Henry of Ghent (early 13th century–1293)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven P. Marrone
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
13Th Century ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Henry Of Ghent ◽  
Divine Illumination ◽  
True Knowledge

Perhaps the most influential theologian between Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure in the third quarter of the thirteenth century and John Duns Scotus at the beginning of the fourteenth century, Henry of Ghent stands at a turning point in scholastic philosophy. He was a defender of traditional Neoplatonic positions and has often been seen as the epitome of thirteenth-century Augustinianism. Yet his convoluted metaphysics and a theory of knowledge weaving together Neoplatonic and Aristotelian strands inspired novel philosophical trends in the fourteenth century, particularly among Franciscan thinkers. His work thus constituted the point of departure for scholastic giants like Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, who not only used him as a foil against which to articulate their own system of thought but also absorbed much of his fundamental philosophical outlook and terminology. Characteristic of Henry’s metaphysics was an essentialism so pronounced that critics accused him of positing a realm of essences separate from worldly actuality. In his defence, Henry insisted that essences, though prior to actual existence, were separate only as grounded in the divine exemplars of things, but the Platonism of his approach struck his contemporaries as extraordinary nonetheless. Ironically, Henry’s understanding of essence as congruent with intellectual coherence provided an opening for a more logic-based analysis of modality, especially possibility, in succeeding thinkers such as Duns Scotus. The emphasis on essence re-emerged in Henry’s theory of knowledge, and at least in his early writings he offered a vision of knowing truth through divine illumination often taken as paradigmatic of medieval Augustinianism. Even his later attempts to cast epistemology in a more Aristotelian light retained the insistence that true knowledge somehow entails access to the exemplary essences in God’s mind. The same essentialism led Henry to formulate what he called an a priori proof for God’s existence, best approximation in the thirteenth century to Anselm’s ontological argument. Again, however, Henry’s Augustinianism provided an unintended springboard for innovation, leading to Duns Scotus’ theory of the univocity of being and metaphysical proof of God’s existence.

Richard Rufus of Cornwall (d. after 1259)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rega Wood
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Biblical Theology ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Franciscan Order ◽  
Aristotelian Metaphysics

A thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian, Rufus was among the first Western medieval authors to study Aristotelian metaphysics, physics and epistemology; his lectures on Aristotle’s Physics are the earliest known surviving Western medieval commentary. In 1238, after writing treatises against Averroes and lecturing on Aristotle – at greatest length on the Metaphysics – he joined the Franciscan Order, left Paris and became a theologian. Rufus’ lectures on Peter Lombard’s Sentences were the first presented by an Oxford bachelor of theology. Greatly influenced by Robert Grosseteste, Rufus’ Oxford lectures were devoted in part to a refutation of Richard Fishacre, the Dominican master who first lectured on the Sentences at Oxford. Though much more sophisticated philosophically than Fishacre, Rufus defended the more exclusively biblical theology recommended by Grosseteste against Fishacre’s more modern scholasticism. Rufus’ Oxford lectures were employed as a source by Bonaventure, whose lectures on the Sentences were vastly influential. Returning to Paris shortly after Bonaventure lectured there, Rufus took Bonaventure’s lectures as a model for his own Parisian Sentences commentary. Rufus’ Paris lectures made him famous. According to his enemy Roger Bacon, when he returned to Oxford after 1256 as the Franciscan regent master, his influence increased steadily. It was at its height forty years later in the 1290s, when John Duns Scotus was a bachelor of theology. Early versions of many important positions developed by Duns Scotus can be found in Rufus’ works.

Godfrey of Fontaines and the Real Distinction between Essence and Existence

Traditio ◽  
1964 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 385-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Wippel
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
The Real ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Henry Of Ghent ◽  
Siger Of Brabant

