Natural philosophy, first philosophy, and moral philosophy

When the ‘new’ Aristotelian books of philosophy were incorporated into the curriculum of the medieval Faculty of Arts by 1252, they were simply added as ‘the three philosophies’ to an existing curriculum of the seven liberal arts, a course requiring up to eight years before one became a Regent Master. The ‘new logic’ (logica nova,) namely the two Analytics, Topics, and Elenchi, had merely expanded the old study of logic, which had even assimilated the logica modernorum without substantially changing the curriculum. But the addition of the hitherto proscribed (1210–ca. 1237) libri naturales and Metaphysics, together with the Nicomachean Ethics translated in full (1245–7) by Robert Grosseteste, expanded the curriculum substantially to include three new ‘sciences’: natural philosophy, first philosophy (or metaphysics), and moral philosophy. Thus during the second half of the thirteenth century was inaugurated what might be called the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The assimilation of the new learning

It was a period that saw an unprecedented assimilation of ‘the new learning’ not only in the Faculty of Arts, but more especially in the Faculty of Theology. However, the most notable assimilation and syntheses of the new learning both in philosophy and in theology were accomplished by theologians who had already passed through the university system and embarked on their own re-thinking of Christian truths ‘new and old’. This was particularly true of such leading scholars as Robert Grosseteste, Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and later Thomas Bradwardine.