Medieval Philosophy of Nature

L'elaborato intende analizzare lo statuto ontologico dell'ente a partire dal binomio esse e id quod est, sviluppato da Tommaso nel commento al De Hebdomadibus di Boezio, specificando i concetti di partecipazione come causalità forte, e di essere come massimo estensivo e più generale.

The methods of intellectual history have not yet been applied to studying the invention of technology for printing texts and images ca. 1375–ca. 1450. One of the several conceptual developments in this period reflecting the possibility of mechanical replication is a view of the relationship of eternity to durational time based on Gregory of Nyssa’s philosophy of time and William of Ockham’s. The article considers how changes in these ideas helped enable the conceptual possibilities of the dissemination of ideas. It (...) describes a direct connection of human perceptual knowledge to divine knowledge that enhanced the authority of printed production to transfer and reproduce the true and the good. (shrink)

This essay discusses how medieval authors from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries dealt with a philosophical problem that social institutions pose for the Aristotelian dichotomy between natural and artificial entities. It is argued that marriage, political community, and language provided a particular challenge for the conception that things which are designed by human beings are artefacts. Medieval philosophers based their arguments for the naturalness of social institutions on the anthropological view that human beings are political animals by nature, but this (...) strategy required rethinking the borderline between nature and art. The limits of nature were extended, as social institutions were considered to be natural even though they are in many ways similar to artificial products. (shrink)

In the last several years, there has been an uptick of scholarly interest in Aristotelian theories of efficient causation. Much of this interest has focused on the late scholastic figure Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). This paper clarifies an important but neglected aspect of Suárez's theory of efficient causation—namely, his account of active causal powers. Like other Aristotelians, Suárez understands active causal powers as features that enable their subjects to perform certain sorts of actions. For example, a fire is able to heat (...) in virtue of its power or capacity for heating. However, it is not immediately clear which items in an Aristotelian ontology perform the role of an active power. The paper explains and motivates Suárez's answer to this question, and shows how this answer influences his position in a scholastic controversy about the causal roles of substantial and accidental forms in substantial change. (shrink)

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy of disability (and Disability Studies more generally) and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call “disability.” The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and opens up new avenues of research (...) for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of “disability” and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part II is on disability in this life, and Part III is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology or disability studies. (shrink)

Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus, On the Six Principles of Things. A Medieval World System. -/- Bilingual Latin-Spanish edition of De sex rerum principiis, with introductory study and notes by Francisco Bastitta Harriet, Valeria Andrea Buffon and María Cecilia Rusconi. -/- Bold in metaphysical assumptions and well-versed in contemporary scientific theories, the anonymous author of About the Six Principles of Things tries to develop an integral system of the universe. While invoking the ancestral authority of the legendary Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus, the present (...) treatise was actually written in the 12th century from various Arab and Latin sources, possibly in the School of Chartres. The previous hermetic tradition expressed a certain tension between works of a more philosophical or sapiential character, destined for intellectual elites, and other texts of a practical nature, mainly on astrology, alchemy or magic, which enjoyed less prestige among scholars. Our book clearly tries to bridge the gap between these two trends, in search for a true unification of knowledge. Not only does it present systematically the principles of the universe together with worldly prescriptions, on such matters as astrological medicine or the use of the astrolabe, but it carries this out with the aim of offering a maximum condensation of all the wisdom of its time. (shrink)

Il volume ripercorre lo sviluppo del pensiero del giovane Nicola Cusano dalla frequentazione del maestro albertista Eimerico da Campo presso l’Università di Colonia (1425) e dal confronto con le posizioni filosofiche dei domenicani dello Studium coloniense, fino agli anni della maturità a Roma (1450). Il saggio illustra il contesto storico-culturale della genesi del De docta ignorantia, testo che suggella la presa di distanza di Cusano dal proprio passato universitario ma anche, al contempo, la sua insoddisfazione nei confronti dell’umanesimo diffuso in (...) Italia negli anni del Concilio di Ferrara-Firenze; e lo segue nella sua ‘caccia della Sapienza’, nell’incontro con differenti tradizioni e contesti, fino alla formulazione dell’ideale del ‘Socrate cristiano’ nell’Idiota. Il volume, riccamente documentato anche sul piano della storia delle interpretazioni e degli studi su Cusano, contribuisce a far luce sulla formazione del suo pensiero e sulle questioni che ne hanno segnato la vita. (shrink)

