Peter Abelard (1079–21 April 1142) [‘Abailard’ or‘Abaelard’ or ‘Habalaarz’ and so on] was thepre-eminent philosopher and theologian of the twelfth century. Theteacher of his generation, he was also famous as a poet and amusician. Prior to the recovery of Aristotle, he brought the nativeLatin tradition in philosophy to its highest pitch. His genius wasevident in all he did. He is, arguably, the greatest logician of theMiddle Ages and is equally famous as the first great nominalistphilosopher. He championed the use of reason in matters of faith (hewas the first to use ‘theology’ in its modern sense), andhis systematic treatment of religious doctrines are as remarkable fortheir philosophical penetration and subtlety as they are for theiraudacity. Abelard seemed larger than life to his contemporaries: hisquick wit, sharp tongue, perfect memory, and boundless arrogance madehim unbeatable in debate—he was said by supporter and detractoralike never to have lost an argument—and the force of hispersonality impressed itself vividly on all with whom he came intocontact. His luckless affair with Héloïse made him atragic figure of romance, and his conflict with Bernard of Clairvauxover reason and religion made him the hero of the Enlightenment. Forall his colourful life, though, his philosophical achievements are thecornerstone of his fame.

• 1. Life and Works
  • 1.1 Life
  • 1.2 Works
• 2. Metaphysics
• 3. Logic
• 4. Philosophy of Language
• 5. Philosophy of Mind
• 6. Ethics
• 7. Theology
• Bibliography
  • Primary texts in Latin
  • Primary texts in English translation
  • Selected Secondary Literature in English
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Life and Works

1.1 Life

Abelard’s life is relatively well-known. In addition to eventschronicled in the public record, his inner life is revealed in hisautobiographical letterHistoria calamitatum [“TheStory of My Troubles”] and in his famous correspondence withHéloïse.

Abelard was born into the lesser nobility around 1079 in Le Pallet, asmall town in Brittany near Nantes. He received early training inletters, and took to his studies with enthusiasm; his later writingsshow familiarity with Cicero, Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, Lucan, Seneca,and Vergil. Abelard eventually renounced his inheritance, includingits attendant knighthood, to pursue philosophy. He did so bytravelling to study with well-known philosophers, most notablyRoscelin and William of Champeaux.

During the first years of the twelfth century, Abelard felt confidentenough to set himself up as a lecturer, first at Melun and then atCorbeil, competing mainly with William of Champeaux (Paris) forstudents and reputation. The strain proved toomuch—Abelard’s health failed, and he returned to Brittanyfor several years.

Abelard returned to Paris sometime between 1108 and 1113 with hishealth restored and his ambition intact. He attended William ofChampeaux’s lectures, and entered into debate with William overthe problem of universals. According to Abelard’s report, hebested his teacher in debate, and gained his reputation as adialectician of note, teaching at several schools. Around 1113 Abelarddecided to study theology; he sought out the most eminent teacher oftheology of his day, Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with Anselm ofCanterbury), and became his student. It was not a good choice:Anselm’s traditional methods did not appeal to Abelard, and,after some back-and-forth, Abelard returned to Paris to continue onhis own. It would be the last time he studied with anyone.

Upon returning to Paris, Abelard became scholar-in-residence at NotreDame, a position he held until his romantic entanglement withHéloïse led to his castration, at which point he enteredthe Benedictine monastery of Saint Denis and Héloïseentered the convent of Argenteuil. After his recovery, Abelard resumedteaching at a nearby priory, primarily on theology and in particularon the Trinity. His method of philosophical analysis was seen as adirect challenge to more traditional approaches, and a synod, convenedin Soissons to examine Abelard’s writings, condemned them andrequired Abelard to make a public avowal of faith, an experience hefound humiliating; shortly afterwards he was allowed to settle in awild and uninhabited section of land, to devote himself tocontemplation.

It was not to be. Abelard says that poverty forced him to resumeteaching. He and the students who flocked to him in droves constructedan oratory named the Paraclete, where he continued to write, teach,and research. This idyll came to an end around 1126, when Abelardaccepted an invitation to become abbot of the monastery of SaintGildas de Rhuys in Brittany; shortly afterwards he handed over theParaclete to Héloïse and the other nuns, whose convent hadbeen expropriated. Abelard found the monks of Saint Gildas difficultand obstructive—even dangerous—and he claims that therewere several attempts on his life while in residence. During thisperiod he wrote theHistoria calamitatum and correspondedwith Héloïse.

By the mid-1130s Abelard was given permission to return to Paris(retaining his rank as abbot) and to teach in the schools on the MontSte.-Genevieve. It was during this time that his theological treatiseswere brought to the attention of Bernard of Clairvaux, who objected tosome of Abelard’s conclusions as well as to his approach tomatters of faith. After some inconclusive attempts to resolve theirdifferences, Abelard asked the archbishop of Sens to arrange a publicdispute between himself and Bernard on 3 June 1140, to settle theirdisagreements. Bernard initially refused the invitation on the groundsthat one should not debate matters of faith, but then accepted it and,unknown to Abelard, arranged to convene another commission of enquiryto review Abelard’s works on suspicion of heresy. When Abelarddiscovered that there was no debate but instead a kangaroo court, herefused to take part, announcing his intention to appeal to the Popedirectly. He walked out of the proceedings and began travelling toRome. The Council condemned nineteen propositions it claimed to findin his works and adjourned. Bernard launched a successful campaignpetitioning the Papal Court before Abelard was out of France; a letterfrom the Pope upholding the decision of the Council of Soissonsreached Abelard while he was at Cluny; Abelard was ordered to silence.By all accounts Abelard complied immediately, even meeting peacefullywith Bernard in reconciliation. Peter the Venerable, the abbot ofCluny, wrote to the Pope about these matters, and the Pope liftedAbelard’s sentence. Abelard remained under the protection ofPeter the Venerable first at Cluny, then at St. Marcel, as his healthgradually deteriorated. Abelard died on 21 April 1142. His body wasinterred at the Paraclete, and today is (with Héloïse) inPère Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Abelard’s students were active as kings, philosophers, poets,politicians, theologians, and monks; they include three popes andseveral heads of state. Explicit references to Abelard’sthinking in the later Middle Ages are few, likely because of the cloudcast by the verdict of the Council of Soissons, but it is clear thathe had a seminal influence on twelfth-century philosophy and perhapson later fourteenth-century speculation as well.

1.2 Works

The dates of composition and even the number of Abelard’swritings remain largely obscure and a matter of controversy amongscholars. One reason for this is that Abelard constantly revised andrewrote, so that several distinct versions of a given work might be incirculation; another reason is that several of his writings mightrepresent ‘teaching notes’ constantly evolving in coursesand seminars. Hence it is not clear that ‘date ofcomposition’ is a well-defined notion when applied to the bodyof Abelard’s work that we now possess. Apart fromAbelard’s correspondence, which can be dated with relativeprecision, Abelard’s extant work falls into threecategories.

The first category consists of Abelard’s works ondialectic—works concerned with logic, philosophy oflanguage, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. His two masterworksare:

• Logica ‘ingredientibus’,“Logic” (starting with the words ‘To thosebeginning…’).
• Dialectica, “Dialectic.”

Both of these works follow the pattern of thelogica vetus,the “old logic” inherited from antiquity: Porphyry’sintroduction to Aristotle, theIsagoge; Aristotle’sCategories andOn Interpretation; Boethius’sIntroduction to the Categorical Syllogism,CategoricalSyllogisms,Hypothetical Syllogisms,On TopicalDifference, andOn Division. Abelard’s works coverthe material presented in the old logic, though they do so indifferent ways. HisLogica‘ingredientibus’ is a close textual commentary onthe old logic, though only some of it survives, namely thecommentaries on theIsagoge, theCategories,OnInterpretation, andOn Topical Differences; hisDialectica is an independent treatise on dialectic thattreats the same material thematically, though neither the beginning(covering theIsagoge and the start of theCategories) nor the ending (on division and definition) havebeen preserved. In addition, there are four lesser works ondialectic:

• Introductiones parvulorum, “IntroductoryLogic.”
• Logica ‘nostrorum petitionisociorum’, “Logic” (starting with the words‘At the request of our friends…’).
• Tractatus de intellectibus, “A Treatise onUnderstandings.”
• Sententiae secundum Magistrum Petrum, “MasterPeter’s Views.”

The first of these is a series of elementary commentaries on the oldlogic (though again not completely preserved); their simple level hasled some scholars to think they must come from early inAbelard’s career, others to deny that they are Abelard’swork at all. Second, theLogica ‘nostrorumpetitioni sociorum’ is something of a work-in-progress: itassumes knowledge of Abelard’s earlierLogica‘ingredientibus’ and discusses advanced pointsnot dealt with there, but for long stretches it is also astraightforward paraphrase of or commentary on Porphyry’sIsagoge; it has textual parallels with some ofAbelard’s other works and shows some knowledge of theology. Thethird work deals with concepts, or ‘understandings’, fromboth the point of view of logic (roughly as providing the meanings ofterms) and from the point of view of the philosophy of mind (asvehicles for mental content). The last work may be no more than areport of some of Abelard’s lectures, and is concerned withlogical and metaphysical puzzles about wholes and parts.

The second category consists of Abelard’s works on ethics:

• Ethica seu Scito teipsum, “Ethics, or, KnowYourself.”
• Collationes, “Conversations” a.k.a.Dialogus inter Philosophum, Iudaeum, et Christianum,“The Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew and aChristian”.

TheEthics offers an analysis of moral worth and the degreeof praise or blame that should attach to agents and their actions; itbreaks off at the beginning of the second book. TheConversations is a pair of debates (among characters whoappear to Abelard in a dream) over the nature of happiness and thesupreme good: the Philosopher, who claims to follow only naturalreason, first debates with the Jew, who follows the Old Law; thePhilosopher then debates the Christian, who defends Christian ethicsfrom a philosophical point of view. Abelard also wrote a slight workof practical advice for his son:

• Carmen ad Astralabium, “Poem forAstralabe.”

Moral advice and edifying sentiments are found in this series ofdistichs.

The third category consists of Abelard’s works of philosophicaltheology. His three main works are devoted to a philosophical analysisof the Trinity, the several versions representing successive stages ofhis thought and his attempts at orthodoxy (each rewritten severaltimes):

• Theologia ‘summi boni’.“Theology” (that begins with the words ‘The highestgood…’).
• Theologia christiana, “ChristianTheology.”
• Theologia ‘scholarium’,“Theology” (that begins with the words ‘In theschools…’).

The first version of theTheology seems to have been the workcondemned at the Council of Soisssons, the last the work condemned atthe Council of Sens. In addition to these three works, in whichproblems in philosophical theology are treated thematically, Abelardalso wrote several commentaries:

• Expositio orationis dominicae, “Analysis of theLord’s Prayer.”
• Expositio symboli Apostolorum, “Analysis of theApostle’s Creed.”
• Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii, “Analysis ofFaith in the Athanasian Creed.”
• Hexaëmeron, “Commentary onGenesis1–2:25.”
• Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos,“Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to theRomans.”

The first three commentaries are brief, but Abelard’sdiscussions of the first verses ofGenesis and ofPaul’s letter are extensive and detailed (the latter alsorelevant to Abelard’s ethical theory). Abelard also took upquestions about faith and reason in a short work:

• Soliloquium, “Soliloquy.”

This brief inner dialogue, modelled on Augustine’sSoliloquies, has “Peter” talking things over with“Abelard.” Theological questions of a more practicalnature were raised by Héloïse in a series of questions sheasked on her behalf and on behalf of the nuns of the Paraclete:

• Problemata Heloïssae cum Petri Abaelardisolutionibus, “Héloïse’s Problem-List(with Abelard’s Solutions).”

Practical issues are also addressed in Abelard’s sermons, hymns,and lamentations (planctus). Finally, Abelard composed anextremely influential theological work that contains no theoreticalspeculation at all:

• Sic et non, “For and Against.”

Abelard assembles a series of 158 questions, each of which isfurnished with patristic citations that imply a positive answer(sic) to the question and other patristic citations implyinga negative answer (non). Abelard does not attempt toharmonize these apparently inconsistent remarks, but in his preface helays down rules for proper hermeneutic investigation: look forambiguity, check the surrounding context, draw relevant distinctions,and the like.

Abelard’s students and disciples also record many of his views,though this material has yet to be explored carefully. There arereferences in Abelard’s extant works to other works we do nothave:Grammatica, “Grammar”;Rhetorica,“Rhetoric”; a commentary onEzekiel written atthe beginning of his studies in theology; and others. It is possiblesome of these works may yet be found.

2. Metaphysics

Abelard’s metaphysics is the first great example of nominalismin the Western tradition. While his view that universals are merewords (nomina) justifies the label, nominalism—or,better, irrealism—is the hallmark of Abelard’s entiremetaphysics. He is an irrealist not only about universals, but alsoabout propositions, events, times other than the present, naturalkinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, andthe like. Instead, Abelard holds that the concrete individual, in allits richness and variety, is more than enough to populate the world.Abelard preferred reductive, atomist, and material explanationswhenever possible; he devoted a great deal of effort to pouring coldwater on the metaphysical excesses of his predecessors andcontemporaries.

Abelard defends his thesis that universals are nothing but words byarguing that ontological realism about universals is incoherent. Moreexactly, he holds that there cannot be any real object in the worldsatisfying Boethius’s criteria for the universal, namelysomething present as a whole in many at once so as to constitute theirsubstance (i.e. to make the individual in which it is present what itis). Hence, Abelard concludes, universality is not an ontologicalfeature of the world but a semantic feature of language.

Suppose universals were things in the world, so that one and the sameitem is completely present in both Socrates and an ass at the sametime, making each to be wholly an animal. Abelard points out that thenthe same thing,animal, will be simultaneously rational (dueto its role in constituting the specieshuman being) andirrational (due to its role in constituting the speciesass).But then contraries are simultaneously present in the same thing as awhole, which is impossible.

To the rejoinder that rationality and irrationality are not actuallypresent in the same thing, Abelard offers a twofold reply. First, herejects the claim that they are present only potentially. Each speciesis actually informed by a contrary, and the genus is actually presentin each as a whole; hence it is actually informed by one contrary inone species and by the other in the other; since it is wholly one andthe same in each, it is therefore actually informed by contraries, andthe contradiction results. Second, Abelard undertakes to establishthat contraries will be present not merely in the genus but even inthe selfsame individual. For Socrates is (an) animal, and so isBrunellus the Ass; but by transitivity—since each is wholly andcompletelyanimal—Socrates is Brunellus, and hence bothrational and irrational. Put a different way, each is essentially ananimal, and furthermore essentially rational and essentiallyirrational.

If we object to this last piece of reasoning, on the grounds thatindividuals are unique in virtue of their non-essential features,Abelard replies that this view “makes accidents prior tosubstance.” That is, the objection claims that individual thingsare individual in virtue of features that contingently characterizethem, which confuses things with their features.

Prospects are no better for realism if the universal is identified notwith a single thing but with a collection of things. Abelard pointsout that collections are posterior to their parts, and, furthermore,the collection is not shared among its parts in the way a universal issaid to be common to many. Nor does it help to try to identify theuniversal with the individual in some fashion, for example in claimingthat Socratesqua human is taken as the universalhumanbeing; Abelard argues that if the universal really is theindividual, then we are stuck with the consequence that eitherindividuals such as Socrates are common to many, or there are as manyuniversals as there are individuals, each of which is absurd.

Abelard concludes that universality is merely linguistic, not afeature of the world. More precisely, Abelard holds that common nouns(such as ‘animal’), verbs, and negative names (such as‘not-Socrates’) are correctly predicable of many, and socount as universals. These terms are semantically general, in thattheir sense applies to more than one thing, but they do not therebyname some general thing; instead, they distributively refer to each ofthe individuals to which the term applies. For example, the term‘animal’ has the senseliving substance, which isinherently general, and it refers to each individual animal since eachis a living substance—as Abelard puts it, since each has thestatus of being a living substance. But this is to leave the domain ofmetaphysics for semantics; see the discussion of Abelard‘sphilosophy of language inSection 4.

Abelard maintains that everything in the world apart from God andangels is either form, matter, or a composite of form and matter. Thematter of something is that out of which it is made, whether itpersists in the finished product (as bricks in a house) or is absorbedinto it (as flour in bread). Ultimately, all material objects arecomposed of the four elements earth, air, fire, and water, but they donot retain their elemental forms in most combinations. In general, theform of a material object just is the configuration of its materialparts: “We call the form strictly what comes from thecomposition of the parts.” The form of a statue, for example, isits shape, which is no more than the arrangement of itsmatter—the curve of the nose, the size of the eyes, and so on.Forms are thereforesupervenient on matter, and have noontological standing independent of it. This is not to deny that formsexist, but to provide a particular explanation of what it is for aform to inhere in a given subject, namely for that subject to have itsmatter configured in a certain way. For example, the inherence ofshape in the statue just is the way in which its bronze is arranged.Hence material things are identical with what they are madeof—with one exception: human beings, whose forms are theirimmaterial (and immortal) souls. Strictly speaking, since human soulsare capable of existence in separation form the body, they are notforms after all, though they act as substantial forms as long as theyare joined to the body.

Material composites of form and matter, humans excepted, are integralwholes made up of their discrete material parts as configured in agiven way. Abelard countenances many types of integral wholes:collections, no matter how their members are selected; structuredcomposites, whether naturally unified (such as Socrates and his limbs)or artificially unified (such as the walls, floor, and roof of ahouse); continuous quantities that are homogeneous material‘substances,’ namely stuffs, such as water or gold;geometrical objects, such as lines, defined by the relative positionof their parts; temporal wholes, such as a day and the hours that makeit up. Most of these wholes are ontologically nothing beyond theirmaterial parts. Whether structured composites have any independentontological standing depends on the status of their organizingforms.

Abelard’s theory of substantial integral wholes is not a puremereology in the modern sense, since he holds that there areprivileged divisions: just as a genus is properly divided into notjust any species but its proximate species, so too the division of awhole must be into its principal parts. Intuitively, some wholes havea natural division that takes precedence over others; a sentence, forexample, is divided into words, syllables, and letters, in preciselythat order. According to Abelard, the principal parts of a whole arethose whose conjunction immediately results in the complete whole. Hisintent seems to be that the nature of the composition (if any) thatdefines the integral whole also spells out its principal parts. Ahouse consists of floor, walls, and roof put together in the rightway. It is an open question whether each principal part (such as thewall) requires the existence of all of its subparts (every brick). Theprincipal parts of a collection, for example, are just each of themembers of the collection, whatever may be the case with any givenmember’s subparts; the principal parts of an aggregation are themembers located in proximity to one another.

