Scholasticism
Scholasticism
A term generally applied to the currents of thought prevalent among the Christian philosophers and theologians of Western Europe from the 9th to the 15th century. It does not usually include Byzantine, Arabian, and Jewish thought of the same period. The word Scholastic was inherited from ancient Greece and Rome, and in the Middle Ages was used to designate anyone belonging to the schools, i.e., the masters or teachers of the schools. In time these teachers and writers developed a characteristic method of investigation and exposition, known as the Scholastic Method, which they applied both in philosophy and theology. It has ever remained one of the distinctive traits of Scholasticism. Another one of its distinguishing featureg is the close relation between philosophy and religion manifested in its literary products. Moreover, Scholasticism was notably dependent on ancient philosophy, at first on Neo-Platonism and later on Aristotle, as well as on the Fathers of the Church, particularly Saint Augustine of Hippo. Thus understood it extends from Eriugena to Occam. However, the most typical Scholasticism is that of the 13th century when it attained its highest development and was represented by such thinkers as Saint Albertus Magnus, Saint Bonaventura, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Blessed John Duns Scotus. This is Scholasticism par excellence.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is a term used to designate both a method and a system. It is applied to theology as well as to philosophy. Scholastic theology is distinguished from Patristic theology on the one hand, and from positive theology on the other. The schoolmen themselves distinguished between theologia speculativa sive scholastica and theologia positiva. Applied to philosophy, the word “Scholastic” is often used also, to designate a chronological division intervening between the end of the Patristic era in the fifth century and the beginning of the modern era, about 1450. It will, therefore, make for clearness and order if we consider: I. The origin of the word “Scholastic”; II. The history of the period called Scholastic in the history of philosophy; III. The Scholastic method in philosophy, with incidental reference to the Scholastic method in theology; and IV. The contents of the Scholastic system. The revival of Scholasticism in recent times has been already treated under the head NEO-SCHOLASTICISM.
I. ORIGIN OF THE NAME “SCHOLASTIC”
There are in Greek literature a few instances of the use of the word scholastikos to designate a professional philosopher. Historically, however, the word, as now used, is to be traced, not to Greek usage, but to early Christian institutions. In the Christian schools, especially after the beginning of the sixth century, it was customary to call the head of the school magister scholae, capiscola, or scholasticus. As time went on, the last of these appellations was used exclusively. The curriculum of those schools included dialectic among the seven liberal arts, which was at that time the only branch of philosophy studied systematically. The head of the school generally taught dialectic, and out of his teaching grew both the manner of philosophizing and the system of philosophy that prevailed during all the Middle Ages. Consequently, the name “Scholastic” was used and is still used to designate the method and system that grew out of the academic curriculum of the schools or, more definitely, out of the dialectical teaching of the masters of the schools (scholastici). It does not matter that, historically, the Golden Age of Scholastic philosophy, namely, the thirteenth century, falls within a period when the schools, the curriculum of which was the seven liberal arts, including dialectic had given way to another organization of studies, the studia generalia, or universities. The name, once given, continued, as it almost always does, to designate the method and system which had by this time passed into a new phase of development. Academically, the philosophers of the thirteenth century are known as magistri, or masters; historically, however, they are Scholastics, and continue to be so designated until the end of the medieval period. And, even after the close of the Middle Ages, a philosopher or theologian who adopts the method or the system of the medieval Scholastics is said to be a Scholastic.
II. THE SCHOLASTIC PERIOD
The period extending from the beginning of Christian speculation to the time of St. Augustine, inclusive, is known as the Patristic era in philosophy and theology. In general, that era inclined to Platonism and underestimated the importance of Aristotle. The Fathers strove to construct on Platonic principles a system of Christian philosophy. They brought reason to the aid of Revelation. They leaned, however, towards the doctrine of the mystics, and, in ultimate resort, relied more on spiritual intuition than on dialectical proof for the establishment and explanation of the highest truths of philosophy. Between the end of the Patristic era in the fifth century and the beginning of the Scholastic era in the ninth there intervene a number of intercalary thinkers, as they may be called, like Claudianus Mamertus, Boethius, Cassiodorus, St. Isidore of Seville, Venerable Bede etc., who helped to hand down to the new generation the traditions of the Patristic age and to continue into the Scholastic era the current of Platonism. With the Carolingian revival of learning in the ninth century began a period of educational activity which resulted in a new phase of Christian thought known as Scholasticism. The first masters of the schools in the ninth century Alcuin, Rabanus, etc., were not indeed, more original than Boethius or Cassiodorus; the first original thinker in the Scholastic era was John the Scot (see ERIUGENA, JOHN SCOTUS). Nevertheless they inaugurated the Scholastic movement because they endeavoured to bring the Patristic (principally the Augustinian) tradition into touch with the new life of European Christianity. They did not abandon Platonism. They knew little of Aristotle except as a logician. But by the emphasis they laid on dialectical reasoning, they gave a new direction to Christian tradition in philosophy. In the curriculum of the schools in which they taught, philosophy was represented by dialectic. On the textbooks of dialectic which they used they wrote commentaries and glosses, into which. Little by little, they admitted problems of psychology, metaphysics, cosmology, and ethics. So that the Scholastic movement as a whole may be said to have sprung from the discussions of the dialecticians.
Method, contents, and conclusions were influenced by this origin. There resulted a species of Christian Rationalism which more than any other trait characterizes Scholastic philosophy in every successive stage of its development and marks it off very definitely from the Patristic philosophy, which, as has been said, was ultimately intuitional and mystic. With Roscelin, who appeared about the middle of the eleventh century, the note of Rationalism is very distinctly sounded, and the first rumbling is heard of the inevitable reaction, the voice of Christian mysticism uttering its note of warning, and condemning the excess into which Rationalism had fallen. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, therefore, Scholasticism passed through its period of storm and stress. On the one side were the advocates of reason, Roscelin, Abelard, Peter Lombard; on the other were the champions of mysticism, St. Anselm, St. Peter Damian, St. Bernard, and the Victorines. Like all ardent advocates, the Rationalists went too far at first, and only gradually brought their method within the lines of orthodoxy and harmonized it with Christian reverence for the mysteries of Faith. Like all conservative reactionists, the mystics at first condemned the use as well as the abuse of reason; they did not reach an intelligent compromise with the dialecticians until the end of the twelfth century. In the final outcome of the struggle, it was Rationalism that, having modified its unreasonable claims, triumphed in the Christian schools, without, however driving the mystics from the field.
Meantime, Eclectics, like John of Salisbury, and Platonists, like the members of the School of Chartres, gave to the Scholastic movement a broader spirit of toleration, imparted, so to speak, a sort of Humanism to philosophy, so that, when we come to the eve of the thirteenth century, Scholasticism has made two very decided steps in advance. First, the use of reason in the discussion of spiritual truth and the application of dialectic to theology are accepted with. out protest, so long as they are kept within the bounds of moderation. Second, there is a willingness on the part of the Schoolmen to go outside the lines of strict ecclesiastical tradition and learn, not only from Aristotle, who was now beginning to be known as a metaphysician and a psychologist, but also from the Arabians and the Jews, whose works had begun to penetrate in Latin translations into the schools of Christian Europe. The taking of Constantinople in 1204, the introduction of Arabian, Jewish, and Greek works into the Christian schools, the rise of the universities, and the foundation of the mendicant orders — these are the events which led to the extraordinary intellectual activity of the thirteenth century, which centered in the University of Paris. At first there was considerable confusion, and it seemed as if the battles won in the twelfth century by the dialecticians should be fought over again. The translations of Aristotle made from the Arabian and accompanied by Arabian commentaries were tinged with Pantheism, Fatalism, and other Neoplatonic errors. Even in the Christian schools there were declared Pantheists, like David of Dinant, and outspoken Averroists, like Siger of Brabant, who bade fair to prejudice the cause of Aristoteleanism.
These developments were suppressed by the most stringent disciplinary measures during the first few decades of the thirteenth century. While they were still a source of danger, men like William of Auvergne and Alexander of Hales hesitated between the traditional Augustinianism of the Christian schools and the new Aristoteleanism, which came from a suspected source. Besides, Augustinianism and Platonism accorded with piety, while Aristoteleanism was found to lack the element of mysticism. In time, however, the translations made from the Greek revealed an Aristotle free from the errors attributed to him by the Arabians, and, above all, the commanding genius of St. Albertus Magnus and his still more illustrious disciple, St. Thomas Aquinas, who appeared at the critical moment, calmly surveyed the difficulties of the situation, and met them fearlessly, won the victory for the new philosophy and continued successfully the traditions established in the preceding century. Their contemporary, St. Bonaventure, showed that the new learning was not incompatible with mysticism drawn from Christian sources, and Roger Bacon demonstrated by his unsuccessful attempts to develop the natural sciences the possibilities of another kind which were latent in Aristoteleanism.
