medievalphil

[medievalphil]

On the Aristotelian basis of medieval ethics (XII)

For critics such as Luther, Christians in the Middle Ages acted in complete conjunction with the ethical implications of the pagan influence of Aristotelianism. Indeed, the Aristotelian shadow loomed over all realms of Latin philosophy, ethics included, as well as Arabic and Jewish philosophy.

Aristotelian ethics

For Aristotle, ethics is a distinct field whose subject matter is good action. When we think of Aristotelian ethics we think of action, good action. The idea is to cultivate a virtue-centric life, infused with virtue, with goodness. This is not just Aristotle, ancient philosophical schools such as the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Platonism, also took virtuosity very seriously. Ethical virtue in Aristotle is to live a life of reason, of emotions that animate the soul, of good social standing. Your life has to revolved around these ethical actions, it has to be a constant strive to live up to ethical virtuous standards. As well as Plato, according to secondary sources mostly. But is ethics something that must be accomplished or picked up by cultivating it or is there a set of ethical principles out there that must be discovered? For Aristotle, to live well (that is, ethically) requires a good upbringing (natural) and the acquisition of good habits (nurture): it comes from nature and nurture. It is a faculty of the soul to reason which principles should be guiding principles that turn into habits of action, and which are vices.

So he rejects Plato's idea that to be completely virtuous one must acquire, through a training in the sciences, mathematics, and philosophy, an understanding of what goodness is. What we need, in order to live well, is a proper appreciation of the way in which such goods as friendship, pleasure, virtue, honor and wealth fit together as a whole. In order to apply that general understanding to particular cases, we must acquire, through proper upbringing and habits, the ability to see, on each occasion, which course of action is best supported by reasons. Therefore practical wisdom, as he conceives it, cannot be acquired solely by learning general rules. We must also acquire, through practice, those deliberative, emotional, and social skills that enable us to put our general understanding of well-being into practice in ways that are suitable to each occasion.

Aristotle’s most well-known writings on ethics are:

1. Nichomachean Ethics

2. Eudemian Ethics

3. Magna Moralia (attributed)

All these are almost identical (with minor variations) and revolve around a central topic: eudaimonia (the good spirit; the highest human good, a life of goodness, how to become the perfect version of yourself) and arete (excellence; you can achieve your eudaimonia if you act excellently, virtuously, that is, according to arete).

But what is virtue that it should be something we must seek? What character traits do humans need to live a good life? Why inquire into the human good? At the end of the day, Aristotle says that to act virtuously is to reach out beyond knowledge… in order to flourish.

But what is good for Aristotle? E.g., to have good friendships; pleasure; health; honour; courage, etc.

Highest good: it is what is desirable for itself; not desired for sake of other good; all other goods deriable for its sake. Not all goods are desirable for themselves, and that justifies our trying to abide by it. The act itself is the thing you want to imitate and acquire. (pretty Kantian?)

For the ancients, eudaimonia (sometimes seen as eu zen) has a religious connotation. Eu (well) + daimon (divinity) in Aristotle is to reach happiness. What is happiness? Is being wealthy or healthy being happy? Think of the principle of Ergon: Am I acting to the best interest of reason? If I am, the ultimate consequence will be happiness. No one tries to live well for the sake of some further goal; rather, being eudaimon is the highest end, and all subordinate goals—health, wealth, and other such resources—are sought because they promote well-being, not because they are what well-being consists in. But unless we can determine which good or goods happiness consists in, it is of little use to acknowledge that it is the highest end. To resolve this issue, Aristotle asks what the ergon (“function”, “task”, “work”) of a human being is, and argues that it consists in activity of the rational part of the soul in accordance with virtue.

Aristotle's conclusion about the nature of happiness is in a sense uniquely his own. No other writer or thinker had said precisely what he says about what it is to live well. But at the same time his view is not too distant from a common idea. As he himself points out, one traditional conception of happiness identifies it with virtue (1098b30–1). Aristotle's theory should be construed as a refinement of this position. He says, not that happiness is virtue, but that it is virtuous activity. Living well consists in doing something, not just being in a certain state or condition. It consists in those lifelong activities that actualize the virtues of the rational part of the soul. At the same time, Aristotle makes it clear that in order to be happy one must possess other goods as well—such goods as friends, wealth, and power. These are the auxiliary goods. One's virtuous activity will be to some extent diminished or defective, if one lacks an adequate supply of different goods.

