Abelard: A Twelfth-Century Hermeneutics of Suspicion

Abstract

Abelard’s career is as characterized by struggle and opposition as Boethius’s is by mediation and integration. Abelard presents himself as constantly engaged in a battle to overtake his masters and enemies, in a fight against the envy and incompetence of others. He struggles with himself as well, attempting to justify his work in a context of intense criticism and attack. The earlier view of Abelard as rationalist rebel, fighter for the autonomy of reason over faith and authority, has been recognized as an anachronistic projection, but no other picture giving unity and coherence to Abelard’s work has taken its place. Most have looked at his life, as controversial in modern scholarship as it was in its time, and seen disorder.¹