Walter Chatton Research Articles

William of Ockham and Walter Chatton on Sensory Powers and the Materiality of Sensation

While many thirteenth-century scholastic philosophers thought that the human powers of sensation are distinct from the human intellect, this apparent consensus collapsed in the 1320s, ‘30s, and ‘40s. The proximate cause of this transformation was Walter Chatton’s rejection of William of Ockham’s arguments that the human powers of sensation are distinct from the human intellect. This article examines Chatton’s implicit and explicit motivations for rejecting Ockham’s arguments. I show that Ockham thinks that the senses are distinct from the intellect because he holds that sensing is material and embodied in a way that thinking is not. I show that Chatton, on the other hand, sees no need to posit such a difference between sensation and thought with respect to materiality or embodiment because he thinks that nothing about the character of sensory experience shows it to be material or embodied in a way that thinking is not.

Deflecting Ockham’s Razor: A Medieval Debate about Ontological Commitment

Abstract William of Ockham (d. 1347) is well known for his commitment to parsimony and for his so-called ‘razor’ principle. But little is known about attempts among his own contemporaries to deflect his use of the razor. In this paper, I explore one such attempt. In particular, I consider a clever challenge that Ockham’s younger contemporary, Walter Chatton (d. 1343) deploys against the razor. The challenge involves a kind of dilemma for Ockham. Depending on how Ockham responds to this dilemma, his razor will, Chatton argues, either prove unacceptably dull when it comes to determining ontological commitment or prove unacceptably sharp when it comes to determining commitments entailed by certain theological doctrines. While Chatton’s objection is subtle and interesting in its own right, the broader significance of the debate between these thinkers lies in the light it sheds on medieval approaches to issues surrounding metaphysical methodology.

The contingency of prophetic semantics in Walter Chatton’s Lectura

Abstract This paper examines Walter Chatton’s discussion of the problem of prophesied future contingents in his Lectura super Sententias. Faced with the challenge of reconciling the supposedly veridical character of divine prophecy with human freedom to do otherwise, Chatton casts the relation of prophecy to event in the form of a logical consequentia and formulates two rules which depend on the character of the antecedent in question. In the case of antecedents involving divine knowledge and related phenomena, the freedom of the wayfarer to do otherwise is secured by the assumption that the consequence is necessary but the antecedent is semantically contingent. In the case of concrete utterances and phenomena, on the other hand, the wayfarer’s freedom is secured by the assumption that the consequence itself is contingent. Chatton’s treatment, while analytically subtle and rigorous, leaves a number of important questions unanswered, most notably that of the ontological openness or closure of the future. Nevertheless, it is interesting both in its own right and insofar as it provides a clarifying source for Chatton’s later discussion of the same topic in his Quodlibet.

Geraldus Odonis on Atomism

Abstract The Franciscan Geraldus Odonis (d. 1349) presented his indivisibilist theory of continua in Paris at a time when similar theses were advanced in the studia across the Channel. The Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Henry of Harclay (d. 1317), caused considerable stir among his colleagues by endorsing a mathematical atomism, and his most famous follower, Walter Chatton, O. F. M., developed his brand of atomism in the early 1320s. The present article focuses on one of the five different redactions of Odonis’s famous question De continuo, preserved in his commentary on Book ii of Peter Lombard’s Sentences (d. 44, q. 4). The first part of the article examines the main differences between the various redactions of the question De continuo. The second part explores the philosophical content and the circumstances surrounding the redaction found in Book ii of Odonis’s Sentences commentary. While acknowledging that Odonis’s atomism is similar to Harclay’s, it is argued that Odonis’s theory is a significant departure from the type of atomism espoused by Harclay. The Appendix provides the first complete critical edition of the said redaction of Odonis’s question De continuo.

