In modern science, the period in the history of philosophical thought in Europe from the end of the Ancient Age to the beginning of the Renaissance is traditionally called the medieval period. At the same time, it should be noted that the expression “medieval philosophy” itself is a controversial, problematic expression and requires numerous clarifications. This is due, firstly, to the actual impossibility of accurately dating the moment of transition of the ancient world to the Middle Ages; secondly, to the extremely unique approach, or, more precisely, approaches, to understanding the purpose of philosophical studies and the problems of philosophy as such within the framework of the medieval (Western European Latin and Byzantine), primarily Christian, culture.
The term “Middle Ages” as a name for a specifically new cultural era is first encountered in the texts of the humanist writers of the Italian Renaissance in the 15th century, who proclaimed themselves direct heirs of the Greco-Roman (“ancient”) civilization, and designated the centuries that divided, in their view, the ancient, “fatherland” world and the world of modern Italy, as if newly found, as “intermediate” or “middle”. In the 17th century, the Middle Ages were considered to be the centuries that began in the year of the foundation of the new capital of the Roman Empire – Constantinople and ended with its fall (330-1453). In modern science, the beginning of the culture of the medieval world is usually dated from the time between the accession to the throne of Emperor Diocletian (284) and the death of Constantine the Great (337). The end of the transitional period (from the first beginnings of medieval culture to the emergence of the civilization of the Early Middle Ages) is dated differently in relation to the Western and Eastern Roman Empires: for Byzantium, the transitional period ends in the 7th century, after which the history of the Byzantine state proper begins; for the Western part of the Roman Empire, the process of transition drags on for a long time: the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 and, as a consequence, the emergence of an alternative state to the Byzantine Empire in the West, the Frankish Empire, was an event that to a significant extent prevented the course of development of medieval Latin (Western European) civilization; at the same time, it should be emphasized that the deeds of Charlemagne and his immediate successors, as well as the truly striking achievements of the “Carolingian Renaissance”, were associated primarily with the ideals and precepts of late Antiquity and were primarily retrospective in nature. The situation here changes decisively only by the beginning of the second millennium: with the completion of the migration of barbarian tribes, stabilization occurs, the growth of cities resumes, and gradually in the West a picture of what was later called “feudal society” emerges. The traditional division of medieval philosophy into patristics (2nd – 8th centuries) and scholasticism (11th – 14th centuries) can only be considered partly successful and its legitimacy should be accepted with reservations. Here it will be enough to say that patristics, i.e., the conventional totality of the teachings of the fathers of the Christian church, belongs to a large extent to the ancient era; that the history of theological and philosophical understanding and formulation of Christian dogmatics in the Christian East by no means ended with the last Ecumenical Council (787), but continued, with varying success, right up to the last times of the Byzantine Empire (Palamite controversies); that the phenomenon of patristics as a whole belongs rather to the history of the church than to the history of philosophy, since for various reasons, among the representatives of the patristic theological tradition, not many had a taste and desire for specifically philosophical studies,and the majority considered such studies to be unnecessary and impossible; that in addition to medieval scholasticism, which experienced its final rise and fall in the vicissitudes of late Ockhamism (14th century), there was also a “second scholasticism” during the so-called Counter-Reformation (16th-17th centuries); that, finally, along with scholasticism in the medieval culture of the Latin West there were other forms of thinking that were not directly dependent on it (the natural philosophy of the Chartres school, medieval mysticism).
The philosophy of the Middle Ages is predominantly religious, essentially Christian. The rapprochement of philosophy and religion, characteristic of the representatives of the late antique philosophical tradition — the pagan “middle” and “new” Platonists — which made philosophy a specific kind of ascetic practice and transformed the constitution of religious experience into a movement of theoretical reflection, is already inherent to a significant extent in the earliest founders of medieval spiritual culture — the apologists, i.e., literally “defenders” of faith and the church (2nd century), who repeatedly called the Christian faith itself “our philosophy.” The most general characteristic of the religious-philosophical position is that the only meaning and purpose of human life is proclaimed to be communion with God and knowledge of God, while other goals and meanings (knowledge of the world, happiness, fate) are declared secondary and subordinate to the highest task of knowledge of God — the work of saving the soul. The main difference between specifically Christian theology and pagan theological aspirations can be considered the fact that for a pagan, knowledge of God and salvation are, in essence, a private problem of an individual who has independently realized and resolved these needs by realizing certain abilities; on the contrary, from the point of view of Christian doctrine, man is by nature corrupted and is not capable of either finding peace of mind at his own whim or even comprehending the possibility of finding it; the true basis for the salvation of the world and man, according to the teaching of the church, is the act of mercy of the transcendent God, “who became flesh” (Jesus Christ), who suffered in the world and was resurrected, and through the mystery of his incarnation determined the path and the end of world history, predicted in the past (“before our era”, “before the incarnation”) and prepared for the future (“after the birth of Christ”).
The most important features of the medieval philosophical tradition as a whole include: 1) theocentrism: the main subject of all philosophical and theological studies in the Middle Ages is God, the creator of the universe, whose essence, not subject to rational comprehension, but at the same time accessible for understanding, was anticipated by the action of faith in the formulations imprinted in Scripture (Ex. 3:14 “I am that I am”; 1 John 4:8 “God is love”); 2) creationism (Latin creatio, “creation”): all being in the Christian worldview is divided into created being and the creator, who produced the universe from nothing by free will; between the difference in existing things and the unity of the creator, an implicit connection was assumed, on the basis of which it was allowed to be possible (“by analogy”) to apply the characteristics of created things (with reservations) to the consideration of the properties of the eternal God; 3) providentialism (Latin providentia, “providence”): the world, according to the teaching of the church, was created at the beginning of time by a rational creator on rational principles and is perfectly governed by him at all times – until the end of the century; God’s guardianship of the world is expressed, first of all, in the affirmation of the rationality of the existence of hierarchically interconnected and meaningful things, in a “harmony of the world” uniquely conceived by God, a secret for all and obvious to everyone; 4) traditionalism: truth in medieval philosophical culture is a corporate property; it belongs not to this or that philosopher, theologian or poet, but to the community of Christians in general, united by faith, baptism and church tradition; the consequence of the medieval Christian world’s orientation toward a single tradition common to all was, on the one hand, the rejection of heresies (and in general of isolated, private views on faith leading to schism), and, on the other, adherence to the authority of apostolic and church canons; the factor that distinguishes medieval thought from the free philosophical search of the Greco-Roman (Ancient) era is, first of all, the priority of the idea of divine Revelation, imprinted in the texts of Scripture, and confirmed by the authority of the Ecumenical Councils, as well as the “consent of the holy fathers.”