Dr. DP Singh is a prolific writer in many areas of Science, Religion and Literature. He came into my contact almost four decades back when he started his teaching career in Shivalik College, Nangal. In my note published on the blurb of this book, I wrote: " I expect his forthcoming book "Science and Sikhism: Conflict or Coherence" will prove to be a landmark in the area of Science-Religion Dialogue, with special reference to Sikh religion". I can declare without an (...) iota of doubt that DP has more than justified my claim on his book. -/- The title of the book is followed by a note "Anthology of Essays on various Concepts in Sri Guru Granth Sahib" which may be considered as a sub-title to the book. Nearly a dozen titles have appeared in the global market projecting scientific vision of Sikh Gurus enshrined in the holy pages of Sri Guru Granth Sahib but there is no rival to this volume in my view till date. The coverage of topics by DP Singh is very exhaustive. All Chapters of the book open with an appropriate quotation from Science, Religion or Literature. (shrink)

The late scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez articulates and defends an extraordinarily detailed account of efficient causation. Some of the most interesting and difficult questions connected with this account concern the particular types of efficient causation he acknowledges. This paper clarifies one of the most fundamental distinctions Suárez employs in the course of his treatment of efficient causation—namely, that between motion or change, on the one hand, and creation ex nihilo, on the other. The paper shows that, although motion and creation (...) differ in systematic and important ways, they nevertheless can both be captured by Suárez’s general theoretical model of efficient causation. Moreover, the paper shows that creation serves as a kind of limit case of efficient causation, and accordingly that it informs how Suárez understands motion or change as well. (shrink)

Яскрава модернова обкладинка книжки, яку присвячено далеко не новій темі, обіцяє щось революційне, нестандартне. Ім’я автора, знаного науковця, живить передчуття нових джерел, нових думок, точно сформульованих і підкріплених ґрунтовною науковою аргументацією. Проте від самого початку читання виникають певні перепони, а під кінець стає зрозумілим, що нова версія життя українського філософа приховує своєрідний «гадательний» смисл, який стосується не лише Сковороди і культури XVIII ст. Мова про ставлення до традиції, пізнання й істини у ширшому сенсі. Спочатку оглянемо форму і зміст книжки. У (...) вступній частині під назвою «Prelude» на читача відразу чекають несподіванки. Розповідь про життя Григорія Сковороди, як і годиться, автор розпочинає з притчі про пустельника в «Silenus Alcibiadis», але раптом переносить нас у зовсім інший історичний світ. Тепер він розповідає про Олександра Потебню та подібність його думок і думок Сковороди. Чому книжку про філософа XVIII ст. треба починати з доведення подібності його думок до думок мислителя ХІХ ст.? Не дуже зрозуміло. Принаймні автор посилається на своє відчуття. І такий сюжетний хід мусить навіювати читачеві думки про історичну тяглість певних ідей. Серед цих ідей азначено такі: гостре відчуття богополишеності світу; панування «кривди» (с. 7); досягнення суспільної гармонії лише за умови чистоти сердець (с. 10); трактування серця як найглибшої основи людського буття (с. 10); нерозривний зв’язок пізнання речей і любові (с. 11); релігійне «підложжя» вчення обох мислителів (с.12); подібність теорії пізнання: пізнати світ можна шляхом пізнання себе і навпаки (с. 18); визнання символічності слова (с. 19); однакове розуміння структури слова і образу (с. 21); «нерівна рівність» як універсальний принцип (с. 24); «послідовний націоналізм», предтечею якого Потебня вважав Сковороду, і просвітницький пафос (с. 27). Згадка про «націоналізм» додає провокативності сюжету. А до питання про «просвітницький пафос» ми ще повернемося. Закінчує вступну частину висновок, що народ спить і його треба «розбудити». Очевидно, автор збирається пов’язати цю тему з філософією Сковороди, але не дає чітких пояснень з цього приводу. І претензій не висунеш, адже це не вступ до дисертації, а «prelude». (shrink)

