Abelard, Peter

French PIERRE AB彳ARD, or ABAILARD, Latin PETRUS ABAELARDUS, or ABEILARDUS (b. 1079, Le Pallet, near Nantes, Brittany [now in France]--d. April 21, 1142, Priory of Saint-Marcel, near Chalon-sur-Sa獼e, Burgundy [now in France]), French theologian and philosopher best known for his solution of the problem of universals and for his original use of dialectics. He is also known for his poetry and for his celebrated love affair with H幨o鮢e.

Early life.

The outline of Abelard's career is well known, largely because he described so much of it in his famous Historia calamitatum ("History of My Troubles"). He was born the son of a knight in Brittany south of the Loire. He sacrificed his inheritance and the prospect of a military career in order to study philosophy, particularly logic, in France. He provoked bitter quarrels with two of his masters, Roscelin of Compi銶ne and Guillaume de Champeaux, who represented opposite poles of philosophy. Roscelin was a Nominalist who asserted that universals are nothing more than mere words; Guillaume in Paris upheld a form of Platonic Realism according to which universals exist. Abelard in his own logical writings brilliantly elaborated an independent philosophy of language. While showing how words could be used significantly, he stressed that language itself is not able to demonstrate the truth of things (res) that lie in the domain of physics.

Abelard was a peripatetic both in the manner in which he wandered from school to school at Paris, Melun, Corbeil, and elsewhere and as one of the exponents of Aristotelian logic who were called the Peripatetics. In 1113 or 1114 he went north to Laon to study theology under Anselm of Laon, the leading biblical scholar of the day. He quickly developed a strong contempt for Anselm's teaching, which he found vacuous, and returned to Paris. There he taught openly but was also given as a private pupil the young H幨o鮢e, niece of one of the clergy of the cathedral of Paris, Canon Fulbert. Abelard and H幨o鮢e fell in love and had a son whom they called Astralabe. They then married secretly. To escape her uncle's wrath H幨o鮢e withdrew into the convent of Argenteuil outside Paris. Abelard suffered castration at Fulbert's instigation. In shame he embraced the monastic life at the royal abbey of Saint-Denis near Paris and made the unwilling H幨o鮢e become a nun at Argenteuil.

Career as a monk.

At Saint-Denis Abelard extended his reading in theology and tirelessly criticized the way of life followed by his fellow monks. His reading of the Bible and of the Fathers of the Church led him to make a collection of quotations that seemed to represent inconsistencies of teaching by the Christian Church. He arranged his findings in a compilation entitled Sic et non ("Yes and No"); and for it he wrote a preface in which, as a logician and as a keen student of language, he formulated basic rules with which students might reconcile apparent contradictions of meaning and distinguish the various senses in which words had been used over the course of many centuries. He also wrote the first version of his book called Theologia, which was formally condemned as heretical and burned by a council held at Soissons in 1121. Abelard's dialectical analysis of the mystery of God and the Trinity was held to be erroneous, and he himself was placed for a while in the abbey of Saint-M嶮ard under house arrest. When he returned to Saint-Denis he applied his Sic et non methods to the subject of the abbey's patron saint; he argued that St. Denis of Paris, the martyred apostle of Gaul, was not identical with Denis of Athens (also known as Dionysius the Areopagite), the convert of St. Paul. The monastic community of Saint-Denis regarded this criticism of their traditional claims as derogatory to the kingdom; and, in order to avoid being brought for trial before the king of France, Abelard fled from the abbey and sought asylum in the territory of Count Theobald of Champagne. There he sought the solitude of a hermit's life but was pursued by students who pressed him to resume his teaching in philosophy. 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. In 1125, however, he accepted election as abbot of the remote Breton monastery of Saint-Gildas-de-Rhuys. There, too, his relations with the community deteriorated, and, after attempts had been made upon his life, he returned to France.

H幨o鮢e had meanwhile become the head of a new foundation of nuns called the Paraclete. Abelard became the abbot of the new community and provided it with a rule and with a justification of the nun's way of life; in this he emphasized the virtue of literary study. He also provided books of hymns he had composed, and in the early 1130s he and H幨o鮢e composed a collection of their own love letters and religious correspondence.

Final years.

In about 1135 Abelard went to the Mont-Sainte-Genevi鋦e outside Paris to teach, and he wrote in a blaze of energy and of celebrity. 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. He also wrote a book called Ethica or Scito te ipsum ("Know Thyself"), a short masterpiece in which he analyzed the notion of sin and reached the drastic conclusion that human actions do not make a man better or worse in the sight of God, for deeds are in themselves neither good nor bad. What counts with God is a man's intention; sin is not something done (it is not res); it is uniquely the consent of a human mind to what it knows to be wrong. Abelard also wrote Dialogus inter philosophum, Judaeum et Christianum ("Dialogue Between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian") and a commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Romans, the Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, in which he outlined an explanation of the purpose of Christ's life, which was to inspire men to love him by example alone.

On the Mont-Sainte-Genevi鋦e Abelard drew crowds of pupils, many of them men of future fame, such as the English humanist John of Salisbury. He also, however, aroused deep hostility in many by his criticism of other masters and by his apparent revisions of the traditional teachings of Christian theology. Within Paris the influential abbey of Saint-Victor was studiously critical of his doctrines, while elsewhere William of Saint-Thierry, a former admirer of Abelard, recruited the support of Bernard of Clairvaux, perhaps the most influential figure in Western Christendom at that time. At a council held at Sens in 1140, Abelard underwent a resounding condemnation, which was soon confirmed by Pope Innocent II. He withdrew to the great monastery of Cluny in Burgundy. There, under the skillful mediation of the abbot, Peter the Venerable, he made peace with Bernard of Clairvaux and retired from teaching. Now both sick and old, he lived the life of a Cluniac monk. After his death, his body was first sent to the Paraclete; it now lies alongside that of H幨o鮢e in the cemetery of P鋨e-Lachaise in Paris. Epitaphs composed in his honour suggest that Abelard impressed some of his contemporaries as one of the greatest thinkers and teachers of all time. ( D.E.L.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

The Letters of Abelard and H幨o鮢e have been translated into English by C.K. Scott Moncrieff (1925, reprinted 1964) and by J.T. Muckle (1947), who has also published separately a translation of The Story of Abelard's Adversities (1954). The historical novel Peter Abelard, by Helen Waddell (1933), is justly popular and has been reprinted many times. More general studies are 尒ienne Gilson, H幨o鮢e et Ab幨ard 938; Heloise and Abelard, 1953); and Lief Grane, Pierre Ab幨ard (1964; Peter Abelard, 1970). Information concerning editions of Abelard's writings and studies of his thought may be found in D.E. Luscombe's edition and English translation of Peter Abelard's "Ethics" (1971). On the reception of Abelard's thought and teaching in his own time, see D.E. Luscombe, The School of Peter Abelard (1969). The best study of Abelard's philosophy is Jean Jolivet, Arts du langage et th廩logie chez Ab幨ard (1969).

阿伯拉德（Petrus Abaelardus 1079-1142 A.D.）

阿伯拉德是法國人。首先學習唯名論的學說，然後慢慢地走進緩性唯識論學說中。他的哲學體系，最有名的就是「批判的精神」，設法以批判來改造知識論，同時建立一種新的知識論。在「共相之爭」的流發展中，首先創立緩性的唯識論，因為這家學說可以兼顧唯實論和唯名論二者之長，也可以中和兩家的對立。因為他特別關心知識論的問題，所以很難從知識論走出來，走入形而上學，阿伯拉德是中世時期的思想家中，首先對形上學抱持懷疑的態度。

他認為所謂的「共相」或「共名」，只是我們語言所表示的一種意見，真正要表示的事物，我們卻無法知道。我們所知道的，只是具體存在的事物，只是個別的事物，我們的意見或語言所表示的共相，卻在觀念界中。觀念是從具體的事物中得出，仍然運用在具體的事物上面。如果有一種語言不落實到具體的生活中，那這種語言就毫無意義。因此阿伯拉德把觀念和事實聯繫起來，所以他的學說，認為共相在事物之中，就是把唯實論認為「共相先於事物」之說，以及唯名論「共相後於事物」之說兩者聯繫起來。

