Artikelen over het grensgebied tussen psychologie, recht en moraal vanuit een rechtspsychologisch en behavioristisch uitgangspunt, waarbij de auteur zich onder meer baseert op het gedachtegoed van de Amerikaanse psycholoog Skinner.

Reasoning by analogy in chemical history: fallacies and guidelines. In chemistry (and natural science in general) reasoning in terms of analogy may be of great practical values as well as of theoretical significance. At the same time, however, the use of analogy is risky and the results are uncertain. In alchemy and iatrochemistry analogies between the living and the non-living nature have been carried too far. At the end of the 19th century an analogy was drawn between chemical phenomena and (...) the Darwinian theory of evolution. Another example of an overexaggerated analogy can be found in Lavoisier’s theory of acids, where oxygen was considered to be the general principle of acidity. Reasoning by analogy is mostly based on an inner conviction. It leads to provisional predictions in such cases where the required facts are not or incompletely at our disposal. (shrink)

Psychologische, rechtstheoretische en sociobiologische benadering van altruïstisch gedrag als grondslag van de menselijke samenleving.

Commentaries on Aristotle's writings have been produced since the 2nd century AD. This edition contains Greek commentaries on his work from the 3rd to the 8th centuries AD by, among others, Alexander of Aphrodiensias, Themistios, Joh. Philoponus, Simplicius in Greek.

Henricus Regius ou Henri LeRoy, outrora amigo e divulgador da filosofia de Descartes, agora escrevendo como adversário de seu antigo mestre, publica em Utrecht um panfleto anônimo sobre a natureza da mente humana. No intuito de evitar que as teses apresentadas por seu ex-discípulo fossem tomadas como suas, Descartes decide, então, refutar as opiniões defendidas no panfleto de Regius. É precisamente o texto produzido por Descartes nessa ocasião que é traduzido a seguir. Esse texto, aparentemente impresso sem o consentimento (...) de seu autor em dezembro de 1647, marca o ponto final da relação entre o filósofo francês e o professor de medicina. O texto latino aqui traduzido foi extraído da edição realizada por Charles Adam e Paul Tannery das Oeuvres complètes de Descartes, Paris, Vrin, tomo VIII, pp. 341-369. (shrink)

In the process of completing his critical edition of Marcus of Orvieto's Liber de Moralitatibus, Girard J. Etzkorn happened upon a set of questions attributed to Henry of Ghent at the end of Rome's Bibliotheca Angelica codex 750. These questions are edited in this volume under the proviso "attributed to" so that scholars may compare the texts with other works of the Ghentian master known to be authentic. Etzkorn concludes that the ten questions appear to be of two literary genres. (...) Moreover, the ten questions seem to be "selected" questions and were not likely disputed at the same time. Future investigations are essential to find out if the questions may indeed be attributed to Henry himself or whether they were written by one of Henry's disciples who was copying the thoughts and words of the master. (shrink)

