The Thinkers : Medieval

"For now," said Swara when she arrived after saying Basmalah and Salaam, "we get the answer why the Thinkers think, namely that, on the one hand perspective, in order to know who we are and the world in which we exist. We have talked a bit about the great philosophers, who provided us with the means to understand ourselves and our world, and provided wisdom in how to apply that understanding. The earliest writings we now recognize as philosophical works began to flourish in very different places, but around the same time. In China, India, and Classical Greece, about 500 years before the Common Era, there emerged—independently—literature concerned with reflection, inquiry, and self understanding.

There was thought and intelligence long before this, of course, and literature, religions, and codes of conduct. But it was as if human beings had simultaneously heard and tried to answer a call to revisit and interrogate their blueprints for living. Naturally Confucius, the Buddha, and Plato answered that call in different ways and with different emphases. But once this self-consciousness had seeded itself, the long march of philosophical reflection began in earnest.

Now, to follow the phases of our contributors, we enter into the discussion of the philosophers of the Middle Ages. As different periods threw up different economic, social, scientific, and political questions, so the topics that consumed the most philosophical energy also changed. In religious periods, such as the Middle Ages in the West, the relations between God and man occupied the sharpest minds. When science began to challenge the authority of the Church, the nature of scientific inquiry and the understandings it gave us of our physical environment became the priority. With the rise of the commercial world, the monarch's monopoly over political power came under scrutiny; and with industrialization, the relation between capital and labor began to occupy more attention.

For the Middle Ages, contributors include the names of thinkers, including Boethius, Ibn Sīnā, St. Anselm, Héloïse, Hildegard of Bingen, Ibn Rushd, Al-Ghazali, Zhu Xi, Moses Maimonides, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham.

Boethius, c.475/480–c.525 ce, was one of the last Roman great philosophers of the classical age. For centuries, his translations, commentaries, and writings provided scholars with an invaluable link to the learning of the ancient world. Boethius was born into the chaotic aftermath of the Fall of Rome. Boethius was extremely well versed in classical Greek texts. His works included translations and commentaries on Plato and Aristotle, and philosophical attempts to reconcile their different viewpoints; he also wrote handbooks on the quadrivium—the four mathematical disciplines (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy)—that formed a major part of the teaching curriculum.

In around 522ce, the political climate changed as growing tensions with the East made Theodoric the Great, proclaimed as a king in 493ce, suspicious of his Roman ministers. Boethius was arrested, imprisoned, and eventually executed. During his confinement, he wrote his masterpiece, De consolatione philosophiae [The Consolation of Philosophy]. The book was written in a classical format: Boethius speaks in prose and Philosophy answers in verse. It raises many questions, not least because the consolation provided by Philosophy is not exactly Christian, but closer to a form of pantheism. It may be that Boethius hoped this approach would attract a wide audience, or he may simply have been anxious to avoid antagonizing Theodoric. The Consolation proved a great success, spawning hundreds of manuscripts in most European languages. Alfred the Great and Geoffrey Chaucer were just two of its many translators.

Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037, was a philosopher and physician who lived at the turn of the 10th century during the Islamic Golden Age. The Islamic Golden Age traditionally refers to the period from the 8th to the 13th centuries, from 762 ce—when Baghdad was established as the capital of the Abbasidic caliphate—to the Siege of Baghdad in 1258. This was a period of tremendous cultural and artistic richness and philosophical innovation. The work of philosophers and translators from the Islamic Golden Age also played a key role in helping to transmit Greek philosophy to the West.

He is acknowledged as one of the most important Islamic thinkers in history. Ibn Sīnā, often known in the West as Avicenna (the Latinized version of his shorter name), was born Abū Alī al-Husayn ibn Abd Allāh in a village near Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan. He was the son of a governor of the Samanid Empire—a Sunni emirate that at its height encompassed much of modern Afghanistan, as well as areas of Iran, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan.

Ibn Sīnā became famous not only as one of the leading philosophers of the Arab tradition, but also as a physician and a natural scientist. A polymath, his extraordinary body of work ranges from astronomy and physics to geography, psychology, music, and mathematics.

