The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy

by Étienne Gilson, A.H.C. Downes (Translator)

In this book (a translation of his well-known work L'esprit de la philosophie medievale) , Etienne Gilson undertakes the task of defining the spirit of mediaeval philosophy. Gilson asks whether we can form the concept of a Christian philosophy and whether mediaeval philosophy is not its most adequate historical expression. He maintains that the spirit of mediaeval philosophy is the spirit of Christianity penetrating the Greek tradition, working within it, and drawing out of it a certain view of the world that is specifically Christian. To support his hypothesis, Gilson examines mediaeval thought in its nascent state, at that precise point where the Judeo-Christian graft was inserted into the Hellenic tradition. Gilson's demonstration is primarily historical and occasionally theoretical in suggesting how doctrines that satisfied our predecessors for so many centuries may still be found conceivable today.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, History, Theology, Medieval, Christianity, Nonfiction

500 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1932

About the author

Étienne Henri Gilson was born into a Roman Catholic family in Paris on 13 June 1884. He was educated at a number of Roman Catholic schools in Paris before attending lycée Henri IV in 1902, where he studied philosophy. Two years later he enrolled at the Sorbonne, graduating in 1907 after having studied under many fine scholars, including Lucien Lévy Bruhl, Henri Bergson and Emile Durkheim.
Gilson taught in a number of high schools after his graduation and worked on a doctoral thesis on Descartes, which he successfully completed (Sorbonne) in 1913. On the strength of advice from his teacher, Lévy Bruhl, he began to study medieval philosophy in great depth, coming to see Descartes as having strong connections with medieval philosophy, although often finding more merit in the medieval works he saw as connected than in Descartes himself. He was later to be highly esteemed for his work in medieval philosophy and has been described as something of a saviour to the field.
From 1913 to 1914 Gilson taught at the University of Lille. His academic career was postponed during the First World War while he took up military service. During his time in the army he served as second lieutenant in a machine-gun regiment and was awarded the Croix de Guerre for bravery upon relief from his duties. After the war, he returned to academic life at Lille and (also) Strasbourg, and in 1921 he took up an appointment at the Sorbonne teaching the history of medieval philosophy. He remained at the Sorbonne for eleven years prior to becoming Professor of Medieval Philosophy at the College de France in 1932. During his Sorbonne years and throughout his continuing career Gilson had the opportunity to travel extensively to North America, where he became highly influential as a historian and medievalist, demonstrating a number of previously undetermined important differences among the period’s greatest figures.

Gilson’s Gifford Lectures, delivered at Aberdeen in 1931 and 1932, titled ‘The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy’, were published in his native language (L’espirit de la philosophie medieval, 1932) before being translated into English in 1936. Gilson believed that a defining feature of medieval philosophy was that it operated within a framework endorsing a conviction to the existence of God, with a complete acceptance that Christian revelation enabled the refinement of meticulous reason. In this regard he described medieval philosophy as particularly ‘Christian’ philosophy.

Gilson married in 1908 and the union produced three children, two daughters and one son. Sadly, his wife died of leukaemia in late 1949. In 1951 he relinquished his chair at the College de France in order to attend to responsibilities he had at the Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto, Canada, an institute he had been invited to establish in 1929. Gilson died 19 September 1978 at the age of ninety-four.

Reviews

[Rob the Obscure · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one is not interested in rational processing of the big questions in life, this book is not for that person. If you are not interested in the historical interplay between philosophy and theology, this book is not for you. If one has little patience for dense writing on highly technical philosophical subjects, that person should stay away from this book.

Gilson's primary point could be summarized in this way:
1. It is often uncritically accepted, even assumed, that no philosophical advancements took place between the Greeks (culminating in Plotinus) and modern philosophy (beginning with Descartes). The "middle ages" were, philosophically, just that - a liminal space that is in "neither" one room or the other, and are rather a threshold...nothing more.
2. This assumption is incorrect (according to Gilson). Medieval philosophers (Aquinas, Augustine, Bonaventure, etc.)actually added quite a bit to philosophy. Standing on the shoulders of Plato and Aristotle, they took the systems these masters created, and the questions deriving from those systems, and built a rational extension of systemic answers to those questions.
3. They were able to do this because they drew on "revelation", through their Christian faith, in a way that deepened their understanding both of first principles and their extensions and conclusions.
4. However, not content to remain in a position of simply stating a revelation for acceptance through faith...they chose to use the foundation of Plato and Aristotle to demonstrate the rational value of those truths in understanding basic philosophical issues (nature of being, contingency, causality, finality, ethics, etc.).
5. In this sense, they made a valuable and lasting contribution to philosophy that stands on its own ground philosophically, and does not depend on a faith acceptance of revelation to pass the test of reasonableness. This in spite of the fact that its genesis was, in fact, in revelation. Moreover, much of the philosophy of Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, Liebniz, and others would not have even been possible without these contributions of medieval philosophy.

_________

That, it seems to me, is Gilson's position. I found it fascinating, and a great refresher on much of the historical development of philosophy and theology. In the end, I also found it flawed. The flaw is basically this: it seems to me to be a very involved, lengthy, technically detailed example of begging the question (petitio principii). In other words, if one does not accept on faith the revealed truths that serve as the foundation for medieval philosophical contributions, then the contributions themselves, built as they are on these revelations and constantly in reference to them, become mere speculation. On the other hand, if one DOES accept the revelations by faith as "true", then the philosophy proceeding from them, as interesting as it might be intellectually and as valuable as it may prove in terms of apologetics, is, in the end, unnecessary, since the worldview of the person is formed by a personal faith commitment, and not by a process of reasoning.

Since the dawn of the scientific method and, more importantly for this discussion, the epistemology proceeding from that new era, one simply must be content with questions that are, at this point in our understanding, unanswered. To appeal to a faith position in a way that attempts to demonstrate its necessity as a source for answers to the current gap in our knowledge; this is to demonstrate a form of epistemological impatience which cannot, it seems to me, be supported strictly on the basis of reason. Since it requires faith for its support, then it is a question of personal commitment...nothing more, and nothing less.

Would be very interested in any responses or dialogue proceeding from this review of Gilson's work.

[شفيق · Rating 4 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب في مكتبي يعد الأعظم بعد هكذا تكلم زرادشت..
، هذا الخليل أنهيته في شهرين كأطول كتاب جلس في رفقتي..

يتكلم عن الفلسفة المسيحية اذ صح التعبير! لأن الفلسفة اذ اقتحمت المجال الديني تصبح علم لاهوت و لأختلاف المجالات بين الفلسفة و الدين.
يتكلم عن أهم المدارس الرائدة و الفلاسفة المسيحيين امثال القديس اغسطين و توما الأكويني و الأسكولائية الجديدة و العقليون الخلص...

يتحدث ايضا عن اثر الفلسفة اليونانية لاسيما افلاطون و ارسطو. و اعتقد لولا اليونان ماوجدت الفلسفة المسيحية، لأن الفلاسفة المسيحيين طوروا و اختاروا ما يناسب الدين، فالفلسفة اليونانية القديمة كانت ارض خصبة تطرح جميع العشب وما كان من الفلاسفة المسيحيين سوي الأختيار..

تكلم ايضا عن بعض الأمور الأخري مثل الغائية، الأنثروبولوجيا المسيحية، الأرادة والحرية، العقل و الحب.. ألخ

كتاب لا مثيل له في أسلوبه، بسيط في تركيبه، رحلة غير مكلفة إلي العصر الوسيط لا تكلفك الكثير سوي أن تفتح الكتاب و تترك الكاتب يذهب بك إلي زمن سحيق و تقابل توما الأكويني و اغسطين و دانز سكوت و تدخل إليهم و تتعرف علي افكارهم..

بذلك تبقى لى الفلسفة اليونانية و الفلسفة الحديثة ..

[Mohmed Abd el salam · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب يتناول فلسفة القرون الوسطى ، فكرته الأساسية تبحث عن علاقة الدين من حيث هو وحي مقدس بالنظر العقلي والفلسفة ، السؤال كما يطرحه الكاتب : ( هل هناك من بين القضايا التي يعتقد الشخص أنها صحيحة عن طريق الإيمان ، مجموعة من القضايا يعرف العقل أنها صحيحة )

وجهة نظر معظم الفلاسفة الإجابة هي لا ، فمجال العقل منفصل تماما عن مجال الاعتقاد ، الاشكالية هي أن المفكر حين ينطلق من العقيدة ليبحث في قضايا عقلية فلسفية فإنه يعود حتما إلى الإيمان مرة أخرى ، وهنا تفقد الفلسفة معناها وتصبح مجرد تبرير لما سلم به العقل من قبل .

