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History of Western Philosophy #2
Medieval Thought
The Middle Ages span a period of well over a millennium: from the emperor Constantine's Christian conversion in 312 to the early sixteenth century. During this time there was remarkable continuity of thought, but there were also many changes made in different philosophies: various breaks, revivals, and rediscoveries. David Luscombe's history of Medieval Thought steers a clear path through this long period, beginning with the three greatest influences on medieval philosophy: Augustine, Boethius, and Pseudo-Denis, and focusing on Alcuin, Abelard, Anselm, Aquinas, Ockham, Duns Scotus, and Eckhart amongst others in the twelfth to fifteenth centuries. Medieval philosophy is widely regarded as having a theological and religious orientation, but more recently attention has been given to the early study of logic, language, and the philosophy of science. This history therefore gives a fascinating insight into medieval views on aspects such as astronomy, materialism, perception, and the nature of the soul, as well as of God.
256 pages, Paperback
First published April 24, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
April 12, 2019
Há uma homogeneidade de notações por mim atribuídas a obras que se propõem a relatar largos períodos de tempo, qualquer que seja a perspectiva ou temática.
Com toda a probabilidade, o demérito não é da obra, que ao dizer ao que vem, não pode enganar o leitor, mas da apreciação que dela faço.
Tenho perfeita noção de que não se pode condensar cerca de mil anos de pensamento humano em duzentas e poucas páginas e fazer uma análise aprofundado do mesmo.
Por isso, devia provavelmente ser mais justa na atribuição da notação; só que de cada vez que me lanço a um destes, fico sempre bastante frustrada dado que mesmo da ideia geral que se pretende transmitir, parece-me que quase nada retenho.
Por isso, a minha notação não será a mais justa - até por me parecer que para trabalhos destes, só os especialistas saberão avaliar o acerto do resumo realizado.
Mas da frustração em que me fico retiro a lição que, para mim, este tipo de obra não é adequada.
Será melhor despender o meu tempo às que se focam ou especializam num ou noutro pensador.
Com toda a probabilidade, o demérito não é da obra, que ao dizer ao que vem, não pode enganar o leitor, mas da apreciação que dela faço.
Tenho perfeita noção de que não se pode condensar cerca de mil anos de pensamento humano em duzentas e poucas páginas e fazer uma análise aprofundado do mesmo.
Por isso, devia provavelmente ser mais justa na atribuição da notação; só que de cada vez que me lanço a um destes, fico sempre bastante frustrada dado que mesmo da ideia geral que se pretende transmitir, parece-me que quase nada retenho.
Por isso, a minha notação não será a mais justa - até por me parecer que para trabalhos destes, só os especialistas saberão avaliar o acerto do resumo realizado.
Mas da frustração em que me fico retiro a lição que, para mim, este tipo de obra não é adequada.
Será melhor despender o meu tempo às que se focam ou especializam num ou noutro pensador.
Read
August 9, 2025در ترم سوم تاریخ فلسفه به هدایت استاد آریان شبگرد در آکادمی لوگوس، تاریخ فلسفهی قرون وسطی، دومین جلد مجموعهی تاریخ فلسفهی آکسفورد رو خوندیم.
کاش فرصت بود توضیح مفصلی از این تجربه میدادم ولی حیف. ما ترجمهی انتشارات نامحترم سمت رو مطالعه کردیم. با ترجمهی استاد میثم سفیدخوش بزرگوار.
کاش فرصت بود توضیح مفصلی از این تجربه میدادم ولی حیف. ما ترجمهی انتشارات نامحترم سمت رو مطالعه کردیم. با ترجمهی استاد میثم سفیدخوش بزرگوار.
February 19, 2018
While efficient it does omit certain things for the shake of originality (?). In a book about medieval thought there is no reference to Occam's razor! and the debate about nominalism and realism is barely touched upon. This maybe the view of an author but when you label your book an introductory volume on a subject you need to be more inclusive and mainstream otherwise you should explicitly mention that your book is about your personal view about the history of western philosophy.
December 30, 2023
For me, this book was a pretty stunning exposé of the human mind under intense existential stress. Central is the mental struggle to find meaning in the ashes of civilization. With implosion of the Western Roman Empire, the Dark Ages have commenced at the outset of this text. And the darkness wasn’t just the infrastructure, economy, and culture; it was a deep mental bleakness.
The author travels from the conversion of Constantine in 312 A.D. to the age of Martin Luther in the 1520s. Sometimes, the participants made brilliant connections between imaginary realities. Still, more often, they invented conspiracy-theory-like nuttery that could have come out of today’s QAnon as people tried to make themselves feel better in the chaos of poverty and wars. Every attempt at philosophical thought had to be theological in nature, so the mental contortions to make innate reason conform to theology is an amazing thing to witness. Were it not for today’s retreat from reason into superstition, it would be impossible to comprehend. Under the wrong conditions, humans really will do these things, creepy as it is.
Starting with Augustine (345-430), an heir to the ancients and precursor to the Christian Middle Ages, we can see the problem. It was his study of Plato (soon to be lost) with emphasis on the “true reality as spiritual” (i.e., meaning), not physical (i.e., purpose and “our miserable present”). Augustine promoted some of the old mental high ground of mathematics, poetry, and the arts as routes to religious truth, but this didn’t last, mostly disappearing until centuries later. “God, in choosing simple fishermen to be his apostles, had no need of philosophers or orators.” While defending against pagan critics who blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, Augustine invents the idea that newborn infants inherit (not by DNA) the sins of Adam as “original sin.” To which one of his critics wrote, “You make it seem as if the Devil were the maker of man.”
