William of Auvergne

First published Wed Sep 24, 2008; substantive revision Sat Mar 18, 2023

William of Auvergne or Paris, (ca.1180/90–1249), Bishop of Parisfrom 1228 until his death in 1249, was one of the first wave ofthinkers in the Latin West to engage with the writings on naturalphilosophy and metaphysics by Greek, Islamic and Jewish thinkers thathad recently become available in Latin translation. William took thesewritings to pose errors dangerous to the Christian faith, and hisphilosophical works are in large part aimed at combating their errors.Yet at the same time he recognized their philosophical value and,though often confused about their meaning, incorporated theirteachings into his own thought. On many of the important issues oflater medieval thought, William is the first to provide in-depthdiscussions, and his voluminous works are an important and stillunder-appreciated source for our understanding of the development ofmedieval philosophy.

1. Life

As with so many important medieval figures, we know little aboutWilliam’s early years. According to one manuscript source, hewas born in Aurillac, in the province of Auvergne in south-centralFrance. His birth date is unknown, but since he was a professor oftheology at the University of Paris by 1225, a position rarelyattained before the age of 35, he is not likely to have been bornlater than 1190, and scholars have placed his probable birth date sometime between 1180 and 1190. He may have come from a poor background,as the Dominican, Stephen of Bourbon (died c. 1261), tells a story ofWilliam begging as a young child (Valois 1880, 4). He was a canon ofNotre Dame and a master of theology by 1223, and is mentioned in bullsof Pope Honorius III in 1224 and 1225.

The story of his elevation to the episcopacy in 1228 paints a pictureof a man of great determination and self-confidence. The previous yearthe Bishop of Paris, Bartholomeus, had died, and the canons of thechapter of Notre Dame met to select his successor. The initialselection of a cantor named Nicholas did not secure unanimousagreement and was contested, in particular, by William. Nicholasexcused himself, and the canons went on to choose the Dean of theCathedral. William again contested the election and went to Rome toappeal to the Pope to vacate it. He made a favorable impression, forthe Pope, impressed by his “eminent knowledge and spotlessvirtue,” as he put it (Valois 1880, 11), both ordained himpriest and made him Bishop of Paris, a position he retained until hisdeath in 1249.

It was not long before the Pope would have regrets. In February 1229 anumber of students were killed by the forces of the queen-regent,Blanche of Castile, when they intervened in a drunken student riotduring Carnival. Outraged, the masters and students appealed toWilliam for redress of their rights, but William failed to takeaction. The students and masters went on strike, dispersing from Parisand appealing to Pope Gregory IX. It was apparently during this periodthat William gave the Dominicans their first chair in theology at theuniversity. The Pope, who was to remark that he regretted“having made this man,” rebuked William, appointed acommission to settle the dispute, and ordered William to reinstate thestriking masters. Nevertheless, William went on to receive importantmissions from the Pope in subsequent years, acting, for example, as apapal representative in peace negotiations between France and Englandin 1231.

In 1239 William was closely involved in the condemnation of theTalmud. The Pope had asked him for his response to a list of heresiesin the Talmud proposed by a converted Jew, Nicholas. William’sresponse led to a papal bull ordering the confiscation of sacred booksfrom synagogues in 1240, and to their burning in 1242 (for details,see Valois 1880, Smith 1992 and de Mayo 2007).

William died at the end of March (the exact date is unsure) in 1249,and was buried in the Abbey of St. Victor.

2. Works

William’s most important philosophical writings form part of avast seven-part work he calls theMagisterium divinale etsapientiale, a title Teske translates asTeaching on God inthe Mode of Wisdom. TheMagisterium is generally takento consist of the following seven works in the order given:

De Trinitate, sive de primo principio (On theTrinity, or the First Principle)
De universo (On the Universe)
De anima (On the Soul)
Cur Deus homo (Why God Became Man)
De fide et legibus (On Faith and Laws)
De sacramentis (On the Sacraments)
De virtutibus et moribus (On Virtues andMorals).

William did not compose the parts of theMagisterium in theirrational order, and appears to have developed his conception of itsstructure as he wrote its various parts. He viewed it as having twoprincipal parts. The first part is comprised ofDe Trinitate,De universo, andDe anima. In this, the mostphilosophical part of theMagisterium, William proceeds by“the paths of proofs” or philosophizing rather than by anappeal to the authority of revelation. He intends to combat a range ofphilosophical errors incompatible, as he sees it, with the Christianfaith. InOn the Trinity he develops his metaphysics,attacking, among others, errors regarding creation, divine freedom andthe eternity of the world, and follows it with a philosophicaltreatment of the Trinity. William’s vast work,On theUniverse, is divided into two principal parts. The first part(Ia, i.e.prima pars) is concerned with the corporealuniverse and is in turn divided into three parts, the first (Ia-Iae,i.e.prima pars primae partis) arguing for a single firstprinciple and for the oneness of the universe, the second (IIa-Iae)taking up the question of the beginning of the universe and its futurestate, and the third (IIIa-Iae) treating the governance of theuniverse through God’s providence. The second principal part(IIa) is concerned with the spiritual universe, and is divided intothree parts concerning, respectively, the intelligences or spiritualbeings posited by Aristotle and his followers (Ia-IIae), the good andholy angels (IIa-IIae), and the bad and wicked angels, that is, demons(IIIa-IIae).On the Soul is concerned with the human soul. Itis divided into seven parts concerning, respectively, its existence,its essence, its composition, the number of souls in a human being,how the human soul comes into being, the state of the soul in thebody, and the soul’s relation to God, with a focus on the humanintellect.

The works comprising the second part of theMagisterium aremore expressly theological in nature and appeal to the authority ofrevelation. Nevertheless, William continually recurs to hisphilosophical doctrines in all his works, and even his mosttheological writings contain material of considerable philosophicalinterest. In particular, his treatisesOn Virtues and MoralsandOn Faith and Laws are of great importance for his moralphilosophy.

Scholars agree thatOn the Trinity is the earliest work intheMagisterium and that it was probably written in the early1220s. The other works can be partially dated by references tocontemporaneous events, though the sheer size of many individual workssuggests they were probably written over a period of years. The wholeMagisterium itself was probably written during a periodextending from the early 1220s to around 1240, withOn theUniverse written in the 1230s andOn the Soul completedby around 1240.

Besides the works contained in theMagisterium, other worksof philosophical importance areDe bono et malo I (OnGood and Evil), where William develops a theory of value;Deimmortalitate animae (Onthe Immortality of theSoul), a companion to the treatment of immortality inOn theSoul; andDe gratia et libero arbitrio (On Grace andFree Choice), a treatment of the Pelagian heresy.

In addition, William wrote some biblical commentaries, a number ofother major theological works, and a large number of sermons (fordetails, see Ottman 2005). The more than 550 sermons that can beattributed to William have recently been critically edited by F.Morenzoni; they comprise four volumes in theCorpusChristianorum series (Opera homiletica, CCCM230–230C).

With the exception of the sermons, most of William’s works havenot been critically edited; several are extant only in manuscriptform. The standard edition, which includes all the works that comprisetheMagisterium, is the 1674 Orléans-ParisOperaomnia (OO). (The sermons contained in this edition are by WilliamPerrauld, not William of Auvergne.) As might be expected, the texts inthis old edition are often in need of correction; Teske hasconjectured many corrections in his translations.

3. The Character of William’s Philosophical Works

The reader of William’s philosophical works is struck by theirdifference in character from the mainstream of philosophical andtheological writing of the early thirteenth century. WhereasWilliam’s contemporaries tend to compose works as a series oflinked questions, each treated according to the question method (aparadigm of which is Aquinas’s laterSumma theologiae),William instead follows the practice of Avicenna and Avicebron andcomposes treatises much more akin to a modern book. Indeed, Williameven models his writing style to some degree on the Latin translationsof these authors. These features, together with William’sfrequent use of analogies, metaphors and examples drawn from everydaylife, his long-winded, rambling prose and frequent digressions, hisharsh assessments of opponents as imbeciles or morons, and his urgingthat proponents of dangerous doctrines be wiped out by fire and sword,make for an inimitable and immediately recognizable style.

One of the costs of this style, however, is that at times it can behard to tell precisely what William thinks. Too often he letsmetaphors or analogies bear the argumentative burden in lieu of morecareful analysis. And while William’s inventive mind couldgenerate arguments for a position with ease, their quality is uneven:often he proposes problematic arguments without appearing to recognizethe difficulties they contain, as may be apparent below to thediscerning reader, while at other times he shows an acute awareness ofthe fundamental problems an issue raises.

