Материал: isaeva_av_sost_professionalnyi_angliiskii_iazyk_dlia_student (1)

Vocabulary

matter – материя, вещество;

Cartesian – картезианский, декартовский; substance – субстанция, материя, вещество; concern – интерес;

sufficient – достаточный; proposition – предположение; subject to – обусловленный;

intellectual vision – интеллектуальная проницательность; divine illumination – божественное озарение;

immutable entities – неизменные сущности.

Give the written translation of the text.

Part III. Ethics. Medieval philosophers share a generically Greek framework of ethical theory, extended and modified to accommodate Christianity. Its main features include an objectivist theory of value, a eudaimonistic account of the human good and a focus on the virtues as central to moral evaluation. According to the metaphysics of goodness inherited by medieval philosophers from Greek thought, there is a necessary connection between goodness and being. Things are good to the extent to which they have being. Evil or badness is not a positive ontological feature of things but a privation or lack of being in some relevant respect. The ultimate human good or goal of human existence is happiness or beatitude, the perfection of which most medieval philosophers identified as supernatural union with God after this life. The ultimate human good is attained both through the cultivation of the moral virtues and through divine grace in the form of supernaturally infused states and dispositions such as faith, hope and charity, the so-called theological virtues.

Within this framework, medieval philosophers debated whether human beatitude is essentially an affective state (a kind of love for God) or a cognitive state (a kind of knowledge or vision of God), and whether the virtues are strictly necessary for the attainment of beatitude. They also debated whether the rightness or wrongness of some actions depends solely on God‟s will. Contrary to caricatures of medieval ethics, no one unequivocally endorsed a divine command theory according to which the moral rightness (or wrongness) of all acts consists solely in their being approved (or disapproved) by God22.

22 MacDONALD, SCOTT and NORMAN KRETZMANN (1998). Medieval philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved February 05, 2014, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/B078

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Vocabulary

generically – в общем; eudaimonistic – эвдемонический;

human good – человеческое добро, благо;

moral evaluation – моральная, нравственная оценка; privation – лишение, отсутствие;

beatitude – блаженство, благословение; to attain – получать, приобретать;

divine grace – божественная милость, благодать; infused – зарождающийся;

unequivocally – недвусмысленно, однозначно; to endorse – одобрять, поддерживать.

Read the text and give the summary of it.

Part IV. Logic and language. Medieval philosophers devote enormous attention – perhaps more attention than philosophers of any period in the history of philosophy apart from the 20th century – to logic and philosophy of language. This phenomenon is explained primarily by the uniquely important role played by

Aristotle‟s logic in the development of medieval thought. Until the early 12th century, medieval philosophers‟ knowledge of Greek philosophy was restricted to a few texts of Aristotelian logic and, by default, those texts largely set the agenda for philosophical discussion. It is a passage from Porphyry‟s Isagōgē, for example, that enticed first Boethius and, following him, a long line of commentators to take up the philosophical problem of universals. The texts of the old logic, which remained a central part of the philosophy curriculum in the later Middle Ages, were eventually supplemented by the remaining treatises of

Aristotle‟s logic, among which the Topics and the Sophistical Refutations in particular sparked intense interest in the forms of philosophical argument and the nature of meaning.

Natural philosophy. Medieval philosophers believed that a complete account of reality must include an account of the fundamental constituents and principles of the natural realm. Their earliest reflections on these matters were inspired primarily by two ancient accounts of the origins and nature of the universe, the biblical story of creation (in Genesis) and Plato‟s story of the Demiurge‟s fashioning of the world (in the Timaeus). The confluence of these ancient sources produced a medieval tradition of speculative cosmological thought paradigmatically expressed in discussions of the six days of creation. This topic in particular gave medieval philosophers opportunity to reflect on the nature of the contents of the universe and the principles governing the created realm.

From the late 12th century, medieval philosophy is profoundly affected by the new Aristotelian natural philosophy and the new scientific treatises by Islamic

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philosophers. Aristotle‟s Physics in particular received enormous attention, and medieval philosophers developed sophisticated tools of logical, conceptual and mathematical analysis to deal with problems raised by Aristotle‟s discussions of motion, change, continuity and infinity. Scientific treatises by Islamic thinkers such as Alkindi, Alpetragius, Avicenna and Alhasen provided the material and

impetus for significant developments in astronomy, medicine, mathematics and optics23.

Vocabulary

by default – по общему правилу, по умолчанию; to set the agenda – определять повестку дня;

Porphyry – Порфирий;

Isagōgē (греч) – «Введение» к «Категориям» Аристотеля; to entice – побуждать;

Boethius – Боэций;

to supplement – дополнять, пополнять; to spark – вызывать;

constituents – компоненты, составляющие;

Timaeus – Тимей;

confluence – слияние, соединение;

Alkindi – Аль-Кинди;

Alpetragius – Альпетрагиус;

Avicenna – Авиценна;

Alhasen – Альгазен;

impetus – импульс, побуждение, стимул.

