## 1. Life and Works


### 1.1 Life



John Wyclif was born near Richmond (Yorkshire) before 1330 and
ordained in 1351. He spent the greater part of his life in the schools
at Oxford: he was fellow of Merton in 1356, master of arts at Balliol
in 1360, and doctor of divinity in 1372. He definitely left Oxford in
1381 for Lutterworth (Leicestershire), where he died on 31 December,
1384. It was not until 1374 (when he went on a diplomatic mission to
Bruges) that Wyclif entered the royal service, but his connection with
John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, probably dates back to 1371. His
ideas on lordship and church wealth, expressed in *De civili
dominio* (*On Civil Dominion*), caused his first official
condemnation in 1377 by the Pope (Gregory XI), who censured nineteen
articles. As has been pointed out (Leff 1967), in 1377-78 Wyclif
made a swift progression from unqualified fundamentalism to a
heretical view of the Church and its Sacraments. He clearly claimed
the supremacy of the king over the priesthood (see for instance his
*De ecclesia* [*On the Church*], between early 1378 and
early 1379), and the simultaneous presence in the Eucharist of the
substance of the bread and the body of Christ (*De eucharistia*
[*On the Eucharist*], and *De apostasia* [*On
Apostasy*], both ca. 1380). His theses would influence Jan Hus and
Jerome of Prague in the 15th century. So long as he limited
his attack to abuses and the wealth of the Church, he could rely on
the support of a (more or less extended) part of the clergy and
aristocracy, but once he dismissed the traditional doctrine of
transubstantiation, his (unorthodox) theses could not be defended any
more. Thus in 1382 Archbishop Courtenay had twenty-four propositions
that were attributed to Wyclif condemned by a council of theologians,
and could force Wyclif's followers at Oxford University to
retract their views or flee. The Council of Constance (1414-18)
condemned Wyclif's writings and ordered his books burned and his
body removed from consecrated ground. This last order, confirmed by
Pope Martin V, was carried out in 1428.



The most complete biographical study of Wyclif is still the monograph
of Workman 1926, but the best analysis of his intellectual development
and of the philosophical and theological context of his ideas is
Robson 1961.


### 1.2 Works



Wyclif produced a very large body of work, both in Latin and English,
a great portion of which has been edited by the Wyclif Society between
the end of the 19th and the beginning of the
20th centuries, even though some of his most important
books are still unpublished -- for instance, his treatises on
time (*De tempore*) and on divine ideas (*De ideis*). W.
R. Thomson 1983 wrote a full bibliography of Wyclif's Latin
writings, among which the following can be mentioned: *De
logica* (*On Logic* -- ca. 1360); *Continuatio
logicae* (*Continuation of [the Treatise on] Logic* --
date of composition: about 1360-63 according to Thomson 1983,
but between 1371 and 1374 according to Mueller 1985); *De ente in
communi* (*On Universal Being* -- ca. 1365); *De
ente primo in communi* (*On Primary Being* -- ca.
1365); *De actibus animae* (*On the Acts of Soul*
- ca. 1365); *Purgans errores circa universalia in
communi* (*Amending Errors about Universals* --
between 1366 and 1368); *De ente praedicamentali* (*On
Categorial Being* -- ca. 1369); *De intelleccione Dei*
(*On the Intellection of God* - ca. 1370); *De
volucione Dei* (*On the Volition of God* - ca. 1370);
*Tractatus de universalibus* (*Treatise on Universals*
-- ca. 1368-69 according to Thomson 1983, but between 1373
and 1374 according to Mueller 1985); *De materia et forma*
(*On matter and form* -- between late 1370 and early 1372
according to Thomson 1983, but about 1374-75 according to
Mueller 1985). Many of these treatises were later arranged as a
*Summa*, called *Summa de ente* (*Summa on
Being*), in two books, containing seven and six treatises
respectively. (On the genesis, nature, structure, and tasks of this
work see Robson 1961, pp. 115-40.)


## 2. Logic


### 2.1 Some preliminary remarks



Late medieval Nominalists, like Ockham and his followers, drew a
distinction between things as they exist in the extra-mental world and
the schemata by means of which we think of and talk about them. While
the world consists only of two genera of individuals, substances and
qualities, the concepts by which they are grasped and expressed are
universal and of ten different types. Nor do the relations through
which we connect our notions in a proposition analytically correspond
to the real links that join individuals in a state of affairs. Thus,
our conceptual forms do not coincide with the elements and structures
of reality, and our knowledge does not reproduce its objects but
merely *regards* them.



