Abstract
I claim that Grosseteste and Bacon played a crucial role in the evolution of the idea that nature is governed by laws. The idea that the explanatory terms of natural phenomena are universal, necessary and impersonal laws which can be formulated quantitatively, replaced the Aristotelian emphasis on the ‘nature’ or the ‘form’ of a thing. The Aristotelian explanation placed individual objects and phenomena at the center of attention and considered their cause of change internal, namely, the aspiration to realize potentialities.
Grosseteste’s concept of ‘form of corporeity’ and Bacon’s concept of ‘species’ contributed significantly to the development of the idea of laws in nature. With the identification of the form of corporeity with light, Grosseteste turned corporeity into a universal principle of both extension and activity. Nature can be now described by general statements about the quantitative behavior of light or corporeity, rather than by the definition of specific natures. On his part, Bacon replaced the concept of corporeal form with that of species. While Grosseteste portrayed a natural world that share a common feature, Bacon sought to describe the activity of that common feature. What unites matter, according to Bacon, is the mode of causal influence which is always conveyed through the propagation of species. The laws formulated by Grosseteste were the laws of the radiation of light; the laws which Bacon drew up were the laws of the propagation of species. In both cases, the formulation was subsequent to an assumption that the material world is unified by common, active, forms.
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Notes
- 1.
The literature on the question of the definition, validity and characteristics of laws of nature is extensive, and goes back to the problem of induction raised by Hume. The prominent scholarly works in the contemporary debate include, among others, Armstrong (1983), Van Frassen (1989), Giere (1999), Ward (2002), Mumford (2004), Maudlin (2007), Lang (2009).
- 2.
- 3.
‘Actio vero dicitur efficiens dupliciter: uno modo ex hoc, quod passio est effectus illatioque actionis, sicut ad actionem universaliter sequitur passio. Alio modo dicitur actio efficiens passionem, non quia illa passio sit secundum naturam rei efficientis illius actionis, sed quia secundum legem naturalem vel positivam debitum est, ut talem actionem talis passio consequatur.’
- 4.
Eastwood (1967) analyzes this law and argues it was a completely original formulation by Grosseteste and that no such law is to be found in any earlier known treatise on optics or natural science (p. 406). He finds another law formulated in De iride, which he calls ‘the law for location of an image in reflection’. However, Grosseteste could easily find this law in Euclides’ Catoprics and al Kindi’s De aspectibus.
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Eastwood (1967) argues that it was Grosseteste’s law of refraction is only semi-quantitative, because ‘it is based on qualitative principles and might better be called the qualitative law of refraction’.
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Aristotle discussed this concept on several occasions. For example, in Metaphysics VII, 3, 1029a, he stated that prime matter is not a particular thing, not of a definite quantity and does not fall under any category; in Physics I, 9, 192a, he declared that it is outside the sphere of being and becoming.
- 7.
In spite of the Thomistic attack, the notion of corporeal form received support from later Christian thinkers, such as John Duns Scotus (c. 1266–1308), who claimed that the body of Christ in the tomb must have possessed a form of corporeity since the body does not dissolve immediately and must possess the form which makes the body a body. After the soul departs, the body is still there and needs a proper form of its own. See, Copleston (1966).
- 8.
‘Both corporeity and matter are in themselves simple substances.’
- 9.
‘…all causes of natural effects must be expressed by means of lines, angles and figures, for otherwise it is impossible to grasp their explanation.’
- 10.
Such studies include, for example, Lindberg (1976), who argues that the origin of the idea that light is involved in the creation of the material universe as well as light’s self-diffusion is the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanation. In another study Lindberg (1986) expands on the Plotinian origin and its significance. See also McEvoy (1982). For a study on the influence of Plotinus on the idea of the unity of nature in Grosseteste, see Raizman-Kedar (2006).
- 11.
The idea of the unity of earthly and celestial matter is manifest in Bacon as well. In De multiplicatione specierum1.5, he wrote: ‘it is evident that lower things can be influenced by higher things, since they share the same matter… the purpose of this conformity is that the more the parts of the universe are like one another, the greater are their well-being and utility.’
- 12.
‘…the lumen of the sun in the air is the species of the solar lux in the body of the sun’.
- 13.
“…set forma corporalis est principium essendi celum, que est lux ad presens supponitur, vel aliquid hujusmodi, ergo forma corporalis erit principium operandi, et ita rnovendi.”
- 14.
‘Non omnes effectus colorum nec etiam elementorum fiunt a luce hac, set a virtutibus substantialibus, ut patet alibi, ad quas virtutes substantiales designandas transumunt nomen lucis eo quod sunt nobis ignote, et lux est nobis manifestissima.’
- 15.
In analysing the meaning of Christ as the image of God, Marius Victorinus distinguished the sensible image, which is ‘a sort of shadow’ and nothing by itself, from the image ‘up there’, which is ‘living and life giving and the seed of all existents’. The image realizes what is potential and expresses it outwardly; by doing so it renders the general concrete. At this juncture Victorinus introduced the term species: ‘For every being has an inseparable species, or rather, the species itself is the substance itself, not that the species is prior to “to be”, but because the species defines “to be”… and for this reason “to be” is the Father, the species is the Son’ (Victorinus 1981 1.19).
- 16.
Moerbeke’s was the third translation of the De anima. James of Venice (fl. 1125–50) made the first translation before 1150.
- 17.
‘…omnis enim natura activa sic videtur facere, aut ratione forme substantialis aut alicujus forme accidentalis aut utriusque, que forma non oportet quod sit lux. Frigiditas enim et siccitas vere sunt nature active per quas potest fieri multiplicatio virtutis et speciei.’
- 18.
‘Habito quod duo exigantur ad rerum produccionem, scilicet, efficiens et materia, nunc procedendum est circa efficiens quantum hie requiritur, quia Metaphisica habet certificare ad plenum de influencia agencium in paciencia, eo quod omnis operacio in sensum et intellectum et materiam mundi fit per hujusmodi influencias, scilicet, predictas que vocantur species’.
- 19.
See also Bacon (1983) De multiplication specierum 1.1: ‘… an agent naturally produces the same first effect [that is, species] in whatever it acts upon, because for its part it acts uniformly; for only an agent that possesses free will and acts by deliberation can, for its part, act difformly. But a natural agent possesses neither will nor the ability to deliberate, and therefore it acts uniformly … since nature and natural mode have the same mode [of action].’
- 20.
‘Therefore the motion of a species according to prior and posterior [parts] of space entails priority and posteriority in duration, and thus in time.’ For an elaborated discussion concerning species as produced in time, see Bacon (1996) 1.9.3.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1622/13): ‘Roger Bacon (1214–94) and the Making of the Concept of Law of Nature,’ with Giora Hon (Philosophy, University of Haifa) as the Principal Investigator.
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Kedar, Y. (2016). Laying the Foundation for the Nomological Image of Nature: From Corporeity in Robert Grosseteste to Species in Roger Bacon. In: Cunningham, J.P., Hocknull, M. (eds) Robert Grosseteste and the pursuit of Religious and Scientific Learning in the Middle Ages. Studies in the History of Philosophy of Mind, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33468-4_9
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