لكن الكاتب يرى وجهة النظر الأخرى ، فلا يجد تعارض في أن تتوافق الفلسفة مع جوهر الإيمان والنص المقدس ، بل لا يتصور أن ينفصل العهد الجديد عن الفلسفة ، سواء في التفسيرات اللاهوتية أو حتى في مصادر هذه التفسيرات .. يقول " إننا لو أردنا ان نحصي أو أن نصنف المصادر اليونانية للفلسفة المسيحية فإننا سوف نقوم بعمل لا نهاية له .. إنه بدون وحي الكتاب المقدس ما كان يمكن أن تكون هناك ميتافيزيقا للوجود الخالص ، لكن أيضا بدون الفكر اليوناني ما كان يمكن أن تظهر ميتافيزيقا من وحي الكتاب المقدس "

لقد حاول فلاسفة العصر الوسيط المسيحيون ( توما الأكويني وأغوسطين و إنسلم ) التوفيق بين فلسفة أرسطو وأفلاطون وبين النص المقدس ، وكان عليهم أن يضيفوا للفكر اليوناني وان يبتعدوا عنه أحيانا ويأتوا بأفكار أصيلة ، ومن هنا ظهرت الفلسفة المسيحية التي يكتب فيها المؤلف كتابه .

يعرض الكتاب أفكار بعض من مفكري العصر الوسيط ( خاصة توما الأكويني ) حيال القضايا والمشكلات الفلسفية المختلفة ، والكتاب في الأل مجموعة من المحاضرات الفلسفية ، لذلك هو موجه أساسا لدارسي الفلسفة ، لكن الكاتب نجح في توضيح موضوعات الميتافيزيقا والأنطولوجيا على نحو شديد السلاسة والإمتاع ( الفصول من الثاني للعاشر ) ، في حين جاءت موضوعات المعرفة والأخلاق على نحو متخصص يتسم بالصعوبة العقلية للقارئ العادي .

بشكل عام ، الكتاب يحتاج من القارئ حد أدنى من الإهتمام بالموضوعات الفلسفية ، ويحتاج للصفاء الذهني عند القراءة وهي عملة نادرة هذه الأيام .

الطبعة الأخيرة من هذا الكتاب صدرت من الهيئة المصرية العامة للكتاب تحت عنوان ( روح الفلسفة المسيحية في العصر الوسيط ) ، ترجمة د. إمام عبد الفتاح إمام

[Adam Marischuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are many good or even great introductions to philosophy in the Middle Ages, such as Frederick Copleston's, Arman Maurer's, or Dom David Knowles', there is no other book like this for developing the thesis of what Medieval philosophy aimed at, attempted and created: a synthesis of faith and reason. (Technically, this book is the product of the 1931-32 Gifford lectures, but it deserves the title book based on the readability, cohesion, coherence and consistently developed theme)

Gilson has touched on many of the themes elsewhere, in fact the opening chapter on Christian philosophy is really just a summary of Gilson's Christianity and Philosophy. But The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy is the only book which brings together so many disparate topics.

This is not a chronological but rather thematic book where Gilson attempts to demonstrate that the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas (and Duns Scotus to a lesser degree) is the pinnacle of previous philosophical reflection from the Greeks, Islamic philosophy and other previous Christian philosophers, especially Augustine. That said, the book does not deal exclusively with the ideas of St Thomas but rather details the various currents of thought, Platonic, Aristotelean or Augustinian (not to mention Averroës and Avicenna, St Bernard, Bonaventure and Anselm of Canterbury).

The book has chapters dealing with ontology, epistemology, free will, the existence of God, providence and even love. It closes with a critique of late Medieval philsophy and particularly notes that Martin Luther is in point of fact, the product of and a reaction against the Medieval synthesis.

