The Closing of the Western Mind

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The Closing of the Western Mind

Author	Charles Freeman
Language	English
Subject	History
Publisher	Knopf
Publication date	October 7, 2003
Media type	Hardcover, paperback, audiobook
Pages	434
ISBN	1-4000-4085-X

The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason (2003) is a book by the classical historian Charles Freeman, in which he discusses the relationship between the Greek philosophical tradition and Christianity, primarily in the fourth to sixth century AD. He argues that far from suppressing Greek philosophy, Christianity integrated the more authoritarian aspects of Platonism at the expense of the Aristotelian tradition. He explores the contribution of the Roman emperors to the definition of Christian doctrine, an argument followed up in his 2009 book AD 381. He dates "the reopening of the western mind" to the integration of Aristotle's thought into Christian doctrine by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century.