This article focuses on a single question,
Utrum spericum positum supra planum tangat ipsum precise in puncto, which is the seventh question in Blaise of Parma's commentary on Book 1 of Aristotle's
De anima and also circulated on its own. The A. first identify the tradition in which the question originated: namely in discussions of the soul by Aristotle (in his
De anima and
Metaphysica) and Averroes (
In «De caelo»), which were continued by scholastic thinkers of the medieval West (Albert the Great,
De anima; Thomas Aquinas,
Sententia libri de anima; Giles of Rome,
Expositio super libros de anima; Adam Wodeham,
Quaestio super continuum and
Tractatus de indivisibilibus; William of Ockham,
Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis; John Buridan,
Quaestio de puncto and
Quaestiones super Physica Aristotelis; Richard Rufus of Cornwall, Henry of Harclay, Walter Chatton, William of Alnwick; and several anonymous
quaestiones, including the
Quaestiones de anima of the Anonymous of Giele and the Anonymous of Van Steenberghen; the
Quaestio de anima preserved in ms. Brugge, Stadsbibl., 477; and a
quaestio concerning whether a sphere can touch a plane in a point, preserved in Erfurt, Amplon. 2° 298 (unedited) and in München, BSB, lat. 8378. The article next provides a detailed explication of Blaise's
quaestio and compares it with Blaise's other works, including his
Quaestio de tactu corporum,
Quaestiones super tractatus logicae magistri Petri Hispani, and
Quaestionies circa tractatum proportionum magistri Thomae Braduardini. The essay concludes with an edition of the Latin text and a French translation, based on three mss.: Vat. Chigi O IV 41; Napoli, BN, VIII G 74; and Oxford, Bodl. Libr., Canon. misc. 177 (in which the question circulates separately from the rest of Blaise's commentary).
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