To some extent, then, living well requires good fortune; happenstance can rob even the most excellent human beings of happiness. Nonetheless, Aristotle insists, the highest good, virtuous activity, is not something that comes to us by chance. Although we must be fortunate enough to have parents and fellow citizens who help us become virtuous, we ourselves share much of the responsibility for acquiring and exercising the virtues.

For Aristotle, there are two kinds of virtue: those that pertain to the part of the soul that engages in reasoning (virtues of mind or intellect), and those that pertain to the part of the soul that cannot itself reason but is nonetheless capable of following reason (ethical virtues, virtues of character).

1. Virtue of intellect:

a. capable of theoretical reasoning. It can ask broad ethical questions pertaining to the realm of metaethics, for example.

b. Capable of practical reasoning, like applied ethics.

2. Virtue of character (ethical virtue):

Ethical virtue is fully developed only when it is combined with practical wisdom. Aristotle places those who suffer from internal disorders in ethical deliberation into one of three categories:

A. Some agents, having reached a decision about what to do on a particular occasion, experience some counter-pressure brought on by an appetite for pleasure, or anger, or some other emotion; and this countervailing influence is not completely under the control of reason.

(1) Within this category, some are typically better able to resist these counter-rational pressures than is the average person. Such people are not virtuous, although they generally do what a virtuous person does. Aristotle calls them “continent” (enkratês).

But (2) others are less successful than the average person in resisting these counter-pressures. They are “incontinent” (akratês).

B. there is a type of agent who refuses even to try to do what an ethically virtuous agent would do, because he has become convinced that justice, temperance, generosity and the like are of little or no value. Such people Aristotle calls evil (kakos, phaulos). He assumes that evil people are driven by desires for domination and luxury, and although they are single-minded in their pursuit of these goals, he portrays them as deeply divided, because their pleonexia—their desire for more and more—leaves them dissatisfied and full of self-hatred.

The theory of the mean is one of Aristotle’s most celebrated theory in the realm of ethics. It comes to say that every ethical virtue is a condition intermediate (a “golden mean” as it is popularly known) between two other states, one involving excess, and the other deficiency. The courageous person, for example, judges that some dangers are worth facing and others not, and experiences fear to a degree that is appropriate to his circumstances. He lies between the coward, who flees every danger and experiences excessive fear, and the rash person, who judges every danger worth facing and experiences little or no fear. Aristotle holds that this same topography applies to every ethical virtue: all are located on a map that places the virtues between states of excess and deficiency. He is careful to add, however, that the mean is to be determined in a way that takes into account the particular circumstances of the individual. There is no universal rule.

Aristotle says, when the good person chooses to act virtuously, he does so for the sake of the “kalon”—a word that can mean “beautiful”, “noble”, or “fine. This term indicates that Aristotle sees in ethical activity an attraction that is comparable to the beauty of well-crafted artifacts, including such artifacts as poetry, music, and drama. He draws this analogy in his discussion of the mean, when he says that every craft tries to produce a work from which nothing should be taken away and to which nothing further should be added. A craft product, when well designed and produced by a good craftsman, is not merely useful, but also has such elements as balance, proportion and harmony—for these are properties that help make it useful. Similarly, Aristotle holds that a well-executed project that expresses the ethical virtues will not merely be advantageous but kalon as well—for the balance it strikes is part of what makes it advantageous. The young person learning to acquire the virtues must develop a love of doing what is kalon and a strong aversion to its opposite—the aischron, the shameful and ugly. Determining what is kalon is difficult, and the normal human aversion to embracing difficulties helps account for the scarcity of virtue.

[medievalphil]

The use of force in public for medieval political thinkers (XI)

Medieval Christian political ideas were rational reflections on Christian authoritative texts. The idea is to reflect of the teachings of sources such as the Bible of the writings of the Fathers of the Church to elucidate how to best proceed in light of current events. They engaged in exegesis, hermeneutics, rationalization of these texts.

According to the Bible, you are expected to love your enemies, there’s a sort of pacifism, it’s the antithesis of Hammurabi’s an eye for an eye. One can never inflict violence in public:

But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other…Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you (Matthew 5:39-44)

Yet a number of thinkers had writings on warfare and combat; to some of them, the following quote read as more of a personal preference towards pacifism as opposed to a way of conduct in the context of a large community. This verse posed a great challenge for medieval thinkers. If we read this verse alongside John 18:36 (Christ’s Kingdom) and Matthew 22:21, perhaps, and according to thinkers such as Augustine and others, Matthew 5:39-44 should only be taken literally in isolation, that is, when applied to individual deeds, and read in the context of other verses when applied to communal efforts against heresy and dominion.

