Recovery of Aristotle

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The "Recovery of Aristotle" (or Rediscovery) refers to the copying or re-translating of most (95%) of Aristotle's other books (of ancient Greece), from Greek or Arabic text into Latin, during the Middle Ages, of the Latin West. The Recovery of Aristotle spanned about 100 years, from the middle 12th century into the 13th century, and copied or translated over 42 books (see: Corpus Aristotelicum), including Arabic texts from the Moors, where the previous Latin versions had only 2 books in general circulation: Categories and On Interpretation (De Interpretatione).

The lack of Latin translations had been due to several factors, including limited techniques for copying books, lack of access to the Greek texts, and few people who could read ancient Greek, while the Arabic versions were more accessible. The recovery of Aristotle's texts is considered a major period in mediaeval philosophy, leading to Aristotelianism. Because some of Aristotle's newly-translated views discounted the notions of a personal God, immortal soul, or creation, various leaders of the Catholic Church were inclined to censor those views for decades, such as lists of forbidden books in the Condemnations of 1210–1277 at the University of Paris. Meanwhile, Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274), at the end of that time period, was able to reconcile the viewpoints of Aristotelianism and Christianity, primarily in his work, Summa Theologica (written 1265–1274, in several volumes).

The rejection, by powerful religious leaders, to censor some recovered books of Aristotle, opened a new path to allow other ideas to be considered, or taught, regarding subjects in the banned books. Eventually, new ideas became more widespread, such as the heliocentric (sun-centered) sytem noted by Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), which rejected Aristotle's Earth-centered system, even though Galileo's ideas were later censored by Church officials during his lifetime, as well.

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 {{Template}}
-'''Global intellectual history''' is the history of thought in the world across the span of human history, from the [[invention of writing]] to the present. For information about the methodology of [[intellectual history]], please see the [[intellectual history|relevant article]].
+The "'''Recovery of Aristotle'''" (or '''Rediscovery''') refers to the copying or re-translating of most (95%) of [[Aristotle]]'s other books (of ancient Greece), from Greek or Arabic text into Latin, during the [[Middle Ages]], of the [[Latin West]]. The Recovery of Aristotle spanned about 100 years, from the middle 12th century into the 13th century, and copied or translated over 42 books (see: [[Corpus Aristotelicum]]), including Arabic texts from the [[Moors]], where the previous Latin versions had only 2 books in general circulation: ''[[Categories (Aristotle)|Categories]]'' and ''[[On Interpretation]]'' (''[[De Interpretatione]]'').
-In recent years, historians such as [[C.A. Bayly]] have been calling for a ''global intellectual history'' to be written. They stress that to understand the history of ideas across time and space, it is necessary to study from a [[cosmopolitan]] or global point of view the connections and the parallels in intellectual development across the world. Yet these separate histories and their convergence in the modern period have yet to be brought together into a single historical narrative. Nonetheless, some global histories, like Bayly's own ''Birth of the Modern World'' or [[David Armitage (historian)|David Armitage]]'s ''The Declaration of Independence: A Global History'' offer contributions to the huge and necessarily collaborative project of writing the history of thought in a comparative and especially connective way. Other examples of transnational intellectual histories include [[Albert Hourani]]'s ''Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age''.
+The lack of Latin translations had been due to several factors, including limited techniques for copying books, lack of access to the Greek texts, and few people who could read [[ancient Greek]], while the Arabic versions were more accessible. The recovery of Aristotle's texts is considered a major period in mediaeval philosophy, leading to [[Aristotelianism]]. Because some of Aristotle's newly-translated views discounted the notions of a personal God, immortal soul, or creation, various leaders of the [[Catholic Church]] were inclined to censor those views for decades, such as lists of forbidden books in the [[Condemnations of 1210–1277]] at the [[University of Paris]]. Meanwhile, [[Thomas Aquinas]] (c.1225-1274), at the end of that time period, was able to reconcile the viewpoints of Aristotelianism and Christianity, primarily in his work, ''[[Summa Theologica]]'' (written 1265–1274, in several volumes).
-The origins of human intellectual history arguably began before the [[invention of writing]], but historians are by definition only concerned with the eras in which writing was present. In the spirit of a historiographic project that is relevant to all human beings and that has yet to be completed, the sections that follow briefly review currents of thought in pre-modern and modern history of the world, and are organized by geographic area (and within each section, chronologically).
