We’re not burning witches in this post, but the books and whole work of a medieval monk, who seemingly miscalculated his impact on the world. Have you ever heard of Nicholas de Artrecourt? Sounds sympathetic, right? Like an early modern thinker, a hero that was antagonized by the church enslaving the people, right? Let’s see how that fits!
My witch giggles as I shuffle through my notes, having accidentally been reading until 4 AM once more. “I mean, he can’t seriously complain”, Layla would sing into my ears. “He was still given a small job in the middle of nowhere, had a roof above his head, and clothes and food. Daddy is kind, if you’re not a little girl.”
I wonder how Layla can read my hasty, purple handwriting on the small margins of this old book, but since she does, let’s start at the beginning.
Recently, as the good student of “History and Philosophy of Science” that I am, I had to give a presentation about the work of someone whose books were burned in 1346. What a task! Of course I was up for it.
And I have found something that deserves to be put on this blog!
Although Nicholas was never associated with witchcraft, watching your work go up in flames while also having to apologize for its content and being forbidden to teach from then on is a humiliation not seen too often. Since all of this happened to Nicholas in 1346, you might wonder what the hell he said and wrote to deserve that, as well as how much of it we can still reconstruct with all his work lost. Will he forever be an unknown hero of free speech? A myth to be inspired by and handy to fill with our modern interpretations of being a rebel?
Thankfully, we can reconstruct his philosophical bases through letters that he wrote earlier in his life to his friend/colleague Bernard of Azerro, which escaped the fire.
In these letters, the two men seem to discuss god and the universe. They are debating how we see the world, how we can know things about the world, about god, and how much knowledge might even be possible, or not. These seem to be basic question poets, philosophers and many more have dealt with in the past. Nicholas, however, described a hypothesis that can cause a number of problems.
We can never know if god only wants us to think the things we think we know.
According to Nicholas, the only way to be certain of knowledge of any kind is to use basic logical deduction skills. This first step does not seem too problematic. It can have the following form:
The house exist.
A house is made of walls.
This house has walls.
For Nicholas, this would be valid in a formal way (although it’s debatable). We have a certain number of assumption and, assuming they are true, conclude a result. We can play this same mechanism through with assumptions leading to complete nonsense, and even without any meaning and just using symbols. So, what do we need to actually acquire knowledge of the world? Right, we need assumptions that are true and have a natural cause, meaning that they were not given to us by higher forces such as god or the devil and his demons.
But how do we know that this was not the case? How do we know that neither god nor demons manipulated our perception of the world, or put thoughts in our heads? Is there even a way to know?
You’ve got to remember what an essential question this was in medieval times. If people’s decisions were not their own but influenced by demons then who had the right to punish those who did evil? How does god, who was deeply believed to be merciful, even justify punishment for sins, if the decisions were not even our own? Nowadays, this discussion may seem irrelevant, but in medieval times it could shake up the world if not solved accordingly.
Many different thinkers came up with solutions to allow truth and restrict the influence god, the devil, or demons may have on our perception, but not Nicholas.
In his letters to Bernard of Azerro, he clearly states that we have no way of knowing whether any assumption is caused naturally (so, a perception of something that is actually existing in the world outside our heads), or influenced and manipulated by god, the devil, or demons. So, even though the described logical syllogism is formally valid, for Nicholas it is still useless in the search for truth, since we have no way of being certain about our basic assumptions.
Bernard responds worried, and reminds Nicholas on the effect this has on the medieval world. If there is not way of knowing, Bernard pointed out in one letter, then how do we know that Jesus suffered at the cross? And if we don’t know that, how does the world not end in chaos?
Nicholas must have insisted on his view, which can be described as radical skepticism. Skeptical arguments are interesting, because it is so tough to disprove them.
“I cannot know that god is not manipulating my perception.” How do you respond to that? “I cannot know that this is not all just a dream.” I hate having lucid dreams. “I cannot know that I am not just a brain receiving electrical impulses.” Are you?
These kinds of arguments have the astonishing ability to survive long attempts of disproving, especially when nowadays they adapt out of the religious context of medieval days. They leave behind a blurry sense of insecurity, because they deal with all the things we cannot be completely certain about.
Nowadays, skeptical attempts are thought experiments that can inspire movies, or be a reminder of careful judgment. Of course they can still be used to cause a little chaos. When the pandemic really began, I had a friend who argued against masks by saying that we might just be a brain in a tank and nothing really matters. That’s what you get from dating wanna-be-philosophers on tinder.
In the 14th century, Nicholas skeptical hypothesis had the potential to tear the political and legal system apart, which is why his work was destroyed. A bit extreme, and I would never agree with burning books, but rather discuss them openly and edit them in ways easier to understand for the public – and still, I don’t find this reaction in the historical context completely irrational.
“I always thought god was abusive”, I tell my witch and she shakes her head.
“You never thought he existed in the first place”, she reminds me.
That is one way to escape this argument. Since I cannot convince myself that god is nice, I’d rather deny his existence at all. Hell, yeah.
Perler, D. (2006). Zweifel und Gewissheit – Skeptische Debatten im Mittelalter. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
von Autrecourt, Nicolaus (ca. 1330/1988). Briefe. Hamburg: Meiner
Weinberg, Julius (1988). Nicolas of Autrecourt. Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan.
Mistress witch writes 