It was the very many dreamy nutters that made the book a sometimes challenge to my patience. Not that the author does a poor job; he’s very good, but the ideas were so painfully inane that I could only shake my head at the delusional capacity of adult humans at make-believe. Arguments that could end in excommunication or execution over whether the eucurist’s bread and wine are really the body and blood of Jesus, or is this metaphorical, the “real” hierarchy of angles arrayed above humanity’s head to God, or that “what exists must share both being and whatever else is needed to make it what it is. Being itself comes from the Good, which is the source of all being [though] there is a distinction between what is and that by which it is.”
Of course.
Around 1100, rational thinking begins to gel. Peter Abelard seeks a way of telling truth from falsehood “as a practice of methodical doubt.” Finally, the Arabs gave Europe back their own philosophers from Greece and Rome, and universities were established, but their purpose (like critical theorists today) was to indoctrinate in dogmatized Aristotle and the Bible as unchallengeable knowledge. A Renaissance begins, and the darkness fades (for a while). Good book, but wow, are humans nutty.
The author travels from the conversion of Constantine in 312 A.D. to the age of Martin Luther in the 1520s. Sometimes, the participants made brilliant connections between imaginary realities. Still, more often, they invented conspiracy-theory-like nuttery that could have come out of today’s QAnon as people tried to make themselves feel better in the chaos of poverty and wars. Every attempt at philosophical thought had to be theological in nature, so the mental contortions to make innate reason conform to theology is an amazing thing to witness. Were it not for today’s retreat from reason into superstition, it would be impossible to comprehend. Under the wrong conditions, humans really will do these things, creepy as it is.
Starting with Augustine (345-430), an heir to the ancients and precursor to the Christian Middle Ages, we can see the problem. It was his study of Plato (soon to be lost) with emphasis on the “true reality as spiritual” (i.e., meaning), not physical (i.e., purpose and “our miserable present”). Augustine promoted some of the old mental high ground of mathematics, poetry, and the arts as routes to religious truth, but this didn’t last, mostly disappearing until centuries later. “God, in choosing simple fishermen to be his apostles, had no need of philosophers or orators.” While defending against pagan critics who blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, Augustine invents the idea that newborn infants inherit (not by DNA) the sins of Adam as “original sin.” To which one of his critics wrote, “You make it seem as if the Devil were the maker of man.”
It was the very many dreamy nutters that made the book a sometimes challenge to my patience. Not that the author does a poor job; he’s very good, but the ideas were so painfully inane that I could only shake my head at the delusional capacity of adult humans at make-believe. Arguments that could end in excommunication or execution over whether the eucurist’s bread and wine are really the body and blood of Jesus, or is this metaphorical, the “real” hierarchy of angles arrayed above humanity’s head to God, or that “what exists must share both being and whatever else is needed to make it what it is. Being itself comes from the Good, which is the source of all being [though] there is a distinction between what is and that by which it is.”
Of course.
Around 1100, rational thinking begins to gel. Peter Abelard seeks a way of telling truth from falsehood “as a practice of methodical doubt.” Finally, the Arabs gave Europe back their own philosophers from Greece and Rome, and universities were established, but their purpose (like critical theorists today) was to indoctrinate in dogmatized Aristotle and the Bible as unchallengeable knowledge. A Renaissance begins, and the darkness fades (for a while). Good book, but wow, are humans nutty.
Read
August 4, 2018This short book really works as an introduction, because it is structured chronologically and spends time elucidating the works of the main players of each century, from Augustine and Boethius, to Anselm, Abelard, and Gilbert of Poitiers, to Muslim thinkers Avicenna and Averroes and the Jewish theologian Maimonides. Afterwards come Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, and Aquinas.. Broadly speaking, medieval thought was focused on religious and theological questions, a curriculum based on translations of early Greek and Latin texts especially Plato and Aristotle, and an obsession with precise classifications and nomenclature.
May 16, 2024
من این کتاب رو با ترجمۀ فارسی محمدسعید حنایی کاشانی خوندم که نشر قصیده منتشر کرده. توی گودریدز این نسخه ثبت نشده.
کتاب خوندنیای نیست و به چند صفحه درمورد هر اندیشمند بسنده کرده و تحلیلی فراتری از این ارائه نمیده. انگار که داری دایرةالمعارف ورق میزنی ولی حتی امتیاز الفبایی بودن رو هم نداره!
ناگفته نماند که ترجمۀ فارسی افتضاحه. جملات به خامترین شکل ممکن به فارسی برگردونده شدن و برابرگزینیها هم هیچ تعریفی نداره.
کتاب خوندنیای نیست و به چند صفحه درمورد هر اندیشمند بسنده کرده و تحلیلی فراتری از این ارائه نمیده. انگار که داری دایرةالمعارف ورق میزنی ولی حتی امتیاز الفبایی بودن رو هم نداره!
ناگفته نماند که ترجمۀ فارسی افتضاحه. جملات به خامترین شکل ممکن به فارسی برگردونده شدن و برابرگزینیها هم هیچ تعریفی نداره.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews