HOLAS TI C ARI S TO TELIANI S M

realistic study of Aristotle based on the principles refined in the

A
histo ry of philosophy must be pushed still further This research must .

show precisely how far the re ception of Aristotle into S cholasti cism
was limited solely to the terminology which he used and how mu ch
farther his a ctual thought penetrated Th e fact that S t Albe rt the . .

Great despite his Aristotelianism also speculated in a Neo P latonic

, ,
-

fashion o r that S t Thomas in his teaching on man on eternal .

,

happiness on knowledge — to mention only a few topics was more

,
—

or less closely allied with S t A ugusti ne in spite of his Aristotelian .

terminology would almost necessarily cause us to pause and to ask fo r

,

a r e evaluation of Ar istotelianism as it was known in the M iddle Ages

— .

S o thorough a student of P latonism and A ristotelianism as A E . .

Taylor was of the opinion that in the most decisive points of mediae val
philosophy P latonism was never supp lanted and he mentioned further , ,

in passing that the s cholastic Aristotelianism was a sheer external

,

accessory ( P l to n ism nd I ts I nflu n c 2 cd

a This may be a a e e, .
,

trifle exaggerated In his work on P latonism and the M iddle Ages

.
,

E H o ffmann expo u nded a diametri cally opposite thesis ( V o r tr age

'

d r Biblio th e k W b r g 1923/
e Genu ine P latonism had never so
ar u ,

much as contributed a single important element for the formation of

an ecclesiasti cal philosophi cal system .

In any case a discussion of th e relation between the older P latonic

,

A gustinian tradition and the newe r Ar istotelianism in the golden

u

era of S chola ticism will in the f tu re be forced to take into

s u

con sideration th e new theory th at has been propounded for the

S holasti c A ristotle by W Jaeger in his important studies Up to
c . .

th e present whenever s cholars run a cross the name or the texts of

,

A ristotle in s cholasti c works t h ey tend to interpret them in the light ,

of th e concept of A ristotle that h ad for a long time been taken for

granted a concept wh i ch saw in these two great Greek philosophers
—
,
382 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS OPH Y
Aristotle and P lato a very s h arp and pointed antithesis S uch a con
, .

cept was the image of A ristotle current in the nineteenth centu ry

Ar istotle the realist opposed to P lato the idealist An d the

“ ” “ ”
, , , .

confli ct between the tWo g eat tendencies in the mediaeval schoolsr

only lent it creden ce Jaeger s book however has shown that Aristotle
.
’

, ,

was conscious of th e fa ct that he was the first Greek who saw the real
“

world with the eyes of P lato C onse q uently the nineteenth centu ry .
,
—

assumption has be ome controversial c .

If we consider furthe rmore that Boethius the fir st great authority

, ,
“

of the M iddle Ages had ente rtained the same convi ction and that
, ,

the fir st S cholastics wer e convinced that between P lato and Aristotle

tr ue accord would seem to h ave existed ; and if we add to these con
siderations the further fa ct th at even th e Ar abians had suggested an
Aristotle who m st be viewed with N CO P latonic spectacles and that
u -
,

furthermo r e a majority of the commentaries intimated a like su gges

tion then we might possibly hazard the guess that in the future the
,

inte rp r etation of the S cholasti c Ar istotle by reason of its P latonic ,

speculation will have to be pursued more in line with a conco r dance

,

than with a dis crepan cy that was thought to have ex1sted What we .

o ffe r here must not be considered the final word We wish to state .

the true case and to open a new fi eld of debate on this p roblem of
Aristotle and P lato which was frequently viewed and mo r e fr e
,

quently perhaps believed simply on the basis of the wo r ds that were

,

used and of the S cholastic antitheses which were r evealed in them .

We wish furthermo re to call to mind the fact that ther e were external
, ,

S holasti c antitheti cal tendencies in the S chools themselves F or these

c .

reasons in thi s book we ha ve treated in ou r exposition of Aristotle s ’

philosophy th e P latoni c element mu ch more fully than is usually

the case .

4. P ROHI B ITI ONSWRITINGS OF ARI S TOTLE

O F TH E

A s is customary in su ch cases the course of histori cal growth at

fi
,

first saw only something di fferent in the new philosophi cal develop
ment — speci cally the introdu ction of Ar istotle As a result it

fi
.
, ,

ultimately be came naturalized and was finally adopted not without

dif culty As early as 1210 a P arisian provincial co u n cil forbade
.
,

reading the works of Ar istotle on natur al philosophy as well as any

commentaries on them Bu t the t r aditional stud y of A r is totelian logi c
.

was permitted to continue undisturbed Th is prohibition stemmed it .

,

would seem from the o fficial ecclesiasti cal position which had been
,
384 M ED AE I VAL P H ILOSOP H Y
knowledge of the complete Aristotle grew the importan ce of th e ,

faculty devoted to his study increased greatly ; for the faculty then
not only offer ed the purely p opedeu tical wo rk of the se ven libe ral
r

arts but it was obliged to take over the entire cour se of philosophy
, .

O the r uni ve r sities we r e de facto olde r than P a r is namely Bologna , ,

and S alerno These had howe ver at fi rst possessed only legal and
.
, ,

medical faculties r espectively S omewhat later we find O xfor d which

.
,

was only a little less renowned than P aris O f course P aris was called .
,

the civitas ph ilosoph o u m par excellence

r .

TH E O R D E RS

O f greater importance was the scientific life whi ch pulsated in the

Do mI n I can and Fr anciscan O rders They each possessed independent .

houses of study for example at O xfo rd Rome N aples Cologne In

, , , , , .

them wer e t rained and educated an entire generation of learned and

renowned scholars In addition the P opes endowed various chai r s
.
,

of learning in the different universities S S Bonaventure and Thomas . .

we re professors at P aris Th e growth of these orde r s did not proceed

.

without opposition In the ensuing confli ct with the diocesan clergy

.

who appar ently wer e troubled by the competition which the o r der s
offe r ed as well as in the contr oversies among the orders themselves
,

the Domini cans fa vo red Aristotelianism whereas the F ran ciscans held ,

for the P laton i c Augustinian t radition war or verbal conflict was as

- —
,

has frequently been the case the father of many things

,
.

I
TH E S C H O O L O F O X F O RD
.

M ATH EM ATI C S AND TH E NATURA L S C I EN C ES

We begin our p resentation of the golden era of S cholasticism with

the school of O xfo r d because in it the continuity with the ancient
,

tr adition was strongest and also because we wish to counteract the

,

widespread prejudice that th e golden e ra of S cholasticism was only

a sla velike mechanical adoration and serflike imitation of Aristotle .

A r istotle was known in O xford ; the founder of the school was one
of his most famous translato r s Bu t O xford adopted a critical attitude
.

toward Aristotle To a great extent this attitude caused the school

.
,

to be mu ch more r eceptive of the natural sciences whi ch were pur sued

by the Ar abians O xford likewise cherished the heritage of Chartres
.

and cultivated the study of mathematics and physics P aris o n the .

,
 TH E GOLDEN AGE OF S CH OLASTIC IS M 385

contrary e vinced little interest in these subjects Before all else O xfo r d
, .
,

and this has always been a peculiar tr ait Of English philoso phy ,

inclined towar d empiricism although in its fundamental attitude it

,

r emained true to Augustinian P latonism Th e beginnings of O xfor d .

may be traced to the traditional holders of this mental outlook ,

namely the Franciscans who were summoned there by the founder

, ,

of the school Rober t Grosseteste

, .

1 . RO BE RT
GROSSETES TE
Robert Grosseteste ( 1175 125 3) was in the words of Roge r Bacon
—
, ,

a scientist wi thout a peer fo r he under stoo d mathematics and

optics and in addition knew so many languages that he was able
to read in thei r own langu age th e Fathers and the philosopher s and
the wise men of the past H e taught in O xford at the house of
.
”

studies belonging to the M inorites ; after 1208 he became chancellor

of the university and in 1235 Bishop of Lincoln H e lavished special .

attention upon S t Aug stine and S t Anselm H e was the first to

. u . .

translate the N i mach ean Ethics from the Greek into Latin together
co

with di ffer ent commentaries From these S t Albert the Great and . .

S t Thomas drew their knowledge of certain Greek words H is

. .

Op s u la P h ilo s o ph ica ( edited by Baur in the Baeu mker —Beit age

'

u c r ,

Vol 9 ) betrays even in its titles the s cienti fic approach of this great
.

man : O n Ligh t and O n th e O igin of F o ms ; O n Lines Angles r r , ,

Fig es or O n th e Ref action and th e R flectio n of Rays ; O n th e

ur r e

Rain b o w ; O n Co l s ; O n th e Wa mth o fth e S u n ; O n Bo dily M o v

or r e

ments an d Ligh t; O n th e Limits of M otio n and of Time among ,

others ( cf S H Thomson Th e W itings of R b er t Gr osseteste

,

. . .
,
r o ,

Bis h op ofLincoln 1235 125 3 [C ambridge : C ambridge University P r es s

—
,

1940] O n Ligh t trans C lare Riedl [M ilwa kee : M ar q uette University

, . u

P ress ,

H is metaphysics o f li ght E spe cially characteristic of Grosseteste

.

is his metaphysics of light This was an old theme that had been .

dealt with frequently by the N eo P latonists Grosseteste s pu rpose in

’
-
.

tr eating of it was to construct a metaphysi cs of being and of becoming

in general Light is indeed a body but it is such a tenuous and
.
,

refined substance that it stands midway between ideality and reality .

Light fo rms the principle of corpore ality its fo r m Light is di f fused

“

, .

in all dire ctions in accordance with its own peculiar nature so that ,

from one point there is th rown o ff a light as big as you might choose ,

j ust so long as dar kness proves to be no hindrance to it this .

386 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y
then is light : that force whi ch multiplies of itself and is widely -

diffus ed S ince this light as the original form o f corporeality is

.

radiated it draws with it created fir st matter from which it cannot

be separated into e ver m
, ,

e p r ogressi v e multipli cations of rays and

or
”
, ,

th us there arise bodies the world and th e worlds

, , .

In View of the constant attempt made by the N eo P latonists in —

,

conne ction with the metaphysics of light to deri v e reality from ideality ,

by a kind of theory of descent it would be very easy to recall a ,

w o r d of Kant con cerning the ignorant who bungle in metaphysics by

co n ceI V I n g of matter as so fine and super fi ne that one becomes dizzy

contemplating the results and then bu r st out in an exultant cry th at

,

they have fabri cated a spiritual but at the same time extended being
o r substance Bu t perhaps all this is but a figment of the imagination
.

and perhaps it would be bette r to think of the dynamism of Bosco vich ,

if we should wish to take up th e subj ect and spin it out fu r the r In .

any case G rosseteste in his metaphysics of light had ad vanced far

,

beyond the mediaeval A ristotelianism and had anticipated a modern

notion namely the attempt to measur e and to define nature in terms
, ,

that were in acco r dance with the tenets of mathematical quantitative

methods instead of speaking constantly of internal essences ; for it
was specifically this which finally r esulted from his O ptics ( per spec “ ”

tiva) inherent in the theo r y of light This is e v entually the reason .

fo r the importance of O xfo r d : long befo re Galileo and Descartes it ,

considered physics and mathematics necessary fo r th e study of nature

and r efused to cling to a philosophy of nature that was based solely

on speculation .

Theo ry o f k nowledge In Galileo as we shall see late r on the

.
, ,

empi rico mathematical method was joined to the idealistic assumption

—

that the movement of the wo rld which we measu r e and count may be
ancho red in eter nally ideal realities G rosseteste postulated fo r all .

things an inne r rightness which can be grasped only by th e mind

“

and this is tr uth — natu r ally ontologi cal truth This forms the
“ ”
.

tr ue basis of all knowledge I t is pre cisely be cause this truth can be

'

gr asped only by ou r minds that scien ce exists In this we perceive .

that the notion of truth p roposed by Anselm lives on and is developed

into a theo retical ap r io r ism which appear s together with its comple
menta ry postulate : examine experience in all its phases .

God The whole is crowned by or based on as yo u wish his

.
, ,

teaching on God God is known and is the F orm of forms N atur ally
. .

n o t in th e sense that t his F o r m becomes essentially a complementary

388 M ED AEV I AL P H ILOSOPH Y
natu rally affected by such an a rrogant p ro nouncement What enr aged
m
.

the temper s of his contempor aries still o r e was his charge that
his er a was guilty of cer tain crimes against learning : the idol of a“

weak and specious autho rity th e idol of unb roken custom the , ,

idol of p r ej udices ente rtained by the ignor ant masses the idol of the ,

concealment of per sonal igno r an ce and the gaudy display of apparent ,

wisdom Again we a re r eminded of Francis Bacon and his con

.

demn atio n of the fou r idols .

Augu sti ni ani sm Roge r was ne ver theless a follower of the old
.

Augustinian t r adition H e took o v er from Aristotle who had at this

.
,

time become the fashion the phr ase intellectus agens but he under
, ,

stood it in a pur ely Augustinian sense : God is the intelle ct which is “

acti ve in ou r soul in the acquisition of ever y kind of knowledge H is .

”

teache r before him had conceived of this in the same way In this .

concept it is clearly evident that idealism is not a contradiction of

expe riential knowledge .

In order to appre ciate even more clearly that empiri cism can be
found in him to an extent seldom en countered in the M iddle Ages ,

we must mention that his mind was filled with ideas which only a
modern te chni cian could possibly entertain namely with dreams , ,

of autos airplanes and apparatus with whi ch man could move

, ,
“

with out danger on the bottom of the sea and on the floor s of rivers .
”

3. THO M AS OF YORK
An interesting figure in the history of the school of Ox ford is
Thomas of York ( d H e had be come a magister there in
.

125 3 Fr om him we de r ive a metaphysi cs in which Aristotle Avi cenna

.
, ,

A verro es Algazel A ven cebr o l and M aimonides are evaluated and

, , ,

which affords us a clear cu t imp ression of the receptiveness of the

—

O xonians for the influx of new ideas P hilosophy was considered in .

O xford mo r e than elsewhe r e as an independent b r anch of knowledge

, ,

and metaphysical problems were subjected to discussions which were

both objecti ve an d sane TO mention only a few : Being as su ch and
.

its independen ce the forms of being prin ciples and causes the
, , ,

transcendentals .

4 . DE I N TELL I GE N TI I S
metaphysics of light whi ch the founder of the O xford school
Th e
had advocated exer cised some influen ce on the wo r k D e I ntelligentiis
of A dam P u lch r ae M u lier is and for thi s r eason w e shall touch upon
 TH E GOLDE N AGE OF S CH OLAS TIC I S M 389

it lightly here This tractate has been as cribed by Baeu mke to Witelo
. r ,

the S ilesian philosophe r of nature C haracteristic of it are a Neo .

P latonism of A rabian origin Ar istotelian elements the aftere ffects , ,

of the Lib er de Causis and the old S cholastic tr adition This work
, .

treats of God as the First C ause of H is essence of H is knowledge , , ,

of supreme intelligences of their knowledge and of thei r causality , , .

Th e metaphysi cs contained in it does not begin with being as su ch

but with the notion of eternity This eternity is the O ne in which .

othe r things participate and th u s become beings Acco rdingly the .

,

more closely a be ing approaches to or recedes from the O ne so ,

mu ch more valuable o r mo re worth less it be comes Th e natur al .

sc en ce of O xford is not mentioned in this volume

1 but the meta ,

physics f light is For its place in the history of philosophy we must

o .
,

mention as characteristics of this work its references to Aristotle ,

A ugustine A vi cenna the Lib

, d Ca is Boethi s Gilbert de la
, er e us , u ,

P orree Robert Grosseteste is not noted be cause he was still alive

. .

L ate r on we shall en counter S imilar thoughts in the works of S t .

Albert the Great .

II . TH E O LDER FRAN C I S C AN S C H OO L
TH E M EN O F AUGU S TIN I AN I S M

Th e ustomary Au gu stianian tradition predominated also in the

c

older Fran ciscan school Th lS must not be understood however in .

, ,

the sense that only the Francis cans tho ght highly of S t Augustine ; u .

the earlier Domini can s chool and the masters of theology among the
diocesan clergy had busied themselves with him even before S t A lbert .

and S t Thomas Th e Fran cis cans however were the only avowed
. .
, ,

disciples of S t Augustine They clung most tenaciously as well as

. .

longest to a numbe r of do ctrines by whi ch they we re especially

chara cterized and whi ch di f fe rentiated them most sharply from the
Domini cans with thei r Ar istotelianism These do ctrines wer e chiefly .

those whi ch pertained to the primacy of the will o ve r the intellect ,

the relations h ip of all knowledge to th eternal r tio n s in the mind e a e

of God the illumination generated by uncreated light the r ti ne

, , a o s

s e min ales in matter the multipli city of forms spiritu al matter the
, , ,

relative independen ce of the soul in regard to the body the identity ,

of the potencies ( faculties ) of th e soul the substance of the soul , ,

the immediate knowledge whi ch th e so l derives from its own u

essence and es pe ciall y th e e nti r e co ncept of ph iloso ph y as a Chr is ti an

,
390 M ED IAEVAL PH I LO SO PHY
philosophy In their eyes philosophi cal thought was not divorced
.

from religion and theology ; rather it was intimately linked to “

th em .

B ibliography
C . Baeu mk e r , Ro ge r Baco u s Natu r alph ilos oph ie ( M u nster in W
f, l 9 16 )
Asch en do r f .
— S tewart C . E ast n o ,
Roge r Bacon an d H is S ear ch
f or a Un i ver sal S cie nce ( N ew Y rk o : C o lu mb ia University P r ss e ,

Ch arles M .J rdain E ou i n Hi t ,
xc u r s o s s or i q u es et P h ilos oph i q u es a Tr aver s
le M aye u Ag ( P aris Firmin Did t
e : -
o et cie .
, pp . 129— 145 .
— O tt o

K ei h er
c ,
Raymu n du s Lu llu s u n d s ei n e S tellu u g z ur A r abis ch e n P h ilos oph ie
( M ii n ster in W
n rew G rge Littl R ger
. : f,
A sch e n do r f — A d eo e,
“
o

Ba n in B iti h A d my P di n g ( L nd n — M i ne P
”
co r s ca e r o cee s o a
g o

V l 90 ( Wi lliamC n h es P hil
, , ,

t l gi L tin
ro o a a
p h i
a, i in l d
o d a m
. n g o c
’
os o a s c u e o

th w rk s f V nerable Bede ) ; V l 199 ls 6 6 6—938 ( J h n f S lisb ry

e o o e o .
,
co . o o a u

wh i h als c ntains fragments f Bernard f C h artr s ) J an H nri

o co o o e .
—
e e

P r b st L M y ti q d R m n L ll t l A t d C n t mpl i ( M
'
o ,
a s ue ii n t e a o u e r e o e ac o u s er

in W A h nd f f l 9 14 )
. : P alma z R k sc D e U p ng or n , .
— u er , er rs ru u s er er

B g ifl n h Ri h d
e r M di ill ( M n t r in W A h n d ff
ac c ar v ou e av a u s e . : sc e or ,

— D r th a S h arp F n i n P h ilo ph y t O f d i n th Th i t n th
o o e ,
ra c sca so a x or e r ee

C n t y ( L nd n
e ur O f rd University P ress o S i grid Unds t
o : x o ,
— e ,

St g an th R d ( N w Y r k Alfred Kn pf
es o e
pp 3oa 6 5 tran l ated e o : o , .
—
,
s

b y Arth r G C h l — S am l M Zw n
u R ym n d . L ll Fi t
a er . ue . er er , a u us u ,
rs

Mi i y t th M
ss o n ar l m ( N w Y r k F n k n d
o W g n l l e os e s e o : u a a a s,

1 . ALE X ANDER OF H ALES

older F rancis can school was inaug rated by Alexander of
Th e u

H ales ( c 1 170 with his commentary on the S ent n es whi ch

. e c

w as brought to light by Fr H en q u in e t and his S mma o n .

, u

th e Wh o l of Th eo logy whi ch is also important for philosophy

e , .

Alexander knew the whole of A ristotle not only his logi c ; but in ,

his discussion of theo ries he always showed a predile ction for P latoni , c

Augustinian spe culation with whi ch he had be come acquainted when ,

h e was with the Vi ctorines From the Ar abians he fre q uently q uoted .

A vi cenna The basic thought predominant in his ideology was the

.

notion of the s mmu m b o nu m H e also made basi c for the explanation

u .

of being the thesis : Being exists by reason of its parti cipation in the
good .

2 J OHN O LA R HELLE
. F OC

A p pil of Alexander and his su ccessor in the professorial chair

u

at P aris was John of La Ro chelle ( c 1200 H e w r ote a s mma . u ,

392 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
emphatically conser vati ve : Just as in my first book I followed
the S entences and the common opinions of the masters and especially
of the M aste r and F athe r of vene rable memo ry Brothe r Alexander , ,

so also in the following books for I do not p ropose to O ffer any

new theo ries but only to e valuate furthe r the common and accepted
ones By such an attitude he became the classical advo cate of the
.

old Augustinian tradition This tr adition we ha ve already examined

.

and here we will confine ou rselves to its p r incipal features as mirrored

in the wor ks of S t Bona ventu r e . .

G od God is the pivotal doctrine of philosophy for S t Bo na

. .

ventu re j ust as H e was fo r S t Augusti ne S t Thomas maI ntain s that

, . . .

being is the most universal notion as well as the fi r st notion that is

known ; S t Bonaventure claims howeve r that God is the pr imu m
.
, ,

cognitu m that which is first known We meet up with H im in our

, .

souls and consequently we recognize H im the r e fo r H e is p resent ,

to the soul as is nothing else : Er go inser ta est ipsi au imae u otitia Dei
su i
( The
“
r efore the knowledge of God is placed in the soul
It is t ruth which God especially permits us to find in ou r sel ves and
p recisely truth in its immutability Th e same holds true of the way .

in which we expe rience value which always p resupposes and reveals ,

to u S a supreme good S t Bonaventure also accepted the proof fo r

. .

th e existence of God whi ch S t A n selm had advan ced as well as .

,

the aposteriori arguments which demonstr ate H is existence from

a conside r ation of nature H e held most dear that apriori intuitive
.

knowledge of G o d which he de rived from the self consciousness -

of the soul and its acts Th e natu re of God is being life power
.
, , ,

truth and the fullness of eternal ideas

, .

Th e w o rld The world also comes from God God created being
. .
,

b u t not through creation in ete r nity The notion O f an eternal creation .

appeared to S t Bonaventu re to involve an inherent contradiction

. .

C r eated being is in ac co r dan ce with its nature a shadow an imitation , ,

and the footp rint of God ( exemplarism ) C haracteristic of created .

being is its composition from essence and existence matte r and form ,
.

In his te rminology Bona ventu re appea r s to have been influenced by

Avenceb o l although he personally I n sI stS that it is A ugustinian in
r ,

o rigin F o r every being Bona venture assumed a multiplicity of fo rms

. .

H e held that there was of cou r se a fo r m whi ch perfected e v ery being

, ,

as such ; but along with this form of totality he tolerated still other
infe rio r fo rms in men and gener ally also in the r ealm of life and in the
inorganic kingdom To S t Bonaventur e the notion of prime matter
. .
 TH E GOLDE N AGE O F S H C OLASTIC ISM 393

did not denote a complete lack of specification and sheer possibility ;

it included the seed powers ( r atio nes se minal s ) which signified a
.
e

ce r tain inner causality so that not everything that is formed out of

,

matte r should be ascribed to the ope ration of an additional external

cause and its fo r m F or S t Bonaventure sought the form of corporeity
. .

in light As a conse q uence he availed himself of Aristotelian termi

.

n lo gy at this point but he understood it in the sense given it in the

o ,

metaphysi cs of light that sense with which we became acquainted

,

in ou r consider ation of G rosseteste .

The S oul 1 ) K no wledg In his teaching on the soul we find that

. e .

he made a con cession to Aristotle Insofar as knowledge of the ma .

ter ial world is con ce r ned S t Bonaventure conceded that we gain our
, .

knowledge of it by abstr action from the data of the senses This is .

true however only at the sta r t and so to speak only for the first
, ,

beginnings of knowledge ; for when there is a question of understand

ing genuine tr uths — and this at least in connection with the meta
physics of God and of the soul — and also of understanding pu re
tr u ths in natural phenomena the mind must be brought into contact ,

with th e eternal ideas Things have a threefold being namely : being

.
“

in the knowing mind being in its own prope r reality and being in the
, ,

divine mind C onsequently neither the truth of things in themselves

.
,

no r thei r truth in actual reality are suffi cient for our souls to obtain
positive knowledge because bo th these kinds of truth are mutable ;
,

rather ou r soul must approach these things in some fashion or othe r

according to their being in divine knowledge ( D e S ientia Ch r isti c ,

q 4 ; con cl ; Op r a O mni V p 23 ed Q u ar acch i) We can r eadily

. . e a, , .
, . .

see th e r elationship of this theory to the Augustinian doctrine of

illumination I t is not clear howe ver whether he held for a func
/

.
, ,

tio n al influence on the act of knowing by God or whethe r he wished

merely to say that every positive truth is evident in its necessa ry

content of truth by reason of an intuition of its essen ce th rough a

kind of analysis Be that as it may truth for S t Bonaventure rests

.
, .

upon apriori reasons for sensible reality is only the beginning This
,
.

is required als o by his exemplarism Th e true world for S t Bona . .

venture as it was for S t Augustine and P lato before him was the
, .
,

world of eternal prototypes .

2 ) F cu lti s ofth e s l In r egard to the question dealing with the

a e ou .

relation of the fa culties of the soul to its substance S t Bonaventur e , .

showed himself cautious H e did not accept the real distin ction of
.

th e Thomists nor did he express himself entirely in favor of a formal

394 M ED AE I VAL P H ILOSOPH Y
identity ; r athe r he sees in the faculties something similar to inte
r atI n co n stI tuen ts
g g .

3) S ou l connection with the problem touching on the

an d b o dy I n .
_

relation of the soul to the body S t Bonaventure gravitated in the —

, .

di rection of a greater autonomy and a greater independence of the

soul H e did not accept the do ctrine of the substantial uni on which
.

S t Thomas ad v an ced ; the body has its own distin ct form ( light )
. .

M en exhibit in addition a wide variety of forms and the soul itself

, , ,

is composed of matter and form Th e soul in contrast to th e body .

, ,

manifests itself as a determinant which fo rms all things totally and

completely .

III . S T ALBERT TH E
. GREAT ,

TH E UNI V ERS AL DO C TO R

With S t Albert the Great the Dominican O rde r which had fos
.
,

ter ed so conspi cuously th e intellectual life of the M iddle Ages S teps ,

into the limelight With him the great movement that was stirring
.

awakens to full life namely A ristotelianism Boethius had planned

, , .

to present his generation with both the whole of P lato and the
whole of Aristotle but he did not realize his ambition When in
, .

1231 P ope Gregory IX commissioned se v eral s cholars among them ,

William of Auxerr e to S tudy the possibility of employing Aristotle

,

and his philosophy fo r the science of fai th his hopes neve r advan ced ,

beyond th e stage of an ambitious attempt S t Alber t fo r his pa r t . .

proposed to make understandable fo r the Latin s all parts of Ar is

“

to tle s philosophy This time success crowned the unde r taking No t

’ ”
. .

only the logi c but also the physics metaphysics psychology e thics , , , ,

and politics of the S tagirite were added to the heritage of S ch o lasti

cism Along with these certain ideas were drawn from A r abian and
.
,

Jewish science and p h ilosophy and also from many other especially ,

Neo P latonic sources S t A lbert bears the title do ctor u niver salis
-
, . .
,

and he is in fact a universal encyclopedist on a grand scale Through .

his labors he performed a priceless service for S cholasticism S ixty years .

after his death an anonymous chronicle r wrote : At this time th ere “

blossomed forth Bishop Albert of the Dominican O rder the dis , ‘

,

tingu ish e d theologian and th e most learned of all the M aste r s to ,

whom no one can be compared in the whole of histo ry since the time
of S olomon but because of his German ancestry he is fo r th at ,
396 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPHY
on the Liber de Cau sis and on the w ritings of the P seudo Areopagite -
.

M any unpublished manuscripts among others his writings on the ,

Ele me nts of Euclid on the Optics of A lmagest and on his early , ,

wo rk Tr actatu s d e Natu r aP Oni

, .

Bibli ogr aphy

Tex ts : Oper a O mnia edited b y A Bo r gn et, in 38 v olu mes ( P aris, 1 89 0

, .

D e V e
ge tali b u s e
-
dited b y C J e sse n ( Ber li n ,
— D
,e A n i ma .

li b us edite d b y H S tr adler ( M iin ster ,

, .

S tu dies : M G rabmann, De r Ein flu ss Alberts des G ro ssen au f das

“
.

mittelalterlich e Geistesleben in M ittelalter lich es Geistesle ben V ol 2 , , .

M u nich ei y m
( G C R l
,
l P sych olo gy fo Alb e r
. t th e. G r e a t C o pa,
r e d
with Th at of S t Th o mas ( Was h ingto n D C : C ath o lic University o f
.
, . .

America P re ss P H ier o nymu s Wilms , Alber t der Gr osse

, .

M u ni ch : K Osel u n d P u stet a s
( S e e l o P h il os o
p h is c h es I,ah r b uc h ,

V ol 6 1 . 473 ff — F C . . est n . C o pl o , H is tor y o f P hil os o h y

p ( West
minster ,
Md . : Th e Newman P ress ,
II , 293— 301 .
— sn E . G il o ,

H is tor y o fC h r is tia n P h ilo s o h

p y i n t h e M iddle Ages ( New Y rk Rand m
o : o

H ou se , 19 5 5 2 77— 29 4, 66 6—6 73 .

1 . GENERAL CHARACTER OF H I S P HILOS OP HY

TH E
The work of S t Albert the Great taken both as a whole and in
.
,

its individual parts has been examined by many competent s cholars

, .

The very richness of its content sometimes causes its unity to su ffer .

M any discrepan cies would disappea r howeve r if the scholars who , ,

studied him succeeded in di ffe rentiating between that which he merely

quotes from othe r sources and that whi ch represents his own personal
thought In his philosophical s u mma ( De Cr eatu r is ) in any case
.
,

when he speaks his own mind his speculation is well balanced We ,

.

fi
cannot call him simply an A r istotelian or simply a N eo P latonist H e -
.

sought to fuse together the speculation of both Aristotle and P lato :

Et scias uod h o mo i n ph ilos o h ia u is i
i scie ntia
q pno n er c tu r
p ex

d u ar u m phil p well that a

o s o h iar u m Ar is to telis et P lato nis Know
man is not perfected in philosophy except by a knowledge of the two
philosophers Aristotle and P lato ) ( M et 1 I tr 5 c
,
”
, .
, .
, .

If we should examine mo re closely th e A ristotelianism of

Albert we would of necessity be forced to clarify the meaning
,

A ristotelian terminology not only in his works but also in those

S t Thomas and together with him of S cholasti cism itself When
. .

S cholasti c works Aristotle and his concepts are mentioned we m ,

always ask oursel ves what kind of an Aristotle i ,

398 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO SO PHY
a real dist nctI o n as Avicenna had ; but then again it might also
I

appear as if he had con cei ved only of a distinction of r eason a ,

notional difference as had A verro es Corporeal substances owe their

, .

being to the energy of th e sunlight joined to the activity of the

first intelligence To express this theo ry the concepts of matte r and
.
,

form are employed but not in the genuine Aristotelian sense ; for
light is the form of corporeity In spiritual substances S t Albert would . .

not accept eithe r a composition of matter and form or one of

essence and existence Bu t a finite substance must nevertheless be.

composed and so he took refuge in the distin ction which had been
,

employed by Boethius namely q u o est ( that w h e eby a thing is ) and

, ,
r

q u ad est
( that w h ich a thing is ) S in ce the latter can be predi cated .

of the soul he showed that the soul is something concrete and is

,

consequently a parti cular substan ce S ince the former the spe ci fi .

, c

quiddity is also found in it we may also speak of a universal form

, ,

of the soul S t Albert could not make up his mind whether or not
. .

the soul absolutely speaking could be called the entelechy of the body
, , .

A S did Nemesiu s with whom he agrees he feared that by so doing ,

he would tamper with its substantiality ( cf above p O nly .

,
.

insofar as the soul gi ves life to the body is it the form of th e body ;
“
in itself howeve r it is as P lato said an immaterial spirit and always
, , , ,

life ( S u mm th eol II tr 12 q 69 m 2 a 2 ad
”
a .
, A s a co n
, .
, .
, .
,
.

sequence he was in clined as P lato had been to con ceive of the soul , ,

as a pilot B such a con ception he could preserve its autonomy inta ct

y . .

This r eminds us that A ristotle himself made e of the same figure us

of spee ch in the eighth book of his P h ysics Be ca se he defended th e . u

substantiality of the soul S t A lbert turned against A er r o és Each , . v .

soul he held in opposition to him has its own a ctive and its own
, ,

passive intellect ( De Unit t I nt ll t s Co nt Av oem) a e e ec u ra er r .

5 . TH E NATU RAL S C IENTI S T

what we have already written we do not wish to create the
By
impression that S t Albert devoted himself exclusively to spe ulative
. c

philosophy In regard to philosophy he knew or had an acquaintance

.

with tradition in its entirety and was able to speak au thoritatively

in matte r s of speculation In addition he had a predilection for dire ct.
,

obse rv ation and the di rect description of natu re We would not .

exaggerate if we S hould call him both a z oologist and a botanist The .

di r ect O bse r vation of nature ( the so—called exp ime n tu m) he fos er

ter e d and cultivated in every possible way Th e editor of his wor k s .

,
C H A P TE R

ST . TH O M AS AQ U I NA S I : EP I S T EM O L O GY
—

AND GEN E RAL ME TAP H YS I C S ”

Writers have gi ven S t Thomas Aquinas the title prince of S cholas

.

ticism This makes good sense fo r he is its true founde r Whatever

”
.
, .

novelties had been assimilated into S cholasticism in the age before

him especially the ideas of Ar istotle by way of the Arabians or
,

through direct t ranslations from the G reeks he b rought togethe r and ,

de veloped into a unifo rm structure This synthesis which he so .

a rtisti cally wo ve out of the old and the new is strongly knit togethe r
in e very detail ; it is especially outstanding b y reason of its clarity .

C oncerning the place that must be acco r ded to S t Thomas within .

the framework of S cholasticism E Gilson has penned the following

, .

lines : It is not o r iginality but the boldness and the compactness of

“

structure which distinguish Thomas from the rest of the S cholastics .

In r egar d to univer sality he was su rpassed by Alber t ; in r egard to

,

ardo r and spi ritual profundity he was outdone b y S t Bonaventu re ;

, .

in regard to logi cal subtlety he was outdistanced by S cotus S t — .

Thomas excelled them all in the ar t of didactic style and as maste r

and classicist of a synthesis of luminous clarity .
”

L IFE
Thomas Aquinas was born of a noble family at Rocca S ecca in
the envi rons of Naples at th e end of 1224 When he was five yea r s .

of age he was sent to the monastery of M onte C assino At fou rteen he

, .

went to Naples to S tudy In the quadri vium hi s teache r was P ete r of

.

Ireland who had himself written commentaries on A ristotle To him

, .

Thomas owed his first introduction to the Greek philosopher When .

twenty he entered the Domini can O rder and a year later was sent ,

to P aris to continue his studies From 1248 125 2 he was in C ologne

.
—
,

where he attended the lectures of the renowned master A lbert the ,

400
 ST . TH OM AS AQUINAS I 401

Great In 125 6 he earned the degree of magister at the University

.

of P aris along with S t Bonaventure After devoting three years to

, . .

teaching as m g ster he returned again to Italy and lectured as

a i ,

lector cu iae in the presence of P ope Urban IV in O rvieto at the

r ,

O rde r s house of studies at S t S abina ( Rome ) and again in th e

’
.
,

presence of C lement IV at Viterbo At the P apal court he became .

acquainted with William of M oerbeke who put into his hands reliable ,

translations of Aristotle — the same Moe rbeke who translated the

works of P roclus A rchimedes the A ristotelian commentator Alex
, ,

ande r of Aphrodisias Th emistiu s Ammo niu s J o hn P h ilo po nu s and

, , , ,

S implicius All this was of t remendous importance for S t Thomas

. .

and the development of his philosophy .

F rom 1269 1272 S t Thomas went a second time to P aris In these

fi
—
. .

years he reached the zenith of his academic life These years were .
,

howeve r l led with bother some contentions with the p rofessors from
,

among the dioce san clergy who again raised thei r voices against the
O rders carr ying on teaching a ctivity at the university as they had on ,

the o ccasion of his fi r st term in P aris There also were disputes against .

the Latin Averroists or rather against the radi cal Ar istotelianism

of S iger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia H e was also compelled .

to quell the opposition of the F ranciscan school especially of John ,

P e ck ham Because of the ecclesiasti cal condemnation of Latin Aver r o

.

ism S t Thomas had fallen int o disrepute At times he was opposed

, . .

by members of his own O rder for they could not distinguish between '

his and S iger s Ar istotelianism H e defended his position with su ch

’
.

calmness and realism that he forced his opponents to conside r his

views with respect .

Afte r 1272 S t Thomas r eturned again to Italy and devoted his

.

labors to the revision of the course of studies followed in his own

O rde r and to tea ching at the University of N aples H e was summoned .

by Gregory X to take part in the C ouncil of Lyons but he died on ,

his way the re at the C ister cian monastery of Fo ssan u o va on M arch

7, 1274 .

Writin gs
C o mme ntar ies :
On th e fA w rk s
o l
o
( b e o 126 1—
1 2rist t e
7 2 ) etw en
— I n P er ih er me n eias
;
I n P oste r ior es Analyticor u m; I n VI II Li br os P h ysicor u m; I n III P r imos
Libr os De C oelo e t M u nd o ; I n I I I Lib r os D e G e n er atio n e e t C or r u ptio n e;
I n I V Li br os M e te or u m; I n Libr u m De A ni ma; I n I I et III D e A u ima;
402 M ED I AEVAL P H ILO S OPH Y
I n Li br u m De S eus u et S eu sato ; I n Libr u m De M e mor ia et Re minis
ce n tia; In M e taph ysicor u m; I n
X II Li br os X Libr os E thicor u m a d
Nico mach u m; I n I V Libr os P oliticor u m .

I n ter pr e tatio n ofNe o—P latauis m x

I n Li br u m d e Cau s is after
I n Di o nysi u m De Di vinis N o mini b u s
(
( b efo re I n li b r u m Bo e th ii De Tr i nitate
( 1 25 7 I n li br u m
Boe th ii De H e b do madi b us ( T c o n th e Ax o m
) ra tate i s .

Opu scu la or S maller P h ilos ophical Tr eatises

De E u te et Esse n tia ( 1 25 4 De A eter nitate M u n di De
Unitate I u tellectu s C o ntr a A ver r ois tas and o the rs .

Th e ological Wor ks H avin g P h ilos oph ical Re le vance :

C o mme ntar iu m in I V Li br os S e u te u tiar u m P e tr i L o mbar di ( 1 25 4
C o mpe n di u m Th e ologiae ( 1260 S u mma Th e ologiae ( P art s
I and I I , 126 6 1272 ; P art I I I , 12 72— 1273 ; th e wo rk remain s inco mplete )
-
.

Qu aes tio nes Dispu tatae :

De Ver itate ( 125 6 D e P o te n tia ( 1256 De A n i ma
De M ala an d o th ers .

Apo loge tical Wor k s

S u mma C o n tr a Ge ntile s , als o c alled S mm u a P h ilos oph ica ( 1 25 9
C o n tr a Er r or es Gr aecor u m and th ers O .

Wr itings on P r actical P h ilosoph y

D e Regi miu e P r incipu m ( genu ine u p to I I , De Re gimiu e I u daeor u m
ad D ucissam Br a b an tiae ; and o th ers .

( O n th e s u b j e ct o f th e au the nti c wo r k s o f S t Th o mas and th e date .

o f th eir co mp o siti o n, see V J Bo u rk e A Th o mistic Bi bliogr aph y [S t

. .
, .

Lo u is : S t Lo u is University P re s s, 1945
.

E di tio n s

Oper a O mnia Ro m , ae
v ls t 19 5 6 ( L nine diti n best
, 1 8 8 2 ff, 16 . o . o eo e o ,

e diti n t date ) — Op
o o O mni . P aris 1 8 7 1— 1 8 8 0 34 v ls ( V ives di
er a a, , ,
o . e

ti n ) Op
o . O mni P m
er a 1 8 62 18 70 25 v ls ( P iana editi n )
a, ar ae, —
,
o . o .

S eparate editi ns S u mm o nt G n til

: ( T rin R
a com a M arietti ra19 3 4 ; e es o o- o : ,

text f th L nine editi n ) — S mm Th l gi 4 v ls ( Ta rin i

fi
o e eo o . u a eo o ae , o . u

Marietti 19 48 ; te t f th L nine editi n ) — S mm Th l gi

,
x o e eo 5 v ls o . u a eo o ca , o .

( O ttawa : P nti a l Instit

o te f M edia
c va l S t dies 1u9 4 1 if ; te t
o f th e u ,
. x o e

P iana editi n ) Q ti
o n .D i p t t 2
uae s v ls (
o T a rinies M arietti s u a ae , o . u : ,

Q ti n Q
u aes dilib t l o
( T a
es rini M
uo ari tti I n X II
e a es u : e ,
—

lib M t ph y i
r os e am ( Ta rini M arietti
s cor u — I n A i t t li
u li b : ,
r s o e s r os

D S n
e t S
e su t D M m i
e t R mi n i
e usa o, ti
e ( a rini
T e or a e e sce u a u

M arietti — I n A i t t li
,
lib m D A i m ( 3 d d Ta ini
r s o e s ru e u a r c .
,
ur

Mari tti e ,
— I n X Li b E th i m A i t t li d Ni h m h m
r os co r u r s o e s a c o ac u

E p iti o ( Ta rini Marietti

x os u : I n Li b P liti m A i t t li
,
r os o cor u r s o e s

E p iti ( Ta ri n i M ari tti

x os o u In d C l
: et M nd ,
D G n — e oe o e u o, e e er a
404 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
translated by M H M ayer ( M ilwa u kee : Th e Bru ce P u blish ing C ompany
. .
,

S ele cte d P olitical Wr itings , b y A P d En tr eve s . G D .o

’
and J . . aws n
( L o nd n o : An Bl a kwc ell, — I n tr o du ctio n to th e M e taph ysics of S t .

