Medieval philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 2 ( PDFDrive ) 14

INTRODUCTION (e.g ‘intelligence’, ‘evidence’, ‘voluntary’, ‘supposition’) But the modern use is never an exact equivalent of the scholastic use, and often diVers from it widely ‘Subjective’ and ‘objective’, for instance, are two terms that have virtually reversed their meanings since medieval times This Wrst, linguistic, problem is closely connected with the second problem of professionalism The study of philosophy was more professionalized during the Middle Ages than at any other time before the present— hence the term ‘scholastic’ Philosophy was largely the province of tight university communities sharing a common curriculum, a common patrimony of texts, and a common arsenal of technical terms Most of the works that have come down to us are, in one way or another, the product of university lectures, exercises, or debates, and those who produced them could expect in their hearers or readers a familiarity with a complicated jargon and an ability to pick up erudite allusion There was hardly any philosophy written for the general reader Those who wrote or read it were overwhelmingly male, clerical, and celibate An appendix to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy gives brief biographies of the sixty-six most signiWcant Wgures in medieval thought None of them are women, and only two are laymen The third problem, again, is related to the second Because the bestknown medieval philosophers were members of the Catholic Church, their philosophy has often been regarded as a branch of theology or apologetics This is unfair: they were all aware of the distinction between philosophical argument and dogmatic evangelism But it is true that, since most of them concluded their academic career in the faculty of divinity, much of their best philosophical work is actually contained in their theological works, and it takes some experience to locate it Moreover, many of the most signiWcant thinkers were members of religious orders, who have often been possessive of their heritage There have been long periods when it seemed that all and only Dominicans studied St Thomas, and all and only Franciscans studied Bonaventure and Scotus (Some scholastics were hardly studied because they belonged to no order John Wyclif, for instance, had as his spiritual heirs only the rather small class consisting of secular clergy who had got into trouble with the Church.) After Pope Leo XIII gave Aquinas special status as a Catholic theologian, his works were studied by many who had no connection with the Dominican order But this elevation only reinforced the view of secular xiii