Scotus to the Renaissance Among those who were critical of Aquinas after his death were a number of Franciscans

s associated with Oxford. During the 13th century, the University of Paris had undoubtedly dominated the learned world. By the end of the century, Paris and Oxford were almost like campuses of a single university, with many masters passing between the two institutions. But by 1320 Oxford had established itself as a firmly independent center, and indeed had taken over from Paris the supremacy of European scholasticism. By the 14th cen. Thinkers who made most mark on the history of philosophy were all Oxford associates. Relationships between the faculties of Arts and of theology were not always easy, and in the last years of the 13th cen. Oxford, like Paris, had been affected by a backlash of Augustinian theologians against Aristotelian philosophers. The theologians principal targets were scholars who interpreted Aristotle in the style of Averroes; but they attacked also some of the philosophical teachings of Aquinas, despite the hostility Aquinas had himself shown to Averroes teachings. In 1277 the congregation of Oxford University formally condemned 30 theses in grammar, logic, and

natural philosophy. Several of the theses which were condemned were corollaries of Aquinas teaching that in each human being there was only a single form, namely, the intellectual soul. Congregation condemned, for instance, the view that when the intellectual soul entered the embryo, the sensitive and vegetative souls ceased to exist. The issue was of concern to theologians, not just philosophers, because Aquinas view was taken to imply that the body of Jesus in the tomb, between his death and resurrection, had nothing in common, save bare matter, with his living body. Victory in a long-running controversy was now given to those who, like St Bonaventure, believed in a plurality of forms in an individual human being. Supporters of St Thomas tried to appeal to Rome, but came to naught. For some time to come Oxford dominated by Franciscan thinkers who, though very well acquainted with Aristotle, in this and other matters rejected Aquinas distinctive version of Aristotelianism.

DUNS SCOTUS *The most distinguished of these Oxford thinkers was JOHN DUNS SCOTUS *Born 1266; studied at Oxford between 1288 and 1301; ordained priest in 1291. *He was called The subtle doctor. *He argued against Aquinass notion of the supremacy of reason, saying that Gods WILL (rather than Gods reason) is supreme; this became known as the theory of VOLUNTARISM. *The attitude of Duns Scotus towards Aristotle and philosophy in general is seen in his doctrine

of the object of human knowledge. According to Aristotle, the human intellect is naturally turned towards sensible things from which it must draw all its knowledge by way of sensation and abstraction. As a consequence, the proper object of our knowledge is the essence of a material thing. *Now, Duns Scotus was willing to agree that Aristotle correctly described our present way of knowing, but he did contest that he had said the last word on the subject and that he had sufficiently explained what is in full right the object of our knowledge. Ignorant of Revelation, Aristotle did not realize that man is now in a fallen state and that he was describing the knowledge, not of an integral man, but of one whose mode of knowing was radically altered by original sin. Ignorance of this fact is understandable in a pagan like Aristotle, but it must have seemed inexcusable to Scotus in a Christian theologian like St Thomas. The Christian, Scotus argues, cannot take mans present state as his natural one, nor, as a consequence, the present servitude of his intellect to the senses and to sensible things as natural to him. o We know from Revelation that man is destined to see God face to face. Now this would be impossible to achieve if the adequate object of his knowledge were restricted to the essences of material things, for God is not contained within their scope. o To be open to the vision of God, the intellect must have an object broad enough to include Him, and the only

one that satisfies this condition is BEING. Being, therefore, in its full indeterminati on to material and immaterial things is the first and adequate object of the intellect. When as a theologian Duns Scotus made this decision, he was not only assuring the human intellects capacity for the beatific vision; he was also making metaphysics as a science possible by marking out its proper object. Natural philosophy moves in the realm of finite mobile being and theology in that of infinite being. Metaphysics, on the other hand, has for its object being as being, or the pure undetermined nature of being. For Scotus this is not a logical universal. It is a reality, and the most common of all. Taken simply in itself, the notion of being abstracts from all the differences of beings. That is why it is, for the metaphysician, univocal, having the one and the same meaning when applied to all things. Only in its finite and infinite modes is being analogical. *Being has consequently a univocity in Scotism which is not found in Thomism. o For St Thomas did not treat of being as if it were a nature or essence; rather is form

THAT WHICH IS, at whose center is an act of existing. And since every act of existing is irreducible to every other, there is a radical OTHERNESS in every being which the work of abstraction can never erase. That is why in the philosophy of St Thomas being is, for the metaphysicia n, not a univocal, but an analogical, concept. *It was the Arabian philosopher, Avicenna, who taught Scotus to conceive being as an essence in an absolute state, NATURA TANTUM, and at the same time suggested to him his solution of the classic problem of universals. o The Scotist nature, like the Avicennian, is simply what the definition of it signifies. Now, neither individuality nor universality is included within the definition of any nature. When I define humanity, for instance, I mention its essential parts, animalist and rationality, but I do not say whether it is individual

or universal. Indeed, in itself it is entirely indifferent to being one or the other or both at the same time. It can be an individual in real existence and universal in the mind and still remain basically the same nature, for these modalities are entirely accidental to it. Suppose that the nature were of itself universal. Then it could never be individual; but as a matter of fact it is individual in the world of existing things. On the other hand, if it were by its very nature individual, it could never be universal, but it is universal in the mind. Consequently, the nature in itself must be absolute, abstracting from both individuality and universality. In Scotism the absolute nature does not exist as such. Humanity, for instance, does not exist except in individual men and in the concept

which we form of it. But it is not that account simply a conceptual entity. Scotus says that it is a real being. This real being is contracted or limited by an individual difference or haecceity which renders the nature individual. Following upon this contraction of the essence or nature, the individual is actualized by existence, which (at least in creatures) is the ultimate act of a thing, related to it simply as a mode of being. If this is true, it is evident that essence plays the primary role in Scotist metaphysics. o The metaphysical nucleus, so to speak, of an individual thing is an essence which is limited by different modalities which are purely accidental to it. That is why Duns Scotus metaphysics has justly been called essentialist, in distinction to the existentialist metaphysics of St Thomas, in which the metaphysical center of an individual thing is an act of existing and its essence is but a limitation on that act. o Because they

do not agree in their notions of being, the two metaphysics are fundamentall y different. To confuse them and to equate Scotism with Thomism is simply to invite misunderstan ding in both doctrines. On the other hand, seen in its own light, the metaphysics of Duns Scotus is entirely intelligible. o He carefully distinguishes between two orders of real being: the order of things (RES) and the order of realities or formalities (REALITATES, FORMALITATE S). o Things are such that one can exist in separation from the other, if not naturally (like Peter and Paul), at least by the omnipotence of God (as matter can exist apart from form). o Realities or formalities, however, cannot possibly exist separately. They are only formally nonidentical, in

the sense that one is not contained within the formal definition of the other. In Peter, for example, rationality is not contained within the definition of animality and his individuality as Peter is not contained within the definition of humanity; otherwise there could be no animality which is not rational and no humanity other than Peters. What is characteristic of the philosopy of Duns Scotus is that he attributed reality even to these formalities. They are not simply abstractions of the mind; they are abstract from each other even before the mind considers them. Each has a real being of its own and a real unity distinct from that of individual things. o SCOTU S taught a formal distinc tion based on the nature of a reality in which

IN SUM:

spe c grad s of bein are dist guis d (dis ctio actu s form is e natu rei) This ofte calle the the Scot c Form Dist ion, and has been desc ed a little less than real disti ion a a litt mor than logic or men disti ion. This doct e, it mus be adm ed, i not easy and perh s no poss e to

know in its fullnes s. The Princi ple of Indivi duatio n accordi ng to Scotus, is quanti fied matte r Thoma s teache s, but a reality which is supera dded to a being already constit uted in its specific nature. This reality is called the thisnes s of the the thing ( eitas Essenc e and Existen ce are not disting uished in created being a real distinct ion, but by a

form disti ion, whic is som ing mor than logic and som ing l than real. Scot doct e of Univ als i qual d Mod te Real m whic was deve ped logic y by his follo rs in Ultra Real m. For t rest Scot acce s th plur y-ofform doct e, ev for man and decl s tha ther in m a for of corp ity ( body

form) in additio n to the soul which is The substa ntial form of the living body. He holds WILL superio r to INTEL LECT ( arism CONCLUSION: In judgme nt of intellec t in no wise moves the will, but is a mere conditi on for the wills free action. The Immort ality of the soul cannot be proved by reason alone. Scotus declare s that the concep t of being is univoc

al. In Phys , he rejec the rati es sem ales theo but posi dire inte ntio of G God ever gene tive act. o

Scot had very keen and subt mind and mult catio of disti ions hard und tand Som decl that doct e, righ und tood who in acco with Thom m; othe say that cont s the germ of

every moder n error. Some hold that Scotus cloude d the whole science of Metaph ysics; others no less ardentl y aver that he clarifie d it. Many say that he made philoso phy a welter of comple xities that no mind can unders tand; others sincere ly believe that he simplifi ed philoso phy. Recent critical investi gation, howev er, shows that many works and doctrin es, suppos edly of

Scot auth hip, and the occa n of cont ersy are truly Scot c at The influ ce o Scot was enor ous. The oppo nts o Thom m turn to h as a cham on. T Fran cans follo d Scot as th Dom cans follo d Thom s.

WILLIAM OF OCKHAM Born at Ockham in Surrey, England ca 1285. Like Scotus a Franciscan friar. Studied at Oxford shortly after Scotus had left it. He lectured on the Sentences from 1317 to 1319, but never took his MA, having fallen foul of the Chancellor of the University, John Lutterell. He went to London where, in the 1320s, he wrote up his Oxford

lectures, and composed a systematic treatise on logic as well as commentaries on Aristotle and Porphyry. In 1324 he was summoned to Avignon to answer charges of heresy brought by Lutterell, and soon afterwards gave up his interest in theoretical philosophy. He became involved in the disputes between Philip the Fair of France and Pope Boniface VIII, and suffered imprisonment and excommunication for his intemperate and unorthodox views. He was reconciled with the Church and with his Order before his death, which occurred in 1348 or soon thereafter.

