Philosophical autonomy and the historiography of medieval philosophy

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Volumn 5, Issue 1, 1997, Pages 21-53

  Inglis, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON   (United States)

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EID: 61049515992     PISSN: 09608788     EISSN: 14693526     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09608789708570954     Document Type: Article

References (74)

1. For example, see Charles Taylor, 'Philosophy and its history',in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 17-30
2. Richard Rorty, 'The historiography of philosophy: four genres', in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 49-75
3. Bruce Kuklick, 'Seven thinkers and how they grew: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz; Locke, Berkeley, Hume; Kant' in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind, and Quentin Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 125-39
4. Historians have customarily given Maurice De Wulf the credit for publishing the first important general history of medieval philosophy in 1900. My claim is that Stockl would use the work of Kleutgen to supply the first general history of medieval philosophy. And as I will note below, De Wulf recognised that Stockl was the only historian before himself to present an accurate account of the history of medieval philosophy. For example, see Wolfgang Kluxen, 'Die geschichtliche Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Philosophic und die Neuscholastik', in Emerich Coreth, Walter M. Neidl, and George Pfligersdorffer, gen. eds., Christliche Philosophic im katholischen Denken des 19, und 20, Jahrhunderts, 3 vols. (Graz, Wien, and Kolm Verlag Styria, 1987-90), vol. 2: Rückgriff auf scholastisches Erbe, ed. Heinrich M. Schmidinger, p. 374
5. and Armand Maurer, 'Medieval Philosophy and its Historians', in Armand Maurer, Being and Knowing: Studies in Thomas Aquinas and Later Medieval Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990), pp. 466-7
6. Earlier criticisms of the traditional approach to medieval philosophy were voiced by Leo Strauss and Etienne Gilson. Strauss has argued persuasively that Maimonides offers a defense of biblical teaching in the Guide for the Perplexed and not a philosophy. See Leo Strauss, 'The Literary Character of the Guide for the Perplexed?, in Essays on Maimonides: An Octocentennial Volume, Ed. Salo Wittmayer Baron (New York: Columbia University Press, 1941), pp. 37-45.
7. Etienne Gilson claimed late in life that the scholastics did not have philosophical problems or use philosophical methods. Arguing that medieval theology would become philosophy in the seventeenth century, the implication is that in order to be precise, one should not read the Latin medievals as having a philosophy. See Etienne Gilson, The Philosopher and Theology, trans. Cecile Gilson (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 102.
8. Mark Jordan, Ordering Wisdom: The Hierarchy of Philosophical Discourses in Aquinas (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), pp. 118-19.
9. See also the following: Joseph Owens, 'Faith, Ideas, Illumination and Experience, in The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, eds. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 440-59.
10. Mark Jordan, 'Theology and Philosophy', in The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas, eds. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 232-51;
11. John Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction, (London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987), pp. 1-2;
12. John Marenbon, Early Medieval Philosophy (480-1150): An Introduction, 2nd ed. (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), pp. vii-ix.
13. I will refer to the second edition to which Brucker adds a sixth volume, Jacob Brucker, Historia Critica Philosophieae, a Mundi Incunabulis ad Nostrum usque Aetatem Deducta, 6 vols. 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Weidemann, 1766-7)
14. Cousin, Victor, Cours de I'histoire de la philosophie moderne, 3 vols. (Paris: Didier, 1847), 1:262-5
15. Brucker, Historia, 3:714 and 871-4
16. Except for quotation, references refer to: Georg Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Gescbichte der Philosophie, ed. Ludwig Michelet. In Sâmtliche Werke: Jubildumsausgabe in Zwanzig Banden, 20 vols., 4th ed., ed. Hermann Glockner (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1965), vols. 18 and 19
17. English edition used for quotation, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 vols, trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, (New York: Humanities Press, 1974)
18. George Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen, 19:132
19. Hegel's Lectures, 3:38
20. Barthelemy Hauréau, De la philosophie scolastique, 2 vols. (Paris: Pagnerre, 1850), 1: i-iii
21. Barthelemy Hauréau, De la philosophie scolastique, 1850, Ibid., 2:174-206 and 424-47
22. During the Christmas break after the July Revolution of 1830 student unrest at Munich caused the troops to be ordered in to protect the palace. All non-Bavarian students, including Kleutgen, had to leave Munich and return home. Friedrich Schelling, on the faculty, urged the students to discontinue their disturbances, arguing that one more night of fighting would bring about the closure of the University. No further outbreaks occurred and the order to leave Munich was rescinded. Nevertheless, Kleutgen decided to abandon his studies and leave Munich in January of 1831. See Friedrich W. J. von Schelling, Schellings Werke, 8 vols. ed. Manfred Schroter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1927), 5: 69
23. Konrad Deufel, Kirche und Tradition (Munich: Schoningh, 1976), p. 31
24. Joseph Kleutgen, Zw meiner Rechtfertigung, in Joseph Kleutgen, Beilagen zu den Werken über die Theologie und Phihsophie der Vorzeit, 3 vols. (Münster: Theis-singsche Buchhandlung, 1868), vol. 2, p. 13
25. Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, 1:28-29
26. Joseph Kleutgen, Die Theologie der Vorzeit vertheidigt, 3 vols. (Münster: Theissingsche Buchhandlung, 1853-60), 1:27
27. On the change in order, see Kleutgen, Theologie der Vorzeit, 3:iii. He begins his third volume with a 129-page history of medieval theology, a treatment that would normally appear at the beginning of the first volume of such a work.
