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Abstract Pierre Duhem and Eugenio Randi have investigated the later-medieval history of the problem of whether the existence of more than one world is possible, determining that Aristotle's denial of that possibility was rejected on theological grounds in the second half of the thirteenth century, but it was Nicole Oresme in the mid-fourteenth century who gave the strongest philosophical arguments against the Peripatetic stance, opting instead for Plato's position. For different reasons, neither Duhem nor Randi was able to examine Gerald Odonis' question on the subject. In this text, edited here, Odonis also opposes Aristotle for philosophical reasons and sides explicitly with Plato. Was Oresme aware of Odonis' opinion?

Francis of Marchia (c. 1290-1344) is said to have challenged Aristotelian orthodoxy by uniting the celestial and terrestrial realms in a way that has important implications for the practice of natural philosophy. But this over-looks Marchia's vital distinction between bare potentiality, which is actualizable only by God, and natural potency, which is the concern of the natural philosopher. If due attention is paid to this distinction and to its implications, Marchia's position no longer seems to be revolutionary.

"In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. Furthermore, they give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations." In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. Furthermore, they give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations. "In 1513 the Fifth Lateran Council determined that the immortality of the rational soul is not true only in theology, but also in philosophy. The determination can be related also to the actual teaching of philosophy. In the university of Erfurt, Bartholomaeus Arnoldi de Usingen and Jodocus Trutfetter wrote expositions on natural philosophy at that time. Usingen's and Trutfetter's expositions of De anima represent a position, which faithfully follows in methodology and aspirations the tradition of the via moderna. Furthermore, they give an interpretation of the relationship between philosophy and theology, which Trutfetter considered consonant with the intentions and the formulations of the Fifth Lateran Council; and finally, Trutfetter even presents a practical application of the Council's recommendations."

In his recent paper on John Buridan's discussion on intension and remission of qualities Joel Biard1 fills a gap in Anneliese Maier's analysis, whose first part of Zwei Grundprobleme der scholastischen Naturphilosophie (namely Das Problem der intensiven Grosse )2 is still the most complete introduction to the medieval Parisian discussion on this topic; Edith Sylla's contributions,3 important as they are, are focused on English authors. In this paper I will: a) lay stress on the importance of the commentaries on Aristotle's writings on natural philosophy for this topic as well as for establishing sets of problems, such as those discussed in Richard Swineshead's Liber calculationum , just to mention one of the works whose influence continued in the XVth Century;4 b) try to set in a larger context John Buridan's discussion on intension and remission in his Physics commentary de ultima lectura .5 The first point actually does not need much stress, because in recent years research on the medieval tradition of commentaries has substan

Thomas Bradwardine was born shortly before the start of the fourteenth century. While at Merton College in Oxford in the 1320s, he made two seminal contributions to our understanding of the world. One is generally recognised and well known: his reinterpretation of Aristotle on the ratio of velocity to force and resistance, that the second two vary with the square of the first. The other insight is much less well known and usually credited elsewhere. Ralph Strode, friend and neighbour in London of Geoffrey Chaucer later in the century wrote: "Then appeared that prince of modern natural philosophers, Thomas Bradwardine, who first came upon something of value concerning the insolubles."1 The insolubles are paradoxes or antinomies of language, perhaps most famously expressed in the Liar Paradox: 'What I am saying is false'. Bradwardine's solution was later taken up by Albert of Saxony and John Buridan at the University of Paris, and is most well known in Buridan's version, following discussions by Ernest Moody and Arthur Prior2 and translations by Scott and Hughes.3 Bradwardine's treatise has not been translated into English, and appeared in print for the first time in 1970, edited from two of the twelve manuscripts known to have survived.4

Historians of medieval science have not ignored Peter AurioPs physical theories, but they have not treated them in great depth either. Earlier in this century Pierre Duhem discussed AurioPs doctrine of place and his theory of the latitude of forms, two subjects of present interest, the latter of which Anneliese Maier later examined, closely following Duhem.1 Both historians pointed to novel and interesting elements in AurioPs opinions, but three things have impeded more accurate and extensive investigations since that time. First, Oxford ideas in natural philosophy have overshadowed Parisian science between 1315 and 1335 in the historio

Following the lead of Pierre Duhem, historians of medieval science have long studied the work of medieval natural philosophers with an eye to seeing how it led or did not lead to the emergence of modern science in the seventeenth century.1 If one accepts the view of Duhem and others that quite a lot of good natural philosophy was done by fourteenth-century scholastic Aristotelians such as John Buridan, Nicole Oresme, and Albert of Saxony at Paris, and Thomas Bradwardine, William Heytesbury, and Richard Swineshead at Oxford, then the question may arise why it took so long for modern science to break away from scholastic Aristotelianism to produce the new physics of the likes of Galileo, Descartes, and Newton. Edward Grant has proposed that it was, in part, the commentary form that brought it about that scholastic Aristotelians absorbed a multitude of small variations on

L'A. etudie differents points de la conception du langage de Guillaume d'Ockham avec la perspective de commentateurs tels que Spade ou Panaccio. L'A. donne son interpretation sur les rapports entre la philosophie naturelle et les mathematiques en etablissant des correlations entre la conception du langage selon d'Ockham et les penseurs du 14 e siecle

L'A. compare les conceptions de deux philosophes du 14 e siecle: Buridan, empiriste; et Oresme qui, en plus d'etre un representant de la philosophie naturelle, est egalement theologien. L'A. souligne leur difference de confiance dans les resultats de l'experience et leurs oppositions sur la question de la connaissance, incluant les problemes de causalite dans la nature