[My Philosophical Essay on Medieval Aristotelianism]

[Conrad_Jalowski]

Hello.

Here is an analytical essay on Medieval Scholasticism that I wrote for intellectual fun that is featured in my Facebook profile:



Aristotelianism in Medieval Scholastic Logic or, Empiricism, Moral Objectivity and Philological Ambiguity in Medieval Learning

By Conrad Jalowski

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After the pessundation of the Western Roman Empire, the concepts of a universality of expression as embodied by the Roman hegemonic-state with a unitary socio-political foundation, a univocity or uniformity of thought, a caesaropapist composition of government, and the exertion of suzerainty were dissolved by processes of political stagnation, the contraction of urban societies, and the disintegration of cohesive socio-political entities to fragmented and fissiparous regions. Within such a context, the demesne of royal authority was subservient to a dense conglomerate or fabric of loose and warring states; a mixture of petty states that allowed for a greater devolution and decay of post-Roman urbanized society. However, with the renewed process of synoecism or the amalgamation of smaller and mixed states to larger and cohesive domains as exemplified by the Carolingians and the Ottonians, learning and education steeped within the realm of Classical Greek, Hellenistic and Roman thought was amalgamated with theological pursuits to form the wholly unique experience of medieval learning. In essence, it was through a gradual process of synoecism with the expansion of the royal demesne, the expansion of trade and commerce underneath the mantle of hegemonic-states and empire-states, and the reemergence of the desire for a universal scope of dominion as in the Carolingian Franks and the Romano-Germans of the Liudolfing Dynasty that allowed for the renewed interest in the ideals and highest aspirations of Ancient Greek and Roman learning.

The general framework of a socio-political scene within a particular historical context defines the intellectual, literary, cultural and moral domains of expression. Through the expansion of hegemony by the Carolingians and the creation of margraviates or buffer zones that allowed for the exertion of Carolingian will at a minimum of expenditure as well as the fusion of East Franconia, Bohemia, Saxony, Pomerania and the northern Italian region for the Ottonians, cultural elements through education, scholarly pursuit and learning took hold due to a greater display of socio-political cohesion that allowed for a more coherent and integrated intellectual viewpoint regarding the processes of learning and of the philosophical and literary traditions such as metaphysics, epistemology, hermeneutics, ontology, ethics, aesthetics, political theory and of the mechanics of social relation. For example, the moral philosophy stretching
from Plutarch regarding the internal composition of the heroic individual, from triumphant passions to processes of degradation, was continued by Einhard. In addition, the concept of the maintenance of political equipollence within the framework of a social contract through the Platonic and Aristotelian sense of politeia was carried on by John of Salisbury in his social contract treatise Policraticus. Overall, the medieval era from the decayed ashes of the classical world burst forth with its own radiance of intellectual, artistic and cultural effervescence that defined its world viewpoint and illuminated the future course of history.

The medieval scholar and theologian Thomas Aquinas was a proponent of the philosophical viewpoint of empiricism. In the general sense, the philosophical tradition of empiricism maintains that only through the stimulation of the senses through external forces could human individuals form a coherent viewpoint on the framework and composition of reality. According to Thomas Aquinas the existence of God is not based on a rationalist approach but through a means of determination or deductive logic upon the external plane of reality. Through deductive logic, the rational individual would determine the values and properties of certain entities within the external plane of existence based on observation and through the analysis of referential material that inhabits the external realm. In addition, Thomas Aquinas through the empirical method maintained that God is not anagogic or apart and beyond the senses but imbued within the realm of human existence. The Aristotelian sense of external forces and that the relation of the self in its perception through stimulation to the external plane composed the foundation of the construction of reality as a whole. This Aristotelian viewpoint is opposed to the Platonic approach which adheres to a rationalist model. In the rationalist sense in the tradition of Plato, God would exist in the realm of the noumenal or be composed of noumena or unearthly entities that exist out of the framework of human understanding; the existence of God would be anagogic and therefore could not be explained through a means of determination or through deductive logic, and that the empirical method of the stimulation of the senses through external forces would not be able to comprehend the existence of God except through the means of transcendence.

Due to the manifestation of points of extremity or polarities of expression, the dichotomy or the tension and enmity between the two opposing factors of transcendence and immanence as well as the tension between the models of objectivism and subjectivism took form. Thomas Aquinas believed that God adhered to the notion of immanence or that the presence of God was encompassing and pervaded throughout all aspects of human existence. In direct opposition was the viewpoint of transcendence or that God is composed of noumena and is therefore anagogic, in which only through transcendence or a means of ascension from the plane of human affairs through the amelioration of tense and opposing factors through sublation to a cohesive and harmonious whole could human beings begin to comprehend the inchoate, incorporeal and unearthly. In addition, Thomas Aquinas upheld the viewpoint that moral thought and belief was objective; that the reality of God was composed of a univocity of expression. According to Thomas Aquinas, moral objectivism dictated that there was a single and uniform reality of God with dissension on such a core foundation as mendacious; however, the manifestations of God through individual perception was universal and encompassing, and therefore such embodied the will of the collective whole. In essence, the existence of God consisted of a moral objective sense, however, since God was universal and encompassing the manifestations of his form adhered to a subjective model based on individualistic factors coexisting within a general objective framework. Overall, since the natural world is harmonious and subsumed within a fixed classificatory scheme stressing the relations of equipollent forces within an overarching sense of proportion, the existence of God is ascertained through deductive logic within the framework of empiricism as according to Thomas Aquinas.

The general model concerning the existence of God and of the core composition of reality according to Thomas Aquinas was that the external plane existing apart from the inward self was equipollent and harmonious, and that the nature of God consisted of immanence, an objective moral system and a subjective system of the manifestation of divine will. The philosophical concept of the apeiron as the realm of reality being inchoate, formless, incorporeal and anagogic, or a realm of primal chaos as described by Aristotle and St. Augustine of Hippo Regius was not expressed by Thomas Aquinas. Although the apeiron model of Anaximander was not fully integrated and embraced by Thomas Aquinas, the cosmological and metaphysical principle of arche or the first principle of being and existence that formed the very basis of reality was contorted to express the notion that the existence of God is sempiternal and therefore is unaffected by the general processes of dilapidation.