Scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that employed logically precise analyses and worked to reconcile classical philosophy and Catholic Christianity.
Scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated medieval Judeo-Islamic philosophies, and "rediscovered" the collected works of Aristotle.
Endeavoring to harmonize Aristotle's metaphysics and Latin Catholic theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval universities, and thus became the bedrock for the development of modern science and philosophy in the Western world.
[5] Scholasticism is a method of learning more than a philosophy or a theology, since it places a strong emphasis on dialectical reasoning to extend knowledge by inference and to resolve contradictions.
[8] Prominent scholastic figures include Anselm of Canterbury ("the father of scholasticism"[9]), Peter Abelard, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Bonaventure, and Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas's masterwork, Summa Theologica (1265–1274), is considered to be the pinnacle of scholastic, medieval, and Christian philosophy.
Charlemagne, advised by Peter of Pisa and Alcuin of York, attracted the scholars of England and Ireland, where some Greek works continued to survive in the original.
[14] During this period, knowledge of Ancient Greek had vanished in the West except in Ireland, where its teaching and use was fairly common in its monastic schools.
[20] At the same time, the School of Chartres produced Bernard of Chartres's commentaries on Plato's Timaeus and a range of works by William of Conches that attempted to reconcile the use of classical pagan and philosophical sources in a medieval Christian concept using the kludge of integumentum, treating the obviously heretical surface meanings as coverings disguising a deeper (and more orthodox) truth.
[21] Abelard himself was condemned by Bernard of Clairvaux at the 1141 Council of Sens and William avoided a similar fate through systematic self-bowdlerization of his early work, but his commentaries and encyclopedic De Philosophia Mundi and Dragmaticon were miscredited to earlier scholars like Bede and widely disseminated.
Anselm of Laon systematized the production of the gloss on Scripture, followed by the rise to prominence of dialectic (the middle subject of the medieval trivium) in the work of Abelard.
[22] More recently, Leinsle,[23] Novikoff,[24] and others have argued against the idea that scholasticism primarily derived from philosophical contact, emphasizing its continuity with earlier Patristic Christianity.
"[19] Universities developed in the large cities of Europe during this period, and rival clerical orders within the church began to battle for political and intellectual control over these centers of educational life.
Their leader in the middle of the century was Bonaventure, a traditionalist who defended the theology of Augustine and the philosophy of Plato, incorporating only a little of Aristotle in with the more neoplatonist elements.
The great representatives of Dominican thinking in this period were Albertus Magnus and (especially) Thomas Aquinas, whose artful synthesis of Greek rationalism and Christian doctrine eventually came to define Catholic philosophy.
These philosophers include Marsilius of Padua, Thomas Bradwardine, John Wycliffe, Catherine of Sienna, Jean Gerson, Gabriel Biel and ended with Nicholas of Cusa.
"[33] Thomistic scholasticism or scholastic Thomism identifies with the philosophical and theological tradition stretching back to the time of St. Thomas.
It focuses not only on exegesis of the historical Aquinas but also on the articulation of a rigorous system of orthodox Thomism to be used as an instrument of critique of contemporary thought.
[34] A discussion of recent and current Thomistic scholasticism can be found in La Metafisica di san Tommaso d'Aquino e i suoi interpreti (2002) by Battista Mondin [it], which includes such figures as Sofia Vanni Rovighi (1908–1990),[35] Cornelio Fabro (1911–1995), Carlo Giacon (1900–1984),[36] Tomas Tyn O.P.
Proponents of various incarnations of this approach include Anthony Kenny, Peter King, Thomas Williams or David Oderberg.
The points of disagreement and contention between multiple sources would be written down in individual sentences or snippets of text, known as sententiae.
