The ‘Dark’ Ages

Early and High Middle Age Psychology

The Dark Ages Period from about A.D. 410 (Fall of

Rome) to about 1300 or so Click here to see the rise and fall of Rome

“Amidst the errors there shone forth men of genius, no less keen were their eyes, although they were surrounded by darkness and dense gloom" ~ Petrarch (1304-1374), who coined

the phrase of periodization

Why ‘Dark’? Not so much a description of events but our knowledge about

them during the Renaissance Typically refer to them as Middle Ages (sometimes early, high, and

late) It was a period of transition, neither of empire or nations, as

people from other lands began to settle into formerly Roman areas and an economic system of feudalism arose (which actually wasn’t vastly different from the Roman system)

In the early part of the period life (up until about 800 with Charlemagne) was unpredictable and insecure

Loss due to other tribes, natural effects on crops etc. always imminent

Most were of the mindset in viewing life as simply the brief passing before the afterlife, and many feeling the end of man was soon to come

Earthly pursuits not deemed worth the trouble in a sense, and even some of the better minds seemed to abandon a critical approach

Truly a dark period at this point, but one could also see it as a ‘regrouping’

Middle Ages Charlemagne’s rule and his

alliance with the Church of Rome resulted in a sense of community that had been missing

He was learned and encouraged the education of his people

With stability and a new mindset, reason could once again stand with belief

Notable thinkers of the Middle Ages Pseudo-Dionysius (5th century) Boethius (~480-524) John Scotus (~810- 877) St. Anselm (~1033-1109) Abelard (1079-1144) Lombard (~1095-1160) Islamic and Jewish influences

Avicenna (980-1037) Averroes (1126-1198) Maimonides (1135-1204)

Later Aquinas (1225-1274) Duns Scotus (~1266-1308) William of Ockham (~1285-1349)

Others to be discussed Pseudo-Dionysius (5th century) Christian mysticism

Meister Eckhart (1260-1328) The Cloud of Unknowing (14th century, anonymous)

Pseudo-Dionysius 5th century Claimed to be the Areopagite of Paul’s Acts

(Chapter 17) 32 “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, "We want

to hear you again on this subject." 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the

Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.”

Although could not have been by all accounts, works were given much credence based on that alone

Theology becomes explicitly “mystical” Not in the Buddhist sense per se, but in terms of

being ‘hidden’ God as utterly unknowable, unrestricted being,

beyond individual substances, beyond even goodness

Pseudo-Dionysius

Neoplatonic notions of the return of things to the root, or their cause, and the hierarchical ordering of beings

Scripture as providing the basis for a deeper understanding of attribution or predication that will lead us beyond our own merely human capacities

Pseudo-Dionysius Any and all of the names for the Godhead

must be negated The Godhead is no more “spirit,” “sonship,” and

“fatherhood” than it is “intellect” or “asleep.” E.g. though the Godhead is not “living” it is “lifeless.”

The Godhead is beyond the lifeless as well as beyond the living.

The Tao which can be named is not the eternal Tao Suggests that affirmations of the Godhead are not

opposed to the negations, but that both must be transcended: even the negations must be negated

Moses’ trip up the mountain compared to the trip out of the Cave

Whereas our philosopher stopped with the contemplation of the divine with reason, Dionysius suggests Moses ascends through the sensible and intelligible contemplation of God, then enters the darkness above the mountain's peak

Boethius Takes up the problem (inadequately resolved by

Augustine) of free will with an omniscient God Did so while in prison awaiting execution for conspiring

with the enemy God exists eternally and sees all in an ever-present In this sense he doesn’t foresee human action, but sees

them as free in that eternally present moment So knows what you’re going to choose without implying

that you’re not free to choose that action Yeah I know, it still doesn’t work but nice try

Also brought up the issue of universals (do they exist in sensible things [Aristotelian] or separate from bodies [Platonic]) but left that problem for others

Among last in the West to have extensive knowledge of Greeks for some time

John Scotus Eriugena Irish theologian, Neoplatonist philosopher, and poet

Work was described as "swarming with worms of heretical perversity"

300 years after Boethius, Greek had been knowledge practically dead

Translated works of Pseudo-Dionysius 4 divisions of nature

That which creates and is not created God

Supernatural That which creates and is created

Primordial Causes/Ideas How God manifests himself in the plurality of the world (the

One become many) That which is created and does not create

Nature in the traditional sense That which neither is created nor creates

The final end of things, return to God, which nature desires

Avicenna Ibn Sina Physician philosopher

scientist Physician by 18

Wrote many books on a wide variety of topics including medicine, mathematics, logic and metaphysics, theology, astronomy, and politics.

Book on medicine was used in European universities for centuries.

Greek philosophical works were widely studied in the Arab world while lost in the West

He borrowed heavily from Aristotle but proposed his own version of Aristotelian thought that was influential for hundreds of years

Avicenna While primarily AristotelianCombines

Plato with Aristotelian ideas God a necessary thing from which every

thing else emanates as a result of his self-knowledge

While the senses are impressed upon by some stimulus, it is the rational faculty which is able to grasp the form and understand universals

Avicenna Avicenna’s psychology predates Descartes and modern

notion of the self ‘Flying man’ argument: If a person were created in a perfect state, but blind and

suspended in the air but unable to perceive anything through his senses, would he be able to affirm the existence of his self?

