The article analyses the idea that according to the averroist Jean de Jandun, Master of Arts in Paris at the beginning of the 14th century, human beings are composed of a «double form» the separated intellect on the one hand, the cogitative soul on the other hand. After recalling several major accounts of the time, we explore Jean's reading of Averroes' major conceptions concerning the problem. Finally, we challenge the idea according to which we observe in his writings the radical (...) thesis of a sometimes cogitating sometimes thinking «double human being» that makes of the homo intelligens a punctual and exclusive new being, which is accidentally produced while the thinking takes place. (shrink)

I think it would be fair to say that, until about 1900, philosophers were generally reluctant to admit the existence of what are nowadays called polyadic properties (for our purposes we may think of a polyadic property as a property whose instances can belong to two or more subjects at once).1 It is important to recognize, however, that this reluctance on the part of pre-twentieth-century philosophers did not prevent them from theorizing about relations. On the contrary, philosophers from the ancient (...) through the modern period have had much to say about both the nature and the ontological status of relations. In this paper I examine the views of one such philosopher, namely, Albert the Great (d. 1280). (shrink)

This paper traces a rather peculiar debate between William Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Robert Holcot over whether it is possible for God to know more than he knows. Although the debate specifically addresses a theological question about divine knowledge, the central issue at stake in it is a purely philosophical question about the nature and ontological status of propositions. The theories of propositions that emerge from the discussion appear deeply puzzling, however. My aim in this paper is to show that (...) there is a way of making sense of these views (and, by implication, of much of what is puzzling about medieval theories of propositions). The key, I argue, lies in getting clear about the precise theoretical roles these thinkers assign to propositions in their accounts of propositional attitudes. (shrink)

It is well-known that Chatton is among the earliest and most vehement critics of Ockham’s theory of judgment, but scholars have overlooked the role Chatton’s criticisms play in shaping Ockham’s final account. In this paper, I demonstrate that Ockham’s most mature treatment of judgment not only contains revisions that resolve the problems Chatton identifies in his earlier theories, but also that these revisions ultimately bring his final account of the objects of judgment surprisingly close to Chatton’s own. Even so, I (...) argue that, at the end of the day, there remain significant differences between their respective analyses of the structure and intentionality of judicative states. (shrink)

Commentators have long agreed that Wodeham’s account of objects of judgment is highly innovative, but they have continued to disagree about its proper interpretation. Some read him as introducing items that are merely supervenient on (and nothing in addition to) Aristotelian substances and accidents; others take him to be introducing a new type of entity in addition to substances and accidents—namely, abstract states of affairs. In this paper, I argue that both interpretations are mistaken: the entities Wodeham introduces are really (...) distinct from substances and accidents, but, like substances and accidents, they are concrete (rather than abstract). Moreover, the key to understanding the significance of his theory, I contend, lies in a proper understanding of the theoretical role these entities play in his theory of judgment. (shrink)

Focusing on Meister Eckhart, John Duns Scotus, Hervaeus Natalis, Durandus of St.-PourAain, Walter Burley and Petrus Aureoli, this volume investigates the nature ...

The German Johannes Sharpe is the most important and original author of the so called "Oxford Realists": his semantic and metaphysical theories are the end product of the two main medieval philosophical traditions, realism and nominalism, for he contributed to the new form of realism inaugurated by Wyclif, but was receptive to many nominalist criticisms. Starting from the main thesis of Wyclif's metaphysics, that the universal and individual are really identical but formally distinct, Oxford Realists introduced a new type of (...) predication, based on a partial identity between the entities for which the subject and predicate stood, called predication by essence, and then redefined the traditional post-Aristotelian categories of essential and accidental predication in terms of this partial identity. Sharpe substantially shares the metaphysical view and principles of the other Oxford Realists, but he elaborates a completely different semantics, since he accepts the nominalist principle of the autonomy of thought in relation to the world, and Ockham's explanation for the universality of concepts. Unfortunately, this semantic approach partially undermines his defence of realism, since it deprives Sharpe of any compelling semantic and epistemological reasons to posit universalia in re. Therefore, Sharpe's main ontological theses certainly are sensible and reasonable, but, paradoxically, within his philosophical system they cannot in any way be considered as absolutely consistent. (shrink)

