Defining Medieval Philosophy.

Philosophy is the discipline that inquires into the first causes and ultimate principles of things; in other words philosophers try to find the answer to the final "why"—why is there being, for example, rather than nothing? Representing the longest period in the long history of philosophy in the Western world, medieval philosophy is distinguished from speculative thought in other periods by more than mere chronology. Philosophers during this period were for the most part theologians who were attempting to integrate what their beliefs told them about God, about themselves, and about the world with what their reason told them.

Favorable Conditions.

The story of philosophy in the Middle Ages also reveals two commonplace truths. First, the activity of rational inquiry requires a certain degree of economic and social well-being. Hunger and fear of violence render such an activity unimaginable. Hence...