Digital Edition of Walter Burley's Two Early Commentaries on Aristotle's "Physics"

• Applicant: Dr. Michiel Streijger
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 448607878

The three commentaries on Aristotle’s "Physics" by Walter Burley (ca. 1275–1344) were part of an intense debate held at late medieval universities about natural philosophy, which was centered around the ontological status of fundamental notions in the Aristotelian natural philosophy, such as motion and time. Burley represented the ‘realist’ theory, which posited the real existence of universals outside the human mind. In his last commentary on the "Physics", on which scholarship has been focussed until now, he dealt especially with William of Ockham’s ‘antirealistic’ theory. Burley’s early "Physics" commentaries have been more or less ignored. So far they are only available in manuscripts and have neither been printed nor critically edited.The proposed project intends to make available these early "Physics" commentaries ("Expositio et quaestiones omnium librorum Physicorum" and "Quaestiones super libros Physicorum") in a first critical edition. It will correct the one-sided focus of scholarship on Burley’s last "Physics" commentary and enable scholars to get a better understanding of the relationship between Burley and Ockham. Since Burley’s early commentaries were written before Ockham’s "Physics" commentary, the edition will show the extent to which Ockham reacts to Burley and (through a comparison with Burley’s last commentary) it will make possible a recontruction of Burley’s development in his engagement with Ockham.A complete transcription and collation of the manuscripts will serve as a basis for the critical edition. In the text all abbreviations will be resolved, punctuation will be added according to modern rules, mistakes will be corrected and orthography will be normalised. The edition will give exhaustive information about textual corrections, variants in the manuscripts and Burley’s sources and internal references.As well as the edition, the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities will contribute an English translation so as to make the commentaries available to non-Latinists and students. The critical edition and translation will be published on the internet (Open Access) in two ways: first, while the project is still in progress, parts of the edition and translation will appear on a project-website to make them available at an early stage; second, the edition and translation will also be published free of charge as a PDF on the publications server of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants