El estatuto ontológico de la materia en Manuel Gois. A propósito del escotismo de los Conimbricenses

Abstract

In the context of the late medieval diffusion of Scotism and nominalism, the Jesuit Manuel Gois, author of commentaries to some Aristotelian works on the philosophy of nature, receives some ideas of Henry of Ghent and Scotus (such as the actuality of prime matter and the immediate inhesion of quantity in the matter), although moderating them within a substantially Aristotelian position. After an initial presentation of John of saint Thomas’ critique to the Cursus conimbricensis physical treatises and a succinct consideration of the notion of matter according to the Augustinian-Scotist tradition and to Manuel Gois himself, the article analyses three typical questions of Gois’ natural philosophy that are logically connected to each other: the doctrine of the entitative act of matter, the possibility of a matter lacking all form, supposito interventu divino, and the matter as the quantity immediate inhesion subject.