Byzantine philosophy

« Byzantine philosophy In Byzantium from the ninth century through to the fifteenth century, philosophy as a discipline remained the science of fundamental truths concerning human beings and the world.

Philosophy, the 'wisdom from without', was invariably contrasted with the 'philosophy from within', namely theology.

The view that philosophy is 'the handmaiden of theology', which the Greek Church Fathers derived from Philo and the Alexandrian school of theology, was not the dominant position in Byzantium as it was in the West; philosophy, and logic in particular, was never treated as a mere background to, or tool of, theology.

By the same token, theology in Byzantium never developed into a systematic method of dialectical inquiry into Christian truths, or a science.

Thus the initial distinction between philosophy and theology remained intact. In terms of institutional practice, theological schools and studies did not exist in Byzantium and the main purpose of higher studies was to train state functionaries.

This instruction, based on philosophy and the quadrivium, was mainly private, but it received support from the emperor and the church and we do hear of occasional interference by the secular or ecclesiastical authorities, perhaps because of professional or personal rivalries among the philosophy teachers.

Furthermore, Byzantium had no independent universities or centers of study instituted by monastic orders as there were in the West, where social and political conditions were different. Philosophy in Byzantium also steered clear of involvement in the theological controversies that arose from time to time.

The prevalent model of the thinker in Byzantium was a sort of encyclopedic teacher of philosophy, an erudite scholar who kept in touch with the sciences of the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music) and other disciplines and set the philosophical tone of the scientific curricula.

The development of philosophy in Byzantium was thus very different from that of Western scholasticism. 1 Historical outline Although early Christian writers on the ascetic theory of life had adopted the term philosophia, the earliest manifestations of autonomous philosophical thought in Byzantium appeared in the ninth and tenth centuries with the 'Christian humanists' such as Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople, Arethas of Patras, Bishop of Caesarea, and Leo the Mathematician (or Philosopher).

Photios elaborated the doctrine of the Trinity in the dispute over the procession of the Holy Spirit (the filioque dispute) using the armoury of Aristotle's theory of substances (the distinction between 'first substance' and 'second substance').

He was keenly interested in Aristotelian logic, rejecting Plato's self-existent 'ideas', and he collected works by many ancient writers.

Arethas copied and commented on works by Plato and Aristotle and wrote critical notes on logic, ontology and psychology. In the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, the growing study of philosophy reflects the great boost given to higher education and learning by the foundation in 1045 of the 'University' of Constantinople.

Among the teachers known as hypatoi tōn philosophōn (first among philosophers) were Michael Psellos, undoubtedly the most. »