SCHOLASTICISM

AND INTELLECTUAL DISCIPLINE

SCHOLASTICISM
• Revised beliefs & logical methods of instruction
• Was a general designation for the particular methods
& tendencies to rationalize the doctrines of the
Christian Church.
• Originated during 1000’s in schools operated by the
cathedral & monasteries.
Aristotle influenced
scholasticism. (Writing in Logic)

Aristotle had used to try to

prove the existence of God.
Anselm, Archbishop of
Canterbury – Father of
Scholasticism
John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham
• rejected Aquinas emphasis on reason
• God’s actions & purposes are unpredictable &
must be learned through revelation
• Beginning the mid-14th century, Scholasticism
lost its influence. Today, however, the teachings
of some Roman Catholic theologians still reflect
its influence.
Major Scholastics of the 12th Century
• Saint Albertus Magnus
• Alexander of Hales
• Saint Thomas Aquinas
• Roger Bacon
• Saint Bonaventure
• Robert Grosseteste
Saint Thomas Aquinas
• most important scholastic
• philosophy about God
and the soul
• believed that human
beings need divine
revelation to fill out &
expand such knowledge.
Aims of Education
• Intellectual Discipline
-supports the doctrine of the church by rational
argument.
• Faith by Reason
-give supporting authority to the intellect, to
justify by reason and substantiate theology by logic.
Agencies of Education
• Parish school – children with special talents
• Monastic and Cathedral schools – men who became leaders
of the church as well as the state.
• Palace school – established by Charlemaigne for scions of
nobility to train intelligent leaders
• University – started as an association of teachers chartered
by the Pope of Holy Roman Emperor.
-Independent of local ecclesiastical authority and political or
secular control.
The Birth of University
UNIVERSITY – “universitas magistrorum et scholarium”
- “community of teacher of teachers and
scholars”
• Universitas means “CHARTER COMPANY”

• Stadium Generale – Entire student body

• Facultas – Group of masters teaching the same
subject.
Two Camps of Scholastic
Scholastic Realists – Saint Conceptualists – Peter
Anselm Abelard
• Believed that ideas or • Believed that ideas or
concepts called concepts or universals
universals are the only become real only when
real entities and the
objects that we perceive expressed or represented by
by the senses are only their corresponding object.
representations of the
universals.
*Summa Theologiae – Saint Thomas Aquinas; declared by Pope
Leo XIII (1879)
Various Kinds of Scholarly Treatises
• Disputed Question – are nothing more than written
accounts of actual classroom discussion
• Disputed Question on Truth – Thomas Aquinas teaching
comprises 253 individual questions on truth and goodness
• Summae – are systematic and organic developments of
philosophy or theology in its entirety through question
method
Methods of Instruction
• Argumentative Method/Disputed Method (Scholastic
Method or System)
It has four parts:
• 1. Starting a preposition, thesis, or questions
• 2. Setting down objections to the preposition
• 3. Proving one side and
• 4. Answering or disputing objections in order
• Lecture, repetition, disputation and examination
methods
- To recognize principles and formalities

• The Aristotelian Logic

- Form of argument was the syllogism supplied by
Aristotle
Three elements of Syllogism
1. A major premise or larger class (term)
2. A minor premise, or smaller class or middle term
3. A conclusion or specific case
• Problem Method
- Aimed at formulating a conclusion in some
topics after many possible answers were
evaluated.
Outstanding contribution to Education
• Organization of the university
• Emphasis on intellectual training