Th o mas A q u inas tex ts selecte d an d trans lated b y J F Anders o n ( C h i cago :

’

. .
,

Regner y, S t Th o mas A q u i nas : S electe d P h ilos oph ical Wr itings

-
.
,

selected and translated by Th o mas G ilby ( London : O xfo rd University

P ress ,

S tudies

A . H . A rmstr ng tin s and S t Th mas in Aq in

o ,
A rist tle o ,
P lo u . o ,
u as

P p a N
er s , 4 F b 8 19 46 ( Westminst r M d
o .
,
e . Th Newman P ress
,
e ,
. : e ,

Th G re k P h il s ph i al Ba kgr nd f th P sy h l gy f S t
“
e e o o c c ou o e c o o o .

Th mas in A q in
o ,
P p N 19 M y 16 19 5 2 ( O f rd Bla k fri rs
u as a er s , o .
,
a ,
x o : c a ,

Daniel A C all s Th C ndemna ti n f S t Th mas at O f rd

“ ”
. u , e o o o . o x o ,

in Aq in P p N 5 April 24 1947 ( W stminster M d Th N w

u as a er s , o .
, ,
e ,
. : e e

m n P ress
a — F C C
, p lest n H i t y f P h il p y (
h . W est m inster
. o o ,
s or o os o ,

M d Th Newman P r M C D A y Th m
’
. : e I I 302 4 35 e ss, ,
— .
-
. . rc , o as

A q in u
( 2 n d
as d W est m inster M c d T . h , N ewman P ress — R
J , . : e , . .

D f e er r ar i M l n i l t Barry A L i n fS t Th m A q in
, x v o a a b d n ,
ex co o . o as u as ase o

th e S mm u Th l gi ( W
a as h in g t n
eo o D C C at h li ca U niversity f o ,
. . : o c o

Ameri a P ress c —R G ig
, Lagrange R lity A S yn th i f. ar r ou - ,
ea : es s o

Th mi ti D t i n ( S t L is B H er der B k C mpany
o s c oc r e . G d: ou : . oo o ,
o

Hi E i t n
s nd H i
x s e N t ce a 2 v ls ( S t L is B H rder B k C m s a ur e, o . . ou : . e oo o

p any 1 9 3 4 , E G i ls n L T h m i m —
( 5 th d P aris
. E n g o , e o s e c .
, ,

lis h trans lati n f th pre ding w r k Th C h i ti n P h il

o o e p h y f S tce o , e r s a os o o .

Th m o A q in as
( N w Y r k
u R andas m H se I n e H i t y f o : o ou ,
c .
,
s or o

Ch i ti n P h il
r s a p h y i n th M i dd l
os o A g ( N w Y r k R and m H se e e es e o : o ou ,

36 1 3 8 3 7 07 7 1 7 — M G ra bmann Th m
,
—
n A q in : E in . .
,
o as va u e

n d G d n k n w lt
Ei f ii h
u
g in in P
r uu n li h k it se e
( 7 ther sod c e u e a e e e .
,

Di W k de hl Th m
er e n A q i n ( 2n d
es . d — I n H isl p
o as va u c .
,
a o ,

Th Anth r p l gy f S t Th mas in A q in P p N 13 De em
“ ”
e o o o o . o ,
u as a er s , o .
,
c

b er 1 4 1 949 (
, O f rd B la k f riars x o — C L tt y S
: t T h m A q c i n , . a e , . o as u as

( L n od n o ,
G M anse and P —W y D W . n d T h m i m r . se r , as es e es o s us

( F ri b r g ou —
J M
,
arit in S t T h m A q i n trans
. lated b y J F a , . o as u as , . .

S anlan ( L nd n S h d and Ward

c o o : — F O lgi ti A K y t th
ee , . a ,
e o e

S t dy f S t Th m
u o translated by J S Zyb
. o
( S t
as , L o is B H erder . . ur a . u : .

B k C mpany
oo o A D S till n g ,
F n d ti n f Th mi ti
— . . er a es, ou a o s o o s c

P h il p yh
os o tran l ated b y, G A nstr t
sh er ( S t L is B H erder B k . u . ou : . oo

C mpany
o — G
,
V ann S t Th m Aq in ( L nd
. n , . o as u as o o ,

S t dents are a ls
u rged t ns lt th vari s titles in th Aq in L t
o u o co u e ou e u as e c u r es

d liver d ann ally at M arq tte Un iversity 1937 qq

e e u ue ,
‘

s .
 ST . THO M AS AQUI NAS I 405

K N O WL E D G E

fi
1 . TH E NATU RAL LIGHT
influence of Aristotle upon S t Thomas is r st noticed in the
Th e .

new evaluation placed on natural knowledge in contrast to faith .

Knowledge is not only app raised as an auxilia ry of theology but ,

it is also considered as something autonomous and possessing its

o wn rights By nature e ve ry human being desires to know A ristotle
.
,

had said and S t Thomas made this thesis his ve ry own Just as the
, . .

state exists by natur e and does not first r e ceive its rights from the
“ ”

C hurch so fo r him also philosophy It is significant that S t Thomas

, . .

not only in the introdu ction to his philosophy but also to his theology
deemed it necessary to stress that in addition to a natural light of
reason there can also be supernatural light — revelation ( S T I 1 . .
, , ,

In the centuries before him the opposite had been held to be true
scholars had to justify th eI r I n sI stence on reason r atio Th e enthusiasm , .

of Aquinas fo r knowledge and science is unexcelled De Wulf on ce .

wrote that S t Albert succeeded in instilling into h i time a desire

. s

to know all things a desire by which he himself was animated In

, .

this spirit S t Thomas felt that the task of the natural sciences should
.

be such that they should inscribe into the souls of men the order
“

of the universe as well as its reasons and its causes Bu t S t Thomas ‘

.
”
.

would not have been a man of the M iddle Ages if despite faith , ,

an d the science of faith he had not reser ved fo r himself the right
,

to trace out a universal ideological frame work into which all philo
sophi cal knowledge could be fitted Whatsoever is found in other .
“

s ciences contrary to any truth of this s cien ce [theology ] must be ,

condemned as false ( S T I 1 6 ad 2 ; ed Benzige r Vol I p

”
. .
, , , .
,
.
, .

2 . S O U RCE
KNOWLEDGE OF

Agai n st S t Au gu stine and in favo r of A ristotle In the problem

. .

dealing with the origin of knowledge S t Thomas also followed , .

Ar istotle Up to that time S t A ugustine had found almost universal

. .

acceptance in regard to this sub j ect S t Thomas frequently took . .

exception to his teaching th at we know all things in their divine

exemplars ( see S T I 84 5 ; 88 3 ; De V it te VIII
. .
, It is tr ue
, , ,
er a , ,

that S t Thomas approp riated fo r himself the expression ill min tio n
. u a

but in using it he modified its meaning by a cautious adjective cer ,

“

tain illumination o r by the trenchant remark that the natur al light

”
,
406 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO SO PHY
of r eason is a certain parti cipation in the di vine light H e gave .

the A ugustinian notion of illumination a new meaning by inte rpreting

it as representative of the universal co ncu r su diviu u s so that it no s ,

longer denoted any kind of s pecial concurren ce ( S C G I . . .

, ,

H e admitted and con ceded all this in o r der to embark upon an

entirely di fferent course namely the explanation th at Ar istotle had
, ,

advo cated In union with him he asserted : It is natural to man to

.
“

attain to intellectual truths through sensible obj ects because all our ,

knowledge originates from sense ( S T I 1 9 ; ed Benziger Vol I ”

. .
, , ,
.
,
.
,

p . Th e proposition that God is the first obj ect known as th is ,

was assumed in the teaching th at knowledge proceeds from the divine

exemplars is expressly reje cted : Th e first O bj e t of our knowledge
,
“
c

In this life is the quiddity of a material thing wh i ch is the proper ,

object of our intellect ( S T I 8 8 In a certain sense it is true

. .
, , ,

that we know all things in th e divine ligh t j u st as it is tr e that we ,

u

k now all things through the light of th e sun Just as we k now but .

little about the world when we peer directly and intently into the
sun and neglect to look at natural obje cts j u st so little knowledge do ,

we possess when we share only in th eternal ideas as the P latonists e

had believed We need conse q uently sense knowledge sense data

.
, , , ,

if we wish to acqui re tr ue knowledge ( see S T I 84 C onsult : M . .

, , , .

Grabmann Die th logi h e Er ke nu tis u u d Ein l itu u g leh r e des h l

,
eo sc e s .

Th o mas A q u in f Gr u n d s ei n er S ch r ift I n Bo éthiu m de

“ ’

vo u au ,

Ti i (
r n tateFreiburg S witzerland , pp 45 9 5 , .
— .

D egree s of abstra ction S t Thomas recognized three stages in th e

. .

origin O f all ou r knowledge First of all we experience in sense .

,

perception the con crete material world in its individ u al extension :

th is flesh these bones This is the world of natural philosophy to

,

whi ch psy h ology b elongs This bran ch of philosophy has for its
c x
‘
.

special obj e t ns mo bil being that is subje ct to motion By pre

c e (
e, .

scin din
g from individ al d eterminations or udi fferences and by co n

cen t atin
gr on extension in general purely in a ccordan ce with its ,

quantitative relations th er e emerges before our intelle ct al eye the

, u

world of mathemati cal s cien ce Its O bj e ct is n qu ant m o r being . e s u

insofar as it is quantitatively extended By abstracting again and by .

leaving out of consider ation the whole of extension thinking now ,

only of purely ideal dete rmination ( di fferentiation ) there arises before ,

o u r e yes the r ealm of metaphysi cal science Its Ob j e ct is being as being .

and its most nive rsal determinations e g un ity act poten y ( see
u ,
. .
, , , c

5 T I , 85 ,
. .
,
408 M ED IAEVAL P H ILOSO P H Y
solely on the basis of thei r intuition of ideas to say ap riori how ,

many genera of living beings there might be and what thei r o rigins
might be All such data must be sought and can be found only in
.

space and time ( S T I 84, . .

, ,

Th e ap rior i according to St Thom as Th e above explanation . .

might appear to be empiricism but it is not To the question , .

‘

whethe r intellectual knowledge is derived from sensible things he

answere d : it cannot be said that sensible knowledge is the total and
“

perfect cause of intellectual knowledge but rathe r that it is in a way ,

the material cause fo r it supplies the material of our knowle dge

,
”

( S . T . I 84
, 6 ; ed
, Benzig e r
, Vol I p Fo r t
.his reason it is not , .
, .
,
“

strange that intellectual knowledge should extend fu r ther than sensible

knowledge ( S T I 84 6 ad 3 ; ed Benziger Vol I p
”
. .
, , We , , .
, .
, .

advance beyond sense knowledge By his explanation empi ricism is .

absolutely ex cluded .

Therefore we can pose the following question : In what sense do

we trans cend experien ce and by what right ? Th e step beyond is made

fi
by the active o r agent in tellect This reason or intellect is the p roper
“ ”
.
, ,

ef cient cause of ou r knowledge ou r intellectual knowledge What , .

the intellect deri v es from the phantasms of sensible experience are

genuine unive r sals uni ve r sally valid and necessary knowledge S t
,
. .

Thomas did not doubt this fo r a moment It never entered his mind .

to question as do the modern sceptics whethe r o r not the representa

, ,

tions of the universals which we abstract from sensible experience , ,

are perhaps valid only so far as the basis of experience on which they
rest actually extends so that no one knows certainly what tomorrow ,

will be like just as no one knows whether it had always been

,

like that .

S cholars have as a consequen ce rightly construed his intellectu s

, ,

e ns only as the ap r iori starting point of his theory of knowledge

a
g .

This was true fo r S t Thomas as it will be late r fo r Kant H e too . .

will say : Even if all our knowledge begins with experience not all ,

of it comes directly from experience S t Thomas ap rio ri however .

”
.
’

, ,

is of a different kind H is is not a functional ap riori which must .

,

first of all assume o r posit objects ; on th e contrary it rests fi rmly ,

on the metaphysical convi ction that obj ects are already in existence ,

th at they do possess intrinsic truth that they do have their form ,

and idea thei r ete rnal exemplar s and that these ar e mirrored in
,
“

,
“

our souls as the S u mma Th eo logiae ( I 16 6 ) exp r essly states O nly , ,

.

because the intellectu s age ns itself is a principle inherent in the mind ,

 ST . TH OM AS AQUI NAS I 409

which participates in the divine light the one eternal truth which —

c ontains within itself all truths and natures — can it actualize the
eternal forms latent in material things M oreover this agent intellect .
,

is proper to each individual man (S T I 79 Fo r this reason . .

, , ,

abstraction fo r S t Thomas is not abstra ction in the modern sense but

.

intuition of the essence o r as G ar r igou Lagrange terms it a sort of ,

-
,
“
abstractive intuition as it was also fo r Aristotle And in this ,
”
.

me taphysical assumption we can appreciate S t Thomas justification .

’

fo n h is thesis It would not be contr a ry to this view to hold as he did

.
, ,

that we do not contemplate essences and natu res intuiti vely and so
to say p ima vista but only by means of and through the accidents
r , .

S t Tho mas and S t Bo nav entu r e This proves that S t Thomas turns
. . . .

to S t Augustine from time to time fo r inspiration N t only did

. . o

S t Thomas r efuse to pu r sue the line of thought that Abelard h ad

.

de veloped because of his earlie r doubts about metaphysical knowledge ;

he actu ally put an end to its development We may j ustly ask whether .

the diffe rence between his theory of knowledge and that of S t .

Bonaventu re is an essential one Looked at from a psychological .

viewpoint there is a difference According to S t Bonaventure the . .

,
“
eternal exempla r s stand at the beginning of the genesis of knowl
”

edge ; according to S t Thomas at the end C onsidered from the .

, .

standpoint of logic there is no difference because the truth which

, ,
“ ”

w e app rehend ac cording to both philosophe r s does not ha ve its basis

, ,

in experience as such in both cases experience is only the material

—

cause — but in the essential r elations which a r e posited by the e ternal

forms which are disclosed to us .

Ju dgment and tru th of the judgment 1 ) Essenc ofth e j dgment . e u .

Fo r S t Thomas knowledge is perfected and on this point he agaI n

.
—

follows Aristotle — not by a perception of the essence but by the

j udgment A j udgment is either a composition or a division of con
.

in tellectu s co mpo nens vel divide ns ) If it combines or sepa r ates

cepts
( .

the essential notions as the facts really show them to be combined

o r separated the judgment is true And as th is truth is one of the
, .

properties of th e judgment we would possess truth in th e true sense ,

of the word ( S T I 16 1 and Truth is had when one afli r ms

. .
, , ,
‘
th at to be which is and that not to be which is not ( De V r ,
’
e

I 1 ; translation of R W M ulligan in Tr u th Vol I p 7 [C hi cago

,
. . , .
, .

M ore briefly Truth is the e q uation of though t

“
Regner y , ,

and thing — Ver itas est adeq atio intellectus cu m r e ( S T I 16 1 ;

”
u . .
, , ,

ed Be nziger Vol I p
.
, .
, .
410 M EDI AE VAL PH ILO S OPHY
2 ) Tr u th o f th e ju dgme n t In spite of this
an d o n to lo gical tr u th .
,

S t Thomas also assumes the truth of sense per ceptions as well as

.

the truth of the definitive q uiddity and of essential notions In fact .

,

he is of the opinion that sen se data and essen ces a re always tr ue

e intelle ct is never
( cir ca q u ad q u id es t in tell ctus n o n deci it r h
“

p t e u ,

deceived about the essence of a because both the senses and

the mind are informed directly by the obj ects themselves ( S T . .
,

I 17
, In su ch a p rocess the essen ces themselves determine whether
,

o r not the copulative of the j udgment will be one of possibility or

impossibility fo r the j udgment re sts upon the reproduction of reality
,

which is contained in th e sensible apperception and intellectual per

ceptio n of an obj ect This means however that the intrinsic or
.
, ,

ontological truth of things is decisive for the j udgment ; for it is “

clea r that as is said in the M etaph ysics natural things from whi ch
, , ,

ou r intelle ct gets its s cientific knowledge measure our intellect Yet .

these things are themselves measured by the divine intellect in whi ch ,

are all created things j ust as all works of art find their origin in the
,

intellect of the artist The divine intellect therefo r e measures and is

.
, ,

not measured ; a natu ral thing both measures and is measured ; but
ou r intelle ct is measured and measu re s only artifacts not natural ,

things ( De Ver 1 2 ; translation of R W M ulligan I n T u th

” ’

.
, , . . r ,

Vol I p .
, .

3) S yn th eti apr io r i ju dgme nts F o r this reason t h e problem of

c .

synthetic apriori j udgments does not exist for S t Th omas ; with them .
,

however Kant begins his theory of knowledge S t Thomas had not

, . .

reached that fatal position where he would be fo rced to bring into

a unity the various data of experience without knowing the rules
acco r ding to whi ch it should be done To him thi ngs are still united .

and combined ; there are essences and natures and we know about ,

them ; the agent intellect makes them appear as some thing eternal ,

alr eady completed and of value Behind S t Th omas theory of sense . .

’

perception and of natures we can still detect the ancient View which
saw reality and ideas as intrinsi cally one a view in whi ch the —

world and the obj ects in it are available for sensible and intellectual
examination and study in thei r inner nature be the latter by in tuition ,

o r by the N ous or by the eternal exemplar or by the agent ( active )

intellect In conclusion to S t Thomas all knowledge is a contempla
.
,
.

tion o r G p i and th e royal road is dialecti cs H M eye r is right when

eo e v . .

he says that the theory in which ou r k n w ledge is perfected in j dg ’

o u

ments does not fi t perfectly into the Aristotelian and S cholas ti c

412 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS OPH Y
only a determination of our intellect We must listen to the answer .

that S t Thomas gave to this question : There would no longer be

.

any scien ce because it would follow that every science would be

,
“

con cerned not with obje cts o tside the soul b t only with intelligible u , u

species within the soul ( S T I 85 2 ; ed Benziger Vol I p ”

. .
, , , .
, .
, .

A s a result the distin ction between true and false wou ld be im

,

mediately destroyed As a consequence we immediately g asp S t

. r .

Thomas assumption : Under all cir cumstan ces a being must be trans
’

subj ecti ve i e above and beyond the subject ; it must be present

,
. .
,

to us as something already existent In this consist both the reality .

and the objecti vity of being and in this truth also lies O bj ects de , .

termine o r measu r e ou r intellect That we might be able to measure .

obj ects perhaps according to the trans cendental laws of the intelle ct
, ,

is an opinion that will be advanced on ly in the S till distant future .

S pace and time r eality We f rther re cogni z e the originality of . u

the Thomisti c concept of reality in the fact that the concrete par
ticu lar being — that which exists in time and in place the first ,

substance — represents being in its proper and original mean ing .

In an entire tractate De nt et essentia he explained with great

, e e ,

clarity that essence is neither solely fo r m nor solely idea but is fi rst ,

substan ce composed of matter and form ( cap For S t Thomas . .

the obj ect of human knowledge is a quiddity which exists in

matte r in a particular individual actualization ( see S T I 84
, . .
, , ,

This is genuine and real being A ristotle in contrast to P lato h ad .

, ,

also recognized this s ame thing as reality Through the influen ce .

of the S toic as well as through the C hristian doctrine of creation ,

this concept of reality became more firmly entrenched .

M etaphysical reality When S t Thomas however defi nes the formal

. .
, ,

object of metaphysics he speaks of a transphysi cal world of in sen ibilia

,
s

( the N e o —S cholasti cs express the same notion by the term e ns i nt l e

ligibile ) of universal natures and essences of forms and ideas in

, , ,

which God had sketched both being and beings in whi ch being ,

was created and actually exists imitates God and so parti cipates in ,

H im For this reason metaphysics is also theology ( I n B eth ii D

. o e

Tr in itate 5 1 ; S T I 15
, ,
A c cordingly as metaphysi cs is the
. .
, , , ,

science of the being of an existent thing it I s evI den t that in this ,

conne ction S t Thomas entertained another con cept of reality the

.
,

P l tqnig A ugustinian notion of

a -
genuine reality We need only “ ”

Com
.

pare this reality with the reality of modern vitalist philosophy

for example with Klages to whom reality is precisely the a rational
, ,
-
 ST TH OM AS AQUI NAS —
. I 413

in contradistin ction to the intelle ctual world of obje cts ih order to —

see how th e concept of reality in S t Thomas is again viewed from .

th e standpoint of th e idea and is essentially determined by it M eta

‘

physics as a science of being is basically a s ience of in e nsibilia c s .

2 . P ROP ERTI E S OF BEI NG

A ristotle
had studied being as su ch and all its properties in h is
metap h ysics For S t Thomas this task is also the most important
. .

of his work Among the states or properties of being we may enu

.

merate its analogi al nature its trans cendental determinations its

c , ,

arrangement into vari ous categories and its hierarchial degrees or ,

grades of val e u .

Analogy I ) S t Th o mas co n ept fan alogy Th e analogy of being

’
. . c o .

is stressed again and again by S t Th omas in conformity wi th .

Aristotle and in h i own words and with h is own examples Being

s .

is not a generic notion whi ch can be di fferentiated in such a way as

to become so meth ing else by a new note that forms a species for ,

every thing th at i added to being must itself also be being A s a

s .

result bei ng is not predi cated in the same co nceptual meaning

,

u nivo ally ) of di fferent obj e cts Bu t it is not predicated in such a

c .

way that only th e word is the same and what is meant by it some ,

thing entirely di fferent e q uivocally ) Being is predicated in s ch

fi
. u

a manner that a certain similarity is re cognized and expressed An d .

In this we nd that analogy consists This do ctrine of analogy takes .

a middle road by recognizing besides that which is identical also that

wh i ch is di fferent and besides th at whi ch is different that which
,

is identi al In th is way it avoids the two extreme views one of

c .
,

which looks upon all things as simply identical ( monism ) while ,

the oth er considers all th ings as perfe tly in ommensurable ( irrational c c

agnosti cism )
There are two kinds of analogy In one type several things bear .
,

a r esemblance or are proportioned to one definite th ing e g the , . .

,

notion health wh ich we use wh en we speak of a healthy human

“

being a health y food a health y medi cine a healthy color ; these are
, , ,

related to health and can be understood only in reference to it .

In th e oth er type of analogy a se cond thing is proportioned or ,

bears a resemblance to a first thing pon which it depends ; thus for u ,

example an accident h s a relation to a substan ce and from it receives

,
a

both being and meaning ( S C G I 34 ; S T I 13 . . .

, , . .
, , ,

2 ) Te n de ncies Th e purposes which S t Thomas pursued in his

. .
414 M EDI EV A AL P H ILO SOP H Y
doctrine of analogy are thus brought into focus : Being should not
be confused with a one and all a é m 2 mi ; no r S hould it by reason
“

,
” ‘
v v
,

of a complete uniqueness and a para doxi cal position be withdrawn ,

from all omparisons A nalogy is of extreme importance espe ially

c .
"

in reasoning about God Analogy makes it possible fo r us to relate .

God to the world and thus avoid stressing our inability to know H im ,

without identifying H im with the world in a pantheisti c fashion by ,

which one would in fact nullify o r annihilate God .

3) O igin Th e logical and ep istemological background of S t

r . .

Thomas idea of analogy is based on the con cept of imitation an d

’

of participation ( see Co mm nt iu m in I V lib os S t u ti r u m P t i e ar r eu e a e r

L mb ar di I 35 1 4 and D e P o t n tia 7
o , , , By it we are brought
,
e , ,

face to face with a P latoni c element in the spe culation of S t Thomas .

,

a hitherto little str essed fact which in the N eo S cholastic revival -

of his philosophy is still too s antily evaluated c .

Th e transcen dental s A S transcendental determinations of being .

,

S t Thomas along with A lbert and others lists n u m ver u m b o n m

.
, , u , , u ,

s and ali u id the one the true the g od thing and something
re , q ( o ) , , , ,
.

These are determinations whi ch are found in every being S t Thomas . .

stressed the fact that none of these trans cendentals add anything new
to being but simply permit us to consider being under one aspect o r
,

the othe r Th e develo pment of these various modes of the intellect

.

fo r the consider ation and contemplation of being as contained in

De Ver itate I 1 is classi cal This shows how in his speculation
, , , .
,

above all in his ontology S t Thomas kept an open mind on the dis
, , .

cu ssio n of the origin of our kno wledge in th e intellect itself ; to

establish points of view is not possible without at least a partially

“ ”

spontaneous p r o cess o n the part of the intellect It would be well .

worthwhile to investigate this problem fur the r .

Th e c atego ries Th e same thing may be said also of his teaching

.

on the categories When treating A ristotle we remarked how for him

.
,

th e idea of substance was derived fr o m human reasonin g and from

human spee ch S t Thomas did not look askance at these sou rces
. . .

Along with A ristotle he assumed that th e catego r ies are not mere
modes of predication but are also in fact first and foremost modes
or grades ( gr ad s ) of being as he wrote so interestingly in the De
u ,

V er itate I 1 clearly a reminde r of Ne o—P latonic terminology In

, ,
-
.

contrast to the predi caments ( categories ) only th e predi cables ( genus , ,

species difference properties and accidents ) are second intentions or

, , ,

ways of understanding and as such belong in logic From Aristotle .

416 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
emanation lurks in the background and although the fullness r athe r ,

than the forms of being is revealed — this fullness becomes so much

the stronger the close r we app roach its source — w e must not mistake
,

this association because the arrangement of the scale is to be found

,
—

in a greater o r less degree of imitability in relation to th e p roto type .

H ere again we can appreciate how even Thomistic metaphysi cs mu st ,

be under stood and judged in the light of P latonic moti ves .

3. P RI NC I P LES OF BEI NG

F or th e further exploration of being S t Thomas accepts the four

”

, .

Aristotelian principles of substance along with the notions of matter

and form causality and finality To this we must add also the notion
, .

of exemplary cause derived from P latonic Augustinian speculation -

.

S u b s tance I ) Fir st s u b stance The metaphysics of S t Thomas is

. . .

a metaphysics of substance Th e notion of substance has a very long .

history behind it and may as it consequence denote se veral things , , .

It may at One ti me have the same \meaning as matter ; at ano ther ,

as the form ; at still anothe r as the composite of both In Aristotle , .

,

the last mentioned meaning is the focal point of his metaphysics It

-
.

is his first substance ; and it is not only substance absolutely but at the /

sam e time reproduces the original meaning of being This is true .

also of S t Thomas as he explains at the very beginning of De E nte et

w

.
,

Ess ntia : Being is predi cated absolutely and primarily of substance

”

fi
“
e

an d Esse n ce C h I trans A A M aurer T

( O n B ei n
g [ or o n to
, z P o n .
, . . .

ti cal Institute of M ediae v al S tudies p Its concept to gether , .

,

with its di ffe rent nuances ( u bstantia s u pposit m h yp stasis nat r a s , u , o , u

r ei , p er s o n a
) is precise ly,analyzed and explained in the S mm a u

Th eo logiae ( I 29 2) as well as in D e P ote ntia ( IX 1 and

, , The ,

essential feature of substance is I ts existence in itself ( per s esse ) e .

S ubstance is neither self causality nor the lack of cau sality ; it is not
-

an existing of itselfn ess ( a se ) ; for eve r y substance is created except

“ ”
,

of cou r se the divine whi ch alone is a se o r of itself In this explana

, .

tion furthermore the interweaving of substan ce into a series of causes

, ,

is not excluded by the notion itself Actually what is intended by .

this notion of substance is a mode of existence which as a kind of ,

independence differentiates it from the complete lack of independence

,

whi ch is p resent in accidents which must always inhere in some ,

thing else ( ens in alio ) N t only A ristotle but also S t Thomas was. o .

of the opinion that this di fferentiation forces I tself directly on our

natural vision in experience Likewise in conformity with Aristotle .
,
 ST TH OM AS AQUI NAS
. I 417

he agreed that our speculation as well as ou r speech req uires and

develops the notion of substan ce because we make all pr edications ,

of a subject that is of something that lies underneath ( substratum ) ;

“

, ,

and finally becoming cannot be explained without it for all beco m

, ,

ing must take place and be completed in something if it is not to

be reduced to an incoherence }
.

2) S eco nd s u bstance In addi tion to this first substance in the sense

.
,

of something concrete and particular S t Thomas recognized second , .

substance which denotes that which in many individual things is

, .

found to be identical the common natu re ( natu r o mmu nis ) This , a c .

coincides with the species o r genus S t Thomas prefers howe ve r to . .

, ,

call it essence or quiddity ( essen tia q u idditas ) This is expressed by , .

the definition This second substance is related to the first substance

.

as its formal par t just as manhood is referred to S oc rates ( De P ot

,

9, This second substance is not fo r S t Thomas a mere universal .

notion but an apriori by nature as we will soon see H ere again

” “ ”
.

he is entirely at one with A ristotle and by th is th eo r y he along with , _

,

A ristotle makes it possible for a portion of P latonism to continue

to live on ( cf p 163 . .

3) M atter and for m Behind th ese views lies h yle mo r ph ism with .

its two principles of matte r and form No w that which I s I n the .

“
~

individu al sub stan ce besides the common nature is indi vidual matter
which is the p in iple o findi viduation and conse uently individual
( r c
) q
accidents which determine this same matt er ( De P ot 9 1 ; O n th e ”
.
, ,

P o w ei ofGo d t r ans L S h apco ate [Westminste r M d : Th e N ewman

'

, . .
, .

P ress
, Thi r d Book p In this and in similar explanations , .

elsewhere the two prin ciples are clearly separated one from the other
, .

To understand them we must keep before our eyes all that had
contributed to their development in A ristotle cf p T h s me
( a . . e

assumptions were also reali zed in S t Thomas . .

a ) M atter Th e notion of matter is presented to us in a twofold

.

way : as first matte r which s entirely undetermined but determinable

, I

in a multitude Of respects ; and as se cond matter whi ch is after a ,

fashion already formed at least by means of q uantitative determina ,

tions but still capable of fu rther formation of further dete rmination

, IS , .

O nly secon d matter can be looked upon as the principle of individua

tion ( mat r ia q u an tit te sign t ) M atter as su ch is not actual but
e a a a .
,

only as it is formed It is therefore evident that the form is the more

.

important principle .

b ) F orm By form S t Thomas understood the limitation of matter

. .
418 M ED AEVAL I P H rLosoP H Y

to a definite being ( I n I V P h ys 1 Being does not need several .

, ,

fo rms but r equires only one to be determined in its totality and in

all its pa rts to be determined to I ts thisness Reasoning in true ”

fi
“
.
,

A ristotelian fashion S t Th omas places great S tress on the fact that

, .

r st substance includ es matte r an d does not exist solely by reason of

the fo r m ; ne ve r theless in De Eu te et Essentia cap 2 he explains that , .

,

it is only the form whi ch in its own peculiar way causes the actuality
of a substance ( s u o mo do s ola fo ma est cau s ) The importan ce of r a .

matte r is limited to pape r value ; fo r even if it does determine a

thing it can do 35 only insofar as it itself is al ready determined by
,

the reception of a form Add to this explanation that the form is .

’

nothing else than a divine likeness existing by participation in things ”

( d i vin a similitu do par ticipata in r e b u s ) whose i n finite perfection is ,

displayed only through the forms j ust as we must explain one and ,

the same set of cir cumstances by the use of many wor ds ( S C G . . .

,

111 97 ; A P egis op cit Vol II p

, .
, In God is contained e very
. .
, .
, .

thing of being that will exist even the contradicto ry in a genuine ,

set of opposites Things diver se and in themselves opposed to each

.
“

othe r p re exist in God as one withou t inj ury to H is simplicity

-
,
”

( S . T I. 4, 2 ,
ad 1 ;
,
ed B enzige
, r Vol I p It is e v ident in this
.
, .
, .

identification of Aristotelian fo rms with Au gustinian ideas in the

mind of God ( S T I 84 1 and 5 ) that to S t Thomas the fo rm
. .
, , , .

actually denotes the apriori by nature and thus P latonism has a ,

foothold in the very center of his metaphysi cs — not howe ve r in con

tr adictio n of Ar istotle but in a r eprodu ction and r enewal of his basic

P latonic motives whi ch a r e not examined tho r oughly in thei r his

to r ical ba ckground but only looked at congenially i e with a likeness , . .
,

of tastes and interests In this conne ction the theo ry of Aquinas in .

regard to th e pro blem of universals is given a ve ry definite meani ng .

c ) Univer sals S t Thomas took up the th reefold di vision of the

. .

universals viz ante r e m in r e et post r e m as these were generally

,
.
, , ,

known to S cholasticism H e explains that th e universals as such unde r .

,

the aspects of thei r universality are only in the mind ( therefo re , ,

p o st r m
e
) but in reality appear only in t heir individual actualization
( pointing at the i n r e) In so doing he raises a di f
fi culty for th e .
,

understanding of the universals ante r m because these universals e ,

a n te r e m denote the proper intrinsi c nature of a thing whi ch de ,

termines and abso rbs everything for it is only the form whi ch ,

actualizes s bstance Fo r the scholar it would be well wor thwhile

u .

to try to explain S t Thomas by S t Augustine ; for despite a differ

. .
,
420 M ED IAEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
(a
g )
er eof this existent r eality ( es se
) supplies the se cond ac t A ct is .

always prior to the poten cy not only in con cept and in time but ,

also by nature ( pé p ii sai of A ristotle ) as well as in purpose

f

u r e or r l va , .

By this theory a fundamental axiom is set down an axiom w h i ch —

supports the whole metaphysi cs of A q uinas and qualifies it for its

supreme achievements — namely the reference to th e beginning and ,

the end of being in God God is the sup reme actuality act s p r u s
.
, u u .

A t the oth e r extreme we have absolute potentiality Between th ese .

extremes is ranged the whole realm of being onceived as a mixtu re c

of potentiality and actuality as a p ro cess of continuous realization

,

from the terminus of nothing to the terminus of infi nite perfection .

This r ealm is created being and God its beg nn i ng An d H e must , i .

be that if there is to be any being at all because act is prior to potency , .

G o d is also its end because the act is the perfe ction of the poten cy
,

toward which it strives and toward which it tends .

5 ) Ess nce and existe nce The distin ction between created and
e .

uncreated being is fundamental to S cholastic metaphysi cs and it is

propounded by S t Thomas through the theory of essence and
.

existence whi ch he drew not from A ristotle but from Avicenna .

God is pure act ; a creature is a composite o f a ctuality and potency

-
as we have already seen No w Thomas asserts : God is being but
.
,

creatures have being ( D eu s est s u u m sse n u lla cr e tu a est e . a r

suu m esse s ed h ab n s esse ) ; in God essen ce and existence are one

e ,

they coin cide ; in all creatures they are distin ct ( S C G 11 22 . .

,

and
Th e argument for this thesis is as follows Whatever does not :

belong to the not on of an essence or q uiddity comes from without

i

and enters into composition with the essence for no essence is intel ,

ligible without its parts No w every essence or q uiddity can be under

.
,

stood without anyth ing being known O f its exi sting I can know what .

a man or a phoenix is and still be ignorant whether it exists in

reality From this it is clear that the act of existing is other than
.

the essence or quiddity ( De E nte et E senti cap iv ; trans A

”
s a, . . .

M aure r O n Being and E se nce pp 45

,
sBy s ch a proof S t
, . u .

Thomas was able to introdu ce a composition into even p u rely spiritual

s bstances and thus vanquish all panth eism H e rej ected the tea hing
u . c

of Avenceb r ol that spiritual beings are composed of matter and ?

form ; only corporeal substances exhibit such a composition whereas ,

the spiritual substances are pure forms Be cause of this distin c .

tion S t Thomas di fferentiated between angels specifically and not

, .
 ST . TH O M A S AQUINAS I 42 1

numeri cally ( qu ot su t ibi in dividua to t su u t ibi sp cies ) but

u , e ,

he demanded a omposition of essence and existence in them

c .

Although substan ces of this kind are forms alone and immaterial
“

they are not in every way simple so as to be p u re act They do .

have an admixt re of poten cy ( ibid ch 4; ed M aurer p

u
”
. .
, .

“
Given that the form itself subsists without matter there nevertheless ,

remains th e relation of the form to its ve ry being as of potentiality ,

to act ( S T I 5 0 2 ad 3 ; ed Ben ziger Vol I p

. .
, , , S t Thomas .
, .
, . .

appears to have understood th at the distin ction between essen ce and

existence was a real distinction and not simply one of reason Thus .

at least the representatives of the fa ulty of liberal arts thought for c ,

they denied the real distinction on the a thority of Aristotle and u

A verro es Th e entire problem first be ame a cute when H enry of

. c

G hent savagely atta cked the real distinction and Giles ( Aegidi s ) of u

Rome a disciple of S t Thoma s defended it with e q ual energy

, .
, .

Three points can be established in S t Thomas tea ching on essence

’
.

and existen ce thoughts that are of importance for the history of

—

philosophy These are : the further development of the do ctrine

.

of potency and act which we have j ust tou ched upon th e survival

fi
, ,

of the Neo P latoni c concept of parti cipation in a terminology whi ch

-

is adapted to Aristotle ( S C G 11 and n lly — and t h is is . . .

, ,
a

intensely interesting the separation of reasoning from being whi ch

—
,

appears almost modern In th is separation the new non—P latoni c .

con cept of reality is developed that concept which had been handed
down by A ristotle the S toi cs and C hristianity In this theory the
, , .
,

idea perceived by reason and the reasoning pro cess is no longer

considered to be reality as S t Anselm had still assumed it to be , .

without questioning it in his ontological proof for the existence of

G o d ; existen ce has no longer anything to do with the con cept ; that
is to say existence is no longer tied up solely with the idea We can
, .
,

fo r example think of a phoenix without knowing whethe r or not

,

it exists This wh ole development is remarkable since form was

.
,

originally act Even to Boethius the q e t is given with th form ;

. ua s e

here it is the q u ad st to whi ch existence ( the q e t which now

e ua s ,

has as a consequence another meaning ) must fi rst be added

.

.
, ,

C ausa lity 1 ) Th p in iple of ca sality In a b roader sense S t

. e r c u . .

Th omas following A ristotle had understood by ausality the four

, ,
c

fi
pr inciples : matter form the origin of motion and purpose In a
, , , .

narrow sense he ass med as cause only the origin of motion Insofar
u .

as it is resp o nsible fo r motion it is called the e f cient cause And .

422 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO SOPHY
this causality we now subj ect to a closer scrutiny That there .

was su ch a thing as efficient causality constituted no problem

for S t Thomas as it had not fo r Ar istotle C ausality is evident and
.
, i
.

a matter of public knowledge : Th e world leads more evidently to “

the knowledge of the divine creating power ( S T I 46 1 ad 6 ; ”

. .
, , ,

ed Benziger V o l I p
. Th e formulas for this assumption are
, .
, .

deri ved eithe r from a P latonic source the Tima s everything that ,
eu —

“
becomes or is created must of ne cessity be created by some cause ;
fo r without a cause nothing can be created ( Timaeu s 28 a ; ed ”
, .

Jowett Vol I p or from an Aristotelian source e verything

, .
, .
—

that is in motion must ha ve been moved by so mething else ; or from

an Aristotelian axiom act is prio r to poten cy This proposition in — .

regard to causality is not pro ved e ven wh en it woul d appear as if ,

fi
su ch proof were being attempted e g S T I 2 3 and S C G ,
. .
, . .
, , , . . .
,

I 13 but it is always taken for granted or assumed

, , .

2 ) E se n e o f th e e i cieu t cau s e A ccording to S t Thomas the

s c . .
,

mechanical impulse is of the very essence of the effi cient cause For .

the initiation of bodily movement a physical conta ct is re q uired

( S C .G II This
. view corresponds to the con cept of ef
.
, , f icient
causality with which Aristotle had hoped to validate reality in “ ”

opposition to the idealism of P lato Th e efli cien t cause is n ever th e .

,

less not the same as modern mechanical causality but something

, ,

more as is evident from an examination of the causal principles

,
.

These principles are given in su ch axioms as ag r s e q u itu e se e e r s ,

i
act o n es s u u t s u m m o du s o er an di s e u itu r mo d u m ess e n di
o s ito r u
pp p q , ,

o mu e e ns agit sib i si mile n ih il agit u ltr a s u am specie m A s S t Thomas

, . .

states every agent acts so far as it is in act H ence the mode of an

“

fi
.
, ,

agent s power in acting ac ords with its mode of act; man begets
’
c

man and fire begets e ( S C G 11 22 ; O n th T u th of th

,
r
”
. . .
, , e r e

Cath o lic Faith Book Tw o : Cr e tio n translated by J F A nderson

, a , . .

[N e w Y ork : Doubleday Image B ooks p From these prin , .

cip le s we can see immediately how all e f i ient causality essentially co n

f c

sists in formation in a transfer of being in a revelation of substance

, ,

a V I ew po in t whi ch clashes radi cally with the superfi cial con cept of

sub stance which claims to see in this concept something inflexible mere ,

building blo cks of reality This principle of form is so sharply S tressed .

that S t Thomas in h is entire speculation with regard to the dynami cs

.
,

of mate rial reality refuses to permit matter to reduce its seed ,

“ ”

like powers as S t Bona venture and S t Alber t had assumed S t

,
. . . .
424 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS OPH Y
fo r it makes it possible for an agent to act This purpose permits .

matter to be come matte r and fo rm fo rm ; for matte r assumes the

fo rm only as its end an d the fo rm completes matte r only fo r the
sake of the end (p urpo se ) Fo r this r eason the end is the cause of .

causes for it is th e cause of causality in all causes

, Aristotle himself .

had also made identical the efficient for mal and final causes When , , .

he accorded priority to the final cause S t Thomas brought himself , .

into agreement with the intenti on of Aristotle who had explained , ,

that matte r tends towa r d th e fo rm In this view finality is especially .

b rought to ou r attention P urpose was o riginally known only in .

refe rence to speculation on tech ne o r ar t O u t of this specific type '

of reasoning the matte r form s chema was developed by P lato and -

Ar istotle and inj ected not only into the do ctrine of ideas but also
into Aristotelian h ylemo r ph ism ( see above p 179 S uch a so u r ce , .

enables us to understand better the teleology present in S t Thomas .

