scholasticism: Continuation of the Scholastic Tradition

William of Occam, another Franciscan, is generally regarded as the last of the great medieval philosophers. By firmly separating philosophy and theology and insisting that there is no rational ground for faith, he brought an end to that synthesis of faith and reason that characterized the greatest scholastic thought. After the 15th cent. the reputation of medieval philosophy declined. But the break between medieval philosophy and Renaissance thought was mainly in the area of metaphysics; scholastic tradition and methods continued to be followed in politics and law—in canon law, civil law, and common law and, later, in the development of international law.

In the late 15th cent. the Dominicans began a Thomistic revival; its brilliant leader was the reformer Cajetan. There was also a living Scotist tradition, and every Catholic university had Thomists and Scotists in its theological faculty. After the 18th cent. the secularization of the universities resulted in the suppression of the theological faculties, and the old tradition was broken. The Scotists always suffered from the very bad state of the text of Duns Scotus' works, and in the 20th cent. the Franciscan order undertook a complete and authoritative edition of them.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Neoscholasticism
• Continuation of the Scholastic Tradition
• The Golden Age
• Early Scholasticism
• Influences on Scholasticism
• Bibliography

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