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An Aristotelian Theory of
Divine Illumination: Robert
Grosseteste's Commentary on
the Posterior Analytics
Christina Van Dyke
Calvin College ,
Published online: 22 Sep 2009.
To cite this article: Christina Van Dyke (2009) An Aristotelian Theory of Divine
Illumination: Robert Grosseteste's Commentary on the Posterior Analytics , British
Journal for the History of Philosophy, 17:4, 685-704, DOI: 10.1080/09608780902986581
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09608780902986581
ARTICLE
686
himself advocated some version of such a theory.2 At the same time, in the
CPA Grosseteste directly interacts with Aristotles account of cognition,
according to which human beings acquire knowledge not from God but
through a complex process beginning with sense perception.
Scholarly opinions concerning Grossetestes attitudes toward Augustinian
illumination and Aristotelian epistemology in the CPA tend to fall into two
distinct camps: that of scholars such as Etienne Gilson, Lawrence Lynch
and James McEvoy3 who hold that Grosseteste himself does not advocate
the Aristotelian account on which he comments and that of scholars such
as Steven Marrone, who argues that Grossetestes exposure to the Posterior
Analytics leads him to abandon completely a theory of divine illumination in
the CPA in favour of a humanist theory that no longer requires Gods
involvement in our cognitive lives.4
I believe, in contrast, that Grosseteste quite consciously attempts to
embed the new epistemology of the Posterior Analytics within an account
of divine illumination, and that he himself thought he had successfully
reconciled the Augustinian and Aristotelian views. In this paper, I argue
that Grosseteste synthesizes an Aristotelian model of cognition (centring on
abstraction to universals from sensible particulars) with a robust theory of
divine illumination by claiming that, while human beings do acquire
knowledge by engaging in the process of abstraction from sense perception
to universal concepts, God plays a necessary role in this process by
illuminating the objects of our intellection i.e. making them intelligible to
us. This interpretation of Grossetestes intentions in the CPA leaves him
with a more ambitious and philosophically challenging project than has
been widely acknowledged: one that seeks to preserve the best elements of
both Augustinian and Aristotelian theories of knowledge.
Although Richard Southern argues in favour of a later date for De veritate in Robert
Grosseteste (113), I follow Steven Marrone in holding that De veritate was most probably
composed sometime in the 1220s. (See, for example, Marrones The Light of Thy Countenance:
Science and Knowledge of God in the Thirteenth Century, vol. 1: A Doctrine of Divine Illumination
(Leiden: Brill, 2001) 345.)
3
See, respectively, Pourquoi S. Thomas a critique S. Augustin (Archives dhistoire doctrinale et
litteraire du Moyen Age, 1 (Paris, 1926), 1126); The Doctrine of Divine Ideas and Illumination
in Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (Mediaeval Studies, 3 (1941), 16173); and The
Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), especially 327, and n15.
4
This is his central argument in Chapter Six of William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste: New
Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1983). It
also features prominently in Chapters One to Four of Volume One of his later The Light of Thy
Countenance (38108).
687
All references to Grossetestes commentary and translations of the Latin text are from to
Pietro Rossis 1981 edition: Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libros (Firenze, Italy:
Leo S. Olschki).
6
See, for example, De libero arbitrio, where Augustines argument for Gods existence relies on
our recognizing that all immutable truths are part of a single, higher truth:
You cannot deny the existence of an unchangeable truth that contains everything that
is unchangeably true. And you cannot claim that this truth is yours or mine or anyone
elses; it is present and reveals itself in common to all who discern what is
unchangeably true, like a light that is public and yet strangely hidden.
(II.12, using Thomas Williamss translation in On Free Choice of the Will,
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1993: 54)
Williams relies on the Latin text in the critical edition in the Corpus Christianorum: Series
Latina series, vol. 29, edited by W. M. Green (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1970).
7
These are, respectively: (a) uncreated ideas of things, which exist from eternity in the rst cause,
(b) exemplar forms and causative ideas of created things (which the intelligences possess and
through which they aid God in the creation of corporeal species), (c) causative ideas of
terrestrial species (located in the powers and illuminating principles of the heavenly bodies),
(d) formal causes, or that in the thing by virtue of which it is what it is, and (e) ideas of
accidents such as colour and sound, which can eventually lead weaker intellects to the cognition
of genera and species. Steven Marrone, James McEvoy and Pietro Rossi each discuss this
passage in detail in, respectively, William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste, 16678, The
Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982) 3279, and Robert
Grosseteste and the Object of Scientic Knowledge in Robert Grosseteste: New Perspectives
on his Thought and Scholarship, edited by James McEvoy, in Instrumenta Patristica, 27
(Turnhout, 1995) 5375.
8
In addition, they serve as principles of creation (creatrices) the ideas of things to be created
and [their] formal exemplar causes.
688
true (DLA II.12), Grosseteste reserves cognition of these principles for only
those intellects pure and separated from phantasms, able to contemplate
the rst light, for these ideas involve both the clearest possible cognition of
created things and direct cognition of God, the rst light who makes things
visible to our mental vision: When the pure intellect is able to x its sight on
these things, it cognizes created things in them as truly and clearly as
possible and not only created things but also the rst light itself in which it
cognizes other things (10811).
By and large, human intellects are not pure enough in this life to access
these principles: we interact primarily with physical objects, and our concern
for them typically prevents us from completely transcending material
considerations.9 Grosseteste allows that some human beings achieve
cognition of the causative ideas of terrestrial species located in the heavenly
bodies through the study of astronomy, but he holds that human cognition
typically involves only lower-level universals such as formal causes and the
accidents that follow on the true essences of things, such as shape and
colour. Grossetestes specic interest in human (rather than divine or angelic)
knowledge leads him, then, to focus on these types of universal throughout
the CPA, particularly formal causes which he describes in familiar terms as
that by which [a] thing is what it is (1312). Grosseteste goes on to claim that
these widely accessible principles of cognition, or forms (such as animal or
human being) correspond directly to the universals on which Aristotle
focuses in the Posterior Analytics.10
By distinguishing between these dierent types of universal and claiming
explicitly that human beings have access in general only to the type of which
Aristotle was speaking, Grosseteste thus separates our everyday cognition of
universal truths from the sort that would also entail direct cognition of God.
In a later discussion, Grosseteste even goes so far as to claim: [A]lthough
uncreated ideas and denitions (rationes) exist from eternity in the divine
mind, these ideas dont pertain at all to the sort of thinking (ratiocinationem)
in which one thing is predicated of another (I.15, 1468, added emphasis).11
In other words, when in the ordinary course of things a human being
reaches the conclusion of a demonstrative argument (for example All cats
are mammals), the universals she employs are not the divine ideas of cat
and mammal.
Unlike many (perhaps most) theories of divine illumination, then,
Grossetestes account does not entail that cognizing necessary truths brings
9
He does leave open the possibility that certain people who are entirely separated from the love
and phantasmata of corporeal things (I.14) might receive illumination directly from God and
thus share cognition of the rst and highest type of universal, but he makes it clear that this is
far from the norm for human beings whose intellects are weighed down by corrupt, corporeal
bodies.
10
As he puts it: [T]his is Aristotles position with regard to genera and species (1401).
11
Grosseteste goes on to say that he is talking here of predications involving demonstrations
and thought processes philosophical thought in general, then.
689
12
12
One disadvantage of this distinction between the truth which is part of the divine essence and
the truth which human beings cognize is that it appears to remove the explanation for the
necessity of certain sorts of truth. Augustine thought that by identifying necessary truths with
the divine, he thereby gained an explanation for their necessity. Grosseteste cannot make the
same sort of appeal, however, and so he must provide another account of the necessity of
necessary truths one which is more Aristotelian in nature.
13
Interestingly, Steven Marrone does not see this as a clear reference to Augustine, despite the
fact that Grosseteste himself had strongly advocated Augustines theory in earlier works and the
fact that this is almost a direct quotation from De magistro. Rather, Marrone writes in The
Light of Thy Countenance: Although his words recall Augustine on God as within each person
teacher of mind, it is more than likely that Grosseteste was not thinking about the divinity (48).
690
691
are wholly separated from the love and the phantasms of corporeal things
have.
(22835).
Ideally, human cognition would take place without the aid of sense
perception, just as is the case for God and the angels. The corrupt body
renders this possibility unavailable to the vast majority of human beings,
however: Because the purity of the eye of the soul is clouded and weighed
down by the corrupt body, all the powers of the rational soul in a human
being are occupied from birth (nato) by the weight of the body so that they
cannot act, and so are in a certain way sleepy (2358). In Grossetestes
general metaphor of illumination, it is the souls vision that allows us to see
the light of truth; thus, when our bodies cloud our mental sight, our ability
to cognize is compromised.
