Stefano Caroti, born in Pistoia, Italy, in 1949. Ph.D. from the Università degli Studi, Florence. Professor of History of Medieval Philosophy at the Università di Parma.
Fellow (1 September 1996 – 30 June 1997)
During my ten months as a fellow at NIAS I have completed the transcription of Nicole Oresme’s commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, from a microfiche copy of the only extant manuscript (Sevilla, Biblioteca Capitular y Colombina, ms. 7-6-30). The transcription covers 715 pages (with the two apparatuses of variae lectiones and sources the final draft will presumably be 800 pages in length).
Oresme’s commentary on the Physics is the only one yet to be published of the 14th- century commentaries of the so-called Buridan’s School (Nicole Oresme, Albert of Saxony and Marsilius of Inghen). The complete transcription has confirmed my hypothesis that Oresme’s philosophical position is very different from Buridan’s, particularly as far as ontology and semantics are concerned. Nicole Oresme seems to blend William Ockham’s reductionism with Gregory of Rimini’s semantic of complexe significabile. The outcome of such a complex position presents some connections with Jean de Mirecourt’s and Nicole d’Autrecourt’s condemned doctrines.