Walter Burley, Peter Aureoli and Gregory of Rimini
Walter Burley, Peter Aureoli and Gregory of Rimini
Stephen Brown
THE END OF THE GREAT ERA
Immediately after the glorious age of Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas,
the University of Paris, as we have seen, had a number of outstanding
teachers. Henry of Ghent, following in the path of Bonaventure, was
the reigning figure until about 1285 ([15.14] 121–78; 221–3).1 Godfrey
of Fontaines, the pupil of Aquinas and his defender against the 1277
condemnation of propositions associated with the great Dominican
thinker, developed his own voice and gradually replaced Henry as the
principal master at the university ([15.32] xv–xxi, 382–5; [15.14] 3–
41 and passim; [15.21] 193–207). Giles of Rome, a student of Aquinas
from 1269 to 1272, whose teaching was delayed by a censure against
him in 1277, was restored to good standing by Pope Honorius IV in
1285 ([15.14] 223–5). He established an early form of Augustinian
teaching that held sway with the Augustinian Hermits until a more
English-influenced approach was established in 1342–4 by Gregory of
Rimini ([15.29] 182–207). As the fourteenth century began, the most
outstanding figure was a visitor from Oxford, John Duns Scotus. His
lectures at Paris survive in the form of student reports, bearing the
appropriate name, Reportata Parisiensia. With the death of the Subtle
Doctor in 1308, an era of famous Parisian teachers came to an end.
The influence of these great thinkers, however, remained at Paris in
the period (1308–50) that now concerns us. Henry, as we shall see, is
the opponent of Peter Aureoli on the unity of the concept of being and
on God’s knowledge of future contingents. Although many Parisian
authors continued to criticize his theory of illumination, Henry still
found a staunch ally in Hugolinus of Orvieto (see [15.16] 151–4).
Godfrey was a strong influence on the Carmelite John Baconthorpe,
who taught in Paris as well as England and on John of Pouilly, who
quoted him favourably in his Quodlibeta ([15.32] 386). Giles influenced
members of his order at Paris in different ways: Gerard of Siena and
Thomas of Strasbourg stayed close to Giles in their teaching, whereas
Michael of Massa in his later writings sacrified the metaphysical interests
of Giles to the study of natural philosophy in order to refute William
of Ockham’s teachings on physics ([15.36] 196–214). Scotus had so
many followers at Paris in the decade after his death that one might
even speak of them (William of Alnwich, Antonius Andreas, Hugh of
Newcastle, Francis of Marchia, Francis Meyronnes, and others) as
forming the first Scotist school ([15.14] 9–24).
WALTER BURLEY
If, however, we want to move beyond the echoes of Henry, Godfrey,
Giles and John Duns to the new philosophical voices of the era after
Scotus’s death, we might well begin with Walter Burley. Burley, as is
known, did his early and his late work in England. However, he arrived
in Paris before 1310 to study theology and he stayed there until 1327.
In effect, then, the central years of the life and activity of Walter, who
was born around the year 1275, were spent in Paris. The Tractatus
primus (First Treatise), which is Walter’s defence of certain theses of
his Commentary on the ‘Sentences’ that were attacked by Thomas
Wilton, was written in Paris. So was his Treatise on Forms, perhaps
his first reaction to William of Ockham’s physics. If the first version of
his De puritate artis logicae (On the Purity of the Art of Logic), with
its attack on Ockham’s theory of supposition, did not have its origin
in Paris, it at least existed there in a number of copies—one, an
abbreviation—before 1350. His detailed attack on Ockham’s physics
began with his Exposition of Aristotle’s ‘Physics’, whose books I–VI
were completed at Paris ([15.31] 180–6). Around 1340 Walter’s
continued influence at Paris is confirmed by the Danish commentator
on the Prior Analytics, Nicholas Drukken, who defended Ockham’s
position on supposition against Burley, whom he explicitly names and
cites ([15.27] 51–3). Certainly he must be considered one of the great
voices of Parisian realism. Burley served as an envoy of Edward III at
the papal court in Avignon from 1327 to 1330. Although he finished
his career in England, often under the patronage of Richard of Bury,
the Bishop of Durham, he made frequent trips to the Continent ([15.30]
30–8). During his later years in England, he commented on the Ethics,
wrote his Super artem veterem (On the ‘logica vetus’), and produced
an Exposition of Aristotle’s ‘Politics’, books VII and VIII of which
were heavily indebted, even in phraseology, to the Parisian commentary
of Peter of Alvernia ([15.31] 186–8; [15.27] II: 13–22).
The early works of Walter Burley place him at Oxford in 1301 and
1302, though he seems to have lectured there even earlier. We have, for
example, at least four different commentaries by him on Aristotle’s
On Interpretation that have survived. It is the Questions on ‘On
Interpretation’ that dates from 1301. This work, however, in a quaestio
format, is somewhat advanced. There is a more basic commentary, a
précis of Aristotle’s work, found along with parallel abbreviations of
Porphyry’s Isagoge and Aristotle’s Categories in Cambridge, MS St.
John’s College 100, ff. 47ra–54vb. Such cursory lectiones, which simply
list the general content of Aristotle’s works for beginners, most likely
antedated the more developed quaestiones arising from the Aristotle’s
text and aimed at an advanced group of scholars. Such summary works
do not reveal much about Burley. Anyone could have done such
summaries. Also among the works associated with the years 1301 and
1302 is a Treatise on Supposition ([15.1] 16, [15.3] 200–1).
What is characteristic of these early works, as we should well expect,
is the total absence of any reference to William of Ockham or his
philosophy. In other words, during his early days at Oxford we find
no conflict between Burley’s form of realism and the nominalistic
realism of Ockham. The Treatise on Supposition is very instructive,
since it was both a positive and negative source for Ockham’s Summa
logicae. Ockham, in his presentation of the supposition of relative terms,
copied extensively from Burley’s work, and in treating improper
supposition, summarized his statements. Ockham, however, disagrees
with Burley over simple and personal supposition. One must, however,
tread softly in establishing the interplay of the two authors. The
Venerable Inceptor’s own words inform us that Burley is not his only
opponent: ‘From this argument the falsity of the common opinion which
declares that simple supposition takes place when a term supposits for
its significate is clear’ ([14.5] II, 141). Burley himself, when he attacks
Ockham’s Summa logicae in the later De puritate artis logicae, implies
his own agreement with the traditional way by informing us that
William is out of accord with the ancients ([15.11] 7).
BURLEY’S REALISM AND OCKHAM’S NOMINALISM
Walter Burley did not see his form of realism as something new. Yet,
despite its claim to roots in the ancients, it does have its own
peculiarities. In his 1301 Questions on ‘On Interpretation’ he asks:
Does a spoken word signify a thing (res) or a concept (passio animae)?
Realizing that Aristotle had answered this question by saying that a
spoken word does not signify a thing but the passio animae or concept,
Burley explains: a spoken word does not signify the thing (res) with its
individuating differences; it signifies the passio animae. But what is
this passio animae or concept, for him? Claiming to follow Ammonius,
Burley contends that the passio animae is the thing itself in so far as it
is proportionate to the intellect. A name is imposed on something only
to the degree that it is known by the mind. Now nothing is known by
the mind except in so far as it is capable of moving the intellect. So a
name cannot be imposed on anything unless it is proportionate to the
mind. There is, according to Burley, a parallel between the act of
signifying and the act of knowing. In regard to the act of knowing,
Burley explains, there are three things to be considered: the thing known,
the intellect knowing, and the species by means of which a thing is
known. The species is not what is first known; the res or thing is the
first object known even though it is known by means of the species.
Likewise, the act of signifying has three elements: the word which is
signifying, the thing signified, and the species by means of which the
thing is signified. And just as the species is not that which is first known,
so it is not that which is first signified. The thing itself is that which is
first signified, though by means of the species ([15.3] 211).
In a later commentary on On Interpretation, which bears the title
Middle Commentary because it fits between the Questions and the
late Commentary of 1337 both in size and time, he holds the same
position as in the Questions. He adds, however, a second point: not
only are there universal concepts and singular concepts, but because
the concept is the thing itself, there are in propositions universal things
as well as singular things ([15.2] 84–5). In the last redaction of his On
Interpretation commentary, he underscores this point even more
forcefully: ‘Supposing, nonetheless, that universals are things outside
the mind—which is the more true position—we have to state that the
name of a first intention is the name of a thing as it falls under the first
concept of the intellect.’ In a direct attack on William of Ockham in
the same work he establishes a third point, declaring, ‘It can be noted
that outside the mind there are some universal things and some singular
things… Propositions are composed of things outside the mind which
are universal and things that are singular. These are both outside the
mind. And still such noteworthy considerations are not pleasing to the
moderns who do not posit universals outside the mind and who do
not admit that propositions are made up of things outside the mind’
([15.9] ff. 67va, 75vb).
When one sees these three theses of Burley’s commentaries on On
Interpretation, it is hard to resist the conclusion that William of Ockham
had him (and perhaps also Walter Chatton) in mind in the prologue to
his Commentary on ‘On Interpretation’, when he attacks an opinion
that claims:
That the concept is the thing outside the mind as conceived
or understood (res extra concepta sive intellecta) in the way
that some grant that besides singular things there are
universal things, and that singular things conceived are
subjects in singular propositions and universal things
conceived are subjects of universal propositions. Now this
opinion, in regard to this: that it places some things outside
the mind besides the singulars and existing in them, I think
altogether absurd and destructive of the whole philosophy of
Aristotle and all science and all truth and reason, and that it
is the worst error in philosophy and rejected by Aristotle in
Book VII of the Metaphysics, and that those holding such a
view are incapable of science.
([14.5] Op. Phil. II: 362–3)
For Ockham himself there are no such res universales in singular things
which correspond to our common names. As he declares near the end
of the Book II of his Commentary on ‘On Interpretation’, ‘Names of
this type, “man”, “animal”, “lion”, and universally all first intention
names primarily and principally signify the things themselves outside
the mind. The word man primarily signifies all men, and the word
animal primarily signifies all animals. And the same holds for other
words of this type’ ([14.5] Op. Phil. II, 502). For Ockham, ‘man’ and
‘animal’ signify that men and animals are really alike, and they are
really alike prior to any activity of the mind that recognizes that they
are alike; yet they are similar because they are men or animals, not
because of some common similarity that exists in each of them ([14.5]
Op. Th. IV: 287–310). These competing theories concerning common
nouns and the objects they signify took on the already existing labels
‘realism’ and ‘nominalism’, even though in the works of Burley and
Ockham these positions might have some particular characteristics of
their own.