If a definitive history of the controversy during the final decades of the thirteenth century regarding the real distinction between essence and existence still remains to be written, an exposition of the views expressed by Godfrey of Fontaines on this point may provide one more step in this direction. It seems probable that Godfrey had studied in Paris during Thomas' final years there (1269-1272) and that he may have studied under Henry of Ghent as well as under Siger of Brabant. He lectured as Master of theology at Paris for some thirteen years (1285-1297), and again around 1303-1304, when he composed his fifteenth Quodlibetal Question. Giles of Rome had also studied at Paris under Thomas (1269-1272) and served there as Bachelor in theology (1276-1277), and later as Master in theology (1285-1291). Henry of Ghent had taught at Paris around 1271 (apparently on the faculty of Arts) and later, beginning in 1276, on the faculty of Theology. Between 1276 and 1292 he delivered the courses which resulted in his Summa and in his Quaestiones Quodlibetales. Because Godfrey was familiar with the work of Thomas Aquinas (in Q[uodlibet] 2 q.3 one finds an almost verbatim reproduction of a section of Thomas' De aeternitate mundi), because he witnessed the famed debate on the real distinction between Henry of Ghent and Giles of Rome, and because his work was well known to Duns Scotus, clarification of his own position should be of historical interest. In addition, it is to be hoped that such a study will show that his views are distinctive enough to merit investigation for their own sake.

Suppositum between Logic and MetaphysicsSimon of Faversham and his Contemporaries(1270-1290)

Vivarium ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 51 (1-4) ◽  
pp. 205-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dafne Murè
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
Metaphysical Problem ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
Central Elements ◽  
Sophistical Refutations

Abstract This article is the result of research on the occurrences of the terms suppositio, supponere and their linguistic derivations in the literature on fallacies (comments on the Sophistical Refutations) of the second half of the thirteenth century. The authors analysed are Albert the Great, Giles of Rome, Simon of Faversham, the so-called Incerti Auctores (Anonymous C and SF), the Anonymous of Prague (P) and John Duns Scotus. The central elements that emerge are the role played by the notion of suppositum and by the linguistic context (adiuncta, determinatio) to determine the denotation of an expression, and the importance of the metaphysical problem of the unity and identity of suppositum in both the theory of predication and the theory of inference. Both subjects, obviously, are closely connected.

Distinctions in the Metaphysics of Henry of Ghent

Traditio ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 61 ◽  
pp. 227-245
Author(s):  
Roland J. Teske
Keyword(s):  
Premier Lieu ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
The Real ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Henry Of Ghent

The intentional distinction is commonly and rightly recognized as one of the hallmarks of the metaphysics of Henry of Ghent. Raymond Macken, for example, says, “Comme Ton sait, la distinction intentionnelle est une théorie bien caractéristique de Henri de Gand.” He adds that it bears the influence of Avicenna and contributes to the view of John Duns Scotus. On the contrary, he notes, “La distinction réelle est une doctrine tout aussi charactéristique de S. Thomas.” Certainly the real distinction between essence and existence in creatures is characteristic of the metaphysics of St. Thomas, but Henry too has real distinctions in his metaphysics. However, what Henry means by a real distinction is something quite different from what St. Thomas and his followers mean by a real distinction. So too, it is not really helpful to say that Henry considers the intentional distinction “comme une sorte de distinction intermédiaire entre la distinction réelle et la distinction de pure raison,” unless one is clear about what a real distinction and a purely rational distinction are in the thought of the philosopher in question. It is also commonly recognized, as Macken notes, that “Henri, dans ses questions consacrées à cette distinction intentionelle entre l'essence et l'existence, n'attaquait pas en premier lieu Thomas d'Aquin, mais bien Gilles de Rome, ou plutôt, qu'il répondait à ses attaques.” Macken even goes so far as to claim that “la distinction intentionnelle est donc une sorte de distinction réelle,” although he admits that “elle a donc un certain lien avec la distinction de raison.”

scholarly journals El uso del argumento ontológico en la filosofía de Duns Scoto, Gottfried Leibniz y Gustavo Bueno / The Modal Ontological Argument in Duns Scoto, Gottfrieb Leibniz and Gustavo Bueno

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Íñigo ONGAY DE FELIPE
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
John Duns Scotus ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
Duns Scotus ◽  
Idea Of God

This article shows that the modal ontological argument as proposed by Gottrieb Leibniz was very much anticipated in its logical articulation by John Duns Scotus in his work De Primo Principio. To this end, the author analyzes some of the various versions of the argument present in the philosophical thought of authors such as Scotus, Leibniz, Malcom and Plattinga, and demonstrates that those versions are based on the hidden premise of the possibility of the idea of God. In this respect, the Spanish philosopher Gustavo Bueno defends what he calls an “inverted ontological argument” which, if viable, would prove not so much the non-existence of God but that the idea of God does not exist itself.

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