The term scholastic refers to the philosophical production that took place in AgeAverage, between the 9th and 13th centuries d. Ç. Compared to the patristic, previous strand of Medieval Philosophy, Scholastics is situated in a period of intensity of catholic rule over Europe.
Given the need for large-scale training of priests and the strong cultural and educational implication for faithcatholic promoted by Carolingian Empire, the Catholic Church created schools and universities to teach and train thinkers and new priests. This creation of schools motivated the name of the period.
Know more: What is Philosophy?
Characteristics of Scholastic Philosophy
Due to the cultural and educational valorization, in addition to the rescue of Aristotle, an intense mobilization for the knowledge of the metaphysical and natural science issues. Faith, already addressed in the writings of Christian thinkers since the second century, is now seen together with reason.
In this sense, thinkers like Great Albert, Saint Anselmo and Thomas Aquinas argued that the fight against heresies, paganism and the non-acceptance of God would occur through the formulation of theoriesrational and scientific knowledge.
At invasionsMoors, that led the Arabs to dispute the domain of parts of the current Spanish and Portuguese territory, which took place from the 7th century onwards, were fundamental for the construction of scholastic thought, as the Arabs took with them the most in-depth studies of the works of Aristotle.
As an example, we can highlight Averroes, a 12th century Arab philosopher, who influenced scholastic thinkers with his comments on Aristotle. Aquinas, the most important name in Scholastics, combined his interpretation of Aristotle with authorial ideas, which resulted in the so-called Aristotelian Thomism.
Scholastic teaching was based on the study of the calls Artliberals, which were formed by the seven fields of knowledge divided into two groups, described below:
The trivia consisted in the study of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic, arts focused on language;
The quadrivium consisted in the study of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy and Music, arts focused on the exact sciences and their natural applications.
Read more:Aristotle's Metaphysics - what is it, main ideas, summary
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The question of universals
The question or "complaint" of universals is part of a discussion started byporphyry, Neoplatonic patristic thinker, on his interpretation of the propositions of Aristotle about the statements about the existence of universal categories.
Universal categories are, for Aristotle, general classifications that organize the existing beings in the world. For example, we have the category “color” and the category “animal”. We can analyze a white horse under its two categories: color and animal. There can be logical confusion if the categories are mixed, as in the following example: Napoleon's horse is white. White is a color. Napoleon's horse is a color. In this case, there was a confusion of categories. All this metaphysical debate was taken up by the scholastics on the basis of ancient Greek philosophy, especially Aristotelian philosophy.
These issues, which generated discussions divided into different groups, were widely disputed during Scholastica, promoting what the thinkers of the time called Quaestio Disputata (disputed issues). Intellectuals promoted debates on subjects, such as the question of universals, which motivated the study and research of Metaphysics, Logic and Rhetoric.
Regarding the interpretation of universals, two groups were formed among the scholastics:
Realistic
they defended the factual existence of universals as metaphysical instances, which were themselves the definition, for example, of the universal idea of whiteness, which would apply to any white object, but without the need for the presence or existence of white objects for it existed.
THE metaphysics, a common area with ontology, is what in Philosophy studies the being as being, that is, it is a study that studies the things that exist in the world, but without resorting to any observation or sensitive experience with these things, using only reasoning and arguments.
In the given example of universals, philosophers did not go to look at the color white to define what whiteness is, but kept launching arguments that define a concept of whiteness. From this concept, which, according to metaphysicians, was universal and unquestionable, it was possible to go to practical experience to observe the things of the world and try to relate them to the concept of whiteness, that is, I can only determine that a wall, a horse or a sheet of paper is white, because there is a concept of what it is to be white prior to my experience of seeing the wall, the horse, or the sheet. of paper.
nominalists
They argued that universals were just names created to represent and group objects that had common characteristics, with no possibility of existence and metaphysical definition of universal concepts. They were just words from human conventions.
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Stages of Scholastic Philosophy
For didactic cataloging purposes, the historians of Medieval Philosophy divide scholasticism into three distinct periods:
First phase
This phase was characterized by the full conviction of the harmony established between faith and reason, arising mainly from patristic ideas. Duns Scotus and St. Anselm (a philosopher who developed, in his time, an ontological argument that would prove the existence of God) are outstanding thinkers of this first phase.
