The Concept of Motion in Jacques Legrand’s Philosophical Compendium

Main Article Content

Daniel Di Liscia

Abstract

The following paper investigates the concept of motion in Jacques Legrand, a hitherto little-studied author of the early fifteenth century. Legrand, an important member of the Order of Hermits of Saint Augustine, wrote a philosophical Compendium for the students of his Order. This contribution first attempts to provide a contextualization of Legrand’s treatment of motion within this work. Legrand’s contribution to philosophical encyclopedism is here discussed. Secondly, it reviews the most important theories on the nature of movement in the Middle Ages. Thirdly, it offers a detailed analysis of Legrand’s arguments in support of the nominalist view that it is unnecessary (if not wrong) to consider the local motion as a fluxus added to the moveable body. The article suggests that Legrand’s generalized nominalist position may be connected with certain lines to be followed within his own Order or even with the anti-realist ideology of the conciliarists philosopher, like Pierre D’Ailly and Jean Gerson.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

Section
ARTICLES

References

Bibliography

Primary sources

Aristotle, Categories, edited by J. Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); translated by J. L. Ackrill, vol. 1, 2-27 (Bollingen Series LXXI.2).
 Physics, edited by J. Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle. The Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984); translated by R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye, vol. 1, 1-161 (Bollingen Series LXXI.2).
Albert the Great (Albertus Magnus), Physica, edited by P. Hossfeld, Alberti Magni Opera Omnia, Physica, pars I, libri 1-4 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1987).
Albert of Saxony (Albertus a Saxonia), Expositio et quaestiones in Aristotelis Physicam ad Albertum de Saxonia attributae, edited by B. Patar, 3 vols., Philosophes médiévaux 39-41 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Éd. de l’Institut Supérieur de Philosophie, 1999).
Anonymous, Compilatio de libris naturalibus Aristotelis et aliorum quorumdam philosophorum, MS BnF, lat. 15879, ff. 125ra-176rb.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd, Averroes Cordubensis), Aristotelis de Physico Auditu, Aristotelis Opera cum Averrois Commentariis, vol. 8 (Venice: Apud Junctas, 1562; repr. Frankfurt, 1962).
John Buridan (Johannes Buridanus), Quaestiones super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis (secundum ultimam lecturam) Libri III-IV, edited by M. Streijger and P.J.J.M. Bakker, guide to the text by E. D. Sylla, Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science 27 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016).
Chartularium Universtitatis pariisiensis, edited by H. Denifle and A. Chatelain (Paris: Ex typis fratrum Delalain, 1889-1897).
Gregory of Rimini (Gregorius Ariminensis), Gregorii Ariminensis OESA Lectura super Primum et Secundum Sententiarum, Tomus IV, Super Secundum (Dist. 1-3) (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1979).
Jacques Legrand (Jacobus Magnus), Archiloge Sophie et Livre des bonnes moeurs, edited by E. Beltrán, Bibliothèque du XVe siècle 49 (Paris: Champion, 1986).
 Compendium utriusque philosophie, Mss Genova, Biblioteca Berio, C.F.53, fols. 2r-235v; Paris, Bibiothèque Nationale, lat. 6752, fols. 4r-236r.
 Lectura super Quattuor libros sententiarum, MS Tarragona, Biblioteca provincial, 103.
 “Collatio” / “Collectio” super Sententias, MS Paris, BnF, Arsenal, 481, ff. 28r-36r.
 Dicta Mss Paris, BnF, Arsenal, 481; Würzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, M.ch.q.3, f. 116-145.
Nicole Oresme (Nicolaus Oresmius), Questiones super Physicam (Books i-vii), edited by S. Caroti, J. Celeyrette, S. Kirschner and E. Mazet, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 112 (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Paul of Venice (Paulus Venetus, Paolo Nicoletto), Summa philosophiae naturalis magistri Pauli Veneti noviter recognita … restituta (Venice: Octavianus Scotus per Bonetum Locatellum, 1503; reprint: Hildesheim and New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1974).
William of Ockham (Gulielmus Occamus), Summula philosophiae naturalis, edited by S. Brown, Guillelmi de Ockham Opera Philosophica et Theologica, Opera Philosophica VI (New York: St. Bonaventure University, 1984), 135-394.


Secondary Sources

ARLIMA, “Jacques Le Grand”, in https://www.arlima.net/il/jacques_le_grand.html
Bell, Dora M., L’idéal éthique de la royauté en France au Moyen Âge d’après quelques moralistes de ce temps (Genève, Droz and Paris: Minard, 1962).
Beltrán, Evencio, “Jacques Legrand prédicateur”, Analecta Augustiniana 30 (1967): 148-209.
 “Jacques Legrand O.E.S.A. Sa vie et son oeuvre”, Augustiniana 24 (1974): 132-160 and 387-414.
 “Un sermon français inédit attribuable à Jacques Legrand”, Romania 93 (1972): 460-478.
Beonio Brocchieri-Fumagalli, Mariateresa, “Le enciclopedie”, in Lo spazio letterario del Medioevo. 1. Il Medioevo Latino. Volume I: La produzione del testo, tomo II, edited by G. Cavallo, C. Leonardi and E. Menestò (Roma: Salerno Editrice, 1995), 635-657.
Bermon, Pascale, L’assentiment et son objet chez Grégoire de Rimini, Études Philosophie Médiévale (Paris: Vrin, 2007).
Borchert, Ernst, Die Lehre von der Bewegung bei Nicolaus Oresme, Beiträge zur Gesch. der Philos und Theol. des Mitt. XXXI, 3 (Münster: Aschendorf, 1934).
Boüard, Michel de, “Encyclopédies médiévales. Sur la “Connaissance de la nature et du monde au moyen âge”, Revue des questions historiques 112 (1930): 258-305.
 Une nouvelle encyclopédie médiévale: le Compendium philosophiae (Paris: E. De Boccard, 1936).
Brown, Stephen F., “Gregory of Rimini (c. 1300-1358),” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 10, edited by E. Craig (London: Routledge, 1998), 170a-172b.
 “Walter Burley, Peter Aureoli, and Gregory of Rimini,” in Medieval Philosophy, edited by J. Marenbon, Routledge History of Philosophy 3 (London: Routledge, 1998), 368-385.
Caroti, Stefano, “Oresme on Motion (Questiones super Physicam III, 2-7)”, Vivarium 31 (1993): 8-36.
 “La position de Nicole Oresme sur la nature du mouvement (Questiones super Physicam III, 1-8): Problèmes gnoséologiques, ontologiques et sémantiques”, Archives d’Histoire Doctrinale et Littéraire du Moyen Age 61 (1994): 303-385.
 “Nicole Oresme et les modi rerum”, Oriens-Occidens 3 (2000): 115-144.
 “Hugolinus ab Urbeveteri, Questiones super Physicam III, 1-3 (avec quelques souvenirs personnels)”, Przegląd Tomistyczny 24 (2018): 91-134.
Courtenay, William J., Ockham and Ockhamism. Studies in the Dissemination and Impact of His Thought, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 99 (Leiden: Brill, 2008).
Di Liscia, Daniel A., “The Subject Matter of Physics and Metaphysics in Jacques Legrand’s Compendium utriusque philosophie”, Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval 24 (2017): 249-265.
 “Transmutación y movimiento según el tiempo en Jacques Legrand (Compedium utriusque philosophie IV, 1-2)”, in Per philosophica documenta. Estudios en honor de Francisco Bertelloni, edited by C. J. Fernández and M. Pérez Carrasco (Buenos Aires: Editorial de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, 2021), 151-175.
 “Perfections and Latitudes. The Development of the Calculators’ Tradition and the Geometrisation of Metaphysics and Theology”, in Quantifying Aristotle. The Impact, Spread and Decline of the Calculatores Tradition, edited by D.A. Di Liscia and E. D. Sylla, Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 278-327.
Ehrle, Franz, Der Sentenzenkommentar Peters von Candia des Pisaner Papstes Alexanders V. Ein Beitrag zur Scheidung der Schulen in der Scholastik des vierzehnten Jahrhunderts und zur Geschichte des Wegestreites, Franziskanische Studien, Beiheft 9 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1925).
Goddu, André, The Physics of William of Ockham, Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters 16 (Leiden: Brill, 1984).
Grant, Edward, Much Ado About Nothing. Theories of space and vacuum from the Middle Ages to the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Hissette, Roland, Enquête sur les 219 articles condamnés à Paris le 7 mars 1277, Philosophes médiévaux 22 (Leuven: Brill, 1977).
