Scholasticism:

see Chapter VII, page 229

 

Sophists:

see Chapter III, page 98

 

Enlightenment:

intellectual & philosophical movement that dominated European intellectual life in the 18th century (the "Century of Philosophy"); it emerged out of a Renaissance humanism.  The publication of Newton's Principia Mathematica (1687) was the first major enlightenment work.  French historians traditionally date the Enlightenment from 1715 (start of reign of Louis XV) to 1789 (the Revolution); philosophers & scientists of the age circulated their ideas via meetings at scientific academies, Masonic lodges, literary salons, coffeehouses, in printed books, journals & pamphlets. Their ideas undermined the authority of the monarchy and the Church & paved the way for the political revolutions of the 18th & 19th centuries.  Several 19th-century movements (liberalism and neoclassicism) are spin offs of Enlightenment.

 

Nephesh:

Hebrew, from the Bible; refers to the aspects of sentience; both humans & animals are described as having this quality, versus plants which do not; although literally "soul" but commonly rendered as "life" in English; better understood as a person; in Greek the word ψυχή (psyche) is the closest equivalent, in Latin the word for ψυχή is anima, origin of the word animal.

 

animus:

Latin, for mind

 

âtmân

Sanskrit, inner self, spirit or soul; in Hindu philosophy (especially in the Vedanta school) it is the first principle the true self of an individual beyond identification with phenomena, the essence of an individual.  To attain liberation; men must acquire self-knowledge which is to realize that one's true self is identical with the transcendent self Brahman.

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Plato (soul):

In the Republic Plato refers to the soul as having 3 parts.   The Platonic soul consists of:

• the logos (λογιστικόν), or logistikon (logical, mind, nous, or reason)

• the thymos (θυμοειδές), or thumetikon (emotion, spiritedness, or masculine)

• the eros (ἐπιθυμητικόν), or epithumetikon (appetitive, desire, or feminine)

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νους:

Ancient Greek, noun, mind or brain

 

θυμός:

Ancient Greek, noun, soul, as the seat of emotion, feeling, and thought

 

έπιθυμία:

Ancient Greek, noun, desire, yearning

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Classical physics: * see endNote<A>

Aristotelian physics is the form of natural science described in the works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC).  In his work Physics, he intended to establish general principles of change that govern all natural bodies, both living & inanimate, celestial & terrestrial – including motion (change with respect to place), quantity (with respect to size or number), qualitatively  and substantial change (coming into existence). 

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y = f(x):

the equation for the function x, which produces output y; it calculates the dependent output of a process given different inputs.

Y: the outcome or outcomes, result or results

X: the inputs, factors to get the outcome (there can be more than one possible x)

F: the function or process that will take the inputs and produce the desired outcome

 

Gothic thinkers (reason v. will):

Albertus Magnus (1200-80) was among the first medieval scholars to apply Aristotle's philosophy to Christian thought.  He produced paraphrases of most of the works of Aristotle available to him.  Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), pupil of Magnus, wrote commentaries on Aristotle & was emphatically Aristotelian.  He adopted Aristotle's analysis of physical objects, his view of place, time and motion, his proof of the prime mover, his cosmology, his account of sense perception and intellectual knowledge, and even parts of his moral philosophy.  Aquinas was the greatest of the “Gothic” thinkers.  He proposed that man had full free will (to choose between good versus evil) but that this was compatible with predestination (god’s knowledge of all events, past & future).  Aquinas argued that the will was NOT a higher power than the intellect (reason) But that the will could MOVE the intellect.  On reason, the Scholastics were divided.  The Franciscan thinker, Bonaventure (1221-74), a follower of Anselm, argued reason can discover truth only when philosophy is illuminated by religious faith.  In contrast, the Dominicans (founded in 1215) placed emphasis on the use of reason and employed the new Aristotelian sources derived from the East & Moorish Spain.  Their great representative, Aquinas, whose synthesis of Greek rationalism & Christian doctrine eventually would define Catholic philosophy.  Aquinas placed more emphasis on reason and argumentation & was a significant departure from the Neo-Platonism and Augustinian thinking that had dominated much of early Scholasticism.