Individuals have natures, and in virtue of their natures they belongto determinate natural kinds. But an individual’s nature is notsomething really shared with or common to other individuals;Abelard’s refutation of realism has shown that this isimpossible. Instead, Abelard takes a natural kind to be a well-definedcollection of things that have the same features, broadly speaking,that make them what they are. Why a given thing has some featuresrather than others is explained by how it got that way—thenatural processes that created it result in its having the features itdoes, namely being the kind of thing it is; similar processes lead tosimilar results. On this reading, it is clear that natural kinds haveno special status; they are no more than discrete integral wholeswhose principle of membership is similarity, merely reflecting thefact that the world is divided into discrete similarity-classes ofobjects. Furthermore, such real relations of similarity are nothingthemselves above and beyond the things that are similar. The divisioninto natural kinds is, presumably, a ‘shallow fact’ aboutthe world: matters could have been otherwise had God ordained themdifferently; fire might be cold, heavy bodies fall upwards, frogsreason. If these causal powers were different, then natural kindsmight be different as well, or might not have been as sharplydifferentiated as they are now. Given how matters stand, natural kindscarve the world at its joints, but they are the joints chosen byGod.

3. Logic

Abelard was the greatest logician since Antiquity: he devised a purelytruth-functional propositional logic, recognizing the distinctionbetweenforce andcontent we associate with Frege,and worked out a complete theory of entailment as it functions inargument (which we now take as the theory of logical consequence). Hislogical system is flawed in its handling of topical inference, butthat should not prevent our recognition of Abelard’sachievements.

Abelard observes that the same propositional content can be expressedwith different force in different contexts: the contentthatSocrates is in the house is expressed in an assertion in‘Socrates is in the house’; in a question in ‘IsSocrates in the house?’; in a wish in ‘If only Socrateswere in the house!’ and so on. Hence Abelard can distinguish inparticular the assertive force of a sentence from its propositionalcontent, a distinction that allows him to point out that the componentsentences in a conditional statement are not asserted, though theyhave the same content they do when asserted—‘If Socratesis in the kitchen, then Socrates is in the house’ does notassert that Socrates is in the kitchen or that he is in the house, nordo the antecedent or the consequent, although the same form of wordscould be used outside the scope of the conditional to make suchassertions. Likewise, the distinction allows Abelard to definenegation, and other propositional connectives, purelytruth-functionally in terms of content, so that negation, forinstance, is treated as follows: not-p is false/true if andonly ifp is true/false.

The key to the theory of argument, for Abelard, is found ininferentia, best rendered as ‘entailment’, sinceAbelard requires the connection between the propositions involved tobe both necessary and relevant. That is, the conclusion—moreexactly, the sense of the final statement—is required by thesense of the preceding statement(s), so that it cannot be otherwise.Abelard often speaks of the sense of the final statement being“contained” in the sense of the preceding statement(s),much as we speak of the conclusion being contained in the premisses.An entailment is complete (perfecta) when it holds in virtueof the logical form (complexio) of the propositions involved.By this, Abelard tells us, he means that the entailment holds underany uniform substitution in its terms, the criterion now associatedwith Bolzano. The traditional four figures and moods of thecategorical syllogism derived from Aristotle, and the doctrine of thehypothetical syllogism derived from Boethius, are all instances ofcomplete entailments, or as we should say, valid inference.

There is another way in which conclusions can be necessary andrelevant to their premisses, yetnot be formally valid (notbe a complete entailment). The necessary connection among thepropositions, and the link among their senses, might be a function ofnon-formal metaphysical truths holding in all possible worlds. Forinstance, human beings are a kind of animal, so the consequence‘If Socrates is a human being, Socrates is an animal’holds of necessity and the sense of the antecedent compels that of theconsequent, but it is not formally valid under uniform substitution.Abelard takes such incomplete entailments to hold according to thetheory of the topics (to be forms of so-called topical inference). Thesample inference above is validated by the topic “from thespecies”, a set of metaphysical relations one of which isexpressible in the rule “Whatever the species is predicated of,so too is the genus” which grounds the inferential force of theentailment. Against Boethius, Abelard maintained that topical ruleswere only needed for incomplete entailment, and in particular are notrequired to validate the classical moods of the categorical andhypothetical syllogism mentioned in the preceding paragraph.

Abelard spends a great deal of effort to explore the complexities ofthe theory of topical inference, especially charting the preciserelations among conditional sentences, arguments, and what he calls“argumentation” (roughly what follows from concededpremisses). One of the surprising results of his investigation is thathe denies that a correlate of the Deduction Theorem holds, maintainingthat a valid argument need not correspond to an acceptable conditionalsentence, nor conversely, since the requirements on arguments andconditionals differ.

In the end, it seems that Abelard’s principles of topicalinference do not work, a fact that became evident with regard to thetopic “from opposites”: Abelard’s principles lead toinconsistent results, a result noted by Alberic of Paris. This led toa crisis in the theory of inference in the twelfth century, sinceAbelard unsuccessfully tried to evade the difficulty. These debatesseem to have taken place in the later part of the 1130s, as Abelardwas about to become embroiled with Bernard of Clairvaux, and hisattention was elsewhere.

4. Philosophy of Language

Much of Abelard’s philosophy of language is devoted to analyzinghow a given expression or class of expressions function logically:what words are quantifiers, which imply negation, and the like, sothat the logic described above may be applied. To do so, he relies onthe traditional division, derived from Aristotle, that sees the mainlinguistic categories asname,verb, and theircombination into thesentence.

Abelard takes names to be conventionally significant simple words,usually without tense. So understood there are a wide variety ofnames: proper and common names; adjectives and adverbs; pronouns,whether personal, possessive, reflexive, or relative; conventionalinterjections such as ‘Goodness!’; and, arguably,conjunctions and prepositions (despite lacking definitesignification), along with participles and gerundives (which havetense). Abelard usually, though not always, treats compound names suchas ‘street-sweeper’ reductively. Even so his list is notgeneral enough to catalogue all referring expressions. In point offact, much of Abelard’s discussion of the semantics of namesturns on a particular case that stands for the rest: common names.These are at the heart of the problem of universals, and they poseparticular difficulties for semantics.

When Abelard puts forward his claim that universality is only alinguistic phenomenon, so that universals are “nothing more thanwords,” he raises the objection that unless common names are thenames of common items, they will be meaningless, and so his view is nobetter than that of his teacher Roscelin (who held that universalswere mere mouth noises). In reply Abelard clearly draws a distinctionbetween two semantic properties names possess: reference(nominatio), a matter of what the term applies to; and sense(significatio), a matter of what hearing the term brings tomind, or more exactly the informational content (doctrina) ofthe concept the word is meant to give rise to, a causal notion. A fewremarks about each are in order.

Names, both proper and common, refer to things individually orseverally. A name is linked with that of which it is the name asthough there were someone who devised the name to label a given thingor kind of thing, a process known as “imposition”(modelled on Adam’s naming the animals in Genesis 2:19), ratherlike baptism. This rational reconstruction of reference does notrequire the person imposing the name, the “impositor”, tohave anything more than an indefinite intention to pick out the thingor kind of thing, whatever its nature may be:

The inventor [of names] intended to impose them according to somenatures or distinctive properties of things, even if he himself didnot know how to think correctly upon the nature or distinctiveproperty of a thing.

A name “has a definition in the nature of its imposition, evenif we do not know what it is.” Put in modern terms, Abelardholds a theory ofdirect reference, in which the extension ofa term is not a function of its sense. We are often completelyignorant of the proper conceptual content that should be associatedwith a term that has been successfully imposed.

A proper name—the name of a primary substance—signifies aconcrete individual (hoc aliquid), picking out its bearer aspersonally distinct from all else. Therefore, proper names aresemantically singular referring expressions, closely allied toindexicals, demonstratives, and singular descriptions (or descriptiveterms). Common names, by contrast, are semantically allied withexpressions that have what Abelard calls “pluralsignification”. On the one hand, common names are like pluralnouns; the common name ‘man’ is grammatically singular butoperates like the plural term ‘men’—each refers toevery man, although the plural term signifies individuals as part of acollection, whereas the common name distributively refers to eachindividual. On the other hand, common names are like terms such as‘trio’ or ‘pair’ in that they pick out adeterminate plurality of individuals, but only on an occasion of use,since their extension is variable.

Thus a common name distributively refers to concrete individuals,though not to themqua individuals. Instead, it severallypicks out those individuals having a given nature: ‘humanbeing’ refers to Socrates and to Plato, in virtue of each ofthem being human. This is not a shared feature of any sort; Socratesjust is what he is, namely human, and likewise Plato is what he is,namely human too. Abelard states his deflationary position clearly inhisLogica ‘ingredientibus’:

Now it seems we should stay away from accepting the agreement amongthings according to what is not any thing—it’s as thoughwe were to unite in nothing things that now exist!—namely, whenwe say that this [human] and that one agree in the human status, thatis to say: in that they are human. But we mean precisely that they arehuman and don’t differ in this regard—let me repeat: [theydon’t differ] in that they are human, although we’re notappealing to anything [in this explanation].

Socrates and Plato are real; their agreement is real, too, but itisn’t to be explained by appealing to any thing—theiragreement just is their each being human. From a metaphysical point ofview they have the same standing as human beings; this does notinvolve any metaphysically common shared ingredient, or indeed appealto any ingredient at all. That is the sense in which there is a“common reason” for the imposition of a common name.

For all that signification is posterior to reference, names do havesignification as well. Abelard holds that the signification of a termis the informational content of the concept that is associated withthe term upon hearing it, in the normal course of events. Since namesare only conventionally significant, which concept is associated witha given name depends in part on the psychological conditioning oflanguage-users, in virtue of which Abelard can treat signification asboth a causal and a normative notion: the word ‘rabbit’ought to cause native speakers of English to have the concept of arabbit upon hearing it. Abelard is careful to insist that thesignification is a matter of the informational content carried in theconcept—mere psychological associations, even the mental imagescharacteristic of a given concept, are not part of what the wordmeans. Ideally, the concept will correspond to a realdefinition that latches onto the nature of the thing, the way‘rational mortal animal’ is thought to be the realdefinition of ‘human being’, regardless of otherassociated features (even necessary features such as risibility) orfortuitous images (as any mental image of a human will be of someonewith determinate features). Achieving such clarity in our concepts is,of course, an arduous business, and requires an understanding of howunderstanding itself works (see the discussion of Abelard’sphilosophy of mind inSection 5). Yet one point should be clear from the example. The significations ofsome names, such as those corresponding to natural-kind terms, areabstractions in the sense that they include only certain features ofthe things to which the term refers. They do not positively excludeall other features, though, and are capable of further determinatespecification: ‘rational mortal animal’ as the content ofthe concept of ‘human being’ signifies all humans,whatever their further features may be—tall or short, fat orthin, male or female, and so on.

What holds for the semantics of names applies for the most part toverbs. The feature that sets verbs apart from names, more so thantense or grammatical person, is that verbs have connective force(vis copulativa). This is a primitive and irreducible featureof verbs that can only be discharged when they are joined with namesin the syntactically appropriate way, reminiscent of the‘unsaturatedness’ of concepts in Frege. Sentences are madeup of names and verbs in such a way that the meaning of the wholesentence is a function of the meaning of its parts. That is,Abelardian semantics is fundamentally compositional in nature. Thedetails of how the composition works are complex. Abelard worksdirectly with a natural language (Latin) that, for all itsartificiality, is still a native second tongue. Hence there are manylinguistic phenomena Abelard is compelled to analyze that would besimply disallowed in a more formal framework.

For example, Abelard notes that most verbs can occur as predicates intwo ways, namely as a finite verbal form or as a nominal form combinedwith an auxiliary copula, so that we may say either ‘Socratesruns’ or ‘Socrates is running’; the same holds fortransitive predication, for instance ‘Socrates hits Plato’and ‘Socrates is hitting Plato.’ Abelard argues that ingeneral the pure verbal version of predication is the fundamentalform, which explains and clarifies the extended version; the latter isonly strictly necessary where simple verbal forms are lacking. (Thesubstantive verb ‘is’ requires special treatment.) Hencefor Abelard the basic analysis of a predicative statement recognizesthat two fundamentally different linguistic categories are joinedtogether: the namen and the simple verbal functionV( ), combined in the well-formed sentenceV(n).

Abelard argues that sentences (propositiones) must signifymore than just the understandings of the constituent name and verb.First, a sentence such as ‘Socrates runs’ deals withSocrates and with running, not with anyone’s understandings. Wetalk about the world, not merely someone’s understanding of theworld. Second, sentences like ‘If something is human, it is ananimal’ are false if taken to be about understandings, forsomeone could entertain the concepthuman withoutentertaining the conceptanimal, and so the antecedent wouldobtain without the consequent. Third, understandings are evanescentparticulars, mere mental tokenings of concepts. But at least someconsequential sentences are necessary, and necessity can’t begrounded on things that are transitory, and so not on understandings.Sentences must therefore signify something else in addition tounderstandings, something that can do what mere understandings cannot.Abelard describes this as signifying what the sentence says, callingwhat is said by the sentence itsdictum (pluraldicta).

To the modern philosophical ear, Abelard’sdicta mightsound like propositions, abstract entities that are the timelessbearers of truth and falsity. But Abelard will have nothing to do withany such entities. He declares repeatedly and emphatically thatdespite being more than and different from the sentences that expressthem,dicta have no ontological standing whatsoever. In theshort space of a single paragraph he says that they are “no realthings at all” and twice calls them “absolutelynothing.” They underwrite sentences, but they aren’t realthings. For although a sentence says something, there is not something that it says. The semantic job of sentences is tosaysomething, which is not to be confused with naming or denoting something. It is instead a matter of proposing how things are, providedthis is not given a realist reading. Likewise, the truth of truesentences is not a property inhering in some timeless entity, but nomore than the assertion of what the sentence says—that is,Abelard adopts a deflationary account of truth. A sentence is true ifthings stand in the way it says, and things make sentences true orfalse in virtue of the way they are (as well as in virtue of what thesentences say), and nothing further is required. The sentence‘Socrates runs’ is true because Socrates runs, which isall that can be said or needs to be said.

5. Philosophy of Mind

Aristotelian philosophy of mind offers two analyses of intentionality:the conformality theory holds that we think of an object by having itsvery form in the mind, the resemblance theory that we do so by havinga mental image in the mind that naturally resembles the object.Abelard rejects each of these theories and proposes instead anadverbial theory of thought, showing that neither mental images normental contents need be countenanced as ontologically independent ofthe mind. He gives a contextual explication of intentionality thatrelies on a linguistic account of mental representation, adopting aprinciple of compositionality for understandings.

The first Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be themind’s acquisition of the form of the object that is understood,without its matter. For an understanding to be about something—say, a cat—is for the form of the cat to be in themind or intellective soul. The inherence of the form in matter makesthe matter to be a thing of a certain kind, so that the inherence ofthe formcat in matter produces an actual cat, whereas the(immaterial) inherence of the formcat in the mind transformsthe mind into an understanding of a cat: the mind becomes (formally)identical with its object. Since the ‘aboutness’ ofunderstanding is analyzed as the commonness or identity of form in theunderstanding and the thing understood, we may call this approach theconformality theory of understanding. This theory capturesthe intuition that understanding somehow inherits or includesproperties of what is understood, by reducing the intentionality ofunderstanding to the objective identity of the form in the mind andthe form in the world.

The second Aristotelian analysis takes understanding to be themind’s possession of a concept that is a natural likeness of, ornaturally similar to, that of which it is a concept. For anunderstanding to be about some thing, such as a cat, is for there tobe an occurrent concept in the mind that is a natural likeness of acat. The motivation for calling the likeness “natural” isto guarantee that the resemblance between the understanding and whatis understood is objective, and that all persons have access to thesame stock of concepts. (The conformality theory does this bypostulating the objective existence of forms in things and by anidentical process in all persons of assimilating or acquiring forms.)We may call this approach theresemblance theory ofunderstanding: mental acts are classified according to the distinctdegree and kind of resemblance they have to the things that areunderstood.

The resemblance theory faces well-known problems in spelling out thecontent of resemblance or likeness. For example, a concept is clearlyimmaterial, and as such radically differs from any material object.Furthermore, there seems to be no formal characteristic of a mentalact in virtue of which it can non-trivially be said to resembleanything else. To get around these difficulties, mediaevalphilosophers, like the British Empiricists centuries later, appealedto a particular kind of resemblance, namely pictorial resemblance. Aportrait of Socrates is about Socrates in virtue of visuallyresembling Socrates in the right ways. And just as there are pictorialimages that are about their subjects, so too are there mental imagesthat are about things. These mental images, whether they are conceptsor are contained in concepts, explain the way in which a concept is‘about’ an object. For an understanding to be about a catis for it to be or contain a mental image of a cat. The phenomenon ofmental ‘aboutness’ is explicated by the more familiar caseof pictorial aboutness, itself reduced to a real relation ofresemblance.

Despite their common Aristotelian heritage, the conformality theoryand the resemblance theory are not equivalent. The transformation ofthe mind through the inherence of a form is not necessarily the sameas the mind’s possession of a concept. Equally, natural likenessor resemblance need not be understood as identity of form; formalidentity need not entail genuine resemblance, due to the differentsubjects in which the form is embodied.

The standard way to reconcile the conformality theory and theresemblance theory is to take the mind’s possession of a conceptto be its ability to transform itself through the inherence of a form,construing formal identity as natural likeness, where having a form inthe mind that is identical to the form of the object understood justis to have a mental image of that very object.

Abelard argues against conformality as follows. Consider a tower,which is a material object with a certain length, depth, and height;assume that these features compose its form, much as the shape of astatue is its form. According to Aristotelian metaphysics, theinherence of a form in a subject makes the subject into somethingcharacterized by that form, as for instance whiteness inhering inSocrates makes him something white. The forms of the tower likewisemake that in which they inhere to be tall, wide, massive—allphysical properties. If these forms inhere in the mind, then, theyshould make the mind tall, wide, and massive, an absurd conclusion:the mind “cannot extend itself in length or width.” Yet itis a cardinal thesis of the conformality theory that the mind has theidentical form that is possessed by the external object, the tower,although the form of (say) length is by its very nature physical.Thus, Abelard concludes, conformality is incoherent.

