|
|
||
 |
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Background for the Study of Scholastic Philosophy A supplement to the discussion of Scholastic Philosophy
General Introduction The period of Christian thought extending from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fifteenth, or from the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire under Charlemagne to the end of the Middle Ages (which is usually made to coincide with the discovery of America in 1492), has come to be known as that of Scholasticism. The name comes from "Scholasticus -- the Scholastic," the title given to the rector of the schools; the students were called Scholastics. Again, speaking historically, Scholastic philosophy takes origin from dialectics, one of the disciplines in the formal studies of the trivium. The master of the school, the Scholasticus, read aloud and made comments on the text of some author, generally a book from Aristotle's Logic, which was well known through the commentaries of Porphyry and Boethius. The reading and commentary brought up problems of logic connected with metaphysical and psychological questions. Thus was born the question of universals which historically marks the beginning of Scholastic philosophy. During the Patristic period, philosophy had not been considered as distinct from theology. The Fathers, in the formulation of dogmas, appealed to rational motives (the philosophical approach) not indeed for the purpose of rationalizing the dogmas, but in order to render them more acceptable or intelligible. Scholasticism effects this separation, so that Scholastic theology and Scholastic philosophy may be considered separately. This separation does not mean, however, that there is opposition between the two studies. Scholastic theology is a system of dogmatic formulae drawn from the Scriptures and from the teaching of the Church; and since it is organized systematically, it is in harmony with the rest of the vast field of knowledge or learning. Scholastic philosophy is also an organized system of truths, but it is distinguished from theology because it makes its investigations by the light of human reason alone. However, no matter how distinct, Scholastic philosophy is not in opposition to theology. As a matter of fact, Scholastic philosophy finds in the dogmas of theology the limit and the norm of its own speculation. The principal characteristic of Scholastic philosophy consists in establishing the subordination of reason to faith, and in determining the limits within which the intellect, left to its own power, is able to probe the contents of dogmas. In this sense philosophy is called the handmaid of theology ("theologiae ancilla"); that is, dogmas is understood as a regulative principle of reason by which reason is protected from overstepping its boundaries and thus turning against the faith. This separation and coordination of reason and faith is not true of all stages of Scholastic philosophy, but only of the period of its greatest splendor, achieved first under St. Thomas Aquinas and later under John Duns Scotus. Using the philosophical maturity attained in St. Thomas and Duns Scotus as the point of highest development, we may divide Scholasticism into three periods: (1) the formative period, which runs from the beginning of the ninth century (the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire) to St. Thomas (the middle of the thirteenth century); (2) the period of maturity, which embraces little more than half a century, that is, the years during which St. Thomas and Duns Scotus gave the brightest luster to the golden age through their teachings; (3) the period of the decadence of Scholastic, which runs from the death of Duns Scotus to the end of the fifteenth century. The Schools and the Carolingian Revival of Learning During the period of decadence following the fall of the Roman empire and lasting until the time of Charlemagne, only in the shadow of the Church was culture able to carry on with any success its struggle for existence. The schools of this period were those that existed within the walls of Benedictine monasteries, in episcopal cities and in parishes. These last, the parish schools, restricted their efforts to imparting those few elements which were necessary to educate the people to the practice of the faith and the reception of the sacraments. Only the monastic and diocesan schools are of any real importance. The monastic schools, also called cloister schools, grew out of the very nature of the Rule of St. Benedict for the formation of the monks. In many monasteries, side by side with the schools for the religious, there existed other schools, for lay people desiring an education. In these schools for extern students, the course of study included the profane as well as the sacred sciences. Episcopal schools arose in the see cities of dioceses, and had as their prime end the preparation of those who aspired to Holy Orders. As in the case of the monastic schools, the diocesan institutes for the education of the clergy became nuclei around which developed schools for laymen who wished to obtain and education. Such students received instruction in the profane sciences. In both the monastic and the diocesan schools, the program of studies was limited to reading, writing, choral music, and arithmetic. To these basic subjects might be added a few other notions found in the various manuals of study used during this time. It is to the merit and praise of Charlemagne that he grasped the importance of culture as a means of civilization and as the best method for fostering greater loyalty toward the ruler. In fact, hardly had he succeeded in unifying his realm than he undertook his program for the establishment of schools and the diffusion of what little remained of the former Latin culture. The one to whom Charlemagne entrusted this work of organizing the schools of the realm was the monk Alcuin, whom Charlemagne had summoned from England. Alcuin reformed the schools already in existence according to a program of studies comprising the so-called seven liberal arts of the trivium and quadrivium. The trivium embraced the literary disciplines, that is, grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic; the quadrivium was devoted to the teaching of the sciences, and included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Alcuin's scholastic reform spread throughout the monastic and diocesan schools, and lasted for the entire period of the Middle Ages. In the most important centers of learning, the program of studies was crowned by the teaching of theology, evidence of the profoundly Catholic spirit of the medieval period. Alcuin is credited with having established the "schola palatina" or palace school which may be considered as the first rudimentary medieval university. The "schola palatina" was established for the family of the Emperor, for the nobles, and for those who desired to obtain a higher education. Alcuin called to the faculty of this school the most learned men of his time, such as the historian Paul the Deacon, the grammarian Peter of Pisa and the theologian Paulinus of Aquileia. The first palace school was established at Aachen, residence of the royal family, and Charlemagne himself, along with his wife and children, frequented the institution. Other schools, patterned after that of Aachen, sprang up at Tours, Laon, Orléans, and Fulda. This entire cultural movement, including the establishment of the schools, is generally called the Carolingian Revival of Learning or the Carolingian Renaissance. The Formative Period of Scholasticism During its formative period, Scholastic philosophy began to develop in an atmosphere of Patristic thought and under the influence of the thought of St. Augustine. Only later, by the end of the twelfth and at the beginning of the thirteenth century did it separate itself from the thought of the preceding age as a result of the discussions occasioned by the books of Aristotle, which at that time began to circulate in the schools. During the Augustinian period, granted the fundamental prejudice of illumination -- according to which the intellect is considered unable, of itself, to attain rational cognition and is made capable of this only through a special enlightenment -- it was impossible to have a complete separation of reason from faith, of the natural from the supernatural. The lack of this distinction (or we might better say, this indistinctness) is evident in all the thinkers of the time. The mystics place faith in opposition to reason because they are convinced that the latter, without illumination, and hence without a gift which comes directly from God, is incapable of reasoning. The dialecticians, on the other hand, make free use of reason, but because reason is illumined by God, they claim that it is able to penetrate the contents of mysteries. This is clearly a form of rationalism not recognized as such by the very thinkers of the time simply because they relied upon this illumination as a necessary condition of true judgment. Moreover, this species of rationalism is very different from that which is usually meant by the term today. The Augustinian Scholastics did not remove the supernatural content of dogmas nor did they fix the scope of reason as a limit to the dogmas. Rather, admitting the supernatural, they raised reason to this plane and thus it was possible to believe the mystery by virtue of illumination. The Golden Age of Scholastic Philosophy This period includes St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas, and John Duns Scotus. This period is covered here, and will not be discussed in this essay. The Decadence of Scholastic Philosophy During the Middle Ages there were two celebrated centers of culture: the University of Paris, and Oxford University. While at Paris interest in metaphysics prevailed, to the neglect of the field of science, at Oxford there was more interest in science with empirical, experimental, positive, and practical tendencies. While at Paris the doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas triumphed, the doctors of Oxford remained faithful to the Augustinian tradition. While in Scotus this tradition was vivified by the results of the new culture, even to the extent of abandoning the ancient positions in favor of the new, in other philosophers this Augustinianism represented a return to positions already surpassed by Thomism and even by Scotism. It is customary to trace to Oxford University the principal cause of the decadence of Scholasticism, and this not without reason. Roger Bacon originated the empirical premises which, logically developed by William of Ockham, were to bring about the destruction of harmony between science and faith which the great masters of Scholasticism had so laboriously and painstakingly championed. Nevertheless, this interest in the concrete, the empirical, on the part of the School of Oxford, was the motive for the rise of history and modern science, two subjects which had been neglected by Scholasticism and which form such a great part of modern thought. Conclusion Scholastic philosophy, in its laborious ascent to St. Thomas and Duns Scotus, utilized the best elements of Greek and Patristic philosophy, and succeeded in constructing a weighty metaphysics, in which a rational solution is found to the two problems at the basis of philosophy as well as theology: God and man. Scholastic metaphysics is a harmonious accord of science and faith, between philosophy and theology, which, although treading different paths, meet on the same summit: God, the Creator of man. Such a metaphysics does not know decadence, and for this reason Scholasticism has justly been called the "philosophia perennis" -- the philosophy of all times and of all places. The decadence occurs in men when their culture indicates not progress but retrogression -- not advance, but decline. Such was Ockhamism. Terminism was a return to that nominalism which had been surpassed by true Scholasticism; but it was no longer the ingenuous nominalism of the first Scholastics: it reduced metaphysics to physics, physics to logic, and logic to grammar. As a consequence, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, during which time Ockhamism enjoyed favor, there was no further development in speculation. Instead there were skirmishes in logic. Since a metaphysics was lacking, it was no longer possible to distinguish sophism from syllogism. Thus there was a reflowering of past errors: Averroism with its principle of double truth, the appeal to authority alone as the supreme criterion of truth, loss of confidence in reason, and hence the return to a mysticism not always orthodox. The two basic problems, God and man, remain during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but they are separated from one another and are without an organic treatment or solution; as a result they are also opposed. The weakening of the medieval faith suppressed one of the two problems, God, and put man in His place. But this is no longer Scholastic philosophy, but modern philosophy.
Enrich Your Life With a Philosophy Book...
|
|
|
Introduction & Directory |
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
||
[Homepage] [Newsletter] [Search] [Support the Academy] [Link to Us] [Contact the Academy] [Citing Articles from Our Website] [Privacy Policy & Disclaimer]
Copyright 1998-99, 2000-01, & 2002-03 by The Radical Academy. All Rights Reserved.
This Page Was Updated On