What is Scholasticism?
[[File:Laurentius de Voltolina 001.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Fourteenth century image of a school]] '''Scholasticism''' is a way of thinking and teaching [[knowledge]]. It was developed in the [[Middle Ages]]. It started when people wanted to bring together what is called ''classical [[philosophy]]'' with the teachings of [[Christianity|Christian]] [[theology]]. Classical philosophy is the philosophy developed in [[Ancient Greece]]. Scholasticism is not a philosophy or a theology, but rather a way of teaching and learning. Scholasticism emphasises the use of [[dialectic]]. The main purpose of dialectic is to find an answer to a question, or to show that a contradiction can be resolved. Scholasticism was started by people like [[Saint]] [[Ambrose]] and St. [[Augustine]]. They tried to use philosophy to help explain the [[doctrine]] and mysteries of the church. Ambrose and Augustine were among the first Church fathers who brought Christian ideas and Greek philosophy together. The main figures of scholasticism were [[Peter Abelard]], [[Albertus Magnus]], [[Duns Scotus]], [[William of Ockham]], [[Bonaventure]] and, most importantly, [[Thomas Aquinas]]. [[Summa Theologica]] is an ambitious synthesis of Greek philosophy and Christian doctrine. In the 13th century, the teachings of [[Aristotle]] were considered more important than those of [[Plato]]. Scholastic education was very much based on written texts, and with arguments for and against ideas in those texts. In this way it differed greatly from modern science, which is based on observations from nature. In Aristotle the scholastics chose someone who was himself quite an original investigator of the natural world. But the scholastics themselves dealt almost entirely with the world in [[manuscripts]] written in [[classics|two ancient languages]]. One was in [[Latin language|Latin]], the language of the [[Vulgate]] [[Bible]] and the other was [[Ancient Greek]]. Greek opened the doors to the writings of the Greek philosophers in their own language, at least so far a