A Short History of Medieval Philosophy

by Julius Rudolph Weinberg

In this short history Dr. Weinberg attempts to show, more by illustration than by explicit argument, that medieval philosophy existed not merely in spite of but also because of the religious traditions in which it developed. Tracing the extent to which medieval thought was influenced by Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonisyts and the extent to which Greek thought had to be modfied to be useful to the medievalist, the author examines the central doctrines of some of the most important Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophers: Augustine, Aquinas, Saadia, Maimonides, Averroes, and Avicenna, among others. While pointing out the limitations in medieval thought resulting from theological restrictions on inquiry and from inadequate scientific knowledge of cosmology and physics, Dr. Weinberg clearly shows the contributions of the great systems of the Middle Ages to present-day philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Nonfiction

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

Julius Rudolph Weinberg (1908 - 1971) taught philosophy at University of Wisconsin, wrote on the history of philosophy.

Reviews

[AC]

You will not be disappointed.

[Individualfrog]

Without doubting his erudition and philosophical skill, I have to say Professor Weinberg did not do a great job of communicating his subject to this interested layman. I suppose I am not the target audience, since this appears to be intended for philosophy students, who I assume can make sense of such passages as this:

Ockham states that something is perfectly cognized if nothing that is predicable of it is unknown. But there are two kinds of perfect cognition: in perfect nonpropositional cognition of a thing a knowledge of its intrinsic causes suffices, that is, a knowledge of its matter and form or its integral parts. In perfect propositional cognition of a thing, it is necessary to know from how many causes it arises and what are its first and proximate causes. Now the simple (nonpropositional) knowledge of a thing never suffices in order to have a simple knowledge of another thing. . .

For me this stuff is basically a brick wall. I can often grasp the meaning of a sentence, and even follow it along to the next sentence; but by the third sentence I have forgotten the first and the paragraph as a whole is completely lost to me. Obviously this is more my fault than anyone else's; I just don't have the verbal, abstract brain required for philosophy (or math, etc). But weirdly Weinberg will introduce a vivid example, just the sort of visual/concrete thing I need to get ahold of some idea, long after he's been using the terminology which the example sheds light on. Halfway through the book, after numerous discussions of matter and form, he gives an example of a copper statue which is melted and recast into a different statue--the same matter, a different form, instantly understandable. If he'd just do that to begin with, I'd be able to follow so much more easily. The student may be dull, but it's still the responsibility of the teacher to present things in the easiest manner, yeah?

What I take from this book are a handful of isolated concepts, or I might even say just the images of concepts, not complete systems or even arguments, which managed to emerge from the opaque wall of incomprehensible philosophical jargon. St. Thomas Aquinas holding that for God, essence and existence are one and the same--there is no difference between what He is and that He is, as indeed He said from the burning bush, I AM THAT I AM. Avicenna's idea of a single Active Intellect which we all access whenever we think, like a central mainframe from which all we rational creatures rent computing time. Al-Ghazali insisting we only suppose, and cannot prove, that holding a match to a piece of paper causes it to alight--it only happens that they are simultaneous; Allah sets the paper on fire, not the match. William of Ockham, following him, trying to work out what we can possibly know in a world where God is omnipotent and can do anything at any time. (I'm probably misstating and misattributting these things--another thing you learn from this book, in its footnotes, is that every famous argument you've heard of from any philosopher actually came from someone long before, usually Aristotle. Ockham's Razor: Aristotle. Descartes' cogito ergu sum: Augustine, but ultimately Plato. Basically anything to do with logic: Aristotle, or the Stoics. It's almost surprising to see that Anselm "must be regarded the inventor" of the Ontological Argument--and even he, we read, was jumping off of something from Seneca.)

Unfortunately I couldn't help but read this stuff in light of ridiculous New Atheist claims about the "Christian Middle Ages" and Islam (especially Al-Ghazali, a favorite hate-object of your standard-issue Internet Atheist.) Strangely enough there are no filthy, shit-caked dullards who believe in a "invisible bearded magic sky fairy" in this book. Following Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, most of these thinkers see God as being utterly unlike humans, far from the anthropomorphic caricature--to the point that some people claimed that God could not know particulars, that is, anything specific and material, but only the universal causes that lead to them, which seems to me even more distant and abstract than Enlightenment Deist ideas of God. Weinberg is writing in '64, very deep in an Analytical millieu, which is one reason I think why the book is so difficult for me, it's all about logic and argument; and far from finding the medievals mentally deficient, he finds them superior to their successors. He laments the "gradual disappearance of medieval logic and semantics": "Little of the discussion of these topics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is better and most is worse than what can be found in the fourteenth century."

Indeed my sense of the philosophers here is not one of unintellectual dopes, but rather over-intellectual people, if anything. For someone like me, ultimately stupid and brainless, who likes to see, hear, smell, and touch rather than think, people like Abelard, Nicolas of Autrecourt, Duns Scotus the Subtle Doctor, remind me of nothing so much as 20th Century physicists like Einstein, working out on paper and chalkboard, not in the lab or with instruments, the laws and characteristics of the infinite universe. A group of people who lived, not in the breezes and flowers and birdsong, but entirely in the mind.

[Genio96]

Los filósofos medievales están en la fina linea entre ser un niño autista y estar iluminados por Dios

[Klaas]

Het was inderdaad kort. En stoffig, het was ook stoffig. Maar ja, je weet waar je voor tekent met zo'n titel, dus het voldeed aan mijn verwachtingen.

3 sterretjes

[Sean Tatol]

An able, informative overview of the subject matter. Regarding other reviewers who complained about the density of the language, I'm mostly puzzled that someone with no background in philosophy would have an interest in reading this. I have some background in philosophy and I had no trouble with the language, but I found myself wondering what I was going to do with knowing Anselm's proof of the existence of God or William of Ockham's critiques of Duns Scotus. So it's beyond me why someone who doesn't have a specific academic interest in Medieval thought, let alone philosophy in general, would want to read this. That's not Weinberg's fault though, and it's not to say that I didn't enjoy the book because I did. (My wondering about the point of reading this is more of a recurrent existential experience I've been having as my reading has become more esoteric and I've gotten older than it is something specifically about this book.) A great gift for the budding historian of philosophy in your life.

[Lautaro Marcotti]

Un pantallazo rápido y efectivo a la riqueza de la filosofía medieval, sin muchas vueltas y con buena información de los autores y debates que uno no se puede perder. Es tan falsa la idea de que la Edad Media fue una edad "oscura" para el conocimiento y el desarrollo filosófico, que con leer diez páginas uno puede encontrar una idea de un filósofo moderno que ya fue expuesta por un filósofo medieval.

Fan absoluto de la famosa "querella de los universales" que atravesó toda la Edad Media. Uno no puede creer que se hayan metido tan de lleno en un tema y lo hayan analizando tan pormenorizadamente. Realmente los monjes eran unos malditos nerd. Por último, si uno lee el libro con atención puede darse cuenta de que la religión (especialmente el cristianismo) no fue un limitante para el desarrollo de la filosofía, sino su condición de posibilidad. Los medievales filosofaban para conocer a Dios y obtener la gracia divina, no porque hayan tenido una vanidad intelectual particular, por lo que la religión y la filosofía no eran contrarias sino complementarias.

[Carolina Búho]

4.5/5
Este libro sobre filosofía medieval está bien sintetizado, con capítulos sobre distintos autores o corrientes bien delimitados, y presenta las teorías y los esquemas filosóficos muy claros y con buenos ejemplos.
Eso sí, es muy corto y, por lo mismo, hay muchísima información en muy pocas páginas; además, al estar dirigido principalmente a estudiantes de Filosofía hay términos demasiado técnicos que no se explican lo suficiente.
Pero, en general, este libro es excelente para aprender filosofía medieval (siempre y cuando se lea lento y con mucha atención, como el tema lo requiere).

[Albie]

A Short History of Medieval Philosophy by Julius Rudolf Weinberg (1967)

[Matthew A LaPine]

Good, limited in subject matter, medieval epistemology and ontology