John Duns Scotus and the Ontology of Mixture

This paper presents Duns Scotus’s theory of mixture in the context of medieval discussions over Aristotle’s theory of mixed bodies. It revisits the accounts of mixture given by Avicenna, Averroes, and Thomas Aquinas, before presenting Scotus’s account as a reaction to Averroes. It argues that Duns Scotus rejected the Aristotelian theory of mixture altogether and that his account went contrary to the entire Latin tradition. Scotus denies that mixts arise out of the four classical elements and he maintains that both the elemental forms and the elemental qualities are lost in the mixture. Consequently, he denies the distinction between the process of mixture and that of substantial change through generation and corruption. The reassessment of Scotus’s account modifies the current historical representation of this discussion, inherited from Anneliese Maie

Cartesian Meteors and Scholastic Meteors: Descartes against the School in 1637

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Hylomorphism versus the Theory of Elements in Late Aristotelianism: Péter Pázmány and the Sixteenth-Century Exegesis of Meteorologica IV

This paper investigates Péter Pázmány’s theory of mixtures from his exegesis of Meteorologica IV, in the context of sixteenth-century scholarship on Aristotle’s Meteorologica. It aims to contribute to a discussion of Anneliese Maier’s thesis concern- ing the incompatibility between hylomorphism and the theory of elements in the Aristotelian tradition. It presents two problems: (1) the placement of Meteorologica IV in the Jesuit cursus on physics and (2) the conceptualization of putrefaction as a type of substantial mutation. Through an analysis of these issues, it shows (1) how sixteenth- century exegesis imposes the hylomorphic thesis onto the subject matter of meteorol- ogy and (2) how the hylomorphic theory of substantial change can be adapted in order to accommodate the theory of elements. The case being made is that Meteorologica is a privileged place where hylomorphism and the theory of elements meet and that the late Aristotelian theory of mixtures sought to accommodate both theories of material substance

Philosophia peripatetica emendata. Leibniz and Des Bosses on the Aristotelian Corporeal Substance

This paper presents Leibniz and Des Bosses's views on extension and the corporeal substance. It presents Des Bosses's philosophical project as a way of shedding light on the well-known correspondence between the two and uses a previously unexplored text: Des Bosses's outline of a metaphysical treatise of his own. The paper argues that Leibniz introduced the notion of a substantial bond, at the demand of Des Bosses, in order to secure the reality of extension; that Des Bosses had strong views on matter and extension, which could not be satisfied by Leibniz's proposal; that these views led him to reject Leibniz's notion of the substantial bond; consequently, that Leibniz's notion of corporeal substance was incompatible with the views on matter and extension defended by Des Bosses; and, finally, that Des Bosses developed his metaphysical ideas in 1735 by using Leibnizian insights for his agenda.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe