Robert Kilwardby

Robert Kilwardby is a central figure in late medieval philosophy and theology, but key areas of his thought have until now remained unexamined in a systematic way. Kilwardby taught Arts at the University of Paris and Theology at the University of Oxford around the mid thirteenth century. He is among the first in the Latin West to comment on the newly translated works of Aristotle and among the first Dominicans to comment on the Sentences of Peter Lombard at Oxford. Writing at that time, Kilwardby is both witness and actor in the emerging conflict between the traditions of Augustinianism and the new Aristotelianism. By offering a comprehensive overview of his works, ranging from topics in logic to theology, this book shows the development of those disciplines and traditions in a way that is accessible to nonspecialists and to anyone interested in medieval thought.

Introduction

When I told a well-known scholar that I was writing a book on Robert Kilwardby for the series Great Medieval Thinkers, he commented with humor that “Robert Kilwardby” and “Great Medieval Thinker” didn’t quite fit together. Humor aside, I guess many would be tempted to agree with him. Kilwardby has often been considered a secondary figure, remaining in the shadow of other major thinkers of the thirteenth century—and there were many. However, it all depends on how one defines “greatness.” Is the basis for greatness influence or prestige, originality or relevance?...

The Dominican Robert Kilwardby (ca. 1215–1279) as schoolman and ecclesiastical official

This article, by reworking the most recent specialist contributions, presents a fresh overview of the scholastic and ecclesiastical contributions of the Oxford Dominican Robert Kilwardby (ca. 1215–1279). After highlighting the current research problem of the ‘canon’ in Medieval philosophy, the article turns to Kilwardby as a positive example of a ‘non-canonised’ thinker from the high Middle Ages – one who is thus thoroughly researched in a specialised or niche compartment, but who remains mostly unacknowledged in mainstream or ‘canonised’ Medieval philosophy. The article thus reappraises Kilwardby intending to accentuate his scholastic and ecclesiastical contributions beyond the confines of a particular niche. Kilwardby’s often provocative combination of Aristotelian natural philosophy and Augustinianism as a schoolman, and his central yet problematic role in the Paris-Oxford condemnations of 1277 as an ecclesiastical official, are henceforth reappraised.Intradisciplinary/interdisciplinary implications: As a millennium-long discourse, Medieval philosophy functions in a Venn diagrammatical relationship with Medieval history, Church history, patristics and philosophy of religion. Whenever ‘mainstream’ or ‘canonised’ Medieval philosophy is impacted from the niche research, it may well have implications that these closely related disciplines could take note of. Such is the case in this ‘hourglass’ reappraisal of life and work of Robert Kilwardby as a scholastic thinker and an ecclesiastical official.

Demonstrability of Categories: the viae divisivae and their criticisms

From an early stage, the Aristotelian list of ten categories was seen with suspicion. Authors discussed not only the scope of the list - expressions, concepts, realities -, but also its alleged arbitrariness. One of the attempts to give an account of the completeness and sufficiency of the Aristotelian categories was inspired by a passage in Aristotle’s Topics: a via divisiva, in a shape of a tree, which covers all the possibilities. At least since Porphyry, several authors applied this scheme to the ten categories. With this work, I intend to present some of the viae divisivae created by 13th century authors, i.e., Robert Kilwardby, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas. In a second moment, I will give an account about Duns Scotus’ critique to this kind of procedure. According to Scotus, theviae divisivae do the opposite of what is intended.