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One example of a booming intellectual enterprise developed within the medieval period was scholasticism, a philosophical methodology developed in the late tenth eleventh and early twelfth century. The dawn of scholasticism is typically associated with two figures in particular, Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abelard, though it’s most notable representative is Thomas Aquinas. Scholasticism was a theological methodology that focused primarily on the application of dialectic (logic) in order to weigh and judge the veracity of competing theological viewpoints, specifically those inherited by the Patristics or “Church Fathers.” Scholastics did not regard the faith as something contrary to reason, but believed that the intellect was a medium of growing in faith through meditation on God and his mysteries. Such an intellectual rigor and discipline would lead one to further understanding. Scholastics did not only study theology using dialectic, though. Many such as Abelard were skilled logicians or grammarians, and dabbled in metaphysics, ethics, ontology, legal and political philosophy as well.

In the “high middle ages” (the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries) two religious orders dominated the realm of scholasticism: franciscans and dominicans. One of the most discussed and heavily debated questions amongst these two religious orders was something contemporary philosophers might call moral psychology or philosophy of mind. The debate was in regards to whether the will or the intellect was dominant in practical reasoning. The Dominicans (to which Aquinas belonged) believed that the intellect was dominate. This meant that in moral deliberation if one truly knew what was right (what was good) then the will would carry said action out. This position is dubbed the “intellectualist” position. The Franciscans were representative, generally, of what is called voluntarism. This view is more or less opposite of the intellectualist position. It holds that the intellect could supply the will with the right option, but that the will could simply refuse to carry out what it knows is good. In other words they observed that sometimes the will is “weak” and doesn’t carry out what it knows it should.<ref>For more on Franciscan Voluntarism see: Williams, Thomas. <i>John Duns Scotus: Selected Writings on Ethics</i>(Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2017).</ref>