Tweaking a Medieval Antecedent

Whereas disputations were a regular part of both elementary pedagogy and university training in the medieval and early-modern eras, not all disputations were of the same kind. This chapter explains the differences between the dialectic and scholastic disputations, of which Chandieu’s works belong to the latter. Further, it shows that Chandieu wrote his works “for the better practice of disputations,” and that his “theological and scholastic” treatises thus have an organic connection to the classroom. The use of disputations in the academies of the Swiss cantons more widely is also described. Comparisons to the structure of Thomas’s disputations occurs, as well as to that of an earlier Arabic philosopher.