In the scholastic system of education of the Middle Ages, disputations offered a formalized method of debate designed to uncover and establish truths in theology and in sciences. Fixed rules governed the process: they demanded dependence on traditional written authorities and the thorough understanding of each argument on each side.
A disputation between Christian and Jewish scholars (1483)
c. 1208. This 15th-century painting by Pedro Berruguete depicts the legend of Saint Dominic and his Albigensian disputant tossing their books into a fire. According to the legend, Saint Dominic's books miraculously leapt out of the fire.
Scholasticism was a medieval school of philosophy that employed a critical organic method of philosophical analysis predicated upon the Aristotelian 10 Categories. Christian scholasticism emerged within the monastic schools that translated scholastic Judeo-Islamic philosophies, and thereby "rediscovered" the collected works of Aristotle. Endeavoring to harmonize his metaphysics and its account of a prime mover with the Latin Catholic dogmatic trinitarian theology, these monastic schools became the basis of the earliest European medieval universities, contributing to the development of modern science; scholasticism dominated education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. The rise of scholasticism was closely associated with these schools that flourished in Italy, France, Portugal, Spain and England.
14th-century image of a university lecture
Peter Abelard
Thomas Aquinas
Duns Scotus