Paul was born, according to the chroniclers of his order, at
Udine, about 1369 and died at
Venice on 15 June 1429,[2] as Paolo Nicoletti.[3] He joined the
Augustinian Order at the age of 14, at the convent of
Santo Stefano in Venice. In 1390 he is said to have been sent to
Oxford for his studies in theology, but returned to Italy, and finished his course at the
University of Padua, becoming a Doctor of Arts and Theology in 1405. He lectured in the Universities of Padua,
Siena,
Perugia, and
Bologna during the first quarter of the fifteenth century.[4] He was also a teacher to
Paolo da Pergola.[5]
Paul was also appointed Prior General of the Augustinian Order in 1409 by
Pope Gregory XII, and also served as an ambassador to the Republic of Venice. Paul was one of the theologians called to
Rome in 1427 by
Pope Martin V to defend the orthodoxy of
St. Bernardino of Siena, occasioned by Bernardino's use of inscriptions of the name of Jesus in worship. In 1429, Paul died in Padua, while he was completing his commentary on
Aristotle's De Anima.[6]
Philosophical work
Logica, 1546
Paul's philosophy has been categorised within the
realist tradition of medieval thought.[1] Following on from
John Wycliffe and the subsequent Oxonians who followed him, Paul further developed this new brand of realism, and further renewed
Walter Burley’s opposition to
nominalism. Paul's metaphysical theses are rooted fundamentally in
Scotist thought.
Duns Scotus maintained the doctrine of the
univocity of being and the existence of the universal forms of objects outside of the person's mind. He also maintained Scotus' notion of the real identity and the formal distinction between
essence and
being, alongside the notion of "
thisness" as the principle of individuation.[7] Paul was also simultaneously influenced by other thinkers of the
Scholastic period, including the
Dominican thinkers
Albert the Great and
Thomas Aquinas, and his fellow Augustinian,
Giles of Rome. Paul also critically engaged with the works and doctrines of fourteenth-century nominalists such as
William Ockham,
John Buridan, and
Marsilius of Inghen, and sometimes gauged these thinkers' theses against each other to undermine their positions.[8]
Works
His writings show a wide knowledge and interest in the
scientific problems of his time.
Commentaries on the works of Aristotle:
Expositio in libros Posteriorum Aristotelis.
Expositio super VIII libros Physicorum necnon super Commento Averrois (1409).
Expositio super libros De generatione et corruptione.
Lectura super librum De Anima.
Conclusiones Ethicorum.
Conclusiones Politicorum.
Expositio super Praedicabilia et Praedicamenta (1428).
Logical works:
Logica Parva or Tractatus Summularum (1395–96).
Logica Magna (1397–98).
Quadratura.
Sophismata Aurea.
Other works:
Super Primum Sententiarum Johannis de Ripa Lecturae Abbreviatio (1401).
Logica Magna. Part II Fascicule 3: Tractatus De hypotheticis. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990.
Edited with an English translation and notes by Alexander Broadie.
Logica Magna. Part II Fascicule 4: Capitula De conditionali et de rationali. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1990.
Edited with an English translation and notes by George Edward Hughes.
Logica Magna. Part II Fascicule 6: Tractatus de veritate et falsitate propositionis et Tractatus de significato propositionis. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1978.
Edited with notes on the sources by Francesco del Punta; translated into English with explanatory notes by Marilyn McCord Adams.
Logica Magna. Part II Fascicule 8: Tractatus De obligationibus. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988.
Edited with an English translation and notes by E. Jennifer Ashworth.