History of Mediæval Philosophy
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UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA LIBRARIES Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from Lyrasis Members and Sloan Foundation http://www.archive.org/details/historyofmediv01wulf Maurice de Wulf History of Mediaeval Philosophy by Maurice de ^u_lf Professor at the University of Louvain Professor Emeritus of Harvard University Member of the Academie Royale de Belgique Translated by Ernest C. Messenger, Ph.D. (Louvain) Sometime Lecturer in Philosophy at St. Edmund's College, Ware Member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy Volume One From the Beginnings to the End of the Twelfth Century NEW YORK DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. : : Nihil Obslat Thomas McLaughlin. S.T.D. Censor deputatus. Imprimatur J* Joseph Butt, Vic. Cap. Westmonasterii, die 9 Aprilis, 1935. English translations of History of Mediaval Philosophy : Translation of the second French edition by Dr. Coffey of Maynooth 1 volume, London 1909 Translation of the fifth French edition by Dr. E. C. Messenger 2 volumes, London 1926 Translation of Volumes One and Two of the sixth French edition by Dr. E. C. Messenger London 1935 and 1938 Present definitive translation of the sixth French edition by Dr. E. C. Messenger 3 volumes. Volume One 1952 COPYRIGHT 1952 BY DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC. PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SIXTH FRENCH EDITION The sixth edition of our History of Mediceval Philosophy remains faithful to the general plan of preceding editions. It sets forth the general movements and rhythms involved in the succession of philosophic systems, the characteristic features of which are first of all outlined. The analytic or monographic method is thus combined here with the synthetic or comparative method, and we shall endeavour to justify the use of both. Various modifications have been introduced into this sixth edition which must be mentioned here. The most important is a new interpretation of the resemblances between the philosophies of the Middle Ages. Struck by the extent and depth of these resemblances, in previous editions we treated the body of common doctrines as an attempt to set forth an ideal which exercised its attraction upon all. We advanced the idea that certain dominant doctrines, the powerful influence of which on the philosophers of the thirteenth century is so very manifest, form a coherent system ; that they emanated from a characteristic mental attitude ; that there existed " " " " a scholastic mentality ; that these scholastic doctrines were a decisive factor in civilisation ; and that it is allowable to explain the labour of the ninth to the twelfth century, and afterwards from the fourteenth to the fifteenth, in terms of this ideal. The great scholastic " synthesis " would thus appear as the culminating conception, which the preceding centuries prepared, which reached its zenith in the thirteenth century, and which declined in the following centuries. It would be the end or terminus towards which all tended, con- sciously or unconsciously, and those who opposed it could, because of their opposition to this dominant conception, be called " anti-scholastics." Numerous criticisms have been made against this way of interpreting Scholasticism. The critics all agree in urging — vi PREFACE that such a method does not get sufficiently close to the reality of the individual systems, the originality of which it is the duty of the historian to set out in relief. We willingly admit that an attempt such as that we have described belongs less to history than to the philosophy of history, and that it is dependent upon the personal ideas which the individual historian possesses as to the theoretical value of particular systems. But we are still convinced that it is legitimate in itself, and that it offers much promise for future study and research. First as to its legitimacy. The late Cardinal Ehrle justly remarked that one cannot deny to a historian the right to ascend to a philosophy of history, and to explain the systems of the Middle Ages by means of their relations to a philosophy- type, taken as a standard of value, provided its existence rests on real data and not on imaginary views. And he adds that such a manner of understanding the Philosophy of the " Middle Ages "e la meta dei nostri voti e sforzi ; when we shall have gathered together the indispensable materials, after we have ransacked the mass of unpublished documents, we shall be able, without too great risk, to undertake " una filosofia della storia della scolastica." 