Berengar of Tours (d. 1088) is interesting as being something of a rationalist. He maintained that reason is superior to authority…. Anselm considers reason subordinate to faith. 'I believe in order to understand,' he says; following Augustine, he holds that without belief it is impossible to understand.
John's greatest work was called (in Greek) On the Division of Nature. This book was what, in scholastic times, would have been called 'realist'; that is to say, it maintained, with Plato, that universals are anterior to particulars.
On the other hand, the philosophy of Plotinus had the defect of encouraging men to look within rather than to look without: when we look within we see nous, which is divine, while when we look without we see the imperfections of the sensible world. This kind of subjectivity was a gradual growth: it is to be found in the doctrines of Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, as well as the Stoics and Epicureans. But at first it was only doctrinal, not temperamental; for a long time it failed to kill scientific curiosity. … Gradually, however, subjectivism invaded men's feelings as well as their doctrines. Science was no longer cultivated …
The Formal Linguistics of Chomsky had the defect of encouraging linguists to look within rather than to look without: when we look within we see the mind, which is Competence, while when we look without we see the imperfections of Performance.
Mathematics, the world of ideas and all thought about what is not sensible, have, for Pythagoras, Plato, and Plotinus, something divine; they constitute the activity of nous, or at least the nearest approach to its activity that we can conceive.
