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This chapter examines the recursive argument method of medieval science. The distinctive argument method used in scientific literature from the High Middle Ages to the Enlightenment was the “scientific method” until the scientific revolution. It is traditionally known in earlier scholarly literature as the “scholastic method” or quaestiones disputatae “disputed questions” method. Unfortunately, because of increasing scholarly confusion about the origins and meaning of the traditional term “scholastic method,” and even of the term quaestiones disputatae, it has been necessary to adopt a purely descriptive term, namely recursive argument method, also called recursive method or recursive argument. Many medieval scholars who wrote works using the recursive argument method also wrote treatises. The chapter compares the recursive argument with the treatise and dialogue argument structures and considers diffrent types of formal recursion.

This chapter examines how the recursive argument method was transmitted to medieval Western Europe. The appearance of the recursive argument method in Latin texts was preceded by more than a century in which Classical Arabic learning was increasingly translated and introduced to the Medieval Latin world. A trickle of translations of Arabic scholarly books into Latin had already begun to appear in Italy and Spain by the mid-eleventh century, but none of the works known to have been translated at that time seem to use the Arabic version of the recursive argument method. The recursive argument method first appears in Western Europe in Avicenna's De anima “On the Soul” or “Psychology.” The chapter considers other examples of the recursive argument method in Latin, including works by Robert of Curzon, Alexander of Hales, Albertus Magnus (Albert the Great), and Thomas Aquinas.

This chapter examines Buddhist Central Asia's invention of the recursive argument method. Some Buddhist teachings, which are found in all Buddhist traditions—indicating that they may be inherited from early Buddhism—contain embedded sets in the form of linked lists, which are suggestive of recursion. The Buddhist fondness for explicitly numbered sets and lists is traditionally ascribed to Siddhārtha Gautama, or Śākyamuni Buddha, himself. The chapter first considers the enduring influence of Hellenism after Alexander's conquest and colonization of Bactria and Gandhāra before presenting examples of the Central Asian Buddhist recursive argument.

This chapter raises three objections about the development of a full scientific culture and examines the modern descendants of the recursive argument method. It suggests that colleges and the recursive argument method, though they had developed together in Buddhist Central Asia, and continued to develop in Islamic guise when that region converted to Islam, seem to have been focused mainly on theology and religious jurisprudence in Classical Arabic civilization. It also discusses the difference between a civilization that has a few scientists and some science, and a civilization that has a full scientific culture. Finally, it considers the scientific method, the use of the recursive scientific method in modern science, experimental psychology, and the ideal structure of a modern humanities dissertation.

This chapter examines Islamization in Classical Arabic Central Asia. The Arab Empire founded by the prophet Muhammad expanded rapidly, defeating the Byzantine Empire and capturing Syria (637) and Egypt (640). At the same time, the Arabs defeated the Sasanid Persian Empire (637) and raced across Persia into Central Asia. Within a very short time, early Arab Islamic culture came into direct, intimate contact with several major civilized areas, including the Graeco-Roman-influenced cultures of the Levant and North Africa, Persian culture, and the Buddhist cultures of Central Asia. From them the Muslims adopted various cultural elements. This chapter considers when, where, and how the Muslims acquired the recursive argument method and the Islamic college or madrasa. It shows that the recursive argument method is used in Arabic works by the Central Asian scientist and philosopher Avicenna.

This book investigates how the recursive argument method, the actual medieval “scientific method,” was transmitted along with the college to medieval Western Europe from Classical Arabic civilization, and how the Muslims of Central Asia had earlier adopted both from Buddhist Central Asian civilization. It analyzes the recursive argument method and gives examples showing its formation and development at each stage and in each of the relevant languages. This chapter considers the recursive argument method and related issues, especially the colleges, in the context of the full scientific culture that developed in medieval Western Europe in connection with the transmission of these two cultural elements.