Ibn Sīnā’s many biographies, as well as his autobiography—which he dictated to his student al-Jūzjanī—reveal him to be a person of many talents, with an insatiable appetite for learning. By the time he was 10 years old, he had memorized the Koran in its entirety, and by his teenage years had begun his studies in philosophy, medicine, and jurisprudence.

While he is said to have found philosophy perplexing, the study of\ medicine apparently came easily to him. By the age of 18, Ibn Sīnā had become so well respected for his medical expertise that he was called upon to treat Nuh ibn Mansur, the sultan of Bukhara, whose ailment had baffled his physicians. His successful treatment of the sultan gained Ibn Sīnā access to the magnificent Samanid court and its extraordinarily rich library. It was here that he read Arabic translations of Greek and Indian philosophy, as well as Babylonian texts; early Islamic commentaries and textual criticism; and works on engineering, physics, logic, psychology, engineering, and mathematics. He thrived in this scholarly environment and wrote his first work at the age of just 21.

Of Ibn Sīnā’s several hundred works, two are of particular significance in the history of thought: his epic, five-volume medical textbook, known as Al-Qanun fi'l-tibb (the Canon of Medicine), which was completed around 1025. Al-Qanun, drew together Ibn Sīnā's extensive experience as a physician and also his broad knowledge of the medicaltradition—in particular, the work of the Greek physician Galen. The physician and philosopher Galen, or Aelius Galenus (c.130 c.216 ce), had a significant influence on Ibn Sīnā’s work. Galen was born in the Greek city of Pergamon and later moved to Rome, where he worked for a while as physician to the emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius. Galen's medical works were translated into Arabic at the beginning of the Islamic Golden Age. Like Ibn Sīnā, Galen saw the roles of the physician (who cures the body) and the philosopher (who cures the soul) as intimately linked.

Al-Qanun was widely used in Europe until the 18th century and is a testimony to the author's learning, as well as to his considerable powers of observation: not only is it the first text to clearly describe the symptoms of anthrax, but it is also one of the very first examples of evidencebased medicine. This concern with health is also central to Ibn Sīnā’s approach to philosophy, as outlined in his second major work, Kitab al-Shifa' (The Book of Healingoften referred to as The Cure), which was published in 1027. For him, philosophy was a therapeutic discipline, curing the ignorance of the soul in much the same way that medicine seeks to cure the sickness of the body. Kitab al-Shifa' drew together both Arabic and Greek philosophical sources, including Aristotle, Al-Kindī, and Al-Fārābī. It is thought that Ibn Sīnā wrote much of this text from memory, without access to any books whatsoever.

Ibn Sīnā is believed to have written more than 400 works in his lifetime; around 250 have survived, and of these, some 100 are philosophical texts. He is known to have been read by Thomas Aquinas, among many others. According to Ibn Sīnā, God is at the center of all things—everything emanates from God as a result of His Self-willing—and he formulated an interesting and influential argument in support of the Creator's existence. The medieval thinker Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), was influenced by Ibn Sīnā's 'contingency argument' concerning God's existence.

Ibn Sīnā's work was important not only in the Islamic world, but also in the rediscovery of Aristotle and Greek philosophy and logic in the West and in the shaping of Jewish and Christian philosophy. Many scholars consider Ibn Sīnā to be one of the most important medieval philosophers—a towering figure in Islamic thought.

Some of the traditional biographies suggest that Ibn Sīnā ’s death was caused by an obstruction in the large intestine, a condition that the philosopher had written about in his Treatise on Colic.

St. Anselm, 1033–1109, an influential Italian philosopher and theologian, widely known as 'the Father of the Scholastic tradition.' As archbishop of Canterbury, he was also a staunch defender of the rights of the Church.