Read the text and answer the questions after it.

3.6 Philosophical Theology in Medieval Philosophy.

Christianity is not in itself a philosophical doctrine, but it profoundly influences the medieval philosophical world-view both from within philosophy and from outside it. On the one hand, Christian texts and doctrine provided rich subject matter for philosophical reflection, and the nature and central claims of Christianity forced medieval intellectuals to work out a comprehensive account of reality and to deal explicitly with deep issues about the aims and methods of the philosophical enterprise. In these ways, Christianity was taken up into philosophy, adding to its content and altering its structure and methods. On the

23 MacDONALD, SCOTT and NORMAN KRETZMANN (1998). Medieval philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved February 05, 2014, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/B078

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other hand, Christianity imposed external constraints on medieval philosophy. At various times these constraints took institutional form in the official proscription of texts, the condemnation of philosophical positions and the censure of individuals.

Augustine laid the foundation for medieval Christian philosophical theology in two respects. First, he provided a theoretical rationale both for Christian intellectuals engaging in philosophical activity generally and for their taking Christian doctrine in particular as a subject of philosophical investigation.

According to Augustine, Christian belief is not opposed to philosophy‟s pursuit of truth but is an invaluable supplement and aid to philosophy. With revealed truth in hand, Christian philosophers are able to salvage what is true and useful in pagan philosophy while repudiating what is false. Moreover, Augustine argued that Christianity can be strengthened and enriched by philosophy. Christian philosophers should begin by believing (on the authority of the Bible and the church) what Christianity professes and seek (by the use of reason) to acquire understanding of what they initially believed on authority. In seeking understanding, philosophers rely on that aspect of themselves – namely, reason – in virtue of which they most resemble God; and in gaining understanding, they strengthen the basis for Christian belief. The Augustinian method of belief seeking understanding is taken for granted by the vast majority of philosophers in the Middle Ages.

Second, Augustine‟s writings provide a wealth of rich and compelling examples of philosophical reflection on topics ranging from the nature of evil and sin to the nature of the Trinity. Boethius stands with Augustine in this respect as an important model for later thinkers. He composed several short theological treatises that consciously attempt to bring the tools of Aristotelian logic to bear on issues associated with doctrines of the Christian creed. Inspired by the philosophical analysis and argumentation prominent in these writings, medieval philosophers enthusiastically took up, developed and extended the enterprise of philosophical theology.

With the emergence of academic structure in the new European schools and universities of the 12th and 13th centuries, theology became the paramount academic discipline in a formal curriculum of higher education. However, the fact that great thinkers of the later Middle Ages typically studied philosophy as preparatory for the higher calling of theology should not be taken to imply that in becoming theologians they left philosophy behind. As a simple matter of fact, later medieval theologians continued throughout their careers to address fundamental philosophical issues in fundamentally philosophical ways. And it is clear why this should be so: those who took up the study of theology were among the most gifted and highly trained philosophical minds of their day, and they brought to theology acute philosophical sensitivities, interests and skills. Moreover, insofar as they viewed Christianity as offering the basic framework for a comprehensive account of the world, they were naturally attracted to the broadly philosophical task of

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building on that framework, understanding its ramifications and resolving its difficulties.

Despite the dominance of the Augustinian view of the relation between Christianity and philosophy, religiously motivated resistance to philosophy in general and to the use of philosophical methods for understanding Christianity in particular emerges in different forms throughout the Middle Ages. In the 12th century, some influential clerics saw the flourishing study of logic at Paris as a dangerous influence on theology and used ecclesiastical means to attack Peter Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers. In the 13th century the new Aristotelian natural philosophy prompted another period of sustained ecclesiastical reaction. In 1210 and 1215 ecclesiastical authorities proscribed the teaching of Aristotle‟s natural philosophy at Paris, and in 1277 the Bishop of Paris issued a condemnation of 219 articles covering a wide range of theological and philosophical topics. The condemnation seems largely to have been a reaction to the work of radical Averroistic interpreters of Aristotle. It is unclear how effective these actions were in suppressing the movements and doctrines they targeted24.

Vocabulary

central claims – основные требования; enterprise – предметная область;

to take up into – сближаться, захватывать; to impose – налагать;

constraints – ограничения;

proscription – объявление вне закона, запрещение; condemnation – осуждение, порицание;

pursuit – поиски, погоня за чем-либо; supplement – дополнение, приложение; to salvage – спасать;

to repudiate – не признавать, отказывать, отрекаться; to profess – открыто признавать;

compelling – убедительный, основательный;

Boethius – Боэций;

consciously – сознательно, преднамеренно; Christian creed – христианское вероучение; paramount – первостепенный, главенствующий; ramifications – последствия, результаты;

cleric – церковник;

24 MacDONALD, SCOTT and NORMAN KRETZMANN (1998). Medieval philosophy. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved February 05, 2014, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/B078

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