Jean Buridan - Wikipedia Jean Buridan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Medieval philosopher Jean Buridan Born c. 1301 Béthune, Picardy Died c. 1359 – c. 1362 Alma mater Collège du Cardinal Lemoine University of Paris Era Medieval philosophy Region Western philosophy School Scholasticism Nominalism Aristotelianism Institutions University of Paris Main interests Logic Grammar Metaphysics Natural philosophy Ethics Notable ideas Theory of impetus Modernization of Aristotelian logic Buridan's bridge Influences Aristotle, Porphyry,[1] John Philoponus, Peter of Spain,[2] William of Ockham,[3] Thomas Bradwardine[4][5] Influenced Nicole Oresme,[6] Albert of Saxony,[6] Nicholas of Vaudemont,[7] Marsilius of Inghen,[6] Peter of Ailly[8]Nicholas of Cusa, Copernicus, Galileo, Jean Buridan (French: [byʁidɑ̃]; Latin: Johannes Buridanus; c. 1301 – c. 1359/62) was an influential 14th century French philosopher. Buridan was a teacher in the faculty of arts at the University of Paris for his entire career, focusing in particular on logic and the works of Aristotle. Buridan sowed the seeds of the Copernican revolution in Europe.[9] He developed the concept of impetus, the first step toward the modern concept of inertia and an important development in the history of medieval science. His name is most familiar through the thought experiment known as Buridan's ass; however, this thought experiment does not appear in his extant writings. Contents 1 Life 1.1 Education and career 1.2 Apocryphal stories 2 Impetus theory 2.1 Legacy 3 Selected works in English translation 4 See also 5 References 5.1 Notes 5.2 Sources 6 Further reading 7 External links Life[edit] Education and career[edit] 14th-century manuscript of Buridan's Questions on Aristotle's De anima. Buridan was born sometime before 1301, perhaps at or near the town of Béthune in Picardy, France,[10] or perhaps elsewhere in the diocese of Arras.[11] He received his education in Paris, first at the Collège du Cardinal Lemoine and then at the University of Paris, receiving his Master of Arts degree and formal license to teach at the latter by the mid-1320s.[10] Unusually, he spent his entire academic life in the faculty of arts, rather than obtaining the doctorate in law, medicine or theology that typically prepared the way for a career in philosophy.[10] Also unusual for a philosopher of his time, Buridan further maintained his intellectual independence by remaining a secular cleric, rather than joining a religious order. A papal letter of 1330 refers to him as simply, "clericus Atrebatensis diocoesis, magister in artibus [a cleric from the Diocese of Arras and Master of Arts]."[12] As university statutes permitted only those educated in theology to teach or write on the subject, there are no writings from Buridan on either theological matters or commentary of Peter Lombard's Sentences.[10] Speculation on his reasons for avoiding religious matters have remained uncertain.[13][14][15] Most scholars think it is unlikely that he went unnoticed, given his philosophical talents. As well, it is unlikely that he could not afford to study theology, given that he received several bursaries and stipends. Indeed, he is listed in a document from 1350 as being among the teachers capable of supporting themselves without the need for financial assistance from the University.[10] Zupko has speculated that Buridan "deliberately chose to remain among the 'artists [artistae]',"[10] possibly envisioning philosophy as a secular enterprise based on what is evident to both the senses and the intellect, rather than the non-evident truths of theology revealed through scripture and doctrine.[10] The last appearance of Buridan in historical documents came in 1359, where he was mentioned as the adjudicator in a territorial dispute between the English and Picard nations.[10] It is supposed that he died sometime after then, since one of his benefices was awarded to another person in 1362.[16] The bishop Albert of Saxony, himself renowned as a logician, was among the most notable of his students.[citation needed] An ordinance of Louis XI of France in 1473, directed against the nominalists, prohibited the reading of his works.