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Scholasticism
I. INTRODUCTION
Scholasticism, philosophic and theological movement that attempted to use natural human reason, in particular, the philosophy and science of Aristotle, to understand the supernatural content of Christian revelation. It was dominant in the medieval Christian schools and universities of Europe from about the middle of the 11th century to about the middle of the 15th century. The ultimate ideal of the movement was to integrate into an ordered system both the natural wisdom of Greece and Rome and the religious wisdom of Christianity. The term Scholasticism is also used in a wider sense to signify the spirit and methods characteristic of this period of thought or any similar spirit and attitude toward learning found in other periods of history. The term Scholastic, which originally designated the heads of the medieval monastic or cathedral schools from which the universities developed, finally came to be applied to anyone teaching philosophy or theology in such schools or universities.
II. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTICS
Scholastic thinkers held a wide variety of doctrines in both philosophy and theology. What gives unity to the whole Scholastic movement are the common aims, attitudes, and methods generally accepted by all its members. The chief concern of the Scholastics was not to discover new facts but to integrate the knowledge already acquired separately by Greek reasoning and Christian revelation. This concern is one of the most characteristic differences between Scholasticism and modern thought since the Renaissance.
The basic aim of the Scholastics determined certain common attitudes, the most important of which was their conviction of the fundamental harmony between reason and revelation. The Scholastics maintained that because the same God was the source of both types of knowledge and truth was one of his chief attributes, he could not contradict himself in these two ways of speaking. Any apparent opposition between revelation and reason could be traced either to an incorrect use of reason or to an inaccurate interpretation of the words of revelation. Because the Scholastics believed that revelation was the direct teaching of God, it possessed for them a higher degree of truth and certitude than did natural reason. In apparent conflicts between religious faith and philosophic reasoning, faith was thus always the supreme arbiter; the theologian's decision overruled that of the philosopher. After the early 13th century, Scholastic thought emphasized more the independence of philosophy within its own domain. Nonetheless, throughout the Scholastic period, philosophy was called the servant of theology, not only because the truth of philosophy was subordinated to that of theology, but also because the theologian used philosophy to understand and explain revelation.
This attitude of Scholasticism stands in sharp contrast to the so-called double-truth theory of the Spanish-Arab philosopher and physician Averroës. His theory assumed that truth was accessible to both philosophy and Islamic theology but that only philosophy could attain it perfectly. The so-called truths of theology served, hence, as imperfect imaginative expressions for the common people of the authentic truth accessible only to philosophy. Averroës maintained that philosophic truth could even contradict, at least verbally, the teachings of Islamic theology.
As a result of their belief in the harmony between faith and reason, the Scholastics attempted to determine the precise scope and competence of each of these faculties. Many early Scholastics, such as the Italian ecclesiastic and philosopher St. Anselm, did not clearly distinguish the two and were overconfident that reason could prove certain doctrines of revelation. Later, at the height of the mature period of Scholasticism, the Italian theologian and philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas worked out a balance between reason and revelation. Scholastics after Aquinas, however, beginning with the Scottish theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, restricted more and more the domain of truths capable of being proved by reason and insisted that many doctrines previously thought to have been proved by philosophy had to be accepted on the basis of faith alone. One reason for this restriction was that Scholastics applied the requirements for scientific demonstration, as first specified in Aristotle's Organon, much more rigorously than previous philosophers had done. These requirements were so strict that Aristotle himself was rarely able to apply them fully beyond the realm of mathematics. It was this trend that led finally to the loss of confidence in natural human reason and philosophy that is characteristic of the early Renaissance and of the first Protestant religious reformers, such as Martin Luther.
Another common attitude among Scholastics was their great respect for the so-called authorities in both philosophy and theology. These authorities were the great philosophers of Greece and Rome and the early Fathers of the Church. The medieval Scholastics educated themselves to think and write only by intensive study of these ancient authors, whose culture and learning had been so much richer than their own. After they had reached their full maturity of thought and had begun to create original works of philosophy, they continued the practice of quoting authorities to lend weight to their own opinions, even though the latter were reached, in many cases, quite independently. Later critics concluded from this practice that the Scholastics were mere compilers or repeaters of their authorities. As a matter of fact, the mature Scholastics, including Aquinas and Duns Scotus, were extremely flexible and independent in their use of the texts of the ancients; frequently, in order to bring the texts into harmony with their own positions, they gave interpretations that were difficult to reconcile with the ancients' intentions. The appeal to authority was often little more than a stylistic ornament for beginning or ending the exposition of the commentator's own opinions and was intended to show that the commentator's views were in continuity with the past and not mere novelties. Novelty and originality of thought were not sought deliberately by any of the Scholastics but rather were underplayed as much as possible.
The Scholastics considered Aristotle the chief authority in philosophy, calling him simply the Philosopher. The early Christian prelate and theologian St. Augustine was their principal authority in theology, subordinate only to the Bible and the official councils of the church. The Scholastics adhered most closely and uncritically to authority in accepting Aristotle's opinions in the empirical sciences, such as physics, astronomy, and biology. Their uncritical acceptance of Aristotle's scientific views produced a serious weakness in Scholasticism and was one of the principal reasons for its scornful rejection by scientists during the Renaissance and later.
III. COMMON METHODS
One of the principal methods of Scholasticism was the use of the logic and philosophic vocabulary of Aristotle in teaching, demonstration, and discussion. Another important method was the practice of teaching a text by means of a commentary by some accepted authority. In philosophy, this authority was usually Aristotle. In theology, the principal texts were the Bible and the Sententiarum Libri Quatuor (Four Books of Sentences) by the 12th-century Italian theologian and prelate Peter Lombard, a collection of the opinions of the early Fathers of the Church on problems of theology. The early Scholastics began by adhering closely to the text on which they were commenting. Gradually, as the practice of critical reading developed their own powers of thinking, they began to introduce many supplementary commentaries on points, known as disputed questions, which either were not covered or were not adequately solved by the text itself. Beginning in the 13th century these supplementary commentaries, embodying the personal thought of the teachers, became the largest and most important part of the commentaries, with the result that literal explanation of the text was reduced to a mere fraction of each commentary.
Closely allied with the commentaries on disputed questions was the technique of discussion by means of public disputation. Every professor in a medieval university was required to appear several times a year before the assembled faculty and students in a disputation, defending crucial points of his own teaching against all persons who challenged them. The forms of Aristotelian logic were employed in both defense and attack. In the 13th century the public disputation became a flexible educational tool for stimulating, testing, and communicating the progress of thought in philosophy and theology. After the middle of the 14th century, however, the vitality of public disputation declined, and it became a rigid formalism. Disputants became concerned less with real content and more with fine points of logic and minute subtleties of thought. This degraded form of disputation did much to give Scholasticism a bad reputation during the Renaissance and later; consequently, many modern thinkers have considered it mere pedantic logical formalism.
I. INTRODUCTION
Scholasticism, philosophic and theological movement that attempted to use natural human reason, in particular, the philosophy and science of Aristotle, to understand the supernatural content of Christian revelation. It was dominant in the medieval Christian schools and universities of Europe from about the middle of the 11th century to about the middle of the 15th century. The ultimate ideal of the movement was to integrate into an ordered system both the natural wisdom of Greece and Rome and the religious wisdom of Christianity. The term Scholasticism is also used in a wider sense to signify the spirit and methods characteristic of this period of thought or any similar spirit and attitude toward learning found in other periods of history. The term Scholastic, which originally designated the heads of the medieval monastic or cathedral schools from which the universities developed, finally came to be applied to anyone teaching philosophy or theology in such schools or universities.
II. PRINCIPAL CHARACTERISTICS
Scholastic thinkers held a wide variety of doctrines in both philosophy and theology. What gives unity to the whole Scholastic movement are the common aims, attitudes, and methods generally accepted by all its members. The chief concern of the Scholastics was not to discover new facts but to integrate the knowledge already acquired separately by Greek reasoning and Christian revelation. This concern is one of the most characteristic differences between Scholasticism and modern thought since the Renaissance.
The basic aim of the Scholastics determined certain common attitudes, the most important of which was their conviction of the fundamental harmony between reason and revelation. The Scholastics maintained that because the same God was the source of both types of knowledge and truth was one of his chief attributes, he could not contradict himself in these two ways of speaking. Any apparent opposition between revelation and reason could be traced either to an incorrect use of reason or to an inaccurate interpretation of the words of revelation. Because the Scholastics believed that revelation was the direct teaching of God, it possessed for them a higher degree of truth and certitude than did natural reason. In apparent conflicts between religious faith and philosophic reasoning, faith was thus always the supreme arbiter; the theologian's decision overruled that of the philosopher. After the early 13th century, Scholastic thought emphasized more the independence of philosophy within its own domain. Nonetheless, throughout the Scholastic period, philosophy was called the servant of theology, not only because the truth of philosophy was subordinated to that of theology, but also because the theologian used philosophy to understand and explain revelation.
This attitude of Scholasticism stands in sharp contrast to the so-called double-truth theory of the Spanish-Arab philosopher and physician Averroës. His theory assumed that truth was accessible to both philosophy and Islamic theology but that only philosophy could attain it perfectly. The so-called truths of theology served, hence, as imperfect imaginative expressions for the common people of the authentic truth accessible only to philosophy. Averroës maintained that philosophic truth could even contradict, at least verbally, the teachings of Islamic theology.
