The ‘No-Frills’ Doctrine of Minima naturalia in the Latin Middle Ages and in the Renaissance: A First Exploration

This chapter deals with the medieval and Renaissance debate on a key topic of Aristotelian hylomorphism, that of minima naturalia, i.e., the problem of the limits of divisibility of substantial forms through the potentially infinite division of matter. The chapter, taking advantage of important recent studies by Aurélien Robert and Cecilia Trifogli, provides the first in-depth investigation of what is apparently the most unproblematic doctrine of minima naturalia in the Latin Aristotelian tradition. According to this doctrine, substantial forms metaphysically determine (in a relevant sense) the minimal quantity of matter in which they can exist. The study conducted in the chapter covers the emergence of the doctrine in John Philoponus and Averroes, its contrasted reception in the Latin West in the thirteenth century, its ‘revival’ (though in an alternative version) at the turn of the century, and, finally, its rise to dominance, after a period of relative neglect, in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Aristotelianism, focusing on the Paduan context. As a result, it is argued that this doctrine played a key role in the medieval and Renaissance debate on minima naturalia.