He cannot affirm the existence of his body because he is not empirically aware of it, but in that state he cannot doubt that his self exists because there is a subject that is thinking, thus the argument can be seen as an affirmation of the self-awareness of the soul and its substantiality.

Raises the question, how do we know that the knowing subject is the self?

Avicenna In analysis of human thinking, in addition to the five external

senses, he added seven “internal senses” arranged in a hierarchy.

1). Common sense Synthesizes the information from the external senses Same as Aristotle’s

2). Retentive imagination Ability to remember the synthesized information from the common

sense 3) & 4) Imagination

Combines thoughts, images from memory, separates or creates new ones

Animals only have simple associative capabilities whereas humans can rely on memory and common sense

5). Estimative power Innate ability to make judgments about environmental objects

6). Ability to remember outcomes of processing engaged by the other internal senses

7). Ability to use this information Ideas produced are stored and analyzed and ascribed meanings based

upon the production of the imaginative faculty and estimation

St. Anselm Argued that perception and reason can

and should supplement Christian faith The senses are neutral, it is the ‘interior

sense’ that deceives itself by creating false notions regarding sensation

When accurate we perceive the truth The psychology of his ontological

argument for the existence of God: what the mind is capable of discerning must be real, nature saw fit to equip us with the capacity to understand it

Realism plus some of the anthropic principle

St. Anselm Ontological argument for the existence of God.

Existing > not existing When we think of something, there must exist

something that corresponds to those thoughts. Things only exist through other things

If we think of a being in which no better or greater a being can be thought, that must be God and he must exist – a being “than which nothing greater can be conceived.”

Saying there is no God is a contradiction Problems: defining ‘greater’, lots of things work

this way (e.g. proving Satan) Aquinas would reject (can’t go from ideas to

reality) but it will return later among others (e.g. Descartes)

Abelard His goal was to use his dialectic

method to overcome the inconsistencies in the statements made by theologians through the years.

Nominalism vs. Realism Are universals mere words (flatus

vocis) or do they exist independently (Plato)

He attempted to reconcile the debate between realism and nominalism with conceptualism

Concepts summarize individual experiences (nominalism) but once formed - concepts, in a sense, exist apart from the individual experiences upon which they were formed (realism).

"Abaelardus and Heloïse surprised by Master Fulbert", by Romanticist painter Jean Vignaud (1819)

Peter Lombard "Book of Sentences."

served as the standard textbook of theology at the medieval universities from the 1220s until the 16th century.

Aquinas and others much influenced by it Argued that one does not need to escape

from the empirical world to know God Can learn about God by studying the empirical

world Three ways to learn about God – faith,

reason, and the study of God’s works (the empirical world)

Averroes Ibn Rushd Works were mainly

commentaries on Aristotle’s philosophy with emphases on the senses, memory, sleep and waking, and dreams

No conflict between religion and philosophy

One can reach the truth either way

Averroes Believed in the eternity of the universe

and the existence of forms In contrast with Islam, he believed that

the soul was not eternal, and that in fact all beings share one soul

Although went with the passive-active intellect distinction, neither was to survive without the body Their combined manifestation in the body

as the acquired intellect Aquinas would later criticize this position

Averroes Similar classification of soul as Aristotle

Nutritive Sensitive Imaginative

Dependent on the sensitive faculty, in that its forms result from the sensible forms stored in common sense.

Differs from the sensitive faculty in that it relies on memory (to a fault even)

Appetitive Imaginative faculty stimulates the appetitive faculty,

which is understood as desire Rational

The power that allows humanity to create, understand and be ethical.

Practical vs. Theoretical

Maimonides The Guide of the Perplexed

Letter written to an advanced student who cannot decide whether to follow philosophy or the teachings of his religion

Another reconciliation of philosophy and religion

Sought to reconcile Judaism and Aristotelian philosophy

He attempted to show that many passages in the Old Testament and the Talmud could be understood rationally and need not be taken on faith alone.

Maimonides God omnipotent and good, evil exists in

the individual removed from God A timeless, changeless, immaterial deity

who is one in every respect and unlike anything in the created order

However he took on a negative theology toward God Can’t really speak of the ineffable, but can

about what he is not The highest perfection is intellectual and

consists in contemplation of the divine

Maimonides With regard to the soul, it can be diseased or

healthy Rulers as the physicians of the soul

Health maintained through being virtuous Doctrine of the mean “The virtues are states of the soul and settled

dispositions in the mean between two bad states, one of which is excessive, the other deficient.”

“The right way is the mean in every one of a person's character traits.”

Virtue is a habit that can only be developed by practice

A wise ruler will therefore prescribe actions and moral habits that must be repeated until they become part of a person's character

Albertus Magnus ‘Albert the Great’

Polymath, interested in wide range of fields

Made a comprehensive review of both Aristotle’s works and the Islamic and Jewish scholar’s interpretations of the works

Advocated the peaceful coexistence of science and religion

A scientist in the Aristotelian tradition, interested in alchemy and chemistry

First to isolate arsenic