Talk:Scholasticism

message: "Scholasticism" isn't the term usually used in general discussions of medieval philosophy; "medieval philosophy" is.  "Scholasticism" is actually often used as a term of abuse.  This isn't to say that there aren't a lot of useful things to be said about Scholasticism, as a philosophical movement, just that it's debatable whether discussion of medieval philosophy should go under that name.  The decision should await someone versed in scholastic/medieval philosophy. --Larry Sanger
:you are correct, scholasticism is not a philosophical movement. It is a didactic system which has historically been applied to philosophy or theology, or any system of thought, as a means of answering questions and resolving contradictions within that system of thought, but it is not a philosophy in its self. Stbalbach 07:33, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Philosophy, or term of abuse?

message: I'm still pondering the wisdom of having a medieval philosophy page distinct from a scholastic philosophy page.
A technique of arguing, a style of writing, and a world view (Catholic and Aristotelian), and lots of Latin.
Is there any medieval philosophy which is not also scholastic?  
Early and middle periods of scholasticism are of course medieval.  The late or "second Scholasticism" of the 16C, which still awaits an article, is not.  There is also "Baroque Scholasticism" which was German.  There are also the Paduan and Iberian scholasticism.  Then there is neo-scholasticism and neo-Thomism.  Dean.
There is also the question of whether scholastic logic is any different from scholastic philosophy.  I'll pass on that one.
:Scholasticism is not a philosophy it's a didactic system thats most famously been applied to philosophy, but many other things too. In any case Scholasticism certainly should have it's own article, yes Philisophy existed before Scholasticism. --Stbalbach 01:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure what those authoritative sources are from, but I'm not surprised. It is a commonly held misperception that scholasticism is a philosophy, the words "medieval" "philosophy" and "scholasticism" have become synonomous for many. But I can assure you, through many "authoritative" sources, the Scholasticism is not a philosophy (sources that use more than a single sentence sound bite). Read the article here, it explains the system. If you want somthing authoritative, read the Encyclopedia Britannica entry (not the 1911 version but the latest). --Stbalbach 22:43, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Please contribute! We may agree on more things than you think. I disagree though that the article should be refocused on theology. Scholasticism was not a theology or philosophy, it was a tool, a means to an end, a didactic system. Theology is why the tool was created and is central, but we should not be discussing those issues here. Many sources discuss the two as one and the same, but they are not. Scholasticism was applied to other things besides theology/philosophy. --Stbalbach 20:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Most Humanists were 'anti-scholastic', notably, Michel de Montaigne in his 'Of the Education of Children'. We might also include Milton and his 'Of Education'.Cariel 20:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buckner 

message: This strikes me as irrelevant to the article. It's a diatribe against postmodernism etc. I think one could develop a section on scholasticism as a contemporary term of derision, and perhaps a much shorter version of the following could be included.
"The Canadian essayist John Ralston Saul has argued in his books that much of what passes for post-modernist discourse in universities today is nothing more than a contemporary version of scholasticism. Today's auctores would be the post-structuralist canon consisting of such people as Michel Foucault, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jacques Derrida etc. 
The post-structuralist deconstruction method can be seen as the exercise of this current scholasticism's version of disputatio.
Saul is highly critical of this 'revival', stating that the mediaeval scholastics did nothing more than tie up debate in irrelevant details, and that the current version does nothing more than create a variety of  technocratic dialects that separates intellectuals from reality through relentless abstraction.
However, what clearly distinguishes the so-called post-modern and/or post-structuralist writers such as Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard etc. from medieval scholastics is their denial of an authoritative source, such as God, that presumably lies outside discourse and that endows statements about the world with truth. Contrary to medieval scholastics, so-called post-modern and/or post-structuralist writers do not see themselves bound by non-discursive doctrines, let alone questions of faith." 
Thoughts? --Anthony Krupp 03:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok with me. Seems kind of esoteric anyway, probably better off in an article on post-modernism, it is just an analogy of scholasticism, and not actual scholasticism  -- Stbalbach 15:04, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Section created by anon IP (and expanded by others) moved here for discussion

message: Regarding the recent additions about Islamic scholasticism. This needs further clarification as it is being presented that Muslims practiced scholasticism, which I am fairly confident is not the case - I'm sure they had something similar, but was not the same thing. This article deals with the western European school. It describes in detail the method and genres and individuals and dates and times and places.. etc.. if there is a Muslim school of scholasticism, what was it called? I suppose it could be mentioned in this article under an "origins" section, but that needs a lot of development from what is currently here. -- Stbalbach 11:13, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Islam

message: Notable anti-scholastics are mentioned, but how did the opposing view(s) reason? Said: Rursus 21:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The only key anti-scholastics that can be verified from Wikipedia itself is Bernard of Clairvaux, and only regarding the theological application of scholastics. The section on anti-scholastics seems to confuse scholastics with Roman-Catholicism, theological application of scholastics or some such. I believe there is no opposing view, in the sense of the word. Said: Rursus 21:49, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

text: This section needs a description and some citations. Otherwise, there's not much to it, besides name-dropping, some sort of implicit argument from authority. Mdotley 21:28, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: FYI, the German article mentions not only humanists as scholasticism's greatest opponents. It says that what basically broke the backbone of scholasticism in science (as opposed to being only a didactic method) during early Modernity (1500s and onwards) was the rise of empiricism, as scholasticism in science had been relying exclusively on logic and, especially, Scripture. So the scholastic view had been that if man perceived something he found empirically or logically contradicting the Bible or ecclesiastic doctrine, it was due to man's innate fallacy and weakness, while empiricism said that experiments are just as important as pure logic. --TlatoSMD (talk) 14:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Anti-scholasticism??

message: I think the frequent assertion in this article that Scholasticism is not a philosophical or theological system in itself is greatly misleading.  Scholasticism may refer either to the philosophical school that includes Aquinas, Scotus, etc. or to the method of dialectical disputation characteristic of it.  It is incorrect to suggest that it refers exclusively to the latter.  I do not see a source referenced throughout the article that affirms the notion that Scholasticism is not a philosophy.  —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.122.89.132 (talk • contribs) 16:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  General Orientation of the Article 

message: Why are there two distinct lists of scholastics?  There are lists by era in the History section, then another list, again by era, in the "Famous Scholastics" section.  Any reason not to combine the two? Mdotley 21:33, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of scholastics 

message: This is a very common source of confusion. Scholasticism is NOT a philosophy, and it is NOT a theology. It is a method, like the scientific method, for deriving the truth of the world. Calling it theology would be like calling the scientific process "physics". It makes no sense. As well it is not a philosophy, for the same reason. Scholasticism was applied most famously to theology and philosophy, which is why it is so often and easily confused, but it was not limited to the two things, nor is it equatable to them.  Green Cardamom (talk) 04:40, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Scholasticism is not a philosophy or theology 

message: Scholasticism never stopped being Thomistic.  Rather, Thomism stopped being Scholastic.  Post-Scholastic Thomism came first with Chenu, Gilson, Maritain, Fabro, etc., and later with Kenny, Stump, etc., who started doing Thomism in veins other than through the Scholastic method (i.e., by doing 'existentialist' Thomism, 'historical' Thomism, and 'analytic' Thomism).
--187.133.14.232 (talk) 23:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Post-Scholastic Thomism," not "Post-Thomistic Scholasticism"! 

message: It is not true that Scholasticism has completely left the academic scene and survives only in internet groups.  There are some scholars today--not a whole lot, but some--who still employ the Scholastic method in their teaching and even in their research, for example, Steven Long (of Ave Maria University, Florida), Ansgar Santagrossi (of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, Nebraska), Francisco J. Romero Carrasquillo (of Universidad Panamericana, Guadalajara), and Alexis Bugnolo (independent scholar).  There is also the International Society of Scholastics (http://www.societyofscholastics.org/), which is a growing intellectual association that offers courses and funds and supports research projects related to Scholaticism.
--187.133.14.232 (talk) 23:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Has Scholasticism REALLY left the Academic Scene?! 

message: The edits I made yesterday were reversed. I assume it happened because an user didn't like the new images or their positions (and he was probably right in this regard, something happened here - in my home - and I ended up inserting the images without much reflection...). On the other hand, some textual changes from a previous edit were reversed as well. Now, I'd like to point two of the problems I tried to address in that edit:
In Portuguese, (my native language), quotation marks are sometimes used with a pejorative, derogatory intent. If this is the case here, or if there is a chance readers will interpret the quotation marks as pejorative, it should be amended.
Who says that? I think we need a citation for this kind of statement. Without a reliable source, I think it is necessary to change the text. (For example, by adding "some of the..." in the beginning of the sentence.) --Leinad-Z (talk) 13:30, 28 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two problems 

message: The statement "at the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council the proponents of what previous popes had termed "Modernism" were able to gain the upper hand" is extremely biased.  Modernism is more a pejorative term for "a miscellaneous bunch of ideas Pope Pius IX didn't like than anything else. I am changing it to "after the Second Vatican Council, other theological schools came to the fore". JHobson2 (talk) 12:40, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anti-"Modernism" bias 