’

metaphysics of substance form -

.

2) Th e pr o to type To these su rr oun dings the exemplary cause was

.

no stranger The end ( pu rpose ) appear s as a model in view of which

.
,

the ar tist creates and because of which he bestows both being and
becoming on his handiwork In view of such exemplars the Divine .

Ar chitect creates as we read in the Timaeu s ; and in a simila r fashion

,

S t Thomas pe r mits the whole wo r ld to come into being An d also

. .

fo r him the wo r k o r actI V I ty of the C reato r is always explained by

reference to the activity of the ar tist o r cr aftsman F o r this reason .

final causes a re also exemplary causes an d in accordance with the ,

example set by S t Augustine these are to be sought in the eternal

.
,

ideas p resent in the mind of God ( S T I 15 1 and 2 ; 16 In . .

, , , ,

Di vine Being ( ips u m esse ) we ha ve the a t ality of all r eality and c u

also of all forms ( S T I 4 1 ad so that the whole world is a

. .
, , ,

likeness of God ( S T I 4 . .
, , ,

3) Th e o r der of th e wh ole F r om all this a pe r fect o r de r fo r all .

being naturally follows The concept of o do governs the whole . r

philosophy of Aquinas I n the enti r e uni verse no being exists purpose

.

lessly There is a supreme final end to which ever ything is sub

.

ordinated and acco r ding to which e very thing is regulated viz th e

, , .
,

s u mm m b o u u m which is God I n thi s subo r dination and regulation

u .

we can pe rceive a nearer and a fa r the r a higher and a lower in , ,

r eference to the supreme fin al end To this ar e added scales and .

measures genus and species forms and substances in both being an d

, ,

b ec oming ( S T I 5 Thou hast o r de r ed all things in measure

“
. .
, , , ,
 ST . THO M AS AQUI NAS I 425

and number and weight is cited by S t Thomas and he adds in .

,

explanation : measure denotes the degree of perfection ; number

“ ” “

,
”

the multiplicity and diversity of species which result from them ;

“
weight the natural powers original natures and impulses in all the
, , ,

events of the cosmi c pro cess which flow from them ( S C G 111 . . .
, ,

S t Thomas thus o ffers a complete teleology of being and of be oming

. c .

4) An evaluatio n f o th histo r y of ph il s phy In order corre ctly

r e o o .

to evaluate the philosophical importance of this theory we must bear ,

in mind how this teleology originated : It did not derive from a

complete induction of all happenings and their actual mutual inter

relation and orde r S uch an induction could be established only with

.

a great deal of trouble by the facts of experience after we had ,

assumed a complete lack of order ( the modern teleologi cal problem ) .

We would arr ive at the corre ct notion of the origin of teleology

only on the basis of an ap riori ideology whi ch dire ctly viewed th e
forms their interdependence and their asso ciations and considered
, ,

the purposes and the tenden cies p resent in the planning an d th e

cr e at ing of man the make r h o mo fab r ( x ma Sna py é ) and
, e Ta i/ s, to v s

then by transferring this type of technological speculation to the

,

u niverse to believe that we could perceive it there In this fashion

, .

we would arrive at that aetiology ( the se cond jou rney of the P h do ae

and the form as ca se in Aristotle ) and the axiology ( the end or

u

p rpose is for Aristotle still a good an amas ) which is present in

u ,
s

the characteristi c reasoning of the P latonic dialectics in the Aristotelian ,

doctrine of forms in the Neo—P latonic emanationism in the Augus

, ,

tinian teaching on the lex aeter na and in the hierarchy of being in ,

the P seudo Ar eopag te All these various stages of the long journey
-
I .

through the histo ry of philosophy enter into the teleology of Aquinas

and become a comprehensive synthesis The revival and the system .

atic spec lative development of Thomisti c philosophy cannot simply

u

take fo r granted the Aristotelianism in S t Thomas and then .

, ,

loo k ing to the matter only in identally as an historical reality c ,

simply refer to Ne P latoni c and Augustinian elements present in

o-

his writings : This new interest in S t Th omas must reach some .

con clusion about the problem of what kind of A ristotelianism is

actually found in what he propounded S in ce the historical Aristotle .

has become a problem fo r us this mediaeval Ar istotelianism takes

,

on even greater proportions Where is the starting point of Thomistic

.

metaphysics ? In the P latonic heritage of Aristotelianism o r in the

empi ricism of Alexander o r in the p rinciples of Neo P latonism ? —
C H A P TE R

ST . TH O MA S A Q U I NA S I I : TH E O D I CY —
,

P S Y C H O L O G Y E TH I CS ,

GOD

When S t Thomas pursues the ultimate r easons of things in the

.

various domains of philosophy he always finds them in God God , .

is not an accidental superficial appendage to his philosophy ; H e

,

forms the first foundation for S t Thomas entire doctrine of being .

’
.

The metaphysics of God is as it was for Aristotle only a fu rther , ,

development of his ontology .

1 . P RO OF S F OR TH E EX I S TENCE OF G OD

From motion Thomas resolves th e question whethe r or not

. St
God exists by his fi ve ways to God These five proofs have since .
”

become famous ; they are indubitably classic in th ei r clari ty and

con ciseness T I I T fi r st proof that
( S 2. 3 ; S .C ,G , , h e . . .
, , ,

taken from motion ( ex par te motu s ) whi ch stems from Ar istotle is , ,

fo r the first time e v aluated practically for S cholasti cism by S t Thomas . .

It begins with the data of experien ce namely that of mo tion It , , .

r uns as follows : Everything that is in motion must have been moved

by something else since no thing is able to move itself ; and because
,

we cannot regress endlessly while positing a dependen ce of the thing

being moved on the mover if there were no prime mover there —

could not be a se cond fo r all secondary causes depend upon a r st

,

w e must finally assume the ex i stence of a F i r st M ove r which cannot

fi
,

be mo ved by anything else but is itself free of motion ; this we

fi
,

fi
call God

fi
.

Fr om ef cient cau s ality Th e second way takes as its starting

.

point the ef cient cause ( x atio ne a e i cie n tis )

e r We know that cau s e .

every cause in the world of sense is itself cause d ; and this in turn is
also aused and so on ; for no thing can be the cause of itself By this
c ,
.

line of r easoning we s tress the fact that r ecour se to an infinite series

426
 428 M ED I AE VAL P H ILOSOPH Y
p f er ectio u u recognizes behind
m) the g r eate r o r lesse r pe r fe ction of
the wo rld a sup reme perfection which furnishes us with a ready
made standard by whi ch we a re enabled to speak of a greate r “ ”

o r a lesser This supreme pe rfection is also th e exempla r for every

“
.
”

thing that is of value in the world because values shar e in it — cau sa ,

is in this connection the same as exemplar in the sense of a “

,
”

hypothesis not an efficient cause In such a line of reasoning we

, .

can detect P latoni c A ugustinian and Anselmian views

, , .

F rom o rde r Th e fifth way from the government of the world

.
“ ”

ex gu b e n atio u e mu n di is the eleological p r oof fo r the existe ce

( r
) t n
of God This proof was first presented by the S toics especially by
.
'

C ice r o and S ene ca S t Thomas reasoning is as follows : evident in

’
. .

the wo rld are both o rde r and the pu r suance of pu rpose ( or end ) ; as
a consequen ce the re must be a sup reme intelligence present through
which this pursu ance can be explained .

S t Thomas reje cted the contention that the notion of God is innate
.
,

that God can be looked at di rectly and immediately as well as the ,

proof for G od s existence that had been advanced by S t Anselm ( cf

’
. .

p . As an histo rical fact it I s interesting to note that S t .

Thomas did not fo r a moment doubt that he had discovered the

G o d of r eligion by means of his philosophi cal r easoning It is A quinas
’
.

completely independent b eing whom all call God

”
( ) T
“
“
e n s a se o .

the modern ob j ection that the God of religion is something entirely

di fferent H e is maj estic awesome bewitching mysterious — h e
—
, , ,

would have answe red : O nl y the thought pro cesses ar e di fferent ; the
obj ect is always the same .

2 . TH E ES SENCE OF G OD

Attr ib u tes
If we should furthe r develop the implications con
.

tain e d in these proofs fo r th e existen ce of God we would naturally ,

be enabled to deri ve some knowledge of God s essence Accor ding to ’

.

these ways G od must be an ens a se ; insofar as H e is th e first

“ ”

principle H e must surpass all othe r beings ; H e must be unb egotten

,

and eternal absolutely necessary and perfe ct and must be a living

, ,

spi rit That there is only one God become s clea r from the notion of
.

G o d given by the proofs advan ced fo r the existence of God ( S T . .

,

3 and
God is ip sum esse Th e criterion which S t Thomas employs by . .

prefe rence in regar d to the natu re of God is the con cept of ips m u

esse s u bsisteu s God s essence is not other than H is act of existing

’ “ ”
.
 ST . TH OM AS AQUI NAS II 429

( D e E u te et Esse ntia p ,In G o d being

c h . IV ; trans . M aurer , .

itself is H is existen ce ( I n I S ent 8 1 It is pre isely for this .

, , ,
c

reason that S acred S cripture describes G o d in th ese words I am :

“

who am Th e ipsu m ns as S t Thomas explains in D e E te t

.
”
e , . u e

Esse ntia is not synonymou s with ns

, ni e l Th e concept of e u v r sa e .

being in general is th e emptiest and at th e same time the most im

ver ish e d notion that we can possibly h ave ; it is identi cal with the
p o

purely formal notion of someth ing G d however is the fullness .

”
o , ,

of being the absolute s m total of every perfe ction — so infinite that

,
u

noth ing new can be added to our con cept of H im for the purpo se of
perfecting it further for the very simple reason that every possible
,

perfection is already contained in it Th e notion of God as being itself .

,

in the sense of the fullness of being is manifestly Neo P latonic ,

-
.

S t Thomas has given us the best explanation of th i s concept

.

of God as being itself ( ips u m ns ) in the S u mma Th ol gi ( I 4 e e o ae , ,

1 ad There we read that being itself ( ipsu m e ns ) is th e a ctuality

of all things ( tu litas o mni m r e u m) th erefore the power of
ac a u r ,

powers th e life of lives the existence of existences this is Aris

, ,
—

to telian ism Bu t ips u m ns is also the a ctua lity of all forms ( t alita
‘

. e ac u s

o mni m fo ma m) hen ce the form of forms wh i ch in all their

u r ru ,

variety correspond with it th e infinite ( S T I 4 2) this is , . .

, , ,
—

P latoni c philosophy S in ce in A ristotle everything dynamic has a

.

form and since in P lato all forms are able to be effi ient causes
, c

it was this notion of P lato whi ch allowed A ristotle to say that the
form is act the synthesis of S t Thomas is not a contradi ction but
—
.

a happily inspired point of view in which the fi nal intentions of

both great Greeks fi nd expression .

P redication of our no tions abou t God 1 ) By w y of n egati n . a o

an d
g r ad tio n S t Thomas
a renders us .a spe c
.ial servi ce by s h owing
in what sense we can express our concepts of G o d when we try to
describe H is properties and H is nature After the fashion that had .

been traditional since P atristic times S t Thomas taught we S hould , .

rather say wh at God is n ot rath er th an what H e is ( ia n g tio n is ) v e a ,

and that w h éh ever we do make positive S tatements about H im we ,

S hould as cribe to H im the content of our notions in a sense that H e

eminently s rpas ses everyth ing else ( transcendent sense ) ( vi e mi

u a

u ti
eu
) yB
ae so doing
. we do not express a mere gradual elevation of
such notions as those of good or of spirit or of life or of b eing in ,

wh ich the essen ce of created and divine goodness of spirit and of life ,

an d of being would be the same This would amount to a univocal

, .
430 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
predication which would basically reduce the divine and the ear th ly
to the same denominato r and thus promote pan theism N aturally we .

cannot gi ve these abstr act terms and exp r essions completely di fferent
conceptual meanings e u ivo cal assertions be cause in so doing we
( q )
would be fo rced to confess that we knew nothing whatsoe ve r about
God ( agnosticism ) .

2 ) Analogical k n o w ledge f Go d O u r con cepts must therefore

o .

have an analogical meaning ; that is they should j oin together both ,

identity and di fferentiation De spI te all differentiation there is some

.

thing possessed in common both by God and by the wo rld as ,

P lato had realized when he fo rmulated his concept of meth exis o r

participation In this concept he had tried to make clear that ev e ry
.

thing str i ves to be as the idea itself but always falls S ho r t of its ,

realization ; ne vertheless the beings that do fall short exist only by

,

means of the idea which is p resent in them in whi ch e ve rything

, ,

shar es and by which e ve rythi ng is designated Analogy is essential .

to the doctrine of ideas ; in fact it exp resses the concept of participa

,

tion e ven in its terminology ami M y am i 37 Z S

, ; a ccording to oy T V
’
ea v

the word acco r ding to the idea When S t Thomas ( S I C G I

2 : .
”
. . .
, ,

34 and passim ) explains that all being is first realized prima r ily in
God ( in the mo d s ssen di) and that only as r egar ds the manner
u e

of being known ( m d ogu osce ndi) is God described in acco r dan ce

o us c

wi th the things in this our world such an explanation is nothing ,

mo re than the do ctrine that the idea alone has true being and that
created things possess being only through parti cipation .

3 . G OD WORLD
AN D TH E

C re ati o n ou t o f no thing F rom the notion of God as ips u m esse

.

in the sense of absolute actuali ty S t Thomas deri ved th e p rinciples

, .

fo r a metaphysics of th e wo r ld They are the following : If God is

.

pu r e act and as such th e cause of the unive r se the world must have ,

been c reated out of nothing ; fo r if anything existed from the very

beginning along with God for example eternal matte r God would
, , ,

not be the cause of the uni verse ( S T I 1 and . .

, ,

P r ese rv ation o f th e w o r ld We may draw secondly from th e cor

.
, ,

rect notion of God a proposition concerning the preservation or

conservation of the world Th e world not only had a beginning ; it is
.

continuously dependent upon God Be cause created being in its essen ce .

exists only through participation this created being must be cause , ,

of its essential and consequently permanent contingency constan tly ,

432 M ED I AE VAL P H I LOS O P H Y

own personal observation and that of others In this conne ct on S t . i , .

Thomas again attempts an evaluation of Aristotle together with his

noti ons problems p ropositions suggestions and fundamental positions
, , , ,

1 . TH E EX I S TE N OE OF TH E S OU L

Wh y must we assume th e existen ce of a soul ? S t Thomas e xpresses .

himself on this point as follows : We observe that there are corporeal

substan ces which are differentiated from other bodies by the fa ct
that th ey are capable of immanent action ( self movement ) nourish -
,

ment reprodu ction sense per ception and possess a conative faculty
, , ,
.

We call these substances living bodies S u ch special chara cteristics .

must be derived from a special principle for ager e s e qu itu r esse ,

.

F rom the fa ct that these substan ces possess corpo real being we cannot
con clude that they possess life ; otherwise we would be for ced to

admit that all bodies are living S ince this does not follow in the .
,

case of living bodies we must be able to find in them something

more than corporeal being An d this further principle this something .

,

more we call the soul By this explanation S t Thomas revived an

, . .

ancient notion of the soul — that notion which sees life only in the
sense of self motion in P lato as well as in Aristotle A soul of this
-
,
.

kind is possessed both by plants and by animals It is the anima .

ve etativa
g ( plant soul ) and the an i ma s e n siti va
( the animal soul )
2 . TH E NATU RE OF TH E H U M AN S O U L

Immateri ality In the case of human beings we must make an

.

exception M n is not only a living being but an animal endowed with

. a

rationality ( animal ati n l ) An d from this point on S t Thomas

r o a e . .

pro ceeds to develop the argument we have already indicated Th e .

uniqueness of a human being his reasoning and his rationally guided ,

free will demand a specific prin iple O f what kind is the s u l of a

, c . o

human being ? S t Thomas answers S in ce reasoning and rationally

. :

guided free will are essentially spiritual and hence of the immaterial
order the soul of man must be immaterial ( anima tio n lis intel
,
ra a :

leetiz a) S in ce the representations of th e imagination only a ccompany

/ .

reasoning they do not form the essence of its notions of its j udg
, ,

ments or of its syllogisms O therwise the soul would never be in a

, .

position to con ceive of bodies by means of universal con cepts but ,

would be for ed to deal and to depend entirely on particulars sin ce

c ,

everything corporeal is particular .

Subs tantiali ty From the spirituality of th ought we can deduce

.
 ST TH O M AS AQUINAS
. n 433

the substantiality of the soul If reasoning abstracts from sensible .

reality only the material and if the images or representations of ,

the phantasy accompany the reasoning processes only as an auxiliary ,

whereas reasoning itself in its own proper actuality is essentially , ,

something di fferent is spiritual an essential independence becomes

, ,

apparent Thus again in conformity with the prin ciple ge e e q itu

. a r s u r

esse the prin ciple of this more noble spirituality the h u man spiritual
, ,

soul must be something existing independently ; i t must be a sub

,

S tan ce T I 7 in ce in the a ctivity of the vegetative soul

( S 5. S .
, , ,

and of the animal soul we cannot dis cern such an essential spiritual
autonomy we have no rea so n to hold that they are subsistent and we
,

must assume that they are destroyed along with the body ( S T .

I 75
, ,

Immortality By su ch reasoning we are s u pplied with proof for

.

the immortality of the human soul Because of its essential s u bsistence .

,

th e human soul is left untou ched by the death of the body ( S T .

I 75
, , A presupposition for this argument is the thesis of the
essential spirituality of reasoning whi ch S t Thomas took from .

A ristotle w h o perceived in the a tive or agent intellect someth ing

, c

unmixed divine and immortal S t Th omas however con ceived the

, , . .
, ,

s bsistence of the soul which in accordance with its derivation

u —

denotes primarily th e essential speci fi c di fferen ce of th e immaterial

a tivity wh ich is exercised by the spiritual soul as individual su b
c —

s tan tiality This thoug h t is not too clearly exp r essed in A ristotle and
.

affords th e reason w h y th e monopsy hism of the Averroists was c

capable of thriving as it did H ere S t Thomas deals with th e C h ristian . .

con cept of the individual mortal so l with whi ch we had become u ,

a cquainted very early in the P atristi c period .

For m of the b ody In view of s u ch a sh arply stressed individual

.

subsisten ce of the soul there emerges naturally and almost inevitably

th e q u estion H o w can the soul whose origin in existence must be
: ,

uni q ue still be the form of th e body ? O n this point S t Th omas

,
.

expressed himself in th e language of Aristotle and ch ose to consider

the soul actually as th e form of th e body ( Aristotle h ad recognized
in th e vital so l th e form of the body and even P lato saw in it the
u ,

prin ciple of life ) Th u s in conformity with his h ylemo r ph ism S t

.
, ,
.

Thomas postulates a substantial nion of the two ( S T I 76 u . .

, , ,

1) M n t a mposit o an ac ide nt l n e We cannot over

, a r ue co e r c a o .

loo k the fa t th at th e notion of th e independent subsisten e of the soul

c c

points more clearly in the dire ction of the P latoni c Augustinian -

434 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
par a
p o situ or a c m
cidental union of th e body and the so l th an in u

that of the Ar istotelian co mposit m N evertheless S t Th oma s seeks u .

, .

to retain his h ylemo ph ism because it would otherwise become

r ,
"
di fficult to explain h o w w e c ou ld say : This man thinks If the soul
_
_
.

should not be the form of a determined body e g S ocrates then , . .

, ,

S ocrates himself wo ld not think but an i mpersonal It would take

“ ”
u

over this fun ction in S ocrates There remains th erefore no other .

explanation than that given by Aristotle ( S T I 76 1 ; ed Benziger ”

. .
, , , .
,

Vol I p.
, An d in what on cerns the subsisten ce of the soul we
. c ,

would be faced with a unique case : Th e soul communicates that “

existen ce in whi ch its subsists to the corporeal matter o t of which ,

u

and the intelle ctual soul there results unity of existence ; S O that
the existence of the whole composite is also the existence of the soul .

This I s not the case with other non subsistent forms ( S T I 76 -

”
. .
, , ,

1 ad 5 ; ed Benziger Vol I p . S hortly before in unison with

, .
, .
,

A ristotelian terminology S t Thomas had declared that man and the

, .

so l are not identical H owe ver the doctrine of S t Augustine on the

u .
, .

thesis that the being of the soul becomes the being of the whole
composite eventually prevailed o ve r the terminolo y of A ristotle
g
as H e tling has pointed out
r .

2 ) S pi it al s o u l and its vital po w e s S t Thomas is an adroit

r u r . .

advo cate of the unity of the soul ; there are no parts to the soul and
ther e are not se ver al forms as other S cholastics dependent upon S t, .

Augustine had p r e v iously taught O n e and the same fo r m bestows .

upon one and the same individual at one and th e same time corporeity ,

life and the light of reason Th e spiritual soul takes over the activities
, .

and the faculties of the vital so l These are virtually sublimated in u .

it ; that is they a r e ele v ated ui tu aliter in it There is no other

, r .
“

substantial form in man besides the intellectual soul ; and the soul
.
,

as it virtually contains the sensitive and nutritive souls so does it ,

virtually contain all inferior forms ( S T I 76 4; ed Benziger ”

. .
, , , .
,

Vol I p.
, .

We are able to substantiate this assumption by resorting to ex

p er ien ce W hen. we compare inanimate bodies wi th the plant and
th e animal worlds we be ome aware of an ascending scale of per
, c

fectio n In this s cale the high er forms contain and also repla ce bot h
.

the lower forms and their activities A l though they themselves are not .

inferior forms th ey are capable of exe uting wh atever fun ctions these
, c

others are able to perform for th e nobler a form is the more ,

“

it rises above corporeal matter th e less it is merged in matter and , ,

436 M ED AEV I AL P H ILOSOPH Y
p sychology of knowing In agreement with A ristotle
. he is of the
opinion that reason is the most perfect powe r of man s soul and by
'
’

that he accords the intellect a primacy over the will We can in a .

sense speak of a certain intaleCtu alism in S t Thomas ( S T I 82 . . .

, , ,

This must be viewed howeve r only from a psychologi cal standpoint

, , ,

insofar as the obj ect of knowledge by reason of its abstract ideal ,

being is simpler and conse q uently ranks higher according to Neo

,

P latoni c specul ation In ethi cal asso ciations however in which it is

.
, ,
"
impo r tant to make use of a still higher value than the human intellect ,

e.

g . God
, the will is
, considered to be more important .

A c ts of k n owing 1 ) S p cies se nsibilis A S a result of this special

. e .

appraisal of knowledge and of knowing we can well realize that S t , .

Th omas analyzed psychologi cally the gene sis of knowledge in a ve ry

thorough manner ( S T I 79 and 84 In the fully completed act
. .
, ,

by which we arrive at knowledge we can distinguish four S tages , .

Th e beginning is in sense perception H ere a clear pi cture is given .

us of the various sensory powers of the soul What a man knows .

,

even his spiritual knowledge of which no phantasms can be formed ,

he knows only through the senses In fact self knowledge of the .

,
-

so u l is possible only I n regard to its own acts These in tu rn are .

po ssible only by means of the external sensible world S t Thomas . .

manifests his perfect agreement with the proposition of A ristotle

that the so u l cannot know anything without phantasms ; and he
.

S hows by means of con crete examples how we always begin with

representations of the phantasy or imagination or press into service

sensibl e demonstrations while reasoning even when we speculate ,

on the most sublime realities such as God or the pu re spirits ,

( S . T I 84
. S
, and
, W
, e have already mentioned that the phantasms

are nevertheless only con comitant phenomena and do not fo rm the

spe cific essen ce of reasoning Th e opinion that the specific effect of .

our intellection is a materially realized es en se ( S T I 84 7 ) is s . .

, , ,

more S toic than Aristotelian for it was th e S toics who set up th e ,

equation : reality r es natu r ae material things .

2 ) S p cies int lligibilis Th e product of sense per ception the sensible

e e .
,

species ( sp i s e nsibilis ) is illuminated in the second S tage by

ec e s ,
“ ”

the agent or active intellect ( intellectu s gens ) This illumination a .

enables the human mind to dra w from the various sensory and
con crete representations of external obje cts an intelligible content ,

universal in nature of the same r ealities Th e representations thus

,
.

formed are the universals th e concepts the essen ces They are spirit, ,
.
“
 ST . THO M AS AQU I NAS II 437

ua l, hat is of an immate rial nature ( pe ies intelligibili ) ; in other

t , s c s

words they are no longer sensory S t Th omas speaks of a picking

, . .
“

out of these ideal forms of essen ces of an ab traction S in ce this

”
,
“
s .

illumination in the meaning of the Aristotelian notion of light is drawn

from De An ima III 5 wh ere Aristotle dis cusses how colors become
, , ,

visible by means of light hence of an obj ect that is already completed ,

and must itself illuminate we can readily u nderstand that this medi ,

ae al abstra ction is an I ntu i t on

v not a formulation of the essence i , ,
.

Th at is to say latent eternal forms a ccording to S t Thomas are made

, , .
,

actually visible by th e agent intellect ; whereas in Lo k e on th e c ,

contrary universal representations are newly generated in the ab str ac

,

tion based on sense per eption These universal representations of c .

Lo cke contain nothing less than eternal forms but they can be co n ,

str u e d in one way or another a ccording to experien e Their relation c .

to trans cendental reality is extremely doub tful so that What we ,

finally know is the representation and not the thing represented ,

whereas in S t Thomas there is no danger that the intelle ct under

.

stands only itself To him sense data is not as it will be for Lo cke
.
, ,

the efficient cause but only the material cause of knowledge .

Despite his earnest defense of the value of sense perception S t , .

Thomas does not a ctually a ccord it any more impo rtan ce than does
P lato himself or S t A g stine Th e itation in the S mm Th
. u u . c u a eo

logi e ( I 84
a , th at ac ording to P lato th e orporeal sense organs are
, c c

not employed is histori ally false for P lato expressly ass res u that
c , u s

we use our senses Th e de cisive element lies in th e agent ( a tive )

. c

intelle ct and it must make its de cision known Th e reason is that .

,

according to the Thomisti c concept of ca u sality the ca se as the t , u ac

is prior to th e potency and therefore must contain whatever m st be u

a tuali z ed in the e ffect Th o gh the agent intellect ( in t ll t

c . r u e ec u s

ag n e
)s S t Thomas . introdu ced an apriori element into his theory
of knowledge When he per ceived in the illumination considered in
.
,

i ts relation to th e A ristotelian i nt ll t g e n s a ertain parti cipation e ec u s a , c

in the U n created Ligh t of S t Augustine this parti cipation is .

,

not to be considered simply a simple matter of words or of literary

pleasantry b u t m st be th o gh t of as based on the profundity of
, u u

th e s u b j e t itself D espite th e novel interpretation of th e A g stini an

c . u u

theory which results proximately from th is S t Th omas does a ct ally , . u

approach closely to th e mind of th Fath er of th e C h rch e u .

3) S p i imp e s
ec es Th next S tage in th genesis of k nowledge
r s a . e e

consists in this that the p ies intelligibilis is r eceived by the in tellect

,
s ec .
438 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO S O PHY
S t Thomas
. distinguished by a specifi ally real distin ction between
, c ,

the agent or active intellect and the possible or passi ve intelle t c

( i n telle t u s
po ss ib ilis
c
) w hich maintains itself
, passi v ely and must be
described as a bare tablet Ar ist o tle himself acknowledged a su ffering
.
“ ”

( passive ) intellect and permits the truth to be impressed and impr i nted

upon it To that same extent the intelle tual images are also to S t
. c .

Thomas spe i es i mp ssa c re e .

4) S peci s xp e sa This S tage does not conclude th e genesis of

e e r s .

knowledge Th possible intelle t enfolds a ertain activity of its

. e c
’

own by relating in an intentional way the impressed spiritual images

to their real obj ects H e conceive s these so to speak as means of
.
,
‘

expression and as words with which the intelle ct rep r odu ces the
world As a result the speci s int lligibilis is called v r b u m m ntis
.
,
e e e e ,

the word of th e mind ( S C G IV 1 1 and 13) o r spe i s exp ssa . . .

, ,
c e re .

This latter be omes a favored expression among the Thomists

c .

5 . O R I GIN O F TH E S OU L

C reationismIn regard to the origin of th e soul S t Thomas is

.
, .

opposed to bo th tradu cianism and generat on sm Be cause of the i i .

subsisten ce of the soul we must reject su ch views If the soul in its .

“

essen ce is independent of the body it cannot have its origin in ,

matter There can be only one other alternative namely that God
.
, ,

created ea ch one and gave each one its own proper individ ali ty ; u

for pre existence does not enter into the question ( S C G II 83

— . . .
, , ,

Emb r yonic de v elopment Th e single steps in the origin of a h man

. u

individual are the following the starting point is uterine blood ; :

this is inanimate but is capable of animation Through the action .

of a series of factors God the celestial spirits the heavenly bodies

—
, ,

especially the sun the father and the paternal sperma th e maternal
, ,
—

blood becomes a living being b u t a living being only insofar as ,

existence is concerned and not a tivity ( iv m a tu p ima ) Th is c v u c r .

act remains on the level of vegetative life witho u t belonging to any

determined species of plant life ( but also not to human life ) and ,

withou t being possessed of vital activity ( vivu m ct c na ) O nly a u se u

’
o .

later does it manifest life fun ctions s ch as nourishment and growth u .

When this living being has matu red to the point where it becomes
capable of animal life the hitherto present prin iple of life is repla ced
,
c

by a higher form the animal at first only so far as being is c n

, ,
o

cer ned ; aft er war d s it exe r ci se s a corres po ndin g a ctivity ( sense pe r

440 M ED I AEVAL PH I LOSO PHY
ethics centers on the notion of bo n m o r the good Bo n u m
H is u .

manifests a double relation hip : one ontological and one personal s , , .

In both referen ces I t I s an ethi cal principle .

1 . BE ING VALU E AN D

E n s e t b o n u m co n ver tu n tu r First of all b n u m appears together .

, o

with being Actually it is positively identical with it : ns et b o n u m

. e

c nv
o tu n t er B n u m however adds a special and distin ct nuance to
ur . o , ,

being : the relation of being to a purpose or goal and the possibility

of attai ning to it ( see De Ve 21 O riginating in P lato and in r ,

Aristotle and dominating the enti r e history of S cholasti cism in —

parti cular the philosophy of S t Thomas — is a metaphysics completely .

teleo logi cal According to it every form o r eidos embraces within

.
,

itself final purposive relationships ( natu re that into which some

,
2 :

thing has developed ; pi w p T i) As a result the fo rm

( r o rs ec vx e va t
'
i l/ .

becomes an entelechy and the actu alization of the fo rm a perfection

and thus a b nu m Th e ontological good 1 5 always a perfection
o .

( D e V r 2 1 e 1 and For this reason

, P lato held that idea of
ideas is also the idea of the good There is in Ar istotle pa rticularly .
—

in the first chapte r of his N i o mach ean Eth ics a systemati c subor
— c

din atio n of all a ctivities and all actions to a supreme end or pu rpose
as to the S upreme Good In S t Augustine for whom all forms and . .
,

all ends are identical with the ideas in the mind of God God is the ,

good of every good ( b nu m o mnis b o ni) and the same theme is o ,

found in Boethius and even mo re so in P seudo Dionysius C on -

.

sequ ently S t Thomas employing Aristotelian formulas saw the

.
, ,

specific virtues and v alue of every being in the completion of its

spe cific nature and of its activities Th e goodness of a thing consists .

in its being well disposed according to the mode of its natu r e ”

( S T. I II 7 1 1
—
; ed B enziger
, Vol I p
, 8 9 7 ; S C . G I 3 7 ; D e , .
,
. . . .
, ,

Vir t in Co mi I
.
, ,

H uman goodness S in ce ea ch human being possesses a specific

fi fi
.

nature and since a spe cific activity ( ager ) belongs to his mode of e

existence ( es ) human goodnes s ( the i p mw dy é of Aristotle )

se ,
« v a
'
ov a v

is to be found in the fact that each individual human being is and

acts in a manne r conformable to the essen ce and the idea of a man ,

a human being Fro m th is it follows that universal human nature

.

is the ontologi cal prin ciple of morality Th is is neither materialism .

nor naturalism nor a mere morality of possessions Anti q uity had .

recognized ideal human nature and for S t Thomas who draws , .

—
 ST . THOM AS AQUI NA S II 441

ideas from th e mind of God as does S t Augustine this con cept .

—

of ideal human nature is more than e ver dominant E very nature ,

as such is from G o d ; and is a vicious nature insofar as it fails from

, ,

the Divine art whereby it was made ( S T I II 7 1 2 ad 4; ed ”

.
—
, ,
.

Ben z iger Vol I p , An d when he repeatedly st resses the fact

.
, .

that human nature Should act according to reason he means the ,

same thing ; for through reason we overcome the sensitive appetites

in us and we more truly fulfill the ideal order Re ta r atio is here . c

nothing more than conscience as the S toics had already intimated ,

.

A s a consequen ce the natural law as a prin ciple of human morality

,

is subordinated to a still more sublime prin ciple the ete rnal law ,
.

Ou r human nature insofa r as it is rational parti cipates in it ( S T .

I II 9 1 This is a th eo n o mic morality but not in the sense of a

~”

—
, , ,

heteronomy ; in fact it is as little heteronomic as was the P latonic

notion of the good .

God an d th e good Just as P lato was able to subordinate the laws

'

of morality to the notion of imitation of G o d so in his ethics S t ,

.

Thomas was able to recognize the movement of rational creatures

toward G o d In this connection G o d is neither a strange God of
.

S heer capri ce nor is H e superimposed on all values as a modern

Kantian idea by which we are generally not aware how it is or

why but H e is the Be ng through whom we be come that which we
, i

are ; H is our being and our goal

e .

2 . P ERS ONAL BONU M

S in ce
Kant has portrayed moral value as something originally
personal as something commanding respect in contrast to the ex
,

e di n t and pleas u rable

e and S in e h e h as delineated the categori cal
p , c

imperative as something underived we might possibly be in clined ,

to see in the S cholastic basis of ethi cs that is in being and in God , ,

as the ltimate foundation of being a mistaken notion of what

u ,

is speci fi cally moral By looking at it in th is light we would err

.

about the S tate of the case P la ing th fo ndation of morality in . c e u

being and in G d is metaphysi cs and is con cerned with the r aiso n

o

d et e and not with the phenomenology of morality and the first

’
r

cons io sness of its principles in th

c u order of k nowledge or the atio e r

co gn o sce n di .

H ab itu s p r in cip io r u m 1 ) Ethical apr io r is m This aspe ct is treated

. .

in anoth er connection, namely, in the do ctrine of the h abitu s pr in- s

ei pio r um or the virtue of fi rst principles . By such a doctri ne St.

442 M ED IAEVAL PH I LOSO PHY
Thomas hits precisely on that whi ch Kant intended by the u n der i
v ate dn ess of his catego r ical imperative ,
and that whi ch the philosophy
of value purposes by th e apr ior ity of its values Just as in the theor eti cal
o r der th ere are primary 21m which are self evident the supreme
.

—
,

laws of reason so in the field of morality there are su ch principles

,
“
.
”

These are genuine prin ciples that is original primary and incapable , , , ,

of further derivation They are to be found in human nature or more

.

precisely in reason and its rightness ; they are connat ral and im u

p ressed upon it ; they are known to all men and represent a parti cipa ”

tion in the value and the veracity of God H imself ( S T I II 92 2 ; . .

,
—
, ,

93 2 ; 9 1
, P lato A ristotle the S toics and espe cially S t Augusti n
, , e , ,
.

continue to exert thei r in f luence in this ideology and this terminolo gy

of the natural law S t Thomas defines this law as th e parti ipation
“
.
”
.
“
c

of the eternal law in the rational creature ( S T I II 9 1 ”

.
—
, ,

2 ) N t r al la w ofmo lity A nother expression for the primordial

“
a u ra .

natu ral consciousness of value is the con ept of synderesis whi ch was c

dis cussed by the S cholasti cs and chiefly by C hancello r P hilipp as ,

well as the con ept of the sparklet of the so l ( intilla an imae )

c
“
u
”
sc ,

current among the mysti cs Th e supreme axiom of ethi s is D

“
. c o

good and avoid evil If these prin ciples are applied to individual
.
”

c oncrete cases synderesis becomes cons cience ( atio ta) C onsidered

,
r r ec .

from a S trictly philosophi cal standpoint cons cience has always been ,

an ethical apriorism Th e chief indi cations whi h are granted us to

. c

discove r the human ho n m are the primary essential tenden cies of u ,

human nature ( n at r ale in lin tio n es ) which are partly vital partly
u s c a , ,

r ational mo r al j udgments This might be true at least in theory

-
. .

P ractically matters are otherwise It is evident that S t Thomas for . .

,

whom the contents of the laws of natu l morality coin ided with ra c

the De calogue had dis covered through Revelation what m st be

,
u

ascribed to the moral law insofar as its contents are con erned From , c .

this and in this way he was able to build u p the con ept of the c
“
ideal human nat re u .

Th e ideal human type P ond e ring these thoughts from a philo .

sophi cal standpoint and not apriori we do know what belongs to ,

su ch a notion Ideal human nat re onsidered only as being is an

. u , c ,

apriori and th e actions perf rmed in conformity with it are derived o

“ ”

from it In the order of knowledge on the contrary we are constantly

.
, ,

tending toward it and only gradually do we dis cover the ontents of an c

ideal human type and only grad ally do we perceive its reality B t
,
u . u

we do not start t aimlessly on u journey We possess in o reason

ou o r . ur
444 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO SOPHY
mand is nothing else than the act of reason dire cting with a certain ,

motion something to act [S T I II 17 5 ; ed Benziger Vol I

,
”
.
—
, , .
, .
,

p 65 8 ] forms the content of a very well known school of cha racter

.
-

formation [training of the will ] at the p r esent time ) of the subj ective ~

and objective elements in the make u p of mo r al actions This section -

.

o ffers a profound psychologi cal and moral pedagogical analysis of —

con crete moral life Th e emotions are treated t h oroughly also in this
.

section ( S T I II 22 .
—
,

3 . ETERNAL BLI S S

In conformity with Greek and C hristian tradition for S t Thom as , .

the climax of ethics is to be found in the doctri ne of eternal bliss

( S T . I II 1—
A ntiquity
, and the M iddle A ges understood the
life of man in terms of teleology o r finality True wisdom both for .
,

the A cademi cians and for the P eripateti cs for the S toi cs as well as ,

for the C hristians was to be found in a life that tends toward a goal
, ,

in a knowledge of it and of the subordination of all actions to it

, .

Th e attainment of the goal results in pe a ce and enjoyment : We

“

are leisureless only to attain leisu re as Aristotle had phrased it and ,

”
,

we exe r cise ou r powe r s ( u ti ) fo r the sake of enjoyment ( f i) as S t ru .

Augustine had maintained In his treatment of eter nal bliss S t .

, .

Thomas again employs the terminology of Aristotle H e re cogni z es .

eternal bliss in the pe rfe ct O wpl that is in the vision of G o d e a

, , .

Th e v isio n of God AS A ristotle sought the supreme bliss of man

.

in the intuition of the tru th in the Thought of Thought SO in a , ,

S imila r fashion S t Thomas also dis covers it :

. Th e las t and perfe ct
happiness which we await in the life to come consists entirely in
, ,

contemplation and the essen ce of happiness consists in an act

of th e intellect ( S T I II 3 4 and 5 ; ed Benziger Vol I p
.
—
, , , .
, .
, .

This is again Thomistic intelle ctualism Whereas for A ristotle perfe ct .

bliss reaches its perfection here on earth S t Thomas as a C hristian , .

transfers it to the life beyond the grave H ere again Augustinian .

theory fi nds expression .

Fr u itio A lthough in the identi fi cation of eternal bliss wi th the

‘

contemplation of truth there is ontained a

( )
’
0 wp l 7 d AnG c
e a 7 7 9 er a s

proposition of S t Augustine who held that this bliss is perfected

.

in charity th e matter is viewed in a typi cal August n an fashion if

, i i

th e vision of God is designated as perfe ct delight E ven though this .

is only a se condary element ( S T I Il 4 th e A g stinian f ui .

—
, , u u r

is again utilized ( S T 1 11 4 . .
,
—
, ,
 ST . THO M AS AQUI NAS II 445

E udaemonism such a theory the morality of Aq u inas ends in

? By
eudaemonism j ust as it had begun with it ( the idea of purpose )
, .

Nevertheless his moral doctrine is as little eudaemonistic as had

,

been the ethi cs of P lato and Aristotle For nowhere in it does .

subje tive in clination play a decisive role All prin ciples are of an
c .

existential obj ective kind AS had freq uently been the case with the .

ancient moralists so also with him the eudaemonistic terminology

,

is only a vehi cle for oth er in comparably higher values namely eth ical , ,

values in themselves .

LA W AND TH E S TA TE

In connection with his teaching on the natural and the eternal

law S t Thomas dis ussed human law ( purpose origin characteristics
. c , , ,

and division ) its power its binding force and its development
, , ,

( 3 T I I
. I , 95 —

1 . LAw

of law Wh y do men make laws ? S t Thomas pondered

M eani ng . .

the matter as follows : In human nature much power is latent This .

must be directed into proper channels and it needs in addition a

fi
,

certain discipline ; for man is easily inclined to act out of caprice or

from inordinate desire For the young parental authority su i ces .
,
.

