Ridling Zaine. Philosophy: Then and Now. A look back at 26 centuries of thought

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Ridling, Philosophy Then and Now: A Look Back at 26 Centuries of Thought

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Finally John Philoponus, another pupil of Ammonius but a member of

the Christian community in Alexandria, wrote against certain doctrinal errors

that he detected in Aristotle: fragments of his treatise Against Aristotle are

extant; so is most of his book De aeternitate mundi, which attacks the thesis

of the eternity of the world as elaborated by the pagan Neoplatonist Proclus;

and a series of Aristotelian commentaries is ascribed to him, some of which

consist, however, of notes taken down at Ammonius’ lectures and simply

filled out by John Philoponus.

To sum up, Aristotle’s philosophy can hardly be said to have been

maintained in its entirety among the Greeks of the ancient world after the first

generation of his disciples. Andronicus launched a revival in the 1st century

BCE, but from the 4th century CE onward Aristotelianism was submerged in

Neoplatonism, which accommodated to its own peculiar view of the universe

whatever Aristotelian doctrine it cared to take up.

Aristotelianism in Arabic Philosophy

Aristotelianism was to have a highly distinguished history in the world

of Islam; but the Arabic philosophers, who owed their first acquaintance with

it to the Neoplatonists’ commentaries, never presented it in its purity or

disengaged it from the Neoplatonic context in which it had been transmitted to

them. This is readily understandable: whereas Aristotle’s own metaphysic was

too imperfect to satisfy Islamic monotheism, the Neoplatonist metaphysic of

Plotinus supplied an invaluable complement, to which Muslim thinkers

always, to a greater or lesser extent, had recourse. The tendency to combine

Aristotelianism proper with Neoplatonism was moreover strengthened by the

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diffusion of a work known as the Theology of Aristotle: this, originally

compiled in Syriac by a Christian monk availing himself of extracts from the

Enneads of Plotinus, was translated into Arabic c. 840 and was commonly

ascribed to Aristotle himself, with the result that the latter came to be credited

with metaphysical doctrines characteristic of Plotinus. Much later, probably in

the 12th century, another pseudo-Aristotelian work – of Arabic origin this

time – was circulated in Spain, namely the work well known from its prompt

translation into Latin as the Liber de causis (“On Causes”): a commentary on

propositions selected from Proclus’ Elements of Theology, it was monotheistic

in inspiration and served further to confirm the habit of attributing to Aristotle

creationist doctrines wholly foreign to him.

The combination of Aristotelianism with Neoplatonism is already

realized in the writings of the first Arabic philosopher, al-Kindi, who

flourished in 9th-century Baghdad. A century later, al-Farabi (died c. 950),

who likewise taught mainly in Baghdad, similarly linked Aristotle’s doctrines

with the metaphysic of the last Alexandrian Neoplatonists, stressing however

the independence of philosophy from religion.

The first major thinker of Islam was the Iranian philosopher and

physician Avicenna (properly Ibn Sina, 980-1037). Besides his personal

writings, many of which are lost, he produced a great encyclopaedia of

philosophy, Kitab ash-shifa` (“Book of Healing”), which consists largely of a

paraphrase of Aristotelian writings but is capped with an emanationist

metaphysic derived from the so-called Theology of Aristotle and from other

Neoplatonic sources.

Aristotle’s influence in the Arabic world reached its zenith with the

work of Averroës (properly Ibn Rushd, 1126-98), of Córdoba in Andalusia,

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who professed a boundless admiration for the Greek master and regarded him

as sent by God to teach men true philosophy. Often in reaction against

Avicenna, Averroës meant to restore Aristotelianism in its integrity and

composed three series of commentaries on Aristotle’s treatises: (1) the “little

commentaries,” short compendiums or epitomes providing a brief analysis of

the treatises; (2) the “middle commentaries,” explaining the texts literally; and

(3) the “great commentaries,” a more advanced and more profound literal

exegesis. While he is faithful, on the whole, to Aristotle’s thought, Averroës

nonetheless, perhaps unwittingly, gives it an undue extension by endowing the

Aristotelian “prime mover” with the characteristics of the Plotinian and

Islamic transcendent God, the universal First Cause. Furthermore, he often

enough supplements Aristotle by advancing his own interpretation of obscure

passages or by developing doctrines that Aristotle scarcely considered at all.