[citation needed] Apocryphal stories[edit] Where is the very wise Heloise, For whom was castrated, and then (made) a monk, Pierre Esbaillart (Abelard) in Saint-Denis? For his love he suffered this sentence. Similarly, where is the Queen (Marguerite de Bourgogne) Who ordered that Buridan Were thrown in a sack into the Seine? Oh, where are the snows of yesteryear! François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis, 9–16 Apocryphal stories abound about his reputed amorous affairs and adventures which are enough to show that he enjoyed a reputation as a glamorous and mysterious figure in Paris life.[17] None of the stories can be confirmed, and most contradict known historical information.[18] Some rumors hold that he died when the King of France had him put in a sack and thrown into the River Seine after his affair with the Queen came to light. François Villon alludes to this in his famous poem Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis. Others suggest that he was expelled from Paris due to his nominalist teachings and moved to Vienna to found the University of Vienna. Another story talks of him hitting Pope Clement VI with a shoe.[10][18] Impetus theory[edit] Main article: Theory of impetus The concept of inertia was alien to the physics of Aristotle. Aristotle, and his peripatetic followers held that a body was maintained in motion only by the action of a continuous external force. Thus, in the Aristotelian view, a projectile moving through the air would owe its continuing motion to eddies or vibrations in the surrounding medium, a phenomenon known as antiperistasis. In the absence of a proximate force, the body would come to rest almost immediately. The theory of impetus proposed that motion was maintained by some property of the body, imparted when it was set in motion. Buridan was the first to name this motion-maintaining property impetus but the theory itself probably did not originate with him. A less sophisticated notion of impressed forced can be found in the Avicenna's doctrine of mayl (inclination).[8] In this he was possibly influenced by John Philoponus who was developing the Stoic notion of hormé (impulse).[8][19] The major difference between Buridan's theory and that of his predecessor is that he rejected the view that the impetus dissipated spontaneously, instead asserting that a body would be arrested by the forces of air resistance and gravity which might be opposing its impetus. Buridan further held that the impetus of a body increased with the speed with which it was set in motion, and with its quantity of matter. This is closely related to the modern concept of momentum. Buridan saw impetus as causing the motion of the object: ...after leaving the arm of the thrower, the projectile would be moved by an impetus given to it by the thrower and would continue to be moved as long as the impetus remained stronger than the resistance, and would be of infinite duration were it not diminished and corrupted by a contrary force resisting it or by something inclining it to a contrary motion (Questions on Aristotle's Metaphysics XII.9: 73ra).[20] Buridan also contended that impetus is a variable quality whose force is determined by the speed and quantity of the matter in the subject. In this way, the acceleration of a falling body could be understood in terms of its gradual accumulation of units of impetus.[8] Legacy[edit] Because of his developments, historians of science Pierre Duhem[21] and Anneliese Maier[22] both saw Buridan as playing an important role in the demise of Aristotelian cosmology.[23] Duhem even called Buridan the forerunner of Galileo.[24] Zupko has disagreed, pointing out that Buridan did not use his theory to transform the science of mechanics, but instead remained a committed Aristotelian in thinking that motion and rest are contrary states and that the universe is finite in extent.