With Duns Scotus, a genius of the first order, but not of the constructive type, begins the critical phase, of Scholasticism. Even before his time, the Franciscan and the Dominican currents had set out in divergent directions. It was his keen and unrelenting search for the weak points in Thomistic philosophy that irritated and wounded susceptibilities among the followers of St. Thomas, and brought about the spirit of partisanship which did so much to dissipate the energy of Scholasticism in the fourteenth century. The recrudescence of Averroism in the schools, the excessive cultivation of formalism and subtlety, the growth of artificial and even barbarous terminology, and the neglect of the study of nature and of history contributed to the same result. Ockham’s Nominalism and Durandus’s attempt to “simplify” Scholastic philosophy did not have the effect which their authors intended. “The glory and power of scholasticism faded into the warmth and brightness of mysticism,” and Gerson, Thomas à Kempis, and Eckhart are more representative of what the Christian Church was actually thinking in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries than are the Thomists, Scotists, and Ockhamists of that period, who frittered away much valuable time in the discussion of highly technical questions which arose within the schools and possess little interest except for adepts in Scholastic subtlety. After the rise of Humanism, when the Renaissance, which ushered in the modern era, was in full progress, the great Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese commentators inaugurated an age of more healthy Scholasticism, and the great Jesuit teachers, Toletus, Vasquez, and Suarez, seemed to recall the best days of thirteenth century speculation. The triumph of scientific discovery, with which, as a rule, the representatives of Scholasticism in the seats of academic authority had, unfortunately, too little sympathy, led to new ways of philosophizing, and when, finally, Descartes in practice, if not in theory, effected a complete separation of philosophy from theology, the modern era had begun and the age known as that of Scholasticism had come to an end.
III. THE SCHOLASTIC METHOD
No method in philosophy has been more unjustly condemned than that of the Scholastics. No philosophy has been more grossly misrepresented. And this is true not only of the details, but also of the most essential elements of Scholasticism. Two charges, especially, are made against the Schoolmen: First, that they confounded philosophy with theology; and second, that they made reason subservient to authority. As a matter of fact, the very essence of Scholasticism is, first, its clear delimitation of the respective domains of philosophy and theology, and, second, its advocacy of the use of reason.
A. Theology and Philosophy
Christian thinkers, from the beginning, were confronted with the question: How are we to reconcile reason with revelation, science with faith, philosophy with theology? The first apologists possessed no philosophy of their own. They had to deal with a pagan world proud of its literature and its philosophy, ready at any moment to flaunt its inheritance of wisdom in the face of ignorant Christians. The apologists met the situation by a theory that was as audacious as it must have been disconcerting to the pagans. They advanced the explanation that all the wisdom of Plato and the other Greeks was due to the inspiration of the Logos; that it was God’s truth, and, therefore, could not be in contradiction with the supernatural revelation contained in the Gospels. It was a hypothesis calculated not only to silence a pagan opponent, but also to work constructively. We find it in St. Basil, in Origen, and even in St. Augustine. The belief that the two orders of truth, the natural and the supernatural, must harmonize, is the inspiration of intellectual activity in the Patristic era. But that era did little to define the limits of the two realms of truth. St. Augustine believes that faith aids reason (credo ut intelligam) and that reason aids faith (intelligo ut credam); he is, however, inclined to emphasize the first principle and not the second. He does not develop a definite methodology in dealing with them. The Scholastics, almost from the first, attempted to do so.
John Scotus Eriugena, in the ninth century, by his doctrine that all truth is a theophany, or showing forth of God, tried to elevate philosophy to the rank of theology, and identify the two in a species of theosophy. Abelard, in the twelfth century, tried to bring theology down to the level of philosophy, and identify both in a Rationalistic system. The greatest of the Scholastics in the thirteenth century, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, solved the problem for all time, so far as Christian speculation is concerned, by showing that the two are distinct sciences, and yet that they agree. They are distinct, he teaches, because, while philosophy relies on reason alone, theology uses the truths derived from revelation, and also because there are some truths, the mysteries of Faith, which lie completely outside the domain of philosophy and belong to theology. They agree, and must agree, because God is the author of all truth, and it is impossible to think that He would teach in the natural order anything that contradicts what He teaches in the supernatural order. The recognition of these principles is one of the crowning achievements of Scholasticism. It is one of the characteristics that mark it off from the Patristic era, in which the same principles were, so to speak, in solution, and not crystallized in definite expression. lt is the trait which differentiates Scholasticism from Averroism. It is the inspiration of all Scholastic effort. As long as it lasted Scholasticism lasted, and as soon as the opposite conviction became established, the conviction, namely, that what is true in theology may be false in philosophy, Scholasticism ceased to exist. It is, therefore, a matter of constant surprise to those who know Scholasticism to find it misrepresented on this vital point.
B. Scholastic Rationalism
Scholasticism sprang from the study of dialectic in the schools. The most decisive battle of Scholasticism was that which it waged in the twelfth century against the mystics who condemned the use of dialectic. The distinguishing mark of Scholasticism in the age of its highest development is its use of the dialectical method. It is, therefore, a matter, once more, for surprise, to find Scholasticism accused of undue subservience to authority and of the neglect of reason. Rationalism is a word which has various meanings. It is sometimes used to designate a system which, refusing to acknowledge the authority of revelation, tests all truth by the standard of reason. In this sense, the Scholastics were not Rationalists. The Rationalism of Scholasticism consists in the conviction that reason is to be used in the elucidation of spiritual truth and in defence of the dogmas of Faith. It is opposed to mysticism, which distrusted reason and placed emphasis on intuition and contemplation. In this milder meaning of the term, all the Scholastics were convinced Rationalists, the only difference being that some, like Abelard and Roscelin, were too ardent in their advocacy of the use of reason, and went so far as to maintain that reason can prove even the supernatural mysteries of Faith, while others, like St. Thomas, moderated the claims of reason, set limits to its power of proving spiritual truth, and maintained that the mysteries of faith could not be discovered and cannot be proved by unaided reason.
The whole Scholastic movement, therefore, is a Rationalistic movement in the second sense of the term Rationalism. The Scholastics used their reason; they applied dialectic to the study of nature, of human nature and of supernatural truth. Far from depreciating reason, they went as far as man can go — some modern critics think they went too far — in the application of reason to the discussion of the dogmas of Faith. They acknowledged the authority of revelation, as all Christian philosophers are obliged to do. They admitted the force of human authority when the conditions of its valid application were verified. But in theology, the authority of revelation did not coerce their reason and in philosophy and in natural science they taught very emphatically that the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments. They did not subordinate reason to authority in any unworthy sense of that phrase. It was an opponent of the Scholastic movement who styled philosophy “the handmaid of theology”, a designation which, however, some of the Schoolmen accepted to mean that to philosophy belongs the honourable task of carrying the light which is to guide the footsteps of theology. One need not go so far as to say, with Barthelemy SaintHilaire, that “Scholasticism, in its general result, is the first revolt of the modern spirit against authority.” Nevertheless, one is compelled by the facts of history to admit that there is more truth in that description than in the superficial judgment of the historians who describe Scholasticism as the subordination of reason to authority.
C. Details of Scholastic Method
The Scholastic manner of treating the problems of philosophy and theology is apparent from a glance at the body of literature which the Schoolmen produced. The immense amount of commentary on Aristotle, on Peter Lombard, on Boethius, on Pseudo-Dionysius, and on the Scriptures indicates the form of academic activity which characterizes the Scholastic period. The use of texts dates from the very beginning of the Scholastic era in philosophy and theology, and was continued down into modern times. The mature teacher, however, very often embodied the results of his own speculation in a Summa, which, in time became a text in the hands of his successors. The Questiones disputatae were special treatises on the more difficult or the more important topics, and as the name implied, followed the method of debate prevalent in the schools, generally called disputation or determination. The Quodlibeta were miscellanies generally in the form of answers to questions which as soon as a teacher had attained a widespread renown, began to come to him, not only from the academic world in which he lived, but from all classes of persons and from every part of Christendom. The division of topics in theology was determined by the arrangement followed in Peter Lombard’s “Books of Sentences” (see SUMMA, SIMMULAE), and in philosophy it adhered closely to the order of treatises in Aristotle’s works. There is a good deal of divergence among the principal Scholastics in the details of arrangement, as well as in the relative values of the sub-titles, “part”, “question”, “disputation”, “article”, etc. All, however, adopt the manner of treatment by which thesis, objections, and solutions of objections stand out distinctly in the discussion of each problem. We find traces of this in Gerbert’s little treatise “De rational) et ratione uti” in the tenth century, and it is still more definitely adopted in Abelard’s “Sic et non”. It had its root in Aristotelean method, but was determined more immediately by the dialectical activity of the early schools, from which, as was said, Scholasticism sprang.
