Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- IX Ethics
- 34 The reception and interpretation of Aristotle's Ethics
- 35 Happiness: the perfection of man
- 36 Conscience
- 37 Natural morality and natural law
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
36 - Conscience
from IX - Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- I Medieval philosophical literature
- II Aristotle in the middle ages
- III The old logic
- IV Logic in the high middle ages: semantic theory
- V Logic in the high middle ages: propositions and modalities
- VI Metaphysics and epistemology
- VII Natural philosophy
- VIII Philosophy of mind and action
- IX Ethics
- 34 The reception and interpretation of Aristotle's Ethics
- 35 Happiness: the perfection of man
- 36 Conscience
- 37 Natural morality and natural law
- X Politics
- XI The defeat, neglect, and revival of scholasticism
- Index nominum
- Index rerum
- References
Summary
Origins of the medieval discussion: Peter Lombard
Medieval treatises on conscience were divided into two parts, one headed ‘synderesis’ and the other ‘conscientia’. ‘Synderesis’ is just a corrupted transliteration of ‘suneidēsis’ the Greek word for ‘conscience’, so the medieval distinction between synderesis and conscientia requires explanation. In the first instance, the explanation is historical. Conscience was not directly treated either by Plato or by Aristotle; the way in which it became a standard topic of later medieval philosophy was curious, almost an accident. Like many other topics regularly discussed by medieval philosophers, it came to their attention through a passage in Peter Lombard's Sentences and most of the medieval treatises on conscience are to be found in commentaries on that work.
Yet Peter Lombard does not actually discuss conscience at all: his question is how the will can be bad (2.39). As usual, he reports several answers, though, exceptionally, without pronouncing judgement upon them at the end. He notes, first, that some people distinguish two senses of ‘voluntas’, in one of which it is a power, in the other the exercise of that power (1.3). This distinction was probably inspired by a parallel Aristotelian distinction, between two senses of ‘know’, the first dispositional, but the second involving actually thinking about what one knows, as is sometimes necessary when using one's knowledge. Similarly, we each have a host of desires, but it is only at certain times that any one of them makes itself felt or that we pay attention to it, so that it is then actualised in the sense of being called to mind.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Later Medieval PhilosophyFrom the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100–1600, pp. 687 - 704Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982
References
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