[8] Selected works in English translation[edit] Hughes, G. E. (1983). John Buridan on Self-Reference: Chapter Eight of Buridan's Sophismata. An edition and translation with an introduction, and philosophical commentary. Cambridge/London/New York: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-28864-9. King, Peter (1986). John Buridan's Logic: The Treatise on Supposition; The Treatise on Consequences. Translation from the Latin with a Philosophical Introduction, Dordrecht: Reidel. Zupko, John Alexander, ed. and tr. (1990). John Buridan's Philosophy of Mind: An Edition and Translation of Book III of His Questions on Aristotle's De Anima (Third Redaction), with Commentary and Critical and Interpretative Essays. Doctoral dissertation, Cornell University. Klima, Gyula, tr. (2002). John Buridan: 'Summulae de Dialectica'. Yale Library of Medieval Philosophy. New Haven, Conn./London: Yale University Press. John Buridan (2015). Treatise on Consequences, translated, with an Introduction by Stephen Read. New York: Fordham University Press. See also[edit] List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics Buridan formula References[edit] Notes[edit] ^ Zupko 2015, §4 ^ Zupko 2015 ^ Jaegwon Kim, Ernest Sosa, Gary S. Rosenkrantz (eds.), A Companion to Metaphysics, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, p. 164: "Buridan, Jean." ^ Clagett 1959, p. 331. ^ "Insolubles," in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ^ a b c Clagett 1960, p. 522. ^ Zipko 2015, n. 5 ^ a b c d e Zupko 2015, §6 ^ Kuhn, T. The Copernican Revolution, 1958, pp. 119–123. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zupko 2015, §1 ^ Streijger, M.; Bakker, P.J.J.M.; Thijssen, J.M.M.H, eds. (2010). John Buridan: Quaestiones Super Libros De Generatione et Corruptione Aristotelis. A Critical Edition with an Introduction. Brill. p. 1. ISBN 9789004185043. The often repeated tradition that he was born in the town of Béthune is spurious. ^ Faral 1951, p. 11 ^ Zupko 2004, ch. 10 ^ Courtenay 2002 ^ Courtenay 2005 ^ Michael 1986, pp. 79–238 399–404 ^ Faral 1951, p. 16 ^ a b Faral 1951, p. 9-33 ^ Zupko 1997 ^ T. F. Glick, S. J. Livesay, F. Wallis, Medieval Science, Technology and Medicine:an Encyclopedia, 2005, p. 107. ^ Duhem, Pierre (1906–13). Études sur Léonard de Vinci. 1–3. Paris: Hermann. ^ Maier, Anneliese (1955). "Metaphysische Hintergründe der spätscholastischen Naturphilosophie". Studien zur Naturphilosophie der Spätscholastik. Rome: Storiae Letteratura. ^ Grant, Edward (1971). Physical Science in the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521292948. ^ Duhem 1906–13 Sources[edit] Clagett, Marshall (1960). The Science of Mechanics in the Middle Ages (1980. ed.). Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299019006. Courtenay, William J. (2002). "Philosophy's Reward: The Ecclesiastical Income of Jean Buridan". Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie Médiévale. 68: 163–69. doi:10.2143/rtpm.68.1.859. Courtenay, William J. (2005). "The University of Paris at the Time of John Buridan and Nicole Oresme". Vivarium. 42 (1): 3–17. doi:10.1163/1568534042066974. S2CID 170742014. Faral, Edmond (1951). "Jean Buridan: Maître ès Arts de l'Université de Paris". Extrait de l'Histoire littéraire de la France. 1. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale. Michael, Bernd (1986). Johannes Buridan: Studien zu seinem Leben, seinen Werken und zu Rezeption seiner Theorien im Europa des späten Mittelalters [Jean Buridan: His life, his works and the reaction to his theories in the Europe of the late Middle Ages]. 2 Vols. Doctoral dissertation. University of Berlin. Zupko, Jack (1998). "What Is the Science of the Soul? A Case Study in the Evolution of Late Medieval Natural Philosophy". Synthese. 110 (2): 297–334. doi:10.1023/A:1004969404080. Zupko, Jack (2004). John Buridan. Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN 9780268032562. Zupko, Jack (2015). "John Buridan". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Retrieved 5 February 2019. Further reading[edit] Klima, Gyula (2009). John Buridan. New York: Oxford University Press. Landi, Marcello (2008). "Un contributo allo studio della scienza nel Medio Evo. Il trattato Il cielo e il mondo di Giovanni Buridano e un confronto con alcune posizioni di Tommaso d'Aquino" [A contribution to the study of science in the Middle Ages. The sky and the world of Jean Buridan and a comparison with some positions of St. Thomas Aquinas]. Divus Thomas. 110 (2): 151–185. Thijssen, J. M. M. H., and Jack Zupko (ed.) (2002). The Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy of John Buridan Leiden: Brill. External links[edit] Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Buridan, Jean. Zupko, Jack. "John Buridan". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Bibliography by Fabienne Pironet (up to 2001) Buridan's Logic and Metaphysics: an annotated bibliography (updates the bibliography of Fabienne Pironet to 2014) Buridan's Logical Works. I. An Overview of the Summulae de dialectica a detailed summary of the nine treatises of the Summulae de dialectica Buridan's Logical Works. II. The Treatise on Consequences and other writings a summary of the other logical writings Buridan: Editions, Translations and Studies on the Manuscript Tradition Complete bibliography of the logical and metaphysical works v t e Medieval philosophers Islamic Early Al-Jahiz Alkindus Ibn al-Rawandi Al-Razi (Rhazes) Al-Farabi (Alpharabius) Ibn Masarra Al Amiri Ebn Meskavayh Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) Abu Rayhan Biruni "Brethren of Purity" High Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) Ibn Hazm Al-Ghazali (Algazel) Abu'l-Barakāt al-Baghdādī Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani Ibn Tufail Ibn Rushd (Averroes) Late Ibn Sab'in Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi Fakhr ad-Din ar-Razi Rashid al-Din Ibn Arabi Zachariah Kazwin Abd-el-latif Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Ibn al-Nafis Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi Ibn Taymiyyah Ibn Khaldun Jewish Medieval Isaac Israeli ben Solomon Saadia Gaon Solomon ibn Gabirol Judah Halevi Abraham ibn Daud Maimonides Nachmanides Gersonides Hasdai Crescas Joseph Albo Christian Early "Church Fathers" Augustine of Hippo Boethius Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite Isidore of Seville Johannes Scotus Eriugena Alcuin 11–12th century "Scholasticism" Anselm of Canterbury Peter Abelard Anselm of Laon Hugh of Saint Victor Richard of Saint Victor Roscelin Peter Lombard Alexander of Hales Bernard of Chartres Dominicus Gundissalinus Gilbert de la Porrée Alain de Lille 13–14th century Robert Grosseteste Albertus Magnus Bonaventure Thomas Aquinas Siger of Brabant Boetius of Dacia Henry of Ghent Roger Bacon John Peckham Ramon Llull Petrus Aureolus Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt Durandus Giles of Rome Godfrey of Fontaines Duns Scotus William of Ockham Late Jean Buridan Nicole Oresme Albert of Saxony Francesc Eiximenis Vincent Ferrer Paul of Venice Lambertus de Monte John Hennon See also Renaissance philosophy Authority control BIBSYS: 90379379 BNE: XX1766754 BNF: cb118858509 (data) CANTIC: a10055393 CiNii: DA01241727 GND: 118818864 ISNI: 0000 0004 5567 4539 LCCN: n50032056 NKC: jx20041021002 NLA: 35023836 NLI: 001861447 NTA: 068595980 PLWABN: 9810646507805606 RERO: 02-A000024343 SELIBR: 179716 SNAC: w6697p15 SUDOC: 02665086X Trove: 797752 VcBA: 495/10652 VIAF: 286011503 WorldCat Identities: viaf-261969768 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jean_Buridan&oldid=997334977" Categories: 1295 births 1361 deaths 13th-century French people 14th-century French writers 14th-century Roman Catholic priests 14th-century philosophers People from Béthune French Roman Catholic priests French philosophers Latin commentators on Aristotle Natural philosophers Scholastic philosophers Catholic clergy scientists Catholic philosophers French male writers French logicians University of Paris faculty Medieval physicists 14th-century Latin writers Hidden categories: CS1: abbreviated year range Articles with short description Short description matches Wikidata Articles with hCards All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from February 2019 Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with RERO identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية Արեւմտահայերէն Azərbaycanca বাংলা Български Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Ελληνικά Español Esperanto Euskara فارسی Français Galego 한국어 Հայերեն Hrvatski Italiano עברית Қазақша Latina Magyar മലയാളം مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Polski Português Română Русский Slovenčina Slovenščina Српски / srpski Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 31 December 2020, at 01:23 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement