====== Jean Buridan ======

Jean Buridan (c. 1300 - c. 1361) was a French philosopher and logician of the [[scholasticism|Scholasticism]] tradition, active primarily at the University of Paris. He is known for his contributions to logic, natural philosophy, and ethics, including his theory of impetus, his work on the logic of consequences and sophisms, and the moral problem of indifferent choice popularly associated with his name as "Buridan's ass." He worked within the nominalist logical tradition associated with [[william-of-ockham|William of Ockham]], though he was not Ockham's direct pupil, and his work influenced later figures including [[nicole-oresme|Nicole Oresme]] and [[albert-of-saxony|Albert of Saxony]], collectively associated with what is sometimes called the [[merton-school|Merton School]] of natural philosophy.

===== Current State of Knowledge =====

Buridan's writings survive primarily as commentaries and questions on Aristotle's works, including the *Physics*, *Metaphysics*, *De Anima*, and *De Caelo*, as well as independent treatises on logic, notably the *Summulae de Dialectica* and *Sophismata*. Modern scholarship treats him as a central figure in fourteenth-century natural philosophy, particularly for his development of impetus theory, which proposed that a mover impresses a self-sustaining quality ("impetus") into a projectile, allowing motion to continue after separation from the original mover. Historians of science have debated the degree to which this theory anticipated the concept of inertia later formalized by [[galileo-galilei|Galileo Galilei]] and [[isaac-newton|Isaac Newton]]; this question is treated in more detail on the [[jean-buridan-impetus-theory-debate]] page.

Buridan's logical works, particularly his treatment of supposition theory, consequences, and insolubilia (logical paradoxes such as the liar paradox), are studied as part of the broader history of medieval logic. His ethical writings address questions of free will and rational choice under conditions of equal motivation, the subject of the "Buridan's ass" thought experiment, though the precise formulation and attribution of this example to Buridan's own texts is itself a matter of scholarly discussion, treated on [[jean-buridans-ass-attribution-debate]].

For biographical detail and the institutional context of his career at the University of Paris, see [[jean-buridan-history]].

===== Viewpoints =====

  * **Buridan as proto-modern scientist** - Some historians of science, particularly in the mid-twentieth century, characterized Buridan's impetus theory as a significant step toward the modern concept of inertia and a meaningful break from Aristotelian physics. See [[jean-buridan-proto-modern-viewpoint]].
  * **Buridan as continuator of Aristotelian tradition** - Other scholars emphasize that Buridan's work remained substantially within an Aristotelian framework, modifying rather than rejecting its core commitments, and caution against reading later scientific developments back into his texts. See [[jean-buridan-aristotelian-continuity-viewpoint]].
  * **Buridan as primarily a logician** - A further view holds that Buridan's most original and lasting contributions lie in logic and semantics rather than natural philosophy, and that his prominence in histories of science has overshadowed this work. See [[jean-buridan-logician-emphasis-viewpoint]].

These viewpoints are discussed in direct exchange at [[jean-buridan-proto-modern-viewpoint-vs-aristotelian-continuity-viewpoint-debate]].

===== Related Pages =====

  * [[jean-buridan-history]]
  * [[jean-buridan-impetus-theory-debate]]
  * [[jean-buridans-ass-attribution-debate]]
  * [[jean-buridan-proto-modern-viewpoint-vs-aristotelian-continuity-viewpoint-debate]]
  * [[nicole-oresme]]
  * [[merton-school]]
  * [[scholasticism]]

===== Footnotes =====

  - Jack Zupko, *John Buridan: Portrait of a Fourteenth-Century Arts Master* (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2003).
  - Edith Dudley Sylla, "The Origin and Fate of Thomas Bradwardine's De Proportionibus Velocitatum in Relation to the History of Mathematics," in *Mathematics and Its Applications to Science and Natural Philosophy in the Middle Ages*, ed. Edward Grant and John E. Murdoch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
  - Michael Wolff, "Impetus Mechanics as a Physical Argument for Copernicanism: Copernicus, Benedetti, Galileo," *Science in Context* 1, no. 2 (1987): 215-256.
  - Gyula Klima, *John Buridan* (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).