Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Henry of Ghent, David Galloway and Nicholas of Autrecourt

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6 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories

16657	Substance, Quantity and Quality are real; other categories depend on those three [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: Among creatures there are only three 'res' belong to the three first categories: Substance, Quantity and Quality. All other are aspects [rationes] and intellectual concepts with respect to them, with reality only as grounded on the res of those three.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
	A reaction: Pasnau connects with the 'arrangement of being', giving an 'ontologically innocent' structure to reality. That seems to be what we all want, if only we could work out the ontologically guilty bit.

8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations

16658	The only reality in the category of Relation is things from another category [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: There is beyond a doubt nothing real in the category of Relation, except what is a thing from another category.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
	A reaction: This seems to have been the fairly orthodox scholastic view of relations.

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes

16645	Accidents are diminished beings, because they are dispositions of substance (unqualified being) [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: Accidents are beings only in a qualified and diminished sense, because they are not called beings, nor are they beings, except because they are dispositions of an unqualified being, a substance.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], XV.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.4
	A reaction: This is aimed to 'half' detach the accidents (as the Eucharist requires). Later scholastics detached them completely. Late scholastics seem to have drifted back to Henry's view. The equivocal use of 'being' here was challenged later.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 10. Beginning of an Object

16706	Generation is when local motions aggregate to become a single subject [Nicholas of Autrecourt]
	Full Idea: In the case of natural things there is only local motion. When from such motion there follows an aggregation of natural bodies that are gathered to one another and acquire the nature of a single subject, this is called generation.
	From: Nicholas of Autrecourt (Tractatus [1335], Ch. 1)
	A reaction: This is explosive atomistic corpuscularianism, three centuries before its appointed date. He was duly suppressed. Can he give an account of the 'nature of a single subject' in this way?

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / b. Direct realism

8417	Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway]
	Full Idea: Since awareness of defeasibility issues is an essential prerequisite for any genuine perceptual knowledge of even straightforward physical objects, any realist theory of perception must be indirect or representative, rather than direct.
	From: David Galloway (lectures [2007]), quoted by PG - lecture notes
	A reaction: [a very compressed summary] A very interesting claim. The issue might be over what direct realism is actually claiming. If it claims full-blown knowledge, then the criticism seems good. But it might survive if it claimed rather less.

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism

22012	Kant says things-in-themselves cause sensations, but then makes causation transcendental! [Henry of Ghent, by Pinkard]
	Full Idea: Kant claimed that things-in-themselves caused our sensations; but causality was a transcendental condition of experience, not a property of things-in-themselves, so the great Kant had contradicted himself.
	From: report of Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], Supplement) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 04
	A reaction: This early objection by the conservative Jacobi (who disliked Enlightenment rational religion) is the key to the dispute over whether Kant is an idealist. Kant denied being an idealist, but how can he be, if this idea is correct?