scholasticism: Definition from Answers.com
- ️Sun Oct 17 2004
Although historians sometimes refer to ‘scholastic philosophy’, scholasticism is not a philosophical school or current of thought. Rather, it describes the methods of study characteristic of the medieval universities and also, in the view of some historians, the particular accommodation between Christian doctrine and rational investigation reached by scholars there.
1. Schools, Universities, and Scholasticism
Before about 1200 there were no universities in northern Europe. In the 8th, 9th, and 10th c. the leading centres of learning were the great monasteries. But by the late 11th c. it was in some of the schools attached to cathedrals, such as those at Chartres and Laon, that the most exciting intellectual developments were taking place. At this stage it was the fame of the individual teacher (usually a canon of the cathedral) which made a particular school popular. Over the next 50 years, however, Paris became pre-eminent as a centre of learning. In addition to the cathedral school of Notre-Dame, other schools opened there, so that by 1150 a whole variety of teachers—grammarians, logicians, and theologians—were competing for pupils.
The University of Paris—the oldest and most important of the north European universities—was, in its origins, simply an association of the various masters teaching in Paris. Its earliest charter dates, conveniently, from exactly 1200. The masters formed a tightly organized guild, and the requirements for degrees (which books were to be studied and for how long) were formalized. Paris, like other medieval universities, was divided into faculties of arts and the smaller but ‘higher’ faculties of law, medicine, and theology, which students could not enter without having completed the arts course or its equivalent. Statutes also regulated many other aspects of university life, ranging from academic dress to the lavishness of graduation celebrations. But the written regulations are likely to give a misleading impression of universities as centralized institutions, offering a highly uniform education. In fact, the masters were all private, each with his own students, on whose fees he depended for his living. The various orders, especially the Franciscans and the Dominicans, had their own private houses of study within the university, catering for their own members, and from the 13th c. students increasingly resided and studied in semi-autonomous colleges, the most famous of which was the Sorbonne. Moreover, the majority of students did not complete even the whole arts course, whilst for most masters university teaching was a passing stage in their career. University statutes were, then, an attempt to impose some framework on institutions never far from chaos. Perhaps the same characteristic—an apparent rigidity of organization which disguises heterogeneous variety—is also found in the scholastic method, which dominated university studies.
2. The Scholastic Method
Each faculty in the medieval university had its own textbooks, and study was centred on them. In the arts faculties from the mid-13th c. onwards the near-complete corpus of Aristotle's works (in Latin translation) provided most of the set texts. In theology the set texts were the Bible and the Sentences of Peter the Lombard, a mid-12th-c. work which provided a convenient guide to the range of theological problems. In lectures, set texts received two different sorts of exposition. First, in an effort to explain exactly the meaning of each text, they were systematically divided and subdivided until the most basic units of argument were reached. Secondly, ‘questions’ (quaestiones) were posed about the topics raised by each portion of the text. Especially in commentaries on the Sentences, these questions—and the discussions raised in answering them—range far beyond any of the matters actually raised by Peter the Lombard and reflect rather the intellectual interests of the university theologians of the time.
In their polished, written version, scholastic quaestiones have a standard structure. A problem is put in the form of a question which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The writer then puts a series of arguments, from reason or authority, for the answer with which he disagrees. There follows a brief statement, usually from an authoritative author, in favour of the opposing view, with which the author in fact agrees. Then comes the ‘body’ of the quaestio—the author's own arguments for the answer he favours (which sometimes involve modifying the terms of the original question). Finally, the arguments for the opposite answer set out at the beginning are answered in turn. Very often the rejection of these arguments, a large number of which are taken from the most authoritative Christian or classical authors, takes the form, not of a refutation, but of a demonstration that, though valid, they do not pertain to the matter at issue. The neatest example of the quaestio form is provided by Thomas Aquinas's famous Summa theologiae, written in the 1260s in an attempt (unsuccessful at the time) to provide a textbook to replace the Lombard's Sentences. In the 14th c., although the basic form of the quaestio was retained, there was a tendency for the ‘body’ section to grow into an independent essay, with its own divisions and subdivisions, and for the other parts to shrink into a mere formality.
In addition to lectures on set texts, the university year also included a number of disputations (quaestiones disputatae), either on a particular topic (such as the soul, evil, or truth) or else ‘quodlibetal disputations’, where any topic could be raised by a questioner. Although in their polished, written form disputations are hard to distinguish from quaestio-commentaries on texts, the organization of these disputations was complex, and they took place in two sessions, the first of which was probably far from orderly in its presentation of arguments and counter-arguments.