Much has been said both in praise and in blame of Scholastic terminology in philosophy and theology. It is rather generally acknowledged that whatever precision there is in the modern languages of Western Europe is due largely to the dialectic disquisitions of the Scholastics. On the other hand, ridicule has been poured on the stiffness, the awkwardness, and the barbarity of the Scholastic style. In an impartial study of the question, it should be remembered that the Scholastics of the thirteenth century-and it was not they but their successors who were guilty of the grossest sins of style-were confronted with a terminological problem unique in the history of thought. They came suddenly into possession of an entirely new literature, the works of Aristotle. They spoke a language, Latin, on which the terminology of Aristotle in metaphysics psychology etc., had made no impression. Consequently, they were obliged to create all at once Latin words and phrases to express the terminology of Aristotle, a terminology remarkable for its extent, its variety, and its technical complexity. They did it honestly and humbly, by translating Aristotle’s phrases literally; so that many a strange-sounding Latin phrase in the writings of the Schoolmen would be very good Aristotelean Greek, if rendered word for word into that language. The Latin of the best of the Scholastics may be lacking in elegance and distinction; but no one will deny the merits of its rigorous severity of phrase and its logical soundness of construction. Though wanting the graces of what is called the fine style, graces which have the power of pleasing but do not facilitate the task of the learner in philosophy, the style of the thirteenth-century masters possesses the fundamental qualities, clearness, conciseness, and richness of technical phrase.
IV. THE CONTENTS OF THE SCHOLASTIC SYSTEM
In logic the Scholastics adopted all the details of the Aristotelean system, which was known to the Latin world from the time of Boethius. Their individual contributions consisted of some minor improvements in the matter of teaching and in the technic of the science. Their underlying theory of knowledge is also Aristotelean. It may be described by saying that it is a system of Moderate Realism and Moderate Intellectualism. The Realism consists in teaching that outside the mind there exist things fundamentally universal which correspond to our universal ideas. The Moderate Intellectualism is summed up in the two principles: all our knowledge is derived from sense-knowledge; and intellectual knowledge differs from sense-knowledge, not only in degree but also in kind. In this way, Scholasticism avoids Innatism, according to which all our ideas, or some of our ideas, are born with the soul and have no origin in the world outside us. At the same time, it avoids Sensism, according to which our so-ealled intellectual knowledge is only sense-knowledge of a higher or finer sort. The Scholastics, moreover, took a firm stand against the doctrine of Subjectivism. In their discussion of the value of knowledge they held that there is an external world which is real and independent of our thoughts. In that world are the forms which make things to be what they are. The same forms received into the mind in the process of knowing cause us not to be the object but to know the object. This presence of things in the mind by means of forms is true representation, or rather presentation. For it is the objective thing that we are first aware of, not its representation in us.
The Scholastic outlook on the world of nature is Aristotelean. The Schoolmen adopt the doctrine of matter and form, which they apply not only to living things but also to inorganic nature. Since the form, or entelechy is always striving for its own realization or actualization, the view of nature which this doctrine leads to is teleological. Instead, however, of ascribing purpose in a vague, unsatisfactory manner to nature itself, the Scholastics attributed design to the intelligent, provident author of nature. The principle of finality thus acquired a more precise meaning, and at the same time the danger of a Pantheistic interpretation was avoided. On the question of the universality of matter the Schoolmen were divided among themselves, some, like the Franciscan teachers, maintaining that all created beings are material, others, like St. Thomas, holding the existence of “separate forms”, such as the angels, in whom there is potency but no matter. Again, on the question of the oneness of substantial forms, there was a lack of agreement. St. Thomas held that in each individual material substance, organic or inorganic, there is but one substantial form, which confers being, substantiality and, in the ease of man, life, sensation, and reason. Others, on the contrary, believed that in one substance, man, for instance, there are simultaneously several forms, one of which confers existence, another substantiality, another life, and another, reason. Finally, there was a divergence of views as to what is the principle of individuation, by which several individuals of the same species are differentiated from one another. St. Thomas taught that the principle of individuation is matter with its determined dimensions, materia signata.
In regard to the nature of man, the first Scholastics were Augustinians. Their definition of the soul is what may be called the spiritual, as opposed to the biological, definition. They held that the soul is the principle of thought-activity, and that the exercise of the senses is a process from the soul through the body not a process of the whole organism, that is, of the body animated by the soul. The Scholastics of the thirteenth century frankly adopted the Aristotelean definition of the soul as the principle of life, not of thought merely. Therefore, they maintained, man is a compound of body and soul, each of which is an incomplete substantial principle the union being, consequently, immediate, vital, and substantial. For them there is no need of an intermediary “body of light” such as St. Augustine imagined to exist. All the vital activities of the individual human being are ascribed ultimately to the soul, as to their active principle, although they may have more immediate principles namely the faculties, such as intellect, the senses, the vegetative and muscular powers. But while the soul is in this way concerned with all the vital functions, being, in fact, the source of them, and the body enters as a passive principle into all the activities of the soul, exception must be made in the ease of immaterial thought-activities. They are, like all the other activities, activities of the individual. The soul is the active principle of them. But the body contributes to them, not in the same intrinsic manner in which it contributes to seeing, hearing, digesting etc., but only in an extrinsic manner, by supplying the materials out of which the intellect manufactures ideas. This extrinsic dependence explains the phenomena of fatigue, etc. At the same time it leaves the soul so independent intrinsically that the latter is truly said to be immaterial.
From the immateriality of the soul follows its immortality. Setting aside the possibility of annihilation, a possibility to which all creatures, even the angels are subject, the human soul is naturally immortal, and its immortality, St. Thomas believes, can be proved from its immateriality. Duns Scotus, however, whose notion of the strict requirements of a demonstration was influenced by his training in mathematics, denies the conclusive force of the argument from immateriality, and calls attention to Aristotle’s hesitation or obscurity on this point. Aristotle, as interpreted by the Arabians, was, undoubtedly, opposed to immortality. It was, however, one of St. Thomas’s greatest achievements in philosophy that, especially in his opusculum “De unitate intellectus”, he refuted the Arabian interpretation of Aristotle, showed that the active intellect is part of the individual soul, and thus removed the uncertainty which, for the Aristoteleans, hung around the notions of immateriality and immortality. From the immateriality of the soul follows not only that it is immortal, but also that it originated by an act of creation. It was created at the moment in which it was united with the body: creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur is the Scholastic phrase.
Scholastic metaphysics added to the Aristotelean system a full discussion of the nature of personality, restated in more definite terms the traditional arguments for the existence of God, and developed the doctrine of the providential government of the universe. The exigencies of theological discussion occasioned also a minute analysis of the nature of accident in general and of quantity in particular. The application of the resulting principles to the explanation of the mystery of the Eucharist, as contained in St. Thomas’s works on the subject, is one of the most successful of all the Scholastic attempts to render faith reasonable by means of dialectical discussion. Indeed, it may be said, in general, that the peculiar excellence of the Scholastics as systematic thinkers consisted in their ability to take hold of the profoundest metaphysical distinctions, such as matter and form, potency and actuality, substance and accident, and apply them to every department of thought. They were no mere apriorists, they recognized in principle and in practice that scientific method begins with the observation of facts. Nevertheless, they excelled most of all in the talent which is peculiarly metaphysical, the power to grasp abstract general principles and apply them consistently and systematically.
So far as the ethics of Scholasticism is not distinctly Christian, seeking to expound and justify Divine law and the Christian standard of morals, it is Aristotelean. This is clear from the adoption and application of the Aristotelean definition of virtue as the golden mean between two extremes. Fundamentally, the definition is eudemonistic. It rests on the conviction that the supreme good of man is happiness, that happiness is the realization, or complete actualization, of one’s nature, and that virtue is an essential means to that end. But what is vague and unsatisfactory in Aristotelean Eudemonism is made definite and safe in the Scholastic system, which determines the meaning of happiness and realization according to the Divine purpose in creation and the dignity to which man is destined as a child of God.