Hoenen, Marteen J. F., “‘Modus loquendi platonicorum’. Johannes Gerson und seine Kritik an Platon und den Platonisten”, in The Platonic Tradition in the Middle Ages. A Doxographic Approach, edited by S. Gersch and M.J.F. Hoenen, with the assistance of P. Th. van Wingerden (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2002), 325-343.
Kaluza, Zénon, “Gerson et les querelles doctrinales”, in Les querelles doctrinales à Paris. Nominalistes et réalistes aux confins du XIVe et du XVe siècle, edited by Z. Kaluza, (Bergamo: Pierluigi Lubrina Editore, 1988), 35-86.
Kirschner, Stefan, Nicolaus Oresmes Kommentar zur Physik des Aristoteles, Sudhoffs Archiv Beihefte 39 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1997).
Knuutila, Simo and Lehtinen, Anja Inkeri, “Change and Contradiction: A Fourteenth Century Controversy”, Synthese 40 (1979): 189-207.
Kuhry, Emmanuelle, “La tradition textuelle du Compendium philosophie: une illustration des échanges culturels dans le monde monastique et scolaire anglaise”, Tabularia ‘Études’ 14 (2014): 235-270.
Marguin-Hamon, Elsa, “Jacques Legrand: deux langues, deux espaces, un projet double”, in L’expérience des frontières et les littératures de l’Europe médiévale, edited by S. Lodén and V. Obry, Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Moyen Âge 26 (Paris: Champion, 2019), 271-292.
Maier, Anneliese, Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik, Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik V (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1958).
 Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert, Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik I, 2nd ed. (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 1966).
Martin, Henry, Catalogue des Manuscripts de la Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, vol. 1 (Paris: Plon, 1885).
McCord Adams, Marilyn, William of Ockham, 2 vols. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).
McCullough, Ernest J., “St. Albert on Motion as Forma Fluens and Fluxus Formae”, in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences. Commemorative Essays 1980, edited by J. Athanasius Weisheipl (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1980), 129-153.
McGrade, Arthur Stephen, “Rights, natural rights, and the philosophy of law”, in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, edited by Ch. B. Schmitt, Q. Skinner, E. Kessler and J. Kraye (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 738-756.
Meier, Christel, “Grundzüge der mittelalterlichen Enzyklopädik. Zu Inhalten, Formen und Funktionen einer problematischen Gattung”, in Literatur und Laienbildung im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit. Symposion Wolfenbüttel 1981, edited by L. Grenzmann and K. Stackmann (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1984), 467-500.
 “Organisation of Knowledge and Encyclopaedic Ordo: Functions and Purposes of a Universal Literary Genre”, in Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts. Proceedings of the Second COMERS Congress, Groningen, 1-4 July 1996, edited by P. Binkley, Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History 79 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 103-126.
MIRABILE. Archivio digitale della cultura medieval. Digital Archives for Medieval in: http://sip.mirabileweb.it/manuscript/paris–bibliothèque–nationale–de–france–lat–15879–manuscript/148010
Mussou, Amandine, “‘Declairier aucunes choses que la rime contient’: lumières de la prose, étincelles du vers chez Évrart de Conty et Jacques Legrand”, in Sens, rhétorique et musique. Études réunies en hommage à Jacqueline Cerquiglini-Toulet, edited by S. Albert, M. Demaules, E. Doudet, S. Lefèvre, Ch. Lucken and A. Sultan, Colloques, congrès et conférences sur le Moyen Âge 21 (Paris: Champion, 2015), t. 1, 459-472.
