LIBRI DI RICCARDO FEDRIGA

The article aims to retrace the sources for a theory of the weakness of will (incontinentia) in Anselm of Canterbury’s works. Paul of Tarsus, Augustine of Hippo and Lanfranc of Canterbury seem to be in the theological context the main Anselmian sources for what is defined as a modal theory of the weakness of will, founded on the crucial notion of rectitudo. This theory appears to be original compared to both the theological traditions of the Latin West and the models of Greek philosophy (particularly with respect to the Aristotelian notion of akrasia in Nicomachean Ethics VII), while it is shown to be in debt to Seneca and his argument on the topic. The article demonstrates that the Epistulae morales ad Lucilium have several analogies with Anselmian ethics.

This paper addresses the problem of divine knowledge of individuals and future contingents in Peter Auriol’s "Scriptum" in I Sententiarum. It begins by reviewing the Divine’s attributes of Perfection and Immutability in Auriol’s theory of God’s ways of knowing. It then tries to explain the epistemic notion of the so-called "modes of cognition" (modi cognoscendi) in the light of a mental theory of paronymy (denominative). In this theory lies the solution to the problem of relating abstracted and temporal knowledge of God and to that of temporal cognition of individuals by the human intellect and imagination (phantasia). It is argued that cognition is, rather, a feature of the phantasia’s way of designating and placing things known in a mental space (res cognitae) and within a temporal succession of events. The analysis leads to establishing the existence of an analogous relationship between, on one side, non-discursive, abstract and indeterminate divine foreknowledge and, on the other, human cognitive abilities to understand, in a true or false way, propositions that refer to future contingents and events that occur in a determined time and space.