4. Sources

William was one of the first thinkers in the Latin West to begin toengage seriously with Aristotle’s writings on metaphysics andnatural philosophy and with the thought of Islamic and Jewishthinkers, especially Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037) andAvicebron (Solomon Ibn Gabirol, 1021/2–1057/8) (see e.g.Bertolacci 2012, Caster 1996c, de Vaux 1934 and Teske 1999). The worksof these thinkers, which had been coming into circulation in Latintranslations from around the middle of the twelfth century, presentedboth philosophical sophistication and theological danger. Indeed, in1210, public and private lecturing on Aristotle’s works onnatural philosophy and commentaries on them was forbidden at Paris,and in 1215 the papal legate, Cardinal Robert of Courçonforbade “masters in arts from ‘reading,’ i.e.,lecturing, on Aristotle’s books on natural philosophy along withtheMetaphysics andSummae of the same (probablycertain works of Avicenna and perhaps of Alfarabi)” (Wippel2003, 66). This prohibition remained in effect until it unofficiallylapsed around 1231. Nevertheless, it must be emphasized that personalstudy of these texts had not been forbidden, and William clearlyworked hard to master them. He came to be keenly aware of theincompatibility of much of the teaching of these works with Christiandoctrine, yet at the same time he found them to be a source ofphilosophical inspiration, and his thought brims with ideas drawn fromAvicenna and Avicebron. His attitude to these thinkers is expressedwell in a passage inOn the Soul, where, regarding Aristotle,he writes that:

though on many points one must contradict Aristotle, as is reallyright and proper—and this holds for all the statements by whichhe contradicts the truth—he should be accepted in all thosestatements in which he is found to have held the right view. (OO IIsuppl., 82a; Teske 2000, 89)

Of course, William was also strongly influenced by Christian thinkers.In particular, his writings are permeated by the thought of SaintAugustine, whom William refers to as “one of the more noble ofChristian thinkers,” if perhaps in a less obvious way than bythe thought of Avicenna. Indeed, as the list in Valois 1880,198–206, attests, William employs a remarkable range of sourcesand must be reckoned one of the most well-read thinkers of hisday.

The focus of the following outline is William’s views onmetaphysics and the soul, but even within these limits the vast rangeof his thought has required that many issues in these areas not betreated. In a future supplement, William’s views on value theoryand morality will be addressed. Teske’s English translations arequoted whenever possible; otherwise, translations are my own (i.e. N.Lewis’s).

5. Metaphysics

William is the first thinker in the Latin West to develop a systematicmetaphysics (as ontology) based on the concepts of being(esse) and essence (essentia). Influenced byBoethius and Avicenna, he develops this metaphysics in his early work,On the Trinity, as a preliminary to his account of theTrinity, and he returns to it in other works, especially inOn theUniverse. The central theme of his metaphysics is that allexisting things, besides God, are composites of essence, on the onehand, and their being or existence, on the other, which is said to beacquired or partaken from God, the source of all being. God, incontrast, involves no composition of essence and being, but is hisbeing.

Inspired by Boethius’s distinction inDe hebdomadibusbetween what is good by participation and what is good by substance,William works these ideas out in terms of a distinction between abeing by participation (ens participatione) and a being bysubstance or essence (ens substantia / ens per essentiam). Bythe essence of a thing William means what is signified by itsdefinition or species name. Under the influence of Avicenna, he oftenrefers to essence as a thing’s quiddity (quidditas,literally, “whatness”), which he identifies withBoethius’s notion ofquod est or “that whichis.” Analogously, he identifies a thing’s being(esse) or existence with the notion ofquo est or“by which it is.” In the case of a being by participation,its essence and features incidental to the essence are distinct fromits being; William describes its being as clothed by them or as whatwould be left if they were stripped away. Such a being (ens)is said to participate in or acquire its being (esse). Attimes William, following Avicenna, speaks of its being as accidentalto it, by which he just emphasizes that its being is not part of theessence.

A being (ens) by substance, in contrast, does not participatein or acquire being but is its very being: “there is also thebeing whose essence is for it being (esse) and whose essencewe predicate when we say, ‘It is,’ so that it itself andits being (esse) … are one thing in every way”(Switalski 1976, 17; Teske and Wade 1989, 65).

In the second chapter ofOn the Trinity, William also notesthat the term “being” (esse) may be used to meana thing’s essence (similar to Avicenna’sesseproprium), but this sense of “being” plays a minorrole in his thought.

William argues that there must be a being by essence; otherwise, nobeing could be intelligible. Thus, if there were just beings byparticipation, there would have to be either a circle of beings eachof which participates in the being of what is prior to it in thecircle, with the absurd consequence that a thing would ultimatelyparticipate in its own being; or else there would have to be aninfinite series of beings, each member of which participates in thebeing of what is prior in the series. But then, for a member of theseries—say,A—to be, would be for it to have orparticipate in the being ofB; and forB to be, inturn, would be for it to have or participate in the being ofC, and so on. But if this were so, the being of no member ofthe series could be intelligible, since any attempt to spell it outwould result in an account of the form:A’s havingB’s havingC’s havingadinfinitum. Since being is intelligible, William concludes thatthere is a being by essence.

Besides the distinctions between being by participation and being byessence, William mentions sixteen other distinctions, including thedistinctions between being of need (esse indigentiae) andbeing of sufficiency (esse sufficientiae), possible being(esse possibile) and being necessary through itself (essenecesse per se ipsum), false and true being, and flowing andlasting being. William takes these distinctions to be coextensive withthe distinction between being by participation and being by essence.Using a form of argument drawn from Avicenna, he argues that given thefirst member of each distinction, we can prove the existence of thesecond (seeOn the Trinity, ch. 6).

The distinction between possible being (possibile esse) andnecessary being through itself (necesse esse per se ipsum),which William draws from Avicenna, plays a prominent role inWilliam’s thought. William’s notion of a possible is notthat of something that exists in some possible world, but is ratherthe notion of something whose essence neither requires nor rules outits having being. William treats such possibles as in some sense priorto being. In the case of those that have being and thus actuallyexist, he holds that the possible “and its being(esse), which does not belong to it essentially, are reallytwo. The one comes to the other and does not fall within itsdefinition or quiddity. Being (ens) [i.e., a being] in thisway is, therefore, composite and also resolvable into its possibility,or quiddity, and its being (esse)” (Switalski 1976, 44;Teske and Wade 1989, 87). Some commentators see in such remarks theidea that a real or mind-independent distinction obtains between beingand essence in possible beings.

In contrast, the being and essence of a being necessary through itselfare not two; such a being does not participate in being but is itsbeing and cannot but exist.

William argues there can be only one being by substance or beingnecessary through itself. Speaking from a metaphysical point of view,he follows Avicenna and calls it the First (primum). Speakingas a Christian, he identifies it with God, the creator, as he thinksis indicated by Biblical references to God as “he who is”:“being,” he says, is a proper name of God (see e.g.Onthe Trinity, ch. 4).

The uniqueness of a being by substance is, William argues, aconsequence of its absolute simplicity, since nothing coulddifferentiate two or more absolutely simple beings. The absolutesimplicity of a being by substance, in turn, is a consequence of thefact that it cannot be caused (not, at least by an external causation;William argues that the being by substance is the Christian Trinity ofpersons and he admits a kind of internal causation in the Trinity).For everything that is caused is other than its being and thus is abeing by participation, whereas a being by essence or substance is itsbeing. But a composite or non-simple being must have an externalcause, and must therefore be a being by participation. Therefore, thebeing by substance, that is to say, God, cannot be composite, but mustbe absolutely simple.

God’s absolute simplicity also entails that he is neither auniversal (i.e., neither a genus nor species), nor an individualfalling under such. For, William argues, genera and species arethemselves composite, and the individuals that fall under them have aquiddity or definition and therefore compositeness. Nevertheless,William thinks God is an individual, since he holds that all thatexists is either a universal or an individual (OO I, 855ab).

William appeals to God’s power to show God has will andknowledge. He argues that God must be omnipotent: he cannot be forcedor impeded and has a “two-way” power (potentia),identified by William with what Aristotle calls a rational power. Thisis a power that “extends to both opposites, namely, to make andnot to make” (Switalski 1976, 57; Teske and Wade 1989, 99), incontrast with something, such as fire, which when “it encounterswhat can be heated is not able to heat or not to heat . . . but itnecessarily has only the power to heat” (Switalski 1976, 54;Teske and Wade 1989, 97). However, because a two-way power is poisedbetween acting and not-acting, it must be inclined to acting bysomething, and William thinks this can only be through a choice.Therefore, God must have will and choice; and since “it isimpossible that there be will and choice where there is noknowledge” (Switalski 1976, 59; Teske and Wade 1989, 101), Godmust also have knowledge. William goes on to argue that God mustindeed be omniscient, since “his wisdom is absolute and free,not bound in any way to things, nor dependent upon them”(Switalski 1976, 61; Teske and Wade 1989, 102).

William takes his claim that God has a two-way power to imply that Godcould have known or willed otherwise than he did. But, as Williamrealizes, this raises the difficulty that if God had known or willedotherwise, it would seem that he would have been different, and thisseems to be impossible given his absolute simplicity. In response,William frequently emphasizes that by the very same act of knowing orwill by which God in fact knows or wills one thing, he could haveknown or willed something else (OO I, 780a; Teske 2007, 105). Thus,when we say “God knows or wills X,” we must distinguishthe act of knowing or willing, which is identical with God and utterlythe same in every possible situation, from the object X to which it isrelated.

