Peter Abelard (12 February 1079 – 21 April 1142) was a French philosopher, logician, theologian, composer, and poet, regarded as one of the most brilliant and controversial theologians of his time. This source has a detailed description of his philosophical work. Born at Pallet, near Nantes, he became a popular lecturer in Paris, but his academic career was cut short after his love affair with his student and eventual wife, Héloïse d'Argenteuil. Their relationship and philosophical exchange later became the aspect of his life for which he is best known in history and popular culture.
In philosophy, Abelard challenged the prevailing philosophical orthodoxy and is celebrated for his logical treatment of the problem of universals through nominalism and conceptualism, thereby helping to prepare the way for nominalism, as well as for pioneering the role of intent in ethics.Marenbon, John. The Philosophy of Peter Abelard. 1999. https://books.google.com/books?id=ZLeahWCX8BkC&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Philosophy+of+Peter+Abelard&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiq1seRutHuAhWbLc0KHaE5B58Q6AEwAHoECAUQAg He has often been called the "Descartes of the twelfth century" and has been considered a forerunner of Rousseau, Kant, and Spinoza. He is also sometimes credited as a major forerunner of modern empiricism.Gans, Eric. Abelard and Heloise. http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/views/vw13/
In Catholic theology, Abelard was condemned for his teaching on the Trinity. He is particularly known for developing the concept of limbo and for introducing the moral influence theory of atonement. His doctrine of the atonement emphasized the love of Christ as manifested in his life and Passion, which in turn calls forth a human response of love, and this conception has had a continuing influence. Abelard expressed its underlying purpose in the words: "The purpose and cause of the incarnation was that God might illuminate the world by his wisdom and stir it to the love of himself."
Abelard is also regarded, alongside Augustine, as one of the most significant forerunners of the modern self-reflective autobiographer. His publicly circulated autobiographical letter, The History of My Calamities, together with his public correspondence, helped establish the tone for later epistolary novels and public accounts of the private lives of prominent figures. His works also include Christian Theology, Ethics, and his letters to Héloïse.
Biography Early life and education Abelard, originally called "Pierre le Pallet", was born in Le Pallet, about 10 miles (16 km) east of Nantes, in Brittany, the eldest son of a minor noble French family. As a boy, he learned quickly. His father, a knight called Berenger, encouraged his son to study the liberal arts, wherein he excelled at the art of dialectic (a branch of philosophy). Instead of entering a military career, as his father had done, Abelard became an academic.
During his early academic pursuits, Abelard wandered throughout France, debating and learning, so as (in his own words) "he became such a one as the Peripatetics." He first studied in the Loire area, where the nominalist Roscellinus of Compiègne, who had been accused of heresy by Anselm of Canterbury, was his teacher during this period.
Early career Around 1100, Abelard's travels brought him to Paris. Around this time he changed his surname to "Abelard", sometimes written "Abailard" or "Abaelardus". The etymological root of Abelard could be the Middle French abilite (ability), the Hebrew name Abel/Habal (breath/vanity/figure in Genesis), the English "apple" or the Latin ballare, (to dance). The name is jokingly referenced as relating to "lard", as in excessive ("fatty") learning, in a secondary anecdote referencing Adelard of Bath and Peter Abelard (and in which they are confused to be one person).
In the great cathedral school of Notre-Dame de Paris (before the construction of the current cathedral there), he studied under Paris archdeacon and Notre Dame master William of Champeaux, later bishop of Châlons-en-Champagne, a disciple of Anselm of Laon (not to be confused with Anselm of Canterbury), a leading proponent of philosophical realism. Retrospectively, Abelard portrays William as having turned from approval to hostility when Abelard proved soon able to defeat his master in argument. This resulted in a long duel that eventually ended in the downfall of the theory of realism which was replaced by Abelard's theory of conceptualism/nominalism. While Abelard's thought was closer to William's thought than this account might suggest,. William thought Abelard was too arrogant. It was during this time that Abelard would provoke quarrels with both William and Roscellinus.
Against opposition from the metropolitan teacher, Abelard set up his own school, first at Melun, a favoured royal residence, then, around 1102–4, for more direct competition, he moved to Corbeil, nearer Paris. His teaching was notably successful, but the stress taxed his constitution, leading to a nervous breakdown and a trip home to Brittany for several years of recovery.