In their discussion of the problems of political philosophy the philosophers of the thirteenth century while not discarding the theological views of St. Augustine contained in “The City of God”, laid a new foundation for the study of political organizations by introducing Aristotle’s scientific definition of the origin and purpose of civil society. Man, says St. Thomas, is naturally a social and political animal. By giving to human beings a nature which requires the co-operation of other human beings for its welfare, God ordained man for society, and thus it is His will that princes should govern with a view to the public welfare. The end for which the state exists is, then, not merely vivere but bene vivere. All that goes to make life better and happier is included the Divine charter from which kings and rulers derive their authority. The Scholastic treatises on this subject and the commentaries on the “Polities” of Aristotle prepared the way for the medieval and modern discussions of political problems. In this department of thought, as in many others, the Schoolmen did at least one service which posterity should appreciate: they strive to express in clear systematic form what was present in the consciousness of Christendom in their day.
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WILLIAM TURNER Transcribed by Tomas Hancil
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIIICopyright © 1912 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, February 1, 1912. Remy Lafort, D.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Scholasticism
(SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCHOOLMEN), a notable phase of speculation which prevailed throughout the Middle Ages whenever any activity of thought was displayed, and which gave a distinctive character to the reasonings, to the controversies, and to the whole intellectual habit of those centuries. Scholasticism especially denotes the peculiar mode of argumentation then practiced, and the spirit by which it was guided. The Scholastic Philosophy designates the whole body of diverse and often conflicting doctrine which was generated under the scholastic procedure. The Philosophy of the Schoolmen signifies the same thing, but directs attention particularly to the very remarkable succession of acute and profound inquirers who applied and developed the scholastic method. The schoolmen were the theologians, the metaphysicians, the dialecticians, the encyclopaedists, the thinkers, and the teachers of the mediaeval period. The scholastic philosophy represented the ample and often bewildering, but always systematic, results of their labors, especially after their method had attained its curious but consummate perfection. Scholasticism was the peculiar process of investigation and demonstration pursued by the schoolmen, with various thoroughness but unvarying uniformity, for much more than half a millennium. The schoolmen have long fallen into disrepute; little more than their names are remembered by the majority even of educated persons. Their works are unread and lie moldering and undisturbed on the dusty shelves of ancient libraries. Their system has been for nearly three centuries the constant butt of ignorant censure and stolid pretension. Yet a system which endured so long, which engrossed so many minds of wide culture and of marvelous penetration, which attracted so much of contemporaneous regard, which enlisted such intense and general enthusiasm, which filled the intellectual atmosphere for long generations, which almost ruled the court, the camp, the grove, in the persons of Anselm and Occam and Abelard, cannot be dismissed with a sneer or safely repudiated with indifference.
Hallam, following in the wake of Brucker, with whom he was probably unacquainted, has repeated the stale reproaches against the scholastics, though acknowledging that he had read neither the works of the schoolmen themselves nor the historians of their philosophy (Middle Ages, ch. 9, pt. 2). But the second-hand censures of Hallam are rendered ridiculous by the measured commendations of Leibnitz, to which he inadequately refers, and by the candid admiration of Sir William Hamilton and other competent judges. Sir William, speaking of Reid’s repetition of the current abuse, observes: This is the vulgar opinion in regard to the scholastic philosophy. The few are, however, now aware that the human mind, though partially, was never more powerfully developed than during the Middle Ages (Reid, Works [ed. Hamilton], p. 268, note; comp. Hamilton, Discuss. p. 54, note; 2d ed. St. Hilaire, De la Logique d’Aristote, pref. vol. 1, p. 5; Remusat, Abelard, 2, 282, 548). St. Hilaire justly designates La scolastique-berceau de l’intelligence moderne. The world cannot afford to disown any of the laborious services by which knowledge and civilization have been advanced, no matter how strange they may now appear. Nor can it wisely forget those who have labored long and earnestly in its behalf. It may always be presumed that whatever occupied the ardent endeavors of many generations had some serious meaning, whether this meaning does or does not lie open to hasty apprehension; and that it solved some serious difficulties of the time and ministered to their removal from the onward path of humanity. It is certainly blindness and arrogance to reject, without careful examination, what we do not understand, because we do not understand it; and not to understand it, because unwilling to make an effort to understand it. There is much which is unsuited to modern habitudes of thought, much which is strange and bewildering under modern associations, and which is futile, perverse, or erroneous in the writings of the schoolmen; much that may be judiciously abandoned as having served its turn and prepared and disciplined modern intelligence. But, as Richard Baxter and Leibnitz very dissimilar minds both recognized, there will still remain much that is valuable and deserving of sedulous appreciation. Indeed, to those who have sipped from the original fountains, who have pondered over the divisions of Aquinas or grappled with the distinctions of Duns Scotus, there will appear no extravagance in the question of a recent writer: What doubts have since been mooted what difficulties suggested in morals, religion, or politics during three centuries of unfettered religious inquiry which they, the schoolmen, have not anticipated and dissected with the calmness of scientific anatomists? (Brewer, Letters and Papers in the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. 3, p. 413. Comp. Proudhon, Creation de l’Ordre dans l’Humanite, 3, 3, 203).
1. Origin of the Term Scholasticism. The word scholastic () does not occur in classic Greek in the sense so familiar from its customary application to the philosophers of the Middle Ages. Bayle (s.v. Aristotle) says that it was not used in Aristotle’s time to signify a scholar, a student, or a schoolman. It occurs four times in Aristotle himself, always with the meaning of idle or disengaged once in distinct opposition to practical. No distinct instance of its mediaeval usage is discoverable in Stephens’ Thesaurus. The earliest approximation to it presents itself in Posidonius (Athen. Deipnos. 5, 48); but it still clings to its primary meaning of unemployed, leisurely. It must be remembered that school had originally the same import, and that its Latin name was ludus (play). Gradually scholastic came to mean characteristic of the school, particularly a school of rhetoric the master of such a school, a teacher of rhetoric, an advocate in the courts of law. It is employed in this last sense in a rescript of the emperor Constantius II (Cod. Theod. 8, 10, 11). It is sometimes with reference to a forensic vocation, sometimes with reference to elegant culture (which the word afterwards denoted), sometimes with reference to rhetorical instruction, that the Eastern Greeks spoke of Eulogius scholasticus, Leontius scholasticus, Sozomen scholasticus, Evagrius scholasticus, etc. The term, however, gradually lapsed into new significations, so that in the amusing account which Anna Comnena in the 12th century gives of John Italus (Alexiad, 5, 8), it is put in contrast with polite, rhetorical accomplishment, and signifies a dialectician. The word is translated umbratilis, by Possinus, in his version of Anna, in accordance with its classical sense; and this rendering is not changed in the revision of this version by Schopen in the Bonn edition. It is impossible, however, to ignore its indication of logical pursuits. It probably received this significance by importation from the contemporaneous usage in the schools of the West.
The fortune of the word in the Latin language was similar to its experiences in the Greek; but there is greater facility in tracing the mutations of its meaning. It does not occur in Cicero. The younger Pliny gives umbraticus as its equivalent (9, Ephesians 2). In Quintilian, in the Dialogue on Orators, and in Aulus Gellius, it denotes appertaining to rhetorical schools. In Petronius it designates the pupils of such a school. In the 4th century it was used for elegant, cultivated, refined (scholasticus, ad Graecas munditias eruditus [Capitolin. Maximin. Jr. c. 3]). In the 5th century it meant eloquent (scholastici ac diserti [Salvian, De Gub. Dei, praef.]). Several of the meanings were, no doubt, concurrent. The predominant meaning, under the empire of Rome in the West, was a person accomplished in the studies of a school of rhetoric, whether as disciple, teacher, or graduate. Rhetorical education, as the preparation of Cicero and the Institutes of Quintilian abundantly attest, had early become universal or encyclopaedical instruction. As rhetorical pursuits declined and as other studies waned, while logic gradually acquired a notable preponderance in the Church and in the ecclesiastical schools, as afterwards in the rising universities of Western Europe, scholasticism became identified with logic. Logic, however, embraced, or assumed to embrace, all subjects in its rigid grasp, as is shown by the commentaries of the greater schoolmen on all the works of Aristotle, and by their violent application of the logic of the schools to all departments of knowledge and action. But the universal range claimed by rhetoric in the Roman schools of rhetoric was never renounced by those who retained the name of scholastics while substituting logic for rhetoric. The process of the transmigration of meanings is easily discernible. School study is the pursuit of those who have leisure and therefore opportunity for learning. Rhetoric became the predominant and exclusive object of school instruction, but comprehended all knowledge. Logic supplanted rhetoric. Analysis and demonstration took the place of rhetorical elegance of expression, and aspired to the dominion of all knowledge. The new teachers and pupils retained the established name; and thus the scholastic of the Middle Ages emerged out of the idler of classical antiquity. The name is early applied to the masters of the cathedral schools.
