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SCHOLASTICISM
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SCHOLASTICISM
, the name usually employed to denote the most typical products of See also:medieval thought
.
After the centuries of intellectual darkness which followed upon the closing of the philosophical See also:schools in See also:Athens (529), and the See also:death of See also:Boetius, the last of the See also:ancient philosophers, the first symptoms of renewed intellectual activity appear contemporaneously with the consolidation of the See also:empire of the See also:West in the hands of See also:Charlemagne
.
He endeavoured to attract to his See also:court the best scholars of See also:Britain and See also:Ireland, and by imperial See also:decree (787) commanded the See also:establishment of schools in connexion with every See also:abbey in his realms
.
See also:Peter of See also:Pisa and See also:Alcuin of See also:York were his advisers, and under their care the opposition See also:long supposed to exist between godliness and See also:secular learning speedily disappeared
.
Besides the celebrated school of the See also:Palace, where Alcuin had among his hearers the members of the imperial See also:family and the dignitaries of the empire as well as talented youths of humbler origin, we hear of the episcopal schools of See also:Lyons, See also:
Scholasticism in the widest sense thus extends from the 9th to the end of the 14th or the beginning of the 15th See also:century—from See also:Erigena to See also:Occam and his followers
.
The belated Scholastics who lingered beyond the last mentioned date served only as marks for the obloquy heaped upon the schools by the men of the new See also:time
.
Erigena is really of the spiritual kindred of the Neoplatonists and See also:Christian mystics rather than of the typical Scholastic doctors, and, in fact, the activity of Scholasticism is mainly confined within the limits of the 11th and the 14th centuries
.
It is divisible into two well-marked periods—the first extending to the end of the 12th century and embracing as its See also:chief names See also:Roscellinus, See also:Anselm, See also: The Schoolmen contemplate the universe of nature and See also:man not with their own eyes but in the See also:glass of Aristotelian formulae . Their chief See also:works are in the shape of commentaries upon the writings of "the philosopher." Their problems and solutions alike See also:spring from the See also:master's dicta—from the need of reconciling these with one another and with the conclusions of Christian theology . The fact that the channels of thought during the middle ages were determined in this way is usually expressed by saying that See also:reason in the middle See also:age is subject to authority . It has not the See also:free See also:play which characterizes its activity .Reason in See also:Greece and in the philosophy of See also:modern times . Its authority. conclusions are predetermined, and the initiative of the individual thinker is almost confined, therefore, to formal details in the treatment of his thesis . To the church, reason is the handmaid of faith (ancilla fcdei) . But this principle of the subordination of the reason wears a different aspect according to the century and writer referred to . In Scotus Erigena, at the beginning of the Scholastic era, there is no such subordination contemplated, because philosophy and theology in his See also:work are in implicit unity . " Conficitur inde veram esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse veram ' The See also:common designation of Aristotle in the middle ages . See also:Chronological limits . philosophiam " (De divina praedestinatione, Proem) . Reason in its own strength and with its own See also:instruments evolves a system of the universe which coincides, according to Erigena, with the teaching of Scripture .
For Erigena, therefore, the speculative reason is the supreme arbiter; and in accordance with its results the utterances of Scripture and of the church have not infrequently to be subjected to an allegorical or mystical See also:interpretation
.
But this is only to say again that Erigena is more of a Neoplatonist than a Scholastic
.
Hence See also:Cousin suggested in respect of this point a threefold chronological See also:division—at the outset the See also:absolute subordination of philosophy to theology, then the period of their See also:alliance, and finally the beginning of their separation
.
In other words, we See also:note philosophy gradually extending its claims
.
Dialectic is, to begin with, a merely secular See also:art, and only by degrees are its terms and distinctions applied to the subject-See also:matter of theology
.
The See also:early results of the application, in the hands of See also:Berengarius and Roscellinus, did not seem favourable to Christian orthodoxy
.
