The Dark to Middle Ages: Scholasticism

1. The Dark to Middle Ages: Scholasticism

2. Robinson (1986) reaches some conclusions regarding the 500 year period before the crowning of Charlemagne by Leo III in 800 AD, - a period dominated by Augustine • During this time man was viewed as unique. This discouraged evolutionary perspectives and the application of scientific principles (negative effect) • Each person was viewed as individually responsible for his/her actions – personal responsibility and brotherhood. [And therefore a sense of equality] (positive effect) • Anti-materialistic – psycho-physical dualism – soul and matter –later mind and body (mixed [depends on Robinson’s assumption that otherwise it would be worse] • Transcendentalism reduced daily experience to the trivial. Perception was suspect (Platonic) – anti-intellectualism reigned (negative) • Intuitionism = rationalism plus mysticism – mind could achieve transcendent properties in this life – grace [very eastern] • [[thread so thin, so delicate, yet maybe more powerful?]]

3. Daniel Robinson’s argument for the significance of the Scholastics • period 1150-1300 hosted more original and significant contributions to logic than any comparable period since Greek antiquity – not revived and extended until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries • Scholarship in psychology in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries -- the scholastic analyses of the competing claims of nativism and environmentalism, sensationism and conceptualism, free will and deterministic behaviorism, mind-body materialism and dualism, individualism and social determinism – sophisticated, deep, suggestive and mature.. .. • Scholastic philosophers recognized the need for linguistic analysis as a first step in the evolution of philosophical arguments • More completely than Aristotle the Scholastic philosophers examined rival philosophies and attempted to establish respective functions to be served by observation, logic and hypothesis.

7. Raphael’s greatest work “The School of Athens” (1508-1511) was painted in the Vatican at the same time that Michelangelo was painting the Sistine Chapel. In contrast to Michelangelo’s work this was a carefully balanced composition portraying Greek philosophers calmly debating worldviews. The Plato versus Aristotle distinction was highlighted by placing them in the center.

8. And in the center – Plato and Aristotle

9. Socrates arguing with other philosophers

10. Universities arose from Church needs • Universities • 1150 and 1170 the University of Paris • French universities of the Middle Ages were Montpellier, Toulouse, Orléans, Angers, Avignon, Cahors, Grenoble, Orange, and Perpignan • End of 11th century University of Bologna – Faculty formed into Collegial (Colleges) groups • From 13th – 15th centuries – ex students formed their own universities • In 12th century Oxford emerged

11. The Schoolmen • Robert Grosseteste (c. 1168-1253), first Chancellor of Oxford • Worked with the newly translated Greek and Arab works of Aristotle • Interested in Scientific Method that leads to a general principle • That leads to experimentation • Science not possible without mathematics • His Student: Roger Bacon (c. 1220-c. 1292) popularized experimental science – contrary to Albertus Magnus

12. The Schoolmen • Albertus Magnus (c. 1200-80) • Recognized and spread the word about the Greco-Arabic scientific and philosophical literature – set out to teach Aristotle to all • Made observations in botany, zoology, mineralogy • His student Thomas Aquinas (1224/25-1274) sought a harmony between Aristotelianism and Christianity

13. The Middle Ages • Term coined by 15th century scholars to refer to the period between the downfall of Greece and Rome and their rediscovery of it

17. Someone turn on the light • “As for what is known by experience, I have this to say. Even though a person does not experience every single individual, but only a great many, nor does he experience them at all times, but only frequently, still he knows infallibly that it is always this way and holds for all instances. He knows this in virtue of this proposition residing in his soul: ‘Whatever occurs in a great many instances by a cause that is not free, is the natural effect of that cause.” This proposition is known to the intellect even if derived from erring senses.” (Concerning Human Understanding: John Scotus Erigema (ca. 1810 – ca. 1877) – a neo-Platonist • e.g. divided nature into things that are and those that are not ) • ---the “proof” here is in the experience – not in the logic. • And Bacon takes this further: • “I now wish to unfold the principles of experimental science, since without experience nothing can be sufficiently known. For there are two modes of acquiring knowledge, namely by reasoning and experience. Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt so that the mind may rest on the intuition of truth, unless the mind discovers it by the path of experience. • . . . Aristotle’s statement then that proof is reasoning that causes us to know is to be understood with the proviso that the proof is accompanied by its appropriate experience, and is not to be understood of the bare proof. . . . He therefore who wishes to rejoice without doubt in regard to the truths underlying phenomena must know how to devote himself to experiment. (Opus Majus, Pt. VI, Ch. 1)

18. But Roger Bacon was later (1561-1626): at the end “The empirical philosophers are like pismires (ants) . . . The rationalists are like the spiders.” – Bacon, Apoph. 1626

19. Medieval Representation

20. Medieval Representation

21. Occam’s Razor: The First Slasher Movie Regardless of the beauty of the theory it becomes chopped meat to Occam

22. Medieval Representation Ockam’ Razor: William of Ockam, is a Franciscan schoolman, attempting to bring back Aristotle, he said “It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.” – certainly close to his razor.

23. William of Occam (ca. 1290-1350), Occam's razor • Ockham proposed specific psychological principles • He reversed the causal orientation – instead of taking religious beliefs as a given and using them to predict mind – he took mind and tried to predict religion • Core: habit: acquired disposition or state – a qualitative change in an individual that creates greater ease in the mental task • Since dispositions towards certain objects – must be acquired – empiricist • Notes Aristotle’s blank slate empiricism – but Ockham less nativist • mind creates categories (nominalist) – by stimulus generalization = abstraction though he didn’t know how it did it

24. The Renaissance • Secular universities, • Printing press • Nation-states – and Kings as a check on Papal power, Arab medicine, reacquainting the mind with the classics --via the Arabs and Jews; Avicenna (980-1037) and Averroes (1126-1198)

25. Some Highlights of the Scientific Advances of the 17th and 18th Century

26. Later Philosophy