The So-Called Synthesis in Medieval Philosophy

Abstract

The notion of a synthesis in medieval philosophy and theology is itself the resultant of a given attitude toward the study of broadly cultural and philosophical movements. Now modern historical research, by employing as one of its main concepts the principle of continuity, has been of great service in tracing the line of connection between historical individuals and events which would otherwise have appeared as isolated separated points without any significant connection. Insofar, however, as the aspect of continuity in history has been emphasized, there has been a proportionate danger that the unique differences of the individuals which are united by a single thread are disregarded. As a result, analysis of the specific problems faced by individual philosophers and of the methods which they devised to deal with the problem as conceived by them, has yielded in order of emphasis to a wider and looser manner of characterizing philosophic positions, as e. g., realistic, idealistic, pragmatic, etc., often unaccompanied by a knowledge of the method actually employed by the philosophy in question.