The Noblest Complexion. Semimaterialist Tendencies in a Late Medieval Bohemian Reading of John Wyclif

0578146 - FLÚ 2024 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Lička, Lukáš
The Noblest Complexion. Semimaterialist Tendencies in a Late Medieval Bohemian Reading of John Wyclif.
Vivarium. Roč. 61, 3-4 (2023), s. 318-359. ISSN 0042-7543
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-16793S
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : complexion * materialism * human soul * medieval Prague university * John Wyclif * Matthias of Knín * Prokop of Kladruby
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Impact factor: 0.5, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1163/15685349-06103003

This article examines an uncommon materialist argument preserved in late medieval Prague quodlibets by Matthias of Knín (1409) and Prokop of Kladruby (1417). The argument connects the Galenic claim that the human body has the noblest and best-balanced complexion possible with the Alexandrist claim that the human rational soul emerges from such well-balanced matter without any supernatural intervention. Of the various medieval renderings of these claims, John Wyclif’s De compositione hominis is singled out as the most probable source of the argument. Far from attributing plain materialism to Wyclif, the article highlights a semimaterialist position, mentioned in two fifteenth-century De anima commentaries of Prague origin, grafting the immortal spirit postulate onto an Alexandrist-like doctrine of the intellect as educed from the harmoniously complexioned body. Finally, it is argued that this semimaterialist position may not only encapsulate how Bohemian masters read Wyclif, but also be close to Wyclif’s actual anthropological stance.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0347400