The Differentiation of Authority―The Medieval Turn Toward Existence

In this study, James Greenaway explores the philosophical continuity between contemporary Western society and the Middle Ages. Allowing for genuinely modern innovations, he makes the claim that the medieval
search for order remains fundamentally unbroken in our search for order today. The new premium on the individual from the twelfth century onward suggests a constellation of problems that had existential,
religious, and political dimensions; a constellation that is uniquely Western and which was no less problematic for the medieval soul than it is for the modern soul.
As the Middle Ages began, authority in society was held to have two forms: the political and the spiritual. Greenaway studies the emergence of a new, third notion of authority: the existential. He argues that the upheaval that ensued from a dynamic, but largely invisible, third authority
within Christendom led to a crisis of meaning that affected all, but to which only the greatest minds of the time were sensitive.
The tortuous working out of a new order revealed a turn toward existence
that inevitably restructured relations among the now three pillars
of authority and gradually led to the denouement of the medieval world. The vast historical material presented is loosely circumscribed by the judicious use of Eric Voegelin's History of Political Ideas. Greenaway
weighs the contributions of Joachim of Fiore, John of Salisbury, John of Paris, Marsilius of Padua, Dante, John Wycliffe, and Sir John Fortescue among others, and argues that the political work of William of Ockham and the mysticism of Nicholas of Cusa are crucial for understanding
the transition from the medieval to the modern world. The study concludes by considering firstly the existential significance of citizenship
in liberal democracy and secondly a contrasting, non-Western form of authority in Islam; both of which serve to highlight the achievement
of the medieval differentiation of authority and the philosophical uniqueness of Western society.

James Greenaway is assistant professor of philosophy at St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas.