Ockham Translation

I have posted a new translation of William Ockham’s Questions on the Books of Aristotle’s Physics, q. 132-34. I have translated the complete text. These questions deal with essentially ordered causes:

Q. 132: Whether in essentially ordered causes the second cause depends on the first cause.

Q. 133: Whether in essentially ordered causes the superior cause is more perfect

Q. 134: Whether essentially ordered causes are necessarily simultaneously required for producing the effect in respect to which they are essentially ordered causes

The next two questions, not translated by me, are whether a first efficient cause can be proved from production, and whether a first efficient cause can be proved from conservation. Portions of all five of these questions are translated in Ockham, Philosophical Writings, trans. Philotheus Boehner, O.F.M., rev. Stephen F. Brown (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1990), and presented as Ockham’s proof for God’s existence.

Online Teaching

Like nearly every professor in America, I have had to transition to online teaching the past few weeks. I have never taught online before, but it is going well. I am using a combination of recorded video lectures with a digital whiteboard and a live video call session each week. Online teaching is definitely inferior to real, in-person interaction. But I thank God that online teaching is a possibility, for otherwise all classes would have to be cancelled.

This past week I covered Scotus’ proof for God’s existence in my Medieval Proofs for God’s Existence elective. After a break for Holy Week, we will turn to Ockham, and then finish the semester by spending a great deal of time on Suarez. Earlier this semester we spent a great deal of time on Aquinas’ proofs. We began the semester with Moses Maimonides, including his account of the kalam proofs.