The Thought of Henry of Ghent in the Last Quarter of the 13th Century in the Latin West

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project makes the thought of Henry of Ghent (1240? -1293) known to Japanese people, and at the same time casts light on a period which has been almost passed over in the history of philosophy. The purpose of this project is to propose, based on preceded studies and ongoing investigation by especially European scholars, a unified interpretation of Henry's ontology and epistemology, which have been treated separately, in the philosophical context of the last quarter of the 13th century in the Latin West. We have achieved our purpose by doing the following researches during the term of project.In 1994 we took a general view of the period by considering the thought of Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines about the distinction between essence and being. Giles took the position of real distinction between essence and being, Henry intentioal distinction, and Godfrey real identity. In 1995 we considered Henry's ontology by, first, investigating his conception of 'res' and 'esse' in itself and, secondly, contrasting his 'esse' with Thomas Aquinas' one. Henry and Aquinas had in common the distinction between 'esse' which signifies composition or truth of a proposition and 'esse' which signifies the categorical reality. But Henry further divided the latter into 'esse essentiae' and 'esse existentiae', destroying and losing Aquinas' full meaning of the categorical 'esse'. In 1996 we interpeted Henry's ontology and epistemology from a unified point of view. We pointed out a principal problem underlying Henry's illumination theory in contrast with Duns Scotus' univocity of being, and in order to solve it proposed our original viewpoint that the key is in Henry's realism of absolute essence.