Scholasticism

Questions from e-mail:

1. The scholastic method was used during the late middle ages to examine philosophical and theological ideas. They chose different texts and would ponder what they meant and compare and contrast their ideas. The scholastic method was based on deductive reasoning while modern thinking and reasoning is mostly inductive.

2. Sententiae were the sentences written down from the different sources or texts they were examaning that contradicted one another. They did this so they can review the points and analyze it to find any logical errors or ambiguous statements. They wanted to reconcile the two to make them both or all true, they did not want to discredit them.


3. The aim of the scholastic method was to bridge the two main ways of thinking at that time, christian theology and Aristotle philosophy, to find common ground. To bring the two together rather than making them contradict one another.

4. I thinks philology is when they analyze the meaning of a word to see if it has multiple meanings and then try to find which meaning the author intended to use. This was important in deciphering what a text meant because the reader could take it to mean something different. This si a little shady though because they could misinterpret a word to mean something the author never intended it to mean.


5. I think the purpose of logical analysis was to show that condradictions actually did not exist between the sources they were analyzing. This is very different from how we use logical analysis these days. Now it's mostly used to discredit an argument and rip each other apart. It just shows that these kinds of methods can easily be misused to be a means to our own end instead of an objective way to discover truth which is what they should be. They are not meant to be used to manipulate one another.

6. Well the site says that Bon believed reason supported the doctrine of creation because "Bonaventure held that the notion of an eternal material order is contradictory." But i don't understand how those two go together. What is the "eternal material order"? I think it might have to do with the material world being eternal. but what does that have to do with reason supporting creationism? I'm confusled.

7. I think Bon believed our relationship with God was that we are God's creation and we are made in his likeness/image. I'm not to sure though.

8. Aquinas on the relationship between faith and reason:
They are both necessary but different. They are two different routes to the same end.

9. I don't know

10. The problem of universals is a problem of whether or not universals exist in reality, outside the mind and within that certain object. Or if they only exist in our minds, perceptions, and interpretations of things. universals are like categories that things fall into based on their features /attributes and comminalities..

11. Realism is the belief that universals do exist and they exst despite our perception of them. there is a form or quality that exists independant of an object but that objects can share.

12. Nominalism is the belief that universals are nothing more than a name and it is a mere coincidence that we named attributes and features the same thing to categorize them.