Medieval philosophical texts are written in a variety of literaryforms, many peculiar to the period, like thesumma ordisputed question; others, like the commentary, dialogue, and axiom,are also found in ancient and modern sources but are substantiallydifferent in the medieval period from the classical or moderninstantiations of these forms. Many philosophical texts also have ahighly polemical style and/or seem deferential to the authoritativesources they cite. Further, medieval philosophical thinkers operatedunder the threat of censure from political and religious authority,moving them, some have argued, to write esoterically or indirectly toprotect themselves from persecution for their true views. All theseliterary and rhetorical features make medieval philosophical textsconsiderably more difficult to understand and interpret than modern oreven classical philosophical texts. Moreover, the broad range ofgenres used in medieval philosophy raises questions about the natureof philosophical writing in general when compared to the much morerestricted set of accepted forms in modern and contemporaryphilosophical works.

• 1. Historical Sources
• 2. Literary Forms
  • 2.1 Allegory and Allegoresis
  • 2.2 Aphorism
  • 2.3 Axiom
  • 2.4 Commentary
  • 2.5 Dialogue
  • 2.6 Disputation,Quaestio, Quodlibetal Question
  • 2.7 Meditation, Soliloquy
  • 2.8 Sentences and Sentences Commentaries
  • 2.9Sophismata,Insolubilia,Obligationes
  • 2.10Summa
• 3. Role of Authorities
• 4. Esotericism, Censorship, and Polemics
• 5. Development in the Literary form of Medieval Philosophy
• Bibliography
  • Selected Primary Sources
  • Secondary Sources
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Historical Sources

Medieval philosophical texts have as their formal sources Greekcommentaries, Neoplatonic treatises, dialogues, and allegories, aswell as Aristotelian treatises, and the works of Augustine. Before theformal development of universities and university curricula thatdictated the established forms for writing philosophical/theologicaltexts in the 13th century, medieval philosophical texts were writtenin a wide variety of forms. From the 10th to the 12th century, writersin the Christian, Jewish, and Arabic traditions composed dialogues,allegories, axiomatic works, disputations, and summae, while the 13thand 14th centuries in the Latin West were dominated by commentaries,principally on Peter Lombard’sSentences and the worksof Aristotle, various forms of the disputed question, and thesumma.

The sources and history of these different forms will be discussedunder each of the forms considered. After the discussion of theprincipal literary forms, the role of authoritative authors andinfluence of concerns about censorship and persecution on the form andrhetoric of medieval philosophical texts, the historical developmentin these literary forms within the medieval period will beconsidered.

2. Literary Forms

2.1 Allegory and Allegoresis

The models for allegorical writings and allegorizing of traditionaltexts (allegoresis) come to the Middle Ages throughNeoplatonic sources and, for Jewish and Arabic thinkers, fromtraditions of biblical commentary and the Qur’an itself (Shatz2003; Ivry 2000). As Ivry puts it, the Qur’an effects “asignificant change in the Biblical legacy, treating individual personsand events as universal types and symbols. This approach turns theQur’anic presentations of Biblical stories into allegories, thepersons involved into emblems of virtue or vice” (Ivry 2000,155). Jewish philosophers themselves read the Hebrew bible andrabbinic literature philosophically, interpreting its stories ashaving another, esoteric meaning behind the literal one. The Jewishphilosopher Philo is the most important figure in the development ofthis kind of philosophical allegorization, though his influence isaccepted to be greater on Christian than Jewish thinkers, mostsignificantly on Augustine. Nonetheless, Jewish philosophers regularlyallegorize scripture and are also influenced by allegorical readingsgiven in rabbinic and midrashic literature (Shatz 2003). Neoplatonicwriters developed allegorical readings of both Plato and classicalliterature, finding in these diverse texts figures of the spiritualjourney from this world to the next. They also composed their ownallegories on similar themes.

The underlying presupposition of allegory is that things can come tostand for something else. For the Neoplatonists this possibility isbased on the relationship of material things to the One from whichthey have emanated. Because things come from the One, they arefragmentary reflections of the fullness of that goodness. Theallegorical interpretation of whole texts rather than particularepisodes or images dates from the 3rd century. It is based on the ideathat the text as a whole reflects the “Neoplatonic ideology of‘organic’ order” in which any part of thecomposition or cosmos is a symbol of the One, from which everythingproceeds (Whitman 2000, 36). Aristotle has a role to play as well: hisdistinction between demonstrative, dialectical, and rhetoricalreasoning is used to interpret the Qur’an and to justifydifferent types of writing for different audiences. Moreover,Aristotle’sPoetics is used by Avicenna to justifywriting in the form of stories (Whitman 2000, 47–8). For thosewithin the religious traditions of Judaism, Islam, or Christianity,allegory is based on the inspired character of scripture into whichGod has inserted many layers of meaning. Though Islamic philosophershad an independent religious tradition of allegorical literature fromwhich they could draw, the allegories from medieval Islamic thinkerstend to concern the same Neoplatonic themes of the ascent of the souland the Neoplatonic structure of the cosmos, allegorizing the stagesof emanation from and return to the One. The most common form ofIslamic philosophical allegory is on the theme of the heavenly ascentor journey, a philosophical rather than prophetic rewriting of thespiritual journey of the prophet Mohammed. Avicenna wrote twoallegories of this type,Risâlat at-tair (Treatiseof the Bird) andHayy ibn Yaqzân. (Heath 1992, hasalso translated from Persian an allegory of Avicenna’s,Mi’râj Nâma,The Book of the ProphetMuhammad’s Ascent to Heaven.) In theTreatise of theBird, a group of birds fly on a long journey in search of truthover nine mountain ranges, each a dangerous and a tempting restingplace; in the second, the narrator, consulting Hayy, a sage, makes acosmic journey from west to east, ending in a vision of God (Avicenna1980). Ibn Tufayl’sHayy ibn Yaqzân takes itsname from Avicenna’s allegory and claims to reveal in it thesecrets of Avicenna’s “Oriental philosophy”(Avicenna 1980; Ibn Tufayl 2009). Ibn Tufayl’s version may havebeen one of the models for Daniel Defoe’sRobinsonCrusoe. This story of a boy abandoned on an island and raised bya gazelle recounts the boy’s survival and progress inunderstanding from what is necessary for survival, to a grasp of thelaws of the universe, culminating in a mystical experience. Theboy’s progress symbolizes the path and powers of unaided humanreason, able to advance from complete ignorance to union with thedivine.

In the Latin West, philosophical allegory flourished in the 12thcentury. Authors like Bernard Silvestris, Thierry of Chartres, Williamof Conches, and Alan of Lille took up allegoresis and allegory as away of assimilating works and ideas from classical antiquity,especially the creation myth and cosmology of Plato’sTimaeus. One of the most important, BernardSilvestris’sCosmographia, is an allegorical account ofthe origins of the world, both narrative and structural. Bernard tellsthe story of Natura asking Noys to bring some order to prime matter.Book I traces the creation of the material world, and book II, thecreation of man (Bernard Silvestris 1973). Bernard’s main sourcefor this myth of creation is Plato’sTimaeus but hismyth making is combined with philosophical and scientific speculation.Like Alan of Lille’s allegories,De Planctu Naturae andAnticlaudianus, Bernard’s work is both allegorical andencyclopedic, two forms which were also combined in an importantclassical model for these works, Martianus Capella’sTheMarriage of Mercury and Philology. What is remarkable about theseworks is the combination of allegory with science and philosophy.These writers do not think of the mythic and the scientific asopposing discourses. Rather, the creation of new myths is associatedwith the work of creation, linking the work of God as artifex withthat of the composer of allegory. Science and allegory are also linkedby the activity of de-allegorization, the process of extracting theabstract and philosophical message hidden in the allegory. Accordingto Brian Stock, until the middle of the 12th century, it was taken asa given that allegories contained hidden philosophical information(Stock 1972, 31).

The controversial and difficult question is why these medievalthinkers chose the allegorical form, and whether the text can beunderstood without its allegorical form. Avicenna tells us that whathe purports to do by allegory is to convey one message to the“many” in sensible imagery they can understand, whileconveying a different message to the philosophically minded few (Heath1992, 150–153). Neoplatonic and Christian writers, althoughciting the importance of not ‘casting one’s pearls beforeswine’, also cite the need to provide access through the sensesto a non-sensible reality and the need to use obvious metaphors sothat their language will not be taken for a literally truerepresentation of the divine. In the secondary literature, the mostcommon interpretation of the reason for the allegorical form is thatthe allegory is an heuristic device that makes the difficult andabstract message easier to understand. On this view, the allegoricalform can be stripped away without changing the meaning of the text.Others have argued that for some writers, the allegorical form ischosen because the mystical message or account of spiritual union withthe good exceeds what can be expressed in the literal language oflogic and argument (Sweeney 2006, 38–61, 157–175). Somehave argued, further, that the indirection of Maimonides’Guide, for example, is based both on the inability torepresent the divine nature but also, failing that, designed totransform the reader making his/her way to God (Whitman 2000, 51;Harvey 1988, 69–71). On this view, the allegorical form is anessential aspect of the text and, hence, cannot be excised withoutdetriment to the author’s meaning. Lastly, some argue that themotive for allegory is esoteric. On this view, most famouslypropounded by Leo Strauss and his followers, writers fearingpersecution and misinterpretation decided to “hide” theirtrue views behind the façade of allegory, in order to protectboth themselves and their message. (For more on esotericism, seesection 4 below.)

