Monday 11 February 2008

Frustra fit per plura (II)

An update to an older post: I have found in Auriol the exact phrase attributed to him by Ueberweg.  It occurs in S I.9.1.i, where he asks quomodo se habet generare seu dicere ad ipsam intellectionem.  As his third and final negative thesis, he argues quod dicere non sit formam specularem et realem producere, quam intellectus aspiciat:

non est philosophicum pluraritatem rerum ponere sine causa, frustra enim fit per plura, quod potest fieri per pauciora.  Sed nulla necessitas ducit ad ponendum talem rem ...  Ergo si talis forma ponatur, erit absque omni causa et ratione; et per consequens vanum est ponere eam, et superfluum in natura.
(ed. Friedman 2003; the 1596 edition, p. 319, has 'inducit')

Moreover, I may have found the source of Ueberweg's mistaken citation: Barthélemy Hauréau, De la philosophie scolastique, II (1850).  In chapter 27, ‘Disciples et Adversaires de Duns-Scot’, pp. 404–410, Hauréau discusses Auriol.  He quotes on p. 406 from Auriol's remarks on prime matter in S II.12.1.i and II.12.1.ii, and then he moves on to discuss Auriol's negative thesis about real specular forms – but unfortunately his subsequent footnotes simply say ‘Ibid.’  And there, on p. 408, is the very phrase quoted by Ueberweg.

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