Christ’s Kingdom - Christ as king: My kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). You should turn the other cheek and not engage with violence because ultimately it doesn’t matter as what one aspires is not of this world. It does not matter not to have the perfect Christian community on earth as Christ’s kingdom can never be realised on earth. This is reinforced in Matthew 22:21: Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God, the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21). That is to say, obey your ruler, pay homage to God.

A similar account is offered in Augustine’s interpretation and theory of warfare: First of all, is God of Old Testament same as God of New? If they are the same God, why is the message directly opposed? God in OT is combative; the other is pacifist. In the Old Testament, warfare is permitted, killing of civilians, executions, enslavement. How to reconcile warfare in OT with pacifism in NT? Examples of the OT:

“Now go, attack the Amalekities and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them, put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. (Samuel 15:3)

 “You shall not leave a single soul alive”

“You must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, and show no mercy to them”

“You shall surely put the inhabitants of that city to the sword, destroying it utterly, all who are in it and its cattle”

Augustine’s response: “These precepts pertain rather to the inward disposition of the heart than to the actions which are done in the sight of men, requiring us, in the inmost heart, to cherish patience along with benevolence, but in outward action to do what seems most likely to benefit those whose good we ought to seek.” The God of the OT is not exhorting us to uphold violence, but cautions us against it, by representing the inner worst instincts of human beings.

[medievalphil]

On Aquinas’ philisophy vs theology (X)

For Aquinas, philosophers take presuppositions in public domain, which everyone can know upon reflection. Their main aim is that they must end disagreements (as to the nature of x, y, z).š Epistemologically, the rely on principles known per se (self-evident. i. e. the part cannot be bigger than the whole)– not per alia (proposition is known by relying in other propositions; i. e. humans are mortal, Socrates is a human, Socrates is moral).

Theologians, on the other hand, formulate discourses leading back to principles held on basis of faith and truths conveyed by revelation. They are expected to reflect on these truths, spell out interrelations, and defend them. Coincidentally, Al Ghazali had already defined theology as a defense mechanism that would offer believes confirmation on the articles of faith they held on to.

Therefore, the theological revolves aroundš “substantive cogency” dependent on acceptance of truth claims. It requires that you have faith, facilitating you accessing the substantive cogency of the articles of faith. In turn, the philosophical relies only on truths anyone can gain upon sufficient reflection about world, leading to new truths on basis of such truths.

He says:

“It should be noted that different ways of knowing (ratio cognoscibilis) give us different sciences. The astronomer and the natural philosopher both conclude that the earth is round, but the astronomer does this through a mathematical middle that is abstracted from matter, whereas the natural philosopher considers a middle lodged in matter. Thus there is nothing to prevent another science from treating in the light of divine revelation what the philosophical disciplines treat as knowable in the light of human reason.”

In both cases, the reader is accepting truths based on faith on the reflective capabilities of another individual. Whether one faith is better than the other, we are all faithful and no one can pretend we are absolute reflective agents as we hold on to moral, ethical, scientific principles that we accept without knowing or even understanding them. So Aquinas wishes to unsettle people’s epistemological certainties and the idea that philosophy is somehow more rational than theology. He says those who believe in philosophy are simply faithful of efforts and knowledge of other human beings; Christians are also faithful, of higher forces, namely, God.The philosophical begins with knowledge of the world; the theological begins with what God has revealed about Himself and His action, creation and redeeming, in other words, it begins with Scripture.

He asks: Is a philosopher of Christian faith less philosophical than atheistic philosopher? Who’s more rational? Isn’t it the case that in both cases there is a pre-logical predisposition to believe a certain proposition? Religious people have a confessional predisposition (centered around Christian understandings), but Aquinas would say that atheists also have a secular disposition (already biased in their “knowing” that Christian understandings of the soul, God, etc. are false). All humans have presuppositions we inherit from our education, social, political milieus, traumatic and lived experiences, and so on, which inform the way we see the world and act. There is no such thing as ‘presuppositionlessness,’ it would entail an impossible epistemological cleansing.