Toward the end of I.14, Grosseteste describes more fully how our bodies
draw our intellects vision away from their proper light:
Now the reason why the souls sight is clouded through the weight of the
corrupt body is that the aection and vision (aectus et aspectus) of the soul
are not distinct, and it attains its vision only by means of that by which it
attains its aection or its love. Therefore, since the love and aection of the
soul are turned toward the body and toward bodily enticements, it necessarily
pulls the souls vision with it and turns it away from its light, which is related
to it just as the sun is related to the external eyes. But the minds vision that is
turned away from its light is necessarily turned toward darkness and idleness
(otium).16
(27986)
See Chapter 18, conclusion 28 for further discussion about love and desire moving the soul.
A higher light could be either God or an intelligences reection of Gods rationes causales.
17
692
In other words, although love of the body draws the souls vision away from
its proper light, reason is roused by its repeated exposure to the information
it receives from the senses. Presented with a hotchpotch of sense-data,
reason eventually begins to distinguish between, for example, colour, size
and shape. After reason makes a sucient number of distinctions,
abstractions and judgements, moreover, we can gain knowledge of simple
universals such as red and large.18 Thus, at the same time that the body
prevents the intellect from engaging in ideal cognition, information acquired
through the physical senses does provide the intellect with the means for
attaining knowledge.19
18
This is the process for acquiring what Grosseteste calls a simple universal; he also describes
how human beings arrive at knowledge of complex experiential universals (such as his favourite
example: scammony enduces red bile), but that discussion is tangential to the topic of this
paper.
19
This sort of cognition is less perfect than the sort acquired through direct illumination,
however: rst, it is acquired in an inferior way; second, it is capable of being in error (since,
unlike the cognition which involves direct illumination, we are able to make mistaken
judgements on the basis of our sense data); and third, its less clear, deep, and explanatory. As
Grosseteste remarks in I.7, we are able to access the formal causes of which Aristotle speaks
through sense perception, but were not able to cognize created things as truly and clearly as
possible because we are not cognizing them in the rst light itself. Furthermore, although most
people will at least arrive at the understanding of the essential nature of, for example, a human
being, through this process of abstracting from sense data, certain weak intellects will never
even reach full understanding of these simple universals on the basis of sense perception. See I.7,
where Grosseteste claims that
The weak intellect, which cannot rise to the cognition of these true genera and species,
knows things only through the accidents following from the true essences of things,
and for that intellect these accidents are genera and species and are principles only of
knowing and not of being.
(1415)
Theyll never be able to transcend the limits of what they perceive.
693
Grosseteste takes pains to redescribes this process at the end of I.14 this
time in explicitly illuminationist terms of the intellects discovering and
turning toward the spiritual light:
The minds vision that is turned away from its light is necessarily turned
toward darkness and idleness until, coming through the external senses in
some way out into the external sensible light, it in some way nds again a trace
of the light born in it. When it stumbles upon that, it begins as if awakened
to seek the proper light; and, to the extent that [the minds] love is turned away
from corruptible corporeal things, its vision is turned toward its light and nds
that light again.
(28691)
Grosseteste here draws a close parallel between mental and physical vision:
when the intellect receives visual data through sight something possible
only because the external light of the sun illuminates both our eyes and
external objects reason nally has something to work with, and the
intellect is able to begin the process of becoming itself illuminated. Thus, the
initial impetus for the intellects seeking the higher realm of truth is
the information it receives from the body; the mind must turn its aections
away from physical concerns to some extent, however, for it actually to
reach knowledge of universals.
694
Lynch grants that Grossetestes reading of natural philosophy may have been inuenced by
Aristotle, but he is resolute in claiming that this inuence does not extend to his thinking about
metaphysical or epistemic matters. See, for example, The Doctrine of Divine Illumination, 172.
21
Pourquoi S. Thomas a critique S. Augustin., and The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste, 327.
22
Ibid.
23
It also would raise questions about Grossetestes attitude toward an Averroistic account of the
Agent Intellect; Lynch thus heads this issue o at the pass. In fact, although Grosseteste himself
would have been familiar with the doctrine of the Agent Intellect, there is no indication in the
CPA that he felt any attraction toward such a position himself.
