The main subject of debate in medieval Christian philosophy was the nature of universals. What are universals? These are generalized concepts that we cannot see or touch, but with which we constantly operate in thoughts and speech. For example, everyone knows what a “cat” is and how it differs from a “dog”, but we always see this specific red cat on the windowsill and that one and only dog ​​outside the window, see and touch “a cat in general” and “a dog in general” is not possible. This problem, as you understand, goes back to Plato with his ideas and Aristotle with his genera and forms. Ancient problems (especially as presented by Aristotle - through the mediation of Porphyry and Boethius) were transferred to Christian philosophy. And the question arose: what status do these universals, these generic-specific concepts have, if the world was created by God? Scholasticism gives two (and a half) answers to this question.

Realists (Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Scott Eriugena) believed that in reality, first of all, there is a general, that is, universals have the status of real (hence the name) being. When God created the world, he first of all planned it, and therefore, before all the red, tabby and black cats, there was “a cat in general.” General concepts are parts of God's plan, and therefore knowledge should be directed specifically at them. Individual, empirically perceived things realize general concepts in themselves, and their specific differences (the difference between a red cat and a tabby cat) are accidents, insignificant signs that have nothing to do with the true meaning of things, which is all contained in general, in universals.

Nominalists (John Roscelin, William of Ockham), on the contrary, believed that God created the world in its materiality and concreteness. Red, tabby and black cats are created by God directly, but “cat in general” is just a name (Latin nomen - hence the name “nominalism”) that we humans use to refer to many things. Universals are names of names, and when we say “cat” we do not mean some ideal prototype of all cats, since it does not exist; rather, we can say that a name is a variable under which one can substitute many things that are similar in one way or another. By “cat” we can always understand specifically this red Murka, that striped Masha or that black Musha, or all of them together - but not as a single image, but as a number of individuals, similar to each other and therefore united under one name.

There was also conceptualism (Pierre Abelard, Duns Scotus), which represented a certain middle position: things, according to conceptualists, exist in their singularity (this is similar to nominalism), but by grasping what is common in them (conceptus - “captured”), we form a generalized image, concept in your mind. In other words, conceptualists reject realism, denying “cats in general” real existence, but they also do not agree with nominalism, since they recognize “cats in general” as not just a name for a number of individual things, but a mental generalized image that has formed in our minds in the process of experimental comprehension of the world with its Mashas, ​​Murkas and Mushas. Conceptualism, therefore, is an inverted realism: universals exist, but not before individual things, but after, and not in the mind of God, but in the mind of man.

The main subject of debate in medieval Christian philosophy was the nature of universals. What are universals? These are generalized concepts that we cannot see or touch, but with which we constantly operate in thoughts and speech. For example, everyone knows what a “cat” is and how it differs from a “dog”, but we always see this specific red cat on the windowsill and that one and only dog ​​outside the window, see and touch “a cat in general” and “a dog in general” is not possible. This problem, as you understand, goes back to Plato with his ideas and Aristotle with his genera and forms. Ancient problems (especially as presented by Aristotle - through the mediation of Porphyry and Boethius) were transferred to Christian philosophy. And the question arose: what status do these universals, these generic-specific concepts have, if the world was created by God? Scholasticism gives two (and a half) answers to this question.

Realists (Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Scott Eriugena) believed that in reality, first of all, there is a general, that is, universals have the status of real (hence the name) being. When God created the world, he first of all planned it, and therefore, before all the red, tabby and black cats, there was “a cat in general.” General concepts are parts of God's plan, and therefore knowledge should be directed specifically at them. Individual, empirically perceived things realize general concepts in themselves, and their specific differences (the difference between a red cat and a tabby cat) are accidents, insignificant signs that have nothing to do with the true meaning of things, which is all contained in general, in universals.

Nominalists (John Roscelin, William of Ockham), on the contrary, believed that God created the world in its materiality and concreteness. Red, tabby and black cats are created by God directly, but “cat in general” is just a name (Latin nomen - hence the name “nominalism”) that we humans use to refer to many things. Universals are names of names, and when we say “cat” we do not mean some ideal prototype of all cats, since it does not exist; rather, we can say that a name is a variable under which one can substitute many things that are similar in one way or another. By “cat” we can always understand specifically this red Murka, that striped Masha or that black Musha, or all of them together - but not as a single image, but as a number of individuals, similar to each other and therefore united under one name.

