Richard Kilvington’s Questions on the Ethics: New Arguments and Research Procedures in Fourteenth Century Ethical Discourse
Abstract
Richard Kilvington was the only Oxford Calculator who wrote a commentary on Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics. Composed in 1332 Questions on the Ethics are an extraordinary commentary for several reasons. First, against a well-established tradition of ethical commentaries, Kilvington does not comment on all the books of Nicomachean Ethics. Nor does he refer to all the most important issues debated by Aristotle. Secondly, the analyses of the problems chosen for treatment vary in length, which means that some issues are debated meticulously, others deserve less attention. Finally, Kilvington uses arguments and methods taken from the fields of logic and natural philosophy in a way and scale unprecedented for ethical commentaries. It allows him to take an original and unique perspective in analyzing ethical issues. In the article I point out the structure of the text and the characteristic scheme of a question of Questions of the Ethics. Then, I describe the specificity of the arguments used in the text. Finally, I analyze the methods employed by Kilvington in debating ethical problems, namely the calculus of compounding ratios, secundum imaginationem procedure, and simpliciter/secundum quid tool, showing how they served analyzing ethical dilemmas.
References
Albertus Magnus. 1891. Ethicorum libri X vol VII, w Opera omnia, ed. Auguste Borgnet. Paris: Vivres.
Albertus Magnus. 1968–1987. Super Ethica commentum et Quaestiones. W Opera omnia. Vol. 14/1-2. Wydał Wilhelmus Kübel. Cologne Aschendorff.
Aristoteles. 1972. Ethica Nicomachea (recensio pura). Ed. René Antoine Gauthier. Aristoteles Latinus XXVI.1-3. Leiden, Bruxelles: Brill.
Arystoteles. 1990. O dowodach sofistycznych. Przełożył Kazimierz Leśniak. W: Arystoteles. Dzieła wszystkie. T. 1. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Arystoteles. 2000. Etyka nikomachejska. Przełożyła Daniela Gromska. W: Arystoteles. Dzieła wszystkie. T. 5. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Arystoteles. 2003. Fizyka. Przełożył Kazimierz Leśniak. W: Arystoteles. Dzieła wszystkie. T. 2, (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN.
Dutilh Novaes, Catarina, i Stephen Read. 2008. „Insolubilia and the Fallacy Secundum Quid et Simpliciter”. Vivarium 46, 2: 175–191.
Gualterus de Burley. 1521. Expositio super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis. Venezia.
Johannes Buridanus. 1513. Quaestiones super decem libros Ethicorum Aristotelis. Paris.
Jung, Elżbieta. 2000 „Works by Richard Kilvington”. Archives d’histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Age 67, 189–220.
Jung, Elżbieta. 2002. Między filozofią przyrody a nowożytnym przyrodoznawstwem. Ryszard Kilvington i fizyka matematyczna w średniowieczu. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Jung, Elżbieta. 2014. Arystoteles na nowo odczytany. Ryszarda Kilvingtona Kwestie o ruchu. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego.
Jung, Elżbieta. 2016. „Mathematics and the secundum imaginationem procedure in Richard Kilvington”. Przegląd Tomistyczny 22: 109–120.
Jung, Elżbieta. 2016. „Richard Kilvington”. W: Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. (Winter 2016 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kilvington/.
Jung, Elżbieta, i Monika Michałowska. 2008. „Jak być sprawiedliwym? Ryszarda Kilvingtona komentarz do Etyki Arystotelesa”. Roczniki Filozoficzne 56, 2: 117–129.
Jung, Elżbieta, i Robert Podkoński. 2008. „Kilvington on Proportions”. W: Joël Biard i Sabine Rommevaux (ed.). Mathématiques et théorie du mouvement (XIVe – XVIe siècles), 81–101. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion.
Kretzmann, Norman. 1988. „Tu Scis Hoc Esse Omne Quod Est Hoc. Richard Kilvington and the Logic of Knowledge”. W: Norman Kretzmann (ed.). Meaning and Inference in Medieval Philosophy. Synthese Historical Library 32, 225–245. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Michałowska, Monika. 2008. „Kilvington’s Concept of Prudence from Questions on Ethics”. Mediaevalia Philosophica Polonorum 37, 3: 85–94.
Michałowska, Monika. 2011. „Kilvington’s Use of Physical and Logical Arguments in Ethical Dilemmas”. Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 22: 465–492.
Michałowska, Monika. 2016a. „Introduction”. W: Richard Kilvington’s Quaestiones super libros Ethicorum. Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters. Vol. 121, 1–60. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
Michałowska, Monika. 2016b. Woluntarystyczny dynamizm, czyli koncepcja woli w Kwestiach do Etyki Ryszarda Kilvingtona. Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka.
Murdoch, John. 1981. „Scientia Mediantibus Vocibus: Metalinguistic Analysis in Late Medieval Natural Philosophy”. W: Jan Beckmann i Wolfgang Kluxen (red.). Sprache und Erkenntnis im Mittelalter. Akten des VI. Internationalen Kongresses für Mittelalterliche Philosophie der Société Internationale pour L'Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, 29. August – 3. September 1977 in Bonn, 73–106. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Richard Kilvington. 1990. The Sophismata of Richard Kilvington (Auctores Britannici Medii Aevi 12) (text edition). Ed. Barbara Kretzmann i Norman Kretzmann. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990.
Richard Kilvington. 2016. Quaestiones super libros Ethicorum. Ed. Monika Michałowska. Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters. Vol. 121. Leiden: Brill.
Richard Kilvington. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ms. lat. 3222, fols. 111v-116v.
Richard Kilvington. Quaestiones super Physicam, Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, cod. lat. VI 72 (2810).
Sharpe, Richard. 2001. A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540. Turnhout: Brepols.
Spade, Paul Vincent. 1987. „Five Early Theories in the Mediaeval Insolubilia-Literature”. Vivarium 25, 1: 24–46.
Spade, Paul Vincent. 1988. „Insolubilia”. W: Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny, Jan Pinborg i Eleonore Stump (eds.). The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. From the Rediscovery of Aristotle to the Disintegration of Scholasticism, 1100-1600, 246–253. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sylla, Edith D. 1991. The Oxford Calculators and the Mathematics of Motion 1320–1350. Physics and Measurements by Latitudes. Harvard Dissertations in the History of Science. New York: : Garland Publishing.
Thomas Aquinas. 2011. Sententia libri Ethicorum. W: Corpus Thomisticum, ed. Roberto Busa. http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/iopera.html — Sententia libri Ethicorum. Libri 1–10. Textum adaequatum Leonino 1969 edito ex plagulis de prelo emendatum ac translatum a Roberto Busa SJ in taenias magneticas denuo recognovit Enrique Alarcón atque instruxit.
Copyright (c) 2019 Roczniki Filozoficzne
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