An ontological argument is one that is not based on sensible experience but is made only by reasoning. It is not necessary to establish existing and observable causes to propose an ontological argument, but only to propose reasoning that makes sense from abstract elements, such as God. St. Anselm's ontological argument can be described as follows:
The) Imagine something so big, but so big, you can't imagine anything bigger.
B) If this something so great exists only in our imagination, it is not so great, since what exists outside of our intellect is greater.
ç) So if you can imagine something so big (that there can't be anything bigger than that), it must exist outside of your mind and imagination.
d) This immense something, which exists in your imagination and outside of it, and which is so great that there is no greater thing, is God.
Second level
It was in the second phase that the most complex philosophical systems appeared, also becoming known as Thomistic period. The main names of this phase are Thomas Aquinas and his master Great Albert.
third phase
The third phase was characterized by the beginning of the decay of Scholastics in the Middle Ages. It was at this time that the domination and expansion of the Catholic Church proved to be too rigid, restraining many aspects of philosophical studies and controlling all aspects of intellectual and cultural life in the Age Average. An important name in this last phase is William of Ockham.
Scholasticism and Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, Dominican monk, great writer and Catholic philosopher of the Middle Ages was, without a doubt, the greatest scholastic thinker. St. Thomas Aquinas, a scholar and commentator on the works of Aristotle, went further, printing a mixture of his works in his work. own ideas, from the ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle and from Christian thought, based on the Bible and on the dogmas of the Church Catholic.
Aquino was a scholar connoisseur of the trivia and the quadrivium, in addition to having studied Aristotle through the Arabic translations. He also had an education aimed at discovering the Natural Sciences, influenced by his master Alberto Magno.
The distinction between essence and existence, already present in the Aristotelian work, influenced the thought of Aquinas, who developed a direct connection between Aristotle and Christian theology. Aquino also operated a junction of the idea of causality proposed by the argument from engine first, by Aristotle, to elaborate the “Five Ways that Prove the Existence of God”, establishing a direct connection between the Aristotelian work and the existence of God.
The Aristotelian Matrix to God
Aquinas saw in the Aristotelian work the possibility of a rational way that would lead to the proof of the existence of God. O causality principle and the idea of motionless engine, already discussed in the Aristotelian work, awakened Aquinas' intellect to formulate his “Five Ways that Prove the Existence of God”. The principle of causality is, for Philosophy, an elementary principle that admits that for every effect that occurs in the world, there is a previous cause. That is, if something happened, there was a previous phenomenon that caused the event.
IsaacNewton he will also take up this principle again, but inverting its order, upon discovering his third law: the Law of Action and Reaction. For the modern physicist, every action generates a contrary reaction and with equal intensity, which leads us to causality, as the reaction (the effect) was generated by an action (the cause).
These are the five Thomistic ways:
The first immobile engine: throughout the Universe, there is movement. Starting from a causal reasoning, it is necessary to establish that, for there to be movement, there must be a moving (motor). In this sense, if we tried to find the causes of all the movements in the Universe, we would never finish this infinite task, the which makes it necessary to think that for every movement there was a first, immobile motor, which gave rise to all movement later. That first engine was God.
The first efficient cause: in the same reasoning as above, we think that for every cause there is an effect and, to avoid unnecessary fatigue from the infinite search for the first cause, we must think that this cause exists and that it was not caused by anything else. That cause would be God.
be necessary and possible beings: the necessary being would be God. Possible beings would be the divine creation, as they are possibilities insofar as they only exist by the will of the necessary being.
degrees of perfection: the different existing beings are classified by a complex hierarchy that establishes God as the being perfect and all other beings on a scale, according to their perfection and proximity or distance from God.
supreme government: this entire universe, infinite and rational, could only remain organized, in Aquino's view, through a greater, supreme government, which would keep everything in full operation, that is, the government divine.
by Francisco Porfirio
Graduated in Philosophy