The Millennial Turn with Emile Alexandrov

Summary

Philosopher Emile Alexandrov argues that the years around 1000 AD marked a hidden turning point in Western thought, when new Latin translations of Aristotle's logic launched high scholasticism. He traces how thinkers like Anselm, Aquinas, and Duns Scotus gradually moved Europe away from intuitive, non-discursive ways of knowing toward step-by-step logical reasoning, reshaping ideas about God, the soul, and the cosmos. Alexandrov says this rebalancing still shapes modern culture's overreliance on calculating reason and helps explain today's hunger for intuitive and contemplative ways of knowing.

Key takeaways

• 1The millennial turn around the year 1000 is presented as the pivot from the early to the high Middle Ages
• 2New Latin translations of Aristotelian logic drove the rise of high scholasticism and demonstrative philosophy
• 3Gothic architecture is described as an expression of a unified medieval 'habitus' or cultural mindset
• 4Anselm's ontological argument is discussed as a key moment in the shift from intuitive to logical knowing
• 5Aquinas's views on the soul, will, and choice, and Duns Scotus's concept of haecceity, are traced as steps toward the individuated subject of the Renaissance
• 6Alexandrov is the author of 'The Other Platonist Beginning' and 'Metaphysics and Ineffable'; host Jeffrey Mishlove holds the only accredited doctoral diploma in parapsychology (UC Berkeley, 1980)

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