28. Joseph Kleutgen, Die Philosophie der Vorzeit verteidigt, 2 vols. (Münster: Theissingsche Buchhandlung, 1860-3), 1:595-620
29. Likewise, the realists followed Aristotle in their concern for universals and offered a view that is philosophically superior to that of the nominalists. See Kleutgen, Philosophic der Vorzeit, 1:254 and Conimbricense, Universam dialecticam, pp. 83 and 90
30. Albert Stockl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 3 vols. (Mainz: Franz Kirchheim, 1864-1866), l:iii
31. Albert Stockl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 1864-1866, Ibid., 2:3-4.
32. Albert Stockl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 1864-1866, See also Ibid., 1:6
33. Stöckl refers to Kleutgen, Philosophie der Vorzeit, 1:250-360
34. See Stockl, Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters, 2:954
35. Stöckl and Kleutgen were familiar with each other's work. Besides this reference to Kleutgen, Stöckl also places Kleutgen and himself in the same philosophical school of empiricists. See Albert Stöckl, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, 2nd ed. (Mainz: Franz Krchheim, 1875), p. 913
36. Kleutgen associates Stockl with his philosophical project of defending the old science. See Kleutgen, Zu meiner Rechfertigung, 2:134. Yet I have found no record of direct contact between the two. There is no record of any correspondence in the Stöckl Nachlass at the archive of the Episcopal library of the University of Eichstatt or in the letters of Kleutgen printed in Konrad Deufel's biography.
37. See Konrad Deufel, Kirche und Tradition. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der theologischen Wende itn 19. Jahrhundert am Beispiel des Kirchlich-theologischen Kampfprogramms P. Joseph Kleutgen S.J. (München, Paderborn and Wien: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1976), pp. 430-3
38. One difference between Stöckl's history and that of Kleutgen is that Stockl does not give a complete picture of the moral and political uses to which he puts medieval philosopy. While Kleutgen discusses both the contemporary uses of medieval philosophy and its history in his Philosophie der Vorzeit, Stöckl separates his philosophical position from his telling of the history. If we look at Stöckl's Lehrbuch der Philosophie, however, we discover the full use to which he put medieval philosophy. In the preface of the sixth edition, published in 1887, he recognizes that he was following Kleutgen in carrying out this project and indicates the importance of his own Lehrbuch for Germany, maintaining that it was the first neoscholastic textbook in the German language. Stockl demonstrates how medieval political philosophy offers an alternative to the revolution, socialism, and capitalism of the nineteenth century. He argues that there are two great orders in the world, the order of the state and the order of the church. Revolutions occur when people think they can attain benefits by disturbing this traditional order. In Stöckl's opinion, however, the result is always worse than the original problem, revolution is not the proper way to respond to injustices committed by rulers. Albert Stöckl, Lehrbuch der Philosophie, 3 vols., 6th ed. (Mainz: Franz Kircheim, 1887), l:v, 3:388, and 3:408-409
39. Kleutgen was invited to be a theological consultant at the First Vatican Council in 1869, the first such council since the views of Martin Luther were condemned at the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century. Kleutgen was given the task of drafting sections of 'Pastor aeternus', the text that contains the definition of papal infallibility. In helping to compose the text of the definition of papal infallibility, Kleutgen was thus able to participate in grounding one pole of his long-standing project to establish the absolute certainty of faith and reason. He also drafted sections of'Dei Films', containing the thesis that human reason does not contradict revelation. In this way the Council would confirm tenets of the Kleutgen-Stockl model of the history of medieval philosophy. See Roger Aubert, Vatican 1 (Paris: Editions de L'Orante, 1964), pp. 182-3, 225, and 303-13
40. Kleutgen is reported to have written Leo XIH's encyclical 'Aeterni Patris' (1879) another key text in the institutionalizing of the Kleutgen-Stockl model of the history of medieval philosophy. While we do not know if Kleutgen actually did write 'Aeterni Patris', he does state in a letter to a former teacher that he discussed this encyclical with Leo before its publication and saw it as support for his own project from the highest authority on earth. In this encyclical Leo promulgated the view that Aquinas represents the summit of medieval philosophy and called forth numerous propagating organs of the Kleutgen-Stockl model: chairs in the history of medieval philosophy, journals, academic associations, and critical editions. See Deufel, Kirche und Tradition, pp. 74 and 383.