On his return, after 1108, he found William lecturing at the hermitage of Saint-Victor, just outside the Île de la Cité, and there they once again became rivals, with Abelard challenging William over his theory of universals. Abelard was once more victorious, and Abelard was almost able to attain the position of master at Notre Dame. For a short time, however, William was able to prevent Abelard from lecturing in Paris. Abelard accordingly was forced to resume his school at Melun, which he was then able to move, from , to Paris itself, on the heights of Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, overlooking Notre-Dame.
From his success in dialectic, he next turned to theology and in 1113 moved to Laon to attend the lectures of Anselm of Laon on Biblical exegesis and Christian doctrine. Unimpressed by Anselm's teaching, Abelard began to offer his own lectures on the book of Ezekiel. Anselm forbade him to continue this teaching. Abelard returned to Paris where, in around 1115, he became master of the cathedral school of Notre Dame and a canon of Sens (the cathedral of the archdiocese to which Paris belonged).
Later life Now in his early forties, Abelard sought to bury himself as a monk of the Abbey of Saint-Denis with his woes out of sight. Finding no respite in the cloister, and having gradually turned again to study, he gave in to urgent entreaties, and reopened his school at an unknown priory owned by the monastery. His lectures, now framed in a devotional spirit, and with lectures on theology as well as his previous lectures on logic, were once again heard by crowds of students, and his old influence seemed to have returned. Using his studies of the Bible and — in his view — inconsistent writings of the leaders of the church as his basis, he wrote Sic et Non (Yes and No).
No sooner had he published his theological lectures (the Theologia Summi Boni) than his adversaries picked up on his rationalistic interpretation of the Trinitarian dogma. Two pupils of Anselm of Laon, Alberich of Reims and Lotulf of Lombardy, instigated proceedings against Abelard, charging him with the heresy of Sabellius in a provincial synod held at Soissons in 1121. They obtained through irregular procedures an official condemnation of his teaching, and Abelard was made to burn the Theologia himself. He was then sentenced to perpetual confinement in a monastery other than his own, but it seems to have been agreed in advance that this sentence would be revoked almost immediately, because after a few days in the convent of St. Medard at Soissons, Abelard returned to St. Denis.
Life in his own monastery proved no more congenial than before. For this Abelard himself was partly responsible. He took a sort of malicious pleasure in irritating the monks. As if for the sake of a joke, he cited Bede to prove that the believed founder of the monastery of St Denis, Dionysius the Areopagite, had been Bishop of Corinth, while the other monks relied upon the statement of the Abbot Hilduin that he had been Bishop of Athens. When this historical heresy led to the inevitable persecution, Abelard wrote a letter to the Abbot Adam in which he preferred to the authority of Bede that of Eusebius of Caesarea's Historia Ecclesiastica and St. Jerome, according to whom Dionysius of Corinth, was distinct from Dionysius the Areopagite, bishop of Athens and founder of the abbey; although, in deference to Bede, he suggested that the Areopagite might also have been bishop of Corinth. Adam accused him of insulting both the monastery and the Kingdom of France (which had Denis as its patron saint); life in the monastery grew intolerable for Abelard, and he was finally allowed to leave.
Abelard initially lodged at St Ayoul of Provins, where the prior was a friend. Then, after the death of Abbot Adam in March 1122, Abelard was able to gain permission from the new abbot, Suger, to live "in whatever solitary place he wished". In a deserted place near Nogent-sur-Seine in Champagne, he built a cabin of stubble and reeds, and a simple oratory dedicated to the Trinity and became a hermit. When his retreat became known, students flocked from Paris, and covered the wilderness around him with their tents and huts. He began to teach again there. The oratory was rebuilt in wood and stone and rededicated as the Oratory of the Paraclete.
Abelard remained at the Paraclete for about five years. His combination of the teaching of secular arts with his profession as a monk was heavily criticized by other men of religion, and Abelard contemplated flight outside Christendom altogether. Abelard therefore decided to leave and find another refuge, accepting sometime between 1126 and 1128 an invitation to preside over the Abbey of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to outlaws, the house itself savage and disorderly. There, too, his relations with the community deteriorated.
Lack of success at St Gildas made Abelard decide to take up public teaching again (although he remained for a few more years, officially, Abbot of St Gildas). It is not entirely certain what he then did, but given that John of Salisbury heard Abelard lecture on dialectic in 1136, it is presumed that he returned to Paris and resumed teaching on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève. His lectures were dominated by logic, at least until 1136, when he produced further drafts of his Theologia in which he analyzed the sources of belief in the Trinity and praised the pagan philosophers of classical antiquity for their virtues and for their discovery by the use of reason of many fundamental aspects of Christian revelation.