Italian Aristotelianism

From the middle ages through the Renaissance, Italy was host to a flourishing development of relatively naturalistic Aristotelianism. Especially in northern Italy and unlike most of the rest of Europe, universities there tended to be dominated by medical rather than theological faculties. Albert the Great and Averroes were among the strongest influences on this tradition, and many of the Italians did not shy away from the controversial aspects of Averroes. Contemporary scholars debate how “Averroist” particular figures were, but it is no accident that the first printed editions of the collected works of Aristotle (16th century) included the commentaries of Averroes, and were published in northern Italy.

The long list of people who taught in Italy and have been described by scholars as broadly Averroist (with different caveats for each) includes John of Jandun (1285 – 1328), Marsilius of Padua (1275 – 1342), Taddeo da Parma (early 14th century), Gaetano da Thiene (1387 – 1465), Nicoletto Vernia (1442 – 1499), Agostino Nifo (1473 – 1545), and Marcantonio Zimara (1460 – 1532).

An important freethinking non-Averroist Aristotelian in the Renaissance was Pietro Pomponazzi (1462 – 1525). Other Italian scholastics who were largely naturalistic in their approach included Pietro D’Abano (1257 – 1313) and Biagio da Parma (1350 – 1416).

Leading Italian Aristotelian logicians included Paul of Venice (1369 – 1429), who wrote a giant summa of logic. Giacomo Zabarella (1533 – 1589) wrote extensively on logical methodology and natural philosophy, and also influenced German Protestant scholars..

Aquinas was Italian, and Italy was also home to the important Thomist, Thomas Cajetan (1469 – 1534).

In the 15th century, older Greek commentaries on Aristotle were rediscovered by Italian scholars. Some were misled into thinking that the heavily neoplatonizing readings of a commentator like Simplicius (490 – 560) must be closer to the original Aristotle than those of the much later Arab, Averroes.

The Style of Albert

Along with the more Augustinian Roger Bacon, in the mid-13th century Albert the Great was among the first of the Latins to lecture on works of Aristotle newly translated from the Arabic. Reportedly, he dressed as an Arab while doing so. In the late 20th century, Pope John Paul II singled out Albert as a patron of the reconciliation of science and religion.

Albert was also the teacher and mentor of Thomas Aquinas. Commentaries on Aristotle by the young Aquinas include lengthy sections largely borrowed from the commentaries of Albert. After Aquinas had died at a relatively young age, some of his teachings were included by the bishop of Paris in the sweeping condemnation of 1277 (see Errors of the Philosophers), and the elderly Albert traveled from Germany back to Paris to defend his student.

Unlike Aquinas, Albert developed a pattern of distinguishing between purely philosophical and theological discourses. He would say, “now I speak as a philosopher”, and then “now I speak as a theologian”. There was still significant overlap between the two, but this lent authority to the idea of allowing space for purely philosophical discourse. Some later scholastics preferred Albert to Aquinas for this reason.

Among the German Dominicans, there was a significant “Albertist” school. The independent-minded Albertist Dietrich of Freiberg (1250 – 1310), who also made scientific contributions, criticized Aquinas for misusing Aristotelian concepts in his theological account of the Eucharist. Contemporary scholars like Alain de Libera and Kurt Flasch have also brought to light broadly Albertist roots of the profound Christian neoplatonic spirituality of figures like the great Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328). (See also Fortunes of Aristotle.)

Scholastic Dialectic

Latin scholasticism actually evinced more concern with fine points of philosophical argument than any broad philosophical tendency prior to modern analytic philosophy. Many authors followed a pattern in which some assertion would be introduced, followed by arguments for and against the assertion, followed by replies of each side to the arguments of the other, thus simulating a formal debate. Only then would the author conclude with “I say…” and give his own reasons. This resembles what happens when people play chess against themselves, still trying to win every time they turn the board around. It promotes a kind of intellectual honesty and thoroughness.

