Ockham, Suarez and Descartes: the transition from the late medieval Noethics to modern Philosophy

Abstract

The article studies some important ideas of the theory of knowledge in the fourteenth century that are estimated to be particularly relevant in the origin of modern philosophy, especially in the philosophy of Descartes. Among others, some of the ideas are: a) the Scotus notion of notitia abstractiva and its correlation with the avicennan conceptus objectivus; b) the trend present in a substantial amount of Franciscan authors, that, in the process of knowledge, puts the emphasis more in the knower than thing known; c) the theological idea of divine omnipotence that, de potentia absoluta, applied in human knowledge, believes that it is possible to know without an object; d) a diffuse tendency to the scepticism, which is based on two sources: the Augustinian theory of the illumination and the change that in the fourteenth century the logic experiences moving forward to the dialectic. In these ideas we discover a common line among Ockham, Suárez (and the conimbricenses) and Descartes, in whose philosophies the intentionality and the certitude of knowledge are jeopardised.