Augustinian Synthesis to Aristotelian Amalgam

Abstract

AbstractIn the 13th century, natural philosophy changed status from an enterprise of marginal significance into one that formed the principal point of entry into the understanding of the world and our place in it. This was effected through the introduction of Aristotelianism into the University of Paris at the beginning of the 13th century where, in its new role as a philosophical foundation for systematic theology, natural philosophy became the single point of entry into natural knowledge of the natural and supernatural realms. The compatibility of Aristotelian natural philosophy was never wholly resolved, however, and matters came to a head at the beginning of the 16th century on the question of the immortality of the soul, where Aristotelian natural philosophy and Christian teaching were in conflict. In many ways, this conflict, which centred around the work of Pomponazzi, provided a model for the later Copernicanism disputes.