EPILOGUE
At the end of this journey of the early European mind, it is worthwhile to make a final reflection on medieval Western philosophy as a whole in retrospect, conspectus, and prospect.
In retrospect, medieval philosophy shows the decisive influence of two main systems of ancient thought: Neo-Platonism — especially its Augustinian and Pseudo-Dionysian form — and Aristotelianism. Neo-Platonism manifested an irrepressible vigor and persistence in shaping the medieval mind from the Fathers of the Church to Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499). Though Aristotelianism triumphed in the scholastic age of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to begin a new era in philosophy, both systems mingled freely in the minds of many schoolmen.
In fact, Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas synthesized these two philosophies in different ways, the former Neo-Platonizing Aristotelianism and the latter Aristotelianizing Neo-P
latonism, to create original systems of thought. In responding to the challenge of Neo-Platonism, Augustine christianized it, whereas John Scotus Erigena Neo-Platonized Christian ideas. Medieval philosophy was not an echo of ancient thought, but rather a voice speaking its own mind.
In consepectus, medieval Western philosophy manifests a variety of expressions within an horizon of common concern. As Christians, medieval philosophers shared a common faith whose relation to natural reason they sought to understand in order to deal with the issues of God, the world and man. In their common desire to discover truth, medieval philosophers were generally influenced by either Neo-Platonism or Aristotelianism, or both.
However, medieval philosophy is not a monolithic structure. In the common lines of interest and even philosophical schools that present themselves against the background of medieval philosophy, no common philosophy or theological understanding of faith is discernible. Each great medieval thinker started from his own fundamental principles and articulated his own philosophical synthesis which must be studied for its own sake as an original creation of its author.
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham agreed with Aristotle that being is the concern of metaphysics. But so radically diverse are the metaphysical starting points: Aquinas’ notion of being as the act of existing, Scotus’ concept of being as essence, and Ockham’s view of being as a name, that the respective philosophies which are constructed on the foundations of each meaning of being are totally different. As early European civilization emerged into different nations, so the medieval mind expressed itself in a rich variety of philosophies.
In prospect, medieval philosophical ideas continued and development in Renaissance and modern times. Although Renaissance humanists reacted against Aristotelianism, they were open to Platonism and the Patristic culture of the early Middle Ages, especially as represented by St. Augustine. Following the example of Master Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) abandoned Aristotelianism in favor of the Neo-Platonism exposed by medieval thinkers from St. Augustine to the school of Chartres. Nicholas’ central idea of God as the absolute maximum combines St. Anselm’s concept of God as the being than which none greater can be conceived with Duns Scotus’ notion of God as infinity.
1Immense impetus was given to the revival of Platonism and Neo-Platonism by Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) who founded the Platonic Academy in Florence, translated from Greek into Latin the Dialogues and Letters of Plato, and the Enneads of Plotinus, and taught Platonic philosophy. Prior to Marsilio, medieval philosophers had practically no firsthand acquaintance with the main sources of either Platonism or Neo-Platonism. In his most important work, the Platonic Theology, Ficino incorporated ideas of Thomas Aquinas into a Platonic and Augustinian framework.
2
- Renaissance Scholasticism. Scholasticism outlived the Middle Ages and remained a significant intellectual force throughout the Renaissance and early modern times.
3 Unfortunately, latter-day scholasticism generally failed to keep pace with the advances of contemporary science and to be open to the new winds of ideas that were transforming Europe, with the result that it fed on its own substance, lacked fecundity and originality, and offered little leadership in the intellectual life of the day. Although it preserved many scholastic notions and passed them on to modern philosophers, it contributed little to the advancement of learning except in the field of legal and political theory.The two chief centers of Renaissance scholasticism were Italy and Spain. The most influential Jesuite, Suarez, wrote the Disputationes Metaphysicae,
4 the first complete and systematic treatise in scholastic metaphysics. In his monumental work Dante followed Virgilian reason and Beatricean faith out of the inferno of ignorance and unintelligibility towards the goal of truth. The great minds of Bonaventure, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham continued the pilgrimage of philosophy through the purgatory of darkness and light, cleansing their thought of error and uncertainty, catching a glimpse into the meaning of God, the world, and human existence.5As King Arthur and Sir Lancelot searched for the Holy Grail but never possessed it, so the medieval philosophers never attained the perfect vision of truth in all its fullness. The torch of philosophic reason which the medieval mind received from its Greek and Roman predecessors will be handed on to its modern successors in the quest for wisdom and truth until like Sir Galahad in possession of the Holy Grail the human mind reaches the heaven of pure light and love.
NOTES
1. Nicholas of Cusa, On Learned Ignorance, trans. G. Heron (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954).
2. See P. 0. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, trans. V. Conant (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943); same author, "The Scholastic Background of Marsilio Ficino," Traditio, II (1944), 257-318.
3. Cajetan, Commentarium in Summam Theologiae, printed in the Leonine edition of Aquinas’ Opera Omnia; Cajetan, Commentaria in De Ente et Essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis, ed. M. H. Laurent (Turin: Marietti, 1934); Cajetan, The Analogy of Names and the Concept of Being, trans. E. A. Bushinski and H. Koren (Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1953).
4. Suarez, Disputationes Metaphysicae, Vols. 25 and 26 of the Omnia Opera (Paris: Vives, 1856-1878).
5. See E. Gilson, Etudes sur le role de la pensee medievale dans la formation du systeme cartesien (Paris: Vrin, 1930); The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy, first two vols.; History of Medieval Philosophy, (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936), pp. 13-18. 3rd edition, trans. E. C. Messenger, London: Longmans Green and Co., 1935, 1937.