Abelard, Peter

(10791142) Peter Abelard has been famous since the fourteenth century for his exchange of love letters with Hlose, his former wife, written when he was a monk and she a nun. Nineteenth century historians saw him as a rationalist critic of traditional !hristian doctrine and a forerunner of modernity. "ore recently, Abelard#s originality and $ower as a $hiloso$her have come to be a$$reciated. Abelard#s working life s$lits into two main, slightly overla$$ing $eriods. %rom about &&'' until about &&(), his activity as a thinker and teacher revolved around the ancient logical texts available in *atin at that time +the so called logica vetus ,-.ld *ogic/0. 1ut from about &&(', Abelard started to become strongly interested in 2uestions about !hristian doctrine, to which he gradually came to give an increasingly ethical em$hasis. 3he im$ortant works of the first $hase of his career were thus the Dialectica ,c. &&&45&&&60, a logical textbook, and the Logica Ingredientibus ,c. &&&70, commentaries on ancient logical texts ,along with a shorter logical commentary, the Logica Nostrorum Petitioni Sociorum, from the mid &&('s0. 3o the second $hase belong his Theologia, mainly a $hiloso$hical investigation of the 3rinity, which exists in three different, much altered versions8 Theologia Summi Boni ,&&(&0, Theologia Christiana ,c. &&()0, Theologia Scholarium ,c. &&445&&490: biblical commentaries, and a set of Sentences ,c. &&490, which record his lectures on a wide range of theological to$ics: the Collationes ,!om$arisons0, an imaginary dialogue between a Philoso$her, a ;ew, and a !hristian ,$robably c. &&4'0: and the Scito teipsum ,<now yourself=0 or, as it is sometimes called, Abelard#s Ethics ,&&4>0. Although the division of his career into two $hases was $artly occasioned by his castration in &&&? ,at the hands of ruffians hired by Hlose#s uncle, the canon o Notre @ame0, which $ut a violent end to his marriage, and his subse2uent decision to become a monk of Aaint @enis, Abelard remained a teacher for most of his life. After studying with two of the most celebrated logicians of the time, Boscelin of !om$iCgne and Dilliam of !ham$eaux, both of whom later considered him an enemy, Abelard set u$ his own school and finally became the schoolmaster in Paris. He continued to teach as a monk of Aaint @enis and later, when he left that monastery to set u$ his own hermetic monastic community. After a $eriod as an unsuccessful reforming abbot of a remote 1reton monastery, Abelard returned to the now numerous and flourishing Paris schools in the &&4's. He s$ent his final years at !luny and its de$endency, after his activity as a teacher was ended by his condemnation at the !ouncil of Aens ,&&9'0.
Logic

3he logica vetus included Eust two texts by Aristotle himself, the Categories and On Interpretation, along with the Isagoge ,Fntroduction0 to the Categories by Por$hyry ,c.(4(54') !G0, and texts by 1oethius ,c. 9?)5c. )(9 !G0 on categorical and hy$othetical syllogism, division, and to$ical inference. %rom this un$romising set of authorities, Abelard was able not merely to ex$lore areas of formal logic untouched by Aristotle, but also to elaborate a whole meta$hysics and semantics. Ancient and medieval logicians worked in natural language, rather than devising a s$ecial logical symbolism. .ne of the hallmarks of Abelard#s a$$roach to logic was his awareness of the ambiguities in many ordinary sentences and the need to distinguish them carefully when constructing a logical argument. Abelard was not the first medieval logician to notice this $oint ,Anselm of !anterbury, for instance, was an eleventh century forerunner0, but he $laced an em$hasis on it that would be taken u$ by many of his medieval successors. !onsider, for instance, a sentence such as -Possibly the standing man sits./ Abelard is 2uick to observe that it can be read in a com$osite sense , This is possible: that the man is standing and sitting0 or in a divided sense , The man is standing! and it is possible that he is sitting 0. Although this distinction is made by Aristotle in his Sophistical "e#utations, Abelard had already used it very widely in his Dialectica before he read it in the Aristotelian text. "oreover,Abelard used this a$$roach as the basis for devising+as !hristo$her "artin has shown+a genuinely $ro$ositional logic, to com$lement the term logic of Aristotelian syllogistic. Fn anti2uity, the Atoics develo$ed a $ro$ositional logic, and traces of their theory are found in 1oethius#s writings on to$ical argument and hy$othetical syllogisms. 1oethius, however, clearly neither develo$ed a $ro$ositional logic nor understood it. His hy$othetical syllogisms ,for instance, -Ff it is day, it is light. Ft is day. Ao it is light/0 look like arguments in $ro$ositional logic, but 1oethius takes them as being based on the relation between the terms da$ and light: and he cannot gras$ the negation of a conditional such as, -Ff it is day, it is light,/ exce$t as the negation of one of the terms ,-Ff it is day, it is not light/0. 1y contrast, Abelard has a clear notion of $ro$ositional negation ,Ft is not the case that8 Ff it is day, it is light0, and it governs his reconstruction of the theory of to$ical argument. %or 1oethius the theory of to$ics is a sort of logic for constructing real arguments on the basis of commonly acce$ted maxims, which range from basic logical $rinci$les to ,fairly dubious0 rules of thumb, such as -Dhat the ex$erts think about something is true./ Abelard retains only those maxims which underwrite conditionals that are not Eust logically

necessary, but where the sense of the conse2uent is contained in that of the antecedent ,for exam$le, Abelard acce$ts -Dhatever is $redicated of the s$ecies is $redicated of the genus,/ on which is based, for instance, -Ff it is a man, it is an animal/0. 3he resulting system of $ro$ositional logic turns out to be more like some modern connexive logics than classical modern $ro$ositional calculus.
Metaphysics and Semantics

Aristotle#s Categories $rovided Abelard and his contem$oraries with a basic meta$hysics. Ft $ro$oses that the items that make u$ the world are either substances, which exist inde$endently, or non substances, which exist only in de$endence on substances: and that they are either $articular or universal. %or exam$le, ;ohn "arenbon is a $articular substance and man ,in general0 a universal one: the whiteness of ;ohn#s skin and his rationality are individual non substances, and whiteness and rationality ,in general0 are universal non substances. Abelard, however, is a nominalist. %ollowing, but ex$loring in more de$th, a lead given by others, including Boscelin, he contended that everything which exists is a $articular. 3here are no universal things, he argued, because to be universal a thing would have to be both one and shared between many in a way that is im$ossible. Abelard had, then, to show how the basic structure of the universe can beex$lained solely in terms of $articular substance and non substances. Hnlike many more recent nominalists, Abelard acce$ted that the best scientific descri$tion ,Aristotle#s, he thought0 cuts nature at the Eoints8 Ft is a fundamental truth, he believed, that some things are human beings and others dogs, and that human beings are humanbecause they are mortal, rational animals. 3o be a mortal, rational animal, indeed, is to have the -status/ of man, Abelard said. 1ut, he 2uickly added, a status is not a thing. Gvery human, then, is alike in having his or her own $articular rationality, mortality, and animality. 1ut what about these $articular non substance thingsI 3hey are, in Abelard#s view, real items on an ontological checklist because, he says, it might have been the case that the $articularity rationality B& by which ;ohn is rational was the rationality by which Dilliam+who is in fact rational by rationality B (+is rational, and vice versa: and so B & cannot be ex$lained away as Eust being ;ohn insofar as he is rational. 3he non substance $articulars are de$endent, however, because they cannot exist exce$t in some substance or other, and they cannot exist in one substance and then afterward in another. ;ust as Abelard has to ex$lain what it is that makes ;ohn and Dilliam both human beings, he must ex$lain too what it is that makes B & and B( both rationalities. 1ut he does not, as might be ex$ected, try to s$eak of a status of being rational+ analyJing rationality into certain $atterns of behavior, for instance. Bather, he seems to admit, in all but name, that there is a universal rationality. Abelard#s nominalism also $oses a semantic $roblem with regard to universal words. Ft is im$ortant to gras$ that this $roblem is not one about reference. .nce a kindword is first im$osed, it automatically refers to every $articular which is really of that kind, even if the im$ositor himself has merely a vague or inaccurate idea of the internal structure which characteriJes the s$ecies in 2uestion. ,3his feature, as Peter <ing K&7>(L has $ointed out, brings Abelard#s semantics uncannily close to the thought of contem$orary $hiloso$hers such as <ri$ke.0 1y contrast, a word#s signification is, for medieval authors in general, a causal, $sychological notion8 a word % signifies & by causing a thought of & in the listener#s mind. 3he signification of -human being/ in -;ohn is a human being/ is clearly universal8 the & of which it causes a thought is a universal human being, not a $articular one. 1ut how can there be such an &, if every thing is $articularI Abelard#s answer is to say that universal words cause a mental image, a confused conce$tion of, for instance, what humans have in common, which is not the image of any $articular man. Auch confused conce$tions are not things, and it is these conce$tions which universal words signify. 3he conce$tions are not things, because they are not thoughts themselves ,which Abelard would class as $articular non substance things0, but the contents of thoughts+obEects in the world envisaged, to use an anachronistic ex$ression, under a certain mode of $resentation. Abelard also had a theory about the semantics of sentences. A sentence signifies neither the things to which its com$onent words refer, nor the thought they $roduce, but rather its dictum ,meaning -what it says/0. At first sight, Abelard seems to mean by dictum what modern $hiloso$hers call a $ro$osition, and he does indeed characteriJe those logical connections that he understands $ro$ositionally+as, for exam$le, between the antecedent and conse2uent of a conditional+as holding between dicta. 1ut it is not 2uite clear whether dicta are truthbearers or rather, like facts, truth makers. "oreover, Abelard insists that dicta+along with statuses and common conce$tions+are not things. 1ut whether he can coherently deny the reality of dicta,while at the same time using them to under$in his account of the workings ofthe universe, remains doubtful. Nonetheless, Abelard#s meta$hysics is bold and original, and it ranges into many areas other than those discussed here, such as $arts and wholes, relations, the $hysical constitution of obEects and their sensible $ro$erties, and the laws of nature.
Ethics

*ike any !hristian thinker, Abelard held that every detail of world history is $rovidentially ordained. Hnlike the great theologians of the thirteenth century, such as 3homas A2uinas and ;ohn @uns Acotus, he did not acce$t that Mod has any freedom in choosing what the course of $rovidence should be8 Mod, he argues, must choose whatever is best to ha$$en, and that, he believes, leaves no s$ace for alternatives. Net there is room, Abelardthought ,contradicting the PlatoniJing tradition of Augustine and Anselm0 for the existence of genuinely evil things, because+as he ex$lains, citing the distinction between things and dicta+it is good that there is evil. Ff Mod ordains the universe so that every human action, good or evil, contributes to the best $rovidence, it is clear that ethical Eudgment cannot be based on conse2uences. Abelard is very often seen as a moral theorist who, rather, concentrates entirely on intentions, and subscribes to a subEective view of morality. 1oth as$ects of this characteriJation need 2ualification. %ollowing Augustine#s lead, almost all medieval thinkers based moral Eudgment on intentions. %or instance, Abelard#s immediate $redecessors and contem$oraries saw sinning as a stage by stage $rocess of intending+a $erson begins to sin once he entertains a tem$tation to $erform a forbidden act: as he thinks about it with $leasure and $lans how to $ut it into effect, the sin becomes graver, and it is more serious still when he actually $erforms the act. 1y contrast, for Abelard someone is guilty of sinning when, and only when, he consents to the sin+when he is ready to $erform it and will do so unless thwarted.H$ until that moment, he is not guilty, and, once that moment is reached, his guilt is com$lete8 $erforming the act will not increase it. Abelard#s account of what determines whether an action is sinful or not seems at first sight to be subEective. A $erson sins, he says, by showing contem$t for Mod. Ft sounds, from this definition, as if it is the mere subEective state of someone#s mind, and not what he does or $lans to do, that makes him a sinner. 1ut, for Abelard, one shows contem$t for Mod $recisely by consenting to an action one knows is divinely forbidden. Ainners do not usually want to $erform a forbidden action because it is forbidden: rather, they $erform it in s$ite of the fact that Mod forbids it, and very often with the fervent wish that it were licit. "oreover, he does not think that it is a matter of guesswork to decide which acts Mod forbids. !hristians and ;ews have scri$tural revelation to guide them: but, in any case, Abelard believed, all $eo$le in all $laces and in all times, a$art from children and the mentally inca$able, are able to gras$ natural law, which teaches them the fundamental rules for behavior ordained by Mod.Abelard would not hesitate, therefore, to say that, for exam$le, it is and was always wrong for a mentally normal adult to commit adultery ,unless, in some way, he is unaware that it is in this case adultery0 because he could not fail to know that adultery is divinely forbidden and that, therefore, it shows contem$t to Mod to $erform it. Abelard#s account of acting well is less fully develo$ed than his treatment of sinning. He takes over a list of four virtues ,ultimately from Plato#s "epublic0 from !icero8 $rudence, Eustice, courage, and tem$erance. He does not, however, use these virtues to $rovide a view of the good life for human beings. Bather, he sees Eustice as the central virtue, by which a $erson acts in accord with Mod#s commands as known through revelation or natural law. Prudence is a $recondition for being Eust, but not a virtue itself. !ourage and tem$erance are $ro$s of Eustice. A $erson may be deflected from Eust action by fear or by desire for $leasure: courage makes him stand firm, des$ite what threatens him: tem$erance makes him resist the blandishments of $leasure. As this descri$tion suggests, Abelard tends to think of morally good action as a hard won victory over sinning, which is usually the easier or the more $leasant choice. Net he also wants to insist that there is something deficient in goodness about actions which, although carried out from excellent motives, fail to achieve their intended good effect: as, for exam$le, if a $erson works hard in order to $rovide for the $oor or the sick, but his $lans are never realiJed.Abelard#s ethical theory is further com$licated by a somewhat unex$ected twist. He believes that Eudgments made by human Eudges should be based on a utilitarian evaluation of the $unishments given. A woman who entirely unintentionally smothers her baby ,whom she was trying to kee$ warm0 should be $unished severely, although she has committed no sin, so as to discourage others from making the same mistake.
Philosophy of religion

