Philosophy After Aristotle
When Aristotle died in 322 B.C. he was such an authority on so many subjects that metaphysics and epistemology seemed hardly worth doing anymore. His work on logic was so groundbreaking that no significant developments were made in the field until the late 19th century! The thinking was, well Aristotle had already dealt with these issues and there was nothing left to say. That being the belief, philosophy after Aristotle moved to emphasize different areas. Philosophy, in part, tended to be more practical in its approach to the question of how one ought to live. In particular two schools of thought dealt with this question: the Epicureans and the Stoics. Epicurus put forward the theory that life is about the pursuit of pleasure though this is likely to be misinterpreted. In fact, for Epicurus, the pleasures he meant were freedom, friendship, and thought. The Stoics postulated that human beings were free but this freedom had limits. Fate plays a strong part in one's life but we still maintain the freedom to change our attitude about things. So as the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus said, "people are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of things." This view was to go over particularly well with the Roman emperor whom Epictetus inspired, Marcus Aurelius. He was emperor from 161-180 C.E
The disagreement between Plato and Aristotle over metaphysical issues was bound to give rise to a certain amount of skepticism about our ability to gain knowledge of the fundamental structure of reality and so it was around this time (200 C.E.) that the writings of Sextus Empiricus gained popularity. Given the disagreements between the two great philosophers, and the fact that they seemed to appeal to the same evidence to back up their theories, the skeptics advocated suspending judgment on such questions. This attitude was supposed to achieve a state of mental calm not unlike the Stoic attitude of resignation in the face of fate.
Still, Aristotle did not rule uncontested. Given the serious challenge, he put forward against Platonic theory it is also not surprising that a resurgence of Plato's ideas was to be seen. The great champion of Neo-Platonism in the third century was Plotinus though the more famous figure to defend Platonism and make it fit with the rising new religion of Christianity was, as James Burke puts it, an ex-nightclubber turned bishop named Augustine. Come the fall of the Roman Empire in 410, Augustine was to be important in the perpetuation of Platonic theory for centuries.
With the fall of Rome, the emphasis was placed much more on life in the hereafter rather than life here. Civilization was coming to a most inglorious end and life in this world was not nearly as important as gaining a place in the transcendent world. This should sound very much like Plato indeed. But because of this attitude philosophy was to stagnate for centuries. After all what use was there to learn about this world? Just as well since after the fall of Rome, we lost much of the knowledge from the Greek and Roman worlds when many of the manuscripts were lost due in large part to the destruction of the great library at Alexandria; Aristotle, tragically, was among the lost. So with a few exceptions darkness fell, at least in the West, the East as we'll see in a moment was a different story.
Things started to take a turn for the so-so on Christmas day 800 when a 26-year-old womanizing whiz kid (another James Burke description!) named Charlemagne was crowned the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Centuries later Voltaire was to joke that the empire was neither holy nor roman. In any case, a sort of mini-renaissance began later named the Carolingian Renaissance. Ever heard of it? No surprise there since it didn't last much beyond Charlemagne’s lifetime. So back into darkness until something major happened in 1096.
It was in this year that the first Crusade was mounted to save the Holy Land from the Arabs who had taken over. In doing so we discovered two things. First, the Arabs were not the culturally backward people we had taken them for. Quite the opposite. They had kept the flame of learning alive ever since the days of Aristotle with whom they were quite familiar because they had copies of his texts. This was the second thing we discovered, namely much of the knowledge we had given up for lost centuries earlier. It was all there for the taking except for one problem. We couldn't understand it.
We couldn’t understand it for two reasons. First, we couldn't read Arabic. No problem there, just hire translators who could translate Arabic into Spanish (for example), and then the Spanish could be translated into Latin so the rest of Europe could read it. This led to the second problem which was that we couldn't understand what we were reading because the concepts were light years ahead of what the West knew at the time; knowledge had taken a few steps backward thanks in part to Augustine's attitude of not bothering about the visible world. So in some cases, we couldn't even translate Arabic because we didn't have a word for it. This is when a lot of scientific words from Arabic crept into our language. Words like elixir, algebra, and azimuth. And one really weird mathematical concept no one had ever heard of before; zero!
Naturally with the re-discovery of Aristotle's work his theories were to dominate again though not without a fight. But by 1150 when the University of Paris was up and running, Aristotle was back in the academy full force. His major advocate was a short-lived philosopher/theologian nicknamed the dumb ox: Thomas Aquinas. We'll be discussing his proofs for the existence of God later in the book. Ironically, the dominance of Aristotle was to have the same effect this time as it did the first time around. It prevented questioning and new developments. If The Philosopher (this was what they called Aristotle at the time) had said it, it must be true. So Aristotle became the dominant thinker and ruled all areas including Church orthodoxy and scientific thinking. If you're beginning to tire of this unquestioned authority dominating all thinking, don't worry. It came to an end.