Anselm became archbishop at a critical period in the history of the English Church. Its role and structure had been radically transformed after the Norman invasion of 1066, and Anselm had to contend with the displeasure of the displaced AngloSaxon clerics and with the ambitions of the new regime, which sought to control every aspect of the Church. Throughout his career at Canterbury, there were frequent clashes with the Crown over matters of jurisdiction. These disputes became so bitter that Anselm had to endure two periods of exile (1097–1100 and 1103–1107). The quarrels continued long after his death, eventually leading to the murder of a future archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, in 1170.

Anselm made it plain that he valued faith more highly than reason, but sought to buttress this faith with rational arguments. His key texts in this respect were the Soliloquy (1076) and the Proslogion (1077–1078). In the former, he put forward his 'cosmological' theory (the idea that all natural things depend on some greater external force for their existence), while the latter contained his celebrated 'ontological argument.'

Although famed for her love affair with Peter Abelard, Héloïse, c.1101–1164, was an influential French thinker in her own right. Her celebrated letters reveal a fine scholar and philosopher and a pioneer of feminist thought.

Héloïse was both niece and ward of Fulbert, a canon at Notre-Dame in Paris. Little is known of her parents, but some speculate that her mother may have been a nun. The girl was educated at a convent in Argenteuil, outside Paris, where she showed great promise in her studies of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, prompting Fulbert to invite her into his home and hire Peter Abelard (1079–1142) as her tutor.

Abelard already had a considerable reputation in the Paris schools as a brilliant, if controversial, teacher. While living under Fulbert’s roof, he began a clandestine affair with his star pupil (who may have been as young as 15). Their secret was revealed when Héloïse became pregnant and gave birth to a boy named Astrolabe.

Even though Abelard and Héloïse were among the most prominent intellectuals and religious thinkers of 12th-century France, they have been remembered as the archetypal tragic lovers, whose attempt to reconcile their emotions with their monastic duties is so touchingly recorded in their letters. This portrayal dates back to the 13th century, when Jean de Meun included them in his section of the Romance of the Rose. Since then, the couple’s story has inspired poems, plays, novels, and films. These range from Alexander Pope’s plaintive verse epistle Eloisa to Abelard (1717) to Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s fictional bestseller Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse (1761), and from the biopic Stealing Heaven (1988) to the puppet sequence in the film Being John Malkovich (1999).

Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179, was one of the most extraordinary German women of her age. Dubbed 'the Sibyl of the Rhine,' she was a visionary, a mystic, a composer, and a writer on subjects ranging from cosmology to medicine.

As the tenth child in her family, she was offered by her wealthy land owning parents to the Church—a common practice at the time. In 1106, she was placed in the care of a noblewoman, Jutta of Spanheim, who was entrusted with her religious education. On Jutta’s death in 1136, Hildegard succeeded her as abbess and soon began recording her visions, aided by her secretary, a monk named Volmar. Three remarkable theological manuscripts resulted: Scivias (Know the Way, 1141–1151); Liber Vitae Meritorum (the Book of Life’s Merits, 1158–1163); and Liber Divinorum Operum (the Book of Divine Works, 1163–1174). Scivias is the best known of the three, partly because the original manuscript contained striking illustrations, possibly by Hildegard herself.

The breadth of Hildegard’s work is impressive. She was a pioneering composer who saw music as 'the sacred sound through which all creation resounds.'

Hildegard’s career coincided with a period of bitter conflict between Germany and the papacy. The most divisive issue was lay investiture—the practice of secular figures controlling major ecclesiastical appointments. Pope Gregory VII clashed with the king, Henry IV, over this abuse in the late 11th century, and the dispute persisted for decades. Ultimately, it prompted the German ruler, Frederick Barbarossa (1122–1190), to invade Italy and to support a succession of antipopes (unofficial popes) during Pope Alexander III’s term of office (1159–1181). Hildegard took an active interest in these matters, writing a number of letters to Barbarossa.

Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198, also Latinized to Averroës, was a philosopher from Córdoba who combined Greek and Islamic thought, arguing for harmony between reason and religion. He was instrumental in reintroducing Aristotle into European philosophy.