Hence the strength with which a See also:champion of the faith like Anselm insists on the subordination of reason
.
To See also:Bernard of See also:Clairvaux and many other churchmen the application of dialectic to the things of faith appears as dangerous as it is impious
.
Later, in the syste..is of the great Schoolmen, the rights of reason are fully established and acknowledged
.
The relation of reason and faith remains See also:external, and certain doctrines—an increasing number as times goes on—are withdrawn from the See also:sphere of reason
.
But with these exceptions the two See also: " The See also:constant effort of Scholasticism to be at once philosophy and theology "1 seemed at last satisfactorily realized . But the further progress of Scholastic thought consisted in a withdrawal of See also:doctrine after doctrine from the possibility of rational prsof and their relegation to the sphere of faith . Indeed, no sooner was the harmony apparently established by Aquinas than Duns Scotus began this negative See also:criticism, which is carried much farther by William of Occam . But this is See also:equivalent to a See also:confession that Scholasticism had failed in its task, which was to rationalize the doctrines of the church . The Aristotelian See also:form refused to See also:fit a matter for which it was never intended; the matter of Christian theology refused to be forced into an See also:alien form . The end of the period was thus brought about by the See also:internal decay of its method and principles quite as much as by the variety of external causes which contributed to See also:transfer men's interests to other subjects . But, although the relation of reason to an external authority thus constitutes the badge of medieval thought, it would be schoos- unjust to look upon Scholasticism as philosophically ticism not barren, and to speak as if reason, after an See also:interregnum ammo- of a thousand years, resumed its rights at the Renaisgressive. sance . Such See also:language was excusable in the men of the Renaissance, fighting the See also:battle of classic form and beauty and of the manysidedness of See also:life against the barbarous terminology and the monastic ideals of the schools, or in the protagonists of modern See also:science . The new is never just to the old . In the schools and See also:universities of the middle age the See also:intellect of the semi-barbarous See also:European peoples had been trained for the work of the modern See also:world . But we may go further and say that, in spite of their initial See also:acceptance of authority, the Scholastics are not the antagonists of reason; on the contrary they fight its battles . The See also:attempt to establish by See also:argument the. authority of faith is in reality the unconscious establishment of the authority of reason . Reason, if admitted at all, must ultimately claim the whole man . Anselm's See also:motto, Credo ut intelligam, marks well the distance that has been traversed since See also:Tertullian's Credo quia absurdum est . The claim of reason has been recognized to manipulate the data of faith, at first blindly and immediately received, and to weld them into a system such as will satisfy its own needs . Scholasticism that See also:Milman's Latin See also:Christianity, ix. sot.has outlived its See also:day may be justly identified with obscurantism, but not so the systems of those who, by their intellectual force alone, once held all the minds of See also:Europe in subjection . The scholastic systems are not the free products of speculation; in the main they are summae theologise, or they are modified versions of Aristotle . But each system is a fresh recognition of the rights of reason, and Scholasticism as a whole may be regarded as the See also:history of the growth and See also:gradual emancipation of reason which was completed in the movements of the Renaissance and the See also:Reformation . In speaking of the origin of Scholasticism—name and thing—it has been already noted that medieval speculation takes its rise in certain logical problems . To be more precise, it is the nature of universals " which forms the vessels." central theme of Scholastic debate (see See also:NOMINALISM, See also:REALISM) . This is the case almost exclusively during the first period, and only to a less extent during the second, where it reappears in a somewhat different form as the difficulty concerning the principle of individuation . The controversy was between Nominalists and Realists; and, exclusively logical as the point may at first sight seem to be, adherence to one side or the other is an accurate indication of philosophic tendency . The two opposing theories See also:express at bottom, in the phraseology of their own time, the See also:radical divergence of See also:pantheism and See also:individualism—the two extremes between which philosophy seems pendulum-See also:wise to oscillate, and which may be said still to await their perfect reconciliation . First, however, we must examine the form which this question