There was also conceptualism (Pierre Abelard, Duns Scotus), which represented a certain middle position: things, according to conceptualists, exist in their singularity (this is similar to nominalism), but by grasping what is common in them (conceptus - “captured”), we form a generalized image, concept in your mind. In other words, conceptualists reject realism, denying “cats in general” real existence, but they also do not agree with nominalism, since they recognize “cats in general” as not just a name for a number of individual things, but a mental generalized image that has formed in our minds in the process of experimental comprehension of the world with its Mashas, ​​Murkas and Mushas. Conceptualism, therefore, is an inverted realism: universals exist, but not before individual things, but after, and not in the mind of God, but in the mind of man.

For several centuries, scholastics argued about concepts - universals: do they really exist or are they just some general names. About why this dispute was so important, why the nominalists were accused of heresy, how Thomas Aquinas “reconciled” the disputants, and why the teaching of William Ockham with his famous “Do not increase entities unnecessarily,” known as “Occam’s razor,” became the end of scholasticism, says Viktor Petrovich Lega.

Throughout the four centuries of scholasticism, the focus of attention of philosophers and theologians was an important dispute, called the “dispute about universals.” This dispute seems somewhat strange to us: Europe had just emerged from the “dark, gloomy centuries”, at that time it was worried mainly by ecclesiastical and theological problems - and suddenly a purely philosophical problem became relevant - the problem of universals, that is, the problem of general concepts.

Porfiry's question

A few words need to be said about the background of this dispute. Wu has a treatise called "Categories". Categories are the most general concepts, such as being, time, movement, possession. Porfiry, a student, Neoplatonist, wrote an Introduction to Aristotle’s “Categories”, where he tried to understand: what is the nature of categories? Porfiry knew, of course, that Aristotle sharply objected to Plato’s doctrine of ideas. No ideas! As the Church Fathers would later say: “There is no essence without hypostasis.” The essence is in the body itself, in the object itself. And Porfiry poses the question: what to do with the most general concepts, with categories? After all, being, time, movement - this is not some kind of essence, these are not objects. Porfiry will write that after reading the work “Categories”, he did not find the answer in Aristotle. Perhaps the categories have an intelligible existence, like Plato’s ideas; perhaps the categories exist in the things themselves.

Boethius, who lived in the 5th century, wrote a commentary on Porphyry and also translated this work of Porphyry into Latin. Through Boethius, this work comes to Western Europe, people become familiar with it, and it suddenly becomes extremely widespread. Why? And the point here, of course, is not in Aristotle himself, not in his dispute with Plato, but in the problem of knowledge of God: is knowledge of God possible or not, and if possible, then how?

Not just sound

Any person understands perfectly well that knowledge is possible through the concept. If I cognize a certain object, it is only because I have in my mind a certain concept about this object and this concept reflects the essence of the object. If I claim that I can know God, then in God there is a corresponding concept, which, of course, has the most general existence, because God is Truth, God is Being. God is the most general thing that can be. Therefore, probably, God contains these most general concepts, if we are talking about the possibility of knowing God. This position is called realism: general concepts really exist, because it is God who has the most real existence. And this position was approved by the Catholic Church, it was adhered to by such authoritative theologians as, for example, Guillaume of Champeaux and many others.

But some began to object: “But God is generally unknowable. Any concepts relate to the created world. And it would be wrong to apply these concepts to the knowledge of God. Any concepts arise only in our mind, but in reality only material objects, individual ones, exist. God does not belong to our world - He is absolutely transcendental. And He is absolutely simple - these concepts cannot be applied to Him. The concepts apply only to our world. They reflect a real object, an object of this world, but the concepts themselves are simply some sign that appears in our mind when we abstract from some individual properties, from the specific differences of different objects. I call the word “person”, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s blond or dark-haired, a man or a woman, an old man or a child – these are random individual properties. The main thing is that this is a person.” Similar views were held, for example, by St. Basil the Great in his dispute with Eunomius.

In scholasticism, this position was called nominalism. Its main representative was Peter Abelard. But his nominalism is moderate, he argues that concepts still exist - albeit in the human mind, like names (the name in Latin is “nomen”, hence “nominalism”). Moderate nominalism is distinguished from extreme nominalism by Roscelin, one of Abelard's teachers. Roscelin argued that only individual objects exist; a concept is also an object. For example, a word written on paper, this very collection of ink spots, is a concept. The vibration of air, which is called my sounds, is the concept. The air vibrations died down, the writing on the paper was erased, and the concept disappeared.

