Among the commentaries on Aristotle's Physics produced by medieval masters in the 14th Century Oresme's is one of the most interesting. The main problems of natural philosophy (motion, time, intension and remission of forms) as well as cognitive and ontological issues are widely discussed. Oresme proposes original solutions to most of these topics, based on an original view concerning the relationship between substance and its properties (condicio/condiciones, modi rerum); Oresme's solutions are always associated with sharp criticism of the two main philosophical schools: the...

The history of skepticism usually ignores the Middle Ages. It is customary in most historical overviews to say that epistemological skepticism and external-world skepticism did not find its way into the Western philosophical tradition until Sextus Empiricus was rediscovered and retranslated into Latin in the Sixteenth century. It is the aim of this book to show that this is not true and that the history of skepticism must be rewritten. It is only once the rich discussions of both epistemological and external-world skepticism in the Middle Ages are included that the whole history of skepticism...

The Questiones libri Porphirii is a commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge by the fourteenth-century logician Thomas Manlevelt. It is edited here in full. Not much is known of Thomas Manlevelt, but his work is remarkable enough. Following in the footsteps of William of Ockham, Manlevelt stresses the individual nature of all things existing in the outside world. He radically challenges our conceptional framework. He applies Ockham's razor in a ruthless manner to do away with all entities not deemed necessary for preservation. In the end, Manlevelt even maintains that substance does not...

In William Ockham on Metaphysics, Jenny Pelletier offers an account of Ockham's concept of metaphysics as it emerges throughout his philosophical and theological work. She argues that Ockham (c. 1287-1347) believed metaphysics to be a fruitful branch of philosophy and gives a preliminary description of its distinctive subject-matter. Metaphysics is the science that studies all beings and their most general properties. Ockham was considered by some to be profoundly skeptical of metaphysics. Recent scholarship tends to focus on regional metaphysical issues (e.g. universals, relations),...

This volume deals with the philosophical approach of thirteenth-century masters to concrete, practical manifestations of specifically human life quantum ad naturalia in their commentaries on Aristotle's works on natural philosophy, both the genuine ones and the ones then considered genuine. It inquires into what they deemed worthy of philosophical debate regarding this topic and how they tackled it. This volume completes as Teilband II the researches initiated in a previous volume (Teilband 1) and describes the scholars' discourses on the peculiarity of human body constitution, the...

This is the first critical edition of the earliest known Latin commentary on Aristotle's Prior Analytics, the Anonymus Aurelianensis III. In addition to the critical text, Christina Thomsen Thornqvist's edition contains a comparative analysis of the anonymous commentary and the extant Greek commentaries as well as a full comparison between Boethius' translation and the translation used by the commentator. The edition provides a solid foundation for further study on the earliest medieval exegesis on the Prior Analytics and is an essential resource for any scholar who wants...

The Renaissance philosopher Pietro Pomponazzi (1462-1525) is mostly known for denying the human mind's immateriality (and immortality) in accordance with his radical understanding of Aristotelianism. Pomponazzis Erkenntnistheorie attempts to reconstruct his theory of cognition. The author, Paolo Rubini, focuses on Pomponazzi's scattered views about the mind's ontological status and cognitive capacities, puts them into the context of Aristotelian-Scholastic psychology, and interprets them by reference to Pomponazzi's 'naturalistic' approach to the human soul. Particular interest is...

The French Franciscan Peter Auriol (c. 1280-1322) is regarded as one of the most innovative thinkers of 14th century philosophy and theology. In Theologie und Wissenschaft bei Petrus Aureoli, Florian Woller offers an account of Auriol's theory of science and his view on theology as an academic discipline as they emerge from his commentaries on the Sentences. Auriol conceived theology not as a science in any strict sense, but he nonetheless believed that scientific disciplines and theology share their most fundamental features. Florian Woller presents Auriol in the context of...

This study examines Thomas Aquinas s contribution to the systematic field of animal philosophy. It applies various models from the current philosophical debate (especially from that concerning the mind of animals) as interpretative aids to tap the potential of the Thomistic approach. Thomas draws a clear line of demarcation between animals and human beings (= anthropological difference). However, he also considers it important to work out the similarities between humans and animals, insofar as they are both so-called animalia, i.e., living beings possessing senses (= animal...

Among the commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics produced in the Middle Ages, that of Richard Kilvington is one of the most thought-provoking. Kilvington adopts a unique perspective of argumentation in which he applies concepts and terminology from the fields of logic and physics to ethical dilemmas. This unprecedented approach allows him to formulate original solutions to various ethical problems. He concentrates on the will, moral weakness, the relationship between the will and prudence, the change of virtues and vices, and the nature of ethical objects. The presented...