The final chapter comes full circle and again deals with the problem of philosophy and faith, but I would have liked the book to include more on the the breakdown of the Medieval Synthesis, as Ockham and the nominalists are barely given a turn. The question of why the Medieval synthesis broke down and resulted in the nominalism of Luther is not explored though it is criticized at length: "there never would have been any mediaeval philosophy if the first Christians understood their religion as Luther understood his." (p. 422)

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very slow going, but as it was written as lectures that Gilson claims weren't addressed to philosophers but a general audience, it's instructive to ponder how standards have shifted nearly nine decades on. I read it one or two chapters at a sitting, and I struggled, as a non-philosopher. That's undoubtedly due my own shortcomings in education, but Etienne Gilson manages to incorporate a lot of context for his understandably frequent Latin quotes from the sources, so one can get the gist. I know basic Latin, but I'm glad I have a book to read the content in, rather than hear it. It's full of endnotes that will assist specialists. He labors to elucidate how far reason could take the medieval thinker. He does touch on Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonodes, but naturally given the title, he focuses on Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and as well as the expected attention to Aquinas, a considerable look at Duns Scotus, to me the most interesting of the minds here plumbed. I'd have liked an updated ed. with an intro on the book's impact...it helped convert Thomas Merton.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd heard so much about this book from various authors and finally got to crossing it off my reading list.

This is an excellent summary of Mediaeval Christian philosophy. The book is organized by theme or concept and provides a good amount of sources (could've used more.) Gilson mainly sticks to the major theologian/philosophers of influence, Augustine and Aquinus, but also does a fine job of not only telling but describing the influence of Greek thought in the Middle Ages.

[Gregory Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book delivers what it promises in the title: an exposition of the spirit of mediaeval philosophy. Unfortunately, what I wanted, at this particular time in my life, would be something more technical.

[Micheal Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truth passes torch to torch; the path of butter flows upon the futures stones from ancient steppes; the road of youth is burnished by the feet of patrons walking from antiquity, souls carrying forth the image of light, who have woken into the breath of the new age. Let us call this a grace.

[Alessandro Giuliani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memorabile. Il libro che al liceo mi ha fatto scoprire il pensiero medioevale. Mi ricordo ancora lo stupore e l'entusiasmo con cui leggevo oltre, senza riuscire a staccarmene, mentre camminavo per tornare a casa, la sera del giorno in cui lo avevo preso in prestito.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE FAMED EXPOSITION AND DEFENSE OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY

Étienne Gilson (1884-1978) was a French philosopher. He wrote in the Preface of this 1936 book, “The twenty lectures contained in this volume were delivered as Gifford Lectures … in 1931 and 1932. I had been asked to… define the spirit of medieval philosophy: but I accepted it nevertheless in view of the widespread notion that … the Middle Ages … altogether lacked a philosophy that could be called their own… In the effort to define its essence I found myself led to characterize it as the Christian philosophy ‘par excellence’… It will be found, then, that all these lectures converge to this conclusion: that the Middle Ages produced… this very Christian philosophy…

“The true questions are, first, whether we can form the concept of a Christian philosophy, and secondly, whether medieval philosophy … is not precisely its most adequate historical expression… the spirit of medieval philosophy is the spirit of Christianity penetrating the Greek tradition… we shall have to examine medieval thought in its nascent state, at that precise point … where the Judeo-Christian graft was inserted into the Hellenic tradition.”

He explains, "Our first task will be to interrogate the Christian philosophers themselves as to their own idea of Christian philosophy; and this we shall do by putting the following question: what intellectual advantages were to be gained by turning to the Bible and the Gospel as sources of philosophic inspiration?” (Pg. 19)

He says of Justin Martyr, “A man seeks the truth by the unaided effort of reason and is disappointed; it is offered to him by faith and he accepts; and, having accepted, he finds that it satisfies his reason… In spite of his disdainful condemnation of the false wisdom of the Greeks, the Apostle [Paul] does not condemn reason; on the contrary, he is concerned to recognize a certain natural knowledge of God even in the Gentiles. When, in the Epistle to the Romans [1:19-20], he affirms that the eternal power and divinity of God may be known from created things, he affirms by implication the possibility of a purely rational knowledge of God in the Greeks, and at the same time lays the foundation of all the natural theologies which will later arise in the bosom of Christianity.” (Pg. 25-26)

He states, “for the Christian, reason alone does not satisfy reason and it was not merely in the second century that philosophers became Christian in the interests of their philosophy… Thus the content of Christian philosophy is that body of rational truths discovered, explored, or simply safeguarded, thanks to the help that reason receives from revelation.” (Pg. 34-35)

He argues, “the Renaissance marks the opening of an era in which man will profess to be satisfied with the state of fallen nature… but it would be altogether unjust to conclude against the Middle Ages that having unfavorably compared the state of fallen nature with another and a better, it had no feeling left for it at all… In this sense we may say that if the spirit of medieval philosophy was profoundly accordant with certain positive aspirations of the Renaissance it was precisely because that spirit was Christian.” (Pg. 125)

