Second scholasticism
| Part of the series on 17th-century scholasticism | |
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| Title page of the Calov Bible | |
| Background | |
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Protestant Reformation | |
| 17th-century scholastics | |
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Second scholasticism of the Jesuits | |
| Reactions within Christianity | |
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Labadists against the Jesuits | |
| Reactions within philosophy | |
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Modernists against Roman Catholics | |
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In intellectual and cultural history, the term second scholasticism denotes period of revival of scholastic system of philosophy and theology, in the 16th and 17th centuries. The scientific culture of second scholasticism surpassed its medieval source (Scholasticism) in the number of its proponents, the breadth of its scope, the analytical complexity, sense of historical and literary criticism, and the volume of editorial production, most of which remains hitherto little explored.
Scotism and Thomism
Unlike the "First", i.e. medieval scholasticism, a typical feature of second scholasticism was the development of schools of thought, developing the intellectual heritage of their "teacher". Two schools survived from earlier phases of scholasticism, Scotism and Thomism. The Scotits, mostly belonging to the various branches of the Franciscan order, include the Italians Antonius Trombetta, Bartolomeo Mastri, Bonaventura Belluto; the Frenchman Claude Frassen, the Irish emigrants Luke Wadding, John Punch, and Hugh Caughwell; and the Germans Bernhard Sannig and Crescentius Krisper. The Thomists were usually but not exclusively represented by the Iberians in the Dominican and the Carmelite orders. They include Thomas de Vio Caietanus ("Cajetan"), Domingo de Soto, Domingo Báñez, Franciscus Ferrariensis, the Complutenses, João Poinsot and others.
Jesuit scholasticism
The intellectual influence of second scholasticism was augmented by the establishment of the Society of Jesus (1540), by Ignatius Loyola, per approval of Pope Paul III. The "Jesuits" are considered a third "school" of second scholasticism, although this refers more to the common style of academic work rather than to some common doctrine. The important figures include Pedro Fonseca, Antonio Rubio, the Conimbricenses, Robert Bellarmine, Francisco Suárez, Gabriel Vásquez, Pedro Hurtado de Mendoza, Rodrigo Arriaga, and many others. There were also many "independent" thinkers like Sebastian Izquierdo, Juan Caramuel y Lobkowicz, Raffael Aversa etc.
Decline and legacy
The golden age of Second Scholasticism were the first decades of the 17th century; but second scholasticism started to decline with the onset of Enlightenment in the end of the 17th century, although scholastics such as Suarez remained influential for a long period. In some Iberian universities the scholastic culture remained vivid well into the 19th century, providing background for the birth of Neo-Scholasticism.
See also
Bibliography
- Josef Bordat: Late Scholasticism. In: Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. New York 2009.
- J. Franklin, Science by conceptual analysis: the genius of the late scholastics, Studia Neoaristotelica 9 (2012), 3-24.
- J. Gordley, The Philosophical Origins of Modern Contract Doctrine (Clarendon Press, 1991), ch. 3.
- D. D. Novotný, In defense of Baroque scholasticism, Studia Neoaristotelica 6 (2009), 209–233.