In this paper, I present a categorial theory of meaning which asserts that the meaning of a sentence is the function from the actualization of some potentiality or the potentiality of some actuality to the truth of the sentence. I argue that it builds on the virtues of David Lewis’s Possible World Semantics but advances beyond problems that Lewis’s theory faces with its distinctly Aristotelian turn toward actuality and potentiality.

In his De primo et ultimo instanti, Walter Burley paid careful attention to continuity, assuming that continua included and were limited by indivisibles such as instants, points, ubi, degrees of quality, or mutata esse. In his Tractatus primus, Burley applied the logic of first and last instants to reach novel conclusions about qualities and qualitative change. At the end of his Quaestiones in libros Physicorum Aristotelis, William of Ockham used long passages from Burley’s Tractatus primus, sometimes agreeing with Burley and (...) sometimes disagreeing. How may this interaction between Burley and Ockham be understood within its historical context? (shrink)

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, with (...) special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. He argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze William Crathorn’s view on extension and compare it to William Ockham’s reductionist view, according to which extension is not really distinct from substance or quality. In my view, Crathorn elaborates a metaphysical machinery based on mereological and topological relationships in order to solve what he considers to be problems in Ockham’s account of quantity. In order to make my point, I reconstruct Crathorn’s main arguments in favor of his finitist atomism. Crathorn claims that certain fundamental (...) spatial structures are of a mereological nature and that the mereological properties of located entities perfectly match those of their locations. This idea lies at the core of his solution to the paradox of touching and the metrical paradox. It allows him to redefine contiguity in such a way that extensionless magnitudes can touch and succeed each other. Crathorn goes one step further and claims that indivisibles are extended in the sense that they occupy an extended incorporeal space, which is their dimension. In this sense, they can come together to form a continuous magnitude. Thus, Crathorn succeeds in defining a concept of continuity that is compatible with his finitist atomism and that addresses what he takes to be a major weakness in Ockham’s view on extension, namely a murky concept of impenetrability. (shrink)

This paper examines an important but neglected topic in Suárez’s metaphysics–—namely, his theory of efficient causation. According to Suárez, efficient causation is to be identified with action, one of Aristotle’s ten highest genera or categories. The paper shows how Suárez’s identification of efficient causation with action helps to shed light on his views about the precise nature of efficient causation, and its role in his ontology. More specifically, it shows that Suárez understands efficient causation to be a distinctive or sui (...) generis type of entity, and that he thinks we must adopt this view in order to account for the facts of efficient causation. The paper also examines several objections to Suárez’s account. (shrink)

This the original Arabic text of three philosophical questions raised by Tusi (1201–1274) in his letter to Khusrawshahi (1184-1254). These critical questions are related to three main fields of philosophy: Philosophy of Nature, Philosophical Psychology (or Philosophy of the Soul) and Philosophical Theology which is traditionally subsumed as one of the proper subtopics of Metaphysics. Although Tusi did not receive any recorded response from Khusrawshahi, his short letter attracted considerable scholarly attention and received some remarkable responses, in later Islamic philosophy (...) and thus provided an exemplar of the traditional technique of debating by way of “question-answer” correspondence. (shrink)

