Peter Abelard

Peter Abelard was a French philosopher, logician, theologian, composer and poet, born on 12 February 1079 at Pallet near Nantes and dead on 21 April 1142. He became a popular lecturer in Paris until his love affair with his student and eventual wife, Héloïse d'Argenteuil, cut short his academic career, and their relationship and philosophical exchange remain the part of his life best known in history and popular culture. In philosophy he is celebrated for his logical treatment of the problem of universals through nominalism and conceptualism and for pioneering the role of intent in ethics. In Catholic theology he was condemned for his teaching on the Trinity, is known for developing the concept of limbo, and introduced the moral influence theory of the atonement, which holds that the purpose and cause of the incarnation was that God might illuminate the world by his wisdom and stir it to the love of himself.