assumed to the first medieval thinkers, and the source from which they derived it . A single See also:sentence in See also:Porphyry's Isagoge or " introduction " to the Categories of Aristotle furnished the ,y$ s See also:text of the discussion . The See also:treatise of Porphyry deals with the notions of genus, See also:species, difference, See also:property and See also:accident (see See also:PREDICABLES); and he mentions, but declines to discuss, the various theories that have been held as to the ontological import of genera and species . In the Latin See also:translation of Boetius, in which alone the Isagoge was then known, the sentence runs as follows: " Mox de generibus et speciebus illud quidem sive subsistant, sive in See also:solis nudis intellectibus posita sint, sive subsistentia corporalia sint an incorporalia, et utrum separata a sensibilibus an in sensibilibus posits et circa haec consistentia, dicere recusabo; altissimun2 enim negotium est hujusmodi et majoris egens inquisitionis." This passage indicates three possible positions with regard to universals . It may be held that they exist merely as conceptions in our minds; this is Nominalism or See also:Conceptualism (q.v.) . It may be held that they have a substantial existence of their own, See also:independent of their existence in our thoughts . This is Realism, which may be of two varieties, according as the substantially existent universals are supposed to exist apart from the sensible phenomena or only in and with the objects of sense as their essence . The first form of Realism corresponds to the Platonic theory of the transcendence of the ideas; the second reproduces the Aristotelian doctrine of the essence as inseparable from the individual thing . But, though he implies an ample previous treatment of the questions by philosophers, Porphyry gives no references to the different systems of which such distinctions are the outcome, nor does he give any hint of his own See also:opinion on the subject, definite enough though that was . He simply sets the discussion aside as too difficult for a preliminary discourse, and not strictly relevant to a purely logical inquiry . Porphyry, the Neoplatonist, the See also:disciple of See also:Plotinus, was an unknown personage to those early students of the Isagoge . The passage possessed for them a mysterious See also:charm, largely due to its See also:isolation and to their See also:ignorance of the historic speculations which suggested it . And accordingly it gave rise to the three great doctrines which divided the medieval schools: Realism of the Platonic type, embodied in the See also:formula universalia ante rem; Realism of the Aristotelian type, universalia in re; and Nominalism, including Conceptualism, expressed by the phrase universalia See also:post rem, and also claiming to be based upon the Peripatetic doctrine . To form a proper estimate of the first See also:stage of Scholastic discussion it is requisite above all things to have a clear See also:idea of the appliances Extent of then at the disposal of the writers . What was the extent the early t o of their knowledge of ancient philosophy ? To begin with, the we know that till the 13th century the middle age was Schoo men's ignorant of See also:Greek, and possessed no philosophical works in knowledge . their Greek See also:original(see See also:CLASSICS) . In See also:translations they had only the Categories and the De interpretatione of Aristotle in the versions of Boetius, the See also:Timaeus of See also:Plato in the version of Chalcidius, and Boetius's translation of Porphyry's Isagoge . Some general See also:information as to the Platonic doctrines (chiefly in a Neoplatonic garb) was obtainable from the commentary with which Chalcidius (6th century) accompanied his translation, from the work of See also:Apuleius (2nd century) De dogmate Platens, and indirectly from the commentary of See also:Macrobius (c . 400) on the Somnium Scipionis of See also:Cicero, and from the writings of St See also:Augustine . As See also:aids to the study of logic, the doctors of this period, beside the commentaries and See also:treatises of Boetius (q.v.), possessed two tracts attributed to St Augustine, the first of which, Principia dialecticae, is probably his, but is mainly grammatical in its import . The other See also:tract, known as Categoriae decem, and taken at first for a translation of Aristotle's treatise, is really a rapid See also:summary of it, and certainly does not belong to Augustine . To this See also:list must be added: (1) the Satyricon of Martianus See also:Capella (q.v.), the greater See also:part of which is a treatise on the seven liberal arts, the See also:fourth See also:book dealing with logic ; (2) the De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium literarum of See also:Cassiodorus (q.v.); (3) the Origines of Isidore of See also:Seville (ob . 636), which is little more than a See also:reproduction of (2) . The above constitutes the whole material which the earlier middle age had at its disposal .
