L’hypothèse de la cessation des mouvements célestes au xive siècle : Nicole Oresme, Jean Buridan et Albert de Saxe

Aristotelian cosmology implies the plurality of celestial motion for the process of generation and corruption in the sublunar world. In order to investigate the structure of the cosmos and the degree of dependence of the sublunar on the supralunar region, medieval Latin commentators on Aristotle explored the consequences of the cessation of celestial motion. This paper analyses the position of some philosophers of the fourteenth-century Parisian school, namely Nicole Oresme, John Buridan and Albert of Saxony.

RUNNING DETAILS ON THE TWO MOVEMENTS IN THE INTELLECTUAL HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND IDEAS

A long tradition concerning the causes of the planetary movements existed as to the movements on the earth: the so called problem de motu locali. Starting from late middle Ages many criticisms were carried out against the Aristotelian doctrine of natural and violent motions. A well accredited and historically coherent theory to explain the movement and the change of movement was the medieval theory of impetus substantially developed by Jean Buridan (ca. 1300–ca. 1360) and by Nicolas d’Oresme (1320? 1325?–1382) on the basis of ideas that came back to John Philoponus (490–570).