Albertus Magnus and the Categorization of Motion

Abstract

The Thomist 70 (2006): 203-35 ALBERTUS MAGNUS AND THE CATEGORIZATION OF MOTION1 STEVEN BALDNER St. Francis Xavier University Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada BECAUSE OF THE scholarly work of Anneliese Maier,2 the doctrine of motion formulated by Albertus Magnus has come to be seen as decisive for the development of physical theory in the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. According to Maier, Albert was the first of the Scholastics to reckon with the unsolved Aristotelian problem of how precisely to categorize motion. Averroes reported that in the Categories, Aristotle had said that motion is in the category of "being passive" (passio) ;3 in the Physics, Aristotle said that motion belongs to several categories.4 To resolve the apparent discrepancy between these two claims, Albert devoted a long chapter (the third) in 1 I should like to express my appreciation to the Dominican University College, Ottawa, Ontario, which generously provided me with resources and facilities to pursue research on Albertus Magnus during my year of sabbatical leave. I would especially like to thank Rev. Lawrence Dewan, O.P., of this community, who provided excellent criticism of a draft of this article. 2 "Die Wesensbestimmung der Bewegung," in Anneliese Maier, Die Vorlaufer Galileis im 14. ]ahrhundert, 2d ed. (Rome: Edizioni di Storia et Letteratura, 1966), 9-25; "Motus est actus entis in potentia ..."in Anneliese Maier, Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik (Rome: Edizioni di Storia etLetteratura, 1958), 3-57; "Forma Fluens oder Fluxus Formae?" in Maier, Zwischen Philosophie und Mechanik, 61-143. The first article was originally published in Angelicum 21 (1944): 97-111, and has been translated into English by Steven Sargent in chapter 1 of On the Threshold ofExact Science: Selected Writings ofAnneliese Maier on Late Medieval Natural Philosophy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982), 3-39. 3 In fact Aristotle makes no such claim, but Averroes said that Aristotle did in his Commentariae in libros Physicorum Aristotelis, lib. 3, text. 4, fol. 87C (Venice, 1562). 4 Physics 3.1.200b33-20la3. 203 204 STEVEN BALDNER book 3, tractate 1 of his Physica to answer the double question: "Whether and How Motion Is in the Categories."5 In doing so, Albert made use of the positions of Avicenna and Averroes; in fact, according to Maier, Albert canonized certain interpretations of these two authors in ways that were to dominate the succeeding discussions of the problem of motion. Avicenna's position is identified by Albert, so Maier tells us, with the term fluxus formae, "the flow of a form," while Averroes' is identified with the term forma fluens, "the flowing form." And this subtle but crucial distinction of terms led to a fundamentally wrong turn in the history of Scholastic natural philosophy. The nominative nouns in these terms tell the tale: fluxus, on the one hand, or forma, on the other. Is motion fundamentally to be understood as a fluxus, as an inherently flowing reality, or is it to be understood as a forma, as a static sort of reality? True, both the term fluxus formae and the term forma fluens are constructed from the same two words, the noun forma and the verb fluere, but Maier insists that the terms were given quite different technical meanings by Albert. Avicenna's term, fluxus formae, meant for Albert that motion cannot be placed in any Aristotelian category, whereas the term forma fluens meant that motion was essentially identical with some category in which motion is recognized.6 Albert, unfortunately, opted for Averroes' formulation that 5 "An in praedicamentis sit motus et qualiter sit in illis" (Physica, lib. 3, tract. 1, cap. 3 [Cologne 4.1:149 (II. 56)]). All references to Albert's works are taken from Opera omnia, ed. lnstitutum Alberti Magni Coloniense (Munster i. Westf: Aschendorff, 1951-). 6 "For Albert, the Averroist interpretation of motion is this: qualitative change is a flowing quality (qualitas fluens), local motion is a flowing place (ubi fluens), and motion is distinguished from its terminus, not in essence, but only in being, insofar as it is a 'form in flux', while the end of motion is a 'form at rest'.... Because Avicenna takes the view that motion is a flow ofbeing that can in...