Thirteenth-Century Engagements with Thomas Aquinas

Before he gained the status of received authority, Thomas Aquinas influenced scholastic thought by shaping conversations around and by establishing approaches to specific topics. Scholastic thinkers engaged in these conversations and with these specific topics in various ways, both directly and indirectly. While the Correctoria controversy reflected direct engagements with Aquinas, whether critical or supportive, the majority of scholastic engagements with Thomas was more indirect. Typical examples can be found in the works of Giles of Rome, Siger of Brabant, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry of Ghent. Among other topics, these thinkers engaged with Thomas on the possibility of an eternal world, on the unicity of substantial form, and on the relationship between esse and essentia. Engagements with Aquinas were complicated by Stephen Tempier’s condemnations of 1277, which touched upon some Thomistic positions and more generally reframed scholastic approaches to philosophical speculations with theological bearings.

Concepts of Space in the Fourteenth Century

Spatium or “space” was not a technical term of late medieval natural philosophy. Instead, scholastic Aristotelians took locus or “place” as the relevant physical concept. The major topics to be considered here are (1) Aristotle’s concept of “place” in book IV of the Physics and in commentaries on it; (2) the appearance and use of the Latin word spatium in works of abstract or concrete mathematics; and (3) discussions of imaginary space outside the physical cosmos, often in connection with the ubiquity of God or the place and motion of angels. Examples are taken from the works of John Philoponus, Henry of Ghent, and most often from the work of the fourteenth-century natural philosopher and theologian Nicole Oresme.

Being is Said in Many Ways

Chapter 1 introduces the main topics of univocity, equivocity, and analogy, in general and more specifically with respect to being. What does it mean to say that being is univocal with respect to God and creatures and between each of the categories? After setting up these terms in the first section, the second section takes up standard arguments against the univocity of being. These include Parmenides’s quandary of how to divide being and the introduction of real commonality into the divine essence. The third section then turns to the argument for analogy of being made by Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent. Given these strong arguments against univocity, the fourth section asks why Scotus would defend such a problematic view. It focuses on two interrelated arguments: our lack of cognition of substance and our lack of cognition of God without a univocal concept of being. The fifth section concludes with one of Scotus’s proofs for being as a univocal concept. Scotus argues that a philosopher such as Thales was certain that water was a being, yet incorrect as to its determination (i.e., he believed it to be primary). If being were not univocal, Scotus shows, such would not be possible.

‘A Claim on Their Gratitude’

This chapter focuses on the individuals immortalized in the portrait panels in the new library of the Collège de Sorbonne. Built on a north-south axis, the long sides of the new library’s upper floor feature thirty-eight windows that not only provided necessary light but also serve as the library’s principal ornamentation. Twenty-five of the windows were embellished with portrait panels, presenting in each window an individual who had some ‘claim on the college's gratitude’. These individuals are Robert of Sorbon, William of Saint-Amour, Henry of Ghent, Godfrey [of Fontaines], Thomas of Ireland, Henry of Hesse, John of Pouilly, Peter Plaoul, John Luillier, Francis of Fon-tenay, Martin of Andocilia, John Noseret, Francis of Segovia, John of Pardo, John Jassa, John Quentin, John of La Rochelle, Gilbert Guérin, Peter Voleau, Dominic Beguin, Andrew of Château-Neuf, Gilles Boileau de Bouillon, John Charron, Gilbert Fournier, and John Standonck.