Abelard’s main objection to the resemblance theory is thatmental imagesqua images, like any sign, are inert: theyrequire interpretation. A sign is just an object. It may be taken in asignificative role, though it need not be. Abelard notes that thisdistinction holds equally for non-mental signs: we can treat a statueas a lump of bronze or as a likeness. Mental images are likewiseinert. For a sign to function significatively, then, something more isrequired beyond its mere presence or existence. But the resemblancetheory doesn’t recognize the need to interpret the mental imageas an image, and thereby mistakenly identifies understanding with themere presence of a mental image in the mind. Abelard concludes thatmental images have only an instrumental role in thought, describingthem as “intermediary signs of things” (intersignarerum). Intentionality derives instead from the act of attention(attentio) directed upon the mental image. Proof is found inthe fact that that we can “vary the understanding” simplyby attending to different features of the mental image: the selfsameimage—say, a fig tree—can be used to think about this veryfig tree, or trees in general, or plant life, or my lost love withwhom I sat under it, or anything whatsoever. There is no intrinsicfeature of the mental image in virtue of which it is about any giventhing; if there were, Abelard notes, we could determine by inspectionwhat a sign is about—but we can’t. Mental images,therefore, can’t explain the intentionality of understanding,because their role is merely instrumental. We think with them, andcannot avoid them; but they do not explain intentionality.

Abelard draws the conclusion that intentionality is a primitive andirreducible feature of the mind, our acts of attending to things.Different acts of attention are intrinsically different from oneanother; they are about what they are about in virtue of being thekind of attention they are. Hence Abelard adopts what is nowadayscalled anadverbial theory of thought.

Given that intentionality is primitive, Abelard adopts a contextualapproach to mental content: he embeds these irreducible acts ofattention in a structure whose articulation helps define the characterof its constituent elements. The structure Abelard offers islinguistic, a logic of mental acts: just as words can be said toexpress thoughts, so too we can use the articulated logic of languageto give a theory of understanding. In short, Abelard gives somethingvery like a linguistic account of mental representation orintentionality. To this end he embraces a principle ofcompositionality, holding that what an understanding is about is afunction of what its constituent understandings are about. The unityof the understanding of a complex is a function of its logicalsimplicity, which is characterized by the presence of what Abelardcalls “a single dominant conjunction” (the logicaloperator of greatest scope). Hence the understanding of a complex maybe treated as a complex of distinct understandings, aggregated in thesame thought, with its (logical) structure flowing from the‘dominant conjunction’ over the other logical operationsgoverning its constituent understandings. Abelard’s acts ofattention thus display the logical structure of the understanding theyexpress, and thereby give the semantics of written or spoken language.Much of Abelard’s writings on logic and dialectic are given overto working out the details as a scheme for explicating mentalcontent.

6. Ethics

Abelard takes the rational core of traditional Christian morality tobe radicallyintentionalist, based on the followingprinciple: the agent’s intention alone determines the moralworth of an action. His main argument against the moral relevance ofconsequences turns on what contemporary philosophers often refer to asmoral luck. Suppose two men each have the money and the intention toestablish shelters for the poor, but one is robbed before he can actwhereas the second is able to carry out his intention. According toAbelard, to think that there is a moral difference between them is tohold that “the richer men were the better they could become… this is the height of insanity!” Deed-centred moralityloses any kind of purchase on what might have been the case. Likewise,it cannot offer any ground for taking the epistemic status of theagent into account, although most people would admit that ignorancecan morally exculpate an agent. Abelard makes the point with thefollowing example: imagine the case of fraternal twins, brother andsister, who are separated at birth and each kept in complete ignoranceof even the existence of the other; as adults they meet, fall in love,are legally married and have sexual intercourse. Technically this isincest, but Abelard finds no fault in either to lay blame.

Abelard concludes that in themselves deeds are morally indifferent.The proper subject of moral evaluation is the agent, via his or herintentions. It might be objected that the performance ornonperformance of the deed could affect the agent’s feelings,which in turn may affect his or her intentions, so that deeds therebyhave moral relevance (at least indirectly). Abelard denies it:

For example, if someone forces a monk to lie bound in chains betweentwo women, and by the softness of the bed and the touch of the womenbeside him he is brought to pleasure (but not to consent), who maypresume to call this pleasure, which nature makes necessary, a fault?

We are so constructed that the feeling of pleasure is inevitable incertain situations: sexual intercourse, eating delicious food, and thelike. If sexual pleasure in marriage is not sinful, then the pleasureitself, inside or outside of marriage, is not sinful; if it is sinful,then marriage cannot sanctify it—and if the conclusion weredrawn that such acts should be performed wholly without pleasure, thenAbelard declares they cannot be done at all, and it was unreasonable(of God) to permit them only in a way in which they cannot beperformed.

On the positive side, Abelard argues that unless intentions are thekey ingredient in assessing moral value it is hard to see whycoercion, in which one is forced to do something against his or herwill, should exculpate the agent; likewise for ignorance—thoughAbelard points out that the important moral notion is not simplyignorance but strictly speaking negligence. Abelard takes an extremecase to make his point. He argues that the crucifiers of Christ werenot evil in crucifying Jesus. (This example, and others like it, gotAbelard into trouble with the authorities, and it isn’t hard tosee why.) Their ignorance of Christ’s divine nature didn’tby itself make them evil; neither did their acting on their (false andmistaken) beliefs, in crucifying Christ. Their non-negligent ignoranceremoves blame from their actions. Indeed, Abelard argues that theywould have sinned had they thought crucifying Christ was required anddidnot crucify Christ: regardless of the facts of the case,failing to abide by one’s conscience in moral action renders theagent blameworthy.

There are two obvious objections to Abelard’s intentionalism.First, how is it possible to commit evil voluntarily? Second, sinceintentions are not accessible to anyone other than the agent,doesn’t Abelard’s view entail that it is impossible tomake ethical judgements?

With regard to the first objection, Abelard has a twofold answer.First, it is clear that we often want to perform the deed and at thesame time do not want to suffer the punishment. A man wants to havesexual intercourse with a woman, but not to commit adultery; he wouldprefer it if she were unmarried. Second, it is clear that we sometimes“want what we by no means want to want”: our bodies reactwith pleasure and desire independently of our wills. If we act on suchdesires, then our action is done “of” will, as Abelardcalls it, though not voluntarily. There is nothing evil in desire:there is only evil in acting on desire, and this is compatible withhaving contrary desires.

With regard to the second objection, Abelard grants that other humanscannot know the agent’s intentions—God, of course, doeshave access to internal mental states, and so there can be a FinalJudgement. However, Abelard does not take ethical judgement to pose aproblem. God is the only one with a right to pass judgement. Yet thisfact doesn’t prevent us from enforcing canons of human justice,because, Abelard holds, human justice has primarily an exemplary anddeterrent function. In fact, Abelard argues, it can even be just topunish an agent we strongly believe had no evil intention. He citestwo cases. First, a woman accidentally smothers her baby while tryingto keep it warm at night, and is overcome with grief. Abelardmaintains that we should punish her for the beneficial example herpunishment may have on others: it may make other poor mothers morecareful not to accidentally smother their babies while trying to keepthem warm. Second, a judge may have excellent (but legallyimpermissible) evidence that a witness is perjuring himself; since hecannot show that the witness is lying, the judge is forced to rule onthe basis of the witness’s testimony that the accused, whom hebelieves to be innocent, is guilty. Human justice may with proprietyignore questions of intention. Since there is divine justice, ethicalnotions are not an idle wheel—nor should they be, even onAbelard’s understanding of human justice, since they are themeans by which we determine which intentions to promote or discouragewhen we punish people as examples or in order to deter others.

There is a sense, then, in which the only certifiable sin is actingagainst one’s conscience, unless one is morally negligent. Yetif we cannot look to the intrinsic value of the deeds or theirconsequences, how do we determine which acts are permissible orobligatory? Unless conscience has a reliable guide, Abelard’sposition seems to open the floodgates to well-meaningsubjectivism.

Abelard solves the problem by taking obedience to God’swill—the hallmark of morally correct behaviour, and itself aninstance of natural law—to be a matter of the agent’sintention conforming to a purely formal criterion, namely the GoldenRule (“Do to others as you would be done to”). Thiscriterion can be discovered by reason alone, without any specialrevelation or religious belief, and is sufficient to ensure therightness of the agent’s intention. But the resolution of thisproblem immediately leads to another problem. Even if we grant Abelardhis naturalistic ethics, why should an agent care if his or herintentions conform to the Golden Rule? In short, even if Abelard wereright about morality, why be moral?

Abelard’s answer is that our happiness—to which no one isindifferent—is linked to virtue, that is, to habitual morallycorrect behaviour. Indeed, Abelard’s project in theCollationes is to argue that reason can prove that a merelynaturalistic ethics is insufficient, and that an agent’shappiness is necessarily bound up with accepting the principles oftraditional Christian belief, including the belief in God and anAfterlife. In particular, he argues that the Afterlife is a conditionto which we ought to aspire, that it is a moral improvement even onthe life of virtue in this world, and that recognizing this isconstitutive of wanting to do what God wants, that is, to liveaccording to the Golden Rule, which guarantees as much as anything can(pending divine grace) our long-term postmortem happiness.

