2.3: Scholasticism

Scholastic Philosophy

Anselm‘s patient and rational approach to philosophical issues and his willingness to engage in debate with other thinkers who disagreed with the positions he defended were greatly influential on western culture. They helped give rise to the development of scholasticism, a process of intergenerational cooperation engendered by shared appeal to a common tradition of rational argumentation.

Not everyone participated happily in this process, of course; Christian anti-intellectualism continued to flourish, as is clear in the writings of Peter Damian during the eleventh century. Damian condemned the use of dialectic for both secular and theological purposes, and argued that since human reason is so insignificant in comparison with the power of faith, the untrained and ignorant are bound to be wiser than the educated and thoughtful.

Many Christian thinkers disagreed, however, and their efforts to comprehend those who had gone before and to develop an intellectual tradition within the church were well served by the Book of Sentences (Libri Quatuor Sententiarum) (1158) compiled by Peter Lombard. An appropriate textbook for an era during which few copies of any book could be made generally available for student use, the Sentences simply quoted the opinions of earlier philosophers with respect to a variety of questions. Rarely commenting on these ancient materials, Lombard simply reported the conflicting views of the authorities issue by issue, leaving adjudication between them to the active participation of the reader. This helped to foster a framework of debate in which the basic positions could be clearly defined and new arguments in their criticism or defense easily developed.

The Problem of Universals

One of the issues that most plagued scholastic philosophers during this period was the problem of universals. What is the ontological status of the species to which many things commonly belong? Realists, following in the tradition of Plato, maintained that each universal is an entity in its own right, existing independently of the individual things that happen to participate in it. Nominalists, on the other hand, pursuing a view nearer that of Aristotle, held that only particular things exist, since the universal is nothing more than a name that applies to certain individual substances.

The difficulties with each position are clear. Nominalism seems to suggest that whether or not two things share a feature depends solely upon our accidental decision whether or not to call them by the same name. Realism, on the other hand, introduces a whole range of special abstract entities for the simple purpose of accounting for similarities that particular things exhibit. In the medieval spirit of disputation, each side found it easier to attack its opponents’ views than to defend its own. But the most brilliant disputant of the twelfth century invented a third alternative that avoided the difficulties of both extremes.

French logician Peter Abelard proposed that we ground the genuine similarities among individual things without reifying their universal features, by predicating general terms in conformity with concepts abstracted from experience. This view, which came to be known as conceptualism, denies the reality of universals as separate entities yet secures the objectivity of our application of general terms. Although only individual things and their particular features truly exist, we effectively employ our shared concepts as universals. This resolution of the traditional problem of universals gained wide acceptance for several centuries, until doubts about the objectivity and reality of such mental entities as concepts came under serious question.

Reviving the West

During the thirteenth century, Christian Europe finally began to assimilate the lively intellectual traditions of the Jews and Arabs. Translations of ancient Greek texts (and the fine Arabic commentaries on them) into Latin made the full range of Aristotelian philosophy available to Western thinkers. This encouraged significant modifications of the prevalent neoplatonic emanation-theory. Robert Grosseteste, for example, followed Ibn Sina in emphasizing the causal regularity evidenced by our experience of the world, and Siger of Brabant used the commentaries of Ibn Rushd as the basis for his thoroughly Aristotelian views.

In England, Roger Bacon initiated a national tradition of empiricist thinking. Bacon proposed a systematic plan for supplementing our meager knowledge of the external world. Although he granted that consultation of the ancient authorities has some value, Bacon argued that it is even more important to employ individual experience for experimental confirmation. In coming generations, this reliance upon experimental methods would become vital for the development of modern science.

When universities developed in the great cities of Europe during this era, rival clerical orders within the church began to battle for political and intellectual control over these centers of educational life. At Paris during the thirteenth century, two of the newest orders found their most capable philosophical representatives.

The Franciscans, founded by Francis of Assisi in 1209, were initially the philosophical conservatives. As their leader in mid-century, Bonaventure defended a traditional Augustine‘s theology, blending only a little of Aristotle in with the more traditional neoplatonic elements. In later generations, however, members of this order were leaders in the anti-rationalistic attacks that brought an effective end to scholastic traditions.

The Dominican order, founded by Dominic in 1215, on the other hand, placed great emphasis on the use of reason and made extensive use of Aristotelian materials. Thus, their finest expositor was Aquinas, whose works became definitive of Dominican (and, eventually, of Catholic) philosophy. Later Dominicans, like Savonarola, were more likely to pursue political power than philosophical truth.

Bonaventure

François, Claude (dit Frère Luc) - Saint Bonaventure.jpg

Saint Bonaventure

After studying in Paris with Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure taught and wrote extensively, leading his Franciscans in the measured defense of the scholastic synthesis of Platonic philosophy with Christian doctrine. Like Anselm, Bonaventure supposed that truth can emerge from rational argumentation only when the methods of philosophy are illuminated by religious faith. Thus, efforts to prove god’s existence naturally begin with religious conviction itself, as an internal evidence of creaturely dependence on the deity.

Bonaventure held that the notion of an eternal material order is contradictory, so that reason itself supports the Christian doctrine of creation. Since god is the central being from which all else then emanates, every creature—including even human beings with sinful natures—may be regarded as a footprint (Lat., vestiguum) of the divine reality. Thus, in the language of Christian doctrine, we are made in god’s image and likeness; or, as Plato might have put it, we participate (partly) in the Form of the Good. Even matter itself is endowed by the creator with seminal urges by means of which effective causation can proceed from within.

Despite his general commitment to neoplatonic principles and rejection of Aristotelian metaphysics, Bonaventure did accept the notion of human nature as a hylomorphic composite. Although the human soul is indeed the form of the human body, Bonaventure maintained however, it is capable, with the help of god, of continuing to exist after the death of the body. Thus, as always, he accepted the thought of Aristotle only so far as it could be made to conform to his preconceptions about Christian doctrine. As we’ll see next time, one of his contemporaries at Paris used a very different approach.