For the u pstart as well as for the in considerate and th e vi cious in ,

order to guide them along the proper paths external ompulsion , c

must b e exer cis d by threats and the consequent fear of pu nishment

‘

e ,

so that in the end they will of their o w n free will and from the
force of habit do that which in the beginning they were forced to
do because of the power of the S tate With law and here S t Thomas .
, .

q uotes from A ristotle man is a truly noble being ; without,

it a ,

veritable beast Although S t Thomas very clearly saw that there is

.
~

a defi nite relation between law and power he does not equ ate law ,

Simply with power In addition h e re cognized the on ept of order

. c c .

Be cause o f i t he ma k es a dire ct referen ce to human reason In it we

'

have th e weapons we n use against concupiscence and savagery ca .

In su ch a view we can also see in wh at source all laws are anchored .

S ou rce of law S ince an cient times reason if it is endowed with

.
, ,

sanity leads man to a cosmi c law and to th e natural order This had
,
.

been tru e of the S toi s by whom the Roman j urisprudence had been
c

so greatly infl en ced S also h ere Every human law if it is truly

u . o .
,
446 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO S OPHY
j ust and not merely a coercive measure must be derived from the ,

natura l law thus runs the thesis of Aquinas — for the natural law
—

is th e first law of r easo m( S T 1 11 95 P ositive human law . .

,
—
, , ,

acco r ding to S t Thomas i s an interpretation of the natural law

‘

. .
,

Th e eter h al laws which for men are embedded in th e metaphysical

order of th e wor ld should be given fi tting expression and be brought
to full development I n this way man will be led to the discovery of
.
~

his true being and essen ce and will be guided in the prope r conduct
”

of his life We have already shown i n what the natural law consists
.
”

N atu ral law an d n atu ral r ight Th e natural law is revealed tot us .

by the natural inclinations whi ch are partially vital natural tendencies

,

and p ar tially spiritual moral appraisals of value and is formulated and

-
,

obtrudes itself on o consciousnes s by means of the h abitu s p inci

ur r

i r u m and practi al cons cien ce T h most important

p o c
( a tio
pr a tic ) e r c a .

as well as the most f ndamental precepts or postulates which r esult

u

from these considerations comprise the natural law S t Thoma s “

.
”
.

o tlined its content in bold lines in the S u mma Th eologiae ( I II

u —
,

94 2 ) ( compare this with th e extensive study in H M eyer Th ma

, .
, o s

v o n A u in
q p,5 25 f
f ;
. in the E nglish translation
.
[F E ckho ff] pp .
,
.

H e is fully aware that the natural law at least in its most ,

gene r al or universal principles is well established for men ; it is not , ,

however in its par ti cular appli ations ( the particular individual

, c

precept or postulate ) Fo r in these particular instances ther e are

.

always compli cations and diffi culties which arise as result of peculiar
circumstan ces of life T II T o the degree in whi ch th e
( S I 9 4 . .
,
—
, ,

natural law insofar as being is con cerned represents an accomplished

, ,

ideal order of timeless validity to th e same degree does that same law , ,

insofar as our knowledge of it goes signify constantly reiterated tasks ,

which mankind has in some fashion or another to fulfi ll here on

ear th According to S t Thomas this law is less a codi fication of c m
. .
,
o

le te d and perfe cted provisos than it is a orre tive far s u rpassing all
p c c

specific formulation whi h as a participation in uncreated light

, c , ,

permits j udgments to be formed on all human legislation that has

\

been enacted in time and in accordance with its comprehension is

,

permitted to share in the tru th of the eternal law M u ch more impor .

tant than the o ccasional a tual legal axioms whi ch have been f mu
c or

lated and in which man can err even S t Thomas on occasion erred .
,

for example in his underestimation of women is the divine spark

,
— ‘

indwelling within us by whi ch we can ontinuously rise above our

,
c

own works namely the h abit s p in ipio m

, ,
u r c ru .
448 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOP H Y
He personally considered that the best form was a monarchy but ,

he agreed with Aristotle that a certain medley a distin ct mingling of ,

several types would be benefi cial to avoid narrowness and partiality ;

, ,

thus for example a state v gith aristocratic and demo cratic elements
, , .

Th e most despi cable form of the state is a tyranny Bu t S t Thomas . .

would not permit a tyrant to be put to dea th ( De Regimine P r in ‘

ci
p
u m ,I , Th e means whi ch he suggests to put down tyranny and
to check its evils indicate that he S till lived in a golden age in which
a tyrant was a nuisan ce indeed bu t in which men could still be men ,
'

'
.

Th e conditions which modern times have begotten in this respe ct were

unknown to S t Thomas As a consequence he could not do justice
i

. .
,

to them when he weighed the concept for his contemporaries and

fo r his own age .

Th e pu rpose o f th e s ta te Th purpose of the state was for him as

. e

it had been in anti q uity citizens should be guided by the state to:

lead happy and vi r tuous lives To attain su ch an ideal peace is .

,

especially necessar y hence the goal that S t Augustine h ad listed

, .

among th e chief tasks of the state Th e supreme purpose of the .

state — here the C hristian and the theologian in S t Thomas fw d .

expression is to p romote the eternal welfare the ultimate end of

—
,

man his bliss in the presen e of God Th e S tate has not only material
, c .

but also supernatural p u rposes and may not prevent its citizens in
any way from pursuing them but S hould on the contrary place , , ,

itself in thei r service directly by fostering a condu ct of life based

on religion .

S ta te an d C hurch S ince S t Thomas recognized only one religion

. .
,

the C hristian faith he necessarily could acknowledge only one

,

S upreme M aster Jesus C hrist From this he derived the suprema cy

, .

of the C hurch over the state In all respe cts his thoughts were .

permeated by a teleological cast A fte r th e ultimate goal of man s .

’

life has been established and after it has further been con ceded by
,

means of faith that the custodians of the economy of salvation are

the C hurch and its visible head the P ope the latter as the r epr e ,

se n tative of C h r ist everything must be weighed and S tated on a

,

teleological basis Bu t precisely b ecause he did pass j dgment on

. u

teleological premises he concl u ded that th e C hurch does not pos sess
,

an absolute supremacy over the state for example in purely se cular , ,

a ffairs but only a SO called indirect up r emacy ( p te t s in di e t in

,
-
s ‘
o s a r c a

te mp r alib s
o
)u O nly insofar
. as the temporal order is broug h t into
contact with the supernatural order does th e supernat ral order ,
u
 ST . THO M AS AQUI NAS II 449

furnish it with standards dire ctives and con cepts In this fas h ion , , .

S t Thomas was interpreted by his pupil Remigio de G irolami the

.
, ,

teach er of Dante and at th e end of the M iddle Ages by C ardinal

,

J u an de Torq uemada .

Inte rnational law We again meet th e oncept of order wh i h S t

. c c .

Thomas favored in h is treatises on the law of nations ( international

law ) S t Thomas recognized a i g nti m There are fundamental
. . us e u .

principles wh ich appear to reason as being necessary for the existence

of a family of nations and of states principles which we are ac ,

cu stomed to observe in the a f fairs of all nations Th s for example . u , ,

ambassadors are considered to be inviolable ; treatises m st be observed u

by the pa ct nations ; in war women ch ildren and in general non , , ,

combatants must be spared and prote cted Basi cally it is the nat ral . u

law whi ch supplies th e outlines for international law S in ce according .

to S t Thomas law is not only a matter of power b t essentially an

. u

ordination of reason ( S T I II 9 1 2 ad 3; 90 he was able

.
—
, , ,

successfully on th e one hand to ref te the oft alleged ob j e ction th at u -

behind international law no for ce an be found to enfor ce its c

provisions and conseq uently it is not a law in any sense and on

, ,

th oth er h and that it is formless Th e basic oncepts of international

e . c

law form lated by S t Th omas were taken p and more f lly

u . u u

developed by Fran is V ittoria and by S are z By means of th ese two

c u .
,

S t Th omas influen ce was exercised also over the classi cist of inter
’
.

national law H ugo Grotius , .

TH E REA C TI O N TO TH O M I S TI C
A R I S TO TEL IANISM
1 . FRANC ISCANS
TH E
Th e special features of Thomisti c A ristotelianism namely the —
,

u nity of the s bstantial forms the identity of spirit al substances

u ,
u

with th e f ms alone exclusive of matter the possibility of eternal

'

or ,

creation the real distin tion between essence and existence in created
, c

beings th e primacy of the intelle t th e dependen ce of intellectu al

,
c ,

k nowledge on sense perception and sense experien e evo k ed v iolent c —

opposition both during S t Th omas lifetime and after his death .

’
.

M anifestations of this tenden cy are evident in th e Fran cis can s chool .

C ardinal M atth ew of A q asparta ( d the p pil of S t Bona u . u .

venture proposed a th eory of k nowledge wh ich was directed with

,

special s h arpness against S t Th omas Aquinas was attack ed even . .

45 0 M ED I AEVAL PHI LO SOPHY
more formidably by John P eck ham ( d When this friar became .

an archbishop he publi cly condemned several Thomisti c propositions

, .

William de la M are composed a Cor r ector iu m F at is Th o ma and r r e,

in 1282 the Fran cis cans issued a manifesto forbidding S t Thomas .

to be read without having th is P g t iu m ready at hand as a cor ur a or

rective for his ideas .

2 . H ENRY
GHENT OF

A mong the professors drawn from the ranks of the secular clergy
at the University of P aris there was also much opposition to S t , .

Thomas H enry of Ghent ( d

. one of the most r enowned .

th eologians of his age criti ci zed Aquinas for many of his opinions
, ,

for example the real distin ction between essence and existen ce his
, ,

con cept of matter his view on a p ossible eternal creation his theo ry
, ,

of knowledge his notion of cons cien ce and his intelle ctualism

, , .

3 . E c ES I AS TI cAL AU THO RITIES

Weighing heavily against S t Thomas was the fact that leading .

figures of the ecclesiastical hierarchy turned against him and his

supposed no velties Among the propositions of Latin A verroism that
.

were condemned by A rchbishop S tephen Tempier of P aris in 1277

we find seven from S t Thomas At app roximately the same time . .
,

Robert K ilw ar db y Ar chbishop of C anterbury who was himself a

, ,

Dominican and provin cial of the O rder inserted certain opinions of ,

his confrere Thomas among the teachings condemned by the C h u rch .

4. M I S U NDERS TANDINGS
If because of these condemnations we should hold that Th omisti c

A ristotelianism was u mC hristian and precisely because of this hara c

-
c

ter was to be assailed we would be g uilty of a woeful misunderstand

,

ing H is Aristotelianism was entirely di fferent from that of A verro es

. .

H is adversaries contended that his Aristotelianism was not suf ficiently

A ristotelian In the dis cussions that followed the various s chools
.
,

were severely perturbed by the terminology he employed as is usual ,

in polemics even of a scienti fic kind A study of S t Thomas entirely

, . .

divorced from the period which would con cern itself only with the
fa ts of the case and would consider the question more realistically
c

and profoundly could easily as certain that S t Augustine influenced

,
.

him more than did Aristo tle not insofar as his formulas or his ,

terminology are con ce rned but rather in regard to the facts and ,
C H A P TE R

F RO M TH E AV E RRO I S T S T O M A S T E R
E C K HA R T

I . TH E FAC UL TY O F L I BERAL ARTS AN D

TH E AV ERRO I S TS

TH E O TH ER ARI S TO TL E

1 . C HARACTER F A U LTY OF L I B ERAL A RTS

OF C

In the liberal arts faculty we have th at department of th e unive r sity

in wh i ch philosophy could ex p ofe o exist in congenial surroundingsr ss .

M embers of this faculty wished to be philosophers only ; they tou ched

upon th eologi cal problems only in cidentally They were able fairly
rou ghly to sketch the peculiar x ity of natural philosophy Above
all else they devoted themselves to the task of explaining and of
,
fi “
.

”
.

developing the thoughts of A ristotle Grabmann has outlined how .

s cienti fic life took s h ape on this faculty of liberal arts during th e

first half of the thirteenth century by drawing on an A ragonese
manus cript of an anonymous author According to this authority the .
,

pec liar fi eld of activity was rational philosophy C omprised unde r

u .

this h eading we fi nd metaphysi s ( phil s ph i n t li ) math ema c o o a a ur a s ,

ti cs ( Q ad i i m) and ph ilos oph ia r atio n lis in a narrower sense

u r v u , a

( T r i iu m
v
) as well as ,moral p h ilosophy in whi ch use was made of ,

the fir st three books of the Nico mach an Eth ics ( thica no va et vetus ) e e .

Th e othe r standard works were the Timae s and the D Co ns olatio ne u e

P hil h i e of Boethius S pe ial emphasis was pla ced on the subjects

oso
p a . c

of the T ivi m: logic diale cti cs grammar and the philosophy of

r u , , ,

language .

2 . F IRS T LOGI CIANS

TH E
William of S h yr esw oo d professor at O xford and P aris ( d c
, . .

Lambert of A xerre ( d c N i cholas of P ari s and especially

u . .
,

45 2
 F RO M TH E AVERRO I STS To M A STE R E CK HAR T 453

P eter of S pain who be ame P ope in 1276 ( Jo h n X X I d 1277 ) are

,
c , .

the fi rst on th list of famous magistr i From the last named stemmed
e .

the S mm l e logic les whi ch was the textbook for logi c d ring th e
u u a a ,
u

M iddle Ages These S u mmu lae were a digest of the l gi

. et s t o ca v u e

n o va of A ristotle Distinctly formalisti c in arrangement th ey were

.
,

intended to o ffer a specific manu al of dialecti s which in onformity

fi
c c

with the example of Ar istotelian Topi and Ele n ti s ( indire ct cs c c

modes of proof) would describe and teach all forms and a ti c s r e

embodied in the art of dialectical fencing This text enjoyed great .

prestige and commentaries on it exist witho t number After th e

,
u .

dialecti cs of S cholasti cism had fallen into disrepute logisti s recently ,

c

discovered th at behind the formalism of its terminology there existed

an i mmense store of wealth of whi ch th e s bsequent ages had not u

dreamed ( For the study of mediaeval logi th e reader might consult

. c

with profit th e basi c research es of M G rabmann in the Abh n ll ng n . a c u e

d r M un h e n er n a B r lin A kad mi as well as the studies of Fr

’
e c u e er e e, .

Bo chens k i and Fr Boehner ) . .

3 . AVE RR O IS TS

Th e importance of the liberal arts fa ulty increased appreciably c

when in th middle of the thirteenth cent ry th A verroists entered

e u e

into th e purview of the S cholastics Th e old masters h ad engaged .

essentially in ph ilosophi cal propaedeuti cs ( preparatory instru ction ) .

With the introduction of this new so rce the wh ole philosophy of u ,

realism became the focal point and this realism was again th at of
A ristotle This time howe ver it was of a pure A ristotle w h o had
.
, ,

been j dged previously on theological gro nds as was expressly

u u ,

emph asized We must say th ough th at it was not th e pure but only
.
,

th e Averroisti c A ri stotle upon w h om th e masters le ctured ; for in

,

th e meantime A verro es had be come w h at A vi cenna had been for

,

a long time n amely the Co mm ntato p x ll nc P hilosophi cal

, , e r ar e ce e e .

recognition of h im developed in P aris into an animated movement ,

the S called Latin Averroism ( radi cal or h ete r odox Aristotelianis m)

O- .

Three things stand out parti cularly in th is novel intelle t al trend c u

( )
a t h e do ctrine of the eternity of the world ; ( )
h the proposition of
double truth ; ( ) monopsy ch ism c .

S iger Of Brab an t The soul of the movement was S ig

. of Brabant er

( 123 5 H is commentaries on A ristotle whi ch were found by ,

G rabmann in M uni ch S how t h at h e was one of th e most important

,

expositors of Aristotle a man of independent j udgment and of pro ,

45 4 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO S O PHY
found as well as acute reasoning powers Even his earlier known .

works i e the tractate D An ima I ntellectiva are not simply para

, . .
,
e ,

phrases of citations but o ffer extensive treatment of philosophical

problems Research on S iger is still in progres s espe cially in connec
.
T
-
,

tion with the chronology of his works whi ch the investigations of

Van S teenb er gh en have called into question No w it appe ars as if .

S ige had revised his spe culation that is to say as if he had changed
r , ,

from a radi cal concept of Aristotle whi ch was both rebellious and ,

A verroisti c to a more moderate interpretation of him in full agre ement

,

with that of S t Th omas . .

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. .

s ch e S tr eitsch r ift au s de m M X
ph i I I I [ah r h u n de r t ( ii n ste r ,

-
F . C . C o ples tn
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Newman P re ss ,
II , 435 —44 1 .
— is n
E . G l o ,
H istor y o f C h r is tian
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’
. .
, ,

au X I I I e s iecle Etu de cr iti q u e et docu me n ts i n édits ( Fri b o u rg 1 8 99 ;

.
,

Lo u v ai n 190 8 —
, J P M u ller ,
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op hie e t f
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Br aban t La doctr in e de la do u ble ver ite S tu dia an se lmian a 7— 8

’
. .

1 6 0— 1 6 4 .
-
F . V an S teen b er gh en ,
“
S ige r de B rabant d p e
’
a rs ses o e vre
u s

inédite s, in Re vu e N éo S co las tiq u e de P h ilos oph ie

-
, 32 403—423 ;
Le s la doctr ine de S ige r de Br aban t ( B u x ell ,
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’
de Br a b an t d apr es s es o e u vr es in édites V o l I I , S iger dans l H is toir e de
’
.
,

l Ar is to te lis me; Ar is tate e n Occide n t L es O r igi n es de l Ar is to télis me

' ’ ’
.

par isie n
( L ou vain ,

In his ea rlier phase S ige stru ck out upon a

I ) E ar lier P er io d .
,
r

course that was purely arbitra r y God is indeed the first being o r .

p r i m m e n s ;aH is existence is proved by the A ristotelian ar gument of

motion by the proposition on causality and in addition by the
, ,

Neo P latonic p r oof based on the degrees of pe rfe ction God is also
— .

the C reato r of the world but here we are dealing with eternal ,

creation God did not create everything ; only what is inwardly and
.

interiorly most closely connected with H im the O n e This is not , .

true howeve r in the case of matte r M atte r is withdrawn from

, , .

H is influence and is accordingly divorced from H is providen e Th e c .

spheres are eternal and are moved exte rnally by the spirits of the
spheres which exist as distinct and subsistent beings ( the A ristotelian
relative self mo vers ) Li ving beings on earth are also eternal There
-
. .

is no su ch thing as spontaneous generation Living beings w ill also .

45 6 M ED I AEVAL PH ILO SOP H Y
the one nor the other can be proved with certainty on purely
philosophi cal grounds By this concept he concurr ed with the stand
.

point defended by A quinas Whereas in his earlier phase he had .

ad vocated dete rminism now h e favors freedom of the will

,
~

The change of viewpoint is almost too r adi cal We may in fact be .

j ustified in surmising that in this entir e conversion his old theory “ ”

of double truth is being applied practically philosophy and theology

ar e both correct but what is true of one need not necessarily be true
,

also of the other Tw o wo rlds exist entirely for themselves ; both are
.

without any inner r elationship one to the other but both in their ,

individual houses can be equally comfortable Did he wish to do the .

theologians a favor by visiting them in their own home and telling

them what they wished to hear because he could not speak to ,

them in any other way but at the same time thought his own ,

thoughts philosophically ? De Wulf labeled S iger a complicated

“ ”

character but held that his conver sion was sincere

, .

Boethius of Da cia A nother magister who has been frequently men

.

tio n ed was Boethius of D a cia H is teachings were condemned along .

with those of Siger in 1277 Ther e is no life more sublime than .

“

the philosophical runs one of his theses ; and another : O nly the
,
”

philosophers are the wise men of this world and there are several ,
”

others of similar nature In such S tatements we can detect an A ris

.

to telian ism that is sheer earthly paganism .

M o r e m o derate masters Othe r masters more moderate in their .

,

v iews , who followed the leadership of S t Thomas and S t Albert . .

,

wer e J ames of Douay Raoul of Brittany P eter of Auvergne H enry

, , ,

of Br ussels and in England S imon of F aver sh am ( d

, , .

An Averr oistic tradition had long been current in P aris In the .

fourteenth century it was represented by John of Jandun and M a r

S ilu s of P adua the autho r of the D efensor P is This work jointly

, ac .
,

with the teaching of A ristotle on th e natural origin of the state ,

defended the autonomy of civil power over against e cclesiastical

guardianship and denominated th e state as the sole source of civil law .

From P aris to P adu a This A verroistic tradition was transplanted

.

to Bologna ( Thaddeus of P arma and Angelo of Arezzo after 1300) ,

and then to P adua where it was kept alive until deep into the
,

seventeenth century This tradition defended Aristotle and his P h y ics

. s

against all innovations at fi rst tenaciously an d stubbornly but later ,

during th e Renaissance it became pure natural ph ilosophy in th e

modern sense something it had always stri ven for
,
.
 FRO M TH E AVE RRO I S TS To M A S TE R EC K HART 45 7

II . TH E YO UNG ER FRAN C I SC AN S C H OOL

O LD AND NEW

Alongside
the Ar istotelianism of S t Albert the Great and S t .

Thomas and their schools the old A ugustinian traditio n lived on , .

H ere as before the Fran cis cans were its chief protagonists .

1 FRO M S T BONAVE NTU RE TO S C OTU S

. .

Until the time of Duns S cotus who represents the apex the time , ,

honored heritage of the past was beq ueath ed to the new age by
several thinkers : M atthew of Aquasparta ( d whose theory of .

knowledge merits special consideration ; William de la M are ( d .

whose polemi c against S t Thomas we h ave already mentioned ; .

Ri chard of M iddleton ( d after Roger M arston ( d . .

who attempted in a typical O xonian fashion to reconcile Augustin

ian ism with A ristotelianism ; P eter John O livi ( d who main .

tain e d that in th e h man soul t h ere are three forms : th e vegetative

u ,

the sensitive and the intellectual of whi ch the first two were essential
, ,

forms of the body a theory whi ch the C oun cil of Vienne expressly
,

c ndemned in 1312 ; Raymond Lull ( d

o another Franciscan .
,

who by his A s G ne alis et Ultima sought to develop a kind of

r e r

mechani cs of concepts which would permit all combinations of ideas

to be worked t artificially an attempt wh i ch Leibni z resus citated in
ou ,

his A s C mbin t r i
r o a o a .

2 . DU NS S CO TU S
fou nder of the Younger Fran i scan school was John Duns
Th e c

S cotus ( 1266 Without doubt h belongs among the great e

geni uses of S cholasticism even if one were to exaggerate in claiming

,

that he cr eated a new synthesis In any ase he developed extensively . c ,

and in all respects the heritage that h d been be q eathed him

,
a u .

H is notions are learer ; his distinctions are more precise ; his proofs
c

more convin cing ; his problemati more rich than ever before Wh c . o

soever S ho ld wish to ph ilosoph i z e with S t Thomas would do himself

u .

a good tu rn if h e compared and mulled river the problems h e found

in his works with the notions developed by Duns S cotus H e pos .

sessed a sharp ritical faculty and rich ly earned for himself the
c

surname D octo s btilis H e used criti cism as a means of entren ch ing

,
r u .

truth more deeply and not simply for th e sake of criticizing Basically .
45 8 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSOP H Y
o rientated towar d S t Augustine he was also well versed in Aristotle .
,

without howe ve r succumbing to him completely H e was keenly

, , .

interested in adj usting the di fferences that had arisen between A ug s u

tin i m and A ristotelianism H e k n ew how to think independently and

“

s .

frequently crossed swords wi th tradition especially with S t Thomas , . .

L ife and works S cotus was a professor at O xford C ambridge and .

, ,

P aris In 1308 he was summoned to C ologne where he died the same

.
,

yea r at the age of 42 H is literary o tp t was enormous considering . u u ,

the shortness of his life Th e mo st important of his writings were .

the logi cal Q aestio nes in conne ction with P orphyry and Aristotle ;
u

the Qu aestio nes S u htilissimae on the M etaph ysics of Aristotle ( only

the fi rst nine books are genuine) ; the Qu aestio nes on Aristotle s D ’
e

An ima ( probably genuine ) ; the T a tatu s d P i mo P r in ipio ( critical r c e r c

edition by M M ii ller Op s O x o nie n R po r tata P a isie nsia ;

.
,
u se ,
’

e r

Q u o dlih e ta A criti cal new edition of the .works of D uns S cot s has u

been undertaken by P C Balié . . .

E ditio n s .

Oper a o s ally alled Wadding editi n R print d

mnia ( Lyon ,
u u c o . e e

in P ari 1 8 9 1 1 8 9 5 — Op
s, O ni n —riti al diti n in [ nni D n
. us xo e se , c c e o oa s u s

S tico , Op mni p bli h d by th S tist C mmi i n nd rer a o a, u s e e co o ss o u e

dire ti n f C Bali c 2 v l p b lish ed P r l g e Bk I p t dit 2

'

th e c o o .
,
o s . u : o o u ,
.
,
u o .
,

p art 2 q 1 4 ,
— R p t t. P i i n i
— W addin
.
g editi n Q
e t i
or a a ar s e s a, o . u aes o n es

Q uo d lib t l W adding
e a es , editi n Q ti n h tili i m i n M t o . u aes o es su ss ae e a

h
p y si m W
ca adding editi
,
n T t t d P i m P i n i i
p riti a l edi o . r ac a u s e r o r c o, c c

ti n by M M iill ( Frei b rg B i g i
o . erEngli h tran lati n b y u ,
r s o v ae, s s o

Evan R h e oc l hn D n S t : T t t
,
d P i m P in ipi o u s co us r ac a u s e r o r c o

( S t B
. navent re
o N Y S t B navent re uC ll e ge ,
P ress . En g lis h . : . o u o ,
—

tra nslati n f th S nt n o I 3 4 in R M K n S l ti n f m
o e e e ce s , , , . c eo
’
s e ec o s ro

M die l P h il
ae va p h ( L nd n I I 3 1 3
oso 35 0 er s o o , ,
— .

Bibli og r aphy

F . est n H i t y f P h il ph y ( W stminster M d Th
C . C o pl o ,
s or o os o e ,
. : e

Newman P ress 5
I I 42 6 5 1 C h ri t ph r D vlin Th P y
“
— — . s o e e e s
, , ,

c h l gy f D ns S t s
o o in A q in P p
o N
u 15 M ar h 15 19 5 0co u ,
u as a e r s, O .
,
c ,

( O f rd
x o Bla k friar : — E G i ls n l nc D n S t I n t ds, . o ,
ea u s co . ro uc

ti no
p i tian f n d
ses m nt l
( P aris Jos V rin 1 9 5 2
o G i ls n n o a e a es : .
,
. so
’
s co

l si ns are f nd in an English translati n b y G P K l b t n

e u o ou in o . . u er a z

Th e M oder n S ch o olman 23 7 H is tor y of C h r is tian P h i

losoph y in th e M iddle Ages ( New Yo r k : Random H o u se 45 4 ,

46 4, 763—7 6 7 — C R S H arris , D u ns S cotus 2 v ols ( O xfo rd : O x fo rd

. . . .
, .

U niversity P ress ,
— B Landry, La philosophic de Du ns S co t .
46 0 M ED I AE VAL PH ILOSO PHY
world order in wh ich murder was permitted polygamy sanctioned , ,

and private property disallowed S t Thomas main tained that be cause . .

of the necessity of reason none of the commandments admitted of

,

ch ange S cotus asserted tha t t his was true only of the first three for
—
.
,

any change e ffected in them I nvolved an inherent contradi ction ,

whereas th e same was not true of the other seven By such a view
'

.
,

these last became a matter of the divine will and no longer as ,

A q u inas had explained of r ational contents S cotus was not gullible

, .

where reason was concerned ; as a consequence he was more critical ,

of it and tra ced the limits of pure reason much more precisely than
had ever been done before P erhaps by doing that he hoped to .

restrain the totalitarian pretensions of philosophy that had been en

te r tain d by the A verroists
e .

P rimacy of th e w ill We can now bette r understand how S cotus

.

arrived at his teaching on the primacy of the will By su ch a view .

h e did not wish to S how favoritism to irrationalism no r to claim ,

that pure will was able of itself and autonomously to be practical .

S cotus saw in the will itself a blind faculty as S t Thomas had

“ ”
, .

always maintained H e knew furthermore that a thing can be willed

.
, ,

only if the intelle t has singled out a purpose fo r it Bu t in the

c .

case of man S cotus pla ced a greate r value on the will than on reason
, ,

because love unites us more intimately with God than faith This we .

can appre ciate without too mu ch difficulty from the fact that hatred of
God is much more terrible than ignoran ce of H im Th e will should .

furthermore be free under all circumstances According to S cotus .

,

nothing can determine it not even the S upreme Good Itself Th e

, .

will alone is the cause of all its actions In a certain respect the .

special value he placed on the will a value that is characteristic —

of S cot s — was transferred to God Th e Divine Will created posi

u .
,

ti ely the multiplicity of individual ideas after whi ch God fashioned

v ,

the world Alth ough God knows all things in H S essence the
. I ,

prototypes of all things are nevertheless begotten in H im from all

eternity They are of course arbitrarily as little produced as is
.
, ,

the positive moral law because the will of God creates whatever the
,

wisdom of God preconceives and because again in this respe ct the ,

essence of God fully in a c ord with the law of contradi ction de

,
c ,

termines wh ether or not a given idea is possible S cotu s also in .

co r po ate d P latonism into h is philosophical system We can detect in

r .

his speculation th e s crutini zing ga z e toward something

“ ”

7r
p 6 ~
s
( the
n ide as with whi ch P lato portrays the c r eation of the world
 FROM TH E AVERROISTS TO M ASTER EC K H ART 46 1

by the divine Demiurge in a ster eotyped fashion ) in pre isely th e c

same fashion as we can in S t Augustine or S t Th omas or S t . . .

Bonaventure .

I ndividu ation C lose to this evaluation of the will and to h i at

. s

times positive j udgment concerning it lies S cotus position in regard ’

to the problem of individuation Th e parti cular is a positive entity .

“ ”

and as such possesses a h aecc itas a thisness Knowledge of th e e ,

“
.
”

particular is therefore most perfect knowledge in opposition to the

overvaluation of the universal found in P lato Aristotle and S t , ,
.

Thomas By this he lays a fi rm foundation for a new viewpoint

.

a view whi ch will re cruit for him many dis ciples and will be ome c

eve r S tronge r as modern times app roach more closely If the term .

h aec itas only tou ches upon the problem without solving it by it
ce ,

we are able to see typically for the first time in his reaso ning th at
subject which from this time on will become a great problem of
modern philos o phy individualism , .

K nowledge It is only logi cal to find that S cotus in his theory of

.

knowledge permits con crete parti cular things to be known n their I

entirety There is no irrational residue nor must we approach th em

.
,

by a detour through the universals By a sensory intellectual intuition .

-

we apprehend directly the existing thing S u ch knowledge however .

, ,

does not remain static for S cotus is also intent upon universal c n
,
o

ce t
p sT hey
. are abstracted an i n tell ctu s a e ns t akes care of t h is
“

g e

activity H e adds however a common nature ( nat a co mm nis )

.
, ,
“ ”
ur u

whi ch is a medium between th e parti cular and the universal O nly .

from this is the sp i s in t lligibilis derived i e the universal con cept

ec e e , . .
,

whi ch all scientific knowledge must utilize Th e activity of th e .

int ll t s agen s in the pro cess of knowledge is stressed in a very

e ec u

special way In contrast to it sense perception is only a partial ause ;

. c

the int ll t s ag ns however is ex s ca sa integ a f ti o hi ti in

e ec u e , , e u r ac va ec

intellectu po ssibili .

H is a chievement in this res pect lies in the fact that he estab lishes
a certain constant relation b etween the intellectual facu lty and the
obj e ct of knowledge For this reason S cotus was better able to
.

underline and thus stress the uniqueness of the laws whi ch govern
human knowledge than was S t Thomas who h ad also advocated .

the principle th at everything that is known is k nown after the

manner of the one knowing Th e subjective element of knowledge .

is made much more prominent A s a consequence tr u th to S cotus .

,

was no longer as it had been in the naive theory of imitation a ,

46 2 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSO PHY
Si mple adequation but that is true whi h is adapted to its propor

fi
, c

tion In this we can appreciate his criti cal but af the same time
.
”

cautious method of procedure S cotus knew that sense ex e ien ce

g
r

yields only j udgments of facts H e m

.

iri EHM
"
aih fa i E
fi
‘ ' ’

i f
fl

hrough and its ability to grasp asso ia

v

h
f

i
’

e lli ib le o l
J

l
'

g ii ly t th e i t é e ct c

tions although th ese may be based on erroneous sense experien e

, c ,

sin ce the senses ar e not effi cient causes as far as the intellect is c n o

ce r ned m
( in tell ec tu s n o n h ab et s ns us
pr o cau sa se d ta n t p o o e , u r cca

s io n e
) In . addition he used intelle c tual, prin ciples to determine
whethe r o r not our j udgments are true or false A ll this helps us to .

be ome aware as we already had been in the notion of a common

c —

nature which is nothing more than a disguised universal — that the

,

old reasoning th e idea speculation kind is again reasserting itself

,
-
, .

In S cotus as a consequence we find the relation between sensible

, ,

reality and spiritual reality as confused as it had been in S cholasticism

up to h is day O nly with the English philosophers of modern times
.

will sensible reality be treated with sufficient earnestness that earnest ,

ness that it deserves Bu t we see in S cotus and still more in O ckham

.

how the thinkers slowly but gradually approach to this development ,

and tr ly app roach it By su ch an obser vation we re ognize also

u . c

how modern times continuously emerge from and develop out of

the M iddle Ages and not as was formerly nai vely believed su d
, ,

den ly as A thena was proj ected from the head of Zeus as something
, ,

novel and something o u tr é .

Univocal concept of being S cotus occasioned a great furor by .

his do ctrine on the univocal nature of the concept of being in our

predi ations concerni ng God By this he did not think that any
c .

distin t categories could be predicated in a univo cal sense both of God

c

and of the world at one and the same time An d thus he admitted .

that th e ancient theory of only analogical predication was correct .

H oweve r he maintained that that universal being whi ch is every

,

wh ere manifest and is always re cognized and is actu ally expressed ,

despite the fact that the obj ects themselves di ffe r greatly one from
another must have one and the same name and one and the same
,

con cept if there is to be any sense at all in our speaking of being In

,
.

every analogy there must always be something that is common and

something that is always the same This is a thought which the earlier .

p h ilosophers never expressed This most niversal being is the m x i m . u a e

scibile and as su ch be comes the obje ct of metaphysi cs This being is .

a trans cendental and is more pre cisely determined modally by su ch

46 4 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOP H Y
this not as an entirely di fferent way as fr equently has been believed ,

but rather as something that was both complementary and akin .

When fo r example in the su mmas the rational method is alone pu r

, ,

sued at great length th s was done for didactic purposes It does not
, i
"

mean that in reality a unity of notional speculation and religious

sentiment was impossible P recisely in Eckhart the mystic in the
.
,

stri ctest sense of the word we can see declares E S eeberg how
, , .
,

S cholasti cism and mysti cism were substantially in agreement In

“
.

order to understand S cholasticism w e must know something about -

Eckha r t and to appreciate Eckhart we must know somet h ing about

,

S cholasticism .

LIFE

M aste r E ckha r t ( 1260 the H ochheim family was a mem of ,

ber of the Dominican O rder studied at P aris be came a master of , ,

theology later was a ctive in one of the chief o ffices of his community
,

and in connection with his duties visited many monasteries of his

O r der O n these occasions he also preached those sermons which were
.

to make him famous and which served to inaugurate a new mystical

movement Fo r a short while he taught in P aris and toward the
.

e vening of his life again at C ologne In his last years misgivings .

con cerning the orthodoxy of his tea chings in creased They had their .

origin partly among the Franciscans and p artly in his own O rder .

Th e Archbishop of C ologne initiated an e cclesiastical process against

him Eckhart defended himself — the written defense has been redis
.

covered and is very illuminating as to his actual position and —

appealed to the H oly F ather Tw o years afte r his dea th howeve r.

, ,

twenty th ree theses of his teaching were publi cly condemned In her
-
.

sentence of condemnation the C hurch expressly recognized the fact

,

that the M aster had always been in good faith O f a rebellion against .

the C hurch there can be no question In his written defense we can .

r ead the following lines : Eve rything that is false either in my

writings or in my sermons is without my better knowledge ; I am
prepared to submit to a more corre ct explanation I can er r but .
,

be a heretic no that I cannot be ; for the former is a matte r of the

, ,

nte lle ct the latte r of the will

”
.
, ,

WO RK S
By far the gr eater numbe r of h is wo r ks are in L atin and treat of
p h ilo so
ph ico theologi c
-
al problems H i s chief work is the unfinished
.
 F ROM TH E AVERROISTS TO M ASTER EC K H ART 46 5

Opu s Tr ipar titu m To this we must add the Qu ae tio n s P isienses . s e ar .

M uch is S till unpublished Until everything can be examined it wi ll be .

difficult if not impossible to arrive at a correct defi nitive judgment

, ,

of Eckhart Among his G e rman works the most important are his
.

sermons They are all preser ved Only as lecture notes

. .

E it d ions
J Q in t
. Die [7 her lief
u e r u n g de r de u tsch e n P r e digte n M e is ter Echh ar ts
,

Th e editio n O f P feifl er ( 1 85 7 ) is defective Th e translati on O f .

Bii ttne r is a ck no wledged to b e b ad TO b e awaited : M agis tr i Eck h ar t .

Oper a Latina e d I n stit S S ab in ae in u rbe, Lei pzig ( 1934 f

, . f ) , and . .

Master Eck h ar t Die lateinisch e n u nd de u tsch e n tri er /( e P u bli sh ed o n

, .

co mmissi o n o f th e G e rman Institu te o f Resear ch uf tra der d ts ch en

( A g eu

Fo rsch u n gs gemeins ch a ft ) ( S tu ttgart, 19 36

Bibliography
W Bange M i t
e
.

S i n ( L imb rg an d u
,
e s er

er
Eckh ar ts Le h r e
Lah n , —
vo m go ttlich e n u n d
J M C lark Th e
. .
,
ges ch
Gr eat
b
’

p ifi
ch e n

G er man
M y ti E kh t T
s cs : c ar , au ler an d S u so ( O x f rd
o : O x fo rd
Un iversity P re ss ,
— Al De mp f, M eis te r Eck h ar t Ein e uh r u ng in sei n Wer k
Einf
'

.
,

( p
L ei zig ,
— H . M ys ti k ( S tu ttgart,
Eb e l ing , M eis ter Echh ar ts
— E G ils o n H istor M
.
y fo C h r is tia n P h il os op y
,
h i n th e i d d le Ages

( N e w Y o r k : R a n d o m H o u se 1 9 5 5 438 —442 7 5 5 —7 5 7 — M G ra b mann

, ,
. .
,

Ne uau f gef u n d e n P ar is er
Q u aesti o n e n M eis ter Ec h ar ts u n d i h r e S tellu n
k g
in sein e m geis tige n E n tu/ ichlu ngsgange ( M u nich , — O Karre r .
,

M eister Ec k h ar t das S ys te m seiner r eligiose Le h r e u nd Le he ns u/ eis h eit

,

( M u ni ch — B
, J M u lle r T h ym T h e E s ta b.lis h m.e n t o f e Uni
t h -
,

ve r s it
y fo B e i n g i n th e D o ctr i n e ofM eis ter Ec k h ar t ofH ochh ei m ( New

Y rk o ,
— G . d llae V o lpe, Il misticis mo s p e cu lati vo di maestr o
E kh c ar t n ei s u o i ra
pp or ti s to r ici
( og
Bo l na ,

1 . S P IRITUAL BAC KGRO U ND

When treating of Eckh art it is necessary to examine

Nee P latonism -
.

th ose backgrounds whi ch colo red his ou tlook O f these influences .

we can name in the fi rst place Neo P latonism and its attendant ideas
, ,
-
,

as this N eo P latonism had been developed by th e F athers especially

—
,

by S t Augustine P seudo Dionysius M aximus th e C onfessor and later

.
,
-
, ,

by Er iu gen a the s ch ool of Chartres the Arabian philosophers the

, , ,

Lib er de Causis De I ntelligentiis and especially by S t A lbert and, , .

his school .

S cho l asticism A t least equally decisive for th e speculation of

.
46 6 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
Eck h art was S cholastic
theology especially that of S t Thomas , .

A quinas O n e needs only to cast a curso r y glan ce at the index of

.

quotations in the textbook of Kar rer to recognize in the many ,

citations from S t Thomas tt e found there how mu ch the A ngeli c

-
.
,

D octor influenced him Eck h a t s commentary on the S e nt n es

’
. r e c ,

recently dis overed by J Koch points in the same direction M u ch

c .
, .

material that poorly orientated and poorly informed commentators

conside r to be pantheism and northern self—consciousness 5 a ctually 1

the heritage of the S cholastic doctrine on the Trinity and grace and
of its specu lation on the Logos which traces its origin by the way ,

of the Fathers to P hilo the Jew .

M ysticism Eckhart finally subsisted on mysticism on th e V ic

.
, , ,

torin cs Rupert of Deutz Bernard of C lairvaux and on that mystic

, , ,

stream whi ch was a living intelle ctual movement in German mon

aster ies during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a mysticism that —

was characteristic of such great person s as H ildegard of Bingen ,

Gertrude the Great M ech tilde of M agdeburg and M ech tilde of

, ,

H ack eb o r n A s the Franciscan p r oposals for reform that were drawn

.

up fo r and submitted to the C ouncil of Lyons in 1274 clearly

, ,

indicate the disciples of this esoteric circle of mystics occupied them

,

sel ves with S cholastic speculation The activity of Eckhart in con .

n ectio n with the monasteries of women had no other obj ective than

to foster this tenden cy O n the basis of many wo r ks written by .

G erman mystics and unearthed by Grabmann we know that John of ,

S terngassen Nicholas of S trasbou r g and Gerard of S te r ngassen

, ,

based their thoughts on S t Thomas Among them a fully developed . .

S cholasticism was not as some have thought a thinning out of “

, ,

basic relig o u s p rocesses a thinning out that must both destroy them
i ,

and take their place .

”

2 . G OD

As p u r e
eason ing In his teaching on God E ckhart insisted that
r .
,

we must always say what God is not r ath er than what H e is , .

A S a consequen ce he did not wish to ascribe to H im the concept

,

of being According to E ckhart God is both the thing understood

.
,

and th e act of understanding ( intellectu s et intelliger e ) In su ch .

terminology God is designated as a being free of all creaturehood .

Is this fodder f r the absolute Idealists ? No w e ven Ar istotle wi th

o ,

wh om Eck h art was well acqu ainted had defined God in precisely ,

the same fashion and in a similar vein S t Thomas maintained that

,
.
46 8 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
thought further strongly stressed the created nature of th e idea its
, ,
“
radiation hence its parti cipation ( Also in the Areopagite the idea
,
”
.

of participation stands for the concept ens ab alio ) A ccording to , .

the theology of Eckhart thC Bon of God annot be created If we , c .

S hould therefore take the S onship of the ideas literally as S cholastic ,

theology had been accustomed to do we would be faced with the ,

danger of effacing the distinction between God and the world Bu t .

perhaps we should not strain to make tangible by living language

what was con ceived and destined Only as an image namely certain , ,

aspects and partial circumstan ces .

Th e exis tence of God We can as it were touch with our hands .

, ,

the C hristian P latonism of ou r M aste r when he asks himself : Does

God exist ? H is answe r runs as follows : Being is the essence of “

God ( esse est essen tia D i sive D eu s ; igit r Deu m esse er m e u , v u

aete n u m est ; igitu r D e u s es t : Qu aes P ar

r p 14 Just as white . .
, .
,

things cannot be white without whiteness so things that are cannot ,

be without God ( 13 Without H im being would be nothing This

, .

is again not pantheism but an application of the notion of P latoni c

,

meth exis to the existing world Bu t how can this be ? O n th e one .

hand Eckhart had emphasized by means of the doctrine of ideas , ,

that things in their essential that is in their ideal archetypal being

“

,
”
,

are in God and God in them N o w we hear on the othe r hand that .
, ,

space time being participates in God ; fo r when Eckhart speaks of

-

existence he means precisely this This is actually the S tarting point ;

, .

b u t then he singles out in things the essential ideal o r p roper being , ,

and in this respect God is immanent in them H e looks at the world .

with the eyes of P lato If he understands that a thing as su ch exists

.

in time and space he clearly means that it is a creature and this

,

creat re is mortal “ ”
u .

3 . G OOD
TH E
Th e goal of ethics Eckhart is enti rely himself when he takes up
.

eth i cal questions What he o ffers is a do ctrine of C hristian perfection

.

in w h i ch h e deems it of particular importan e to transfer the ideal c

of perfe tion onto th e plane of actual living so that it will of itself

c ,

beget life anew H e does not seek to be master of the written word
.
,

b t of life P ra ctice is to him more important th an theory It is “

u . .

better to offer a h ungry man food than to la n ch into an interior u

meditation while h e is starving And if a man were in ecstasy as

,
.

S t P au l h ad been and k new of a sic k man who begged for a bowl

a
 F RO M TH E AVERR O IS TS TO M ASTE R EC K HART 46 9

of bro th I hold it would be better from a motive of harity to

, , c ,

abandon the ecstasy and supply his wants and this with a mu h —
c

greater love be cause of the r enun ciation H e shows by th is that .

”

he is in accord with his famous confrere Thomas A q u inas S t , :

“
.

Thomas teaches that in all respe cts active love is greater th an co n

temp latio n for in the former there pours out into act that love
,

whi ch was a cqu i red during contemplation ( K arrer M ei t E kh t ”

,
s er c ar .

D s S ystem s ein r
a ligiOs n L eh r e nd L ben e ei h it
re p 190 '

e u e siv s e , .

Th e ethi cs of Eckha rt I S geared to the motto : O neness with the O n

“
e .

Th is oneness should denote a knowledgeable and living parti ipa

“ ”
c

tion in the S upreme Good and H is perfections P ractically it signifies .

the union of our thinking and willing with God An d th notion . e

beh ind it is the S upreme Good and H is in finite perfections as su h c .

Eck h art is a normative ethi cist and does not as a conse q en ce need ,
u ,

to be p rged of a morality based on compensation

u .

Th e way to pe rfection Th e way to this oneness is th e way of .

G od s birth in men This oft discussed notion is a central con cept

’
-
.

in the whole philosophy of Eckhart .

1 ) G d s b ir th as an in d w elling of th e H ly S pi it We can dis

’
o o r .

tin g ish a twofold birth of God in the soul

u In the first pla e th ere : c

is th at birth whi ch S cholasti c theology has called the indwelling of

the H oly S pirit in the so u ls of the j ust Th e do ctrine of gra e in . c ,

a ccordan ce with S acred S cripture had always emphasi z ed the fa ct ,

th at only through the grace of Christ do we become ch ildren of

G o d temples of the H oly S pirit in whi ch God takes up H is abode ;
, ,

H e is born in us as Eckhart now says S in e this divine birth

“ ”
, . c

takes place by means of gift and gr ace we cannot speak of panth eism ,

in conn ection with it .

2 ) G d s bi th as n in n e T in itar ian p ocessi n Eckhart treats

’
o r a r r r o .

of till another divine birth This is th e birth of whi ch he speak s when

S .

he declares that there takes place in the soul th at divine birth wh i ch

is perfe ted in G o d H imself from all eternity Th e Father begets
c .

the S n eq ual to H imself

o Bu t to this I add : H e begets H im .

also in my Soul In th is birth the Father and the S on spirate th e

H oly S pirit Everything whi ch the Fathe r is able to do H e be q eat h s

. u

to and generates in H is S on that the S o n might beget it in ,

our

so ls
u Thus the soul be comes a divine dwelling pla ce for th
.
,
e

eternal G odh ead ( P fei ffer D t ch e M y ti k d s 1 4 Iah h n d t

”
,
eu s s er e . r u er s,

II pp 205 165
, . If this inner Trinitarian divine pro ession is
, ,
c

perfected in my soul it is only logical that Eckha rt should continue

,
470 M ED I AE VAL PH ILO SO PHY
in the following strain : That G o d is truly the G o d H e is of that ,

I am the cause Were this not so God would not be God ( ibid
.
,
”

p . A text ready made for pan theistic interpretation ! Bu t E khart

— c

spe culates still more profou ndly on the idea of oursel ves on the “

,
“

unbegotten manner a ording to which we have existed eternally and cc

sho ld continue eternally

u As the creat re did not e ist in
” “
u x

h imself as he does not and forever more this creat u re was before
, , ,

the world b egan in G d and in H is mind ( ibid p , In thiso

,
.
, .

ideal form of being all th ings are in G o d ; or more truly in G o d the

Father : In the heart of th e fatherhood
“
there all blades of grass ,

and all wood and stone and all th ings are one ( ibid p Th ese
”
.
, .

are therefore the p ae n pti n es di in e the pre conceived things

r co ce o v a ,
“

,
”

as Eck h art called them in emulation of P se do Dionysi s ; in S hort u -

u ,

they are the whole m n d int lligib ili An d if G d now begets the u us e s . o

S o n as the Word in whi ch H e expresses H imself together with H i

,
s

entire being or as the image as it has been eternally in H im this

, , ,

is H is form remaining in H imself ( ibid ) ; then we are tr ly a ” “ ”

u

cause of G o d but not the reated we b u t only th e idea of our ego “ ”

, c ,

in the mind of God no more and no less than all the ideas that ,

c onstitute th essen e of God This is not surprising ; it represents

e c .

only an appli cation of the spe ulation on the Logos whi ch had been c

handed down traditionally from P h ilo For the ethi cs of Eckhart these .

though ts are important insofar as there results from them an ar chetype

in G d for every h u man being an eternally better ego an ego
o , ,

ar hetype whi h is o u r measure and u eternal law By this law

c c o r .

the bed of the stream of our personal being and life is traced a ,

bed whi h will cond ct that stream into th e o ean of the divinity
c u c ,

from whi h we had at one time ome

c c .

H w does th e world of ideas and of

”
3 ) S pa /( let o f th
“
ul r s e so . o

the ideal ego merge into th eternal Word ? Eckhart says that we have e

a di re ct ingress into it namely through th e o alled sparklet of th , ,

s —c
“
e

so l ( s intilla nima ) or the fortress of th e so l or the a m n ti

u
”
c a e u r ca e s,

as it is sometimes called There h s been m h written on this s ore . a uc c ,

perhaps unnecessarily b t it is also not surprising Th chara cteristi

,
u . e c

element in it is th con ept of parti ipation E k hart a k nowledges

e c c . c c

th e divine in man With S t A ugustine he was of the opinion th at

. .

G o d is closer to us than we are to o rselves This phraseology of S t u . .

Augustine is perhaps th e best interpretation of the sparklet O f “

“

th e soul Bu t E khart also a cknowledges th e di fferen ce between the

”
. c
472 I AEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y
M ED

A ges H egel
. extolled him as the hero of speculation O f impo rtan ce
.

for the research focusing on E ckhart was the discovery of his Latin
works by H Denifle
. .
C H A P TE R

LAT E S C H OLA S T I C I S M : F RO M O C K HA M
T O C US ANUS
L ate S ch olasti cism is generally considered to be a synonym for
an era of decline Th e fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries aecom
.

p li sh e d nothing creati ve but merely toyed with great problems of

,

philosophy and dallied over trifling matters This was true also of .

a great number of othe r phenomena in different branches during

the same period We must nevertheless bear in mind that while
.

research into this epoch has j ust begun it has already become ,

increasingly evident that it will unearth material which will enable

us in the fut r e to form a more positive estimate of these two
u

centuries — something that has not been possible hi therto In any .

event at its beginning stands William of O ckham who had a s chool

, ,

founded after him and left his imprint undeniably on these two
centuries A t its end is N icholas of Gu sa who r evived the best in
.
,

S cholastic tradition in such a way that we c n consider this epo ch a

as the a ctual beginning of modern times and especially of G erman

philosophy .

I . O C KH AM AN D O C K H A M I S M

I WO RK S L FE AND

William of O ckham the I ncept r v n er abilis was born sou th of

, o e ,

London in 1300 H e be came a Fran is an studied at O xford taugh t

. c c , ,

there was ac used of teaching heretical doctrine and summoned to

, c ,

A vignon H e f led and joined forces with Louis of Bavaria Emperor

“
. .
,

protect me with your Sword and I will defend you with my pen , ,
”

h e is reported to have said After 1329 he lived in M unich and

.

championed the interests behind the ec lesiasti cal politi cs of his friend c ,

Louis After the latter s death he sought reconciliation with the

’
.
,

P ope and abj ured his earlier tea chings In 1349 William died in .

M uni ch probably of the Black Death and was bu ried the re

, , .

473
474 M ED IAEVAL PH ILO S OPHY
H is most important philosophi cal works include : S u
p er
Q u attu or

Lib r o s S e nte n tiar u m S u b tilissimae Q u aestio n es ; Q u o dlib e ta S epte m

’

Expos itio Au r ea et Ad mo du m Utilis S u per Ar te m V eter e m S u mma ‘

Tatiu s Lo gicae S u mmu lae in Libr o s P h ys ico r u m o r P hilos o phia

"
‘

Natu r alis .

E di tions

G u ilh e lmi de Ocha m an glic i su p er q ua tt

r lib
uo r os se n te n t ar u i m su b

tilissi mae q u aes t o nes i ear u mde mqu e decisiones ( L on y s ,

—
Q u od

lib e tas epte m ( P ari s ,

1 48 7 ; b o u g, S tra s r — Expositio a u r ea et

ad mo d u m u tilis s u pe r ar te m veter e m
( Bo lo g na ,
— S u mma toti u s

lo giq ue ( Pri
a s, William k Oc h am S u mma logicae ,
ars I ed b y
,
P ,
.

Ph . Boe hn r e , OFM . . .
( S t Bo. navent re u ,
N Y : St Bo . . . navent re C llege u o ,

i m r i n ci alis P r o lo i i n
u aes ti o r i mu m li b r u m se n te n
Q p a
p p g p r

tiar u m cu m in ter pr e tatio n e Ga b r ie lis Biel b y P h Bo h e , O F M , ed . . e nr . . .

a r rn T e Tr actatu s de s u ccessi vis a ttr ib u te d to Willia m

( P d e bo ,
h ,

O k h m ed by P h B h ner O F M ( S t B nav nt re N Y
c a , . S t B na . oe , . . . . o e u ,
. . : . o

vent re C ll ge u O k h m S l t d P h il
o e
ph i l
,
W i ti ng d b y c a : e ec e os o ca r s, e .

P h B eh ner O F M ( L nd n
. o Th T t t d p
, . d tin ti n
. . o o ,
e r ac a u s e r ae es a o e

et d p i n ti D i t d f t i
e r aesc e n ti n g n tib f W ill i m
a O k h m d e e e u u r s co e us o a c a , e .

by P h B e h ner O F M ( S t B navent re N Y S t B navent re C ll g

. o , . . . . o u , . . : . o u o e e,

— En lis h translati n f s l ti ns fr m T h S n Q d li b t in o O e ec o o e e ve uo e a
g
R M K n S l ti n f m M di
. c eo l P h il , ph ( L
e ec nd n I Io s ro e ae va os o er s o o , ,

36 0—4 2 1 .

Bibliography

E . Am ann , ar t . O ccam, in Dictio n n air e de th e o logie

’
cat h o li q u e ,

V ol . 1 1, co s l . 86 4— 9 04 ( P aris ,
— L . B a dry u , Gu illau me d O cca m
’
.

Sa v e,i ses o e u vr e s , p aris s es H M

i dées s oc ales e ti oliti q u e s
( P ,
. .

C rré R li t
a ,
n d N min li t
ea ( O
s s a f rd O f rd U niv rsity P r s
o a s s x o : x o e es ,

1 0 1 125 — F C C pl st n H i t y f P h il
—
. . .
p y (
h W tm i n
o ter M
e d o ,
s or o os o es s ,
. :

Th Newm n P r
e I I I 43 1 2 1
a O F h s Th e P y h l gy f
e ss, ,
—
.
— . uc ,
s c o o o

H bit a ding t Willi m O k h m ( S t B nav nt re N Y S t

acc or o a c a . o e u ,
. . : .

B nav n t r C ll g
o e u e C Gi n oG gli lm di O e e, m 2 v ls -
. aco ,
u e o cca , o .

( M i la n ,E G i l n Hi t y f C h i ti P h il h
p y. i n th M i d dl
so ,
s or o r s an os o e e

Ag ( N
es w Y r k R n d em H se o 4 8 6 4 99 :7 83 7 92 — R G a ll oy ou ,
—
,
— .
~
. ue u ,

P h il phi t
os o th é l g i he G ill em d O /qh m ( L
o o vain e c ez u au e
’
c a ou ,

E H h t tt r S t di n
. oc s e M t ph y i k n d E k n ntni l h
e ,
u d
e Wil z ur e a s u r e s e re es

h lme O k h m ( B rli n
s von c G M rti n Wilh lm
a O kh m e ,
— . a ,
e vo n c a .

Unt h ng n
er s u c O nt l gi d
u O dn ng n ( Berlin
e z ur E A o o e er r u e ,
— . .

M dy Th L gi f Willi m fO k h m ( N w Y r k S h d and Ward

oo , e o c o a o c a e o : ee ,

— P V i gn N min ali m in Di ti nn i d th é l gi “
t . au x , ar . o s e, c o a re e o o e

ca th liq oV l 11 u e, l 7 48 7 8 4 ( P aris o .
— S U Z i dema Dc
,
co s .
—
,
. . u
,
476 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSOPHY
meaning an inner significance ( in t ntio ) by whi ch we characterize
, e

fi
S omething and keep it in mind Bu t as a S ign it is always something
.

conventional antu m ex i n stitu tio n e : I n I S e n t d q In fa t

( t 2 8 E ) c .
, .
, . .
,

fi
it i s a fiction ( q u o ddam t m) In short the S ign is nothing more
c u .
,

than a name by which we refer to a designated obj e ct n n plu s — o

am v ox est s u i si n i cati d q T kham

q u g ( I n I S n t 2 7 )
e O c .
, .
, . .

is a nominalist It is true that he also wanted desperately to acq ire

. u

knowledge of reality by the means of concepts and thereby made

a distinction between true and false Bu t he was sceptical and .

doubted whether the universal concepts gained through abstraction

would be able to supply us wi th that which the ancients had expected
from them : to illuminate the innermost constitution of things and
to reproduce thei r intrinsi c nature God alone is capable of doing.

that M an is restrained from it ; he has only signs which do indeed

.

mean some thing but in him there is no intellectu s agens to give

,

rise to the inner image of th ingy Th e universal is not generated /

“

[against S cotus
] but
, originates through abstra ction whi c h is nothing ,

more than a certain fiction ( I n I S nt d 2 q 8 E ) In this

”
e .
, .
, . .

antithesis to an understanding of concepts whi h recognizes in them c

a possible approa ch to metaphysi cal transcendency we fi nd O ckham s ,

’

novel contribution and therein is found the meaning of nominal

,
“

ism O ckham wished to possess tru th but he set the limits of

” “
.
,

knowledge di fferently than had the preceding ages ; he set them

mu ch more narrowly By co mparison with h im S cotus belongs to
.
,

the ancient philosophers S ince the scepticism of the other nominalists

.

-
which led inevitably to doubt about the principle of contradi ction
-
is closely bound up with th at of O ckham we can appreciate what ,

was at In O ckham Abelard came back to life Th e develop

,
.

ment in the direction taken by Abelard was truly retrograde Th e .

fu ll effect of this doubt will be recognized only later when the

E nglish of mode r n times begin to philosophi ze about the ori gin and
th e limitations of our knowledge .

The p rimacy of th e individual Th e whole matter becomes mu h

. c

cleare r when we conside r the fa ct that ac cording to O c kham only

th e individual or particular is known Th e par ticu lar is the fir st known

.
/

and the only genuine thing that is known ( Q o dlib I q In u .

, , .

fact he is sometimes of the opinion as Antisthenes had been that

, , ,

we cannot predicate the notion man of S ocrates and of other men

, ,

in a uni vocal sense ; th is notion is true only of S ocrates in the same

 ATE SCH OLASTI C ISM
L 477

sen se namely that he is a man As a conse q uence only the proposi

, ,
.
,

tion S ocrates is S o crates can be entirely true ( I n I S ent d 2 ”

.
, .
,

q 7 X ) For this reason there n be no universal ideas in God

. .
L
ca .

God creates only parti culars and these would be the ideas S cotus , .

h ad already expressed the same t h ought but now it is reiterated ,

much more radically for S ot s h ad always assumed a common , c u

nature — a con cept wh i ch O ckh am attacked vigorously Aristotle also .

had de clared himself in favor of a fi rst substance and declared that

it had more being and possessed greater notional value than the
second substan ce B t he did not car ry o u t his thesis to its logical
. u

conclusion because he made of his se ond substance a metaphysical

, c

principle and an essen e O nly a nat ralistic interpretation of A ristotle

c . u

assumed his original explanation as tr ue and as a result reje cted

logi cally th e apriori by nature S t Thomas also repeated the
“
. .

explanation of A ristotle but he did not think that it was necessary,

to follow him blindly Th e S impler and the more abstract a th ing

.

is so much the h igh er is its value j ust as it had been in P latonism

, , .

Neo P latonism had guided him ba k to P lato O ckham nevertheless

-
c .

remained firmly attached to the parti ular and also professed his c

faith in it H e tended therefore in th e dire ction of the naturalisti c

.
, ,

interpretation of A ristotle .

2 . G OD

individuali m of O ckh am encroaches on his teaching on God

Th e s .

A s a consequen ce he assume d an unusual position .

Th e omnipotence of God If there are no universal ideas in God .

,

the will of G o d is entirely free to p t th e matter in its S i mplest — u

terms Th e will is no longer re q uired to carry out what has been

.

prescribed for it ; it can enfold itself in all its omnipotence Th e .

omnipotent will of G o d is not arbitrary according to O kham H e , c .

championed th is view because he reasoned that th e prin ciple of

contradi tion holds tr ue also for God and that God cannot do
c ,

anyth ing th at is inherently contradi ctory .

1 ) P t nti D i bs ol ta and 2 ) P o t n ti D ei o dinata With the

o e a e a u e a r .

aforement oned exception the power of God is absolute ( potenti

i a

D ei ab o l ta) B t in addition to it th ere exists sti ll another limita

s u . u

tion and th at in th e divine will itself God has imposed upon

,
.

H imself limits beyond whi ch H e cannot go by positively ordaining

on e and for all a defi nite and rigid order for all things G d is
c . o
478 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y
bound to obser ve this o rder ( potentia Dei or dinata) Bu t it is also .

true that God could have established another order or economy ,

if H e had so willed .

In this respect O ckham is manifestly influenced by theological

con cepts H e had before his eyes positive revelation and its laws for
.
,

he was of the opinion in general that the doctrine of the power of

God is a dogma of faith and not simply a postulate of reason With .

th is we are given the reason that led him to formulate his teaching
as he did The criti cal sense of O ckham was as little able as that
.
,

of S cot s before him to re ognize as rationally necessary all th at

u , c .

philosop h ers of other centuries had considered as such for example —

,

the whole natural law Th is rationalism entrenched in credulous reason

.

h d to be eliminated and in its pla ce more faith along with positive

a

manifestations of God s will as well as divine grace had to be su b sti

’

t t d and proj e ted into the foreground

u e c something whi ch had been
entr sted to the Augustinianism of the Fran cis cans Bu t when we
u .

consider that even S t Thomas conceded to God s wisdom no tem

’
.

poral priority over H is will an d rega rded intellect and will as really
identical in God we can appreciate that a polemic concerning it is no
,

longer ne cessary Th e only obje ction we can raise against Aquinas

.
’

theory is its formulation whi ch might lead us to believe that the

,

intellect had pres cribed a definite course for the will not only insofar

fi
,

as men b t also insofar as God is con cerned Of course this was only
u .
,

a h uman simpli fi ed way of expressing something ve ry dif cult to

,

comprehend In O kham moreove r the form u lations might give r ise

. c ,

to the impression th at they a ctually lead to contr adi ctions as for ,

example when he opines that the absolu te omnipotence of God could

have de creed that th e S o n of G d become in carnate in the form of o

a donkey .

Th e will Of God The doctrine of the omnipotence of God supplied

.

O ckham with a means of resolving the problem of ethi al principles c .

God wills the good not because it is good but it is good precisely
, ,

because H e so wills it A ccording to him we can reason that God

.

could repla ce the entire moral order that is now valid with an

entirely new one and not merely with regard to the commandments
, ,

of the second table of the Decalogue as S cotus had said S t Thomas . .

h eld that the natural law is unchangeable because it is a necessity

of reason O ckh am however followed in th e footsteps of S cotus
.
, ,

and was even more individualistic and voluntaristic in outloo k .

Whethe r his viewpoint is justi fi ed or not w e could argue about it —

48 0 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOS OP H Y
Th e ral scienti sts To those who tended in th e direction of
natu .

the natural scien ces we must list John Bu r idan ( d afte r who
'

, .

brought an end to the domination of the Aristotelian physi cs and

traced motion to an impetus rathe r than to a striving afte r a natu ral
"

place ; Albert of S axony ( d the first recto r of the University of

.

Vienna who busied himself with the problem of gra vitation ; and
,

N i cholas of O r e sme ( d who with his S cientia seu M ath e matica

.

de Latit dinib u s F o r mar u m became the founder of that literary

u

genre known as the latitudes of form which had fo r its obj ect
“

,
”

the co o r dination of the various unifo rmities and diffo rmities both of
-
,

speed and of qualities with geometric figures and who if he did

, , ,

not by this theo ry anticipate the analyti c geometry of De scartes was ,

neve rtheless the most gifted philosopher of natural philosophy in

the fou r teenth centu ry We ha ve every reason to suppose that his
.

teaching is at least one of those seeds from which analytical geometry

late r de veloped S ince Duh em s in vestigation of Leonar do da Vinci
.
’

historical philosophers have discerned in the natural science of the

O ckhamists the forerunne r of the physics of Galileo and of the
theories of C opernicus Th e more recent and the most penetrating
.

research of A M aie r ( An de Gr enz e vo n S ch olastik u n d N atu r r

w issensch aft S tudien zu r N aturphilosophie des 14 Jahr hunderts

”
.
, ,

1943) S hows this v iew to be held with j ustice and inj usti ce It did
“
.

n o t happen as we formerly liked to belie ve that the indi vidual

, ,

thinkers of the fourteenth century leaping over th e boundaries of ,

time and remaining fo r a while without seeming influence and in

part without being understood had anti cipated th e important and ,

the most fundamental theories of the later classi cal physicists theories ,

which would again be taken up and developed three centuries later ,

so that the beginning of th e period of natural sciences must be

placed not in the seventeenth century but at least in the fourteenth ,
.

A ctual e v ents and the true circumstan ces should however be , ,

construed in su ch a fashion that on the one hand we give full credit

to th e scien ce of G alileo as one who travelled a new and entirely

,

correct r oad fo r the fi r st time and on the other hand we admit that
,

the decline of S cholasti cism had mu ch more to do with it than to

o ffe r a few disparate and unclea r conjectures for future develop
ments Among the subjects of paramount interest in the natural
.
”

sciences we must enumerate three chief themes the stru ture of : c

material substan ce gravitation and des cent the mathemati cs of the

, ,

latitude of forms .
 LATE S CHOLASTIC IS M 48 1

II . N I C H O LA S O F GU S A

TH E M I DDLE AG E S AND M O DERN TI M E S

If we number N icholas of Gusa among late S cholasti s we do c ,

not by th at fa ct intend to convey the impression that his p h ilosoph y

was a second spring of S cholasti cism Th e speci fi c and s cholastic
“ ”
.

te hni q ue of question and response th e syllogisti cs and th e ult

c , c

of a thority fostered by the s cien ce of the S chools were foreign to

_
u

him ; in fa t h e h oped and so gh t to liberate philosoph y from the

c ,
u

trammels of s h methods H e lived however in the declin ing years

uc .
, ,

of th e M iddle Ages and was nourished by its great treasures of

k nowledge in whi ch th e spirit of anti q ity and of P atristic times u

had been preserved H e u nderstood the con cepts whi h would prove
. c

to be capable of fu rnish ing the future with material of spe u lation c ,

con cepts with whi ch the mat h emati cal and natural s i e ntific tend c

en cie s of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had wrestled ; and he

so ght to bring the M iddle Ages not only to its senses but also to
u

self reali zation In ontrast to Ba on and Descartes he did not know

— . c c ,

how to pro ceed but h agreed in substance with them

,
e .

C hr stianity P latonism and the nat ral s cien e s are the three great
i , , u c

components of his specu lation H e found th em in the M iddle Ages .

,

b t they were all b t concealed and had be come immobile be cause

u u

of misunderstandings con cerning them H e sought to tra ce them to .

thei r true ori ginal sources to understand th em profo ndly and to ,

u ,

restore them to life in the form of a new synthesis H no longer . e

con cerned h imself with the pre ceden ce of reason over revelation b t ,
u

created a problem out of reason itself and by so doing so ght to u

reach th e fi rst prin ciple of all beings Th e ideas whi ch he developed .

in th e pro cess were of su ch importance th at only now do we appreciate

th eir f ll import in the philosophy of German idealism and as a
u , ,

conseq uence we can with H offmann speak of C sanus as th e true

, , ,
u
“

founder of G erman ph ilosophy Bu t wh at is even more impo rtant .

”
,

C usan s f sed into a ontinu m in th e Western mind th e M iddle

u u c u

Ages and modern times German rationalism and C h ristian p h ilosophy

,
.

L IFE
N ich olas C h r yp ffs( Krebs ) was born in 140 1 at Kues on th M oselle e .

He was ed cated by the Breth ren of the C ommon Life and d to

u , ue
482 M ED AEVAL I PH ILOSOP HY
thei r efforts he was subj ected to certain influen ces which p roduced
,

lasting effects upon him : love of books and ancient languages th e ,

idea of a C hristianity that had endured much and could teach a

cond ct of life and finally the experience of mysti cism
u , .

H e studied at H eidelberg ( 1416 ) but the via M ar siliana ( the doc

trine of M ar silio of P adua d 1336 / as O ckhamism was known
, .

ther e did not appeal to him ; for after only one year he went to
,

P adua whe r e he studied C anon Law in addition to the natural

,

sciences mathematics and philosoph y Through the teachers lecturing

, , .

there who were in part fr om Greece h

, found entry into the an cient , e

world both Greek and Roman After six years imbued with the
, .
,

spirit of a classical education and of a classi cal c lture he returned u ,

h ome and then j ourneyed to C ologne by way of M ayen ce where he ,

was ordained priest in 1430 Thereafter the fi eld of his a ctivity .

was immeasurably increased .

A s early as 1432 we meet with him at the C oun il of Basel where c ,

at the beginning he aligned himself with the party of the Coun cil ;
bu t when he found that it could not arrive at unity within its own
r anks he allied himself with th e S overeign P onti ff H is position was
, .

not the result of chance but was the product of his entir e method of
,

reasoning A side from th e fact that his sound and proved ability to
.

reach decisions could not approve of the inconcl u si ve glibness of

the party he reasoned as a P latonist here as on other occasions before
,

and after that the many could not exist without the O n e and the
,

O n e could not be without the many For this reason he both .

advocated a unifying ecclesiastical supreme authority and r ecom

mended a uniform sup reme ci vil authority alth ough in principle ,

he clung to the sove reignty of the people both in spiritual matters

and in temporal affai r s This was a p r actical appli cation of the
.

notion of meth exis o r participation H e was animated by su ch a .

view when in 1438 he became a member of an embassy despatched

to the imperial palace in C onstantinople This embassy was instru ted . c

to sue fo r and if possible to e ffect a re nion of the East with the u

West Una r eligio in r itu u m diver sit t is the way in which the
.
‘

a e

basi c principle was phrased and this principle was a confession of

,

dialectical unity between the one and th e many through whi ch ,

both participants in the ensuing dis cussions would O btain their

rights O n his return j ourney the idea for h is D o ta ign or ntia struck
. c a

him that is the notion of a synthesis ( coincidence ) of opposites in

, ,

th e Infinite it came to him as an I nspiration .

484 M ED I AEVAL P H LO O H I S P Y
Bib liogr aph y

H . B ett , Nich olas f Gu sa

o ( Lo ndo n ,
— est n
F C . . C o pl o ,
H is tor y
of P h ilos oph y (
d : Th eWestminster ; M , I II ,
. Newman P ress
23 1— 2 47 — M de G an dillac, La ph ilos oph ic dc Nicolas dc C u es ( P aris ,
. .

— E G i ls on H is tor
, .
y of C h r is tian P h ilos oph y i n th e M iddle Ages
N e w Yo r k : Rando m H ou se, fmann, Ni k olau s
( 5 3 4— 5 4 0 — E H of . .

vo n C u es ( 2 n d cd , Le ipz ig, l 9 47
) —
J .J a co b i , Das W elt c bau dc des
g . .
'

K ar dinals N i k olau s vo n C u sa ( Berlin , —

J Koch , N icolau s von .

C u es u nd S eine Umaxelt ( H eidelberg ,

— E . V an steen b er gh e , Le
car di na l Nich olas dc C u es ( P aris , A u to u r de la docte ign o r an ce
( M ii n ste r ,

1 . S P I RIT

The por tal which leads into the philosophy of C usanus is his
theory of knowledge We can orientate ourselves rather qui ckly on
.

its prin cipal features by means of a cleve r conversation that was

carried on in a Roman barbershop by a certain unimportant lay “

man and a famous speaker This barbershop was located in a

” “
.
”

store front that directly faced the Roman Forum A s a onsequence . c

the colloquy takes place in the middle of the hustle and bustle of
the market place Th e two fictitious characters observed this activity
.

very carefully and conce rning it they began to philosophize and

,

to r ationalize ( I diota dc S apie ntia ed M einer I Th ey see , .

, ,

how the produ ce is counted measured and weighed and they ask , , ,

themselves the question : H w is this counti ng th is measuring this o , ,

weighing carried out ? By means of distin ctions An d how we r e these .

distinctions made ? Do they not count one by one ( per u nu m

n m r an t
u
) eby takingur into ,their hands one thing at a time and
counting once twice and thrice ; so that the one is one the first
, ,

fi
time the second the second time th e third the third time and so
, , ,

fo r th ? From this it follows at least C usanu s drew this con clusion , ,

that the act of counting has its origin in the one : per u n m er go t u

o mn is n u mer u s A n d this is true also of the units of weight and

.

units of measu re All counting all weighing and all measuring is

.
, ,

performed in through and from the one H o w Sh ould this ultimate

, ,
.

oneness this unity this principle of counting measuring and

, , , ,

weighing be itself conceived and understood ? That I do not know

, ,

confesses the famous o rator ; I know only that the u nitas cannot be
comprehended by a numbe r because a numbe r is subseq uent to ,

the one ( q u ia n u mer u s est post n m) This is tru e also of weigh ts u u .

 LATE SCHOLAS TIC IS M 485

and of measures A composition is always subseq uent to the existence

.

of its parts the layman adds and therefore the composite cannot
, ,

number measure o r weigh the simple ( without parts ) ; but con

, ,

tr ar iw ise the S imple can perform these functions for the composite
, .

A s a conse q uen ce that something through whi ch and in whi ch and

,

o t of whi ch things are numbe r ed

u measured and weighed cannot , ,

be embraced or grasped by number measu re or weight ( n mcr o , , u ,

po n der e , me nsu r a inattingibile ) .

Up to this point the example has been lear Th obj ective h ow c . e ,

e ver at which C usanus aimed was the principle of all being In

, .

regard to it the conditions are the same as they were for other
tangible realities The principle of all things is therefore that through
.

which out of which and in which all derivates are de rived ; it itself
, , ,

on the contrary cannot be grasped by anything subsequent to i t but

, ,

contrariwise everything else can be apprehended by it as we have ,

just seen in connection with the counting : I ps u m e t pe q d in s , r uo ,

q u o ct ex
q uo o mnc intelligibile intelligitu r , ct tame n in tellectu inat
tingibile In these references we have in a nutshell all the essential
.

elements of the philosophy of C usanus .

D o cta ign o ran tia I ) As S ocr ati w k n in g As the primary

. c a a e .

element in C usanus theory of knowledge w e are struck immediate ly

’

by his idea of a learned ignorance Di fferent factors enter into it O n

“
.
”
.

the one hand he brings together those same tendencies whi ch S ocrates
,

had formerly pursued in his famous dictum : I know th at I know

nothing There are men and to this C usanus will bear witness who
.
”
, ,

remain fixed to one spot and do not notice that they actually have
no knowledge of mu h that they believe they know They should be
c .

roused from their lethargy so that they may be able to delve deeper
and finally to arrive at true knowledge C usanus was convinced th at .

the traditional knowledge obtained in the s hools knowledge that c ,

had be ome hidebound by traditions needed to be roused and to be

c ,

released ; and he applied himself to th e task of acquaintin g himself

with his own ignoran ce and in so doing to bring himself to acquire
true knowledge H is tea hing had however a more profound reason
. c , ,

behind it than th is aspect of timulating thought S .

2 ) As neg tive th l gy C usanus was of the opinion as we saw

a eo o .
,

in the train of though t from which we h ave already quoted that th e ,

prin ciple of all things G o d not only is actually little known but
, , ,
\

also that H e can not essentially be known In H i s ess ence GQd is .

incomprehensible (inattingibilis )
 fi
486 M ED I AEVAL P H ILO S OPHY
3) As an in n ite
fh w ay o In h i s op n on
n o w in g
i i we cannot
. r ep r e

sent to ourselves the essence of a thing in its itselfne ss N othing in “

.
” “

this world is so pre cise that it could not be grasped more precisely ;
nothing so straight that it could not be straighter ; nothing so tr u e
that it could not be truer runs a passage in the I di t dc S pientia
”
o a a

( ed . M eine r II , Th,e D e S taticis E x

p e i m n tis begins wit h this r e

thought and the De Co nie t r is is wholly devoted to it C usanus

c u

did not occupy himself willingly with the con ept of adeq uate c
”

knowledge as had the S toics and the M iddle Ages before him The .

process of arriving at knowledge is an endless road a road of ,

surmises and conjectures hence the title of his tractate De Co n

, ,

iectu r is In it he develops the thought that in ou r spe culation we

.

attempt to determ i ne a being by ever new aspects Emphasis must .

be placed on the word attempt Truth does not be come evident .

”

all at on ce ; we must come into conta ct with it pie cemeal through

the essence of things O nly mathematical objects and works of art

.

o bj e cts produ ced by our intellect are truer in the intellect than
—

they a re in reality ( D b er yllo c 32)

e , .

Th e entire thought is in itself not new ; for negative theology

and C usanus was greatly influen ed by P seudo Dionysius and h i s c -

doctrine concerning God as the superessential and su p r compr e e

h en sib le even in regard both to terms and to style h ad taught us —

this truth concerning our knowledge of Go d and Nominalism ,

had discarded the theory of imitation and had sketched very na r row
limits for a knowledge of an essence C u sanus however added .
, ,

something positive to the negative We are aware of our ignorance .

of God be cause we know something about the infinite If we should

, .

wish to say that we know the infinite we would exaggerate ; but ,

we can ventu r e to say that we k now something about it and in

“ ”
,

this knowledge we could in cl de both the extremes namely the

u , ,

remains and the possession Even so C usanus concedes to the

.
,

Nominalists the justi ce of their cr iti cal attitude in regard to whatever

conce rns the knowledge of essen e but immediately proposes an c ,

absolute r elativism by permitti ng the knowledge of surmise and

conjecture to become a knowledge of prototypes In the same sentence .

in which he says that nothing in this world is entirely precise he ,

assumes prototypes of absolute correctness truth justice and

“ ”
, , ,

goodness They are not of this world but w e measure the wo rld
.
,

by them and they are something quite positive ( I di ta d S ap ed

,
o e .
, .

Meiner II 32
, ,
In bo th case s insofa r as ou r knowledge of God
,
488 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOS OPH Y
in C hapte r Four of the I dio ta d M e nte O u r mind as he says there
c .
, ,

is an image and a likeness of the divine mind Th e divine mind as .

an absolute notion is the no tion of all notions and the form of all
forms an d in its absolute unity it contains ever ything so that from ,

the divine mind as from a co mplicatio we can derive all explanations

and so we arrive at a world with its vari ety In like fashion our mind
(
.
,

if it is an image contains ever ything and thus e ve rything is a ctually

, ,

invol u ted in itself and may evolve or evolute of itself : j ust as a “ ”

number is the development of the O ne motion the development of ,

rest time the development of simpli city extension the development

, ,

of the point inequality the development of equality variety the

, ,

development of identity etc , .

2 ) S e nsible r eality C usanus was indebted to A ristotle when in

.
,

contrast to P lato he describes the soul as a bare tablet upon whi ch

,

the senses must first write their message H e assumes however that .
, ,

the mind possesses a fundamental criterion W ithout which it could

not progress ( o n catu m iu di iu m) a criterion by which it can
c cr c ,

pass j udgment on all things ; for example whether a thing is a ,

genuine b o nu m iustu m ver u m o r another essence ( q u idditas ) if

, , , ,

the senses notify us of something of this kind Th e mind is placed .

univo cally and unequivocally above th e sense world Knowledge .

does indeed begin with it but the mind is its judgment and only
,

by it is knowledge perfected In this context C usanus refers exp ressly

.

to P h d ( 75 b e and 100 b ) ( see above p

ae o —
and remarks that , .

if by the P latonic ideas we wish to understand the original power of

j udgment possessed by the human mind we would ine vitably be ,

led to th conclusion that in this respect P lato had not been entirely
e
“

mista k en .
”

In su h a statement we discern an intimation of the vital reason

c

behind the learned ignorance of C usanus H e made P lato s con cept .

’

of parti cipation his own and logi cally thou ght it thro gh to its con u

e lusion Th e apriorism of the idea governed h is entire philosophy

. .

F rom th is it follows as a matter of co rse that th r o i1gh notions not

,
u ,

only being but also knowledge always fall short of the full tr th of u

the ideal because everything strives to be j ust as the idea is b t they

, ,
u

are all in capable of attaining su ch an objective as we had already ,

seen in P h aedo 75 b Because we all neve rtheless parti cipate in it

, .
, , ,

and be ause the idea is in some fashion present in being and in th e

c

mind and because knowledge does not remain fixed in only the
,
 LATE S CHO LASTIC IS M 489

negative we are able to evade absolute s cepti cism and relati vism and
, ,

we can arrive at the possession of genuine knowledge .

C o in cid en tia o pp o sito r u m I ) O n t l gi al If everything can be

. o o c .

derived fr om the n u m o r O ne as numbers from th e M nas mani

u , o ,

fe stly the antitheses whi ch appear wi th the many must coin cide wi th
the infi nite Th is is the viewpoint wh i ch th e followers of C usanus
.

advo cated and in th is th ought of th e in id ntia pp it m C usanus

'

co c e o os or u

h imself saw the greatness and the fi nest prod ct of his philosophy u ,
-

the r ay of light that st u ck him on his return j ourney from By z antium

r .

This synthesis o r Co n ci den ce is fi rst of all an ontologi cal prin ciple

i .

A S su ch it denote s that in the in fi nite ( the limitless ) all limits have

th eir origin and in it all coin cide If for e ample we were to raise .
,
x ,

a quadrilateral to a pentagon a figure of five sides ) and the

pentagon in turn to a hexagon a figure of six S ides ) tc or ,
e .
,

even to the nth power so that th e nth power be ame ever greater
, c

and greater and the nth sided fig re grad ally approa hed the circle
,
-
u u c ,

and if the nth were infi nite it wo u ld merge with infinity itself Th e , .

same thing would hold true of all other antitheses ( or opposites ) .

