Aristotelianism and the Longevity of the Medieval World View

The discarded image, an introduction to medieval and renaissance literature (Cambridge, 1964), 121.

As illustrations, we might mention that a few scholastics in the fourteenth century (Thomas Bradwardine, Nicole Oresme, and perhaps Jean de Ripa) assumed the actual existence of an infinite, extracosmic void (see my article, “Place and space in medieval physical thought”, in Motion and time, space and matter, interrelations in the history of philosophy and science, ed. Machamer Peter K. Turnbull Robert G. (Columbus, Ohio, 1976), 137–67; that there were those who insisted that the matter of the celestial and terrestrial regions was identical (for example, Ockham William , Commentary on the Sentences, bk 2, Question 22 in Guilelmus de Occam, O.F.M., Opera plurima (Lyon, 1494–96; reprinted by The Gregg Press, London, 1962), vol. iv: Super 4 libros Sententiarum, bk 2, Question 22 (“Utrum in celo sit materia eiusdem rationis cum materia istorum inferiorum”), sig. Hiii, recto-Hiiii, verso (no foliation)); and that at least one scholastic, Oresme Nicole , proposed a doctrine of place that clashed with Aristotle's (see Nicole Oresme: Le livre du ciel et du monde, ed. Menut Albert D. Denomy Alexander J. ; translated with an introduction by Menut Albert D. (Madison, Wis., 1968), bk 1, ch. 24, p. 173). Although other changes could be cited, these suffice to convey something of the nature of the alterations that were suggested.

Many of these suggestions followed as a consequence of the Condemnation of 1277, issued by Tempier Etienne , the bishop of Paris, and the general interpretation of God's absolute power in the fourteenth century. On the impact of the Condemnation of 1277, see Duhem Pierre , Le système du monde. Histoire des doctrines cosmologiques de Platon à Copernic (10 vols, Paris, 1913–59), Partie Quatrième , “Le Reflux de l'Aristotélisme: Les condemnations de 1277”, vol. vi, and Grant Edward , Physical science in the Middle Ages (New York, 1971), 24–36. In altering situations within and without our world, God was frequently imagined to annihilate or create bodies. The possible consequences of such actions were then discussed. On the possibility of a plurality of worlds, see Duhem , Le système du monde, vol. ix, ch. 20, 363–430, and his Etudes sur Léonard de Vinci, ceux qu'il a lus et ceux qui l'ont lu (3 vols, Paris, 1906–13; reprinted 1955), vol. ii, 57–96. 408–23; for a recent summary of medieval views, see Dick Steven J. , “Plurality of worlds and natural philosophy: An historical study of the origins of belief in other worlds and extra-terrestrial life” (Indiana University, Ph.D. dissertation, 1977), 71–108.

The illustrations below are drawn largely from my article “Medieval cosmology”, which will appear in a forthcoming volume by Lindberg David C. (ed.), Science in the Middle Ages (University of Chicago Press).

On the problem of celestial commensurability or incommensurability, see Nicole Oresme and the kinematics of circular motion: Tractatus de commensurabilitate vel incommensurabilitate motuum celi, edited with an introduction, English translation, and commentary by Grant Edward (Madison, Wis., 1971). Oresme argues that each of these alternatives determines a radically different world order. For the consequences of each, and Oresme's position, see 67–77.

See Grant Edward , A source book in Medieval science (Cambridge, Mass., 1974), 263–4.

Ibid., 275–80.

Ibid., 253–62.

Ibid., 603–14.

Ibid., 621–4.

For the enunciations of all 266 questions, see ibid., 199–210.

Gillispie Charles Coulston , The edge of objectivity, An essay in the history of scientific ideas (Princeton, N.J., 1969), 11.

A significant aspect of the questiones format, and the commentary form generally, is that it tended to discourage the introduction of topics and ideas which had no counterpart in the Aristotelian texts. Thus while a host of specific Aristotelian topics and themes were subjected to minute analysis, with a consequent multiplication of interpretations and opinions, subjects that were not considered at all by Aristotle could not be readily fitted into the traditional framework of questions. Thus it was the independent question based on a problem specifically raised by Aristotle which constituted the basis of medieval scholastic literature. Despite this seemingly severe restriction, however, new ideas and concepts could be introduced as extensions, or implications, of traditional problems.

Summa philosophie naturalis Magistri Pauli Veneti noviter recognita et a vitiis purgata ac pristine integritati restituta (Venice, 1503). In the first edition published at Venice in 1476, the title given in the colophon is Summa naturalium.

Meteorologica 1.1.338a.20–338b.22, as translated by Lee H. D. P. in the Loeb Classical Library (London, 1962; Cambridge, Mass., 1962). Although Aristotle's remarks might have served as a point of departure for cosmic reflections, their only apparent effect was to provide an order of discussion for the subject matter of the four treatises mentioned. While Thomas Aquinas offers a brief commentary on Aristotle's introductory passage (see Aquinas , In Aristotelis libros De caelo et mundo; De generatione et corruptione; Meteorologicorum expositio (Turin/Rome, 1952), p. 392, col. 1), others, such as Judaeus Themon Oresme Nicole , and the Coimbra Jesuit commentators of the late sixteenth century, chose to ignore it in the commentaries and questiones on the Meteorologica.

Even the order of discussion is puzzling, since Paul places the Metaphysics last, rather than first, which seems a priori more logical. John Dumbleton's fourteenth century Summa logicae et philosophiae naturalis exhibits a similar tendency. “Parts II-X [Part I is on logic] of Dumbleton's Summa, the only one produced by the early Mertonians on natural philosophy, is really a collection of certain dubia ‘magnorum naturalium quinque’” ( Weisheipl James A. , O.P., “Ockham and some Mertonians”, Mediaeval studies, XXX (1968), 200–1 (the bracketed phrase is mine)). The “five great natural books” from which the dubia were drawn are Aristotle's Physics, De caelo, Meteorologica, De generatione et corruptione, and De anima. During the 1550s Petrus Fonseca conceived the idea of a course on Aristotelian philosophy for Jesuit schools (see Lohr Charles H. , “Renaissance Latin Aristotle commentaries: Authors C”, Renaissance quarterly, xxviii (1975), 717). To achieve this, he simply ordered commentaries on the separate works of Aristotle. Construction of an integrated world view based on Aristotle, but not slavishly harnessed to the separate works of the corpus, probably never occurred to him.

Reisch Gregor , Margarita philosophica; mit einem Vorwort, einer Einleitung und einem neuen Inhaltsverzeichnis von Lutz Geldsetzer. Instrumenta philosophica, Series thesauri, I (Düsseldorf, 1973; reprint of the 4th ed., Basel, 1517), p.v., where Reisch furnishes a partitio philosophie.

See my introduction to the “Classification of the sciences”, in Grant E. (ed.), A source book in Medieval science (ref. 6), 53–54.

Schmitt Charles , A critical survey and bibliography of studies on Renaissance Aristotelianism, 1958–1969. Saggi e testi, xi (Padua, 1971), 17–18.