Abstract
There emerged in the course of cosmological discussion in the Middle Ages a strategy of argument that may be described as ‘intellectual pacifism.’ This took several forms. The best known was the doctrine ascribed, rightly or wrongly, to Averroes and his followers, namely that there are two sorts of truth, one philosophical, the other theological. This was supposedly worked out to reconcile propositions that were at first sight inconsistent. There were indeed, then as now, a number of different sorts of intellectual demarcation with this end in view, and they deserve closer attention than they are usually given. Why did some sorts of conceptual inconsistency or incompatibility seem relatively unimportant, while others were thought so serious that communication was deemed more or less impossible across a subject boundary? Two themes in particular will be used here as illustration, namely creation and eternity.
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Notes
E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Sheed & Ward, 1955), p. 402.
P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme latin au xiii me siècle, IIme partie: textes inédits (Louvain, 1908), pp. 175–6. The Biblical references are to I. Cor. i, 19.
P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme latin au xiii me siècle, 1908, pp. 175–6, p. 398.
P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme latin au xiii me siècle, 1908, pp. 175–6, p. 725.
Siger de Brabant (Louvain, 1942), Vol. II, p. 694.
For a summary of several modern attitudes to these questions, see van Steen-berghen, op. cit., especially pp. 690–700; and for later bibliography the article on Siger in the Enciclopedia Dantesca.
R. Arnaldez & A. Z. Iskandar, art. ‘Ibn Rushd,’ Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. XII (1975), p. 6.
John of Jandun, as quoted by E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 1955, pp. 523–4, says this in as many words. Gilson detects here a sense of humour, and no doubt John did have a marked sense of irony, although what he says does mirror contemporary values.
E. Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, 1955, p. 402
Summa Theologiae, Ia, 1, 1, ad 2.
Expos, de Trin., ii. 3.
Ch.5(ch. 3 in the medieval Latin versions); 1009 a6–g15.
The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, ed. N. Kretzmann et al., (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 266–7 (Jan Pinborg).
As Godfrey of Fontaines said. See J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1981), p. 33.
See ‘Intimations of Cosmic Unity? Fourteenth-century Views on Celestial and Sub-Lunar Motion,’ in my Stars, Minds and Fate (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), pp. 301–312. The Oresme reference is Le Livre du ciel et du monde, ed. A. D. Menut & A. J. Denomy (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968), book I, ch. iv, lines 36–8.
See ‘Intimations of Cosmic Unity? Fourteenth-century Views on Celestial and Sub-Lunar Motion,’ in my Stars, Minds and Fate (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), pp. 301–312. The Oresme reference is Le Livre du ciel et du monde, ed. A. D. Menut & A. J. Denomy (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968), book I, ch. iv, lines 36–8.
See ‘Intimations of Cosmic Unity? Fourteenth-century Views on Celestial and Sub-Lunar Motion,’ in my Stars, Minds and Fate (London: Hambledon Press, 1989), pp. 301–312. The Oresme reference is Le Livre du ciel et du monde, ed. A. D. Menut & A. J. Denomy (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1968), book I, ch. iv, lines 36–8.
Note o, p. 38, of Vol. X of the Blackfriars edition of Summa Theologiae, ed. W. A. Wallace (corresponding to Ia 66, 2.)
J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1981), p. 152. I certainly cannot claim to do justice here to Godfrey of Fontaines.
See B. Goldstein, ‘The Arabic Version of Ptolemy’s Planetary Hypotheses’, Trans, of the Amer. Phil. Soc., n.s., 57, no. 4 (1967), pp. 3–55. Note that although the Ptolemaic solution was known via other authors (e.g. Alfraganus) to Western astronomers in the Middle Ages, they were unaware of his authorship of the combined system, with each planet’s sphere thick enough to hold the necessary geometrical apparatus (epicycle, deferent, etc.).
