In philosophy he is celebrated for his logical solution to the problem of universals via nominalism and conceptualism and his pioneering of intent in ethics. In Catholic theology , he is best known for his development of the concept of limbo , and his introduction of the moral influence theory of atonement. He is considered alongside Augustine to be the most significant forerunner of the modern self-reflective autobiographer.
He paved the way and set the tone for later epistolary novels and celebrity tell-alls with his publicly distributed letter, The History of My Calamities and public correspondence. Abelard is considered one of the founders of the secular university and pre-Renaissance secular philosophical thought. Abelard argued for conceptualism in the theory of universals. A universal is a quality or property which every individual member of a class of things must possess if the same word is to apply to all the things in that class.
Blueness, for example, is a universal property possessed by all blue objects. According to Abelard scholar David Luscombe, "Abelard logically elaborated an independent philosophy of language Writing with the influence of his wife Heloise, he stressed the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. With his wife, he is the first significant philosopher of the middle ages to push for this interpretation before Thomas Aquinas.
He helped establish the philosophical authority of Aristotle , which became firmly established in the half-century after his death. It was at this time that Aristotle's Organon first became avaliable, and gradually all of Aristotle's other surviving works. Before this, the works of Plato formed the basis of support for philosophical realism.
Abelard is considered one of the greatest twelfth-century Catholic theologians, arguing that God and the universe can and should be known via logic as well as via the emotions. He coined the term "theology" for the religious branch of philosophical tradition. He should not be read as a heretic, as his charges of heresy were dropped and rescinded by the Church after his death, but rather as a cutting-edge philosopher who pushed theology and philosophy to their limits.