Wyclif maintained that such an approach to philosophical questions was
misleading and deleterious. Many times in his works he expressed the
deepest hostility to such a tendency. He thought that only on the
basis of a close isomorphism between language and the world could the
signifying power of terms and statements, the possibility of
definitions, and finally the validity and universality of our
knowledge be explained and ensured. So the nucleus of his metaphysics
lies in his trust in the scheme *object-label* as *the*
general interpretative key of every logico-epistemological problem. He
firmly believed that language was an ordered collection of signs, each
referring to one of the constitutive elements of reality, and that
true (linguistic) propositions were like pictures of those
elements' inner structures or/and mutual relationships. From
this point of view, universals are conceived of as the real essences
common to many individual things, which are necessary conditions for
our language to be significant. Wyclif thought that by associating
common terms with such universal realities the fact could be accounted
for that each common term can stand for many things at once and can
label all of them in the same way.



This conviction explains the main characteristic of his philosophical
style, to which all his contributions can be traced back: a strong
propensity towards hypostatisation. Wyclif methodically replaces
logical and epistemological rules with ontological criteria and
references. He thought of logic as turning on structural forms,
independent of both their semantic contents and the mental acts by
which they are grasped. It is through these forms that the network
connecting the basic constituents of the world (individuals and
universals, substances and accidents, concrete properties, like
being-white, and abstract forms, like whiteness) is disclosed to us.
His peculiar analysis of predication and his own formulation of the
Scotistic formal distinction are logically necessary requirements of
this philosophical approach. They are two absolute novelties in late
medieval philosophy, and certainly the most important of
Wyclif's contributions to the thought of his times.



Wyclif's last formulation of the theory of difference and his
theory of universals and predication are linked together, and rest
upon a sort of componential analysis where things substitute for
lexemes and ontological properties substitute for semantic features.
Within Wyclif's world, difference (or distinction) is defined in
terms of partial identity, and is the main kind of transcendental
relation holding among the world's objects, since in virtue of
its metaphysical composition everything is at the same time partially
identical to and different from any other. When the objects at issue
are categorial items, and among what differentiates them is their own
individual being, the objects differ *essentially*. If the
objects share the same individual being and what differentiates them
is (at least) one of their *concrete* metaphysical components
(or features), then the objects differ *really*, whereas if
what differentiates them is one of their *abstract*
metaphysical components, then they differ *formally*. Formal
distinction is therefore the tool by means of which the dialectic of
one-many internal to the world's objects is regulated. It
explains why one and the same thing is at the same time an atomic
state of affairs and how many different beings can constitute just one
thing.


### 2.2 The formal distinction



Wyclif explains the notion of formal distinction (or difference) in
the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* (chap. 4, p.
38) and in the later *Tractatus de universalibus*. (On
Wyclif's formulation of the formal distinction see Spade 1985,
pp. xx-xxxi, and Conti 1997, pp. 158-63.) The two versions
differ from each other on some important points, and are both
unsatisfactory, since Wyclif's definitions of the different
types of distinction are rather ambiguous.



In the *Tractatus de universalibus* (chap. 4, pp. 90-92),
Wyclif lists three main kinds of differences (or distinctions):


1. real-and-essential;
2. real-but-not-essential; and
3. formal (or notional).



He does not define the real-and-essential difference, but identifies
it through a rough account of its three sub-types. The things that
differ really-and-essentially are those that differ from each other
either (i) in genus, like man and quantity, or (ii) in species, like
man and donkey, or (iii) in number, like two human beings.



The real-but-not-essential difference is more subtle than the first
kind, since it holds between things that are the same single essence
but really differ from each other nevertheless -- like memory,
reason, and will, which are one and the same soul, and the three
Persons of the Holy Trinity, who are the one and same God.



The third main kind of difference is the formal one. It is described
as the difference by which things differ from each other even though
they are constitutive elements of the same single essence or supposit.
According to Wyclif, this is the case for:


1. the concrete accidents inherent in the same substance, since they
coincide in the same particular subject but differ from each other
because of their own natures;
2. the matter and substantial form of the same individual
substance;
3. what is more common in relation to what is less common, like
(*a*) the divine nature and the three Persons, (*b*) the
world and this world; and, (*c*) among the categorial items
belonging to the same category, a superior item and one of its
inferiors.



This account of the various kinds of distinctions is more detailed
than that of the *Purgans errores circa universalia in
communi*, but not more clear. What is the difference, for
instance, between the definition of the real-but-not-essential
distinction and the definition of the formal distinction? What feature
do all the kinds of formal distinction agree in? Some points are
obvious, however:


1. The real-and-essential distinction matches the traditional real
difference.
2. The real-but-not-essential distinction and the first sub-type of
the formal distinction (that is, the distinction that holds between
two or more concrete accidents belonging to the same individual
substance) are two slightly different versions of the Scotistic formal
distinction as defined in Scotus' *Lectura* (book I, d.
2, p. 2, qq. 1-4, ed. Vaticana, vol. xvi, p. 216) and
*Ordinatio* (book I, d. 2, p. 2, qq. 1-4, ed. Vaticana,
vol. ii, pp. 356-57; book II, d. 3, p. 1, q. 6, ed. Vaticana,
vol. vii, pp. 483-84).
3. The third sub-type of the formal distinction is a reformulation of
the Scotistic formal distinction as described in Scotus'
*Reportata Parisiensia* (book I, d. 33, qq. 2-3, and d.
34, q. 1, ed. Vives, vol. xxii, pp. 402-8, 410).



