 Peter Abelard, French Pierre

Abélard, or Abailard, Latin

Petrus Abaelardus, or
Abeilardus,
 Born 1079, Le Pallet, near
Nantes, Brittany
 died April 21, 1142, Priory of
Saint-Marcel, near Chalon-
sur-Saône, Burgundy
 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 Héloïse.

 He sacrificed his inheritance

and the prospect of a military
career in order to study
philosophy, particularly logic,
in France.
 Ideas and
Contributions
THE DISPUTE WITH WILLIAM OF CHAMPEAUX ON
1
THE UNIVERSALS

2 THE STATUS AS THE BASIS OF THE UNIVERSAL

 Logica “ingredientibus” Abelard
presented his own ideas about the
universals systematically.
Abelard criticized was what William of
champeaux was teaching before 1105,
summarized by Abelard himself in
manner :
“his opinion regarding the community of
universals states that the same thing is
essentially, totally and simultaneously
present in each other of individuals and
that individuals differ from one another
not by reason of their essence but only
by their accidents
Example: “every human being
numerically different from one
another, man’s substance is only one
in all of them, such that given these
particular accidents, we have Plato
and with another set of accidents we
have Socrates’’
 Teaching of William of champeaux in

1109
Abelard describe it thus: “however, he
subsequently corrected his opinion and
he finally maintained that one thing is
the same as another, not essentially
but indifferently”
 For instance among human beings distinct
from each other they are said to be the same
as men that is they do not differ in their human
nature so those same things that are
considered individuals through their distinct
features would also be considered universals
through indifferentiation an similarity.
 “theory of the states”

Why is logical predication

possible?
He realized that universals like the word “man”
is a universal concept not because it is
predicated of many individual men but rather it
is because universals are validly predicated of
many things , and this is made possible due to
something common in all of them which
Abelard called “state”.
 A state is a common element or “common
cause”. We call it the status itself of man he
wrote to be man, which is not a thing, and
which we also call the common cause of
imposition of the word on individuals,
according as they themselves agree with
each other.
 Consequently, a valid logical predication is
possible because some things form a
particular state that allows us to use the
same word to refer to them. the basis of
universality of names is the status of things.
 Thus for instance, “man” is nothing; but “to
be man” is concrete and real: it is a state.
Two or more men are similar in that they are
men, since all of them are in the status of
being men. A universal is nothing more than
a vague image formed by the mind out of
several similar individuals that are in the
same state
 THE PROBLEM OF THE
UNIVERSAL
After expounding on his own position on
the universals, Abelard now gives his
answers to the three questions that had
been inherited from Boethius and to a
fourth question he himself had formulated.
 THE STATUS AS THE BASIS OF
THE UNIVERSAL
I. In themselves universal III. Universal exist in sensible
only exist in the objects as the forms of bodies, but
intelligence, although insofar as what they signify is
they signify real things. separated through abstraction,
they are beyond what is sensible.

II. Insofar as they are names or

words, universals are corporeal
beings, but by their power to
signify several similar things, they
are non-corporeal: universal are
non-corporeal in their manner of
signifying.
IV. As names, universals would
cease to exist, for there would be
nothing to designate; but as
meaningful concepts they will go
on existing since, for example, it
will always be possible to say: “the
tree does not exist”.
Thank You
04/17/23