The typical instance is where he propounds his own “ monopsychism”:

forcing Aristotle to follow his metaphysical principles to their logical

conclusion, Averroës maintains that the two human intellects, namely the

passive or receptive intellect and the active intellect, being immaterial, cannot

be multiplied in individuals; that consequently both are single substances,

entering by their own operation into relation with human individuals, as the

passive intellect thinks by means of the ideas that the active intellect abstracts

from images in the human brain; and that the human individual is only a

superior kind of animal, altogether mortal. If Averroës won few followers

among the Arabs, his interpretation of Aristotle and, particularly, his

monopsychism were taken up with great interest by Jewish and even more so

by Christian thinkers.

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Aristotelianism in Jewish Philosophy

Jewish speculative thought in the Muslim world was long dominated by

Neoplatonism, but all Jewish philosophers from the time of Isaac Israeli (9th-

10th Century) to the end of the Middle Ages were subject, more or less, to the

Aristotelian influence. A firmer orientation toward Aristotelianism is

discernible in the famous Guide of the Perplexed of Moses Maimonides

(1135-1204), a contemporary of Averroës and, like him, a native of Córdoba.

But here again there is no occasion to speak of pure Aristotelianism:

Maimonides adopts a large measure of Neoplatonic theology (emanation and

the via negativa or “negative way” to knowledge of God), adopts also much of

the Plotinian system of ethics, and furthermore differs from Aristotle on the

question of the eternity of the world. Jewish philosophy in Spain, in France,

and in Italy was influenced by Maimonides throughout the remainder of the

Middle Ages and even longer.

A Jewish opposition to Aristotelianism had already manifested itself

most distinctly in the first decades of the 12th century, when Judah ha-Levi

denounced the current philosophy. After Maimonides this anti-Aristotelian

reaction persisted, notably among the Kabbalists.

The Christian East

During the patristic period, some Aristotelian doctrines infiltrated

Eastern Christianity through Neoplatonic channels: they can be shown to have

affected St. Gregory of Nyssa and Nemesius of Emesa in the 4th century;

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and John Philoponus (whose work as a

commentator has already been mentioned) in the 6th; and St. John of

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Damascus in the 8th. In the 9th century the Byzantine patriarch Photius and

his disciple Arethas took an interest in Aristotelian logic, and from the 11th

century onward there was a major revival of Aristotelian studies in

Constantinople, exemplified particularly by Michael of Ephesus (late 11th

century) and by Eustratius of Nicaea (c. 1050-1120), who both wrote

commentaries on parts of the Organon and on the Nicomachean Ethics.

Further commentaries appeared in the 13th and 14th centuries. In the 15th

century Cardinal Bessarion argued for the ultimate concordance of

Aristotelianism with Platonism.

The Christian West

Aristotle’s influence during the patristic period was even more restricted

in Western Christianity than in Eastern: St. Augustine of Hippo, for instance,

was acquainted with nothing Aristotelian except the Categories.

The fountainhead of Aristotelianism in the Christian West was the

Roman philosopher Boethius (c. 480-524). With the intention of

demonstrating the profound harmony between Plato and Aristotle, he set

himself to translate the works of those two great masters into Latin. He is

known to have succeeded at least in translating all the treatises of the Organon

except the Analytica posteriora, together with Prophyry’s Isagoge; and he

also produced commentaries on the Categories, on the treatise On

Interpretation, and on the Isagoge. Though his achievement fell short of his

project, his work was of capital importance for the transmission of Greek

philosophical thought and of Aristotelian logic to Latin Christendom: the

Categories, the treatise On Interpretation, and the Isagoge constituted the

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principal textbooks of logic for the early Middle Ages and so came, later, to

be known as the Ars vetus or Logica vetus (“old technique” or “old logic”)

when the other parts of the Organon, known as the Ars nova or Logica nova,

had been rediscovered and published in Latin versions. Boethius therefore

well deserves to be remembered as “the Teacher of the West,” particularly

because of the essential role played by Aristotelian logic in the intellectual

formation of the new peoples who arrived in Western Europe as barbarian

invaders and remained there to develop a civilization replacing that of the

Roman Empire. With his works on logic Boethius paved the way for the

elaboration of the scholastic method, and in his commentary on Porphyry’s

Isagoge he posed the problem of universals, which was to figure so

prominently in the controversies of a later age.

