Hervaeus Natalis on Universals

Many turns characterized the history of the so-called «problem of universals» and one of the most important occurred around the 1270s. Lambert M. de Rijk called it the «epistemological turn». This expression suggests that for the majority of late thirteenth-century philosophers and theologians, universals are nothing but concepts. Independently of what the word ‘concept’ is supposed to refer to, most authors at the end of the thirteenth century deny that universals are things existent in extramental reality. Looking at the universals in this way, they argue, amounts to an expression of the Platonic position, which they assess as an extreme and impracticable solution to the problem of universals. Lacking this extreme view, most of the later medieval positions fall in the field of moderate realism, whose boundaries with conceptualism are very subtle, if not indistinguishable in fact. In the early fourteenth century, the epistemological approach predominates as well. However, it must be clear that when we speak of an «epistemological turn», we must not understand that late-medieval philosophers approach this topic by providing an epistemic-logic treatment. Many examples of logical analysis of epistemic propositions are, of course, available in the later Middle Ages and many late-medieval discussions could smoothly be accommodated into such a logical framework. Fourteenth-century philosophers, though, do not formulate any significant account of this sort. Rather, «epistemological turn» means an approach that solves the problem of universals through a close examination of the psychological mechanisms of concept formation. Three topics are involved in this examination: (i) the extramental foundation or ground of universal concepts, (ii) their formation process and (iii) their cognitive function. At the beginning of XIV century, giving an epistemological response to the problem of universals amounts to explaining (i)-(iii). In clarifying these points, the Dominican theologian Hervaeus Natalis (†1323) elaborates his response to the problem of universals. Hervaeus’s theory may be considered as a version of Thomas Aquinas’s account of universals, although we should avoid considering his position as a mere interpretation of Aquinas’s thought. As we shall see, Hervaeus confronts himself also with Duns Scotus and the philosophers of the Arts Faculty of Paris. That elaborated by Hervaeus is an original explanation of the process of universal concept formation.