2. Nature of Scholasticism. The inquiry into the changing import of the name scholastic is equally necessary for the due apprehension of the ordinary employment of the term and for understanding its appropriation by the scholastic philosophers. There is a large class of words which denote shifting conditions, social fluctuations, expanding or altering forms, that can be duly appreciated only by attention to their historical modifications. Civilization is a word of this kind, scholasticism is another. The definitions of scholasticism given in the dictionaries are for the most part tautological idem per idem and habitually partial. They convey little information to those not already acquainted with the subject; they generally proceed by cross reference. The inquirer is baffled by a game of verbal battledore and shuttlecock between the reciprocally implicated terms scholasticism, scholastic philosophy, and schoolmen. The distinctions of the historians of philosophy are of course more satisfactory, but they are seldom adequate. Brucker enters into the history of the term; but Ueberweg is almost dumb on this point. He says (Hist. Phil. 1, 355), Scholasticism was the reproduction of ancient philosophy under the control of ecclesiastical doctrine, with an accommodation, in cases of discrepancy between them, of the former to the latter. Then Abelard, who did not touch theology till an advanced period of his career, was not a scholastic during his brilliant course at Paris. Others, who never touched theology at all, were never scholastics. Occam, and those who rejected ecclesiastical authority in whole or in part, were not scholastics. Then Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus ceased to be scholastics when composing their vast commentaries on Aristotle; but became so, suddenly, when commenting on Peter Lombard and submitting their speculations to the discipline of the Church. Then Roger Bacon would not be a schoolman. Evidently there is no such compendious definition of scholasticism as Ueberweg and many of his fellow historians suppose. The application of the Aristotelian logic to the exposition of Christian doctrine, and the subordination of the logical deductions to the orthodox dogmas of the Church, characterized the most brilliant period of scholasticism, and constituted scholastic theology. SEE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY.
But these characteristics did not belong to the whole period, nor to all the schoolmen, nor to all the labors of theological scholastics in any period. John Scotus Erigena with his Platonism, and Pico di Mirandola with his Cabalism were schoolmen as much as Bonaventura or Bradwardine. So also were essentially the Jew Maimonides and the Saracen Avicenna. It is necessary to regard the wavering import of the term scholasticism, to note its various use, and to trace the progress of the scholastic procedure, in order to obtain a full knowledge of its meaning, and to detect the grounds of its diverse, and particularly of its most familiar, application.
Scholasticism, so contemplated, will be found to have meant, under the emperors of Rome, the functions of a teacher of rhetoric, embracing all knowledge in his course, then the possession of such knowledge with the refinement which it was supposed to bestow. As universal learning shrank up, even in the times of Cassiodorus, to the Trivium and Quadrivium, scholasticism suffered eclipse, but still claimed dominion over all the learning of the time. When rhetoric was supplanted by logic, scholasticism became the application of deductive reasoning to all departments of inquiry; and, at a later time, in accordance with the temper, associations, and necessities of what is regarded as distinctively the scholastic period, preeminently, though never exclusively, to theology.
Scholasticism will thus be the employment of logic, not the Peripatetic philosophy as such, in all departments of learning, whether suited to them or not the substitution of dialectics for investigation, of authority for facts. Lord Bacon did much, but very much less than his followers, to confirm the delusion that Aristotle handled everything in subservience to the logical science which he had created. Such an error can never be entertained by any one who has read his Natural History, his Parts of Animals, his Politics, or even his Rhetoric or his Ethics. This exclusive application of logic to all subjects and on all occasions was alike the defect and the characteristic of the schoolmen, practiced, even when condemned and opposed, by Roger Bacon.
3. Origin of the Scholastic Mode of Philosophizing. The notices of the origin of the name and of the nature of scholasticism furnish indications of the genetic development of that notable method of speculation. They do not supply the historical explanation of its growth, nor reveal its relation to the changing circumstances in the social and intellectual condition of the darkening ages which determined its appearance and progressive ascendency. Several writers, among whom may be named Brucker, St. Hilaire, Remusat, have recognized in John of Damascus the progenitor of the scholastic system. He flourished in the earlier half of the 8th century. Long before him, germs of scholasticism and scholastic tendencies may be detected in both Christian and pagan writers. There are many evidences in Aulus Gellius that eristic dialectics constituted an habitual occupation of scholars before the middle of the 2d century (see especially Noct. Att. 1, 2). There is a manifest disposition in Tertullian and other fathers of the early Church to treat religious topics in a manner analogous to that pursued a thousand years later by the most illustrious among the schoolmen. Scholasticism was a natural growth, not an arbitrary invention. It may be deemed to have been inevitable that this mode of intellectual procedure should be pursued when a revealed religion, appealing exclusively to faith in the revelation, and whose fundamental tenets came not by observation, was disseminated amid a highly cultivated but skeptical society, in antagonism to previously existing systems of religious belief, and to all the conclusions of its past thought and experience.
Authority, divine authority, was the basis of the new truth, and furnished the premises for controversy and for apologetics alike. The inspired Scriptures were the expression of this divine authority, and were neither to be established by observation nor tested by experiment. In exegetics as well as in polemics there was thus a necessity of proceeding from the maxims of faith to the consequences of such maxims, which could be reached only by deduction. The need of accommodating the arguments adduced to the hostile temperaments and adverse habitudes of a pagan age would naturally soften and obscure the sharp precision and harsh angularities of dialectical demonstration. But the scholastic method, and even the scholastic subtleties and quodlibets, very soon appeared, and may be discerned in early patristic literature. When Christianity became prevalent and was established as the religion of the State, especially as there was a coincident decay of general culture and secular letters, the logical spirit, with its texts, its abstractions, its distinctions, its divisions, and its refinements, became predominant.
This tendency is very pronounced in the Confessions of St. Augustine, in his other writings, and in the productions of his contemporaries and immediate successors. It is not without reason that Augustine has been signalized as one of the chief promoters of the scholastic method. As letters continued to shrivel up, and as cultivation of intellectual graces and refinements became impossible or mistimed in the midst of social anarchy, barbarian incursion, and general wretchedness, the deductive method of argumentation and exposition would unavoidably prevail. The extension of the practice and the exclusiveness of such pursuits would also be greatly favored by the restriction of study to the ecclesiastical circle, and by the mighty task imposed upon the whole medieval period of converting the pagan barbarians who had occupied the Western empire, and of civilizing them through the instrumentality of the Christian faith to which they were to be converted. Of course, as logic was the chief method of theological persuasion, the influence of Aristotle and of the Aristotelian spirit grew with the progress of time and with the progress of theological disputation, for there neither is nor ever can be any logic but that of Aristotle. There does not seem to be any sufficient evidence of the total oblivion of Aristotle and of Aristotle’s dialectics at any period of the Middle Ages. The testimony of Ingulph may be spurious, but there are other indications of a meager acquaintance with Aristotelian logic through secondary channels; and it is admitted that the version of Porphyry’s Introduction, by Boethius, was known at all times.
