A history of Western philosophy

thanks to an operation of our minds is not the forma sincera. It is because forms thus abstracted are considered otherwise than as they exist (aliter quam sint) that concern with them belongs not to physics but to mathematics. Gilbert is quite explicit that mathematics is concerned with native forms, but he considers them in a manner other than that in which they exist. He suggests a dependence of physics on mathematics in that the latter deals with corporeality and width, knowledge of which is presupposed by a physical concern with body and wide things. Having accounted for two speculative sciences by saying that physics deals with native forms along with their proper matter, while mathematics deals with native forms abstractly, Gilbert goes on to speak of theology. Theology goes beyond native forms to deal with true and pure forms (formae sincerae). By intellectual intuition the mind, in theology, looks to God, to the exemplar Ideas and to simple or primary matter. In theology, in other words, the mind attains to what is simple, without matter, immobile, and eternal. We have already seen Gilbert make reference to abstraction. The forma nativa, he holds, cannot exist apart from its proper matter; however, it can be considered apart by our mind (ratione). What is thus abstracted by the mind must, it would seem, be distinguished both from individual substances and from the Ideas. We have already alluded to the curious terminology Gilbert employs when he distinguishes particular existents and universals. Individual things are subsistents and substances, for they "stand under" accidents; for example, this body is the "support" of this color. Besides substances there are subsistencies. That this distinction is important for determining the status of universal is clear from the fact that Gilbert calls universal subsistencies. "Therefore genera and species, that is, general and special subsistencies, only subsist and are not truly substances [non substant vere], for accidents inhere neither in genera nor in species. That which is requires accidents in order to be, but genera and species have no need of accidents in order to be. It is individual things which truly subsist, for individuals no more than genera and species require accidents in order to be. That this is true of individuals supposes that they are already informed by the proper and specific differences whereby they subsist. However, they do not only subsist; individuals are substances as well since they confer being on accidents; while they are subject to these accidents, they are, in the reasonable order of creation, their causes and principles." (1375C) Does this mean that genera and species exist apart from individuals? To say that they are not substances is simply to deny of genera that they are supports of accidents. There seems to be every reason to say that Gilbert bad no intention of giving separate existence to genera and species. He speaks of universals as what our mind collects (colligit) from particulars. Universality is something which seems to be the sense of John of Salisbury's remark: "He attributes universality to native forms. . . . A native form is an example of an original form and it is not something in the divine mind but inheres in created things. This is what the Greeks called "eidos" (form) and is to the Idea as example to exemplar. It is sensible in the sensible thing but insensible as conceived by the mind; singular in singular things but common to all." (Metal., II, 17) Thus, it is amply clear that Gilbert does not identify universals and the divine Ideas, but it is seemingly by appeal to those Ideas that he justifies the applicability to individuals of the universal which has been collected from them, for the individuals are similar owing to imitation of the same Idea. The verb and derivative noun "colligere" and "collectio" that Gilbert uses when he talks about universals are rather difficult to interpret. Does he mean that the mind gathers together the similarities to be found in the individuals and ends by forming an abstract concept common to all the individuals? Or is he identifying the universal with the collection or class of all similar individuals? De Wulf seems to adopt the second alternative. "The genus and species are the sum total of the beings in which those similar realities (subsistencies) are found, belonging in proper to each of them." His basis for this interpretation is the text quoted earlier. It is probable, I think, that this is what Gilbert intends; if it be what he intends, if Gilbert holds that the species is a class, then "man," for example, would stand for the class of all men. On this interpretation, to say "Socrates is a man" would have to be unpacked in the following manner: Socrates belongs to the class of those objects called "man." Of course, this is not to say that "man" signifies "to be a member of the human class." Gilbert himself approaches it as follows. Wishing to contrast the