Peter Abelard
On April 28, 1142, Peter Abelard died at Chalon-sur-Saône, bringing to a close a life spent working across an unusually wide range of disciplines — philosopher, theologian, logician, teacher, composer, poet, monk, and writer among them.
Born in 1079 in Le Pallet, Abelard was a citizen of the Kingdom of France who received his education at the Cathedral School of Paris. He worked in both medieval Latin and Old French, and over the course of his life he became associated with the scholasticism and nominalism movements. His output as a writer included three notable works: the Dialectica, Sic et Non, and Historia Calamitatum. Alongside this written work, he practiced as a composer and poet, and his roles as both teacher and logician ran throughout his career. He also became a monk at some point during his life, adding that vocation to the many others he held.
Abelard died on April 28, 1142. The three works attributed to him — Dialectica, Sic et Non, and Historia Calamitatum — are among the most concrete records of what he produced, and his association with scholasticism and nominalism places him within identifiable intellectual currents of his time. His listing as an autobiographer points to Historia Calamitatum as a work that engaged with his own experience, while his activity as a composer and poet suggests a range that went well beyond theological and philosophical writing.
Quotes by Peter Abelard
The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
Against the disease of writing one must take special precautions, since it is a dangerous and contagious disease.
In fact we say that an intention is good, that is, right in itself, but that an action does not bear any good in itself but proceeds from a good intention. Whence when the same thing is done by the same man at different times, by the diversity of his intention, however, his action is now said to be good, now bad.
And now, my friend, I am going to expose to you all my weaknesses. All men, I believe, are under a necessity of paying tribute at some time or other to Love, and it is vain to strive to avoid it. I was a philosopher, yet this tyrant of the mind triumphed over all my wisdom; his darts were of greater force than all my reasonings, and with a sweet constraint he led me wherever he pleased.
Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words.
I had wished to find in philosophy and religion a remedy for my disgrace; I searched out an asylum to secure me from love... duty, reason and decency, which upon other occasions have some power over me, are here useless. The Gospel is a language I do not understand when it opposes my passion... but when love has once been sincere how difficult it is to determine to love no more! 'Tis a thousand times more easy to renounce the world than love. I hate this deceitful, faithless world; I think no more of it...
In comparing your sorrows with mine, you may discover that yours are in truth nought.. and so shall you come to bear them the more easily grateful that they are not worse.
