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307 CHAPTER FOURTEEN OCKHAM’S CONCEPTION OF MATTER1 As Ernest Moody points out: Ockham’s philosophy was developed with critical fervor and in a spirit of protest, as the reaction of a brilliant and passionately logical mind to the second rate scholasticism which had become established in the universities during the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. His criticisms are rarely directed against the “ancients”, and where they bear on teachings of Duns Scotus they come nearer to being interpretations or discussions of doctrine, than critical attacks. Ockham’s unnamed adversary, for whom he has little sympathy and less respect, is the communis opinio modernorum.2 His contempt for these “moderns” stands in sharp contrast to his respect for Scotus, whom he cites frequently, and his attitude towards Aquinas, to whom he rarely refers. Obviously Ockham did not go to the latter’s works in attacking positions reputedly Thomist, for as he presents these views they appear too often as “crude caricatures of the delicately nuanced discussions of St. Thomas.” Yet, as Moody shows, Ockham was not out for cheap victories. Few scholastics were more exhaustingly painstaking than he in setting out their opponent’s opinions. The most likely target of Ockham’s so-called “Thomist critique” seems to be none other than Giles of Rome. Moody’s careful analysis of certain key doctrines lends considerable strength to this view. And certainly in the years that Ockham was a student at Oxford, “there was no more eminent or authoritative representative of the communis opinio modernorum than Aegidius of Rome.”3 Historians of philosophy in our own day are less likely to accept this “auditor of Aquinas” as his faithful disciple and authentic interpreter. They are too keenly aware of the transformation the saint’s doctrines underwent in his hands, especially as regards the real distinction between essence and existence, his notion of quantity as a res absoluta, his conception of relation, his development and emphasis on the distinction between forma partis and forma totius, to mention a few that Ockham singles out for special criticism. All this should be kept in mind in reading Ockham’s interpretation of hylomorphism, lest one dismiss his denunciation of certain viewpoints as little more than a clumsy critique of the authentic “Thomist” position. There is a sense, of course, in which we could speak of his theory of matter as a criticism of Thomism even as we could designate it a defense of Scotism, but only because these labels can be so broadly construed as to include any and every 308 SCOTUS & OCKHAM independent development that drew some measure of inspiration from Aquinas or the Subtle Duns. But such a characterization says little more than Ockham’s hylomorphic theory differs substantially from that of Thomas and comes closer to that of Scotus. Its resemblance to the latter is seen especially in the way Ockham understands the real distinction between matter and form and the actuality of matter. Like Scotus, he rejects the theory of a plurality of forms in inorganic compounds, but accepts it as more probable for living organisms. On the other hand, he disagrees with his Scotish confrère’s claim that there is no real distinction between the sensitive and intellective form in man, but follows him in rejecting the Augustinian thesis of seminal reasons or inchoate forms in matter, a view defended by Albertus Magnus and Bonaventure and revived in a more modern garb by some neo-scholastics. But for all its resemblance to the Scotist position, Ockham’s notion of matter is essentially the fruit of his personal reflections on the Physics of Aristotle. In fact, as he tells us in the introduction to both the Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis and the Summula Philosophia Naturalis, he is not even concerned with presenting his personal views as a Catholic and theologian on the philosophy of nature. His aim is rather to explain what he considers to be the authentic interpretation of natural philosophy according to Aristotle’s own principles in these two commentaries . When his presentation becomes polemical, it seems directed in the main against the moderni. In presenting his interpretation of Aristotle’s theory of matter, I shall draw chiefly upon his own synoptic account in the Summula,4 using the more extensive Expositio5 for an occasional clarification. For his own novel view on the nature of celestial matter, however, I have drawn upon the Reportatio of his questions on the second book of the Sentences.6 1. THE...

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