WORKS o o

Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard; Commentaries on Aristotle and Porphyry;Quodlib eta; Dialogue on the Temporal Power of the Popes.

DOCTRINE o His doctrine on human knowledge is the core of his philosophy. This doctrine, known as Venerable Inaugurator of Terminism. o Terminism is really Nominalism, or perhaps it is more accurately described as Conceptualism with a cast towards

Nominalism. OCKHAMS LOGIC OF LANGUAGE Scotus tendency to restrict the field of operation of philosoph y is carried further by his successor, William Ockham. Many of Ockhams positions in logic and metaphysi cs were taken up either in developm ent of, or in opposition to, Duns Scotus. Though his thought is less sophistica ted than that of Scotus, his language is mercifully much clearer. Like Scotus, Ockham regards being as a univocal term, applicable to God in the same sense as to creatures. He allows into his system, however, much less extensive variety of created beings, reducing

the ten Aristotelian categories to two, namely substances and qualities. Like Scotus, Ockham accepts a distinction between abstractive and intuitive knowledge; it is only by intuitive knowledge that we can now whether a contingent fact obtains or not. Ockham goes beyond Scotus, however, in allowing that God, by his almighty power, can make us have intuitive knowledge of an object that does not exist. That is, whatever God can do through secondary causes, he argues, God can do directly; so if God can make me know that a wall is white by causing the white wall to meet my eye, he can make me have the same belief without there being any white wall there at all. This thesis obviously opens a road to skepticism, quickly traversed by some of Ockhams followers. Ockhams most significant disagreement with Scotus concerned the

nature of universals. He rejected outright the idea that there was a common nature existing in the many individuals we call by a common nature. No universal exists outside the mind; everything in the world is singular. Ockham offered many arguments against common natures, of which one of the most vivid is the following: It follows from that opinion that part of Christs essence would be wretched and damned; because that same common nature really existing in Christ really exists in Judas and is damned. Universals are not things but signs, single signs representing many things. There are natural signs and conventional signs; natural signs are the thoughts in our minds, and conventional signs are the words which we coin to express these thoughts. Ockhams view of universals is often called nominalism; but in his system it is not only names, but concepts,

which are universals. However, the title has a certain aptness, since Ockham thought of the concepts in our minds as forming a language system, a language common to all humans and prior to all the different spoken languages. In that sense it is true to say that for Ockham, only names are universal; but we have to count among names not only the names in natural languages, but the unspoken names of our mental language a language which, as Ockham describes it, turns out to have quite a strong structural similarity to medieval Latin. At different times in his career Ockham gives different accounts of the relationship between the names of the mental language and the things in the world. According to his earlier theory, the mind fashioned mental images or representations, which resembled real things. These fictions, as he called them, served as

elements in mental propositions, in which they took the place of the things they resembled. Fictions cold be universal in the sense of having an equal likeness to many different things. Later, Ockham ceased to believe in these fictions; names in mental language were simply acts of thinking, items in an individual persons psychological history. These mental names occur in mental sciences (presumably as successive stages of the thinking of the sentence); a thought, or sentence, is a true thought or sentence if the successive names which occur in it are names of the same thing. Thus the thought that Socrates is a philosopher is a true thought because Socrates can be called both Socrates and philosopher. It is not easy to see, on this account, quite how to explain the truth conditions of a sentence such as Socrates is not a dog; but Ockham, to his credit, goes to

some trouble to deal with the difficult cases. Ockham is best known for something which he never said, namely Entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. This principle, commonly called Ockhams Razor, is not found in his works, though he did say similar things such as it is futile to do with more what can be done with fewer or plurality should not be assumed without necessity. In fact, the sentiment long antedated Ockham; but it does sum up his reductionist attitude to the technical philosophical developments of his predecessors. Sometimes this attitude enabled him to cut away fictional entities; as often as not, it led him to overlook distinctions that were philosophically significant.

FINAL REMARKS: o Terminism or Nominalism had many followers, for it had two attractive features: 1) it dispensed with the endless distinctions and sub-distinctions of Scotism; and 2) it offered a seemingly light and easy solution of the most complex problems of philosophy. o Yet these attractive features were deceiving, and Terminism does not justify its claim as a serious interpretation of the universethe function of true philosophy. On the contrary, it is full of implicit philosophical errors. It was condemned by Pope Clement VI in 1346. MYSTICISM AND ECKHART o The 14 and 15 centuries saw a revival of Mysticism. o The Chief orthodox Mystics were: Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293-1381); John Gerson (1363-1429); Peter dAilly (1350-1420); Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471); Thomas Hemerken (Thomas a Kempis), author

POLITICAL THEORY o Conditioned by the controversy between the Pope and Emperor over taxation of the clergy for secular purposes, etc.

of the famous Imitation of Christ (13801471). Among the heterodox Mystics: Blessed Henry Suso (died 1366) who was not consciously unorthodox in doctrine; Master Eckhart of Hochheim (about 1260-1327), a Dominican who was unorthodox, but not contumacious. He had 22 propositions condemned, but appealed to the Papal Court. He died before adverse decision was rendered; John Tauler (1290-1361); Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464). o

