Abstract

The fifteenth-century debate between Albertists and Thomists centered on the elaboration of two alternative models of Peripatetic science, within which the question of universals took on an architectonic function. The present article analyzes the anti-Thomistic position of the Albertist Heymericus de Campo and aims to reconstruct the sources as well as the metaphysical assumptions lying behind it. The article shows that the major differences with the rival school originated in Heymericus’ having incorporated within the Peripatetic science the causal paradigm defined by the notion of fluxus. This notion was drawn by Heymericus from the pseudo-Aristotelian Liber de causis as interpreted by Albert. The Book of Causes not only provided Heymericus with the metaphysical foundation for solving the problem of universals, but also represented the main authority legitimizing the inclusion of the doctrine of the flux into the Aristotelian canon. An Appendix offers the edition of Heymericus’ short commentary on the Liber de causis, contained in his Questiones supra libros philosophie Aristotelis