Francis of Prato

chapter 10 Francis of Prato

Christian Rode

1 Introduction

The Dominican Francis of Prato was likely born in or near Prato in the Northwest of Florence at the end of the 13th century. He was baccalarius in the Studium of Perugia in 1330/31, stayed in Rome from 1331–1332 and afterwards in Paris. He worked as a lector of philosophy in Pisa (1332–1333), Siena (1338–1339), and Florence (1340–1341), where he held the office of a prior. In 1343 Francis was a lector in Perugia, and was appointed praedicator generalis of the Dominican order. After 1343 no further records of his life are extant.1 In a num- ber of works2 Francis became the first in Italy to criticize the philosophy of William of Ockham. His main strategy was to draw on arguments from Hervaeus Natalis. In the following, I want to outline the characteristics of Francis’ criticism of Ockham and thus to elucidate why Ockham’s new teach- ings were quite objectionable for an Italian Dominican.3 I would like to show that for both thinkers their respective theories of propositionality are of funda- mental relevance for the other theoretical fields I will present in this chapter, namely the theory of universals, the conception of the being of reason (ens rationis), and the doctrine of the categories.

2 Mental Language

A pivotal point of Francis’ criticism concerns Ockham’s theory of mental language. In the mature version of his philosophy, Ockham assumes a threefold

1 See Thomas Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordnis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, 1 (Rome, 1970), 395; Fabrizio Amerini, “La quaestio Utrum subiectum in logica sit ens rationis e la sua attribuzi- one a Francesco da Prato. Note sulla vita e gli scritti del domenicano Francesco da Prato,” Memorie Domenicane 30 (1999), 147–217; Fabrizio Amerini, “Introduzione,” in id., La Logica di Francesco da Prato con l’edizione critica della Loyca e del Tractatus de voce univoca (Florence, 2005), 17–21. 2 For a list of extant works see Fabrizio Amerini, “Introduzione,” 21–26. 3 For a more complete discussion of Franciscus’ criticism of Ockham’s doctrine see Fabrizio Amerini, La Logica di Francesco da Prato, Christian Rode, Franciscus de Prato. Facetten seiner Philosophie im Blick auf Hervaeus Natalis und Wilhelm von Ockham (Stuttgart, 2004).

274 Rode division of language: he distinguishes between a conceived, a spoken and a written proposition. In none of these propositiones is a thing predicated of a thing; the elements of the predication are always signs. Whereas the spoken and written propositions consist of audible or visible signs whose signification is based on convention, the conceived proposition consists of passions of the soul pertaining to the category of quality, that is, of acts of intellect. These acts of intellect do not signify voluntarily, but naturally.4 Cognizing thus means sig- nifying.5 Characteristic of Ockham’s theory is the “lingualization of thought,” as Panaccio puts it.6 Passiones animae, acts of intellect, become mental signs endowed with a linguistic structure. Ockham conceives of thought as a language. This mental language functions as a natural sign system and warrants that the meaning of the conventional written and spoken language is subordi- nated to the level of thought.7 Francis brings forward several arguments against Ockham’s theory.

1. He emphasizes that Aristotle speaks of primary and secondary substances in his Categories. Primary substances are real individuals being suscepti- ble of contraries. Secondary substances are predicated of primary ones, but like primary substances, they are real things. Thus Francis implies that, instead of a mental proposition, predication is an interaction of real entities in which things are predicated of things, in our case: secondary substances of primary ones.8 2. Another argument is directed against Ockham’s thesis that a mental sentence is composed simultaneously of several acts of intellect, one

4 William of Ockham, Expos. Perih. (351–358). 5 For the connection between cognition and signification cf. Stephan Meier-Oeser, Die Spur des Zeichens: das Zeichen und seine Funktion in der Philosophie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit (Berlin/New York, 1997), 86–103. 6 See Claude Panaccio, “From Mental Word to Mental Language,” Philosophical Topics 20 (1992), n. 2, 136–139. 7 For Ockham’s theory of mental language see John Trentman, “Ockham on Mental,” Mind 79 (1970), 586–590; Joan Gibson, The Role of Mental Language in the Philosophy of William of Ockham (Toronto, 1976), Hester G. Gelber, “I Cannot Tell a Lie: Hugh of Lawton’s Critique of William of Ockham on Mental Language,” Franciscan Studies 44 (1984), 141–179; Calvin G. Normore, “Ockham on Mental Language,” in Historical Foundations of Cognitive Science, (ed.) John-Christian Smith (Dordrecht, 1990) 53–70; Claude Panaccio, Les mots, les concepts et les choses. La sémantique de Guillaume d’Occam et le nominalisme d’aujourd’hui (Montréal, 1991); id., Ockham on Concepts (Aldershot, 2004). 8 Franciscus de Prato, De suppositionibus terminorum, (ed.) Fabrizio Amerini, Medioevo 25 (1999–2000), 494.