Ockham’s Flying Soul An Argument Against Henry of Ghent on the Powers of the Soul
Main Article Content
Abstract
Medieval thinkers unanimously believed a human soul has various powers. Yet, the latter point is also nearly the only one they agreed upon. In the paper, I focus on two contrary opinions maintained by Henry of Ghent and William of Ockham. Whereas Henry of Ghent held powers of the soul are defined with respect to the activities they are powers-for, Ockham refuted such a contention. To make his point Ockham launches a thought experiment: if God created an intellective soul without creating anything else, wouldn’t the powers in this soul still exist fully? Upon succinctly presenting Henry of Ghent’s view on the powers of the soul, I provide a detailed analysis of Ockham’s counterargument. I argue Henry could still reply to Ockham’s rebuttal, and show how the latter bares a remote resemblance to Avicenna’s flying man argument.
Downloads
Publication Facts
Reviewer profiles N/A
Author statements
Indexed in
-
—
To learn about these publication facts, click 
PF is maintained by the Public Knowledge Project
Article Details
Proposed Policy for Journals that Offer Open Access
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Since issue 33 and for the future issues, it is the policy of the publisher that authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
References
Primary sources
Henry of Ghent, Quodlibeta, edited by J. Badius (Louvain: Bibliothèque S. J., 1961 reprint).
Henry of Ghent, Summa art. XXXV-XL, edited by G. A. Wilson (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994).
Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 3.14, translated by JT Paasch (Available online on: https://www.academia.edu/6040790/Henry_of_Ghent_Quodlibet_3_14_Latin_English Text and_Translation).
John Duns Scotus, Quaestiones super Libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis, edited by R. Andrews et al. (St. Bonaventure N.Y.: The Franciscan Institute Press, 1997).
John Duns Scotus, A Treatise on Potency and Act: Questions on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, Book IX, translated by A. B. Wolter (St. Bonaventure, N.Y.: The Franciscan InstitutePress, 2000).
Peter John of Olivi, Summa II = Quaestiones in secundum librum sententiarum 3 vols, edited by B. Jansen (Bibliotheca Franciscana Scholastica Medii Aevi 4-6) (Florence: Collegium S. Bonaventurae, 1922-1926).
William of Ockham, Questiones in librum secundum Sententiarum = Reportatio. Opere Theologicae V, edited by G. Gál and R. Wood (St. Bonaventure N.Y.: St Bonaventure University, 1981).
William of Ockham, Quodlibetal Questions, translated by A. J. Freddoso and F. E. Kelley (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991).
William of Ockham, Questions on Virtue, Goodness, and the Will, translated by Eric W. Hagedorn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Secondary sources
Adams, Marilyn McCord, William Ockham, vol 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987).
Aquila, Richard E., “Emotions, Objects and Causal Relations”, Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition 26/3-4 (1974): 279-285.
van den Bercken, J. H. L., “John Duns Scotus in Two Minds About the Powers of the Soul”, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 82/2 (2015): 199-240.
Brower-Toland, Susan, “Intuition, Externalism, and Direct Reference in Ockham”, History of Philosophy Quarterly 24/4 (2007): 317-335.
Celestino, Piana, “La controversia della distinzione fra anima e potenze ai primordi della Scuola Scotista”, in Miscellanea del Centro di studi medievali (Milano: Società Editrice Vita e pensiero, 1956), 65-169.
Choi, Philip, “Ockham’s weak externalism”, British Journal for the History of Philosophy 24/6 (2016): 1075-1096.
Cross, Richard, “Accidents, Substantial Forms, and Causal Powers in the Late Thirteenth Century: Some Reflections on the Axiom actiones sunt supositorum”, in Compléments de substance: Études sur les propriétés accidentelles offertes à Alain de Libera, edited by C. Erismann and A. Schniewind (Paris: Vrin, 2008), 133-146.
Decorte, Jos, “Relatio as Modus Essendi: The Origins of Henry of Ghent’s Definition of Relation”, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 10/3 (2002): 309-336.
Gilson, Étienne, “Les sources gre´co-arabes de l’augustinisme avicennisant”, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et litte´raire du moyen âge 4 (1929): 40-42.
Hasse, Dag Nikolaus, Avicenna’s De anima in the Latin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul, 1160–1300 (London: The Warburg Institute, 2000).
Henninger, Mark G. S. J., Relations: Medieval Theories 1250–1325 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Kenny, Anthony, Action, Emotion, and Will (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1963).
Löwe, Can Laurens, and Dominik Perler, “Complexity and Unity: Peter of John Olivi and Henry of Ghent on the Composition of the Soul”, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévales 89/2 (2022): 335-386.
Macken, Raymond, “Les diverses applications de la distinction intentionnelle chez Henri de Gand”, in Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter (Miscellanea Mediaevalia 13.2), edited by W. Kluxen (Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 1981), 769-776.
Paasch, J.T. (tr.), Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 3.14 (Available at: https://www.academia.edu/6040790/Henry_of_Ghent_Quodlibet_3_14_Latin_EnglishTextand_Translation).
Paasch, J. T., “Powers”, in The Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy, edited by R. Cross and J.T. Paasch (New York: Routledge, 2021), 111-114.
Paasch, J. T., Divine Production in Late Medieval Trinitarian Theology Henry of Ghent, Duns Scotus, and William Ockham (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Pasnau, Robert, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Polloni, Nicola, The Twelfth-Century Renewal of Latin Metaphysics: Gundissalinus’s Ontology of Matter and Form (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).
Schierbaum, Sonja, “Ockham on Awareness of One’s Acts: A Way Out of the Circle”, Society and Politics 12/2 (2018): 8-27.
Shargel, Daniel, “Emotions Without Objects”, Biology and Philosophy 30 (2015): 831-844.
Spruit, Leen, ’Species Intelligibilis’: From Perception to Knowledge, vol. 1 (Brill: Leiden; New York; Köln, 2004).
Teroni, Fabrice, “Emotions and Formal Objects”, Dialectica 61/3 (2007): 395-415.
Toivanen, Juhana, “The Fate of the Flying Man: Medieval Reception of Avicenna’s Thought Experiment”, Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 3 (2015): 64-98.
Williams, Scot M, “Henry of Ghent on Real Relations and the Trinity: The Case for Numerical Sameness Without Identity”, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 79/1 (2012): 109-148.
Wilson, J. R. S, Emotion and Object (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).
Wood, Adam, “The Faculties of the Soul and Some Medieval Mind-Body Problems”, The Thomist, 75/4 (2011): 585-636.