: This article explores the philosophical and theological context in which later medieval debates surrounding the foundations of freedom emerged. In particular, the article establishes that Aquinas's famous pupil Giles of Rome (1243/47-1316) was less indebted to St. Thomas himself on the question of human freedom than has commonly been supposed. Rather, his teachings on the will and human freedom owe more to such Franciscan thinkers as John of la Rochelle and Walter of Bruges. This interpretation challenges the received view, (...) which goes back to Henry of Ghent, and continues to be prominent in the contemporary literature. (shrink)

This article is currently available as a free download on ingentaconnect.

When did modern science begin? -- Science and the medieval university -- The condemnation of 1277, God's absolute power, and physical thought in the late Middle Ages -- God, science, and natural philosophy in the late Middle Ages -- Medieval departures from Aristotelian natural philosophy -- God and the medieval cosmos -- Scientific imagination in the Middle Ages -- Medieval natural philosophy : empiricism without observation -- Science and theology in the Middle Ages -- The fate of ancient Greek natural (...) philosophy in the Middle Ages : Islam and western Christianity -- What was natural philosophy in the Middle Ages? -- Aristotelianism and the longevity of the medieval worldview. (shrink)

: This article focuses on one aspect of the late mediaeval debate over divine power, as it was discussed by Oxford philosophers Walter Chatton (d. 1343) and William Ockham (d. 1347). Chatton and Ockham would have agreed, for example, that God is ultimately responsible for the existence of the works of Pablo Picasso, but they would not agree over wheher it violates God's omnipotence to say that he cannot make something that Picasso made, for example, the painting Guernica, without using (...) Picasso himself as an intermediate cause. The context of their dispute was a larger debate regarding the ontological status of relations. This article (1) explains how these two issues, omnipotence and relations, became so interestingly tangled together, (2) tries to see which of the two men mentioned above got the better of their exchange, and finally (3) draws out some important consequences for fourteenth-century discussions of causality, occasionalism, and omnipotence. (shrink)

This book offers a major reinterpretation of the `secularization' of medieval ideas by examining scholastic discussions on the nature of the common good. It challenges the view that the rediscovery of Aristotle was the primary catalyst for the emergence of a secular theory of the state. A detailed exposition of the content and the context of late scholastic political and ethical thought reveals that the roots of medieval 'secularization' were profoundly theological.

In his commentary on Aristotle's Physics , Nicole Oresme (c. 1320-1382) propounds a very specific theory of the ontological status of accidents. Characteristic of Oresme's view on accidents is that he does not consider them accidental forms, but only so-called condiciones or modi of the substance. Unlike the term “modus”, the term “condicio” seems to be very characteristic of Oresme's own terminology. Up to now it has been unknown whether Oresme exerted any influence with his condicio-theory of accidents. This paper (...) presents an anonymous 14th-century commentary on Aristotle's Meteorology (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 4375, ff. 19r-46v), in two Questions of which the term “condicio” occurs in an ontological context. Moreover, the text shows further striking coincidences with known works by Oresme, and this makes an influence by Oresme appear all the more probable. (shrink)

Thomas of Sutton was one of the earliest, and by all measures one of the most astute defenders of St. Thomas Aquinas’ characteristic theological and philosophical doctrines. As usual with medieval thinkers, we have little information regarding Sutton’s life..

