The University of Paris in the Thirteenth Century: History, Philosophy, and Methods

This article briefy discusses the rise of the University of Paris in the early thirteenth century. It describes both its teaching methods and academic programs, paying special attention to the role played by philosophy within these programs. The primary objective of the article is to underline the importance of knowing the historical context of the intellectual practices of the period. This contextualization is fundamental for all scholars working on the history of medieval philosophy. The article concludes with an example from a text of Duns Scotus, suggesting that it is probably the testimony of a divine reading (lectio) by questions, in which the teacher is more interested in introducing his students to a difficult philosophical problem - the problem of the meaning of the common name - than in definitively answering the problem itself. Approaching Scotus text in this way will help determine his actual position on the problem of meaning and prevent scholars from erroneously attributing ideas to Scotus that were not his.