Philosophy & Science in Medieval Philosophy
Epicureanism - system of philosophy
based upon the teachings of
Epicurus (c. 341–c. 270 BCE),
founded around 307 BCE. Epicurus
believed that the greatest good was
to seek modest pleasures in order to
attain a state of tranquillity and
freedom from fear (ataraxia) as well
as absence of bodily pain (aponia)
through knowledge of the workings
of the world and the limits of our
desires.
Epicurus adheres to atomism
and rejects religion, the belief
that the gods are concerned
and interfere in human affairs.
He also denies Plato’s
cosmological account of the
universe as well as Aristotle’s
teleological view of the world.
Over the atomistic explanation
of Democritus, Epicurus added
the new principle of “swerving”
of atoms – a spontaneously
indeterminate motion. This
principle is also used to support
his account of free will.
Both the gods and soul are
made of atoms and all
knowledge is derived from
sensory evidence.
Stoicism - founded in Athens by
Zeno of Citium in the early 3rd
century BC. Stoa – painted
colonnade that bordered the
porch where Zeno strolled as he
lectured. Influenced by Heraclitus.
Stoics were concerned with the
active relationship between
cosmic determinism and human
freedom, and the belief that it is
virtuous to maintain a will (called
prohairesis) that is in accord with
nature.
They believed that since man’s
reason or logos is an extension of
the Logos governing the universe,
it is capable of completely
understanding this rationally
determined cosmos.
Since human destiny is integral to
divine providence or cosmic
nature, man’s highest ideal
consists in recognizing from a
total perspective the necessary
harmony of the two.
Interconnectedness of disciplines:
“Philosophy is like an animal in
which the bones and sinews are
the logic, the flesh the ethics, and
the soul physics.”
Cynicism - founded by Antisthenes in about the
4th century BC. The Cynics rejected all
conventions, whether of religion, manners,
housing, dress, or decency, advocating the
pursuit of virtue in a simple and unmaterialistic
lifestyle.
The fundamental principles of Cynicism can be
summarized as follows:
1. The goal of life is happiness which
is to live in agreement with Nature.
2. Happiness depends on being self-
sufficient, and a master of mental
attitude.
3. Self-sufficiency is achieved by living
a life of Virtue.
4. The road to virtue is to free oneself
from any influence such as wealth,
fame, or power, which have no
value in Nature.
5. Suffering is caused by false
judgments of value, which cause
negative emotions and a vicious
character.
Thus a Cynic has no property and rejects all
conventional values of money, fame, power or
reputation. A life lived according to nature
requires only the bare necessities required for
existence, and one can become free by
unshackling oneself from any needs which are
the result of convention.
Diogenes of Sinope “He claimed that to fortune he could oppose courage, to
convention nature, to passion reason”
Neo-Platonists
• Platonism  Neoplatonism unified the ideas
• Plotinus (ca. 204-270) PLOTINUS of Aristotle, the
Stoics, some of
• Together with Longinus and one Pythagoras,
Origen, he studied under
mystical ideas,
Ammonius Saccas in
bits of myth and a
Alexandria
Platonic
• At age 40, he established a reworking of
society that later included everything in
among its members a Nous which the body
Roman Senator, Rogatianus was bad and the
– who decided to forgo all spiritual good.
his political ambitions and
renounce his property.
• Neoplatonists would have
considered themselves simply Soul
"Platonists", but the modern
distinction is due to the
perception that their Nature and
philosophy contained enough Matter
unique interpretations of Plato
to make it substantively They are farthest from the One & are thus the
different from what Plato wrote most formless, shapeless & imperfect things.
and believed.
Discovery of Aristotle Works
• The expansion and conquests
of muslims
(A.M.)
• Commentary on the Sentences
• The Arabian philosophers
• Book of the Creatures
• Avicenna
• Averroës • The Nature of Places
• Alfarabi • The Causes and Properties of the Elements
• Alghazali The following list indicates the subjects of the various treatises, the
• Al-Kindi numbers referring to the volumes of Borgnet's edition.
• They were responsible for the • Logic: seven treatises (I. 2).
spread of Aristotelianism to • Physical Sciences: "Physicorum" (3); "De Coelo et Mundo", "De
Europe in the Middle Ages. Generatione et Corruptione". "Meteororum" (4); "Mineralium" (5);
"De Natura locorum", " De passionibus aeris" (9).
ALBERTUS MAGNUS • Biological: "De vegetabilibus et plantis" (10) " De animalibus" (11-
12); "De motibus animalium", "De nutrimento et nutribili", "De
• 1206 – 1280 aetate", "De morte et vita", "De spiritu et respiratione" (9).
• A German Dominican • Psychological: "De Anima" (5); "De sensu et sensato", "De Memoria,
et reminiscentia", "De somno et vigilia", "De natura et origine
• Taught at the University of animae", "De intellectu et intelligibili", "De unitate intellectus" (9).
Paris; a teacher of Thomas The foregoing subjects, with the exception of Logic, are treated
Aquinas. compendiously in the "Philosophia pauperum" (5).
• Moral and Political: "Ethicorum" (7); "Politocorum (8).
• A Bishop of Ratisbon • Metaphysical: "Metaphysicorum" (6); "De causis et processu
• Canonized saint in 1931; feast universitatis" (10).
is celebrated on November 15 • Theological: "Commentary on the works of Denis the Aereopagite"
(14); "Commentary on the Sentences of the Lombard" (25-30);
• Doctor Universalis = proficient "Summa Theologiae" (31-33); "Summa de creaturis" (34-35); "De
sacramento Eucharistiae" (38); "Super evangelium missus est" (37).
in every branch of learning & • Exegetical: "Commentaries on the Psalms and Prophets" (15-19);
surpassed all his "Commentaries on the Gospels" (20-24); "On the Apocalypse" (38).
contemporaries.