The way in which argument was conducted within the framework of a quaestio was deeply influenced by the intensive study of grammar and, especially, logic in the arts course. Not only did they often spell out arguments in explicitly syllogistic form, but also scholastic thinkers were skilled in the sophisticated analysis of logical form and of the different ways in which words could refer to their objects. In addition, the Aristotelian studies of the arts course were taken for granted among the theologians, and Aristotelian terms and ideas abound in their writings. It would be wrong, however, to imagine that scholastic thinkers were straightforward Aristotelians. In the arts faculties ‘Aristotle's’ views were, indeed, very often taken as a guide; but these were Aristotle's views as seen through a tradition of ancient and Arab commentaries, especially those of Avicenna (ibn Sina, 980-1037) and Averroes (ibn Rushd, 1126-98), and coloured by the inclusion of apocryphal works such as the Liber de causis (in fact a compilation based on the work of Proclus, a Neoplatonist) within the Aristotelian canon. For the theologians, Aristotle's views were, at best, examples of what human reason unaided by revelation, could achieve; and from the late 13th c. onwards the theologians became increasingly bold in analysing the deficiencies of such a perspective, even with regard to matters apparently within its scope.
3. Scholastic Thinkers
Understood as a method, scholasticism can only be said to have been established by the mid-13th c., when the universities of Paris and Oxford adopted an Aristotelian curriculum in the arts faculty. Already in the early 12th c., however, the pupils of Anselm of Laon and William of Champeaux, most notably Peter Abélard, had begun to fashion the quaestio technique and to raise some of the theological problems which would preoccupy their successors. Theologians such as William of Auvergne, in the early 13th c., used a wide range of Aristotle's works, but they did not set out their work in the distinctively scholastic form. Thomas Aquinas (c.1225-1274), therefore, belonged to the first generation of properly scholastic thinkers. Although greatly respected, he did not enjoy in his own or the succeeding century the pre-eminence which he has been accorded by more recent historiography. The most influential figure of the next generation was Henry of Ghent (c.1217-1293). But it was Duns Scotus (c.1265-1308), a keen though admiring critic of Henry (and, less directly, of Aquinas), whose ideas became an inevitable point of reference for all his successors. The influence of William of Occam (c.1285-1347/9), once portrayed as the destroyer of the syntheses of Aquinas and Scotus, has been exaggerated. He is best seen as one of a set of brilliant Oxford scholars—among whom were Adam Wodeham and Walter Chatton—whose ideas influenced Parisian thought in the following decades. Although the great age of scholasticism had passed by about 1350, a number of outstanding scholastic thinkers worked in the late Middle Ages, such as John Wyclif (c.1330-1384) and Peter of Ailly (1350-1420/1). All these figures were theologians. But a few thinkers made their careers in the arts faculty. They include Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia in the 1260s and 1270s, and John Buridan in the 14th c.
4. The Idea of Scholasticism
Was scholasticism merely a set of methods, or did it also involve on a more abstract level a distinctive approach to intellectual life? Historians have been quick to point to the combination of faith and reason in the works of the scholastics. Scholastic thinkers, they say, neither relied uncritically on the authority of the ancients and Church Fathers, nor did they attempt to base their views on reason alone. Their independence from authorities marks them out from their early-medieval predecessors; their reliance on revelation distinguishes them from philosophers of the early-modern period and later.
Yet it is questionable whether such a characterization amounts to more than saying that the scholastic thinkers were, indeed, thinkers, and that most of them did their most important work as theologians. No thinker relies blindly on the authority of his predecessors, and scholastic writers differed from their early-medieval predecessors not by being independent from authorities, but in the methods by which they achieved this independence. Within the arts faculties scholars were not merely encouraged, but required to discuss only what reason could construct on the basis of self-evident premisses. In the theology faculties Christian doctrine provided the basic material for study, although this did not prevent theologians from spending much of their time analysing concepts, logical connections, and language. The relationship between what could be known without Christian revelation and what could not was a matter for constant sophisticated debate, in which no single solution became the accepted one. Scholasticism is, therefore, best regarded as a set of methods and, in a transferred sense, as the name for the large and various body of surviving logical, philosophical, scientific, legal, and theological texts which exemplify them.
[John Marenbon]
Bibliography
- N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, and J. Pinborg (eds.), The Cambridge History of Later medieval Philosophy (1982)
- A. de Libera, La Philosophie médiévale (1989)
- J. Marenbon, Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350): An Introduction, 2nd edn. (1992)
In the early modern period the term "Scholasticism" denoted the systematization of learning in schools and universities, mainly in philosophy and theology, occasionally extended to law and medicine. It may be characterized by its distinctive method and language and by its elaboration into competing systems of thought.
