Certainty in Ethics. Interpretations of Parisian Arts Masters commenting on the "Nicomachean Ethics"

BUFFON, VALERIA

Porto Alegre

Simposio; On doubt and Certainty: Epistemology and Ethics. I International Colloquium of Medieval Philosophy; 2014

UNISINOS

When one thinks of how the Nicomachean Ethics deal with Certainty, at least two main points come to mind: 1) The Certainty of Ethics as a science, that is how certain are results that ethical inquiry can get, what one might call "scientific certainty". And 2) The Certainty of the moment of decision ("prohaíresis"/"eligentia"), or better, in the deliberative moment (bouleusis/consilium) of a moral deliberative choice. Both of them are considered by Parisian Arts masters, but we are focusing in this paper in the first type of certainty. Since it is more discussed at least in the first part of the 13th century, where our research begins. In the Nicomachean Ethics, the two main texts coping with epistemological certainty are: 1) from the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics, book I, chapter 1; 2) from the second chapter of book II. These two texts are often discussed in the Faculty of Arts of Paris. We examine here the interpretations of commentaries belonging to different periods to cover about a century. We start with two commentaries of about 1240-1245 (the anonymous commentary known as ?Pseudo-Peckham?s commentary?, ca. 1240-1244, and the commentary reasonably attributed to Robert Kilwardby, ca. 1245). Then we continue with two commentaries of the end of 13th century (the anonymous commentary of Paris, ca. 1280, and Radulphus Brito?s commentary, ca. 1295). Finally, from the first half of 14th century, we take two other commentaries (Walter Burley?s commentary ca. 1333-1341 and John Buridan?s commentary ca. 1350).