6. God’s Relation to Creatures

6.1 God as the Source of Being

According to William, everything participates in or acquires its beingfrom God. But just what he means by this is less than clear. At times,as in the following passage fromOn the Universe, he seems tosuggest that God is literally present in created things as theirbeing:

the creator is next to and most present to each of his creatures; infact, he is most interior to each of them. And this can be seen by youthrough the subtraction or stripping away of all the accidental andsubstantial conditions and forms. For when you subtract from each ofthe creatures all these, last of all there is found being or entity,and on this account its giver. (OO I, 625b; Teske 1998a, 100)

Yet William realizes that such statements may give an incorrectimpression of his thought. Thus, at one point inOn theUniverse he writes that “every substance includes,ifit is proper to say so (si dici fas est), thecreator’s essence within itself” (OO I, 920b), and he goeson to note that it is difficult to state clearly the sense in whichthe creator is in creatures. In other passages he emphasizesGod’s transcendence of creatures: “the first being(esse) is for all things the being (esse) by whichthey are … It is one essence, pure, solitary, separate from andunmixed with all things.” Often he appeals to an analogy withlight: the first being fills “all things like light cast overthe universe. By this filling or outpouring it makes all thingsreflect it. This is their being (esse), namely to reflectit” (Switalski 1976, 45; Teske and Wade 1989, 89). Williamperhaps intends in such remarks to exploit the medieval view that apoint of light (lux) and the light emitted from that point(lumen), though distinct, nonetheless are also in some deepsense the same.

6.2 Against the Manichees

Regarding the procession of creatures from God, William is concernedto attack a range of errors. InOn the Universe Ia-Iae heattacks the error of the Manichees. Though he refers to Mani, thethird-century originator of the Manichee sect, he seems chieflyconcerned with the Cathars of his day. The Manichees deny God is theultimate source of all things and instead posit two first principles,one good and one evil. Only in this way, they think, can we explainthe presence of both good and evil in the world. William thinks afundamental motivation for this view is the principle that “fromone of two contraries the other cannot come of itself” (OO I,602a; Teske 1998a, 54), and hence that evil cannot come from good butmust stem from its own first principle. He replies that although onecontrary cannot of itself (per se) be from the other, it isperfectly possible for it to be from the other incidentally (peraccidens), and he gives everyday examples to illustrate. Thus,“drunkenness comes from wine. In that case it is evident that anevil comes from a good, unless one would say that wine is notgood” (OO I, 602a; Teske 1998a, 54). Likewise, there is a sensein which evil is ultimately from God, though incidentally and not assomething God aims at or intends as such. The evil of sin, forexample, is a consequence of God’s creating creatures with freewill and permitting their misuse of it.

William offers a host of arguments against the possibility of twofirst principles. On metaphysical grounds, for example, he objectsthat a first principle must be a being necessary through itself, andthat he has shown that a plurality of such beings is impossible. Andhe gives arguments to the effect that the notion of a creative firstevil principle is incoherent. Such a being, for example, could not dogood for anything, and hence could not have created anything, for indoing so it would have done good for what it created (see alsoBernstein 2005 and Teske 1993a).

6.3 Causation, and Creation by Intermediaries

William claims “the creator alone properly and truly is worthyof the title ‘cause,’ but other things are merelymessengers and bearers of the last things received as if sent from thecreator” (OO I, 622a; Teske 1998a, 92). We speak of creatures ascauses, but William says this is “ad sensum”(Switalski 1976, 79; Teske and Wade 1989, 117), that is, in respect ofhow things appear in sense experience. Both medieval and contemporarycommentators have on the basis of such remarks attributed to Williamthe denial that creatures are genuine causes (see Reilly 1953).Certainly he denies that any creature can exercise fully independentcausal agency, a view he thinks “the philosophers” haveadopted. But this claim is compatible with admission of genuinesecondary causes that are reliant for their exercise of causation onthe simultaneous activity of prior causes, and ultimately on that ofthe first cause, God. Is William simply making this point but usingthe term “cause” in a more restricted manner than hiscontemporaries? A negative answer is suggested by William’srationale for his usage. He thinks of causation as the giving ofbeing, and he thinks that anything that receives being, and thereforeall creatures, cannot itself give being but can merely transmit it.Moreover, his metaphors of creatures as riverbeds or windows throughwhich the divine causal influence flows strongly suggest that hereally does wish to hold that creatures themselves do not really bringanything about but are simply the conduits through which divinecausality flows (see Miller 1998 and 2002).

Whether in fact William admits genuine causal agency among creatures,he clearly thinks that God alone can create from nothing. Thus, herejects Avicenna’s so-called “emanationist” doctrineof creation, according to which, as he puts it, God creates fromnothing only one thing, the first intelligence (or spiritual being),which in turn creates the next intelligence, and so on until the tenthor agent intelligence is reached, the creator of souls and thesensible world. William thinks one ground of this doctrine isAvicenna’s principle that “from what is one in so far asit is one there cannot in any way come anything but what is one”(ex uno, secundum quod unum, non potest esse ullo modorum nisiunum) (OO I, 618b; Teske 1998a, 82), and hence from God, who isabsolutely one, can at most come one thing. In fact, William agreeswith this principle and applies it in the context of Trinitariantheology, but he thinks Avicenna has misapplied it by using it toexplain creation. Instead, William follows the Jewish thinkerAvicebron (whom he thought was a Christian) and holds that creaturescome from God not insofar as he is one, but “through his willand insofar as he wills, just as a potter does not shape clay vesselsthrough his oneness, but through his will” (OO I, 624a; Teske1998a, 96).

6.4 Against the Necessity of Creation

William thinks the will is necessarily free; thus the fact that Godcreates through his will means that creation is an exercise ofGod’s free will. This point serves to undermine another aspectof Avicenna’s doctrine of the procession of creatures from God.For Avicenna posits not only a series of creators, but also holds thatthis procession is utterly necessary: the actual world must exist andcould not have been other than it is. William thinks this conclusionstems from a failure to grasp God’s freedom in creation.Avicenna and others imposed “not only necessity, but naturalservitude upon the creator, supposing that he operates in the mannerof nature” (OO I, 614b; Teske 1998a, 72). Thus, they think theuniverse issued from God as brightness issues from the sun or heatfrom fire, and that God no more had it in his power to do otherwisethan do the sun or heat. Against this William argues that it is aconsequence of God’s free creation that he had it in his powerto create otherwise than he did.

6.5 Against the Eternity of the World

One of the most contentious doctrines presented by Greek and Islamicphilosophy to thinkers in the early thirteenth century is that of theeternity of the world, the view that the world had no beginning butexisted over an infinite past. This view seems to contradict theopening words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created heavenand earth.” In response, a number of thinkers in the earlythirteenth century, including the Franciscan Alexander of Hales,argued that Aristotle, at least, had been misunderstood and had neverproposed the eternity of the world. But William, like his Oxfordcontemporary, Robert Grosseteste, would have none of this:“Whatever may be said and whoever may try to excuse Aristotle,it was undoubtedly his opinion that the world is eternal and that itdid not begin to be, and he held the same view concerning motion.Avicenna held this after him” (OO I, 690b; Teske 1998a,117).

The importance of this issue to William is indicated by the space hedevotes to it. His treatment of the question of the eternityaeternitas of the world inOn the Universe IIa-Iaeis one of the longest discussions of the issue in the middle ages, andthe first substantial treatment to be made in the light of Greek andIslamic thought.

William thinks, in fact, that to call the world eternal in theaforementioned sense is not to use the term “eternal” inits strictest sense. Accordingly, he starts by explaining differentsenses of the term in the first extended treatment of the distinctionbetween eternity and time in the middle ages. He then presents andrefutes arguments that the world has no beginning, and provides hisown positive arguments that the world must have a temporal beginning,a first instant of its existence.

William’s chief aim in his treatment of time and eternity is toemphasize the fundamental differences between eternity and time. He isespecially concerned to attack a conception of eternity as existenceat every time, a conception he attributes to Aristotle. In his view,eternity in a strict sense is proper to the creator alone and is hisvery being, though “the name ‘eternity’ says morethan his being, namely, the privations of beginning and ending, aswell as of flux and change, and this both in act and in potency”(OO I, 685b–686a; Teske 1998a, 109). The fundamental differencebetween time and eternity is that “as it is proper and essentialto time to flow or cease to be, so it is proper and essential toeternity to remain and stand still” (OO I, 683b; Teske 1998a,102). William, like other medieval thinkers, tends to describeeternity in terms of what it is not. It has nothing that flows andhence no before or after or parts. Its being is whole at once, notbecause it all exists at one time, but because it all exists withnothing temporally before or after it. William speaks of duration ineternity, but he holds that the term has a different (unfortunatelyunexplained) sense in this context than when applied to time.

William had read Aristotle’sPhysics and agrees withAristotle that time and motion are coextensive (OO I, 700a). Yet hedoes not propose Aristotle’s definition of time as the number ofmotion in respect of before and after. Rather, in his account of theessential nature of time he describes time simply as being that flowsand does not last, “that is, it has nothing of itself that lastsin act or potency” (OO I, 683a; Teske 1998a, 102). EchoingAristotle and Augustine, he holds that time has the weakest being, andthat “of all things that are said to be in any way, time is themost remote from eternity, and this is because it only toucheseternity by the very least of itself, the now itself or a point oftime” (OO I, 748a).