24
See Gilsons Sur quelques dicultes de lillumination augustinienne, RNS 36 (1934) 32131,
especially 3223.
695
theory in which the relation between our knowledge of necessary truths and
God is far less direct. We may have eyes designed to see Gods truth, but in
Grossetestes metaphor our vision is drawn away from that truth by our
bodies and our love for physical things, and we are not in a position to use
our mental sight for its intended use. This denial of one of the central
features of Augustines own view raises immediate worries about calling
Grossetestes position entirely Augustinian.
Even more important in responding to the strictly Augustinian
interpretation of the CPA, however, is Grossetestes detailed description
in I.14 of the process by which reason acquires knowledge of universals. As
we saw in Section II, although ideal human cognition would involve the sort
of direct epistemic contact many illuminationist theories advocate as the
norm, Grosseteste holds that the vast majority of human beings are forced
to undertake the less perfect process of beginning with the information
gathered by the senses and through drawing distinctions and abstracting
from that information reaching comprehension of necessary truths. This
painstaking process of reasons acquiring knowledge of universals through
abstraction from sense data very closely resembles the theory Aristotle
himself advocates. Given, then, not only Grossetestes claims that human
beings do not cognize the truths present in Gods own essence and that
Gods illuminating work is actively interfered with by our love for the
material world, but also his explicit appeal to abstraction from sense data in
describing the alternate process of how human beings acquire knowledge of
universals, it seems extremely unlikely that Grossetestes epistemic theory in
the CPA represents an allegiance to Augustine that proves totally foreign to
Aristotelianism.
If the idea that Grossetestes theory of illumination remains in every way
Augustinian seems implausible, however, what about the suggestion that
Grosseteste completely abandons Augustines theory of divine illumination
in favour of Aristotles? Steven Marrone, for instance, claims that, When
Grosseteste came to write his Commentary on the Posterior Analytics . . . he
had by this time totally excised any mention of God or a conformity to some
ideal exemplar from his formal denition of simple truth (157).25 As we
have already seen, Grosseteste appears to oer a theory of divine
illumination that applies to human beings only hypothetically or potentially:
if the human intellect were completely puried or not joined to a corrupt
corporeal body, then human beings could acquire knowledge by gazing at
25
William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste. Marrone is here contrasting Grossetestes
position on simple truth in the CPA and the ostensibly earlier De veritate. It seems to me,
however, that Marrone overlooks the natural consequences of the dramatic shift in topic
between the two works. An explanation of the nature of truth naturally has a very dierent
focus from a discussion of how human beings acquire demonstrative knowledge. In The Light of
Thy Countenance, Marrone does qualies this claim somewhat, writing: At the very least,
Grosstestes focus has changed, and his interest in Aristotle overwhelmed his ability to maintain
explicit place for the epistemological principles of Augustines thought (50).
696
Gods light. When the body dies, then the unencumbered intellect can receive
illumination directly from God. In this life, however, human intellects are
joined to corrupt bodies and almost never free from the love of corporeal
things.26 Marrone contends that Grosseteste does not appeal to divine
illumination at all in explaining the actual process by which human beings
typically acquire scientic knowledge. In emphasizing the role of sense
perception and reason and not God in the cognitive process, Grosseteste
has, Marrone claims, diminished divine participation in human intellection
to insignicance: Only the resounding echo of Augustines words make
one reluctant to say divine illumination has dropped entirely out of the
picture (50).27
Marrones argument relies heavily on the supposition that Grosseteste
replaces the light of God with the light of human reason. In the CPA, he
claims, illumination serves largely as a convenient metaphor for explaining
the Aristotelian account of cognition to readers steeped in Augustinian
illuminationist imagery: Careful examination suggests that Grosseteste had
changed his entire approach [to the human cognitive process in the CPA]
(47).28 In order to show that the theory of cognition laid out in the CPA
does involve divine illumination, then, I need to demonstrate that
Grosseteste refers to God and not to human reason when he speaks
of the spiritual light that plays a crucial role in human cognition.
