Richard Rufus Project

FAIN: RQ-50132-05

Stanford University (Stanford, CA 94305-2004)
Rega Wood (Project Director: November 2004 to October 2009)

Publication of a critical edition of Memoriale in Metaphysicam Aristotelis and preparation for publication of a critical edition of Dissertatio in Metaphysicam Aristotelis, the Latin texts of the 13th-c. philosophical works of Richard Rufus of Cornwall, author of the earliest surviving commentaries on Aristotle's natural philosophy. (36 months)

Richard Rufus of Cornwall introduced the teaching of Aristotle's Metaphysics and Physics at medieval Paris, the intellectual center of the thirteenth-century western world. His far-reaching influence can be seen in works by Roger Bacon, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, and John Duns Scotus. Scotus' debt to Rufus, for example, is evident in his theory of individuation, his proofs for the existence of God, and his conception of formal distinction. Recently rediscovered, Rufus' works were unpublished for nearly 750 years. The British Academy began publishing his works with RRP's edition of his Physics commentary. RRP now proposes to publish his first Metaphysics commentary and to prepare a critical edition of his second. As these works become available, scholars will be forced to rewrite textbook accounts of the reception of Aristotle and to rethink the significance of early Scholasticism.