Valla’s thought is shaped by the following basic convictions; most of them are typical for a humanist but Valla was much more conscious about them. They shaped his critical review of scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy.
1. Valla’s world is the world of things we see and experience. It is pretty much a world of things with their qualities that do or undergo things. In order to explain or analyze this common sense picture of the world we do not need theoretical constructs, metaphysical notions, elaborate theories, or technical vocabulary.
2. This world - including human beings with their mental and spiritual inner life - naturally finds expression in language. But language is not just a piece of garment or a neutral medium that leaves the contents of what is being said unaffected. Language shapes the way we think about the world and how we categorize it. Whoever does not understand the workings of language falls prey to muddled thinking.
3. For a humanist such as Valla, this language could only be the Latin as used in Antiquity, especially that of the great authors. Valla was not wedded to one particular brand of classical Latin - for example, Ciceronian Latin - but considered postclassical developments to be detrimental to a common sense expression and explanation of the world. He was not against the introduction of new words as new things were being discovered unknown to Antiquity (e. g., ‘‘bombarda’’), but the language of the scholastics was something wholly different.
4. Valla’s aversion against scholastic Latin was thus not solely aesthetic. The study of language as pursued by the scholastics and speculative grammarians was misguided in a fundamental way. Of course, the scholastics had a wholly different program of study: they wanted to lay bare the logical forms inherent in language, being interested, for example, in the properties of terms and how terms were related to things in the world. They tried to formalize patterns of reasoning in order to establish truth conditions and rules of inference. But they had to do this in Latin, even though in a particular brand that was only vaguely related to its classical form. Their Latin was not only a metalanguage, a technical device, but was also used as an object-language, as an object of study. According to the humanists, the scholastics imposed artificial rules on Latin rather than examined the linguistic practice of the great Latin writers in order to determine the meaning of terms and rules of grammar and syntax. In this, they often erred in their judgments and opinions. They analyzed, for example, the behavior of words such as ‘‘all,’’ ‘‘some,’’ ‘‘not,’’ ‘‘possible,’’ and ‘‘necessary’’ without first making a proper study of how these words were actually used by Latin authors. Indeed, it was not simply a matter of making a mistake here or there. The scholastic language fundamentally distorted our view of reality, and confounded people.
5. Moreover, it had confounded people in a very essential way. According to Valla, the scholastics tried to explain Christian dogma’s by superimposing their theories and technical vocabulary on religious faith. Scholastic terminology had functioned as a kind of Trojan horse, bringing within the citadel of Christian faith pagan elements that had spoiled, defiled, and needlessly complicated its purity. As part of Valla’s program to return to the sources of Christianity he inaugurated a program of study of the New Testament and patristic sources that had a great impact on biblical studies by later humanists. The explication of Christian faith had to appeal to the hearts of men. It had to turn to rhetoric and grammar rather than to logic and metaphysics.
6. Closely related to the previous point was Valla’s critique of what he saw as the stifling atmosphere of the scholastic establishment. The scholastics recognized only one master whom they followed not only in philosophy but also in theology. Valla attacked this ipse dixit attitude: if Aristotle has said so, it is true. This is a gross distortion of scholastic practices, but it is of course true that Aristotle was often regarded as ‘‘the master who knows.’’ Safeguarding his authority was a major task of scholastic exegesis. Valla however held that the true philosopher does not follow any one master. The true philosopher does not belong to a sect or a school but sees it as his task to critically examine even the greatest authorities. That is why in Antiquity, Pythagoras modestly claimed not to be a wise man but a lover of wisdom. What the scholastics had forgotten was that there were many alternatives in Antiquity to ‘‘The Philosopher,’’ many sects and many other types of philosophers.
These basic convictions found expression in many of Valla’s works. In what follows, his Repastinatio dialectice et philosophie will be singled out because it is widely considered to be the most philosophical of his works. But his other works too, such as his advanced handbook of Latin, his dialogue on the highest good, and his critical work on the New Testament, proceed from the same convictions. Obviously, the notion of “philosophy” in a humanist thinker such as Valla should be taken in a wide, flexible sense.
World History
