Abstract

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the historiographical category of “anti-dialecticians” has been devised to describe a group of eleventh-century monastic writers such as Otloh of Sankt Emmeram, Lanfranc of Pavia and Peter Damian, and Manegold of Lautenbach. They made their names by opposing dialecticians, or a certain way of approaching theological questions through dialectics, or ancient philosophers. Three questions are posed: Do the authors involved form a homogeneous group? What is the nature of their opposition to dialectic? Is their opposition to dialectic compensated by the use of alternative forms of rationality? Although the four authors have in common to support the Gregorian Reform, they show diverse attitudes and address different issues. The category of “anti-dialecticians” is therefore to be seen as the result of an amalgam, which can be explained by a determinate historical seedbed. Part of the conflicts can indeed be explained as a growth crisis. The progressive advent of a science of faith, which would later on, during the twelfth century, be called “theology”, gave rise to a rivalry between two social groups, monks and secular masters, while the so-called anti-dialecticians were also eager to show that a science of the Christian faith cannot be reduced to a philosophical discussion. This series of disputes have prepared the distinction of two autonomous sciences: theology on the one hand, philosophy on the other. In this sense, the so-called anti-dialecticians teach us about the split between two logics, rather than a simple rejection of logic.