Idealism in medieval philosophy: The case of Johannes Scottus Eriugena

Medieval Philosophy and Theology

Volumn 8, Issue 1, 1999, Pages 53-82

  Moran, Dermot ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

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EID: 63149152259     PISSN: 10570608     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S1057060899081037     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Myles Burnyeat, "Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Descartes Saw and Berkeley Missed," Philosophical Review 91 (1982): 3-40
2. repr. in Godfrey Vesey, ed., Idealism - Past and Present (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1982), pp. 19-50. Hereafter this essay will be cited in the version printed in Vesey, ed
3. Richard Sorabji, "Gregory of Nyssa: The Origins of Idealism," in Time, Creation and Continuum. Theories in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (London: Duckworth, 1983), pp. 287-96
4. Werner Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur neuplatonischen Philosophic and ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1985)
5. See also Beierwaltes, "Die Wiederentdeckung des Eriugena im Deutschen Idealismus," in Platonismus und Idealismus (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1972), pp. 188-201, and his "Zur Wirkungsgeschichte Eriugenas im Deutschen Idealismus und danach
6. Eine kurze, unsystematische Nachlese," in Eriugena. Grundzüge seines Denkens (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1994), pp. 313-330
7. Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson, "Cognition and its Object," in Lloyd P. Gerson, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Plotinus (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1996), pp. 217-49, esp. pp. 245-49
8. But see, Lloyd P. Gerson, Plotinus (London: Routledge, 1994), p. 227, n.3, who maintains that Plotinus is not an idealist
9. Dermot Moran, The Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena. A Study of Idealism in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1989)
10. See Beienvaltes, "Das Problem des absoluten Selbstbewußtseins bei Johannes Scotus Eriugena," in Beienvaltes, ed., Platonismus in der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969), pp. 484-516
11. Bernard Williams, "Philosophy," in M. I. Finley, ed., The Legacy of Greece. A New Appraisal (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), pp. 204-5. Burnyeat acknowledges Williams's influence, Vesey, p. 19, n.1
12. For a discussion of Berkeley's Siris in relation to Plotinus, see N. Baladi, "Plotin et Berkeley: Témoignage de la Siris," Revue Internationale de Philosophie 91 (1970): 338-47
13. and "Plotin et l'immatérialisme de Berkeley: Témoignage de la Siris," in Atti del Convegno internazionale sal tema Plotino e il Neoplatonismo in Oriente e in Occidente (Rome: Ateneo Press 1974), pp. 597-604
14. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965). See also the Fourth Paralogism A368-69
15. See Robert B. Pippin, Hegel's Idealism. The Satisfaction of Self-Consciousness (New York: Cambridge U.P., 1989), pp. 163-74
16. See G. W. F, Hegel, Science of Logic, chap. 2, Remark "Idealism," trans. A. V. Miller (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1989), pp. 154-56
17. See Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 Vols., trans. E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson, (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1968), 2:399-453, where he sees the Alexandrian identification of self-consciousness and being as paving the way for absolute idealism
18. See also Werner Beierwaltes, Platonismus und Idealismus (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1972)
19. and J.-L. Viellard-Baron, Platon el l'idéalisme allemand (1770-1830) (Paris: Beauchesne, 1979)
20. F. C. Baur, Die christliche Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit und Menschwerdung Gottes (Tübingen, 1842), II, p. 285
21. Beierwaltes, Denken des Einen. Studien zur neuplatonischen Philosophie und ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Klostermann, 1985)
22. Augustine, Confessions, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin (Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1961), p. 170
23. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1989), p. 131
24. E. Gilson, Etudes sur le râle de la pensée médiévale dans la formation du système cartésien (1930; repr. Paris: Vrin, 1951), pp. 191-201
25. See also Léon Blanchet, Les Antécedents historiques du je pense donc je suis (1920; repr. Paris: Vrin, 1985). Gaunilo has a version of the cogito for example, in reply to Anselm
26. De vera religione XXX.IX.73
27. See also, Dediversis quaestionibus where Augustine argues that mind has immediate self-knowledge
28. See G. B. Mathews, "Si fallor, sum," in R. A. Markus, ed., Augustine. A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1972), pp. 151-64, for the view that the cogito in Augustine is primarily negative in intent - aiming to refute Academic objections
29. and R. Sorabji, Time, Creation and Continuum, p. 289
30. See also J. M. Rist, Augustine. Ancient Thought Baptized (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1994), pp. 63-67
31. See Sorabji, Time, Creation and Continuum, p. 289
32. See also, Sorabji, Matter, Space and Motion. Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel (London: Duckworth, 1988), pp. 54-56
33. Myles Burnyeat has made that point to me in conversation
34. See especially Eyjólfur Emilsson, Plotinus on Sense-Perception: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P. 1988)
35. and John Dillon, "Plotinus, the First Cartesian?," Hermathena 149 (1990): pp. 19-32
36. The Periphyseon is here cited according to the following editions: I. P. Sheldon-Williams, ed., Iohannis Scolti Eriugenae Periphyseon (De Divisione Naturae), book one (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968), book two (Dublin, 1970), book three, with John O'Meara (Dublin, 1981)
37. For book four I have used the new edition of E. Jeauneau (Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1995). For book five I have used the Latin text of Patrologia Latina Vol. 122 and the English translation of I. P. Sheldon-Williams and J. J. O'Meara, published in J. J. O'Meara, ed., Eriugena. Periphyseon (Dumbarton Oaks/Montréal: Bellarmin, 1987)
38. See Brian Stock, "Intelligo me esse: Eriugena's Cogito," in R. Roques, ed., Jean Scot Erigène et l'histoire de la philosophie (Paris: CNRS, 1977), pp. 327-34
39. See Michael Strasser's review of Dermot Moran, Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena, Nous 26 (1992): 509-13, where he argues (p. 512) that the reference to all tilings being in Christ refers to all things being 'in God'
40. See Carlos Steel, "Lost Simplicity: Eriugena on Sexual Difference," in Mediaevalia, Textos e Estudos, 7-8 (1995): 103-26
41. and E. Jeauneau, "La division des sexes chez Grégoire de Nysse et chez Jean Scot Erigcne," in Beierwaltes, ed., Eriugena. Studien zu seinen Quellen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitāts verlag, 1980), pp. 33-54
42. See Dermot Moran, "Officina omnium or notio quaedam intelleclualis in mente divina aeternaliler facta: the Problem of the Definition of Man in the Philosophy of John Scottus Eriugena," in C. Wenin, ed., L'Homme et son univers au Moyen Age, 2 vols. (Louvain-Ia-Neuve: Editions de l'Institut Supérieur de Philosophic 1986), 1:195-204
43. For a fuller account of Eriugena's conception of the physical world, see Dermot Moran, "Time, Space and Matter in the Periphyseon: An Examination of Eriugena's Understanding of the Physical World," in F. O'Rourke, At the Heart of the Real. Philosophical Essays in Honour of Archbishop Desmond Connell (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1992), pp. 67-96
44. There is a similar idealistic passage in Gregory's De anima et eius resurrectione, which however appears to have been unknown to Eriugena. See M. Cappuyns, "Le De imagine de Grégoire de Nysse traduit par Jean Scot Erigène," Recherches de thêologie ancienne et médiévale 32 (1965): 205-62
45. See also, Philip Levine, Two Early Latin Versions of St. Gregory of Nyssa's peri kataskeues anthropou," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 63 (1958): 473-92
46. R. Sorabji, Matter, Space and Motion, p. 53
47. See Plotinus, Ennead VI.3.8, 19-37. The term sumphoresis itself comes from Epicurus itself comes from Epicurus