Is Ars an Intellectual Virtue? John Buridan on Craft

Abstract

AbstractScholarship on the philosophy of the Late Middle Ages has tended to overlook certain subject matters, especially some pertaining to ethics and political philosophy. My object of study in this paper is one of these overlooked notions, the idea of craft (ars) as an intellectual virtue. While recent publications have focused on sapientia, and scientia, this paper aims to rehabilitate ars as a virtue, in particular John Buridan’s understanding of craft as an intellectual virtue in his Quaestiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis ad Nicomachum. My goal is to examine Buridan’s analysis of craft as expounded in this commentary. Once the Picardian master’s theses have been presented, and the objections he raises have been reviewed along with the solutions proposed to those objections, I briefly suggest why craft might have been overlooked as a virtue.KeywordsBuridanCraftVirtuesMedieval ethicsIntellectual virtuesFactive intellectScholasticism