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Modern scholasticism
Title page of the Operis de religione (1625) from Francisco Suárez.
Background

Protestant Reformation
Counter-Reformation
Aristotelianism
Scholasticism
Patristics

Modern scholastics

Second scholasticism of the School of Salamanca
Lutheran scholasticism during Lutheran orthodoxy
Ramism among the Reformed orthodoxy
Metaphysical poets in the Church of England

Reactions within Christianity

The Jesuits against Jansenism
Labadists against the Jesuits
Pietism against orthodox Lutherans
Nadere Reformatie within Dutch Calvinism
Richard Hooker against the Ramists

Reactions within philosophy

Neologists against Lutherans
Spinozists against Dutch Calvinists
Deists against Anglicanism
John Locke against Bishop Stillingfleet

Second scholasticism,[1] also called Modern scholasticism, it is the period of revival of scholastic system of philosophy and theology, in the 16th and 17th centuries. The scientific culture of second scholasticism surpassed its medieval source (Scholasticism) in the number of its proponents, the breadth of its scope, the analytical complexity, sense of historical and literary criticism, and the volume of editorial production, most of which remains hitherto little explored.

Scotism and Thomism

Unlike the "First", i.e. medieval scholasticism, a typical feature of second scholasticism was the development of schools of thought, developing the intellectual heritage of their "teacher". Two schools survived from earlier phases of scholasticism, Scotism and Thomism. The Scotists, mostly belonging to the various branches of the Franciscan order, include the Italians Antonio Trombetta, Bartolomeo Mastri, Bonaventura Belluto; the Frenchman Claude Frassen, the Irish emigrants Luke Wadding, John Punch, and Hugh Caughwell; and the Germans Bernhard Sannig and Crescentius Krisper. The Thomists were usually but not exclusively represented by the Iberians in the Dominican and the Carmelite orders. They include Thomas Cajetan (or Caietanus), Franciscus Ferrariensis, Domingo de Soto, Domingo Báñez, João Poinsot, the Complutenses and others.

Iberian scholasticism

17th century classroom at the University of Salamanca

The emergence of the second scholasticism during Renaissance in the University of Salamanca was highly determined by the influence of Francisco de Vitoria and the Dominican order, which during the first half of the 16th century provided to the Second Scholasticism with some main figures, such as aforementioned Francisco de Vitoria, as well as Domingo de Soto, and an orientation focused on law, economy, theology and other academic disciplines that linked scholasticism with topics and problems more typical of modern societies.

The intellectual influence of second scholasticism was augmented by the establishment of the Society of Jesus (1540), by Ignatius Loyola, per approval of Pope Paul III. The "Jesuits" are considered a third "school" of second scholasticism, although this refers more to the common style of academic work rather than to some common doctrine. The important figures include Pedro da Fonseca, Antonio Rubio, the Conimbricenses, Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Luis de Molina, Gabriel Vásquez, Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Rodrigo de Arriaga, Thomas Compton Carleton and many others. The joint intellectual and didactic work between Jesuits and Dominicans within the framework of the Counter-Reformation helped spread the ideas of the second scholasticism throughout the New World and Europe, where the orders, supported by monarchies and local authorities, founded academies, seminaries, universities also directing numerous prestigious universities of the period.

The jesuit and scholastic author Rodrigo de Arriaga

There were also several "independent" thinkers like Sebastián Izquierdo, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowicz, Kenelm Digby, Raffaello Aversa etc., that mixed the ideas of second scholasticism with the new ideas of enlightment.

Decline and legacy

The golden age of Second Scholasticism was during the late 16th century and the first half of the 17th century, at which time it was still largely in control of university curricula in philosophy.[2] But second scholasticism started to decline under the attacks of writting in vernacular languages philosophers which, although they were not exempt from the influence of second scholasticism that was in fact large in many of them, sought alternatives to the dominant Aristotelian thought, such as Descartes, Pascal and Locke. The second scholasticism also faced the competition from more experimental and mathematical ways of doing science promoted by the Scientific Revolution. It was largely dormant outside of Spanish empire and Portugal during Enlightenment in the 18th century, although scholastics such as Francisco Suárez, Juan de Mariana and Luis de Molina remained influential for a long period. Despite its decline, during the second half of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century, some influential authors still emerged reaching a minor influence in the Catholic ambit, such as Rodrigo de Arriaga, Juan de Sorozábal, Francisco Palanco, Miguel de Elizalde, Diego Avendaño, etc., although the impact and influence of these authors did not reach the large influence of the scholastic authors of the 16th century and the first half of the 17th century. Influenced by Emmanuel Maignan, philosophers as Jaime Servera and Tomás Vicente Tosca y Mascó tried to provide a new innovative impulse to modern scholasticism by trying to synthesize the works and ideas of previous philosophers as Suárez and Gabriel Vásquez with the new scientific discoveries.

Tomás Vicente Tosca y Mascó

In some Iberian universities the modern scholastic culture remained vivid well into the 19th century, providing background for the birth of Neo-Scholasticism during XIX century, although during the 18th century modern scholasticism suffered from a great criticism of scholars linked to the Bourbon dynasty and the cultural renovation that changed Spanish intellectual culture from conservative views of second scholasticism to the new ideas of French and British philosophers from Enlightenment, modern scholasticism also suffered from a strong decline after the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1767.

Interest in the thought of the modern scholastics has been recently revived by the journal Studia Neoaristotelica.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Manlio Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000–1800, p. 225
  2. ↑ R. Ariew and D. Gabbay, "The scholastic background", in Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Philosophy, ed. D. Garber and M. Ayers (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998), ch. 15.

Bibliography

  • Manlio Bellomo, The Common Legal Past of Europe, 1000-1800, Washington, D.C. The Catholic University of America Press, 1995.
  • Josef Bordat and Johanna M. Baboukis, "Late Scholasticism". In: Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. New York 2009.
  • James Franklin, "Science by Conceptual Analysis: The Genius of the Late Scholastics", Studia Neoaristotelica 9 (2012), 3–24.
  • James Gordley, The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1991, ch. 3.
  • Paolo Grossi, La Seconda scolastica nella formazione del diritto privato moderno, Giuffrè, Milan, 1973.
  • Anneliese Maier (1949–58) Studien zur Naturphilosophe der Spätscholastik, 5 Bande
  • Daniel D. Novotný, "In defense of Baroque scholasticism", Studia Neoaristotelica 6 (2009), 209–233.
  • Daniel D. Novotný, Ens rationis from Suárez to Caramuel: A Study in Scholasticism of the Baroque Era, New York, Fordham University Press, 2013.
  • Daniel Schwartz, The Political Morality of the Late Scholastics: Civic Life, War and Conscience, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
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