NICOLA d'AUTRECOURT. – Theologian and philosopher, born at the beginning of the 14th century at Autrecourt (diocese of Verdun), died after 1350. Having obtained the degrees of “magister in antibus,” “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 was required to retract his errors in 1347. In 1350 he became dean of the Chapter of Metz. Nothing further is known of him.
His most important writings are the commentary on Book I of the Sentences and on Aristotle’s Politics, nine letters to the Franciscan theologian Bernardo d'Arezzo, and the treatise Exigit Ordo executionis, from which the condemned propositions were extracted. Of these writings, the first and second letters to Bernardo d'Arezzo, a letter from a certain Egidio containing fragments of N.’s reply, and the treatise Exigit, discovered by A. Birkenmayer in a manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Can. Misl. 43, ff. 1ʳ–24ᵛ), are extant; the latter was published by R. O'Donnell in Medieval studies, 1 (1939), pp. 179 ff.
N. embodies the critical spirit of the philosophical movement called “modern” in opposition to the philosophy of Aristotle and of St. Thomas. His entire work is characterized by opposition to Aristotelianism and by rigor in drawing the extreme consequences from Ockhamism. At the foundation of his thought lies the Ockhamist theory of knowledge. Certainty is provided by immediate evidence, attained through experimental observation, the source of knowledge, and through the principle of identity, the criterion of truth. Once it has been established 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 critique of the ideas of cause, substance, end, and perfection led to grave consequences. The connection between cause and effect is neither necessary nor 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 recur. From accidents, known through the senses, one cannot deduce substance, which is not observed. Nor can one thing be said to be the end or more perfect than another.
N.’s theory of knowledge barred the way to natural knowledge of God through the principles of causality and finality. He modified the classical concepts of matter and soul; having overcome Aristotelian metaphysics and physics, he returned 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 sensation, and another, called intellect; when the atoms of the body disintegrate, these continue to exist. The immortality of the soul and future retribution are thus assured. The essential character of N.’s doctrine is experimentalism, from which the skepticism found in his writings proceeds. He is skeptical regarding things not established by experience. For the cognition of truth, he wants men to devote themselves, rather than to the study of Aristotle, to the observation of natural phenomena.