He acknowledges, “How far indeed in Thomist doctrine does God seem to recede from man and the world!... the Thomist God shows Himself more generous than St. Augustine’s … however great is God’s generosity towards the world in Augustinianism, it is greater still in the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He has created an intellect which lacks nothing it needs, and in particular lacks nothing needed for the exercise of its proper function: namely, to know the truth.” (Pg. 140-141)

He states, “Human foresight is to the providence of God what human causality is to divine creation. God, therefore, not only controls man by His providence, but also associates him with His providence; while all the rest is simply rules by providence, man is ruled by it and rules himself; and not only himself but also all the rest… Here, more than anywhere else, it is a great thing to cooperate with God, or as St. Paul puts it, to become the coadjutor of God.” [1 Cor 3:9?] (Pg. 166)

He notes, “To be a person is to participate in one of the highest excellences of the divine being. But then it seems… Not a word throughout the whole of medieval moral philosophy on what the medievals themselves held to be highest in man… How shall we account for the fact that… Christian thought seems to stop suddenly short and renounce all effort to exploit its success? All that is merely apparent. It is true that the idea of person seems to play no part in medieval moral philosophy, but we can regard it as absent only if we forget the very definition that the Christian thinkers gave it: an individual of a rational nature.” (Pg. 205)

He summarizes, “to say that the spirit of medieval philosophy… was none other than the very spirit of Christian philosophy, is to affirm simultaneously that the Middle Ages were a period of philosophic progress and that this progress rested on the continuity of a tradition… just as Christian philosophy is not the whole of medieval philosophy, so neither are the elements due to Scriptural influence the whole of Christian philosophy; they do not even exhaust its essence, but they mark its specific difference and reveal its spirit.” (Pg. 207-208)

He says, “it is impossible to love the image without at the same time loving the original, and if we know... that the image is only an image, it is impossible to love it without preferring the original. What holds of the whole totality of creatures holds much more of man in particular. To will any object is to will an image of God, that is, to will God; to love oneself, then, will be to love an analogue of God, and that is to love God.” (Pg. 286)

He asserts, “Among the innumerable consequences for philosophy which flow from the Bible and the Gospel, there are none more important than what we may call the interiorization of morality… the sin once committed there is no hope of remission save by the forgiveness of the God Whom it offends, to Whom it is confessed, Who is free not to impute it to the contrite of heart… The God of the Bible thus immediately lays claim to the whole of that moral jurisdiction to which His creative power entitles Him… There is no reason at all to be surprised at the insistence with which the Gospel reminds us that sin is anterior to the act which outwardly manifests it, and, in many cases, independent of it.” (Pg. 344-345)

He admits, “That the Middle Ages was an age of miracles must surely be evident… To be sure they often hit upon false miracles… There were naïve miracles too, in plenty, amounting merely to the extraordinary; everything surprising was taken to indicate the immediate intervention of God. What the historians miss is that medieval miracles… rather attest the presence of a nature than deny it… that same nature in short which is related to God…” (Pg. 374)

He observes, “It was not modern science … that destroyed Christian philosophy. When modern science was born there was no longer any living Christian philosophy to welcome and assimilate it…. The war came of the revolt of national egoisms against Christendom, and this revolt itself, which Christian philosophy should have prevented, came of the internal dissensions that afflicted it because it had forgotten its essence, which was to be Christian. Divided against itself, the house fell. Perhaps it is not too late to attempt its reconstruction; but if Christian philosophy is to start on a new career, a new Christian spirit will have to be everywhere diffused, and philosophy too will have to learn to absorb and retain it. This is the only atmosphere in which it can breathe.” (Pg. 402)

He concludes, “The conclusion that arises out of this study… is that everything happened as though the Judeo-Christian revelation were a religious source of philosophical development, the witness par excellence … The thesis may be charged with being a mere piece of apologetic, but if it is true, the fact that it may serve the turn of apologetic does not prove that it is false. The only question to be settled is, therefore, is it true? And after that anyone is free to make what use of it he will.” (Pg. 405-406)

This book will be “must reading” for anyone seriously studying Medieval philosophy.