As a result of their belief in the harmony between faith and reason, the Scholastics attempted to determine the precise scope and competence of each of these faculties. Many early Scholastics, such as the Italian ecclesiastic and philosopher St. Anselm, did not clearly distinguish the two and were overconfident that reason could prove certain doctrines of revelation. Later, at the height of the mature period of Scholasticism, the Italian theologian and philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas worked out a balance between reason and revelation. Scholastics after Aquinas, however, beginning with the Scottish theologian and philosopher John Duns Scotus, restricted more and more the domain of truths capable of being proved by reason and insisted that many doctrines previously thought to have been proved by philosophy had to be accepted on the basis of faith alone. One reason for this restriction was that Scholastics applied the requirements for scientific demonstration, as first specified in Aristotle's Organon, much more rigorously than previous philosophers had done. These requirements were so strict that Aristotle himself was rarely able to apply them fully beyond the realm of mathematics. It was this trend that led finally to the loss of confidence in natural human reason and philosophy that is characteristic of the early Renaissance and of the first Protestant religious reformers, such as Martin Luther.
Another common attitude among Scholastics was their great respect for the so-called authorities in both philosophy and theology. These authorities were the great philosophers of Greece and Rome and the early Fathers of the Church. The medieval Scholastics educated themselves to think and write only by intensive study of these ancient authors, whose culture and learning had been so much richer than their own. After they had reached their full maturity of thought and had begun to create original works of philosophy, they continued the practice of quoting authorities to lend weight to their own opinions, even though the latter were reached, in many cases, quite independently. Later critics concluded from this practice that the Scholastics were mere compilers or repeaters of their authorities. As a matter of fact, the mature Scholastics, including Aquinas and Duns Scotus, were extremely flexible and independent in their use of the texts of the ancients; frequently, in order to bring the texts into harmony with their own positions, they gave interpretations that were difficult to reconcile with the ancients' intentions. The appeal to authority was often little more than a stylistic ornament for beginning or ending the exposition of the commentator's own opinions and was intended to show that the commentator's views were in continuity with the past and not mere novelties. Novelty and originality of thought were not sought deliberately by any of the Scholastics but rather were underplayed as much as possible.
The Scholastics considered Aristotle the chief authority in philosophy, calling him simply the Philosopher. The early Christian prelate and theologian St. Augustine was their principal authority in theology, subordinate only to the Bible and the official councils of the church. The Scholastics adhered most closely and uncritically to authority in accepting Aristotle's opinions in the empirical sciences, such as physics, astronomy, and biology. Their uncritical acceptance of Aristotle's scientific views produced a serious weakness in Scholasticism and was one of the principal reasons for its scornful rejection by scientists during the Renaissance and later.
III. COMMON METHODS
One of the principal methods of Scholasticism was the use of the logic and philosophic vocabulary of Aristotle in teaching, demonstration, and discussion. Another important method was the practice of teaching a text by means of a commentary by some accepted authority. In philosophy, this authority was usually Aristotle. In theology, the principal texts were the Bible and the Sententiarum Libri Quatuor (Four Books of Sentences) by the 12th-century Italian theologian and prelate Peter Lombard, a collection of the opinions of the early Fathers of the Church on problems of theology. The early Scholastics began by adhering closely to the text on which they were commenting. Gradually, as the practice of critical reading developed their own powers of thinking, they began to introduce many supplementary commentaries on points, known as disputed questions, which either were not covered or were not adequately solved by the text itself. Beginning in the 13th century these supplementary commentaries, embodying the personal thought of the teachers, became the largest and most important part of the commentaries, with the result that literal explanation of the text was reduced to a mere fraction of each commentary.
Closely allied with the commentaries on disputed questions was the technique of discussion by means of public disputation. Every professor in a medieval university was required to appear several times a year before the assembled faculty and students in a disputation, defending crucial points of his own teaching against all persons who challenged them. The forms of Aristotelian logic were employed in both defense and attack. In the 13th century the public disputation became a flexible educational tool for stimulating, testing, and communicating the progress of thought in philosophy and theology. After the middle of the 14th century, however, the vitality of public disputation declined, and it became a rigid formalism. Disputants became concerned less with real content and more with fine points of logic and minute subtleties of thought. This degraded form of disputation did much to give Scholasticism a bad reputation during the Renaissance and later; consequently, many modern thinkers have considered it mere pedantic logical formalism.
source: Microsoft Encarta Encyclopaedia 2006