Scholasticism

Information about Scholasticism

Fourteenth century image of a school.

Scholasticism comes from the Latin word scholasticus (Greek: σχολαστικός), which means "that [which] belongs to the school", and was a method of learning taught by the academics (or schoolmen) of medieval universities circa 1100–1500. Scholasticism originally began to reconcile the philosophy of the ancient classical philosophers with medieval Christian theology. It is not a philosophy or theology in itself, but a tool and method for learning which puts emphasis on dialectical reasoning. The primary purpose of scholasticism was to find the answer to a question or resolve a contradiction. It is most well known in its application in medieval theology, but was eventually applied to classical philosophy and many other fields of study.

Scholastic method

The scholastics would choose a book by a renowned scholar, called auctor (author), as a subject of investigation, for example the Bible. By reading the book thoroughly and critically, the disciples learned to appreciate the theories of the auctor. Then other documents related to the source document would be referenced, such as Church councils, papal letters, anything written on the subject, be it ancient text or contemporary. The points of disagreement and contention between these multiple sources would be written down. These individual sentences or snippets of text are called sententiae. For example, the Bible contains apparent contradictions for Christians, such as the laws regarding what foods are kosher, and these contradictions have been examined by scholars ancient and contemporary, so a scholastic would gather all the arguments about the contradictions, looking at it from all sides with an open mind.

Once the sources and points of disagreement had been laid out, through a series of dialectics the two sides of an argument would be made whole so that they would be found to be in agreement and not contradictory. This was done in two ways.

First, through philological analysis, where words were examined and it would be argued they could have more than one meaning, that the author could have intended the word to mean something else. Ambiguity in words could be used to find common ground between two otherwise contradictory statements. Second, through logical analysis which relied on the rules of formal logic to show contradictions did not exist, but were subjective to the reader.

Scholastic genres

Scholastics developed two different genres of literature:

The first is called quæstiones or "questions" which is basically as described above, except rather than being confined to a single scholar, or auctor, the scholastic method would be applied to a question. For example, "Is it permissible to kill for self-preservation?" From there any number of sources could be referenced to find the pros and cons of the question.

The second genre was called a summa. A summa was a system of all questions, thus a complete summary of what it was possible to deduce on the subject. In this way any question could be found in the summa and would reference any other question that might arise. The most famous summa is by Thomas Aquinas called Summa Theologica, whose goal was to cover the "sum" total of Christian theology at the time.

Scholastic school

Scholastic schools had two methods of teaching. The first is the lectio. A teacher would read a text, expounding on certain words or ideas, but no questions were allowed, it was a simple reading of a text, the instructors explained, and silence for the students.

The second is the disputatio which is at the heart of the scholastic method. There were two types of disputatios. The first was called the "ordinary" in which the question to be disputed was announced beforehand. The second was the quodlibetal in which the students would propose the question to the teacher without any prior preparation. The teacher would then have to come up with a response. The teacher would cite authoritative texts such as the Bible to prove his position. Students would then rebut the response and this would go back and forth. During this exercise someone would be keeping notes on what was said, the teacher would then summarize the arguments from the notes and present his final position the next day, answering all the rebuttals.

History

Scholastic philosophy usually combined logic, metaphysics and semantics into one discipline, and is generally recognized to have developed our understanding of logic significantly when compared to the older sources.

In the high scholastic period of 1250 - 1350, scholasticism moved beyond theology into the philosophy of nature, psychology, epistemology and philosophy of science. In Spain, the scholastics also made important contributions to economic theory, which would influence the later development of the Austrian school.

During the humanism of the 1400s and 1500s, scholastics were put to the background and somewhat forgotten (though revived in Spain in the School of Salamanca). This has been the source of the view of scholasticism as a rigid, formalistic, outdated and improper way of doing philosophy. During the catholic scholastic revival in the late 1800s and early 1900s the scholastics were repopularized, but with a somewhat narrow focus on certain scholastics and their respective schools of thought, notably Thomas Aquinas. In this context, scholasticism is often used in theology or metaphysics, but not many other areas of inquiry.

Scholasticism was concurrent with movements in Jewish philosophy (especially Maimonides) and Islamic philosophy (for example, the work of Averroes). From the 8th century, the Mutazilite school of Islam, compelled to defend their principles against the orthodox Islam of their day, looked for support in philosophy, and are one of the first to pursue a rational theology, called Ilm-al-Kalam. This can be seen as a form of scholastic theology.

The following authors and works were commonly used as auctores:

Aristotle ("The Philosopher") and commentaries by Averroes ("The Commentator")
Boethius and his Consolation of Philosophy
Saint Augustine
Plato (specifically, Timaeus)
Peter Lombard (specifically, his Sentences)
Bible

Early Scholasticism and its contemporaries

Anselm of Canterbury is sometimes misleadingly called the 'Father of Scholasticism' because of the prominent place that reason has in his theology; instead of establishing his points by appeal to authority, he presents arguments to demonstrate why it is that the things he believes on authority must be so. His particular approach, however, was not very influential in his time, and he kept his distance from the Cathedral Schools. We should look instead to the production of the gloss on Scripture associated with Anselm of Laon, the rise to prominence of dialectic (middle subject of the medieval trivium) in the work of Abelard, and the production by Peter Lombard of a collection of Sentences or opinions of the Church Fathers and other authorities. Scholasticism proper can be thought of as the kind of theology that emerges when, in the Cathedral schools and their successors, the tools of dialectic are pressed into use to comment upon, explain, and develop the gloss and the sentences.

Notable authors include:

High Scholasticism and its contemporaries

The 13th Century saw the attempted suppression of various groups perceived as heterodox, such as the Cathars and Waldensians and the associated rise of the mendicant orders (notably the Franciscans and Dominicans), in part intended as a form of orthodox alternative to the heretical groups. Those two orders quickly became contexts for some of the most intense scholastic theologizing, producing such 'high scholastic' theologians as Alexander of Hales (Franciscan) and Thomas Aquinas (Dominican), or the rather less obviously scholastic Bonaventure (Franciscan). The century also saw a flourishing of mystical theology, with women such as Mechthild of Magdeburg playing a prominent role. In addition, the century can be seen as the earliest period in which the study of natural philosophy that could (anachronistically) be called 'science' began once again to flourish in theological soil, in the hands of such men as Robert Grosseteste and Roger Bacon.

Notable authors include:

Late Scholasticism and its contemporaries

Scholastic theology continued to develop as the thirteenth century gave way to the fourteenth, becoming ever more complex and subtle in its distinctions and arguments. The fourteenth century saw in particular the rise to dominance of the nominalist or voluntarist theologies of men like William of Ockham. The fourteenth century was also a time in which movements of widely varying character worked for the reform of the institutional church, such as conciliarism, Lollardy and the Hussites. Spiritual movements such as the Devotio Moderna also flourished.

Notable authors include:

Famous scholastics

Main article: list of scholastic philosophers

Key anti-scholastics

Erasmus
Bernard of Clairvaux - during his lifetime Bernard was one of the strongest opponents to scholasticism.

External links

"Scholasticism". In Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
Etext of 1908 document about Scholasticism
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13548a.htm
Yahoo! directory category: Scholasticism
The genius of the scholastics and the orbit of Aristotle, article on the influence of scholasticism on later thought
The Fathers, the Scholastics, and Ourselves by von Balthasar
Medieval Philosophy, Universities and the Church by James Hannam

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In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is controversy, Viz., the exchange of arguments and counter-arguments respectively advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions
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