Roscelin and the Medieval Problem of Universals

Roscelin and the Medieval Problem of Universals EIKE-HENNER W. KLUGE I. THERE ARE FEW FIGURESin the history of philosophy who have been as bitterly attacked and whose doctrines have invited as much calumny and condemnation as Roscelin of Compiegne. Even today, if his doctrines are discussed at all, an extremely critical approach towards them prevails. And yet, little is known of these doctrines. Aside from a letter addressed to Abelard, 1 no complete opusculum from his pen has come down to us. All that we know is based on bits and snatches of his writings, usually quoted in polemical and hostile contexts. Thus Abelard, to whom we owe a great deal of our knowledge of Roscelin's position, stigmatizes what little he actually quotes as "insane. ''2 Anselm, who devotes a great deal of his de Incarnatione Verbi to a detailed refutation of Roscelin's views on the Trinity, characterizes the doctrines he mentions as the product of a "dim mind''a and condemns them as heretical;4 and John of Salisbury, who attempts to place the nominalism of Roscelin into an historical perspective, states that "along with its author.., it has already almost completely passed into oblivion.''5 It is therefore scarcely surprising that with a few exceptions,6 contemporary and recent treatments of Roscelin, if they have existed at all, have been almost invariably disparaging . On this point, William Kneale's attitude in his Development of Logic 7 can fairly be taken as representative: Roscelin's nominalistic doctrines are dismissed quite briefly as "absurd." In a sense, this treatment and dismissal of Roscelin is understandable. There is the weight of an imponderable tradition; and the very fact that almost nothing of his actual writings has survived may be thought to speak for itself. Nevertheless, in another sense, and from a slightly different viewpoint, it is surprising. For, polemical contexts aside, what little has survived forms a remarkably coherent and philosophically defensible framework, not at aU deserving of the epithets "insane" and "absurd." Furthermore, a 1 Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne (hereafter cited as P.L.), vol. 178, Epist. XV; a letter, incidentally, which is of relatively less philosophical value than one would have hoped--or expected. 2 Petri Abaelardi Dialectica, ed. L. M. De Rijk (Assen, 1954), pp. 5543-5552: "Fuit autem, memini, magistri nostri Roscelini tam insana sententia ut nullam rein partibus constare vellet, sed sicut solibus zocibus species, ita et partes adscribebat." 3 Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi, in S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera Omnia, ed. F. C. Schmitt (Edinburgh, 1946), II, 10, 11.7-9: "Et cuius mens obscura est ad diiudicandum inter equum suum et colorem eius: qualiter discernet inter unum deum et plures relationes eius?" See also de lncarnatione Verbi Prior Recensio, Opera Omnia, I, 285, I1. 14ft., and P.L. 158, 265 B12ff. 4 The charge is stated explicitly at de lncarnatione, p. 9, 11. 21f. and emerges clearly from the whole tenor of chap. 3. 5 loannis Saresberiensis Egiscopi Carnotensis Metalogicon, ed. C. C. I. Webb (Oxford, 1929), 874C1-2, and n. 1. 6 Haur6au, St6ckl and Picavet come to mind. 7 W. &M. Kneale, The Development of Logic (Oxford, 1964), p. 200. [405] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY reconstruction of his system as based on these data--data which, by their very polemical context, may fairly be taken as representative of the salient points of his position-shows him to have been exceedingly influential in the development of both conceptualism and moderate realism. Finally, the very fact of Roscelin's heretical opinions on the nature of the Trinity forced Anselm to formulate more precisely the metaphysical and logical import of this central Christian doctrine---a fact of immense historical and doctrinal value. Consequently, it can be argued with more than merely superficial plausibility that by and large, both historical and contemporary evaluations of Roscelin are mistaken; that is to say, that his doctrines are not absurd, not insane, and not the product of a dim mind. It could also be argued that the influence of these doctrines did survive their author and participated fundamentally in the shaping of medieval metaphysical (and doctrinal) thought. The purpose of this paper is to go...