The geometrical elements in the architecture of Lincoln Cathedral, in the vaulting and elevations, can be compared to the geometries described by Robert Grosseteste in his cosmologies. The architecture can be read as a catechism of the cosmologies. The geometries appear in the cathedral for the first time in the history of architecture to explain the generation, emanation, reflection, refraction and rarefaction of light as it forms the material world. The proposition is that the geometries of the architecture of Lincoln (...) Cathedral can be understood in relation to the geometries which are the basis of the cosmologies of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 1235–53, in particular De lineis, angulis et figuris, and De luce. Many of the architectural forms at Lincoln Cathedral are unprecedented in their appearance or use, and they form the basic vocabulary for the entire development of English Gothic architecture. Their radically new appearance has never been adequately explained. Vocabulary elements such as the ridge pole, tierceron or non-structural rib, lierne or segmented ridge rib, flying rib, conoid springer vault or cone of ribs rising from the springer pole in the elevation, triradial vaulting or three ribs meeting at the ridge pole, double syncopated or overlapping arcading, and the bundled and ribbed umbrella column, all originate in some form or are developed for the first time in Lincoln. All of the geometries which appear for the first time in the architecture appear in the cosmologies of Grosseteste, for the purpose of explaining the generation, emanation, reflection, refraction, and rarefaction of light as it forms the material world in geometrical configurations. The cathedral would thus be a catechism of the geometrical substructure of the physical world, in the tradition of the Timaeus of Plato. There is no evidence that the concepts were dictated by Grosseteste directly to masons, but it is well known that such concepts permeated medieval architecture and city planning, and that they were filtered down through all trades involved in construction of the city and the cathedral. Grosseteste’s cosmologies represent a core achievement of Scholasticism, the synthesis of classical philosophy and Catholic theology, which is embodied in the architecture of the cathedral. (shrink)

This chapter present a glimpse of medieval academic discussions concerning sense perception, which had by the end of the Middle Ages gained a prominent position as a major element of Aristotelian psychology.

In the corollaries to Book I, Chapter 5 of De causa Dei, Thomas Bradwardine assumes the existence of an actual, infinite, God-filled extramundane void. Thomas Buckingham, Bradwardine’s former student, develops in the unedited Question 23 of his Quaestiones theologicae a rejection of the void’s existence precisely in opposition to the theory of his master. His argumentation is not only remarkable in its own; it also allows us to reassess essential concepts from Bradwardine’s De causa Dei, such as divine power, causality (...) and ubiquity. This paper first presents the Aristotelian notion of the void in rendering it in the context of the philosophy of nature at fourteenth-century Oxford; it is then dedicated to the analysis of the chapter in question from De causa Dei along with Buckingham’s answer. It is accompanied by a critical edition of Question 23 from Buckingham’s Quaestiones theologicae, »Utrum sit necesse ponere Deum esse extra mundum in situ seu vacuo imaginario infinito«. (shrink)

In Aquinas's account of the beatific vision, human beings are joined to God in a never-ending act of contemplation of the divine essence: a state which utterly fulfills the human drive for knowledge and satisfies every desire of the human heart. In this paper, I argue that this state represents less a fulfillment of human nature, however, than a transcendence of that nature. Furthermore, what’s transcended is not incidental on a metaphysical, epistemological, or moral level.

n his Problemata, Aristotle provided medieval thinkers with the occasion to inquire into the natural causes of the sexual desires of men to act upon or be acted upon by other men, thus bringing human sexuality into the purview of natural philosophers, whose aim it was to explain the causes of objects and events in nature. With this philosophical justification, some late medieval intellectuals asked whether such dispositions might arise from anatomy or from the psychological processes of habit formation. As (...) the fourteenth-century philosopher Walter Burley observed, "Nothing natural is shameful." The authors, scribes, and readers willing to "contemplate base things" never argued that they were not vile, but most did share the conviction that they could be explained. From the evidence that has survived in manuscripts of and related to the Problemata, two narratives emerge: a chronicle of the earnest attempts of medieval medical theorists and natural philosophers to understand the cause of homosexual desires and pleasures in terms of natural processes, and an ongoing debate as to whether the sciences were equipped or permitted to deal with such subjects at all. Mining hundreds of texts and deciphering commentaries, indices, abbreviations, and marginalia, Joan Cadden shows how European scholars deployed a standard set of philosophical tools and a variety of rhetorical strategies to produce scientific approaches to sodomy. (shrink)

The Physics is a most remarkable work, and profoundly influenced Medieval Philosophers. Thomas Aquinas wrote a detailed, impressive commentary. This essay studies in particular the composition of the Physics as Thomas saw it, his thorough study of Aristotle’s way of arguing and the important distinction he made between disputative arguments, which are only partially true, and arguments which determine the truth. Aristotle frequently uses proofs which are wrong when one considers the proper nature of bodies, but possible considering their common (...) nature. Thomas accepts proofs in the field of physics but discards those related to a certain mathematization of nature. Aristotle holds the unlimited possibility of movements becoming faster or slower, but according to Aquinas he is considering things in general : when we consider specific bodies there is a fastest movement. Thomas speaks of a way of reading a text which is according the intention of Aristotle, and proposes an understanding of particular texts based on the general doctrine of the Stagirite. Sometimes he goes beyond the text, as when defending the unity of time as dependent on the unity of the First Mover. The essay shows that in the commentary a coherent philosophy of nature shaping up. In some places Aquinas brings in God’s causality: nature is nothing else but the plan of divine art, placed within things. The study of nature shows that there is a first principle of the whole nature which is above everything, sc. God who gives being to things. (shrink)

La vita e le opere di Landolfo Caracciolo O.F.M. sono state descritte in modo sistematico da Salerno.1 Rispetto a questa descrizione, che ha posto il bacellierato sentenziario di Caracciolo intorno al 1320, va assunta la ricostruzione di Schabel, che ha spiegato come Caracciolo abbia letto le Sententiae a Parigi dopo Pietro Aureolo e prima di Francesco d’Ascoli e Francesco di Meyronnes.2 Successivamente Landolfo avrebbe ricevuto la prima cattedra in teologia dello Studium fran-cescano di Napoli, inaugurandovi la tradizione scotista.3Landolfo fu ministro (...) provinciale della Terra di Lavoro e svolse parecchie missioni diplomatiche per conto della regina Giovanna I di Napoli. Nel 1327 fu designato vescovo di.. (shrink)

In a living body, the substantial form, the essence, and the soul play very similar, but non-identical, metaphysical roles. This article explores the similarities and differences to clarify basic points of Thomistic metaphysics.

This paper presents a philosophical argument for divine providence by Aquinas. I suggest that upon returning to Aristotle’s Physics and Metaphysics to prepare his commentaries on these texts, Aquinas recognized that his stock argument from natural teleology to divine providence (the fifth way and its versions) needed to be filled out. Arguments from natural teleology can prove that God’s providence extends to what happens for the most part, but they cannot show that God’s providence also includes what happens for the (...) least part. In order to prove the latter, Aquinas claims that one must argue from a higher science, which he then does with all characteristic clarity. This paper presents this argument, discusses what this means for his previous arguments from teleology, and discusses the argument’s relevance to the contemporary discussion about creation and evolution. (shrink)

This paper argues that Nicholas of Cusa’s investigation of infinity and incommensurability in De docta ignorantia was shaped by the mathematical innovations and thought experiments of fourteenth-century natural philosophy. Cusanus scholarship has overlooked this influence, in part because Raymond Klibansky’s influential edition of De docta ignorantia situated Cusa within the medieval Platonic tradition. However, Cusa departs from this tradition in a number of ways. His willingness to engage incommensurability and to compare different magnitudes of infinity distinguishes him from his Platonic (...) predecessors, who had appropriated the Pythagorean model of universal harmonies. Cusa’s penchant for representing quantity geometrically suggests not only that he has adopted the fourteenth-century method of latitude measurement, but that he accepts incommensurability as normative. Finally, Cusa’s persistent attention to mathematical inaccuracy and to his own learned ignorance suggests his kinship with the meta-critical, conjectural quality of fourteenth-century thought. (shrink)

