Medieval Thinking

In the essay "Medieval Thinking" (1991), French historian of philosophy and honorary professor at the Collège de France Alain de Libera (born 1948) offers an atypical concept of the genesis of European culture.

Examining various aspects of medieval life and relying on a wide range of written sources, the scholar explores the prerequisites for the emergence of the "intellectual" at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries—a phenomenon that influenced the entire subsequent development of Western history. Driven by the desire to "discuss the undiscussed," the scholar dismantles common stereotypes about the "dark" ages and reveals what lies behind such concepts as Averroism, Thomism, and mysticism.

In the assimilation of the Greco-Arab heritage, the influence of Aristotle on astrology, the theory of humility of Meister Eckhart, and Dante's contemplation of the stars, de Libera sees the roots of medieval philosophical thinking.