The debate over the significates of common nouns led realists—and
Burley claims his position is the traditional one—to hold that
supposition is simple when a common noun stands for its significate
([15.11] 7). The nominalists—and Ockham claims that he is opposing
the common position—hold that supposition is personal when a
common noun stands for its significate. For the nominalists, supposition
is simple when a term stands for the intention or concept in the mind,
which properly is not the significate of the term, for such a first intention
term signifies true things and not concepts (see [14.5] Op. Phil. I: 196).
In brief, Ockham, whose theory of supposition parallels his theory of
universals, rejects any common reality existing among and in individuals
and interprets earlier theories of simple supposition, like that of Burley,
as holding a common reality corresponding to our common concepts.
Ockham redefines simple supposition by declaring that the supposition
of a term is simple when the term supposits for what is common: the
concept. For Ockham and the nominalists, when the suppositing term
in a proposition stands for its significate (a real thing) then you have
personal supposition, since the only true things are individuals. It is, in
Ockham’s judgement, this error—the error of those realists, like Burley,
who believed that there is something in things besides the singular
thing itself, and that humanity, for example, is some thing distinct from
singular men and found in them, and that this distinct thing is their
essence—that led them astray both in their theories of signification
and supposition ([14.5] Op. Phil. I: 204). Both camps held that common
nouns signified things. The realists and nominalists differed because
the first focused on common things, while the second denied the
existence of common realities. Burley entitled his work De puritate
artis logicae, to return to the pure logic of the ancients in contrast to
the contaminated logic of Ockham’s Summa logicae. In this work,
Burley claims to follow Aristotle, Boethius, Priscian and Averroes when
he argues that when someone employs the word ‘man’ in a meaningful
or significative way, he is not directing his attention to Peter or John or
any other particular person that is now present. He is rather focusing
on that which is common to Peter, John or anyone else. In other words,
‘man’ does not signify particular men but rather the common reality
by which each individual is a man ([15.11] 7–8).
Perhaps the example that Burley believes best illustrates the
differences in signification and supposition theory between the realist
and nominalist positions is the proposition ‘Man is the most noble of
all creatures.’ What possibly could you mean when you make such a
statement? Surely you do not want to say, when you make this
declaration, that some particular man is the most noble of all creatures.
In this statement, ‘man’ has simple supposition since it stands for its
significate, i.e. for something common, the species ‘man’, which is the
most noble of all creatures ([15.1] 24, [15.11] 7).
Burley also disagreed with Ockham in regard to the nature of the
ten categories. In cases where they are dealing with singular substances,
both men would treat such substances as things, and there would be
no controversy. However, as we have seen, Ockham denies that there
are universal substances. Since science is of the universal, then, for
Ockham, science cannot, strictly speaking, be about things, since all
things are particular. For Walter Burley, scientific propositions stand
for universal things outside the mind. This understanding was, in his
judgement, the only way to guard real sciences. Since, in Ockham’s
theory, universals are only concepts, all sciences are about concepts.
According to him, this does not obliterate the distinction between real
and rational sciences. Such a division, he argues, depends not on whether
the science is about things or concepts, but whether the concepts which
are the components of all scientific propositions stand for things or for
other concepts. In the former case we have a real science; in the latter
we have a rational science ([14.5] Op. Th. II: 136–8; [15.18] 112–15).
When they deal with inhering qualities, such as whiteness, sweetness
or heat, both William and Walter consider them to be things. In
Ockham’s analysis of reality, however, not all qualities are inhering
qualities and thus not all qualities express things distinct from their
substances. The same holds for all the remaining categories: they signify
something real but not a distinct thing existing subjectively in singular
substances like individual inhering qualities.
Ockham’s favourite example should help us understand what he
means. ‘Similarity’ signifies something real. It does not, however, signify
a thing over and above the really inhering quality (e.g. whiteness) in
two or more subjects. ‘Similarity’ does not itself signify a further really
existing quality (i.e. similarity) in the white subjects. If this were the
case, argues Ockham, the distinction of the categories would be
obliterated, since the category of relation would be reduced to the
category of quality ([14.5] Op. Phil. I: 167–8). If Socrates is white and
Plato is white, then Socrates is, without the addition of any other thing,
similar to Plato. The white Socrates does not gain a new reality in
Plato’s becoming white. He gains a new predicate, a new denomination,
and it is a real predicate he gains, but it is not a new predicate signifying
a new res or thing. By the very fact that both Socrates and Plato are
white, they are similar. Given this condition that both are white, even
God cannot take away their similarity. Furthermore, they are similar
independently of our mind, so they are really similar. Yet neither Socrates
nor Plato has similarity as a quality subjectively inhering in them. If
Plato ceases to be white, he would lose an inhering quality of whiteness,
but he would not lose an inhering quality of likeness to Socrates
according to whiteness. He would lose such a predicate or
denomination, but not a res (see [15.18] 120).
As it is in the case of ‘similitude’, which expresses one type of relation,
so is it with the remaining categories. They do not signify things, but
are nomina (concepts or words) which signify something real but not
things distinct from substances and inhering qualities. Even some terms
in the category of quality do not signify inhering qualities. Some terms
indicating the figure of something, e.g. that something is curved or
straight, do not signify a new res added to that thing. As Ockham
states in the Summa logicae, ‘Such predicables “curved” and “straight”
are able to be affirmed successively just because of local motion. When
something is straight, if its parts afterwards, simply by local motion
and without the arrival of any new thing, are closer together so that
they are less distant than before, it is said to be curved’ ([14.5] Op.