41. Stockl's textbook on scholastic philosophy would go through seven editions before the end of the century, communicating the Kleutgen-Stöckl model to readers who would never read his history of medieval philosophy. And in 1869, Pius IX wrote Stöckl a letter praising his philosophical work. The unpublished letter from Pius dated 10-28-1869 is in the Stöckl Nachlass at Eichstâtt. See Albert Stöckl, Lehrbuch der Philosophie (Mainz: Franz Kirchheim, 1868).
42. He also wrote the main entry on philosophy for the second edition of Herder's Kirchenlexikon. The Kircbenlexikon was the major German-Catholic reference work of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, a work that would not be superseded before the 1930s. Stockl was therefore himself able to pen an authoritative account of the Kleutgen-Stöckl model of the history of medieval philosophy in a work that would remain the standard for years to come. See Kirchenlexikon, 2nd ed., s.v. Philosophic, by Albert Stöckl
43. Maurice De Wulf, Histoire de la Philosophie Medievale précédée d'un Apercu sur la Philosophie Ancienne, Cours de Philosophie series (Louvain: Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1900), p. vi
44. On De Wulf s praise of Aquinas as a realist in contrast to the Augustinian reliance on divine illumination, see Maurice De Wulf, Histoire de la Philosophie Medieval, 3 vols. (Louvain: Institut supérieur de philosophie, 1934-47), 2:155-7 and 167.
45. De Wulf continues to argue that for Ockham we cannot know real things, but only universal terms themselves. For his interpretation that Ockham is agnostic about Aquinas's view that people can know real things, see see Maurice De Wulf, Histoire de la Philosophie Medieval, 1934-47, ibid., 3:38.
46. In the first edition, he had followed Kleutgen in his presentation of Aquinas's epistemology. See De Wulf, Histoire de la Philosophie Medievale précédée d'un Apercu sur la Philosophie Ancienne, p. 279
47. Maurice De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy: From the Beginnings to the End of the Twelfth Century. 6th ed., trans. Ernest C. Messenger (New York: Dover, 1952), p. 32
48. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy, (1987) p. 204
49. Etienne Gilson, History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages (New York: Random House, 1955), pp. 80-81
50. Julius R. Weinberg, A Short History of Medieval Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 186-7, 232, and 262
51. Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, and Jan Pinborg, eds., Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. vii-viii
52. Peter Dronke, ed., A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 6
53. John Marenbon, 'The Theoretical and Practical Autonomy of Philosophy as a Discipline in the Middle Ages: Latin Philosophy, 1250-1350', in Knowledge and the Sciences in Medieval Philosophy, eds. Monika Asztalos, John E. Murdoch, and Ilkka Ninilvot. (Helsinki: Yliopistopanino, 1990), pp. 272-3
54. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy, p. 2
55. Mark Jordan argues that new motives have not yet arisen for the writing of the history of medieval philosophy. See Mark Jordan, 'Medieval Philosophy of the Future', in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 159
56. I develop this thesis in more detail in my book Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy, E. J. Brill forthcoming
57. Aquinas has much to say in these three texts on human understanding in reference to both the imitation of God and the Trinity. For historically- sensitive presentations of his arguments, see Marie-Joseph Serge de Laugier De Beaurecueil, 'L'homme image de Dieu selon saint Thomas d'Aquin', Etudes et recherches: Cahiers de theologie et de philosophie 8 (1952), pp. 45-82
58. Marie-Joseph Serge de Laugier De Beaurecueil, 'L'homme image de Dieu selon saint Thomas d'Aquin', Etudes et recherches: Cahiers de theologie et de philosophie, 9 (1955), pp. 37-96
59. D. Juvanal Merriell, To the Image of the Trinity: A Study in the Development of Aquinas' Teaching (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990)
60. Battista Mondin argues that Aquinas presents his view of human beings within an account of the imitation of God in his Scriptum, but changed his position in his Summa theologiae. In the present paper, I claim that Aquinas indeed continues to discuss human beings in his Summa within the framework of the imitatio Dei. See Battista Mondin, St. Thomas Aquinas' Philosophy in the Commentary to the Sentences (Hague: Martinus Nighoff, 1975), p. 58
61. Merriell argues convincingly that, after a careful reading of Augustine's De Trinitate, Aquinas in his De veritate and Summa came to locate the imitation of God in the activity of the human soul. This gave him reason to devote more detail to the human appetitive and intellectual powers. See Merriell, To the Image of the Trinity, pp. 132-47 and 239-40
62. Having just finished discussing the human understanding of material things where no imitation of God can be found, Aquinas prepares to discuss both the human understanding of human understanding and the human understanding of God, which taken together provide the human imitation of God. See QDV 10.7
63. On this analogy, see Aelred Squire, 'The Doctrine of the Image in the De veritate of St. Thomas', Dominican Studies 4 (1951), pp. 174-6
64. In his study of the structure of the Summa theologia, Ghislain Lafont presents the notion of image as the cental organizing concept. See Ghislain Lafont, Structures et Methode dans la Somme Theologique de saint Thomas d'Aquin (Paris: Desdee de Brouwer, 1961), pp. 265-98
65. In arguing for the practical nature of Aquinas's consideration of the appetitive and intellectual powers, I seek to fill out the traditional view that his interest was theoretical and speculative. For a presentation of this view, See Anton Pegis, At the Origins of the Thomistic Notion of Man (New York: Macmillan, 1963), p. 8: 'For quite apart from the philosophical differences between Plato and Aristotle, the transition to Aristotelian psychology in the thirteenth century involved a further transition from the religious psychology of the early Middle Ages, dominated by a moral and spiritual interest in the study of man, to a psychology that must be properly called theoretical and speculative, dominated by the metaphysicaT framework and principles of Aristotle.'
