Philosophers of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries held that organisms are alive by virtue of possessing a soul, and that the soul endows an organism with various powers. This volume presents a rich selection of key medieval Aristotelian texts on the relation between the soul and its powers, most of them previously untranslated and written by thinkers whose accounts of the soul and its powers are not well known. Each text can be seen as part of a lively medieval debate, responding to or criticizing another text also found in the volume. An introduction situates this debate in its broader medieval context, and the detailed explanatory notes and glossary of terms and arguments make the texts accessible to a wide range of readers including non-experts. The result is a valuable resource for understanding how Aristotle's theory of the soul and its powers was received and transformed in the Middle Ages.
1. Bonaventure (d. 1274), Commentary on the Sentences, book II, d. 24, a. 2, q. 1: Do Intellect and Affection, or Reason and Will, Differ Essentially?; 2. Albert the Great (d. 1280), Summa theologiae, book 1, treatise 3, q. 15, chap. 2, a. 2, c. 1: How Do the Parts of the Image Relate to the Soul's Essence?; 3. Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274), Commentary on the Sentences, book I, d. 3, q. 4, a. 2: Are the Soul's Powers Its Essence?; 4. Henry of Ghent (d. 1293), Quodlibet III, q. 14 (excerpts): Is the Soul's Substance the Same as Its Power?; 5. Godfrey of Fontaines (d. ca. 1306), Quodlibet II, q. 4: Can a Created Substance Be the Immediate Principle of an Operation?; 6. Thomas of Sutton (d. ca. 1315), Ordinary Questions, q. 4 (excerpts): Do the Soul's Powers Differ as Absolute Things from the Soul's Essence?; 7. Peter of John Olivi (d. 1298), Questions on the Sentences, book II, q. 54 (excerpts): Are the Soul's Powers Totally the Same as Their Substance and as Each Other, Totally Diverse, or Partially the Same and Partially Diverse?; 8. John Duns Scotus (d. 1308), Commentary on the Sentences (Reportatio A), book II, d. 16: Does the Image of the Trinity in the Rational Soul Consist of Three Really Distinct Powers?; 9. James of Viterbo (d. 1308), Quodlibet I, q. 7, doubt 1: Does the Will Move of Its Own Accord?; 10. Durand of St.-Pourçain (d. 1334), Commentary on the Sentences (Third Version), book I, d. 3, part 2, q. 2: Are the Soul's Powers the Same as Its Essence?; 11. William Ockham (d. 1347), Commentary on the Sentences (Reportatio), book II, q. 20: Are Memory, Intellect, and Will Really Distinct Powers?.
Russell L. Friedman is Professor of Philosophy at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He is the author of Medieval Trinitarian Thought from Aquinas to Ockham (Cambridge, 2010). Can Laurens Löwe is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Saint Louis University. He is the author of Thomas Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Human Act (Cambridge, 2021).
