Early Melieval Philosophy or Would You Guys Stop with the Wars? We're Tryin to Philosophize Over Here!

            Since Thursday morning was my first class of the new term and I wasn’t familiar with a building called the Bahen Centre for Information Technology where my Early Medieval Philosophy lectures were going to be, I decided to leave for school half an hour earlier than I normally would. In order to do that though I had to cut short my regular routine so I could start getting ready. I needed to have some kind of breakfast before heading out so I drank a glass of milk, ate a slice of horse sweat flavoured soy cheese and a few forkfuls out of the bag of bacon bits that I got from the food bank.

            The ride downtown was sunny but cool. I had a long sleeved shirt in my backpack that I could have put on but once I got rolling I was fine with just my tank top.

            The place that I was looking for turned out to be the first building north of the U of T Bookstore near the corner of College and St George. The campus was electric with fresh faced first day energy and students hustled to and from their classes.

Starting classes on a Thursday is something new. In the past they’ve always commenced on the first Monday after Labour Day.

When I walked into the building I realized that I actually had been there before. My lecture hall was the first one near the entrance and I remembered that it was the classroom where I’d taken The How and Why of Computing about eight years before.

I was an hour early for class but I saw several students already in the lecture theatre. No students are keen enough to be an hour early so it was fairly obvious that there was a class in the room before my class. I decided that since I had nothing better to do I would sit in the back and audit the class.

It turned out to be a course called Algorithms and Data Structures. The professor, a handsome and fit man perhaps in his 40s or 50s, made several jokes about his Greek accent. He said homework would be done in groups of two or three. Only groups and not individuals would be marked for homework but if nobody likes you, you can work alone. Although the course is part of computer engineering, it’s a math class and so students would be penalized for using computer code algorithms.

He talked a bit about the history of computing. He told them that in the 1920s everything that is being done now with computers was already on paper but they just hadn’t figured out how to make it happen. In the 1960s the big breakthrough was the transistor, which at the time was the size of a finger. Now one can fit three billion transistors in the palm of their hand. He reminded them that they were in the most profitable field of engineering.

When the math class was over and students cleared out, I made my way to the front row. Our professor, Deborah Black came in and pulled a lectern out of the corner, even though there was a podium just to the right of the front-centre. She obviously preferred to lecture from the very centre of the front of the room. She couldn’t raise the lectern though, so she got the other one from the same corner and that worked.

She fiddled with the lapel microphone and complained light heartedly that they were not designed for women’s clothing (she was wearing a dark, floral dress).

She began by telling us that “medieval” is a term from the western tradition but that we would also be covering Jewish and Islamic philosophers of the same period. She warned us that the Jewish and Islamic philosophies would be a little more technical.

She announced that she’d just noticed that someone had left gum on her lectern and so she then moved over to the podium.

The term “Medieval”, describing the period from the 4^th Century to the 15 was pejorative and was coined by scholars of the Renaissance. Knowing why helps to highlight the features of the era. It has to do with the formalization of philosophy. Aristotle had been rediscovered and was considered to be a great revelation.

This course covers the pre-scholastic period, which was still under the Roman Empire or its remnants.

One of the reasons that the Humanists of the Renaissance didn’t like the Medieval period is because of its linking of philosophy to religion. The Abrahamic traditions of Christian, Jewish and Islamic philosophy were distinct from one another in how they linked religion and philosophy. Philosophizing in the Islamic world was culturally tied to the spread of Islam. It is hard to separate the Islamic and Jewish traditions because the Jewish philosophers lived in Islamic lands and wrote in Arabic. The Jewish tradition falls somewhere in between the Christian and the Islamic. Islamic philosophy had a secular streak. It was a classical, rationalist secular tradition that did not have its source in revelation because for them religion was more socio-political. They put reason above revelation until the 12^th Century when mysticism got woven into their philosophy.

These philosophers were not simply rationalizing their faith. They assumed there was a god but did not take it for granted.

We’ll learn about how naughty Augustine was in his youth.

The Holy Roman Empire went from the 4^th Century to 1150 but there were barbarians at the gate even in Augustine’s time. His conversion was central to his philosophical development. He sounds more like a late Roman thinker than any of his successors. Augustine was good at Latin but lousy at Greek.

Boethius came after the fall of the old Roman Empire and was born under Ostrogoth barbarian rule. He could read both Latin and Greek and so he was part of the new tradition but linked to the old. He has been called “the last of the Romans”.

There is no continuous tradition in medieval philosophy. Barbarian rule from the 6^th Century makes philosophy disappear. It was called “The Dark Ages” for a reason. Aristotle said that philosophy requires leisure but this period had none. Aristotle’s works were known though throughout this static period.

Charlemagne in the 9^th Century brought stability, schools and monasteries.  The Carolingian period brings John Eriugena. He learned Greek and translated Pseudo-Dionysius who was a Christian neo-Platonist. Eriugena’s major work was “On the Division of Nature”. But when one recovers and translates the learning of the past, the translation one chooses can cause one to be accused of heresy.

Professor Black said that her husband know more about Carolingian history than she does because he is a historian that specializes in that era.

Philosophical thinking during this unstable period got preserved in the monasteries, outside of the political fray.

Anselm of Canterbury in the 11^th Century used some of Augustine’s ideas but constructed a philosophy out of mostly no tradition.

In the 12^th Century there was stability, as cities and schools developed. The first Arabic texts were translated into Latin. Logic, grammar and cosmology rose. They started dealing with the material seriously. It was a sophisticated and lively time for thinkers. An interest in logic and language created debating systems. Plato was transmitted through the darker period.

Calcidius translated Plato’s creation myth.

The School of Chartres were 12^th Century Platonists, using tools of logic and debate. The notorious Peter Abelard was the culmination of this tradition.

Porphyry of Tyre was a 3^rd Century Neoplatonist.

Peter Abelard’s ideas were held in contempt in the early 12^th Century.

Peter Lombard’s “Sentences” (meaning opinions) in the 12^th Century.

There was continuity but there was a major rift as Greek philosophy as translated by Arabic authors came forward. The Islamic translations became the basis for universities.

Our reading before next class would be from Augustine’s Confessions.