The Souls after Vienne: Franciscan Theologians’ Views on the Plurality of Forms and the Plurality of Souls, ca. 1315–1330

Abstract

This chapter assesses the impact of the Council of Vienne on the practice of philosophy clear through to the seventeenth century. In the early fourteenth century, Franciscan philosophical psychology suffered three shocks in a row: John Duns Scotus, the Council of Vienne, and Peter Auriol. The first generation of Franciscan theologians at Paris after the Council argued for a range of positions, from postulating that humans have only an intellective soul to arguing for real presence in human beings of distinct intellective, sensory, and vegetative souls. The chapter discusses Himbert's questions on the plurality of forms and plurality of souls. For Franciscan thinkers, the obligation that the soul be form of the body combined with their doctrines of matter and form to become a requirement that the body have separate substantial form. Keywords:Council of Vienne; Franciscan theologians; John Duns Scotus; Peter Auriol; plurality of Forms; plurality of Souls