Future Contingents and the Iterated Exchange

Abstract In his Reportatio super Sententias (ca. 1321–1323), Walter Chatton proposes a solution to the problem of future contingents based on propositional analysis. Future-tense statements must be disambiguated with the help of a scope distinction between temporal and truth operators, such that a statement like “Socrates will sit” comes out either as (1) “it is true now that Socrates will sit,” or (2) “it will be true that Socrates sits.” On the first analysis, Socrates’s action is necessitated, whereas on the second it remains contingent. In his later Quodlibet (ca. 1330), Chatton maintains his original analysis but augments it with an ingenious use of the traditional distinction between actus exercitus and actus significatus. His use of the distinction enables him both to give some speech-act-theoretical content to the scope analysis, which had been open to the charge of mere formalism, and to defend it cogently against an apparently strong counterargument.

Ockham and Chatton on Intellective Intuition

Abstract Intellective intuitive cognition plays a key role in William of Ockham’s philosophy. On many occasions, Walter Chatton argues that this kind of cognition is unnecessary. Chatton has two main arguments for his point. First, he raises doubts about the possibility of distinguishing intellective intuitive cognition from sensory intuitive cognition. The former always arises with the latter, and whatever we can explain through the former, we can explain equally well through the latter. Second, he argues that we cannot separate the intellective intuitive cognition of a singular thing from the cognition of the species of that thing. We cannot intuitively and intellectively cognize a thing without recognizing that thing as a thing of a certain kind. Chatton’s conclusion is that since we can never experience an act of intellective intuitive cognition in itself, it is superfluous to posit this act of cognition. We can explain the singular cognition of an extramental singular simply by making the cognition of its species and the sensory intuitive cognition of it interact with each other.

Reflexivity Without Noticing: Durand of Saint-Pour\xe7ain, Walter Chatton, Brentano

According to Franz Brentano, every mental act includes a representation of itself. Hence, Brentano can be described as maintaining that: (T1) reflexivity, when it occurs, is included as a part in mental acts; and (T2) reflexivity always occurs. Brentano’s way of understanding the inclusion of reflexivity in mental acts (T1) entails double intentionality in mental acts. The aim of this paper is to show that the conjunction of (T1) and (T2) is not uncommon in the history of philosophy. To that end, the theories of two medieval thinkers, namely, Walter Chatton and Durand of Saint-Pourçain, are presented. The repeated conjunction of (T1) and (T2) paves the way for a more general distinction than that between subjectivist and objectivist theories of reflexivity, namely, one between automatic theories of reflexivity (where noticing is not required for reflexivity) and apperceptive theories of reflexivity (where noticing is required for reflexivity).

Assensum in mente prophetae: William of Ockham and Walter Chatton on Prophecies

The subject of this article is the intertwining between Walter Chatton and William of Ockham’s theories about the cognitive nature of prophetic statements, a topic in the theological debate of the early 14th century. Starting from recent interpretations of Chatton and Ockham’s cognitive theory in terms of the distinction between externalism and internalism, and from a reading of some sources where the topic of prophecy is crucial (for Chatton: Reportatio Super Sententias, I, dd. 38-39, the less investigated d. 41 and Quodlibeta, qq. 26-29; for Ockham: Tractatus de praedestinatione et de praescientia Dei respectu futurorum contingentium, q.1 and Quodlibeta, q. 4) we apply the externalism/internalism distinction to the case study of prophetic statements. Starting from epistemological questions about prophecies, future contingents and divine foreknowledge, we’ll show the outcomes as pragmatic rules of this kind of statements in both conceptual frameworks analyzed.

Walter Chatton on Future Contingents: Between Formalism and Ontology, written by Jon Bornholdt

Walter Chatton on Future Contingents: Between Formalism and Ontology, written by Jon Bornholdt

Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy ed. by Gyula Klima, and: Bero Magni de Ludosia, Questions on the Soul. A Medieval Swedish Philosopher on Life by Robert Andrews

Reviewed by: Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy ed. by Gyula Klima, and: Bero Magni de Ludosia, Questions on the Soul. A Medieval Swedish Philosopher on Life by Robert Andrews Oleg Bychkov (bio) Gyula Klima, ed., Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press, 2015. Pp 359, $45. Robert Andrews, Bero Magni de Ludosia, Questions on the Soul. A Medieval Swedish Philosopher on Life. Stockholm: Sällskapet Runica et Mediaevalia, Stockholm University, 2016. Pp 397, 200 Swedish Krona Intentionality, mental representation, sensory perception and its reliability, sensory illusions, and the concomitant issue of epistemological skepticism are becoming an important cluster of related topics in research on medieval cognitive psychology. It is no wonder, because these topics are much more relevant to present-day discussions of cognition and sensory perception, as many of these issues remain unexplained to this date, and therefore any observations in these areas could still be of interest, while many other topics traditionally discussed in studies on medieval philosophy have only historical value and gradually fade into oblivion. Although the two publications included in this review are not exclusively, or not at all on Franciscan sources, both make important contributions to the discussion of a cluster of topics around the issue of intentionality, which was at the center of heated debates in Franciscan theological circles in the 1300's. The review will focus on sections dedicated to Franciscan authors, as well as on topics that are most pertinent to concerns of Franciscan authors in these areas. Gyula Klima, ed., Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy Among contributors to this collection of essays are many well known scholars. In addition to Klima's opening and closing general essays on the topic, essays are either on specific issues in medieval thought across several authors or periods (such as "concepts and meaning"; "singular thought"; "mental language"; "mental representation in animals and humans"; or "intersubjective sameness of mental concepts") or are dedicated to specific thinkers, from 1200's to the late Middle Ages: Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Nicholas of Autrecourt, Buridan, and a high [End Page 359] number of Franciscan thinkers (John Duns Scotus, Peter Aureol, Walter Chatton, William Ockham, and Adam Wodeham). In the introduction, Klima reminds the reader that intentionality is "one of the few medieval philosophical contributions preserved in modern philosophical thought." Even though this opinion, he notes, may not be entirely accurate, still an examination of these medieval debates can "shed new light" on relationships between medieval and modern thought and on some "fundamental questions" in the contemporary philosophy of mind (1). Klima's verdict, after having summarized individual contributions, is that "the new conceptions of concepts emerging with the via moderna open up the late medieval possibility of 'Demon-skepticism,' paving the way to the epistemological predicaments of early modern philosophy, still affecting many contemporary approaches in the field." This is the primary reason why essays in this volume "are not only contributions to our better understanding of history, but also… of our contemporary problems in the field" (8). One must definitely agree with this assessment. A contrast between Aquinas and Duns Scotus is a common starting point in many accounts of medieval thought. In Giorgio Pini's "Two Models of Thinking: Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus on Occur-rent Thoughts" the topic of intentionality is included as one of the questions (no. 3) as he examines the two models of occurrent thoughts: "what accounts for an act of thinking being about something?" (81). Aquinas's position is that acts of thinking are actions, while for Scotus they are mental qualities. Aquinas's model is too much of a stretch: e.g., he creates an "intermediate" state for an intelligible species in the intellect between active and potential states. Ultimately he ends up with a highly problematic position that acts of thinking cannot be about extramental objects, i.e., cannot be directly intentional, for they only involve intellectual species internal to the mind. While many critics of Aquinas did not object to viewing acts of thinking as actions (94), Scotus in his works (including the Reportatio I-A) develops an entirely new, sophisticated position on...

Percibir los contenidos de nuestras percepciones, William of Ockham y Walter Chatton frente a De Anima III.2

William of Ockham and Walter Chatton advanced two different theories about introspection, that is, about one’s capacity to apprehend and cognize one’s own mental states and their contents. Both the...

O dwóch średniowiecznych koncepcjach celowości natury: Duns Szkot i Chatton

This article is seeks to outline several important themes of two medieval conceptions of final causality, whose authors are John Duns Scotus and Walter Chatton. The author focuses on three issues: (1) the arguments for natural teleology, (2) the ontological status of the end, (3) the status of God as a final cause. The aim of the analyses presented here is to show that many opinions presented by Duns Scotus and Chatton were undermining the previous scholastic vision of holistic teleology, which reached its most mature form in the thought of Thomas Aquinas — and in that way they have paved the way towards the modern critique of teleology.

Walter Chatton on Enumerating the Categories

Although the fourteenth-century Franciscan theologian Walter Chatton did not comment on Aristotle’s Categories, he discussed a number of issues relating to categories in his Lectura on the Sentences. The author examines his response to the question ‘How many categories are there?’ He gives three methods by which we can arrive at the number of the categories, the last two of which seem to meet his approval. Chatton advocates a strong isomorphism between ontology and semantics: the number of the categories is determined by and equal to the number of classes of things.

