Abstract

This work examines the combined epistemological and psychological theory of Peter Auriol , a French scholastic philosopher and theologian. Though not himself a skeptic, Auriol's concerns with sensory illusions force him to maintain a distinction between the real being of extramental objects and the apparent or objective being of entities existing only in the mind. This view had a profound impact on his contemporaries, especially William of Ockham, and thus establishes Auriol's place at the forefront of the epistemological turn of the late medieval and early modern periods. That Aristotle's views were influential on Auriol is unsurprising, but the formative role of the Nicomachean Ethics on Auriol's theory of knowledge sets him apart from other scholastics. This fusion of the ethical and the epistemological is the basis for his insistence on a habitual, non-volitional conception of knowing that takes him far from the justified true belief account favored through much of Western philosophical history. ;More specifically, Auriol's theories of truth, certainty, scientia , and especially first principles are analyzed in light of the ancient Greek, Islamic, and earlier medieval views that inform them. In addition, English translations of a number of texts from Auriol's Sentences Commentary are appended, including Book I, prologue, q. 2 ; and Book I, d. 2, q. 10