The grandly conceived system of Erigena (see ERIGENA and See also:MYSTICISM) stands by itself in the 9th century like the
Prigen& product of another age
.
See also: Moreover, Erigena again and again declares that dialectic has to do with the stadia of a real or divine See also:classification: " Intelligitur quod ars illa, quae dividit genera in species et species in genera resolvit, quae btaXrsrud dicitur, non ab humanis machinationibus sit facta, sed in natura rerum ab auctore omnium artium, quae verae artes sunt, condita et a sapientibus inventa " (De divisione naturae, iv . 4) . The immediate See also:influence of Erigena's system cannot have been great, and his works seem soon to have dropped out of See also:notice in the centuries that followed . The real germs of Realism and Nominalism are to be found in the gth century, in scattered commentaries and glosses upon the statements of Porphyry and Boetius . Boetius in commenting upon Porphyry had already started the discussion as to the nature of universals . He is definitely See also:anti-Platonic, and his language sometimes takes even a nominalistic See also:tone, as when he declares t°fluence of that the species is nothing more than a thought or Boetihm conception gathered from the substantial similarity of a number of dissimilar individuals . The expression " substantial similarity" is still, however, sufficiently vague to cover a multitude of views . He concludes that the genera and species exist as universals only in thought; but, inasmuch as they are collected from singulars on See also:account of a real resemblance, they have a certain existence independently of the mind, but not an existence disjoined from the singulars of sense . " Subsistunt ergo circa sensibilia, intelliguntur autem praeter corpora." Or, according to the phrase which recurs so often during the middle ages, " universale intelligitur, singulare sentitur." Boetius ends by declining to adjudicate between Plato and Aristotle, remarking in a semi-apologetic See also:style that, if he has expounded Aristotle's opinion by preference, his course is justified by the fact that he is commenting upon an introduction to Aristotle . And, indeed, his discussion cannot claim to be more than semi-popular in See also:character . The point in dispute has not in his hands the all-absorbing importance it afterwards attained, and the keenness of later distinctions is as yet unknown . In this way, however, though the distinctions See also:drawn may still be comparatively vague, there existed in the schools a Peripatetic tradition to set over against the Neoplatonic influence of John the Scot, and amongst• the earliest remains of Scholastic thought we find this tradition asserting itself somewhat vigorously . There were Nominalists before Roscellinus among these early thinkers . Alcuin (q.v.) does nothing more in his Dialectic than abridge Boetius and the other commentators . But in the school of Fulda, presided over by his See also:pupil Hrabanus Maurus Hrabanus (776-856), there are to be found some fresh contribu- nfaarus. tions to the discussion . The collected works of Hrabanus himself contain nothing new, but in some glosses on Aristotle and Porphyry, first exhumed by Cousin, there are several noteworthy expressions of opinion in a Nominalistic sense . The author interprets Boetius's meaning to be " Quod eadem res individuum et species et genus est, et non esse universalia individuis quasi quoddam diversum." He also cites, apparently with approval, the view of those who held Porphyry's treatise to be not de quinque See also:rebus, but de quinque vocibus . A genus, they said, is essentially something which is predicated of a subject; but a thing cannot be a predicate (res enim non praedicatur) . These glosses, it should be added, however, have been attributed by Prantl and Kaulich, on the ground of divergence from doctrines contained in the published works of Hrabanus, to some disciple of his rather than to Hrabanus himself . Fulda had become through the teaching of the latter an intellectual centre . See also:Eric or Heiricus, who studied there under Haimon, the successor of Hrabanus, and after- erlc. wards taught at See also:Auxerre, wrote glosses on the margin of his copy of the pseudo-Augustinian Categoriae, which have been published by Cousin and Ilaureau . He there says in words which recall the language of See also:Locke (See also:Essay, iii . 