William introduces his account of the eternity of the world inOnthe Universe by reference to Aristotle, but he devotes the bulkof his discussion to Avicenna’s arguments for this doctrine. Inparallel material inOn the Trinity he claims that at theroot of Avicenna’s view lies the principle that “if theone essence is now as it was before when nothing came forth from it,something will not now come forth from it” (Switalski 1976, 69;Teske and Wade 1989, 108). That is, nothing new is caused to existunless there is a change in the cause. Thus God, a changeless being,cannot start to create the world after not creating it; and thereforehe must have created it from eternity and without a beginning.Therefore, the world must itself lack a beginning.

William replies that Avicenna’s principle leads to an infiniteregress; for if something’s operating after not operatingrequires a change in it, this change will itself require a new cause,and that new cause will itself require a new cause, and so onadinfinitum. William instead holds that it is possible that God,without changing in any way, start to operate after not operating.What William means by this is that the effect of God’s eternalwill is a world with a temporal beginning. In general, he holds thatverbs such as “create” express nothing in the creatorhimself but rather something in things. We might put “God beginsto create the world” to have the import of: “God by aneternal willing creates the world, and the world has abeginning.”

William emphasizes that God does not will that the world exist withoutqualification, but rather that it exist with a given temporalstructure, namely, a beginning (Switalski 1976, 67–68; Teske andWade 1989, 107). This might suggest that he thinks God might in facthave created a world without a beginning, but chose not to do so, asAquinas would hold. But in fact, William argues that this option wasnot open to God: a world without a beginning is simply not a creatableitem. William attempts to establish this point by a host of arguments,many of which are found in his writings for the first time in theLatin West and repeated by later thinkers such as Bonaventure andHenry of Ghent. On the whole, these arguments either allege that thenotion of a created thing itself entails that what is created has atemporal beginning or point to alleged paradoxes stemming from thesupposition of an infinite past.

For example, William argues (OO I, 696b; Teske 1998a, 133) thatbecause the world in itself is merely a possible, in itself it is innon-being and non-being is therefore natural to it. Hence itsnon-being, being natural to it, is prior to its being, and thereforein being created it must receive being after non-being, and thus havea beginning.

Among arguments involving infinity, William argues that if the wholeof past time is infinite then the infinite must have been traversed toarrive at the present; but since it is impossible to traverse theinfinite (OO I, 697b; Teske 1998a, 136), the past must be finite. Thisline of argument is frequently found in later thinkers.

William also presents arguments that the view that a continuum, suchas time, is infinite results in paradoxes (OO I, 698a–700b).These arguments, which William develops at some length, constitute animportant early medieval engagement with puzzles relating toinfinity.

6.6 Providence

Part IIIa-Iae ofOn the Universe is a lengthy treatise onGod’s providence (providentia). William believes thedenial of God’s providence, and in particular the denial thatthe good will be rewarded and the evil punished, is an error “soharmful and so pernicious for human beings that it eliminates fromhuman beings by their roots all concern for moral goodness, all thehonor of the virtues, and all hope of future happiness” (OO I,776a; Teske 2007, 92).

According to William, God’s providence (providentia) orproviding for the universe differs from foreknowledge(praescientia) in that, unlike foreknowledge, it embracesonly goods and not also evils (see OO I, 754b; Teske 2007, 30).William is especially concerned to argue that God’s providenceis not just general in nature, but extends to all individualcreatures. God’s care for the universe and its constituents is amatter of God’s knowing and paying attention to all things. FromGod’s point of view, nothing happens by chance. Williamintroduces final causality into his explanation by describing theuniverse as a teleological or goal-directed order, in which each thinghas a function or purpose established by God. God’s care is hisconcern that each thing fulfills its appointed function. Thus, God isnot necessarily concerned with what we might think is best forindividual things: flies get eaten by spiders, but this in fact is anend for which they were created. And ultimately animals were createdfor the sake of humans, as William points out (for details on animalsand providence, see Wei 2020, 49–74). In the case of humans,however, who are the apex of creation, their end is to experiencehappiness in union with God, and God’s providential care ofhuman beings is aimed at this.

But if this is so, why do the evil prosper and the good suffer? Whatare we to make of natural disasters, of pain, suffering, death, andthe like? What, in short, are we to make of evil in the world?Although William does not take up the logical compatibility of evilwith an all-good, knowing and powerful god, he does attempt to explainat length how a range of particular kinds of evil are compatible withGod’s providence and care for human beings. His explanation, ingeneral, is not novel and has roots in Augustine. He distinguishes theevils perpetrated by free agents and for which they are therefore toblame from other forms of evil, and argues that these other evils arein fact not really evil but good. Pain, for example, provides manybenefits, among which is that it mortifies and extinguishes “thelusts for pleasures and carnal and worldly desires” (OO I, 764a;Teske 2007, 58). In many cases, what we call evil is in factGod’s just punishment, which William implies always hasbeneficial effects. As for the blameworthy evils done by free agents,William thinks that God permits these, but that it is incorrect to saythey come from God or are intended by him. They are rather theconsequence of rational creatures’ misuse of the free will withwhich they were created, and the moral balance will be set right inthe future life, if not this one.

If the evils of this life appear to conflict with God’sprovidence, God’s providence and foreknowledge themselves seemto entail that everything occurs of necessity and hence that there isno free will. This concern leads William to consider a number ofdoctrines that aim to show that all events happen of necessity. Inaddition to foreknowledge or providence, he considers the views thatall events are the necessary causal outcomes of the motion andconfiguration of the heavenly bodies, or that all events result fromtheheimarmene, i.e. the “interconnected andincessantly running series of causes and the necessary dependence ofone upon another” (OO I, 785a; Teske 2007, 120); or finally,that all things happen through fate (fatum sive fatatio).William rejects all these grounds for the necessity of events (esp. onfate, see Sannino 2016).

In an interesting discussion of foreknowledge in part IIIa-Iae,chapter 15, he considers the argument that since it is necessary thatwhatever God foresees will come about will come about, becauseotherwise God could be deceived or mistaken, then since God foreseeseach thing that will come about, it is necessary that it will comeabout. William replies that the proposition “It is necessarythat whatever God foresees (providit) will come about willcome about” has two interpretations, “because thenecessity can refer to individuals or to the whole” (OO I, 778b;Teske 2007, 99). The argument for the necessity of all eventsequivocates between these two readings and is therefore invalid.William notes that the distinction he makes is close to thedistinction between a divided and composite sense, but he is criticalof those who instead distinguish an ambiguity between ade re(about the thing) andde dicto (about what is said)reading.

7. The Soul

William’s treatiseOn the Soul is one of the mostsubstantial Latin works on the topic from before the middle of thethirteenth century. Although William begins this treatise withAristotle’s definition of the soul as the perfection of anorganic body potentially having life, his conception of the soul isheavily influenced by Avicenna and decidedly Platonic in character. Heinterprets Aristotle’s definition to mean that the body is aninstrument of the soul (as he thinks the term “organic”indicates) and that “a body potentially having life” mustrefer to a corpse, since a body prior to death actually has life. Andalthough he calls a soul, with Aristotle, a form, unlike Aristotle heholds that a soul is in fact a substance, something individual,singular and a “this something” (hoc aliquid),not at all dependent on the body for its existence.

William adopts the standard view that souls serve to vivify or givelife to bodies, and thus he posits not just souls of human beings(i.e., rational souls), but also those of plants and animals(vegetative and sensitive souls respectively), as they all have livingbodies. But in the case of the human soul, William also identifies thesoul with the human being, the referent of the pronoun“I.”

7.1 The Existence and Substantiality of Souls

Among William’s many arguments for the existence of souls is theargument that bodies are instruments of souls and the power to carryout operations through an instrument cannot belong to the instrumentitself. Thus, there must be something other than the bodies of livingthings that operates by means of bodies, and this is their soul. Inthe case of the human or rational soul, he argues that its existencefollows in particular from the fact that understanding and knowledgeare found in a human being but not in the whole body or any part ofit. Since these are operations of a living substance, there must be aliving incorporeal substance in which they are, and this is whatpeople mean when they speak of their soul.

These arguments serve not only to show the existence of souls, butalso that they are substances. In the case of the human soul, Williamargues, the operations of understanding and knowing must be treated asproper operations of the soul, and this requires that the soul itselfbe a substance. To the objection that the soul itself does notliterally understand or know but is instead that thanks to which ahuman being can understand and know, William will argue that the souland human being, which he equates with the referent of the pronoun“I,” are one and the same thing. More generally, thesubstantiality of souls—and not just of human souls—isindicated by the fact that bodies are their instruments.

7.2 The Incorporeality of Souls

William argues at length that a soul cannot be a body, a conclusion heapplies not just to human or rational souls, but also to those ofplants and animals. In the case of human souls, he uses, among others,Avicenna’s “flying-man” argument to establish thispoint, arguing that a human being flying in the air who lacks andnever had the use of his senses would know that he exists but denythat he has a body. Therefore “it is necessary that he havebeing that does not belong to the body and, for this reason, it isnecessary that the soul not be a body” (OO II suppl., 83a; Teske2000, 91) (For details, see Hasse 2000).

More generally, William argues that no body could perform thesoul’s function of giving life to the body. For example, if abody were to give life, it would itself have to be a living body, andthus it would itself have to have a soul that rendered it alive. Thissoul, in turn, would have to be a living body and thus have its ownsoul, and so onad infinitum. Thus, the doctrine that soulsare bodies leads to an infinite regress.