Phil. I: 180).
A discrete quantity also is a concept or word which does not signify
a distinct reality over and above the things which are numbered. When
we speak about two men, one in Cambridge and one in Paris, we do
not signify by the term ‘two’ a duality that exists subjectively in them.
If ‘two’ signified a thing over and above the men, would it exist
subjectively in each? In this case each man would be two, since this
thing ‘duality’ would exist in each. If one part of the accident ‘duality’
existed in one man and another part in the other, then two parts of an
accidental quality distinct in subject and place, even by hundreds of
kilometres, would make one accidental quality or res—which seems
unimaginable. ‘Two’ thus does not signify a distinct thing over and
above the two things, which makes the two things two; it stands for
the two things themselves and connotes that the two things do not
make a per se unum ([15.18] 121).2 Ockham in the Summa logicae
goes through each of the categories attempting to show that they do
not signify distinct things from substances and inhering qualities and
arguing that terms in each of the distinct categories do not necessarily
signify distinct things.
Burley, in his late Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘Categories’, attacks
the nominalistic view of the categories presented by Ockham. The
categories cannot simply signify names or concepts; they must signify
things. If we look at Ockham’s favourite example, that of similarity,
we see that there are many reasons that militate against similarity being
reduced to a name or concept. A likeness, for instance, admits of degrees:
things can be more or less like one another. When we look at two
things we can see that they are more alike than two other things. Yet
names or concepts do not admit of degrees. Furthermore, it is impossible
to know one of the things that are relative without knowing the other.
But you can know one noun or concept without knowing another
noun. Moreover, according to Aristotle, relative things exist at the same
time, so that if one of them is destroyed, then the other is affected. If a
father is killed, then his son ceases to be actually a son anymore. But if
you destroy a word, such as ‘father’, the word ‘son’ is not affected
([15.7] ff. e4vb–e5ra).
Neither is the nominalist account of discrete quantity acceptable to
Burley. What a nominalist like Ockham assumes is that every accident
that is numerically one has to have a subject that is numerically one.
Yet this is not the way that Averroes explains discrete quantities in his
Commentary on Book III of Aristotle’s ‘Physics’. There he explains
that it is characteristic of a discrete quantity that it is present in many
subjects by reason of its parts. When we are talking about two things,
then, this does not mean that ‘duality’ taken as a whole is in each subject.
What it means is that the parts of a duality each exist in a subject, so
that one of its parts is in one subject and another of its parts is in another
subject. It is in this way that an accident that is numerically one can be
in diverse subjects even separated by great distances. There is no reason
why an accident that is per se one in the sense of being one discrete
quantity has to have a subject that is per se one ([15.7] f. e2rb).
In a way parallel to Ockham’s treatment in the Summa logicae and
his Commentary on Aristotle’s ‘Categories’, Burley thus unfolds his
realistic interpretation of all the categories in his On the ‘logica vetus’.
Nor is the story different if we compare Ockham and Burley’s views
concerning natural philosophy. Basically the same principles are at
work. For Ockham, many of the terms of natural philosophy, i.e.
‘change’, ‘motion’, ‘time’, ‘instant’, etc., are interpreted as absolute
terms that point to things that exactly correspond to them. According
to Ockham, many such terms of physics are not absolute terms; they
are connotative terms. What does this distinction mean? If you take a
word like albedo (‘whiteness’), it is an absolute term that signifies a
colour. However, if you take a word like albus, it signifies more than
one thing. To avoid complications, let us say albus signifies ‘a man
who is white’ or ‘whiteness in a man’. In short, it just doesn’t signify
one thing; it signifies one thing and co-signifies or connotes another.
Ockham explains that a word like ‘motion’, because it is a noun, can
lead us into thinking that there is an absolute thing that corresponds
to it. In fact, he argues, ‘motion’ is not an absolute term, but is a short
hand way of saying ‘something is moving’. Another way of saying this
is that ‘motion’ is a connotative term that signifies more than one thing.
It is a term that we should really translate into connotative language
(‘something is moving’) in order to avoid thinking it is an absolute
term that has a distinct or separate reality corresponding to it. In his
Exposition of Aristotle’s ‘Physics’ he expresses well the problem he
sees: ‘Wherefore, this proposition “Something is moving” is more
explicit and more clear than the proposition “A motion exists”. The
latter statement is ambiguous, because some understand by it that there
is something distinct from a movable object and other permanent things
that exists, the way some moderns do. Others, however, do not
understand by the statement “A motion exists” anything more than
“Something is moving”, where you convert the noun form into a verbal
form. It is for this reason alone that Aristotle says that “motion” is not
something that you can point to; and he says the same about other
terms of this kind’ ([14.5] Op. Phil. V: 243).
Walter Burley certainly belonged to the first, realist group of
interpreters. ‘Motion’, ‘change’, ‘time’, ‘instant’—all such words point
to exactly corresponding realities. In Book I of his Exposition on the
Books of Aristotle’s ‘Physics’ he announces boldly, ‘Fourthly, I prove
that an instant is something in reality, something that is completely
indivisible’ ([15.10] col. 38A).
Burley is not the only champion of realism at Paris in the first half of
the fourteenth century, but his is a strong voice and one that found
followers and opponents during this period. Ockham, likewise, is not
the only champion of nominalism. In fact, he was not then an actual
presence, except through some of his writings and followers, as well as
through the voice of some of his opponents like Burley (see [15.23]
53–96). Burley’s voice is a real one. It was in Paris that he began his
attacks on Ockham’s logic and physics.
