William of Auvergne on the Individuation of Human Souls

Abstract

William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, was one of the first theologians of the thirteenth century to take into serious account the philosophical works that poured into the Latin West during the last half of the twelfth and the early decades of the thirteenth century. William showed a great deal of openness toward the works of those to whom he referred as “Aristotle and his followers,” and obviously drew upon them, even going so far as to adopt the Avicennian arguments for the existence of God as the being that is necessary through itself, and to claim that the Avicennian expression, “necesse esse per se,” is the proper name of the first principle. On the other hand, he also firmly rejected many Aristotelian doctrines when he found them to be in opposition to the faith.