[Joseph R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most historians of thought have a tendency to skip over what they refer to as "The Dark Ages," going straight from ancient Greece and Rome to the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods. Sure, there was some literature and art in this Christian-dominated period, but philosophy did not develop at all (so the historians claim) until people like Descartes arrived. Gilson examines if there was a mediaeval philosophy. Clearly, European thought was dominated by Christianity but it did not develop in a vacuum and plenty of authors in Jewish and Muslim traditions commented and expanded upon classical philosophers like Plato and Aristotle.

Gilson has a lot of issues to grapple with. Theological reflection was the primary interest in the middle ages, but that did not exclude the application and adaptation of philosophical ideas to their Biblical understanding of the world. "Faith Seeking Understanding" is the motivation and inspiration of thinkers from Saint Augustine to Saint Thomas Aquinas (held as the exemplar of Christian philosophy). Syncing up philosophical insights with theological insights creates a new system, built on the shoulders of what came before, but clearly going higher and in different directions from what came before.

After affirming the existence of mediaeval philosophy, Gilson runs through many other issues, showing the mediaeval Christian anthropology, including epistemological and moral concepts unknown or underdeveloped in the classical period. The meaning and purpose of human life has a tremendous shift with the revelation of a personal God who becomes man and shares in our life. The age did have a distinctive philosophy (often imbedded in the theology).

The book is a very technical and detailed discussion of these issues. Gilson is a persuasive writer but the text is dry and aimed at an audience that has a lot of familiarity with mediaeval Christianity and classical issues in philosophy. I found it tough going in spots, even with a lot of prior knowledge of the issues involved.

Mildly recommended--this requires some pre-requisites to appreciate fully.

Sample quote, the key shift that distinguished medieval thought:
"There is but one God and this God is Being, that is the corner-stone of all Christian philosophy, and it was not Plato, it was not even Aristotle, it was Moses who put it into position." p. 51

[Loren Picard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because it was recommended by the author of “Confessions of a Born-Again Pagan,” Anthony T. Kronman. I had written Mr. Kronman after reading his wonderful book asking for a book on scholastic theology. When the book arrived, I paged through it and felt I was not ready for it. So, I read another book as pre-requisite. That book was “What is Ancient Philosophy,” by Pierre Hadot. I am glad I did. Etienne Gilson is an approachable, though sometimes not easily digestible, writer. The book is comprised of 20 lectures (known as the Gifford Lectures) he gave over 1931 and 1932. A few of the lecture titles are: 1) The Problem of Christian Philosophy; 2) The Intellect And Its Object; and 3) Intention, Conscience And Obligation. The Medieval period presents interesting challenges from the perspective of studying philosophy. Most people study the ancients, gloss over the next 1000 years, and come out the other end with a humanistic viewpoint. What is very interesting, is that when you dig into the 1000 years you discover that Christianity would not be what it is without the ancients (hat tip to Plato and Aristotle) and that almost everything we today take for granted--humanism, human rights, free will, the scientific revolution--in our “enlightened” era would not exist but for Christianity, and hence the ancients. We have become so accustomed to what we have, we take it for granted that we have it. People look at the Medieval period as the dark ages. Little do they know that without this period there would be no modernity, both the good and the bad. I recommend this book only as part of a reading program centered around the understanding of the history of ideas (or the understanding of any subject spanning twenty centuries). As a standalone book, especially if read by today’s “sophisticates” it might feel like you are constantly being gaslighted. I assure you that you are not.

[ἄμβροτος · Rating 5 out of 5]

i sought this book out in an attempt to fill in what seemed to me like a major gap in my knowledge of the history of philosophy. gilson certainly approaches it as a sort of gap in our collective knowledge, and has a palpable stake in defending its legitimacy.

i wanted to understand where medieval thought departs from greek philosophy, and this book did and admirable job of detailing its departures at every juncture. the writing was consistently succinct, passionate, and insightful. over and above that, gilson clearly believes strongly in the unity of medieval philosophy, and i think such a belief is necessary to really give it the fair shake it deserves.

this is also where the one weakness i would identify in the book comes from, however, maybe one which is unavoidable by the nature of his project. he stops just short of denying that medieval philosophy gave way to modern philosophy by the weight of its own contradictions: his belief in it is that powerful.

though he masterfully shows philosophical history as moving forward necessarily, and often even asserts that medieval thought brought concepts in ancient philosophy to full fruition, he cannot grant the same to modern thought, and sometimes seems to view it as a degeneration.

even still, this partiality does not get in the way of his analysis; it is primarily rhetorical and not strongly stated. it detracts only minorly from his masterful unfolding of this period of history and his love for it shines through most strongly. strong recommend

[Joel Zartman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gilson's argument is that medieval philosophy completed the philosophy of antiquity, assimilating and developing with information only Christianity could supply. His chapter on "Being and Its Necessity" argues that God's revelation to Moses at the burning bush provides a concept nowhere else found and grounds Christian philosophy in the category of being. There are many other such insights in this remarkable book.

