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Scholastic Philosophy: Key Thinkers

The document summarizes key figures and ideas in Scholastic philosophy during the Middle Ages. It discusses how Scholastic philosophers like Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham combined faith and reason through using biblical authority and Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle, to explore topics like logic, nature, ethics, and metaphysics. It provides brief biographies and highlights some of their major philosophical contributions, such as Anselm's ontological argument, Abelard's emphasis on intentions in ethics, Aquinas' view of morality deriving from human nature, and Ockham's rejection of natural law in favor of divine command theory.

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Sheena Descartin
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81 views6 pages

Scholastic Philosophy: Key Thinkers

The document summarizes key figures and ideas in Scholastic philosophy during the Middle Ages. It discusses how Scholastic philosophers like Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham combined faith and reason through using biblical authority and Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle, to explore topics like logic, nature, ethics, and metaphysics. It provides brief biographies and highlights some of their major philosophical contributions, such as Anselm's ontological argument, Abelard's emphasis on intentions in ethics, Aquinas' view of morality deriving from human nature, and Ockham's rejection of natural law in favor of divine command theory.

Uploaded by

Sheena Descartin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Greatest Good For

The Scholastic
Philosophers
Sheena Igot
What is Scholastic Philosophy?
• The Christian philosophy of the Middle Ages that
combined faith and reason through the use of Biblical
authority and Greek philosophy, especially Aristotle.

• The content of scholastic philosophy


`logic,
philosophy of nature (including psychology),
ethics,
and metaphysics (a part of which is natural theology).
Anselm
of Canterbury -Founder of scholasticism.
(c. 1033 – 21 April 1109) He is famous as the originator of the.
ontological argument for the existence of
God
1. God is something of which nothing greater
can be thought.
2. God may exist in the understanding.
3. It is greater to exist in reality and in the
understanding than just in understanding
4. Therefore, God exists in reality.
The very idea of “God” contains a validation of
God’s existence because a perfect being which
did not exist would be a contradiction in terms.
“God is than that in which nothing is greater”
Peter Abelard  Abelard looked at theology as the
(1079-1147) "handmaiden" of knowledge. He believed
that man could gain a greater knowledge of
God through the use of reason.

 His importance in ethical theory lies in


his emphasis on intentions.

 Disagreed that the mere desire for what


is wrong is as wrong as the act itself.

 Abelard recognized that there is a


problem in holding a person morally
responsible for the mere existence of
physical desires.

“It is by doubting that we come to


investigate, and by investigating that we
recognize the truth.”
St. Thomas Acquinas
 Aquinas took from Aristotle the notion of an ultimate
end, or goal—a summum bonum —at which all human
action is directed  Like Aristotle, he conceived of this
end as necessarily connected with happiness.

 This conception was Christianized, however, by the


idea that happiness is to be found in the love of God.

 Thus, a person seeks to know God but cannot fully


succeed in doing so in this life on Earth.

 Short of heaven, a person can experience only a more


limited form of happiness through a life of virtue and
friendship, much as Aristotle had recommended.

 Aquinas viewed morality as deriving from human


nature and the activities that are objectively suited to it. 
It is a consequence of this natural law ethics that the
difference between right and wrong can be appreciated
by the use of reason and reflection on experience
William of Ockham Fundamental to his approach was his rejection of the
central Aristotelian idea that all things have an ultimate
end toward which they naturally tend.

He spurned Aquinas’s attempt to base morality on


human nature and with it the idea that goodness is
closely connected with happiness, which is the
ultimate end of human beings.

 Ockham denied all standards of good and evil that


are independent of God’s will.
 What God wills is good; what God condemns is evil.
 That is all there is to say about the matter.
 This position is sometimes called a divine
approbation theory, because it defines good as
whatever is approved by God.
 

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