Goffredo of Fontaines

GOFFREDO di FONTAINES. - Secular master at the University of Paris from 1283 to 1296, d. after 1303. He is the author of fifteen Quodlibeta and of Quaestiones ordinariae (editions by M. de Wulf, A. Pelzer, J. Hoffmann, and O. Lottin in the collection Les philosophes belges of Louvain from 1904 to 1937).

An admirer of St. Thomas, he considered the condemnation of 1277 unjustified. He was, however, an independent disciple: while following St. Thomas in the theory of knowledge (which he explains through abstraction, rejecting Augustinian illumination), he departs from him in other doctrines: he denies the real distinction between essence and being in creatures and the theory of individuation through materia signata quantitate.

BIBL.: M. de Wulf, Etude sur la vie, les oeuvres et l'influence de Godefroid de Fontaines, Brunelles 1904; M. De Wulf, Storia della filosofia medievale, II, 2e ed., Firenze 1945, pp. 269-73, 283 (bibl.); O. Lottin, Psychologie et morale aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles, Lovanio 1942, pp. 304-39. Sofia Vanni Rovighi

29. - CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA. - VI.

Cite this article

“GOFFREDO DI FONTAINES.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VI (1951), p. 547. Azione Romana digital edition, https://azioneromana.com/article/goffredo-di-fontaines.