MS of Plato's Timaeus iIn Latin.
Translation and commentary by Calcidius
Thanks to The Library of Congress
MS of Plato's Timaeus iIn Latin. Thanks to The Library of Congress |
An anachronistic fifteenth-century miniature depicting the precedent-setting sack of Rome by the Visigoths in AD 410. Thanks to Wikipedia |
What had gone immediately before was the Roman empire, just in the process of falling apart as one of the central medieval philosophers, Augustine (he was converted to Christianity in 387 AD) was coming together. Augustine was writing his best philosophy as Rome was under sack by the Visigoths in 410 AD.
But before Rome there had been Greece, and the civilisation of Ancient Greece maintained its philosophical presence (and not only that) throughout the fearful story that was Rome.
MS of Lucretius, De rerum natura in Latin. Thanks to The Library of Congress |
There were Roman writers who may be looked upon as making contributions to philosophy - Lucretius, for example, (1st century BC - De Rerum Natura is often dated 55 BC) and Cicero (Born 106 BC), who drew on him. (Kenny, AP, p.101). Seneca was tutor to the young Nero (in the 1st Century AD). In the first and second centuries AD there was also a fresh endeavour to present again the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Plutarch (c.46-c120) argued for Platonism, others began the influential tradition of writing detailed commentaries on Aristotle. In the third Century AD Plotinus (AD 205 - 70) perpetuated the neo-platonic tradition.
There was also the philosophy belonging to the Jewish tradition, making itself heard at and shortly after the time of Jesus of Nazareth through the writings of Philo (1st Century) (Kenny, AD, p.104.) And there was the philosophy of Christianity itself.
The result was that someone in Augustine's position in the 4th Century AD had Greek philosophy to draw on, and Roman, and Jewish, and Christian.
Augustine was the thinker who launched the 'medieval' period, constructing a synthesis of Christian Jewish and Greek which set the scene for the ensuing thousand years of philosophical thought.
Avicenna (al-Husain, b. Abdallah Ibn Sina, d. 1037), Avicennae
canonis libri in Latin Thanks to The Library of Congress |
There were great, and perhaps greater, thinkers to come of course, and for them, at least those who wrote from the 10th Century onward, thought from another tradition began to flow into the West: the philosophy of Islam, and associated with it, a great tranch of the thought of Aristotle, translated into Arabic under the sponsorship of the court of Baghdad between 750 and 900 AD by Muslim scholars. (Kenny, MP, 34) The leading Muslim philosopher, Ibn Sina (980-1037 AD) was known in the West as Avicenna, followed by Ibn Rushd (1126-98) - Averroes. (Kenny, MP, 48).
By the time of Aquinas (1225?- 1274 AD), and the Schoolmen, all these streams were in flow.