7.3 The Human Soul and the Human Being

Perhaps the most striking aspect of William’s teaching about thesoul is his identification of the human soul with the human being andhis denial that the human body constitutes in whole or part the humanbeing. Instead, William describes the body variously as a house, thesoul its inhabitant; as a prison, the soul its captive; as a cloak,the soul its wearer, and so on. Nevertheless, the definition of ahuman being—he perhaps has in mind the Platonic conception ofthe human being as “a soul using a body”—involves areference to the body, and it this, William thinks, that has ledpeople to believe that the body is a part of a human being. But thisis an error akin to thinking that because a horseman is defined byreference to a horse, the horse must therefore be a part of thehorseman. William is aware, of course, that at times we do seem toascribe to ourselves, and thus to the human being, the acts of thebody or things that happen to the body, but he holds that these arenon-literal modes of speaking, akin to a rich man’s complaintthat he has been struck by hail, when in fact it was his vineyard thatwas struck.

William, as usual, offers numerous arguments for the identification ofthe soul and human being. He argues that the body cannot be a part ofa human being, since the soul and body no more produce a true unitythan, for example, a carpenter and his ax, and a human being is a trueunity. And he notes that since the soul is subject to reward andpunishment in the afterlife for actions we correctly attribute to thehuman being or ourselves, it must be identified with the human being.He also points to cases where our use of names or demonstrativesreferring to human beings must be understood as referring to theirsouls, and concludes that this shows that human beings are theirsouls.

7.4 The Simplicity of the Soul

According to William, souls are among the simplest of createdsubstances. Nevertheless, like all created substances, they mustinvolve some kind of composition. This composition cannot be a bodilycomposition, of course, since they are not bodies and thus cannot bedivided into bodily parts. According to Avicebron, as well as some ofWilliam’s contemporaries, souls are composite in the sense thatthey are composites of form and matter, though not a matter thatinvolves physical dimensions, but rather what some called“spiritual matter.” This view is part of the doctrine nowtermed “universal hylomorphism,” according to which everycreated substance is a composite of form and matter (see Weisheipl1979). William is one of the first to reject this doctrine; he islater followed by Aquinas. In support of his rejection, inOn theUniverse he makes one of his rare references to Averroes, citingwith approval his claim that prime matter is a potentiality only ofperceptible substances and hence is not found in spiritual substances.He also argues that there is no need to posit matter in angels orsouls in order to explain their receptivity in cognition, as some hadthought necessary (OO I, 851b-852b). Rather, souls and other spiritualsubstances are “pure immaterial forms” without matter.

William also denies a real plurality of powers in the soul. He holdsinstead that each power of the soul is identical with the soul and nota part of it. When we speak of a power of the soul, we are reallyspeaking of the soul considered as the source or cause of a certainkind of operation. Thus, the power to understand characteristic of ahuman or rational soul is the soul considered as a source or cause ofthe operation of understanding.

What sort of composition, then, is to be found in souls and otherspiritual beings? William holds that every being other than God

is in a certain sense composed of that which is (quod est)and of that by which it is (quo est) or its being or entity… since being or entity accrues and comes to each thing apartfrom its completed substance and account. The exception is the firstprinciple, to which alone [being] is essential and one with it in theultimate degree of unity. (OO I, 852a)

Here William uses Boethius’s language ofquod est andquo est to make the point that in souls, as in all createdsubstances, there is, to use Avicennian terms, a composition of beingand essence, a doctrine to be developed by Aquinas.

7.5 Denial of a Plurality of Souls in the Human Body

Besides rejecting universal hylomorphism, William also rejects thedoctrine of a plurality of souls in a human being. This doctrine,which was popular among Franciscan thinkers, holds that the body of ahuman being is informed not just by a single soul, the rational soul,but also by a vegetative and a sensitive soul. This multiplicity ofsouls, it is held, serves to explain how human beings have the vitaloperations characteristic of plants and animals in addition topeculiarly human ones, and also explains the development of thefetus’s vital functions. Against this doctrine, William claimsto have shown earlier inOn the Soul that not only theoperation of understanding, but also the sensitive operations ofseeing and hearing “are essential and proper to the soulitself” (OO II suppl., 108b; Teske 2000, 164) and “hence,it cannot be denied except through insanity that one and the same soulcarries out such operations.” Rather than posit a multiplicityof souls, William holds that higher souls incorporate the kinds ofoperations attributed to lower ones. The rational soul is infused intothe body directly by God when the fetus reaches a suitable stage oforganization, and the prior animal or sensitive soul in the fetusceases to be. In this case too a view along similar lines was to bedeveloped by Aquinas.

Scholars have noted, however, that while William rejects a pluralityof souls in the human body, he does subscribe to a version of thedoctrine of a plurality of substantial forms in the sense that hetreats the human body as itself a substance independent of itsassociation with the soul, and hence having its own corporeal form,while also being informed by the human or rational soul, which rendersit a living thing. (For details see Bazán 1969.)

7.6 The Immortality of the Soul

According to William, the immortality of the human soul would beevident if not for the fact that the soul has, as it were, been put tosleep by the corruption of the body stemming from the punishment forsin. In our current state, however, William thinks the humansoul’s immortality can be shown by means of philosophicalarguments, to which he devotes considerable attention, both inOnthe Soul and in a shorter work,On the Immortality of theSoul.

He believes the error that the soul is naturally mortal“destroys the foundation of morality and of all religion”(Bülow 1897, 1; Teske 1991, 23), since those who believe in themortality of the soul will have no motive for acting morally andhonoring God. Thus, he notes that if the soul is not immortal, thehonor of God is pointless in this life, since in the present life it“involves much torment and affliction for the soul”(Bülow 1897, 3; Teske 1991, 25) and receives no reward.

From a metaphysical point of view, William argues that the soul doesnot depend on the body for its being, and therefore the destruction ofthe body does not entail the non-existence of the soul. The rationalsoul’s independence from the body is due to the fact it is aself-subsistent substance whose proper operations do not involve orrequire a human body.

Since William takes the souls of plants and animals to be incorporealsubstances, it might be thought that he would treat them as immortaltoo. But William holds that these souls cease to exist upon the deathof the plant or animal. This is because all their proper operations,unlike those of the rational soul, depend on the body, and thus therewould be no point for their continued existence after the destructionof the body.

7.7 The Powers Characteristic of the Human Soul

Characteristic of human souls, or human beings, are the intellectiveand motive powers, that is to say, the intellect and will. Williamthinks that of these, the will is by far the more noble power, and heis accordingly puzzled by the fact that neither Aristotle nor Avicennahave much to say about it. These authors do, however, discuss theintellective power at great length, and William accordingly devotesconsiderable attention to combating errors he sees in their teachingson the intellect.

7.7.1 The Motive Power: the Will

William develops his account of the will using the metaphor of a kingin his kingdom. The will “holds the position in the whole humanbeing and in the human soul of an emperor and king,” while“the intellective or rational power holds the place and functionof counselor in the kingdom of the human soul” (OO II suppl.95a; Teske 2000, 126, 129). William treats acts ofwill—expressed in the indicative mood by “I will”(volo) or “I refuse” (nolo)—as akind of command that cannot be disobeyed, as distinguished from merelikings expressed in the form “I would like”(vellem) or “I would rather not’(nollem). He holds that as a king must understand in order tomake use of his counselors’ advice, so the will must not simplybe an appetitive power but must also have its own capacity toapprehend. Likewise, the intellect must have its own desires. But henotes inOn Virtues, that like a king the will need not heedthe advice of its counselor; it may instead “give itself over tothe advice of its slaves, that is, the inner powers and thesenses”; in so doing it “gives itself over into becoming aslave of its slaves and is like a king … who follows the willand advice of senseless children” (OO I, 122a).

William frequently emphasizes the difference between voluntary actionand the actions of brute animals. Animals operate in a“servile” manner, in the sense that they respond to theirpassions without having control over these responses. A human being,in contrast, has power over the suggestion of its desires; its will is“most free and is in every way in its own power anddominion” (OO II suppl., 94a; Teske 2000, 123). This is whyhuman beings, unlike animals, can be imputed with blame or merit fortheir deeds.

According to William, the freedom of the will consists in the factthat the will “can neither be forced in any way to its properand first operation, which is to will or refuse, nor prevented fromthe same; and I mean that it is not possible for someone to willsomething and entirely refuse that he will it or to refuse to willsomething, entirely willing that he will it” (OO I, 957aA). Inother words, William defines force and prevention of the will in termsof higher-order volitions and refusals: for the will to be forced isfor it to refuse to willX and nonetheless be made to willX, and for it to be prevented is for it to will to willX and be made to refuseX. In a number of works,William argues that neither force nor prevention of the will ispossible: if someone refuses to willX, this must be becausehe takesX to be bad and thus he must refuseXrather than will it; and if someone wills to willX, thismust be because he takesX to be good, and thus he must willX rather than refuse it.

