hedging in christian medieval apologetics
TRANSCRIPT
Hedging in Christian Medieval Apologetics:The Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas
Sr. Carolyn T. Terencio, O.P.De La Salle University, Manila
MAELEDs / ENG530M
Abstract
This paper is a preliminary study of how educators of today perceive hedging in medieval
literature. Five school teachers and administrators of different subject majors and religious
affiliation were asked to identify hedges in the three articles under the heading “The Existence of
God” authored by Thomas Aquinas. They were further asked to explain its effect to them,
whether the arguments presented by the author became more true or partially true due to the
hedging devices used, and the reason for such qualification. The articles were chosen because of
their prevailing significance in contemporary times as evidenced by the significant number of
weblog sites discussing the topics. Findings show that Aquinas did use hedging devices as a
means to arouse interest in readers and to show a stance of objectivity. More significantly,
although Aquinas’ use of the hedging devices generally convinced the readers of his arguments,
the effect of the hedging devices differed depending upon the educational background, interests,
beliefs and other constraints inherent to the reader. More research work on reader-writer
connection in the use of hedges, and a linguistic study of medieval modalities to understand the
history of hedging and its implication to present studies were proposed in the conclusion section.
1. Introduction
The literary forms of Medieval Philosophy to which Aquinas’ summa genre belongs have
been well-studied, more of its form and content rather than its linguistic character. The degree of
certainty by which Aquinas presented his arguments can be a point of reference for a linguistic
study of his works. Oxford American dictionary (2002) defines certainty as “undoubted fact or
prospect” and “absolute conviction” (p. 122). A study made about Certainty Identification of
Texts (Rubin, Liddy & Kando, 2004) showed that epistemic modality expressions and hedges
can be evaluated as explicit certainty markers in texts. According to Markkanen and Shroder
(1999), in the fields of linguistic and philosophy, hedging is more common than in natural
sciences and technology. In the same article, however, Markkanen and Schroder (1999)
seemingly, have contradicted themselves when they referenced Vandle Kopple (1985) who said
that in metadiscourse (which happens to be both linguistic and philosophical), the use of hedges
shows lack of commitment to the proposition and even modifies its truth value. This seeming
contradiction can be resolved if hedges are considered to be both detensifiers and intensifiers as
the same authors (Markkanen & Schroder, 1999) intended to point out in their article.
An exhaustive bibliographical research guide of the studies made regarding
hedges/hedging can be found in the work of Hartmut Schröder and Dagmar Zimmer (2000). The
authors categorized the studies under discourse-oriented hedging research, hedging research in
pragmatics and related concepts, and hedging research in other areas other than pragmatics. The
discourse-oriented hedging research was further subdivided into the point of view of discourse
analysis, speech act theory and conversation analysis. Research in pragmatics, on the other hand,
included headings on mitigation, politeness, and vagueness. The remaining topics were classified
under the point of view of logic, semantics, rhetorics and stylistics, communication research,
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academic communication research and intercultural communication studies. Although the studies
are classified according to area of research, the particular texts used for the studies are not
mentioned in the article. A study of the Summa text could fall under any of the above categories.
No such study however, was found by the researcher.
A look at the entire work presented in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas shows
a particular hedging device used at the beginning of all the disputations contained in the book. It
is not known however, what the impact of the said device is to the readers, nor the effect of
subsequent hedging statements in the texts.
The purpose of this paper is to show how readers identify hedging in arguments written
during the medieval period, and whether the effects of hedges can be generalized given a variety
of readers’ constraints: beliefs, attitudes, interests and motives. Due to the lack of literature study
on the said topic, a preliminary investigation was made with sample articles from the book.
A study of the conventions of this medieval debate format and the use of hedging in the
particular parts of the format can help us understand some reasons for the strong expositions of
Aquinas’ arguments that made his summa genre a classic and imitated by modern theologians of
this day.
2. Methodology
The study was descriptive in nature since it was an analysis of texts of medieval
apologetics. Moreover, a comparison of the analysis made by five respondents was included in
the study.
The writer requested five respondents from various fields of interest: a brother for
ordination to Catholic priesthood, a non-Catholic graduate student in English, a religious sister
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who is a graduate student of school administration, a vice-principal whose major is English, and
a Science Coordinator of basic education. The researcher chose persons competent enough to
analyze a highly philosophical text vis-a-vis a linguistic term of hedging.
The studied texts were the three articles under the title “The Existence of God” in the
book Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas summa genre was chosen because it is a
classic representative of medieval theology. The Catholic Church strongly recommends the study
of this book even after 800 years of its authorship (Mc Dermott 1989). One article under study,
known as Quinquae viae, or the “Five Ways” is still a source of much debate in our time as
evidenced by more than four hundred thousand blog sites discussing the topic (Yahoo search
results, July 10, 2008).
The respondents were given the texts under study, a brief explanation of hedges, the
instructions, and the questionnaire itself. The analysis centered on the personal interpretation of
the respondents on which sentences they think Aquinas hedged, the words or phrases that made
them think that Aquinas was hedging, its effect to them as reader (whether intensifier or
detensifier) and the reason for the choice. It was indicated in the instructions that “intensifier
means that the hedged word or phrase used in a sentence gives them the impression that the
statement is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected” while “detensifier are
hedged words or phrases that for them modifies the degree of certainty of the sentence as partial
or true only in certain respects.” (Brown/Levinson, 1987, 145 in Markkanen & Schroder, 1999, ¶
6).
The sentences in each of the three articles studied were numbered accordingly for easy
reference. Each article was tabulated by part indicating the number of the sentences chosen by
respondents as hedged. The hedging devices were then classified by the researcher according to
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the classification based on the theories of Strauss (2004), Vassileva (2001), Salager-Meyer
(1997) and Swales & Feak (1994), cited in Mojica (2005). The classifications were: A)
modals/probabilities, namely, may, can might, could, would, must, should, B) semi-auxiliaries
like seem, appear, sound, look, like, epistemic verbs like tend, suggest, estimate, support,
assume, propose, think, believe, doubt and the like C) adjectival/adverbial/nominal words and
phrases such as clearly, obviously, surprisingly, perhaps, likely, possible, somehow, probably,
conceivably, approximately, roughly, generally and the like, and D) distancing phrases such as I
believe, to our knowledge, it is our view, one school of thought, a possible view, based on,
according to and the like. The number of respondents who considered the hedged statement as
intensifier or detensifier was also counted. The number of occurrence of each type of hedging
device per part was tabulated in a separate table, while the summary of the number of intensifiers
and detensifiers for each article was tabulated in another table.
There are four sections in each article of the Summa. To arrive whether a pattern in the
use of hedges for every section in the disputations, and its effect on the readers do exist, a
comparison of the respondents’ answers will be discussed.
3. Results and Discussion
Table 1 shows the respondents’ choices of hedged sentences in every part of the 3
articles, the classification of the hedging devices according to type, and the number of
respondents that classified each hedging device into intensifiers or detensifiers.
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Table 1. Summary of Respondents’ identification of hedges.
Article 1 Article 2 Article 3Part Hedged
SentenceType I D Hedged
SentenceType I D Hedged
SentenceType I D
1 1 B 3 2 1 B 3 2 1 B 2 32 D 2 - 2 D 1 1 2 C 2 12 A 1 - 2 A 2 1 4 A 1 -3 D 2 - 3 A 1 - 4 C - 15 D 4 - 5 D 3 - 7 A 1 -7 C - 1 5 A - 1 8 B - 514 C 1 1 6 A 1 - 9 A - 115 C - 1 7 C 2 -16 D 2 - 9 A 1 -
9 C - 2
2 18 A 2 - 10 D 4 - 11 D 4 118 D 3 - 11 A 3 -19 A - 1 12 A 1 119 D 1 -
3 20 A 3 1 13 A 3 - 12 A 3 -23 C 2 - 16 C - 1 14 C - 124 C 1 1 18 A 1 - 18 A 1 -25 D 2 1 18 C 1 1 31 C - 126 D 2 - 19 A 3 - 38 C 1 -27 D - 1 19 D - 1 42 C 1 -
49 C 1 -50 D 1 -
4 28 C 2 - 20 A 1 - 59 D 4 -30 D - 1 22 C 2 - 60 A 2 -32 C 2 3 24 C 1 - 62 A 1 -36 C 3 - 26 A - 1 63 D 1 -36 D - 1 27 A - 1
28 A 2 1Total 24 38 13 25 36 14 20 26 14Key:Types of Hedges: Respondent’s Classification of Hedges: A – Modals and probabilities I – Intensifier B – Semi-auxiliaries/Epistemic Verbs D - Detensifier C – Adjective/Adverb/Nominal Words/Phrase D – Distancing Phrases
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It should be noted first of all that the form of the Summa articles follows a particular
pattern. A question is posed at the beginning, followed by a section that begins with the word
videtur (“It seems that”) which offers arguments supposedly by the opponent, which will later
turn out to be the wrong answer to the question. Part 2 begins with the word sed contra (“But on
the contrary”) which refutes the opponents view. The third part labeled responsio (“Response”)
presents arguments which Aquinas considers the correct view, and the last part (Reply to
Objections) which refutes the arguments presented in the videtur section.
Such form then shows that the parts of the summa are artificial, in that, they are carefully
composed disputations, the purpose of which is to achieve a rhetorical as well as a logical effect.
It is not surprising then that in table one, sentence one of part one in all three articles shows the
only common agreement among the respondents that seems is the hedging device. This is an
example for one of Salager-Meyer’s (1997) four reasons for hedging, which was taken from
Banks (1994), who said that hedging devices has become conventionalized in order to conform
to an established writing style. However, there are differences in opinion among the respondents
as to the effect to them of the hedging device “seems”. In article one, three out five respondents
identified the device as intensifier and the other two identified it as detensifier. In article 2, three
respondents considered it an intensifier, and in Article three, three respondents classified it as
detensifier. Considering that all respondents were competent enough to analyze the difficult text,
where could the difference in opinion come from?
The respondent who consistently classified the hedge as detensifier in all articles gave
these reasons:
1. The word seems connote that it might be, it might be not, hence the writer gives the
impression that it could be one or the other.
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2. Seems express the uncertainty of the thought expressed.
3. There is no solid stand behind the statement.
In the first two articles, the respondent looked at the device per se, and not in the totality
of the argument. An English major, her interest lies not entirely in the message of the text but the
categorization of the linguistic terms of which she was tasked to do. The same is true with the
non-Catholic English teacher. His reasons are more or less centered in the isolated meaning of
the word, as in the following reasons given:
1. When seems is use, it’s like the author is not sure about his statement.
2. There is doubt when seems is used.
3. It means not sure.
Some readers on the other hand, would attempt to go beyond the literal meaning of the
word, as can be seen in the reasons given by the respondent whose training is in philosophy. He
classified the hedge as an intensifier in all three articles:
1. It appears to me that the author tries to make more proofs that the existence of God is
self-evident.
2. The author laid his argument in a form of uncertainty to make more demonstration of
the existence of God.
3. The author uses this uncertainty to arouse the interest of the readers.
Such reading results show a careful evaluation of the complete text when there is conflict
in the existing knowledge of the reader and the opinion presented in the text. Berlyne (1960) in
Crismore & Vandle Kopple (1990) assumed that such conflict leads to epistemic curiosity, and
Huber (1988), also in Crismore & Vandle Kopple pointed out, that a reader presented with such
controversial argument tends to clarify one’s own view, understand others point of view, and
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then develop a personal synthesis, as the respondent above has done. Aquinas himself admitted
that the summa format was created to teach beginning students of theology, for whom the work
is composed, to train them to speculate rather than to give a fix answer. The hedging device used
in the first part is therefore part of a writer’s technique to arouse reader’s interest and move them
to further analyze the text.
Table 2. Frequency of hedges per type per part.
Part AModals
andProbabilities
BSemi-
Auxiliaries/Epistemic
Verbs
CAdjective/Adverb/Nominal
Words/Phrases
DDistancing
Phrases
Total No. of
Hedging Device
Total No. of
Sentences
1 9 4 7 6 2637.68%
36
2 4 - - 4 811.59%
6
3 6 - 9 5 2028.99%
62
4 6 - 5 4 1521.74%
23
Total 2536.23%
45.8%
2130.43%
1927.54%
6954.33%
127
Table 2 shows a summary of the frequency of hedges per type per part of the three
articles. As can be seen in the table, Modals and Probabilities are the top hedging devices used
with 36%. Samples of these are: can, may, must, could, should, would and cannot be
demonstrated. Adjective/Adverb/Nominal words and phrases are the second most used with
31%. Among mentioned are: perhaps, in general, and the if clauses. Distancing Phrases ranked
third with 28% such as: references to the bible, as a matter of, the philosopher says, as (Boethius,
Damascene, Augustine) says and said to be. The most used semi-auxiliary verb is seem with 6%
of all the hedges identified.
The frequent occurrence of modals and probabilities in logical treatises such as the
summa genre is not surprising. Modal terms are proper to literary forms of medieval philosophy,
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and its semantic development is currently still under study. The other two types of hedging
devices (classified A & B) are in fact, still part of modal terminology in the medieval age, which
gives the researcher a glimpse of what hedges were in those times (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy, 2003).
Most distancing phrases chosen by the respondents are those that give reference to
another author. This could be explained by the role of authorities in medieval philosophy.
Citation of authoritative texts, whether scripture, Plato, Aristotle, or other revered teachers, is
characteristic of that period. Aquinas made reference to certain thinkers held in great respect in
his time. These thinkers are not limited to Catholics, but also included pagan philosophers, an
Islamic theologian and a Jewish rabbinic scholar. To contemporary readers like our respondents,
this could give the impression of lack of autonomy or originality in the writer, or to the more
speculative mind, a strengthening of one’s position. Thirty out of thirty-three sentences
considered by the respondents hedged because of referencing however, classified these hedges as
intensifiers. It is possible that referencing persons with different leanings and beliefs such as
pagans, Moslems and Jews, gave Thomas Aquinas the stance of objectivity. This could also be
one of the reasons why after 800 years, his writings still stir the imagination of believers and
non-believers alike. His particular way of using distancing phrases as a hedging device has gone
beyond the boundaries of his time because of its universality.
It can also be seen in table 2, that the respondents found 69 hedging devices out of 127
sentences or 54% of the texts. This shows that for every 2 sentences, Aquinas is found hedging.
Markkanen & Schroder (1997) as mentioned in the introduction, stated that the use of hedges and
other linguistic devices are significant in the convincingness of an argument in texts belonging to
“soft” fields such as philosophy. Varttala (2001) in Falahati (2004), described “soft science” as
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characterized by a theoretical foundation with tentative nature; as opposed to “hard sciences”
where the analysis of observable experience, such as precise measurements, is needed to
establish findings. A topic such as the “Existence of God” is obviously far from being
observable.
The most hedged part of the articles as can be seen in Table 2, is the first part, which is
suppose to be the part of the opponent in the argument. The second most hedged is the third part,
which is Aquinas’ own view, followed by part 4, which is Aquinas’ response to the opponent in
the first part. The least hedged is part 2 which is another viewpoint aside from the opponent. No
pattern can be seen from the result since the numbers of hedges vary in every article. The only
artificial use of the hedging device therefore is the videtur section (it seems), mentioned earlier;
and the subsequent hedges were used as needed.
Table 3. Frequency of hedges considered intensifiers and detensifiers.
Article Intensifier Detensifier Total1 38 13 532 36 14 503 26 14 40
Total 10069.93%
4330.07%
143
Table 3 shows the frequency of hedges qualified as intensifiers or detensifiers by the
respondents. The over-all effect of the hedging devices chosen by the respondents in the summa
text, shows that majority are considered intensifiers (70%). This result can only give us an idea
that in most instances, Aquinas’ use of hedged words or phrases “gives the readers the
impression that his arguments are more true and complete than perhaps might be expected”.
