Medieval philosophy

Abstract

The concern to integrate revealed doctrine and secular learning distinguishes medieval philosophy from ancient, Renaissance and modern philosophy and determines to a great extent the philosophical problems the medievals addressed and the solutions they proposed for those problems. This chapter examines the way the medievals approached this main theme and illustrates how it affected their choice of philosophical problems and how they dealt with them. In particular, it pays attention to seven problems well discussed throughout the age: the relation of faith and reason, the existence of God, the significance of names used to speak about God, the object of theology and metaphysics, the way we know, universals, and individuation. C. F. J. Martin has contributed 'Understanding Medieval Philosophy: Arguments from Authority'.