After the conversion of the pagans in the new kingdoms, and the definite establishment of the ecclesiastical ascendency of the Roman Church throughout the Western empire, a fresh demand and a constant provocation for the intervention of scholastic procedure arose in the ever multiplying and often pernicious heresies which occupied provincial councils, and engaged the most zealous and astute minds in their promulgation, their refutation, and their defense. A very cursory perusal of the impugned opinions, whose statement opens the several articles in the Summa of Aquinas, or of any similar summa, will show what a countless number and endless variety of dogmas required to be examined and settled for the establishment of the religious and ethical doctrine of the times. It was an inestimable service which was rendered in the long and agonizing period of the Middle Ages, in a society without other intellectual discipline or moral control, by the proposition, the ventilation, the discussion, the establishment, or the reprobation of the multitudinous perplexed problems in theology often affecting government, society, and private conduct. It is not a question here whether the reasoning adopted, the arguments adduced, the conclusions drawn, or the decisions affirmed were correct or pernicious. The process was necessary, the task indispensable, for the effective development of European intelligence. The system does not accord with modern requirements, nor approve itself to modern modes of thought; but it inaugurated those requirements and bred those modes. Feudalism had to be swept away to make room for the growth of society and its larger expansion; but feudalism was a blessing at a time when the imperative demand of society was for confirmed authority and graduated subordination. Any good custom will corrupt the world; and no human custom is absolutely good or free from the taint of wrong and prospective mischief. The errors and the defects of scholasticism are nowadays manifest to all, and are habitually exaggerated. The good, that was buried with it, is not equally apparent or as willingly sought. It requires some knowledge of the schoolmen, of their works, and of their times a transference of thought from our circumstances and points of view to theirs, and dispassionate reflection to estimate their difficulties, their aims, and their achievements. One inestimable result of their labors it is only one was the definite establishment of the terms of reasoning, metaphysics, and theology, and, as a consequence of their procedure, the enforcement of logical coherence of thought and of precision of language. These things were indispensable preliminaries for the development of modern tongues, modern knowledge, modern enterprise, modern society, and modern government.
That this explanation of the rise and progress of scholasticism is correct is in some measure confirmed by the exhibition of the same tendencies, under analogous circumstances, in the contemporaneous speculation of the Jews and Arabs; for it is a mistake to regard scholasticism as either an ethnical or a theological idiosyncrasy.
In the manner stated, and by steps which can be only obscurely traced, scholasticism gradually assumed that form in which it is usually contemplated by the historians of philosophy; and acquired the fullness, abundance, energy, precision, and predominance which characterized the scholastic philosophy in its most vigorous manifestation.
4. Systematic Development of Scholasticism. John Scotus Erigena, towards the close of the 9th century, is generally regarded as the first of those distinctively entitled schoolmen, though, as has been shown above, he should not be considered the earliest scholastic. The historians of philosophy have variously distributed the course of scholastic philosophy into periods. Ueberweg, who may be taken to represent the latest prevalent view, divides the scholastic age into two parts only: 1. From Scotus Erigena to Amalric, or from the 9th to the 13th century; 2. From the 13th century to the Renaissance. He thus omits both the preliminary tendencies and the expiring efforts, important as the origin and the decadence of the system must be. Sir William Hamilton (Reid, Works, Appendix, note B, p. 815) notes John Major, of St. Andrew’s (1469-1547), as the last of the regular schoolmen; but the spirit survived far into the next century. Brucker does not neglect the early manifestations of scholasticism, but observes that it was conceived during the centuries extending from the 5th to the 8th; that the 9th and 10th were the time of its gestation and formation; that it was born in the 11th; that it passed its boyhood and youth in the 12th; and that it attained full manhood in the 13th. He commences the treatment of what he holds to be the scholastic philosophy proper with the beginning of the 12th century, and divides the history into three periods: 1. From Lanfranc, or Abelard and his disciple Peter Lombard, to the middle of the 13th century, and to Albertus Magnus; 2. From 1220 to Durand of St. Pourcain; 3. From 1330 to Gabriel Biel and the close of the 15th century.
That a great change took place in the scholastic philosophy at the opening of the second period, through the rivalry and energy of the recently instituted orders of the Dominicans and Franciscans, is proved by the character and career of the great schoolmen, and by Roger Bacon’s curious vituperation of the youngsters who were teaching at Paris. These youngsters pueri duorum ordinum studentium (Compend. Studii, 5) were Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and their colleagues. The third period is rendered memorable by the names of Duns Scotus and William of Occam, and was marked by an excess of ingenuity, an extravagance of distinctions, and a perverse subtlety which degenerated into vain and puerile captiousness in their successors. It is from the diseased state of scholasticism in its moribund age that the general estimate of the system has been formed. But there is little justice in applying to the whole philosophy the reproaches merited by it in the years of its impotent decline.
For an acquaintance with the character and consequences of the application of scholasticism to theology, for the peculiarities of the sects of the scholastics and of the leading schoolmen, for their rivalries and their antagonisms, reference should be made to the names of the schoolmen in this Cyclopoedia; to SEE NOMINALISM, SEE REALISM, and SEE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY.
5. Literature. The literature of scholasticism is so extensive that it would be equally impracticable and vain to undertake to give here any adequate enumeration of the principal works that have illustrated it. Among the chief sources of information are obviously the opera omnia of all the more notable schoolmen and their predecessors, from Joannes Damascenus to Gerson and Petrus Alliacus, or even down to Philip Melancthon. Next in order would come all the chief historians of philosophy. Among works of more special and immediate interest on the subject may be named Cousin, Fragmens Philosophiques; Phil. Scolastique (Paris, 1840); Rousselot, Etudes sur la Phil. dans le Moyen Age (ibid. 1840-42); Jourdain, Recherches Critiques sur l’Age et l’Origine des Traductions Latines d’Aristote (ibid. 1843); Caraman, Hist. des Rev. de la Phil. en France (ibid. 1845-48); Kaulich, Gesch. der scholast. Philosophie (Prague, 1853); Haureau, La Philosophie Scolastique (Paris, 1858); Hampden, The Scholastic Philosophy, etc. (Oxford, 1862); Erdmann, Der Entwickelungsgang der Scholastik, in Zeitschrift fr wissenschaftl. Theologie (Halle, 1865), vol. 8; Michaud, Guillaume de Champeaux et les Ecoles de Paris (Paris, 1867); De Cupely, Esprit de la Philosophie Scolastique (ibid. 1868). (G.F.H.)
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Scholasticism
Scholasticism is both a method and system of thought. The name is derived from its proponents who were called doctores scholastici. This term, in turn, came from scholazein, which originally meant to have leisure or spare time but later, as in Xen. Cyr. 7. 5, 39, took the meaning to denote oneself to pupils or, conversely, to a master. The term Skolastikos is used for the first time by Theophrastus as recorded by Diog. L. 5. 37 (or V. 50 according to Ueberweg). From Roman antiquity the expression was handed down to the ninth century, when doctores scholastici came into general usage and was applied indifferently to those who taught the seven liberal arts or theology in the cloister and cathedral schools.
Hence in its widest sense Scholasticism embraces all the intellectual activities, artistic, philosophical and theological, carried on in the medieval schools. Any attempt to define its narrower meaning in the field of philosophy raises serious difficulties, for in this case, though the term’s comprehension is lessened, it still has to cover many centuries of many-faced thought. However, it is still possible to list several characteristics sufficient to differentiate Scholastic from non-Scholastic philosophy.
While ancient philosophy was the philosophy of a people and modern thought that of individuals, Scholasticism was the philosophy of a Christian society which transcended the characteristics of individuals, nations and peoples. It was the corporate product of social thought, and as such its reasoning respected authority in the forms of tradition and revealed religion.
Tradition consisted primarily in the systems of Plato and Aristotle as sifted, adapted and absorbed through many centuries.
It was natural that religion, which played a paramount role in the culture of the middle ages, should bring influence to bear on the medieval, rational view of life. Revelation was held to be at once a norm and an aid to reason. Since the philosophers of the period were primarily scientific theologians, their rational interests were dominated by religious preoccupations. Hence, while in general they preserved the formal distinctions between reason and faith, and maintained the relatively autonomous character of philosophy, the choice of problems and the resources of science were controlled by theology.
The most constant characteristic of Scholasticism was its method. This was formed naturally by a series of historical circumstances,
The need of a medium of communication, of a consistent body of technical language tooled to convey the recently revealed meanings of religion, God, man and the material universe led the early Christian thinkers to adopt the means most viable, most widely extant, and nearest at hand, viz. Greek scientific terminology. This, at first purely utilitarian, employment of Greek thought soon developed under Justin, Clement of Alexandria, Origin, and St. Augustine into the “Egyptian-spoils” theory; Greek thought and secular learning were held to be propaedeutic to Christianity on the principle”Whatever things were rightly said among all men are the property of us Christians.” (Justin, Second Apology, ch. XIII). Thus was established the first characteristic of the Scholastic methodphilosophy is directly and immediately subordinate to theology.
