Religion, anthropology and philosophy
30
Aug
Enlightenment and modern philosophy, on the
assumption of abolishing all “superstition” and establishing an age of knowledge and reason, divided the system of knowledge into subject and objects, medieval philosophy was not very far from this, there were realists and nominalists and none won, all changed, and everything that was considered “metaphysical” including the Being was left aside.
However, the ideas of concepts, structures that should develop knowledge were already present in an author little read, but important: Boethius (400 – 524 AD), a philosopher, poet, statesman and Roman theologian, whose works had a profound influence on Christian philosophy. from the Medieval.
His main work is the “Consolation of Philosophy”, but his is the “wheel of fortune” and a fragment finds what became known as “the quarrel of the universals”, if the universals (concepts would be today) would be today “if the universals are things or mere words”, hence the division between realists who see things and nominalists who defended “names”, words.
But both Boethius and later Thomas Aquinas who studied and translated Greek works, with their own interpretations, the question of Being was present and the question of history and truth as well.
His humanistic contribution lies in the conception of what we now call “human dignity”, for his Philosophical Anthropology the human person on the horizon of rationality considering his singularity data, a new humanism cannot do without its new and still little understood prism, for Boethius was a staunch defender of the faith for Christians and for humanists his De Consolationes Philosophiae brings essential collaborations.
Even today, his ideas may seem controversial, when he defends that man is also nature, but that he must subsist and achieve it as an extension of “nature”, he says in another work:
“Or, if ‘person’ does not equate to ‘nature’, but if ‘person’ subsists under the reach and extension of ‘nature’, it is difficult to say to what natures it always occurs, that is, to what natures it is fitting to contain ‘person’ and which of them should not be separated from the word ‘person’. Indeed, this is clear: ‘nature’ underlies ‘person’ and ‘person’ cannot be predicated beyond ‘nature'” (Boethius, Against Eutyches and Nestorius, 2005, p. 163).
At a time when anthropocentrism is questioned and the relationship with nature is reviewed, it is important to read this medieval philosopher, theologian and humanist.
Boécio. (2005) Escritos (OPUSCULA SACRA). Tradução, introdução, estudos introdutórios e notas Juvenal Savian Filho. Prefácio de Marilena Chauí. São Paulo, Brazil: Martins Fontes.
