Abstract This paper shows that the medieval concept synderesis comes from Origen’s endorsement of the Stoic theory of rational “self-affiliation” ( oikeiōsis ). Synderesis is a term that medieval authors inherited from Jerome, who was reporting Origen. Most famously, Aquinas made synderesis central to his moral epistemology, claiming that it is a natural mental habit whereby all humans have an implicit and vague understanding of axiomatic norms of morality. However, the identity of the original Greek word and its conceptual content have been debated since the ninth century. I show that the word must have been suntērēsis (“safeguarding”), employing as evidence recently (2012) discovered texts by Origen. I compare Origen to Chrysippus, Hierocles, and Epictetus. I also compare Aquinas to Origen. I point out three implications. First, the latest critical edition of Jerome ( CCL ) is incorrect, because it prints suneidēsis (“conscience”) instead of suntērēsis . Second, some of Aquinas’ core assertions about the characteristics of synderesis and its “place” within the mind are consistent with Origen’s account. Third, Stoic suntērēsis and Aquinas’ synderesis share certain metaethical associations.
Abstract Can a person truly be courageous, for example, without also being just, moderate, or generous? This paper examines the medieval philosopher Godfrey of Fontaines (d. 1306) and his defense of the Aristotelian idea that practical wisdom (prudence) connects all virtues of character, such as courage and justice, in such a way that they cannot be had independently of each other. In the late 13th century, John Peter Olivi (ca. 1248–1298) challenged this idea. Olivi argued that prudence functions like geometry: one can master one specific part without knowing the whole subject. According to Olivi, one can have good judgment concerning courage while lacking good judgment concerning justice or generosity. Godfrey offers one of the earliest and most sophisticated responses to this challenge. He argues that true prudence is a unified and indivisible virtue. For Godfrey, just as a doctor cannot understand the health of a single limb without understanding how it affects the entire body, a person cannot truly possess one virtue of character without understanding how it relates to all the others. What counts as a virtuous action depends on how different virtues relate to each other in different situations.
This paper investigates the construction of trust in scientific inquiries and defends the importance of social epistemology in 13th century Parisian astronomy. A major issue in ancient and medieval astronomy is attributed to the difficulty of acquiring precise first-hand knowledge of astral phenomena, making collective work necessary, but raising concerns about trusting second-hand knowledge. The paper begins by examining Ptolemaian epistemology, in its moral and cognitive aspects. It then turns to the late Middle Ages, a challenging period for astronomy, marked by significant changes between the 13th and 14th centuries. Manuscript Paris, Bnf, Latin 7281, containing William of Saint-Cloud’s Almanach planetarum , is presented as key evidence. William there offers innovative astronomical insights, while expressing concerns that his ideas might provoke doubt among his opponents. The final part deals with a marginal gloss by an anonymous 15th-c. annotator who expresses reservations about William but also surprisingly echoes his epistemic stance.
Recent debates in epistemology have assumed a positive conception of suspension of judgement, according to which suspending requires the presence of a distinctive mental state, either a sui generis indecision-representing attitude or a higher-order belief about one’s doxastic situation. The paper challenges this orthodoxy by arguing that sceptical traditions, in particular Pyrrhonian and Cartesian scepticism, operate with a privative conception of suspension: scepticism does not suggest adopting a positive mental attitude but simply to refrain from both belief and disbelief (given suitable cognitive preconditions). We show that the Pyrrhonian strategy of equipollence and Descartes’ method of doubt do not aim for suspension positively conceived. We tentatively suggest that privative suspension is thus of primary significance for epistemology.
This mainly historical paper provides a comprehensive discussion of the-heretofore neglected-evidence for Peripatetic syllogistic in Sextus Empiricus. The paper sets out to show that it is likely that in Sextus (and Apuleius) there is valuable evidence of a transitional period in later ancient logic that is marked out by a number of characteristics, which include the following: (i) A Peripatetic term `categorical syllogism' is newly in use, but no term `hypothetical syllogism' has been established yet. (ii) Stoic and Peripatetic logic are treated as complementing each other. (iii) The reversion of quantified propositions from predicate-subject to subject-predicate form is still fairly new. (iv) The so-called crocodile example is used to show that induction lacks the feature of concluding by necessity that is a defining mark of Aristotelian syllogisms. (v) The use of the expression katholik & ecirc; protasis for categorical universal premise-propositions is distinctive of the period. (vi) The argument forms displayed by Sextus' three examples appear to be indirectly related to the soon-to-appear Platonist hypothetical syllogistic. (vii) There are parallels that suggest that Sextus' source belongs to the same historical period of logic as Apuleius' source and as some probably recent source of Alexander of Aphrodisias' Prior Analytics commentary (which is presented along with some later views and arguments, which may include Alexander's own). Small differences between the three authors show that Sextus did not draw on the Greek handbook that was Apuleius' source.