way in which "God" is predicated of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to the way in which "man" is predicated of three individuals, say Plato, Cicero, and Aristotle, he says that in the case of the Persons of the Trinity, although what is predicated is predicated of numerically diverse Persons, there is a repetition not merely of the predicate but of the res signified by the predicate. This is not the case when Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero have "man" predicated of them. The word is repeated, of course; rem tamen predicatum non repetunt (the same res or reality is not repeated): sed quamvis conformes, tamen diversas: imo quia conformes, ergo numero diversas a se invicem natures de numero a se diversis affirmant, et haec trium de tribus praedicatorum necessaria differentia non patitur hanc adunationem, ut dicatur, Plato et Cicero et Aristoteles, sunt unus singulariter homo (but though similar, yet diverse; indeed, because similar, therefore natures numerically diverse from one another, and this necessary difference between the predicates of the three prevents the unity which would lead to saying Plato, Cicero, and Aristotle are one single man). (1262B) Gilbert seems to want to read these affirmative propositions thus: Plato is this man, Cicero is this (other) man, and Aristotle is this (yet other) man. Thus, the res signified by the apparently common predicate, "man," is different in the three affirmations. Oddly enough, this makes Gilbert sound like a nominalist, and yet he is traditionally classified as a realist. Like most of us, he seems to have been a bit of both. Perhaps his extremely nuanced views can be summarized as follows. Consider the statement "Socrates is a man. The predicate of that sentence can be regarded in at least three ways by Gilbert: (1) it refers to this singular instance of human nature which is Socrates, (2) it refers to the divine creative Idea which is more real and out-there than Socrates himself, (3) it involves an intellectus, or concept, that the mind has formed against the background of experiencing that Socrates is like Cicero, Aristotle, and so on. Now, if we ask if this third thing, this concept, answers just as such to something out-there, independent, real, but neither the divine Idea nor this singular human being or that, we are led inexorably to Gilbert's notion of subsistency. Do subsistencies exist? Does human nature exist elsewhere than in individuals, where it is associated with collections of accidents which are signs of, if not causes of, that nature's individuation? There is no simple answer to this question in Gilbert of Poitiers. Subsistencies exist in individuals that are also substances. Gilbert seems to say that that is the only way subsistencies can exist. He wants to avoid saying that my concept of such a subsistency as human nature commits me to the view that there is some numerically one res existing in, say, Socrates, Cicero, and Plato. Many men are specifically but not numerically one. They are specifically one because they are conformes. Is not the concept the expression and recognition of that conformity, and are not the objective bases and guarantees of the concept singular men and the divine Ideas? If this suggests only that the utmost caution must be exercised in applying labels like "realist" or "nominalist" to Gilbert of Poitiers, my purpose will have been attained. Bibliographical Note Gilbert's commentaries on Boethius can be found in PL, 64, accompanying Migne's presentation of the Boethian texts. More recent edition: Nikolaus Haring, "The Commentaries of Gilbert, Bishop of Poitiers, on the Two Boethian Opuscula sacra on the Holy Trinity," in Studies and Texts, Nine Medieval Thinkers, ed. J. Reginald O'Donnell, C.S.B. (Toronto, 1955), pp. 23-98. The De sex principiis is found in PL, 188, 1257-1270. Secondary literature: A. Forest, "Le réalisme de Gilbert de la Porée dans le commentaire du De hebdomadibus," Revue Néoscolastique de Louvain, 36 (1934), pp. 101 -110; N. Haring, "The Case of Gilbert de la Porée, Bishop of Poitiers," Medieval Studies, 13 (1951), pp. 1-40. For the influence of Gilbert see J. DeGhellinek, Le mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle (Paris, 1948),  William, a native of Conches in Normandy, studied under Bernard of Chartres and stayed on at the cathedral school as a teacher of grammar. He speaks of having taught for twenty years and more, and his teaching was at last interrupted by the Cornifician controversy. Did he resume his teaching career? Tullio Gregory conjectures that he did not. The Cornificians were routed we know, but William had been charged with heresy by William of St. Thierry, and it is not impossible that, soured by this, he retired to his native Normandy, where he wrote his Dragmaticon under the protection of Geoffrey the Fair, Count of Anjou and a Plantagenet. An early work of William's, which he calls simply Philosophia, is printed as De philosophia mundi among the wor