ijcrb.webs.com SEPTEMBER 2013 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 5, NO 5 The Clerical Double Truth Theory in Thirteenth Century Ali Ghorbani Sini , PhD Candidate of Philosophy Department at the University of Isfahan . Iran FathAli Akbari, Associate Professor of Philosophy Department at the University of Isfahan , Iran Abstract A period in which the ratio of religion to philosophy is of utmost importance is the European Middle Ages. Thirteenth century is one of the most important periods in which these two categories build up a very close and challenging relationship. During this century, some philosophers who are followers of Aristotle's doctrines and beliefs are accused of "double truth" by church and for this reason these philosophers are accused of heresy and blasphemy. From those times, there have been different views and opinions about the exact meaning of this term and this accusation among thinkers who have conducted research in this area and each one has appointed a specific meaning for this term and consequently, philosophers are either devoid or accused of this matter. Relying on an analysis of this accusation that could be led to blasphemous consequences , the present article is an attempt to embark on the meaning of this accusation made by church. Keywords: DOUBLE TRUTH, LATIN AVERROISM , CONTRADICTION, TRUTH. Historical Background From the outset, the Middle Ages world was acquainted with Greek philosophy. They were trying to get closer to Platonians and Neoplatonians and philosophers were able to adapt and make the platonian doctrines compatible to Christian doctrines .The writings of Aristotle remained unknown to the Latin world for several centuries with the exception of a part of his logic translated by Boethius in the 6th century. But Aristotelian philosophy was rediscovered by the West during the 12th century. The works of Aristotle were translated into Latin – some from Arabic but some directly from Greek. The writings of Avicenna and Averroes were also translated . As soon as the translations emerged, the problem of the incompatibilities between Aristotle’s philosophy and Christian faith arose since some of the central theses of the Aristotle philosophy were contrary to important claims backed by the authority of the Holy Church. This century may justly be called the century of the establishment of European universities. Paris University was the centre of the ups and downs of the teaching of Aristotle’s works in these years so that Aristotle's doctrines were exposed by abundant good and hard days. Sometimes his doctrines were condemned but sometimes they were accepted. As early as 1210 the local Provincial Council of Paris prohibited the teaching of Aristotelian natural philosophy like mathematics, physics and metaphysics. Only five years later the Papal Legate, Robert de Courcon, banned Aristotle’s Metaphysics and other books on natural philosophy. On 13 April 1231 the ban was revised by Pope Gregory IX who decided that Aristotle’s Physics could be taught but in a censored version. It seems that the censored version was never produced but nevertheless the event signaled a potential shift in the official evaluation of Aristotelian philosophy. During the 1240’s at the Arts Faculty the Parisian masters studied all areas of Aristotle’s philosophy (Brozek, 2010.pp. 22-23). An interesting and extremely important fact is that at the same time the masters of the Theological faculty did not make use of this. These fight and clashes were accelerated after the 12th of March 1255 when the teaching of Aristotle’s doctrines was allowed in Paris. All of these kinds of factors combined to create a serious rivalry between the Arts and Theology faculties which revealed itself in a serious crisis at the Parisian COPY RIGHT © 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 64 ijcrb.webs.com SEPTEMBER 2013 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 5, NO 5 University during the1270’s. December 10th, 1270, the Bishop of Paris Stephane Tempier condemned 13 philosophical theses as erroneous. So on September 2nd 1276 a decree for the entire university was issued which prohibited the teaching in private places of anything Aristotelian apart from logic and grammar. Finally, on March 7th, 1277 Tempier condemned 219 propositions based on Pope John XXI. The introduction of this incrimination includes: Thus [some philosophers] state things to be true according to philosophy, but not according to the Catholic faith, as if there are two contrary truths and as if there is a truth in the sayings of pagans in hell that is opposed to the truth of Sacred Scripture.(Pine .1973. p. 31) Steenberghen believes that "this fragment is the origin of the theory of double truth" (Brozek, 2010.p. 26) . Generally speaking, this introduction has been called the fact of double truth during the history and whenever a philosopher or someone is condemned by it, in fact, he is condemned to blasphemy. Now it should be investigated that what the meaning of this condemnation is and how it is ended up to blasphemy. What does the bishop mean by the fact that some of the philosophers believe as if there are two contrary facts? Is this possible or not? The Meaning of the Double Truth 2.1.The analyze of the meaning of Double truth from the Church's Viewpoint Here, we will discuss this problem that what the purpose of church was by attributing this term to philosophers and how they were accused by church. In other words, what was the aim of church to choose this term and attribute it to Averroisms? In order to clarify this issue, it should be noted that if the double truth being attributed to some philosophers by church were proved, the corruption of both wisdom and faith would be confirmed. But something that made this term to be so important and imposed negative load to it is not related to the corruption of wisdom, but the corruption of faith. This means that this accusation is more an impious and blasphemous one than being a philosophical or thoughtful one. For this, the person who issues this accusation is a lecturer and a church man. Therefore, accusing the philosophers by this term, church makes blasphemous conclusions and accuses them to impiety. This shows the particular analysis of church from this problem, i.e. from church's view, this term should have the meaning of leading to blasphemous results. Accordingly, church should have a kind of analysis from this problem so that it could be led to blasphemous results because this inference of blasphemous results has made this term equal to impiety. Therefore, wherever there is the discussion of the double truth, the problem of denial of propositions or religious teachings and impiety given to philosophers is observable, though this term includes the lack of solidarity and corruption of wisdom. The bishop of Paris believes that there are philosophers who say: "something relevant to philosophy is correct but relevant to Catholics it is not correct, as if there are two contrary truths". Two things come out of this statement from church's document: Firstly, according to this document, Averroes and then Averroeisms are accused that they believe in two independent truths. Here it should be noted that what is meant by truth? Truth means a True proposition. But what is the meaning of true proposition? The scholars' answer to this question is: if a proposition is "relevant to reality", we call it a correct one. A proposition relevant COPY RIGHT © 2013 Institute of Interdisciplinary Business Research 65 ijcrb.webs.com SEPTEMBER 2013 INTERDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH IN BUSINESS VOL 5, NO 5 to reality is a kind of proposition which its truth could be pursued in the real universe and the outer world. For example, if it is said that "it is hot now", the truth of this proposition could be confirmed by referring to the external world and observing and experiencing the fact that "the weather is really hot now". However, if it is claimed that "the sum of angles in a triangle equals two right angles", then, experiential method is not enough to prove its truth and it demands its own specific methods–here we try to ignore the other values of truth which came into existence during the next centuries like "correspondence with reality" to say that a proposition is real because those values of truth were not available in the 13th century. Therefore, the meaning of reality is correspondence and conformity with reality. And this means that truth is identical to reality and there is no difference between truth and reality. Then, in church's view, those who believe in two kinds of truth, inevitably should believe in two realties because truth and reality are correspondent with each other; therefore, if there are two kinds of truths, necessarily there should be two kinds of realities. These two kinds of truths and realities should have ontological difference with each other i.e. they should really be distinct from each other so that they could be considered as "two". Therefore, confirming the existence of two kinds of truths in philosophers' view from which one is on the domain of religion and the other one on the domain of philosophy does not mean that there is one truth that appears one time under the disguise of wisdom and another time under the disguise of religion, but the necessity of their belief should be the fact that generally, the truth has two parts. That is to say, these two thought domains or these two origins of recognition–wisdom and revelation–create the context of reality and because these are "two", then, the truth itself is "two", hence, each one has a completely independent truth in their own domains.