2 - ANONYMOUS (Arts Master c. 1270) Questions on De anima I–II

Summary

Introduction

This fascinating treatise seems to have survived in only one manuscript, anonymous and undated. As with the previous selection, the author is thought to have been a master in the Arts Faculty at the University of Paris. But these Questions date from the latter part of the thirteenth century, probably 1270 or shortly after. Judging from its repetitions and haphazard structure, this work seems to be a student's unedited report of a lecture. It is perhaps the most extreme example of the movement within the Arts Faculty known as radical Aristotelianism, whose proponents advocated the teachings of Aristotle without regard for how those views accorded with Christianity. Both of the best known members of this movement, Siger of Brabant and Boethius of Dacia, have been proposed as authors of the present treatise, but there seems to be no strong reason for accepting either attribution.

By far the most extreme and well-known part of these Questions is the author's argument that all human beings share a single intellect, and that the intellect is not united with the body in the way that form is united with matter (see I Q6, II Q4). This form of monopsychism matches Averroes's notorious interpretation of Aristotle; Siger of Brabant had also advocated the view in Paris. But our author goes one step further and simply embraces the absurdity that seems to follow: that in fact human beings do not themselves understand anything, and that it is only the separate intellect that truly understands (II Q4). Both the thesis of monopsychism and the seemingly absurd implication were among the thirteen propositions condemned by Bishop Stephen Tempier of Paris in 1270.