Duhem’s work first appeared in the Annales de philosophie chrétienne, in five parts. It has often been reprinted, beginning with an edition from Hermann et Fils (Paris, 1908). For Aquinas, see Expositio super librum de Caelo et Mundo, II. 17. The sentiment is repeated in Summa Theol. Ia 32, 1.
F. M. Cornford’s translation, Plato’s Cosmology (London, 1937), p. 99.
Timaeus, 52A.
Phys., VIII. 1; 251b 18–28.
Phys., VIII. 1; 251b, p. 102.
Confessions, xi. 13 [xi.XI]: In the eternal nothing passes, the whole is present together [omnes simul stant].’ In xi.15 [xi.XIII] he retales the Platonic doctrine of God as the creator of time (with the creation of heaven and earth).
Sense (4) presents a problem of Aristotelian exegesis. At Phys. IV.12 (221b 25–222a 9) he explains containment in time (boundedness by times) in a way that suggests that he might have held that something eternal, being unbounded by times is ‘outside time’. But so far as I can see, he nowhere draws this conclusion. Parts of the history of the eternal thing are, after all, bounded.
De Caelo, 284a 24–26; Met. 1050b 24.
This statement is a version of what A. Lovejoy called the principle of plenitude, various equivalent forms of which have been explained by J. Hintikka in an article reprinted in modified form as ch. 5 of his Time and Necessity (Oxford Univ. Press, 1973). The basic version is: Each possibility must be realised at some moment of time. Hintikka, arguing that Aristotle has two notions of possibility, distinguishes them as possibility and contingency (‘contingent’ meaning ‘possible’ but not necessary, ‘that is,’ possible to be and possible not to be’). From the basic principle it follows that what is eternal is so by necessity. (If it were other than necessary, that is, possibly nonexistent, then by the first principle there would be an actual moment when it did not exist.) Other derived principles are: nothing eternal is contingent and that which never is is impossible.
These statement are all taken from Met. 1050b.
Phys. III.4; 203b 29.
206a 21.
206a 20–35.
208a 20.
J. Hintikka puts the case very clearly in another article, reprinted in virtually its original state as ch. 6 of his Time and Necessity.
F. E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs (New York Univ. Press, 1968), pp. 152–3.
W. L. Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument (Macmillan, 1979), p. 23. I have introduced my own compromise logical notation.
W. L. Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument, 1979, p. 24, 2(c) (i) (a) (ii).
1015a 33–36; 1026b 27–29.
W. L. Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument, 1979, p. 24, omits the half of the argument from motion to body saying that he is omitting the other half! See his n.67. Although the axiomatic approach is uncommon, there are philosophers who approximate to it, but less closely than al-Kindī, and of them Maimonides is worth mentioning. In Part II of his Guide for the Perplexed he set out 26 propositions employed by other philosophers, propositions that he accepted provisionally in order to see what could be deduced from them. In fact only the last of them was for him a matter of hypothesis: ‘Time and motion are eternal, constant, and in actual existence.’ He thought it admissible but not demonstrable (‘as the Aristotelian commentators assert’), nor, on the other hand, impossible (‘as the Mutakallīmūn say’). See p. 172 of the translation of The Guide by M. Friedländer (London, 1904), where Maimonides recommends to his readers to follow Moses’ teaching of creation ex nihilo. He is going to show that whether or not we believe in creation ex nihilo or eternity, he can prove the existence of God (ed. cit., pp. 149–54). As he notes, the Mutakallīmūn assume ‘as an axiom’ that it is impossible to conceive how an infinite number of things could come into existence, even successively.
I am not concerned here with al-Kindī’s Plotinian-style arguments for God the True One. He assumed that the universe must be caused. (It could not cause itself to exist; therefore it and the multiplicity in it have a Creator-cause…)
For further bibliographical references on this subject, see S. Feldman, ‘The theory of eternal creation in Hasdai Crescas and some of his predecessors,’ Viator, 11 (1980), pp. 291–3.
