philosophical anthropology

Medieval prelude

Plato’s conception of Ideas or essences as the true objects of knowledge had fateful implications for the way the soul was understood in both the ancient and the medieval worlds. This can be illustrated by the semantic vicissitudes of the word Idea, which he introduced into philosophical parlance. Etymologically, the word derives from the Greek verb eidô (“to look”), and, in its original pre-philosophical use, it meant something like the visual look of a thing. In Plato’s usage, however, it was as if this visual form had been detached from the object in question (and from the particularity that accrued to it there) and elevated to the rank of a universal archetype. As such, it became an object of thought (rather than of perception) and of knowledge in its most authentic and rigorous form. Even though Ideas in Plato’s account were not housed in any soul or mind, in Christian theology such archetypes were thought to reside in the mind of God, who created the world using them as his models. But if the infinite mind of God was the locus of Ideas and if God created man in ... (200 of 11,945 words)