What is philosophy?

What are the similarities and differences between Scholasticism and Analytic Philosophy?

• Though they come from different periods of history, Scholasticism and Analytic Philosophy seem to have a lot in common with respect to methods of thinking and discourse.  I'm not sure the regard for natural sciences delivers Analytic from the kinds of blanket criticisms sometimes leveled at Scholasticism. Is Analytic Philosophy a scholasticism for the scientific era?  If not, what mistakes are to be avoided?  And does Scholasticism have something to offer our time? Wikipedia on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scholasticism Not so much a philosophy or a theology as a method of learning, scholasticism places a strong emphasis on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_reasoning to extend knowledge by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inference, and to resolve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contradictions. Scholastic thought is also known for rigorous conceptual analysis and the careful drawing of distinctions Wikipedia on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytic_philosophy A broad philosophical tradition characterized by an emphasis on clarity and argument (often achieved via modern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_logic and analysis of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language) and a respect for the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_sciences. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism principle that there are no specifically philosophical truths and that the object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. The principle that the logical clarification of thoughts can only be achieved by analysis of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_form of philosophical propositions. The logical form of a proposition is a way of representing it (often using the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_grammar and symbolism of a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_system) to display its similarity with all other propositions of the same type. The rejection of sweeping philosophical systems in favour of attention to detail, or ordinary language.

• Answer:

  I don't know if they are similar at all. There are many debates around the relationship between Aristotelian and Analytic philosophy; considering scholasticism as an Aristotelian approach to Christian ontology it will be included in that discussion. Scholasticism is basically ontological and theological attitude; but Analytic philosophy is more of a epistemological way of philosophical thinking. In Scholasticism the main issue is definition of being and the nature of this being in relation to definite being which is God. In Analytic philosophy, however, the main issue is quiddity of understanding the world through our mind and language. You can not separate God and being in Scholastic philosophy but in Analytic philosophy God is not necessary and probably it is totally unimportant matter. However, there are some similarities between all Aristotelian philosophies and Analytic philosophy. Above all of these similarities I should point the matter of Nominalism out. Although Nominalism by itself is not very interesting topic for Analytic philosophers, their answers to issues like "name and necessity" are pretty much close to Nominalist views of Scholastic thinkers of 13th and 14th centuries. On the other hand they (Scholastic and Analytic philosophers) understand Metaphysics in a same way; probably it is much more complex for analytic philosophers, but in the both traditions, philosophers actually avoid being idealist about the actual/physical beings. What else? The main distinction however is the basic philosophical attitude of these two traditions to the matters of metaphysics; Scholastic attitude is highly ontological and Analytic philosophy attitude is mostly based on epistemological viewpoint.