Francisco Suárez

Suárez, Francisco (1548–1617)
Francisco Suárez was the main channel through which medieval philosophy flowed into the modern world. He was educated first in law and, after his entry into the Jesuits, in philosophy and theology. He wrote on all three subjects. His philosophical writing was principally in the areas of metaphysics, psychology and philosophy of law, [...]

João Duns Escoto

Duns Scotus, John (c.1266–1308)
Duns Scotus was one of the most important thinkers of the entire scholastic period. Of Scottish origin, he was a member of the Franciscan order and undertook theological studies first at Oxford and later at Paris. He left behind a considerable body of work, much of which unfortunately was still undergoing revision [...]

Roberto Grossatesta

Grosseteste, Robert (c.1170–1253)
Grosseteste’s thought is representative of the conflicting currents in the intellectual climate of Europe in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. On the one hand, his commitment to acquiring, understanding and making accessible to his Latin contemporaries the texts and ideas of newly discovered Arabic and Greek intellectual traditions places him in [...]

São Boaventura

Bonaventure (c.1217–74)
Bonaventure (John of Fidanza) developed a synthesis of philosophy and theology in which Neoplatonic doctrines are transformed by a Christian framework. Though often remembered for his denunciations of Aristotle, Bonaventure’s thought includes some Aristotelian elements. His criticisms of Aristotle were motivated chiefly by his concern that various colleagues, more impressed by Aristotle’s work than [...]

São Tomás de Aquino

Aquinas, Thomas (1224/6–74)
Aquinas lived an active, demanding academic and ecclesiastical life that ended while he was still in his forties. He nonetheless produced many works, varying in length from a few pages to a few volumes. Because his writings grew out of his activities as a teacher in the Dominican order and a member [...]

Alberto Magno

Albert the Great (1200–80)
Albert the Great was the first scholastic interpreter of Aristotle’s work in its entirety, as well as being a theologian and preacher. He left an encyclopedic body of work covering all areas of medieval knowledge, both in philosophy (logic, ethics, metaphysics, sciences of nature, meteorology, mineralogy, psychology, anthropology, physiology, biology, natural [...]

João de Salisbury

John of Salisbury (1115/20–1180)
John of Salisbury is one of the most learned and penetrating of twelfth-century Latin writers on moral and political matters. In his style as in his teaching, John represents a style of medieval philosophy heavily indebted to Roman models of rhetorical education. His interests in grammar, dialectic, politics and ethics are subordinated [...]

Pedro Lombardo

Lombard, Peter (1095/1100–1160)
Peter Lombard’s philosophical views are important given the formative role his Sententiae in IV libris distinctae (Four Books of Sentences) played in the education of university theologians in the high Middle Ages, many of whom were also philosophers. Peter staunchly opposes theologies, cosmologies and anthropologies of a Platonic or Neoplatonic type. While conversant [...]

Pedro Abelardo

Abelard, Peter (1079–1142)
Among the many scholars who promoted the revival of learning in western Europe in the early twelfth century, Abelard stands out as a consummate logician, a formidable polemicist and a champion of the value of ancient pagan wisdom for Christian thought. Although he worked within the Aristotelian tradition, his logic deviates significantly from [...]

Ricardo de São Vítor

Richard of St Victor (d. 1173)
Richard is most famous for his contemplative doctrine, which is based on a biblical anthropology that involves a philosophical psychology and noetic theory. Richard’s writings should be understood in the context of Hugh of St Victor’s programme for a complete theological pedagogy, organized according to the threefold sense of Scripture [...]