2.2 Aphorism

This form is not terribly common in the medieval period. Two worksworthy of mention are Al-Farabi’s political aphorisms and a textattributed to Hermes Trismegistus, but thought to have been written inthe 12th century by a Christian Neoplatonist, calledThe Book ofTwenty-Four Philosophers. This text consists of twenty-fourdefinitions of God, the most famous of which is, “God is aninfinite sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference isnowhere,” quoted by Alan of Lille, Meister Eckhart, and others(Hudry 1997). Al-Farabi’s work, known as “SelectedAphorisms”, gets this title from its opening lines, in whichAl-Farabi says the work consists of selected aphorisms from theancients (Plato and Aristotle) “concerning that by which citiesought to be governed and made prosperous...” (Butterworth 2001,5–6). This “primer for politics” contains discussionof the nature of the soul, virtue, the virtuous regime, and happiness.Its disjointed character and the way in which Al-Farabi composes itnot from his own views but those of Aristotle and Plato make the formof the work central to its meaning: Is Al-Farabi endorsing views butwithout saying outright that they are his own because to hold themmight be dangerous? What are the principles of selection at work? Whatis not being said? The aphoristic form seems to raise some of the samequestions about possible esoteric motivations as does the allegoricalform. In the case ofThe Book of the Twenty-Four Philosophersthe form seems to derive from the inaccessibility of the divine natureto human intellection. Thus, one comes closer to avoidingmisrepresentation of the divine nature by using paradoxical ormetaphoric formulations rather than literal ones.

Some medieval works fall somewhere between aphorism and axiom ingenre, most significantly works connected to the important andinfluentialLiber de causis. TheLiber circulated asa work of Aristotle under the titleLiber Aristotelis deexpositione bonitatis purae until the 13th century, when ThomasAquinas found its source in Proclus’sElements ofTheology. Like Proclus’s theology, the work seems topresent its principles as axioms, but the principles and theirexplanation/derivation is not really demonstrative and the principlesthemselves are highly abstract Neoplatonic metaphysical principlesthat are sometimes as paradoxical as they are self-evident.Boethius’s theological opuscule known asDeHebdomadibus (this work is traditionally the third of fivetheological tractates) and Alan of Lille’sRegulae CaelestisIuris are presented as axiomatic but also esoteric, with theexpress statement of the author that their principles are notaccessible to the many. (See section 2.3 below, on axiom, for morediscussion of these works.)

2.3 Axiom

There are two different sources for axiomatic works in the MiddleAges: Euclid and Proclus. For Proclus the axiomatic form mirrors themetaphysical structure of emanation. As all being emanates from theOne, all propositions are derived from axioms. In his commentary onEuclid, Proclus contends that the scientific structure in which allpropositions are proved from first principles is peculiar to themathematical sciences, as befitting the middle status of mathematicsbetween metaphysics and physics. Two important axiomatic works,Boethius’De Hebdomadibus and Alan of Lille’sRegulae Caelestis Iuris, seem to follow both Proclus’sElements of Theology, taking Neoplatonic metaphysicalprinciples as their axioms, and the model of deriving conclusions fromthose principles, the method Proclus attributes to Euclid and tomathematics alone. The axiomatic form in Euclid is more complex,relying not just on first principles (communis animiconceptio), the only type of principle used by Boethius and Alan,but also on definitions,petitiones, theorems, etc. Euclid isthe model for Nicholas of Amiens’sArs CatholicaeFidei. However, even when thinkers like Nicholas of Amiens usethe Euclidean axiomatic model, they are still relying on thejustification and principles of Neoplatonic metaphysics, grounding theform in the metaphysics of emanation.

The influence of this form goes beyond 12th-century attempts tocompose axiomatic philosophical/theological works in the tradition ofBoethius’sDe Hebdomadibus (like Alan’sRegulae Caelestis Iuris and Nicholas of Amiens’sArs Catholicae Fidei). First, the form is taken up by Leibnizin his axiomatic works. Second, early medieval notions of science areindebted to these Neoplatonic models of science, models that continueto be influential even after the reappearance of Aristotle’sPosterior Analytics. Further, the geometric methods of“analysis” and “synthesis”(“resolutio/compositio”), which work to and fromfirst principles or axioms and is linked to axiomatic method in bothits Proclusian and Euclidean forms, is important not only for latermedieval thinkers like Aquinas, but also for Descartes, Newton, andGalileo (Sweeney 1994).

2.4 Commentary

The ancient tradition of commentary on Aristotle begins with theedition of Aristotle by Andronicus of Rhodes, although not muchsurvives from this period. The study of Aristotle became part of theNeoplatonic school curriculum, which began with theCategories and progressed through theOrganon to thePhysics andMetaphysics. The curriculum culminatedin the study of the Platonic dialogues, ending with theTimaeus andParmenides. This school context forcommentaries became part of the commentary texts themselves inintroductory remarks to the Aristotelian corpus and to individualworks. Thus, authors covered a certain number of introductoryquestions about the context for studying Aristotle and the particularAristotelian work under consideration, responses which assume theNeoplatonic curriculum. (For more on the ancient commentary tradition,see Sorabji 1990.) The greatest influence in the Middle Ages, bothLatin and Islamic, is the Neoplatonic tradition of commentarybeginning with Porphyry. Porphyry authored a work, no longer extant,showing the ultimate harmony of Plato and Aristotle. In his commentaryon thePeri Hermeneias, Boethius repeated the same view andthe ambition to prove it through his work of translation andcommentary (BoethiusCom. in lib. Peri hermeneias,79–80). Porphyry also originates the view of Aristotle’sCategories as about words not things, and more specificallyas about words as they apply to sensible things, thus leaving open thepossibility that words might operate in a very different way when theyrefer to Platonic forms (Marenbon 1999, 107–116). This view ofthe categories as categories of words is also transmitted by Boethiusto the Middle Ages where it becomes standard. The larger view ofAristotle’s teachings enshrined in this interpretive shift isthat Aristotle and Plato’s view can both be true, and hence,harmonious, if they are understood as writing about different things,Aristotle about the sublunary world and Plato about the world beyondmatter and change. Throughout the Middle Ages, there is some degree ofNeoplatonic distortion of Aristotle’s teaching in commentarieson his works. It tends to be less significant in the logical works andin the non-theological portions of thePhysics and greater inDe Anima and sometimesMetaphysics commentaries.

The placement of Aristotelian works in this kind of context istransmitted to the Latin Middle Ages by Boethius. Boethius thus bringsto the medieval tradition of commentary both the obvious and moresubtle Neoplatonic distortions of the Aristotelian corpus. First,Boethius’s commentaries are highly indebted to Neoplatonicsources. The thesis that Boethius simply copied his commentaries froma single codex’s collection of Greek commentators’ remarksis too extreme, but it is nevertheless clear that Boethius reliedheavily on Neoplatonic sources. We can see this in his commentary ontheCategories, where we have all of Boethius’ssources. Here Boethius uses Porphyry as his main source, whilesupplementing this material with other Neoplatonic sources (Ebbesen1990, 376–77). Had Boethius managed to get to thePhysics orMetaphysics for commentary, we might haveseen his own Neoplatonic interpretations of Aristotle emerge morestrongly. As it is, such leanings are evident, for example, in hiscommentary on thePeri Hermeneias. In his discussion offuture contingents, Boethius follows the Neoplatonists, arguing forthe view that while there is real contingency in the sublunary world,there is also necessity operating at other levels. Though he does notargue for providence until writing hisConsolation, he doesmake room for such a possibility in hisPeri Hermeneiascommentary. There he argues, following Alexander of Aphrodisias, thatsome things are necessitated, some subject to human control, and someare matters of chance; Aristotle is right that some things areundetermined, yet the Stoics are also right that some things arenecessitated and all things, though not necessitated by it, aresubject to the divine will (Boethius 1880, 220–236, Sweeney2006, 16–20; Chadwick 1981, 159–63). Thus, Boethiusfollows the Neoplatonic strategy of placing Aristotle’s viewinto a larger philosophical context where it can be seen as part ofbut not the whole truth.

Averroes (Ibn Rushd), who comes to be known as “theCommentator” in the Latin West because of his magisterial graspof Aristotle, is another important influence on the medievalcommentary tradition. He declares on numerous occasions that his aimin commenting on Aristotle is to explain the Aristotelian text, a taskhe adheres to faithfully and with great success even though he lackedany knowledge of Greek. He does not introduce non-Aristotelianmaterial to explain Aristotle; he does not even, for example, makereference to Porphyry’s introduction to theCategories,theIsagoge, to help make sense of theCategories.He does, however, add to the Aristotelian text in two ways. First andmost ubiquitously, he divides Aristotle’s text into sections andchapters, some of which follow the divisions we now have, some ofwhich he devises himself. The origin of the modern textual divisionsof Aristotle’s work is not known and those divisions are notauthoritative. Averroes may have worked with a text that contained nodivisions at all; thus he would have had to supply them all(Butterworth 1983, 6–8). Further, Averroes adds explanations ofaspects of Aristotle’s text that are especially unclear orterse, and adds references to other works in the Aristotelian corpusto help explain particular texts. Averroes, like other ancient andmedieval commentators, assumed that there was no significant change ordevelopment in Aristotle’s views over time and therefore thathis different works are consistent with each other.

