Medieval Philosophy.

Introductory Considerations.

§ 1. GENERAL REMARKS.

106. Scholastic Philosophy and Scholastic Theology. -- Scholastic philosophy, which represents medieval philosophy par excellence, naturally consists, like every other philosophy, in a rational investigation of all or some of the problems raised by any attempt to explain fully the universal order of things. We find that scholastic philosophy is almost always confounded with scholastic theology, which, in its dogmatic aspect, is a body of doctrines received through a positive revelation from God.

This confusion would entirely pervert the meaning of the historical study we have undertaken in those pages; for it would make the history of medieval philosophy a department of the history of religions. It is expressly condemned by the princes of philosophy in the thirteenth century, who laid down clearly the distinction between the philosophical and theological sciences. Their theory on this point will be expounded when we come to treat of the scholastic synthesis (see Second Period).

In the present history there is question of scholastic philosophy, and of scholastic philosophy alone. When we employ the term scholasticism simply, it is to be taken as synonymous with scholastic philosophy.