The Notitia Intuitiva and Notitia Abstractiva of the External Senses in Second Scholasticism: Suárez, Poinsot and Francisco de Oviedo

This paper analyzes the theories of three representatives of Second Scholasticism, namely Francisco Suárez, sj, John Poinsot, op, and Francisco de Oviedo, sj, on the issue of the intuitive and abstractive cognition of the external senses. Based on a comparison of their theories, linked to the historical starting point of the debate in the first decades of the fourteenth century (Peter Auriol, John Duns Scotus, Francis of Meyronnes, William of Ockham and Walter Chatton), the paper argues that the doctrinal and argumentative matrix of these authors’ texts is significantly ‘present’ in the Second Scholastics as well. 1) As far as naturally produced sensation is concerned, all these authors, including Poinsot, follow the Scotistic justification of the natural infallibility of the external senses; 2) regarding the possibility of supernaturally caused objectless perception, Poinsot’s position can be labelled, surprisingly, Scotistic; 3) Suárez’s theory, although partly similar to the doctrine of the late Ockham, is an idiosyncratic stance; 4) Oviedo’s conception, even more distant from that of Ockham, can be characterized as ‘Auriolian’ and ‘Chattonian’.

Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham on Divine Simplicity and Trinitarian Relations

The present paper examines the trinitarian theology of Adam Wodeham and Walter Chatton through an examination of the filioque, i.e., the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son. The paper argues that the strong emphasis on divine simplicity that emerged in the early fourteenth century had a subtle influence on how Wodeham and Chatton understood the intra-trinitarian distinctions between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages ed. by Dallas G. Denery, II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman (review)

Reviewed by: Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages ed. by Dallas G. Denery, II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman Lola Sharon Davidson Denery, Dallas G., II, Kantik Ghosh, and Nicolette Zeeman, eds, Uncertain Knowledge: Scepticism, Relativism, and Doubt in the Middle Ages (Disputatio, 14), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014; hardback; pp. viii, 345; 10 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503547763. This book originated in a research project and workshop examining uncertain knowledge in the Middle Ages. The papers fall broadly into two camps, philosophical and literary. The editors’ Introduction makes clear that this breadth arises from an explicit strategy aimed at exploring both the role played by scepticism in the scholastic production of authorised knowledge and the subversion of that institutional knowledge by vernacular and lay cultural players. The focus is determinedly epistemological and largely ignores the vexed and voluminous subject of religious orthodoxy and heresy. Dallas G. Denery II opens the discussion with John of Salisbury’s meditations on the attitude of the superior man in an environment, namely the court, rendered inherently deceptive by flattery and illusory pleasures. Denery sees in John a continuing humanist tradition masked by the ascendancy of scholasticism until its resurgence in the early modern era. Eileen C. Sweeney looks at the reception of Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics by Grosseteste and Roger Bacon whose move to privilege scientific knowledge, and thereby implicitly problematise other forms, was resisted by the Summa fratris Alexandri and William of Auvergne’s championing of faith as the only possible certainty. Dominik Perler brings us to medieval considerations of the classical grounds of scepticism through Walter Chatton’s and William Ockham’s responses to Peter Aureol’s attempt to account for sensory illusions by mediated perception. Perler concludes that radical scepticism was impossible within an Aristotelian framework committed to the reliability of our natural capacities. Christophe Grellard continues this theme with John Buridan’s explanation of how it is possible to believe falsely. Buridan sympathetically employed the figure of the ‘little old woman’ to explain how habit, social pressure, and imagination might combine to distort perception and permit false belief. Concluding the more strictly philosophical section, Rita Copeland reveals the difficulty commentators, such as Giles of Rome, Buridan, and even the translator, William of Moerbeke, had in situating Aristotle’s Rhetoric within the Ciceronian rhetorical tradition. Notwithstanding Aristotle’s placing it under logic, the manuscript tradition preferred to group it with ethics and politics. Lesley Smith bridges the shift from the scholastic to the literary by looking at uncertainty in the study of the Bible. Medieval scholars were aware that they were dealing with fallible translations from unreliable texts and not all were content to resolve problems by allegorising. Nicholas of Lyra turned to a rabbi for the cultural background of the Bible. William of Auvergne and Richard and Hugh of St Victor sought rational explanations of biblical stories while accepting that uncertainty would persist. [End Page 232] Karen Sullivan shifts the focus to vernacular literature with Robert de Boron’s Merlin. Rejecting a rationalist denunciation of Merlin as diabolically inspired, Boron draws on a contemplative perspective that employs the prophet’s mysterious nature to valorise intellectual humility and faith. Helen Swift continues this perspective in her chapter on love poetry. The lover’s desire renders him peculiarly incapable of discerning the truth but this inability is itself willed for: the continuance of uncertainty is the precondition for the continuance of desire. Jean de Meun, Chaucer, and Lydgate are the subject of Nicolette Zeeman’s contribution. She sees these authors turning the weapons of the scholastic philosophers against them in a systematic problematising of sanctioned epistemological, moral, social, and gender hierarchies. Next, Mishtooni Bose focuses on the role of opinion in the vernacular philosophical and moral works of Christine de Pizan and Bishop Reginald Pecock. Notwithstanding the Introduction’s disclaimer, Kantik Ghosh addresses heresy and the policing of intellectual debate in the trials of Richard Fleming, Jerome of Prague, and Jan Hus, all of whom were accused of following Wyclif. Fleming successfully defended himself on the grounds of academic debate, but Hus and Jerome found arguments for academic freedom powerless against the Inquisition and...

