In On the Highest Good, or On the Philosophical Life, Boethius of Dacia argues that the highest good possible for humans is the knowledge of truth, the operation of good, and the pleasure in both. This constitutes human happiness, which is the ultimate end of human life. The art of war is ordered in society so that citizens can be free to contemplate the truth through intellectual virtues and to practice good through moral virtues, which ultimately leads to a happy life. A person who desires a long life for the sake of making themselves more perfect in this good desires it reasonably. The highest good owed to man is according to his best virtue, which is reason and intellect. Therefore, the highest good that is possible for man is owed to him according to his intellect. The highest good that is possible for man according to speculative intellect is the knowledge of truth in all things and the delight in it. The virtuous philosopher speaks morally for three reasons: they understand the ugliness of a sinful action, they have tasted a greater pleasure and reject lesser pleasures, and there is no sin in understanding and contemplating. The philosopher leads a very pleasurable life, in accordance with the natural order, and has the greatest love and admiration for the first principle, which is God.
Monday, April 24, 2023
On the Eternity of the World, by Boethius of Dacia
True to their Aristotelian leanings, the Latin Averroists acknowledged Aristotle’s assertion that the world did not begin in creation and is eternal. As Richard Dales has, shown, however, even so ardent a proponent of Aristotle as Boethius of Dacia did not accept Aristotle’s conception of time and eternity uncritically. Indeed, when he set about to write his own account of the eternity of the world, Boethius of Dacia’s main source was neither Aristotle nor Averroes, but Maimonides. Boethius chose the complex problem of eternity to illustrate his thesis that there is no conflict between Christian faith and classical philosophy. His argument rested on his belief that natural philosophy-the observation of the world as it actually is-has no connection with speculation about the possibility of supernatural creation. Like Maimonides, Boethius believed that neither the eternity of the world nor its creation in time could be proven through demonstrable arguments, although he showed a greater willingness than Maimonides to accept the possibility of an eternal world. In an attempt to correct the misconceptions of his predecessors , however, Boethius followed an argument proposed by Maimonides to demonstrate that Aristotle had not successfully proven the eternity of the world. Preoccupied as he was with the thirteenth-century debates concerning the relationship of faith to reason, Boethius felt compelled to find a way of balancing his own deep commitment to philosophy with the religious concerns which dominated his age. His reading of Maimonides aided him in envisioning the problem of eternity as a significant but abstract problem which the methods of neither theology nor natural philosophy could solve. His conclusion that faith and reason should not be forced to compete in the search for truth is an approach which was not regularly taken in the middle ages. Nevertheless, his atypical approach focused attention on the struggle between faith and reason which influenced all medieval discussions of time. As we shall see, those fourteenth-century theologians who eventually tried tentatively to separate faith from reason were profoundly disturbed by the implications their predecessors’ speculations had for both theology and natural philosophy.
—Edith Wilks Dolnikowski, Thomas Bradwardine, §3