3) that because proper names are innumerable, and no intellect or memory would suffice for the knowing of them, they are all as it were comprehended in the species . Taken strictly his words See also:state the position of extreme Nominalism; but even if we were not forbidden to do so by other passages, in which the doctrine of moderate Realism is adopted (under cover of the current distinction between the singular as See also:felt and the pure universal as understood), it would still be unfair to See also:press any passage in the writings of this period . As Cousin says, " Realism and Nominalism were undoubtedly there in germ, but their true principles with their necessary consequences remained profoundly unknown; their connexion with all the great questions of See also:religion and politics was not even suspected . The two systems were nothing more as yet than two different ways of interpreting a phrase of Porphyry, and they remained unnoticed in the obscurity of the schools . . . . It was the r rth century which gave Nominalism to the world."' See also:Remigius of Auxerre, pupil of Eric, became the most celebrated See also:professor of dialectic in the Parisian schools of the rcth century . Remigius . As he reverted to Realism, his influence, first at Rheims and then in See also:Paris, was doubtless instrumental in bringing about the general acceptance of that doctrine till the See also:advent of Roscellinus as a powerful disturbing influence . " There is one genus more general than the See also:rest," says Remi (J . B . See also:Haureau, Histoire de la philosophie scolastique, i . 146), " beyond which the intellect cannot rise, called by the Greeks obaea, by the Latins essentia . The essence, indeed, comprehends all natures, and everything that exists is a portion of this essence, by participation in which everything that is hath its existence." And similarly with the intermediate genera . " Homo est multorum hominum substantialis unitas." Remigius is thus a Realist, not so much in the sense of Plato as in the spirit of Parmenides, and Haureau applies to this form of Realism See also:Bayle's description of Realism in general as " le Spinosisme non developpe." The rot.h century as a whole is especially marked out as a dark age, being partly filled with See also:civil troubles and partly characterized by a reaction of faith against reason . In the monastery of St Gall there was considerable logical activity, but nothing of philosophical See also:interest is recorded . The chief name of the century is that of See also:Gerbert (died 0esbert . as See also:Pope See also:Silvester II. in 1003) . His treatise De rationali et ratione uti is more interesting as a display of the logical acquirements of the age than as possessing any See also:direct See also:philo- sophical bearing . The school of See also:Chartres, founded in 990 by Fulbert, one of Gerbert's pupils, was distinguished See also:change in the accidents . M de See also:Remusat characterizes his view on the See also:Eucharist as a specific application of Nominalism . More intimately connected with the progress of philosophical thought was the tritheistic view of the Trinity propounded by Roscellinus as one of the results of his Nominalistic theory Roster- of knowing and being . The sharpness and onesidedness lions. with which he formulated his position were the See also:im- mediate occasion of the contemporaneous See also:crystallization of Realism in the theories of Anselm and William of Champeaux . Henceforth discussion is carried on with a full ' See also:Victor Cousin, Ouvrages See also:ine'dits d'Abelard, Introd. p. lxxxv . ' Melalogicus, i . 27, quoted in See also:Poole's Illustrations of Medieval Thought . 349 consciousness of the See also:differences involved and the issues at stake; and, thanks to the heretical conclusion disclosed by Roscellinus, Realism became established for several centuries as the orthodox philosophical creed . 
Roscellinus (d. c
.
1125) was looked upon by later times as the originator of the sententia vocum, that is to say, of Nominalism proper
.
From the scanty and See also:ill-natured notices of his opponents (Anselm and Abelard), we gather that he refused to recognize the reality of anything but the individual; he treated " the universal substance," says Anselm, as no more than ' flatum vocis," a verbal breathing or See also:sound; and in a similar See also:strain he denied any reality to the parts of which a whole, such as a See also:house, is commonly said to be composed
.