Later medieval metaphysics: ontology, language, and logic

This book begins with standard ontological topics--such as the nature of existence--and of metaphysics generally, such as the status of universals, form, and accidents. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and, if so, are they anything more than general concepts? Among the figures it examines are Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th-century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina (Avicenna). There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, additional discussions of connected topics in medieval logic, epistemology, and language provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later medieval worldview.

The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford, 1277-1409 by Andrew E. Larsen (review)

The School of Heretics: Academic Condemnation at the University of Oxford, 1277-1409. By Andrew E. Larsen. [Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Vol. 40.] (Leiden: Brill. 2011. Pp. xii, 322. $166.00. ISBN 978-90-04-20661-8.)Andrew E. Larsen's study is an excellent historical and doctrinal analysis of accusations of heresy leveled against various academicians related to the University of Oxford during the period in question.The author has carefully designated the parameters of his study so as to limit its scope and purview.Regarding heresy and heretics, there was a prevailing distinction among falsity, error, and heresy alluded to by Henry of Ghent in his Quodlibet X, q. 5 (Leuven, 1981, p. 12). Likewise, suspects were to be given three warnings before being brought to inquisitorial proceedings (p. 151), a rule to be found somewhere in canon law. The author, understandably, struggles a bit with how to translate the Latin fama, deciding on rumor (p. 15); repute, reputation, as-widely-viewed might be alternatives but hardly more satisfying.References to the Lollards occur periodically in Larsen's work. In addition to the individuals considered to be Lollards mentioned in the index, it would have been helpful for those unfamiliar with this period of history to learn what ideas or views earned them the label.With respect to the controversy regarding the plurality/unicity of forms (pp. 27-29, 46), there was a refinement that seems to have escaped the purview of the author-namely, the opinion that there were multiple grades of a single form. Whether this opinion can initially be traced to John Pecham, we may never know, since his treatise De gradibus formarum (once housed in the Merton library) is now lost. Positing grades of a single form responds to St. Thomas Aquinas's argument that a plurality of forms leads to a sort of metaphysical schizoid in any given individual being.The grades theory was subsequently supported by Roger Marston and opposed by Giles of Rome in his Contra gradus formarum (Venice, 1500).Regarding the career of Blessed John Duns Scotus (pp. 64-65), details may be found in William A. Frank and Allan B. Walter's volume on Duns Scotus Metaphysician (West Lafayette, IN, 1995) as well as in Antonie Vos's monumental treatment in The Philosophy of John Duns Scotus (Edinburgh, 2006). Regarding the allusion to Walter Chatton's view that the brouhaha about the various signa originis in the divinity had come to be considered frivo lous on both sides of the channel, this can now be found in the critical edition (Toronto, 2002).Allusion is made to Ockham's treatises on the Eucharist (p. 77). These have been edited in the critical edition by Carl A. …

