Saint Thomas Aquinas

Perhaps I shall take this opportunity to explain why the life on the verandah is worth writing for. In the world where I am given to reside, regrettably there appears to be more moronic entities than intellectual ones; which as a result biases one's perception and leads us into believing that we live in a hopeless world or are part of the moronic ghetto that deserves eternal death but not hope for eternal life. How such bias and misleading belief could be rectified if the hopelessness and anti-intellectual aura surround you? The answers lies, quite to the contrary of some people who believe corporeal life is temporary and even unreal, in the physical life that we all have to live, enjoy or resent. I am glad that I have a big verandah (obviously a conspicuous claim) where I can spend the afternoon focusing on my intellectual or musical pursuits. And it proves to be a good antidote or corrective implement with which I am able to rectify the bias and the belief that our world is full of imbeciles and is going down the route of her own destruction. This short moment on the verandah is physical and nothing sacred or supernatural. It forms part of one's life, from an intellectual perspective, that all we have to go through, joyful or sorrowful it may be. Sitting on the chair overlooking the greenery and low-rise building in front of you, on the left, it is a main road where cars run and roar, it is entirely worldly but of a world I am desirous of, indeed quite earnestly, I sipped a cup of English tea, and watched my youtube.com. There I began enjoying my life on the verandah.

Medieval philosophy was the topic I chose on youtube.com to spend my first afternoon on the verandah. For those who learn philosophy in the Anglo-American tradition, the chances are, they are less familiar with medieval philosophy which houses the philosophers of the middle ages that few English-speaking universities are keenly interested in. And though the prominent names in this era are numerous, only 2 are particularly famed and well known to all of us, namely Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas. The former, though the bishop of the city of Hippo, was a solitary figure, who came up with his philosophy from his own mind, in a certain sense, alone. Contrary to Augustine, Aquinas was a university teacher and a dominican friar, who had to live in the communities - surrounded by pupils and peer friars. In fact, philosophers could, in very general terms, be classified under these two types: Spinoza, Nietzsche, et al, fit the former; whereas Kant and Wittgenstein are the latter type. People do not take medieval philosophy seriously because unlike perhaps others, medieval philosophers endeavoured to prove what they had already believed in - Christianity. And such preoccupation seems to make their pursuit of philosophy and the result less convincing and less impartial. However, as Bryan Magee pointed out, in an interview with Anthony Kenny on Medieval Philosophy, the medieval philosophers bore the same intellectual curiosity as we do and were equally open on philosophical questions. And Mr. Magee said, of his experience with reading Dun Scotus, that instead of finding him strange and otherworldly, he was reading a young Betrand Russell; which, I should say, is pretty amazing for a writer who lived 1,000 years ago. Furthermore we should also know that medieval philosophers put logic seriously. After the Middle Ages, logic became, as Mr. Kenny said, a truncated torso and was taught in short courses in most European universities. However, logic has an Aristotlean tradition and, as we all now know, is the basis of all analytical philosophical pursuits of our times.