Jakob Schegk

Jakob Schegk (1511 to 1587), born Jakob Degen in Schorndorf, was a German Lutheran Aristotelian philosopher and academic physician who spent his whole career at the University of Tubingen. A prodigy in classical languages, he took his master's degree in 1529, later studied law and then medicine, took a doctorate in medicine in 1539 and in 1564 received the unusual dual commission to lecture on both medicine and Aristotle. He went blind by 1577 yet kept teaching. His many commentaries on the Aristotelian corpus are highly regarded, above all De demonstratione libri XV, and he resisted the logical innovations of Petrus Ramus, quarrelled for years with the Italian Aristotelian Simone Simoni, and debated Thomas Erastus on the ubiquity of Christ's body in the Lord's Supper. His students included Nicolaus Taurellus, and Hans Weber called him the father and pioneer of Protestant Scholasticism.