John Dumbleton - Philosophical Contributions

Philosophical Contributions

Though there was a considerable reverence for Platonism in Oxford during the fourteenth century, the rebirth of Aristotelianism held sway in the higher Parisian learning circuits. Dumbleton, who studied in Paris for a brief time, was not immune to this spell. In fact, his compendium Summa Logica et Philosophiae Naturalis, has an overview of many principles found in Aristotle's Physics. The Summa is broken into ten different sections. The ninth section is uncompleted in all extant manuscripts. The tenth section, which, according to Dumbleton, was supposed to examine "universals and signification," shows no evidence of ever being worked on (Hackett, p. 254). Although this is the case, the other sections of Dumbleton's Summa are filled with medieval philosophical gems. A couple emphasized topics to be found in the first section are "certitude and the psychology of logic" (Hackett, 253). It includes a medieval examination of epistemological issues; such as the certainty of knowledge. A strong Aristotelian appreciation is felt in the remaining sections, since the majority of the work is dedicated to commenting on the first eight chapters of Aristotle's Physics, and his treatises On Generation and Corruption & On the Soul. In those sections of the Summa will be found discussions and commentary on such topics as: alteration, change (i.e., the measure of motion), properties of natural bodies and their forms (parts II and III); questions dealing with classification (e.g., "whether light belongs to some element" (Hackett, p. 253)); motions and changes of bodies/forms (parts IV - VI); and in the final sections an examination of the intellect and matters of the soul (parts VII - IX) (Hackett, 253-4). It is difficult to assess why Dumbleton's Summa did not have a significant following, but it may have been because it was never completed or that it was not circulated well enough.