NICOLAS D'AUTRÉCOURT. - Theologian and philosopher, b. at the beginning of the 14th century at Autrecourt (diocese of Verdun), d. after 1350. Having obtained the titles "magister in artibus", "baccalaureus in theologia et in legibus", he taught theology at the Sorbonne. In 1340 Benedict XII summoned him to Avignon to answer for his suspect doctrine, which was condemned in 1346. His writings were publicly burned in Paris and he had to recant his errors in 1347. In 1350 he became dean of the Chapter of Metz. After that there is no further information about him.
The most important writings are the commentary on book I of the Sentences and on Aristotle's Politics, nine letters to the Franciscan theologian Bernard of Arezzo, and the treatise Exigit Ordo executionis, from which the condemned propositions were extracted. Of these writings there survive the first and second letter to Bernard of Arezzo, a letter of a certain Giles with fragments of N.'s reply, and the treatise Exigit rediscovered by A. Birkenmayer in a manuscript of the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Can. Misc. 43, ff. 1ʳ-24ᵛ) and published by R. O'Donnell in Medieval studies, 1 (1939), p. 179 ff.
N. embodies the critical spirit of the philosophical current called "modern" in antithesis to the philosophy of Aristotle and of St. Thomas. His entire work is characterized by opposition to Aristotelianism and by rigor in deducing the extreme consequences from Occamism. At the basis of his thought lies the Occamist theory of knowledge. Certainty is given by immediate evidence, which is had through experimental observation, the source of knowledge, and through the principle of identity, the criterion of truth. Once it has been established by experience that a thing exists, by the principle of identity one cannot conclude from it to another thing, but must affirm of it only that it is what it is. The application of this principle to the criticism of the idea of cause, substance, end and perfection led to serious consequences. The connection between cause and effect is not necessary and evident, but is an empirical observation of the succession of two facts. Therefore it is only probable that, given the same causes, the same effects will be reproduced. From accidents, known through the senses, one cannot deduce substance, which is not established by observation. Nor can one thing be called the end and more perfect than another.
N.'s theory of knowledge closed off the way to the natural cognition of God through the principle of causality and of finality. He modified the classical concepts of matter and soul; having overcome Aristotelian metaphysics and physics, he linked himself to the Epicurean atom, explaining the generation and corruption of bodies by the association and dissociation of atoms. The soul is composed of one spirit, called sense, and of another, called intellect, which, when the atoms of the body disintegrate, continue to exist. Thus the immortality of the soul and future retribution are assured. The essential character of N.'s doctrine is experimentalism, from which arises the skepticism that is found in his writings. He is skeptical regarding things not established by experience. For the cognition of truth, he wants men to apply themselves to the observation of natural phenomena rather than to the study of Aristotle.
Bibliography8 works
Vincenzo Carbone