In this paper, I argue that it is in the fourteenth century that the problem of the compatibility or unity of efficient and final causality emerges. William Ockham and John Buridan start to flirt with a mechanized view of nature solely explainable by efficient causality, and they hence push final causality into the human mind and use it to explain for example action, morality and the good. Their argumentation introduces the problem of how to give a unified account of the (...) world, that is, how are nature and freedom compatible. In the paper, I set up the discussion by going through some of the problems associated with final causality in the seventeenth century and show that Ockham and Buridan's problems are similar. I then argue using a formulation from Leibniz's Monadology that the problems here traced should be seen as versions of the mind/body problem. (shrink)

In this elegantly written book, Russell Friedman offers a fascinating account of Trinitarian theology in the period 1250-1350. Chapter 1 compares Aquinas's and Bonaventure's explanation of the identity and distinction of the three divine Persons. For Aquinas, the properties constitutive of the divine Persons are strictly relational properties, grounded in relations of opposition in the order of origin. Bonaventure accepts the role of relational properties, but he emphasizes the distinct way that each Person emanates: the Father is unemanated, the Son (...) emanates as generated by the Father ("by way of nature"), and the Holy Spirit emanates as freely spirated by the Father and the Son ("by way of will"). As Friedman .. (shrink)

Both Pierre Duhem and his successors emphasized that medieval scholastics created a science of mechanics by bringing both observation and mathematical techniques to bear on natural effects. Recent research into medieval and early modern science has suggested that Aristotle's subalternate sciences also were used in this program, although the degree to which the theory of subalternation had been modified is still not entirely clear. This paper focuses on the English tradition of subalternation between 1310 and 1350, and concludes with a (...) discussion of the theory advanced by Thomas Claxton early in the fifteenth century. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the philosophical developments at the heart of what appears to be the earliest systematic formulation of the doctrine of the transcendentals by comparing the first questions of Philip the Chancellor''sSumma de bono (the so-called first treatise on the transcendentals — ca. 1230) with its immediate ancestor, a small group of questions from William of Auxerre''sSumma aurea (ca. 1220). I argue that Philip''s innovative position on the relation between being and goodness, the centerpiece of his doctrine (...) of the transcendentals, is motivated by an Aristotelian conception of theoretical knowledge that grounds inquiry in metaphysical classification and definition understood in terms of Aristotle''s doctrine of the categories. The concerns about taxonomy and definition that Philip introduces into the early thirteenth-century discussion of the metaphysics of goodness lead him to the theses that are the foundations of the medieval doctrine of the transcendentals, among them that being and goodness are conceptually distinct but the same in reality. (shrink)

Medieval philosophers clearly recognized that emotions are not simply "raw feelings" but complex mental states that include cognitive components. They analyzed these components both on the sensory and on the intellectual level, paying particular attention to the different types of cognition that are involved. This paper focuses on William Ockham and Adam Wodeham, two fourteenth-century authors who presented a detailed account of "sensory passions" and "volitional passions". It intends to show that these two philosophers provided both a structural and a (...) functional analysis of emotions, i.e., they explained the various elements constituting emotions and delineated the causal relations between these elements. Ockham as well as Wodeham emphasized that "sensory passions" are not only based upon cognitions but include a cognitive component and are therefore intentional. In addition, they pointed out that "volitional passions" are based upon a conceptualization and an evaluation of given objects. This cognitivist approach to emotions enabled them to explain the complex phenomenon of emotional conflict, a phenomenon that has its origin in the co-presence of various emotions that involve conflicting evaluations. (shrink)

Francis of Marchia dealt at length in several different contexts with the nature of the will and willing. Here I examine just one of those discussions: the possibility for the will to go against reason's final judgment, a topic related to weakness of will and the source of sin. Marchia is clearly of a voluntaristic bent, holding that the will can indeed act against the determination of reason. After examining Marchia's argumentation for his position, I explore some of the background (...) to Marchia's view in a distinctively later medieval understanding of the human mind as a system of internal acts and dispositions, with the possibility that several of them belong to the same faculty simultaneously. This increasingly complex conceptualisation of the mind mirrors a new, more complex conceptualization of the "Self". (shrink)