Vital du Four

Abstract

Vital du Four (lat. Vitalis de Furno) was a prominent French Franciscan friar active from the last decade of the thirteenth century to the first quarter of the fourteenth century. He studied theology at the University of Paris and later on taught in Montpellier and Toulouse. Philosophically, he opposed Peter John Olivi’s views about the active nature of the human cognitive faculties, and stressed the necessity of the senses in forming intellectual knowledge. He posited sensible and intelligible species as a medium in the cognitive process, but he nevertheless allowed for the intellectual cognition of singulars.

He was provincial minister of Aquitaine in 1309 and was created cardinal bishop in the see of Albano in 1321. He took part in the Conventual side of the Franciscan Order against the spiritual factions. In the last part of his life, he fought strongly against Pope John XXII’s ruling on Christ’s poverty.

His large output of works includes university treatises (on physics, metaphysics, and psychology, readings on the Sentences, disputed and quodlibetal questions), a treatise on medicine, sermons, biblical commentaries, polemical and doctrinal writings.