In the infi nite primal so rce of being that is in God everything is

u , , ,

involuted into a unity whi ch in our world evolves into multipli city
and variety In H im everything belongs to the O n e and is one and
.
,

only after thei r emergen ce from H im do obj ects either separate from
one another or unite with one another in antitheses ( opposites ) .

2 ) L gi l From t h is ontologi cal consideration there dawned upon

o ca .

C sanus the insight a fforded by h i epistemology that our knowledge

u s

with the multipli city of its rules and its defin itions had developed
from an infi nite unity the unity of reason The rules of logic
, .
,

togeth er with the basi c prin ciple of contradi ction are valid only fo r ,

th e spe c lation of the understanding ; in reason itself on the contra ry

u , ,

they are abrogated because reason is th e source of all intellectual

,

life and ultimate unity from wh ose reative power the fullness of th e
, c

many is derived and ass mes a definite form In this concept of u .

reason philosophers h ave dete ted the beginnings of modern German

, c

philosophy ; for it is nothing more th an th e theory of synth etic

unity as th e produ tive element of our entire knowledge upon which
c ,

Kant s criti que of reason rests someth ing th at L eibni z would have
’

wanted and someth ing wh i ch F ich te de eloped into the theory of

,
v

th e p re ego and with whi h S h elling and S h leierma ch er sough t

u , c c c

to j oin the individual ego to the infi nity of the unive rse and of God .
490 M ED IAE VAL P H ILO S OPHY
If we should not exaggerate too greatly the concept of the creative
( whi ch in modern philosophy denotes an opposition to ancient
metaphysi cs ) assumed by C usanus in the divine mind the entire —

primo rdial world pre exists (I diota dc ed M einer II 30) an d

— .
, ,

our mind reflects it in an activity which is expressly denominated

as an assimil tio ( De M ente cap 4) this interp retation would be
a , .
—

possible and would be of special value for a knowledge of the co n

n ectio n of modern philosophy with the spe culation of antiquity and

of the M iddle Ages .

3) I n antiq u ity We say in antiquity because — and consequently

”

we arrive again at the foundation o f the theory of coincidence ( syn

thesis ) of opposites — it is P latonic dialecti cs which knew how to
derive the many from th e idea of the good in itself with the aid
of di vision or diai esis ; it is P latonic dialectics in which the coin
r

cide ntia o ositor u m is not o n foreign soil something which we —

pp
can recogni z e in the speculation of the mature P lato on ideas and on

number s .

4) I n th e M iddle Ages We say in the M iddle Ages because this

.

entire epoch in its N eo P latonic thought orientation has pr eserved

— -

fo r us mo re o r less cons ciously this particular viewpoint F rom .

P seudo Dionysius C usanus appropr i ated the compa r ison by whi ch

-

the p ro cession of th ings from the O n e is contrasted with the pr o ces

sion of numbers from unity H e also de ri ved much material from .

Er iu gen a and Thierry of C hartres Even the wo r k D e I ntelligentiis .

begins metaphysi s with the Infi nite ; A lbert the Great makes being
c

in eve r greate r variety beget itself from God as the intellectus

u ni r salit r a e n ; and even in S t Thomas A quin a
ve e s s the absolute
g .
,

with its transcendental infinity in all forms contains everything

implicitly — som ething Whi ch in its expli citness is called th e u ni
v r su m
e In the S mma Th eologiae we read certain phrases which
. u

sound very much like C usanus : I n usa o mniu m nec sse est pr ca e ae

i
cx stcr c o mnia secu n du m n atu r ale m u n io n e m ct sic u ae s u n t diver sa
m(S
’

, q
ct
pp o osita in se , I
ipsis in De o pr acexistu nt
4 2 ut unu . T .
, , ,

ad S t Thomas himself noted the conne ction of this thought with

.

the writings of P seudo—Dionysius .

2 . G OD

As In the First Book of D ta I gn n ti C san s

co mp licatio . oc or a a, u u

informs us that God is the maximu m fullness absolutely who loses , ,

nothing and who can be neither greater no r smaller For this re ason .
492 M ED I AEVAL P H ILOSOPH Y
stand the universe as God ; C usanus howe ver as H offmann has , ,

pointed out tried to understand it th o gh God Th e solution of th

, r u . e

problem is to be found in the con cept of participation C usanus does .

deny the identification of th i ngs and he does maintain that they

va ry e ven though he rej ects a separation between God and the world
, .

If the world is the image and the liken ess of G o d it is truly like H im ,

but not identical with H im C usanus made a distinction between simi

.

lar ity and identity S cholasti cism had spoken of an analogy C usanus
. .

takes up the thought upon which all analogy is based : the concept of
pa rticipation In this concept he retains the single antithesis whi ch
.

he did not intend to discard but only to strengthen namely th e , ,

opposition between origin and result between a measure and the ,

thing measu red between creato r and creature

, .

S pecula tion and th e n atu ral sciences Th e philosophi cal spe culation .

of C usanus on the infinite on ignorance on the one and the many

, , ,

contributed to an entirely con crete enri chment of bo th the natural

s ciences and their methods If all reality is individual and unique

.
,

and if the universe is also infin ite even though contracted it follows “

,
”

th at there are no two things alike that the earth does not form the ,

cente r of the world that it is in fact no such cente r that the sphere
, ,

of the fixed stars is not the ultimate limit of the universe that our ,

earth is but a star among other stars and e very point is a center , ,
”

because everywhere the eternal whole is fill ed with activity in the

same fashion C onsequently C usanus becomes the forerunner of
.

C opernicus and his mathematical method of numbering measuring

, , ,

and weighing whi ch he introduced into the natural s cien ces anticipates
the spirit of Keple r H is Experiments with a S cale do not ad van ce
.
“ ”

beyond the r ange of his spe culation Th e philosopher of conj ectural .

knowledge surmised that nothing in this world could e ver arrive

at perfect exactness but r esults of the scales come closest to the
,
“

truth ( De S tat
”
ed M eine r
. P lato had also been cons cio u s
.
,

of the fact that in mathematics we have the straight way to th e

truths of the ideal o r der An d afte r C usanus had measured the world
.

thoroughly by means of the idea he redu ced everything to its corre t

,
c

proportions H e demanded that the pulse be gauged by a watch

.
,

that the healthy be separated from the si ck by means of a scale and ,

that the specific weights of metals be established by the same mean s .

H e himself did not live to see the results O f su ch methods in the

‘

field of natu r al sciences but he was fully aware of their possibilities

,
.
 LATE SCH OLASTIC ISM 493

3. M AN
C hrist way In the Third Bo ok of D octa I gno antia C usanus
th e . r

treats of man H e wanted to establish th e way to the absol te Th e

. u .

way he fo und leads th ere through C hrist In H im the idea of man .

kind became man so that through H im more might be enabled to

,

rediscover the divine to which they had been called and th rough whi ch
they could alone be come truly men In th ese thoughts the basi c .

position of C usanus reasoning is contained TO be absorbed into the

’
.

infi nite had always been th e con cern of mysti cism .

Th e cult of th e in di v idual Bu t to the idea of the niversal Eckhart

. u

added th e u lt of the individual H e recognized an ego archetype

c .

in the mind of God of whi ch we must never lose ight be ause by

, S , c

it we can reach our ideal being and su cceed in obtaining selfness “

.

In C usanus this tho ght is sei zed upon eagerly and developed still
u

further By so doing he again contributed in a special way to the

.

development of German philosophy T him the individual is a . o

microcosm in contrast to the macrocosm In the indi vidual are to .

be found creati ve power freedom and spontaneity Th e individual, , .

th us becomes a substantial subject in his uniqueness and autonomy .

A true world in miniature ! Just as the multiplicity of for ces in the

macro co sm are held together by the uniform idea of the whole so ,

above the individuality of a particular person stands the idea of his

better ego so that life in this world may not deteriorate into chance
, ,

fate meaninglessness and capri ce

, , .

Th e pure man By it man is r aised high above the world and its
.

matter and in this way he is brought to himself Thus man li ves

, .

out his life in this world by means of a God given freedom that —

is guided by a supertemporal idea but he does not trace his origin ,

to it H e seeks to give it form and this from a highe r plane H is ego

. .

is here more than th e consciousness of a highly developed intellectual

animal Th is ego must be conceived much differently A s H o ffmann
. .

puts it Th e purely formed ego is no longe r a part of the natural

,
“ ‘ ’

world but h aS a part in the world of ideas If the idea should be

,
‘ ’
.

truly indivisible and eternal the way would indeed be bro k en for the
,

first time for the idea that our true personality on earth is posited in
the ego If later on Kant w ould busy himself trying to prove that the
.
”

moral act of practical reason is free of everything material so th at “

,
”

man may develop himself on his own initiative we must say that ,

C usanus had already anti cipated him .

 49 4 M ED I AEVAL PH ILOSOPH Y
4 . LATE R INFLU ENCE
F r an ce and I taly We must maintain in the fi rst place that C usanus
.

accomplished much more in France and in Italy than he did in “

Ge rmany In F rance the idea behind the D e D ta I gn r nti was

. oc o a a

furth e r developed by Bovillu s down to S anchez and Gassendi Gas .

sendi was as is now known oriented in the dire tion of the negati ve
, , c

scepticism after the fashion of Mo ntaigne and C harron S ince Des .

ca rtes himself later tra versed this same terr ain the positive elements ,

in the Speculation of C usanus died a natural death In Italy M arsilio .

,

and P ico della M irandola were indebted to him for their inspiration .

M irandola also spoke of the infinite dignity of the individual which

is mirrored in his creative activity his freedom and his individuality , , .

Whe reas to C usanus the acti vity of man is regulated by a supreme

meaningful idea M i randola perceived only the infinite dynamic of
,

a human Demi urge and pe rmitted him to become master of himself .

To C usanus C h rist is th e Lo r d Giordano Bruno on the contrary

, .
, ,

fully paganized C usanus and what is wo r se popularized him By , , .

way of Br uno P ar aclesu s and Leibniz the thoughts of C usanus

, , ,

manifested themselves later in Ge rman philosophy .

Ge rm any Afte r his death the times were not propitious for him
.
,

because of the religious str uggles and the politi cal upheavals whi ch
had taken place Later however his ideas e volved as we have seen
.
, , , ,

into the definite begin nings of Germany philosophy As E H o ffmann . .

said C usanus li ved during the autumn of the M iddle Ages and can
,
“

be understood from the cultural histori cal viewpoint and from the -

h ilo so h ico histo r ical viewpoint only by means of the epo h itself ;
p p
-
c

but considered purely from the problematic histori cal viewpoint these -

declining y ears this autumn of speculation was much more fertile

,

than the subsequent seasons of the exuberant spring tide of the

Renaissance or the sated summe r of the age of E nlightenment .

P erhaps we will have to experience another autumnal season before ,

ph ilosophically speaking a S tate of problemati c againarises in whi ch

,

the chief positions of C usanus can again be revived Th ere are .

”

panegyrists of mode rn philosophy who see in S cholasti ism nothing c

but the shades of night and disciples of S cholasticism who see in

,

modern philosophy nothing but the failure of error Th e study of .

the philosophy of C usanus could make both parties realize how on

the opposite side a truly great system can be found and could ,

thus lead them bette r to understand themselves and others .

496 O F N AM E S I NDEx

i
act v e i ll 15 5 ; m g h S y i
n te e ct, dg 1 5 0 if 15 4;
a on t e p i f m r an s , e e, , on s ec es o o

37 5 ; onl gy f b i g 16 9 f ;
an a o o 1 7 1 ff;
e n , b 160 f; d on ti o n , on su stan ce, an

A g naxa o r as, 38 ; d B hi 337 ; an yll gi m 1 46 ff o et Th l 9 f;

u s, s o s , ; on a e s, On

cate g i f b i g 1 42 ;
o r es o h
e n ,
im 19 0 f ; h 1 44 ;
on c y f
an ce , t e, on tr u t , on uni t o

17 8 f ; p f f m 165 ;
co n ce t o p f
or l 18 6 ;
, Um d M co nce 176 f t o so u , on n o ve o ve r , ;
m ph y i
e ta 15 8 f ;
s cs, p f w ld i
co n ce 203 f f; t oi i S or , on v r tu e , on v r tu e n ocr ate s ,

1 8 7 ff; d w i h Pl 1 45 ; i i
co n tr aste 5 3;
t w ill 205 ff; w i g Of 136 ff
ato , er t on , r it n s , ;
i m
c s f D m o i 35 f ;
e i iq
o cr f
tu s, w i i g p h ib i d 382 f ;
cr t X ue o r t n s ro te , on eno

Pl i R p bli 2 09 f ; i iq Z 27
fi
ato n c e u c, f ph 21; cr t ue o an es, on en o ,

Pl ato s h
’
y f id t eo r 16 3 ; o d d A i
e as , f T m on ld P i
e uc r sto x e n u s o ar en tu , an o er er

i
t on d i d an i 147 f ;
n d d
u ct o n , i p i 2 13 an e n ate t c,

i
t on, 1 40 f ; d i 1 8 5 ; di on es r e , A bi ly Ch i i p h il ph
r e ct tr an s 299 r no u s, e ar r st an o so er ,

l i
at o n s f m G k 38 0 f ; d i i i
ro r ee A l pi 27 8 st n ct o n sc e u s,

b w ph il ph y d my h 7 ; Ah g
,

et ee n o so an p l gi t d ph il
, ph on t e n a o r as, a o o st an o so er ,

e ffi i
c e nt 17 1 f f;
cau se , m i d 29 1 on e o t o ns an

a ff ie ct o n s , 185 f; mp i i i 15 7 ; A mi 299
as e r c st, to sts ,

e pi m l gi l
ste o o p i i m ca 1 49 f f; a r or s A i ph il ph y 47 ff on tt c o so

A i ph il p h y f 2 6 6
, ,

e sse n ce f m i o 17 2 ; ot on, f on e sse n ce o tt cu s, o so o ,

so u l 18 1 f, f; i y f w ld 1 89 f ;
o n e ter n A g i S 3 1 0 ff; g m f
t o or ,
u u st n e , t ar u en ts or ex

et hi cs d p li i
an f 19 8 ff;o t cs fi io ,
f G d 3 1 8 ff; gm f
on r st sten ce o o , ar u e n ts or

an d d b
se co n 1 45 f ;
su fi
stan ce, imm li y Of h l 32 7 f ; on i d r st o r ta t t e so u , att tu e

su b stan ce , 1 6 1 ff; f d Ly m 1 34 ; ou n w d p h il s ph y 292 ;

ce u d R g
,
to ar o so , an o er

on g enu s d Sp i an 1 41 f ; G d
e c es , B 38 8 ; b i p i ip l f
on o , aco n , on as c r nc e o

19 2 ff; g ld m on o 202 f ; h d
en m li y 32 9 f ;
e an , i 32 1 ff;e on or a t , on cr e at o n , on

i m 200 f;
s , H li on 18 ; h y l e r ac f tu s, h 3 17 f l l w e essen ce o tr u t , ; o n e ter n a a ,

m ph i
or h y
c gi f 16 5 ff;
t eo r , or i 32 9 f ; n o , i y 32 3 hi l p on on e ter n t , ; e t ca a r i or

id ea mb
as i
nu P l 9 4; er im n i m 33 1 f ; ato , hi l w f 329 If;
on s , et ca Vi e s o , on

m l y
o r ta i t f l 18 7 ; i fl
o so u , f m 32 4 f ; f d m 330 n u e n ce G d on or , on r ee o ; on o

P i i p h il p h y 2 93 f ; I fl
,

atr st c o so , 31 8 f f; Gd n u e n ce32 0 ff; on on o

’
s e s sen ce , on

S i 22 6 ; i p i
to cs, f Pl
n ter G d w ill p i pl f m l y 330 ;
r e tat o n o ato s
’
o
’
s as r n ci e o or a i t ,

co s m l g y 123 ;o o , j dgm 1 43 ff;

on h pp i u 332 ff; en t, id 32 4 ; on a n ess , on e as , on

on k d f l 1 8 4 ff;
in s o so u ki d f , imm i l y Of h on l 32 7 ; i fl n s o ater a i t t e so u , n u en ce

s tate , 2 12 f ; k w l dg d i on no S e A lm 36 1 ; i fl
e an S
sc e n ce , on t. n se , n u en ce on t .

1 39 ff; lif 134 ff; m 1 69 f f; Th m 409 ; lif 3 1 0 f; m ’

e, on atter , o as, e, on an s

on h m
t e l p i ip l or a 19 8 f f; r nc l e, 32 5 f ; m 32 2 f ;
n atu r a n atu r e , on atte r , on

iS tI c pl ex i f 26 3 ;
an at o n o f ,
m l i 33 1 f ;
on n atu r e l l w o or a act o n , On n atu r a a ,

G d 19 4 ff; N
o , Pl i mm i ee - 32 9 f ;
ato n c co f h 314
en tar es on n atu r e o tr u t , ; on

o n, 37 6 ; w i ne f li y 1 6 3 f;
no t o n ig i o f l
r ea 328 f ; t , igi f or n o so u , on or n o

on bl k w l dg 1 5 5
n o n - se n si e no e 33 4 ; e, h Pl i 294 ; p
; n o ti o n s tate , on t e ato n sts , o

o f co n ce
p 140 ff t, h N 15 5 ; li i l p h il
on t e p h y 33 4 f f; ous, p im y Of ; t ca o so , on r ac

on h t e origi f id l h n y 9 6 f;
o w ill 331 ;
ea t eo r i , mi l 32 4 f ; on , on r at o nes se na e s ,

h
t e or igi fm i n o1 7 1 ff; igi
o t on, i 314 f ; h
on l 325 ff;
or n on sen sat o n , on t e so u ,

o f l 1 86 f;
so u igi f 207 f;
on or h n o f h 3 1 4 ff;
s tate , b on t e so u r ce o tr u t on su

y
, ,

on pl 19 0 ;
ace , p y d on i li y
o te n cf h l 326 f ;
an h act, s tan t a t o t e so u , t eo r
174 f f; p i ip l on 15 9 f ;
r nc p i ip l e, f ll mi i 3 15 f ;
on im
r nc 32 3 f ; e o I u n at o n , on t e,

o f li y
cau sa 1 72 f ; t , p i ip l f h 3 13 ff;
on r nc i f l e d o on tr u t , on u n on o so u an

k w l dg 1 5 2 ff; p i ip l f i d i id
no e e, b d y 325 f ; w o k f 3l 1 f
r nc e o n v o r s o

A g i i m m g h ld F
, ,

i
n at o n , 16 8 ; p i i on17 0; r v at o n , on u u sti n an s , a on t e o er r an

p d ru e n ced igh an 201 f ;

r t 389 f
r easo n , f on ci scan s ,

p p ur i o se 1 7 8 ff;
n n atu r e , p p f Ag Emp on 2 34 2 38 2 46
ur o se o u u stu s, er o r , , ,

S tate , 206 f ; Py h g on m A b l hi f i w
t a o r ean f 37 8 eta ve n ce ro c e v e s o

gi b y w lf h A e h i f h gh f 377
, ,

phy 16
si cs, p i ; r ece t on ve n t e t ve r r o s, c e t ou ts o ,

ce n tu r y S h l i 37 5 ff; c o ast cs , l i i m A i m i g f m 45 3 ; p i o n r e at v s ver r o sts , e an n o ter , r n

o fH li 20 f;
e r ac d
tu s , i 1 5 1 ff anip l hi g f 45 3
sc e n ce , ; c a teac n s o ,

o n s e co n d b 16 4 f ;
su stan ce , i Ai b 37 8 o n sen sat o n , v ce r on,

15 4 f ; S on ib i
o cr ate s
’
Ai co n tr p i ip l p i i ut on f 37 6 f to a v ce nn a, r nc a os t ons o ,

h
t eo r y f k w l dg 5 0 ; l i
o no e h e, so u t o n to t e
d il mm f P m id 26 ; l i
e a o ar en B d F z 472
es , so u t o n to aa er , r an

F i 3 8 7 48 1
,

p b l m Of b
ro e mi g 1 7 0 ; eco h B n , on t e aco n , r an c s , ,

so u l 1 8 1 ff;
, h on f k wl t B e R g 38 7 ff; h
so u r ce o d w k no aco n , o er , c ar acter an or s,
 I NDEX OF NA M E S 497
38 7 ;
scien ti fi an

Bae u mk er , C , 3 8 9 ,
c
d
meth o d
St .

,
Au g
38 7 f
447
u s ti n e , 38 8 ; an d Cp l
C
a

d
ar n ea es ,
Th o mis t, 45 1
r eo u s, a

cr itical sp ir it o f
se n tative o f M i le
, 2 6 0 ; r epr e
dd A d y
ca em , 2 5 9

K
.

Bar th , ar l, 2 40 Car o li n ian g R

e n aissance , 35 7

B ar th o lo me w o f M essina, tr an slato r of C d
assio o r u s, p u p il o f B
o e th iu s , 3 5 2
'

A r isto tle , 38 0 Cato ,d o r er to ex pe l ph ilo so p h e r s f r om

B asil, S r , attitu e to w ar
. d d
p h ilo so p h , 2 9 2 ; y R m 26 0
o e,

o n cr eatio n , 302 ; ear l f

h r istian p h i y C C l ph il ph y f 2 6 6
e su s , o so o ,

lo so p h er , 2 9 8 C i h g i 29 8
e r nt u s, no st c,
Basilide s, a no stic, 2 9 8 g Ch alcidiu s, co mmen tar on y
lato s Ti m P ’

B gau m ar tn er , M , 439 . acu s 29 9

C
,

Bd V
e e th e b e n er a le , imp o r tance o f, 35 2 h ar lema n e, 35 7 g
B J y
e n th am, er e m , 6 0 C
h ar r o n , 494
T
Ber e ngar iu s o f o u r s, 35 9 C
h ar tr es, sch o o l o f, an d me iaev al h u d
B k y G g
er e le , e o r e , 22 2 manism, 37 0 ff
B d Of C
er n ar h ar tr es, an d me iaeval h u d C
h r istian it , an d y S
to icism, 2 34 f; o u th y
y
,

man ism, 37 1 f fu l, in its r elatio n to p h ilo so p h , 2 89 ff

B d
e r n arC of lair vau x , S r , o n w is o m, d C y
h r sip p u s, an ear l y S
to ic, 2 1 7 ; o n fr e e
f y
.

37 3 do m and fate , 2 41 ; o n immo r talit ,

C
Ber no ld o f o nstance , 36 4 230 ; o n natu r al law , 233
B d
e r th o l b g o f M o s u r , 399 C
icer o , e clectic, 2 6 1 ; impo r tan ce o f, 2 6 1 ;
B Gb
iel, a r ie l, n o min alist, 47 9 fl in u en ce d by P anae tiu s, 2 1 8 ; in u en ce fl
B A
o e th iu s, an d r isto tle , 337 ; e n itio n dfi on S t Ag
u u stin e , 292

C d
.

o f p er so n , 345 ; and oc tr ine o f th e d lau i u s P to lemai u s, a er ip atetic, 26 3 P

kath e /( o n 2 3 1 ; o n e ter n it , 343 ; o n
, y C A
leanth es o f sso s, o n immo r tali t , 2 30 ; y
f f d
ate , 342 ; o n Gd
r e e o m, 342 ; o n o s
’
su cce sso r to Ze no , 2 1 7

f
n atu r e , d d
33 8 ; o n in ivi u al r esp o n si C lemen t o f A d
lex an r ia, S t , an d cate .

f k
b ili ty, 345 f; li e and w o r s, 336 f; and ch e tical sch oo l o f A
lex an r i a, 29 1 ; o n d
P f b
lato , 337 ; o n p r o lem o f u n iv er sals cr e atio n in time , 302 ; o n cr eati o n an d

f d d d y C
,

340 ; o n p r o vi ence, 342 ; so lu ti o n to w or l o f i e as , 302 ; ear l h r i stian

b
p r o lem o f ev il, 344 f; and S to ics , 338 ; p h i lo so p h e r , 2 9 8
y Of
o n th e o r p ar ticip atio n, 34 1 ; o n time , C o h en , 2 3

d fl
343; v ar ie in u e n ces o n , 337 f C o n stan tiu s A
fr ican u s , 37 1
B o e th iu s L
o f Dacia, A atin ve r r o i s t, 45 6 Co p er nicu s, 26 2 , 48 0, 49 2
B b
o n av e n tu r e , S t
, o n a str actio n , 393 ; a d
. Lb
C o r n eliu s a eo , 29 9
Ag
vocate o f d f
u u stin ian tr a itio n , 39 1 ; C r ate s , a Cy
n ic, 5 9 ; an d O ld A d y ca e m ,

on A g Gd
n selmian ar u men t f or o s ex
’
1 32
fi
iste n ce , 39 2 ; o n f r st matter , 39 2 ; C r atylu s, b l
a l i i
so u te 20 r e at v st,

f f
li e , 39 1 ; o n n atu r e o f so u l, 39 3 ; o n C r i tias, migh m k t igh 45 ;
a lig i
es r t, on r e on,

g
o r i in do f w o rl , k 392 ; o n o u r no w l 44 ; a S ph i 41
o st,

dg
e y
e o f G o d, 39 2 ; p lu r alit of f o r ms , Cr ito lau s, P ip i 2 6 2
er ate t c,

39 3 ; an d S t . T
h omas, 409 ; an d th e o r y C r o to n , cen ter f Old Py h g
o b h er t a o r e an r ot

o f illu min atio n : 39 3 ;

on u n i o n o f so u l er h oo d 14
b dy C Ni h l f C
,

an d o , 39 4 u san u s, s e c c o as o u sa

Bo villu s, 49 4 Cy nics, 5 7 ff; i fl n h S i 50 f

u e nce o n t e to cs, ,

Br adw ar d ine , T
h o mas , 46 3 226
B r e n tan o , C 332 C y r en aics , 59 f
B G d
r un o , io r ano , 49 4
B g d P
u r u n io o f isa, 35 2 P
Damian , eter , s ec e ter Dami an P
J
Bu r idan , o h n, and na tu r al scie n ce , 480 Dan te , 1 9 5
B g
u r le i h , Walte r , 4 63 Dar w in, C
h ar les, an d A
r i sto tle , 1 8 9 , 35 0

B J
u r n e t, o h n, 2 3 d
esce n t o f sp e cie s, 9 3 ; an d i eas, 9 3 ; d
an d n atu r al se le cti o n , 1 7 9
C ajetan , T
h o mas , a Th o mist , 45 1 Dav i d o f Din an t, alle e p a n th eis m gd
of ,

C alipp u s, 1 8 8 37 3
C allicle s , a o p h ist, S 41 mi gh t make s V L
d a i n ci, eo n ar o , 4 8 0 d
gh 45
ri t, de la M ar e, Wi lliam, 45 0 ff
C M l hi
an o , e c or , a Th o mist 45 1 De metr iu s o f h aler o n , an o l er P er i d P
C pp d i
,

a a o c an s , 29 8 ; att itu d e to w ar d ph i p ate tic, 2 13

lo so ph y, 2 9 2 ; on Gd o
’
s n atu r e , 302 De mo cr itu s, 32 ff; acco mp lish me n ts o f,
498 O F NAM E S I NDEx

32 f ; h m 33;
t e ato p f mp y pl 25 5 ;
co n ce p d t 25 5 ; o e t e asu r e , on ru e n ce , sen
Sp
,

34 ;
ace , p fm i co n ce h g t O li m f 2 47 ; ot o n o r li i hi 25 5 f c an e, su a s o se n su a st c e t cs, ;
ed wi h A
,

34 f ; con tr ast g 38 ; hi g t f i d h ip 25 7 f ; h i g
naxa o r as, te ac n on r en s teac n s
id li m i 36 f ;
,

ea s hi n etd m h i i cs , l gi 246 ff an ec an st c on o c,
dy f
s tu o 35 ; h y f k wl Ep i
n atur e , Of S m f d f Epi
t eo r o no cu r u s a o s, ou n er o cur ean
dg 36
e e, i m 2 45 ; h g l f lif 25 4 s , on t e oa o e,
D eni fl H e,47 2 . E i g Jh S ll g d p th i m r u e na, o n co tu s , a e e an e s
C d i l 44 9
,

d T q m d
e or J
ue a a, u an , f 35 8 f ; ar
p f G d 35 8
na , o , co nce t o o ; co n
D W lf M p h y 35 9 ; N
,

e u i , 405 45 6au r ce , p f ph il
, Pl i m ce t o o so , eo - ato n s
Di l i i
a e ct c an s , f i h y 35 9 f
o n nt f 35 7 f ce ntu r ,
o ,

Di i h
c ar c f M us o Old P i E b lid
e sse n e , S i f h Mg i
an er er u u e s, a ocr at c o t e e ar an

p i 2 13
ate t c, h l 57 sc oo ,

Di i h Of F b g 39 9
e tr c r ei er E lid f M g
, 57 uc o e ar a,

Di l oc es, 1 32 E d m f Rh d ld P ip i u e us o o es , an o er er atet c,

Di d o C
or u s S i Of h
r o n u s, 2 13 a o cr at c t e
M g i e h l 57
ar an sc oo ,
E d d A i l 18 8 ; d Pl u o n u s, an r sto t e , an ato ,

Di g o L
en es i 3 2 36 2 3 8
ae r t u s, 72 73
, , ,

Di g o f Si p
e n es o Cy i 5 9 no e, E bi Of C
a n c, 2 9 5 29 6 u se us aesar e a, ,

Di on ,63 E bi f V lli 29 5 u se us o er ce ,

Di y i
on h C
s us t h i 346
e ar t u s an ,

Di y i h P d A p gi
on

P d A p gi
s us t e
F
seu
i h J G
o-
4 89
r eo a te , s ee
c te , . .
, Vii,

D mi i
se u o- r eo

3 8 4 39 4 ff 46 4
a te
F i S h l ld 38 9 f f r anc scan c oo o er ,

F
,
o n can s, ,
i fM y ,
i 346 46 3
D mi i S
r anc s o a r o n s,
45 1
F
,

d i k II f P
o n c o to ,
i 238 re er c o r u s s a,
D m i di li 37 9
D
o

u ns S
G
i n cu s

S
co tu s ,
un

se e
s sa
F lb
co tu s
nu s ,
f Ch 37 0 u er t o ar tr es ,

D u r an d 47 9 u s,

G i ph il ph y f 26 6 a u s, o so o ,

E kh
c M
ar t, hi l i w
aster , f 46 9 ff;
et G l ph y i i
ca v e d P ip s i 26 3
o ,
a en , s c an an er ate t c,

on i f G d 46 8 ;
ex s ten ce oid G l l 12 1 38 6 480
o , on e as, a i eo , , ,

46 7 f i fl ; n f 47 1 f; lif
u e n ce 46 4 f G lli
o ,
Emp 27 1 e, ; a e n u s, er o r ,

and my i m 4 6 6 ; st ci s Of G d G ig L g g R 409
, on n atu r e o , ar r ou- a r an e, .
,

46 6 f ; d N Pl i m 46 5 f ; d G di 2 46 49 4
an eO - ato n s , an ass e n , ,

S h l i m 46 6 ; w k 46 5 G il i iq f S A lm g ’
c o asti c s , or s, au n o, cr t ue o t . n se s ar u

E ph
c m mb
an tu s , f y g Py h
e er m 362
o oun er t a e n t,

g b h h d 15
o t e an r ot er oo G d f C m 37 9
,
e r ar o re o n a,

El i
e at cs, 2 1 ff; d p bl m f h an G b f Rh i
ro e ( P p S yl o II )
t e o ne er er t o e r ns o e ve ste r ,

and h m y 91 t e an ,
d p bl m f i l 36 5 an ro e o u n ver sa s ,

Eli E s- i 57
r e tr an s, G Jh mi li 47 9 e r so n , o n, no na s t,

Emp d l e o c es , Of m i 30
on cau se Gilb d l P d m di
o t on, l h ; on er t e a o r r ee , an e aev a u

ht e fi p i ip l f ll h i g 2 9 f ;
r st r nc m i m 37 2
e o a t n s, an s ,

on f m i f w ld 3 1 ; f
or at o n ol G l f R m 36 3 42 1
or , our e e i es o o e, ,

m e nts f 12 5 ; oO ph i Py h g
, Gil E pl
r f S
c- Th m 400t a o r e an so n , .
, On ace o t. o as,

i w
v e f 31 ;
s h
o , y f k w l dg Gi d
t eo r Emp o 27 1 no e e, or an u s , er o r ,

31 f G i 29 8 f n o s t cs ,

Ep i t c e tu s , p h y 2 38 f ;
on a f dm G h
at ,
d A i l 195 ;
on d Em r ee o ,
o et e, an r sto t e , an

2 40 ; imm on li y 2 30 p i
o r ta p d l
t 30 ; d Ep i
; r e r e sen tat 25 6 ; ve e oc e s , an cu r ean s,

d S A g
,

fl
o S 218 ; U i l R
ate r to a, on i 334
n v er sa easo n , an t . u u st n e ,

233 G gi p i i m f 43 ; S ph i 40 f or as , sce tc s o , a o st,

Ep i i m 2 45 ff i fl
cu r ean s , P G bm ; M 300 31 0 36 4 37 0 38 1
n u e n ce on a ra ann , .
, , , , , ,

i i p h il
tr st c p h y 29 3 o so 38 3 406 45 3 46 6 , , ,

G i 37 0
,

Ep i cu r ean s, mi m f 2 49 ; ato k s o , attac on r at an ,

ligi
re my h
o us 25 2 f ; pt s, f G g y fN i S i d
co nce w d t o re or o az anz en , t .
, att tu e to ar

atar axy 25 4 ; , p f h 25 0 f
co nce p h il ph y t O292 ; c ly Ch i i
an ce , ph i o so , e ar r st an

co n ce
p f m d t oi 25 7 o p l ph
er at o n , 29 8 ; co n ce t o so er ,

f w i d m 25 8 ;
o s o i i , f h G g y f Ny cr S
te r o n i d o w d tr u t re or o ssa, t .
, att tu e to ar

ly Ch i i
,

2 40 f ; d fi i i f p h il
e ph y
n t on 2 47 ; p h il
o ph y 292 ; o so ph i o so ear r st an

i li y f
, ,

hi l
et ca hi g 2 5 3 ff;
teac f n s, d l ph 29 8 ; imm on l
ate an o so er , on ater a t o so u ,

f d m 2 5 1 ff h d i m 25 3 f m
r ee o , ; 306 ; e h on s l 3 06 , ; e on t e so u ,

h i i
c i w Of b
an s t c mi g 2 49 f
v e G g y f Rimi i mi l 479
e co n , ; on re or o n , no n a i s t,
5 00 I NDEX OF NAM ES
L gi
on 29 6 n u s, M llig
u an , R . W . 409
R
,

L z R H d Pl 8 5
o t e, an ato , M u so niu s f
u u s, 29 4
L i C
. .
,

u cr e t u s imp ar u s , fo r o u r
o r tant so u r ce

k w l dg f Epi
no i m e e o cu r e an s 245 f
N P 81an d Pl
L ll R ym d y g F i
,
ato r p , ato ,
r anc scan S C ho oi ;
.
‘
,
u a on o u n er
, ,
Nau siph an e s, teach e r o f Ep icu r u s, 245
45 7
L h M i 322 47 1 479 Nemesiu s o f Emesa, ear l h r istian ph i y C
ut er ,

Ly m f d d by A i l
ar t n , , ,
lo so p h e r , 2 9 8 ; o n u n it o f sou l, 306 y
Ly h
ce u

F i 46 3
, oun e r sto t e , 134
K
Neo - antianism, and i e as, 8 3 ; an d lato , d P
c e tu s, r an c s ,
8 1 ; and lo tin u s, 2 7 0 f P
Macch iave lli 1 20
P
Nee - lato n ic ch o o ls , 2 7 8 S
M acr o iu s b
,

y Ch i i
-
P
Ne o lato nism, 26 5 ff; and Ec h ar t, 46 5 f k
, ear l r st an p h ilo so p h e r , in Er iu gen a, 35 7 ff; an d G Rb
o er t r os
2 99
M aier , A , 4 8 0
se te s te , 38 5 ff; in u e nce o n fl
atr isti c P
d
.

Maimo n i es, ch ie f v ie w s o f, 37 9
'
p h ilo so p h , 29 6 ; y
as in ter p r ete d by
g
M an i, n o stic, 2 9 8
Pr o clu s, 2 7 8 f
; no t tr u e lato n ism, r ath e r P
M ar cio n , n o stic, 2 9 8 g P lo ti n ian ism, 2 7 0 ; in se u o r eo p a ite , P d A g -

A
M ar cu s u r eliu s, on ap ath , 2 38 ; o n r ee y f 347 ; an d St l er t, 39 7 ; in S t
. Ab .

do m, 2 40 ; o n immo r talit , 2 30 ; r e pr e y Th o mas , 4 1 5 ; var ie in u en ces o n , d fl

sen tativ e o f late r to a, 2 18 ; o n to ic S S f
26 5 , 2 7 0 ; vitalit , 27 0 y Of
d
i eal o f h u man v ir tu e , 2 37 ; o n Un i f Neo -
Py g
th a o r e ans, 2 66 ; asic v ie w s o f ,
f b
v er sal easo n , 2 34 R f fl
2 6 6 ; in u en ce o n atr istic p h ilo so p h , P y
2 96
M ar itain, J , o n valu e o f me i ae val p h i
. d S
Ne o - ch o lastics, an d r isto tle , 1 44, 1 5 0, A
lo so p h y, 2 8 6
402 , 416
Mar iu s V
ictor in u s, ear l h r istian p h i y C Ner o , 2 34
lo so p h er , 2 99
Mar siliu s Of
I ngh e n , 47 9
Ne sto r ians , 29 4

Pd
M ar siliu s o f a u a, 45 6 , 482 , 49 4
N A
ich o las o f u tr e co u r t, cr itical sp ir it o f,
47 9
M ar sto n , Rg o er , y oun g er F r an ci scan
Nich o las o f C u sa, 48 1 ff; alle e gd
S ch o o l, 45 7
f
th e ism, 49 1 ; o n co i n cide nti a opp o s i
p an
Mar tian u s C p ll a e a, ear l y Ch r ist an i ph i f
to r u m 4 8 9 ; co mp o n e n ts o f h is p h i
lo so p h er , 299
,

los o p h y, 4 8 1 ; do cta ig n or antia 48 5 f

M atth e w o f Aq
u asp ar ta, cr iticism o f S t
,

T
h o mas, 449 ; th eo r of n o w le y k dg
.

ep iste mo lo ical g
ap r io r ism, 48 7 ff; in

45 7
e,
flu e n ce o n su cce e in p h ilo so p h er s, 49 4 ; d g
M au r er , A A , 4 16 , 420
f
li e , 48 1 ; o n man s f no w le e of
’
k dg
P
M au r ice a o r ter , 46 3
. .

Go d , 4 8 5 ; o n m sticism, 4 8 7 ; o n n atu r e y
o f G o d, 49 0 ; o n n atur e o f man , 49 3 ;
M ax imu s th e Co n esso r , a co mme n tato r o n f o n n atu r e o f o n e , 48 7 ; o n n atu r e f Of
P d A
se u o - r e o p a ite , 35 2 g k
no w le dg
48 8 ; o n n atu r e o f
M aximu s o f r e , p h ilo so p h Ty
of , 26 6 y se n se

so u l,
e,

48 8 ; o n n atu r e o f w o r l , 49 1 ; d
M ech anists, 2 9 ff
g
M e ar ian s, 5 7
th e o r y
of no w le k
e , 48 4 f f; o n th eo r dg y
Me ne dem, ocr atic SE lis-Er e tr i an ch oo l Of S Of p ar ticip atio n , 48 8 ; w r itin s, 4 8 3 g
57
,
Nich o las o f O r e sme , and n atur al scien ce ,
48 0
M en o eceu s, 2 5 4, 2 5 5
M eno n, an o l er e r ip ate ti c, d
2 13 P N P
ich o las o f ar is, me iae val lo ician , 45 2 d g
d
M e th o iu s, 2 9 5
Nico mach u s o f er asa, a Ne o G th a o r ean , -
Py g
26 6
Me tr o do r u s o f amp sacu s, an ear l Ep i L y Ni co str atu s , p h ilo so p h of , 26 6 y
cu r e an , 2 45

y
M e er , H , 300, 4 1 0, 414, 446
N z
i e ts ch e , a so lu te b
r e lativ is t, 20; on

M ich ael co tu s, 37 9 S
.

P ar me n i es, 2 3 d
M i ledd P fl P Nig id iu s Fig u lu s, a NeO th a o r ean, 2 6 6 -
Py g
lato n ists, in u e n ce o n
y
atr istic
No min alists, 47 9
p h ilo so p h , 2 9 5 f N d
o r en , E , 2 6 6
M ilesian p h i lo so p h er s, 9 ff
.