According to Marrone, There is ample evidence [Grosseteste] held that the
mind itself had a power that could be described as a light and that acted to
make intelligible objects visible to it (198). Whats more, since the intellect
was its own illuminator . . . here is a way to read the image of intelligible
light without making any reference to God at all, and it appears to have the
explicit approval of the author himself (199).29 Although Grossetestes CPA
retains illuminationist language, then, Marrone concludes that the human
intellect functions as the sole spiritual light that enables us to cognize
truth.30
I believe, however, that Grosseteste is clearly still referring to God when
he speaks of the spiritual light in the CPA. As we saw in Section I, he
explicitly calls God the rst light in I.7, claiming that when the pure
intellect cognizes the highest sort of universal, it cognizes not only created
things but also the rst light itself in which it cognizes other things (111).
Although this alone does not establish that God is the spiritual light
26
For a discussion of what people might qualify for this extremely rare distinction, see the
discussion in McEvoys The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982)
3259.
27
The Light of Thy Countenance.
28
Ibid.
29
William of Auvergne and Robert Grosseteste.
30
See, for example, 489 of The Light of Thy Countenance, where Marrone makes the case that
certain passages in the CPA imply that mind served as sole intelligible light in normal
intellection (48).
697
Ironically, although Marrone himself uses this passage to support the claim
that the spiritual light is the human intellect,31 I believe two features of this
passage make it clear that Grosseteste means to identify the spiritual light
which pours over intelligible things and the minds eye with God.
First, Grosseteste claims here that the light is related to the minds eye and
the objects of cognition in the same way that the corporeal sun is related to
the corporeal eye and corporeal visible objects. If we take this comparison
seriously, it seems hard to believe that the spiritual light is the light of the
human intellect. The sun is external both to the eyes and to external objects,
and it shines on both alike. If the spiritual light were the intellect, it is
dicult to see how this analogy would work: the intellect would have to
shine on itself at the same time as it shone on the objects of cognition.
Second, Grosseteste here describes a mental sight which he claims
penetrates more intelligible objects more perfectly, and he calls this power of
the intellect also (similiter) a spiritual irradiation comparing it in this way
31
698
to the spiritual light he was already discussing. The mental acuity of our
intellects might also be a sort of light, then, but this seems to rule out the
possibility that this mental acuity is the spiritual light itself.32 Thus, I believe
that although Marrone is right to claim that the mind itself had a power
that could be described as a light, he errs in identifying that light with the
spiritual light of which Grosseteste speaks throughout his commentary.
Later in the same chapter, Grosseteste explains that universal demonstration is superior to particular demonstration because universal demonstration brings one to know what is less mixed up with phantasmata and closer
to the spiritual light through which mental vision becomes certain . . .
[U]niversal demonstration brings one to know better, since it brings one to
know what is more visible to the minds eye (21216). The objects of
universal demonstration are described here as both easier to see with the
minds eye and nearer to the spiritual light that makes knowledge possible.
Marrone reads this passage as further evidence that Grosseteste identies
the spiritual light as the human intellect: what made an object more
receptive to this light was its closeness to intellect, a closeness that could be
glossed as proximity to the intelligible light itself. The implication was that
intellect and intelligible light were the same (48, n31).33 This interpretation
seems a stretch, however, especially since in earlier passages (including the
extended discussion in I.7), the more removed from phantasms an object (or
an intellect) is, the closer Grosseteste claims it is to the divine light.
A further passage toward the end of I.17 also supports the claim that the
spiritual light is the rst light and not the light of human reason. According
to Grosseteste:
Things that are prior are closer to the spiritual light, by which when it pours
over intelligible objects those objects are made actually visible to the minds
vision (aspectus). And these prior things are more receptive of that light and
more penetrable by the minds vision, for which reason they are more certain,
and knowledge of these things is more certain knowledge. Considered in this
way, the knowledge belonging to separated incorporeal substances is more
certain than the knowledge belonging to incorporeal substances that are tied to
a body, and this knowledge in turn is more certain than the knowledge
belonging to corporeal substances.34
(3407)
32
Marrone, however, refers to this as a parenthesis of much signicance, glossing this claim as
follows: In other words, the light of the intellect was itself a candidate for the intelligible
illumination he had just lines before compared to the rays of the sun (LTC 48). This seems quite
a stretch to me, however in fact, I nd it just as plausible to suppose that Grossetestes calling
the intellect likewise an irradiation (irradiatio) and not a light indicates that he is thinking of
the intellect as something that, at best, reects the light shining on it from God.
33
The Light of Thy Countenance.
34
By incorporeal substances that are bound to a body, Grosseteste clearly refers to human
beings, whose immaterial intellect is tied to a corporeal body.