66. Both De Beaurecueil and Merriell argue that the imitatio is central to Aquinas's consideration of human beings, yet they differ as to whether he continues to treat it within the context of the Trinity. De Beaurecueil views him as offering an anthopological account of the imitation while Merriell concludes that the Trinity is central to his account of human activity. See De Beaurecueil 'L'homme image de Dieu selon saint Thomas d'Aquin', (1952):50.
67. See De Beaurecueil 'L'homme image de Dieu selon saint Thomas d'Aquin', (1955):50-51.
68. Daniel Frank argues a similar point with reference to Maimonides in 'Reason in Action: The 'Practicality' of Maimonides's Guide', in Commandment and Community: New Essays in Jewish Legal and Political Philosophy, edited by Daniel H. Frank (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 73
69. For example, Odon Lottin explains how the Peter the Lombard led masters of theology in the thirteenth century to consider the faculties of the human soul in relation to the Trinity. See Odon Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XHe et Xllle siécles, 2nd ed. (Gembloux, Belgium: J. Duculot, 1957), 1:483-502
70. For example, Allan Wolter, prints question four under the heading 'Concerning Human Knowledge' in his Philosophical Writings of Duns Scotus. See Duns Scotus Philosophical Writings: A Selection, trans. Allan Wolter (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1987), pp. 96-132
71. For example, both Julius Weinberg, in his Short History of Medieval Philosophy, and John Boler, in his 'Intuitive and abstractive Cognition' printed in the Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy, cite this distinction when presenting accounts of Ockham's epistemology. See Weinberg, p. 257 and Kretzmann, Kenny, and Pinborg, p. 466
72. Brucker and Hegel were wrong to think that medieval thought had little intellectual content and Hauréau was wrong to think that the Latins used reason to free themselves from the constraints of religious faith. For example, the use of reason to explain an imitation held on faith illustrates the intellectual nature, and unity, of Aquinas's project. For an account of Aquinas's dependence on Pseudo-Dionysius in using both reason and faith within a single inquiry, see Wayne Hanke, 'The Place of the Psychological Image of the Trinity in the Arguments of Augustine's de Trinitate, Anselm's Monologion, and Aquinas' Summa Theologiae', Dionysius 3 (1979), pp. 105-8
73. Not all medieval writers opt for theology in contrast to philosophy. For example, Averroes offers a different view in his consideration of whether the Koran commands or prohibits the study of philosophy in his Decisive Treatise Determining the Nature of the Connection Between Religion and Philosophy. When he notes that the law of the Koran commands the study of philosophy, Averroes identifies the aim and purpose of philiosophy with the aim and purpose of religion. Philosophy has the same goal as the Koran. Yet, since philosophy lies outside the reach of most people, the Koran was written to instruct all people, not only the intelligent and the virtuous. My point is that there were medievals who identified their projects with philosophy. Yet Latin writers like Augustine, Aquinas, Scotus, and Ockham did not belong to this tradition. See Richard Taylor, 'Faith and Reason, Religion and Philosophy: Four Views from Medieval Islam and Christianity', in Philosophy and the God of Abraham: Essays in Memory of James A. Weisheipl, ed. James R. Long (Toronto, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1991), pp. 227-30
74. Keeping in mind why it was important to locate an autonomous philosophy among the Latins indicates motivations for this interpretation. While historians might not have the same motives today, the institutionalization of the discipline of philosophy provides grounds for continuing to follow this model. Mark Jordan argues that new motives have not yet arisen for the writing of the history of medieval philosophy. See Mark Jordan, 'Medieval Philosophy of the Future', in The Past and Future of Medieval Studies, ed. John Van Engen (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), p. 159