7.7.2 The Intellective Power

William’s discussions of the intellective power are driven by aconcern to attack errors he sees in his contemporaries and Greek andIslamic thinkers. While his reasons for rejecting these errors areclear enough, if at times based on a confused understanding of hissources, his own views on the nature of cognition are less welldeveloped. Yet it is clear that, with the exception of our knowledgeof first principles and the concepts they involve and certain cases ofsupernaturally revealed knowledge, William wishes to present anaturalistic account of cognition in this life in which God plays nospecial role.

In bothOn the Soul andOn the Universe Williamattacks at length theories of cognition that posit an agent intellect(intellectus agens) or agent intelligence (intelligentiaagens). He incorrectly ascribes the latter theory to Aristotle,although in fact it is Avicenna’s teaching; he ascribes theformer theory to certain unnamed contemporaries. These theories viewcognition as involving the active impression of intelligible signs orforms—what we might call concepts—on a receptive orpassive recipient. The agent intellect or agent intelligence is takento perform this function of impressing intelligible forms on ourmaterial intellect, which is so-called because like matter it isreceptive of forms, albeit intelligible forms. The chief differencebetween the agent intellect and agent intelligence, as far as thetheory of cognition is concerned, is that the former is treated as apart of the human soul, while the latter is taken to be a spiritualsubstance apart from the human soul, identified with Avicenna’stenth intelligence. William notes how the agent intellect or agentintelligence is viewed by analogy with light or the sun; as light orthe sun through its light serves to render actual merely potentiallyexisting colors, so the agent intellect or intelligence serves torender actual intelligible forms existing potentially in the materialintellect.

William as usual offers a large number of objections to thesetheories. He attacks as inappropriate the analogies with light or thesun, and argues that the theory of the agent and material intellectsis incompatible with the simplicity of the soul, as it posits theseintellects as two distinct parts of the soul, one active and onereceptive. In the case of both the agent intellect and the agentintelligence, he argues that their proponents will be forced to holdthe absurd result that human beings know everything that is naturallyknowable, whereas in fact we must study and learn and observe in orderto acquire much of our knowledge.

As for his own views on the intellective power, William holds that,like all the powers of the soul, the intellective power in the presentlife of misery has been corrupted. Therefore an account of it mustdistinguish its operation in its pure, uncorrupted state from itsoperation in the present life. In its pure state it is capable ofknowing, without reliance on the senses, everything naturallyknowable, even sensible things, and thus presumably also is capable ofpossessing the concepts in terms of which such knowledge isformulated. In its present state, however, most of its knowledge andrepertoire of concepts stems in some manner from sense experience.

The knowledge of which the intellective power is naturally capableextends not just to universals, but also to singulars. For theintellect is naturally directed at the true as the will is at thegood, and has as its end knowledge of the first truth, the creator,who is singular. William also notes our knowledge of ourselves and theimportance of singular knowledge for our dealings with the world.Unfortunately, he provides no theory of the nature of singularcognition, and this issue must be left on the agenda until taken up bythinkers such as Scotus and Ockham in the late thirteenth and earlyfourteenth centuries.

William proposes a representationalist theory of cognition. He holdsthat it is not things or states of affairs themselves that are in theintellective power but rather signs or intelligible forms that serveto represent them. He takes these signs to be mental habits, that isto say, not bare potentialities but potentialities most ready to beactualized. Propositions are those complexes formed from signs throughwhich states of affairs are represented to the mind. Although Williamspeaks of these signs as likenesses, he is well aware of thedifficulty in thinking of concepts as such, and he concludes that infact there need not be a likeness between a sign and that of which itis a sign (OO II suppl. 214b; Teske 2000, 454).

A key question William confronts is how we acquire concepts andknowledge in the present life. InOn the Soul he draws animportant distinction. In the case of the first rules of truth andmorality, he speaks of God as a mirror or book of all truths in whichhuman beings naturally and without an intermediary, and thus withoutreliance on sense experience, read these rules. Likewise, Godimpresses or inscribes on our intellective power the intelligiblesigns in terms of which these first rules or principles areformulated. Thus, William posits at least some innate concepts; henotes, for example, inOn Virtues and Morals that theconcept of the true (veri) is innate (OO I, 124a). God alsoreveals to some prophets in this life “hidden objects ofknowledge to which the created intellect cannot attain except by thegift and grace of divine revelation” (OO II suppl., 211b; Teske2000, 445).

Does William therefore hold, as some have held (Gilson 1926), that atleast in the case of these rules God in some special mannerilluminates the human intellect? This might be suggested by hisreferences to the intellective power as spiritual vision and hisfrequent use of the language of vision and illumination in hisaccounts of cognition. And yet, according to William, the first rulesof truth and morality are “known through themselves” orself-evident. They are “lights in themselves … visiblethrough themselves without the help of something else” (OO IIsuppl., 210b; Teske 2000, 443), and they serve to illuminate to theintellect the conclusions drawn from them. God’s role, it wouldseem, is to impress upon or supply to our intellect, in some way,these principles, but William gives no indication that he takes God toshed a special light on these principles in order that they may beknown: once possessed they are, as it were, self illuminating.

The first rules of truth and morality and the concepts in terms ofwhich they are formulated form only a small subset, however, of ourcognitive repertoire. The remainder of our concepts and knowledge,leaving to one side the special divine revelation made to prophets,stems in some way from our dealings with the sensible world. But theproblem William faces is to explain how this is so. The problem, hesays, is that “sensation … brings to the intellectsensible substances and intellectual ones united to bodies [i.e.,souls]. But it does not imprint [pingit] upon it theirintelligible forms, because it does not receive such forms ofthem” (OO II suppl., 213a; Teske 2000, 449).

William’s response to this problem is to hold that the senseshave the role simply of stimulating the intellective power in such away that it “forms on its own and in itself intelligible formsfor itself” (OO I, 914b), a doctrine he draws from Augustine.According to this account, the intellect is fundamentally active inthe acquisition of intelligible forms. William speaks of the intellectas able, under the prompting of the senses, to consider the substancesthat underlie sensible accidents, and speaks of the intellect as“abstracting” from sense experience in the sense that itforms concepts of so-called “vague individuals” bystripping away perceptible features that serve to distinguish oneindividual from another. In these cases, William says, “theintellect is occasionally inscribed by these forms that are moreseparate and more appropriate to its nature” (OO II suppl.,213b; Teske 2000, 450).

A third cognitive process William mentions, conjunction or connection,is concerned not with the acquisition of intelligible forms, butrather with how knowledge of one thing brings with it knowledge ofanother. In particular, William argues that knowledge of a causebrings with it knowledge of the effect.

William is particularly concerned, however, that his account of theintellect’s generation of intelligible forms will require adivision of the intellect into active and passive parts—the verydistinction between an agent and material or receptive intellect hehas devoted so much energy to attacking. The need to make thisdivision of the intellect into two part is because it is impossiblefor the same thing to be both active and passive in the same respect,and yet in treating the intellect as indivisible it looks as thoughWilliam is in fact committed to its being both active and passive inthe same respect in the formation and reception of intelligibleforms.

William’s attempts to resolve this problem are repeated in anumber of works and couched in highly metaphorical language that posessevere problems of interpretation. The intellective power is both“a riverbed and fountain of the scientific and sapiential waters… Hence, in one respect it overflows and shines forth onitself, and in another respect it receives such outpouring orradiance” (OO II, suppl. 216b; Teske 2000, 457). William holdsthat because on this account the intellective power is not active andpassivein the same respect, he is not forced to divide theintellect into two distinct parts, one active and one passive.

8. William’s Influence

Scholars have devoted little attention to William’s influence onlater writers. Nevertheless, it is clear that he gave rise to noschool of thought, and subsequent thinkers seem to have picked andchosen from his works the parts they would accept and the parts theywould reject. Thus, William’s arguments that the world must havea beginning probably influenced thinkers such as Bonaventure and Henryof Ghent, while his rejection of universal hylomorphism and hismetaphysics of being and essence may have influenced Aquinas, whopresents similar views. There is also little doubt that some ofWilliam’s views were the subject of criticism, as for examplehis apparent denial of genuine secondary causation (see Reilly 1953).The large body of manuscripts in which William’s works survivesuggests he was being read throughout the middle ages; Ottman 2005,for example, lists 44 manuscripts known to containOn theUniverse. William’s works were also published in a numberof printed editions in the 16^th and 17^thcenturies.

Bibliography

Bibliographical and Biographical Studies

A full bibliography is included in Teske 2006.

Ottman, Jennifer R., 2005, “List of Manuscripts andEditions”, in Morenzoni and Tilliette 2005, pp. 375–399.The most up-to-date listing of William’s works.
Valois, Noël, 1880,Guillaume d’Auvergne,évêque de Paris(1228–1249): Sa vie et sesouvrages, Paris: Picard. An old but still standard work.

