Brian Garcia

Brian Garcia is currently revising his manuscript dedicated to Dominic of Flanders and his Expositio super libros de anima. At Notre Dame, he will be revising a chapter that examines Dominic’s treatment of the intellect. The longest tract of Dominic’ Expositio is the third tractatus of Book III, divided into six chapters, taking up the possible and agent intellect. Dominic is concerned to defend the position of his illustrious confrère, Thomas Aquinas. In the relevant parts of the Expositio dedicated to the possible intellect, Dominic does not explicitly mention Averroes, even if he does touch upon the opinion of Averroes very briefly. This apparent omission is noteworthy due to Dominic’s silent reliance upon his former teacher, John Versoris, and his own commentary on the De anima. Versoris himself explicitly takes up the Averroistic position concerning the separability of the intellect, and then attacks it using the arguments of Thomas Aquinas. This summer project will undertake to study more carefully Versoris’ presentation and critique of the Averroistic position in his commentary in order to determine better the traces of influence on Dominic’s Expositio. 

Affiliation: Assumption University, Department of Philosophy