John of Mirecourt

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Johannes von Mirecourt (* around 1300; † after 1349 , Latin Johannes de Mercuria) was a philosopher and theologian in Paris. He is considered an important representative of nominalism .

Life

Johannes comes from the parish of Mirecourt in Lorraine , his exact living conditions are unknown. He entered the Cistercian order and was initially a monk in Citeaux . Then he studied in Paris.

In 1345 he gave a lecture on the sentences of Petrus Lombardus . Just a year later he had to defend his theses in front of 41 Parisian theologians. In 1347 63 of his theses were censored and entered on the list of doctrines condemned in Paris. He defended himself with two written justifications, the so-called apologies. Johannes wasn't the only Paris lecturer whose theses were censored by the university or church.

Nothing is known about his life after 1347.

philosophy

Causal relationships

Johannes von Mirecourt's philosophy is strongly influenced by the nominalism of Wilhelm von Ockham and other, especially English commentators. He fundamentally denied the existence of necessary causal connections: God can act at any time due to his absolute power (potentia absoluta). The world is the result of his free will. What we perceive with our senses, our experience, is only a temporal sequence of events and is not based on a causal effect. Only the principle of the excluded contradiction is absolutely evident. A proposition whose negation does not involve a logical contradiction is not absolutely evident.

Evidence of God

At the same time, Johannes von Mirecourt turned against the proofs of God based on the principle of causality : All arguments for the existence of God are based on statements that are based on experience. Sentences about experience can, however, be negated without this leading to a logical contradiction. The existence of God therefore has no supreme evidence (evidentia potissima), but only an evidentia naturalis.

Hallucinations

According to Johannes, something that is not real cannot be the object of visual perception. Illusions are the result of erroneous judgments:

"In hallucinations man only sees what is, which no being and no entity receives through the power of seeing, even if the deceived person judges that he sees something he does not see."

- Johannes von Mirecourt, twelfth movement

Whoever drifts on the water in a boat does not see that the trees are moving past him, but sees the trees from a different perspective. The judgment that the trees would move is a mistake. Just like sensual perception, abstract cognition does not have a constitutive function that establishes being. True sentences can rarely be traced back to the principle of the avoidance of contradiction. In addition, an intervention of God is always possible, who can intervene in the normal course of nature due to his absolute power. Therefore, human knowledge never goes beyond a mere probability. All sentences which express an external experience and which concern the existence or quality of an external thing have this character of an only limited certainty.

effect

The work of Johannes von Mirecourt was widespread in Italy, the area of ​​the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, Poland, France and Spain. He was considered one of the most important representatives of nominalism. In an edict of Louis XI. from 1474 he was quoted and condemned again. Later he was forgotten.

Works

  • Commentary on the sentences of Petrus Lombardus
  • Apologies (justifications)

literature

personal data
SURNAME John of Mirecourt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES John de Mercuria
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH around 1300
DATE OF DEATH after 1349