2.5 Non-duality in the Middle Ages
- Non-duality as the purpose of dialogue
- Time: (5th century – 15th) 476 – 1492 CE
- Era: Middle Ages
- Geography: Europe
- Key Thinker: Anselm of Canterbury
- Movement: Scholastic Philosophy
- Key events: Fall of the Roman Empire (476) • Fall of the Byzantine Empire (1453) • Invention of the printing press (1444 – Gutenberg) • Discovery of the Americas (1492)
73. After the fall of the Roman empire, Christianity took center stage in Europe. As a new religion, Christianity needed to establish its authority against former religious systems inherited from Eastern and ancient Greek, therefore authoritative philosophies.
74. One standout thinker was Anselm of Canterbury, an Italian philosopher and theologian. He believed in the idea of God being both everywhere (immanent) and beyond physical things (transcendent). He argued that we can think about God, that is, oneness, and from that, we can understand that God exists. In Western philosophy, this method is called an ontological argument, a thought process that progresses from the idea of God to the reality of God.
75. As for this form of inquisitive dialogue, conducted with self or another to explore abstract (non-physical or above the physical) phenomenon such as God, Time, Existence, etc., it is termed as a “dialectic.”
76. These elements of style are given to poets and aspirant poets for further exploration. We will discuss them in the last chapter of this study, where you will be introduced to a method of writing that aims at expressing non-duality. Artists should also pay attention, especially if they are aspirant writers. Artists who are not aspirant writers are asked to focus on ways to apply these elements of style, and Non-duality itself, to their creative processes. The author will shed more light on this in the Method Chapter. Poets, aspirant poets, and artists who seek to express Beauty and Truth in their work, and participate in the emergence of a renewed and elevated Culture should study The Essence of Non-duality.
77. Creatives with a vision or engaged in interdisciplinary projects or seeking to express novelty should study The Essence of Non-Duality. Thinkers of lofty thoughts and philosophers who wish to break free from the academic habit of uncertainty, hyperbolic doubt, hyper-specialization to a level that rigidifies the intellect, obscure verbosity, intellectual dependence, and the inability to bridge the gap between theory and practice (which are all connected and make philosophy unappealing and seemingly useless to their students and the general public) should study The Essence of Non-Duality. Feel free to reach out to the author for questions (contact form in paragraph 20).
This ends Non-duality in The Middle Ages, subchapter 2.5. Our focus now shifts to the next historical era in Western history, The Renaissance.