From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance: from scholasticism to the study of nature

Abstract

Although much of the philosophy of Ancient Greece was lost to the Christian West in the so-called Dark Ages (c. 500–1000) many writings survived in Constantinople and in the Arabic and Persian Empires. Abu Sina, more generally known as Avicenna (985–1037), and Ibn-Rushd, usually called Averroes (1126–98), were two celebrated Arabic scholars. Avicenna had much in common with later Renaissance philosophers in that he had a wide range of interests and many talents. He was a skilled physician and compiled a list of 758 drugs that could be extracted from plants; although most were available to the Ancient Greeks, more than 100 were from herbs unknown in Greece or elsewhere in Europe.¹ Avicenna also practised as a mathematician and astronomer and in addition he had artistic talents and was a gifted poet. However, he is reputed to have been self-indulgent and his relatively early death was said to be due, at least in part, to his debauched lifestyle. Perhaps for this reason he showed no great originality and his conception of the natural world was primarily Aristotelian, though he did not accept Aristotle’s anatomy but, rather, followed the teachings of Galen. When his works became known in the West his Canon of Medicine was adopted as a major medical text and helped support Galen’s authority.