La solution de Thomas d’Aquin au problème de l’intensification des qualités souffre d’une certaine instabilité et, dans la génération suivante, a été disloquée par les différentes contraintes qu’elle tentait de concilier. Cet article explore les réponses apportées par Gilles de Rome, Godefroid de Fontaines, Pierre d’Auvergne et Thomas de Sutton. Introduite par Godefroid, mais développée par Sutton, la notion de mode va jouer un rôle très important. La solution de Sutton, particulièrement, invite à une comparaison avec la théorie des modes (...) intrinsèques chez Duns Scot. (shrink)

Georgius Trapezuntius Cretensis (or George of Trebizond) (1396-1472), an eminent humanist scholar who immigrated to Italy from Crete, is well appreciated for his translations, commentaries and treatises on philosophy, rhetoric and science. While there is a good deal of scholarship on Byzantine scholars in the Italian Renaissance, the topic of their contribution to mathematics and science in general has not to date been thoroughly addressed. This paper purports to fill this lacuna. On the basis of major evidence, I will attempt (...) to show the way Trapezuntius treated mathematics and physical sciences in order to serve his personal goals in the mid 15th century. (shrink)

Proceedings of a Conference on experience in Medieval natural philosophy.

Throughout his works, St. Augustine offers at least nine distinct views on the nature of time, at least three of which have remained almost unnoticed in the secondary literature. I first examine each these nine descriptions of time and attempt to diffuse common misinterpretations, especially of the views which seek to identify Augustinian time as consisting of an un-extended point or a distentio animi . Second, I argue that Augustine's primary understanding of time, like that of later medieval scholastics, is (...) that of an accident connected to the changes of created substances. Finally, I show how this interpretation has the benefit of rendering intelligible Augustine's contention that, at the resurrection, motion will still be able to occur, but not time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Garrulus sum et loquax et expedire nescio. Diu te tenui in istis, sed de cetero procedam.” These are the words of Richard Rufus of Cornwall, a thirteenth-century Scholastic and lecturer at the Universities of Paris and Oxford. Rufus is apologizing to his readers: “I am garrulous and loquacious, and I don’t know how to be efficient. I have detained you with these things a long while, but let me (...) now proceed to another topic.” This apology introduces the third part of the Speculum animae, a preliminary modern edition of which we publish here. In this short treatise, Rufus presents a unique Aristotelian theory of perception, describes what is and is not intelligible, and finally proves to his own satisfaction the immortality of the rational soul. To us this would hardly seem the place to apologize for being long-winded; indeed, we might wonder how Rufus could accomplish such an ambitious task in such a short treatise. We would certainly not accuse him of excessive verbosity. But Rufus was a man of exceptional humility, who once referred to himself as the least of the lesser thinkers of his time.1Despite Rufus’s humility, he was no minor figure in the development of Scholastic philosophy. A teacher at the Universities of Paris and Oxford ,2 he is the author of the earliest known, surviving lectures on several of Aristotle’s major texts, including the Metaphysics, the Physics, De generatione et corruptione, and De anima3 . In fact, Rufus was one of the very first lecturers to teach the libri naturales at Paris after a ban on such instruction was effectively lifted in 1231 A.D. His works were influential not only among his contemporaries, but also among later authors, particularly John Duns Scotus. Roger Bacon, though a harsh critic of Rufus, acknowledged Rufus’s influence and fame decades after his death, albeit among what Bacon termed the “vulgar multitude.”4The Speculum animae is one of Rufus’s later works. He begins the treatise by posing the following question: “In what way is the soul all things?” This refers, of course, to a familiar doctrine Aristotle establishes in the De anima—that the soul is, in some way, all things —and Rufus is here seeking to clarify it. But this is, in fact, only the first of five questions addressed in the Speculum. The five questions Rufus posits and answers in this treatise are, in order:1. In what manner is the soul all things?2. In what manner do a sensible and the sense, or an intelligible and the possible intellect, become one?3. What is predicated and of what is it predicated?4. What is intelligible?5. What