9 PSYCHOLOGICAL IDEAS OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE

In the medieval period in Europe one of the central positions was occupied by scholasticism. This type of philosophical reasoning (“school philosophy”) prevailed in the 11th – 16th centuries. It came down to a rational interpretation of Christian doctrine.

Scholasticism had various trends, the general situation for which was commenting on texts. The usual study of any subject and discussion of real burning problems was replaced by verbal tricks. The Catholic Church initially forbade the study and propaganda of the works of Aristotle, but soon took up the "mastering", adapting them in accordance with their needs.

This problem was most subtly solved by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). His teaching was later canonized in the encyclical of the Pope (1879) as a true Catholic philosophy and psychology. This doctrine was named Thomism. Nowadays, the name of this doctrine has been somewhat modernized, now it is called neo-Thomism.

Thomas Aquinas defended his religious and "descending from above truth." He believed that the mind is obliged to serve this truth, like the religious feeling itself. At Oxford University in England, the concept of ambivalent truth was well accepted and became the ideological prerequisite for the success of philosophy and the natural sciences.

Thomas Aquinas described the spiritual life and arranged its various forms in the form of a certain ladder - from the lowest to the highest. In this hierarchy, each phenomenon has its specific place.

Souls are arranged in steps (human, plant and animal), in each of them abilities and their products are located - a sensation, a presentation, a concept.

Thomists opposed the concept of the soul of nomismo.

His energetic preacher was a professor at Oxford University, William Ockham (1285–1349).

He rejected Thomism, but defended the doctrine of "dual truth." U. Ockham believed that it was necessary to rely on sensual experience, but at the same time it was necessary to be guided by something denoting classes of objects, or classes of signs or names.

The concept of nominalism contributed to the development of scientific views on the ability of people to experience this world. In subsequent centuries, many other thinkers will turn to signs.

Thus, in the era of the Middle Ages, new ideas related to the experimental knowledge of the manifestations of the soul were spread. But already at that time other ideas began to arise, based on a deterministic approach. These ideas reached their peak in the Renaissance.