THE OXFORD CALCULATORS o When Ockham died of the Black Death in Munich in 1349 it was a quarter of century since he had left Oxford. During the period, the University had become the unquestioned intellectual center of scholastic philosophy. It would be wrong to envisage it simply as a battleground for warring schools of thought, Thomists against Scotists, nominalists against realists and so on. During

this period, Aquinas was not much followed in Oxford, even by Dominicans, and Scotism was not dominant even though in the first half of the 14th century the leading thinkers were Franciscans. Even Ockham left behind no characteristic nominalist school in Oxford. It was in France that nominalists like John of Mirecourt and Nicholas of Autrecourt took to lengths of extreme skepticism his teaching that Gods unlimited power rendered suspect human claims to any certain knowledge of absolute truth. Between 1320 and 1340 a group of vigorous and independent thinkers in Oxford authored developments in various parts of the curriculum. Many writers published logical treatises, expanding the traditional logic into many new areas, exploring especially propositions about motion and change, expansion and contraction, measurement and time. The most important of the logical writers was

Walter Burley, whose Pure Art of Logic marked a high point in the formalization of logic in the Middle Ages. Formalization became important in theology too: it reached a point where theology can almost be said to have become mathematized. Problems of maxima and minima, and questions whether continua are infinitely divisible and infinitely extendible, which might be thought to be the province of the mathematical scientist rather than the theologian, are first worked out in the analysis of the growth of grace in the souls of the faithful and in measuring the capacity for infinite beatitude of the Saints in heaven. Whether or not these inquiries assisted the progress of theology, they were to prove most valuable in the study of physics. This was already apparent in the development, especially at Merton College, of a new mathematical physics. The

method of inquiry of these Oxford calculators was the presentation and solution of sophismata, logical puzzle and paradoxes. A proposition such as Socrates is infinitely whiter than Plato begins to be white was presented and analyzed, and assessed for possible truth and falsity. Bizarre as this method might seem to the modern reader, it was in the course of resolving these sophismata that notions of mathematical ratio and proportions were evolved. Moreover, the new notions were given diagrammatic representation by line segments, which proved useful in measuring the interaction of motion, time, and distance. In this way the foundation was laid for the revolution in physics associated with much better known names such as that of Galileo. One of the foremost of the Merton Calculators was Thomas Bradwardine, who developed a theory of ratios

which he used to present a theory of how forces, resistances, and velocities were to be correlated in motion; this quickly superseded Aristotles laws of motion, not only in Oxford, but also in Paris, where it was adopted by Oresme. Bradwardine was also a representative of another new tendency of the Oxford of the mid-14th century, a revival of Augustinianism. Augustine had, of course always been an authority to be quoted with reverence; but now scholars began to pay more attention to the historical context of his writing, and to take most interest in his later, antiPelagian work. Bradwardine, in his massive De Causa Dei, presented an Augustinian treatment of the issues surrounding predestination and freedom. Theological interest at this period had moved away from Trinitarian and Christological issues to such topics as grace and freedom and the limits of

omnipotence. If you can resist sin for a single hour, does that mean you can resist it for a lifetime? Can God command that he be hated? What if God were to reveal to someone their future damnation? TRANSITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY (1450-1600) The study of the Greek and Latin classics was never utterly extinct among Christian peoples. Many of the Fathers of the Church, notably Sts Augustine and Jerome, and many ecclesiastical writers of the Middle Ages, praised the literary monuments of antiquity and imitated their polished style in their own writings. The esteem in which the pagan classics were held was increased in Italy and throughout Europe in the 14th century by the writings of Dante Alighieri, Francesco Petrarca, and Giovanni Boccaccio, the Fathers of the Italian Language. Now the Christian writers of the later Middle Ages, especially in centuries following the 13, allowed themselves to grow careless in their expression and to profess a contempt for the niceties of Latin style. Greek literature, imperfectly known in Europe before the 13 century, was made available throughout the West during the 14 and 15 centuries. Commerce with the Greeks, the attempts of ecclesiastical powers to unite the Eastern Schismatics with Rome, and, finallly, the fall of Constantinople and the settling of fugitive Greeks in Western Europe, were the occasions that led to the intemperate zeal for Greek learning that characterized this time. Had the return to ancient

elegance been kept within due bounds, it would have been a very good thing for Christianity. The truths of Faith would have the more readily won the favor of learned men by being presented with grace and ornateness. But, sad to say, the new culture did harm to the Faith, and this for several reasons. *First, not only the elegant manner, but also the inelegant and gross matter of pagan classics came to be admired by inferior and illdisciplined mindsalways the majority in any civilization. *The exile of the Popes to Avignon in the 14 century, and the schism which followed a little later, lessened respect for ecclesiastical authority and reverence for the teachings of the Church itself. *Laxity of morals followed as a matter of course. Christians, lay and clerical, neglected the study of sacred science and became devoted admirers of antiquity and the works of men (Humanism). With the cult of pagan classics came the revival of the standards of pagan art. The combined revival or rebirth of ancient art and letters came to be called the RENAISSANCE. And when the movement had reached its height, there occurred the revolution of Protestantism in the 16 century. Thus in art, letters, and religion, the minds of the multitudes were turned to doctrines and ideals far removed from the articles of Faith and from Scholastic Philosophy, which was contemptuously regarded as a mere instrument of that Faith. Thus was the way prepared for modern systems of philosophy, which began to appear in the 17 century. SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY in 15th and 16th Centuries As the cult of classical antiquity increased, the prestige of Scholasticism declined. The adversaries of the great Philosophy of the Golden Age were numerous and violent in their attack; while discords among the Schoolmen rendered weak and futile their efforts at

defense. Scotists and Thomists, Terminists and Realists, battled and wrangled, or entertained themselves with ddialectic drivel, while the fortress of true Scholastic Philosophy was being laid in ruins. Aroused at last to their dire necessity, the Scholastics made some show of unified effort. Led by the Masters of the University of Paris, earnest philosophers inaugurated a movement for the restoration of pure Scholasticism. A royal decree was passed in France forbidding the teaching of Terminism (Nominalism), and prescribing that Aristotelean Philosophy be taught in the Schools. Among commentators on Aristotle approved in the decree was Thomas and Averroes, Scotus, Alexander of Hales, Giles of Rome, and Bonaventure. The Dominicanswho, indeed, had never abandoned Thomism were a great power in the work of restoration. They applied themselves ardently to the study of the Angelic Doctor, and in the mid-15 century they installed his SUMMAE as textbooks in their Schools, displacing the long enduring SENTENCES of Peter the Lombard. One of the greatest Dominican Scholastics of this period was Thomas de Vio, called Cajetan (1469-1534), an Italian, who, with Sylvester of Ferrara (1474-1528), led the movement for the restoration of Scholasticism in Italy and Spain. The movement for restoration bore fruit, but the forces of antiScholasticism, aided by the Humanists and the heretics, could not be stayed. Besides, the Schoolmen were unable, on a sudden, to free their camp of all abuses; and the excessive love of dialectical subtlety, the contempt for new findings in experimental and historical sciences, the neglect of elegant letters, were things still to be corrected at the beginning of the 16 century. Hence the Scholastics had not

only to revive the doctrines of the Golden Age; they had also to extend the principles of their philosophy in the interpretation of the steadily increasing data of sacred and profane learning and of the experimental sciences; and this work they neglected. Some Scholastics did, indeed, remain true to scientific ideals, trying with unflagging energy to keep abreast of the times. Chief of these was Francis de Vittoria, Italian Dominican (1480-1546), and he had numerous imitators among the Dominicans and in the newly established Society of Jesus. These men tried to teach Scholastic Philosophy in a manner suited to the times, and their efforts bore fruit throughout Europe, especially in Spain and Italy. Yet, in despite of all, the philosophy opposed to Revelation advanced in scope and influence day by day. THOMISM The Thomists of the 15 century were mostly commentators trying to adapt philosophy to the needs of the hour, and, while they did some service for Scholasticism, they also wrought some harm, inasmuch as they confused the scope of philosophy and theology, and varying degrees abandoned the form, method, and the order of Thomas Aquinas. The Thomistics philosophers of 16 century carried on, under the leadership of Francis de Vittoria, the work of reducing Thomism to its pure form.

1474, but its influence extended into the 16 century and it bequeathed some doctrines to the antiScholastics of the age; these doctrines were, partially at least, transmitted to modern philosophy. SCOTISM The Scotists of the 15 and 16 centuries were all members of the Franciscan Order. SUAREZ Of all the philosophers in this period, perhaps the most notable, and certainly the most enduring in influence, was FRANCIS SUAREZ, Jesuit (15481617). Suarez denied the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures, admitting only a logical distinction with a foundation in fact (virtual distinction). He taught, in consequence, that matter and form in bodies have, neither of them, complete existence, but form a complete existence in their union. He regarded subsistence as a perfection superadded to an already existing nature. He rejected the Thomistic Principle of Individuation (quantified matter) and made this the entity of a thing considered absolutely. He taught that accidents of a body inhere in the Prime Matter and not in the composite (matter and form) body itself, making exception, however, of some accidents which are fitted to inhere in both matter and substantial form. He asserts that Prime Matter has entitative extension antecedent to its accident of quantity in bodies. He makes the direct and immediate object of intellect concrete and individual reality; teaching that the species abstracted by the agent intellect are entitatively

