Some Great Philosophers of the Age of Perfection

ST. ANSELM IOI

Article 2. Some Great Philosophers of the Age of Perfection a) Anselm; b) Abelard; c) The Arabians; d) Albert; e) Aquinas; f) Scotus; g) Ockham.

a) Anselm

St. Anselm of Lombardy (1033-1109), Abbot of the Benedictine Monastery of Bee in Normandy, and later Archbishop of Canterbury in England, was the foremost philosopher of the 11 century.

One of his chief interests,—which led to only partial success in the efforts it engendered,—was the distinction between theology and philosophy. S t Anselm disagreed with those philosophers (such as Erigena) who held that these are really one science. But it was left for St. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13 century, to show with scientific exactness that there is a clear line of demarcation between them, and that theology (that is, supernatural theology) is one science and philosophy another.

St. Anselm offered reasoned proofs for the existence of God and for the Divine Attributes. He argued cogently in evidence of the truth that the human soul is spiritual and immortal. Although he rightly taught that the soul acquires intellectual knowledge by abstracting ideas or concepts from sense-findings, and using these in judging and in reasoning, he inclined to the Platonic doctrine that soul and body are united accidentally and not substantially; in this, of course, he was quite wrong.

The heretics of St. Anselm’s day were fond of dialectics,— that is, of fine logical reasoning; theirs was rather an abuse, than a proper use of logic. Nevertheless, many pious and learned men were led to see in dialectics a kind of snide trickery, and even a devilish device for the spread of error and the confusing of minds. St. Anselm stood sanely and firmly against this mistaken view of logic. He employed it himself with telling effect, and so routed the heretics with their own weapon. Thus he saved the good name and the splendid service of dialectics for Christian scholars; he justified for all time the use of sheer reasoning and philosophical argument in the exposition and defense of the Christian Faith. Yet he clearly declared that the Christian has no need to rational ize his Faith; possessing the Faith, reason can serve to show its truth and glory, and so attract those who have it not. The motto of St. Ansdm was “Credo ut intelligam” that is, “I believe that I may understand” : “I find in my Faith a great light which aids me in understanding other things; I do not need to philosophize about creatures to justify myself in believing.” Another motto of St. Anselm was “Fides quaerens intellectum,” “Faith seeking to understand” : that is, “If you have the Faith to begin with, you have a head-start in the work of philosophy; you need not philosophize yourself into an acceptance of the Faith.”

Perhaps St. Anselm is best remembered in our times for his famous “ontological argument” for the existence of God. This argument is not a valid one, but it has intrigued the minds of thinkers for nearly a thousand years. Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza were among famous men to study it, reshape it, and present it. Despite its attractiveness it fails to make conclusive proof. Of course, it is in no wise required. The inescapable force of the a posteriori arguments for the existence and attributes of Almighty God make other arguments superfluous. But St. Anselm, like many another since his day, thought that an a priori argument (or rather an argument a simultaneo) could be developed from the fact that man inevitably has some notion of Deity. The famous argument ran thus:

All men, even unbelievers, have an idea of God; it is the idea of the most perfect Being thinkable; Now, the idea of the most perfect Being thinkable is the idea of an existing Being (for, if it lack existence, it lacks a most notable perfection and hence is not the most perfect Being thinkable); Therefore, God really exists.

The fallacy in this argument lies in the fact that it “jumps” from the realm of thought (called the logical order) to the realm of reality outside the mind (called the ontological order), and thus leaves a gap in the reasoning. If we restate the argument, observing the strict rules of logic, we shall see that the conclusion is quite different:

God is the most perfect Being that can be thought of; Now, the most perfect Being that can be thought of must be thought of as existing; Therefore, God must be thought of as existing.

This argument is perfectly legitimate. But the fact that God must be thought of as existing cannot be used as a proof that God ac tually does exist.

Gaunilo, a critic of St. Anselm’s argument, tried to reduce it to absurdity in some such fashion as this:

I have an idea of a most beautiful and perfect floating island; Now, unless it exists, it is not most beautiful and perfect; Therefore, this floating island exists.

