Introduction

The young John Duns was committed to the ideals and expectations of his Order and the renewal program of the Church. Initially, he had missed Paris. At Oxford he had already been professor designatus. Now, after about twenty years in Oxford, he sailed for France.

Introduction

According to the Renaissance view of the development of Western philosophy there is a ‘breakdown of traditional thought’ around 1500. This approach leads to the paradoxical view that English and French, German and Italian, Spanish and Dutch, Scandinavian, Middle and Eastern European philosophy start only after 1500 and that modern European philosophy is not much older than American thought. Moreover, modern history of modern philosophy pays a great deal of attention to the great individual philosophers outside the universities. Hobbes and Descartes, Locke and Berkeley, Spinoza and Leibniz are those so privileged.

However, this approach begs some questions: can systematic thought of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries be understood without taking into account university thought? Can the thought of the universities be understood without interpreting it in the light of the thirteenth-, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century universities? Can a realistic approach to the history of Western philosophy ignore the continuity of thought from about 1200 to about 1800? The European university shows a remarkable continuity between its birth in around 1200 till around 1800. The six first centuries of the Western university (±1200–±1800), consisting of two sets of three centuries, form one specific whole.

The traditional view overlooks medieval thought and the philosophical contributions of its Augustinian main line. The separation of modern languages from Latin and the separation of modern philosophy from medieval philosophy are linked with the separation of philosophy from theology, but what we now call theology is the key to understanding the dynamics of Western and medieval thought in an alternative way.

Introduction

The originality of medieval philosophy and the creativity of its logic and theory of knowledge speak very much in its favor. Medieval philosophy may have been considered uninteresting because of its alleged lack of originality. However, its contributions are actually of tremendous cultural importance and they are theoretically interesting for modern philosophy and systematic theology. The reason is that many of its innovations do not have parallel theories in ancient philosophy. Medieval thought yields plenty of evidence refuting the popular view that systematic thought during these dark centuries was unilluminating, but the legacy of medieval theories is fresh and particularly conspicuous in logic and semantics, theology and philosophy. L. M. de Rijk brilliantly pointed out how creative medieval thought has been. In his important introduction to medieval philosophy, De Rijk lists four examples of original contributions that excel the inventions of ancient Greek, Hellenistic and Latin philosophy: terminist logic, which is in fact a part of the much wider phenomenon of the logica modernorum, the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas, the critical theory of knowledge of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and a way of thought which differs markedly from necessitarian Greek philosophy. Duns Scotus' contributions to a critical theory of knowledge are the main theme of this chapter.

The union of existential and intellectual forces in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries created many theoretical innovations. Revelation influenced philosophy in terms of a specific theological model of thought.

Introduction

The originality of medieval philosophy and the creativity of its logic and theory of knowledge make themselves felt in many contributions without any counterpart in ancient philosophy. Its novelties possess a tremendous cultural importance in general and great theoretical interest for modern philosophy and current systematic theology in particular.

In his important introduction to medieval philosophy L. M. de Rijk lists four examples of original contributions that excel the inventions of ancient Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman philosophy: (1) terminist logic (which is in fact to be seen as a part of the wider phenomenon of the logica modernorum); (2) the metaphysics of Thomas Aquinas; (3) the critical theory of knowledge of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and (4) a way of thought which markedly differs from necessitarian Greek philosophy.

This book has two main strands of ideas that encompass not only the beginnings of philosophy, but also the foundation of Western civilization and much of what we take for granted in our mental outlook in the modern world. The two strands are: ancient – Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius, Sextus Empiricus and Plotinus; and medieval – Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Duns Scotus and Ockham. These comprise, roughly speaking, two thousand-year stretches from respectively 600 BCE to 300 CE, and 300 CE to 1600 CE. Without knowledge of these thinkers an understanding of the Western world would be a poor thing indeed. The ancient strand, which extends into the Roman period, is pre-Christian in its dominant ideas and contrasts with the medieval strand when Christian ideas prevailed. However, Christian European philosophy does not mark a break with ancient philosophy, but rather selectively incorporates it within the overarching Christian worldview. This is not a book of history that is concerned with the causes and influences of ideas whatever their merit, but a book of philosophy that is concerned with outstanding ideas and the quality of the arguments for them.

We begin with Plato (427–347 BCE) because philosophy proper begins with Plato. Plato's work marks perhaps the most important turning point in the development of mankind. For the first time in human history, when considering what is true, what we should believe, how we ought to live, the answers are advocated not on the basis of ideas found in supposedly holy books, or the word of great authorities, or the mere length of time an idea has been around.

Duns Scotus's life and works

Beyond a few details, little is known of the life of John Duns Scotus (c.1266–1308). Both the generally accepted date and place of his birth are speculative. According to scholars, 1266 is most likely, given one date that is secure, namely, that of his ordination to the priesthood in Northampton on 17 March 1291. Under canon law, 25 was the earliest age allowable for ordination. The Bishop of Lincoln (in whose huge diocese both Northampton and Oxford were then located) conducted an earlier ordination on 23 December 1290. Thus, assuming that Scotus was ordained at the first opportunity, this makes his birth sometime between late December 1265 and mid-March 1266. Scholars now hold that the “Duns” in his name should be understood to refer to the town of Duns just north of the border between England and Scotland, in Berwickshire, curiously only a few miles away from Hume's birthplace.

His ordination in Northampton implies that Scotus was in Oxford by 1291. Another concrete reference places Scotus in Oxford in 1300. Scotus's name appears in a letter, dated 26 July, as one of 22 friars presented to the bishop of Lincoln for a licence to hear confessions. The list of names includes Philip Bridlington as the incoming Franciscan regent master (i.e. full professor) in theology. Bridlington was regent master for the year 1300–1301. And we know that Scotus took part in a disputation under Bridlington during this year.