"odern inter$reters of Abelard tend to $lay down any tension between his rationalism and !hristian belief8 He used the tools of his logic, they say, to analyse !hristian doctrines and criticiJe heretical distortions of them, but he was fully willing to acce$t the ultimate mysteriousness of doctrines such as the 3rinity. Net there is good reason to see Abelard#s main $roEect in the works of his last decade as being the $resentation of a rationaliJed !hristianity, which in im$ortant ways did not accord with the acce$ted beliefs of his time. Abelard#s conce$tion of a universal natural law was not merely a foundation for his ethical theory. Peo$le at all times and in all $laces, he believed, have been able to gras$ the fact the Mod exists, and that Mod is triune. Au$$osedly $agan sources, such as Plato, the Aibylls, and the writings attributed to Hermes 3rismegistus, $rovide better testimony, he believes, to the 3rinity than anything in the .ld or even the New 3estament. Although Abelard+ under $ressure to conform to an orthodoxy which, as it turned out, he was in any case accused of infringing+ might

acce$t a certain element of inex$licable mystery in the doctrine of divine triunity, he elaborated in the different versions of his Theologia a com$lex theory of sameness and difference, which seems to have been designed to ex$lain in terms of logic how something can be three and yet one. And he considered that Mod#s triune nature emerged Eust from thinking about the attributes an omni$erfect being must have8 -%or Mod to be three $ersons+%ather, Aon and Holy A$irit+is,/ he ex$lains at the beginning of the Theologia Summi Boni, -as if we were to say that the divine substance is $owerful, wise and benign. O/ 3his attitude was $art of Abelard#s general, though nuanced, reEection of there being anything $raiseworthy in the acce$tance by faith of truths that are not understood, and of the limited function he gives to revelation. %or most of his contem$oraries, the ;ews, to whom the .ld *aw had been revealed, were far closer to a gras$ of the truth than the ancient $agans. %or Abelard, the $agan $hiloso$hers, without revelation but using natural law, were able to live highly virtuous lives and to reach a better understanding of Mod than most of the ;ews. Abelard did not, however, think that every im$ortant theological truth could be gras$ed by reason, without revelation. Fn $articular, only by revelation can $eo$le know of !hrist#s life and his death, and without this knowledge, he thought, no one can be saved. 1ut Abelard went on to argue that Mod would reveal what was necessary for salvation to anyone who lived well, and also to give a rationalistic ex$lanation of why it was necessary to know about !hrist#s crucifixion+because it set an exam$le of love, indis$ensable for being able to overcome tem$tations. Aimilarly, while Abelard broadly acce$ted the biblical accounts of heaven and hell, he was one of the few medieval thinkers to insist that they should not be inter$reted literally.
After Abelard