Averroes wrote three different kinds of commentaries, which have cometo be known as “short,” “middle,” and“long” commentaries. Scholars have now shown that theseterms, though used to describe various kinds of commentary by Averroesor his editors, are often very fluid and do not mark off clear cutgenres (Gutas 1993, 31–42). Nonetheless, it is clear thatAverroes composes different kinds of commentaries to serve differentpedagogical goals. He writes summaries or synopses ofAristotle’s works, as well as full-blown commentaries. Somecommentaries work toward an explanation of the letter of the text; inthese the source text is first cited and then interpreted virtuallyword for word. This is done sometimes in the form of a continuoustext, other times in the form of marginal notations to the main text.Still other commentaries, the type traditionally known as“middle” commentaries, are explanations of the senserather than the letter, paraphrasing rather than commenting thoroughlyon the source text (Gutas 1993, 33–5).

In the Latin West during the 12th and 13th centuries the goal ofcommentary was to explain the author’s intention. However, untilthe end of the 13th century, commentators worked on the assumptionthat the author intended to express the truth; thus every effort wasmade to bring an author’s text into harmony with the truth asthe author understands it from what he takes to be authoritativesources. This attitude toward texts is generally thought to emergefrom the tradition of biblical exegesis, where the biblical text isassumed to be true, to be in accord with the basic articles of faith,and, hence, as needing to be interpreted from within those parameters.Moreover, as interpreters began to collect different interpretationsof biblical texts, they tended to deal with conflicts betweenauthorities by attempting to harmonize different opinions rather thansimply keeping some and discarding others. So, in an analogous way,for example, Aquinas supports Aristotle’s astronomy even in theface of conflicting mathematical evidence from Ptolemy. He argues thatPtolemy’s account “saves the appearances” but maynot in fact be true since the phenomena could be saved in some otherway (Aquinas 1964, I, lec. 3; Lohr 1982, 93–94). Also, Aquinastries to save Aristotle from unambiguously holding the position thatthe world is eternal, arguing that Aristotle’s argument for theeternity of motion might be merely hypothetical (Aquinas 1964, Bk. I,lec. 29). In general, medieval Latin commentators through the 13thcentury rarely abandon the principle that the text makes some kind ofsense. Thus, even when the Aristotelian text is extremely cryptic,corrupt, or terse, commentators make every effort to give the text aclear and consistent sense, even if it must be almost completelyconstructed. A very striking example of the commentator’s art inthis regard is Aquinas’s commentary on Aristotle’sDeAnima, especially his commentary on the very difficult passageson the workings of the intellect (De Anima III, 5; Aquinas1994, III, lec. 7–10). As Kenny and Pinborg note, Ockhamjustified a less literal reading of Aristotle by asserting thatAristotle often speaks metaphorically; at the other extreme, LatinAverroists offered views that might be seen as contrary to Churchteaching by maintaining that they were only interpreting Aristotle,not developing their own view (Kenny and Pinborg 1982, 29–30). Aless dramatic but nonetheless important change introduced by medievalcommentators, continuing in commentaries after 1300, is makingdivisions of the text and adding descriptions of the overall structureand forward progression of its arguments. These divisions and outlinesof the text serve to give unity and coherence to a text even if itmight lack these features on its own.

Starting in 1255, study in the work of the arts faculty at Paris wasofficially centered around the works of Aristotle. Further, thecommentaries of the masters of arts rather than of theology brought adifferent hermeneutic to the interpretation of Aristotle. No longercommitted to Aristotle as a source for the truth (the truth waspossessed by theology), the masters of arts did not try to bringAristotle into harmony with other authoritative sources and felt freeto expose rather than try to save Aristotle from holding what theytook to be erroneous positions. Because Aristotle was no longerconsidered an essentially error-free authoritative source,commentaries shifted to an emphasis on questions arising from the textrather than the exposition of text (Lohr 1982, 95–6). This shiftis heralded by most scholars as marking an important developmenttoward modern notions of both science and commentary.

Nonetheless, even with this change in the status of the Aristotelianworks, Aristotle remained an authority in the sense that his textswere still the starting point for discussion, and medieval philosophyin general remained centered on authoritative texts and, hence, ontheir commentaries. This emphasis on the commentary points to twoimportant differences between medieval and much contemporaryphilosophy. First, medieval philosophical writers understood their ownwork as emerging out of a tradition of authorities rather than inabstraction from or in opposition to a tradition (see below section 3,“Role of Authorities”). Second, their work emerges out ofan encounter with texts rather than in unmediated contact with ideas,problems, or arguments. (On the assumptions and characteristics of acommentary-based notion of philosophy see Smith 1991, 3–7.)These ways of doing philosophy do not mean that medieval philosopherswere incapable of originality, only that their original thought comesout of an acknowledged connection with what went before. Nor does itmean that medieval philosophers were not engaged with ideas but onlywords and texts. For, they would argue, we can only confront ideasthrough the language in which they are expressed.

The use of the commentary form expanded beyond its use in biblicalexegesis and ancient authors (primarily Aristotle) to commentaries onMedieval texts treated as authoritaties to be commented on, forexample Peter Lombard’sSentences and MaimonidesGuide for the Perplexed, and in the second scholastic periodtheSumma theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (See below, section2.8 on commentaries on Peter Lombard’sSentences andalso recent work on the tradition of commentary on MaimonidesGuide, De Souza 2018).

2.5 Dialogue

The classical source for medieval writers of dialogue should have beenPlato; but Western writers had no direct access to Plato’sdialogues, with the exception of the first half of theTimaeus. The number and diversity of dialogues from themedieval period is, hence, surprising, with instances among the worksof writers from Augustine to Ockham and Nicolas of Cusa, and acrossdifferent religious traditions. Though it has been argued thatdialogue as a philosophical form dies off in late antiquity,especially in the Christian tradition, this is clearly false in themedieval period (Goldhill 2008, 5–8). Not only are philosophicaldialogues plentiful but, perhaps because they were not overwhelmed byPlato as a model, medieval dialogue writers came up with manyvariations on the form. While a good number use real orrealistically-described characters, there are also many where theparticipants are allegorical figures, like Boethius’s LadyPhilosophy in theConsolatio or “Reason” inAugustine’sSoliloquies. A number of 12th centurywriters also imitated more specifically the prosimetrum ofBoethius’sConsolation combining prose dialogue withpoetry, exploring the hybrid of physical and spiritual in the cosmosand body and soul in human nature (Balint 2009). While some instancesof this form, for example Boethius’s commentary in dialogue formon Porphyry’sIsagoge, simply make use of the form as avehicle for straightforward exposition, others make the dialogue formintrinsic to the argument. And while the standard form of aphilosophical dialogue is between a teacher and student figure, anumber of medieval dialogues ignore this convention. Abelard’sDialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian(Collationes), for example, traces a dispute between threeequal partners, none of whom is the “teacher” whom theothers more or less meekly follow. Abelard’s dialogue isessentially a dispute without a master to resolve it. Even if, as manyscholars think, the dialogue is unfinished and Abelard meant to add aresolution of the dialogue in the form of a final adjudication bysomeone playing the role of master, it is noteworthy that, unlike inmost philosophical dialogues, the magisterial point of view is absentuntil the end rather than being the one that directs thediscussion.

Other dialogue writers like Gilbert Crispin, Petrus Alphonsi, RaymundLull, and Nicolas of Cusa also write dialogues in which theparticipants are representatives of the major religions: Christian,Jew, Muslim, pagan, or philosopher. While some take care to give thevictory to the Christian, even transforming the other participantsinto converts to Christianity, Gilbert, Petrus, Abelard, and RaymundLull all opt for subtler conclusions. Abelard’s dialogue sets upa “judge” for the debate who never proffers a judgment.Even if Abelard had added this final judgment, the dialogue wouldstill not indicate a clear winner. Dialogue is a favorite form in thegrowingAdversos Iudaeos literature of the late 11th and 12thcenturies. And insofar as the dialogue form was especially prevalentin this period, it is part of a growing rationalism. Writers composingdialogues between Christian and Jewish (or pagan) spokesmen are at thesame time shifting the grounds of those arguments from proof textsfrom scripture to arguments grounded in the notion that the truths ofthe faith were self-evident and could be convincing even to those notsharing common beliefs or authoritative texts (Cohen 1999,167–218; Palmén and Koskinen 2016). There are dialoguesby Jewish thinkers in which philosophical and different religiousperspectives debate, partially in response to Christian polemicaldialogues, most famously Judah Halevi’s dialogue known as theKuzari. The work is a dialogue between a pagan king, whospeaks as a philosopher, and a Jewish sage, and includes theappearance of representatives of Islam and Christianity working toconvert the king. Though the dialogue form continues to be used in theLatin West after the 12th century, its place asthe form forrational argumentation is overtaken by the more formal and elaborateschool form of disputation in the 13th (Novikoff 2012, 341–343,349).

