Questiones super Physicam (Books I-VII) by Nicole Oresme (review)

Nicole Oresme (ca. 1320–82) is one of the great figures of scholastic philosophy. Heavily influenced by the nominalism of Ockham and Buridan, he is nevertheless on many issues quite independent and original. With this volume, Caroti et al. make available for the first time in print Oresme’s massive question-commentary on Aristotle’s Physics. Based on the sole manuscript known to survive (which runs only through Book VII), this work shows Oresme at his philosophical best, ranging widely over metaphysics and natural philosophy. The text has been edited with considerable care, and should take its place as one of the highpoints of fourteenth-century scholasticism.

The editors are able to date the work with some precision to the mid-1340s. It cannot be later than early 1347, because Oresme here articulates a deflationary conception of accidents as modes (see esp. I.5, II.6, III.6), a thesis that would be condemned that year, and that Oresme’s subsequent works would abandon. This adventuresome thesis is characteristic of the work, which very regularly takes up topics that lie quite far from Aristotle’s text, and proposes intriguing solutions.

Much of the most interesting material comes in Book I, which predictably contains questions devoted to the principles of change, but also includes more distinctively scholastic questions on topics such as the plurality of substantial forms and the relationship between parts and wholes. Oresme’s handling of the last of these topics in I.7 is admirably fine-grained. He maintains both that the whole is just its parts taken all together (simul), and that Aristotle’s notable example from Metaphysics Z, the syllable ‘ba,’ is essentially correct. Oresme notes that the latter of these had been offered as an objection to his own view, seemingly resulting in a tension between the two claims, but he shows how to dissolve the tension by distinguishing between the compounded and divided senses of “the whole is all of its parts.”

The discussion of efficient causation in II.8 is also particularly interesting. There, Oresme gives a provocative indifference argument that demonstrates God’s continuous conservation, and not mere creation. According to Oresme, if we accept that (i) in the first instant of time, God created creation, and (ii) the first instant of time is intrinsically the same as any other instant of time, then it follows that (iii) God creates at any, and every, other instant of time. This argument relies on the general structure of indifference arguments, as well as a contentious claim in (ii), for clearly the first instant of time differs from other instants in one respect: every other instant is preceded by some instant, but the first instant is not. Oresme anticipates such worries, noting that this is an extrinsic difference, and therefore it makes no relevant difference. Both the argument and its dialectical strategy are rich, as is the rest of that particular question.

Subsequent books tilt more heavily toward natural science. Among the most philosophically significant material are extensive, sophisticated discussions of the metaphysics of place and time, the nature of the continuum, and the intension and remission of forms. Throughout, Oresme displays his characteristic and appealing reluctance to choose among competing hypotheses, regularly making remarks to the effect that “in these matters there are multiple solutions that are consistent with reason” (V.1). Historians of science will be interested in the many places where Oresme seems to anticipate modern science, while still remaining characteristically scholastic in his outlook. One particularly notable place is in what amounts to an extended proto-treatise on measurement at VII.5–7, where Oresme asks whether everything is comparable to everything else.

The editors have done an extraordinary job turning a single, unreliable manuscript into a clear and coherent text. The work involved is clear from the textual apparatus, which reveals that on every page...