Oberman, Heiko, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism, revised ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001).
Ritter, Gerhard, Studien zur Spätscholastik, II, Via antiqua und via moderna auf den deutschen Universitäten des XV. Jahrhunderts, Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften, Phil-Hist, Klasse 7 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1922).
Roth, Francis, “Jacques Legrand (Jacobus Magni) † 1425”, Augustiniana 7 (1957): 313-326.
 “The Great Schism and the Augustinian Order”, Augustiniana 8, 3 (1958): 281-298.
Sarnowsky, Jürgen, Die aristotelisch-scholastische Theorie der Bewegung. Studien zum Kommentar Alberts von Sachsen zur Physik des Aristoteles (Münster: Aschendorf, 1989).
 “Nicole Oresme and Albert of Saxony’s Commentary on the Physics. The Problems of Vacuum and Motion in a Void,” in Quia inter doctores est magna dissensio. Les débats de philosophie naturelle à Paris au xive siècle, edited by S. Caroti and J. Celeyrette, Biblioteca di Nuncius 52 (Florence: Olschki, 2004), 161-175.
Schnerb, Bertrand, Les Armagnacs et les Bourguinons. La maudite guerre (Paris: Perrin, 1988).
Shapiro, Herman, Motion, Time and Place according to William William Ockam (New York: St. Bonaventure University, 1957).
Smith, Kevin, “Ockham’s Influence on Gregory of Rimini’s Natural Philosophy,” in Dialexeis: Akademaiko etos 1996-7, edited by V. Syros, A. Kouris and H. Kalokairinou (Nicosia: Homilos Philosophias Panepistemiou Kyprou, 1999), 107-142.
Spinka, Matthew, John Hus and the Council of Constance. Translated from the Latin and the Czech with Notes and Introduction (New York and London: Columbia University Press, 1965).
Thijssen, Johannes M. M. H., “The Debate over the Nature of Motion: John Buridan, Nicole Oresme and Albert of Saxony. With an Edition of John Buridan’s Quaestiones super libros Physicorum, secundum ultimam lecturam, Book III, q. 7”, in Evidence and Interpretation in Studies on Early Science and Medicine, edited by E. D. Sylla and W. R. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 186-210.
Thorndike, Lynn, “An Anonymous Treatise in Six Books on Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy”, The Philosophical Review 40 (1931): 317-340.
 A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923-1958), vol. 3, 1934.
Trapp, Damasus, “Clm 27034: Unchristened Nominalism and Wycliffite Realism at Prague in 1381”, Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 24 (1957): 320-360.
 “Notes on the Tübingen Edition of Gregory of Rimini II”, Augustiniana 30 (1980): 46-57.
Trifogli, Cecilia, “Thomas Wylton on Motion”, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 77, 2 (1995): 135-154.
 “Motion and Time”, in A companion to Walter Burley, edited by A. Conti (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 267-299.
Ventura, Iolanda, “On Philosophical Encyclopaedism in the Fourteenth Century: The Catena aurea entium of Henry of Herford”, in Une lumière venue d’ailleurs. Héritages et ouvertures dans les encyclopédies d’Orient et d’Occident au Moyen Age. Actes du colloque de Louvain-la-Neuve, 19-21 mai 2005, edited by G. de Callataÿ and B. Van den Abeele, Réminisciences 9 (Louvain-la-Neuve: Centre de recherche en histoire des sciences, 2008), 199-245.
Ypma, Eelcko, La formation des professeurs chez les ermites de Saint-Augustin de 1256 à 1354. Un nouvel ordre à ses débuts théologiques (Paris: Centre d’Études des Augustins, 1965).
Zumkeller, Adolar, “Die Augustinerschule des Mittelalters: Vertreter und philosophisch-theologische Lehre (Übersicht nach dem heutigen Stand der Forschung)”, Analecta Augustiniana 27 (1964): 166-262.
Zumkeller, Adolar, Theology and History of the Augustinian School in the Middle Ages, edited by J. E. Rotelle, O.S.A. (Villanova: Augustinian Press, 1996).