TERMINISM (NOMINALISM): Terminism waned rapidly after its condemnation by the King of France in

immaterial, but representatively material and individual. From such singular or individual knowledge the intellect rises to universal concepts, or the formation of Species and Genera. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE PERIOD The Renaissance fostered love of the fine arts, and aroused interest in the study of Nature, the exemplar of all the arts. During the 15 and 16 centuries interest in the sciences which investigate nature increased day by day. The experimentalists discovered many wonderful and valuable truths, but, lacking a stable basis of philosophy, they oftentimes interpreted their findings in a manner harmful to true philosophy and to religion. Some authors group the experimentalists as Naturalists. This does not mean that all professed of Nature, complete and concordant, or that each philosopher agreed with the otherson the contrary. This group of scientists are Naturalists in the sense that they are engaged in the study of natural science rather than in that of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics. The more important naturalistic philosophers of the time were: 1. Nicolas Copernicus (1473-1543), wrote 4 books On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies; 2. Bernardine Telesius (Telesio; 1508-1639), who instituted at Naples an Academy for the study of natural sciences; 3. Thomas Campanella (1568-1639), a Dominican Scholastic who was disturbed by the anti-Scholasticism of the time, and tried to reform the whole philosophic system; 4. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), a mathematician and astronomer, called by many the Father of Modern Experimental Science. his doctrine on the heliocentric movement of the earth aroused bitter controversies, even among theologians; 5. Johan Kepler (1571-1631), a famous astronomer 6. Paracelsus (1493-1541), a physician, experimentalist, and philosopher;

7. Giordano Bruno, a Dominican (15481600), naturalist; he was proud and dissolute man, and was expelled from his Order for insubordination and heterodox doctrine. He travelled throughout Europe preaching heretical and immoral doctrines. Taken at Venice and brought to Rome, he was condemned and burned at the stake in 1600. All of the above agree in stressing the importance of experimental science, but they differ much in their philosophy. Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler did not enter the domain of natural philosophy, generally speaking, but kept to experimental physics. Yet their sane use of induction led to the discovery of many natural laws, and demonstrated the value of this philosophic method in the field of experimental science: thus they indirectly contributed to the cause of true philosophy. Telesius and Campanellla proposed a philosophy of nature that may be summed up as follows: God created matter inert, and then gave it two opposed powers, viz., heat and cold. At first these powers divided matter evenly between them. The heated matter became thin, white, and readily movable; while the cold matter became dense, heavy, and opposed to motion. The heated matter, ascending, composed the heavens; the cold matter, remaining below, made the earth. By the action of heat upon the earth, and the reaction of the cold earth, different kinds of things were gradually formed, of which living things are the most perfect. Life itself is due to a heated substance penetrating a bodily organism. Telesius substitutes this heated-lifeprinciple for the substantial form of Aristotle (i.e., in living things), and calls it soul in plants, brutes, and men. To save his Faith, Telesius also postulated in man a strictly spiritual soul created by God, which spiritual soul is the principle of thought and free-

will. At this point Campanella leaves Telesius and advances some further theories of his own. Campanella analyzes human nature. He declares that man has the power of acting, the power of thinking, and the power of willing. He asserts that these powers are found, in more or less perfect degree, in all existent beings. Everything that exists has its power of acting, it knows its entity, and it wills the last end towards which it tends. Hence it is the function of true philosophy to investigate the principles of being, knowing, and willing in all things, and to refer these to God, who is Himself constituted in the infinite grade of being, power, intellection, and volition. This doctrine of universally extended power, knowledge and will in all beings is called Pan-Psyschism. Paracelsus and Cardano were physicians who cultivated experimental science. They proposed nothing of any moment to the philosopher. They professed a kind of mysticism, and practiced theurgic and magical arts, seeking to cure the sick and to ward off the bad influence of evil spirits, stars, etc. Francesco Patrizzi, a follower of Telesius and Giordano Bruno entered the field of philosophy more directly than any of the Naturalists. Patrizzi wrote A New Philosophy of All Things, in which he strikes at Aristotelean doctrine, and professes himself a Platonist. As a matter of fact, however, he is rather a Neoplatonist than a Platonist. He says that in the beginning there existed only the absolute ONE, containing all things in Itself. By successive emanations, the one produces pure spirits the world-soul, human souls, and bodily nature (Pantheism). No bodily being has its own proper activity; all activity in the universe

proceeds from the world-soul. Analogously, all activity regarded as proper to man proceeds from the human soul alone. In Physics, Patrizzi follows Telesius. Bruno professes a pantheism of manifestations. In the works of Nicolas of Cusa he had read that God is the complication of all things; He is the coincidence of opposites. Therefore, says Bruno, God is the essence of all things. Things are but the manifestations or unfolding of God, who is latent in everything. This divine manifestation has two phases, matter and form. Matter is a passive principle; form (which is single and unique in the whole matter) is an active principle, which functions universally, being the efficient and final cause of all things. The human soul is but a manifestation of the universal form, and thus will never perish. In Physics, Bruno follows Telesius. POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE PERIOD The Renaissance, or, more accurately, the Humanist movement, brought to light the works of ancient legislators and political philosophers, and these were studied with great zeal by the votaries of the new fad of studying and excessively valuing everything human in the treasury of the universe. This study, plus the spirit of rebellion against authority, ecclesiastical and civil, which the Reformation induced, as well as a new devotion to the so-called Principle of Nationality (which holds that each nation should constitute its own civil society) occasioned the emergence of many social philosophies in the 16 century. Not a few of these were opposed to the Social Ethics of Scholasticism. 3 Political philosophers are worth mentioning: 1. Nicolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), who expressed his political philosophy in a work called The Prince (Il Principe)

