Annotation
The history of medieval philosophy covers more or less 1000 years. During this huge span of time the social, historical, and cultural background changes several times; in an already fully christianized society, authors like Severinus Boethius open the door to a new way of making culture, in which the constant attempt is that to systematize and to clearify the philosophical, logical and theological deposit deriving from the antiquity and the late antiquity. Such a systematization effort will become even more central with the birth of the University; during the age of Scholasticism, the University masters produce monumental works (summae) and commentaries with the twofold aim of making order among the various philosophical and theological doctrines from the past and of creating clear, structured and safe paths of knowledge for the students.
During the course, through the study of the most relevant figures and themes, we will reconstruct the main steps and phases of the history of medieval philosophy. Attention will be paid to the main schools of thought and to some key-debates that animated the medieval culture, to the relationship between philosophy and theology, to the University culture, and to the medieval Aristotelianism. If the core of the course will be represented by the Latin Western thought, we will also dedicate a specific attention to the Arabic philosophy and to its role in the circulation of new Aristotelian texts in the medieval Europe.