Lectura super Sententias: Liber I, Distinctiones 1–2, 3–7, 8–17 (review)

Reviewed by: Lectura super Sententias: Liber I, Distinctiones 1–2, 3–7, 8–17 Susan Brower-Toland Walter Chatton. Lectura super Sententias: Liber I, Distinctiones 1–2. Edited by Joseph C. Wey and Girard J. Etzkorn. Studies and Texts 156. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2007. Pp. xiv + 562. Cloth, $94.95. Walter Chatton. Lectura super Sententias: Liber I, Distinctiones 3–7. Edited by Joseph C. Wey and Girard J. Etzkorn. Studies and Texts 158. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2008. Pp. xii + 482. Cloth, $89.95. Walter Chatton. Lectura super Sententias: Liber I, Distinctiones 8–17. Edited by Joseph C. Wey and Girard J. Etzkorn. Studies and Texts 164. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2009. Pp. xvi + 442. Cloth, $90.00. Walter Chatton (ca. 1290–1343) is not exactly a household name—even among historians of medieval philosophy. Indeed, to the extent that he is known to scholars, it is more for his role as a critic of William of Ockham (d. 1347) than for any particular philosophical contribution of his own. Part of the reason for this owes to Chatton's own philosophical style: he uses his objections to Ockham's (and, to a lesser extent, to Peter Aureol's) views as a foil for developing his own. Another, larger part of the explanation, however, is that the bulk of Chatton's philosophical writings have not been accessible for research and study. Thanks to the efforts of the late Joseph Wey and Girard Etzkorn, this is no longer the case. Over the last eight years, Etzkorn (drawing on Wey's transcription of the manuscripts and his textual annotations) has published critical editions of all of Chatton's commentaries on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. Indeed, with the publication of these three volumes of Chatton's Lectura super Sententias (the second of his two Sentences commentaries), almost the whole of Chatton's surviving philosophical corpus is now available in a critical edition. All that remains is his Quodlibet, currently being edited by Etzkorn, Rondo Keele, and Chris Schabel. Chatton studied and lectured at Oxford in the early decades of the fourteenth century. It was at Oxford that he encountered Ockham, who was at the time (ca. 1317–19) delivering his own lectures on Lombard's Sentences. This encounter was to shape much of Chatton's subsequent philosophical thinking. Chatton was among Ockham's earliest and fiercest critics, but he was also enormously influenced by him. Indeed, Ockham's opinions are treated (and criticized) in nearly every question of the Lectura. Thus, Chatton frequently takes up precisely those issues Ockham treats along with the terminology and conceptual apparatus in which he frames them, only to reject his conclusions—typically in favor of Scotus's. For this reason, the publication of the Lectura promises to advance not only the recovery of Chatton's philosophy, but also our understanding of the early reception of and reaction to Scotus's and Ockham's thought among scholars at Oxford. And because Chatton is both an insightful critic of Ockham and an able defender of Scotus, there is reason to expect that the positions he himself advocated made important contributions to the debates most current in his day. The Lectura itself is incomplete. It covers only the first of the four books of the Sentences, and (for reasons which remain unknown) breaks off at question 7 of distinction 17. Following the structure of Lombard's discussion in Book I, Chatton's commentary focuses on the [End Page 120] doctrine of God. His discussion includes questions about our knowledge of God's existence and nature, about the divine attributes, and a host of questions addressing various aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity. Because adequate treatment of such thorny theological issues often requires recourse to philosophical doctrines and distinctions, a great deal of Chatton's Lectura is devoted to issues of purely philosophical interest. For instance, in the course of explaining the relationship between the divine essence and divine attributes (d.2, q.3), Chatton offers an interpretation and defense of Scotus's formal distinction. Similarly, he uses a question about whether God alone is individual de se as an occasion for a...

Ockham's Razor: sharpen or re-sheathe?

Ockham's Razor: sharpen or re-sheathe?