scolastici

Scolastici, or scholastics, refers to a group of medieval Christian theologians and philosophers who contributed to the intellectual movement known as scholasticism. Active mainly in Europe from the 11th to the 17th century, they worked within universities and monasteries to articulate a coherent synthesis of faith and reason and to defend doctrinal beliefs through systematic argumentation.

The core of the scholastic project was the scholastic method, a form of rigorous dialectical reasoning. Scholars posed questions, examined opposing views, and resolved them by appealing to established authorities, logic, and careful analysis. Works typically followed a disputational format: a question, a set of objections, a synthesis or answer, and citations to authorities such as the Church Fathers and Aristotelian philosophy. This approach produced extensive theological and philosophical treatises, commentaries, and compendia, including Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae and other major scholastic syntheses by Albert the Great, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus.

Prominent scolastici include Thomas Aquinas, Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham. They addressed topics across theology, metaphysics, ethics, logic, and natural philosophy, contributing to the development of university education and the formalization of scholastic logic. The movement encompassed diverse schools and positions, from realists to nominalists, influencing debates on the nature of universals, the relationship between faith and reason, and the interpretation of sacred texts.

Scholasticism began to wane with the rise of humanism and the Reformation but left a lasting imprint on Catholic theology, education, and the history of philosophy. The scolastici are thus understood as the medieval schoolmen whose methods and doctrines shaped much of later Western thought.