In the 2nd century BCE, the skeptical Platonist Carneades had bewildered the Romans by arguing both sides of a question with equal vigor. Latin scholastics did take a position by the end of their discourses, but scholars have sometimes wondered if all of these conclusions should be taken at face value, because sometimes earlier arguments for an opposed point of view seem stronger. For some authors, making a strong case for an argument and then appearing to reject it may have been a way to preserve controversial arguments for posterity.

This was a particular historical form, broadly influenced by both Platonic and Aristotelian dialectic. Various conventions in the use of natural language were developed to promote unambiguous interpretations of logical meaning. The style in which arguments were presented can sometimes seem imposing due to its complex semi-formal character, particularly in authors like Aquinas, but the spirit of debate was quite lively.

I have noted that the Arabic tradition had tended to downplay the role of dialectic and practical judgment in Aristotle, in favor of stricter deductive “science”. The Latin tradition absorbed this reverence for deductive science, while re-establishing a strong role for a kind of dialectic.

Historiography, Inferentialism

Having laid out some preliminaries, I’ve begun to circle back to more questions of historical detail related to the development here, and it seems fitting to summarize the motivations driving these more historical notes. History is all about the details, but in any inquiry, what are actually higher-order questions about methodology ought to inform primary investigations. We never just have data; it always has to be interpreted, and this involves questions about methodology. With history, this often involves critical examination of the applicability of categories that may tend to be taken for granted. Thus, I am adding notes about the application of various categories or concepts in particular historical settings, and about historical details that seem to have larger methodological significance.

I’m looking back at the history of philosophy (and, to some extent, broader cultural developments) from a point of view inspired by the “inferentialism” of Brandom (taking this as a general name for his point of view), as well as by my own ideas for a revitalized Aristotelianism. In Tales of the Mighty Dead and elsewhere, Brandom himself has effectively placed the historical roots of his development in the broad tradition of early modern philosophical rationalism, including the work of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. I find standard connotations of the term “rationalism” rather problematic, and want to separate Descartes — of whom I am much more sharply critical than Brandom seems to be — from Spinoza and Leibniz, for whom I find additional reasons to be sympathetic. Brandom has contributed to a new understanding of Kant, and has developed a landmark reading of Hegel. I want to help support the broad thrust of these with historical considerations, while reconnecting them with fresh readings of Aristotle, Plato, and other historical philosophers. With some caveats and in spite of Brandom’s own brief comments, I also want to suggest a possible rapprochement with key insights of 20th century French “structuralism”.

A key point common to most of the tendencies mentioned above is an emphasis on the role of difference in making things intelligible. In the context of philosophical arguments, this means that critical distinctions are as important as positive assertions. Contrasts not only greatly facilitate but largely shape understanding. Brandom himself has developed the contrast between inferentialism and the representationalism of Descartes and Locke. He has made large use of Wilfrid Sellars’ critique of a “Myth of the Given” associated with most varieties of empiricism, and has also referenced the critique of psychologism developed by Frege and others in a logical context.

I have been using the term “mentalism” for a privileging of contents that are supposed to be immediately present to a personal “mind” that is itself conceived mainly in terms of immediate awareness. It seems to me that Descartes and Locke’s version of this was a historically specific combination of all the above notions from which an inferentialism would seek to distinguish itself — representationalism, the Myth of the Given, and psychologism. I have been concerned to point out not only that Cartesian-Lockean mentalism has historically specific antecedents that long predate modernity (going back to Augustine, with some foreshadowing in Plotinus), but also that a proto-inferentialist countertrend is actually even older, going back to Plato and Aristotle’s emphasis on the primacy of reason and reasoned development.

In A Spirit of Trust, Brandom has among many other things expanded on Hegel’s critique of Mastery. I find this to be of tremendous importance for ethics, and consonant with my structuralist sympathies. I have been concerned to point out how extreme claims of mastery are implicit in the various historical kinds of voluntarism, which all want to put some notion of arbitrary will — or authority attributed one-sidedly to such a will — ahead of consideration of what is reasonable and good.

