Paul of Venice and the Plurality of Forms and Souls

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on Paul of Venice’s plurality of forms and souls, i.e., his “two total souls” theory. I argue that this specific theory is a result of Paul’s reception of various positions originating from fourteenth-century Parisian philosophers like John of Jandun, the Anonymous Patar, Nicole Oresme, John Duns Scotus, and Walter Burley. By receiving these positions and by making use of merely parts of their doctrines, Paul creates a theory of the hylomorphic compound that fits well within an Aristotelian framework of an Averroistic flavor. Although his position is not Averroistic in any strict sense, it mirrors quite well the growing interest in an Averroistic interpretation of Aristotle in Padua at his time. By looking at some of his successors, such as Gaetano da Thiene, Nicoletto Vernia, and Agostino Nifo, I show that Paul is on the borderline between a traditional, scholastic philosophical psychology or hylomorphism of Parisian origin and an Averroist reading of philosophical psychology or hylomorphism, which had its promoters in fifteenth-century Padua.