SELECTIONS FROM MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHERS
Richard McKeon, editor and translator
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"The foundations of certainty, of knowledge, and of philosophy are in the mind's self-knowledge." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena
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"God is present and to be recognized in the workings of the world and the soul." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Augustine
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"Man is an intellectual idea present in the mind of God. The idea and the substance of man resides eternally in God; he is essentially the knowledge which God has of him. Ultimately the knowledge of all things which are, is that which they are." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena
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"True knowledge is implanted in human nature, although its presence is as yet concealed from the soul itself until it is restored to its pristine integrity, in which it will understand very purely the magnitude and beauty of the image fashioned in it, and nothing will shut it off from the things which are fashioned in it, encompassed as it will be by divine light and turned to God, in whom it will contemplate all things perspicuously." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On the Division of Nature'
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"Everything which is, is good; and everything which is, is true." Robert Grosseteste (ca.1175-1253), 'On Truth'
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"Everything which will later become this or that particular thing is contained invisibly in the seminal reasons implanted at creation; the world blooms out of its primitive elements as a tree develops from its seed." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Augustine
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"The human mind, its idea by which it knows itself, and the discipline by which it learns itself that it may know itself, subsist as one and the same essence." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-870?), 'On the Division of Nature'
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"Ideas, by the analysis St. Anselm makes of them, are thenselves things; and for them to be is indication of something concerning the nature of things." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Anselm
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"Humanity is a certain intellectual idea formed eternally in the divine mind." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On the Division of Nature'
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"God is beyond opposition; in him is a reconciliation of contraries." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena
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"I understand that there arise and are made in me, when I seek them out earnestly, certain ideas like intelligible species, of the intelligibles within, which I contemplate with the mind alone." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On The Division of Nature',
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"In the mind itself, God's image is found. Indeed, the mind is the image of God in that by which it is capable of Him and by which it can be partaker of Him….The mind remembers itself, understands itself, loves itself; if we are aware of this, we are aware of an image of God." Peter Lombard (ca. 1100-64), 'The Four Books of Sentences', book 1, ch. 2
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"Everything which is not from God can in no manner be understood, because it is not in any manner." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On the Division of Nature',
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"The knowledge of the world is so related to the knowledge of God that the mind passes immediately from the world to God." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Augustine
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"All this sensible world is fashioned in man. There is no part of it to be found, whether corporeal or incorporeal, which does not subsist created in man, which does not perceive, which does not live, which is not incorporated in him." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On The Division of Nature'
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"Creation is precisely the manifestation in multitudinous form of the single superessential Nature." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena
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"Man is something good, because he can, when he so wishes, live rightly." St. Augustine, 'On The Free Will'
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"The soul does not see outside itself what it perceives, but it sees within." John Scotus Eriugena, (800?-877?), 'On The Division of Nature'
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"This indeed is faith – not a vague sentiment of the soul adhering to a doctrine without rational motivation, nor a mysticism without sure proofs, nor yet an intellectualist certainty imposed necessarily by the evidence of irresistible proofs – but an intellectual adherence to truths which are guaranteed in testimony worthy of credence and illustrated, once believed, in all the facts of the universe." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Augustine
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"Man knows only himself, but knowing himself he knows the essence which manifests itself in different things. Since all things partake of that essence in varying degrees, he knows all existent things." Richard McKeon, introduction to John Scotus Eriugena
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"While we discuss, each of us is made into the other. Since, in fact, when I understand what you understand, I am made your understanding and in a certain ineffable way I have been made into you." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On the Division of Nature'
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"By creatures we can raise ourselves to a knowledge of God." Richard McKeon, introduction to St. Augustine
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"I understand the substance of the entire man to be no other than his idea in the mind of the artificer who knew all things in himself before they were made." John Scotus Eriugena (800?-877?), 'On The Division of Nature'
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