Flatus vocis

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Flatus vocis is a phrase attributed to Johannes Roscelin by Anselm of Canterbury and means: a breath of air produced by the voice. The question is whether general terms (the so-called universals) are real or not:

"Illi utique dialectici, qui non nisi flatum vocis putant universalis esse substantias, et qui colorem non aliud queunt intellegere quam corpus, nec sapientiam hominis aliud quam animam, prorsus a spiritualium quaestionum disputatione sunt exsufflandi."

"Those logicians who are of the opinion that there are no universals, except as a breath of air produced by the voice, and who can neither understand a color other than that of the body, nor the wisdom of man as something other than the soul, should be completely excluded from the discussion of spiritual matters. "

Anselm was of the opinion that one could abstract the universals from the concrete objects. But it is difficult to determine what Roscelin's own view was; none of his texts, apart from a letter to Petrus Abelardus , have survived, and it is not certain whether Anselm actually refers to Roscelin in the quotation mentioned.

Anselm assumed that the nominalists were playing off a living particular against a lifeless general. The seemingly constant of universals turns out to be just as fleeting as everything living in an attempt to grasp them with human means. In this respect, Flatus vocis is a symbol of the hopelessness of human generalizations ( vanitas ). - From this point of view, every appeal to divine ideas had to appear presumptuous. This fundamentally challenged the conventional justification of authority and led to the scholastic universality dispute .

proof

  1. ↑ 'Luftauch', because Anselm uses the singular ('flatum' (i.e. the 4th case)) here.
  2. ^ Anselmus: Epistola De Incarnatione Verbi. In: S. Anselmi Cantuariensis Archiepiscopi Opera omnia. Volume 1: Continens Opera quae Prior et Abbas Beccensis composuit. Ad fidem Codicum recensuit Franciscus Salesius Schmitt. sn, Seckau 1938, pp. 281–290, here p. 285.
  3. ↑ Cf. François Picavet: Roscelin, philosophe et théorien, d'après la légende et d'après l'histoire (= Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. Annuaire. Section 5e: Sciences Religieuses. 1895/1896, ZDB ID 353-0 ). Imprimerie nationale, Paris 1896, p. 9.