Notes on metaphysics in medieval thought: between Aristotle and Descartes

Abstract

These notes outline three models of metaphysics in the Middle Ages: those of Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and Master Eckhart. Although these authors share the inheritance and the imposing conceptual framework of Aristotle's Metaphysics, their own sensitivities and philosophical orientations lead them to elaborate three different forms of «metaphysics». Thomas Aquinas, relying on the Aristotelian interpretation of Avicenna, considers metaphysics as a general ontology, which encompasses a natural theology rooted in physics and cosmology. John Duns Scotus also conceives metaphysics as an ontology, but he bases it on a univocal concept of the entity and avoids any intervention of physics in the knowledge of the first principle of things. Master Eckhart rejects both the mediation of ontology and physics in the elaboration of metaphysics, which he conceives as a negative theology that leads him to formulate the concept of God as «One». René Descartes operates a synthesis of the medieval philosophical tradition and his own vision of mechanics: for him metaphysics is no longer the final peak of philosophy, but the root of all knowledge and guarantee of the truth of the new physics.