Aristotelianism &
Science
• One of the founders of
Scholasticism
• Established the distinction
between philosophy and
theology
• Theology – based on
revelation & prophesy
• Philosophy – based on
reason
• He did not see science and the
Church as being in opposition,
claiming that real truth was in
harmony with both worlds
• His works on the sciences were
largely drawn upon the
scientific writings of Aristotle.
• Although he says: “The aim of
natural science is not simply to
accept the statements of
others, but to investigate the
causes that are at work in
nature.”
• Albert was assiduous
in the study of natural Classification of
sciences. science: natural
• He was authority on science
physics, geography, • Accepted Aristotle’s
astronomy, threefold division: natural
mineralogy, chemistry, science (physics),
botany, zoology, mathematics, metaphysics
physiology and even
phrenology. • Physics is always concerned
with matter and motion.
Guiding principles:
• Experiment is the only • Although “every physical
safe guide in body is mobile, not every
investigations (of physical body is capable of
nature)
rest, because what is of
• "Science does not perpetual motion is not
consist simply in naturally capable of rest.”
believing what we are
told, but in inquiring • Mobile body (corpus mobile)
into the nature of is the subject of natural
things."
science. (Aquinas uses
• The study of nature is mobile being [ens mobile])
not necessarily
opposed to the study
of the nature of God.

Special studies
• Optics
• Interested about rainbows,
on how they’re formed
• Hypothesized that the speed
of light was finite though it
could travel extremely fast,
and examined the darkening
action of bright sunlight on
crystals of silver nitrate
• Studied reflection of lights
through the use of mirrors;
also the refraction
capabilities of certain
crystals
• St. Albert also determined
that the Milky Way was just
an immense assembly of stars
that received the light of the
sun and argued that figures
visible on the face of the
moon were configurations on
its surface, rather than a
reflection of the Earth's seas
and mountains, as had been
previously believed
Fame
• Humboldt:
• No botanist who lived
before Albert can be The Start of
compared to him, unless
it be Theophrastus, with
whom he was not School & Spread
acquainted; and after
him none has painted
nature in such living
of Universities
colours, or studied it so
profoundly, until the  ‘It is eight o’clock,’ he began.
time of Conrad, Gesner, ‘About four hundred years
and Cesalpini. All have elapsed since St.
honour, then, to the
man who made such
Augustine, and now school
astonishing progress in starts. From now until ten
the science of nature as o’clock, convent schools will
to find no one, I will not have the monopoly on
say surpass, but even to
equal him for the space education. Between ten and
of three centuries. eleven o’clock the first
• With Roger Bacon, he is cathedral schools will be
recognized as a pioneer in founded, followed at noon by
the experimental method in the first universities. The
science.
great Gothic cathedrals will
be built at the same time.
This church, too, dates from
the 1200s—or what we call
the High Gothic period.’
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS Works
• 1225 – 1274
• German stock, but born in
Aquino, a town between
Rome and Naples.
• Went to the University of
Naples: Arab and Jewish
philosophers, and
Aristotle. Issues
• Became a Dominican • On theology & philosophy
• Went to Paris and studied
at UP, and taught there.
• On 1274, he traveled to
attend the Council of Lyon,
but he fell ill & died at a
Cistercian Monastery.
• Commentaries
• on the Logic, Physics, Metaphysics and Ethics of Aristotle
• on the Scriptures
• on Dionysius the Areopagite
• on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard
• Summae
• Summa contra Gentiles
• Summa Theologica
• Theory of double truth: Averroist
• What reason shows to be true is
absolutely true, so that the opposite is
absolutely false and impossible. Truth is
one, whether religious or rational.
• No distinction: Augustinianism
• By its natural power of reason, the
intellect is able to draw the intelligible
from the material objects. Ex. Aristotle
knows a lot although he’s a pagan.
• “The truths of faith are above human
understanding. They are the object of faith and
not of science. Hence philosophy and theology
are distinct and this distinction must be
retained.”
• Although distinct, philosophy & theology are
related.
Epistemology Metaphysics
• Aristotelian • Potency & Act
• Knowledge is obtained in two stages: • Potency – non-being, non-reality, imperfection
• Sensitive – particular things, individuals -- capacity to receive some perfection
• Intellective – universal, the idea, the • Act – being, reality, perfection
intelligible
• Motion (becoming) – transition from potency to act.
• Nihil est in intellectu quod prius non
fuerit in sensu. • Pure Act is beyond becoming, no motion.
• Senses & intellect are in Potency – individual • Matter & Form = hylomorphism
to the universal (idea) • Matter – no determination, formless
• Senses & intellect are Actuated – based on • Form – gives matter determination, reality, or perfection.
the material impression knowledge is
produced. • They constitute the essence, or whatness of the object.
Aside from the Material and Formal causes
• Agent intellect – or active intellect –
abstracts the form of the object and • Efficient cause – the agent which brings about the union
of matter & form
passes it on to the passive intellect.
• Final cause – the reason why the agent acts upon this
• The mind (cognitive faculty) becomes union. The end (purpose) the agent has in mind.
one with the form of that which it
knows.
Philosophical synthesis
• In his effort to reconcile faith with intellect,
• Truth consists in the equality of the he created a philosophical synthesis of the
intellect with its object. works and teachings of Aristotle and other
classic sages; of Augustine and other church
Cosmology fathers; of Averroës, Avicenna, and other
• Aristotle: matter is uncreated and Islamic scholars; of Jewish thinkers such as
so co-eternal with God --- (dualism) Maimonides and Solomon ben Yehuda ibn
Gabirol; and of his predecessors in the
• Aquinas: Creation out of nothing. Scholastic tradition.