Philosophy Paper
The History of Philosophy
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y and Z
(A)
Abelard, Peter: One of the most heated debates that troubled the church in the Middle Ages was the question of universals. This question goes back as far as Plato’s Forms. It has to do with the relationship between the abstract and general concepts that we have in our minds (what is the relationship between Chair with a capitol “C” and chair with a small “c”?). And from this, two radical viewpoints emerged, realists and the nominalists. The realists followed Plato in insisting that each universal is an entity in its own right, and exists independently of the individual things that happen to participate in it. An extreme form of realism flourished in the church from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Among its advocates were John Scotus, Erigena, Anselm and William of Champeaux. On the opposite side were the nominalists and they held that universals were just names, and therefore, have no objective status apart from that which is fabricated in the mind. Nominalists, such as Gabriel Biel and William of Occam (see O section), said that the individual is the only existing substance. Unfortunately, their treatment of nominalism removed religion almost entirely from the area of reason and made it a matter of faith beyond the comprehension of reason.1 And here lies the significance of the French theologian Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Between the two extremes, Peter Abelard proposed a more moderate form of nominalism. Though critical of the idea of the separate existence of universals, he nevertheless believed that resemblances among particular things justified the use of universals for establishing knowledge. More specifically, Abelard proposed that we ground the similarities among individual things without reifying their universal features, by predicating general terms in conformity with concepts abstracted from experience. This resolution (which would later come to be
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y and Z
(A)
Abelard, Peter: One of the most heated debates that troubled the church in the Middle Ages was the question of universals. This question goes back as far as Plato’s Forms. It has to do with the relationship between the abstract and general concepts that we have in our minds (what is the relationship between Chair with a capitol “C” and chair with a small “c”?). And from this, two radical viewpoints emerged, realists and the nominalists. The realists followed Plato in insisting that each universal is an entity in its own right, and exists independently of the individual things that happen to participate in it. An extreme form of realism flourished in the church from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. Among its advocates were John Scotus, Erigena, Anselm and William of Champeaux. On the opposite side were the nominalists and they held that universals were just names, and therefore, have no objective status apart from that which is fabricated in the mind. Nominalists, such as Gabriel Biel and William of Occam (see O section), said that the individual is the only existing substance. Unfortunately, their treatment of nominalism removed religion almost entirely from the area of reason and made it a matter of faith beyond the comprehension of reason.1 And here lies the significance of the French theologian Peter Abelard (1079-1142). Between the two extremes, Peter Abelard proposed a more moderate form of nominalism. Though critical of the idea of the separate existence of universals, he nevertheless believed that resemblances among particular things justified the use of universals for establishing knowledge. More specifically, Abelard proposed that we ground the similarities among individual things without reifying their universal features, by predicating general terms in conformity with concepts abstracted from experience. This resolution (which would later come to be