When the convention of composing a dialogue between a teacher andstudent is used, usually the author can be identified more or lesswith the “teacher.” In Ibn Gabirol’s (Avicenbron)dialogue, best known by its Latin title,Fons vitae, thestudent is mostly restricted to asking the teacher for explanationsand demonstrations. Anselm’s dialectical partner inCur DeusHomo is the student Boso who as a Christian asks the questionsthat a non-Christian monotheist would ask about the Incarnation.Boethius, however, casts himself as student rather than teacher in theConsolatio. Of those who compose dialogues between teacherand student a good number, such as those of Augustine, Eriugena,Anselm, Boethius, and Nicolas of Cusa expect and trace a conversion ortransformation in the “student” figure of the dialogue ina way that Plato’s dialogues do not. Anselm explicitly makes ofhis interlocutor a partner in the dialogue who is supposed toanticipate conclusions and implications and/or who more trulymotivates the entire discussion (Sweeney 1999). Like Anselm, othermedieval dialogue writers play with the convention that the teachertakes the lead in the discussion, in effect asking as well asanswering questions. In Eriugena’sPeriphyseon, it issometimes the student, sometimes the teacher who moves the discussionforward. In William of Conches’ dialogue,Dragmaticonphilosophiae, the ‘Prince’ asks questions of the‘philosopher’ who represents William’s views. In aninteresting variation, William of Ockham’sDialogus hasthe student ask the questions while the teacher responds reluctantlyand almost objectively without any attempt to transform or convert thestudent.

The variety of ways in which the dialogue form is taken up in themedieval period alone is enough to make the form as such quiteinteresting. In addition, as Jacobi points out, because the dialogue,unlike the disputation and commentary, is not a school form, it wasalways taken up as a choice and with some degree of self-consciousnesson the part of the writer (Jacobi 1999, 10). They chose this form oversome other for a reason that affects the argument and the positionthey take. (For bibliographical listings for some 160 dialogueswritten from the 4th century to the 15th as well as essays on thedialogues of 19 different medieval dialogue writers, see Jacobi1999.)

Goldhill’s contention that there is something in Christianityinhospitable to dialogue is literally false but gets at a moredifficult question about how and whether dissent is tolerated inmedieval Christianity, with parallel questions that have and should beasked about medieval Jewish and Muslim culture. (See below, sections 3and 4.) While neither medieval philosophical dialogues nor the formsof disputation which grew out of them can be reduced to catechism-likequestion and answer (Goldhill 2009, 5), it is a complex matter todetermine whether the rational form of dialogue and disputation fosterreal open discussion and dissent or control it within strict andnon-threatening limits. The same question could, of course, bemeaningfully asked about dialogue in antiquity, in non-Christianreligious traditions, and in the modern era. In an important sense, itis often too much rather than too little faith in reason in the LatinWest, expressed in medieval dialogue and disputation, which leads someto the notion that reason can prove the truth of Christianity overJudaism or Islam, and, then, to condemnation of resistance toChristianity as irrational (Cohen 1999; Sweeney 2012a,324–5).

2.6 Disputation,Quaestio, Quodlibetal Question

In the Latin West, as the universities developed in the 13th and 14thcenturies, two forms for philosophical and theological speculationwere incorporated into the curriculum, the disputed question and theSentences Commentary. TheDe Fallaciis attributed toAquinas defines a disputed question as a set of syllogistic argumentson different sides of a question to be resolved (Bazán 1985,22). Bazán gives a more complete definition as follows:“a disputed question is a regular form of teaching,apprenticeship and research, presided over by a master, characterizedby a dialectical method which consists of bringing forward andexamining arguments based on reason and authority which oppose oneanother on a given theoretical or practical problem and which arefurnished by participants, and where the master must come to adoctrinal solution by an act of determination which confirms him inhis function as master” (Bazán 1985, 40). Disputationstook place both privately between a master and his students, andpublicly or “solemnly” at an event that replaced regularclasses at the university and was attended by the larger universitycommunity. The latter practice was eventually codified by universitystatute, which prescribed that masters would hold a certain number ofdisputations at various times of the year, sometimes as frequently asonce a week. Most scholars agree that the process came to be dividedinto two sessions. In the first session, supporting and opposingarguments for a given thesis or question were brought forward, and, ina preliminary way, clarified and determined by a student serving astherespondens under the supervision of the master. Duringthe second session, the master himself would make the determination,give his answer and respond to all the opposing arguments. Somedisputed questions we have in written form are clearly taken from thedifferent stages in this process, either areportatio of thefirst day’s session, some abbreviation of the debate, or onereflecting the master’s answer and response to opposingobjections, redacted after the second day’s debate.

Disputation arises out of and is an academic formalization of thephilosophical dialogue (Novikoff 2012) and comes into the classroom asan outgrowth of thelectio, the careful reading andcommentary on authoritative texts (Kenny and Pinborg 1982,20–25). This type of reading involved the consultation ofauthoritative sources on those texts. From the differences amongsources came the need to resolve such differences, a processeventually formalized into the posing of a question. A question istied to a specific textual problem or conflict, but has, like thedisputation, arguments on opposing sides and the response orresolution and replies to opposite objections by the master. Thedisputation is centered around a systematic rather than a textualquestion, and the supporting and opposing arguments are supplied bystudents.

A special form of disputation, quodlibetal (quodlibet = any,whatever) questions, differed from ordinary disputations in that theywere open to the broader public — other masters, students fromother schools, other church and civil authorities — and tookplace only during Advent and Lent. The questions were not set by themaster but could be posed by any member of the audience and withoutany prior notice to the master who would determine the question. Thesequestions might reflect contemporary controversies or might bedesigned to pose a question that brought to the fore a difficulty forthe particular master of whom it was asked because of his other statedviews. The popularity of these public spectacles shows the importanceand influence of scholastic disputation on the larger culture.(Novikoff 2012, 2013).

An important function of the master in both quodlibetal and disputedquestions is thedeterminatio, in which the master orderedthe various smaller questions into articles of a given question. Likethe division of the text that is part of the work of commentary, thisstrategy involves both making distinctions, for which medievalscholastics are well-known, but also a synthesis, finding the unity ofa text and the unity of a set of diverse questions under largerquestions in the disputation. The collections that have been made ofthe quodlibetal literature show how diverse the questions posed wereand how much less unified the treatment (Glorieux 1925–35;Schabel 2006–7). We can also see, by contrast, how much more amatter of literary art the more unified and organized disputedquestions are that are based on questions set by and organized insequence by a master.

All of these forms, disputation,quaestio, and quodlibetalquestion, represent what has been called “theinstitutionalization of conflict” in medieval intellectual life.Raising questions or objections about anything from basic matters ofChristian belief — the existence of God, the coherence of thedoctrine of the Trinity — to important contemporarycontroversies — the power of the papacy or secular princes,ecclesiastical corruption — was not only permitted butencouraged as part of the structure of university life. Thus, therewas an important kind of intellectual and academic freedom enshrinedin these practices of formal and public debate. On the other hand,those questions were also in some ways controlled exactly because theywere brought into an existing institution and structured in aparticular way. Thus, the questions, even though asked, were inanother way made less dangerous and subversive by being posed andcontrolled from within the university, which itself operated under thewatchful eye of the Church. (For a study of the ways in which medievalphilosophical disputation made its way out of the university,affecting the larger culture, see Novikoff 2013.)

The disputation also develops in a different direction within theuniversities, into forms whose function was training in argumentativetechniques in which the goal is besting an opponent. Different formsdeveloped, with different rules for the opponent and respondent. Inthe better knownars obligatoria, the opponent poses aquestion and the respondent answers, while in another form, theopponent constructs arguments to refute something held by therespondent, and the respondent must react to the opponent’sclaims (Angellelli 1970; Pérez-Ilzarbe 2011, 130–1). (Seebelow, section 2.9.)

2.7 Meditation, Soliloquy

‘Meditation’ as a term for a form of medievalphilosophical writings belongs most properly to Anselm and mostfamously to hisProslogion andMonologion; it isclosely related to soliloquy and Augustine’sConfessions, as well as some of the works of Bonaventure.(Anselm calls hisProslogion an “address” insteadof a meditation or soliloquy. TheProslogion is addressed toGod, but its method for understanding God is similar to theMonologion, which Anselm calls a meditation.) In all theseworks, the form is that of an introspective search, often in theexplicit form of an internal dialogue. While sentence collections anddisputed questions make very explicit the different sources andvocabularies that clash with each other and with that of the author ofa question, meditation and soliloquy show no particular reliance onauthoritative sources.

