MACIEJ STANEK, “Problemata Parvorum naturalium”: An Anonymous Supplement to John Buridan’s Commentary on the “Parva naturalia”

SUMMARY

In the late Middle Ages, it was a common practice for scholastic authors (yet almost unnoticed in modern literature) to include a series of questions with concise answers that were only slightly connected to the substance of the discussed issues — commentaries on the Parva naturalia. According to the current state of the art, it seems that the first author to do so was Marsilius of Inghen in the 14th century, with the practice continued in the following century in commentaries by Nicholas Tempelfeld of Brzeg, John Versor, Peter Tartaret and a number of anonymous scholars. At the very beginning of the latter period, the so-called Problemata Parvorum naturalium were probably also composed by an anonymous author. Their history is very interesting since they were an addition to the existing commentary on the Parva naturalia by John Buridan, and later became an independent work bearing this title. The presented paper contains the critical edition of these Problemata…, preceded by an introduction.