A Study On The Transmission Of Aristotelian Doctrines In The Middle Ages

At present,scholars at home and abroad have touched upon the transmission and significance of Aristotelian doctrines in the Middle Ages,but the research is still not in-depth and comprehensive enough,with little reference to cities,routes and dissemination cultures,etc.Therefore,it is groundless to discuss the profound influence of Aristotelian doctrines in the Middle Ages.The first chapter consists of the diffusion and ups and downs of Aristotle’s works.After his death,the manuscripts bearing the doctrines underwent tribulations and circulation,and some of them were lost and unreadable.As the carrier and basis of the dissemination of Aristotelian doctrines,the inheritance,preservation,copying,editing,circulation and interpretation of his(manuscript)works were extremely important,which directly determined or affected the content and form of the dissemination of doctrines in the future,main participants and so on.The second chapter focuses on the dissemination of Aristotelian doctrines in the Byzantine Empire.As the successor of ancient Greek and Roman cultures,the Greekness of Byzantine Empire gradually came to the fore after the division of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires.Compared with the Western European society in the same period,the Byzantine ruling class paid more attention to academics,talents and ancient Greek and Roman cultures,which was a favorable condition for the transmission of Aristotelian doctrines.In turn,the rulers also used those doctrines to consolidate their rule and demonstrate their political and military achievements.Christian patriarches and theologians,Nestorians and Monophysites,and neoPlatonists played a crucial part in the transmission.Besides commentaries,there were also paraphrase,compendium,synopsis,treatise,and scholia.To some extent,the Byzantine Empire became a transfer station for the dissemination of Aristotelian doctrines,and cities like Alexandria,Constantinople,Antioch,Edessa and Nisibis turned into important centers of transmission,through which the doctrines were spread to Persia and then to the Arab Empire.The third chapter discusses the transmission of Aristotelian doctrines in the Arab Empire.The two-hundred-year odd translation movement,the establishment of the Bayt al-Hikma(The House of Wisdom),the rulers’ tradition of valuing knowledge,and the western transmission and application of papermaking and printing greatly promoted the dissemination of the doctrines without doubt.Later,Eastern Aristotelianism gradually came into existence in the Empire,represented by Kendi,Farabi,Avicenna and so on.Centered on Toledo in Spain,western Aristotelianism came into existence,with Ibn Bajji and Ibn Rashd(Averroes)as its representatives.At the same time,in Muslim Spain,Christian translators and Jewish philosophers also had an impact on the dissemination of the doctrines.As regards the route of transmission,the doctrines were spread westward from Baghdad,through Sicily and other places,to Toledo and Cordoba in Muslim Spain,where they were transmitted to Western Europe.Chapter four is focused on how the doctrines were transmitted back to Latin West,after passing through the Byzantine and Arab Empires,and came up to the stage of medieval universities.The Christian Church took the lead in the transmission of those doctrines,but it was confronted with a thorny problem,i.e.how to deal with the systematic conflict and irreconcilable contradiction between Aristotelian doctrines and its creeds.Scholastic philosophers,led by Albertus Magnus and Aquinas,cured those problems with their wisdom,coordinated the relationship between faith and reason,brought it under their command,and proposed Christian Aristotelianism.In terms of the transmission route,the doctrines took Paris as the center,crossing the English Channel,and were spread to Oxford,Cambridge and other places.Chapter five takes the tug of war between temporal power and spiritual power in the Middle Ages as the clue,clarifies the influence of Aristotelian doctrines,especially Nicomachean Ethics,Politics and Metaphysics,on Catholic theologians and thinkers,and analyzes respectively the doctrines used by John of Salisbury,Giles of Rome,John of Paris,Dante,Marcilius of Padua and William of Occham,in order to defend their political positions.Aristotelian doctrines gradually became a weapon for two factions to attack each other.Finally,based on above discussions in each chapter,the dissertation concludes that the dissemination of Aristotle’s doctrines,in essence,concerns its interaction with other culures.The transmission was a process of continuous gaining,which gradually"deformed" the doctrines.Only when transmitted back to Western Europe,the doctrines would eventually resume their original appearance to some extent.This study is inspiring to cultural communication and mutual learning among civilizations.