The source for Anselm’s meditations is the practice of monasticmeditation on texts from scripture or on one’s own spiritualcondition. Anselm takes these techniques for focusing the mind anduses them as mode of inquiry into problems of speculative theology andphilosophy. Anselm’s meditations make no direct reference tooutside sources, either scriptural or philosophical, but representAnselm’s own thought process as he struggles with what he cannotquite understand or prove. In monastic style, he has so thoroughly‘ruminated’ on his source texts, scripture andAugustine’sDe Trinitate, that they are essentiallyinvisible to contemporary readers. This independence from authorityand emphasis on internal exploration also characterizesAugustine’sSoliloquies, a ‘dialogue’between Augustine and ‘Reason’, as well as Abelard’sSoliloquium, a ‘dialogue’ between“Peter” and “Abelard” on the meaning andoverlap between the names ‘Christian’,‘philosopher’ and ‘logician’. In hisItinararium mentis in Deum, Bonaventure draws on aparticularly Franciscan form of contemplation, following the path ofSt. Francis’s mystical ascent to God, based on Francis’svision of the six-winged seraph. In Bonaventure, as in Anselm,meditation is connected to the mystical project of achieving unionwith God.

Anselm retains the personal and intimate nature of meditation alsocharacteristic of Augustine’sConfessions. It is worthnoting that among the other works that Anselm labels‘meditations’ are a “meditation on lostvirginity” and a “meditation on redemption.” Theseare highly personal works, concerned with the existential conditionsof sin and salvation. TheProslogion andMonologionshare with them this personal or existential character. As AnselmStolz points out, each step of Anselm’s argument in theProslogion either takes the form of or concludes in prayer(Stolz 1967, 198–201). According to scholars who take the formof theProslogion as meditation seriously, that form makes itimpossible to understand the argument as a “proof” forGod’s existence designed to convince an agnostic or atheist on apurely rational level. Rather, they argue, the text is an attempt byAnselm to address and approach God and is thus written by and for abelieving Christian trying to understand and achieve union with God.On the other hand, other scholars take as most significant in the formnot Anselm’s prayers but his complete reliance on his own reasonwithout apparent recourse to authority, making the form itself animportant model for independent and truly philosophical discourse.Both the introspective element and independence from authority areretained in Descartes’Meditations, about which similarquestions have been raised concerning its form. In the Middle Ages,the importance of the form shows the continuation of philosophy orphilosophical theology as what Pierre Hadot has called a “way oflife.” On this view, until the high scholasticism of the 13thand 14th centuries, philosophy was essentially a spiritual andpersonal project of self-discipline and self-transformation, ratherthan an abstract and school-based problem-solving set of techniques(Hadot 1995, 269–70). Christianity before the 13th century,Hadot argues, presented itself as a philosophy, a way of life, andChristian monasticism and its practices of meditations were meant tobe a path into this spiritually transformative experience (See Hadot1995, 126–141, for the links between ancient “spiritualexercises” and “Christian philosophy”.)

2.8 Sentences and Sentences Commentaries

Sentences as a genre is a development of earlier collectionsof sayings or citations of the church fathers. Such collections, knownasflorilegia, were collections of citations organized aroundthe order of scripture. The development of the scholastic sentencescollection can be attributed jointly to Anselm of Laon, Abelard, andPeter Lombard. Anselm of Laon and his school, so famously criticizedby Abelard in hisHistoria Calamitatum, can be credited withdeveloping a critical approach to the authorities they cited; theysometimes disregarded or criticized opinions rather than alwaysseeking to preserve them all (Colish 1994, 42–46). The nextsignificant development is in the organization of these collections,from an organization following the order of scripture to anorganization based on systematic questions of theology. Such a changebrings speculative and philosophical questions to the fore, questionsconcerning the divine nature and metaphysics, and anthropological andethical problems. Peter Abelard’sSic et Non opposesauthoritative quotations from church fathers on particular questionsarranged in an order and on topics that are systematic rather thannarrative. What Abelard attempted in the various versions ofTheologia but did not ever manage successfully to do was togather those various questions into a systematic organization anddivision of theology as a discipline. This was the achievement ofPeter Lombard.

Peter Lombard’sSentences was by far the mostsuccessful instance of the form. Commenting on it became an academicrequirement for the master of theology in the 13th century, a statusit retained until the later 15th century, with new commentaries stillappearing in the 18th (Silano 2007, xxx). (The nature of thesecommentaries varies quite a bit, early commentaries tending to be lineby line glosses, and later ones more often a series ofquaestiones on more or less selected topics raised by Peter.See Evans 2002 and Rosemann 2009.) Though Peter claims in his prologuemerely to have made a collection of the views of Church Fathers andmost historians have taken him at his word, his advance lies in theorganization of particular questions into a unified plan, based onAugustine’s distinction between things to be enjoyed (God alone)and things to be used (everything else). Secondly, Peter offers hisown responses to questions, engages and refutes the opinions ofcontemporaries when necessary, and in many cases, uses the form toarticulate, justify, and create a consensus view. Besides givingtheology an organization and making a place for all questions to beconsidered, Peter often explicitly leaves some questions open. Peterthus invites others to join in the debate and conversation rather thansimply accept or reject his views. All of these features made his workespecially fruitful for later commentary. Further, Peter Lombard,unlike Abelard, attempted to give substantive and metaphysically basedrather than merely verbal solutions to theological problems, a methodmore in tune with the 13th century curriculum focused on Aristotle,than the 12th, organized around the trivium arts, also positioningPeter’sSentences for the preeminence it achieved inthe 13th century.

The great mystery about the Lombard’sSentences is howa book so important for centuries has been so greatly neglected byscholars, even by those interested in and sympathetic to medievalscholasticism. One intriguing suggestion is that it is tied to thegenre of the work and the different notion of authorship therebyimplied. Giulio Silano argues that the work is most analogous to amodern legal casebook, and that Peter, as the casebook author, isgoverned most directly not by his views but those of the authorities,and the pedagogical goal is not the expression and promulgation of hisviews, or even the mere learning of the authorities’ views butrather the initiation of the student into a discipline, as injurisprudence, a way of thinking and applying past authorities topresent questions or conflicts (Silano 2007). Thus we discount andmisunderstand Peter Lombard’s achievement if we evaluate it inlight of modern notions of authorship and originality.

2.9Sophismata,Insolubilia,Obligationes

As the disputed question as a form began to fade in importance in thetheological faculty, it was replaced by variations on the disputationform in the arts faculty, focusing on questions of logic and naturalphilosophy. Of these three types of literature which become moresignificant in the 13th and 14th centuries,obligatio is theonly one that unambiguously refers to a form of argument.Sophismata andinsolubilia can refer either to thepropositions that might be discussed in a debate or treatise or otherform, or a form of argument for discussing these types ofpropositions. The literature concerning these kinds of problems rangesfrom formal disputes on the propositions which attempt to solve oravoid the problem posed by the statements to treatises or rules abouthow to solve the puzzles the disputes over them reveal. As a type ofproposition,sophismata are ambiguous propositions aboutwhich arguments might plausibly be given both that they are true andthat they are false. They are, as Ashworth puts it, “themedieval ancestor of ‘the morning star is the eveningstar’,” that is, a proposition epitomizing a largerproblem (Ashworth 1992, 518).Insolubilia are propositionsthat are either very difficult or impossible to hold as true or false.These propositions are usually self-referential paradoxes such as theliar paradox (e.g., ‘everything I say is false’). Theinfluential view of William Heytesbury was that insolubles should beresolved in the context of anobligatio, a specialized formof disputation, and Heytesbury proposes rules for solvinginsolubilia as well assophismata in this way (Spade1982, 252). (For a catalog ofinsolubilia literature, seeSpade 1975).

Sophismata discussed in the form of a disputation usuallyinvolve the offering of arguments both for the truth and for thefalsity of the proposition, resolved by a master. The resolution mightonly be a statement about whether the sophism is true or false; then,more elaborate replies to objections to the master’s view mightbe discussed. This form can be complicated by the addition of aresponse offered and defended and then further attacked, and then onceagain defended by responses to the new set of opposing arguments. Oraldisputations on sophisms, the origin of much of thesophismata literature, were an important part of the schoolcurriculum (see Courtenay 1987). Students would serve as opponent andthen respondent in a series of disputations under the direction of amaster. Ashworth notes that some sophismata, such as those byKilvington and Heytesbury, were original compositions, not editedversions of live debates (Ashworth 1992, 519). (For more aboutKilvington’ssophismata, see the edition withtranslation and commentary by Kretzmann and Kretzmann 1990.) Thediscussion of sophisms occurs in three different settings in themedieval literature: first, sophisms which are discussed in works ondifferent topics where the sophism raises certain questions germaineto that topic; second, works by a single author which examine a seriesof sophisms (e.g., thesophismata of Albert of Saxony or JohnBuridan), and third, collections of sophisms discussed by diverseauthors (Read 1993).

In the obligational form of disputation, an opponent puts somethingforward to a respondent. The respondent then ‘obligates’himself to take a certain position on the case put forward by theopponent throughout the dispute. There are different types ofobligations based on the type of claim the opponent proposes and thestance the respondent adopts towards it. (On the different types, seeStump 1982, 319–323.) The goal of the opponent is to trap therespondent into a contradiction and the goal of the respondent is toavoid the contradiction. The setting of the discussion is crucialsince the obligation often involves the evaluation of statements thatdepend on the disputational context. So, for example, the respondentis often obligated to take a position on propositions which makereference to their granting or denying something within thedisputation (e.g., ‘that you are in Rome must be granted [byyou]’) (Stump 1982, 327). In other cases, the difficulty iscaused by reference to the passage of time within the dispute. So itis posited that something is true at A, but it becomes false andimpossible that it be true later in the disputation since the instantA has passed (Stump 1982, 328). Often, the dispute between theopponent and respondent is set up to result in a paradox. In suchcases, the solution must happen outside the debate between the twoparties, in which there is a further distinction or disqualificationof something originally granted in the disputation.

