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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