[medievalphil]

The Life of Rambam (IX)

His work is considered an authority in Jewish thought. He was a rabbi and Talmudic expositor who interpreted the Talmud and the Scriptures and decided which interpretation was the closest to the will of God. These texts contained a number of themes pertaining to metaphysics, salvation, and so on, and ipso facto by their very nature invite philosophical deliberation. More interestingly, he was a social commentator as well. Maimonides belonged to a generation of Jewish thinkers who believed that intellectuals must contribute and intervene in contemporary debates, arbitrate and adjudicate in social issues to help society better itself. There are a number of treatises he received from communities who would address him to describes some of the challenges they faced, both materially but also intellectually, and he would respond with intelligence and proposals they would take very seriously. As a Jewish authority once said when asked about Maimonides’ contributions: “By trying to bring Judaism and philosophy closer together, he did not leave either as he found it. If Judaism became more rigorous in defending its central beliefs, philosophy became more willing to face its limitations.”

Maimonides didn’t just transform Judaism, but he transformed philosophy altogether. But how then do we classify Maimonides? Is he a defender of tradition? A thinker? A believer?  A student of Aristotle? A skeptic? He is all and none of these things, for as he insisted limitation invites determinism. It would predetermine how his work would be addressed and evaluated. It is true he is all of these things, but he goes beyond; these cannot define him. Maimonides was keen to take his audiences’ mentalities, training and background into account. When he wrote he did for different audiences and he was aware for whom he was writing; he was an advert proponent of disseminating knowledge to the wide public as much as to exclusive advanced students. His public writings range from biblical exegesis; philosophic exposition; scientific demonstration; Parable; Dialectic. He adapted a particular tone therein, avoiding particular jargon and pretentious rhetoric; he didn’t want to impress his audiences, but really help them fathom his teachings. He excelled in this particular endeavour.

Maimonides was born in 1138 in Cordova, south of Spain. He dies in 1204 in Cairo. He was born Moses ben Maimon, also called Rambam (Rabbeinu Moseh ben Maimon, or Our Rabbi Moses son of Maimon). He lived most of his life in contemporary Spain under the Almoravid Dynasty (1104-1147), in a moment of flourishing Jewish thought and communal identity, particularly under the rule of Caliph Abd al-Rahman III. It is in this period that we speak of the Adalusian School of Aristotelian Studies, which saw a revival in 12th century despite widespread unpopularity in the region. It was revived by figures such as Abu Bakr Baija (Avempace; d. 1139); Ibn Tufayl (Aven Tofail; d. 1185), and Ibn Rushd (Averroes; d. 1198). Both Rambam and Averroes could have met as they Averroes lived in Cordova for a little while. Both were pious, compassionate thinkers, legalists and philsophers. Indeed, Muslim and Jewish Aristotelianism were the main source for Latin Aristotelianism.

How did he develop as a thinker? He had a zeal to write systematically; he always exhibited preference for the Aristotelian demonstration. We wrote an early treatise on logic called The Art of Logic. After his arrival in Egypt in 1166 under the Fatimid Empire he got in touch with Ismaili Neoplatonism where he picked up his fondness of symbolism and mysticism, shifting towards a more apophatic theology, where instead of making positive assertions he would do them negatively. Instead of saying God is strong, he would say God is not weak, something quite common in Sufi and Ismaili cosmological writings. People speak nowadays even of Jewish Ismailism because of Rambam’s writings, who blurred the limits we are so keen on setting today but proved to be less rigid.

[medievalphil]

Intro to Jewish philosophy (VIII)

Traditionally speaking, Judaism is a monotheist religion, although it dates back to polytheist Canaanite religiosity in the Ancient period, before a community began to rally themselves around a canonical text sent by God through His prophets, the Torah (or Tanakh, which refers to the entire Old Testament). Supplementary texts were Midrash (rabbinic literature) and Talmud. All these texts would always invite hermeneutical interpretations with different claims about hidden meanings. In Medieval times, these interpretations became particularly prolific.

Why did Jewish thinkers engage in philosophy? Jewish thinkers saw philosophy as a tool that would help them understand the theoretical and practical dimensions of faith, beliefs and practices by means of philosophical concepts and norms, by problematasing typical Jewish topics in a systematic fashion. For Jewish philosophers, there were mainly three concerns they wished to address. The first is Jewish-centric: They sought to understand why God chose Israel and the Hebrews and its eternity, and what did this say about the nature of God; Messiah and the afterlife; Prophecy of Moses (if God is a transcendental being, how does He communicate, convey intelligibles?); and the Torah. The second is a common reason, reasons that their Muslim peers, as well as the Christians, sought to explain, such as: The existence of God; the divine attributes (through logical theory); creation; providence; and human conduct. And lastly, the independent (or secular) reasons: philosophical motivations beyond religiosity; about language, for example. It’s philosophy with inspiration in religion: meaning of terms; logical arguments; the division of being; and the structure of cosmos, are a few of these topics.