F
M inu ciu s eli x , apo lo ist an d p h ilo so p h e r , g Nu me n iu s o f A
p ame a, p h ilo so p h of , 26 6 y
d
2 9 1 ; attitu e to w ar an cien t p h ilo so ph , d y
2 9 0 ; e ar l y C
h r istian p h ilo so p h er , 2 9 9 Oc kh am William o n
, , i
e x p e r en ce as so ur ce

J
M ir e co u r t, o h n , no min alist, 47 9 Of k no w le dg
47 5 ; li e and w o r s,
e, f k
g
M o n tai n e , 49 4 47 3 f ; n o min alism o f , 47 5 ; o n o mni f
Mu ciu s S caevo la 1 32 , 2 1 8 p o te nce of G od , 47 7 ; o n pr imacy o f f
 I NDE X O F NAM E S 501
i d i id l 47 6 f ;
n v ua l i , p bl m P h id f Eli
so u t o n d Eli E to i S h l ro e a o o s, an s- r etr an c oo ,

fo i l 47 5 ; h
u n ve r sa s , y Of k w l dg 57 t eo r no e e,

47 5 ff; w ill f G d 47 8 f
on Ph ilip f M d i 134
o o o ace o n a,

Ph il p f Op 6 5 132
,

Od o fT i o d p bl m f u r n, i an l ro e o u n v er sa s , i o u s, ,

36 5 Ph il f Al d i ll g i l i p o o ex an r a, a e o r ca n te r re

Oli i P J h 45 7
v e ter o n, i f ligi 26 8 ; p fm tat on o re on, co n ce t o at

26 8 ; i fl ly Ch i i
,

O lymp i d 27 8
o o r u s, ter , n u en ce on ear r st an s,

O gri i
e n , o n cr eat o n , 302 ; Gd 29 1 ; i fl on P i i ph il ph y
o
’
s esse n ce , n u e n ce s on atr st c o so ,

3 02 ; h L g on 304 ; p h ilt e ph i l o 29 5 ; o s, Gd 26 8 ; pp
o so h ca on o
’
s n atu r e , ra r oc e

imp 2 9 8 ; p h il
o r tan ce , ph i l i w m b w H ll i m d J d i m
o so ca v e s en t et ee n e en s an u a s ,

f 29 1 ;
o , l Sp i i 306 ; on so u 26 7 ; p l i
as h L g
r t, 26 8 on s ecu at o n on t e o o s,

i
un on f b dy d o l 30 7 o Ph il f L i
an so u , p i f N w o o ar ssa, re r e sen tat ve o e

O ph i d i 6 f ; d Py h g
r c octr n e , 14 A d my 2 5 9 an t a o r as, ca e ,

O tto f F ii g o d i d i
re s n f P h il d m an fG d n tr o ly Epi
u ct o n o o e us o a ar a, an ear cu r ean ,

A i li l gi i G m y 373
,

r sto te an o c2 45 nto er an ,

O f d
x or h l f 38 4 f
, sc oo o , Ph il l i m d m mb o au s, an c ent astr o n o er an e er

f ld Py h g b h h d 14 o o er t a o r e an r ot er oo ,

P h ym
ac 35 0 er es , Pi d ll Mi d l 494 co e a r an o a,

P i
an ae t u s f Rh d d o h i l Pl 6 1 E; h b l 8 8 PE; g i
o e s, an catec e t ca ato , on t e a so u te , a a n st

h l f Al
sc oo d i 29 1 ;
o imm ex an P g r a, 59 ll g y f h
on C or r o ta o r as, , a e or o t e ave,

li y
ta t 2 30 ; p i f m iddre l 8 7 f ;
r esen tat v e A i h 5 8 ; p
o i i m f e on nt st e nes, a r or s o

d wi h K
, ,

S 47 f to a, 82 ; d p i i co n tr aste t an t, an a r or

P l 49 4
ar ace su s, h 79 ; b i f p i i m 79 f ; tr u t s, as s o a r or s , on

P m id
ar en gm e s, g i b mi g ar u b i f
e n ts 12 0 f ;
a a n st bi g dg d e co n as s o state , on e n an oo ,

70 f; d B 337 f ;
,

24 b i g l ; i 22 ;
e n dW h
a o ne s, hico ntr aste p f it an o et u s, co n ce t o

y 6 1; d wi h A i
fi
H li
er ac 2 5 f; f m tu s, p i p h il p
or eh o st re r ese n tat v e o so , co n tr aste t r s

f E l i p h il
o e at cp h y 22 ; id i yo so f l 1 45 ; m l g y onf 1 2 1 ff ;
en t i i t o to t e , co s o o o , er t

i m f S ph i 42 d i l i
,

h gh
t ou d b i g 23; t an e n on f 89 ;
s en s e ex c s o o sts, a e ct cs o ,

gi l p i i m 7 8 f ;
,

p i 2 5
e r e n ce , ; i y f b i g 2 3 ff
on p i m
un l t o e n ; e ste o o ca a r or s , on
d
,

h w y Of i i 22 ff 2 6 f l 1 0 1 H d m
“
t e n on, ; e sse n ce o so u an eu ae on
p a o , ,

P l B 332
asca i m 7 3 f; i f G d 1 2 7 11 ; s , on ex sten ce o o ,

f m i f w ld 12 2 H; f m
, .
,

P asc h i R db
as u s d C l gi
a e r tu s, an ar o i n an on or at o n o or , on or s

R i en a ssan ce , 35 6 f 1 1 7 ff; f d A d my 6 2 o state , ou n s ca e ,

P i i ph l ph y b gi i g f 29 8 ff
atr st c i o so ,
G d 12 7 if;
e nn n G d s A h yp /
o , ; on o , on o as n ot z e

chi f e pi toi d i 300 ff;

cs co n ta n e 9 1; G d n, d m 1 30 f on to n , on o an an ,

i
cr e at o n ,302 f ; mp h i iy i e Gd as s 1 29 ;on un h g d t n on o
’
s essen ce , on t e oo ,

d h d i m 72 if;
,

di id li y
v uad b i li y f h
t an 5 7 ff; su stan t a t H o li t e an e on s , on er ac

id mb
,

l 306 ; d f 35 1 f ; f 1 8 f; 94 if; tu s, on nu
'

so u en o on esse n ce o e as as er ,

l y 1 1 0 f; i fl d by
, ,

G d 30 1 f ;
o i f G d 30 1 on imm
ex sten ce o o ; on o r ta i t , n u en ce

li y Py h g d i 62 ; i fl
, ,

on imm 307 ; h
o r ta Lg t on t e o o s, t a o r e an octr n e s, n u en ce on

A i l 1 6 7 f; i fl P i i
,

303 f f; m l h i g 30 8 f ; or a l teac n s, on re a r sto t e , n u en ce on atr st c

i t on b w f i h d k w l dg
et e en p h il
a t p h y 29 4 f ; i fl
an no S i e e, o so , n u e n ce on to cs ,
300 f ; f 2 9 3 If so u r ces hi g o22 6 ; d i id ; 79 ; te ac i p nd on an nn ate eas , as nter r e te

by N Pl i 270 f ; l f 6 1 H;
,

m 305 ;
an , h g h l 30 6 f
te ac in on t e so u eo - ato n sts, i e,

Lg f d i l b i fb i g
,

P l S
au , h t igh
.
, f on l t e r ts o n atu r a r easo n , on o o s as ou n at o n a as s o e n ,

29 0 9 0 f; m 99 H; m on
’
an s n atu r e , on atte r ,

P l
e ste r , A 38 1 1 2 5 if; m i g f id 92 11 ; on ean n o ea, on

mi d h 7 8 f;
,

P g m S h l 27 8
.

er a on c oo f d h n as so u r ce o tr u t , an t e
P l 2
,

e r i c es , m d i lligibili 8 4 ff; h un us nte s, on t e

P ip i O ld 2 13 f igi f m
er ate t cs, er , f ; h or 7 6 H; n o bj i te r n atu r e o tr u t , on o ect v e

li y f id
,

135 ; p i ip l f 26 2 ff
r nc es o 8 2 ff; h d r ea t o eas, on t e o n e an
P A l 47 9 h m y 9 1 f; igi l 1 00 f ;
,

e te r u r eo u s, f t e an , o n or n o so u ,

P e ter D mi S a pp an , ph t igi o f 1 12 ; p
o si ti o n i ip i
to i on or n o state , ar t c at o n

y f k wl dg 8 1
.
,

l ph y
o so 38 0 ; p h il , ph y h h d d h o so t e ph i an an t eo r o no e e, , on

m d f h l gy 2 8 2 f
ai o t eo o l ph
”
ki g 1 1 5 f; pl i o so er n s, on easur e n
P J h Ol y g F m l lif d p bl m
,

e te r o n I VI , h oun 7 2 H;
er r anci scan t e or a e, an ro e

S h c l 45 7oo , f il 75 f ; p bl m f il 1 2 9 f ; o ev , on ro e o ev ,

P e te r f Sp i o (P p J h X XI ) m d a n o Py h g e o 1 4;
n d Py h g e i on t a o r as, an t a o r ean s,
f id
,

aeval l g 45 3 o i ci an , 95 d l h 8 4 ff an r ea c ar acter o e as, ;

Ph d ae r u s, ly Epi an 245 e ar lg 1 31 ;
cu r e an , d i 8 6 f; d on r e i i on, an sc e n ce , an
502 I NDEX or NAM E S
i
se n sat o n , 77 f; on se n sat o n i an d r ea Py h g g
t a o r as, h ar acter o f, 13 ; and
e n er al c f
so n in g 8 0 ; o n se n se f no w le e as k dg O ph i d i
r c octr ne s, 1 4

Py h g b d d
,

o p inio n , 8 2 ; o n so u l as p r incip le o f t a o r ean r o th e r h oo , o l e r , 1 4; tw o

f
li e , 1 03 ff; o n so u r ce o f no w le e , k dg d i i
te n e nc es n, 1 4 ; y o u n er , l 4 f f g
1 5 4 ; on th e so u r ce o f tr u th , 77 E c o n Py h g
t a o r e an s , co mp ar e with M ilesian s, d
sp ace an d time , 126 ; o n th e state , f 1 7 ; o n e v o lu tio n o f w o r l , 1 6 f; in d
y
1 12 H; th eo r o f i eas 8 2 if; o n tr an s d flu en ce o n O ld ca em , 1 32 ; in A d y f
P fl S
,

migatio n o f so u ls, 105 H; o n tr ip ar tite fl u e n ce o n lato , 62 ; in u ence o n to ics,

natu r e o f so u l, 1 0 1 f; o n u n ch an e a le g b 22 5 ; metap h y sics of, 1 6 if; an d lato , P
ch ar acte r o f inte lle ctu al no w le e, 8 2 ; k dg f 95
o n u n io n o f o b dy
an d so u l, 99 ; an d f Py gth a o r e an Way o f i e 1 5 Lf , f
th e u niver sals , 36 5 ; an d W is o m, 8 6 ; d f Py th ias 1 35 ,

g
w r itin s o f, 6 3 H
P lato nism, see also lato , 2 7 0 ff, 303 P ,
R l fB
ao u o r ittan y , 45 6
30 8 , 31 7 , 32 0, 326 , 328 , 332 , 339 , f Raph ael 9 7 ,

35 0—35 1, 35 2 , 39 7 , 41 7 , 418 , 42 3, 435 ,

Ratr ammu s , an d Car o li n g i an R i
e n a ssan ce,

460, 47 6 , 48 1 , 4 8 2 , 49 1 35 7
P lo tinu s, co n cep t o f emanati o n 273 ; f Rg d
e in al of ip er n o , h o mist, 45 1 P T
e th ical th o u h t o f, g
2 77 ; o n f
,

Gd ’ R z
e it en stei n , 29 5 f

n atu r e, 2 7 2 ; in u e nce o n f fl
o s

atr i stic P Remigr o de ir o lami, 449 G

y
ph ilo so p h , 2 9 6 ; li e , 2 7 1 ; o n matter f f Rh ab an u s M au r u s, an d ar o lin ian enais C g R
b
an d th e se n si le w o r l , 2 7 6 f; o n th e d R
san ce , 35 7

of Mid dd y g F
N o u s, 2 7 5 ; o n th e O n e , 2 7 2 , 2 7 6 ; f ich ar
S
ch o o l, 45 7
leto n o u n er r anciscan ,

g
wr itin s o f, 2 7 2
Ro scelin o f o mp ie ne no min alist, 36 5 C g
P lu tar ch , p h ilo so p h o f, 26 6 y Ro w an , M , O P , 4 1 5 , 4 1 6
,

P o incar é, H , o n th e co n tin u it
. o f h u man y R z
u p er t o f De u t , 46 6
. . .

g
th o u h t, v iii
R yb k J o h n , 47 1
P o lemo n , an d O ld A d y
ca e m , 132
u s r o ec ,

P yy
or ph r , o n g dfi
en u s, sp e cies, an d e n itio n ,
S l m ib G b i l 37 8
1 42 ; r en o w ne d P
Neo lato n ist, 2 7 8 -
a o

S h z M 49 4
on n e ro ,

P o seido n iu s , o n immo r talit , 2 30 y anc e

S p i 2 6 1 262 29 3
ce t cs,
, .
,

P o se ido n iu s o f Ap amaea, r ep r e sen tative of

, ,

dd S
mi le to a, 2 1 7 f
S h l M 332 435
c e er , .
, ,

S h lli g F 48 9
c e n , .
,
P r an tl, 2 2 2
P fl S h l i m h 48 9
c e er ac er ,
r oclu s,

P
in u ence o f, 2 7 8 ; inter pr etatio n
lato nism, 2 7 8 ; Ne o - lato nist, f P S h l i i m d A i l 16 6 ;
c o ast c s p an r sto t e , co nce t
ly
,
o f Neo
d C

fi
-

f 35 3 if; 48 1 ff; an u sanu s ,

2 7 8 ; p h ilo so p h o f i e n ti t , y 27 8 f d y o

35 7 H;
,

d E kh 46 6 ; g ld
an g c ar t, o en
ear
a e,
,

P r odicu s, a o p h ist,S 40 ; o n r e li io n , 44 g 37 5 H 3 8 4 ; m h d f 35 3 f ; d et o o an
P r o sp er o f A
q u itaine , an d eve lo p men t o f d se u
,

P d A p gi 349 ; d S Alb
o- r eo a te , an
,

t. e r t,
Bo o k: ofS e ntences 35 2 A lm 36 1 6 ; d S
fi
,
39 6 ; d S an t n se an t
P g Ab d
. .
,

r o ta or as of er a, on th e ar t of Th m 400 PE; d S
o as, 45 7 H; an co tu s,
r h e to r ic, 41 ; man th e measu r e o f all
“

pi i
s f 35 4
r t o
th in s, g ”
40 ; n o u n iv er sal tr u th s, 42 ; S ip i A f i
c o Mi
,

2 17 2 1 8
r can u s no r ,
on r e lati v it of yno w le e, 59 k on dg Sco tu s, f i h d k w l dg 45 9 ;
on a t an no
,

e e,
gr e li io n , 44
g l h en er a f 45 7 f ; c Gd ar acter o on o
’
s
P d A
se u o -
g
r e o p a ite, Dio n siu s, o n cau salit y y , i
ex sten ce , 463 ; i d i id i 46 1 ; on
,

n v u at o n,
f f
35 0 ; o n o u n atio n o f ein , 347 H; d b g lif d w k 45 8
e an p im y f w ill or s, on r ac o
Gd
,

on o s n atu r e , 347 ; o n G o d as so u r ce
’

46 0 ; h y f k w l dg 46 1 f ;
t eo r o no e e, on
o f all th in s, g
347 ; imp o r tan ce o f, f i i y f b i g 462 f
u n voc t o e n
346 ; in u ence o n fl ich o las o f C u sa, N Sl
e e u cu s f S l i h o Cp i f
e eu c a,
,

t e o e r n cu s o
4 8 6 ; in te r p r etatio n o f th eor o f e mana y A iq i y 15
nt u t
tio n , f
34 8 ; o n p r ocess io n o f th in s g Se n e ca, p i ref l S 21 8 ;
,

r e sen tat ve o ater toa,

fr o m G o d, 34 8 ; an d r etu r n o f w o r l f d on U i lR 2 33 f
n ver sa e aso n ,
to Go d , 35 1 ; an d ch o las ticism, 349 ; S f Sex tu s Emp i i p i 26 2 r cu s, sce t c,
on th eo r y
o f p ar ti cip atio n , 348 , 35 0 f Sig f B b
et o hi f l m f hi
r a an t, c e e e en ts o s

P to le maiu s o u , 6 0 Lg ht ou gh 45 3 f ; G d 45 4; lt, i w on o , ater v e s

P to lem y of L
u cca , h o mist, 45 1 T f 45 5 f ; m
o , p y h i m 45 5 o no s c s ,

Sigi m d f Ty l 48 3
s un o ro

S im f F h m 45 6
,

on o ave r s a ,
5 04 I NDEX or NAM ES
43 1 ff; on so u r ce f o 405 if; k n o w le dg e, William o f Au xer r e 36 3 , , 39 4
o n so u r ce ; o n speci es ex
o f law , 45 f William o f Ch ampeau x , and p r o le m b o f
f
pr essa 437 ; o n species inte lligibilis u n iv er sals,
36 5
William o f Co n ch es, an d me iaeval h u d
, ,

436 f; o n speci es fem 436 ; o n

b
su stan ce , 4 1 6 H; o n su stan tialit
—
of b y ”

man ism, 37 2
so u l, 432 ; teleolo g f of 423 H; o n y William de la M ar e , o ppo smo n to S t
y g F
,

f y T y S
.

th eo r o f illu min atio n , 405 ; o n th eo r h o mas, 45 0 ; o u n er r anciscan ch oo l

k dg y
,

of n o w le e, 404 if; and th eo r of 45 7

par ticip atio n , 4 1 4 ; o n tr an scen en tals d bk
William o f Moer e e , tr an slator o f r is A
of b g
e in , 41 4; o n u n io n o f sou l and to tle , 38 0
o b dy
, 433 H; o n valu e, 444 ; o n valu e William o f S h yr esw ood , me iaeval lo d
o f sen se n o w le k dg
e , 406 ; o n v ir tu e as g ician , 45 2
valu e , 443 ; w r itin s, 40 1 f g Wite lo , 3 89
T Y k
h omas o f o r , ch ie view s o f 3 8 8 f Wo dh am, Ad
am, n o min alist, 47 9

C
,

Th o mists , sch oo l o f, 45 1 Wo lff, h r istian, 15 9

Th r asyllu s, p h ilo so ph o f, 26 6 y
Th r asymach u s , a op h ist, 4 1 S X en o cr ate s, 1 23, 1 32
Tirno n o f P h liu s, a r r h o n ic scep tic, Py X en o p h an es, cr itiq u e o f an cien t myth o lo
z 16 f gie s, 2 1 ; fi
r st o f th e E le atics , 2 1 ; h is

g
in si h t in to th e asic u n it bo f th e y
Ulp i an , 2 34 d
w o r l , 2 1 ; a p an th eist, 2 1
Ul i h r c o f S b
tr as o u r g , 39 5 , 399 S
X en o p h o n , on ocr ates, 49

V ale n tine , gno stic, 29 8 Zeno , 26 ff; gm gi m i

ar u e n ts a a n st ot on ,

V an S teenb er gh en , 45 4 27 ; f d f di l i 27
o un er o a ect cs ,

V imp t n
ar r o , f 26 1 or a ce o Zen o f Ci i m f
o d f ly S
t u ou n er o e ar toa ,
li y 2 2 9 ;
, ,

Vi t in N —Pl t ni m
c or es , ee a o s o f, 37 4 2 17 ; imm
on o r ta
n l t , on atu r a

Vi gil 246
r l w 2 33
a ,

V tt i F n i Th mi t
,

i o r a, ra c s, o s , 45 1 Ze no f S id
o ly Ep i
o n, 245
an e ar cu r e an ,
 TO P I C AL INDEX

abili y d m l g d i Pl 6 8 ; d
t an or a oo , n ato , an ap r ior i, by in r isto tle , 1 49 f
natu r e , A
d di g i S g C
,

un e r stan n 5 4; d n o cr ates, an apr io r ism, ep iste mo lo ica l, in u san u s

P T
,

i Pl 67 f
,

i
v r tu e , n ato , 4 8 7 ff; in lato , 7 8 ff; in S t h o mas
b i i A i l 1 55 If; i S
.
,

a str act o n , n r sto t e , n t . 407 ff

B 393 ; d g
o n av en tu r e , f i S e r ees o , n t . ap io r ism, e th ical, in S t
r u u stin e 33 1 f; . Ag
T
,

Th m 406o as, in S t h o mas, 44 1 f

.

accid i
ent, A b l d 36 7 ; i A i l
n e ar , n r sto t e , ap r io r ism, P
lato nic, an d r isto te lian ah A
142 ; d b an mi g 17 2 ; d
e co g y n , an cate or , str actio n , 1 5 6 f

414; h as 17 6 ;
c d bj
an ce , f an su ect o ur clz é se e, fi
r st p r incip le
j dgm
u 1 45 ;
en t, d b 16 1 an su stan ce , , ar ete s e e vir tue
,

4 16 f ar isto cr ac , in y A
r isto tle , 2 12

i
act o n , m l i S A g i or a 331 f n t . u u st ne , ar t an d
, A
r isto tle , 1 5 2 in e u catio n, 1 13 ; °
d
A i l 15 5 1 8 5
,

i
act v e i ll nte i ect, n r sto t e , , ; an d e n d, 1 7 8 ; an d i e a i n lato , 9 1 5 ; d P
A i l 186 ; i S g d S
,

origi f i
n o , n r sto t e , n t . an d mo r al oo , in o cr ates , 5 4 no r m
°

Th m 408 436 f
o as, ,
of , 1 14 ; an d S t T
h o mas, 42 4 .

i
act v e lif f S i e, 236or to cs, ar ts, acu ltf y b
o f li e r al, 45 2 f; li er al, in b
i i y
act v t , i i d S
ar t st c, 5 4; d an ocr ate s, an P f
lato , 1 1 3 , 1 1 5 ; an d th e u n iver sities ,
S i 236 f
to cs , 38 4
act an d p y i A i l 1 74 if; i S
o te n c n r sto t e , n t . asce ticism , Py g
th a o r e an , 1 5
y
,

Th o mas 4 l 9 f aseit , in r isto tle A 1 9 4; in lato , 129

, P
Th T
,

actus h u mani n atur e o f, in S t . o mas , in S t h o mas, 42 8

.

S
,

443 f asse n t ( ap p r o v al , i n
) to ics, 2 2 1
actu s p Go d, in S t
a r as , h o mas, 420 . T astr o n o m y
in e u cation , 1 14 ; an d
, d lato , P
ae tio o l gy
, in S t
h omas, 42 5 . T 63
affectio n s, see w ill, emo tio n s atar axy amo n
, th e g
r r h o n ic scep tics Py
f d f
,

ag e r e s e q u itu r 1 79 f 2 62 r ee o m r o m p assio n , for Ep i

°
ess e ,

fi
ai r , as r st p r in cip le , 13 cu r e an s , 2 5 4

g y
alle o r , an d Bb
i le, in h ilo , 2 6 8 P ath e ism, an sw er to , 12 9
; an d ar n ea e s , f C d
b
am itio n , and h app ine ss, lato , 1 08 P ‘

2 6 0 ; an d Ep icu r ean s, 2 5 3 ; and lato P

A
,

an alo gy , in r isto tle , 1 6 0 ; in S t h o mas, f . T 1 31 ; an d P r e S o cr atics, 12 8 -

413 f ato m, o f Demo cr itu s, its n atu r e

, 33 f
an cient p h il o s o p h , o u r p e r io s y f
of ,
2 ; d fl
ato mism, in u en ce o n E icur e an s
p 2 49
Ag
,

imp o r tance o f, 1 f; so u r ce s o f 2 f b
attr i u tes o f G o d , in S t u u s tin e , 32 0 f .

A nh ypo th eto n G o d as, in lato , 9 1 , 1 2 8 ; P au tar ch , y S

ocr atic i e al o f , 57 f d
d d fi P S
,

u n co n itio n e r st pr in cip le , in lato , au th o r it , in y ch o lasticism, 35 4 f

88 f au to mato n in Ep icu r e an s, 2 5 1
,

ap ath , y S to ic co n cep t o f, 2 3 8 f y
au to n o m , in eg o , in S t u u stin e , 32 7 . Ag
Apeir o n see th e o u n le ss an d th e B d aver sio n , in p ar t o f so u l, in lato , 102 P
gy T
,

U n limite d axio lo , in S t h o mas, 425 .

d y g A A
fi
apo icti c, s llo ism, in r isto tle , 14 8 ax io ms, an d scien ce , in r isto tle , 1 5 3
A
fi
ap o r ia, and r isto tle , 1 5 7 ; in cr e atio n ,
f
1 26 ; an d th e oo , in lato , 8 6 ; p h i g d P b e ati c v isio n , in S t u g u stin e, 3 1 6 . A
lo so p h ical di cu lty, in lato , 64 ; an d P f b d
eatitu e , in th is lif e , in lato , 1 1 1 P
Plo tin u s, 2 7 4 ; in p s ch o lo , 1 03 f y gy b e au ti fu l, an d cau salit , in se u o - r eo y P d A
ap o st r io r i, ep istemo lo ical, in S t h o mas , g T p agite , 35 0; and e th ics, in r isto tle , A
§
.

40 f
2 02 ; an d th e o o , in lato , 7 3, 8 5 g d P
ap p e tite , an d h ap p in e ss, lato , 7 4 P b eco min , g A
r isto tle s so lu ti o n o f
p r o lem,
’
b
ap p etitiv e acu lt , f an d th e yoo , 73; g d fi
1 7 0 ; as r st p r in cip le o f all th in s, 19 ; g
an d h app in ess, lato , 6 9 ; in P
an t, 2 28 ; K b
p r o lem o f, 1 8 f f; pr o lem o f, an d act b
s e e als o co n atio n an d p o ten c , 1 7 6 y
ap p r o p r iati o n , S
to ic co n ce p t o f, 2 3o f b g f
ein , o u n a tio n o f , d
in S t l er t, 39 7 ; . Ab
5 06 TO P I CAL I NDE X
fo un d atio n in se u o o f,
r eo p a ite , P d A g -
1 5 6 ff; r isto tle s A
no tio n of 1 40 H;
’

g d P f g
,

347 if; and o o , in lato , 7 0 ; o r i i an d i e a, in d lato, 92 ; and u ment, P j dg

nal me an in of, fo r g
r isto tle , 16 1 ; A f
144 ; and to ics, 2 2 1 S f
Par men i es d
co n cep t o f
’

, 22 ; p r incip les co n co r , in d to icism, 2 37 S

of , in S t . T
h o mas, 4 1 6 ff; p r o p e r ties b f, co n cu r r e n ce , i n S t h o mas, 405 T
T y
.

in S t h o mas, 4 13 H; and r ealit , in

. d f
co n u ct, o f li e , in Ep icu r e an s , 2 5 6 , 2 5 7 ;

St T
h o mas, 4 1 1 ; as se l —i entical, 2 2 ; f f d P
in lato , 1 0 8
y S
.

u n ivo cit of , in co tu s , 46 2 ; an d valu e , f j

co n e ctu r e , C in P
u san u s, 48 6 ; in lato ,
in S t . T
h o mas, 440
Bib le , and ph ilo so p h , in h ilo o f lex y P A i d f
co n sc e n ce , d m 283; d l w an r ee o , an a ,

d
an r ia, 26 7 f 2 33 446 ; ,d L g 304 ; d m an o os, an or

b f
e lie , Ep icu r ean , 2 5 3 ; in E r iu gen a, 35 9 ali y 308 44 1 f
t , ,

P
in lato , 8 2 i i
co n sc o u sn ess , A i l 18 1 3 i n r sto t e , ; n

b ellu m o mniu m in S o phi sts, 45 D m i e 33 ; i Plo cr103 f ; i S

tu s, n ato , n t .

b dy P f A g i 3 1 4; i S Th m 44 1 ;
,

o an d so u l, in lato , 99 ; in S t . u u st n e , n t . o as,

Ag B
,

u u stine , 32 5 f; in S t o n av e n tu r e , . str ea m of, 32 7

39 4 ; in S t h o mas, 433 ff T co nse nsu s co mmu nis 222 30 1 ,

Ab d 36 8 f;
,

A f d
.

B d
o u n less , th e , in r isto tle , 19 1 ; as r st fi co n se n t, an d r ee o m in e lar

f S i
, ,

p r in cip le o f ein , 1 2 b g or to cs, 2 40

i i
co n st tu t o n s, i o f S
A i l 2 13 tate s, n r sto t e ,

cano n ics, Ep icur ean lo ic, 2 46 g co n temp l i i E kh

at o n , 46 9 ; i h n c ar t, n t e

cap r ice , and r ee o m, in f d

to ics, 242 f S F h at 2 99 ; i
e r s, Pl 1 10 f ; i S n ato , n t .

catalepsz s and S
to ic cr iter io n o f tr u th , Th m 4 1 0 444; d w i d m 37 3
o as, , an s o ,

i g y i A i l 19 4; d i
,

220 f co n t n en c , n r sto t e , an ex s t

g
cate o r ie s , in S t h o mas, 4 1 4 f T e n ce f G d 1 2 8 f 42 7 f;
o o d m, , an an ,

y A 305 f ; i P l
.

cau salit , in n ax a o r as, 39 ; fo r Ep i g 89 n ato ,

cu r e an s, 2 5 0 f; and ex iste nce o f G od , i

co n t n u u m d C , 48 1
an u san u s,

f
1 2 3 , 1 93, 42 7 ; and in te lli e nce , 1 24 ; f g co n tr act, d h S an i Ai l t e tate , n r sto t e ,

P
in lato , 8 9 if; p r incip le o f, in r isto tle , A 2 07 ; h y f i Pl 1 12
t eo r o , n ato ,

f
1 7 2 ; p r incip le o f, in S t h o mas, 42 1 f; . T co n tr ad i i p i ip l f i A i l
ct o n , r nc e o , n r sto t e ,

P d
in seu o -Ar eo p a ite , 35 0 f g 1 45 f f; i C 4 89 f ; i E kh
n u sanu s, n c ar t,

cau se , see e fli cie n t, n al, o r mal, an d fi f 47 6 ; i S T h m n 407 ft . o as,

mater ial cau ses i i

co n tr t o n , an d S i 2 37 to cs,
cav e , alle g y or 87 f
of in Pl ato , i i
co n v ct o n , m i g f f S ph i e an n 41 ; o , or o sts ,

d d d f S i
,

ce r titu e , ap r io r i, 7 9 ; in i e al o r e r , 7 9 , or 22 1
to cs ,
9 6 f; an d sen se p er ce p tio n , 7 7 f mi l w i S i 2 43
co s c a n to cs,
Ag
,

ch an ce , in Ar istitle 1 7 8 ; fo r Ep icu r eans f , mi p

co s c i Sr ocess, 322 f n t . u u sti n e ,

S i 241
,

f
2 5 0 ; in lato 8 2 P ,
mi
co s c i
r easo n , n to cs,
y
ch ar it , and liss , in S t bh o mas 444 f . T , mi
co s c l dso u i , 1 22 H; i
an cr e at o n , n
c k o r is mo s in A
r i s to tle , 9 7 ; in
,
lato , 9 7 , P Pl 7 6 ; i P l i 27 7
ato , n o t n u s,

m g y
co s o f A
on g , o39 f ; f A n ax a o r as, o n
Ch urc h, an d S Th o mas, 44 8
tate , in St . ax im d 12 f;
an f Emp d l
er , 31 o e o c es , ;
y
clar it , as cr ter i o n o f tr u th , 22 0 f
i , 25 9 f of Py h g 16 f
t a o r ean s ,
classe s , o n to o of l gy
, 3 49 , 35 7
m l gi l p
co s o o f f i
ca fG d
r oo , or ex ste n ce o o ,

co i na d en tz a o pp o s ito r u m lo ical, in ich ,

g N 42 7
o las o f C u s a, 48 9 f; o n to lo ical, in g m l gy f P l
co s o o 12 1 f
, f o ato ,

N ich o las o f Gu sa, 4 89 m

co s i
o s, A im d 12 ; d
n nax an er , an cr ea

co mmo n n atu r e , a acu lt , in r isto tle , f y A i

t on , i Pl 9 4 1 2 2 1 23 12 8 ;
n ato , d , , , an

1 8 4 ; in S t T
h o mas , 4 1 7 , 435 G d 19 7 ; m
o i g f f Py h g ean n o or t a o r eans ,
A
.
, ,

co mmo n w e alth , in r isto tle , 2 12 7; igi or f i O ph n 7;

o d Ph il
, n r i es , an o,

co mmu n it , of y
o o s, g d
6 5 ; o f i e as, 9 2 , d 26 8 ; d S i an 226 to cs,
1 1 5 ; w ill to , 20 8 ; o f w o men , 6 5 , f i
cr e at o n , i P i i ph il
n p h y 302 f ; i
atr st c o so , n
1 1 5 , 2 09 S t A g i 32 1 11; i S Th m
. u u st ne , n t . o as,

co mplicatio , an d ivin e min , 4 8 8 d d f 4 30

co mpo situ m, su stan ti al b
u n io n , in S t . y i i m d h i 235 ; d lif 223
c n c s , an et cs, an e, ;
T h o mas, 434 or igi f i A i h
n o , 58; n d S i r st en e s , an to cs ,
co natio n , in man , 1 8 5 ; in p s ch o lo y gy i

, 1 03 2 17, 2 19 H
an d v ir tu e , 204 ; and w ill, in to ics, S
22 8 g
Decalo u e, p r ecep ts o f in Oc h am, 47 8 f , k
co ncept, and elar ; and Aba str actio n , d b in S t . T
h o mas, 442 ; in co tu s, 45 9 f S
5 08 TOP I CAL INDEX
A n se l m 36 3 ; an d tr u th , in Pl l me n ts as, 29 f; h o mo io mer ies as ,
g8 f
t ato , e e

f b T
.
,

37 ; nu m er as, 1 6 ; o f h ales, 1 0 ;
eter n al law , in S t u u stin e , 329 f Ag d
u nco n itio n e , in d P lato , 8 8 E, 128
y A
.

e ter n t i , in Bo e th iu s, 343 ; in St u us . Ag fi b
r st su stance , f or r isto tle , 1 6 1 5

tin e , 323 ; o f th e wo r l in S t h o mas d . T , b g f

flu x, an d e in , 1 8 , 30 ff; and o ctr in e d
Ag
,

431 d
o f i eas, 9 6 ; an d S t u u stin e, 3 1 4 .

e th ical p r in cip le , f or to ics, 2 30 f f S fo r m, in A r isto tle , 1 6 5 ; in Aven ce b r o l,

e th ics , an dAb d e lar , 36 8 f A
f; in r isto tle , f
37 8 ; and b g e in , inA r isto tle , 160 ,
k
1 9 8 ff; in Ec h ar t, 46 0 ff; o f Ep icu r ean s, f
1 6 3, 1 6 5 ; in B oe th iu s, f
339 , 34 1 ;
'

P P
2 5 3 ff; o f lato , 7 0 if; in lo tin u s , 2 7 7 f; y
and e n te le ch , 1 73 ; an df g e n u s, 141 ; in

in S t Ag u u s tin e , 32 9 f f; in S t Th o mas , . G r o sse teste , f d

38 6 ; and i ea, 93 ; in
d P
.

S
439 H; o f to ics, 2 2 7 fl o l er e r ip ate tics , 2 1 4 ; an d p u r p o se , in

d
eu ae mo n ism, in A P
r isto tle , 1 9 9 ; in lato , A r isto tle , 1 7 9 if; in S t Ab l er t, 39 8 ; in .

f
7 3 ; in S t Ag u u stine , 332 ; in S t St Ag
. u u stin e , 324 H; in S t Bo nave n .

f T
. .

T h o mas, 445 ; in S ocr ates, 5 2 , 5 5 f; tu r e , 39 2 ; in S t h o mas, 4 1 7 H, 433 f .

and S to ic e th ics, 2 35 f in S o cr ates 5 1 ; in S to ics, 22 0 ; s u b

,

e vil, and G o d, in P f
lato , 12 9 ; a p r ivatio n , stan tial, 2 6 3 ; te leo lo gy of P
, in f
lato , 7 1 ,
in B b
o e th iu s , 345 ; p r o le m o f , in Bo e 91
f b
th iu s, 344 ; p r o le m o f, in P lato , 7 5 f fo r mal cau se , A
in r isto tle , f
1 66 , 17 3 H;
f d
e vo lu tio n , an d cr e ati o n , 324 ; and i ea, in in S t T .h o mas, 422 f
P lato , 9 3 fo ur e le men ts, d
o f Emp e o cle s, asfi r st

d d dd
ex clu e mi le , pr incip le o f, 1 5 3 p r in ciple , 29 f
ex emp lar , in B P
o e th iu s, 3 72 ; in lato , 1 2 3 ; f d
r e e o m in A , r isto tle , 1 8 5 , 2 05 H; in Bo e

in S t Ag u u stin e , 3 48 ; in S t
. T h o mas, . th iu s, 342 ; in Ep icu r eans, 25 1 ; in f
P f f S
fi
428 , 443 lato 1 07 , l 16 f; an d ate , fo r
, to ics ,
e x emp lar ism, in S t B o n ave n tu r e , 392 ; . 2 39 H; in S t Ag u u stin e, 330 ; in S t
. .

T y C
h ier r of h ar tr es, 37 2 T h o mas, 443
ex e mp lar y y
cau salit , 35 0, 42 4, 428 f d
r ie n sh ip d i eal o f in Ep icu r eans, 2 5 7 f
, ,

ex is te n ce o f G o d, in A f f
r isto tle , 2 2 5 , 2 6 7 , in P lato , 6 4 ; in Py g th a o r e an s , 1 5
f f
2 7 2 , 2 8 2 ; in P f
lato , 1 2 7 ; i n S t .

Ab l er t, 39 8 ; in S t A nse lm, 36 1 f1; . g e n u s, co n ce

p f i P m id t o 26 ; d, n ar en es, an

in S t Ag u u stine ,
. 1 38 11 ; in S tB o na . d fi i i i A i l 41 ; d f m
e n t o n, n r sto t e , an or ,

v en tu r e , f
39 2 ; in S t T f
h o mas, 420 , . i n S A g i 324 f ; d id i
t . u u st n e , an e a, n
f
434 , 438 ; inf S co tu s , 463 Pl ato ,89 f; d th i l i an e u n ve r sa n
A
,

exp er ime n t, in r isto tle , B

1 5 2 ; in aco n , A i l 16 5 f
r sto t e ,

fi
f
R , 1 8 6 ; in
. P lato , 8 6 ; in S t Ab l er t, . G d
o ,di l i l w y a ect ca 128 f ; a to , esse nce

39 8 of i , P i i ph il ph y 30 1 f ;
n atr st c o so , es

e xplicatio , in C u san u s, 49 1 ; in P lato , 8 9 se nce f i Pl Q . n f i ato esse n ce o n

?0 ff;
,

W
.

e, i e sse n ce o n
f l i f l i A i l 1 8 4 ff; St Th 42 8 H d l i Pl
g fM
acu t es o so u , n r s to t e , in . o ; an eV i , n ato ,

S t B . 39 3 f ; i S
o nav en tu r e , Th m n t. o as , l 192 f
ce o , e, ,

435 f ; i S i 227 n to cs, 3 1 8 11 ; f i E kh

ex i ste n ce 46 8 ; o n c ar t,

f i h d k w l dg i O kh m 47 8 f ; P i i p h l ph y
,

a t , an no e e, n c a , CX l S tCn CC f i o , n atr st c i o so ,

i n P i i ph il ph y 300 f ; i S
atr st c o so , n t . 30 1 ; i f i S
ex ste n ce A lm 26 1 f ; o , n t . n se ,

A lm 36 1 ; i S Th m 404 f ;
nse , n t . o as, i
ex ste n ce f i S Th m 426 11 ;
o , n t . o as,

i Sn 45 7 f f
co tu s, i
ex s ten ce f i S o 46 3 ; , f ll n co tu s , as u

fate , i B hi 342 ; i Ep i
n o et u s, n cu r ean s , n e ss f b i g i
o E kh e n 46 7 f ; , d n c ar t, an

25 1 f ; i S i 2 2 5 2 39 H
n to cs, ,
m P l 1 30 f ;
an, i n ato ,f i A i natu r e o , n r s

f i S i 229
e ar , n to cs , l
to t e , 19 4 ff; f i B hi n atu r e o n o et u s,

A g Ai C
,

fi l na i cau se , 39 ; i
n nax a o r as, n r s 338 f; f i
n atu r e 490 f ; o , n u san u s ,

7 1 ; i S Th m f i E kh

fi
l 179 f ; i Pl
to t e , n ato , n t . o as , n atu r e o , 46 6 f ; n f c ar t, n atu r e o ,

42 3 ff; i S i 23 1 n to cs, i E i g
n r u 35 8 ; e n a, f i G n atu r e o , n r o sse

r e, l m fe e Emp d l en t 29 ; i or e o c e s, n te s te , 38 6 f ; f i Ph il 26 8 ;
n atu r e o n o,

S i 223; ymb l f b mi g f P d A p g i 3 47 ;
,

to cs, s o o e co n or n atu r e f i o , n se u o- r eo a te ,
H er aclitu s, 1 9 n atu r e f i S o A lb 39 7 ; m ip
, n t . er t, o n
fi r s t cau se , see fi r st p r in cip le o te n ce f i O kh m 47 7 f ;
o n c a our

fi Ai
, ,

r st matter
in r sto t e , l 16 9 f k w l dg f i S B
no e e o 39 2 ; n t on ave n tu r e ,
y
,

A
,

fi
.

r st p h ilo so p h , in r isto tle , 1 5 8 as h O t e i Pl i ne, 2 72 f ; p h y i l

n o t n u s, s ca

fi r st p r incip le , of A n ax i menes , 13 ; be w y a i Pl
to , 12 7 f ;
n d p i
ato , an r eser vat o n

co mi n , 19 ; g th e b o un dless, 12 ; f our of w ld i S or Th m 430 f ; p

, n t
. o as, r o ce s
 TOP ICAL I NDE X 5 09
si o n o f th in g f s ro m in P d A p
seu h
o- d r eo a o r ne ar g u men t , o f Me g ar ian s , 57
d d Ag
,

git e, f
340 ; as p u r e act, 1 7 7 ; as p u r e h u mani sm, in M i le es , 2 8 5

g
th o u h t, in Ec h ar t, 46 6 ; r etu r n o f k f h u manitar ian ism, in to ics , 233 f S
wo r l d
to , in P d g
se u o Ar e o p a ite, 35 1 ; - h u man natur e , and mo r ality , in r i sto tle , A
so u r ce o f all th i n s g iP d
n s eu o -
Ar eo p a 1 99 ff
y k dg B d
,

g ite , 347 ; u pe r f S B g
e in , P in lo ti nu s ,
- h u milit , and n o w le e , in S t er n ar , .

