NICOLA di ORESME. – French philosopher, theologian, and economist. He studied theology in Paris in 1348. In 1356 he became master of this discipline at the Collège de Navarre; canon at Rouen in 1362 and at Paris in 1363; dean of the church of Rouen in 1364, bishop of Lisieux in 1377; he died on 11 July 1382.
His commentary on the Sentences having been lost (apart from one quaestio: cf. Rech. de théol. anc. et méd., 14 [1947], p. 305), the theological treatise De communicaatione idiomatum, concerning Book III, survives (Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mitr., XXI, 4–5). Of great importance is his Traité de la sphère, and still more Le livre du ciel et du monde, in which O. raises serious doubts about the validity and rigor of Aristotelian demonstrations, and in which the thesis attributed to Heraclides Ponticus concerning the motion of the earth is expounded at some length. He accepts, with certain modifications, the theory of the impetus upheld by G. Buridan (v.) to explain local motion, and he too abandons the doctrine of the “moving intelligences” of the celestial spheres. Occam (v.) he considers the existence of other worlds possible; he also criticizes the Aristotelian thesis that the earth must occupy the center of the universe. But the work that exerted the greatest influence is De uniformitate et difformitate intensionum, in which he attempts to apply the graphic schemes of Euclidean geometry to the intensio and remissio formarum, introducing a quantitative criterion into qualitative variations. This method enjoyed wide diffusion from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century and helped prepare the mathematical schemes for the new physics.
Editions: Arist. Politica et Oeconomica gallice versa (Paris 1486); Decem libri Ethic. Arist. et plures libri Cicer. et aliorum auct. gall. versa (there 1488); Traictie de la première invention des monnaies (ed. M. L. Wolowski, there 1864); Le traictie de la sphère (there, n. d.; 2ᵉ ed., 1508); Le livre du ciel et du monde (ed. by A. D. Menut and A. J. Denomy, in Mediaeval studies of the Pont. Ist. di studi medievali of Toronto (3–5 [1941–43]), with a complete bibliography, V. indices).