The Transition from Mythology to Philosophy Essay Example

implies existence. Roscellinus of Amorica in Brittany was the founder of nominalism, another approach to universals.

A universal, he said, is just a “flatus voices”. Only individuals actually exist. Words, and the ideas they represent, refer to nothing. Medieval philosophy is conventionally construed as the philosophy of Western Europe between the decline of classical pagan culture and the Renaissance. Augustine is certainly the most important and influential philosopher of the middle Ages, and one of the most influential philosophers of any time. Augustine is regarded as the greatest of the Church Fathers. He is primarily a theologian and a devotional writer, but much of his writing is philosophical.

His themes are truth, God, the human soul, the meaning of history, the state, sin, and salvation. For Augustine, the individual human being is a body-soul composite, but in keeping with his Neo-Platonism; there is an asymmetry between soul and body. As a spiritual entity, the soul is superior to the body, and it is the province of the soul to rule the body [e. g. De Animae Quantitate 13. 22; De Genesi contra Manicheos II. 11]. This presents a positive conception of the soul-body relation, one that clearly runs counter to the Manichean picture of the soul's entrapment

The Middle Ages philosophers, were mostly interested in the natural world and its processes, and were known as natural philosophers. They were very curious about the constant changes they observed in the physical world. Many myths were prevailed around the world about the god, human and physical world. The key Church philosopher of the later Middle Ages Augustine presents a positive conception of the soul-body

relation. According to Augustine’s believes there is an asymmetry between soul and body. As a spiritual entity, the soul is superior to the body, and it is the province of the soul to rule the body.