There’s been a great Islamic influence in Jewish philosophy, evidently explained by the presence of Jewish communities in Islamic societies, especially from the 7th century onwards, parallel to the flourishment of Arabic culture and the Islamic Empire. Very soon Jews started to adapt Muslim and Christian concerns and to advance, transform, and participate in Arabic curriculums, particularly in science, mathematics, medical theory (Maimonides, for example), astronomy, and, of course, philosophy (especially in the hands of Saadia, Halevi, Maimonides, and Gersonides).  

Jewish historiography normally narrows the history of Jewish philosophy into three periods: 1) Hellenistic (2nd century BCE to 1st CE): Almost nothing survived from this period beyond material artifacts excavated archeologically. 2) Medieval (10th century AD to 18th century AD): It is here that the vast majority of Jewish philosophical activity emerges, in Arabic and Hebrew. 3) Modern (18th century AD to present). In the medieval period, from 10th to 12th century  there’s a cultural revival period in the North Africa, Spain, and Egypt, where they would use the Arabic language in their philosophical discourse. In the case of Jewish philosophy, metaphysics was the main interest. After this revival, there started being noticeable changes in Jewish philosophy (post-12th century until 16th AD): Key subjects were physics, metaphysics, logic, ethics, and politics; and the famous rise of the Jewish commentary tradition. This happened as there was also a geographic shift: Jewish presence started sky-rocketing in Continental European places like Spain, southern France, and Italy. Upon reaching these places, there started being a decline in Jewish Arabic writing in favor of the emergence of Hebrew as a language of philosophical discourse. Why not Latin? Because there was great rejection of all things Jewish by Latin scholars, and so they resorted back to Hebrew as a way to foster their own independent intellectual activities and reaffirm themselves as properly distinct.

Back then, Jewish philosophers are typically grouped in 4 segments: 

a) the Mutakallimun: jewish philosophers trained in theology, or theologicians with a proclivity for philosophy. Influenced by Arabic theology (kalam) with origins in the philosophical deliberations on theological matters of early medieval Islam, such as to the attributes as predicates of divine essence. Jewish Kalam wished to, amongst others, to refute heresies, defeat sophistry, combat skepticism and reaching epistemological certainty. The Jewish adoption of kalam has in Saadia Gaon (d. 942), of the Baghdad Rabbinical Academy, one of its greatest examples. Indeed, it was in the Middle Eastern Jewish communities, particularly the Baghdad Academy, that this tradition started arising.

b) Neoplatonists: jewish philosophers with an interest on the school of Alexandria and all things neoplatonic, particularly the strand that sought to bring philosophy to religion and reconcile the two. They saw themselves as the heirs to Al-Farabian and Avicennan traditions, and were influenced largely by the theology of Aristotle (i.e., Enneads) (Latin: Liber de causis). The main features of Jewish Neoplatonism was its dedication to topics such as the transcendence of God, the emanation of Cosmos (necessary or volitional), hypostatic substances between God and world, and the return of the soul to its righteous place. All these were standard issues of Aristotelian philosophy relocalized into jewish thought. The first proper Jewish Neoplatonist was Isaac ben Solomon Israeli (d. 955), greatly influenced by Al-Kindi, who came slightly before him.

c) critics of Aristotelian philosophy: jews suspicious of the prevalence of Aristotelianism that sought to eliminate jewish philosophy of this pollution. The most prominent figure was Judah HaLevi (d. 1141), known mostly for his Book of Argument and Proofs in Defence of the Despised Faith. He wanted to defend the Jews from Latinists; in doing so, he wishes to refute Aristotle’s philosophy as unable to demonstrate metaphysical truths. He contraposes the God of philosophers to the God of Abraham (a God that does not need to be sought through complex intellectualism); and demonstration to revelation. He favors an epistemology rooted in experiential existence which partakes in divine reality. For him, piety increases ontological proximity to God.

d) Aristotelians: peripathetic-like thinkers. They famously drew a distinction between a theoretical and a practical philosophy. Theoretical philosophy was concerned with physics, mathematics, metaphysics; whilst practical philosophy dwelled in ethics, economics, and politics. The first Jewish Aristotelian was Abraham ben Daud (d. 1180), for whom Judaism and Philosophy are identical; two sides of the same coin.