Charlemagne’s educational policy confirmed the status of Aristotelian

logic in the scholastic curriculum during the literary and scientific revival of

the Carolingian Renaissance: “dialectic,” or logic, was in fact the only

philosophic discipline to be admitted among the seven “liberal arts” that

represented secular, or “profane,” learning in the program of teaching

authorized by Charlemagne’s capitulary of the year 778. Subsequently,

between the 9th and the 12th centuries, more and more work on logic was

undertaken; Aristotle’s influence grew continuously as the nature of

knowledge was discussed; and with Peter Abelard (1079-1142) the moderate

realism of the Aristotelians was vindicated against the extreme realism of the

Platonists. With Abelard likewise, and especially in his book Sic et non, the

scholastic method was perfected. The scholastic method, a product of

Aristotelian logic, contributed much not only to the development of

speculative theology but also to the progress of the deductive sciences and to

the grammatical organization of the European languages.

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The triumph of Aristotelianism in the epistemology and in the logic of

the 12th-century scholastics prepared the ground for the Aristotelian

domination of the universities in the 13th century. The middle of the 12th

century had seen the start of a massive penetration of Aristotle’s works into

Western Europe, in Latin translations first from Arabic versions, then from

Greek texts. Most of Aristotle’s treatises were known by the beginning of the

13th century, but it was only gradually, in the course of the next 100 years,

that the consequences of this flood of pagan philosophy became clear

(Aristotle’s works were accompanied by those of other pre-Christian Greeks,

as well as by the commentaries of the Muslims). In the universities the

“faculties” of arts (successors of the earlier schools of the liberal arts)

enlarged their curricula from the start of the 13th century, and Aristotelianism

became more and more firmly implanted, both at Paris and at Oxford, despite

opposition from some of the ecclesiastical authorities. The Paris faculty of arts

decided on March 19, 1255, that its students should attend lectures on every

known treatise of Aristotle’s, and indeed by that time every faculty of arts was

turning into a faculty of philosophy teaching Aristotelianism. Already,

moreover, in the 1220s, Aristotelianism had broken into the faculties of

theology; and thenceforward until the end of the Middle Ages (or even later in

some establishments) it was to remain fundamental to the structure of

scholasticism, both philosophically and theologically. Of all the Aristotelian

revivals, the most dynamic was that which the 13th century witnessed in the

Christian West.

The revived Aristotelianism of the Christian Middle Ages was no purer,

however, than that of the Arabs or that of the Jews had been: various

complementary or corrective elements were always present, whether religious

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or philosophical. Philosophically the main influence was derived, once again,

from Neoplatonism.

Up to 1250, Latin Aristotelianism remained very eclectic and, for the

most part, Avicennian, so that Aristotle’s doctrine, albeit preponderant, was

compounded with secondary importations. Avicenna’s paraphrases were

found useful for the interpretation of difficult texts; the Jewish Neoplatonist

Ibn Gabirol (Avicebron) was highly esteemed; Proclus was also available; and

in the 1230s the work of Averroës became known to Christian Europe. For

theology, Aristotelianism was combined with traditional doctrines (derived

mainly from St. Augustine and from the Pseudo-Dionysius) or with the

teaching of the 12th-century masters.

After 1250, the Aristotelian influence becomes perceptibly stronger,

though at the same time it branches out in various directions. The several

schools of thought can be distinguished from one another by the differences in

their attitude toward Aristotle, but all remain basically Aristotelian (the

Augustinian school in the strict sense of the name did not come into existence

until c. 1270, as a reaction against heterodox Aristotelianism and Thomism).