Primary Texts in Latin

Opera homiletica, 2010–2013, Franco Morenzoni(ed.), 4 vols., Turnhout: Brepols [vol. 1:Sermones detempore, I–CXXXV (CCCM 230); vol. 2:Sermones detempore, CXXXVI–CCCXXIII (CCCM 230A); vol. 3:Sermonesde sanctis (CCCM 230B); vol. 4:Sermones de communi sanctorumet de occasionibus (CCCM 230C)]. Critical edition of all sermonsattributable to William.
[OO]Opera omnia, 1674, 2 vols., ed. F. Hotot, withSupplementum, ed. Blaise Le Feron, Orléans-Paris;reprinted Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1963. This edition remains thestandard text for a large number of William’s writings.Available online from the links listed below.
Bülow, Georg (ed.), 1897,Des Dominicus GundissalinusSchrift von der Unsterblichkeit der Seele nebst einem Anhange,enthaltend die Abhandlung des Wilhelm von Paris (Auvergne) Deimmortalitate animae (Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie desMittelalters, II, 3), Münster: Aschendorff. An edition ofDeimmortalitate animae. Bülow’s attribution of this workto Dominicus Gundissalinus is now generally rejected.
Corti, Guglielmo (ed.), 1966,IlTractatus de gratiadi Guglielmo d’Auvergne, Rome: Lateran University, 1966. Anedition ofDe gratia et libero arbitrio.
O’Donnell, J. Reginald (ed.), 1946a, “TractatusMagistri Guillelmi AlvernensisDe bono et malo”,Mediaeval Studies, 8: 245–299.
––– (ed.), 1954, “Tractatus secundusGuillelmi AlvernensisDe bono et malo”,MediaevalStudies, 16: 219–271. This work is also known asDepaupertate spirituali.
Switalski, Bruno (ed.), 1976,De Trinitate, Toronto:Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.

Primary Texts in Modern Translation

The following books all contain useful detailed outlines of thecontents of the works translated.

Brenet, Jean-Baptiste (trans.), 1998,De l’âme(VII, 1–9), Paris: Vrin. French translation of parts ofDe anima.
Teske, Roland J. (trans.), 1991,The Immortality of theSoul (Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation 30), Milwaukee,WI: Marquette University Press. Translation ofDe immortalitateanimae.
–––, 1998a,The Universe of Creatures(Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation 35), Milwaukee, WI:Marquette University Press. Translation of extensive selections fromparts two and three of the first principal part ofDeuniverso.
–––, 2000a,The Soul (MedievalPhilosophical Texts in Translation 37), Milwaukee, WI: MarquetteUniversity Press. Translation ofDe anima.
–––, 2007,The Providence of God Regardingthe Universe (Medieval Philosophical Texts in Translation 43),Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. Translation of part threeof the first principal part ofDe universo.
–––, 2009a,On the Virtues (MediaevalPhilosophical Texts in Translation 45), Milwaukee, WI: MarquetteUniversity Press. Translation ofDe virtutibus.
–––, 2011,Selected Spiritual Writings: WhyGod Became Man; On Grace; On Faith (Mediaeval Sources inTranslation 50), Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies.Translation ofCur Deus homo,De gratia, andDefide.
–––, 2013a,On Morals (MediaevalSources in Translation 55), Toronto: Pontifical Institute of MediaevalStudies. Translation ofDe moribus.
–––, 2013b,Rhetorica divina, seu arsoratoria eloquentiae divinae (Dallas Medieval Texts andTranslations 17), Paris/Leuven/Walpoe, MA: Peeters. Latin text andEnglish translation.
Teske, Roland J., and Francis C. Wade (trans.), 1989,TheTrinity, or the First Principle (Medieval Philosophical Texts inTranslation 28), Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press.Translation ofDe Trinitate.

