Universals

With Plotinus (c. 204/5–270 CE), Neoplatonism gave ancient philosophy its last great synthesis: the ineffable One, from which all things emanate and to which all things return. But the story did not end there. In the following generations, disciples and successors transformed that vision into an ever vaster and more articulated system — and, at the same time, one ever more bound to religion and ritual. This late Neoplatonism, from Porphyry to Proclus, was the form in which Platonism reached the Latin, Arabic, and Byzantine Middle Ages. This article traces its three great names. (For the starting point, see the article on Plotinus and the emanation of the One.) ...

No twelfth-century philosopher provoked as much turbulence — intellectual and personal — as Peter Abelard (c. 1079–1142). An unmatched master of dialectic, tragic lover of Héloïse, twice condemned by the Church, he reshaped the landscape of medieval thought by subordinating authority to reason, offering an original solution to the problem of universals, and founding an ethics centered on individual conscience. His life reads like a classical tragedy; his philosophy anticipates problems that would occupy the scholastics for centuries. ...

Abelardo (Peter Abelard) The most brilliant and controversial intellectual of the 12th century. Also famous for his tragic love affair with Heloise (castrated by order of her uncle). He proposed conceptualism in the dispute over universals and introduced dialectical reason into theology. “I understand in order to believe” — reason must examine before accepting by faith (an inversion of Anselm of Canterbury). Key Concepts Conceptualism (universalia post rem): universals are abstract concepts in the mind, neither real things separate from particulars (Plato) nor mere names (Roscellinus) Sic et Non: dialectical method — 158 theological questions answered with contradictory authorities; reason must resolve the contradiction Morality of intention: the act is neutral; good/evil resides in conscious intention Distinction: understanding (reason + faith) vs. comprehension (exclusive gift of God) Influenced by Anselm of Canterbury (criticizes exaggerated realism) Boethius — Aristotelian logic Influenced Thomas Aquinas — scholastic method of questions and solutions; ethics of intention Modern ethics of conscience and intention Works Sic et Non; Ethics or Know Thyself; Story of My Misfortunes (Historia Calamitatum). ...

Porphyry Porphyry of Tyre — in Greek Porphýrios, a name adopted in place of his Semitic birth name Malchus (“king” in Phoenician) — was born around 234 CE in Tyre (on the coast of present-day Lebanon) and died around 305 CE. A caveat: he should not be confused with Porphyry of Gaza (5th century), a Christian bishop with the same name, nor with other late-antique figures bearing it. After studying in Athens with Cassius Longinus, in around 263 CE he joined the circle of Plotinus in Rome, of whom he became the most celebrated pupil. He served as editor of the Enneads (posthumously published c. 301), arranging the master’s writings into six groups of nine treatises and prefacing them with the Vita Plotini (Life of Plotinus) — a fundamental biographical source on Plotinus. His influence, however, reaches far beyond his editorial work: through the Isagoge, Porphyry shaped the entry of Aristotelian logic into the medieval world. ...