Ibn Tufayl (c.1109–1185) was the philosopher, writer, and polymath who introduced Ibn Rushd to the Almohad caliph. He served the caliph and argued for Ibn Rushd to be his successor. His most famous work is the philosophical novel Ḥayy bin Yaqẓān [حي بن يقظان, lit. 'Alive, son of Awake], also known as 'Philosophus Autodidactus' in Latin, a philosophical romance and allegorical novel inspired by Avicennism and Sufism. It tells the story of a boy who is brought up alone on an equatorial island by an antelope. Through his close studies of the natural world, the boy becomes a philosopher. He is eventually rescued from the island and goes on to teach others his deep knowledge of philosophy.

From 1169, Ibn Rushd began to produce a series of analyses of Aristotle’s thinking. Their clarity made them hugely influential in the history of philosophy. They were translated into Latin and read by Thomas Aquinas, who was so impressed that he referred to Ibn Rushd simply as 'the commentator' (even though he disagreed with him on many points).

Ibn Rushd was elevated to even higher office in 1182, when he was appointed as both court physician and chief judge in his hometown of Córdoba—a position that put him at the very heart of the Almohad court. However, when the second caliph died in 1184 and was succeeded by his son, Ibn Rushd gradually began to lose his standing. In 1195, at the urging of conservative figures in the court, he was sent into exile in the village of Lucena, and all his books were burned. He was reinstated at the court 2 years later, but died in Marrakesh in 1198.

Ibn Rushd wrote widely on medicine, law, and theology, but some of his most original texts were those written in defense of philosophy. One such text is a response to the theologian Al-Ghazali’s (c.1058–1111) critique of philosophy, تهافت الفلاسفة Tahāfut al-Falāsifa, the Incoherence of the Philosophers. Al-Ghazali argued for faith over reason and attempted to systematically refute the work of Ibn Sīnā. In direct response, Ibn Rushd wrote تهافت التهافت Tahāfut al-Tahāfut, the Incoherence of the Incoherence, arguing not only that religion and philosophy were complementary, but that the truths of philosophy and of scripture must be in harmony.

Sunni Muslim philosopher and theologian Abu Hamid Al-Ghazālī, Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, a Persian polymath, was born in Tus in Khorasan, then part of the Seljuk Empire. After studying under theologian Al-Juwayni (1028–1085) in Nishapur, in 1085, he was summoned to the court of Seljuk vizier Nizam al-Mulk in Isfahan. Recognized as the leading scholar of his day, he was appointed head of the prestigious Nizamiyya madrasa (school) in Baghdad in 1091. In 1095, however, Al-Ghazālī renounced all official positions to pursue an ascetic life. After lengthy travels to Damascus, Jerusalem, and Mecca, he lived in seclusion in Tus, only returning to public teaching late in his life. Muslims regard Al-Ghazālī as a mujaddid—a renewer of faith,

awarded the honorific title 'Proof of Islam' (Ḥujjat al-Islām). He attacked elements of Arab philosophy based on Aristotle, asserting that all relations of cause and effect are a result of the will of God. His later works brought the Sufi tradition of ascetic mysticism into the mainstream of Sunni faith. His prime works are Ihya ’ulum al-din (The Revival of the Religious Sciences); Tahafut al-Falasifa (Incoherence of the Philosophers); Mishkat al-Anwar (The Niche of Lights), Maqasid al falasifa (Aims of the Philosophers. and much more.

Zhu Xi, 1130–1200, one of the most important Chinese Confucian philosophers; some put him in second place only to Confucius. Zhu Xi developed the hugely influential system of philosophy known in the West as Neo-Confucianism and laid the groundwork for the traditional Chinese education system that remained in place until 1905.

The Four Books and Five Classics are the major early canonical texts of Confucianism. They cover a wide range of topics, including philosophy, literature, economics, politics, art, science, and technology. The Four Books include edited conversations of Confucius and a collection of thoughts of the philosopher Mencius. Unlike some of his predecessors, Zhu Xi took the Four Books as the most important foundation of Confucian learning. The Five Classics are the Odes, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Documents, the Rites, and the Classic of Changes. They initially formed part of the curriculum for the entrance exams to the Chinese imperial bureaucracy.

Moses Maimonides, 1135–1204, meaning 'son of Maimon, was born into a scholarly Jewish family in Córdoba, Spain, which was under Muslim rule at the time. Maimonides compiled and published his first major work in Egypt, the Mishneh Torah (a collection of Jewish oral traditions).

Albertus Magnus, c.1200–1280, known as doctor universalis ('the universal doctor') for the breadth of his learning, Albertus sought to reconcile Aristotle’s ideas with Christian doctrine and left his mark as the teacher of the young Thomas Aquinas. In the years after his death, Albertus’s name was linked with alchemy, the discipline that sought (unsuccessfully) to transmute base metals into gold. In reality, there is little evidence that Albertus ever took more than a passing interest in the subject, which at the time was considered a valid scientific pursuit. Albertus was the only thinker to be dubbed magnus, 'the great,' in his own lifetime—it is likely that proponents of alchemy used the prestige of his name to link it to pseudonymous works on the subject, claiming authorship by him.

Thomas Aquinas, 1225–1274, was the most influential Italian thinker of the Middle Ages. He successfully reconciled the philosophy of Aristotle with the lessons of the Scriptures, becoming a major spokesman for the Catholic faith. At the impressionable age of 14, Aquinas entered a secular world that was very different to him. The university, founded by Frederick II in 1224 to train his administrative staff, was the first institution of its kind to have no links with the Church. In fact, the university had a pronounced anti-papal atmosphere and possessed something of the exotic character of Frederick’s court at Palermo, which was a melting pot of Latin, Jewish, and Muslim influences.

A significant proportion of Aquinas’s work stemmed from his study of Aristotle. Some of the latter’s work had long been available—in the 6th century, for example, Boethius translated his works on logic—but the tremendous breadth of Aristotle’s philosophy became far more apparent in the 13th century. Aquinas produced important commentaries on his works on ethics (the Nicomachean Ethics) and metaphysics, and he was profoundly influenced by Aristotle’s treatise on the soul (De Anima).

William of Ockham, 1285–1347, sought to cut through the abstraction of medieval thought by focusing attention on individual entities rather than on generalities. The philosophical tool he used to do this was logic. Few people talk of William of Ockham today without referring to Ockham’s (or Occam’s) razor—even though the idea that is embodied in the phrase was already old when he took it up and can be traced all the way back to Aristotle. The principle, often summarized as 'Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity' (a phrase Ockham never in fact employed), refers to his urge to cut through the enigmatic complexities of earlier Scholastic philosophers. Today, it is most often used to mean, 'All things being equal, the simplest solution is the best.'

There are still many names that could be mentioned, among others,

Vasubandhu, 4th–5th centuryce, born in Gandhara, now in Pakistan, the Buddhist monk and scholar. Vasubandhu lived during the Mauryan Empire.

Kūkai, 774–835 ce, he founder of Shingon (True Word) Buddhism, in Japan.

Adi Shankara, 788–820 ce, an Indian pivotal figure in the development of Hindu thought.

Al-Kindi, c.801–873 ce, known as the 'father of Arab philosophy,' was born into a prominent Arab family at Kufa, in what is now Iraq. As a young man, he moved to Baghdad, which was then the capital of the Islamic Abbasid caliphate. Working at the House of Wisdom—a library and intellectual center established by the caliphs— he supervised the translation of thousands of ancient Greek manuscripts into Arabic, including works on philosophy, science, medicine, mathematics, geography, and astronomy. Al-Kindi’s own wide-ranging writings sought to reconcile the Greek learning inherited from the pre-Islamic world with Muslim theology, fusing ideas drawn from Aristotle, Plotinus, and other Neo-Platonists into an Islamic philosophy. His influence was at its height under Caliph Al-Mu’tasim (reigned 833 842 ce), but declined under al-Mu’tasim’s successors, who reaffirmed an intolerant Islamic orthodoxy. Staying in Baghdad until the end of his life, by some accounts al-Kindi died in solitude and poverty.