Secondary Literature

Barnes, Corey L., 2020, “Providence and Causality in theSumma Halensis”, in Lydia Schumacher (ed.),TheSumma Halensis:Doctrines and Debates, Berlin/Boston: DeGruyter, pp. 89–106. For William on providence, see pp.89–94 [Barnes 2020 available online].
Bazán, B. Carlos, 1969, “Pluralisme de formes oudualisme de substances?”,Revue philosophique deLouvain, 67: 30–73.
Bernstein, Alan E., 2005, “William of Auvergne and theCathars”, in Morenzoni and Tilliette 2005, pp.271–289.
Bertolacci, Amos, 2012, “On the Latin Reception ofAvicenna’s Metaphysics before Albertus Magnus: An Attempt atPeriodization”, in Dag N. Hasse and Amos Bertolacci (eds.),The Arabic, Hebrew and Latin Reception of Avicenna’sMetaphysics, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 197–223.
Black, Winston, 2013, “William of Auvergne on the Dangers ofParadise: Biblical Exegesis Between Natural Philosophy andAnti-Islamic Polemic”,Traditio, 68:233–258.
Caster, Kevin J., 1996a, “The Distinction between Being andEssence according to Boethius, Avicenna, and William ofAuvergne”,The Modern Schoolman, 73:309–332.
–––, 1996b, “The Real Distinction betweenBeing and Essence according to William of Auvergne”,Traditio, 51: 201–223.
–––, 1996c, “William of Auvergne’sAdaptation of Ibn Gabirol’s Doctrine of the Divine Will”,The Modern Schoolman, 74: 31–42.
Cesalli, Laurent, 2005, “Guillaume d’Auvergne etl’enunciabile: La solution profane d’unproblème théologique”, in Morenzoni and Tilliette2005, pp. 117–136.
Corti, Guglielmo, 1968, “Le sette parte delMagisteriumdivinale et sapientiale di Guglielmo di Auvergne”, inStudi e ricerche di scienze religiose in onore dei santi apostoliPetro et Paulo nel XIX centenario del loro martirio, Rome:Lateran University, pp. 289–307.
Davis, Leo D., 1973, “Creation according to William ofAuvergne”, in Gerard G. Steckler and Leo D. Davis (eds.),Studies in Mediaevalia and Americana, Essays in Honor of WilliamLyle Davis, S.J., Spokane: Gonzaga University Press, pp.51–75.
de Mayo, Thomas, 2007,The Demonology of William of Auvergne:By Fire and Sword, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
de Vaux, Roland, 1934,Notes et textes sur l’avicennismelatin aux confins des XII^e et XIII^esiècles, Paris: Vrin.
Fischer, Katrin, 2015, “Avicenna’sex-uno-Principle in William of Auvergne’sDeTrinitate”,Quaestio, 15: 423–32.
–––, 2018, “Avicenna’s Influence onWilliam of Auvergne’s Theory of Efficient Causes”, in DagN. Hasse and Amos Bertolacci (eds.),The Arabic, Hebrew and LatinReception of Avicenna’s Physics and Cosmology,Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter, 371–396.
Gilson, Etienne, 1926, “Pourquoi saint Thomas acritiqué saint Augustin”,Archives d’histoiredoctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 1:5–127.
–––, 1946, “La notion d’existencechez Guillaume d’Auvergne”,Archives d’histoiredoctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 21:55–91.
Grant, Lindy, 2016,Blanche of Castile: Queen of France,New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Contains remarks onWilliam’s relationship with the Capetian court.
Grice, Deborah, 2020,Church, Society and University: TheParis Condemnation of 1241/4, London/New York: Routledge.
Hasse, Dag N., 2000,Avicenna’sDe animain theLatin West: The Formation of a Peripatetic Philosophy of the Soul,1160–1300, London/Turin: The Warburg Institute – NinoAragno Editore.
Iribarren, Isabel, 2017, “L’Empyrée et seshabitants au Moyen Âge”,Revue des sciencesreligieuses, 91(2): 181–192[Iribarren 2017 availableonline].
Jüssen, Gabriel, 1975, “Wilhelm von Auvergne und dieEntwicklung der Philosophie im Übergang zur Hochscholastik”, inWolfgang Kluxen (ed.),Thomas von Aquin im philosophischenGespräch, Freiburg/Munich: Alber, pp. 185–203.
–––, 1987, “Wilhelm von Auvergne und dieTransformation der scholastischen Philosophie im 13.Jahrhundert”, in Jan P. Beckmann et al. (eds.),Philosophieim Mittelalter: Entwicklungslinien und Paradigmen, Hamburg:Meiner, pp. 141–164.
–––, 1995, “Die Tugend und der gute Wille:Wilhelm von Auvergnes Auseinandersetzung mit der aristotelischenEthik”, in B. Carlos Bazán, Eduardo Andújar andLéonard G. Sbrocchi (eds.),Les philosophies morales etpolitiques au Moyen Âge: Actes du IXe Congrèsinternational de Philosophie Médiévale, Ottawa, du 17 au22 août 1992, vol. 2, New York/Ottawa/Toronto: Legas, pp.709–722; reprinted inPhilosophisches Jahrbuch, 102,1995: 20–32.
Kramp, Josef, 1920, “Des Wilhelm von AuvergneMagisterium Divinale”,Gregorianum, 1:538–613.
–––, 1921, “Des Wilhelm von AuvergneMagisterium Divinale”,Gregorianum, 2:42–103, 174–195.
Laumakis, John A., 1999, “The Voluntarism of William ofAuvergne and Some Evidence to the Contrary”,The ModernSchoolman, 76: 303–312.
–––, 2011, “William of Auvergne on theHuman Being”, in Richard C. Taylor, David Twetten, and MichaelWreen (eds.),Tolle Lege: Essays on Augustine and on MedievalPhilosophy in Honor of Roland. J. Teske, S.J., Milwaukee:Marquette University Press, pp. 303–320.
Lewis, Neil, 1995, “William of Auvergne’s Account oftheEnuntiabile: Its Relation to Nominalism and the Doctrineof the Eternal Truths”,Vivarium, 33:113–136.
Marrone, Steven P., 1983,William of Auvergne and RobertGrosseteste: New Ideas of Truth in the Early Thirteenth Century,Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
–––, 2004, “William of Auvergne andAristotle on Knowing”, in Matthias Lutz-Bachmann, AlexanderFidora and Pia Antolic-Piper (eds.),Erkenntnis undWissenschaft/Knowledge and Science: Probleme der Epistemologie in derPhilosophie des Mittelalters/Problems of Epistemology in MedievalPhilosophy, Berlin: Akademie Verlag, pp. 143–159.
Masnovo, Amato, 1929, “Guglielmo d’Auvergne el’università di Parigi dal 1229 al 1231”,Giornale critico della filosofia italiana, 10:310–355.
–––, 1946,Da Guglielmo d’Auvergne aS. Tommaso d’Aquino, 3 vols., 2nd edition, Milan: Vita etPensiero.
Miller, Michael, 1998, “William of Auvergne on Primary andSecondary Qualities”,The Modern Schoolman, 75:265–277.
–––, 2002, “William of Auvergne and theAristotelians: The Nature of a Servant”, in John Inglis (ed.),Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: In Islam, Judaismand Christianity, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, pp.263–276.
Moody, Ernest A., 1975, “William of Auvergne and HisTreatiseDe anima”, in Id.Studies in MedievalPhilosophy, Science, and Logic, Collected Papers 1933–1969,Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1–109.
Morenzoni, Franco, 2007, “Le corpus homilétique deGuillaume d’Auvergne, évêque de Paris”,Sacris Erudiri, 46: 287–369.
Morenzoni, Franco, and Jean-Yves Tilliette (eds.), 2005,Autour de Guillaume d’Auvergne († 1249),Turnhout: Brepols.
O’Donnell, J. Reginald, 1946b, “The Notion of Being inWilliam of Auvergne”,Proceedings and Addresses of theAmerican Philosophical Association, 21: 156–165.
Pitour, Thomas, 2011,Wilhelm von Auvergnes Psychologie: Vonder Rezeption des aristotelischen Hylemorphismus zur Reformulierungder Imago-Dei-Lehre Augustins, Paderborn: SchöninghVerlag.
Reilly, James P., 1953, “Thomas of York on the Efficacy ofSecondary Causes”,Mediaeval Studies, 15:225–233.
Reynolds, Philip L., 2016,How Marriage Became One of theSacraments: The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from Its MedievalOrigins to the Council of Trent, Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress. For William on marriage and on his moral exchange theory, seepp. 506–511 and 540–543.
Rohls, Jan, 1980,Wilhelm von Auvergne und dermittelalterliche Aristotelismus: Gottesbegriff und aristotelischePhilosophie zwischen Augustin und Thomas von Aquin, Munich:Kaiser.
Rosheger, John P., 2002, “Is God a ‘What’?Avicenna, William of Auvergne, and Aquinas on the DivineEssence”, in John Inglis (ed.),Medieval Philosophy and theClassical Tradition: In Islam, Judaism and Christianity,Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, pp. 277–296.
Sannino, Antonella, 2004, “La dottrina dellacausalità nell’universo di Guglielmo d’Alvernia:Percorsi di lettura”,Studi filosofici, 27:31–68.
–––, 2016, “Fato, necessitá ecausalitá astrale in Guglielmo d’Alvernia”,Studi filosofici, 39: 31–47.
Schindele, Stephan, 1900,Beiträge zur Metaphysik desWilhelm von Auvergne, Munich: Kastner&Lossen.
Silva, José Filipe, 2014, “Medieval Theories ofActive Perception: An Overview”, in Id. and Mikko Yrjonsuuri(eds.),Active Perception in the History of Philosophy: From Platoto Modern Philosophy, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 117–46.
Smith, Lesley, 1992, “William of Auvergne and theJews”, in Diana Wood (ed.),Christianity and Judaism. PapersRead at the 1991 Summer Meeting of the Ecclesiastical HistorySociety, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 107–117.
–––, 2005, “William of Auvergne and theLaw of the Jews and the Muslims”, in Thomas Heffernan and ThomasE. Burman (eds.),Scripture and Pluralism: Reading the Bible inthe Religiously Plural Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance,Leiden/Boston: Brill, pp. 123–142.
–––, 2020, “Slippers in Heaven: William ofAuvergne Preaching to the Brethren”, in Lydia Schumacher (ed.),TheSumma Halensis:Sources and Context,Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 285–298 [Smith 2020 available online].
Teske, Roland J., 1990, “The Identity of theItalici in William of Auvergne’s Discussion of theEternity of the World”,Proceedings of the PMRConference, 15: 191–203; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp.53–63.
–––, 1992, “William of Auvergne onDere andDe dicto Necessity”,The ModernSchoolman, 69: 111–121; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp.65–79.
–––, 1993a, “William of Auvergne and theManichees”,Traditio, 48: 63–75; reprinted inTeske 2006, pp. 81–99.
–––, 1993b, “William of Auvergne’sUse of Avicenna’s Principle: ‘Ex Uno, Secundum QuodUnum, Non Nisi Unum’”,The Modern Schoolman,71: 1–15; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 101–119.
–––, 1994a, “The Will as King over thePowers of the Soul: Uses and Sources of an Image in the ThirteenthCentury”,Vivarium, 32: 62–71.
–––, 1994b, “William of Auvergne on theEternity of the World”,The Modern Schoolman, 67:187–205; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 29–52.
–––, 1994c, “William of Auvergne on theIndividuation of Human Souls”,Traditio, 49:77–93; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 121–143.
–––, 1995a, “William of Auvergne’sArguments for the Newness of the Word”,Mediaevalia: Textose Estudos, 7–8: 287–302; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp.145–159.
–––, 1995b, “William of Auvergne’sRejection of the Agent Intelligence”, in William J. Carrol andJohn J. Furlong (eds.),Greek and Medieval Studies in Honor of LeoSweeney, S.J., New York: Peter Lang, pp. 211–235.
–––, 1996, “Freedom of the Will in Williamof Auvergne”, in B. Carlos Bazán et al. (eds.),Moraland Political Philosophies in the Middle Ages. Proceedings of theNinth International Conference on Medieval Philosophy, vol. 2,New York: Legas, pp. 932–938.
–––, 1998b, “William of Auvergne onPhilosophy asdivinalis andsapientialis”, inJan A. Aertsen and Andreas Speer (eds.),Was ist Philosophie inMitteralter?, Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 475–481.
–––, 1998c, “William of Auvergne on theRelation between Reason and Faith”,The ModernSchoolman, 75: 279–291; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp.179–194.
–––, 1998d, “William of Auvergne andPlato’s World of Ideas”,Traditio, 55:117–130; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 161–178.
–––, 1999, “William of Auvergne’sDebt to Avicenna”, in Jules L. Janssens and Daniel de Smet(eds.),Avicenna and His Heritage. Acts of the InternationalColloquium. Leuven-Louvain-la-Neuve, September 8–September 11,1999, Leuven: Leuven University Press, pp. 153–170;reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 217–237.
–––, 2000b, “William of Auvergne on Timeand Eternity”,Traditio, 55: 125–141; reprintedin Teske 2006, pp. 195–215.
–––, 2003, “William of Auvergne on theVarious States of our Nature”,Traditio, 58:201–218; reprinted in Teske 2006, pp. 239–253, and inPeter J. Weigel and Joseph G. Prud’homme (eds.), 2016,ThePhilosophy of Human Nature in Christian Perspective, New York:Peter Lang, pp. 65–81.
–––, 2005, “William of Auvergne’sSpiritualist Conception of Man”, in Morenzoni and Tilliette2005, pp. 35–53.
–––, 2006,Studies in the Philosophy ofWilliam of Auvergne. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. ACollection of Papers by the Preeminent Student of William ofAuvergne’s Thought.
–––, 2009b, “William of Auvergne on theVirtues”,Modern Schoolman, 87: 35–49.
Wei, Ian P., 2020, “William of Auvergne”, in Id.,Thinking about Animals in Thirteenth-Century Paris: Theologians onthe Boundary between Humans and Animals, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, pp. 9–93. A detailed analysis on the role ofanimals and the relationship between animals and humans inDelegibus andDe universo.
Weill-Parot, Nicolas, 2017, “Relatos de los poderes de lasimágenes mágicas entre prescripción y prueba (siglosXII–XV)”,História revista, 22(1): 19–34 [Weill-Parot 2017 available online].
–––, 2019, “Pouvoir de la magie astrale etordre politique chez Guillaume d’Auvergne”,Quaestio, 19: 149–172.
Weisheipl, James A., 1979, “Albertus Magnus and UniversalHylomorphism”,Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, 10:239–260.
Wippel, John F., 2003, “The Parisian Condemnations of 1270and 1277”, in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Timothy B. Noone (eds.),A Companion to Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Malden, MA:Blackwell, 65–73.
Young, Spencer E., 2014,Scholarly Community at the EarlyUniversity of Paris: Theologians, Education and Society,1215–1248, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ForWilliam of Auvergne, see pp. 64–101.

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Bartholomew’s World, a good biographical essay on William by Roland J. Teske.
Opera Omnia 1, vol. one of the Orléans-Paris edition.
Opera Omnia 2, vol. two of the Orléans-Paris edition.

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