Let's take a look on creativity in Scholastic University.
So, the main idea of
Scholastic University is to debate the idea of the applied utility of the knowledge.
So, the basic doctrine of
the Scholastic University is that knowledge is valuable by itself.
It shouldn't be appliable.
You are generating the knowledge by,
we'll say, using your ideas,
by using your imagination, your creation etc.
You don't need constantly to make this knowledge work for economy,
work for administration etc.
So, and here we can do a reference to Thomas Aquinas,
who has been the first to proposed this division on Artes Liberalis and Artes Mechanicae.
So, Artes Liberalis is the,
we'll say, free, what we call the liberal arts.
Liberal arts means that we have deal with our skills,
which every well-educated person should
have a set of different skills,
which can be used everywhere more or less.
Artes Mechanicae shouldn't be included into the university course,
into the university curricula because,
it's a different kind of for what we call the practically oriented skills.
And such skills during this time could be,
we'll say, obtained not during the university education,
but obtained during the direct instruction inside the, we'll say,
particular guilds where new workers,
new people are penetrating.
So it means if you would like to be a specialist in field of making tables,
you are just coming into guilds of people making tables.
And then inside these guild,
you will obtain some instructions how to do that, which finally,
will be finalized by the obtaining the practical skills,
how to produce these stuff.
So, it means that finally,
the Scholastic University and the idea of the Scholastic University is based on
this division between the real knowledge
and knowledge which is available by itself because,
it's developing our understanding of the world
and the other form of practically oriented knowledge,
which should be excluded from the university.
At this period also,
we should stress that during this period,
university has been a kind of community.
University was a community of students united around particular masters.
And then when the number of such students
was growing and when the number of such master was growing,
they started to conclude a kind of contract, a kind of,
we'll say, charters between
the university members and the students between the masters and the students.
So first, universities such as Sorbonne,
for example, in Paris,
were free societies of students and masters regulated by charters.
So, charter is regulating the relationship between the students and the masters.
So, from this point of view,
university has been considered as the centers for
education of elite members of the national states.
Elite members which should be able to read,
to speak, to write,
to prepare some documents,
to be able to interpret the biblical texts,
to be able to know some laws, etc.
And of course, the faculties of such university was very different.
First of all, there was triad over the main activities of the main faculty.
First of all, it was the Theological faculty,
which was much more important just because universities functioned initially,
inside the religious corporations,
inside the religious realm.
Secondly, was the faculty of Law,
and then faculties of Medicine.
If you would like to improve your society,
to improve your nation,
to improve your state,
you should constantly perform the law of healthcare for medicine.
You should improve some kind of rules inside the society, its the law.
And finally, a kind of spiritual thinking of people which are coming from theology.
And then basing of these three main faculties there were
so-called seven Artes Liberalis, so,
seven liberal arts inside this model which has been developed a little bit later,
but inside the Scholastic University so-called Trivium and Quadrivium.
Trivium was based on three main disciplines, Grammar, Rhetorics, Logics.
So, Trivium was necessary for people,
who would like to produce and to express publicly their ideas.
To do so, you need to know well the grammar,
to know well rhetorics,
to have ability to publicly express
your opinions and the logics in order to construct such opinions.
And then the so-called Quadrivium.
Quadrivium based on the four remaining disciplines
such as Arithmetics, Geometry, Astronomy,
Harmony or the music,
if we'll try to interpret these discipline.
Of course, starting from 15th-16th century,
we can see the progressive disintegration of such forms of the university,
just because we can see the
constantly enlarging set of discipline beyond borders of Artes Liberalis.
So, we can see the rise of mathematics.
We can see a rise of geometrics as
the basis of different physical things in the world,
as the basics for example,
of the astronomy of geography of other fields of science.
So, we can see the rise of empirical research coming from Beacon idea.
So, we can see the of course,
the enlargement of these university beyond the borders of the,
we'll say, religious, spiritual way of life.
And we can see the disintegration of these scholasticism inside the academia.
And these disintegration also has been related with the appearance of the first schools.
So, a kind of particular education,
institutions to prepare the people for
the practically oriented disciplines such as Royal Schools of Artillery,
Royal Marines Schools, etc.
in different countries. Of course,
this has been a very important process of
disintegration over these Scholastic University.
As I have already pointed out,
the scholastic era has been marked by the cultural creativity.
Universities served as interpreter of the reality,
which was understood through a relationship with God.
So, the Theological University produced a lot of religious texts not only,
for its own use,
but also and especially,
for use of the wider community especially,
of the community of religious outside the university.
And the main forms of the university course was based on religious genres and especially,
the form we know right now,
the form of lecture,
which are coming from the Scholastic University to the Research University.
A form of lecture is the form of sermon,
so one of the ritual of
their religious genre from
which has been penetrated from the religious realm to the university.