The end was to be precipitated, in part, by three major events. We won't be able to deal with all three in-depth but I will mention them in passing. The first was the Protestant Reformation which began the end of Aristotle's rule of theology in 1517. The second was the publication in 1543 of a work by a priest named Copernicus who openly questioned Aristotle's cosmology. Just so you know, this kind of thing was dangerous to do, and in 1633 Galileo was put under house arrest for agreeing with Copernicus. The third event, and for our story the most important, was the birth of Rene Descartes in 1596.
Descartes saw it as his purpose to reawaken philosophy from its centuries-long slumber. Ironic when you consider that Descartes himself never liked to get up before noon! First and foremost Descartes was seeking certainty; in philosophy if not in life. Put yourself in his place. A mere fifty years before his birth we discover that Aristotle (and all of science) had been very wrong about the place of the Earth in the cosmos. Once thought the center of the universe it now seemed that the Earth was one planet among many orbiting the sun. Add to this, the religious turmoil that Europe was in because of the Reformation and the counter-reformation the effects of which were felt in Descartes's lifetime with the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Who wouldn't want a little certainty and peace of mind with all this going on! And it was precisely to the mind that Descartes would turn for this certainty.
It has been said that Descartes did not do a stitch of useful work his entire life. He variously described himself as a soldier, scholar, and gentleman. The last probably comes closest to the mark. As I said before he never liked to rise before noon, he lived on a private inheritance (in case you were wondering what philosophers did to earn a living in many cases the answer was nothing!), and did nothing very dramatic at all except for revolutionizing philosophy. Descartes himself claims that he wrote his Meditations to make philosophy enticing to women. If this is true he succeeded too well. The Queen of Sweden became enamored of him and wanted Descartes to become her personal tutor. Her only requirement was that she be given her lessons at 5:00 AM. So Descartes was obliged to trudge out in the early morning Swedish winter and you can guess how long that lasted. Within a year he was dead.
Descartes transformed philosophy in several important ways. Instead of appealing to authority as Aquinas did, Descartes' philosophy is written almost entirely in the first person. The point is that one can deduce fundamental truths about reality through one's thinking without appealing to others. Descartes appeals to the commonality of his experiences to explain his philosophical insights. So he invites us to consider how often we have had the same experiences he has had: doubting sense experience, vivid dreams, the idea of God. If we can identify with these experiences we can more fully understand Descartes' philosophy.
In examining the Meditations on First Philosophy we will address three components of Cartesian philosophy: the deduction of the mind, the deduction of God, and the deduction of material substance. In doing so it should become clear that Descartes is proceeding in a partially Platonic fashion. I say partially because even though Descartes is a rationalist he is not as radical as Plato. For Descartes, some knowledge is innate but not all. There is a role for sense experience in our knowledge. Also similar to Plato, Descartes is a dualist. He believes in two fundamentally different substances: mind and matter. Again though there are differences between Cartesian and Platonic dualism. While Plato focuses on a dualism of worlds, one transcendent and one here, Descartes focuses on the dualism of human beings who are composed of a mental and a physical substance.
However, Descartes' most famous contribution to philosophy is perhaps his beginning; his method of doubt. It is to this method and the Meditations that we now turn.
The disagreement between Plato and Aristotle over metaphysical issues was bound to give rise to a certain amount of skepticism about our ability to gain knowledge of the fundamental structure of reality and so it was around this time (200 C.E.) that the writings of Sextus Empiricus gained popularity. Given the disagreements between the two great philosophers, and the fact that they seemed to appeal to the same evidence to back up their theories, the skeptics advocated suspending judgment on such questions. This attitude was supposed to achieve a state of mental calm not unlike the Stoic attitude of resignation in the face of fate.
Still, Aristotle did not rule uncontested. Given the serious challenge, he put forward against Platonic theory it is also not surprising that a resurgence of Plato's ideas was to be seen. The great champion of Neo-Platonism in the third century was Plotinus though the more famous figure to defend Platonism and make it fit with the rising new religion of Christianity was, as James Burke puts it, an ex-nightclubber turned bishop named Augustine. Come the fall of the Roman Empire in 410, Augustine was to be important in the perpetuation of Platonic theory for centuries.
With the fall of Rome, the emphasis was placed much more on life in the hereafter rather than life here. Civilization was coming to a most inglorious end and life in this world was not nearly as important as gaining a place in the transcendent world. This should sound very much like Plato indeed. But because of this attitude philosophy was to stagnate for centuries. After all what use was there to learn about this world? Just as well since after the fall of Rome, we lost much of the knowledge from the Greek and Roman worlds when many of the manuscripts were lost due in large part to the destruction of the great library at Alexandria; Aristotle, tragically, was among the lost. So with a few exceptions darkness fell, at least in the West, the East as we'll see in a moment was a different story.
Things started to take a turn for the so-so on Christmas day 800 when a 26-year-old womanizing whiz kid (another James Burke description!) named Charlemagne was crowned the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Centuries later Voltaire was to joke that the empire was neither holy nor roman. In any case, a sort of mini-renaissance began later named the Carolingian Renaissance. Ever heard of it? No surprise there since it didn't last much beyond Charlemagne’s lifetime. So back into darkness until something major happened in 1096.