PETER AUREOLI
If one could debate whether Burley was an English thinker or a Parisian
one, there is no doubt about the Parisian association of Peter Aureoli.
He was in Paris during the first decade of the century and perhaps was
a student of Scotus. Even if he was not an actual student of Scotus, he
later became central in the life of Parisian Scotism. After teaching at
Bologna (1312) and Toulouse (1314), this French Franciscan returned
to Paris where he lectured from 1316 to 1320. His most famous work,
the Scriptum in primum Sententiarum (Writing on the First Book of
the ‘Sentences’), was produced before he taught at Paris. His Paris
production is a complex issue that will not be settled until the First
Book of his Reportatio (student reports) there is edited. Two important
issues from the First Book show the independent character of his
thought.
The Unity of the Concept of Being
The first issue concerns the unity of the concept of being. Aureoli treated
the matter both in his earlier Scriptum and in his Paris Reportatio. The
treatments are substantially the same, even though Aureoli has reworked
his Reportatio presentation in such a way that the two works have no
text in common. The account in both is the same, although the Scriptum
rendition provides names. Aureoli has a number of authors as
opponents. Henry of Ghent, for example, sets the framework for
Aureoli’s discussion. For Henry, our concept of ‘being’ is a confused
concept. This has to be understood in a very precise sense: ‘Confused’
has the sense of ‘con-fused’. In other words, we do not have one concept
of being unless we take one concept in the sense of a psychological
unity. When we analyse what we at first think is one concept we find
that we have two concepts. One of these concepts is the concept of
‘privatively undetermined being’. In short, this concept of being is
arrived at by examining creatures and then leaving aside or depriving
them of their many differences. The other concept is the concept of
‘negatively undetermined being’. This concept of being is proper to
God alone, since God cannot be determined or limited at all; he is
totally undetermined or unlimited. Since the concept of being predicable
of creatures is a concept that is a common concept of created being
without the differences included and the concept of being predicable
of God is a concept of a being that admits no limits or differences, our
mind mistakes them and views the two kinds of indetermination as
one. When we analyse the nature of the indetermination and divide it
into privatively and negatively undetermined being, we realize that we
are dealing with two different concepts of being: one predicable of
God, the other predicable of creatures.
Furthermore, for Henry, because of his theory of illumination, the
first concept we have is the concept of negatively undetermined being,
or of God. We only know other things because of the light of divine
being. We are not aware of the divine being when we perceive created
beings, but when we examine how we can know created beings, we
realize that God provides the light that makes their being and truth
shine forth—somewhat in the way that the light behind a stained glass
window allows us to see the colours and shapes of the windows. We
focus on the colours and shapes, so that is what we think we know
first. Yet, when we analyse the situation of seeing the colours and shapes
we realize that the light is in a sense the first thing we know, even
though it is not the first thing we focus on.
John Duns Scotus rejected Henry’s theory of illumination and had
to find another explanation for our knowledge of being. For Scotus,
our concept of being is not a confused concept in the way that Henry
meant ‘con-fused’. ‘Being’ is the most distinct concept we have. ‘Being’
leaves aside all determinations or differences. Of course, the realities
have their differences: created beings are finite and the uncreated being
is infinite. But we can, according to Scotus, leave these differences
outside our concept of being. Modes of being, such as ‘infinite’ or
‘finite’, if left outside our concept of being, provide us with a distinct
concept of being in contrast to the con-fused concept that Henry affirms.
Whatever could confuse it is left outside. We thus end up, according to
Scotus, with a concept of being that is univocal. It is predicable of God
and creatures in the same sense, since whatever could compromise this
single sense is left outside the concept.3
Aureoli’s third set of opponents are the Dominican Hervaeus Natalis
(Hervé Nedellec or Hervé Nöel) and the Carmelite Gerard of Bologna.
Each of these Parisian thinkers treads a middle way between the
equivocal concept of being that is affirmed by Henry of Ghent and the
univocal concept of being defended by John Duns Scotus. In effect,
they lean more toward Henry by declaring, like Aristotle, that ‘being is
said in many ways’. They follow the model of Aristotle in Book IV of
the Metaphysics: ‘Being’ is like ‘health’. We say that many different
kinds of things are healthy. Not only is a man healthy, but also the diet
that preserves his energy, the complexion that indicates that he is robust,
the urine sample that a doctor takes to test the state of his condition,
all are called ‘healthy’. They have this name because they all are
connected with the health of a man. So with ‘being’: whatever is related
to a substance, the primary meaning of ‘being’, is also called ‘being’.
The colour of a substance, the size of a substance, the location of a
substance also are ‘being’ in some sense, since they are all related to
the substance in the same way that diets, complexions, and urine
samples are related to the health of a human being or other animal.
‘Being’, then is said ‘in many ways’, but because of the relation of all
the different types of being to the substances to which they are linked,
they are united in some way. There are thus many concepts of being,
but because of the connection among the realities they signify, they are
in a certain way unified. They are, in short, analogous.
Peter Aureoli’s own position will contest each of these three opposing
theories concerning the unity of the concept of being, yet it will in a
way include elements from each of them. In contrast to Henry, Gerard
and Hervaeus, he will side with Scotus and stress the true simple unity
of the concept of being. Yet the concept of being is not univocal in the
sense that it leaves outside its ambit the differences. It is thus not a
distinct concept, since it includes all the differences of being within it.
