The Salamanca School

Andre Azevedo Alves, Jose Moreira

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781623561857
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Ideologies
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Major Conservative and Libertarian Thinkers provides comprehensive accounts of the works of seminal conservative thinkers from a variety of periods, disciplines and traditions - the first series of its kind. Even the selection of thinkers adds another aspect to conservative thinking, including not only theorists but also thinkers in literary forms and those who are also practitioners. The series comprises twenty volumes, each including an intellectual biography, historical context, critical exposition of the thinker's work, reception and influence, contemporary relevance, bibliography including references to electronic resources and an index.

Chapter 1

Historical Context and Intellectual Biography

What Is the 'School of Salamanca'?

Just outside the United Nations building in New York stands a statue of a sixteenth-century Dominican theologian – Francisco de Vitoria. Those familiar with international law will know that Vitoria is justly credited as one of the founders of international law. But few will be aware that the same figure can also be credited with the foundation of a distinct School of theological, philosophical, political and economic thought to whose authors Hayek, in his Nobel lecture, referred to as 'those remarkable anticipators of modern economics, the Spanish schoolmen of the sixteenth century'.¹ That School is the subject of this book.

The expression 'School of Salamanca' is commonly used to refer to the group of Iberian scholastics of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century that were, more or less loosely, associated with the University of Salamanca. Although the Dominican – and distinguished Thomist – Francisco de Vitoria (c. 1483–1546) is usually credited as the founder of the School, it was not limited to Dominican theologians, with members of other religious orders – particularly Jesuits – also providing significant contributions to the development of Salamancan ideas and intellectual influence.

As is often the case with the intellectual grouping into schools or paradigms, the concept and delimitation of a distinct Salamanca School is not without controversy. To mention two of the most notable dissentions, Pribram (1983, 28–29) argues for setting the (Jesuits) Luis de Molina and Juan de Lugo apart from the rest of the (mostly Dominican) School of Salamanca while Chafuen (2003) prefers the denomination 'Hispanic Scholastics' because some of the most important Iberian authors of this period conducted their studies at universities other than Salamanca.² It is undeniable that, for example, authors as relevant as Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez were Jesuits and had the largest shares of their productive years in Portugal (at the universities of Évora and Coimbra) but nevertheless they can be associated with the Salamancan tradition to the extent they undertook studies there and have carried forth that tradition in their works, not only in terms of the themes they studied but also in the scholastic approach they adopted. It is also true that on some issues there are substantial differences of opinion between authors associated with the Salamancan approach, but the same can certainly be said of most schools of thought. Despite its possible shortcomings, the use of the name School of Salamanca to identify this group of philosophers of natural law and moral theologians enjoys a considerably long and solid tradition in the literature, dating back at least to the work of Wilhelm Endemann in 1874.³

In this context, it seems reasonable to continue to refer to the Salamanca School. Chafuen (2003) is probably right when stating that 'Hispanic Scholastics' is, in some sense, a more precise definition but it also carries two significant disadvantages when compared with continuing to refer to the School of Salamanca: first, it is less informative to the extent it omits reference to the most important academic intellectual centre of the time and second, it unnecessarily discards the rich and respectable historical use of the expression in many instances of the literature on political philosophy and economic theory. The expression Salamanca School is used throughout this book in a relatively broad sense, including members of different religious orders and with different degrees of connection and proximity with the University of Salamanca and with the work of Francisco de Vitoria. The Salamancan authors considered here share essential similarities in terms of the regeneration of the scholastic method, their main authoritative sources (Greek philosophers – particularly Aristotle – the Roman jurists, the Old and New Testaments, Christian Patristic literature and earlier scholastics – above all St Thomas Aquinas) and many features of their outlook on political and economic issues. These characteristics – more than the amount of time they spent at Salamanca or the extent to which they can be considered direct followers of Francisco de Vitoria – are the main identifying elements of the authors included in the Salamanca School.

Used in this sense, the Salamanca School can be said to range roughly from the first decades of the sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century, when its activity in the Iberian Peninsula (although not necessarily its direct and indirect influence elsewhere) gradually started to decline. A period during which its main authors taught not only in Salamanca but also in Alcalá de Henares and other Spanish universities as well as in Portuguese universities like Coimbra and Évora.

One of the main concerns of the Salamancan scholastics was to take into account the interconnection of all areas of human knowledge and contribute to a unified understanding of the world and its laws. All of them had, first of all, pastoral concerns and often intended to address ethical problems that arose both for politicians and businessmen in light of the teachings of moral theology. But their work was generally carried out with the concern of incorporating a correct understanding of the laws of political economy and their inevitable implications and not – as unfortunately happens too often when dealing with ethical and political philosophy issues – through well sounding pronouncements that neglect those very same laws.⁴

But the contribution of the Salamancans was not limited to economic theory and theological issues, although they did exert a powerful influence in matters like the replacement of Peter Lombard’s Sentences by Aquinas' Summa Theologica as the main object of study, a change that was a key feature in the revival of Thomism.⁵ The interests of the members of Salamanca School spread to areas related to the main social and political issues of their time, including what we would now call individual rights, international law, just war and peace, the moral legitimacy of New World explorations and conquests, business and financial ethics and the responsibility of governments and civil society towards poverty and mendacity. The writings of the scholastics associated with the School of Salamanca dealt with all these issues in an integrated framework of natural law and moral theology. This means that their contributions to political, economic and social thought must be considered in that context to be properly understood but one of their main distinguishing features is that they truly brought philosophy and theology to applied social and policy issues in a systematic fashion.

It is important at this point to consider in what light and to what extent can the Salamanca scholastics be considered 'conservative' or 'libertarian'. They certainly would not have self-identified as such at the time, given that these categories (as we now conceive of them) were the product of later intellectual and political developments. Nevertheless they did contribute and develop very important ideas and insights that later came to assume a central role in those intellectual traditions. More importantly: they often did so from a coherent perspective that always sought to integrate theological, philosophical, political and economic knowledge. Revisiting their teachings is valuable not only in terms of better understanding the genealogy of ideas but also as a source of alternative integrated perspectives on contemporary issues. Regardless of normative political preferences, a significant part of the arguments put forth by the authors within the Salamanca School are certain to interest – and in some cases surprise – contemporary readers.

Simultaneously, familiarizing oneself with the main political and economic contributions of the School of Salamanca is also fundamental to understand the policy implications of one of the main pillars of the Western political thought tradition, namely that line of inquiry that built upon the methods and insights of St Thomas Aquinas. The Salamancan theologians and natural law philosophers were firmly in the inherited Thomist tradition that in large part defined 'Western' political thought. They combine a strong adherence to the scholastic methods of rigorous deductive and speculative reasoning and to traditional authoritative sources with the objective to present, develop and apply Christian doctrine to the most salient issues of their time. In this process, they find themselves in the singular position of promoting a revival of Thomism while at the same time anticipating some of the decisive elements of the transition to the modern period. Through the analysis of the thought of the Salamancans it is also possible to gain valuable insights on how that process occurred. This involves understanding what elements were carried forth and which were either abandoned or forgotten. In many ways – but particularly though its influence on modern philosophy – the specific shape of this transition to modernity also determined important features of contemporary political thought.

Given the extremely vast array of possibilities and scope to be covered in a work that seeks to provide a general succinct overview of the main contributions of the Salamanca School and the objectives of this collection, the approach taken here is to highlight and present the ideas most interesting for the contemporary conservative and libertarian traditions. At the same time, adequate attention will be paid to tensions and conflicts in those ideas, as well as to ways in which they fundamentally or partially differ from contemporary interpretations.

The structure of the book is as follows: the remaining part of this chapter presents a brief overview of the political and intellectual context of the School of Salamanca as a whole, followed by a series of short biographical notes on some of its most notable figures; the second chapter includes an exposition of the main philosophical and political foundations of the Salamanca School and a presentation of its most salient contributions in terms of applied political thought and the ethical and juridical framework of what we would now call the extended market order; the third chapter deals with the reception of the work of the Salamancans at the time and their influence in subsequent periods; the fourth chapter discusses the contemporary relevance of the contributions of the Salamanca School; the chapters are followed by a bibliography that aims to serve as a first step for those interested in deepening their knowledge of the topics covered throughout the book.