Although it has usually been supposed that medieval interest insophismata andinsolubilia came from medievalscholars’ exposure to ancient sources, like Arisotle’sSophistical Refutations, rediscovered in the Middle Ages,Angel D’Ors has suggested that their origins might instead befound in earlier medieval sources concerned with the problem ofskepticism, like Augustine’sSoliloquia, andContraAcademicos, as well as Anselm’sDe Veritate,Proslogion and so forth (D’Ors 1997). Ashworth tiestheir origin to the 12th c. practice of adducing counter-examples topoint out the flaws in reasoning for an apparently plausible thesis(Ashworth 1992, 518). D’Ors further suggests that discussions ofsophisms which continue in theological texts show not the interest insophisms bleeding over into theology, but theological contexts as theimpetus for interest in logical sophisms (D’Ors 1997).

2.10Summa

The aspiration of thesumma form is two-fold: first, tocompletely emancipate the subject matter, whether logical,theological, or philosophical, from the structure dictated either byscripture or authoritative sources; and second, to cover completely anentire discipline, often but not always, in summary form.

Thesumma form was invented by Peter Helias. HisSummasuper Priscianum was written around 1150, more than a centurybefore Peter of Spain composed his logicalsumma and ThomasAquinas his theologicalsumma. Peter Helias’ssumma combines a commentary on Priscian’s text with asystematic consideration of all the aspects of grammar (Reilly 1993,16).

What Peter Lombard’sSentences are to the sentencesgenre, Thomas Aquinas’s two greatsummae, theSummaContra Gentiles andSumma Theologiae are to thesumma form. As with sentences collections, there are twoaspects of the form to be considered: the overall organizing structureand the method of confronting individual problems or questions. Interms of overall structure, theContra Gentiles is areflection of Aquinas’s distinction between those things whichcan be known by reason alone (e.g., that God exists) and those thingswhich cannot be arrived at without revelation (e.g., the Trinity andIncarnation). Hence, the first three books of theSumma ContraGentiles, dealing with God and creation, use arguments whichdepend only on reason to reach and support its conclusions. The fourthbook is concerned with those things that are known only throughrevelation, in which revelation offers the principles from which theconclusions are drawn. The form for handling individual issues andproblems in theContra Gentiles is not thequaestiobut a more affirmative defense of specific positions and againstspecific heresies. And though it is unclear whether the titlesumma is original (Jordan 1986, 182–3), the work fitsthesumma form in its systematic arrangement of topics andits attempt to include all possible arguments for a given position andagainst its contrary. It has been argued that theContraGentiles is not a polemical but a protreptic work, addressed toChristians, calling on them to deepen their understanding of thefaith, specifically about how to persuade others to Christian belief(Jordan 1986, 190, 194). On this view thegentiles in thetitle are not Muslims and Jews but the “pre- or extra-Christianman, and metaphorically, the human mind under the tutelage ofnature” (Jordan 1986, 184).

TheSumma Theologiae by contrast, uses an abbreviated form ofthe disputed question. The questions are, however, artificial,carefully composed imitations of disputations, not tied to any actualoral debate as true disputed questions are. This gives Aquinas theopportunity to arrange the objections and authorities so as to achievea rhetorical as well as a logical effect. Thus, Aquinas’sSumma Theologiae is different from Peter Lombard’sSentences in two ways. The gathering of authorities around agiven question is for Peter one of the main purposes of his work, tosome degree an end in itself, while for Aquinas those citations servethe end of constructing an answer to the question. Further, whilePeter dispenses with the question format when he finds an issueuncontroversial or largely settled by consensus, Aquinas always placesissues in the format of a question, always finding arguments on bothsides of an issue. For Peter, the question format is more a means toan end, and when the authorities he surveys are in agreement, hetreats the matter like settled case law. But what Aquinas wants toteach beginning students of theology, for whom he says the work iscomposed, is that speculation, not fixed answers, is at the heart ofthe philosophical and theological enterprise. What he passes on tothose students is not information so much as training in a certain wayof thinking.

At the macro level, theSumma Theologiae is organized intothree parts; first, a consideration of God; second, the rationalcreature’s movement toward God; and third, of Christ as the wayto God. (For a recent discussion of and summary of the debates overhow to understand this organization, see Johnstone 2000.) In hisprologue, Aquinas claims that the main contribution of his work is inits organization of topics and questions, following the order requiredby the subject instead of a book or a particular disputation. In thissense, both Aquinas’ssummae represent a further andalmost complete emancipation from a textual order to a logical order.Within that logical structure, Aquinas devotes long passages toscripture, to the Genesis account of creation (Part I, qq.67–74), Hebrew scripture considered as the “Old Law”(Part II, first part, qq. 98–106) and the life of Christ (PartIII, qq. 27–59). Moreover, the work retains its tie to texts inindividual questions which, as individual systematic questions areaddressed, interpret authorities according to their response,ultimately harmonizing rather than simply discarding discordantvoices.

After Aquinas, thesumma remains a form for the systematicorganization of an entire area of study, though often it becomes asummary, a collection of answers, a manual in which to look up answersto particular questions rather than a series of questions.Ockham’sSumma Logicae shares with thesummagenre in theology the attempt to organize an entire disciplinesystematically. Ockham’s principle of organization is first todivide logic into terms and propositions and then to consider thevarious types of terms and propositions. Ockham’s form forconsidering particular types of terms or propositions is generallystraightforward exposition occasionally mixed with a presentation ofopposing positions and responses to the arguments for that position.John Buridan’sSummulae de Dialectica from the mid-14thcentury begins as a commentary on Peter of Spain’sSummulaeLogicales (written between 1220–1250). While Peter’simmensely popular text (used into the 17th century) was a“summa” in the sense of short summaries of the topics oflogic, Buridan’s important and also popularSummulaebased on Peter’s text gives much more systematic explanationsnot just assertations of definitions and propositions; thus it is a“summa” in the sense of a complete set of explanations,given in the author’s own voice (Zupko 2003, 9). Though clearlya teaching text, Buridan reconfigures the discipline of logic usingthe “new logic” (orlogica moderna) to explainthe basic concepts in Peter’s text, and, where necessary (e.g.,in the account of demonstration) composes both a base text and theexplanatory commentary on topics not covered by Peter (Zupko, 2003,100). As Zupko concludes, Buridan’s “Summulae isessentially a compendium of methods, a ‘how-to’ book forthe philosopher” (Zupko, 2003, 135). In form, Ockham’s andBuridan’s works show a progression toward the modern treatise,such as that of Hume or Locke on human nature or understanding,because their exhaustive consideration of their topic and thepresentation of the single voice of the author, rather than a dialogueor set of authorities from the tradition.

3. Role of Authorities

If there is one formal characteristic found in medieval philosophicaltexts of every relevant period and among all the religiousaffiliations of its practitioners, it is the citation of authoritativetexts, whether scripture, Plato, Aristotle, or other revered teachers.To contemporary readers, such references seem to show a slavishdeference to authority and lack of autonomy or originality in thewriter. The explanation of this phenomenon is, of course, a good dealmore complex. The main way of approaching authoritative sources usedby medieval writers was to find ways to forge agreements with andamong authorities by reinterpreting them. Besides the strategies wemight recognize in modern practices of interpretation, there arenumber of ways in which medieval authors make a greater effort tobring an author’s view into conversation and agreement withcontemporary discussions. This sometimes involves placing anauthor’s claims in a larger context, such as supportingAristotle’s metaphysical claims but in a limited way, as validonly for the sublunary world. So, for example, Maimonides argues thatAristotle’s account of the eternity of motion makes perfectsense as an inference from the world as we now experience it, but islimited to that context. Just as a boy reared on an island withoutwomen would have difficulty imagining how children might be conceivedand born, Aristotle, Maimonides argues, might simply have had anexperience too limited to allow him to develop any other accounts ofthe origin of things (Maimonides 1974, 295). Maimonides’handling of Aristotle in this example is more colorful and explicitthan other medieval thinkers, but the principle he uses is common.Alternatively, medieval interpreters often take a given citation outof context and assign it a new context. Hence, for example, Aquinascites Augustine in support of his claim that theology is a scienceanalogous to an Aristotelian science as described in thePosteriorAnalytics; however, Aquinas does not note that Augustine uses theterm ‘science’ in a much older and less technical way(Aquinas 1981, I, q. 1, a. 2). Alan of Lille supports the Paulineclaim that the “invisible things of God are known through thevisible things that are made” only after arguing that the kindof knowledge in question is the knowledge of faith (Alan of Lille1954, 135–6). While Aquinas cites and supports thecategorization of sin in terms of Gregory the Great’s scheme ofthe seven deadly sins, he clearly subordinates Gregory’sclassification to his own way of organizing notions of sin (Sweeney2012b). Though these examples are chosen to show the differencebetween modern and medieval interpretive practice, we cannot attributesuch interpretations to bad faith on the part of writers like Aquinasor Alan of Lille or Maimonides. That is, they are not deliberatelymisinterpreting their sources. Rather their strategies for harmonizingauthorities discordant with each other and with their own views arepart of a hermeneutic whose basic assumption is that these authoritiesare all seeking and attempting to express part of a single truth. Itis not a distortion or disservice to an authoritative source to putits views in a new context, making them appropriate to contemporaryissues and fitting that source into the picture of the truth as it ispresently known. The underlying concordance of all authorities istaken as a given and interpreters work toward showing how it might beoperative in particular cases. As Silano notes, many of the tensionsand even outright contradictions between authoritative sources wouldhave disappeared had the compilers, commentators, and mastersdetermining a question placed those authoritative claims in theirhistorical/cultural context rather than simply set them against eachother. But they would also, thereby, deprive these sources of theirnormative status, in the same way in which a judicial decisioninterpreted in terms of its historical/cultural context is no longerbinding (Silano 2007, xxv–xxvi). Silano points out that the taskof the 12th and 13th centuries in the Latin West is the establishmentof authorities which will form the parameters within which discussionand dissention can take place, rather than their dethronement throughhistorical relativization (Silano 2007, xxv–xxvi).