message: My professor: "Thursday, the research on Anselm, the founder of Scholasticism"
Wikipedia: Anselm is sometimes misleadingly called the "Father of scholasticism," owing to the prominence accorded to reason in his theology. Rather than establish a position by appeal to authority, he used argument to demonstrate why what he believed on authority must be so.
Sources:
* Jacques Le Goff. The Birth of Europe:400-1500. John Wiley & Sons, 2009. p. 129.
* Britannica Educational Publishing. The 100 Most Influential Philosophers of All Time. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2009. p. 96.
* Julián Marías. History of Philosophy. Courier Dover Publications, 1967. p. 143.
* Encyclopedia of Philosophy. MobileReference, 2007. p. 1384.
There are at least 50 sources. --2.33.180.78 (talk) 08:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:   This is a joke (or worse). I have marked this article as NPOV 

message: Article "The impact of Scholasticism upon Jewish philosophy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries" pp. 345-370, By T. M. Rudavsky
printed in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, Edited by: Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, Cambridge University Press
Chapter description "In a classic article, Shlomo Pines argued that post-Thomistic Scholasticism, most notably Duns Scotus and the school of Parisian physics (e.g., Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme), had a strong impact upon fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Jewish philosophy. Pines pointed in this article to the “interest displayed by contemporary Jewish thinkers in the new problems under discussion, or in the old problems in a new formulation unfamiliar to the Arabic-Jewish tradition.” In what follows I shall explore Pines' thesis against the backdrop of specific issues in Jewish philosophy. More specifically, I shall claim that Scholastic influences upon fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Jewish philosophy can be seen in the increased attention paid to Scholastic logic, in increased analysis of the logical and theological status of future contingents, in metaphysical concerns having to do with identity and individuation, and in the development of non-Aristotelian physics. Before turning to the issues themselves, however, I would like to situate this study by briefly examining important developments within the world of Christian Scholasticism."
RK (talk) 04:22, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The impact of Scholasticism upon Jewish philosophy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

message: The lead is pretty vague (or perhaps, not particularly accurate) in its description of the outgrowth and origins of scholasticism. The lead says;
"It originated as an outgrowth of and a departure from Christian monastic schools at the earliest European universities.[1]"
Well, it did, but more particularly, it originated as an outgrowth of Christian theology that took place within the monastic schools. Edward Grant writes that scholasticism was a product of Anselm's rigorous theological work, eventually transitioning to a science by further work of 12th-13th century theologians;
"Anselm’s application of rigorous reasoning to theology has earned him the title “father of scholasticism.” He was apparently the first to treat theology in a manner sufficiently rigorous to lay the foundations for its conversion to a science by twelfth- and thirteenth-century theologians." (source: God and Reason in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press, 2004, 56)
Clifford Backman similarly describes the origins of scholasticism;
"An entire intellectual movement begun in the cathedral schools and universities, and hence called scholasticism, confidently asserted its ability to provide rational proofs and explanations for literally every tenet of Christian faith." (Worlds of Medieval Europe. Oxford University Press, 2003, 304)
So I think the language of the lead needs to be fixed. Several paragraphs down in the lead, the page says "As a program, scholasticism began as an attempt at harmonization on the part of medieval Christian thinkers, to harmonize the various authorities of their own tradition, and to reconcile Christian theology with classical and late antiquity philosophy" -- so I see no reason why the very beginning of the page should be any less clear. 70.49.181.61 (talk) 05:50, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, I've made the edit. Since this is a good page, and there's apparently a problem with its lack of inline citations, I'll add a few in.70.49.181.61 (talk) 15:50, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just fixed it entirely.70.49.181.61 (talk) 17:32, 18 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  There should be a section on the influence of scholasticism. It was essentially a forerunner of modern science. 70.49.181.61 (talk) 00:56, 19 November 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, that's certainly untrue for most values of 'scholasticism'. The 12th-century renaissance was a lot of things happening at once and in early scholasticism (eg) William of Conches's theology certainly informed his interest in and understanding of "natural philosophy" but it wasn't the same thing as his natural philosophy (the actual forerunner to science). Classical big-S Scholasticism like Aquinas have essentially zero scientific content aside from saying that observation of nature shouldn't be condemned as heretical out of hand the way (eg) Bernard of Clairvaux had been trying to play whack-a-scholar in his time. That said, yeah, the influences were profound and important, however much they shouldn't be oversimplified and misstated. — LlywelynII 18:50, 28 May 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dogma begat scholasticism