阿伯拉德把觀念界和感官界先後的問題，應用在存在的問題之中。他認為觀念和現實是一而二，二而一的，不是先後的問題可以解決的，所以阿伯拉德在西方的知識論上，特別是在「共相」的問題方面，有了最大的貢獻。

阿伯拉德用神和人的理念，來解釋先後的問題。在神的觀念中，共相是先於事物，神先有了對事物的觀念，然後創造事物。可是在人的觀念中，事物先於共相，在人觀察自然世界的時候，所有的自然事物都先於人而存在，人在觀察自然世界中，得出對世界的認識，當然在人文世界中的所有人文產品，這些產品都是由於人的腦筋想出來的，所以針對於那些工匠等的創造人而言，是共相先於事物，但是對於我們去認識人文世界的產品，仍然是事物先於共相。因此「事物先於共相」或「共相先於事物」的爭執當做「共相之爭」，則有失哲學的意味。

所以阿伯拉德不論先後的問題，究竟共相是否在事物之中，或事物是否在共相之中的問題做為解答。阿伯拉德反對唯實論證的不徹底，同時也反對唯名論的輕浮。針對唯實論，以他辯證、存疑的態度，提出三項難題：

1.如果一切的事物都在觀念中，也就是說觀念先於事物的話，也就可以用共相把所有的事物都包括入內，即是以亞里士多德的十個範疇就可以說明世界的一切，可是事實上，人與人之間的思想有很大的差距，最清楚的就是當前共相問題的爭執，這些爭執是否證明人與人之間有不同的觀念或不同的共相呢？或者根本上人與人之間就有差別呢？為甚麼每人有自己不同於他人的思想？在範疇中，「人」的觀念，人所包括的所有人，他們的本質應該是一樣的，共相是指出人的共通性，卻無法指出人與人之間的差別相。可是真實的世界中，不只是有人的共相，而且有人的差別相，所以全世界不是只有一種人，而是有很多很多的人，每一個人有每一個人的特性，雖然可以用一個共相「人」概括。如此阿伯拉德認為唯實論以「共相」天羅地網的方式去概括所有事物是不恰當的，因為共相只抽出共通的部份，存而不論差別相，所有的差別相，才是真正地使自然與人文世界成為美麗的主要原因。

2.如果共相可以指出真象的話，為甚麼主體有生死、善惡的矛盾？這種矛盾，為甚麼有的時候，可以一齊存在？共相存在的法則主要的是邏輯，在邏輯的法則中，矛盾的現象是不可能存在的，在我們的現實世界，尤其是在我們的心靈生活中，矛盾、對立、荒謬時常存在。

3.既然「類」（Species）可以指出一切個別的事物，關於「存在」的類名詞，是否要指出所有的事物和神是相等的呢？豈不又走進了汛神論的地步呢？

因此阿伯拉德認為，如果我們要談知識論，一方面固然得注意知識的共相問題，一方面又得事實上個別存在的具體事物。阿伯拉德在「共相之爭」中所以得勝，是因為他所採用的方法。先用「懷疑」，在沒有拿出證據以前，對事物抱持存疑的態度。如果這種存疑，久久無法消除的話，他就要用「權威」。所以在阿伯拉德的哲學中，人的理性無法抵達的部份，就要用神學的「啟示」來啟蒙，理性不足，只好以權威或信仰，可是只要理性找到方法，權威就要喪失效能。他提出「先知道，後信仰」的法則，也就是主張信仰應該是合乎邏輯的，所有的信仰，都應該有一種合理的方式去解決，雖然無法完全解釋，但是至少可以提出和我們的理性並不相背，並不互相矛盾，不會使得我們的存在有矛盾或荒謬的感覺。

阿伯拉德在中世時期的「共相之爭」中，他最大的貢獻是提出個別的事物和共相的思想有相通的地方，雖然有相通的部份，但是這相通處，畢竟還是站在共相的，抽象的觀念界的立場，真正事物的具體世界，仍然需要依靠感官去接觸。

peter abaelard(1033-1109)