Peter Abelard
1079 -1142
The Learned Doctors
D. Little
Notes and some of the love letters of Heloise
and Abelard
can be found at foot of this page. [Editor]
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Somebody sneered at the Scholastic Professors
for debating such trivia as how many angels
could dance on the head of pin. Maybe that
person didn't quite understand the scholastic
vocabulary. The trivium simply meant the
three-subject university curriculum. [9] |
Angels or spirits stood in for quite a number
of things for which we have different names
now. Angels brought ideas from God (remember
that Augustine had said c. 400 C. E. that
you create nothing -- with devotion and good
luck, though, God might choose to illuminate
your mind). Angels brought dreams (bad angels
brought sexy ones). Saintly spirits and angels
defended you, interceded for your soul, shoved
the planets around in their orbits. Thomas
Aquinas and the rest had... er... spirited
discussions of all these matters. [10]
Peter Abelard (1079-1142),translator of Aristotle,
nominalist, celebrated teacher and lover.[11]
Abelard was suspicious about reification,
which means he thought that there might exist
names for which there are no corresponding
things. Because you can discuss unicorns
or Santa Claus -- stop reading, children!
-- does not mean that they exist. Psychologists
in our time sometimes talk about intelligence,
aggression, schizophrenia and so on as if
they were material things. Presumably, we
know perfectly well that they are hypothetical
constructs, or something like that, so "it's
only a manner of speaking." Still, it's
hard to find an alternative "manner
of speaking." People can be forgiven
for complaining, as one biologist has, that
psychologists "think that aggression
is a liquid that slops around in the brain."
[12]
The young Master Peter Abelard argued that
there are no Platonic Forms of Catness or
Aristotelian Essences of Cat separate from
individual cats. No Ideal Model of Human
Nature or Universal Human arete
-- just people. In the terminology of the
time, this made Abelard a nominalist as opposed
to a realist.[13
] Philosophy is grand stuff, he said, but
you can't do physics with mere words. (How
he thought you could do physics -- or at
least investigate the ordinary world -- isn't
clear. Wait for Aquinas on the next page.)
But doesn't Abelard's nominalism mean thatall
the abstract words are suspect? Is your immortal
soul just a word? Your mind? Your inner self?
Your hopes and dreams? Even God?
In the beginning was the word, and if the
word won't do, what happens to morality,
or Redemption or Heaven or Christ's Vicar-on-Earth,
the papal authority? Abelard couldn't or
wouldn't see a problem.
Notes on the lecture -- "Learned Schoolmen;
Abelard"
"9. trivium... The three subjects were
the same as those taught in the ancient Greek
schools: Grammatica, Rhetorica and Dialectica.
During the Renaissance, the trivium was replaced
with a new quadrivium: Aritmetica, Geometria,
Musica and Astronomia. No doubt the same
people who championed this new practical
and scientific curriculum made the word trivial
mean unimportant.
10. angels on a pin... If angels are incorporeal,
how can they do their jobs? Maybe they are
physical, but infinitesimally small (like
Democritus' atoms). Therefore, an enormous
number could congregate on the head of a
pin, if they wanted to.
By the way, I don't think angels had wings
at the time -- some Italian painter, perhaps
Giotto, started putting them on in about
1300 CE. [WWW: Giotto di Bondone, The Mourning
of Christ. webMuseum, Paris, accessed 10/10/1998]
In 1487, the theologians Kramer and Sprenger
decided that bad angels (devils, demons)
can't do nasty things all by themselves because
angels are, in fact, not physical beings.
That's why demons recruit witches to do the
dirty work [see Hergenhahn (1997), p. 439
on the influence of Malleus Maleficarum].
11. Abelard... Real name (!) Pierre du Pallet.
His chosen nickname, Abaelardus, is variously
spelled -- Abeillard, Abailard, etc.
The Pete and Eloise Story (Abelard and Heloise)
is a famous tale of true love or a sordid
sex-scandal, depending on your point of view.
In middle age, Peter Abelard was overcome
with lust for the apparently willing 17-year
old niece of a colleague. He got her and
then the girl's outraged family got him in
the style of the recently celebrated Mrs.
Lorena Bobbit. Peterless, Abelard was consigned
to a monastery. Heloise retired among Nuns.
The lovers thereafter made do with exchanging
letters describing their sexual fantasies.
There is a good short biography by William
Turner at Notre Dame's Jacques Maritain Center,
http://www.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/abelard.htm
and another among James Kiefer's Christian
Biographies at http://www.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/04/21b.htm
[Both sites accessed 10/10/1998].
12: Klopfer studied, among other things,
how sheep and goats smell.
They smelled terrible! But seriously, folks
... they smelled seriously terrible! (Old
but good joke.)
Klopfer wouldn't accept "maternal bonding"
as a thing -- he wanted a physical understanding
of the signals that the mothers and babies
exchange, and he found them. Some of them
are odor molecules.
(have article filed "imprinting"
office - check.)
13. Hergenhahn (1997) refers to both Plato
and Aristotle as realists as opposed to Abelard
the nominalist. This is confusing because
we now usually call Plato and the Medieval
realists idealists. Furthermore, a 20th century
'common-sense realist' wants nothing to do
with any of these philosophers -- his or
her intellectual ancestor is probably a tough-minded
Scotsman named Thomas Reid who wasn't born
until
1710.
"Reality -- whatta concept!" -Russian/American
comedian Jakov Smirnov.