Nonetheless, this finding does not give the general picture of the study made, without a detailed
scrutiny of the result in table 1. From the table, except for sentence 1 of all the articles in the
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summa, the respondents differ in the choice of hedged statements and its reported effect (whether
intensifier or detensifier) in them. With these results, the effects of hedging devices can best be
explained within the context of the writer-reader connection. In this regard, Hyland’s (1998)
polypragmatic model of the functions of hedging can help.
Figure 1.A Model of Scientific Hedging (Hyland 1998:156)
Hedging
Content-Oriented Reader-oriented
Accuracy oriented Writer oriented
Attribute Reliability
Content-oriented hedging is identified with the relationship between the writer’s view of
the world and what the world is in reality. Hedging here relies much on the writer’s personal
character, logical proofs and style. The main difference between content-oriented and reader-
oriented categories of hedging is that, the latter is more concerned with the interpersonal
interaction between readers and writers. According to Hyland, certainty and categorical markers
do not suggest that the writer’s assertion is the only possible viewpoint. To ignore the readers
means that the text needs no feedback. Reader-oriented hedges place the readers into dialogue
with the writer, and address them as critical readers who can respond and judge the truth value of
the writer’s statements. Moreover, according to Bitzer (1968) as cited in Crismore and Vandle
Kopple (1990), there are three constituents in any rhetorical situation: the need, the audience and
the constraint. The need specifies the audience, and the constraints are factors within the person
of the audience such as beliefs, attitudes, facts, documents, traditions, images, interests and
motives. In the case of Aquinas’ summa, the need is to train theology students in Aquinas’ time
to learn how to construct speculative arguments. The target audience would be believers and
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non-believers of God in their time – practically, just about anyone, or everyone. Thomas Aquinas
must have a good grasp of human nature and the way mind works to create such form of
speculative writing that have moved on to challenge readers beyond his time. Knowingly, or
otherwise, the constraints inherent in the readers, as considered by Aquinas, were vast such that
we could still connect with his writing. As an example, the science teacher respondent, though
more interested in proofs and demonstrations, had to eventually resort in her faith in God, as can
be gleaned from her reasons:
1. The demonstration of God’s existence through the things that are made convinces one
that indeed this statement is true.
2. The existence of proofs makes the argument lean less towards the false and more
towards the truth.
3. In as much as the statement suggests what it does, one would view its perspective the
other way around, and that is through the argument of faith.
The constraint is not merely her educational training in scientific reasoning, but also her
personal belief in God, and possibly much more, because where science fails to give her a valid
proof, she was ready to accept the arguments presented by faith.
The researcher purposely selected respondents from various fields of interest to see if
there will be differences in feedback. Even with the limited number of respondents (5), there is
evidence that the effect of hedging devices cannot be generalized among readers of different
background.
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4. Conclusion
There are many points of view about hedges in today’s linguistic literature, both positive
and negative. There are authors who think that it should be avoided completely, and those who
think hedges are important because they convey “the major content of an utterance” (Kress and
Hodge cited in Crismore and Vandle Kopple 1990). Hedges are understood in a continuum from
one extreme end to the other, from certainty to uncertainty, from possibility to improbability, and
as intensifiers to detensifiers. In fact, the differences in definition and function given by different
authors to hedging shows that it is as vague as its very nature connotes, unless we consider that
its use varies with every disciplinary culture.
In this preliminary study, we can see that hedging has a long history. It is a linguistic
device that has served the purpose of a philosophical writer like Thomas Aquinas in the medieval
period, though it was called differently in his time. He used it as a technique at the beginning of
his articles in order to arouse the interest of the readers. He used it to show a stance of
objectivity, as in the case of distancing phrases. He was aware that every reader differs in
schema, and so he devised arguments that will move them to speculate and to analyze the text
presented to them.
Further research should be made about the effects of hedging to readers. Though small in
scale, there is evidence in this study, that we cannot generalize these effects. Neither can we
make general rules for hedging that writers should follow. There are many factors that should be
considered: the need for writing a given material, the readers, and the constraints. Even if the
need is clearly identified, the context of the readers can be as prolific as the number of readers
itself. I believe that more studies should be done about writer-reader connection in the use of
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hedges. A linguistic study of medieval modalities is also recommended if we are to understand
the historical origin of hedging devices and its possible implication to present studies.
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