Sep 19, 2024

Dr. Oleg Bychkov, professor of Theology and Franciscan Studies, published an article titled “The Late Medieval Debate about the Nature of Phenomenal Reality in Franciscan Theology and Islamic Thought and its Greek Sources” in the special edition of the journal Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval (The Spanish Journal of Medieval Philosophy), 31, no. 1 (2024): 167-99, dedicated to the topic “The Powers of the Soul in Medieval Franciscan Thought.”

The article (http://doi.org/10.21071/refime.v31i1.17104) presents a debate among early Franciscan followers of John Duns Scotus (d. 1308) such as Peter Aureol (d. 1322), William of Ockham (d. 1347), Walter Chatton (d. 1343), and Adam of Wodeham (d. 1358) on the nature of human sensory perception, traces its sources in Greek and early medieval Islamic thought, and then examines a debate in later medieval Islamic thought between Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (1149?-1210), a Sunnī theologian, and Khwājah Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (1201-1274), a Shī‘ī philosopher of an Aristotelian orientation.

The debate questions the reliability of the human sensory system to deliver certitude about what we call “external reality.” Although medieval Franciscan and Islamic thinkers share their Greek sources and Franciscan theologians are familiar with earlier Islamic texts on the matter, Fakhr and Khwājah, whose relevant work has never been translated from Arabic, seem to have developed — totally independently — a debate that is similar to that of the Franciscans.