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Warriors of the Cloisters tells how key cultural innovations from Central Asia revolutionized medieval Europe and gave rise to the culture of science in the West. Medieval scholars rarely performed scientific experiments, but instead contested issues in natural science, philosophy, and theology using the recursive argument method. This highly distinctive and unusual method of disputation was a core feature of medieval science, the predecessor of modern science. We know that the foundations of science were imported to Western Europe from the Islamic world, but until now the origins of such key elements of Islamic culture have been a mystery. In this provocative book, Christopher I. Beckwith traces how the recursive argument method was first developed by Buddhist scholars and was spread by them throughout ancient Central Asia. He shows how the method was adopted by Islamic Central Asian natural philosophers--most importantly by Avicenna, one of the most brilliant of all medieval thinkers--and transmitted to the West when Avicenna's works were translated into Latin in Spain in the twelfth century by the Jewish philosopher Ibn Da'ud and others. During the same period the institution of the college was also borrowed from the Islamic world. The college was where most of the disputations were held, and became the most important component of medieval Europe's newly formed universities. As Beckwith demonstrates, the Islamic college also originated in Buddhist Central Asia. Using in-depth analysis of ancient Buddhist, Classical Arabic, and Medieval Latin writings, Warriors of the Cloisters transforms our understanding of the origins of medieval scientific culture.

Science, Medieval --- Academic disputations --- Science --- History --- Science, Medieval. --- Academic disputations. --- Natural science --- Science of science --- Sciences --- Medieval science --- Disputations, Academic --- Debates and debating --- Dissertations, Academic --- Natural sciences --- Science - Asia, Central - History - To 1500

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This book examines the argumentation strategies employed by linguists in voicing criticism, looks for explanations for confrontation in academic discourse, and evaluates the positive and/or negative effects it has on international academic communication. Issues such as the role of intertextuality, cross-cultural variations, and the notion of “academic discourse community” are also touched upon. Special attention is paid to the modern developments in contrastive rhetoric studies, as well as to the controversial issue of the use of context-based versus corpus-based methods. The corpus under investigation consists of academic book reviews in English and German with a clearly stated negative character, as well as a series of publications in English interrelated by the fact that they discuss a common group of problems but from two fully confrontative points of view. They illustrate what has been called an “academic war”. Some related theoretical issues are also discussed, including the role of evaluation in academic communication, the relationship between criticism, critique, negative evaluation, and confrontation in academic communication, as well as the importance of culture, discipline culture, and communities of practice. The contrastive discourse analysis demonstrates differences between English and German in terms of the rhetorical strategies employed by review writers to express criticism. The book will be of interest to researchers in the fields of academic communication and rhetorics, as well as teachers in English/German for academic purposes. Irena Vassileva is Professor of English and German Linguistics in the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures at New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Academic disputations. --- Academic writing. --- Learned writing --- Scholarly writing --- Authorship --- Disputations, Academic --- Debates and debating --- Dissertations, Academic --- Linguistics --- Penmanship. --- Language and languages --- Rhetoric. --- Communication in science. --- Technology. --- Science. --- Germanic languages. --- Research Methods in Language and Linguistics. --- Writing Skills. --- Rhetorics. --- Rhetoric of Science and Technology. --- Germanic Languages. --- Methodology. --- Style. --- Linguostylistics --- Stylistics --- Literary style --- Chirography --- Handwriting --- Writing --- Language arts --- Teutonic languages --- Indo-European languages --- Natural science --- Natural sciences --- Science of science --- Sciences --- Applied science --- Arts, Useful --- Science, Applied --- Useful arts --- Science --- Industrial arts --- Material culture --- Communication in research --- Science communication --- Science information --- Scientific communications --- Speaking --- Expression --- Study and teaching --- Rhetoric