This nonsense merely proved the fact that Gaunilo did not understand St. Anselm’s argument. For the Saint was speaking of the First, the Infinite, the Necessary Being, not of a creatural and limited thing like a floating island. No limited thing can be limitless in perfection. No creature can be envisioned as most perfect. The very concept of a creature is the concept of a thing perfectible. St. Anselm spoke only of that Being which we cannot help thinking of (and which even atheists cannot help thinking of; for they must have an idea of what they are denying when they deny God) as absolutely perfect, as limitless in per fection, as infinite. No one needs to think of a floating island or of any limited reality. But the idea of the absolute is inevitable to normal and mature minds. Indeed, if the ontological argument did not unwarrantedly assume a priori the objective validity of

104 THE p e r f e c t in g o f p h il o s o p h y thought, it would be a cogent and irrefutable proof of God’s existence.

b) Abelard

Peter Abelard or Abaelard ( 1079-1142 ), a native of Brittany, became in early manhood the outstanding teacher of his age. He was universally regarded by his contemporaries as the greatest of living philosophers. In this opinion Peter Abelard wholeheartedly concurred. He was a fiery teacher and speaker, a clever dialectician, a man too intent on triumph in debate. There were few questions of philosophy upon which he failed to touch; there were few to which he gave thorough and complete treatment. His great service to philosophy is that he stirred up the thinkers; he awoke enthusiasm. Even his errors, championed so earnestly, aroused opposition that led to the clear exposition of many a truth that had been only half understood or but murkily explained.

Abelard rightly maintained that the use of reason is of the greatest value in setting forth the truths of Faith. Yet, despite his tendency to run to extremes, he did not declare that reason is all- sufficient (rationalism) for the full understanding of every truth. Hence is is not just to call Abelard a Rationalist, as too many have done.

In the matter of universals Abelard came near the right doctrine of Moderate Realism. In his day the terminology of this question had not been finally formulated, and hence there is some obscurity in his position.

Abelard says that God is so far above expression that all our speech about Him is figurative. Here he is wrong. God is infinite, and our minds and our mode of speech are finite. But, for all that, we can have a knowledge of God that is literally true knowledge, not figurative knowledge, even though it is never exhaustive. All that we know of as absolute perfection (that is, pure or unmixed perfection) we attribute to God literally, though in a transcendent or eminent wav.

Abelard mistakenly thought that God is compelled by His goodness to create, and to create the best of all possible worlds (theological necessitarianism and cosmological optimism). Now, compulsion in God is unthinkable, since He is infinite and supremely independent, and, being the Source of all reality, there is nothing outside God which could conceivably work an independent influence upon Him, Nor is there anything within God to compel creation. All that God has, He is. God’s Goodness is God Himself eternally subsisting. Hence the idea of compulsion in or upon God is a self-contradictory notion. God is not obliged in any way to create, nor, freely choosing to create, is He obliged to create the best of all possible worlds. As we have seen in another place, it is sufficient that His work be worthy of Him ; that it be splendidly suitable for achieving the end for which it is made.

In his studies upon the ethical question, Abelard rightly holds that God is the Supreme Good towards Which man of necessity tends. God is the ultimate end of man in all human acts. And the possession and enjoyment of this objective End is the sub jective last end of man: that is, beatitude in the possession of the Supreme Good.—In trying to fix the norm of morality, Abelard hesitates, and finally sets down two opinions, neither of which is correct He thinks that the law or line which marks off good from evil (the norm of morality) is either God’s will alone, or man’s intention. Now, the true norm of morality is God as Eternal Law, that is, God as Divine Understanding and Will, not God as Will alone. God’s will is, humanly speaking, consequent upon His knowledge of what is in line, and what is out of line, with Himself. Man’s intention cannot be the norm of morality. It is a determinant of morality in so far as a bad intention can spoil a good act and make it evil; but a good intention cannot save a bad act and make it good. The norm of morality is The Eternal Law; it is applied by human reason judging on the objective right or wrong of a situation here and now to be decided; in this service, human reason is called conscience.

c) The Arabians

Two notable philosophers among the Mohammedan Arabs of the Middle Ages must be mentioned here. These are Ibn-Sina (more commonly called by the Latinized form of his name Avicenna) and Ibn-Roschd (usually called Averroes).

Avicenna (980-1037) was a native of Bokhara; his parents were Persian-born Arabians. He was a man of intellectual gifts. A physician of renown as well as a philosopher, he is forever memorable for his book, The Canons of Medicine, which served for many years as the standard texbook for students of medical science.

Averroes (d.1198) was a Spanish-born Arab. He was a notable commentator on Aristotle as well as a distinguished thinker in his own right

The fact that the question of universals was of burning importance in the Middle Ages explains the enduring of these Arab names. For the Arabians were deeply interested in the origin of ideas, and their theories touched the very heart of the controversy on universals.

The true doctrine on ideas may be summed up thus: there are no inborn ideas; man acquires all his knowledge. Ideas result in man’s intellect from the action of the mind on the findings of sense. From these ideas others may be worked out by a further process of abstraction. So the mind rises from those ideas immediately formed upon sense-action (physical ideas) to concepts of pure quantity (mathematical ideas) and concepts of being considered apart from all the limitations of materiality (metaphysical ideas). In a word, ideas have their origin in the native power of the human mind or intellect to abstract understandable essences (called intelligible species) from sense-findings, and to hold these within itself as representations of reality. Each human being has a mind or intellect. The intellect, in so far as it abstracts ideas (or intelligible species) from sense-findings (and from ideas already formed) is called the intellectus agens or active intellect %

AVERROES AND AVICENNA 107 in so far as it expresses within itself the abstracted essences or intelligible species and holds these as representations of reality (thus knowing reality), it is called the intellectus possibUis or understanding intellect.

Now, the Arabians who followed Avicenna held the strange doctrine that there is a common intellectus agens for all men, just as there is one sun in the sky to lend light to all eyes. Averroes and his followers went further; they taught that the intellect, both agens and possibUis, is a common possession, a reality outside all individual men. Individual man has no intellect at all. His knowing-power is merely that of the senses. And, since the senses are organic (that is, dependent on bodily members), there is no justification for the conclusion that man has a spiritual element in his make-up. Therefore, man has no spiritual soul; when he dies he perishes utterly. So far Averroes the philosopher.

But Averroes the theologian, holding fast to the Koran, teaches that man has an immortal soul. Here we have the beginning of that most disastrous of all doctrines, against which the mighty St. Thomas Aquinas was to rise in towering strength: the doctrine of a twofold truth. This pernicious doctrine holds that what is true in philosophy may be false in theology, and vice versa. The twofold-truth doctrine was taught in the 13 century by Peter d ’Abano and John of Jandun in Italy, and by Siger of Brabant in the University of Paris. The doctrine is wholly indefensible, and it leads directly into the insane self-contradiction of skepticism. It is ruinous of all knowledge, of all science, of all philosophy.

The doctrine of twofold-truth is no longer defended by theorists ; St. Thomas put an enduring end to all discussion of the matter. But it endures in practice, especially in the form of a twofold morality. Thus there are people who will justify sharp practice and open savagery by quoting as sound principles the silly cliches, “Business is business” and “All’s fair in war,”—as though the business man and the soldier had a set of moral laws for office hours or term of service, and another set for private life. The modern “mercy killers” exemplify the same Satanic doctrine of a twofold morality, as do the birth-controllers, the sterilizers, and the advocates of concubinage under the name of trial-marriage. These people would have us believe that there is a moral law for ordinary people, and another moral law for the aged, the emotional, and other exceptional persons. Again, we find this evil doctrine in the writings of those who maintain (as Professor Dowden does in his biography of Shelley) that a “genius” is not bound by the ordinary laws of morality which regulate the conduct of persons of more common clay. Against the twofold-truth theory,—and its offshoot, the theory of a twofold morality,—we must take a firm stand. Truth is one, constant, consistent One truth cannot come in conflict with another truth. And the truth of morality is like all other truths. There can be no such thing as a diversity of moral codes to suit diversity of persons or circumstances.

d) Albert

S t Albert the Great, known to his contemporaries as Albert of Cologne, and frequently called by the Latin form of his name, Albertus Magnus, was bom in Swabia, part of present Germany, in the last years of the 12 century or the first years of the 13. He died in 1280. Albert was a member of the Order of St. Dominic; he was made Bishop of Ratisbon in 1260. Pre-eminently a student and teacher, he resigned his bishop’s see after three years of office. Most of his teaching was done at the universities of Paris and Cologne.

St. Albert is called “The Universal Doctor,” and the name is justified, for he was a man of enormous capacity for learning and of tireless diligence in study and research. His works are many, and they cover wide and various fields,—philosophy, theology, Scripture, natural science. His genius was analytical; he worked out an amazing amount of scientific knowledge. The synthetical power which collates, integrates, focusses, and refines the fruits of analysis, was not so marked a gift of St. Albert, although he certainly possessed it in good measure.

Albert was an Aristotelian. He purified the translations of Aristotle of much Arabian interpolation. In his treatise on Aristotle’s Physics, as well as in his own studies and experiments, Albert contributed more to the development of physical science than did the much lauded Roger Bacon.

St. Albert’s work was notable and it was nobly done. It stands upon its own merits. But, looking upon it in retrospect, we must judge that Albert’s greatest service to philosophy was the fact that he prepared the ground, so to speak, for the work of his illustrious pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas.

e) Aquinas

St. Thomas of Aquin,—more commonly called St. Thomas Aquinas, or simply Aquinas,—was born during the young manhood of St. Albert and died before him. Yet it seems natural for us to think of St. Thomas appearing on the intellectual scene after St. Albert had departed. He was a pupil of St. Albert, and this enlightened teacher recognized his genius in early student days when fellow-pupils considered Thomas only a dreamy lad of no particular talent.

Thomas was born between 1224 and 1226 in Roccasecca in Italy. He died March 7, 1274, while on his way to attend the Council of Lyons. Thus he lived, at most, but fifty years. Yet the accomplishments of his comparatively short lifetime were enough, one might suppose, for twenty men of twice his span of years. If we except Aristotle, and perhaps Augustine, the history of philosophy has no name to offer that deserves to stand in the same line with that of St. Thomas Aquinas. It may be unfair to compare Thomas with Aristotle, for Aristotle worked in the night of pagan antiquity while Thomas labored in the daylight of Christianity. Perhaps it is but just to say that, in point of natural gifts, Aristotle stands alone, and that, in point of natural and supernatural gifts combined, Aquinas far surpasses Aristotle.

S t Thomas produced a veritable library of valuable writings. These are remarkable for their scope, their completeness, their clarity. No taint of pride, no vain show of erudition for its own sake, soils any page he wrote. No man ever knew more thoroughly, and more sympathetically, the significant writings of all his predecessors in philosophy, theology, Scripture, and physical science. Thoroughly equipped with an easy mastery of the world’s worthwhile knowledge, St. Thomas brought to bear upon every question the light of his own mighty and original mind. In him the power of analysis and the power of synthesis seem equal.

Following the lead of St. Albert, S t Thomas purified many doctrines attributed to Aristotle of their Mohammedan accretions, and he induced his friend and fellow-Dominican, William of Moerbeke, an able linguist, to make a Latin translation of Aristotle from the original Greek.

S t Thomas settled the perplexing question of the distinction between philosophy and theology by justifying the principle: Sciences are distinguished one from another by their respective formal objects, and ultimately by the “formal object quo!9 We have explained this point in the Introduction (cf. Intro. 4).

In the matter of universals, S t Thomas offers compelling proof for the truth of the Aristotelian doctrine of Moderate Realism. He devotes full and detailed study to the basic concept or idea of being. This concept is the first idea in every order,—the order of time (chronological order), the order of knowledge (logical order), and the order of understandable reality (meta physical order). For the very first idea or concept acquired in life (since we are born without any equipment of ideas) is the idea of some thing, that is, of some being, and the notion of some being involves, implicitly, the notion or idea of being as such. Further, the analysis of every concept takes the mind back to the fundamental notion of being. And, finally, every reality that can be thought of as existing is necessarily understood as some thing, that is, as being.—The idea of being is truly transcendental (cf.

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS

Chap. II, Art. 2, d). Other transcendental ideas which extend or specially apply the idea of being are distinct from the idea of being by only a distinction of reason (i.e., a logical distinction) not a real distinction. These ideas are: thing, something, reality, the one, the good, the true. Together with being, these are called “the transcendentals.”

St. Thomas holds the sane Aristotelian doctrine that all human knowledge takes its beginning in the action of the senses on the bodily world around us. He rejects the Augustinian theory (favored by the Franciscan tradition) that a special divine illumination is required for certain kinds of knowledge,—such as knowledge of first principles, or knowledge of spiritual realities. Our natural knowledge, says St. Thomas, is due to the fact that the mind is equipped with a power of abstraction which it employs first upon the findings of the senses, and then upon ideas themselves for their further refinement or elaboration. Thus, as we have noticed elsewhere, the mind arises from the physical order, through the mathematical order, to the metaphysical order of concepts or ideas. Thus there are three grades of abstraction. These are truly grades or degrees; they are not merely kinds; they are like steps in one stairway. St. Thomas takes the three grades of abstraction as the basis for the general classification of sciences.

In point of physical philosophy, S t Thomas holds with Aristotle that all physical being (that is, all being subject to change) is compounded of actuality and potentiality (actus et potentia). Further, all bodily being (all ens mobile) is composed of matter and form, and, fundamentally, of prime matter and substantial farm.—St. Thomas teaches that, at any given moment, only one substantial form can in-form or actualize the same prime matter; in this point, he differs from the view (Scotistic and Franciscan) of those philosophers who defend the “plurality-of- substantial-forms theory.” Spiritual substances are pure forms. The principle of specification, by which one essential kind of substance is distinguished from every other kind, is substantial form. The principle of individuation, by which individual substances of the same species or kind are distinguished from one another, is in-formed prime matter as quantified. St. Thomas holds that the human soul is, in each man, the substantial form of the living body. The soul does not exist before its union with the body. At one and the same instant each soul is created and infused (i.e., substantially united with the body) by Almighty God.—St. Thomas rejects the Arabian doctrine of a separate and common intellect serving all men, and offers proofs for the existence of intellect as a faculty of each human individual. He shows that man has free-will, that is, that the human will is endowed with freedom of choice of means to the necessary (and not free) ultimate end, the Supreme Good.

In point of metaphysical philosophy, St. Thomas treats of being in itself, of being as it is in the mind (that is, truth and certitude).—-He asserts a real distinction (not merely a rational or logical distinction) between the essence and the existence of an existing creature.—He extends Aristotle’s doctrine of causes, and deals most profoundly with the effecting or efficient cause, and with its subsidiary, the instrumental cause. He shows that God is First Effecting Cause, that the divine “effectingness,” as act and as power, is identified with the Divine Substance. In creatures “effectingness” (or efficiency) as act and power is something really distinct from their substance; it is something they have, not something which they are; hence, faculties are things really distinct from the creatural substance which possesses and exercises them.—St. Thomas shows that God, the Necessary and Self-Subsistent First Being, is the Effecting, the Final, and the Exemplar Cause of all perfection, that is, of all positive being. He shows how God concurs with creatures in their connatural activities, and he maintains that the divine concurrence is not only simultaneous with the actions of creatures, but antecedent to such action; yet such antecedent concurrence (called physical premotion) in no wise destroys the nature of the acting creature; even if the creature be free, its freedom is not destroyed or in any sense hindered, for “God moves every being in a manner consonant with its nature.”

In point of moral philosophy or ethics, St. Thomas shows that man, in every human act (that is in every thought, word, deed, or omission which is done knowingly and freely), tends towards the Supreme Good, the possession of which will constitute man in the state of perfect beatitude. Even the sinner, perversely choosing evil, chooses it under the guise of good, that is, of something that will satisfy. Man is made for God and endless perfect happiness. This end cannot be achieved perfectly this side of heaven, but it can be approximated here on earth by living for God, by knowing, loving, serving God. Since God has made man for Himself and happiness, He has a plan, an arrangement, a law which man must follow to attain His end. In other words, the Divine Reason (that is, God as Intellect and Will) has established the law which directs all things to their last goal or end. This law is The Eternal Law. Man, when he comes to the use and practice of his mental powers, inevitably becomes aware of “an order in things” which he must not disturb but must conserve; man’s awareness of The Eternal Law is “the natural law.” And man, in all his human acts, inevitably sees them in their relation to the natural law, and mentally pronounces upon their agreement or disagreement with the natural law. Such a pronouncement is called a judgment of conscience. And thus we notice that the norm of morality is The Eternal Law as applied by conscience.

St. Thomas has been called, and with justice, the prince of philosophers and of theologians. His works merit the earnest study of every thoughtful mind.

f) Scotus

John Duns Scotus (1266/74-1308), a member of the Franciscan Order, was a philosopher of extraordinary gifts and of wondrous accomplishment. He studied at Oxford, and later taught there and at the University of Paris. He wrote commentaries on Aristotle and on other philosophers, and he pro- duced a notable treatise on theology. He also wrote Quaestiones Quodlibe tales, a discussion of a variety of questions. Many other works are attributed to Scotus. The scholarly researches of the Franciscan Friars in our own day have shown beyond doubt or question that some of these works are spurious, and that some theories long attributed to Scotus are not truly his.

Scotus is known as “the Subtle Doctor.” He had a mind of marvelous acuteness, and an untiring zeal for intricacies of discussion in which none but the keenest and most devoted students could keep pace with him. In some points he disagrees with S t Thomas, For instance, he has small reliance on the unaided human reason as the basis of certitude, and requires Faith and Revelation for the solution of some problems of philosophy. He does not agree with Thomas in point of “the principle of individuation” which he holds to be, not quantified matter, but a positive reality added to a being fully constituted in its specific nature; he calls this positive individuating reality by the name of haecceitas, which might be clumsily translated as the “thisness” of the being in question. Again, Scotus teaches that in a created being there is not a real distinction between existence and essence, nor is there merely a rational or logical distinction; the distinction in this instance is an actual formed distinction arising from the nature of the reality in which the distinction is found. This distinction (usually called “the Scotistic formal distinction” ) is, therefore, something less than real distinction, and something more than logical distinction. Again, in point of universals, Scotus accepts Moderate Realism, but his expression is involved, and some critics interpret him in such wise as to make him an Ultra-Realist. Again, Scotus defends the “plurality-of-forms theory” ; he holds that in man, in addition to the spiritual soul which is the substantial form of living man, there is a substantial body-form or “a form of corporeity.” Scotus holds that man is not moved, in his free-will acts, by the ultimate practical judgment of the mind (the ultimum judicium practicum), but that this judgment is only a condition requisite for the will’s unin- fluenced action. Scotus holds with unwavering certitude to the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, yet he teaches that its immortality is proved by an appeal to Revelation, and not by unaided reason.

A man of the highest gifts, Scotus has had, and has today, a mighty influence among Scholastic philosophers. He was the great luminary of the Franciscans as St. Thomas was the light and oracle of the Dominicans. The Thomist and the Scotist schools are in lively existence at the present time, especially in the realm of speculative theology.

Scotus was a man of most holy life; we may soon read his name in the list of the canonized saints,

g) Ockham

William of Ockham was a notable Franciscan philosopher of the 14 century. He was born about 1280 and died in 1348. The name by which this philosopher is most commonly known is that of his home town, Ockham or Ockam, of Surrey in England.

William was of impulsive and even stormy temperament, and his life was not without troubles. He wrote commentaries on the philosophy of Aristotle, on the famous “Sentences” (that is, doctrines) of Peter the Lombard, and on the writings of Porphyry.

His contemporaries hailed William as “the Venerable In- ceptor” of a theory of knowledge called Terminism. But this was really no new theory; it was merely Nominalism in a new dress and with a new name.

William of Ockham is memorable for one valuable rule for philosophers, Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate, which, translated literally, means, “Things are not to be multiplied without need” ; the force of the rule might be given in this fashion, “Explanations are to be made in the simplest and most direct fashion which the facts allow, without needless complications and distinctions.” This dictum came to be known as “Ockham’s Razor,” for it was formulated to cut away wasted verbiage and needless involvement of reasoning. It is a good rule, but William himself used it without nice discernment of when “multiplication of things” is actually necessary. He sometimes used the “razor,” not only to remove extraneous matters, but to level off the features of his subject. Like all impatient men who want to make complicated matters simple, he sometimes turned simplification into falsification. This note of impatience, this eagerness to make the deepest and most complicated questions as simple as A-B-C, was,—as is always the case when it appears in the works of men of influence,—a sign of decadence in philosophy. For any impatience with multitudinous detail indicates a loss of the philosophic temper which must be tirelessly patient. Ockham is the symbol and mark of a turning-point in philosophy. He is the last great figure in the age of perfection; some make him the first great figure in the age of transition, even when they try to hide the fact that the transition was also a retrogression. The cord of strong philosophic thought which had begun to fray under the friction of Thomistic-Scotistic argument, snapped asunder under the impatient dicta of William of Ockham. It was Eterally cut by “Ockham’s Razor.”

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have outlined some notable points in the philosophy of the more important medieval pre-Scholastics, St. Anselm, Peter Abelard, Averroes, Avicenna. We have sketched the work of the great Scholastics, St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus. We have mentioned the Terminism of William of Ockham.

The Article has extended our vocabulary of philosophical terms, and has recalled some formerly learned: a priori; a simul- taneo; a posteriori; the ontological argument; the logical order; the ontological order; pure perfection; mixed perfection; eminent perfection; the norm of morality; The Eternal Law; conscience; abstraction (physical, mathematical, metaphysical); species (sensible, intelligible); intellectus agens; intellectus possibilis; theory of twofold truth (and twofold morality) ; being; transcen dental idea; distinction (real, logical); grades of abstraction; principle of individuation; principle of specification; essence; existence; actuality; potentiality; divine concurrence; physical premotion; the Scotistic formal distinction; plurality-of-forms theory; Thomism; Scotism; Terminism; Ockham’s Razor.