Preface

Abstract

It is well known that the core values of the modern university can be traced to the emergence of a number of European universities in the Middle Ages, some of which continue to thrive to this day. Some historians suggest that the impetus driving the development of these universities was the new method of inquiry emphasizing rational analysis and debate of key concepts and practiced through the discussion of "disputed questions" in which the best arguments for and against an important proposition would be presented and pursued. The method, which came to be known as the "Scholastic method," is best known today through the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, but the first important step toward the development of this method seems to have been a work titled Sic et Non (Yes and No) by Peter Abelard, written in 1120. Motivated in part by charges directed against Christianity by Islamic scholars who claimed that Christianity was incoherent because contradictions on important points could be found in the writings of various Church fathers, Abelard set out 158 questions on fundamental issues (for instance, "That faith is based upon reason, et contra") 1 and collected quotations from the Church Fathers in support of each side of the question. It became immediately evident that the authority of the Fathers as established by individual statements from their writings could not be relied upon to determine the truth sought by each question, so that the reader was called upon to pursue the truth through reasoning, recognizing, [End Page 5] as Abelard wrote in the prologue, that "the obscurity and contradictions in ancient writings may be explained upon many grounds, and may be discussed without impugning the good faith and insight of the fathers." 2