2. St Thomas More (1480-1535), English martyr, whose UTOPIA describes an imaginary island-republic so governed as to procure absolute equality for its citizens and to promote universal happinessan ideal impossible of attainment 3. Hugo de Groot (Grotius 1583-1645), a learned Dutch Protestant, who wrote on THE RIGHT OF WAR AND OF PEACE MACHIAVELLI teaches that the chief aim of civil society is the development of the STATE. The State must be made supreme in all things, and all means are lawful to achieve this great end. The ruler need feel himself bound by no law, natural or human, but may manage things at will, so long as he works consistently in the direction of State supremacy. Machiavelli warred against Christianity, which he found in conflict with his Ideal of State apotheosis. DE GROOT was much more of a philosopher than either Machiavelli or Thomas More. He distinguishes right as DIVINE and HUMAN, and subdivides human right into NATURAL and CIVIL. He calls civil or social right VOLUNTARY because he believes that while man has a TENDENCY towards life in society, he has actually assumed social obligations and privileges by a sort of free compact, at least implicitly. He declares that in the state of original innocence community of goods among men was assured; the right of individual ownership became necessary as a consequence of sin; and this necessary right secured recognition in the world by at least a TACIT agreement or compact among men. SUMMARY Not very long after St Thomas Aquinas, cracks began to appear in the unifying culture of Christianity. Philosophy and science broke away more and more from theology of the Church, thus enabling religious life to attain a freer relationship to reasoning.

More people now emphasized that we cannot reach God through rationalism because God is in all ways unknowable. The important thing for a man was not to understand the divine mystery but to submit to Gods will. As religion and science could now relate more freely to each other, the way was open both to new scientific methods and a new religious fervor. Thus the basis was created for two powerful upheavals in the 15th and 16th centuries, namely, the RENAISSANCE and the REFORMATION. By the Renaissance we mean the rich cultural development that began in the late 14th century. It started in Northern Italy and spread rapidly northward during the 15th and 16th centuries. Renaissance meant rebirth that which was to be reborn was the art and culture of antiquity. It also speaks of Renaissance humanism, since now, after the long Dark Ages in which every aspect of life was seen through divine light, everything once again revolved around man. Go to the source was the motto, and that meant the humanism of antiquity first and foremost. It almost became a popular pastime to dig up ancient sculptures and scrolls, just as it became fashionable to learn Greek. The study of Greek humanism also had a pedagogical aim. Reading humanistic subjects provided classical education and developed what may be called human qualities. Horses are born, it was said, but human beings are not bornthey are formed. It was thought that to be a human being is to be educated. The political and cultural

background must be considered in order to understand the Renaissance. 3 discoveries the compass, firearms, and the printing press were essentials preconditions for this new period we call the Renaissance. The compass made it easier to navigate. In other words, it was the basis for the great voyages of discovery. So were firearms in way. The new weapons gave the Europeans military superiority over American and Asiatic cultures, although firearms were also an important factor in Europe. Printing played an important part in spreading the Renaissance humanists new ideas. And the art of printing was, not least, one of the factors that forced the Church to relinquish its former position as sole disseminator of knowledge. New inventions and instruments began to follow think and fast. One important instrument, e.g., was the telescope which resulted in a completely new basis for astronomy. A process started in the Renaissance, beginning with the changes on the cultural and economic front. An important condition was the transition from a subsistence economy to a monetary economy. Toward the end of the Middle Ages, cities had developed, with effective trades and a lively commerce of new goods, a monetary economy and banking. A middle class arose which developed a certain freedom with regard to the basic conditions of life. Necessities became something that could be bought for money. This state of affairs rewarded peoples diligence, imagination, and ingenuity. New demands

were made on the individual. Remember how Greek philosophy broke away from the mythological world picture that was linked to peasant culture. In the same way, the Renaissance middle class began to break away from the feudal lords and the power of the church. As this was happening, Greek culture was being rediscovered through a closer contact with the Arabs in Spain and the Byzantine culture in the east. The 3 diverging streams from antiquity joined into one great river the Renaissance. The Renaissance resulted in a NEW VIEW OF MANKIND. The humanism of the Renaissance brought a new belief in man and his worth, in striking contrast to the biased medieval emphasis on the sinful nature of man. Man was now considered infinitely great and valuable. One of the central figures of the Renaissance was Marsillo Ficino, who exclaimed: Know thyself, O divine lineage in mortal guise! Another central figure, Pico della Mirandola, wrote the Oration on the Dignity of Man, something that would have been unthinkable in the Middle Ages. Throughout the whole medieval period, the point of departure had always been to God the humanists of the Renaissance took as their point of departure man himself, so did the Greek philosophers. That is precisely why we speak of a rebirth of antiquitys humanism. But Renaissance humanism was to an even greater extent characterized by INDIVIDUALISM. We are not only human beings, we are unique individuals. This idea

