The Middle Ages is marked in the West by a Integration of philosophy into theologydue to a speculation about divinity and the relationships that the human being had to maintain with it. However, ten centuries have long been and philosophy also lives a great evolution from the first thinkers of the High Middle Ages to the dawn of the Renaissance and humanism.

Often considered an opaque, murky and immobilist era, a kind of transition between two stages of (supposed) splendor such as antiquity and rebirth, the Middle Ages is A historical period that continues to awaken passion for its hermetic character. Next, we select the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages, seven thinkers who tried to solve the enigma about the presence of the human being in a world marked by divine omnipotence.

Agustín de Hipona (354 – 430)

The most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. San Agustín. Source: Wikipedia

Despite having lived in ancient times, the relevance of St. Augustine’s thought is such that it must be included as a medieval philosopher. Born in Tagaste, a city of Numidia, an ancient Berber kingdom between Algeria and Tunisia, He studied grammar and rhetoricin addition to showing great interest in theater.

The Crsitian tradition points out that his mother Monica taught him the basic precepts of Christianity, but Agustín does not become 385 After a period in Italy. He then resigned from all his assets, rejected the chair of rhetoric in Milan withdrawing to monacal life: One of the first ascetic philosophers that found in the isolation the appropriate context to surrender to reflection.

San Agustín’s philosophy is based on a Synthesis between primitive Christianity and Platonic philosophy of authors such as Plotino marking the path that Christian thought will follow for centuries. Inspired by faith, St. Augustine pointed out a new dimension of man: consciousness, “that loneliness that we do not frequent”, a kind of ‘Know yourself’ that would mark his way to the truth whose final destiny would be the contemplation of God and his own soul.

Isidoro de Sevilla (560 – 636)

The Spanish writer and philosopher was one of the great compilers of his time, dedicated during his stage as Archbishop of Seville in the first third of the seventh century to Collect all kinds of knowledge that later integrated into several of his works such as Etymologies, a monumental encyclopedia that reflects the evolution of knowledge from ancient times until its time: nothing less than twenty books and almost 450 chapters in which knowledge about areas such as history, literature or natural sciences are systematized.

Despite having lived in a convulsa stage marked by the Visigoth domain in much of the Iberian Peninsula, Isidoro applied a good part of San Agustín’s philosophy to his thinking having a great influence in the later centuries, being the main responsible for the conversion of the Hispanic Visigoths to Catholicism.

Juan Escoto Erigena (810 – 877)

Although its origin is wrapped in mystery, this Irish thinker reached the Carolingia cut In 850 to direct the palatal school of Carlos El Calvo, a place that became one of the most important enclaves of Western thought during the High Middle Ages, a stage that came to be called ‘Renaissance Carolingio’ because it is a stable period in which religious and political powers were integrated creating a kind of Christian empire.

In this context, Escoto elaborates its Theories inspired by Neoplatonismbut introducing ideas that would be worth a condemn for heresy that he could avoid real protection: the value that gave scoto to reason as a source of true knowledge is one of his great contributions to other preceding Christian thinkers.

Avicena (980 – 1037)

Born in Afshana in the current Uzbekistan, Avicena is not just one of the Parents of Medicinebut one of the great responsible for the Aristotelian thought reintroduction in Western philosophy In a stage like the average age in which vertebró neoplatonism a good part of the doctrines, marking the way to other later thinkers such as Thomas Aquás or Buenaventura de Fidenza.

Famous for his book Canon of Medicinehe said have read more than 40 times the Metaphysics of Aristotle ‘Without having fully understood it’ despite which it was one of the great modernizers of philosophy in this first phase of the Low Middle Ages before Descartes In his reflection on existence.

Pedro Abelardo (1079 – 1142)

The most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. Pedro Abelardo and his lover Eloísa in a painting by Edmund Blair Leighton. Source: Wikipedia

Abelardo is one of the capital figures of medieval philosophy mainly by having vehemently opposed many concepts of the Augustian-Eneoplatonic tradition ascribing to the conceptual doctrine: ideas charge special relevance by connecting the mind of the human being with the surrounding reality. In addition, revolutionized the ethics of his time going against the countercurrent with respect to the traditional penitential moralism of Christianity. He also transcended his private life due to his stormy relationship with Eloísa.

Obviously, these controversial positions for his time caused him more than one problem: In 1141 he was convicted by heretic He must suspend his teaching work that he had played in schools such as the Episcopal of Paris, a true epicenter of Western thought in his time. A year after his conviction, he died in the monastery of Saint-Marcel.

Averroes (1126 –1198)

One of the great intellectual figures of Islam, Averroes was another of the Diffusers of Aristotelism in the Middle Ages Through his thinking formulated in the book Great comment that part of the distinction of four intellects: The material, the usual, the agent and the acquired, with the trying to reflect on the ability of a perishable being to formulate universal truths theoretically only accessible to divinity.

Likewise, and thanks also to your knowledge about medicine and anatomy, it advances in the study of the brain where it locates some faculties such as memory and imagination being a figure whose thesis not only influence Muslim thinking, but also in figures of the Christian rebirth as Giordano Bruno either Pico della Mirandolathe latter founder of the Christian Kabbalah.

Tomás de Aquino (1224 – 1274)

The most important philosophers of the Middle Ages. Saint Thomas Aquinas. Source: Wikipedia

We close this modest selection of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages with Tomás de Aquino, Colossal figure of medieval theology being his metaphysics the basis of the Thomistic and Neotomist school.

Somehow Tomás de Aquinas is the link between a good part of the doctrines so far designed: the Italian thinker accumulates influences of St. Augustine and Avicena, definitively integrating Aristotelism in Christian thought. His theories about faith and reason, the soul and the body, the existence of God or the free will.