#jewish philosophy #philosophy #medieval philosophy

[medievalphil]

Al-Ghazali (VII)

Al-Ghazali was a theologian opposed to but very familiar with philosophy. He was a mystic bent on demonstrating how things in the world can be known not through analysis but privileging intuition. The myth is that he ended Arabic philosophy with his rejection of philosophy but the truth is rather different. He did not think philosophy nor mathematics were diabolical, as he is often credited to think. In fact, he inaugurated a new golden era of Islamic philosophy. He was an itinerant polymath who traveled a lot, from Iran (where he was from) to Jerusalem. The political climate back then in Iran, the Middle East, and Central Asia was that of the Seljuks Empire (1137-1194; Turkic in origin) which sought to bring about a new Islamic revival that would consolidate Sunni Islam in the area. One of the challenges they had to overcome was the dominance of Avicennan philosophy and their universality as truth-maker, which unsettled political rulers and institutions. Avicenna had come to be seen back then as a prevalent, over-archer thinker equated with truth and rationality. His detractors would call him the companion of Satan, someone who made people deviate from the path of the righteous. The Seljuks saw the prominence of Avicennism as a danger and therefore set out to ignite a countercultural transformation. The Seljuks set out to reform the educational syllabus by patronizing madrasas in Iran, Iraq and Anatolia, as well as special efforts invested to promote Ash’ari kalam in the newly found Nizamiyya schools. The teaching ethos followed a closed reading that privileged the authority of scriptures, revelation, and prophetic figures and not the syllogistic methods of Avicenna or Aristotle. Al-Ghazali spearheaded as the main pilar of the Seljuk cultural project and their main voice. His teachings and writings were celebrated throughout their territory and came to be seen a central figure of this cultural revival. The reason that he became such an attractive figure for the authorities was because of his versatility, his ability to write eloquently on a great variety of issues, writing an attributed total of 457 works (authentic circa 72). These range from theology to sufism, philosophy and epistemology, jurisprudence, logic, ethics, and grammar. One of his earliest books, The Doctrines of the Philosophers, had great influence in Latin and Hebrew societies, he tried to discredit the aims and objectives of philosophers while remaining to be as neutral and fair as possible. It was so well written and objective that it was soon translated (into Latin circa 1170s; Hebrew 1292) and Latin and Hebrew commentaries saw it as the best summary of the history of Arabic philosophy leading their readers to think he was a great philosopher whilst he wanted the opposite, that is, to discredit philosophers altogether. Between 1091 and 1095, he was promoted to Professor of Theology at the Nizamiyya school in Baghdad, which was the highest position in academic Islam back then. He engaged in kalam, which for Ghazali served two functions: a) defense of the common orthodox creed, by refuting opposing opinions, through some form of argument, and to defeat the advocates of error; b) dispel doubts and sophistries that cause confusion to the untrained minds of lay believers, by bringing forth cogent proofs, expressed in clear language. Al-Gazhali’s most celebrated book was The Incoherence of the Philosophers (c. 1091-1095). There are a series of misconceptions about this text: critics see it as rejecting philosophy, promoting Islamic dogmatism, and credited as causing Muslims to stop studying philosophy altogether. It is credited as having signed the death note of Arabic philosophy. People were afraid to engage in science and philosophy, according to them, because of what he said on the book. But these are myths. Today, in scholarly debates, it is widely accepted that the best and most prolific authors writing in Arabic came after Al-Ghazali. Indeed, one of the most exciting projects in academia about Medieval Arabic philosophy is focused on post-Avicennan philosophy in the Middle East. Al-Ghazali didn’t seek to refute philosophy, he simply wanted to point out that philosophers had many incoherent claims and conclusions, and flawed arguments. Indeed, if it is a refutation of philosophy, it is so through philosophy, not theology. He is inviting philosophers to do what they do best: to give demonstrative proof of what they’re saying, concluding that in most cases they are not capable of ultimately demonstrating their arguments. In his book, he says metaphysics is problematic because it is uncapable of producing any empirical proof about it (metaphysics is unscientific, he says). He proposes, instead, a different method to reach the truth: exhaustive investigation and disjunction. He thinks that metaphysics is the only field in which philosophers can find deep, fundamental disagreements, which leads him to attack metaphysics as a discipline altogether, uncapable of upholding the same standards as do logic and mathematics. This is indeed an interesting point that upholds today in many contemporary philosophical inquiries.

