§ 1. INFILTRATIONS OF AVERROÏSM.

409. John of Baconthorp. -- Besides avowed Averroïsts (Ch. III., § 1), we find in the present period, as in the thirteenth century (358, 359), a number of scholastics who fell more or less under the influence of Averroïsm in their philosophical teaching: how much exactly in any individual case, it is difficult to estimate. One of the most distinguished doctors among the Carmelites, and provincial of the order, JOHN OF BACONTHORP (Johannes Baco, died 1346), the author of commentaries on the Sentences and the intimate friend of Thomas Bradwardine, fell under the suspicion of Averroïsm. Though admitting plurality of forms in man and teaching that the intellectual soul in all its completeness is the form of the body, he doubts about the cogency of St. Thomas's arguments against the Averroïstic teaching on the intellectus agens,^{1} and seems inclined to subscribe to the latter. His philosophy is not sufficiently known. The influence of some of the theories of Latin Averroïsm on scholasticism has yet to be studied. We believe this influence has been exaggerated -- by Renan,^{2} especially, who describes "decadent scholasticism" as Averroïsm, and puts on the same plane such philosophers as Baconthorp, Peter of Tarantaise (262) and Gabriel Biel (462).^{3}

{1} WERNER, Der Averroïsmus in d. chris. peripat. Psych., etc., p. 231.

{2} And by WERNER, op. cit. {3} RENAN, op. cit., p. 320.