Showing posts with label Petrus Rogerius. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Petrus Rogerius. Show all posts

Friday, May 27, 2011

Points of Disagreement between Scotists and Thomists

In 1320 there was a debate between two bachelors of theology at Paris, the Franciscan Francis of Meyronnes and the Cistercian Peter Roger, later Pope Clement V.  These two bachelors acted as the representatives of the nascent schools of Thomism and Scotism, and their debate was about the formal distinction and the instants/signa of origin and nature. For those interested in reading more, the dispute has been edited (mostly; at least one ms. was missed) and published by J. Vrin for a reasonable price under the title of Disputatio.  The section I translate here is from Francis of Meyronnes list of four points about the formal distinction that were commonly attacked at the time.

Francois de Meyronnes - Pierre Roger, Disputio (1320-1321), ed. J. Barbet, p. 102:

From those statements follow four conclusions in which our school is accustomed to be attacked.

The first is that one must grant some middle distinction between a real distinction and a distinction of reason fabricated by the soul, because that is a medium between some things that is related by the denial of each extreme; that distinction, however, is not posited as being real nor fabricated by the soul.

The second conclusion: that not every distinction outside the soul is real, since those distinctions are posited, with every act of the intellect circumscribed, and nevertheless they are called real. [Perhaps the "those" is a reference to the distinction between essence and relation in God].

The third conclusion: that in one reality can be found many formal rationes, because a formal ratio and a definitive [ratio] are the same and from this part, although there is only one thing [res], there are many formal or definitive rationes.

The fourth conclusion is that formal rationes are able to agree in one distinctly without any composition, because that one [Petrus Rogerius] concedes that a [combination of] likeness with whiteness causes no composition, although they have distinct quidditative rationes.