The Philosopher first argues with the Jew, who espouses a‘strict observance’ moral theory, namely obedience to theMosaic Law. One of the arguments the Jew offers is the Slave’sWager (apparently the earliest-known version of Pascal’s Wager).Imagine that a Slave is told one morning by someone he doesn’tknow whether to trust that his powerful and irritable Master, who isaway for the day, has left instructions about what to do in hisabsence. The Slave can follow the instructions or not. He reasons thatif the Master indeed left the instructions, then by following them hewill be rewarded and by not following them he will be severelypunished, whereas if the Master did not leave the instructions hewould not be punished for following them, though he might be lightlypunished for not following them. (This conforms to the standard payoffmatrix for Pascal’s Wager.) That is the position the Jew findshimself in: God has apparently demanded unconditional obedience to theMosaic Law, the instructions left behind. The Philosopher argues thatthe Jew may have other choices of action and, in any event, that thereare rational grounds for thinking that ethics is not a matter ofaction in conformity to law but a matter of the agent’sintentions, as we have seen above.

The Philosopher then argues with the Christian. He initially maintainsthat virtue entails happiness, and hence there is no need of anAfterlife since a virtuous person remains in the same conditionwhether dead or alive. The Christian, however, reasons that theAfterlife is better, since in addition to the benefits conferred byliving virtuously, the agent’s will is no longer impeded bycircumstances. In the Afterlife we are no longer subject to the body,for instance, and hence are not bound by physical necessities such asfood, shelter, clothing, and the like. The agent can therefore be aspurely happy as life in accordance with virtue could permit, when noexternal circumstances could affect the agent’s actions. ThePhilosopher grants that the Afterlife so understood is a clearimprovement even on the virtuous life in this world, and joins withthe Christian in a cooperative endeavour to define the nature of thevirtues and the Supreme Good. Virtue is its own reward, and in theAfterlife nothing prevents us from rewarding ourselves with virtue tothe fullest extent possible.

7. Theology

Abelard held that reasoning has a limited role to play in matters offaith. That he gave reasoning a role at all brought him into conflictwith those we might now callanti-dialecticians, includinghis fellow abbot Bernard of Clairvaux. That the role he gave it islimited brought him into conflict with those he called“pseudo-dialecticians,” including his former teacherRoscelin.

Bernard of Clairvaux and other anti-dialecticians seem to have thoughtthat the meaning of a proposition of the faith, to the extent that itcan be grasped, is plain; beyond that plain meaning, there is nothingwe can grasp at all, in which case reason is clearly no help. That is,the anti-dialecticians weresemantic realists about the plainmeaning of religious sentences. Hence their impatience with Abelard,who seemed not only bent on obfuscating the plain meaning ofpropositions of the faith, which is bad enough, but to do so byreasoning, which has no place either in grasping the plain meaning(since the very plainness of plain meaning consists in its beinggrasped immediately without reasoning) or in reaching some moreprofound understanding (since only the plain meaning is open to us atall).

Abelard has no patience for the semantic realism that underlies thesophisticated anti-dialectical position. Rather than argue against itexplicitly, he tries to undermine it. From his commentaries onscripture and dogma to his works of speculative theology, Abelard isfirst and foremost concerned to show how religious claims can beunderstood, and in particular how the application of dialecticalmethods can clarify and illuminate propositions of the faith.Furthermore, he rejects the claim that there is a plain meaning to begrasped. Outlining his method in the Prologue to hisSic etnon, Abelard describes how he initially raises a question, e.g.whether priests are required to be celibate, and then arrangescitations from scriptural and patristic authorities that at least seemto answer the question directly into positive and negative responses.(Abelard offers advice in the Prologue for resolving the apparentcontradictions among the authorities using a variety of techniques:see whether the words are used in the same sense on both sides; drawrelevant distinctions to resolve the issue; look at the context of thecitation; make sure that an author is speaking in his own voice ratherthan merely reporting or paraphrasing someone else’s position;and so on.) Now each authority Abelard cites seems to speak clearlyand unambiguously either for a positive answer to a given question orfor a negative one. If ever there were cases of plain meaning, Abelardseems to have found them in authorities, on opposing sides ofcontroversial issues. His advice in the Prologue amounts to sayingthat sentences that seem to be perfect exemplars of plain meaning infact have to be carefully scrutinized to see just what their meaningis. Yet that is just to say that they do not have plain meaning atall; we have to use reason to uncover their meaning. Hence theanti-dialecticians don’t have a case.

There is a far more serious threat to the proper use of reason inreligion, Abelard thinks (Theologia christiana 3.20):

Those who claim to be dialecticians are usually led more easily to[heresy] the more they hold themselves to be well-equipped withreasons, and, to that extent more secure, they presume to attack ordefend any position the more freely. Their arrogance is so great thatthey think there isn’t anything that can’t be understoodand explained by their petty little lines of reasoning. Holding allauthorities in contempt, they glory in believing onlythemselves—for those who accept only what their reason persuadesthem of, surely answer to themselves alone, as if they had eyes thatwere unacquainted with darkness.

Such pseudo-dialecticians take reason to be the final arbiter of allclaims, including claims about matters of faith. More exactly, Abelardcharges them with holding that (a) everything can be explained byhuman reason; (b) we should only accept what reason persuades us of;(c) appeals to authority have no rational persuasive force. Realdialecticians, he maintains, reject (a)–(c), recognizing thathuman reason has limits, and that some important truths may lieoutside those limits but not beyond belief; which claims about mattersof faith we should accept depends on both the epistemic reliability oftheir sources (the authorities) and their consonance with reason tothe extent they can be investigated.

Abelard’s arguments for rejecting (a)–(c) aresophisticated and subtle. For the claim that reason may be fruitfullyapplied to a particular article of faith, Abelard offers a particularcase study in his own writings. The bulk of Abelard’s work ontheology is devoted to his dialectical investigation of the Trinity.He elaborates an original theory of identity to address issuessurrounding the Trinity, one that has wider applicability inmetaphysics. The upshot of his enquiries is that belief in the Trinityis rationally justifiable since as far as reason can take us we findthat the doctrine makes sense—at least, once the tools ofdialectic have been properly employed.

The traditional account of identity, derived from Boethius, holds thatthings may be either generically, specifically, or numerically thesame or different. Abelard accepts this account but finds it notsufficiently fine-grained to deal with the Trinity. The core of histheory of identity, as presented in hisTheologia christiana,consists in four additional modes of identity: (1) essential samenessand difference; (2) numerical sameness and difference, which Abelardties closely to essential sameness and difference, allowing a morefine-grained distinction than Boethius could allow; (3) sameness anddifference in definition; (4) sameness and difference in property(in proprietate). Roughly, Abelard’s account ofessential and numerical sameness is intended to improve upon theidentity-conditions for things in the world given by the traditionalaccount; his account of sameness in definition is meant to supplyidentity-conditions for the features of things; and his account ofsameness in property opens up the possibility of there being differentidentity-conditions for a single thing having several distinctfeatures.

Abelard holds that two things arethe same in essence whenthey are numerically the same concrete thing (essentia), andessentially different otherwise. The Morning Star is essentially thesame as the Evening Star, for instance, since each is the selfsameplanet Venus. Again, the formal elements that constitute a concretething are essentially the same as one another and essentially the sameas the concrete thing of which they are the formal constituents:Socrates is his essence (Socrates is what it is to be Socrates). Thecorresponding general thesis does not hold for parts, however. Abelardmaintains that the part is essentially different from the integralwhole of which it is a part, reasoning that a given part is completelycontained, along with other parts, in the whole, and so is less thanthe quantity of the whole.

Numerical difference does not map precisely onto essential difference.The failure of numerical sameness may be due to one of two causes.First, objects are not numerically the same when one has a part thatthe other does not have, in which case the objects are essentiallydifferent as well. Second, objects are numerically different whenneither has a part belonging to the other. Numerical difference thusentails the failure of numerical sameness, but not conversely: a partis not numerically the same as its whole, but it is not numericallydifferent from its whole. Thus one thing is essentially different fromanother when either they have only a part in common, in which casethey are not numerically the same; or they have no parts in common, inwhich case they are numerically different as well as not numericallythe same. Since things may be neither numerically the same nornumerically different, the question “How many things arethere?” is ill-formed as it stands and must be made moreprecise, a fact Abelard exploits in his discussion of the Trinity.

Essential and numerical sameness and difference apply directly tothings in the world; they are extensional forms of identity. Bycontrast, sameness and difference in definition is roughly analogousto modern theories of the identity of properties. Abelard holds thatthings arethe same in definition when what it is to be onerequires that it be the other, and conversely; otherwise they differin definition.

Finally, things arethe same in property when they specifyfeatures that characterize one another. Abelard offers an example toclarify this notion. A cube of marble exemplifies both whiteness andhardness; what is white is essentially the same as what is hard, sincethey are numerically the same concrete thing, namely the marble cube;yet the whiteness and the hardness in the marble cube clearly differin definition—but even so, what is white is characterized byhardness (the white thing is hard), and conversely what is hard ischaracterized by whiteness (the hard thing is white). The propertiesof whiteness and hardness are “mixed” since, despite theirbeing different in definition, each applies to the selfsame concretething (namely the marble cube) as such and also as it is characterizedby the other.

The interesting case is where something has properties that“remain so completely unmixed” that the items theycharacterize aredifferent in property. Consider aform-matter composite in relation to its matter. The matter out ofwhich a form-matter composite is made is essentially the same as thecomposite, since each is the entire material composite itself. Yetdespite their essential sameness, they are not identical; the matteris not the composite, nor conversely. The matter is not the composite,for the composite comes to be out of the matter, but the matter doesnot come to be out of itself. The composite is not the matter, since“nothing is in any way a constitutive part of or naturally priorto itself.” Instead, the matter is prior to the composite sinceit has the propertypriority with respect to the composite,whereas the composite is posterior to its matter since it has thepropertyposteriority with respect to its matter. Now despitebeing essentially the same, the matter is not characterized byposteriority, unlike the composite, and the composite is notcharacterized by priority, unlike the matter. Hence the matter andcomposite are different in property; the propertiespriorityandposteriority are unmixed—they differ inproperty.

Now for the payoff. Abelard deploys his theory of identity to shedlight on the Trinity as follows. The three Persons are essentially thesame as one another, since they are all the same concrete thing(namely God). They differ from one another in definition, since whatit is to be the Father is not the same as what it is to be the Son orwhat it is to be the Holy Spirit. The three Persons are numericallydifferent from one another, for otherwise they would not be three, butthey are not numerically different from God: if they were there wouldbe three gods, not one. Moreover, each Person has properties thatuniquely apply to it—unbegotten to the Father,begotten to the Son, andproceeding to the HolySpirit—as well as properties that are distinctive of it, such aspower for the Father,wisdom for the Son, andgoodness for the Holy Spirit. The unique properties areunmixed in Abelard’s technical sense, for the Persons differfrom one another in their unique properties, and such properties donot apply to God; the distinctive properties are mixed, though, inthat God is characterized by each (the powerful God is the wise God isthe good God). Further than that, Abelard holds, human reason cannotgo; but reason validates the analysis (strictly speaking only a“likeness” or analogy) as far as it can go.

Bibliography

Primary texts in Latin

• Carmen ad Astralabium. Edited by J. M. A.Rubingh-Bosscher inPeter Abelard: Carmen ad Astralabium, aCritical Edition. Groningen: phil. diss. Rijksuniversiteit1987.
• Collationes a.k.a.Dialogus inter Philosophum,Iudaeum, et Christianum. Edited by Giovanni Orlandi, withintroduction, translation, and notes by John Marenbon, inPeterAbelard: Collationes, Oxford University Press 2001.
• Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos. Edited byEligius M. Buytaert inPetri Abaelardi opera theologica.Corpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 11. Brepols:Turnholt 1969, 389–340.
• Dialectica. Edited by L. M. De Rijk inPetrusAbaelardus: Dialectica, Assen: Van Gorcum 1970 (secondedition).
• Epistolae: Ep. 1 edited by Monfrin (see the entry belowfor theHistoria calamitatum); Epp. 2–5 edited by J. T.Muckle,Mediaeval Studies 15 (1953) 68–94; Epp.6–7, edited by J. T. Muckle,Mediaeval Studies 17(1955) 241–281; Ep. 8, edited by T. P. McLaughlin,MediaevalStudies 18 (1956) 242–297; Epp. 9–14 edited by E. R.Smits inPeter Abelard: Letters IX–XIV, Groningen:Rijksuniversiteit 1983; Ep. 15 edited by Josef Reiners, BGPTM 8 (1910)63–80; Ep. 16, edited by Victor Cousin and Charles Jourdain,Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris 1849) 703–707,corrected against Van Den Eynde,Antonianum 38 (1963) 219;Ep. 17, edited by Charles Burnett,Mittellateinisch Jahrbuch21 (1986), 152–155;Apologia contra Bernardum (Ne iuxtaBoethianum), edited by Eligius M. Buytaert in CCCM 12359–368;Epistola contra Bernardum edited by RaymondKlibansky,Medieval and Renaissance Studies 5 (1961),1–27;Confessio fidei “Uniuersis” edited byCharles Burnett,Mediaeval Studies 48 (1986),182–189.
• Ethica seu Scito teipsum. Edited by R. M. Ilgner inPetri Abaelardi opera theologica. Corpus christianorum(continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 190. Brepols: Turnholt 2001.
• Expositio orationis dominicae. Edited by Charles Burnett,“Expositio orationis dominicae ‘Multorum legimusorationes’” inRévue Benedictine 95 (1985)60–72.
• Expositio symboli Apostolorum. Edited by Victor Cousinand Charles Jourdain,Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris1849) 603–615. [Available online thanks to the Bibliothèque nationale de France].
• Expositio fidei in symbolum Athanasii. Edited by VictorCousin and Charles Jourdain,Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1(Paris 1849) 615–617.
• Hexaëmeron. Edited by Mary F. Romig with theassistance of David Luscombe, inCorpus christianorum continuatiomediaevalis Vol.15. Brepols: Turnhout 2004.
• Historia calamitatum. Edited by Jacques Monfrin inAbélard, Historia calamitatum: texte et commentaires,J. Vrin: Paris 1974 (fourth edition), 62–109.
• Hymnarius Paraclitensis. Edited by Chrysogonus Waddell inHymn Collections from the Paraclete Vol. 2. TrappistMonastery, Ky.: Gethsemani Abbey (Cistercian Liturgy series)1987.
• Introductiones parvulorum. Edited by Mario Dal Pra inPietro Abelardo: Scritti di logica, Firenze 1969 (secondedition).
• Logica ‘ingredientibus’ (LI):
  • LI 1: Commentary on Porphyry’sIsagoge. Edited byBernhard Geyer inBeiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie undTheologie des Mittelalters 21 (1). Aschendorff: Munster1919.
  • LI 2: Commentary on Aristotle’sCategories. Editedby Bernhard Geyer inBeiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophieund Theologie des Mittelalters 21 (2). Aschendorff: Munster1921.
  • LI 3: Commentary on Aristotle’sDe interpretatione.Edited by Klaus Jacobi and Christian Strub,Corpus christianorumcontinuatio mediaevalis Vol.206. Brepols: Turnhout 2010.
  • LI 7: Commentary on Boethius’sDe topicisdifferentiis. Edited by Mario Dal Pra inPietro Abelardo:Scritti di logica, Firenze 1969 (second edition).
• Logica ‘nostrorum petitionisociorum’. Commentary on Porphyry’sIsagoge.Edited by Bernhard Geyer inBeiträge zur Geschichte derPhilosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 21 (4). Aschendorff:Munster 1933.
• Planctus. Planctus 1, 4, 6: edited by Peter Dronke,Poetic Individality in the Middle Ages (London 1986).Planctus 2, 5: edited by Giuseppe Vecchi,Pietro Abelardo, I“Planctus” (Modena 1951). Planctus 3: edited byWolfram von den Steinen,Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 4(1967), 122–144. There are several modern recordings.
• Problemata Heloïssae cum Petri Abaelardisolutionibus. Edited by Victor Cousin and Charles Jourdain,Petri Abaelardi opera Vol. 1 (Paris 1849):237–294.
• Sententiae secundum Magistrum Petrum. Edited by LorenzoMinio-Paluello inTwelfth-Century Logic: Texts and StudiesVol. 2 (Abaelardiana inedita), Roma 1958.
• Sermones. Edited by Paola De Santis inI sermoni diAbelardo per le monache del Paracleto, Leuven University Press2002. (Mediaevalia Lovaniensa ser. 1, studia 31.)
• Sic et non. Edited by Blanche Boyer and Richard McKeon inPeter Abailard: Sic et Non. A Critical Edition. University ofChicago Press 1977.
• Soliloquium. Edited by Charles Burnett in “PeterAbelard’s ‘Soliloquium’: A Critical Edition”inStudi Medievali 25 (1984), 857–894.
• Theologia ‘summi boni’. Edited byEligius M. Buytaert and Constant Mews inPetri Abaelardi operatheologica. Corpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol.13. Brepols: Turnhout 1987.
• Theologia christiana. Edited by Eligius M. Buytaert inPetri Abaelardi opera theologica. Corpus christianorum(continuatio mediaevalis) Vol. 12. Brepols: Turnhout 1969.
• Theologia ‘scholarium’. Edited byEligius M. Buytaert and Constant Mews inPetri Abaelardi operatheologica. Corpus christianorum (continuatio mediaevalis) Vol.13. Brepols: Turnhout 1987.
• Tractatus de intellectibus. Edited by Patrick Morin inAbélard: Des intellections. Paris: J. Vrin 1994.

Primary texts in English translation

• Fairweather, E. R., 1995,A Scholastic Miscellany,Westminster: John Knox Press. (Excerpt from Abelard’s commentaryonRomans.)
• King, Peter, 1982,Peter Abailard and the Problem ofUniversals in the Twelfth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, PhilosophyDepartment, Princeton University. (Volumes 2 contains a completetranslation of Abelard’sTractatus deintellectibus.)
• Luscombe, David, 1971,Ethics, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress. (Complete translation of Abelard’sEthica.)
• Marenbon, John and Giovanni Orlandi (eds. and trans.), 2001,Peter Abelard: Collationes, Oxford: Clarendon. (Completetranslation of Abelard’sConversations.)
• McCallum, James Ramsay, 1948,Abelard’s ChristianTheology, Oxford: Blackwell. (Includes substantial selectionsfrom Abelard’sTheologia christiana.)
• Minnis, A. and Scott, A. B. (eds.), 1988,Medieval LiteraryTheory and Criticism 1100–1375, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress. (Includes Abelard’s preface to theSic etnon.)
• Payer, Pierre, 1979,Peter Abelard: A Dialogue of aPhilosopher with a Jew and a Christian, Toronto: The PontificalInstitute of Mediaeval Studies Publications.
• Radice, Elizabeth, 1974,The Letters of Abelard andHeloise, New York: Penguin Books.
• Spade, Paul Vincent, 1994,Five Texts on the Mediaeval Problemof Universals, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.(Abelard’s discussion of the problem of universals from hisLogica ‘ingredientibus’.)
• Spade, Paul Vincent, 1995,Peter Abelard: EthicalWritings, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company. (Completetranslations of Abelard ‘sEthics andConversations.)
• Tweedale, Martin and Bosley, Richard, 1997,Issues in MedievalPhilosophy, Peterborough: Broadview Press. (Includes selectionsfrom Abelard on foreknowledge, universals, and ethics.)