1 We are glad to subscribe to this opinion, set forth by a master of mediaeval history. When all the productions of the Middle Ages have become known, explained, and classified, and documentary research will be concerned only with details as is the case with classical antiquity—it will, in our opinion, then be seen that, despite the infinite variety of mediaeval philosophies, a common doctrinal patrimony was slowly built up in the course of centuries, which thus witnessed the pro- gressive realisation of an intellectual unity, an ideal which exercised its influence upon all men's minds. But leaving aside this point of view in the present edition, we here stress the strictly historical character of the synthetic views and approximations which we outline, at the same time confining them to the systems allowing of a detailed exposition in the present state of our knowledge. Understood in this way, a synthesis follows upon the facts, and never anticipates them. 1 F. Ehrle, L'Agostinismo e l'aristotelismo nella scolastica del secolo XIII Ultenori discussioni e materiali, in Xenia Thomistica, Vol. Ill, p. 530, Rome, 1925. PREFACE vii Its extension is the same as that of the elements which it endeavours to unify. In consequence, such a synthesis remains always subject to revision. Every discovery of a new philosophy, every study which changes the appearance of a philosopher already known, may modify the contours of these syntheses, enlarge them, or contract them. Again, these synthetic views deal with a closed collection of systems, for the series of mediaeval philosophers open to study forms a fixed number (even if all are not yet known). In scholastic terminology, we should say that the notions which are derived from these comparisons have a " collective," but not an " abstract " value. Their field of application is necessarily limited to the cases observed ; we may not extend it indefinitely. Confined within these limits, the synthetic method is in no way arbitrary or imaginary ; it simply arranges the re- searches already carried out, and its results are valuable. It can even, by way of hypotheses, direct further researches. The analogies between the philosophical systems of the Middle Ages, and the fundamental community of possession of philo- sophical conceptions, realised at that time more than at any other period of history, are facts just as much as the originality of each thinker, and the doctrinal divergences of particular systems. This intellectual unity, which we previously regarded as an end to be attained, or an ideal to be aimed at, thus appears now as a result, or an effect. It is due above all, as we shall show, to the identity of influences affecting the thinkers of the Middle Ages, in varying proportions. A second general innovation has been introduced into the present edition. This one is concerned with a question of terminology. Conforming ourselves to the general usage, we now identify " scholastic philosophy " and " mediaeval philosophy." The expression " scholastic " thus has once more a chronological meaning, designating any philosophy " of the Middle Ages, and the antinomy between " scholastic and " antischolastic " loses the doctrinal significance which we gave to it in preceding editions. The modification is verbal rather than real, and this will not be surprising if we remember that most of the discussions concerning the expression " scholastic " can be reduced to quarrels concerning words. " The equivalence between " scholastic " and " mediaeval does not modify the bearing of certain fundamental facts viii PREFACE which we shall establish, notably the formidable opposition between the " communiter loquentes " and certain other philosophers who attacked such or such a doctrine of the scholastic patrimony. In drawing up the general bibliography which forms the second part of the Introduction, and the special bibliographies which terminate each individual section, we have been guided by the following principles. It has appeared to us unnecessary to repeat the biblio- graphical material drawn up by B. Geyer in the latest edition of Ueberweg's Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic, Vol. II (1928), a work well known to all specialists in mediaeval philo- sophy. Accordingly, in the case of publications previous to 1928, we shall mention only the principal editions of texts and the most important works, so as to constitute a " select bibliography " on mediaeval philosophy. On the other hand, we think it will be of service to students if we give them a more complete bibliography of publications which have appeared since the last edition of the Grundriss, and which have some scientific value. The general bibliography and the special bibliographies have been drawn up by our friend and colleague Professor F. Van Steenberghen, to whom we here express our great gratitude. As a rule, the complete description of a work will be found in the bibliography which concludes each section, and not in the footnotes. These will indicate the paragraph number which contains this bibliography. At the end of the volume will be found a list of the abbrevia- tions employed. Mgr. Pelzer, the Scrittore of the Vatican Library, a great authority in the realm of Mediaeval Philosophy, has very kindly brought up to date the sections which deal with the works possessed by the scholastics, and the translations of which I, I). the they made use (Vol. I, No.