2 7 2 ; asf U d
n co n itio n e dF P ir st r in cip le ,
37 3
P
in lato 89 , 9 1 ; as f U d
n mo v e M o ver , h yle se e matter
y y A g
,

Ok
,

1 5 9 , 1 7 6 f 1 92 f; w ill o f, in c h am, h lo mo r p h i c th e o r , in r is to tle , o r i in

f
,

47 8 ; w ill o f, as p r incip le o f mo r alit y ,

of , 1 6 5 H; i n S t h o mas, 4 1 7 . T
330 h ylo z msm, n atur e o f, 1 1
g d
o l e n mean in r isto tle 2 02 A h yp o kez me no n in to ics, 22 3 S
A
,

y f
,

g d B f y
,

o o , in oe th iu s , 339 ; an d co mmu n it h p o th esi s , in r isto tle , 1 49 , 1 5 3 ; i n

P P
,

in A
r isto tle , 1 9 8 if; i n E c h ar t, 46 8 f f; k lato , 8 8 , 93 ; in lo tin u s, 2 7 3 ff
i n Ep i cu r e an d
o ctr in e , 2 5 4 ; G od as in f ,

P lato , 9 1 , 129 ; i ea o f in d
lato , 8 5 if , P ,

f
8 9 , 9 1 ; and Ne w f ca e m , 2 1 6 ; O n e A d y i d ea s( ) co n ten ts an d
f, 2 4 ff; q u alities o

P
,

an d G od as , in lo ti n u s, 2 7 3 H; in d o ctr i n e of an d r i sto tle , A

15 7 , 1 6 3 ;
P d y A
,

n se lm d C f
”

seu o Dio n s iu s , 34 8 if; in S t

- . , octr ine of an d u s an u s , 4 8 7 ; and
A
,

362 ; in S t u g u stine , 32 6 , 329 11 ; i n k

Ec h ar t, 46 7 ; and Er iu gena, 35 8 ; ex f
T S
.

St h o mas, 440 if; in o cr ates , 5 2 ; in e mp lar y, in P

atr istic p h ilo so p h , 3 02 f, y
S b P
.

to ics , 2 30 if; su si ste n t, in lato , 6 7 Ff f g d

31 5 , 32 1 ; o f oo , in P lato , 7 0 ; o f
g f
r ace, e f e cts o f in Ec h ar t, 4 69 f k d i eas, in P lato , 8 0 f; an d mater ial
g d T
,

r a atio n , an d G o d St h o mas, 429 , . d

w o r l , in P lato , 1 0 4, 1 2 1 3 ; as n u m
gr ammar , an d te r m, S to ics, 2 22 b P
e r s, in bj k
lato , 9 4 and o ects o f no w l
g b dy
r ave , o as, 15 , 2 6 8 dg e P
e , in f
lato , 8 2 ; and O ld A d y ca e m ,

g m lt, co n sa o u sn e s s o f, in lato , 1 08 P d P
133 ; and o l er g
e r ip atetics , 2 1 4 ; o r i i n

dof o ctr ine o f P

9 6 an d h ilo , 2 6 8 ; an d
k gy
,

h abitu s pr incipz or u m in Ec h ar t, 47 1 f; , P f
lo ti n u s, 2 7 5 ; te leo lo P of in lato ,
T f y
,

in S t h o mas , 441
. f P
7 1 ; th eo r o f, in lato , 7 6 if; an d S t
S
.

h aecceitas in co tu s, 46 f T d
h o mas, 406 , 4 1 5 E, 430 ; w o r l o f, i n
A
,

h app in ess, in r isto tle , 19 8 H; i n Bo e P lato , 7 1

f Cy
fi
th in s, 344 ; in r e n aics, 6 0 ; i n E p i id l m ea i s d A b l d 36 5 an d A i l e ar ; an r sto t e ,
f
cur e an s, 2 47 ; P in lato , 1 0 8 f; in S t .

16 4; d R g
,

anB 38 8 ; d o er
,

aco n , an
Ag u u stin e , 33 1 T ; in S t h o m a s, 4 4 4 f; .
G 386 ;
r o sse te ste , d Pl 75 f 95 f an ato , ;
S S
in o cr ates, 5 2 ; in to ics , 2 5 5 if d Py h g
an 7 4; d S i
t a o r as , 22 0 an to cs ,
,

f d
h ate , eleme n tal o r ce s, in Emp e o cles , 30 id i y
en t t p h il ph y f 278 f 35 0 f ;
d A Cy
h e o nism, in r isto tle , 2 00 H; in r e n ai cs ,
ip l f
,

A l 145 ; p i p l
o so o , ,

f f P
5 9 ; in Ep icu r e ans , 2 5 3 ; in lato ,
p
f i
r i nc e

P m id 22 f ; p i ip l f
o , in r i sto t e , r n Ci e

f
7 2 if; in S o cr ate s, 5 2
o

d p
, n

i p i
ar

2 7 5 ; p i ip l
en

f i
es, r nc e o ,

S
h egemo n icu m, i n to ics , 2 2 8 f
an

Pl 8 0 9 7
ar t ci at o n , r nc e o , n

b
h e n ads, su p e r essen tial nu m e r s, in Neo
ato ,

d l( ) fR g B
,

P lato nists, 2 7 9
i

ll m
o s , o 38 8
y f d S Ag
o er aco n ,

hi a c ,
e r yr h b g o f e P d
in , yin s eu o -
Dio n siu s, i u h
i n ati o n ,

y f d S B
t eo r o , an t . u us

b g T
349 ; o f e in , i n S t h o mas , 4 1 5 , 42 5 ; i 3 1 5 f;
t ne , h t eo r
h o mas , y
o , an t
.

T
ona

A
.

39 3 ; th eo r o f, an d S t
ve n tu r e ,
o f v alu e , in r is to tle , 1 8 0 f, 1 9 8 f; o f
.

valu e , in E r iu ge n a, 35 7 f; o f v alu e , i n
40 5 f; th e o r of, y
var io u s in te r p r etatio n s

of f
P lato , 1 06 , 316 f

g S
h isto r icism, an d th e h i sto r o f p h ilo so p h , y y ima es, fo r Ep icu r e an s, 2 47 ; fo r to ics ,

Vii i
2 19
h isto r yf ph ilo so p h
o as y , p h ilo so p h , y vif; immater ialit o f so u l, y s ee so u l, imma
v f; an d ter iali ty o f
as a h i sto r ical scie n ce , n atu r e

v alu e o f , v ff immo r tality , in r i sto tl e , 186 ; an d A f

Hol y S p ir it in w e lli n of in Ec h ar t d g k O
r p h i e s, 6 f; in lato , 1 10 f; in atr istic P P
Ag
y
,
, ,

46 9 f p h i lo so ph , 3 07 ; in S t u u stin e , 328 f; .

h o moio mer ies as u ltimate e le men ts o f t e in S t . T

h o mas, 433
g i l fK
,

y
alit , 37 f imp er ati ve , cate o r ca , o an t, 441 f
P g imp e r at v es

fi
h o mo me ns u r a o f r o ta o r as 40 43
-
, , i S h i l 2 43
, to i c e t ca ,

d A d w ld i P l
,

h o no r , and eu ae mo n ism , in r i sto tle , an or , n ato , 89

19 9 imp u lses S i
, hi g 2 27
to c te ac n o n,
5 10 TOP I CA L I NDEX
in clin atio n , an d u u stinian Ag or a m lity th y eo r S
f, in co tu s, 46 1 ; th eo r o f, in
o f y
y
,

f S
333 ; and ocr atic e th ics , 5 6 S ocr ates, 5 0 fl ; th eo r of in to ics , S
y
,

d d A
in ivi u atio n , in r isto tle , 16 8 ; in co tu s , f S 2 19 11 ; th eo r o f, in y
h ales, 1 1 ; th eo r T
f
46 1 ; in S iger o f r a an t, 455 ; in S t B b . of , in Z
eno , 2 8 and v ir tue , in lato , P
T h o mas, 4 1 7 f f
6 7 ; and V i r tu e , in ocr ates, 5 3 if S
d
in u ctio n , in A
r isto tle , 1 47 , 42 2 f
d g
i n w e lli n of Hol p ir y S
it, an d E c h ar t, k law , d
ivine and n atu r al, 2 32 ; e ter nal, f
46 9
fi b 2 33 if; e ter nal, in S t
”

u u stin e ; 2 94 ; Ag
in n ite , th e , 1 92 ; a so r p tio n in , 49 3 ; in
.

e ter n al, in S t T
h o mas, 44 1 ; an d ate , f
k
.

Ec h ar t, 46 3 f
2 40 ; inte r n atio n al, in S t h o mas, T
T
h o mas, 41 2
.

T
,

i ns e nsibilia, in S t .
449 ; p r o p er ties o f, in S t h o mas, 447 ;
g
in si h t, mo r al, 2 0 4, 2 36 f, 2 55 n atu r al, in S t T
h o mas, 446 ; po sitiv e ,
.

A
in sti nct, in r isto tle, 1 8 5 2 33 ; po sitiv e , in S t
.

h o mas, 447 ; and T

P f
fi
.

in stin ctive so u l, in lato , 1 02

r is f A y
so p h istr , 43 ; so u r ce o f , in St h o mas, . T
i n te llect, activ e an d p assive , 1 8 5 ; in
r ee o m, f d
in
f
4 45 ; an d state , in S t h o mas , 445 11 . T
to tle ,
B
1 5 5 , 1 8 5 ; and
o ne f all men , 45 5 ;
d g
lear ne i no r an ce , in u sanu s, 48 5 , 48 7 , C
oe th iu s, 3 43 ; or
48 8 , 49 4
in S t Ag u u s tine , 3 1 7 ; in S t h o mas , . T f
li e, in A
r isto tle , 18 1 ; co ncep t o f, fo r f
f f R
.

4 1 2 , 435 ; see also N o u s e aso n ,

So p h ists, 42 ; h app , and Ep icu r ean s , y
intellectu al vir tu es, in A
r isto tle , 204
2 5 4 ff; p h ilo so p h o f, 6 5 ; p r o pe r ties o f, y
g
intelli ence , an d cr eatio n , 12 1 , 37 7 f 2 33 ; in S t T
h o mas, 432 11 ; and so u l,
gb
i n te lli i le sp e cies , 340, 4 1 1 , 47 5
P S
.

in lato , 103 ; vir tuo u s, in to ics , 229 f

in t e n tio n a nd e th ic s , in e lar Ab d
, 3 6 8 ff
d
limite , th e , as fi r st p r incip le , 1 6
g d P
,

intentio n , and mo r al o o , in lato , 6 8

g A
lo ic, g
r is to te lian , e n er al ch ar acter of ,

i n te r n atio n al law , see law

b f f S
1 39 ; o f Ep icu r ean s, 2 46 11 ; o f to ics,
in tu itio n , o f essences and a str actio n , 1 5 6 ; 2 19 ff
C d
fi
u san u s , 48 7 ; o f i e as , in
o f G od , in
A n o w le k e , in S t dg g
lo ical tr u th , in S tAg u u stin e , 3 18 .

r isto tle ,
T
1 37 ; and
h o mas, 407 , 444 ; in te llectu al, y
.

log oi in S t
, Ag f
u u s tine ,
. 324 ; in Neo

in S co tu s, 46 1 f
s e n s o r -

Py g P d
th a o r ean s, 26 7 ; in y seu o -Dio n siu s ,

34 8
in tu itio nalism, in S t . Ag
u u stin e , 3 1 7
g
lo o s, in A b g
r isto tle , 1 45 ; an d eco min , in
ips u m esse su bsi ste ns G od as, 42 8 , 429 , ,
P y f d
atr is tic p h ilo so p h , 30 4 ; as co n ce ive

fi
430 by f
H er aclitu s, 19 ; as f d o u n atio n al

j d gm Ai C b asis o fb g P e in , in lato , 90 ; an d God ,

u e n t, in 1 43 ; in
r sto tle , u sanu s ,

f P in P y f
atr is tic p h ilo so p h , 303 ;d as i ea

fi
4 8 8 ; in Ep icu r e an s , 2 48 ; in lato , 7 8 ; d
o f i eas , inP f d
h ilo , 2 6 8 ; an d th e w o r l ,
in S t . Ag
u u stin e , 3 1 7 ; in S t f
h o mas , T .

P y
in atr istic p h ilo sop h , 304
S
40 8 H; in to ics , 2 2 1 b k
lo ve , a o ve co n temp latio n , i n Ec h ar t,
j u stice , an d e lar ,Ab d
36 8 ; and C ar f 46 9 ; and ego , in S t Ag f
u u stin e , 33 1 ;
d
mea es, 26 0 ; and h app iness, 7 4 ; mean f
e le me n tal P
o r ce , 30 ; an d e th ics , i n lato ,
.

i ng of, 6 0 ; in Repu blic 11 6 , 1 20 ; , f k dg

7 3 and n o w le e , in S t B d e r n ar , 3 7 3 ;
an d S
to ics, 2 34
P d y f
in se u o -Dio n siu s, 35 0 ; an d r e aso n ,
.

agathia , i A
r is to tle , 2 02
inS co tu s , 46 0
k k alo n
S
katli eko n to ic co n cep t o f, 231
S g
,

kat o r tlz o m a t o ic co n ce p t o f 23 2 f man , measu r e

f all th in s 6 0 ; n atu r e
o ,

A
,

k dg f P f
,

n o w le e, an d aith , in atr istic p h il of , fo r r isto tle , 1 8 4 , 19 9 ; n atur e o f ,

y
o so p h , 2 6 0 ; o r i in o f f g , i
n St h o mas , . T fo r u san u s C 49 3 if; n atu r e o f in
, ,

405 ff; pr in cip le s o f, in A

r isto tle , 15 2 f f; P
atr istic p h ilo so p h , 305 ; n atu r e o f y ,

p r i n c ip les o f i n S t h T
o mas , 4 06 ; f fo r lato P
9 9 6 ; n atu r e o f, fo r S t
, .

Ag
.
,

y gy T
fiA
s ch o lo o f i n S t h o mas, 4 35 H ; u u stin e 32 5 ff; natu r e o f fo r S t
p , , .

S
.

T
,

an d scien ce , in A
r is to tle , 1 39 H; so u r ce h o mas , 434 6 ; n atu r e o f fo r o cr ate s , ,

of in r is A
to t le 1 5 0 ; so u r ce o f, in 4 8 ; n atu r e o f, fo r o p h ists, 43 S
S
,

P y
,

lato , 1 5 4 ; th e o r of , in r isto tle , manticism, to ic, 2 42

1 39 ff, 1 8 4 H; th e o r of ,y in u san u s , C mater ial cau se , in r isto tle 16 6 H 1 6 9 6 A , ,
°

4 8 5 11 ; th e o r y
of in Emp e ocle s, 3 1 ; d f and no w le k e , in S t dg
h o mas, 40 8 f . T
P
,

th e o r y
of in Ok c h am, 47 5 ff; th e o r y in lato 9 3 ,

Cy
,

of in O ld A d y
ca e m , 1 33 ; th eo r of , in y mater i alism in n ics, 5 9 ; in De mo cr itu s
, ,

P d y P y
,

ar me n i es , 2 3 ; th e o r of , in lato , 6 5 , 32 ; in E p icu r ean ph ilo so p h , 2 47 249 ; ,

y
6 7 fl ; th eo r o f, in S t T h o mas, 404 ff;
. r e ecte j Std by u u stin e , 32 6 ; r e
. Ag
5 12 TOP I CAL I NDEX
anu s, f
4 8 6 ; an d Ec h ar t, 47 5 6 ; an d k p ar ap o situ m, acc i d en tal u ni o n, in St .

k
O c h am, 475 ; and p r o lem o f u n i f b Th o mas 433 ,

ve r sal, 36 5 f p ar o u sia, an d Pl ato , 9 1 , 93

n o mo s , see law p ar ticipatio n , in P y f k wl lato s th e o r
’
o no
b g
n o n - e in , an d b
e co min , 1 7 0 ; an d k n o w l g dg 8 1 ; i S A g i 32 1 ; h y
e e, n t u u st n e , t e or
dg
.

e e , 1 2 7 , 407 ; an d tr u th , 77 , 8 5 ; an d fo d an l gy i S
ana o Th m 41 4 ; n t o as,
y
, ,

y f i B h i 34 1 ; h y f
.

v ar ie t , 9 1 ; w ic e , 7 2 f kd h t eo r o n o et u s, t eo r o

g f Ag
, ,

n o o lo ical p r o o , f o r G o d, in S t u us .
i Cn 48 8 ; h
u sanu s, y fi P d t eo r o , n seu o

tine , 3 1 8 f A p gi 348 35 0 f
r eo a te , ,

d
n o tio n , s ee i ea, o r m, co nce p t f p i l ( ) i
ar t cu ar A b l d 36 7 f ; i A
s n e ar n n
n o u s, in A
nax a o r as, 3 8 in g
r isto tle , 1 5 5 , A ax a o r as,
g 38 ; d b i g 16 1 f ; i an
,

e n n
1 8 5 ; an d P
lato n ic D emiu r e , in P lo g B h i 341 6 ; i E kh 47 6 f ; i
o et u s, n c
,

ar t, n
ti n u s, 2 7 5 ; as so u r ce o f mo tio n in th e S t A g i 32 4; i S Th m
u u st n e , n t o as,
h o mas, 4 1 0 ; see T
. .

u n ive r se , 39 ; in S t .
40 8 4 1 8 6 ; i
, S 46 1 n co tu s ,
als o r e aso n, in te llect
p ar ts, d wh lan i A i l 16 5 6
o e, n r s to t e ,
b
n u m e r , an d C u san u s, 4 8 4 ; as r s t p r in f fi p i
ass o n , f d m f m i Ep i r ee o ro n cu r ean s ,
cip le , 16 ; and r o sse te ste , 38 6 ; an d G f 2 5 4; d h pp ian i Pl a 1 08 i n ess,
,

n ato , ; n
d P
i e as, in lato , 9 4 ; su p er essen tial, and f Pl 7 3 i S i 22 9 2 38
ato , n to cs,
Pr o clu s, 2 7 9 ; an d h ier r of h ar tr e s ,T y C p i
ass ve i ll n te i A i l 185 ; i S
ect, n r sto t e ,
,

n t.

37 2 Th m 438 o as,

p d g gy
e a o d di l i
, an Pl 9 1 a e ct cs, in ato ,

o bj e ct s( ) o f kn w l dg i Pl t
o e e, n a o, 8 2, p pl
eo e, i y
in S
soc e tAg 334 f
, in t . u u sti n e ,

Th m 407 6 ; d d f b i g i Py h g
,

8 4 ; in St . o as, an wo r l p er as , p i ip l r nc e o e n , n t a o r eans ,

d
o f i e as, i n lato , 8 5 6 P 16 17 ,

bg
o li atio n s, o f citi e n s , in z
r isto tle , 209 A p er ce p i i D m
t on , i n 33 f e i o cr tu s , ; se n se , n

occasio n alism, in lato , 1 03 P Pl 77 79 8 1 133

ato , , , ,

S to ic co ncep t o f, 2 30 , 235 , f f p f i dg f i S 46 3 ; id
'

o i kez osz s e r e ct o n , e r ees o , n co tu s , ea

E kh 46 8 f ; i Th m
,

24 1 , 332 f i
o , n c Sar t, n t . o as ,

O ld Te stame n t, an d r ee G kF
ath e r s , 29 1 42 7 f 440 ,

g
o li ar ch , in y
r isto tle , 2 12 ; inA lato , 1 1 7 P p er so n , d fi d 345 e ne ,

o mn i p o ten ce , o f G od , 47 7 ; o f min , 2 40 f d i A i l 1 8 4; n S r sto t e , in t .

O ne , th e , in C
u s an u s , 4 8 2 , 4 8 4 , 4 8 7 ; f f Th m 407 f 436 f ;
o as, S i 222 , in to cs ,
k
i n Ec h ar t, 469 ; in lato , 9 1, 9 5 , 1 26 ;P ph an tas y i S Th m 435 f i S i
, n t . o as , ; n to cs ,

in P f
lo tinu s , 2 7 2 , 2 75 , 2 7 7 ; i n r o clu s , P 2 42
2 7 9 ; in S t h o mas, 41 5 T f ph m l gy hi l S Th m
'

. en o en o o , et ca , in t . o as ,

g
o nto lo i sm, in S t u u stin e , 3 1 6 . Ag 441 f
o p in io n , i n Ab
e lar , 36 8 ; in Ep icu r e an s ,d Ph il ph ki g i Pl 1 15 f
o so er -
n s, n ato ,

248 ; in S t A g
u u stin e , 3 1 3 ; an d se n se f p h il ph y
o so f l o Pl 72 va u e, in ato ,
k dg P
.

n o w le e, in lato , 8 2 ; w ay o f, in Ph i
r o n es s , s e e p d ru e n ce

P ar me n i e s, 2 6 d ph y i s cs, f Ep o 2 49 6 ; f h
i cu r ea n s , o t e
d
o r e r , in O c h am, 47 8 k; in St f
u u stin e , Ag .
S i 223 6
to cs, l ; se e a so n atu r e
f
334 ; in S t h o mas , 424 ; th r o u h
. T f g pl ace , i A i n l 19 0; i B
r sto t e , hi 3 42 n o et u s, ;
cr e atio n , in P
lato , 1 22 ; i n w o r l , N e o d i Pl n 12 6 f
ato ,
P lato n ism, 2 8 2 pl e asu r e , i A i l 2 00 6 ; d Gy
n r sto t e , an re
d
o r in ance , o f r easo n , law as, in S t .

i
h a es , 60; f Ep i 25 5
or d cu r e an s, ; an
T h o mas, 447 ht e g d 7 2 6 i Pl
oo
’

72 6 i ; n ato , ; n
g
o r i in al state ,
”
of H o e s , 45 bb S i 229 f
to cs,
,

O r p h i es , an d Py g
th a o r e an w ay o f li fe 15 ,
p n eu m i a, ph l nph y 26 9 ; i S
i o so n to i c
o us ia ,
s e e su stan ce b ht ou gh 2 2 3 2 2 7 t, ,
,

p ly h d
o e r on, l m in Pl 1 2 5 f
e e e n ts , in ato ,

p an p s y c h ism, in Pl ato , 1 25 p i i i m m
os tv s l , O kh m 47 8 f
or a , in c a ,

p an th e is m 49 1 ; and Eck
and C u san u s, f p o ss ib l i e ll n te p i i
e ct,ll se e ass v e n te e ct

i A i
,

h ar t, 46 7 6 ; and Er iu ge n a, 35 8 ; and f p l
o s tu ate s, d i an l 15 3
sc e n ces , n r sto t e ,

Plo ti nu s, 2 47 6 ; an d S to i cs, 2 2 3 f; in p i
o te n c es , f li s ee acu t es

Th ales, 1 1 p o te n c y d an i A i l 1 74 6 ; i
act, n r s to t e , n

p ar a lb
e o f cave , lato , 8 7 f P P d Di y i 35 0 f ; i S Th m
seu o- on s u s, n t . o as ,

p ar alle lism, in lato , 1 03 P 4 19 f ; l i p bl m

so u t o n f b m to ro e o eco

g
p ar alo ism, and A
r isto tle , 1 4 8 ; an d Meg i g 176
n ,

ar ia n s, 5 7 p o ent a
t i l i y dt b , m i g ian Ai l eco n , n r sto t e ,
 TO P ICAL I NDEX 5 13
172 ; dan e co min , b in S t g o as . Th m ti, ra o, as co ncep t, in S i 222 ; id to cs, as ea,

420 ; fan d G o d , 19 2 , 19 5 f P
in lato , 9 3 ; in t o as, S Th m 405 44 1 f
, .

pr ae co nceptz o nes dw z nae in Ec h ar t, 47 0

'

k r atio n alism, an d r sto t e , A i l 15 2 ; d

an

Ok f P m id
,

pr aemotio ph ysica in S t Th o mas, 423 c h am, 42 8 ; o ar en e s, an25 ; d

d S
.
,

g
p r a matism, an d tr u th , in r isto tle , 144 A P lato , 8 0, 8 2 ; an o cr ates , 50
p r ed bic a l e s in S t h o m as 4 T
14 —4 1 5 r atio nes se mi nales n t i S A g
u u st n e ,
, i 32 4 f; .

B
.
, ,

d
p r e icame n ts, in S t h o mas, 41 4 T in S t . o n ave n tu r e , 393

b
.

d
p r e icate ( s ) , an d s llo ism, y g
in to ics , S r e alism, an d pr o lem o f th e u n iver sals ,
222f 36 5
d
p r e icatio n , an d co n cep t, 1 40 ; an d u j dg r e ality , A
r isto tle s co n cep t o f
’

, 16 4 , 169 , f
ment, 1 44 6 -
B
1 7 3 ; fo r o e th iu s , b g
339 f; and e in ,

p r e — h ilo so h ica l
p p p er io , 5 6 d in S co tu s, 46 2 ; fo r Ep i cu r gan s, 2 48 ;
p r e science o f G o d, in o e th iu s 343 B an d A d y
O ld ca e m , Od
133 ; and l er
P
,

Ag
,

p r esen t, an d time , in S t u u stin e , 32 3 f e r ip ate tics , 2 1 4 ; fo r P I in u s, 2 7 3 6 ;

Ag
.

p r e se r vatio n , o f th e w or l , in S t h o mas d T fo r S t u u sti ne ,

. iri S n Th o mas,
d d
.
,

430 4 l 1 f, 42 5 f, 436 ; and w or l o f i e as,

S
pr e ocr ati c p h ilo sop h , 5 6
-
y P
in lato ,
d
p r i e, an d h app iness, lato , 1 08 P r easo n , A
in r i sto tle , f 20 1 ; fo r
p r imar y
cau se , in h ales 1 0 T B oe th iu s, C
342 ; in u san u s , 48 9 ; and
g d P g
,

p r imar y p r incip le , air for Anax ime n es,

mo r al oo , 5 3 ; in atr istic th o u h t,
1 3 ; apei r o n fo r
'

A
nax iman er , 1 2 ; in d 308 ; in P P d
lato , 1 02 , 1 1 0 ; in se u o

y f T
,

Emp e o cles, d 49 ; in H er aclitu s, 19 ; Dio n siu s, 34 8 ; in S t h o mas , 436 .

S
,

n u m er , fb or Py g
th a o r e an s, 16 f
445 ; in S co tu s, 46 0 ; to ic u se o f,

p r in cip le , in A
r isto tle , 1 5 9 ; o f ein , in f b g 2 22 6 , 2 30 6 ; an d vir tu e , inA r isto tle ,

A f
r isto tle , 1 5 9 ; an d n u m er , in lato , b P 204 6 ; see also N I o u s, n te lle ct

96 r e lativism, o f Ab d C
e lar , 3 7 0 ; of u san u s ,

p r ivatio n , in A
r isto tle , 1 7 0 f d by
4 8 6 6 ; o f H er aclitu s, 2 0 ; r e u te
bb y
pr o a ilit , and tr u th , in Ne w ca e m , A d y P d by
lato , 8 0 ; r efu te S o cr ate s, 5 1 ;
26 1 sce p tical, 42 f

p r o cess, co smic in B
o e th iu s , 35 1 ; in S t g
r e li io n , g alle o r ical i n ter p r e tatio n of , in
P y P
.
,

Ag u u stin e , 32 2 h ilo , 2 6 8 ; and mo r alit , in lato , 13 1 ;

fi y
p r o cienc , an d mo r al oo , in g d
o cr ate s S y
an d p h ilo so p h , in Er iu gen a, 35 9

52
,

r e min iscen ce , an dA r isto tle , 13 7

p r o p er tie s an d acci e n ts in d
r isto tle A F
r e n u n ciatio n , S
ath er s , 2 9 4; to ics, 2 35
g dg
«
, , ,

f
142 ; in oe th iu s 342 f B r ep r ese n tatio n ( s ) , e n esis o f k no w le e ,

T f
,

d P in S t h o mas, 436 ; an d p h antasm,

p r o v i e nce , in Bo e th iu s, 342 ; in lato .

f
123 ; in S t T
h o mas , 43 1 ; in S to ics,
,
in A r isto tle , y
18 4 f; o f p h antas , i n
22 4
.

S
Ep icu r u s, 2 4 8 ; an d to ics, 22 1 f

d
pr u ence , fo r r isto tle A
1 5 2 , 2 0 1 ; fo r f r es co gita ns d an d P
i e a o f lato , 8 4
S
,

Ep icu r e ans 2 5 5 f; fo r
,

lato , 5 3, 7 3 ; P g
r e si n atio n , to ic, 2 43

fo r S
to ics, 2 30 , 2 3 6
,
b y
r esp o n si ilit , d d in iv i u alA in r isto tle , ,

y g
p s ch o lo ism, and tr u th , in r isto tle 1 44 A f B
20 5 ; in f
oe th iu s , 3 45 ; in S to ics, 242

y gy A
,
r e ve latio n , F
in th e ath er s , 2 9 3 ; in S t .

p s ch o lo
Od Pl er
, in r isto tle ,

er ip ate tics , 2 13 ;
1 8 3, 18 6 ; in
in S t u us . Ag T h o mas , 405 f

tine , 32 5 6 ; in S t h o mas, 43 1 6 ; in
. T sce p t c si i m, d 36 6
an d d Ab e lar , ; an
S to ics, 2 2 9 f
C 48 7 f
u san u s , d E kh 47 6 ;d an c ar t, ; an
p u nish me nt, and fr ee o m in d
r isto tle A M idd l A d my 2 5 9 ; P y h i 2 6 1 f
e ca e rr o n c, ;
f
, ,
,
2 05 f d by S
r e u te 5 1; d S A g
o cr ates , an t u us
A
.

p u r e act, and G o d in r isto tle ,

, 17 6 f ti n e ,31 1 d S ph i ; 42 fan o sts,
p ur po se , see e n d i
sc e n ce , i A i l 15 1 6 ; i R g
n r sto t e , n o er

B
aco n , 38 7 l i C ; 49 2
n atu r a , n u san u s, ;
q ua d m
35 2 , 45 2
r i v iu , l i
n atu r a S Alb 39 9 ; i Old
n t er t, n er

A
, .

q u alitie s, in r isto tle , 1 8 8 ; an d ato ms, in P ip i 2 13; i Pl 8 6 f ; i S

er ate t cs, n ato , n t
y
.

De mocr itu s , 33 ; p r imar an d se co n Th m 405 6

o as,

d y
ar , 34 se co n d y ar ( ) S Th m
cau se 423 s t o as ,
dd y
.
,

qui it , s e e essen ce se co n d m i A i l 16 9 f
atter , n r sto t e , ; s ee

q u ie tis m, an d S t u u stin e , 334 . Ag l

a so m atter

q u o d es t in , B
o e th iu s , 339 ; in S t h o mas . T , se co n d bt su i A i l 16 4 f
s an ce , n r sto t e ,

421 se lf-
i
con sc ousn i St A g 3 27
es s , n . u u s ti n e ,
5 14 TO P I CAL I NDE X
se lf m -
m o ve d G d i
e n t, Ai l Pl an 1 03 f; i Py h g o 15 ; i n r sto t e , ato , n t a o r e an s , n
b i li y f
,

19 2 f ; d imm li y 1 1 1 ;
an d l S Ag o r ta 32 5 6 ; t , an so u , t. u u sti ne , su stan t a t o ,

i n A i l 1 8 7 f ; d l i Pl
r sto t e , S Alb 39 7 f ; b i li y f an so u , n ato , in t
. e r t, su stan t a t o ,

1 03 f ; d l i Pl an 22 7 2 7 6 ;
so u i S ,
A g i 326 f ; b i li y
n o ti n u s, , n t . u u st n e , su stant a t
an d l i S so u Th m 432 f ,
n f i t . S Th m 432 6 ; o as, mig o , n t . o as, tr an s ra

se mi l p na ip l i Pl
r i nc 2 7 6 f; i
es , f nPl 1 05 f ; ip i
o ti n u s,
“

in t on o , in ato , tr ar t te

S t Ag. u32 4 f ; f S i
u sti n e , 225 f i Pl 101 f; o i y f i to cs, n atu r e o ,
n ato , un t o , n
i
se n sat o n , i A i l 15 4 f ; C n A i l
r sto t e , 186 u san u s , r sto t e ,

48 8 ; i D m i n 33 ; i P l e 77 f l g id
ocr tu s, i S ph i y 42 n ato , , so u u an ce , n o str .

A g i 3 14 f ; i S
,

80 f; i S n t .
p i uA i l 167 ; i D m i
u st n e , n t . s ace , n r sto t e , n e ocr tu s ,

T h m 4 06 o as , 34; i Ep i m 2 49 i P l n cu r e an i s , ; n ato ,

se n se ( ) i sA i , l 1 5 4 nf ; i S B 95
r sto t e , 1 26 ; i Pl i 276 ; i S n t . o na , n o t n u s, n t .

v e n tu r e , 39 3 ; i D m 34 i S A g i 32 2 ; i S Th m 4 12 6
n e o cr i tu s, ; n t. u u st n e , n t . o as ,

Th m 408 f ; C i A b l d 36 5 ; i A i
,

o as, l i p i v a u e, l 16 1 n u san u s , s e c es, n e ar , n r sto t e , ,

48 8 f ; f l i E kh
o 47 1 va u e , 16 3 6 ; i E kh n 47 5 f ; c d id i ar t, n c ar t, an ea, n

se n se p p er ce i Pl 8 9 6 9 4 f ; i S Th m 437
ti o n , see se n sat on ato , , n t . o as,

se n su a li m i sCy i 5 8 ; i Ep i , n p i n cs, i S Ag 318 n cu r e an s, s ec es aeter nae , n t . u u sti n e ,

2 47 f 2 55 f ; ,
d hi i Pl 72 p i an p i S et Th m 438 cs, n ato , , s ec es e x r essa, n t . o as,

8 0; i S i n 2 19 6 to cs, p i imp i S Th m 437 s ec es r essa , n t . o as ,

sen t im d S
en t, 2 38 an p i i
tO i cs, lligibili i A i l 1 55 ; i s ec es nte s, n r sto t e , n

S te et d A b l d 36 4 3 7 0
no n , an S Th m 436 f
e ar , , t . o as,

sigh t, an d h i S A g tr u t 3l 9 f p i n ib li i A i
t . l 15 5 ; i S
u u sti n e , s e c es s e ns i s, n r sto t e , n t
S mp li i y
.
,

i c d imm
t l y i Plan 1 10 Th m 436 o r ta i t n ato , o as,

y d y y i A i l 2 1 1 ; p ifi di6
, ,

l
s av er , an t r ann , A i l 1 42 n r sto t e , s ec c er en ce , in r sto t e ,

i Pl n 1 19 ato , pi i i C 484 ; G d i A i l s r t, n u san u s, o n r sto t e ,

i l b i g m A i l 2 37 ; i
,

so c a e n i , 1 94 1 9 6 ; G d i
an , n S A g i 32 0 r sto t e , n , o , n t . u u st ne , ;
S tTh m 447
. o as, l i Pl 10 1 ; l i S so u , n ato , so u , n t .

soa et y m m m b an ,f i P l a1 1 2 A g i 306 e er o n ato , u u st n e ,

i l gy A g i 326 334 f ; p i i li y f l i Pl 1 04; i S

, ,

so c o o f S , o t . u u st n e , , s r tu a t o so u , n ato , n t .

of S Th m t. 447 f o Th m 433
as, o as,

S on fG d o d id o E kh , 46 7 f
an b i f i Pl 120 f ; l
e as , in i c ar t, , s tate , as s or , n ato , c asses, n
47 0 Pl 1 12 6 ; mp f i A i l ato , co o n en ts o , n r sto t e ,

so phi y m i g f 41
str e an n 20 8 f ; f m f i Pl
o , 1 1 7 6 ; ki d or s o n ato , n s

d b dy i
,

A i l 18 1 6
,

so u l i , n r sto t e , f i A i l 2 12 f ; igi f i ; an o ,
n o n r sto t e , or n o n
Pl 9 9 f ; d b d y i S A g i
, ,

ato , an A i l 207 f; igi f i Pl o , n t . u u st ne , r sto t e , or n o , n ato ,

32 5 f ; d b dy i anS B o1 12 ; igi , f i S n A g i 334 t . o n ave n tu r e , or n o n t u u st n e , ;

d b dy i S Th m 433 6
.
,

394 ; an o igi, f i n S Th m 447 f ; p

t . o as, ; or n o , n t . o as , ur

as l h y f b d y 1 82 f ;
e n te e c f op f i A i o l 206 f ; p p
, f e sse n ce o , o se o , n r sto t e , ur o se o

A i l 18 1 6
,

i n r sto t e , f i S Th m 448 ; e sse n ce o , n in t o as ,

f i S i
.

P l 10 1 6 ;
ato , 227 bi esse n ce fG d i S Th m 42 8 f
o , n to cs , ; su s ste n ce , o o , n t o as, ;
f i S Th m
.

i
e x ste n ce 432 ; f l
o , n f l i S
t . Th m 433 o as , acu o so u , n t . o as,

i
t es f i S
o Th m 435 ; imm
‘

,
n b
t . i A b l d 36 5 ; i A i l
o as , ate su stan ce , n e ar , n r sto t e ,

i l y
r a it f S A g i 327 ; im
o , in 16 0 6 ; t .d b i g i u A i l 16 0
u st n e , an e n n r sto t e , ;
i l y Th m 432
,

m ate r a i t f i S o , d b i g i S i n 22 3 ; i B
t . hi o as , ; an e n , n to cs, n oe t u s,

imm li y f i
o r ta A i l 18 7 ; im t o342 ; fi, i n A i l 1 45 f; fi i r sto t e , r st, n r sto t e , r st, n
m li y
o r ta f i Pl t 1 l 0 f; omm , S Th m 4 1 6 f; d f m i A i
n ato , i or t . o as, an or n r s

li y Ag 32 7 f
,

ta t f i S o , n l 16 5 6 ; it . P m id 2 6 ; i u u sti n e , ; to t e , n ar en es , n
mm
i l y f i
o r ta i t S Th m 433 oPl , 1 83 188 ; i
n S t Ag i. o as, ; ato , , n t . u u st n e ,

imm l y f i
o r ta i t S i 229 f ; ki d o36 5 6 , n d i A i l 1 45 f ;tO cs, n s ; se co n , n r sto t e ,

of f ,
A i l 18 4 6
or m di m
r sto t e , d i S Th m 417 ; as e u seco n , n t. o as,
b w idet een d ib l l y i
ea mm m b an m i A l d 390 f
se n s e r ea i t , n su u o nu , n ex an er , ;
Pl 1 04 f ;
ato , f i C i B h i 339 ; i Pl 8 9 ; i S
n atu r e o , n u san u s , n o et u s, n ato , n t .

48 8 ; f in atu r e S B A lm 36 2 ; i S Th m 424; i
o , n t . o n ave n tu r e , n se , n t . o as, n
39 3 f ; f i S Th m 432 6 ;
n atu r e O S 55 n t . o as, ocr ates,

Sp Big i C
,

or igi f i A in l o 1 86 f; , igi Of
n r sto t e , 48 6 ; i Di y or n , u er — e n , n u san u s , n on

i Pl n 1 00 f ;
ato , igi f i S A g i 347 ; i
or Pl i n o2 72 , n t . u us s ns, n o t n u s,

i
t ne , 32 8 f igi f i S Th m
; p m y i
or n i i i S Th m
o , 44 8
n t . o as , su re ac , n so c e t es, n t . o as,

438 f ; i O p h i d i n 6 i P r i Sp m C c 347 34 8 35 8 42 3
octr n e , ; n atr s u re e au se , , ,

p h y 306 f ; i Pl
,

i p h il
t c o so 2 76 f S p m G d ( ) d E kh 46 9 ;
, n o ti n u s , ; u re e oo n e ss , an c ar t,
as p i ip l f m i
r nc d lif e i d S
o t 55 o t on an e, n an ocr a es ,
5 16 TO P I CAL I NDEX
to tle, 15 2 ; and Ch r isti an it
300 f; fo r y , matio n f, in
o A
n ax iman e r , 1 2 ; o r ma d f
Ep icu r ean s , 25 7 f;
an d mo r al oo , in g d tio n o f, in Empe ocles , 3 1 ; d
o r matio n f
S o cr ates, 5 3 6 , 6 7 6 ; fo r h ilo , 8 2 , P of , P
in lotinu s, 2 7 6 o f i eas, in lato °
d P ,

f
2 6 9 ; fo r P
lo tinu s, 2 7 1 ; fo r S t u us . Ag f gb
7 1 ; inte lli i le , 8 4 f; and me n in ,

tin e , 332 ; fo r S t T
h o mas, 444 ; fo r - P g
lato , 8 3 ; o r i in o f, in H o mer and
Lg
.

th e S
o p h ists, 42 ; fo r S tO i cs, 2 39 ; and d P
H e sio , 5 ; and atr istic o o s 304 ; in ,

vir tu e , f or A
r isto tle , 2 04 f; an d w o r l d P dseu o — y
Dio n siu s 347 ; in S t , u us f . Ag
d
o f i e as , 8 6 tin e , 3 16 ; in S t o n aventur e ,
. B
392 ; f
y
w o men , an d p r o per t , in lato , 1 1 4 ; and P f in S t Th o mas, 414 f, 42 4, 430 ; in
. f
R o man law , 2 34 S to ics f
2 2 4 ; v isi le, 1 2 1 6
, b
w d
or Lg
, see o os wor l d d
min , in H er aclitu s 2 0 ,

w ld
or i Ai l, n r sto t e , 16 6 , f 18 8 ; in f d
w o r l r e aso n , o f to ics, 22 4 f
-
S
C 49 1 ; i
u san u s, n k
Ec h ar t, 46 8 ; in wo r l d so u l, an d cr e atio n 1 2 3 1 2 8 ; and , ,

B i g d 35 8 ;
r n en , e te r n it yof , 18 0, 18 9 ; evil, in lato P7 6 ; an d i e as
, 104 ; d
f m i fi A g f
,

or at o n o , n n ax a o r as , 39 ; f or q u alities o f, 1 0 1