This word has become commonly used, and there is probably no person who would not hear about it. Scholasticism … What it is, however, not everyone will tell you for sure. Now we have the opportunity to understand all this in more detail. This word itself originated in the era of the establishment of feudal relations and the so-called “Carolingian Renaissance”. In those days, the philosophy of patristics and scholasticism dominated. The first discipline was devoted to the substantiation of established Christian dogmas. However, it has already practically exhausted itself, since the Roman Catholic Church has established itself as dominant. What about scholasticism? What is it in this era? Then so-called comments on these dogmas and work on their systematization.
This trend in the history of Christian thought became dominant in the medieval era. This word itself comes from the Greek "cleavage" ("school"). At first, the art of commenting and systematizing developed in monastery schools, and then in universities. His story is usually divided into three periods. The first is the time when the scholasticism arose. This period, as a rule, begins with Boethius and ends with Thomas Aquinas. The second stage is the philosophy of the “angelic doctor” himself and his followers. And, finally, the late period - the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries - when the scholastic began to obsolete itself as the main discipline, and especially in relation to the natural sciences. It was then that she provoked a fire of criticism towards herself.
If we ask ourselves: “Scholasticism - what is it? What problems did she raise? ”, The answer will be as follows. Philosophers in those days did not at all count the number of devils at the tip of the needle, as they often joke about, but were interested in questions of the relationship of knowledge and faith, reason and will, as well as essence and existence. In addition, one of the hottest topics for discussion at that time was the problem of the reality of the so-called universal categories. Representatives of different views on this issue were called realists and nominalists.
One of the first great scholastics is John Scott Eriugen, who was well known at the court of Charlemagne. He even dared to answer the famous ruler with a witty and risky joke. When he asked the philosopher, what is the difference between cattle and Scots (a pun based on the Latin spelling of the thinker's origin), he replied that it lies in the length of the table. The fact is that Eriugena and Karl were sitting opposite. The emperor understood the insult to his hint and did not proceed. John Scott put forward the idea that there is no contradiction between real religion and philosophy, and the criterion of truth is the mind.
In the XII century - during the era of the Crusades and the formation of universities - the most outstanding scholastics were John Roscellin and Anselm of Canterbury. The latter began to express ideas that thinking should be subordinate to faith. The heyday of the scholasticism falls on a very turbulent period in the life of Western Europe. Then, Christian philosophers, through Arabic translations from Greek, discovered Aristotle and began to systematize comments on sacred texts based on the system and logic of the latter. Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great are considered the thinkers who created the most consistent and complete theories of this kind. They subjugated the philosophy of theology.
Do not forget that in those days, opponents of the dominant tendencies in Christian theology - especially the so-called Cathars - also wrote many treatises and comments. They, in turn, used the same scholastic arguments, categories, and logical conclusions, using the Neoplatonists and Aristotle. But the destruction of this trend in theology as a result of a fierce ideological struggle did not leave us the opportunity to fully appreciate the philosophical level of the opponents of Catholicism.
In the XIV century, the scholasticism discovered the so-called “Via Modern” - a new way. We owe this to the Oxford school (Ockham, Duns Scot), which preferred to make the subject of knowledge exclusively real-life things, which paved the way for the modern methodology of the natural-mathematical sciences. However, the entire previous philosophy has formed the basic principles of a scientific approach that are characteristic of university education, including such concepts as references and the scientific apparatus. So to the question: "Scholasticism - what is it?" “We may well answer that way.” This is a very important period in the history of philosophy, without which there would be neither modern science, nor the main approaches to its methodology.