I once watched philosophy Prof. Neil McGill
trying to persuade a class of freshman engineers
to question the reality of an oak table.
A tough sell! Psychologist Donald Hebb wrote
persuasively (ref?) that a steel I-beam is
a solid object to an engineer but, equally,
it's a wispy cloud of electrons to a physicist.
The 12th century anti-nominalists were claiming
that there is one "real" God's-eye
way to see a steel beam (or anything else).
Some Love Letters of Heloise and Abelard
.
Abelard: Brilliant light who is used to shining
in the midst of darkness, may you experience
no diminishing of your sweetest light. No-one
is unhappier than we who are simultaneously
pulled in different directions by love and
shame.
Heloise: To the spice of perfect quality
and finest fragrance, multiplied a hundredfold
with the seed of sweetness in the wasteland,
a full moon, the delights of binding love.
You give words to the wind. If you stone
me for such things, what would you do to
one inflicting injuries on you? He who does
not remember a friend except in time of necessity,
is no friend deserving of praise, nor perfect
in every part. Farewell.
Heloise: To her heart's love more sweetly
scented than any spice, she who is his in
heart and body, the freshness of eternal
happiness as the flowers fade of your youth.
Farewell, well being of my life.
Abelard: To the singular joy and only solace
of a weary mind, that person who's life without
you is death, what more than himself insofar
as he is able in body and soul? Farewell
my light, farewell, you for whom I would
willingly die.
Heloise: To her love most pure, worthy of
any fidelity, through the state of true love
the secret of tender faith. May the ruler
of heaven mediate between us; may he accompany
our faith. Farewell, and may Christ King
of Kings save you my sweetest for eternity.
Farewell in him who governs all things in
the world.
Abelard: To one who is sweeter from day to
day, is loved now as much as possible and
is always to be loved more than anything,
her only one, the same unchanging constancy
of sincere faith. Farewell my brightest star,
my noblest delight and my only consolation.
Farewell, my wellbeing.
Heloise: To my joyful hope, my faith and
my very self with all my devotion as long
as I live. May he bestower of every art and
the most bountiful giver of human talent,
fill the depths of my breast with the skin
of the art of philosophy in order that I
may greet you in writing, most beloved, in
accord with my will. Farewell. Farewell,
hope of my youth.
Abelard: To his brightest star, whose rays
I have recently enjoyed. May she shine with
such unfailing splendour that no cloud can
obscure her. Because you, my sweetest lady,
have so instructed me, or to speak more truly,
because the burning flame of love compels
me, your beloved could not restrain himself
from greeting you as he can through the agency
of a letter in place of his actual presence.
Therefore keep well, just as I need your
keeping your well; and farewell, just as
my faring well depends on your doing so.
In you is my hope; in you my rest. Never
do I wake so suddenly that my spirit does
not find you present within itself.
Heloise: You know, greatest part of my soul,
that many people love each other for many
reasons, but no friendship of theirs will
be as constant as that which stems from integrity
and virtue and from deep love. For I do not
consider the friendship of those who seem
to love each other for riches and pleasures
to be durable at all, since the very things
on which they base their love seem to have
no durability. Consequently, when their riches
or pleasure runs out, so to at the same time,
love may fail.
But my love is united with you by a completely
different pact, and the useless burdens of
wealth, more conducive to wrongdoing than
anything when the thirst of possession begins
to grow, did not compel me to love you. Only
the highest virtue in which lies the root
of all honours and every success. Indeed
it is this virtue which is self sufficient
and in need of nothing else, which restrains
passion, keeps desires in check, moderates
joys and eradicates sorrows, which provides
everything proper, everything pleasing, everything
delightful, and than which nothing better
can be found.
Surely I have discovered in you, since I
love you, undoubtedly the greatest and most
outstanding good of all. Since it is established
that this is eternal, it is for me the proof
beyond doubt that you will remain in my love
for eternity. Therefore believe me desirable
one, that neither wealth, distinctions, nor
all the things that devotees of this world
lust after, will be able to sever me from
love for you. Truly there will never be a
day in which I would be able to think of
myself and let it pass without thinking of
you. Know that I am not concerned by any
doubt that I may hope the same thing from
you.
Abelard: To the only disciple of philosophy
among all the young women of our age, the
only one of whom fortune has completely bestowed
all the gifts of the manifold virtues, the
only attractive one, the only gracious one.
He, who through your gift, is nourished by
the upper air, he who lives only when he
is sure of your favour, may you advance ever
further, if she who has reached the summit
can advance any further.
I admire your talent, you who discussed the
rules of friendship so subtly that you seem
not to have read Tully but to have given
those precepts to Tully himself. What you
say is true, sweetest of all women, that
truly such a love does not bind us as often
binds those who seek only their own interests,
who make friendship a source of profit, whose
loyalty stands firm or collapses with their
fortunes, who do not consider virtue to be
of value for its own sake, who call friendship
to account, those who with busy fingers keep
count of what they ought to get back, for
whom indeed nothing is sweet without profit,
truly, we have been joined, I would not say
by fortune, but rather by God, under a different
agreement.
I chose you among many thousands because
of your countless virtues. Truthfully, for
no other benefit than that I might rest in
you, or that you might lighten all my troubles,
or that of all the good things in this world
only your charm might restore me and make
me forget all sorrows. You are my fill when
hungry, my refreshment when thirsty, my rest
when weary, my warmth when cold, my shade
when hot, indeed in every storm, you are
my most wholesome and true calm.
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