[medievalphil]

Week V - Avicenna (class notes)

Avicenna is often regarded as the greatest medieval philosopher with no rival. Sometimes he was even seen as better than Aristotle, more schematic, and definitely one of the only few that could be compared to the First Teacher. He mainly wrote for two audiences: the Falsafa (philosophy yet to bear the imprint of confessional philosophy; very much in the tradition of Greek philosophy) and Kalam (philosophical theology; Muslim fideism; Muslim thinkers determined to avoid the contamination of Greek philosophy [pagan knowledge]; came to develop uniquely Muslim thinking). Avicenna sought to break with this distinction and create a new tradition, uniquely his. He digested the entirety of 2,000+ years of philosophy and stuffed it in his books. There are 40 to 275 titles attributed to him, many of them written by others lusting the diffusion that his signature would allow for. He was a systemiser of philosophy, he brought together and mixed philosophies to attribute new meaning to their content.

We can say Avicenna appropriated ancient and late antique Greek philosophy and philosophized Islamic theology. Until he came, philosophical psychology revolved around issues such as intellection, either human or superhuman (Am I aware of the external world?); and self-awareness (Am I aware of my awareness of external objects?). But provenance of self-awareness was unclear, unexplained, and unexplored. In Avicenna’s view, the ancients spoke of the possibility of such things, but failed in explaining how and why. These are the questions he sets to explore in his philosophical psychology. 

He starts this endeavor by schemetising Aristotelian psychology: The soul is the first perfection of a natural body possessed of organs that performs activities of life. The soul is the body, or the body has something in it physically that is the soul. The soul as the formal principle of human existential identity; undetachable of the human body; it is inseparable. Tripartition of the soul: Vegetative (self-nutrition, growth, and reproduction. It instructs human beings to eat, grow, and reproduce); Animal (addition of perception); and Human (addition of rational cognition). Yet he sees a gap in Aristotle’s conception of the soul: Are the three types of soul enmattered formal principles (De Anima)? Must human intellectual capacity necessarily entail immateriality? For intellection to happen, there has to be immateriality. For the ancients, immateriality is a condition for intellection. Does a formally functioning immaterial substance inhere in the soul? He sees an inconsistency in Aristotle’s conception of the soul: if the soul is immaterial but has a corporeal reality, how do we overcome this contradiction?

Avicenna introduces here his substance dualism: The soul is not a formal principle of the human body. Individual human essence is immaterial substance; not a form of the human body. And yet, it performs the functions of a form, i.e., animates the body. Human essence is undivided, one, and simple. But then, how do we distinguish one soul from another? Spatio-temporality as individuation: Instantiation in multiplicity of numerically distinct individuals, human essence must be actualized in matter. Why? Matter occupies space. Space entails spatiotemporal coordinates. Hence, human essence, or soul, is individuated. Both body and soul rely on each other through a pragmatic interdependence; they are separate, they don’t like each other, they need each other. The body requires soul as a formal principle that animates it. Without the soul, the body is a corpse, it cannot avoid deterioration. The soul requires the body as a necessary condition of its initially coming to be as an individual. To acquire knowledge, it needs access to the senses. Internal senses are, thus, the mark of humanity.

We can say Avicenna represents maturity in Aristotelian thought and an elaboration of Aristotle’s phantasia. Moreover, Avicenna’s psychology marks a new chapter in the history of philosophy. He famously separated the internal human senses in the following: 1) Common sense: reception of forms; 2) Imagery: retention of forms; 3) Estimation: reception of meanings; 4) Memory: retention of meaning; and 5) Imagination: separation and combination of forms and meanings.

He also came up with the floating man argument to demonstrate that the subject knows himself, but not through any sense perception data. Floating or suspending refers to a state in which the subject thinks on the basis of his own reflection without any assistance from sense perception or any material body, which leads him to believe that this can only be an argument for the existence of the soul.

[medievalphil]

Week II - Boethius

Philosophy starts the text by arguing that ‘self-sufficiency’ requires power so as not to need outside support, and concludes that happiness, reverence, glory, power and sufficiency are to be considered all one and the same.They are all dependent on one another, to which Boethius agrees. This means seeking these five things concurrently as a means to pursue true happiness, as mortal and earthly things cannot lead to perfect happiness. In this sense, only God can provide with true good, and so the only way we can find true happiness is then to connect with God.

In part X, Philosophy then turns to the issue of a perfect good and perfect happiness. She argues that all good things are imperfect goods taking their limited “proportion of perfection” from perfect good, represented by God. Since perfect good cannot exist outside God and perfect good equals happiness, Philosophy posits that God is the essence of happiness. Anything besides God is only good insofar as it derives and imitates Him. Conversely, Philosophy concludes that God, happiness, the supreme good, power, glory, joy, and sufficiency are all and the same thing, and thus to achieve supreme happiness. one needs to “possess” divinity and vice versa. In fact, says Philosophy, those who engage in worldly pursuits are being held captive by their own false desires and are in need of God’s “shining light.”