Like Henry, at least in his vocabulary, Aureoli’s view of the concept of
being is that it is a confused concept. However, he does not understand
it as a con-fused concept that needs to be corrected. It is confused in
the sense that the simple concept of being includes all differences within
it. The realities that can have ‘being’ predicated of them have, of course,
their real differences; but still we can, Aureoli argues, have a most
indistinct concept that can be predicated of all of them. The
transcendental concept of ‘being’ is a certain total implicit ratio and
the categorical concepts of substance and accidents are explicit partial
rationes. There is not in a stone one ratio which makes it a being and
a diverse ratio which makes it a stone. The ratio making it a stone and
everything in a stone is formally being. In this way, Aureoli separates
himself from the ‘health’ employed by Aristotle that is so strongly
stressed by Gerard of Bologna and Hervaeus Natalis. ‘Healthy’ points
to the formal presence of health in a man or other animal; diets,
complexions, etc. are not formally healthy. With ‘being’ the case is
different. Each kind of being is formally being. The analogy of extrinsic
attribution, exemplified by ‘healthy’, does not tell the whole story,
according to Aureoli. All realities and all aspects of reality are formally
being. There must be a concept predicable of all of them. It is an implicit
concept containing all rationes of being. A proper concept of a particular
thing is attained not by adding some ratio that is not being or some
ratio that is being in another sense of the term ‘being’; it is an explicit
concept of ‘a particular kind of being’ in contrast to the implicit concept
of being that is predicable of all that is not nothing (see [15.17] 117–
50; [15.19] 118–120).
Aureoli’s position on the unity of the concept of being was attacked
by a number of the followers of John Duns Scotus. Walter Chatton
defended Scotus against Aureoli’s challenge both in his London
Reportatio of 1321–3 and his Oxford Lectura of 1328–30 (see [15.4]
127–77). Peter Thomae attacked Aureoli’s teaching in his Questions
on Being, disputed at the Franciscan house of studies in Barcelona
around 1325 (see [15.25] 216). Gerard Odon, at Paris, distinguished
between Aureoli’s logical concept of being and the metaphysical concept
of being that was defended by Duns Scotus (Geraldus, MS Paris BN
6441, ff. 7va–9rb).
God’s Knowledge of Future Contingent Events
The second issue that garnered immediate attention for Aureoli was
his theory concerning God’s knowledge of future contingent events.
Although his treatment of this issue arises immediately from the
discussion of it in John Duns Scotus, the problem, as he treats it, has
its more precise origin in William de la Mare’s representation of Thomas
Aquinas’s position on God’s knowledge of future contingent events,
an interpretation that Henry of Ghent judged to be true and to be the
position of Aquinas. According to this view temporal things, not just
causally but actually, have a reality in the eternal ‘now’ of God. Most
likely, Henry introduced this understanding to establish the point that
changes in this world do not entail any change in God’s knowledge of
them. To escape the implication that the eternal presence of things to
God’s knowledge entails their actual eternal existence, Aureoli refuses
to speak of the presence of creatures in the eternal ‘now’. It is improper
to speak of future things as present to eternity, since what is not present
in itself is not able to be present to something else. He forges a new
word to describe how God knows temporal things. Temporal things
are non-distant (indistantes) to God’s eternity. Aureoli’s new term
‘non-distant’ expresses a negative relation: it means ‘present, but not
in a temporal way’. Future contingent events, then, are not future to
God; but neither are they present in a present-tense manner that points
to a present temporal moment (see [15.13] 114–24).
Since God’s knowledge of events that for us are future is not future,
and thus does not precede the event, Aureoli contends that singular
propositions about future contingent events are neither determinately
true nor determinately false in themselves. For him, they are completely
neutral or indeterminate. If, he argues, they were determinately true or
false because God knew them before they happened, then all future
events would take place immutably. This position was strongly attacked
by John Baconthorpe, Francis Meyronnes, Francis of Marchia,
Landulph Caracciolo and a number of other masters who taught at
Paris before 1350 (see [15.13] 126–31, 78). Aureoli had to wait for
Peter of Candia, who commented on Book I of the Sentences at Paris
in 1378, before he found an ally for the possibility of his position.
Aureoli’s effect on this issue, however, was long-lasting: his position
was revived by Peter of Rivo at Louvain in the 1460s in a battle with
Henry of Zomeren. This debate led to the censure of Peter of Rivo in
1473 for ‘opinions ill-sounding, scandalous and offensive to Christian
ears’. Some of the censured statements also might be attributed to Peter
Aureoli (see [15.26] 12–15).
If Aureoli is significant for the independent power of his thought, he
is also important for the thorough knowledge of his contemporaries
whom he blended into his own synthesis. Francis Meyronnes praises
him highly for his portrait of the positions of others when he simply
declares, ‘If you want to see the opinions of others presented distinctly,
look everywhere in Aureoli’ ([15.24] 24). Almost a hundred years later,
Capreolus uses Aureoli as a main source book. This is immediately
evident in the question on the unity of the concept of being, where it is
easy to see that Capreolus does not know Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus,
Gerard of Bologna or Hervaeus Natalis directly. All of them people his
text, yet all their citations are taken verbatim from the text of the
Scriptum of Peter Aureoli. In short, Capreolus’ knowledge of these
and many other authors is through the reports of Peter Aureoli (see
[15.12] xxii).
