Richard Rufus of Cornwall

FAIN: RQ-50003-03

Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)
Rega Wood (Project Director: August 2002 to August 2006)

Publication of Memoriale Quaestionum in Metaphysicam Aristotelis, completion of editorial work for lectures on De Anima, and initial editing of Dissertatio in Metaphysicam in Aristotelis. (24 months)

Richard Rufus of Cornwall played a central role in the transformation of philosophy which resulted from the reintroduction of Aristotle in Western Europe. Rufus introduced the teaching of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Physics, and De Anima at medieval Paris, the intellectual center of the Western world. Though he relied on Averroes, Rufus' perspective was critical, and his influence was far reaching. He influenced Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and John Duns Scotus. Scotus was indebted to Rufus not just for the concept of individual forms, but also for the formal distinction, which Rufus describes as formal predication. Recently discovered, most of Rufus' work are unpublished. This project will make available his lectures on De Anima, the work in which he first presented formal predication, provide camera-ready copy of his first Metaphysics commentary, and do about half of the work necessary to begin editing critically his second Metaphysics commentary (1400) pages.