Scholastic Method
What is called "scholastic method" started with the disputations that were held in the schools of the Middle Ages. A disputation began with the posing of a question that could be answered either affirmatively or negatively. It involved two interlocutors, one on each side, and the method of arguing was basically that explained in the Topics of Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.). The topics or problems were drawn from a teaching text, usually in philosophy or theology, and expressed in Latin. The rules of reasoning were those concerned with concepts, propositions, and arguments and contained in other logical works of Aristotle. The proponent of the affirmative, called the defendant, stated his thesis in the form of a proposition, and then proceeded to develop arguments that supported his thesis. In response, the proponent of the negative, called the objector, developed counterarguments that disproved the defendant's thesis. To these counterarguments the defendant then replied by reformulating his initial arguments, introducing distinctions of meaning to meet the opponent's objections. The argument went back and forth in this form until either the objector was convinced that his difficulties had been met and he conceded the thesis, or the defendant was unsuccessful in his defense of the thesis and conceded defeat.
Scholastic method grew out of this procedure. Its basic instruments were definition, distinction, and argumentation, and its ideal goal was certain truth, although frequently it could reach only probable conclusions. By the time of the Renaissance a stylized format had been developed for meeting these objectives. First the thesis was stated, usually as a universal affirmative proposition. Then three steps were commonly envisaged, consisting of prenotes, proofs, and difficulties that might be brought against the thesis. In the prenotes the proponent provided definitions of the terms in the thesis, distinctions relating to them, and different positions being held on the thesis. Then various proofs were offered, first from authority, such as the Bible or a noted philosopher, then from reason, using varieties of argument. Finally, objections against the thesis were restated and resolved, usually on the basis of distinctions introduced earlier in the presentation.
Medieval Schools
The development of Scholasticism coincided with the founding of universities in the late twelfth century and of religious orders such as Dominicans and Franciscans in the early thirteenth century. In the universities newly translated texts of Aristotle provided the basis for a system of thought known as Aristotelianism. Additionally, religious orders had their favorite doctors, whose teachings were also systematized. Dominicansfollowed Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), whose system was called Thomism, and Franciscans followed Duns Scotus (1266?–1308) and William of Ockham (c. 1285–1347), whose systems were called Scotism and Ockhamism, respectively. A feature of medieval universities was public disputations in which doctors of these schools debated before the student body. Different though their systems were, the discourse was made possible by the participants' reliance on Aristotle's method of logic.
The language of Scholasticism was a technical Latin, with specialized vocabularies suited to particular subject matters. Geographically, Scholasticism flourished in Italy and on the Iberian Peninsula, in France, Germany, the Low Countries, and in the British Isles. The leading schools were the University of Oxford, noted for philosophy, the University of Paris, for theology, and the University of Bologna, for law and medicine.
In the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries Augustinianism, a theological form of Neoplatonism advanced by Augustine of Hippo (354–430), was influential. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Latin Averroism, a teaching of Averroës (Ibn Rushd; 1126–1198) that denied the immortality of the human soul, assumed importance, mainly at the University of Padua. Ockham's insistence that universal natures cannot be known in things, but only their names (nomina), led to his system's being known as nominalism. The opposing systems, which held that natures could be known to be real (realia), were then seen as various forms of realism. Debates between realists and nominalists were frequent in university disputations.
The Renaissance
Scholasticism reached its highest state of development during the Renaissance, roughly from about 1450 to about 1650. The first phase, to the mid-sixteenth century, was focused in Italy and Spain and is known to historians as "Second Scholasticism." The second phase saw its development by the Jesuits and its extension to the schools of northern Europe, Protestant as well as Catholic.
In the first phase Thomism, Scotism, and nominalism developed extensively. Thomism was advanced mainly by Dominicans, of whom the most significant were the Italians Tommaso de Vio Cajetan (1469–1534) and Giovanni Crisostomi Javelli (1470–c. 1538), and the Spaniards Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1486–1546) and Domingo de Soto (1495–1560). Cajetan was the most profound synthesizer of St. Thomas's theology, whereas Javelli is best known for his teaching manuals in philosophy. Vitoria and Soto worked extensively on social and political thought, arguing that natives in America had souls and therefore had the same rights as Europeans.
Scotism was largely the preserve of the Franciscans, who adopted Scotus as their order's doctor in 1539. Before that, a revival of Scotist teachings had been promoted by the French Peter Tartaretus (d. c. 1532), and the Italian Antonio Trombetta (1436–1517). Trombetta was a critic of Cajetan and is known especially for having combated Averroism at Padua.
