The traps of realism: the debate over universals in the fifteenth century and the Thomists of Cologne

Abstract

Fifteenth-century Thomists were deeply involved in the debate over the nature and mode of universals, which was at the core of the so-called Wegestreit in the late Middle Ages. Their solutions were intended to fill some theoretical gaps left by Thomas Aquinas, who, although he touched on the theme in his work, did not leave a systematic treatment of the topic. This paper investigates the opinions of the major Thomist masters of Cologne as found in their Commentaries on the De ente et essentia and in other sources. It aims to bring into focus the strategies by which those masters 'canonized' Aquinas's doctrine, developing their own views in the process and differentiating them from the views of their institutional rivals.