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Feringer Notes - CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT - 1954 40 of 65 Renaissance mentality was a secular shift in the medieval attitude, making no distinction between Canon law and imperial law, thus representing a strong Protestant influence. LECTURE - 18 1.Compromise is essential between institutions because, as stated above, any idea or institution left by itself will eventually get out of hand. THE FIRST PRINCIPLE OF DEMOCRACY IS A BALANCE OF FORCES. At this time in America there is no higher education in law; there is only a discussion of cases - as in the journals.This is to say, there is no discussion of the merits of cases, no discussion of justice - it is all politics sans the balance of direction (religion). Observe in any daily paper the absurd judgments laid down by the courts at times. ERH gives a vivid example of how a superb medical institution was created in Medieval times through doubting and compromise between medical theories and practices. Norman princes ruled Sicily, Genoa, Naples, and Salerno. Any European travelers to the Holy land (including Crusaders)journeyed back to Salerno when sick or injured because it was a "friendly" port.A great hospital was there. Its success was attributed to its location at the cross-roads of knowledge in medicine, to the testing of different points of view.Different points of view were constantly in conflict. The practice was to test competing theories and methods against each other - resulting in sharpening the of medical knowledge. All science constantly changes because new things are discovered, and thus by definition there is always conflict between proponents of old and new ideas. Advance begins with the contradiction of the "common sense" of the time.In medicine there are conflicts between giving drugs, surgical procedures, and other therapies. Today, surgery and drugs dominate most procedures, as contrasted with "other" therapies. In the middle ages, the "other" (internal therapies) were dominant. Of course, in the middle ages the great challenges lay in curing disease, as contrasted to cutting it out today. 2.Traditions of public health, hygiene, quarantine were begun then.Salerno, as a leading medical center, originated and taught these things. In antiquity (pre-Christian), there was little concern for human rights. No right of rebellion; one had to obey the law regardless of the justice of it. One lived under only one authority.Rebellion against this type of oppression was a revolutionary Christian notion. 3.In the university there arose a fourth faculty.In addition to religion, medicine, and law, Arts and Sciences were added.At this time great battles arose between nominalists and realists.Nominalists believed words were arbitrary, and with no absolute meanings for expressions of real experience. Today sales people and politicians tend to be nominalists. ERH placed his own beliefs with the realists with a qualification, "...we are all both obviously.Nominalists at times, and realists at times."
Feringer Notes - CIRCULATION OF THOUGHT - 1954 41 of 65 The problem is to determine when and where there may be essential meanings, and where names can be arbitrary. Only with such decisions can we establish even a modicum of truth and understanding between people. 4.Some type of logic can be concocted to explain almost any event, no matter how unfounded it may be,so we need a more broad discussion of these important issues of nominalism and realism.Naming (classifying) creates reality in the sense of creating a consciousness of an event at hand.Naming "things" can be arbitrary. People, on the other hand, have both general and unique characteristics, so naming becomes more complex. This is to say, to consider persons as "Japanese," or "enemies," or "Baptists" is an example of thinking of real people in terms of objects, of "classes of things," which dehumanizes them.This is the tendency of the academy, to treat humansthe same as intelligent animals (as "natural" things, in other words). This tendency in turn means there is no thought to recognizing personal characteristics of a particular individual. 5.One then can deduce what happens when the nominalist view is applied to two very different entities:1) The names of dead "things," e.g. chemical elements, dirt, steel. 2) The names of people, who are dehumanized by being characterized by the same principle, i.e. of general characteristics. 6.ERH concludes that we live today in a time of sophists (salesmen who use words arbitrarily - no connection with reality). The question of how we use generalizations is therefore just as serious as in the middle ages. The common practices of taking no responsibility for one's words, of using language to misrepresent, of stating half-truths, are examples of modern sophistry.Obviously, such use of language leads toward the destruction of community. Lecture - 19 1.The PROBLEM with universals in social science is the failure to distinguish BETWEEN INDICATING A UNIVERSAL QUALITY OF AN INDIVIDUAL AND INDICATING PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION. To call another personas a class is to dehumanize the person. THE SOLUTION in social relations is to use the general term (such as Jew) as an adjective and never as a noun. For instance, one could say without fear of affront, "He is Jewish." The problem with thinking of an individual only in terms of the universal in social science is that the practice precludes an opportunity to create peace by treating him/her as a human toward whom one must be capable of relating. "So, today this question of the universals again is loaded with dynamite." (p.5) 2.When a person is classed as a noun, such as saying he is " Russian," it infers that the name tells one all one needs to know about the person.Obviously this is never true, so to say, "He is Russian .....plus X" implies unknown characteristics, therefore establishing a basis for possible future
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