+The rejection, by powerful religious leaders, to censor some recovered books of Aristotle, opened a new path to allow other ideas to be considered, or taught, regarding subjects in the banned books. Eventually, new ideas became more widespread, such as the [[heliocentric]] (sun-centered) sytem noted by [[Galileo Galilei]] (1564-1642), which rejected Aristotle's Earth-centered system, even though Galileo's ideas were later censored by Church officials during his lifetime, as well.
-==Europe and the Americas==
+==See also==
-The modern intellectual history of Europe cannot be separated from various bodies of ancient thought, from the works of classical Greek and Latin authors to the writings of the fathers of the Christian Church. Such a broad survey of topics is not attempted here, however. A debatable but defensible starting point for modern European thought might instead be identified with the birth of [[scholasticism]] and [[humanism]] in the 13th and 14th centuries. Both of these intellectual currents were associated with classical revivals (in the case of scholasticism, the rediscovery of [[Aristotle]]; in the case of humanism, of Latin antiquity, especially [[Cicero]]) and with prominent founders, [[Aquinas]] and [[Petrarch]] respectively. But they were both significantly original intellectual experiences, as well as self-consciously modern, so that they make an appropriate starting point for this survey.
+*[[Transmission of the Classics]]
+* [[Corpus Aristotelicum]] - a full list of Aristotle's known works.
-What follows below is a selective and far from complete listing of significant trends and individuals in the history of European thought. While movements such as the Enlightenment or Romanticism are relatively imprecise approximations, rarely taken too seriously by scholars, they are good starting points for approaching the enormous complexity of the history of Europe's intellectual heritage. It is hoped that interested readers will pursue the listed topics in greater depth by consulting the respective articles and the suggestions for further reading.
+* [[Scholasticism]]
+* [[Thomism]]
-The intellectual history of western [[Europe]] and the [[Americas]] includes:
+* ''[[Aristote au mont Saint-Michel]]'' (2008), a book by French historian Sylvain Gouguenheim
-{{Col-begin}}
-{{Col-1-of-2}}
-;*[[Scholasticism]]: Associated especially with [[Aquinas]] and the [[recovery of Aristotle]], a movement that was popular in universities and provided a new way of reasoning especially in law, philosophy, theology.
-;*[[Humanism]]: Humanists were associated with the discipline of [[rhetoric]] but they were not just orators, they also learned ancient languages, especially [[classical Greek]] and created new knowledge about the secular past. The revival of ancient literature and philosophy was of immense importance for the further development of European thought. The first humanist is considered to be [[Petrarch]]. Later exponents of note were [[Leonardo Bruni]], [[Lorenzo Valla]], and [[Erasmus of Rotterdam]].
-;*[[The Renaissance]]: A movement in the arts and letters, it is associated particularly with humanism, but also with new trends in painting and with the efflorescence of a new courtly culture that from [[Italy]] (c.1350) spread across Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries.
-;*[[Scientific Revolution|The New Philosophy]]: The 20th century dubbed this the [[Scientific Revolution]], but in the 17th century, the new science was more often considered to be a new way of doing philosophy. It is associated mainly with the thought of [[Francis Bacon]] and [[Descartes]]. Other important philosophers were: [[Hobbes]], [[Pierre Gassendi|Gassendi]], [[Nicolas Malebranche|Malebranche]], [[Spinoza]], [[Leibniz]]. Advances in [[astronomy]] were made by [[Copernicus]], [[Tycho Brahe|Brahe]], [[Kepler]] and [[Galileo]].
-;*[[The Royal Society]]: A secular creation of an intellectual world led by figures such as [[Isaac Newton]], [[Robert Hooke]], [[Christopher Wren]], [[Joseph Addison]], and [[Bishop Sprat]].
-;*[[The Enlightenment]]: Key developments in thought included [[Human rights|The rights of man]], [[representative democracy|political representation]], [[political economy]], [[deism]]. Notable participants counted [[Pierre Bayle|Bayle]], [[David|Hume]], [[Adam Smith]], [[Adam Ferguson]], [[Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle|Fontenelle]], the [[Comte de Buffon]], [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], [[Voltaire]], [[Rousseau]], [[Diderot]], [[Moses Mendelssohn]], [[Giambattista Vico|Vico]].
-;*[[The Encyclopaedists]]: The creation of central repositories of knowledge available to all outside of academies, including mass-market encyclopaedias and dictionaries: [[Denis Diderot|Diderot]], [[Samuel Johnson]], [[Voltaire]], and [[Ephraim Chambers]].
-;*[[Romanticism]] : Individual, subjective, imaginative, personal, visionary (scholarly sources [[Thomas Carlyle|Carlyle]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]], [[Sidney Hook|Hook]], and [[Johann Gottfried Herder|Herder]]).
