Middle Ages Flashcards
St Augustine, Avicenna and St Thomas Aquinas all have what in common?
They were all rationalists; Avicenna believed that reason takes sense perceptions and creates knowledge, St Thomas Aquinas believed that if knowledge based on faith alone fails the test of reason then it is not true & St Augustine believed that in the hierarchy of senses above all was reason.
Describe St Augustine’s sensible and intelligible world
The sensible world is private and governed by desire whereas the intelligible world is public and good at its source so it is where we can avoid losses from the sensible world.
Why did St Augustine believe that we sometimes see the world in ‘sensible’ ways?
He believed that because of ‘original sin’, we are governed by innate desires
What was St Augustine’s hierarchy of senses?
touch and taste, hearing and vision, inner sense, reason.
St Augustine and Plato agreed on a few things, what did they both believe about God, perception and reason?
They both believed God was not anything material, and immutable. Perception is not the source of truth and there are things that can be discovered through reason alone.
St Augustine was the first to use what in order to show the sinful nature of humans?
He was the first to use empirical observations of children.
Who introduced the Christian ideas of will and purpose in order to understand the human nature of motivation?
St Augustine
How did Avicenna expand upon Aristotle’s facultative psychology-3 souls?
Avicenna said that the vegetative soul had 3 powers; reproduction, growth and nourishment.
The sensitive soul was broken down into the interior and exterior senses; interior was divine providence and exterior senses were smell, taste, hearing and sight. Rational soul distinguishes humans from animals as the rational soul receives divine guidance.
Avicenna believed we acquired knowledge in two ways. what were they?
Avicenna believed that the divine guidance gave us knowledge. And through processing sense perceptions and reasoning also creates knowledge
Unlike Aristotle and Avicenna, St Thomas Aquinas believed that…
there is only one soul and it is united to the body.
St Thomas Aquinas understood that reason alone couldn’t produce knowledge but he did understand the importance of reason. What did he say about reason?
He said that if knowledge based on faith alone fails the test of reason then it is not true.
Which philosopher was the first to introduce the inductive approach and scientific methods?
Roger Bacon introduced the inductive approach; observation, hypothesis, experimentation and independent verification.
What is Ockham’s Razor? & where does the name come from?
Ockham’s razor is a theory that the more parsimonious explanation is likely to be the true. The name comes from the philosopher William of Ockham.
William of Ockham proposed a way between skepticism and meta-physical realism that was in contradiction with Plato’s theory of the Forms, what was it called?
Nominalism- no universals exist outside of the mind and that universals are an intention/concept of the mind (conceptualism).
Who said that humans tend to create universals from single instances through the work of the active intellect converting sense-impressions into mental imagery?
William of Ockham
