The difference between types of schools is institutional, but also doctrinal in nature. We could expect the distinctive criterion to be the fact of privileging in one case the arts of language and in the other theology. However, this criterion quickly leads to a dead end. The schools of logic - first and foremost the Porretans - were fascinated by theology and there was strong interest for grammar at Chartres. Thinkers such as William of Champeaux and Peter Abelard worked both as logicians and as theologians. The divide between types of schools is more to be found in the old opposition between Platonism and Aristotelian-ism. Platonic thought clearly dominates the writings of authors associated with Chartres (although this statement must be moderated in the case of Gilbert), in particular the tradition of the Timaeus and Platonic authors of late Antiquity. The same can be said of the School of Saint Victor (let us just mention the importance of the Pseudo-Dionysius, the paradigm of Christian Platonism, in the thought of Saint Victor); the central influence of Augustine in cathedral schools confirms this; nothing of this sort can be observed among the Parisian masters of logic. The dominant influence among the new masters is that of Aristotelianism. Whether they were realists or nominalists, the scope of their work was determined by Aristotle’s Categories and Porphyry’s Isagoge for ontology, and completed by the De interpretatione for philosophy of language. This fact causes a fundamental distinction. For example, even if the two doctrines seem close, realism developed on the basis of the Categories and Porphyry (such as the material essence realism of William of Champeaux) is very different from realism inspired by Boethius’ Opuscula sacra read in a Platonic universalist way (such as that developed by Thierry of Chartres or Clarembald of Arras). In the first case, separate forms are not admitted, real forms are immanent to individuals and do not exist outside them. The second version is based on the Platonist metaphysical principle according to which ‘‘forms’’ of the sensible world (the enmattered forms) are not the real forms, but only images of real forms. Enmattered forms are caused by prototypical forms (the real forms which are in God), of which they are only degenerate images.
See also: > Adelard of Bath > Alan of Lille > Bernard of Clairvaux > Gilbert of Poitiers > Hugh of St. Victor
> John Scottus Eriugena > Liberal Arts > Logic > Peter Abelard > Platonism > Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
> Thierry of Chartres > Trinitarian Logic > Universals
> William of Champeaux
World History
