Programme
Luisa Valente
Sapienza Università di Roma
Gilbert of Poitiers’ Analysis of the Category of Time in His Commentary on Boethius’ De Trinitate
My paper intends to present the analysis of the category of time made by Gilbert of Poitiers in his commentary on Boethius' De trinitate, IV, 57-88, with some reference to the reception of it by the Porretans. Commenting on the famous passage about the transformation of categories when applied to God, Gilbert goes far beyond Boethius' text and elaborates a real theory of temporal predications. As for place Gilbert distinguishes a place-quantity (locus quantitas: "my field is three hectares large") from a place-where (locus ubi: “my field is near Spoleto”), for time he distinguishes a time-quantity (tempus-quantitas: “Linda is three years old”) from a 'time-when' (tempus-quando: “Linda comes tomorrow”). It is this tempus-quando that is treated here. Like that of ubi, this predication does not express a 'being for itself' (esse per se) of the subject, that is, one of its substantial forms or properties (as the categories of substance, quality and extensive quantity do). Quando does not properly express any ‘being’ of the subject, but rather a ‘comparison’ (collatio), a relationship to different entities and/or times that must previously be ‘collected’ (collectio). The ideas of comparison and collection, together with that of 'duration' (mora temporis), are fundamental here and are put to good use in order to analyze the notions of the course of time (through present, past, and future) as well as those of ‘now’, perpetuity, sempiternity, eternity. Gilbert’s description of temporal predication is therefore profoundly relational: one cannot express a 'when' of any entity (be it temporal, perpetual, or eternal), unless one compares the considered entity with other entities and/or other times. Gilbert's reflection on ‘when’ is also interesting from the point of view of his ontology. Since the ‘subsistents’ (i.e. any individual, existing natural item) are aggregates of substantial and accidental forms, the course of time is presented as a succession of forms that are assumed or dropped by subsistents from moment to moment.