Al-Farabi, c.872–c.950 ce, a leading thinker of the Islamic Golden Age. Neither his birthplace nor his ethnicity is certain, but he probably came from central Asia. Al-Farabi’s writings cover a wide range of topics, from philosophy and logic to music and the sciences, adapting Ancient Greek thought to an Islamic context. Most notable among his surviving works is ārā ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila ,The Virtuous City. Influenced by Plato’s Republic, it contrasts an ideal society, in which people collaborate harmoniously to achieve happiness, with the consequences of various forms of misgovernment. Al-Farabi’s writings exerted a large influence on later Muslim philosophers, including Avicenna and Averroës. He lived most of his life in Baghdad but left the city in around 943 ce to escape political disturbances accompanying the decline of the Abbasid caliphate. He spent his final years in Egypt and in Syria, where he died in 950 or 951ce.

Murasaki Shikibu, c.970–c.1014 ce, admired as the author of Genji Monogatari (the Tale of Genji), sometimes considered the world’s first novel.

Cheng Hao, 1032–1085, taught that li, 'principle,' infuses the universe and unites all things. Human nature is essentially good, but only introspection can uncover the true Way. His brand of Neo-Confucianism would become the official doctrine of the Chinese state.

Rāmānuja, c.1077–c.1157, was Hindu philosopher. Although Rāmānuja’s native language was Tamil, he wrote in Sanskrit when expressing his philosophy through his commentaries on the sacred texts.

Peter Abelard, 1079–1142, French philosopher and theologian. In 1122, he was forced to burn Theologia Summi Boni (History of the Supreme Good), and in 1141, was excommunicated for heresy. As a scholastic philosopher, Abelard believed logic was the only path to truth apart from divine revelation. The letters between him and Héloïse are a literary classic.

Dōgen, c.1200–1253, the founder of the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, Japan.

Duns Scotus, or John Scotus, c.1266–1308, was a leading Scottish philosopher and theologian of the scholastic era.

Christine de Pizan, 1364–c.1430, celebrated for her writings on the status of women. Her writings included a treatise on war and works on government and politics, but her main subject was the defense of women against their male detractors. Most notably in Le Livre de la cité des dames (The Book of the City of Ladies), she argued that women were the equal of men in virtue, citing examples of great women from history and myth. With France ravaged by war, Christine sought refuge in a convent for her final years. Her last work was a poem in praise of Joan of Arc.

Nicolas of Cusa, 1401–1464, a prominent German ecclesiastic and innovative thinker.

Marsilio Ficino, 1433–1499, an Italian Renaissance humanist.

We can draw a conclusion that a 'great' thinker is someone whose ideas stand the very highest chance of being helpful in our lives now. Typically, great thinkers are included in encyclopedic works on the basis of reputation: a list is drawn up asking what names have been most influential, and what ideas have most memorably shaped the intellectual world. You can also direct your sights on a different aim: you want to work out what ideas offer help with some of the leading problems of your own times.

The key is understanding. When you understand something, you're able to perceive its structure: its connections, its relationships, its significancerelative to everything else. How it fits. You see-feel-intuit the fit. You know it. You know?

When something is contextualised,we can suddenly get it. It feels 'meaningful' to us because it fits into the network of what we already know and understand and can relate to. Ourknowledge. The more you understand information in thi sway, the more connected and contextualised it becomes, the more it starts to morph and grow into knowledge. Once you get there, you will begin to wander in the vast and beatiful Ocean of knowledge. Yes, Knowledge is beautiful.'"

"It's time to go," said Swara, "Now, my echoes is going lower. Next session, we'll talk about the Early Modern Philosophers, Insha Allah." Swara disappeared while singing,

We light the deepest ocean

Send photographs of Mars

We're so enchanted by

how clever we are

Why should one baby

feel so hungry she cries?

Saltwater wells in my eyes *)

"And Allah knows best."

Citations & References:
- DK London, Philosophers - Their Lives and Works, Cobaltid
- Alain the Botton, Great Thinkers, the School of Life Press
*) "Saltwater" written by Julian Lennon, Mark Spiro & Leslie Spiro
[Session 3]
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