[medievalphil]

Week I - On Free Choice of the Will

In this text, Augustine seeks to provide with an answer to three basic questions: 1) How is it manifest that God exists? 2) Do all things, insofar as they are good, come from God? and 3) Should free will be counted as one of those good things?

Augustine departs by inquiring about the nature of our senses, by which we determine what is around us. The bodily senses perceive material objects but not themselves; that is the power of the inner sense, which perceives both the material objects through the bodily sense and the bodily sense themselves, making everything known and part of knowledge. From this derives that, superior to the inner sense, is only reason. But just as each of us senses things in a different way, each of us possesses a distinct rational mind. And yet, there are immutable things out there, universally present to everyone, such as wisdom, which the bodily sense knows nothing of but is seen by an “inner light.” Augustine concludes that wisdom is nothing other than the truth in which the highest good is discerned and acquired, as wisdom is meant to provide with happiness, and that is the only thing that we all want. And just as we have a notion of happiness stamped on our minds before we experience being happy, so we have the notion of wisdom even before we are wise. The author argues that there is an unchangeable truth that contains everything that is unchangeably true, present and common to all who discern it. Therefore, since it does not belong to us, they have to come from God; God is truth; we are free when we are subject to truth, who in turn frees us from death, that is, the state of sin. Will, conceded by God so that we can seek truth, is therefore a good things insofar as God is the giver of all good things, and it allows us to be closer to Him, notwithstanding the possibility of its misuse.

[medievalphil]

Week III - Medieval logicians

Medieval logic, as interpreted from our class.

“The study of the legacy of ancient logic in the Middle Ages can be roughly seen as an enquiry into the Latin and Arabic translations of Aristotle’s Organon and its companions,” mainly in form of never-ending commentaries. In writing these commentaries, authors don’t just summarise his texts, they upgrade the ideas therein (exegesis) developing new ideas of their own. The chain of commentaries leads to final ideas with little to nothing to do with the original Aristotelian idea by way of critique, re-evaluation, interpretation, controversies, and so on. Aristotle was intimately linked with the concept of logics, and so he was to be mentioned even if the authors wished to dismiss his ideas and ‘start anew.’ Much like today, medieval logics drew from ancient Greek ideas such as that all argumentation is dialectical, in that it presupposes some sort of intellectual confrontation between A and B. And an element of rhetoric, often seeing it as part of logics although not its preferred way into demonstrative syllogistics. The purpose was to discern what is true in public discourse. Logics was the tool, the entity to distinguish between true and ‘fake news,’ in more contemporary terms. The only tool able to settle disputes, sometimes legal, too, always finding its way into public discourse. This really says a lot about the way public discourse is exerted and shaped today, not just in politics, but also in academia. Commentaries after commentaries, academia is made up of echo chambers in the form of endless debates about specific issues, each of them aspiring to contribute to scholarship.

[medievalphil]

Week IV - Al Farabi

Al Farabi’s treaty The Principles of Existing Things offers a detailed account on the nature of the intellects based on a hierarchical cosmology comprised of six major levels, in which six different types of bodies and accidents subsist. In the first level, the First Cause, the most perfect existence which cannot belong to anything else outside of Itself; It cannot be divided as Its distinction from everything else is through a unity that is Its being. As Al Farabi notes, “It is sufficient in Its substance to be knower and known. Its knowing Itself is not different from Its substance; for knower, known, and knowing are one being and one substance” (2010, p. 228). Then come the secondary causes, celestial bodies inhabiting the first heaven (in their highest level), the orbit containing the Moon (in the lowest), and everything inbetween the two.. The third level in inhabited by the Active Intellect, which watches over the rational animal to haave him reach the highest level of perfection, and intellects the First, all the secondary causes, and itself, and it also makes intelligibles of things which are not in themselves intelligibles. The relation of the Active Intellect to man is, according to Al Farabi, that of the Sun to vision, allowing man to become an intellect per se and a divine substance after being a material one. The soul is in the fourth level, be it that of celestial bodies, rational animals or non-rational animals. The celestial bodies are connected to the power of the first heaven and move by virtue of its motion; Their souls are unique to them and are nobler and more perfect than that of animal’s, always in actuality. They intellect themselves and the First, as they are too high in rank to intellect the intelligibles below them. For rational animals, our soul is first in potentiality and then later in actuality, as they are simply configured to receive the intelligibles but they only come to them later. The last two levels are the Form and Matter.