is the cause of the immortality of the soul?In this short work, therefore, Rufus addresses apparently diverse topics including perception, understanding, logic, and the nature of the soul. But, in fact, the Speculum is principally a summary of Rufus’s theory of human perception and understanding. Like other medieval theories of perception and understanding, Rufus’s theory centers around the notion of species, a kind of form that is received in the soul when a person senses something or grasps something intellectually.5 In this, and in other aspects of the theory, Rufus was heavily dependent on Aristotle and St. Augustine. Rufus was working in a philosophical tradition based on Aristotle’s categories that had been accepted for centuries in the West. But in his lifetime, the Aristotelian corpus was enlarged to include Aristotle’s psychology and more generally his natural philosophy and metaphysics, together with the commentaries of Averroës . As is well known, this philosophical tradition was respected and continued not just by Rufus but by many authors after his time.So what makes Rufus’s theory.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:We have here the critical edition of Richard Rufus’s commentary on Aristotle’s treatment of generation and corruption. The Greek philosopher explained how living beings came about and passed on. His text was much studied by scholastics in the latter part of the thirteenth century. Rufus’s commentary is, as far as we know, “the earliest surviving commentary” on the text. Understandably it influenced succeeding commentaries. This edition has come about (...) as the continuation of Rega Wood’s study and use of the one manuscript that has the text, a manuscript that contains other texts ascribed Rufus. Wood used the manuscript for her edition of Aristotle’s In Physicam. In that book she described the manuscript and her use of it for the edition. The edition of In De Generatione et Corruptione follows the critical procedure discussed there. The long introduction to this further edition of a commentary on a work by Aristotle presents the case for its authorship by Rufus, examines the arguments of Rufus, and surveys its influence on later commentators.The key point, of course, is authorship. Did Rufus write the commentary? First the editors show that In Physicam and In De Generatione et Corruptione have a common author. Then, on pages 17–48, they offer their argument for Rufus as author. The two editors tread carefully, for Wood’s argument on Rufus as author of the In Physicam has been contested at length . Once Rufus is established as author, they proceed to date its composition. It is clear that it was written between 1225 and 1245. They narrow the date to “ca. 1232–1236.”The editors’ proof of Rufus’s authorship brings together a number of indications that invite us to look in Rufus’s direction as author. Wood and Lewis have found no evidence out of which Rufus springs, with a smile, confessing: Yes, it is I, Rufus, speaking. Someone did write it, however, and possible authors are definitely not legion. The indications fit our smiling Rufus as they fit no other. It is definitely something that Rufus might well do in the time frame of its production and he would have done it in that way and with those sources. The text lines up well doctrinally with certified Rufus texts, though not verbally. Moreover, the text occurs in the manuscript quires that contain authentic works of Rufus. I do not belong to those who have studied Rufus and his learned production. I understand that there exists actually a critical process that is putting together the writings and the role of Rufus in scholasticism. I find this book’s argument a valid and serious contribution to the process.Once authorship and then date and place of the authoring have been decided, the editors speak to the sources on which Rufus drew and may have drawn. Then they examine three topics, infinite divisibility, growth, and mixture, which show that, however appreciative of Aristotle’s ideas, Rufus was a critical reader of Aristotle’s writings. The editors finish their study of Rufus’s In De Generatione et Corruptione by showing the influence of the text in the history of the following decades.After the thorough scrutiny of the text there comes the critical edition of the text itself. Wood and Lewis follow the method used by Wood in her edition of In Physicam. The edition is an excellent piece of work.It is not without trepidation that I have seen to the publication of this review in Studies. I think it merits a place here, for Studies has published previously on Rufus, while scholarship will not advance if the various contributions to scholarly discussion do not circulate well. (shrink)