Because of this subordinate position of philosophy and because of the sacred, exclusive and total nature of revealed wisdom, the interest of early Christian thinkers was focused much more on the form of Greek thought than on its content and, it might be added, much less of this content was absorbed by early Christian thought than is generally supposed. As practical consequences of this specialized interest there followed two important factors in the formation of Scholastic philosophy
Greek logic en bloc was taken over by Christians;
from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the XII century, no provision was made in Catholic centers of learning for the formal teaching of philosophy. There was a faculty to teach logic as part of the trivium and a faculty of theology.
For these two reasons, what philosophy there was during this long period of twelve centuries, was dominated first, as has been seen, by theology and, second, by logic. In this latter point is found rooted the second characteristic of the Scholastic methodits preoccupation with logic, deduction, system, and its literary form of syllogistic argumentation.
The third characteristic of the Scholastic method follows directly from the previous elements already indicated. It adds, however, a property of its own gained from the fact that philosophy during the medieval period became an important instrument of pedogogy. It existed in and for the schools. This new element coupled with the domination of logic, the tradition-mindedness and social-consciousness of the medieval Christians, produced opposition of authorities for or against a given problem and, finally, disputation, where a given doctrine is syllogistically defended against the adversaries’ objections. This third element of the Scholastic method is its most original characteristic and accounts more than any other single factor for the forms of the works left us from this period. These are to be found as commentaries on single or collected texts; summae, where the method is dialectical or disputational in character.
The main sources of Greek thought are relatively few in numberall that was known of Plato was the Timaeus in the translation and commentary of Chalcidius. Augustine, the pseudo-Areopagite, and the Liber de Causis were the principal fonts of Neoplatonic literature. Parts of Aristotle’s logical works (Categoriae and de Interpre.) and the Isagoge of Porphyry were known through the translations of Boethius. Not until 1128 did the Scholastics come to know the rest of Aristotle’s logical works. The golden age of Scholasticism was heralded in the late XIIth century by the translations of the rest of his works (Physics, Ethics, Metaphysics, De Anima, etc.) from the Arabic by Gerard of Cremona, John of Spain, Gundisalvi, Michael Scot, and Hermann the German, from the Greek by Robert Grosseteste, William of Moerbeke, and Henry of Brabant. At the same time the Judae-Arabian speculation of Alkindi, Alfarabi, Avencebrol, Avicenna, Averroes, and Maimonides together with the Neoplatonic works of Proclus were made available in translation. At this same period the Scholastic attention to logic was turned to metaphysics, even psychological and ethical problems and the long-discussed question of the universals were approached from this new angle. Philosophy at last achieved a certain degree of autonomy and slowly forced the recently founded universities to accord it a separate faculty.
Though the roots of Scholasticism are to be found in the preoccupation of the Patristical (vide) period, its proper history does not begin until the Carolingian renaissance in the ninth century. From that date to the present day, its history may be divided into seven divisions.
I. Period of Preparation (9-12 cent.). Though he does not belong in time to this period, the most dominant figure in Christian thought was St. Augustine (+430), who constructed the general framework within which all subsequent Scholastic speculation operated. Another influential figure was Boethius (+525) whose opuscula sacra established the Scholastic method and who furnished many of the classical definitions and axioms. The first great figure of this period was John Scottus Erigena (+c. 877) who introduced to Latin thought the works of Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite, broadened the Scholastic method by his glossary on Boethius’ opuscule sacra and made an unfruitful attempt to interest his contemporaries in natural philosophy by his semi-pantheistic De Divisione Naturae. Other figures of noteGerbert (+1003) important in the realm of mathematics and natural philosophy; Fulbert of Chartres (+1028) influential in the movement to apply dialectics to theology; Berengar of Tours (+1088) Fulbert’s disciple, who, together with Anselm the Peripatetic, was a leader in the movement to rationalize theology. Peter Damiani (+1072), preached strongly against this rationalistic spirit. More moderate and more efficacious in his reaction to the dialectical spirit of his age was Lawfranc (+1089), who strove to define the true boundaries of faith and reason.
II. Early Scholastics (12 cent.) St. Anselm of Canterbury (+1109) did more than anyone else in this early period to codify the spirit of Scholasticism. His mottocredo, ut tntelligam taken from St. Augustine, expressed the organic relation that existed between the supernatural and the natural during the Middle Ages and the interpretative and the directive force which faith had upon reason. In this period a new interest was taken in the problem of the universals. For the first time a clear demarcation was noted between the realistic and the nominalistic solutions to this problem. William of Champeaux (+1121) proposed the former and Roscelin (+c. 1124) the latter. A third solution, concepiualistic in character, was proposed by Abelard (+1142) who finally crystalized the Scholastic method. He was the most subtle dialectician of his age. Two schools of great importance of this period were operating at Chartres and the Parisian Abbey of St. Victor. The first, founded by Fulbert of Chartres in the late tenth century, was characterized by its leanings toward Platonism and distinguished by its humanistic tendencies coupled with a love of the natural sciences. Many of its Greek, Arabian and Jewish sources for studies in natural sciences came from the translations of Constantine the African (+c. 1087) and Adelard of Bath. Worthy to be noted as members of or sympathizers with this school are Bernard and Thierry of Chartres (+c. 1127; c. 1150); William of Conches (+1145) and Bernard Silvestris (+1167). The two most important members of the School were Gilbert de la Poiree (+1154) and John of Salisbury (+1180). The latter was a humanistic scholar of great stylistic skill and calm, balanced judgment. It is from his works, particularly the Metalogicus, that most of our knowledge of this period still derives. Juxtaposed to the dialectic, syllogistic and rationalistic tendencies of this age was a mystical movement, headed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux (+1153). This movement did not oppose itself to dialectics in the uncompromising manner of Peter Damiani, but sought rather to experience and interiorize truth through contemplation and practice. Bernard found a close follower and friend in William of St. Thierry (+1148 or 1153). An attempt to synthesize the mystic and dialectical movements is found in two outstanding members of the Victorine SchoolHugh of St. Victor (+1141) who founded its spirit in his omnia disce, videbis postea nihil esse supervuum and Richard of St. Victor (+1173), his disciple, who introduced the a posteriori proof for God’s existence into the Scholastic current of thought. Finally, this century gave Scholasticism its principal form of literature which was to remain dominant for some four centuries. While the method came from Abelard and the formulas and content, in great part, from the Didascalion of Hugh of St. Victor, it was Robert of Melun (+1167) and especially Peter the Lombard (+1164) who fashioned the great Summae sententiarum.
III. Golden Age (13 cent.). The sudden elevation of and interest in philosophy during this period can be attributed to the discovery and translation of Aristotelian literature from Arabian, Jewish and original sources, together with the organization of the University of Paris and the founding of the Franciscan and Dominican Orders. Names important in the introduction and early use of Aristotle are Dominic Gundisalvi, William of Auvergne (+ 1149), Alexander Neckam (+1217), Michael Scot (+c. 1234) and Robert Grosseteste (+ 1253). The last three were instrumental in interesting Scholastic thought in the natural sciences, while the last (Robert), if not the author of, was, at least, responsible for the first Summa philosophiae of Scholasticism. Scholastic philosophy has now reached the systematizing and formularizing stage and so on the introduction of Aristotle’s works breaks up into two campsAugustinianism, comprising those who favor the master theses of Augustine and look upon Aristotle with varying degrees of hostility; Aristotelianism, comprising those who favor Aristotle, without altogether abandoning the Augustinian framework.
Augustinianism. Alexander of Hales (+1245) is the founder of this line and the first great Scholastic to utilize all of Aristotle’s works, whose terminology and concepts he adopted rather than the spirit. Others worthy of mention are John de la Rochelle (+1145), Adam of Marsh (+1258) and Thomas of York (+1260). The Metaphysica of this latter constitutes a milestone in philsophy’s fight for autonomy. The outstanding representative of this group is Bonaventure (+1274), who combined great constructive ability with profound psychological and mystical insight. Prominent among his pupils were Matthew of Aquasparta (+1302), John Peckham (+1292), William de la Mare (+1298) and Walter of Brgge (+1306). Also prominent in this line are Roger of Marston, Richard of Middleton (+1308), a forerunner of Duns Scotus, William of Ware, Duns Scotus’ master, and Peter Johannis Olivi (+1298). Among the Dominicans who belonged to this group should be mentioned Roland of Cremona, Peter of Tarantaise (+1276), Richard Fitzacre (+1248) and Robert Kilwardby (+1279). Among the secular clergy, although more independent in their allegiance, we may place here Gerard of Abbeville and Henri of Ghent (1293).