With volume 5 the publication of the actual text of Henry's fifteen Quodlibetal Questions begins. Macken's edition is preceded by a valuable introduction, which itself commences with discussions of Henry's life and writings. Macken then surveys the manuscripts containing Quodlibet I and explains in detail the procedure he has adopted in reconstituting the text and the editing techniques he has employed. As he points out, Quodlibet I was given its definitive written form by Henry himself, and is not a mere (...) report drawn up by someone else who would have been present at its oral presentation. It should here be recalled that the Quodlibetal Question developed in Parisian University circles in the course of the thirteenth century as a distinctive literary genre of philosophical and theological writing. The Quodlibets themselves as we have them in written form reflect their origins in those special public oral sessions which were held twice a year in the Theology Faculty, and at which certain Masters would open themselves to questions from one and all about any appropriate topic. After this evidently taxing exercise, a Master would have the right to readdress himself to the questions that had been raised on some following day when meeting with his own students. By then he would have introduced some kind of order into the various topics originally proposed for discussion. And at some subsequent time, probably during the course of the next year, he would release them for publication, but only after having carefully revised them. As one might expect, the very nature of such an exercise opened the way for consideration of a bewildering variety of topics ranging widely over areas such as speculative and moral theology, metaphysics, natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and canon law. This variety is clearly reflected in the 42 questions examined in Henry's first Quodlibet. Thus one finds him here considering questions treating of Trinitarian theology, the hypostatic union, unicity vs. plurality of substantial form in man, Eucharistic theology, the possiblity of an eternally created universe, the relationship between essence and existence in creatures, and the possibility that prime matter could be sustained in existence by God apart from any substantial form. Questions are also raised relating to the nature of the soul both in its separated state and in its state of union with the body, and the relative priorities of intellect and will and their interrelationship in the act of choice. Finally, a host of other topics of less immediate interest to philosophers are also examined, such as the fate of infants who die without baptism, confessional jurisdiction, the guilt of a teacher who is primarily concerned with his own glory, etc. At the risk of oversimplification, certain positions defended by Henry in this Quodlibet will be mentioned because of their interest to students of metaphysics. In q. 4 he leaves open the possibility of defending unicity of substantial form in man. In qq. 7-8 he eliminates the possibility that any creature could have existed from eternity and, therefore, the possibility of an eternally created universe. In q. 9 he rejects real distinction between essence and existence in creatures and defends his well known "intentional" distinction between them. Here too he has already developed his unusual view of the essential being enjoyed by creatures insofar as they are objects of God's knowledge and have exemplar ideas in God. In q. 10 he denies that prime matter is pure potentiality and maintains that God could, if he should so choose, keep matter in existence without any substantial form. In q. 14 he defends the preeminence of the will over the intellect, and in a number of succeeding questions enters into intricate discussion of the interrelationship between reason and will in the act of choice. Perhaps these indications will be enough to give the reader some idea of the general direction of Henry's thought with respect to the topics in question. Anyone who has already examined earlier printed editions of Henry's Quodlibets will be delighted with Macken's superb edition of Quodlibet I. Apart from its great critical value, this volume is beautifully printed, handsomely bound, and appropriately indexed. This reviewer, for one, is eagerly awaiting the appearance of subsequent volumes in the series. All will be required reading for students of late thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century philosophy and theology.--J.F.W. (shrink)

vol. 1. De formis (together with his De unitate formae substantialis in eodem supposito).

This article draws attention to two newly identified manuscipts transmitting Henricus Totting de Oyta’s Expositio in Meteorologica: ms. Praha, Národní Knihovna Ceské Republiky VIII.E.6 and ms. Krak...

This article draws attention to two newly identified manuscipts transmitting Henricus Totting de Oyta’s Expositio in Meteorologica: ms. Praha, Národní Knihovna Ceské Republiky VIII.E.6 and ms. Kraków, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, Biblioteka Jagiellońska 674. Interestingly, in the Cracovian manuscript Henricus’ Expositio is combined with the second redaction of Nicole Oresme’s Questions on Meteorology. Based on some sample passages, I will show the nature of this compilation. This will lead to a consideration of the structure and the sources of Henricus’ (...) Expositio. In the final part of the article, I will provide some information about the witnesses of Henricus’ commentary, as well as the incipit and the explicit of each book. (shrink)

Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale, Volume 62, Issue, Page 195-211, January 2020.

This research note is the eighth instalment in our series of preliminary findings on the census and study of the reception of De iure belli ac pacis. The note presents a bibliographical description of Laurentius’ 1647 re-issue of the 1631 edition by Blaeu, considers Laurentius’ motivation and methods of production, lists and maps the currently known twenty-three surviving copies, and briefly describes two notable exemplars.

In this article I discuss a particular aspect of the Dutch reception of the ideas of René Descartes, namely the use of his Traité de l’homme by Henricus Regius. I analyze the use that Regius made of the theory of the movement of muscles, passions, hunger, and more generally of the neurophysiology expounded by Descartes in his book (not printed until 1662–1664). In my analysis, I reconstruct the internal evolution of Regius’s neurophysiology, I illustrate its sources beyond Descartes (i.e., (...) Jean Fernel and Santorio Santorio), and I show that he was certainly acquainted with some of its contents as early as 1641 (when he used it with the mediation of Descartes), before relying on it—as variously discussed in secondary literature—in his Fundamenta physices (1646), when he appropriated from it without Descartes’s authorization. (shrink)