Buridan and Skepticism

Buridan and Skepticism JACK ZUPKO DESPITEJOHN BURIDAN'SREPUTATIONas the foremost Parisian philosopher of the fourteenth century and the predominant role played by his teachings in European universities until well into the sixteenth century,' our understanding of his thought in a number of areas remains sketchy. Epistemology is a case in point. Only a handful of studies have touched on this topic over the past five decades,, and most of these have been interested not in explaining Buridan's epistemology per se, but in sorting out the complex relationship between Buridan's remarks on knowledge and a number of skeptical propositions associated with Nicholas of Autrecourt. Because I feel that this relationship has never been properly understood, and that Buridan's reply to Nicholas is as good a place as any to begin discussing his epistemology, the present study will likewise be addressed to this issue. But it should serve as well to illustrate Buridan's general position on the question of human knowledge, since, as we shall see below, his reply to Nicholas makes no sense unless certain doctrines implicit in his brief remarks are made explicit. As far as Buridan and Nicholas are concerned, two facts stand in need of explanation: on the one hand, the fact that Buridan and Nicholas were con- ' As the late Jan Pinborg once observed, Buridan's "way of doing philosophy and his main tenets affected all European universities for the next 15~ years or more, often to the degree that his works were used as primary textbooks at important courses" (Preface to The Logic.of,John Buridan: Acts of the Third European Symposium on Medieval Logic and Semantics [Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum, 1976l,7). ' See, e.g., Ernest A. Moody,"Ockham, Buridan, and Nicholasof Autrecourt," Franciscan Studies 7.2 (June 1947): i 13-46, rpr. in Moody, Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic (Berkeley:UniversityofCalifornia Press, 1975), 1~7-6o; T. K. Scott,Jr., "NicholasofAutrecourt, Buridan and Ockhamism,"Journal of the History of Philosophy 9 (1971): 15-41; J. M. Thijssen, "John Buridan and Nicholasof Autrecourt on Causalityand Induction," Traditio 43 (1987):~3755 . Another group of studies has examined Buridan's epistemologyfrom the standpoint of his logic and theory of demonstration: Scott, "John Buridan on the Objects of Demonstrative Science ," Speculum 4~ (1965): 654-73; Sten Ebbesen, "Proof and Its Limits according to Buridan: Suramulae 8," Preuve et raisonsg~l'Universit~de Paris: Logique, ontologieet theologicau XIVe sikcle,ed. Z. Kaluza et P. Vignaux (Paris:J. Vrin, 1984),97-11o; Peter King, "Jean Buridan's Philosophyof Science,"Studies in History and Philosophyof Science 18(1987): 1o9-32. [19'] 192 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:2 APRIL 1993 temporaries at Paris, making it improbable that Buridan did not at least have some acquaintance with Nicholas's notorious skeptical theses (several of which were formally condemned in 1346); on the other, Buridan's apparent failure, despite his philosophical reputation and stature at the University, to attempt anywhere in his known corpus of writings a serious, sustained defense of the possibility of knowledge against Nicholas's skeptical challenges. Portions of questions in two different works are thought to contain replies to Nicholas's arguments,s but neither discussion seems to do much more than merely gainsay Nicholas's position by rejecting his criterion of certainty. Not surprisingly, commentators have been disconcerted by Buridan's silence on the matter. It has been suggested that Buridan had not read enough of Nicholas's work to understand it,4 and that his reply may have been directed not against Nicholas but "some anonymous, or perhaps illusive [s/e], opponents."5 One commentator even finds in Buridan a "schizophrenic attitude" towards articles of the faith, accounting for his failure to take seriously the implications of divine omnipotence in developing his theory of knowledge. 8 My aim here is to rehabilitate Buridan by showing that his failure to rebut Nicholas's arguments is part of a broader and perfectly sensible antiskeptical strategy rooted in his theory of evidentness and certainty. I think the appearance that Buridan does little to engage Nicholas's arguments is correct, but not because he was unfamiliar with them. Rather, Buridan thinks that some kinds...