Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Early concerns
St. Augustine
Aquinas and rediscovery of Aristotle
Problems of empiricism
Essentialism
Rediscovery of Aristotle
Basically lost until rediscovery about 1000 from Arab
sources
Obvious parallels with Christian thought
Final causes
Essential vs. accidental properties
Faith is crucial
Knowledge of God allows correct abstractions and hence aids reason
And allows participation in divine and ethical principles
Nominalism
We form abstract categories from sense data
Platos Forms vs. Aristotles categories
How real are these abstractions
William of Ockham
Nominalist and hence extreme empiricist
Other importance
Ockhams razor
First since Aristotle to take a psychological perspective
Experience and habit
Essentialism
Categories have an essence
Realist position
Essence identified with final cause
More generally with purpose often Gods purpose