Roscelin's concept was universally recognized as stupid. And the Church condemned it, because if there is no concept of commonality, then one can even say that there is no One Trinity - nothing unites It. Therefore, Roscelin was accused of the heresy of tritheism - tritheism and condemned, and philosophers simply renounced his teaching as stupidity, because it is obvious and immediately clear to any person that there are concepts, at least in our minds. But the position of Peter Abelard also raised great doubts among the Catholic Church. Especially if you consider that the dispute about universals concerned another problem: not only the knowledge of God, but also the salvation of man, life in the Church.

Sin and salvation - for all or for one?

Let's say this problem: Adam and Eve sinned, human nature was changed as a result of original sin - we all now live with this changed nature - but how did our nature change if our first parents sinned? Probably some idea - or universal - of original sin exists somewhere in the common world, so we are all involved in this idea. The same can be said about the Atonement of our sins by our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has risen, and one could say that this is only His personal resurrection, a miraculous event in His personal life. No, we say that each of us can also, by believing in His Resurrection, join eternal life, be resurrected on the last day. How? – Probably, somewhere in the eternal, intelligible world there exists a general concept of salvation, to which we can also be involved. So this is also why the Church accepts the concept of realism as a position that answers pressing theological questions of the Church. It explains why we are all involved in original sin, how, by believing in Christ, we can rise on the last day, being redeemed from our original sin by the Savior.

If only individual objects exist, then events are also individual, and is original sin the sin of only Adam and Eve?

Abelard, with his concept of nominalism, naturally answers these questions completely differently. Indeed, if only individual objects exist, then individual events also exist, and original sin is nothing more than an event associated with the life of only Adam and Eve. It was they who sinned, not me - I have nothing to do with this sin. Christ is risen - because He is God. He rose again because He has this ability. I don't have that ability. This is an event that happened long before me, so it also has nothing to do with me - after all, this is an isolated event. But I only have a concept, a word: “original sin”, “salvation”, “redemption”. The Church, of course, regarded Abelard's teaching as pure Pelagianism. Nature, it turns out, according to Abelard, has not changed, we are all the same! Christ is just a Teacher; He does not affect my personal life in any way!”

Abelard was accused of the heresy of Pelagianism and condemned at two councils. The view prevailed that the dispute about universals could only be resolved in the tradition of realism, because nominalism leads to Pelagianism.

But the debate about universals did not end there.

From extreme to moderation

In the 12th century, when Peter Abelard lived, the concept of realism triumphed, but another version of it arose - moderate realism, and the position, supported by Anselm of Canterbury and Guillaume of Champeaux, was called “extreme realism”. Extreme because it teaches that universals exist only in the Divine mind. But if this is so, then the question arises: why are objects different from each other? With this question, Abelard attacked Guillaume of Champeaux, also his teacher: abandoning the primitive nominalism of Roscelin, he came to Guillaume of Champeaux, an adherent of extreme realism. Indeed, why am I different from another person if we have the same essence in God? Guillaume of Champeaux replied: “Differences are accidental properties.” “Wow, random properties! I am a unique person! And here it’s a coincidence!” - Abelard was indignant. And he left him, and then put forward his own nominalistic concept.

The Chartres school, famous in the 12th century, proposed a moderate version of the doctrine, avoiding both the extremes of nominalism and extreme realism - it is closer to Aristotle and was called “moderate realism”. God is simple, there are no general concepts in God, He is unknowable, but, on the other hand, one cannot say that there are no essences in objects, that they, these essences, exist only in my mind. No, in an object, of course, there are essences, as Aristotle said. Therefore, the concept of moderate realism asserts: the general concept exists really, but not in God, but in the things themselves.

Thomas Aquinas: universals exist before creation - in the mind of God, then - in the things themselves, then - in the mind of man

As we see, three points of view arise, and there was a constant dispute between those who defended them. John of Salisbury, who belonged to the Chartres school, even sarcastically compared this dispute with the dispute of three people arguing about who leads the pig to the market. One claims that the peasant is leading, the other that his hand, the third that the rope. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas restores order by saying that everyone is right. Of course, God, before creating the world, had in His mind all the knowledge about the future world - these general concepts existed in His mind. Having created the world, God gave each object its essence, and now general concepts exist not only in the Divine mind, but also in the things themselves. And then God created man, giving him reason, giving him the ability to cognize these objects, to give names to these objects. Therefore, with the advent of man, universals begin to exist in the human mind. So universals exist in three ways: before things - in the mind of God, then - in the things themselves, then - in the mind of man. So, according to Thomas Aquinas, everyone is right. By the way, neo-Thomism, the most widespread philosophical school in the Catholic Church, still adheres to precisely this point of view, which, it would seem, should have satisfied everyone.