-{{Col-2-of-2}}
-;*[[Post-romanticism]]: Reaction to [[naturalism (philosophy)|naturalism]], opposes external-only observations by adding internal observations (scholarly sources [[Auguste Comte|Comte]], [[Leopold von Ranke|von Ranke]]).
-;*[[Modernism]] : Rejects Christian academic scholarly tradition (scholarly sources [[Søren Kierkegaard]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Jacob Burckhardt]], [[Charles A. Beard|Charles Beard]], [[Ferdinand de Saussure]], [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Carl Jung]]).
-;*[[Pragmatism]] : Links the meaning of beliefs to the actions of a believer, and the truth of beliefs to success of those actions in securing a believer's goals. [[Charles Sanders Peirce]], [[William James]], [[John Dewey]], [[F.C.S. Schiller]], [[Richard Rorty]]. Originated in late nineteenth century America.
-;*[[Existentialism]]: Pre- and post-WW2 rejection of Western norms and cultural values.  [[Søren Kierkegaard]], [[Martin Heidegger]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Simone de Beauvoir]], [[Albert Camus]], [[Hannah Arendt]], [[Hans Jonas]], [[Karl Löwith]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]], [[Martin Buber]], [[Edmund Husserl]]. Engaged with the intellectual prominence of fascism and socialism in Europe during in the 1930s and 1940s, which they saw needed both repudiation and study, as a way to re-establish the individual against the values of a hostile and destructive series of communities creating alienation, isolation, and individual meaninglessness.
-;*[[Postmodernism]] : Rejects Modernism, [[meta-narrative]] - multiple perspective, role of individual (scholarly sources [[Jean-François Lyotard|Lyotard]], [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]], [[Roland Barthes|Barthes]], [[Clifford Geertz|Geertz]]).
-;*[[Structuralism]] : Many phenomena do not occur in isolation but in relation to each other (scholarly sources [[Clifford Geertz|Geertz]], [[Claude Lévi-Strauss|Lévi-Strauss]]).
-;*[[Poststructuralism]] :[[Deconstruction]], destabilizes the relationship between language and objects the language refers to (scholarly sources [[Jean-François Lyotard|Lyotard]], [[Jacques Derrida|Derrida]], [[Michel Foucault|Foucault]]).
-{{Col-end}}
-==South and East Asia==
-''Pre-Modern East Asia''
-The intellectual history of China is connected to the birth of scholarship in ancient China, the creation of [[Confucianism]] with its extensive exegesis of the texts of [[Confucius]], and the active part of scholars in governments. In Korea, the [[yangban]] scholar movement drove the development of [[Traditional Korean thought|Korean intellectual history]] from the late [[Goryeo]] to the golden age of intellectual achievement in the [[Joseon Dynasty]].
-In [[China]], ''literati'' referred to the government officials who formed the ruling class in China for over two thousand years. These ''[[scholar-bureaucrats]]'' were a [[status group]] of educated [[laymen]], not ordained [[priest]]s. They were not a [[hereditary]] group as their position depended on their knowledge of writing and literature. After 200 B.C. the system of selection of candidates was influenced by [[Confucianism]] and established its ethic among the literati.
-Confucianism (儒家, literally "scholarly tradition") is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of the early Chinese sage Confucius. Confucius is seen as the founder of the teachings of Confucianism, although he claimed to follow the ways of people before him. Confucianism is a complex system of moral, social, political, philosophical, and religious thought which has had tremendous influence on the culture and history of East Asia. Some people in Europe have considered it to have been the "state religion" in East Asian countries because of governmental promotion of Confucianist values and needs.
-Other ancient intellectual currents in East Asia include [[Buddhism]] and [[Daoism]].
-''Modern East Asia''
-The modern intellectual history of [[China]] is considered to begin with the arrival of the [[Jesuits]] in the sixteenth century. The Jesuits brought with them new astronomical and cartographic knowledge, and were responsible for new developments in [[Chinese science]]. Science in modern China has been the subject of the work of the historian [[Benjamin Elman]].
-''Pre-Modern South Asia''
-Indian thought is a broad topic that includes the ancient epics of South Asia, the development of what is now called [[Hinduism]] and [[Hindu philosophy]] and the rise of [[Buddhism]], as well as many other topics relating to the political and artistic lives of pre-modern South Asia.
-[[Ram Sharan Sharma]]'s work ''Aspects of Political Ideas and Institutions in India'' ([[Motilal Banarsidass]] is the most authoritative account of ancient Indian political ideas and institutions. It deals with the intellectual standards in ancient India in terms of political institutions.