S. Feldman, ‘The theory of eternal creation in Hasdai Crescas and some of his predecessors,’ Viator, 11 (1980), p. 294.
S. Feldman, ‘The theory of eternal creation in Hasdai Crescas and some of his predecessors,’ Viator, 11 (1980), pp. 296–7.
S. Feldman, ‘The theory of eternal creation in Hasdai Crescas and some of his predecessors,’ Viator, 11 (1980), p. 297.
Maimonides, op. cit., p. 191.
S. van den Bergh, Averroës’ Tahāfut-al-Tahāfut (London, 1954), discussion 1, paras. 65–8 and discussion 3, paras. 147–72.
S. van den Bergh, Averroës’ Tahāfut-al-Tahāfut (London, 1954), discussion 3, paras. 147–72.
J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), pp. 21–37.
J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), p. 22 (for Giles of Rome)
Giles of Rome, Errores Philosophorum, ed. J. Koch; trans. J. O. Riedl (Marquette Univ. Press, 1944), p. 15 etc.
Errores Philosophorum, ed. J. Koch; trans. J. O. Riedl , 1944,p. 29.
As Godfrey of Fontaines said. See J. F. Wippel, The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1981), p. 33., ch. 3.
For further bibliography on commentaries and opinions on Aquinas, see J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), pp. 21–37. The reference to the commentary on the Sentences is Book II, d.1, q.1, art.5. The references for the remainder of my paragraph are: Summa contra gentiles, II. cap. 31–8; De potentia, q.3 art. 17; Summa theol, Ia 46, 1–2; Compendium theologiae, cap. 98–9.
J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), pp. 21–37, passim.
J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), p. 37.
Roberti Grosseteste… Commentarius in VIII libros Physicorum Aristotelis, ed. R. C. Dales (Univ. of Colorado Press, 1963), p. XX. (Maimonides — p. 176, ed. cit., namely at H. xv — claims that Aristotle was well aware that he had not proved the eternity of the world!) In Summa theol., Ia 46, 1, reply, Aquinas refers to Physics, VIII. 1, De Caelo, I.10, and Topics, I.9. For some of the vast literature on Aquinas see Wippel (J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), pp. 21–37.), n. 3.
J. F. Wippel, ‘Did Thomas Aquinas defend the possibility of an eternally created world?,’ Journal of the History of philosophy, 19 (1981), pp. 21–37, n. 45.
In Summa theol. Ia 46, 1–2, Aquinas presents two sets of arguments and the replies to them. Of the first ten arguments (for the thesis that the universe of creatures has always existed) the first eight have a look of Aristotelian physics about them, and the last two of schools’ theology. They are mostly aprioristic: taking Aristotelian concepts for granted, they tend to show that an assumption of non-eternity leads to an analytically false conclusion. The same goes for the replies; and for the following claim that the world’s beginning is demonstrable (eight arguments); and for his replies to those; and so on.
251a 8–251b 9.
251b 10–28.
Friedländer trans, W. L. Craig, The Kalām Cosmological Argument, 1979, p. 174, no. 2.
Summa theol., Ia 46, 1, 1.
Ia 46, 1, 2.
P. Mandonnet, Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme latin au xiii me siècle, 1908, pp. 175–6, p. 725.
In Phys. VIII. 11
In Phys. VIII. 11; cf. Summa theol. Ia 46, 1, 7.
Met. 9.1, 9 and 10. Cf. Summa, theol. Ia 46, 1, 9.
R. Arnaldez & A. Z. Iskandar, art. ‘Ibn Rushd,’ Dictionary of Scientific Biography, Vol. XII (1975), p. 6.
For a summary of several modern attitudes to these questions, see van Steen-berghen, op. cit., especially pp. 690–700; and for later bibliography the article on Siger in the Enciclopedia Dantesca. I have added the last sentence, which seems to be implied.
Ia 46, 2, 7. Cf. Aristotle’s Met., 994a 1–.
Ia 46, 2, 6.