GREGORY OF RIMINI
Our final focus will be on Gregory of Rimini, an Augustinian Hermit,
who brought to Paris a more detailed knowledge of William of Ockham,
along with a developed knowledge of Ockham’s English critic, Walter
Chatton, as well as Ockham’s somewhat independent follower, Adam
Wodeham. It was also Gregory who introduced the thought of Richard
Fitzralph, and to a lesser degree that of Thomas Bradwardine, Richard
Kilvington, William of Heytesbury, Thomas Buckingham, and Robert
of Halifax to Paris. In effect, these influences led Gregory in his own
works to supplant the Augustinian Hermit tradition of Giles of Rome
with his own more English-initiated philosophy and theology (see
[15.22] 311–13).4
Gregory had been a student in Paris from 1323 to 1329, before
teaching at the Augustinian houses of Bologna, Padua, and Perugia.
He returned to Paris in 1341 or 1342 to prepare for his lectures on the
Sentences of Peter Lombard. His Lectures on Books I and II of the
Sentences (1342–3 or 1343–4) show that during this preparatory year
he deepened his acquaintance with Ockham, Chatton and Wodeham.
When we spoke above of Ockham’s and Burley’s views of science, we
stressed that science is of the universal and necessary. Since there are
universal and necessary realities for Burley, science has as its object the
universal and necessary realities that exist in individual things and make
them to be the kind of things they are. Since there are no universal
realities for Ockham, the objects of science for him are then the
propositions or conclusions that alone are universal and necessary.
Ockham’s position was not only attacked by Burley; it was also attacked
by Walter Chatton. Ockham’s student Adam Wodeham disagreed with
both his teacher and Chatton and forged a new alternative, which was
endorsed by Gregory. The alternative was based on the argument against
Chatton that there are no necessary beings besides God. Creatures then
cannot be the objects of science since they are neither necessary nor
universal. Yet Adam Wodeham and Gregory disagreed with Ockham
as well. The objects of science are not identified with propositions, but
are somehow real. They are not the real contingent things, but rather a
real state of affairs. The universal and necessary knowledge of science
is located by them in the total overall significate of the conclusion of a
syllogism. The total significate of the proposition ‘Man is rational’ is
thus neither the proposition ‘Man is rational’, nor individual contingent
men, but rather the state of affairs that might be expressed as ‘manbeing-
rational’. It is thus the dictum or state of affairs that is expressed
by the proposition that is the object of scientific knowledge (see [15.5]
66–70; [15.35] 40–3).5
If Gregory disagrees with Ockham on the object of knowledge, there
are other places where he follows him quite closely. He argues that ‘a
universal is not some thing outside the mind but is rather a concept
created (fictus) or formed by the soul that is common to many things’
([15.6] I: 396). This fictum theory concerning the nature of the concept
seems to have originated with Henry of Harclay. It was frequently
defended as one alternative explanation by Ockham. Ockham does
not make it his explanation of choice in his Quodlibet, where he has to
pick one explanation over any other, but (as Gregory shows) Walter
Chatton’s critique of the fictum theory was not definitive.
In his natural philosophy, Gregory follows the more economical
theories of Ockham, denying that motion, time, and sudden change
are distinct entities in themselves. ‘Sudden change’ does not, for Gregory,
signify some thing beyond the permanent things involved in the change.
There is the subject that is changed, the form gained by the subject that
was not there before, and the form lost by the subject that previously
had it. There is no need to posit any extra entities.
The Augustinian background of Gregory is very developed. He chides
Peter Aureoli for inexact citations of Augustine. He quotes long passages
from the On Free Will to establish our intellectual knowledge of
singulars. His claims of loyalty to Augustine appear most staunch,
however, when he criticizes Ockham and Wodeham about man’s
powers. He accuses them of being modern Pelagians and underscores
the weakness of fallen human nature. According to Gregory, we are
wounded both in our ability to know what we should choose or avoid
and also in our ability to carry out properly our tasks even if we were
to have the correct knowledge (see [15.22] 194).
Philosophy at Paris in the first half of the fourteenth century is still
in need of a great deal of exploration. As we indicated, one of the
principal conflicts that developed gradually was the debate between
the realists and the nominalists. But the labels of realism and nominalism
swelled from an affirmation or denial of real entities corresponding to
our universal concepts to include numerous other points. The
investigation of the exploding aspects of these two orientations will
complete the introductory treatment and manifestation of some of the
riches to be found that we have presented.
NOTES
1 See also above, Chapter 13.
2 See also below, Chapter 17, pp. 418–20, for Ockham’s idea of connotation.
3 For a detailed discussion of Henry of Ghent’s and Duns Scotus’ contrasting views
on whether ‘being’ is an equivocal or univocal term, see above, Chapter 13, pp.
297–321.
4 Further discussion of Gregory of Rimini’s relation to Oxford thought will be
found in Chapter 16, pp. 391–3.
5 See also below, Chapter 17, pp. 410–11 for discussion of the complexe significabile.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Original Language Editions
15.1 Brown, S.F. ‘Walter Burley’s Tractatus de supposition and its relation to
William of Ockham’s Summa logicae’, Franciscan Studies 32 (1972): 15–
64.
15.2 ——‘Walter Burley’s Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Perihermenias’,
Franciscan Studies 33 (1973): 42–139.