Usual generalization caveats apply to statements about “isms”. In any particular case where the terms seem to apply, we need to look at relevant details, and be alert to the possibility that all aspects of a generalized argument may not apply straightforwardly. (See also Historiography; History of Philosophy.)

Nominalist Controversies

Especially in the 14th century, controversies associated with the opposition between nominalism and realism greatly exercised philosophers and theologians in the Latin West. These terms have been been variously understood, but as a first approximation, nominalism wants to deny claims about the real basis of abstractions that the realism of this context wants to affirm.

In this case, a polar opposition is concealed behind a pair of concrete terms (nominalism, realism), where in context one is understood as the simple negation of the other. As usual with debates around distinctions based on polar opposition rather than more limited and definite determinate negation, the greatest interest often lies in the way each side tries to recover something like the strong points of the other side, but in its own terms.

These controversies are worth lingering over for several reasons. For one thing, they help illustrate the great diversity, subtlety, and liveliness of medieval thought. For another, they develop many fine distinctions that are of lasting value in talking about human knowledge and understanding. We would all like to rightly apprehend things, whatever that means. The waters are commonly muddied not only by insufficient distinctions among things, but also by fundamental unclarity or ambiguity on the meaning of “existence” or “reality”, which gets worse where abstract things are involved. Who we might think was right in the debates is of secondary importance compared to clarifications of this kind. Finally, these debates involved much discussion of mental representation, its origins, and its role in thought.

Speaking with very broad brush, nominalism begins as a critique of a sort of “platonism”. Such platonism wants to say the universal is more real than the particular. It may go on to claim that abstract entities are as real as — or more real than — concrete ones. It may extend to further claims that universals simply “exist” in some pure way, independent of space and time. Nominalism in general wants to say the opposite, that universals are actually not real at all.

Aristotle already criticized platonist views of the sort just mentioned, while still maintaining that the development of universals is essential to knowledge. I think that in the big picture, he wanted to recommend an essentially even-handed approach, recognizing both universals and particulars as necessary to any developed view of experience, while pointing out their very different and complementary roles. Whatever we may think about the reality or unreality or existence or nonexistence of given things or of various kinds of things, we need universals to support the implicit reasoning standing behind any developed knowledge. We also need particulars as practical starting points, and as cross-checks to keep us honest. This does not yet make any claim about reality or existence that might support such needs. Aristotle often practiced a careful minimalism, sticking to essentials and leaving other questions open, and this is a good case in point.

Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas wanted to develop Aristotle’s position into a firmer doctrine, classically called moderate realism. Most people agree that Aristotle thought universals do not “exist” independently of particular things and thought. Albert and Thomas argued that implicitly, what Aristotle said committed him to 1) a claim that universals are real and 2) a claim that universals exist, but only in concrete things and in thought.

Nominalists especially disputed the claim that universals exist in concrete things. They most commonly advocated a mental origin of universals, while differing on the precise status attributed to them. Already in the 12th century, Roscellinus had argued that universals are mere names (root of the word “nominalism”). Whether or not the great Peter Abelard should be interpreted as a nominalist or a middle-of-the road “conceptualist” is contested among scholars.

The theologian William of Occam (1285 – 1347) was the most famous medieval nominalist. Early in his career, he argued that universals were ficta (“fictions”) of the mind. Later, he worried that this still tacitly presupposed they were representations, which would seem to still imply something corresponding to them in external objects. He then argued that external objects have causal impact on the mind, but not by representation.

The important secular master John Buridan (1301 – 1358) is usually also called a nominalist. Buridan was one of the leading logicians of the middle ages, and wrote on a wide range of philosophical questions. He had several noteworthy students who are also considered nominalists, including the logician, natural philosopher, and bishop Albert of Saxony (1320 – 1390). Marsilius of Inghen (1340 – 1396) was another nominalist who wrote on logic, natural philosophy, and theology. The theologian Gregory of Rimini (1300 – 1358) is also considered a nominalist.

The great theologian John Duns Scotus (1265 – 1308) was a commited realist who nonetheless influenced Occam on some relatively unrelated points. The influential Walter Burley (1275 – 1344) is sometimes called an extreme realist. Paul of Venice (1369 – 1429) was formerly classed as a nominalist, but is now considered a realist.

Among those who were called nominalists, there were many different views and distinctions related to the complex medieval theories of sensible and intelligible “species”. In one aspect, these were mental representations, but theories of sensible species usually had a physical component loosely inspired by Stoicism. Occam denied species, while Buridan made use of them.

From the 12th century onward, Latin philosophers developed sophisticated original theories of the different kinds of “supposition”, or generic ways in which something said can be meant. The general notion was that the kind of supposition that should be read into a concrete utterance should be determined by analyzing the context of the utterance in various ways. This was basically a kind of semantics. What is perhaps surprising is that broadly similar supposition theories were largely shared by dedicated nominalists like Occam and commited realists like Walter Burley, providing a common vocabulary.

On a side note, Occam’s causal impact theory seems problematic from the point of view of the development here. While its avoidance of dependence on representation is attractive, a direct causal link from external objects to thoughts does not seem adequate to account for the full range of diversity of thoughts. Also, there seems to be an incipient mentalism already at work here, related to that of Avicenna.

Occam was a theological voluntarist and a fideist. Fideism is the belief that faith offers a kind of knowledge superior to reason, an extreme position that was repeatedly condemned by the Church. Occam has nonetheless often been named as a major precursor of the point of view of modern science. Even though some connections can be made, this seems questionable as well, given his mainly theological intent and the character of the theology he promoted.

Constructive Realism?

I’ve previously suggested there should be an overlap between non-naive realism and non-subjective idealism, and indicated a preference for constructive reasoning in formal contexts. The other day I referred in passing to the “constructive-flavored” character of the principle of sufficient reason or “nothing comes from nothing”. The “flavored” suffix refers to the fact that the contexts in which the principle applies are not formal, so the application of “constructive” is somewhat metaphorical. But the connection with sufficient reason is easy to see. In constructive reasoning, every step requires evidence. Therefore, all assumptions are hypothetical or defeasible. No valid assertion “comes from nothing”. I was talking about secondary causes and neoplatonic “procession” and what not as a sort of illustration of this on the side of the development or unfolding of conceptual content. In another recent post, I was stressing the role of dialectic and practical judgment over pure deductive reasoning in Aristotle. Putting all this together, it occured to me that “non-naive realism” might be further specified as “constructive realism” (now dropping the suffix for convenience) in which the constructively flavored activity consists of said dialectic and practical judgment.

In contrast to Michael Dummet, I don’t at all see why constructive needs to mean “anti-realist”, and I don’t like such dichotomous divisions in general. A constructive realism would be about achieving realism through the mediation of concrete dialectic and practical judgment and development of content (the only way it really can be done, I think). It would thus be a mediated realism, in which the thickness of the mediation yields the substantiality of the reality.

Avicenna

The Iranian philosopher Ibn Sina (980 – 1037) — known to the Latins as Avicenna — had a large impact on Latin medieval thought. He was also an important medical authority up through the Renaissance. In terms specifically of the relation between philosophy and religion, the spirit of Ibn Sina’s work was a conciliatory one, in that way a bit like the emphasis of Aquinas on one truth. In terms of debates in the Latin world, he was most often cited by people in the broadly Augustinian as opposed to Aristotelian stream, but Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas also used some of his formulations.

Ibn Sina was original in many ways. He recounts that he improved on Aristotle by putting God at the beginning instead of the end (See First Principles Come Last; God and the Soul). He also liked to talk about Being, which seems to have caught the attention of Aquinas and Duns Scotus (see Being, Existence; Ontology). Along with Augustine, he largely anticipates the “I think, therefore I am” of Descartes. Many Augustinians found agreeable resonances in things he said about what I am here calling subjectivity (see Augustinian Interiority). None of this seems particularly like a recommendation to me. Where Averroes criticized Avicenna from a more purely Aristotelian point of view (as he often did), I think the arguments of Averroes generally seem much more sound.

The Latin translations of Avicenna’s works introduced the Latin term for representation into philosophical discourse. Early antecedents of modern mentalism can be found in Augustine, and to some extent even further back in Plotinus, but Avicenna contributed significantly to its crystallization. He introduced the terminology of intentionality, as well as a pregnant distinction between “first” and “second” intentions. First intentions were a kind of immediate mental objects, while second intentions applied to thoughts about the first. Here, I believe, is the historical source of the two-stage theory of representation that Brandom has been concerned to criticize. Descartes and Locke picked it up from the Latin scholastics.

The German philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote an intriguing — but I think misguided — little book called Avicenna und die Aristotelische Linke (1952). By analogy with the historical category of “Left Hegelianism”, he wanted to develop a concept of “Left Aristotelianism” in the Latin middle ages. His selection of Avicenna as its main representative is quite perplexing in view of the way citations to Avicenna most often figured in Latin disputation, where they were most often used to support what seem to me like more conservative, “Augustinian” positions in opposition to more Aristotelian positions. Bloch does quote some interesting passages about the concept of matter. To me, these seem possibly related to the notion of multiple substantial forms, which was one of the biggest points of contention between Augustinians and Latin Aristotelians.

(Albert the Great and Aquinas wanted to strongly insist that each thing has a single substantial form. What makes this difficult to evaluate is that the specific notion of “substantial” form is a much later — and much narrower and more univocal — invention not clearly apparent in Aristotle’s own works. So, the single-substantial-form thesis cannot be Aristotle’s own, and I don’t feel a need to defend it, even though I usually strongly favor the Aristotelian side in Augustinian-versus-Aristotelian disputes. Consequently, even though (as I understand it) one of the main motivations for the multiple-substantial-forms thesis was to support a very non-Aristotelian dualism of soul and body and I don’t like that motivation, the idea itself of multiple forms does not seem inherently bad. It might be understood as a sort of reification of the different senses or meanings of “form” in Aristotle.)

Belief

Al-Farabi’s 10th century reading of Aristotle — which set many patterns for later Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin developments — was generally historically salutary, but among other things reflected a definite “theoreticist” bias, strongly privileging episteme (“deductive science”, or knowledge in a strong sense) over dialectic and practical judgment. It was not until Kant that this bias began to be counterbalanced again. Even Hegel still understated the role of dialectic and practical judgment in Aristotle. (See also Aristotelian Demonstration; The Epistemic Modesty of Plato and Aristotle.)

It is in this context of dialectic and practical judgment that I want to think about belief. I have a bit of a double meaning in mind, recalling both discussions among analytic philosophers and questions about faith and reason.

To the analytic philosophers, I want to recommend a pragmatically flavored emphasis on sound belief as a result of dialectic and practical judgment, to replace many uses of “true belief” that is supposed to simply correspond to a state of affairs. (See also “Said Of”; Brandom on Truth; Commitment.)

In the context of faith and reason, I want to respectfully recommend that faith should be decoupled from a list of things one is supposed to assert or “believe”. I have always believed that the highest concept of faith is instead a pure affective attitude and way of being and doing that resembles hope and charity and an anticipation of grace. (See also Theology.)

Errors of the Philosophers

As the works of Aristotle and other authors translated from the Arabic became unbanned and began to be understood, this caused considerable tension in the previously insular Latin West. Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, and others worked to reconcile the two intersecting traditions. Secular masters of arts who were not theologians often concentrated mainly on reading the new texts as they stood — a tradition that continued through the Renaissance. The bishop of Paris issued lists of condemned propositions in 1270 and 1277 (see Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Scholars generally agree that there was no coherent group or single individual targeted by the whole of the longer 1277 one, which also contained a few propositions endorsed by the not-yet-canonized Aquinas.

In the 20th century, Pierre Duhem influentially claimed that the 1277 condemnation had a large positive effect on nascent medieval natural science, by freeing it from the alleged dogmatism of Aristotle, but with more research, scholarly consensus has backed sharply away from this (although I think there is still some distance to go). This is a good example of the lingering effects of anti-Aristotelian prejudice. Contrary to the stereotype, medieval Aristotelians often cheerfully adopted new ideas when they seemed to have merit, and Italian Aristotelianism in particular was especially friendly to such developments.

A little treatise attributed to Giles of Rome (excerpt relating to Aristotle here) on “the errors of the philosophers” appeared around 1270. In other writings, Giles was by no means hostile to all philosophy, but here he focused on matters of theological concern at the time, with a bit more motivation and analysis than the actual condemnations. “Philosophers” refers with some specificity to the canon of falsafa translated from the Arabic.

As Giles analyzed it, the main issue underlying concerns about Aristotle himself lay in the principle that later scholastics referred to as “nothing comes from nothing”, and that Leibniz later endorsed as the principle of sufficient reason. Leibniz and others found this constructive-flavored notion implicit in Aristotelian and neoplatonic thought to be compatible with theological concerns. More generally, many theologians have found ways to read the broad spirit of Greek rationalism and naturalism as not inherently opposed to their concerns. Greek rationalism and naturalism, unlike many of their modern variants, were not reductive in nature. The thought of Aristotle in particular provides sophisticated resources for integrating concepts of immanent purpose in a rational account of the world that makes no special pleadings.

The notion of creation from nothing is itself a theological interpretation not literally present in Genesis, but creation in time is literally present, and many theologians have been reluctant to give it a figurative interpretation, even though broad principles of interpretation as far back as Augustine allow for figurative interpretation when there are issues with a literal reading. Aquinas, for one, took a diplomatic middle position that reason cannot decide between possibilities of eternal creation or creation in time, so he adopted a forgiving attitude toward Aristotle on the related question of the eternity of the world. I believe Aristotle and the neoplatonists on the other hand clearly thought reason did rule out a creation in time, and that this did not in any way destroy higher spiritual values. Personally, I want to say that they were right on this, so I respectfully disagree with the diplomatic Thomistic position, while considering it historically progressive in its context. (See also Fortunes of Aristotle; God and the Soul; Strong Omnipotence; Occasionalism; Pseudo-Dionysius on the Soul.)

Occasionalism

The conservative Sunni Islamic theologian and Sufi al-Ghazali (1058 – 1111 CE) wrote a famous denunciation of philosophers in Islam, called The Incoherence of the Philosophers. (In Latin, “incoherence” was rendered as “destruction”.) This was a classic statement of the occasionalist doctrine that everything that happens is directly caused by the will of God, and all other explanations are illusory. This is a kind of consequence of strong theological voluntarism. Spurred by the voluntarism of Descartes, many 17th century Cartesians later adopted occasionalist views. Related voluntarist views were earlier strongly voiced by Philo of Alexandria, and later in the Latin West by Franciscan theologians such as Duns Scotus and William of Occam.

The great Aristotelian commentator Ibn Rushd or Averroes responded to Ghazali on behalf of the philosophers, in a work entitled Incoherence of the Incoherence. An Islamic jurist as well as a philosopher, he argued in another work never translated to Latin that the Koran effectively tells those who are capable of rational understanding to study philosophy. In his response to Ghazali, Averroes pointed out that Ghazali’s argument made inferences from the empirical to the divine. Ghazali had said that everything that happens is deliberated and knowingly chosen by God. This actually Aristotelian terminology of deliberation and choice applies to empirical agents, insofar as they want and lack something. Averroes responded that God lacks nothing, and therefore does not choose or deliberate like a human would.

This small piece of a much larger argument is illustrative of a typical contrast. Broadly Aristotelian and neoplatonic views both emphasized the eternity of the divine as part of its perfection. They also took “secondary” causes very seriously, because they took something like Hegelian mediation seriously. Conversely, if God were directly responsible (causally or morally) for everything that happens, this would abolish all causal or moral responsibility of all other beings, and indeed all distinction whatsoever. (See also Strong Omnipotence.)