It was in this year that the first Crusade was mounted to save the Holy Land from the Arabs who had taken over. In doing so we discovered two things. First, the Arabs were not the culturally backward people we had taken them for. Quite the opposite. They had kept the flame of learning alive ever since the days of Aristotle with whom they were quite familiar because they had copies of his texts. This was the second thing we discovered, namely much of the knowledge we had given up for lost centuries earlier. It was all there for the taking except for one problem. We couldn't understand it.
We couldn’t understand it for two reasons. First, we couldn't read Arabic. No problem there, just hire translators who could translate Arabic into Spanish (for example), and then the Spanish could be translated into Latin so the rest of Europe could read it. This led to the second problem which was that we couldn't understand what we were reading because the concepts were light years ahead of what the West knew at the time; knowledge had taken a few steps backward thanks in part to Augustine's attitude of not bothering about the visible world. So in some cases, we couldn't even translate Arabic because we didn't have a word for it. This is when a lot of scientific words from Arabic crept into our language. Words like elixir, algebra, and azimuth. And one really weird mathematical concept no one had ever heard of before; zero!
Naturally with the re-discovery of Aristotle's work his theories were to dominate again though not without a fight. But by 1150 when the University of Paris was up and running, Aristotle was back in the academy full force. His major advocate was a short-lived philosopher/theologian nicknamed the dumb ox: Thomas Aquinas. We'll be discussing his proofs for the existence of God later in the book. Ironically, the dominance of Aristotle was to have the same effect this time as it did the first time around. It prevented questioning and new developments. If The Philosopher (this was what they called Aristotle at the time) had said it, it must be true. So Aristotle became the dominant thinker and ruled all areas including Church orthodoxy and scientific thinking. If you're beginning to tire of this unquestioned authority dominating all thinking, don't worry. It came to an end.
The end was to be precipitated, in part, by three major events. We won't be able to deal with all three in-depth but I will mention them in passing. The first was the Protestant Reformation which began the end of Aristotle's rule of theology in 1517. The second was the publication in 1543 of a work by a priest named Copernicus who openly questioned Aristotle's cosmology. Just so you know, this kind of thing was dangerous to do, and in 1633 Galileo was put under house arrest for agreeing with Copernicus. The third event, and for our story the most important, was the birth of Rene Descartes in 1596.
Descartes saw it as his purpose to reawaken philosophy from its centuries-long slumber. Ironic when you consider that Descartes himself never liked to get up before noon! First and foremost Descartes was seeking certainty; in philosophy if not in life. Put yourself in his place. A mere fifty years before his birth we discover that Aristotle (and all of science) had been very wrong about the place of the Earth in the cosmos. Once thought the center of the universe it now seemed that the Earth was one planet among many orbiting the sun. Add to this, the religious turmoil that Europe was in because of the Reformation and the counter-reformation the effects of which were felt in Descartes's lifetime with the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Who wouldn't want a little certainty and peace of mind with all this going on! And it was precisely to the mind that Descartes would turn for this certainty.
It has been said that Descartes did not do a stitch of useful work his entire life. He variously described himself as a soldier, scholar, and gentleman. The last probably comes closest to the mark. As I said before he never liked to rise before noon, he lived on a private inheritance (in case you were wondering what philosophers did to earn a living in many cases the answer was nothing!), and did nothing very dramatic at all except for revolutionizing philosophy. Descartes himself claims that he wrote his Meditations to make philosophy enticing to women. If this is true he succeeded too well. The Queen of Sweden became enamored of him and wanted Descartes to become her personal tutor. Her only requirement was that she be given her lessons at 5:00 AM. So Descartes was obliged to trudge out in the early morning Swedish winter and you can guess how long that lasted. Within a year he was dead.
Descartes transformed philosophy in several important ways. Instead of appealing to authority as Aquinas did, Descartes' philosophy is written almost entirely in the first person. The point is that one can deduce fundamental truths about reality through one's thinking without appealing to others. Descartes appeals to the commonality of his experiences to explain his philosophical insights. So he invites us to consider how often we have had the same experiences he has had: doubting sense experience, vivid dreams, the idea of God. If we can identify with these experiences we can more fully understand Descartes' philosophy.
In examining the Meditations on First Philosophy we will address three components of Cartesian philosophy: the deduction of the mind, the deduction of God, and the deduction of material substance. In doing so it should become clear that Descartes is proceeding in a partially Platonic fashion. I say partially because even though Descartes is a rationalist he is not as radical as Plato. For Descartes, some knowledge is innate but not all. There is a role for sense experience in our knowledge. Also similar to Plato, Descartes is a dualist. He believes in two fundamentally different substances: mind and matter. Again though there are differences between Cartesian and Platonic dualism. While Plato focuses on a dualism of worlds, one transcendent and one here, Descartes focuses on the dualism of human beings who are composed of a mental and a physical substance.
However, Descartes' most famous contribution to philosophy is perhaps his beginning; his method of doubt. It is to this method and the Meditations that we now turn.