15.3 ——‘Walter Burley’s Quaestiones in librum Perihermenias’, Franciscan Studies
34 (1974): 200–95.
15.4 Fitzpatrick, N. ‘Walter Chatton on the univocity of being: a reaction to Peter
Aureoli and William of Ockham’, Franciscan Studies 31 (1971): 88–177.
15.5 Gál, G. ‘Adam Wodeham’s question on the complexe significabile as the
immediate object of scientific knowledge’, Franciscan Studies 37 (1977):
66–102.
15.6 Gregory of Rimini Lectura super primum et secundum Sententianum, 7 vols,
ed. D.Trapp, V.Marcolino, Berlin, De Gruyter, 1979–87.
15.7 Walter Burley In Categorias etc., Venice, 1478.
15.8 ——Super artem veterem, Venice, 1497.
15.9 ——In artem ueterem, Venice, 1541.
15.10 ——In Physicam Aristotelis, Venice, 1589.
15.11 ——De puritate artis logicae tractatus longior, ed. P.Boehner (Franciscan
Institute text series 9), St Bonaventure, NY, Franciscan Institute, 1955.
15.12 Paban, C. and Pèques, T. Joannes Capreolus, defensiones theologiae Thomae
Aquinatis, Turin, Albred Cattier, 1900.
15.13 Schabel, C. ‘Peter Aureoli on divine foreknowledge and future contingents:
Scriptum in primum librum Sententiarum, dd. 38–39’, CIMAGL 65 (1995):
63–212.
15.14 Wielockx, R. Aegidii Romani, Apologia (Opera omnia III.1), Florence, Olschki,
1985.
Studies
15.15 Berubé, C. ‘La première école scotiste’, in Z.Kaluza and P.Vignaux (eds) Preuve
et raisons à l’Université de Paris: logique, ontologie et théologie au XIVe
siècle, Paris, Vrin, 1984.
15.16 Beumer, J. ‘Erleuchteter Glaube: die Theorie Henrichs von Gent und ihr Fortleben
in der Spätscholastik’, Franziskanische Studien 37 (1955): 129–60.
15.17 Brown, S.F. ‘Avicenna and the unity of the concept of being’, Franciscan Studies
25 (1965): 117–50.
15.18 ——A modern prologue to Ockham’s natural philosophy’, Miscellanea
Mediaevalia 13, 1 (Sprache und Erkenntnis in Mittelalter) (1981):
107–29.
15.19 ——‘Nicholas of Lyra’s Critique of Scotus’ Univocity’ in B.Mojsisch and
O.Pluta (eds) Historia Philosophiae Medii Aevi. Studien zur Geschichte
der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Festschrift für Kurt Flasch zu seinem 60.
Geburtstag. Amsterdam, Philadelphia, B.R.Grüner, 1991:115–127.
15.20 ——‘Guido Terrena, O.Carm., and the analogy of being’, Documenti e studi
sulla tradizione filosofica medievale II–1 (1994): 237–69.
15.21 ——‘Godfrey of Fontaines and Henry of Ghent: individuation and the
condemnations of 1277’, Société et église (Rencontres de philosophie
médiévale, 4) (1995): 193–207.
15.22 Courtenay, W.J. Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth-century England,
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1987.
15.23 Courtenay, W.J. and Tachau, K. ‘Ockham, Ockhamists, and the English-
German nation at Paris, 1339–1441’, History of Universities 2 (1982):
53–96.
15.24 Dreiling, R. Der Konzeptualismus in der Universalienlehre des
Franziskanererbischofs Petrus Aureoli (BGPTMA, XI, 6). Münster,
Aschendorff, 1913.
15.25 Dumont, S. ‘The Univocity of the Concept of Being in the Fourteenth Century:
II: The De ente of Peter Thomae’ Mediaeval Studies 50 (1988): 186–256.
15.26 Etzkorn, G.J. and Brown, S.F. ‘A Symposium on God’s Knowledge of Future
Contingents’, Miscellanea Francescana 96 (1996): 561–620.
15.27 Flüeler, C. Rezeption und Interpretation der Aristotelischen ‘Politica’ im späten
Mittelalter (Bochumer Studien zur Philosophie 19), Amsterdam and
Philadelphia, Pa., B.R.Grüner, 1992.
15.28 Green-Pedersen, N.J. ‘Nicholaus Drukken de Dacia’s commentary on the Prior
Analytics, with special regard to the theory of consequences’, CIMAGL
37 (1981): 42–69.
15.29 Trapp, D. ‘Augustinian theology of the 14th century’, Augustiniana 6 (1956):
146–274.
15.30 Uña Juárez, A. La filosofia del siglo XIV: contexto cultural de Walter Burley,
Real Monasterio de el Escorial, 1978.
15.31 Weisheipl, J. ‘Ockham and some Mertonians’, Mediaeval Studies 30 (1968):
163–213.
15.32 Wippel, J. The Metaphysical Thought of Godfrey of Fontaines: a Study in
Late Thirteenth Century Philosophy, Washington, DC, Catholic University
of America Press, 1981.
15.33 Würsdorfer, J. Erkennen und Wissen nach Gregor van Rimini (BGPTMA
20), Münster, Aschendorff, 1917.
15.34 Zumkeller, A. ‘Die Augustinerschule des Mittelalters: Vertreter und
philosophisch-theologische Lehre’, Analecta Augustiniana 27 (1964):
167–262.
Routledge History of Philosophy.
Taylor & Francis e-Library.
2005.