INTRODUCTION

A COMMON MODEL OF THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

In the world of medieval studies 1974 marked the seven-hundredth anniversary of the death of Thomas Aquinas. Throughout the year academics gathered to celebrate at different sites around the world. Thirty-five medievalists of international renown commemorated the occasion by writing papers that were published by the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, founded by Etienne Gilson in 1929 as the first academic institute devoted solely to research into the European Middle Ages. In 1974 Gilson was still Director of Studies at the Institute, even though he had departed for France in 1972 never to return. A number of his early students were on staff, including the following historians of medieval philosophy: Armand Maurer (1915-), Joseph Owens (1908-), Anton Pegis (1905-1978), John Quinn (1925-1996), and Edward Synan (1918-1997), all of whom contributed papers to the volumes commemorating the anniversary of Aquinas's death. The cumulative publications of these scholars represent a sizable share of the Pontifical Institute's extraordinary contribution to the historiography of medieval philosophy during the first forty-five years of its existence.1 The 1974 commemoration was not just a tribute to a great medieval thinker, but also to an academic insti­ tution, its founder, and its role in the recovery of medieval philos­ ophy. The scale of this celebration is also of interest for another rea­ son: Aquinas was not the only great Latin medieval thinker to die in 1274. Bonaventure also died that year, yet the Pontifical Institute

1 James Weisheipl was also on staff and contributed a paper to the commem­ oration of Aquinas, but he had studied at St. Thomas in Rome and at Oxford; thus not with Gilson. Other important historians of medieval philosophy at the Institute included Gerald Phelan (1892-1965), Ignatius Theodor Eschmann (1898- 1968), Laurence Κ. Shook (1909-1993), and Reginald O'Donnell (1907-1988). There are also a number of historians who were trained at the Institute but went to work elsewhere, including William B. Dunphy (1926-) across the lawn at the University of St. Michael's College and Vernon Bourke (1907-), George P. Klubertanz (1912-1972), and Robert Henle (1909-), all of whom worked at the Jesuit University of St. Louis (McCool 1988, 742-743). 2 INTRODUCTION of Mediaeval Studies did not mark his death in any comparable manner.2 Why would Gilson's institute, which had been the site of so much research into medieval philosophy, celebrate Aquinas on such a grand scale and not Bonaventure? Gilson states in the foreword to the two volumes of papers pub• lished in 1974 why Aquinas is philosophically important. Even though Gilson is often remembered today for his claim that the dis• tinction between essence and existence is central to Aquinas's phi• losophy, it is not that point on which he focuses. He contrasts Aquinas's view of scientific knowledge with that of Descartes, grant• ing Aquinas philosophical praise for upholding a form of realism in which knowledge conforms to its object.3 Aquinas's realism, according to Gilson, allows each science to be grounded in the objects that it studies, rather than in any Cartesian universalizing features of rationality. Gilson's epistemological and metaphysical interest in Aquinas is one of the key philosophical reasons why he came to single out Aquinas, and not Bonaventure, as the significant medieval thinker. But, as we shall see, there are moral, political, and theological reasons as well. One of the claims I will make in this inquiry is that individuals and institutions have influenced the writ• ing of the history of medieval philosophy for moral, political, and theological reasons. I begin with a brief account of the influence that Gilson's institute had on my view of the history of medieval philosophy in order to provide an example of the methodology I use to discuss the moral, political, and theological considerations behind our historiography of medieval philosophy. In 1974 I was introduced to the world of medieval philosophy as an undergraduate at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. Medieval thinkers are notorious for their prodigious works. Even if a person were to concentrate on the works of just one prolific thinker he or she would be confronted with an overwhelming mass of material. Scholars can develop reputations for having read all the

2 The Institute's John Quinn contributed to the seventh centenary of the death of Bonaventure by publishing his monumental study of the philosophy of Bonaventure in 1973, his Hutoncal Constitution of St. Bonaventure's Philosophy (Quinn 1973), an article in the Pontifical tribute to Aquinas: "Certitude of Reason and Faith in St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas" (Quinn 1974a), and one in the Franciscan tribute to Bonaventure: "St. Bonaventure's fundamental conception of natural law" (Quinn 1974b). 3 (Maurer 1974, 1: 9-10) For a discussion of Gilson's metaphysical realism with• in the historical context, see Hankey 1985, 94-97,126-127.