-==Africa and the Middle East==
-''Pre-Modern History''
-The culture of the ancient [[Near East]] and eventually of much of Africa as well was modified significantly by the arrival of [[Islam]] beginning in the seventh century CE. The history of [[Islam]] has been the work of many scholars, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and including such luminaries as [[Ignaz Goldziher]], [[Marshall Hodgson]] and in more recent times [[Patricia Crone]]. Islamic culture is not a simple and unified entity. The history of Islam, like that of other religions, is a history of different interpretations and approaches to Islam. There is no a-historical Islam outside the process of historical development.
-[[Islamic thought]] includes a variety of different intellectual disciplines, including theology, the study of the [[Qur'an]], the study of [[Hadith]], [[history]], [[grammar]], [[rhetoric]], and [[Islamic philosophy|philosophy]]. For more information see the [[Islamic Golden Age]].
-Classical Islamic scholars and authors include:
-<div  style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
-*[[Ali al-Masudi]]
-*[[Ibn Khaldūn]]
-*[[Al-Ma'arri]]
-*[[Taftazani]]
-*[[Muhammad al-Bukhari]]
-*[[Ibn Sina]]
-*[[Ibn Rushd]]
-*[[Ibn Arabi]]
-*[[Ibn Hisham]]
-*[[al-Tabari]]
-</div>
-[[Persian philosophy]] can be traced back as far as to Old Iranian philosophical traditions and  thoughts which originated in ancient [[Indo-Iranians|Indo-Iranian]] roots and were considerably influenced by  [[Zarathustra]]'s teachings. Throughout Iranian history and due to remarkable political and social changes such as the [[Alexander the Great|Macedonian]], [[Islamic conquest of Persia|Arab]] and [[Mongol invasion of Central Asia|Mongol]] invasions of Persia a wide spectrum of schools of thoughts showed a variety of views on philosophical questions extending from Old Iranian and mainly [[Zoroastrianism]]-related traditions to schools appearing in the late pre-Islamic era such as [[Manicheism]] and [[Mazdakism]] as well as various post-Islamic schools. Iranian philosophy after Arab invasion of [[Persia]], is characterized by different interactions with the [[Ancient philosophy|Old Iranian philosophy]], the [[Greek philosophy]] and with the development of [[Islamic philosophy]]. The [[Illumination School]] and the [[Transcendent Philosophy]] are regarded as two of the main philosophical traditions of that era in Persia.
-''Modern Near and Middle East''
-[[Islam and modernity]] encompass the relation and compatibility between the phenomenon of modernity, its related concepts and ideas, and the religion of Islam. In order to understand the relation between Islam and modernity, one point should be made in the beginning. BSimilarly, modernity is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon rather than a unified and coherent phenomenon. It has historically had different schools of thoughts moving in many directions.
-[[Intellectual movements in Iran]] involve the Iranian experience of [[modernism]], through which Iranian modernity and its associated art, science, literature, poetry, and political structures have been evolving since the 19th century. [[Religious intellectualism in Iran]] develops gradually and subtly. It reached its apogee during the Persian Constitutional Revolution (1906–11). The process involved numerous philosophers, sociologists, political scientists and cultural theorists. However the associated art, cinema and poetry remained to be developed.
-''Modern Africa''
-Recent concepts about African culture include the [[African Renaissance]] and [[Afrocentrism]]. The [[African Renaissance]] is a concept popularized by [[President of South Africa|South African President]] [[Thabo Mbeki]] who called upon the African people and nations to solve the many problems troubling the [[Africa]]n continent.  It reached its height in the late 1990s but continues to be a key part of the post-[[apartheid]] intellectual agenda in South Africa. The concept however extends well beyond intellectual life to politics and economic development.
-With the rise of [[Afrocentrism]], the push away from [[Eurocentrism]] has led to the focus on the contributions of [[African people]] and their model of world civilization and [[history]]. Afrocentrism aims to shift the focus from a perceived European-centered history to an [[African]]-centered history. More broadly, Afrocentrism is concerned with distinguishing the influence of [[Demography of Europe|European]] and [[Oriental]] peoples from African achievements.
-Notable modern African intellectual include:
-<div  style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;">
-*[[Taban Lo Liyong]]
-*[[Wole Soyinka]]
-*[[Frantz Fanon]]
-*[[Chinua Achebe]]
-*[[W.E.B. Dubois]] spent his final years in Ghana
-</div>
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Recovery of Aristotle

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