The Search for the Insignia of Medieval Philosophy

Greek thought, especially that of Aristotle, heavily influenced Thomas Aquinas, one of the prominent medieval Christian philosophers.  Which begs the question, what distinguishes medieval thought from the ancient Greeks?  To address this issue we will look at Plato’s conception of the soul body relationship in comparison to the medieval conception. Then we will turn to Christian Socratism and how the conception of knowing thyself was affected by medieval thought. Next, we will look at Plato’s epistemology with respect to medieval suppositions. Interwoven through all of this is an analysis of the successes and failures of medievalists in addressing these issues. Finally, we step out and take a broader look at the relationship between the Greeks and medievalists to determine the amount of indebtedness medievalists are to the Greek philosophers.

            Plato’s man is a soul using its body (173) essentially by accident (174). The soul defines the person not the body under Plato’s philosophy; in fact, the body limits the capacities of the soul. The soul, according to Plato, is filled with all knowledge (a-priori), life in the body is the process of recollecting that which one knew in his former lives. In this way, philosophy for Plato is a pursuit of deliverance from the body.  Plato’s student, Aristotle, deviates from his teacher by asserting that the soul is of a form that cannot exist apart from its material form (176). The relationship between soul and body is a natural phenomenon according to Aristotle. However, Aristotle establishes so close a connection between the soul and body that when someone dies, the soul and the body die. The organic becomes inorganic at least in an individual sense (177-178). So comes a dilemma for Christian philosophers “If we follow Plato in his proof of the substantiality of the soul we put the unity of man in jeopardy; if we follow Aristotle in his proof of the unity of man, we risk the substantiality of the soul, and its immortality along with it” (176). Christians would like to keep the immortality of Plato and the connection of the soul and the body as a natural relationship of Aristotle. Gilson’s stance is that the Christian man is a substance that owes all his substantiality to the soul (187). Souls remain immortal but are unable to develop their activity without the co-operation of the body, which maintains perpetuity with the soul (188). The body and soul are co-operators in man, each having perpetuity at the resurrection of the body.

             In the medieval and early modern period the soul was connected with man’s intellect and reasoning capabilities. The logic for this was based off the notion that animals do not have souls but men do. That which distinguishes man from the animals is the ability to reason. Therefore, reason and the soul are intertwined (181-182, 186). The intellect or reason apart from the body is useless. The intellect is dependent upon the body but the body is also dependent upon the intellect, as the intellect is what separates man from the beasts. This is a weaker argument medievalists make, as the premise that animals do not reason is invalid. Animal instinct and defense mechanisms are in fact very advanced.   Their ability to work as a team to defend each other and provide food is something man has not even been able to figure out. Certainly, man has been able to use the things around him to subvert nature to his will through bioengineering and other sophisticated equipment but inter-species conflict continues to plague the world of mankind (not that this happens only in the species of man but at the very least is most prevalent in man). How advanced in reason can we be if we insist upon barbaric rituals to solve our problems? Nevertheless, medievalists in this way follow in the lines of Greek philosophy with their anthropocentric views.

            Medieval thought departs from Aristotle in affirming the immortality of a man and Plato in affirming the natural connection between the soul and the body at the same time. Medieval thought maintains the connection between the soul and man’s reason. Medievalists, it would seem, gleaned from Plato and Aristotle what they liked and dispose of that which conflicted with their Christian presuppositions.  The Greeks would not have conceived of a resurrection of the body, a principle central to medieval Christians. The body, in the Greek mindset, just decomposed and became like the dirt around it. Christians are usually speaking of new spiritual bodies, nevertheless, Plato saw the body soul relationship as accidental, death freed the soul from the body not a transfer of the soul between bodies, and Aristotle views the soul and body so inseparable that each dies in death. In affirming the resurrection of the body, Christians go beyond the conception of Greek philosophy.

            The soul of man possesses the image of God (213). Therefore, when we study ourselves—as image bearers of God—we are in turn studying God. “When Socrates advised them to concentrate on self-knowledge, Christians would at once take this to mean that they must learn to know the nature God gave them, and the place He marked out for them in the order of the universe, so that they in their turn might order themselves towards God” (214). Pursuit of self-knowledge was for medievalists a pursuit for understanding God in that from self-knowledge we are able to rise to knowledge of God (228). In a sense, it is man’s quest for or to God such that they might better fill the role God has for them. Medievalists are like the Magi from the East that followed a star to the Messiah that they might worship Him in their proper place (Mathew 2). Ones own self, points the way towards God, as the star pointed the Magi towards Bethlehem. The journey to God takes place completely within oneself. For he who is seeking God has already found God.