A nominalist revival radiated out from the University of Paris to other countries, including Spain and the Low Countries. Its chief promoters were Gerard of Brussels (d. 1502) and the Scot John Major (1469–1550), both teaching at Paris, and Johannes Eck (1486–1543), whose career was mainly in Germany. Among Major's students were Pedro Ciruelo (1470–1554) and Gaspar Lax (1487–1560), the latter well known for his manuals in logic. Major's school made significant contributions to the study of motion and prepared the way for the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.
The second phase of the Renaissance began with the founding of the Jesuit order in 1540. Jesuits blended humanism with Scholasticism and introduced methods of teaching that had profound effects throughout Europe. In general, they subscribed to Thomism but introduced variations within that system. Their most important school was the Collegio Romano, located in Rome, which was staffed initially by Iberians, notably Franciscus Toletus (1532–1596) and Gabriel Vázquez (1549–1604), who wrote influential textbooks. Their most outstanding teacher was Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), whose version of Thomism is referred to as Suarezianism.
Although Martin Luther (1483–1546) held a disputation against Scholasticism in 1517, it came to occupy a central place in Protestant universities within a hundred years. This was true whether the universities leaned to Calvinism, as in Heidelberg and Marburg, or to Lutheranism, as in Wittenberg, Altdorf, and Helmstedt. The basic approaches were those of Philipp Melanchthon (1497–1560), who composed textbooks on physics, psychology, and ethics at Wittenberg, and Jacob Schegk (1511–1587), who commented on Aristotle's logic and natural philosophy at Tübingen.
For metaphysics, Jesuit textbooks, particularly Suarez's, were used initially but were later replaced by Protestant manuals. Johannes Caselius (1535–1613), working at Helmstedt, wrote early texts in the Aristotelian tradition pioneered by Schegk. Works showing Suárez's influence include those of Jakob Martini (1570–1649) at Wittenberg and Christoph Scheibler (1589–1653) at Giessen, the latter called the Protestant Suárez. For systematic thought, notable works are those of Bartholomaeus Keckermann (1571–1608), who taught at Heidelberg and Gdańsk and wrote manuals for all of philosophy and science. Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588–1638) followed Keckermann's teachings with his own Encyclopediae in 1620 and 1630. At Leiden, Franco Burgersdijk (1590–1635) wrote similar compendia for Scholastic philosophy that were widely used throughout Protestant Europe.
Later Period
By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Scholasticism had run its course. The way of thought it had spawned, with its many "-isms," had become overburdened and toppled of its own weight. Disputations that had earlier held great interest had by then degenerated into making subtle distinctions and quibbling endlessly over terms. Scholastic method continued to be employed in religious houses of study and in universities, however, though in the latter it gradually gave way to new methods based on experimentation and mathematical reasoning. This transition is seen graphically in the early writings of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and Isaac Newton (1642–1727). Galileo's Latin notebooks on logic and natural philosophy, written at Pisa between 1588 and 1592, were couched in the language of Scholastic disputations. The same can be said of Newton's Trinity notebooks, written at Cambridge in the early 1660s.
Scholasticism was transplanted to the New World by religious orders in time for the founding of institutions of higher learning in North and South America and the Philippines. Those in Mexico and the Philippines followed the teachings of Spanish Scholastics, mainly from Salamanca and Alcalá, whereas American colleges, such as Harvard, Yale, and William and Mary, reflected teachings current in Protestant universities in England, Scotland, Germany, and the Low Countries.
Bibliography
Marthaler, Berard, et al., eds. "Scholastic Philosophy," "Scholastic Terms and Axioms," and "Scholasticism." In New Catholic Encyclopedia. 2nd ed. Vol. 12, pp. 749–779. New York, 2003. Very complete treatment.
Nauert, Charles G., Jr. Humanism and the Culture of Renaissance Europe. Cambridge, U.K., 1995.
Rummel, Erika. The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and Reformation, Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1995.
Wallace, William. "Newton's Early Writings." In Newton and the New Direction in Science: Proceedings of the Cracow Conference, 25 to 28 May 1987, edited by George V. Coyne et al., pp. 23–44. Vatican City, 1988.
——. "Scholasticism." In Encyclopedia of the Renaissance, edited by Paul F. Grendler, vol. 5, pp. 422–425. New York, 1999. See also the same author's entries on "Aristotle and Aristotelianism," vol. 1, pp. 107–113, and "Logic," vol. 3, pp. 443–446.
Wallace, William, trans. Galileo's Early Notebooks: The Physical Questions. Notre Dame, Ind., 1977.
Wallace, William A. "Aristotle in the Middle Ages." In Dictionary of the Middle Ages, edited by Joseph R. Strayer, vol. 1, pp. 456–469. New York, 1989.
—WILLIAM A. WALLACE