Post by jonkon on Mar 27, 2010 3:44:55 GMT
I am surprised that God’s Philosophers doesn’t mention Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii in its discussion (p. 36 & pp. 199-200) of the fallacious Medieval belief in a flat earth. According to the article "Scholasticism" in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th ed., the following works were the sum total of philosophical writings of the early Middle Ages:
* Boethius' logical treatises, commentaries, and Latin translations
of Aristotle's Categories and De interpretatione and
of Porphyry's Isagoge;
* Calcidius' translation and commentary on Plato's Timaeus;
* Apuleius' De dogmate Platonis;
* Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis;
* Augustine's writings;
* Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii;
* Cassiodorus' Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum; and
* Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.
In the ninth century Carolingian revival the De nuptiis became one of the leading textbooks in the schools, becoming the foundation of the medieval trivium and quadrivium. It was therefore the primary source for Eratosthenes' estimate of 252,000 stadia (31,500 miles) for the earth's circumference for medieval geographers.
De nuptiis also supports the thesis of God’s Philosophers by clearly demonstrating that the decline of classical learning occurred well before the fall of the Roman Empire with little, if any, loss during the early Middle Ages. Stahl attributes this decline to the Roman mindset having little patience for speculative Greek philosophizing. Cicero in Book I of his De oratore points out that the Greeks placed the philosopher and the specialist on the pedestals of their intellectual world, while the Romans more sensibly reserved the place of honor for the orator. Cicero's ideal orator was not a master of Greek abstract and rigorously systematic disciplines, but prepared his briefs from derivative handbooks. His intellectual enthusiasms were for style and beauty in literature and rhetoric, not for science and philosophy. The motivation for his professional research-es lay in their applications to the arts of persuasion.
* Boethius' logical treatises, commentaries, and Latin translations
of Aristotle's Categories and De interpretatione and
of Porphyry's Isagoge;
* Calcidius' translation and commentary on Plato's Timaeus;
* Apuleius' De dogmate Platonis;
* Macrobius' commentary on Cicero's Somnium Scipionis;
* Augustine's writings;
* Martianus Capella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii;
* Cassiodorus' Institutiones divinarum et saecularium litterarum; and
* Isidore of Seville's Etymologiae.
In the ninth century Carolingian revival the De nuptiis became one of the leading textbooks in the schools, becoming the foundation of the medieval trivium and quadrivium. It was therefore the primary source for Eratosthenes' estimate of 252,000 stadia (31,500 miles) for the earth's circumference for medieval geographers.
De nuptiis also supports the thesis of God’s Philosophers by clearly demonstrating that the decline of classical learning occurred well before the fall of the Roman Empire with little, if any, loss during the early Middle Ages. Stahl attributes this decline to the Roman mindset having little patience for speculative Greek philosophizing. Cicero in Book I of his De oratore points out that the Greeks placed the philosopher and the specialist on the pedestals of their intellectual world, while the Romans more sensibly reserved the place of honor for the orator. Cicero's ideal orator was not a master of Greek abstract and rigorously systematic disciplines, but prepared his briefs from derivative handbooks. His intellectual enthusiasms were for style and beauty in literature and rhetoric, not for science and philosophy. The motivation for his professional research-es lay in their applications to the arts of persuasion.