699
700
I hold that there is a mental vision for the apprehending of intelligible things,
that the things visible to this vision are what we call intelligible and knowable,
and that there is a light that pouring over both the vision and the visible
things brings about actual sight, just as the light of the sun brings about
[sight] in external vision.
(2932)
I have argued in the previous section that the light that brings about actual
[mental] sight is God, as opposed to the light of the human intellect. The
parallel drawn here between external and mental sight entails, then, that
Gods light functions in human cognition in much the same way that the
suns light functions in vision namely, by illuminating knowable things
and the faculty of mental sight in a way that makes us able to grasp
intelligible objects.
This much of the story seems clear. What needs elaboration is how best to
understand this metaphor, particularly in light of Grossetestes remarks
about the negative eects the body has on our mental vision. Gods light
does shine on our intellects, as Grosseteste states repeatedly. The problem
with human cognition is that our mental gaze is stubbornly focused not on
that light, but rather on physical enticements; our attachment (both literal
and metaphorical) to material things typically prevents us from turning
directly to the light that makes intellection possible.
Numerous passages, including several from I.17 which we have already
seen, suggest that Grosseteste focuses for this reason on Gods relation to
the objects that we cognize, rather than on Gods relation to our intellects.
Take, for instance, his claim that [T]hings that are prior are closer to the
spiritual light by which when it pours over intelligible objects those
objects are made actually visible to the minds vision. Here the emphasis is
on Gods relation to the objects of our mental vision; what makes us able to
see the objects of cognition is the fact that the spiritual light shines on
them. In fact, what makes certain intelligible objects prior to others is not
their proximity to our intellects, but rather their proximity to God. The
closer these objects are to the spiritual light, the brighter they are to us and
the better our grasp of them is.
701
Grossetestes focus is also on the relation between God and the objects of
human cognition (and not our intellects) when he writes:
[T]he intelligible things that are more receptive of this spiritual light are more
visible to the interior eye, and the things that are more receptive of this light
are by nature more similar to this light. And so the things that are more
receptive of this light are penetrated more perfectly by a mental sight that is
also a spiritual irradiation, and this penetration is more perfect and more
certain.
(I.17.3947)
The intelligible objects that are the most receptive of the spiritual light that
are the brightest are the ones that are most similar to that light; that is,
they are the ones that are most similar to the eternal, immaterial,
unchanging God. Presumably, then, the objects that are most suited to
cognition are themselves eternal, immaterial, unchanging and so forth.
Taken to its logical conclusion, Grossetestes claim implies that the optimal
object of human cognition is God himself.
This is, in fact, what Grosseteste claims later in I.17: To the intellect such
as it ought to be considered in its highest state divine things are most
certain, and to the extent that things are prior and more sublime by nature,
they are more certain (3635). As we saw in Section I, the highest objects of
cognition are God and Gods own ideas,
since when the pure intellect is able to x its sight on them, it cognizes created
things in them as truly and clearly as possible and not only created things,
but also the rst light itself in which it cognizes other things.
(I.7.10810)
38
702
703
40
See I.7, where Grosseteste describes the weak intellect as that which knows things only
through the accidents following from the true essences of things (1423).
41
Marrone, The Light of Thy Countenance, 14.
42
See, for example, letters Pecham writes in 1285 to the Bishop of Lincoln and cardinals in
which he describes the dierences between the Augustinian and the Aristotelian camps and
poses the question of what could be more important than supporting the authentic Augustinian
views against dangerous (presumably, Aristotelian) falsehoods.
704
of his project at a time when received scholarly opinions identify him as, at
heart, either resolutely Augustinian or entirely Aristotelian.43
Calvin College
43
I owe many people thanks for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper, including the
long-suering audiences at the Midwestern Conference in Medieval Philosophy, the Cornell
Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy, the Posterior Analytics and Aristotelian Sciences
Marquette Summer Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, and Baylor University. In
addition, I appreciate the useful discussion of this paper in my departments Colloquium, as
well as individual comments from Jeremiah Hackett at the Marquette seminar. Support from a
Calvin Research Fellowship allowed me the time o from teaching to take all this feedback into
consideration and use it to improve the paper. Most of all, however, I owe Scott MacDonald
my continuing gratitude not just for comments on every incarnation through which this paper
went, but also for the discussions of his translation of Grossetestes commentary that sparked
the idea for this paper in the rst place and for his support and encouragement since then.