Albert the Great's refutation against the extranission theory of vision through the extramission theory of relection
Albert the Great (d.1280 CE) or Albertus Magnus was the founder of Christian Aristotelianism, the medieval scholastic venture which reached its culmination in the teachings of his student, Thomas Aquinas (d.1274 CE). His writings reflect his effort in synthesizing Aristotelian philosophy with Chr...
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| Format: | Conference or Workshop Item |
| Language: | English |
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Tamhidi Centre, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia
2016
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| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/52430/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/52430/1/52430-edited.pdf |
| Summary: | Albert the Great (d.1280 CE) or Albertus Magnus was the founder of Christian
Aristotelianism, the medieval scholastic venture which reached its culmination in the
teachings of his student, Thomas Aquinas (d.1274 CE). His writings reflect his effort in
synthesizing Aristotelian philosophy with Christian teachings, and for this paper we would
focus on chapter eighth of his work of De sensu et sensato (Sense and Sensibilia), which is
entitled “A Digression to Destroy this Error by Considering the Consequences of Their
Statements.” The whole treatise of De sensu delineates Albert’s refutation against
extramission theory of vision in his task of introducing and establishing Aristotelian
intromission theory in the medieval scholastic scholarship. Thus the chapter eighth focuses
on Albert’s claim on the absurdities of the extramission theory by refuting on the extramision
theory of reflection. We will delineate further what does this theory mean, and the arguments
brought forward by Albert against this theory in this particular chapter. Our methodology is a
literature review of which we would review also the extramission theory of vision of Plato and
Empedocles, the most important proponents of this theory in Greek philosophy, and the
intromission theory of Ibn Haytham (d.1040 CE), who was the first scholar to establish
scientific evidence of intromission theory. We would later discover that Albert has five major
objections against the extramission theory of reflection, and most of his arguments are in the
form of reductio ad absurdum, on which he tried to show that all the premises of the
extramission theory of reflection, either explicitly derived or implicitly deduced from the theory
would only lead to an absurdity or a contradiction of the conclusion. |
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