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History of Philosophy
Fourth Period of Scholasticism: Birth of Ockam to taking of Constantinople (1300-1453)
by Turner, William (S.T.D.)
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[1]
[1] To the list of sources given, p. 240, add Prantl, Geschichte der
Logik (4 Bde. Leipzig, 1855-1870). Consult especially Vol. III, pp.
319 ff., and Vol. IV.
The causes of the decay of Scholastic philosophy were both internal and
external. The internal causes are to be found in the condition of
Scholastic philosophy at the beginning of the fourteenth century. The
great work of Christian syncretism had been completed by the masters of
the preceding period: revelation and science had been harmonized;
contribution had been levied on the pagan philosophies of Greece and
Arabia, and whatever truth these philosophies had possessed had been
utilized to form the basis of a rational exposition of Christian
revelation. The efforts of Roger Bacon and of Albert the Great to
reform scientific method had failed: the sciences were not cultivated.
There was therefore no source of development, and nothing was left for
the later Scholastics except to dispute as to the meaning of
principles, to comment on the text of this master or of that, and to
subtilize to such an extent that Scholasticism soon became a synonym
for captious quibbling. The great Thomistic principle that in
philosophy the argument from authority is the weakest of all arguments
was forgotten: Aristotle, St. Thomas, or Scotus became the criterion of
truth, and as Solomon, whose youthful wisdom had astonished the world,
profaned his old age by the worship of idols, the philosophy of the
schools, in the days of its decadence, turned from the service of truth
to prostrate itself before the shrine of a master. [2] Dialectic, which
in the thirteenth century had been regarded as the instrument of
knowledge, now became an object of study for the sake of display; and
to this fault of method was added a fault of style -- an uncouthness
and barbarity of terminology which bewilder the modern reader. The religious orders, which had given to
Scholasticism its ablest masters, now devoted all their attention to
fomenting the Thomistic and Scotistic controversy, thus frittering away
on matters of trifling importance the gifts which should have been
devoted to the more serious task of meeting the difficulties that
sprang up on every side as the modern era approached.
[2] Cf. Ozanam, Dante, etc., English trans., p. 94;
Revue Néo-Scol., Nov. 1903.
The external causes of the decay of Scholasticism were, in the first
place, the political conditions of the time. The fourteenth century was
a period of strife between the secular and the spiritual power, of
rebellion of princes, bishops, and priests against the authority of the
Holy See, and of contests between rival claimants for the chair of
Peter. Religion seemed to lose its restraining power, and moral
depravity, sorcery, and occult science corrupted that true sense of the
superiority of things spiritual which characterized the thirteenth
century. The universities, too, which had contributed so much to the
success of Scholasticism and had received so much from it in return,
now began to bring discredit on the Scholastic system. At Paris, the
course of study for the degrees in theology was shortened, and academic
honors were distributed with more freedom than discretion, mere youths
(impuberes et imberbes) being, through favor, awarded the title
of master. Add to this that everywhere throughout Europe
institutions [3] inferior to the great universities were accorded the
right to confer degrees which had hitherto been the monopoly of Paris
and Oxford.
[3] Cf. Chartul., II, vii and 547.
In the general relaxation of the spirit of serious study, there
appeared a phase of Scholastic philosophy which may be said to have
been inspired by the principle commonly known as "Ockam's razor":
"Entia non sunt multiplicanda sine necessitate." In a spirit of protest
against the extreme formalism of the Scotists, who multiplied
metaphysical entities to an alarming degree, the new philosophy aimed
at simplicity. Soon, however,
it carried the process of simplification to the extent of discarding
as useless all serious metaphysical and psychological speculation; it
substituted dialectic for metaphysics, advocated nominalism, and ended
in something dangerously near to sensism and scepticism.
The chief representative of this phase of Scholasticism is William of
Ockam. Before his time, however, the tendencies which resulted in his
philosophy appeared in the doctrines of Durandus and
Aureolus.
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