Aristotelianism. In this group there are two broad currents of thought. The first attempted to harmonize Aristotle with St. Augustine and the Church’s dogmas. This line was founded by St. Albert the Great (+1280), who amassed the then known Aristotelian literature but failed to construct any coherent synthesis. His pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas (+1274) succeeded to a remarkable degree. From the standpoint of clarity and formularization, St. Thomas marks the apex of medieval Scholasticism. Pupils and adherents worthy of note among Albert’s, Hugo and Ulrich of Strassburg, this latter (+c. 1277), together with Dietrich of Freiberg (+c. 1310) revealing marked Neo-platonic tendencies; among Thomas’, Aegidius of Lessines (+1304), Herveus Natalis (Herve Nedelec, +1318), John (de Regina) of Naples (+c. 1336), Aegidius Romanus (+1316), Godfrey of Fontaines ( + 1306 or 1309), quite independent in his allegiance, and the great Dante Alighieri (+1321).
The second broad current of thought is Latin Averroism. This movement, accepting Averroes’ interpretation of Aristotle and his doctrine of separated orders of truth, gave birth to the two-truth theory which eventually led to rationalism and which together with nominalism brought about the first decline of Scholasticism. The main proponents of this period were Siger of Brabant (+1282), Boece of Dacie and perhaps Bernier of Nivelles.
Another movement of thought worthy of note was Neoplatonism. Grounded by Ulrich of Srassburg on texts found in Albert the Great, this movement gathered momentum, particularly in Germany under Dietrich of Freiberg until it ended in the mysticism of Meister Eckehart (+1327).
Other figures worthy of mention who fit wholly into none of the above currents of thought are Raymond Lull (+1315), an active opponent of Averroism and the inventor of the famous Ars magna which intrigued young Leibnitz; Roger Bacon (+c. 1293) who under the influence of Platonism, furthered the mathematical and experimental methods; William of Moerbeke (+1286), one of the greatest philologists of the M.A., who greatly improved the translations of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic literature by consulting directly Greek sources; the first proponents of the via moderna doctrine in Logic, William Shyreswood (+1249) and Petrus Hispanus (+1277).
Finally the period ends with the great John Duns Scotus (+1308), whose thought is characterized by great acuteness and a fine critical sense. In opposition to that of St. Thomas, his synthesis lays greater stress on the traditional Augustinian theses.
IV. First Decline. (14-16 cent.) St. Thomas’ position in many points had been so radical a departure from the traditional thought of Christendom that many masters in the late XIII and early XIV centuries were led to reexamine philosophy in the light of Aristotle’s works. This gave rise to a critical and independent spirit which multiplied systems and prepared for the individualism of the Renaissance. Noteworthy in this movement are James of Metz, Durand de St. Pourcain (+1334), Peter Aureoli (+1322) and Henry of Harclay (+1317). The greatest figure, however, is William of Occam (+1349), founder of modern thought, who renewed the Nominalism of the XI and XII cent., restricted the realm of reason but made it quite independent in its field. In reaction to this critical and independent movement, many thinkers gathered about the two great minds of the past century. Thomas and Duns Scotus, contenting themselves with merely reproducing their masters’ positions. Thus Scholasticism broke up into three campsThomism, Scotism and Nominalism or Terminism; the first two stagnant, the third free-lance.
Nominalismcritical and skeptical, this is the largest and most influential school of the period. Important members are, first, Occam’s pupils Adam Wodham (+1358), Walter Chatton, and Robert Holcot (+1349), then come Gregory of Rimini (+1358), John of Mirecourt, Nicholas of Autrecourt, a medieval Hume, John Buridan (+c. 1360) and Nicholas of Oresme (+1382), two forerunners of modern physics and astronomy, Albert of Sachsen (+1390), first Rector of University of Vienna, Peter d’Ailly (+1420), John Gerson (+1429), Marsilius of Inghen (+1396), first Rector of Heidelberg, and Gabriel Biel (+1495), who introduced Luther to Occamism.
Scotismfrom the standpoints of number and influence, this was the next most important school of this period. Among the pupils of Duns Scotus, may be mentioned Anthony Andreas (+1320), Francis of Meyronnes (de Mayronis) (+1325) and John de Bassolis (+1347). Walter Burleigh (+1343) was a vigorous opponent of Nominalism; Thomas Bradwardine (+1349), a mathematician and philosopher whose determinism influenced John Wiclif (+1384), John Hus and the German reformers. In the XV cent., this school is represented by William of Vaurouillon (+1464), Nicholas of Orbelhs (+1455), John Anglicus, Thomas Bricot and the great Peter Tartaret (+1494).
ThomistsJohn Capreolus, Thomistarum princeps, (+1444), Denis the Carthusian (+1471) and Peter Nigri (+c. 1484). Two other important schools of this period are the Latin Averroists and the Mystics. In the first group we find Peter d’Abano (+1315) who made Padua the center of this movement, John of Jandun (+1328), John Baconthorp (+1348), Averroistarum princeps, Paul of Perusio, Paul of Venice (+1429), Cajetan of Tiene (+1465).
The mystical school, dominated by Eckehart, and the famous Peter Pomponazzi (+1525), is represented by Tauler (+1361) and Seuse (+1366), who tried to conform the Master’s teaching with the Church’s dogmas, and Jan van Ruysbroeck (+1381). From this school stemmed the anonymous “Deutsche Theologie” which Luther edited (1516). Gerson belonged to this group and also Nicholas of Cusa (+1464), the first systematic philosopher of modern times.
V. Spanish Renaissance (16-17 cent.). This renaissance took place in the Thomistic school and was remotely prepared for by such figures as Thomas del Vio (Cajetan) (+1534), Peter Crockaert (+1514), Francis de Sylvestris (+1528), Conrad Koellin (1536) and Chrysostom Javellus (+1550). It began as a concerted movement under Francis Victoria (+1566) at Salamanca and Ignatius Loyola (+1556), founder of the Society of Jesus. Dominicans of note wereDominic Soto (1560), Melchior Cano (+1560), de Medina (+1581), and Banez (+1604). JesuitsFrancis Toledo (+1596), Fonseca (+1599), Molina (+1600), Vasquez (+1604), Lessius (+1623), de Valentia (+1603), Bllarmine (+1625), Francis Suarez (+1617), the greatest philosopher and jurist of this period, whose Disputationes Metaphysicae constitutes perhaps the greatest philosophical work produced by Scholasticism. Others worthy of mentionCosmas de Lerma (+1642), John a S. Thoma (+1644), Goudin (+1695), Philip a SS. Trinitate (+1671), Ruiz de Montoya (+1632), Cosmas Alamannus (+1634), Hurtado de Mendoza (+1651), De Lugo (+1660), Arriaga (+1667), Sylvester Maurus (+1687).
Among the Scotists active during this periodMaurice a Portu (+1513), Francis Lychetus a Brixia (+1520), John Poncius (+1660), Bellutus (+1671) and Mastrius (+1673).
In the second half of the XVII cent, a group of Scholastics attempted to modify the traditional system by adopting some of the modern theses particularly from Cartesianism. This tendency, together with the conservative reaction which accompanied it, brought about the second decline of Scholasticism. Two leaders in this movement were Emmanuel Maignau (+1676) and Honoratus Fabri (+1688).
VI. Second Decline (18-19 cent.). This group and its tendencies were continued by Du Hamel (+1706), Tolomei (+1726), Fortunatus a Brixia (+1754), Steinmeyer (+1797) and Reuss (+1798). Among the conservativesLouis de Lossada (+1748). In 1773 the Society of Jesus was suppressed. This disaster completed the downfall of Scholasticism. Not until its restoration in 1814 did the Church’s traditional philosophy revive. Prominent in preparing for this second renaissance was the Jesuit-trained Vincent Bruzzetti (+1824). OthersTaparelli (+1862), Liberatore (+1872), Sanseverino (+1865), Kleutgen (+1883), Zigliara (+1893) and Gonzalez (+1895). For the first time in the modern period, history began to play an important part in Scholasticism. Karl Werner (+1888) and Al. Stoeckl (1895) were the first figures in this movement.
VII. Leonine Restoration (1879). The Encyclical Aeterni Patris of Leo XIII gave this new movement a conscious direction. Since Leo XIII’s time to the present day, Catholic Scholars have been active both in the fields of speculation and history. Numerous reviews have been founded and Scholasticism has raised its voice even in the non-sectarian Universities of America. — W.G.