Noo is noo come. Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy Podcast brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich. Online at W.

W.W. History of Philosophy. Net. Today's episode Law and Order, Gration and Peter Lombard.

In the 12th century the church was represented by two separate, yet equally important groups, the theologians who

investigated religious doctrine, and the jurists who established ecclesiastical law.

This is their story. Like the culprits apprehended and prosecuted on the TV series law and order, 12th century intellectuals had a lot to answer for. It was at this time that scholasticism began to flower, before blossoming fully in the 13th century.

Grounds enough for an indictment, according to several leading thinkers of the early modern era.

Men like de Khart and Hobbs quietly borrowed from scholasticism but loudly denounced

its shortcomings.

That attitude still persists today, so that the word scholasticism stands for an

inflexible body of authoritative doctrines which only left room for philosophers to engage in pointless distinction-mongering.

But I think that scholasticism is like an unjustly accused defendant on law and order, or a child

who's dressed himself as a mummy for Halloween, it gets a bad rap.

While exploring the roots of scholasticism, we've seen remarkably open-minded writers engaging in controversies over fundamental, theological, and philosophical issues.

In this episode, I'll be continuing my defense of scholasticism, which will feature a pair of

star witnesses, Gration and Peter Lombard.

Far from parroting an unquestioned and monolithic body of teachings,

these two authors exposed and creatively reconciled tensions and outright contradictions in the authoritative tradition.

Both of them hailed from Northern Italy, which along with Paris was an early center for scholastic activity, especially with regard to law.

The resurgence of legal activity began in the later 11th century,

when the digest of Roman law assembled under the Eastern Emperor Justinian was being read in Italy.

In the 12th century, the city of Bologna in particular became the place to be for ambitious young lawyers, and law in Bologna had a first

name, it's G-R-A-T-I-A-N.

...