SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY and GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE in MEDIEVAL EUROPA

Medieval Europe is also called Dark Age. There are two different philosophies in the Medieval Age. The first one is Christian philosophy which emerged in Europe or West; the other one is Islamic Philosophy emerged in East. Christian philosophy is also divided into Patristic philosophy and Scholastic philosophy. It can be claimed that Scholastic philosophy is the basic philosophy of Christian Medieval Philosophy. The main subject of this study is to discuss the relationship between Scholasticism and Gothic architecture in Medieval Christian Philosophy. Literature review is the main method of this study. Erwin Panofsky tries to show the analogy of Scholasticism and Gothic architecture in his book titled Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism. Therefore, this study mainly follows Panofsky’s work. Gothic architecture emerged in France during the Middle Age. The first example of this architecture is Saint Denis Basilica. Especially, high Scholastic thought have an effect on architecture. Three core principles of Scholastic argument 1- principle of clarification, 2- mutual conformance and distinctness and 3-deductive relation can also be seen in Gothic architecture. In sum, it is seen that scholasticism affected not only philosophy, it also affected on art and architecture. The basic analogy of Gothic architecture and Scholasticism can be seen in time and space, cause-effect relationship, harmony and clarity.

Keywords

Gothic architecture, Scholastic philosophy, Medieval Age, Scholasticism