The medieval period "clung" to Aristotle

[EphelDuath]

What is it meant when it is said that modern philosophers, starting with Descartes, tried to get away from the “clutch” of Aristotle, and become the true successors of Plato?

I know Aristotle’s scientific ideas were held long past their expiration date, but is that it? What of Aristotelianism did medieval philosophers refuse to let go, and what of Platonism makes it the “fundamentals” of philosophy?

 

[JP2Admirer]

I’d suggest picking up a copy of Etienne Gilson’s *Unity of Philosophical Experience, *as this explains, in general, the problems that arose because of Aristotle’s doctrine.

Basically, Gilson explains that what it came down to was that philosophers could not agree on what exactly Aristotle was saying, and their constant quibbling made people despair of philosophy. Gilson says that the breakdown of Medieval philosophy was immediately brought on by Ockham who founded nominalism, and undermined the nature of causality, which led to scepticism.

As far as Descartes is concerned, he explicitly told his contemporaries to stop reading the scholastics because they would lead people only into error. He looked for certitude in philosophy because he could not live with the scepticism of Montaigne, and he knew that scepticism came from the apparent inability to settle philosophical questions using Aristotle. Of course, Luther, who represented peasant sentiment, was adament against Aristotle (although he was partial to Cicero so his anti-paganism wasn’t as strong as he may have suggested.) As Gilson says, Descartes sought to replace Aristotle. Gilson claims that St. Thomas got the interpretation of Aristotle right (and I agree with him), but the renaissance occurred when people despaired of philosophy on account of the constant quibbling. Using Aristotle’s doctrine, they could settle no questions, so they gave the game up.

Petrarch (the first of the modern men) bragged that when his friends would argue over some subtlety in the Philosopher’s work, he would laugh at them, and give up the whole game. People despaired of philosophy because of the constant infighting and the apparent inability to settle philosophical questions using Aristotle. Of course, when Newton came along, Aristotle’s natural philosophy became out dated, but this was after Descartes.

I think one can sum up Gilson’s point by stating that Aristotle didn’t fail, his interpreters did (except St. Thomas). It’s just that people didn’t agree with the Angelic Doctor on some issues, and so these “partisans” turned away from him as well.

 

[EphelDuath]

Yes, but what of Aristotle did they not agree on? Science, morality, God, the nature of knowledge? And why did modern philosophers claim to be the “true” successors of Plato, as if Plato was a “true” philosopher that Aristotle was not?

 

[JP2Admirer]

Gilson claims that it was the nature of universals that they could not agree on.

For Aristotle, universals existed virtually in things, needing the active intellect to draw them out. So universals were in the intellect, and they did not subsist as Plato had held (according to Aristotle.) Aquinas agreed with Aristotle with one caveat, he claimed that the trancendentals (being, goodness, unity, etc.) subsisted in the Divine mind. (cf. the proemium to his Commentary on the Divine Names)

Abelard, who was prior to Aquinas, was a logician who attempted to answer the question of whether universals subsisted. His teacher, William of Clairveux, was of a Platonic opinion, that universals subsisted. Abelard could not accept this because he saw that if we said that universals exist entirely in particulars, then in no sense are they universal. For example, if the essence (universal) ‘man’ was entirely in Socrates, then it could not be in Plato also, and then would not be a universal. If it was in each of them only in part, then there would be no commonality that could be called universal in them. Abelard settled the question in his own mind, though confusing to everyone else (in my and Gilson’s opinion), by stating that universals subsist as examplars in the divine mind, but that human beings only have some confused notion of them.

Ockham came along and said that universals do not exist at all, even in the divine mind. His thinking was along the lines of, whenever I have a universal thought, say of ‘man’, that thought is only a particular thought. Furthermore, he was in some sense a precursor to the skepticism of Hume, because in making all particular (nominalism), he assigned to God the creative activity of all causality. That is, all effects, essentially, he assigned to the creative activity of God. So when I strike a match, there is no effecient causality that starts the flame, it just happens to be the creative activity of God making that match spark. As such, all causality becomes the mere witnessing of a sequence of events, and there is no intrinsic efficient causality to nature. Hence, skepticism followed, as Ockham settled all philosophical questions by recourse to faith, i.e.God does everything (he even said we cannot know by philosophy that there is an immortal soul, but took recourse to the articles of faith.)

Bonaventure, on the other hand, assigned knowledge of the universals to the divine light. That is, anytime we come to know universals it is by infusion by the divine light.

I am being very general here, as there were a number of disputes over Aristotle in Aquinas’ own lifetime, but the essential grasp of why Aristotle was abandoned was the “problem of universals.” There were, for example, the Latin Averroists (see Siger of Brabant) who were considered ‘radical Aristotelians.’

If you read Aristotle’s *De Anima *he makes a claim that seems as though it denies personal immortality. That is, he says that the active intellect survives the body, but that the passive intellect dies with the body. So, the Averroists claimed that there was no personal immortality, which was obviously contrary to the faith. Aquinas settled this questions, in my opinion, by holding Aristotle to his principles more closely than Aristotle did himself, because Aristotle understood the intellect by analogy to sensation. Aquinas comes along and says that, if the radical Aristotelians are right, and the agent intellect is “somewhere out there” (Averroes actually held that it was on the moon), that merely means that the individual intellect is understood, not that it understands. (For more details, read Summa Theologica I. q.76 I believe.)

There were also disputes about the eternity of the world. In a nutshell, Bonaventure held that the eternity of the world was impossible because it was contrary to creation. The Averroeists held that the world was eternal, and Aquinas held that philosophy could not prove it one way or the other, but that we had to rely on faith to let us know that the world was created.

These are just some of the controversies, and this is a very general overview. As to why modern philosophers called themselves the “true heirs of Plato” I’m not really sure what philosophers you are referring to? This could be because there were disputes among the Franciscans and Dominicans, with the Franciscans following Augustine’s Platonism and the Domincans following Aquinas’ Aristotelianism. If you could name some philosophers who made this claim, I’d like to look into it.

Thanks, and I hope this helps. I really recommend reading Gilson’s book, as that is where I am primarily getting my information from. (Although I have read Bonaventure on the eternity of the world, as well as Aquinas.)

 

[EphelDuath]

Thanks, that answers my questions.

Regarding the question of Plato. Descartes was the first “modern” philosopher, and his thesis was that the medieval period clung too much to Aristotle, and in order for philosophy to become a true science again, it must become the true successor to Plato that Aristotle was not.