Abstract
Richard of Middleton, Franciscan Friar, was born in or before 1249. He became Master of Theology at Paris in 1284, where he presided over one regular and three quodlibetal disputations. He edited his Sentence commentary between 1285 and 1295. He probably died in 1307/1308. His thought owes much not only to Bonaventure and the Franciscans of the 1270s and 1280s, but also to Henry of Ghent and Thomas Aquinas. Richard’s metaphysics and theory of cognition are largely Aristotelian, whereas his natural philosophy tends to follow the more eclectic trends of his Franciscan confrères. Thus, he affirms both the plurality of substantial forms in one substance and universal hylomorphism. His most distinctive doctrines are that degrees of a quality can be construed in quantitative terms, and that substantial forms admit of degrees, a view that he uses to explain how material substances are composed of the four elements.
Bibliography
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Cross, R. (2011). Richard of Middleton. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_441
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