Plight And Hope:A Study On Abelard And His Rationality

Abelard was a famous French philosopher and ideologist in the 12 th century,and was known as the founder of the scholasticism.His rationality was the most important philosophical thought of Abelard.He insisted on his rationality and practiced it for life,achieving the unity of knowledge and action.Facing the plight of the interweaving of reason and belief in the French society and even in the whole Western European society in the 12 th century,Abelard combined reason and belief,and explained the theology with the dialectics.Abelard’s practice with his rationality brought a huge impact to France and even the whole Western European society at that time,that causes Abelard to be convicted to the religious trials.But Abelard’s rationality and its historical value brought hope to the era.Abelard was an important representative of the Western European intellectuals in the 12 th century.His rationality was an important basis for glimpsing the development of thought in the 12 th century and an important node for clarifying the history of Western thought.The dissertation is composed of three parts: the introduction,the main body of five chapters and the conclusion.The first chapter mainly expounds Abelard’s life with the unity of knowledge and action and the rich private and academic works,to understand the process of the emergence,development,transformation and maturation of Abelard’s thought,especially his rationality.As a student,the youngster Abelard loved knowledge,especially the study of dialectics,which laid the foundation for the formation of his rationality.As a teacher,Abelard’s argumentative teaching style inspired his students to think independently.Abelard’s rationality was also perfected in his teaching practice.As a living individual,Abelard showed more characteristics of his characters and qualities.The tragedy of his love and his political plight that he encountered had an important influence on the transformation of Abelard’s rationality.Abelard’s personality and his multiple identities had a profound influence on the publication of his works,and were also the important factor in creating his unique rationality.The second chapter mainly expounds the social background of the formation of Abelard’s rationality.During the high Middle Ages,the economy and culture were flourishing in the 11 th and 12 th centuries.At the same time,some social problems were exposed.The plight of this era was mainly manifested as the contradiction between the reason and the faith,the choice of two paths to God,the awakening of the personal consciousness,and the need for the knowledge systematization.As a philosopher,Abelard hoped to solve the plight of that era in his own way.This was not only his academic sentiment,but also his hope to regain his reputation.The third chapter detailedly expounds the source,main contents and core topics of Abelard’s rationality.The thoughts of his rationality mainly originated from the philosophers such as Socrates,Plato and Aristotle in the ancient Greece and Boethius in the Middle Ages.Abelard believed that the prerequisite of reason was the spirit of doubt and the tool for training reason was dialectics.Abelard’s most important theoretical innovation was “quaestio”,which made the theology questionable.However,Abelard’s rationality didn’t escape the shackles of theological framework.Therefore,his reason was not the modern reason,but a kind of the medieval reason.His rationality was embodied in his arguments and works.The fourth chapter mainly expounds the practice of Abelard’s rationality and the plight brought to Abelard himself.The practice of Abelard’s rationality in the aspect of education was manifested in the diversification of teaching language,the argumentation of thinking training,and the normalization of the style of writing.His practical activities aroused the fear and dissatisfaction of the church forces represented by Bernard that caused Abelard to be convicted by two religious councils.Abelard was convicted of heresy not only because of ideological disputes,but also because of the struggle for the religious discourse power and the political interests.The fifth chapter mainly expounds the historical value of Abelard’s rationality.The “quaestio” thinking mode provided by Abelard became one of the basic elements of the scholastic philosophy.It embodied the way of Aristotle’s affirmative theology.His Sic et Non became a new paradigm of theological writing.The historical value in the aspect of the secular education,the rational spirit and the argumentative teaching methods brought Abelard the reputation of “the pioneer of the University of Paris”.He used a logical approach to compile the textbooks that not only affected philosophy and theology,but also other disciplines,and accelerated the systemization of knowledge.He valued and taught the classical culture,encouraged his students to think independently,promoted the awakening of the personal consciousness that promoted the Renaissance in the 12 th century.The conclusion mainly expounds the uniqueness and timeliness of Abelard’s rationality and its connecting link role between the preceding and the following in the sight of the history of the western thought.Abelard’s rationality inherited the rational thoughts of the ancient Greece,ancient Rome and the early Middle Ages,and opened a new chapter in the medieval scholastic philosophy.Abelard was a pioneer in the establishment of universities in the Middle Ages,and his rational thoughts even influenced the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.