NICHOLAS OF ORESME. - French philosopher, theologian, economist. He was studying theology in Paris in 1348. In 1356 he was a master of this discipline at the College of Navarre; canon at Rouen in 1362 and at Paris in 1363; dean of the church of Rouen in 1364, bishop of Lisieux in 1377; d. July 11, 1382.

Lost (except for a quaestio: cf. Rech. de théol. anc. et méd., 14 [1947], p. 305), his commentary on the Sentences, there remains the theological treatise De communicatione idiomatum relating to Book III (Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mitr., XXI, 4-5). Of great importance is his Traité de la sphère and even more so Le livre du ciel et du monde, where O. raises strong doubts about the value and rigor of Aristotelian demonstrations, and where the thesis, attributed to Heraclides Ponticus, of the motion of the earth is set out at some length. He accepts with certain modifications the theory of impetus upheld by G. Buridan (v.), to explain local motion, and he too abandons the doctrine of the "moving intelligences" of the celestial spheres. With Ockham (v.) he holds the existence of other worlds to be possible; he likewise criticizes the Aristotelian thesis that the earth must occupy the center of the universe. But the work that exercised the greatest influence is De uniformitate et difformitate intensionum, in which he attempts to apply to the intensio and the remissio formarum the graphical schemata of Euclidean geometry, introducing a quantitative criterion into qualitative variations. This method was widely diffused from the 14th to the 16th century and helped to prepare the mathematical schemata 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 (ibid. 1488); Traictie de la première invention des monnaies (ed. M. L. Wolowski, ibid. 1864); Le traictie de la sphère (ibid., n.d.; 2nd ed., 1508); Le livre du ciel et du monde (ed. by A. D. Menut and A. J. Denomy, in Mediaeval studies of the Pont. Inst. of Mediaeval Studies of Toronto (3-5 [1941-43]), with complete bibliography, see indexes).

Bibliography5 works

BIBL.: P. Duhem, Etudes sur Léonard, III, Paris 1913, p. 249 ff., id., Le système du monde, IV, ibid. 1916, pp. 157-64; L. Thorndike, A hist. of magic and experim. science, III, New York 1934, pp. 398-471. Fundamental, moreover, because based on direct knowledge of unpublished texts, are the following studies by A. Maier: Das Problem der intens. Grössen, Leipzig 1939, p. 70 ff.; Die Impetustheorie der Scholastik, Vienna 1940 (see index of names); An der Grenze v. Scholastik u. Naturwissenschaft, Essen 1943 (see index of names); Die Vorläufer Galileis, Rome 1949 (see index of names).

Bruno Nardi

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Nicholas of Oresme

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