Starting from Albert the Great the project aims to uncover the origins of the modern concept of human being in the Middle Ages. The rediscovery of the human being as a relevant philosophical subject matter is often seen as a characteristic of the Renaissance. The genesis of this process however dates back to 13th century.
Albertus Magnus (1200-1280) is a one of the most interesting scholastic authors. Some of the foremost Albert-specialists speak of a “humanizing of the human being” in Albert the Great. He combines different philosophical sources and different perspectives – philosophical as well as theological – and puts the human being in the centre of his interest. What is human nature and what can be attained with his natural resources? Such a formulation of the problem is simply innovative for the 13th century.
The Human Nature
Albert regards the human nature from different perspectives represented by different disciplines. Each one of those is a methodological instrument to express and describe the single aspects of the complex human existence.
Natural Philosophy
Albert has a particular interest tot he singular and the physical apsects oft he human being. His die animalibus as well as his commentaries on Parva naturalia are abundent with case studies and curiosities, going far beyond Aristotle and driving on Arabic and Hebrew material as well as on various contemporary authors (which he mostly refutes) and even first hand observations. Albert’s woks on natural philosophy had a huge reception with in hundreds of manuscripts and shaped to a great extent the physical and even medical knowledge in the next centuries. He combines this naturalistic approach with a theological understanding of the human being as the highest creature, homo animal nobilissimum.
Psychology
A particular case of natural philosophy is the branch studying the soul,scientia de anima. On the one hand the specific difference of man is the ratio, but on the other, it is the human intellect that is the divine particle in the human being and, thus, the connection between God and the world(nexus dei et mundi). The intellect is called divine as it is caable of grasping abstract, universal, and even divine matters.This tension between natural and divine element within the soul, which has to be grasped and demonstrated with the means of natural philosophy is going to bring forth numerous discussions in late 13thand in the 14thcenturies. These tensions are already inherent in Albert’s account on the science of the soul.
Ethics
Albert is mostly famous for his theory of intellectual happiness which brings to a intellectual perfection. It has been since a while acknowledge but yet not studied that Albert envisages an alternative way of perfection of the human nature: the ethical one. The ethical approach and the possibility for an ethical perfection along with the intellectual one saves Albert from a possible intellectualist interpretation and adds to his integrative concept of human being.
Summary
- Medieval philosophy in context. The project is concerned with medieval philosophy, with its Ancient and Arab roots and with its influence on the debates and developments of the late Middle Ages and up until the late Renaissance.
- Interdisciplinary Approach. While remaining within the ‘department’ of philosophy, the project takes into account various disciplines that aim to describe in their entirety the human nature in its various modes of existence.
- Philosophical Relevance. The project is not restricted to solely reconstructing the thought of a particular Medieval author, but are also directed at uncovering what lies underneath our modern concept of human being; what, at the bottom line, could we learn about ourselves within a medieval account on human nature and its perfection.