My only criticism is that whatever Gilson mastered, he was not a specialist in Plotinus or in Luther. There is better secondary literature on both subjects than the slanted observations Gilson provides. He is a master of Aquinas and Bonaventure.

[A.J. Jr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful book on the subject. It's pretty heavy reading, and not for the feint of heart. Some prior knowledge of scholastic philosophy, Latin, and Greek are assumed by the author. The book is a series of lectures given by the author in the 1930s. Learning was more rigorous in those days.

[Edward · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book, but it is not light reading. Gilson delves deeply into the Western philosophical tradition from the Greeks to Medievalists. For those seeking a more sophisticated expression of the foundations of Western Civilization, this book will offer many treasures.

[Aaron Cliff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Etienne makes several persuasive claims: That there is such a thing as Christian Philosophy, That the Middle Ages was replete with this Philosophy and that the introduction of Christianity to philosophy didn't regress philosophical progress but furthered it.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinariamente revelador. Si Hegel hubiera podido leer este libro- y si su orgullo se lo hubiera permitido- no habría pasado sobre la Edad Media con botas de siete leguas. Y, quién sabe, quizás se habría abstenido de dar paso alguno en su propia filosofía...

[Sinan A.khaldy · Rating 5 out of 5]

السؤال الجوهري الذي يحاول الكاتب أن يجيب عليه ،،،هل للديانة المسيحية فلسفة ( في العصور الوسطى )
لأن المؤرخين وفلاسفة العصر الحديث يصرون على أن الفلسفة لا تتفق مع الدين لأن الثاني يعتمد على النقل (الوحي) والأول على البرهان والمنطق .....

[Tapji Garba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a medievalist by any means, but this text offers a really helpful overview of medieval Christian theology & philosophy.

[Manolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una obra maestra.

[Abdulaziz Bukhari]

"الترجمة ليست أمينة ودقيقة كما هي في النص الفرنسي"

[Brother Gregory Rice, SOLT · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review forthcoming. Powerful, powerful work.

[Mohamed Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

دسم جدًا بس استفدت جدًا+ أخطاء املائية كتيرة جدًا

[Christopher Blosser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic survey of medieval philosophy, and despite it's size well worth the effort and a resource that I'll be turning to time and again.

On a tangential note, I confess the impetus for it being on my "bucket list" of must-reads was the fact that it was one that set Thomas Merton, then a student at Columbia University, on the road to Catholicism, who wrote of it:

"[A]seitas. In this one word, which can be applied to God alone, and which expresses His most characteristic attribute, I discovered an entirely new concept of God—a concept which showed me at once the belief of Catholics was by no means the vague and rather superstitious hangover from an unscientific age that I had believed it to be. On the contrary, here was a notion of God that was at the same time deep, precise, simple, and accurate and, what is more, charged with implications which I could not even begin to appreciate, but which I could at least dimly estimate, even with my own lack of philosophical training."

[Gille Liath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Etienne Gilson succeeds admirably in his avowed intention in this book, which is to show that medieval philosophy, far from being an irrelevant dead end, developed the ideas of the Greeks in many important ways and is the living link between their philosophy and that of modern times. The trouble is, you feel, that he would like to have done a lot more than that, to show that it is possible to have a philosophy which is both rigorously analytical and rigorously Christian. You can feel his yearning for this, but at the end of the book he has to admit - it isn't. In the end the Christian must choose between his faith and his philosophy.

Since this is generally regarded as a classic of Christian philosophy, I can only suppose that not enough people have understood the book, or got to its end, to have noticed this.

[John]

shit, totally abandoned the medieval Dantean investigations!

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great read.

[Barros Juan Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

esencial

[Kevin Tracy]

Slow going. Someone had it recalled when I was only half through. I'll have to try to finish it later.