Selected Secondary Literature in English

• Allen, Julie, 1996,A Commentary on the Second Collatio ofPeter Abailard’s Dialogus, Ph.D. Dissertation, PhilosophyDepartment, University of Toronto.
• Arlig, Andrew, 2007, “Abelard’s Assault on EverydayObjects”,American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly,81: 209–227.
• –––, 2012, “Peter Abelard on MaterialConstitution”,Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie,94: 119–146.
• –––, 2013, “Some Twelfth-centuryReflections on Mereological Essentialism”,Oxford Studies inMedieval Philosophy, 1: 83–112.
• –––, 2022, “Abelard and OtherTwelfth-Century Thinkers on Social Constructions”,Philosophies, 7(4), 84. [Arlig 2022 available online]
• Astroh, Michael, 2001, “Abelard on Modalitiesde reandde dicto”, inPotentialität undPossibilität. Modalaussagen in der Geschichte derMetaphysik, Thomas Buchheim, C. H. Kneepkens, and Kuno Lorenz(eds.), Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog, 79–95
• Bejczy, I., 2003, “Deeds Without Value: Exploring a WeakSpot in Abelard’s Ethics”,Recherches dethéologie et philosophie médiévale, 70:1–21.
• Binini, Irene, 2022,Possibility and Necessity in the Time ofPeter Abelard, Leiden/Boston: Brill.
• Blackwell, Daniel, 1988,Non-Ontological Constructs: TheEffects of Abaelard’s Logical and Ethical Theories on hisTheology, Berne, Paris, New York: Peter Lang.
• Boler, John, 1963, “Abailard and the Problem ofUniversals”,The Journal of the History of Philosophy,1: 104–126.
• Brower, Jeff, 1998, “Abelard’s Theory of Relations:Reductionism and the Aristotelian Tradition”,The Review ofMetaphysics, 51: 605–631.
• –––, 2004, “Trinity”, inTheCambridge Companion to Abelard, J. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.):223–257.
• Brower, Jeff and Guilfoy, Kevin (eds.), 2004,The CambridgeCompanion to Abelard, New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Freddoso, Alfred, 1978, “Abailard on CollectiveRealism”,The Journal of Philosophy, 75:527–538.
• Gracia, Jorge, 1984,Introduction to the Problem ofIndividuation in the Early Middle Ages, Washington, D.C.:Catholic University of America Press.
• Guilfoy, Kevin, 1999,Abelard’s Theory of theProposition, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy Department,University of Washington.
• –––, 2004, “Mind and Cognition”, inJ. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.), 200–222.
• Henry, D. P., 1985, “Abelard’s MereologicalTerminology”, inMediaeval Semantics and Metaphysics,E. P. Bos (ed.), Ingenium: Nijmegen, 65–92.
• Hause, Jeff, 2007, “Abelard on Degrees of Sinfulness”,American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 81:251–270.
• Jacobi, Klaus, 1983, “Abelard and Frege: the Semantics ofWords and Propositions”, inAtti del Convegno Internazionaledi Storia della logica, V. Abrusci (ed.), Bologna: Ed. CLUEB,81–96.
• –––, 1986, “Peter Abelard’sInvestigations into the Meaning and Function of the Speech Sign‘Est’”, inThe Logic of Being, SimoKnuutila and Jaakko Hintikka (eds.), Dordrecht: D. Reidel,145–180.
• –––, 2004, “Philosophy of Language”,in J. Brower and K. Guilfoy (eds.) 2004, 126–157.
• King, Peter, 1982,Peter Abailard and the Problem ofUniversals in the Twelfth Century, Ph.D. Dissertation, PhilosophyDepartment, Princeton University.
• –––, 1992, “Peter Abelard(1079–1142)”, inThe Dictionary of LiteraryBiography (Volume 115: Medieval Philosophers), Jeremiah Hackett(ed.), Detroit/London: Gale Research: 3–14.
• –––, 1995, “Abelard’s IntentionalistEthics”,The Modern Schoolman, 72: 213–231. [Preprint available online].
• –––, 2004, “Metaphysics”, inTheCambridge Companion to Abelard, in J. Brower and K. Guilfoy(eds.), 65–125. [Preprint available online].
• –––, 2007a, “Abelard on MentalLanguage”,The American Catholic PhilosophicalQuarterly, 81: 169–187.
• –––, 2007b, “Abelard’s Answer toPorphyry”, inDocumenti e studi sulla tradizione filosoficamedievale, 18: 249–70. [Preprint available online].
• Kretzmann, Norman, 1982, “The Culmination of the Old Logicin Peter Abelard”, inRenaissance and Renewal in the TwelfthCentury, R. L. Benson and J. Constable (eds.), Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press, 488–511.
• Lenz, Martin, 2005, “Peculiar Perfection: Peter Abelard onPropositional Attitudes”,Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 43: 377–386.
• –––, 2007, “Are Thoughts and SentencesCompositional? A Controversy between Abelard and a Pupil of Alberic onthe Reconciliation of Ancient Theses on Mind and Language”,Vivarium, 45: 169–188.
• Lewis, Neil, 1987, “Determinate Truth in Abelard”,Vivarium, 25: 81–109.
• Luscombe, David, 1969,The School of Peter Abelard,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Mann, William, 2004, “Ethics”, in J. Brower and K.Guilfoy (eds.), 279–304.
• Marenbon, John, 1997,The Philosophy of Peter Abelard,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• –––, 2006, “The Rediscovery of PeterAbelard’s Philosophy”,Journal of the History ofPhilosophy, 44: 331–351.
• –––, 2013,Abelard in Four Dimensions: Atwelfth-century philosopher in his context and ours, Notre Dame:University of Notre Dame Press.
• Martin, Christopher J., 1986, “William’s WonderfulMachine”,Journal of Philosophy, 83:564–572.
• –––, 1987, “Something Amazing About thePeripatetic of Le Pallet”,Argumentation, 1:420–436.
• –––, 2001, “Abaelard on Modality: SomePossibilities and Some Puzzles”, inPotentialität undPossibilität. Modalaussagen in der Geschichte derMetaphysik, Thomas Buchheim, C. H. Kneepkens, and Kuno Lorenz(eds.), Stuttgart: Frommann Holzboog, 97–122
• –––, 2004, “Logic”, in J. Brower andK. Guilfoy (eds.), 158–199.
• Mews, Constant, 1987, “Aspects of the Evolution of PeterAbelard’s Thought on Signification and Predication”, inGilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains, J. Jolivet and A.de Libera (eds.), Naples: Bibliopolis.
• –––, 2005,Abelard and Heloise, NewYork: Oxford University Press.
• Pinziani, Roberto, 2003,The Logical Grammar of Abelard.Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (Translation ofLagrammatica logica di Abelardo, Parma 1992.)
• De Rijk, L. M., 1980, “The Semantical Impact ofAbailard’s Solution of the Problem of Universals”, inPetrus Abaelardus: Person, Wirk, und Wirkung, Rudolf Thomas(ed.), Trier: Paulinus-Verlag, 139–152.
• –––, 1986, “Peter Abailard’sSemantics and his Doctrine of Being”,Vivarium, 24:85–127.
• Tweedale, Martin, 1976,Abailard on Universals,Amsterdam: North-Holland.
• Wilks, Ian, 1993,The Logic of Abelard’sDialectica, Ph.D. Dissertation, Philosophy Department, Universityof Toronto.
• –––, 1997, “The Role of Virtue Theory andNatural Law in Abelard’s Ethical Writings”,Proceedings of the American Catholic PhilosophicalAssociation, 71: 137–149.
• –––, 1998, “Peter Abelard and theMetaphysics of Essential Predication”,Journal of theHistory of Philosophy, 36: 356–385.
• –––, 2008, “Peter Abelard and hisContemporaries”, inHandbook of the History of Logic(Volume 2: Medieval and Renaissance Logic), Dov Gabbay and John Woods(eds.), Amsterdam: Elsevier, 85–155.

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Other Internet Resources

• Pierre Abelard of Le Pallet (information and short biography)
• Abelard’s Logic and the Origins of Nominalism, by Raul Corazzon, which includes an annotated bibliography.
• Peter Abelard, by James E. Kiefer.
• Prologue to Abelard’sSic et non, by W.J. Lewis (and S.Barney), online at the Internet History Sourcebooks Project(Fordham).
• First Lecture on Abelard andSecond Lecture on Abelard, by R. J. Kilcullen (Politics and International Relations, MacquarieUniversity).
• Some older print editions and manuscripts (Gallica (gallica.bnf.fr), the website of the Bibliothèquenationale de France, now has images of several older print editions(including Cousin’s still valuable editions) and a fewmanuscripts, which in some cases are the only known surviving copiesof those works)
• Logicalia Medievalia, website maintained by Caterina Tarlazzi (Ca’ Foscari Universityof Venice), which aims to draw together recent research on Latinlogical texts before 1220 with particular attention to research onWilliam of Champeaux and Peter Abelard.

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