.ne of the schools of later twelfth century $hiloso$hy, the nominales, $robably consisted of Abelard#s followers. 1ut, a$art from his letters to Hlose,Abelard was not one of the authors who was much read after &(''. Glements of his a$$roach to logic were absorbed into the develo$ingmedieval curriculum, although many of his subtlest ideas seem never to have been used. 3he ty$e of doctrinal $roblems raised by him influenced the Sentences, written by Peter *ombard in the &&)'s, and through this work, which became the standard textbook, the whole tradition of later medieval theology. Abelard#s effect on the $ositions and arguments they develo$ed was very limited, however, because the university theologians had their outlook formed by a reading of the whole range of Aristotle#s $hiloso$hy and the Arabic commentary tradition. Fn many ways, however, Abelard#s a$$roach to meta$hysics and the $hiloso$hy of religion, with its basis in logical and linguistic analysis, is closer to today#s $hiloso$hical tastes than the grand systems of the thirteenth and early fourteenth century $hiloso$hers.

B i b l i o g raphy
WORKS BY ABELAR

Selected Latin Texts Petri 'baelardi Dialectica, edited by *ambertus ". de BiEk. (nd ed. Assen8 Pan Morcum, &7?'. Petri 'baelardi opera theologica F5FFF, edited by Gligius 1uytaert ,and !onstant ;."ews, vol. FFF0. 3urnhout8 1re$ols, &76?. !or$us christianorum, continuatio mediaeualis &4 ,including the Theologia in its different versions0. Peter 'baelards philosophische Schri#ten, F. 4, edited by 1ernhard Meyer. "Qnster8 Aschendorff, &7(? ,1eitrRge Jur Meschichte der Philoso$hie und 3heologie des "ittlalters (&0. *ogical commentaries. Sententiae magistri Petri 'baelardi (Sententie )ermanni* , edited by Aandro 1uJJetti. %lorence8 *a nuova Ftalia, &7>4. nglish Translations +ive Te&ts on the ,ediaeval Problem o# -niversals: Porph$r$! Boethius! 'belard! Duns Scotus! Oc.ham , edited by Paul P. A$ade. Fndiana$olis and !ambridge8 Hackett, &779. Gxtract from Logica Ingredientibus. Peter 'belard/s 0Collationes!1 edited by ;."arenbon and M. .rlandi. .xford8 .xford Hniversity Press, (''&. *atin and Gnglish. Peter 'belard/s 0Ethics!1 edited by @avid G. *uscombe. .xford8 .xford Hniversity Press, &7?&. *atin and Gnglish.
WORKS ABO!" ABELAR

1rower, ;effrey G., and <evin Muilfoy, eds. The Cambridge Companion to 'belard . !ambridge, H.<., and New Nork8 !ambridge Hniversity Press, (''9. !lanchy,"ichael. 'belard: ' ,edieval Li#e. .xford8 1lackwell, &77?. @e BiEk, *ambertus ". -Peter Abelard#s Aemantics and his @octrine of 1eing./ 2ivarium (9 ,&7>608 >)5&(>. <ing, Peter .. -Peter Abailard and the Problem of Hniversals./ Ph@ diss. Princeton Hniversity, &7>(. "arenbon, ;ohn. The Philosoph$ o# Peter 'belard. !ambridge, H.<.8 !ambridge Hniversity Press, &77?. "artin, !hristo$her ;. -Gmbarrassing Arguments and Aur$rising !onclusions in the @evelo$ment of 3heories of the !onditional in the 3welfth !entury./ Fn 3ilbert de Poitiers et ses contemporains, edited by ;ean ;olivet and Alain @e *ibera, 4??59''. Na$les8 1iblio$olis, &7>?.

"artin, !hristo$her ;. -*ogic./ Fn The Cambridge Companion to 'belard, edited by ;effrey G. 1rower and <evin Muilfoy, &)>5&77. !ambridge, H.<., and New Nork8 !ambridge Hniversity Press, (''9. "ews, !onstant ;. 'belard and )eloise. .xford8 .xford Hniversity Press, (''). "ews, !onstant ;. Peter 'belard. Aldershot8 Pariorum, &77). 3weedale,"artin. 'bailard on -niversals. Amsterdam and New Nork8 North Holland, &7?6. !ohn "arenbon (200#)