William Crathorn

Abstract

William Crathorn (fl.1330s), Oxford Dominican whose unique epistemology fueled controversies during Oxford’s “Golden Age” of theology. Crathorn’s thought emerged from the epistemically oriented Ockhamist approach, but it incorporated an older account, in which the perceived object projects “species” which are received in the act of perception and interpreted by the understanding as the basis for formulating ideas about the perceived object. Crathorn argued that the ideas we formulate about the species projected by the object take on the physical characteristics of the object, so that perception of a black cat results in the formulation of an idea that is black, possessing felinity, and so forth. Crathorn’s position was the object of great scorn from his contemporaries, notably Robert Holcot. This led to increased attention of the relation of perceived appearances to the substance behind the perception, and Crathorn recognized that his position entailed a difficulty in a certain distinction between the Aristotelian categories of substance and quality.