The way in which scripture is cited is somewhat different from the wayAristotle or even church authorities like Augustine are used. First,scripture is a language in which these authors are thoroughly fluent.They cite scripture from memory, almost proverbially. Further, whenscripture is cited in argumentative forms like the disputation, mostoften it does not carry the weight of the argument. Either scriptureis cited in opposing arguments on one side or the other, in which casescripture passages seem to articulate a limit or boundary the opposingview seems to transgress. But the positions or arguments articulatedpro or con on a given question are not the final word but somethingthe master may accept or reject, which will require an interpretationof the passage from scripture which accepts, rejects, or qualifies itsrelevance and apparent position on the question. When scripture iscited in the master’s own answer, it functions as a support forsomething for which independent arguments are given. Scripture is alsosometimes used to give a position moral and spiritual weight, toreiterate the moral and spiritual center of a writer’s thought.It thus can act as an almost existential reminder of why thesearguments matter and what is at stake in them.

If these are strategies that in general characterize the Latintradition until the 13th century, there is a different strategy atwork in some philosophers in the Arabic and Jewish traditions. Whilethese authors also attempt in many cases to show the deep concordancebetween, for example, scripture and the philosophers, they also attimes use authoritative texts to put forward views which theythemselves would like to promulgate even as they leave them in themouths of those other authors, like Aristotle or Plato.

As is clear from the development of the sentences collection,summa, and commentary, there are significant changes overtime in the ways in which authorities were used and cited (see thediscussion of these individual forms above). It is possible to see theevolution of the treatment of authoritative sources as growingpositively toward a more modern ‘scientific’ attitudetowards interpretation and commentary, one which is neutral, critical,and historically informed rather than dedicated to finding the‘truth’ in a given author no matter how hidden. But whilethere is considerable development toward modern standards ofscholarship in the 13th and 14th centuries, there are also virtues inthe earlier types of approach to authoritative sources. These earlierauthors are highly sophisticated interpreters of biblical andphilosophical texts, finding levels of conflict and concord amongdifferent authors that modern interpreters would tend to miss.

4. Esotericism, Censorship, and Polemics

Many late classical and medieval philosophical texts contain esotericelements. The desire to hide the real message of a text in its earlierforms springs from some form of gnosticism. Gnostic sects, needing toprotect their knowledge from dissemination among non-initiates, hidtheir true message in ways that could only be deciphered by those whopossessed the secret knowledge. Leo Strauss makes the additionalargument that the motives for esotericism in Jewish and Islamicmedieval thinkers are political. Revelation in Judaism and Islam dealsfundamentally with law, with the correct social order, whereas inChristianity it is the revelation of a creed or set of dogmas, Straussargues. Hence, to interpret revelation in Judaism and Islam is alwaysa political act. Interpreting law is much further from the task ofphilosophy than interpreting dogma, placing philosophy on theperiphery of Islamic and Jewish society as opposed to being anintegral part of the official training of students as it was in theChristian West. The inherently marginal character of philosophy inthese societies makes it politically dangerous to be a philosopher.Further, Strauss argues, for these thinkers human nature isessentially and inevitably divided between “the few” whoare capable to doing and understanding philosophy, and “themany” who were not capable of digesting the truths of philosophyand who must be protected from philosophy. Exposure of the many tophilosophy tends to undermine the authority of revelation and thereligious and political authority given the power to explain andpromulgate the revealed law. For Strauss, the difference betweenJewish and Islamic thinkers, on the one hand, and Christian thinkers,on the other, is also exemplified in the different literary sources onwhich they relied. For Christian thinkers, the models are Aristotleand Cicero, for Jewish and Islamic thinkers, the models are thedialogues of Plato, especially theRepublic and theLaws. Strauss’s thesis is that these writers hid intheir exoteric teaching an esoteric teaching to be discerned byreading between the lines. In practice, this means taking smallinconsistencies and other discrepancies in the text as indicative of adeeper or hidden view, looking for the author’s“real” views in the mouths of characters in a dialogue orallegory who are otherwise presented unfavorably, etc. Strauss’sviews on how to interpret the literary form of medieval philosophicaltexts are controversial, but they have made the literary form andhermeneutics applied to these texts a question that must, especiallyfor Islamic and Jewish writers, be confronted. For Maimonides, forexample, an esoteric or ‘dualist’ reading would claim thatMaimonides holds Aristotelian positions on the eternity of the world,the possibility of miracles and on other matters which would bring himinto conflict with Judaism but must hide such views from political andreligious authorities, signalling them only obliquely to the few intheGuide for the Perplexed but expressing non-Aristotelianviews in his work commenting on Jewish law and scriptures. DanielFrank (2003, 144–5) argues against this view that Maimonides“may best be understood philosophically as engaged in criticaldialogue with Aristotle, almost invariably disagreeing with him, butindebted to Aristotle for his mode of discourse, argument forms, andphilosophical vocabulary.” Moreover, Frank points out that theplausibility of extreme esotericism in Islamic and Jewishphilosophical texts may be exaggerated by an unhistorical dichotomybetween Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism (also discussed above,section 2. 4) (Frank 2003, 142–3). That is, because we see aconflict between and author’s Aristotelian and Neoplatonicviews, we speculate that one view is their ‘real’ view,and the other, their ‘cover’ view, while thinkers in thiscontext would have seen Aristotelian and Neoplatonic positions asquite compatible. (On Maimonides and esotericism, see also Ravitsky2005).

While rejecting the extreme position Strauss takes on medievalphilosophical texts, many scholars have noted the esoteric elementspresent in some medieval texts by Christian as well as Islamic andJewish writers (see Butterworth 2001). Boethius, for example, presentshis theological views not to the many but to his trusted teachers andadvisors, writing in a highly dense and technical language in hisDe Hebdomadibus accessible only to the learned (Boethius1973, 38–41). As late as the end of the 12th century, Alan ofLille writes in theological texts of the need to protect the sacredtruths of theology from the incursions of uneducated students in theliberal arts (Alan of Lille 1981, 119–122), and, in the 11thcentury, Anselm complains of the work he intended only for his fellowmonks in theCur Deus Homo being disseminated without hisconsent and in a form he did not approve of (Anselm 1998,261–2). Like many medieval authors, he expresses great concernthat his work will be misunderstood and strives to protect himselffrom misinterpretation. Just as writers chose certain forms andrhetoric for philosophical texts for learned and elite audiences, sodifferent literary forms were chosen for works intended for a wide andpopular audience, using the forms of encyclopedia and instructionalmanuals, but also poetry, sermons, biblical exegesis and mysticalwritings to introduce philosophical ideas to a wide audience (SeeAbram, Harvey, and Muelethaler 2022).

In the Latin, Christian world, though philosophy and speculativetheology is accepted as a legitimate endeavor, enshrined by the 13thcentury in the university curriculum, philosophical writers weresometimes censured by theological authorities, and some views were atvarious times condemned as false and contrary to the faith, mostfamously in what is known as the Condemnation of 1277 (Thiessen 1998;Aertsen, Emery, et al. 2001; and Bianchi 2003). This threat, some haveargued, influenced some writers to pull their punches, to makeconcessions or professions of ignorance or humility that were notauthentically part of their views. Hence, for example, some haveargued that Abelard’s statement in his theology disclaiming anyability or pretense to address the issues necessary for salvation orto give anything more than verisimilitudes about the divine, is aconcession to his persecutors more than a sincere statement of hisview of his own work (Abelard 1987, 123, 201; Sweeney 2006,90–3). Christian writers operating before the formation of theuniversities and the development of acceptable university forms ofwriting, i.e., commentaries on Aristotle, on theSentences ofPeter Lombard, disputed questions, etc., need to justify theirwriting, to explain the nature of its audience, to show theauthor’s submission to the proper authorities. Readers mustconsider whether these kinds of statements can simply be disregardedas obligatory but not sincere, and whether they affect thepresentation of the philosophical and theological arguments in thetext. While it might be tempting to see them merely asproforma, it is clear that complete disregard of such remarks isanachronistic. Such views, for example, contributed to the nowthoroughly rejected view of Abelard as pure rationalist and as a rebelagainst church authority. Nonetheless, concern about avoiding conflictor censure is real among these writers. For example, after thecondemnation of many Aristotelian positions in 1277, authors take careto note when they are simply citing or describing a point of view inorder to consider it or argue against it, signaling with a phrase like“dico recitative” that they are not subscribingto that position.