Thus the Aristotelianism of St. Bonaventura is of an Augustinian tendency;

that of St. Albertus Magnus is more Neoplatonic, being strongly affected by

Proclus, by the Pseudo-Dionysius, and by Avicenna; that of St. Thomas

Aquinas is so profoundly recogitated as to be converted into a distinct system,

Thomism; and that of Siger of Brabant is heterodox, as it accepts doctrines

incompatible with Christianity.

The great doctrinal controversies of the 13th century were largely

disputes between champions of the various sorts of Aristotelianism. Thus,

when St. Thomas Aquinas held his ground against the majority of the Paris

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theologians (c. 1270), the conflict was not so much between Aristotelianism

and Augustinianism as between the eclectic Aristotelianism for which

Alexander of Hales and William of Auvergne had stood and the more

consistent and vigorous Aristotelianism which Thomas was maintaining.

Similarly the conflict between Thomas and Siger can be regarded as one

between the Christian and the heterodox or pagan varieties of Aristotelianism.

From the end of the 13th century Aristotelianism in philosophy was

upheld chiefly by the logicians, metaphysicians, psychologists, and ethical

theorists teaching in the faculties of arts and was usually “moderate”; i.e.,

orthodox with respect to Christian doctrines. Thomism became the established

system of the Dominicans and even won adherents outside their order. The

Neo-Augustinianism that had come into being in the reaction against the

nascent Thomism found its definitive expression in Scotism, which in fact was

marked by a reversion to Aristotelianism in certain fields and remained in

many respects dependent on Aristotle. Finally an Averroist Aristotelianism

was launched in Paris by John of Jandun in the first quarter of the 14th

century and was taken up in Italy by Taddeo da Parma and by Angelo

d’Arezzo. This Latin Averroism was still flourishing in Italy in the 16th

century, though it was opposed alike by the Platonism of the humanist

Renaissance and by the rival Aristotelianism of the Alexandrists, who revived

the doctrines of Alexander of Aphrodisias to interpret Aristotle’s psychology.

The 14th century, however, saw also new currents of thought running

counter to the influence of Aristotelianism. On the one hand, the Aristotelian

system of physics was challenged both at Paris and at Oxford; on the other

hand, moderate realism was battered successively by Nominalism, by

phenomenalism, by Scepticism, and by agnosticism, which, to a greater or

lesser degree, questioned the validity of knowledge and, in particular, the

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possibility of metaphysics. Failing to disengage itself soon enough from the

obsolete physics, Scholasticism was brought farther and farther into disrepute

by the successes of the new. One of the reproaches that the men of the

humanist Renaissance cast most frequently at the Scholastics was that of

being excessively obsequious to Aristotle. Nevertheless, Aristotelianism was

still the standard doctrine of some universities down to the end of the 18th

century and even longer. In the 19th and 20th centuries there was a great

revival of Aristotelian studies, most notably in England (Oxford), in Germany,

in France, and in Belgium (Louvain). For some scholars, the interest was

chiefly historical: they saw Aristotle as one of the most brilliant products of

Greek culture and, indeed, of human culture in general. For the promoters of

the Thomist revival, on the other hand, the interest in Aristotelianism was

essentially doctrinal, St. Thomas Aquinas having taken him as the main

source of his philosophy.

Conclusion

Very different judgments have been passed on Aristotelianism in the

course of history, and its value as a philosophy or as an instrument of

theological speculation is still debated. Defenders of religion, whether Jewish,

Muslim, or Christian, have often denounced Aristotelianism as tending toward

empiricism, as defective in its metaphysic, and as limited to earthly life in its

ethic, and they have accused its followers of being naturalists or rationalists.

Platonists and idealists also object to Aristotelianism on the grounds that it is

empiricist, that it gives a central place to natural philosophy in its scheme of

things, and that it makes excessive use of discursive reason and of abstract

concepts. Finally, many modern thinkers regard the majority of Aristotle’s