The Political and Intellectual Context of the School of Salamanca

The golden age of Iberia – that largely coincided with the time of the authors considered in this volume – took place after a movement of global journeys of navigation and exploration in which Portugal and Spain were pioneers.

In the case of Portugal – an independent nation-state since the twelfth century – the major points in this movement were the exploration of the African coastline, the discovery of the maritime route to India and the (European) discovery of Brazil. In Spain, the 1469 marriage of the 'Catholic Kings' Fernando (of Aragón) and Isabel (of Castilla) gave way to a process of re-conquest and unification that eventually led to the expulsion of the Arabs from the Iberian peninsula in 1492, the very same year of Columbus' pioneering journey to America. Columbus' voyage is perhaps the most notable result of a policy of maritime expeditions that led to the European settlement in America, although the initially stated aim of the expeditions was that of finding a maritime route to India by navigating westward. The increasingly aggressive competition between the Iberian peoples for the discovery and exploration of the 'New World' in this period was also the root cause of the establishment of a treaty that settled the latent conflict between the two states. The result was the division of the World between Portugal and Spain with the signature of the famous Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. After the arrival of Columbus to America, the treaty determined the division of New World territories into two distinct spheres of influence, with the Western part belonging to Spain and the Eastern part to Portugal. It is this division established in the treaty that lies at the root of the separation that nowadays is still largely present in Latin America and roughly corresponds to the frontier lines between Portuguese-speaking Brazil and the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America.

The reign of Fernando and Isabel also gave rise to the enlargement of the powers of Castilla, which was accompanied by the hiring of thousands of people to the several administrative, military and judicial ranks of the expanding state. The new lawyers, administrators, tax collectors, military specialists – amongst other professionals – were all seen as requiring appropriate education and formation for the increasingly challenging tasks they had to deal with in their (often newly created) positions. As would be expected, this process created conditions to solidify the grip of Castilla on the Spanish territories but it also coexisted with an intellectual climate of openness to new knowledge and new realities that generated favourable conditions for the so-called Spanish 'Siglo de Oro' ('Golden Century', the period approximately between 1525 and 1640). This period included the 60 years (1580–1640) during which Portugal was unified in a single kingdom with Spain, as a consequence of the death of D. Sebastião and of the marriage – celebrated in Salamanca – of the Prince of Astúrias, D. Felipe (later Felipe II of Spain and Felipe I of Portugal), with D. Maria, daughter of D. João III of Portugal and of his wife Catarina, sister of the Emperor Carlos V.⁶

Isabel and Fernando are often credited for having ruled not so much with the aid of the 'noble' as with the counsel of the 'learned'. In fact, the growth of the importance of the universities in Spain (as well as in Portugal) can be explained in large part both by the interest of the noble – that hoped to continue to hold on to political power and social influence and status – and by the demand for formal education by second-born (and in some cases illegitimate) children of wealthy families. Higher education was increasingly regarded as a means of personal promotion and a tool to gain access to attractive administrative positions, both in civil and religious institutions. Hence the flourishing of the universities that supplied adequate degrees for those purposes, even though higher education required either substantial economic resources or the support of a religious Order.⁷

This trend paved the way for greater freedom and participation in the universities and even to institutional competition for the supply of the best teaching and the most adequate competences between the religious Orders associated with academia, particularly the Dominicans and the recently established Jesuits. Even though some regard the universities as subordinated to the needs of the State,⁸ the truth is that the elitist processes of hiring can also be regarded as contributing to the creation ...

Table of contents

• Cover-Page
• Half Title
• Series Introduction
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Historical Context and Intellectual Biography
• 2 Critical Exposition
• 3 Reception and Influence of the Work
• 4 Relevance of the Work Today
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index