could then lead to an almost unrestrained worship of genius. The ideal could then lead to an almost unrestrained worship of genius. The ideal became what we call the Renaissance man, a man of universal genius embracing all aspects of life, art, and science. The new view of man also manifested itself in an interest in the human anatomy. As in ancient times, people once again began to dissect the dead to discover how the body was constructed. It was imperative both for medical science and for art. Once again it became usual for works of art to depict the nude. High time, after a thousand years of prudery. Man was bold enough to be himself again. There was no longer anything to be ashamed of. The new view of mankind led to a whole new outlook. Man did not exist purely for Gods sake. Man could therefore delight in life here and now. And with this new freedom to develop, the possibilities were limitless. The aim was now to exceed all boundaries. This was also a new idea, seen from the Greek humanistic point of view; the humanists of antiquity had emphasized the importance of tranquility, moderation, and restraint. The humanists behaved as if the whole world had been reawakened. They became intensely conscious of their epoch, which is what led them to introduce the term Middle Ages to cover the centuries between antiquity and their own time. There was an unrivaled development in all spheres of life. Art and architecture, literature, literature, music, philosophy, and science flourished as never before.

For example, Ancient Rome gloried in titles such as the city of cities and the hub of the universe. During the Middle Ages the city declined, and by 1417 the old metropolis had only 17,000 inhabitants. The Renaissance humanists saw it as their cultural duty to restore Rome: first and foremost, to begin the construction of the great St Peters Church over the grave of Peter the Apostle. And St. Peters Church can boast neither of moderation nor restraint. Many great artists of the Renaissance took part in this building project, the greatest in the world. It began in 1506 and lasted for a hundred and twenty years, and it took another fifty before the huge St Peters Square was completed. It was 200 meters long and 130 meters high, and it covers an area of more than 16,000 meters. It was also significant that the Renaissance brought with it an new view of nature. The fact that man felt at home in the world and did not consider life solely as a preparation for the hereafter, created a whole new approach to the physical world. Nature was now regarded as a positive thing. Many held the view that God was also present in his creation. If he is indeed infinite, he must be present in everything. This idea is called PANTHEISM. The medieval philosophers had insisted that there is an insurmountable barrier between God and the Creation. It could now be said that nature is divine and even that it is Gods blossoming. Ideas of this kind were not always looked kindly on by the Church. The fate of Giordano Bruno

was a dramatic example of this. Not only did he claim that God was present in nature, he also believed that the universe was infinite in scope. He was punished very severely for his ideas. He was burned at the stake in Romes Flower Market in the year 1600. During the Renaissance, what we call antihumanism flourished as wellthe authoritarian power of State and Church. During the Renaissance there was a tremendous thirst for trying witches, burning heretics, magic and superstition, bloody religious warsand not least, the brutal conquest of America. But humanism has always had a shadow side. No epoch is either purely good or purely evil. Good and evil are twin threads that run through the history of mankind. And often they intertwine this is not least true of the next key phrase, a NEW SCIENTIFIC METHOD, another Renaissance innovation. A precondition for all the technical development that took place after the Renaissance. The new scientific method was mainly a process of investigating nature with our own senses. Since the 14th century there had been an increasing number of thinkers who warned against blind faith in old authority, be it religious doctrine or the natural philosophy of Aristotle. There were also warnings against the belief that problems can be solved purely by thinking. An exaggerated belief in the importance of reason had been valid all through the Middle Ages. Now it was said that every investigation of natural phenomena must be based on observation, experience, and

experiment. We call this the EMPIRICAL METHODthat one bases ones knowledge of things on ones own experienceand not on dusty parchments or figments of imagination. Empirical science was known in antiquity, but systematic EXPERIMENTS were something quite new. It was now above all all imperative to express scientific observations in precise mathematical terms. Measure what can be measured, and make measurable what cannot be measured, said Galileo Galilei, who was one of the most important scientists of the 17th century. He also said that the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. Nature was no longer something man was simply a part of. Knowledge is power, said the English philosopher Francis Bacon, thereby underlining the practical value of knowledge and this was indeed new. Man was seriously starting to intervene in nature and beginning to control it. The technical revolution that began in the Renaissance led to the spinning jenny and to unemployment, to medicines and new diseases, to the improved efficiency of agriculture and the improvement of the environment, to practical appliances such as the washing machine and the refrigerator and pollution and industrial waste. The serious threat to the environment we are facing today has made many people see the technical revolution itself as a perilous maladjustment to natural conditions. It has been pointed out that we have started something we can no longer control. More

optimistic spirits think we are still living in the cradle of technology, and that although the scientific age has certainly had its teething troubles, we will gradually learn to control nature without at the same time threatening its very existence and thus our own. A NEW WORLD VIEW. In 1543 a little book was published entitled ON THE REVOLUTIONS OF THE CELESTIAL SPHERES. It was written by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who died on the day the book was published. Copernicus claimed that it was not the sun that moved round the earth, it was vice versa. He thought this was completely possible from the observations of the heavenly bodies that existed. The reason people believed that the sun went round the earth was that the earth turns on its axis, he said. He pointed out that all observations of heavenly bodies were far easier to understand if one assumed that both the earth and the other planets circle around the sun. This is called the HELIOCENTRIC WORLD PICTURE, which means that everything centers around the sun.