The parts in the one case, the general name or common attributes in the other, are only, he seems to have argued, so many subjective points of view from which we choose to regard that which in its own essence is one and indivisible, existing in its own right apart from any connexion with other individuals
.
This pure individualism, consistently interpreted, involves the denial of all real relation whatsoever; for things are related and classified by means of their general characteristics
.
Accordingly, if these general characteristics do not possess reality, things are reduced to a number of characterless and mutually indifferent points
.
It is possible, as Haureau maintains, that Roscellinus meant no more than to refute the extreme Realism which asserts the substantial and, above all, the independent existence of the universals
.
Some of the expressions used by Anselm in controverting his position favour this idea
.
He upbraids Roscellinus, for example, because he was unable to conceive whiteness apart from its existence in something See also: Like most innovators, Roscellinus stated his position in bold language, which emphasized his opposition to accepted doctrines; and his words, if not his intentions, involved the extreme Nominalism which, by making universality merely subjective, pulverizes existence into detached particulars . And, though we may acquit Roscellinus of consciously propounding a theory so subversive of all knowledge, his criticism of the doctrine of the Trinity is See also:proof at least of the determination with which he was prepared to carry out his individualism . If we are not prepared to say that the three Persons are one thing—in which case the See also:Father and the See also:Holy See also:Ghost must have been incarnate along with the Son—then, did usage permit, he says, we ought to speak of three Gods . This theological See also:deduction from his doctrine See also:drew upon Roscellinus the polemic of his most celebrated opponent, Anselm of See also:Canterbury (1033-11oq) . Roscellinus appears at first to have imagined gnselm. that his tritheistic theory had the See also:sanction of See also:Lanfranc and Anselm, and the latter was led in consequence to compose his treatise De fide Trinitatis . From this may be gathered his views on the nature of universals . " How shall he who has not arrived at understanding how several men are in species one man comprehend how in that most mysterious nature several persons, each of which is perfect See also:God, are one God ? " The manner in which humanity exists in the individual was soon to be the subject of keen discussion, and to bring to See also:light diverging views within the Realistic See also:camp; but St Anselm does not go into detail on this point, and seems to imply that it is not surrounded by special difficulties . In truth, his Realism was of a somewhat uncritical type . It was simply accepted by him in a broad way as the orthodox philosophic doctrine, and the doctrine which, as a sagacious churchman, he perceived to be most in harmony with Christian theology . Anselm's natural See also:element was theology, and the high metaphysical questions which are as it were the obverse of theology . On the other See also:hand, as the first to formulate the onto-logical argument (in his Proslogion) for the existence of God, he joins hands with some of the profoundest names in modern philosophy . To Anselm specially belongs the motto Credo lit intelligem, or, as it is School of for nearly two centuries not so much for its dialectics Chartres . and philosophy as for its humanistic culture . The account which John of See also:Salisbury gives of it in the first See also:half of the 12th century, under the See also:presidency of See also:Theodoric and Bernard, affords a very pleasant glimpse into the history of the middle ages . Since then, says their regretful pupil, " less time and less care have been bestowed on See also:grammar, and persons who profess all arts, liberal and See also:mechanical, are ignorant of the See also:primary art, without which a man proceeds in vain to the rest . For albeit the other studies assist literature, yet this has the See also:sole See also:privilege of making one lettered." 2 Hitherto, if dialectical studies had been sometimes viewed askance by the stricter churchmen, it was not because logic Appt>ca- had dared to stretch forth its hands towards the tion of See also:ark of God, but simply on the ground of the old opposi- logtcto tion between the church and the world . But now theology. bolder See also:spirits arose who did not shrink from applying the distinctions of their human wisdom to the mysteries of theology . It was the excitement caused by their attempt, and the heterodox conclusions which were its first result, that lifted these Scholastic disputations into the central position which they henceforth occupied in the life of the middle ages . The next centuries show that See also:peculiar See also:combination of logic and theology which is the |