             Self-knowledge became prized over and above knowledge of external things (213).  The knowledge of the hope that we have in Christ Jesus and the knowledge of the one whose image we were created in places us above all other created things (222).   Man is therefore the highest created being in the minds of the medievalists. A belief commonly held with Greek philosophers. “Socrates recommended to his successors to seek after self-knowledge in order to become better men” (209). This Greek notion of a great chain of being was continued into medieval times, with an anthropocentric view of man in the world. The Christian self-knowledge does rise above the Greek self-knowledge as laid out by Pascal. The Greek self-knowledge was practical knowledge that involved self-reflection. The Christian view was speculative; it served as the basis for knowledge and truth, which was in God (227). Christian self-knowledge therefore departs in many ways from the Greek philosophy. For Plato knowledge was in the land of the forms, for Aristotle it was a relation between the intellect and the thing. It does wonder closer to Plato’s theory of anamnesis in that all knowledge is in the person and therefore all they have to do is recollect it but for Plato it was not in knowing oneself that one acquired this knowledge but through questioning.

            Plato has a fear of the flesh, and is otherworldly. This becomes a problem for creation confirming medievalists who saw this world as “a necessary starting point from which to rise to the kingdom of God” (243). Knowledge for Plato was in the world of the forms, things of earth merely participate in their form. Anselm and Augustine develop and perfect Plato such that “what remains then is to recollect that the truth of created things is only a kind of expression of the uncreated truth” (233). The things we can know for certain, like seven and three make ten, are implicit within creation but expressed intangibly. Intellect therefore does not require things, as it is able to know by way of Ideas. Matthew of Aquasparta holds that God imprints knowledge of things upon the intellect as he created the angels (234).  Anselm, in turn, concludes that there is then one sole truth communicated by things and it resides upon the divine intellect. Each thing communicates its truth to the intellect via God and thereby each thing’s truth is inseparable from God’s truth (238).

            The relation between the thing and the intellect lies in judgment for Aquinas.  The truth of these judgments for Aquinas is found in thought alone under three classes, two of which are relative, the other absolute (235). The first relative truth is “the basic condition without which no truth would be possible, that is to say being” (237). In the absolute truth consists in the ontological relation between the being and the intellect (237). Then there is the logical truth of the judgment which is a consequence of the ontological truth and is a manifestation of that which has already been realized between the intellect and being (238).  For Aquinas if things did not exist the relative truths would disappear but the truth of divine intellect would subsist (239).

“For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”  Romans 1:20

            Saint Augustine equates God’s invisible qualities with divine Ideas (240). God is known a priori. Sense knowledge remains only an occurrence in pursuit for intellectual knowledge for Augustine and in later years by Duns Scotus. However, Duns Scotus places sensual knowledge as a test for the validity. Scotus finds that one first acquires knowledge of sensual things before the world of Ideas (241). In other words, in learning about the created we will eventually rise to that of Ideas.

            There was a lot of variety among medievalists with regard to epistemology. Each had a distinct twist they placed on epistemology. The unifying thread seems to be a God that plays a substantial role in the acquisition of, at the very least, Ideas if not intellect. In a post-enlightenment world, this gets harder to understand as man’s role tends to be emphasized in the acquisition of knowledge. Certainly, God has a role to play in the acquisition of knowledge but is that a complete system in itself as some medievalists would have us believe. In other words, if someone were to sit in solitary confinement all his life looking at blank walls, what knowledge would he have of God or himself? Sensual knowledge must play a major role in the acquisition of knowledge and by extension provide a glimpse into the creator of all things. This sensual knowledge comes about through man’s efforts and pursuits in the world that God has created.

            Overall then what can be said about the connection between medieval and Greek philosophy? It is a very complex relationship in which the medievalists are trying to ground their doctrinal beliefs in a philosophical structure that has its roots in secular Greece. For the medievalists, the philosophies they had available to build off were slim, so rather than create a philosophy all their own from the ground up they turned to the dichotomy between Plato and Aristotle, gleaning from each what they held to be true from their Christian default positions. In this way, medieval philosophy is just a Christianized formulation of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. In a way, all philosophy should be footnoted back to Plato or Aristotle.  However, because of their Christian dispositions the Christianization process brought about questions the Greeks would never have considered like the origins of infinity (226), the resurrection of the body, or the image of God in man, for example, and in this way transcends Greek philosophy. 

            In conclusion, at its base medieval philosophy is an extension of Greek philosophy into a Christian context. Within the Christian context, however, it takes on new meanings to adapt to the Christian mindset. In the soul body relationship, this was the perpetuity of the soul and body. In self-knowledge, the medievalists held that self-knowledge was a pursuit of the image of God in us and by extension God himself. Finally, in medieval epistemology knowledge was believed to be given by God to man through Ideas or intellect. Medieval philosophies insignia is therefore, a recognition that God encompasses all aspects of life and equips man through his benevolence to seek after the absolute truth that is in him alone.