Aristotelian Scholasticism

In order to understand the intellectual changes which the Enlightenment brought it will be necessary to first understand the intellectual environment from which it was a departure. The intellectual environment in the West at the end of the 16th century was marked by a kind of hybrid composed of both Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology. This hybrid now goes by the name of Aristotelian Scholasticism and it will be the purpose of this post to describe some of the more essential features of the 16th century intellectual’s mind.

The meta-language (in the last post I called it a language of thought) of Aristotelian Scholasticism could probably be described as a Christianized Aristotle more than it could be an Aristotelian Christianity. Thus a description of the mind of the earliest 17th century intellectual will largely match that of Aristotle, though with a Christian twist. Perhaps the most important difference was in terms of epistemology.

Philosophical argument in Aristotelian Scholasticism took the form of the disputatio. In the disputatio, ways of knowing truth are emphasized. The first and most important source of truth came from authority. Of course supernatural authority took preeminence in the form of sacred scripture; however it was always filtered through the natural authority of the religious clergy, which at the time was the academia. Natural authority was grounded presumptive authority of the past, in that what was right was what had weathered the test of time, specifically Christian doctrine and Greek philosophy.

The second and secondary source of truth was reason. Reason and logic were used to deductively arrive at what was known by way of authority “logically entailed.” The most important rule of logic in this process was the law of non-contradiction in that that which contradicted what was known by authority to be true was necessarily false.

The third and least important source of knowledge was experience. The world can be seen in various ways and can even be “forced” into fitting our expectations, rather than forcing a revision in the way the world is seen. Similarly, experience in Aristotelian Scholasticism was seen primarily as a form of confirmation for what was already known by way of authority, rather than as a source of truth in itself.

It should be apparent that such a system of epistemic authority would be conservatism incarnate. The emphasis on authority combined with a lack of focus on empirical knowledge would reinforce any religious tradition, especially one as organized as was Christianity at the time. In such an epistemic tradition, the authorities are right, by definition (talk about faith-promoting), and any challenges could only have come from some other, and lesser source.

The Aristotelian Scholastic understanding of causation was also quite different than ours is now. Causation, by Aristotle’s account came in four versions: material, formal, efficient and teleological. A material cause is what an object is made out of; for example, the material cause of a table is the wood. A formal cause is the form which the material takes; in our example it is the shape of the wood which forms the table. The efficient cause is that which brings the object into existence; the table builder. The teleological cause is “that for the sake of which”, the goal for which the object or action is done; in order to set things on the table.

In Aristotelian Scholasticism, all things have a teleological cause to them. Everything is moving toward a goal of some sort. Objects fall toward the earth because they are supposed to be their in some way. Children grow to achieve the goals of becoming an adult human. Since everything has an objective purpose to it, everything also has an objective value and importance to it. Just as there is a scale of value, so too there is a scale of perfection according to what extent something accomplishes the purpose which is has. Absolute perfection consists in the immutability of that thing. Thus, a full understanding of a thing’s causes consists in an understanding of the perfections and purposes of that thing.

Thus we can see that there were a number of differences between the ontology of Aristotelian Scholasticism and that of our post-modern materialism. The world was thought to be one great chain of being, consisting of both the mutable things on earth and the immutable things in heaven. There was a hierarchy of souls which governed substantial forms of God, angels, man, animals, plants and stones.

What I find most interesting about Aristotelian Scholasticism is that it largely resembles the worldview of many religionists today, both Western as well as non-Western. It will be interesting to see how well many of the values and ideals which would later come o emerge in the post-Enlightenment West are compatible with or justified by this pre-Enlightenment philosophy.