Parallel to the highly formalized and structured debate of thedisputations in the later Middle Ages, there are also highlyformalized ways of engaging in debate with one’s contemporariesthat shift to some degree over time. In the 12th and 13th centuries,for example, while it is acceptable to attach names of church teachersand authorities from earlier generations to opposing positions, evento positions opposed by the contemporary writer of a text, one’scontemporaries or from the recent past were never directly named butmerely referred to as “someone” or “certainpeople” who might hold a given position. However, this shouldnot be interpreted as deference to one’s contemporaries or as anattempt to quell controversy, since authors became adept at signalingtheir opponents without actually naming them, paraphrasing orparodying their views or catchphrases as modes of ridicule or play. Inthe late 13th century, Duns Scotus begins to give partial referencesto the contemporary thinkers and texts with which he is inconversation; Peter Aureol in the 14th century gives full and accuratecitations. Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358) begins to develop somethingcloser to a “historico-critical approach to theology,”carefully citing authoritative texts.

This development parallels one in some medieval sermons, where thewriters find ways of referring (often by puns) to themselves as authorof the sermon. The shift is from an interest in the arguments tointerest in the individual thinkers. One cause for these changes mightbe the internationalization of the writers and texts. In a moreparochial world, everyone would know who held certain positions; butin a wider context, those at Oxford, for example, might not be knownand needed to be named in Paris. These changes might have also beencaused by the growing self-consciousness and sense of individualityhistorians have noticed in other aspects of medieval academic andsocial life.

5. Development in the Literary form of Medieval Philosophy

The Islamic and Jewish traditions, as well as the Latin traditionuntil the 13th century, can be characterized by the diversity ofliterary forms for philosophical texts. A good deal of thephilosophical creativity among these writers goes into the form inwhich they choose to write. The genres that dominate the 13th and 14thcentury in the Latin West, theSentences commentary, thedisputed question, and the logical developments of these forms inobligationes andsophismata, are academic, highlychoreographed forms. In contrast to the earlier period, these forms donot allow an author much creative latitude. It is possible to read thedevelopment and waning of various forms and the movement towardstandard forms in medieval philosophy in different ways. From onepoint of view, the variety of forms which flourished from the 10th tothe 12th century can be seen as the high point from which thenarrowing into the academic forms of the 13th and 14th centuries seemslike a loss, not only in variety but from the connection to the largerspiritual and existential concerns treated in, for example, theallegories of Boethius or Avicenna and the meditations of Anselm. Bothin the Byzantine world and in the Latin Renaissance, there is arejection of scholastic forms in preference for the richer rhetoricaland literary form of dialogue (see Buron, Guérin, and Lesage2015; Cameron and Gaul 2017). From another point of view (the moreprevalent assumption of the secondary literature), the disputedquestion and other forms of high scholasticism are that toward whichthe earlier centuries made somewhat uneven but steady steps. In theseforms, some might argue, philosophy finds its center in arguments forand against different positions. (See Kretzmann 1997, 301, where heargues that issues of style and rhetoric are not relevant toAquinas’ “unadorned, straightforward, pellucid way ofexpounding, analyzing, and arguing — [which is] ideal forphilosophy”.) The assumption, one arguably bequeathed to theWestern philosophical tradition through Latin Medieval school forms,is that “straightforward argument” is not itself a style,rhetoric, and/or genre but the pure form of rationality and, hence,philosophy. Arguably, at least in the Latin tradition, this way ofseeing philosophy as having only one form, the form of reason, wasprompted by the reception of Aristotle’sPosteriorAnalytics with its model of demonstration as the standard forscience. Syllogistic arguments comprised of certain and necessarypremises yield certain and necessary conclusions, making demonstrationa higher form than dialectic, which yields only probable conclusions,or rhetorical forms and methods, designed to persuade particularaudiences. John of Salisbury, making his way through thePosteriorAnalytics, writes in hisMetalogicon (1159) that unlikeother dialectical or rhetorical forms of arguments, only demonstrationdoes not concern itself with those to be persuaded and is thus indirect relationship to things. (John of Salisbury 1955, 79) In effectthis is the articulation of the standard of objectivity – thatwhich is simply true independent of the time, place, or audience towhom it is addressed, as opposed to that which is designed to persuadein a particular context. Thus, John makes scientific discourse –and the pursuit of truth – the opposite of rhetorical andliterary discourse, giving reason (and, hence, philosophy) its idealform. John notes that Aristotle is called “thePhilosopher” because of his development of the science ofdemonstration. (John of Salisbury 1955, 213) As Aristotle’sideal of scientific demonstration and the Aristotelian corpus as awhole forms university curriculum, philosophy also becomes thediscipline we recognize as ‘philosophy’, an enterprise ofreason alone and begins to function autonomously in the arts faculty,which were earlier seen as only preparatory to theology, law, ormedicine. We can also see different medieval forms for philosophy asindebted to either Plato or Aristotle as philosophical models.Aristotle’s influence we see in the culture and writings of theuniversity. Even though they lacked access to the Platonic dialogues,the influence of Plato through Neoplatonism is evident in the formsthat flourish before the 13th century, in allegory, meditation, anddialogue. These forms emphasize both the spiritual character of thehighest truths philosophical/theological discourse strives to discoverand reveal, and the difficulty, both intellectual and moral, ofachieving insight.

Much more work needs to be done on the literary forms of medievalphilosophy. There are so many forms instantiated in so many ways indifferent periods and from within different religious traditions.Consideration of these forms is especially important for a morecomplete understanding of medieval philosophical texts because so manyof these forms are foreign to contemporary readers. Sometimes the formis important because an author was constrained by practice or academicstatute to use it, as with disputations andSentencescommentaries; hence, how an author comes to use or manipulate a givenform for his own ends is a significant part of understanding the text.When an author uses a non-standard form, that form is self-consciouslychosen and thus in a different way a significant part of anauthor’s meaning. It would be helpful to have studies ofparticular authors who have used different forms, and more studiestracing the development of a given genre through different authors andperiods (as in Jacobi 1999 on dialogue and Whitman 2000 on allegory,Evans 2002 and Rosemann 2009 onSentences commentaries).Finally, more historical work needs to be done by individual scholarsequipped to look at the different genres across different periods andfrom within and across works arising out of Christian, Jewish, andArabic religious traditions. (See Hughes and Robinson 2019 on literaryforms in Medieval Jewish Thought.). For Hughes and Robinson philosophyis never without literary form, nor (which comes to the same thing)does it have only one; they work to challenge the narrow conception ofphilosophy that would divide the study of ‘philosophical’texts from those that fall into the domain of “Jewishstudies” that have more diverse literary forms. In the same way,we have seen those studying the philosophical work of early Modernwomen make the case that we will miss this work if we restrictourselves to texts that take the form that is expected in contemporaryacademic philosophy. Expanding the canon entails interrogating andbroadening the sense of what counts as a philosophical work, theyargue.

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Other Internet Resources

Entries on medieval philosophers elsewhere on the net

• Alan of Lille, inThe Catholic Encyclopedia
• Alfonsi, Petrus, inThe Jewish Encyclopedia
• Avicenna, inThe Catholic Encyclopedia
• Martianus Capella, inThe Catholic Encyclopedia
• Peter Helias, by C. H. Kneepkens,Blackwell Reference Online
• Peter Lombard in theInternet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Texts

• Alan of Lille,De Planctu Naturae (Complaint of Nature), translated by Douglas M. Moffat. Yale Studies in English, v. 36(1908),Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University Libraries
• Augustine,Selected texts in English translation,The Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• Bonaventure,biographies and selected writings, some in English and Latin, some in Latin only
• Database of Quodlibetal Questions, 1230–1350,Quodlibase, based on the materials in Glorieux, 1925–35.
• St. Thomas Aquinas,Summa Theologiae, translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province;Summa Contra Gentiles, translated by Joseph Rickaby, S.J. London: Burns and Oates, 1905
• William of Ockham,Dialogus, translation at the British Academy site

Online Papers

• Leo Strauss’s Platonism, by Neil Robertson, inAnimus (online journal), volume 4,1999

Related Entries

Abelard [Abailard], Peter |Anselm of Canterbury [Anselm of Bec] |Aquinas, Thomas |Augustine of Hippo |Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus |Bonaventure |Buridan, John [Jean] |Cusanus, Nicolaus [Nicolas of Cusa] |Halevi, Judah |Ibn Gabirol, Solomon [Avicebron] |insolubles [=insolubilia] |Kilvington, Richard |Maimonides |Ockham [Occam], William |Peter of Spain [= Petrus Hispanus] |sophismata [= sophisms]