But it was not there. Some opponents of Thomas Aquinas, such as John Duns Scotus, objected by saying: “Why does Thomas claim that God knows only general concepts? This limits Divine omnipotence. It turns out that God doesn’t know me personally? Does he only know the person in general? No!!! In God there is knowledge about every object, about what each object represents. In God there are not essences, but “whatnesses,” “thisnesses.” John Duns Scotus revived nominalism, but in a unique form.

Split operation

ABOUT kkam: God must be known only by faith; the world needs to be known only with the mind

William ABOUT Kkam, who lived at the beginning of the 14th century, proposed another option, according to which, in fact, there is nothing in common between philosophy and theology. Occam said that there are two methods of knowledge corresponding to two objects. God must be known only by faith. The world needs to be known only with the mind. 400 years of scholasticism, 400 years of attempts by philosophy to help theology led nowhere. No general theories emerged that satisfied everyone. Some agree with Anselm, some with Thomas, some with John Duns Scotus, some even with Abelard. No common ground. And why? But because philosophy cannot be the handmaiden of theology! This is the most important mistake. It is impossible to reconcile philosophy and theology. They are different, says William of Occam. And therefore philosophy must be independent, and theology must be independent. Philosophy that cognizes this world naturally operates only with the essences of objects, and it does not need any other general concepts that exist in addition to this world in another world. “Entities should not be increased unnecessarily,” said William of Occam. This catchphrase of his was called “Occam’s razor.” Without the need! And indeed, why do I need general concepts when knowledge of the material world is enough for me?

This, as scientists generally admit, ends the history of scholasticism. William of Ockham closed the “controversy about universals” by saying that universals are only concepts in the mind of a person about a material thing, and that is enough for a philosopher, no real general concepts are needed. And this completely separates philosophy from theology.

Philosophy gains independence from theology. “There is no need for entities without necessity” - philosophy should not penetrate into areas other than its own. And theology gains independence from philosophy; the theologian does not need philosophy: he has his own method - faith; its object is God. And therefore, after William Occam, Martin Luther with his “faith alone” may appear, an atheistic science may appear, for which religion is not needed. After Occam, the Renaissance begins.

Philosophy. Cheat sheets Malyshkina Maria Viktorovna

46. ​​The dispute between nominalists and realists in the philosophy of the Middle Ages

One of the features of medieval philosophy manifested itself in the dispute between realists and nominalists. The dispute was about the nature of universals, that is, about the nature of general concepts. Realists (John Scotus Eriugena (c. 810–c. 877) and, mainly, Thomas Aquinas), based on Aristotle’s position that the general exists in inextricable connection with the individual, being its form, formulated the concept of three types of existence of universals . Universals exist in three ways: “before things” in the divine mind, “in the things themselves” as their essence or form, and “after things,” that is, in the human mind as the result of abstraction and generalization. This solution to the problem is called “moderate realism”, in contrast to “extreme realism”, according to which the general exists only outside of things. Extreme realism of the Platonic sense, with all its seemingly original adaptation to idealistic scholasticism, could not be accepted by the Orthodox Church precisely because matter was partially justified by Christianity as one of the two natures of Jesus Christ.

Nominalists believed that general concepts are only names; they do not have any independent existence outside and apart from individual things and are formed by our mind by abstracting features common to a number of empirical things and phenomena. So, for example, we get the concept of “man” when we abstract from the individual characteristics of individual people and leave only what is common to them all. Thus, according to the teaching of nominalists, universals exist not before, but after things. The extreme nominalists, to whom, for example, the French philosopher and theologian John Roscelin (c. 1050–c. 1120) belonged, even argued that general concepts are nothing more than the sounds of the human voice; Only the individual is real, and the general is only an illusion that does not exist even in the human mind.

As one might expect, the Church accepted the moderate realism of Thomas Aquinas, and the nominalism of Roscelin was condemned at the Council of Soissons in 1092.