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 SCHOLASTICISM

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SCHOLASTICISM

In logic the Scholastics adopted all the details of the Aristotelean system, which was known to the Latin world from the time of Boethius. Their individual contributions consisted of some minor improv-ements in the matter of teaching and in the technic of the science. Their underlying theory of knowledge is also Aristotelean. It may be described by saying that it is a system of Moderate Realism and Moderate Intellectualism. The Realism consists in teaching that outside the mind there e.xist things fundamen- tally universal which correspond to our universal ideas. The Moderate Intellectualism is summed up in the two principles: (1) all our knowledge is derived from sen.se-knowledge; and (2) intellectual knowledge differs from sense-knowledge, not only in degree but also in kind. In this way, Scholasticism avoids Innatism, according to which all our ideas, or some of our ideas, are born with the soul and have no origin in the world outside us. At the same time, it avoids Sensism, according to which our so-called in- tellectual knowledge is only sense-knowledge of a higher or finer sort. The Scholastics, moreover, took a firm stand against the doctrine of Subjectivism. In their discussion of the value of knowledge they held that there is an external world which is real and independent of our thoughts. In that world are the forms which make things to be what they are. The same forms received into the mind in the process of knowing cause us not to be the object but to know the object. This presence of things in the mind by means of forms is true representation, or rather pres- entation. For it is the objective thing that we are first aware of, not its representation in us.

The Scholastic outlook on the world of nature is Aristotelean. The Schoolmen adopt the doctrine of matter and form, which they apply not only to hving things but also to inorganic nature. Since the form, or entelechy, is always striving for its own realization or actualization, the vnew of nature which this doc- trine leads to is teleological. Instead, however, of ascribing pur])ose in a vague, unsatisfactory manner to nature itself, the Scholastics attributed design to the intelligent, provident author of nature. The principle of finality thus acquired a more precise meaning, and at the same time the danger of a Pan- theistic interpretation was avoided. On the question of the universality of matter the Schoolmen were di- vided among themselves, some, like the Franciscan teachers, maintaining that all created beings are mate- rial, others, like St. Thomas, holding the existence of "separate forms", such as the angels, in whom there is potency but no matter. Again, on the question of the oneness of substantial forms, there was a lack of agreement. St. Thomas held that in each individ- ual material substance, organic or inorganic, there is but one substantial form, which confers being, substantiality and, in the case of man, life, sen- sation, and reason. Others, on the contrary, believed that in one substance, man, for instance, there are simultaneously several forms, one of which confers ex- istence, another substantiality, another life, and an- other, reason. Finally, there was a divergence of views as to what is the princijjlc of indi\-itluatin, by which several individuals of the same species are differ- entiated from one another. St. Thomas taught that the principle of individuation is matter with its de- termined dimensions, materia signata.

In regard to the nature of man, the first Scholastics were Augustinians. Their definition of the soul is what may be called the spiritual, as opposed to the biological, definition. They held that the soul is the principle of thought-activity, and that the exercise of the senses is a process from the soul through the body, not a process of the whole organism, that is, of the body animated by the soul. The Scholastics of the thir- teenth century frankly adopted the Aristotelean defi- nition of the soul as the principle of Ufe, not of thought

merely. Therefore, they maintained, man is a com- pound of body and soul, each of which is an incom- plete substantial principle, the union being, conse- quently, immediate, vital, and substantial. For them there is no need of an intermediary "body of light" such as St. Augustine imagined to exist. All the vital activities of the individual human being are ascribed ultimately to the soul, as to their active principle, although they may have more immediate principles, namely the faculties, such as intellect, the senses, the vegetative and muscular powers. But while the soul is in this way concerned with all the vital functions, being, in fact, the source of them, and the body enters as a passive principle into all the ac- tivities of the soul, exception must be made in the case of immaterial thought-activities. They are, like all the other activities, activities of the individual. The soul is the active principle of them. But the body contributes to them, not in the same intrinsic manner in which it contributes to seeing, hearing, digesting, etc., but only in an extrinsic manner, by supplying the materials out of which the intellect manufactures ideas. This extrinsic dependence explains the phe- nomena of fatigue, etc. At the same time it leaves the soul so independent intrinsically that the latter is truly said to be immaterial.

From the immateriality of the soul follows its im- mortality. Setting aside the possibility of annihila- tion, a possibility to which all creatures, even the angels, are subject, the human soul is naturally im- mortal, and its immortality, St. Thomas believes, can be proved from its immateriality. Duns Scotus, however, whose notion of the strict requirements of a demonstration was influenced by his training in math- ematics, denies the conclusive force of the argument from immateriality, and calls attention to Aristotle's hesitation or obscurity on this point. Aristotle, as in- terpreted by the Arabians, was, undoubtedly, op- posed to immortality. It was, however, one of St. Thomas's greatest achievements in philosophy that, especially in his opusculum "De unitate intellectus", he refuted the Arabian interpretation of Aristotle, showed that the active intellect is part of the indi- \'idual soul, and thus removed the uncertainty which, for the Aristoteleans, hung around the notions of im- materiaUty and immortality. From the immaterial- ity of the soul follows not only that it is immortal, but also that it originated by an act of creation. It was created at the moment in which it was united with the body: creando infunditur, et infundendo creatur is the Scholastic phrase.

Scholastic metaphysics added to the Aristotelean system a full discussion of the nature of personality, restated in more definite terms the traditional argu- ments for the existence of God, and developed the doc- trine of the providential government of the universe. The exigencies of theological discussion occasioned also a minute analysis of the nature of accident in gen- eral and of quantity in particular. The apphcation of the resulting i)rinciples to the explanation of the mystery of the Eucharist, as contained in St. Thomas's works on the subject, is one of the most successful of all the Scholastic attempts to render faith reasonable by means of dialectical discussion. Indeed, it may be said, in general, that the peculiar excellence of the Scholastics as systematic thinkers consisted in their ability to take hold of the profoundest metaphysical distinctions, such as matter and form, potency and actuality, substance and accident, and apply them to every department of thought. They were no mere apriorists; they recognized in principle and in prac- tice that scientific method begins with the observa- tion of facts. Nevertheless, they excelled most of all in the talent which is peculiarly metaphysical, the power to grasp abstract general principles and apply them consistently and systematically.

So far as the ethics of Scholasticism is not distinctly