Until recently, Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism had been little read in modern times, and less understood. But in the last quarter-century, a revival of interest in later Greek philosophy in general, and scepticism in particular, has seen it largely restored to its rightful place as one of the most influential texts in the entire history of Western philosophy. In this chapter, I shall concentrate upon producing my own outline of its contents; but I shall also seek to put it in its proper place in the Greek sceptical tradition, as well as within the longer tradition of Western epistemology, upon which, principally through the mediation of Descartes, it has exercised an incalculable, if often largely obscured, influence.

Sextus the empiricist

The sobriquet empeirikos indicates in all probability that Sextus was a member of the empirical school of medicine, which flourished from the middle of the third century BCE at least until the third century CE. We cannot date his career with any certainty; but it must have unfolded in the late second or early third centuries CE. He is mentioned in Diogenes Läertius's Lives of the Philosophers, in the list of prominent Pyrrhonian philosophers (DL 9.116); but we do not know precisely when Diogenes wrote (although, again, the third century seems likely), and nor can we date those philosophers said by Diogenes to be his teacher and his pupil (Herodotus of Tarsus and Saturninus).

Introducing the man and the work

Augustine is one of the most influential authors who have ever existed; perhaps only Aristotle has had more effect through his writings on the development of Western culture. That does not in itself make Augustine a fit subject for a volume concerned with philosophy; but I shall try to show that in fact he does qualify to be counted among the philosophers, in our narrow contemporary Anglophone understanding of the word, even though his place among them is not in the premier division (he did not lack the aptitude, I believe, but he did lack the training, and the time).

The reason why Augustine can be counted as one of our founding philosophers is that among the voluminous writings that survive from him (more words than from any other ancient author) many contain discussion of what in our tradition are instantly recognizable as philosophical problems, conducted at an instantly recognizable standard of step-by-step reasoning: put otherwise, he has a place in the line of succession that stretches to us over 25 centuries from Parmenides and Socrates in the fifth century bce. Within the collection of these philosophy-rich works stands, perhaps pre-eminently, City of God. In a later section I shall outline its structure; but first let us see how it came to be written, who was the man who wrote it, and in what ways that man, although mainly famous for non-philosophical reasons, nevertheless ranks among the philosophers.

Introduction

The presence of a book whose title translates as “Summary of Theology” might seem odd in a list of great works of philosophy. Yet Aquinas's major work does make a significant contribution to the history of philosophy and has had wide-ranging influence on many philosophers. However, the initial puzzlement one might feel about the title is reflected in the different kinds of scholarly responses to Aquinas's work. Over the centuries, some philosophers have delighted in attacking Aquinas as the philosophical representative of the Catholic Church, and in so doing exposing the perceived errors and perniciousness of that institution. Others have treated Aquinas's writings as almost holy writ and have exhibited excessive reverence and lack of critical distance in their appreciation of his thought. In both approaches there has been a layer of non-philosophical baggage obscuring the philosophical merits or demerits of Aquinas's work.

This issue is ongoing and is reflected in recent scholarship on Aquinas. While there has been some excellent work investigating the philosophical value of Aquinas's thought, much recent work focuses on Aquinas as a theologian and seeks to downplay the independent philosophical value of his writing. Some of this seeks to counterbalance readings of Aquinas that treat him anachronistically and ignore the historical context of the production of his work. However one can be hermeneutically faithful to that context while simultaneously treating his work as a contribution to the history of philosophy.

Plato's Republic is many things to many people. To some it is among the first works in political theory in the Western tradition. To others it is a penetrating discussion of the relationship between the arts and the state, the nature of education or the sociological role of myth. To others still it may be the first examination of a fundamental ethical question, or the presentation of a fundamental metaphysical theory, or simply the locus classicus of classical Platonism. And as far as I can tell they may all be right. Nevertheless, I believe that the Republic contains a single thread of argument that one must come to terms with before the other issues in the Republic can be properly understood, and it is this thread of argument that will be the focus of this essay.

Before turning to the Republic, let me say a brief word about its author. To the best of our knowledge Plato was born to an aristocratic family in Athens in 427 BCE. His father, Ariston, who traced his lineage to the old kings of Athens, died in Plato's youth. His stepfather, Pyrilampes was a personal friend of Pericles, the great Golden Age Athenian statesman, and his mother, Perictione, was related to Solon, the famous Athenian legal reformer. Some time in his late teens or early twenties, Plato began to associate with Socrates (469–399 BCE), who was executed for impiety by the Athenians in 399 BCE.

The philosopher, as Aristotle is called by St Thomas Aquinas, was born in Stagira, northeast Greece, in 384 BCE, and was the most eminent of Plato's students. His father was doctor to King Amyntas of Macedon, and tradition has it that Aristotle later became the tutor of King Philip's son, the future Alexander the Great. Early on in the Nicomachean Ethics, one of his two major works on ethics, Aristotle says that his enquiry is “a sort of Politics”. Despite the lip service to kingship in his Nicomachean Ethics, the virtues Aristotle describes, especially the “nameless” ones, seem well suited to a democracy. Aristotle's interests in medicine and biology, no doubt gained from his father, lead him to compare the good human being with a doctor. The analogy had already been drawn by Protagoras, but whereas Protagoras held that whatever some person happens to think is good is good for that person, Aristotle has an objective account of happiness. What happiness is does not depend upon what anyone happens to think, although the good person will have the right view of what happiness is.

Aristotle has often been called a “eudaimonist” because he thinks that our ultimate goal in life is happiness: eudaimonia. The Greek word suggests that someone who is happy has a favourable guardian spirit (“daimōn”), and Aristotle discusses the question of how much of happiness is due to luck and how much is up to us.