ABSTRACT
The medieval scholastic method, which is known to the modern academic world almost exclusively in its Western european form,2 is widely believed to have a three or four-part structure consisting of ‘arguments, [and] counter-arguments, the main thesis, and criticism of the arguments for the challenged opinion’.3 The consensus among europeanists is that the full scholastic method is an organic, logical, spontaneous growth out of the european tradition – in particular, the works of Peter abelard4 and anselm of canterbury.5 This view has been
1 This article is an abbreviated and revised version of part of a lecture (‘central asian buddhist sources of early scholasticism in medieval Tibet, Islam, and Western europe’) in the numata distinguished guest speaker series given at the oriental Institute of oxford university, Faculty of oriental studies, in association with the oxford centre for buddhist studies, on 12 June 2008. I am grateful to the sponsors, and would like to thank my host, robert mayer, for his amiable hospitality. I am also grateful to collett cox for very kindly sending me a prepublication copy of her joint translation, with hiromichi Takeda, of part of the Abhidharmamahāvibhāṣaśāstra. see hiromichi Takeda and collett cox, ‘existence in the Three Time Periods *Abhidharma-mahāvibhāṣaśāstra (T.1545 pp.393a9-396b23) english Translation’, in Festschrift Volume for Ronald Nakasone (forthcoming). I am in addition deeply indebted to Pascale hugon, helmut krasser, anne macdonald, richard nance and karin Preisendanz for their very generous, informative help, which has saved me from numerous errors. of course, I alone am responsible for any mistakes that remain.
