Medieval and Scholastic philosophy studies how thinkers from late antiquity through the Middle Ages connected Greek philosophy with Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology. This cheat sheet helps students track major questions about God, reason, ethics, knowledge, and reality. It is useful because many later debates in modern philosophy grew from medieval arguments about faith, logic, and metaphysics.
The focus is on clear thinkers, core arguments, and the method used in medieval schools and universities.
The most important ideas include the relationship between faith and reason, the problem of universals, proofs for God's existence, and natural law ethics. Scholastic philosophers often used a structured method: state a question, list objections, give an opposing authority, answer the question, and reply to objections. Key figures include Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Avicenna, Averroes, and Ockham.
Students should understand both the arguments themselves and the intellectual context in which they were developed.
Key Facts
- Scholastic method usually follows this structure: question, objections, contrary authority, main answer, and replies to objections.
- Augustine argued that faith seeks understanding, meaning belief can guide reason toward deeper truth.
- Anselm's ontological argument claims that God is the greatest conceivable being and must exist in reality, not only in the mind.
- Aquinas's Five Ways argue for God's existence from motion, causation, contingency, degrees of perfection, and design or purpose.
- The problem of universals asks whether general terms such as human, justice, or redness exist independently, in things, or only in the mind.
- Realism about universals says universals have some real existence, while nominalism says only individual things exist and general terms are names.
- Natural law theory says moral rules can be known through human reason because human nature has purposes or ends.
- Ockham's Razor states that, all else equal, the simplest explanation with the fewest unnecessary assumptions should be preferred.
Vocabulary
- Scholasticism
- A medieval philosophical and theological method that used logic, debate, and careful argument to examine questions of faith and reason.
- Faith and Reason
- The relationship between religious belief and rational inquiry, especially whether reason can support or clarify faith.
- Universals
- General qualities or categories, such as beauty or humanity, that can apply to many individual things.
- Natural Law
- The view that moral principles are grounded in human nature and can be discovered by reason.
- Ontological Argument
- An argument for God's existence that begins from the concept of God as the greatest conceivable being.
- Nominalism
- The view that universal terms are only names or labels and that only individual things truly exist.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Treating medieval philosophy as only religious belief is wrong because many medieval thinkers used formal logic, metaphysics, and arguments from observation.
- Confusing Augustine and Aquinas is wrong because Augustine was strongly influenced by Plato, while Aquinas developed a major synthesis of Aristotle and Christian theology.
- Saying Anselm's argument is based on scientific evidence is wrong because the ontological argument starts from the definition or idea of God.
- Assuming all Scholastics agreed is wrong because they debated major issues such as universals, divine knowledge, free will, and the limits of reason.
- Using Ockham's Razor as proof that the simplest answer is always true is wrong because it is a guideline for choosing between explanations, not a guarantee of truth.
Practice Questions
- 1 Aquinas lived from 1225 to 1274. How many years did he live, and in which century did he write?
- 2 Anselm lived from 1033 to 1109, and Ockham lived from about 1287 to 1347. About how many years passed between Anselm's birth and Ockham's birth?
- 3 Put these thinkers in chronological order: Aquinas, Augustine, Ockham, Anselm.
- 4 Explain why the Scholastic method is useful for philosophy even when people disagree about the final answer.