Is Matter the Subject of Accidents? A Debate from the 14th Century

Abstract

The question of the subject of accidental forms takes on a new form and importance in several Parisian texts from the middle of the 14th century. These texts examine whether the same quality in a corrupt body remains in the newly generated one. This article follows the formulations and modifications of this question in the commentaries on De generatione et corruptione written by Nicole Oresme, Albert of Saxony and Marsilius of Inghen. Finally, it shows how Blaise de Parme takes up the whole conceptual device set up by his predecessors, particularly the difference between the subject of inherence and the subject of denomination, to defend the thesis according to which raw matter is the immediate subject of all accidental forms, including psychic qualities.