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>Aquinas reconciled some Aristotelian and Neoplatonic views with the Catholic Church I wonder if you might be mistaking Aquinas for Augustine? Augustine introd

by xamuel 5y ago

>Aquinas reconciled some Aristotelian and Neoplatonic views with the Catholic Church I wonder if you might be mistaking Aquinas for Augustine? Augustine introduced huge amounts of Neoplatonism into Christianity very early---little more than a century after the original Neoplatonist, Plotinus himself. It's also worth noting that Plotinus was a disciple of the mysterious Ammonius Saccas, one of whose other disciples was none other than Origen, a very influential early Christian writer (albeit later considered a heretic).

wolverine876 5y ago
My understanding, which was never great and is imperfectly recalled: Augustine was the foundation of Neoplatonism in the Medieval church, which was it's guiding philosophy (to some great extent) for centuries. The works of Aristotle were lost to them. They knew of Aristotle but didn't have his writings. Around the time of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle's works were rediscovered, having been preserved in the Muslim world. Aquinas' great task was reconciling them with the existing church.
- xamuel 5y ago
  Augustine does explicitly reference Aristotle's "Categories" in his Confessions, I believe. Not sure what other material of Aristotle's was available to Augustine, I'm not a scholar on the subject. Of course, even to us today, many of Aristotle's works are STILL lost, so...
AquinasCoder 5y ago
It's fair to say Augustine did more reconciling with Neoplatonism. Aquinas did some. I think Aquinas was more wary of relying too heavily upon a philosophy that he saw as incomplete. Even "the philosopher" could not provide a comprehensive framework for Christian philosophy. When Neoplatonism was useful, he would take parts here and there, but he was under no illusion that Neoplatonism provided a sufficient framework for understanding the world. The early Italian renaissance philosophers were far more taken with Plato and the Neoplatonists. Marsilio Ficino, for example, probably went too far trying to reconcile parts that were (arguably) fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.

by xamuel 5y ago

wolverine876 5y ago

My understanding, which was never great and is imperfectly recalled: Augustine was the foundation of Neoplatonism in the Medieval church, which was it's guiding philosophy (to some great extent) for centuries. The works of Aristotle were lost to them. They knew of Aristotle but didn't have his writings. Around the time of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle's works were rediscovered, having been preserved in the Muslim world. Aquinas' great task was reconciling them with the existing church.

xamuel 5y ago
Augustine does explicitly reference Aristotle's "Categories" in his Confessions, I believe. Not sure what other material of Aristotle's was available to Augustine, I'm not a scholar on the subject. Of course, even to us today, many of Aristotle's works are STILL lost, so...

AquinasCoder 5y ago

It's fair to say Augustine did more reconciling with Neoplatonism. Aquinas did some. I think Aquinas was more wary of relying too heavily upon a philosophy that he saw as incomplete. Even "the philosopher" could not provide a comprehensive framework for Christian philosophy. When Neoplatonism was useful, he would take parts here and there, but he was under no illusion that Neoplatonism provided a sufficient framework for understanding the world. The early Italian renaissance philosophers were far more taken with Plato and the Neoplatonists. Marsilio Ficino, for example, probably went too far trying to reconcile parts that were (arguably) fundamentally incompatible with Christianity.