[30] Ueberweg, Geschichte der Philosophie der scholastischen Zeit, p. 13.
[31] Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 29-35.
The contradiction of the Aristotelian traditions, so far as concerns the First Category, thus proclaimed by Scotus Erigena, appears to have provoked considerable opposition among his immediate successors. Nevertheless he also obtained partizans. Remigius of Auxerre and others not only defended the Platonic Realism, but carried it as far as Plato himself had done; affirming that not merely Universal Substances, but also Universal Accidents, had a real separate existence, apart from and anterior to individuals.[32] The controversy for and against the Platonic Realism was thus distinctly launched in the schools of the Middle Ages. It was upheld both as a philosophical revival, and as theologically orthodox, entitled to supersede the traditional counter-theory of Aristotle.
[32] Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, II. xiii, pp. 44, 45-47.
[II.]
FIRST PRINCIPLES.
A. — Sir William Hamilton on Aristotle’s Doctrine.
In reading attentively Hamilton’s “Dissertation on the Philosophy of Common Sense� (Note A, annexed to ed. of Reid’s Works, p. 742, seq.), I find it difficult to seize accurately what he means by the term. It seems to me that he unsays in one passage what he says in another; and that what he tells us (p. 750, b.), viz. that “philosophers have rarely scrupled, on the one hand, quietly to supersede the data of consciousness, so often as these did not fall in with their pre-adopted opinions; and on the other clamorously to appeal to them as irrecusable truths, so often as they could allege them in corroboration of their own, or in refutation of a hostile, doctrine� — is illustrated by his own practice.
On page 752, a., he compares Common Sense to Common Law, and regards it as consisting in certain elementary feelings and beliefs, which, though in possession of all, can only be elicited and declared by philosophers, who declare it very differently. This comparison, however, sets aside unassisted Common Sense as an available authority. To make it so we must couple with it the same supplement that Common Law requires; that is, we must agree on some one philosopher as authoritative exponent of Common Sense. The Common Law of one country is different from that of another. Even in the same country, it is differently construed and set forth by different witnesses, advocates, and judges. In each country, a supreme tribunal is appointed to decide between these versions and to declare the law. The analogy goes farther than Hamilton wishes.