Simplicius In Phys. 1179, 15.
Bonaventure, Comm. Sent., Bk. II, dist. i, p. 1.
Aristotle, Physics. Book VIII. 5.
Aristotle, Physics. Book VIII. 5 (his second argument).
Summa theol., Ia 46, 2, 4.
Bonaventure, Comm. Sent., Bk. II, dist. i, p. 1 (his fifth argument).
Ia 46, 2, 1.
Ia 46, 2, 2.
Ia 46, 2, 2 (his fourth argument).
Met., Book 8 (theta).
De aeternitate mundi; a translation from the text of J. Perrier (1949) is included in Appendix 2 of Summa Theologiae, vol 8, ed. T. Gilby, London, 1967. See pp. 152–157.
Post. An., I. 31 (87b 33).
Summa theol., Ia 46, 2 ad 1.
Summa theol., Ia 46 2 ad 2.
L. Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d’Occam (Paris, 1957), p. 19.
L. Baudry, Lexique philosophique de Guillaume d’Occam, 1957, p. 20. Within the cosmology of Thomas Aquinas there were certain actions that could take place without motion on the part of the agent. The sun, for instance, a corporeal thing, the measure of time — but itself unmeasurable by time was supposed responsible for a flux of light without first being unable to act and later being able to act. [De subst. sep., cap. IX, sec. 51–2.] God, the supreme Being, was supposed to infuse esse to pure intellective (angelic) creatures in the same way, to the extent, that is, that God is unchanging and unmoving and not to be measured by our time. It did not seem possible to suppose that this influx might be measured by our sort of duration. There must, thought Aquinas and others, be a type of duration proper to the angelic essence, midway between time (our time) and eternity (God’s time). It is not clear that Aquinas considered this threefold measure of time enough, however. Matter has passive potency. God has active potency. The angels must be somewhere between the two extremes. Might they not approximate to God’s actuality in varying degrees? In fact Aquinas graded his angels in such a way that those closest to God, with the least capacity to receive additional perfection, that is, the least capacity for change, participate to a higher degree in God's eternity than those nearer to man. For the subject generally, see H. P. Kainz, Active and Passive Potency in Thomistic Angelology (The Hague, 1972).
John Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings — A Selection, tr. A. Wolter (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975), (First edn., 1962, Nelson), p. 47. Cf. De primo rerum pincipio, chs. 1 and 2.
D. Webering, Theory of Demonstration According to William Ockham (New York: St. Bonaventura, 1953), pp. 103–6 for precise references.
De Causa Dei. see H. A. Oberman, Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine, a Fourteenth-Century Augustinian (Utrecht, 1958), pp. 50 ff.
H. A. Oberman, Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine, a Fourteenth-Century Augustinian, 1958, pp. 50. Note how strongly analogical is this ‘divine activity’ argument, E 11. It would in any case have been thought fallacious, surely, by any serious commentator (I have seen only one commentary on it), since a concealed premiss is that God’s activity only concerns the world. Maimonides fastens on the doctrine of the Active Intellect, the incorporeal being that acts (according to the Aristotelians) not continually, but only at certain times. The argument E 11 is hardly one we need consider further, since here we have the testimony of two groups of philosopher-theologians, one of which can conceive God interrupting his worldly activity, while the other cannot. Beyond this point the theologians must take over. Bradwardine made a number of points with a bearing on the sort of conservation question raised by Ockham, and one wonders whether perhaps Leibniz had read the passage where Bradwardine asks whether God leaves the world to run on, after creation, without interfering in secondary causes. I ought to add that Leibniz was one of the intermediaries between that long series of scholastic writers on the eternity question, and Kant — whose First Antinomy retraces much conventional ground.
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North, J.D. (1991). One Truth or More? Demarcation in the Universe of Discourse. In: Unguru, S. (eds) Physics, Cosmology and Astronomy, 1300–1700: Tension and Accommodation. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 126. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3342-5_11
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