Rich, (01)
Your questions get into nearly every issue about the history of ideas
and politics of the past few millennia. I'll summarize some of the
major points. You can find much, much more on the WWW. (02)
JFS
>> Until the 13th century, Neoplatonism dominated European philosophy.
>> Physicians followed Galen, who was strongly influenced by Aristotle.
>> The big revolution occurred when Thomas Aquinas made Aristotle safe
>> for Christianity. (03)
RC
> Why was Ari not so safe prior to TA’s appearance? Everything I have
> heard about TA’s point of view is extremely logical defense of church
> dogma, kind of a super Jesuit. In his day, the church still dominated
> political and economic life, such as it was. How was Ari involved in that? (04)
The history from 500 BC to 500 AD is extremely complex and fascinating
from many points of view. For a dozen *oversimplified* points, (05)
1. Aristotle's voluminous writings had some influence immediately
after he died. An important example is Euclid, who tried to
follow A. as far as he could. He had to develop a lot more than
syllogisms to prove theorems in geometry. But without A's example,
it's unlikely that Euclid would have been as systematic. (06)
2. For various reasons, A's manuscripts were removed from Athens --
fortunately to a drier climate, which preserved them until they
were rediscovered and organized about three centuries later.
That was good for posterity, but it also meant that they had
much less influence than Plato's dialogs. (07)
3. Philo of Alexandria (AKA Philo Judaeus, 20 BC - 50 AD) wrote many
volumes (in Greek) in trying to reconcile the Torah with Greek
philosophy (mostly an early version of Neoplatonism). He tried
to show that the Greeks were actually following Moses. But the
evidence for that claim is weak. (08)
4. But Philo had a strong influence on early Christian theology.
Some scholars believe that the gospel according to John (which
was written in Greek) was influenced by Philo. (09)
5. In the third c. AD, Plotinus and his student Porphyry were unhappy
about the rise of Christianity. To provide an alternative, Plotinus
developed the most influential version of Neoplatonism. Porphyry
edited and organized the manuscripts by Plotinus in the _Enneads_.
Plotinus criticized Aristotle, but Porphyry began the practice of
minimizing the differences between A. and Plato -- largely by
ignoring any areas where A. differed from P. (010)
6. As an alternative to Christianity, Neoplatonism was a failure.
The Christians loved it and incorporated it into their theology.
The most famous theologian was St. Augustine (4th - 5th c). (011)
7. Meanwhile, the physician Galen (2nd c AD) adopted much of A's
logic and biology as a basis for his writings -- which were
even more voluminous than Aristotle's. (012)
> Well the old Greeks certainly did stagnate, and the horrid Middle
> Ages wasted a lot of human capital. But I thought it was the fall
> of the Romans as dictators to the known world, thanks to pissed off
> Barbarians, that threw civilization off the cliff. (013)
There's much more to that story. First, the communication systems
in those days were never sufficient to establish anything like a
modern dictatorship. One reason for the Roman success was that
they established a "Pax Romana", allowed a large degree of autonomy
for the conquered regions, and granted Roman citizenship to anyone
who fought on their side. The Greeks always ran the eastern side
of the empire, which was the wealthiest part. (014)
But by the 7th c, the Greeks and Persians had been fighting each
other for over a millennium, both sides were exhausted, and the
Muslims took over. The western side was overrun by the Barbarians,
and the economic system collapsed. It's inaccurate to call it
stagnation. A better word is turmoil. (015)
8. The Muslim physicians translated Galen to Syriac and Arabic.
His references to Aristotle led them to translate most of A's
writings as well. Two of the most influential commentators
on Aristotle were Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and Averroes (Ibn Rushd). (016)
9. When the European universities were founded in the 11th c,
Arabic civilization was the richest and most advanced in the
world. By contrast, Europe was an impoverished backwater.
They had few textbooks in Latin. For Aristotle, they had
only a few of the logic books. (017)
10. In the 12th century, many more books were being translated
to Latin. In fact, many of them were being translated from
Arabic by the Jewish and Christian scholars in Spain. The
influx of new ideas created a huge stimulus. (018)
11. But not everybody was happy. The theologians, who were mostly
followers of Augustine, felt threatened by the influx of new
ideas from Aristotle. The fact that they were translated
from Arabic made them doubly suspicious. For a while,
Aristotle was banned, and even Aquinas had to fight an
uphill battle for acceptance. (019)
12. In short, Aristotle's ideas were much more of a stimulus to
science than a hindrance. It's true that some of the teachers
in some periods taught Aristotle in a rather pedantic way.
But logic and science in the 13th & 14th c reached a high
point. But the plague in the mid 14th c was devastating.
William of Ockham, for example, died of it. (020)
JFS
>> The significant similarity I wanted to emphasize was the brain regions
>> involved. The first two steps of the OODA loop (Observe and Orient)
>> depend on the posterior regions of the brain (parietal, temporal,
>> and occipital lobes). But the last two steps (Decide and Act) depend
>> on the frontal lobes. (021)
RC
> But remember that is still only theory. We have some supporting
> evidence about what the various regions do, and we are developing
> ever more refined theories about it with fMRI every day. (022)
It's true that much more evidence from neuroscience is accumulating
every day and that the amount that is still unknown is enormous. (023)
However, the evidence for the general mapping of the regions involved
has been accumulating since the discoveries by Broca & Wernicke in the
19th c. At the level of detail of the OODA loop and the Albus cycle,
the newer refinements provide even more support for the role of the
frontal lobes in reasoning and the posterior lobes in perception. (024)
John (025)
_________________________________________________________________
Message Archives: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/
Config Subscr: http://ontolog.cim3.net/mailman/listinfo/ontolog-forum/
Unsubscribe: mailto:ontolog-forum-leave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Shared Files: http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/
Community Wiki: http://ontolog.cim3.net/wiki/
To join: http://ontolog.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WikiHomePage#nid1J (026)
|