Bertrand Russell's a History of Western Philosophy: Book Two: Catholic Philosophy

COMMENTARIES » BERTRAND RUSSELL'S A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY BOOK TWO CATHOLIC PHILOSOPHY A Critical Analysis of Russell's View of Catholic Philosophy This part of Russell's History will be discussed in three sections. First, we must consider the relation that Russell sees between Catholic philosophy and medieval culture; secondly, his exposition of the general nature and development of Catholic philosophy; and then we will be in a position to examine and weigh the treatment accorded to particular representatives of Catholic philosophy. I. Catholic Philosophy and Social Causation The reader who comes upon Russell's work with a recollection of Will Durant's best-seller of two decades ago will not expect to find more than a few pages covering the gap between Plotinus and the dawn of Renaissance philosophy. Nor would Russell's own fundamental contributions to recent philosophy lead one to expect him to devote a substantial portion of his book to the period of Catholic ascendancy in the history of thought. However, fifteen chapters or one-fourth of the History is given to Catholic philosophy, provisionally described (301) as that line of European thought which was dominant from Augustine to the Renaissance (more precisely to Occam). In addition to discussing the Fathers of the Church and the Schoolmen, Russell feels required to trace the religious development of the Jews and the Church of the first 1. A HISTORY OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY by Bertrand Russell by permission of Simon and Schuster, Inc. Copyright, 1945 by Bertrand Russell. 193 FRANCISCAN STUDIES — 6 194COMMENTARIES four centuries. Moreover, conditions in the Mohammedan world during the Middle Ages are also touched upon for their bearing on Western life. At first glance the presence of this section lends an appearance of comprehensiveness to the History which is desirable in these Alexandrian days of summaries and surveys. A closer inspection reveals that only four complete chapters are given to a formal consideration of the Christian philosophers (Augustine, John the Scot, Aquinas and the Franciscan Schoolmen). Other philosophers treated are introduced almost incidentally in connection with Russell's account of general cultural trends. Well over half the pages alloted to the Catholic period deal with the place of the early Church in the Roman Empire, its responsibility for the Dark Ages and its policy towards the barbarians, the growth of ecclesiastical power and the medieval conflict between Church and State (the Holy Roman Empire), the position and varying fortunes of the papacy in the new world order, the moral condition of medieval Christendom and the factors leading to the sixteenthcentury revolt. What is usually taken to be general history thus holds a more prominent place in Russell's volume than in any previous study of medieval philosophy. And the proportion of cultural to philosophical material is greater in this section of the history than in his treatmen of either ancient or modern philosophy . It would not be difficult to point out historical and theological inaccuracies or a biased spirit in these pages. They present the viewpoint of an educated Englishman who has conveniently at hand his Cambridge Medieval History, Gibbon, Lea, White, Cumont, Lecky, some edition of Ueberweg and the Encyclopadia Britannica. Obviously this line of criticism does not belong to the philosopher. Something more is at stake in this section than whether there are only four Doctors of the Western Church (334, 381), or whether the sacraments are miraculous and magical (408-409), or whether devotion to learning was any part of St. Dominic's original intention (451), or whether St. Jerome's famous account of his dream fully expressed his mind upon the reading of pagan literature (343-Russell would perhaps be scandalized at the chapter entitled "Saint Jerome The Humanist," in COMMENTARIES195 E.K. Rand's Founders of the Middle Ages). Mistakes of this sort are frequent enough to undermine confidence in the author as a guide to medieval history, but his central conception does not stand or fall with these particular points. This central position is a properly philosophical one, and can be dealt with only in a philosophical way. Unlike many authors who have written histories of philosophy, Russell is himself an eminent philosopher. Nor did he step out...