Seventeenth Century Scholasticism
The state of Scholastic philosophy in the seventeenth century.
The sixteenth century saw Scholasticism opposed by philosophers steadily increasing in number, though these had as yet no general and coherent anti-Scholastic system. Glenn describes the position of Scholasticism in the century that followed: it retained its place in the schools of the Church and continued to produce commentators and manualists of learning, but it had largely lost contact with the questions that were exercising philosophers outside them, and it met the new systems with repetition rather than with fresh argument. He names the notable Scholastics of the period and assesses their work, concluding that the tradition was preserved but not advanced, and that the recovery would have to wait until the nineteenth century.
Article 4. Seventeenth Century Scholasticism
The 16 century saw Scholasticism opposed by many philosophers whose numbers were steadily increasing; but these had no general and coherent anti-Scholastic system. Their requirements in this matter were supplied by Descartes in the 17 century. Many flocked to his standard.
During the 15 and 16 centuries there were some Scholastics who were such merely because they found anti-Scholastic philosophies opposed to their Catholic Faith; these were “Scholastics by reason of Faith.” Descartes’ anti-Scholasticism consistently endeavored to keep in line with the Faith, and Descartes himself remained always a true Catholic. Hence, the “Scholastics by reason of Faith” went over to Cartesianism almost in a body.
During the 17 century the number of true and able Scholastics decreased more and more, and even the faithful few show, for the most part, the influence of the new doctrines. The more important of the 17 century Scholastics were:
(1) Thomists: i. Jean Baptiste Conet (died 1681), a Dominican, author of The Shield of Thomistic Theology, a book still in use;
ii. Antoine Goudin (1639-1695), a Dominican;
iii. Blaise of the Holy Conception, a Carmelite;
iv. Marsilio Vasquez (died 1611), a Cistercian;
v. Joseph Saenz de Aguirre (died 1699), a Benedictine, sometime professor at Salamanca, and author of a Philosophy according to the Mind of Aristotle and St. Thomas; vi. The Benedictine School of Salzburg in Germany, whose members exerted a great influence for Thomistic theology and philosophy during almost two centuries. Important members of this School were: Paul Mezger (1637-1702); Placidus Renz (died 1748); and Augustine Reding (died 1692). Reding was not Thomistic in his doctrine on the nature of physical premotion. The foregoing members of the Salzburg School were theologians rather than philosophers, but they were important in the age of disappearing Scholasticism because they employed this Philosophy as their scientific basis in the exposition of theological doctrine. The School had its philosophers too, chief of whom was Ludwig Babenstuber (1660-1726), who wrote a whole course of Scholastic philosophy, still in use.
(2) Scotist: Claude Frassen (1620-1711), a Franciscan, whose exposition and commentary on Scotism is still in use, and is most helpful for the understanding of this difficult system.
Other Scholastics of the time were more or less prominent teachers in the Italian and Spanish universities.