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Reviewed by:
  • Questiones libri Porphirii by Thomas Manlevelt
  • Lloyd A. Newton
Thomas Manlevelt. Questiones libri Porphirii. Critical edition with Introduction and Indices by Alfred van der Helm. Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, 113. Series editor, Josef Koch. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2014. Pp. xiv + 433. Cloth, $218.00.

Originally authored in the 1330s, Manlevelt’s commentary on the Isagoge is one of the innumerable medieval commentaries written on a portion of the logica vetus, which consisted of Aristotle’s Categories, On Interpretation, and Porphyry’s Isagoge. Since it was commonplace for a schoolman to author a commentary on some portion of logic, the number of extant commentaries from the Middle Ages is considerable, well over a hundred per original text. The sheer volume of medieval commentaries raises the question of the relevance of any particular commentary. Some commentaries deserve attention due to the status of the author, such as those by Aquinas, Scotus, or Ockham. Others deserve attention because of the unique positions and arguments used to advance those positions. The present text falls in the latter division and merits closer study for a number of reasons.

Unlike earlier, literal commentaries, Manlevelt’s work consists of forty-five questions that he uses to explore various philosophical positions, and is the companion to his questions on the Categories. As is well known, Porphyry raises, but fails to discuss, three questions concerning universals: (1) Do universals, generic and specific concepts, exist in the world of reality, or are they merely things of the mind? (2) If they do exist outside the mind, are they corporeal or incorporeal? (3) Do they exist in concrete sensible things or outside them? While many commentators disregard Porphyry’s modest example of not discussing these questions, not so Manlevelt. Apparently, he deemed the questions already answered satisfactorily, by none other than William of Ockham. Thus, the most important thing to be noted about this commentary is the nominalism of the author. Manlevelt, however, is not just a nominalist, but takes nominalism to its logical conclusion, including a radical emphasis on the primacy of the individual over the universal, even regarding universal concepts, which are also individual.

Van der Helm is incisive in describing the groundbreaking theoretical advances he attributes to Thomas over Ockham, pointing out that, within scholastic realism, the active intellect abstracts the universal, the intelligible form (species intelligibiles), from sensible images. For the Ockhamist nominalist, this is a concept, or conceptual act, “referring to a multitude of singular objects of which it is the natural sign. And here it is that Manlevelt comes into play: by exploring exactly what it means for a conceptual act to be a sign of such a multitude of singular objects, and exactly how such a sign does what it is supposed to do.” Thus Van der Helm rightly claims that, for this move, Thomas “deserves every scholar’s keenest attention, if only because what he does here is completely lacking in Ockham” (87–88). Indeed, as a nominalist, Manlevelt exerted significant influence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. His most radical position, though, is his unique denial of substance (a position not defended again until David Hume). Taking the consecrated host as his starting point, he argues that the existence of substances, whether terrestrial or celestial, is unnecessary for explanatory purposes. Rather, accidents inhere in and support one another.

The denial of substance is tied to a broader question, the so-called sufficientia praedicamenta or the number of categories. Normally, commentators raise the question of [End Page 332] how many categories exist in a commentary on the Categories, not in a commentary on the Isagoge. Manlevelt’s commentary on the Isagoge is unusual insofar as he raises the question in this commentary. Unlike Ockham, who was willing to reduce the ten categories to the two categories of substance and quality, Manlevelt, insofar as he denies that even substance exists, is willing to argue that only qualities exist!

Finally, in keeping with the Franciscan concern for individuals, Manlevelt raises the term ‘individuum’ not only to the status of a universal, since it is predicated universally of every singular item in reality, but even to the status of a transcendental...

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