The main apparent dissimilarities between the analyses proposed in the
*Tractatus de universalibus* and in the *Purgans errores
circa universalia in communi* are the following:


1. There are three main kinds of differences instead of two.
2. Notwithstanding the presence of the qualification
'real', the real-but-not-essential difference in the
*Tractatus de universalibus* is closer to the formal difference
than is the corresponding kind of difference in the *Purgans
errores circa universalia in communi*, since in the former the
term 'essence' has the technical meaning of real entity
with a given nature, and so is equivalent to 'thing'.
3. The difference between the matter and the substantial form of the
same individual substance is seen as a sub-type of real difference in
the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* and as a
sub-type of formal distinction in the *Tractatus de
universalibus*.


### 2.3 The analysis of predication



Wyclif presents his opinion on universals as intermediate between
those ones of St. Thomas (and Giles of Rome) and Walter Burley. Like
Giles, whom he quotes by name, Wyclif recognizes three main kinds of
universals:


1. *ante rem*, or ideal universals; that is, the ideas in God,
archetypes of all that there is;
2. *in re*, or formal universals; that is, the common natures
shared by individual things; and
3. *post rem*, or intentional universals; that is, mental
signs by which we refer to the universals *in re*.



The ideas in God are the causes of the formal universals, and the
formal universals are the causes of the intentional universals. On the
other hand, like Burley, Wyclif holds that formal universals exist
*in actu* outside our minds, not *in potentia* as
moderate Realists thought -- even though, unlike Burley, he
maintains they are really identical with their own individuals. So
Wyclif accepts the traditional realistic account of the relationship
between universals and individuals, but translates it into the terms
of his own system. According to him, universals and individuals are
*really* the same, but *formally* distinct, since they
share the same empirical reality (that of individuals) but, considered
as universals and individuals, they have opposite constituent
principles. On the logical side, this means that, notwithstanding real
identity, not all that is predicated of individuals can be
*directly* predicated of universals or *vice versa*,
though an indirect predication is always possible. Hence
Wyclif's description of the logical structure of the
relationship between universals and individuals demanded the
introduction of a new kind of predication, unknown to Aristotle, to
cover cases, admitted by the theory, of indirect inherence of an
accidental form in a substantial universal and of one second intention
in another.



Therefore Wyclif distinguished three main types of predication, which
he conceived as a real relation that holds between metaphysical
entities. (On Wyclif's theory of predication, see Spade 1985,
pp. xxxi-xli, and Conti 1997, pp. 150-58.)



In the *Purgans errores circa universalia in communi* (chap.
2), the three main types of predication are the following: formal
predication, essential predication, and causal predication. In the
*Tractatus de universalibus* (chap. 1, pp. 28-37), causal
predication has been replaced by habitudinal predication -- a
kind of predication that Wyclif had already recognized in the
*Purgans errores circa universalia in communi*, but whose
position within the main division of types of predication was not
clear. In the *Tractatus de universalibus*, formal predication,
essential predication, and habitudinal predication are described as
three non-exclusive ways of predicating, each more general than the
preceding. We speak of causal predication when the form designated by
the predicate term is not present in the entity signified by the
subject term, but is something caused by that entity. No instances of
this kind of predication are given by Wyclif. Formal predication,
essential predication, and habitudinal predication are defined in
almost the same way in the *Purgans errores circa universalia*
and in the *Tractatus de universalibus*.



Formal predication is that in which the form designated by the
predicate term is directly present in the entity signified by the
subject term. This happens whenever an item in the categorial line is
predicated of something inferior, or an accident is predicated of its
subject of inherence. In fact, in both cases, the subject term and the
predicate term refer to the same reality in virtue of the form
connoted by the predicate term itself.



To speak of essential predication, it is sufficient that the same
empirical reality is both the real subject and the predicate, even
though the formal principle connoted by the predicate term differs
from that connoted by the subject term. 'God is man' and
'The universal is particular' are instances of this kind
of predication. In fact, the same empirical reality (or essence) that
is a universal is also an individual, but the forms connoted by the
subject term and by the predicate term differ from each other.



Finally we speak of habitudinal predication when the form connoted by
the predicate term does not inhere, either directly or indirectly, in
the essence designated by the subject, but simply implies a relation
to it, so that the same predicate may be at different times truly or
falsely spoken of its subject without there being any change in the
subject itself. According to Wyclif, we use such a kind of predication
mainly when we want to express theological truths, like: God is known
and loved by many creatures, and brings about, as efficient, exemplar,
and final cause, many good effects. It is evident that habitudinal
predication does not require any kind of identity between the entity
signified by the subject term and the entity signified by the
predicate term, but formal predication and essential predication do.
So the ontological presuppositions of the most general type of
predication, implied by the other types, are completely different from
those of the other two.



The final result of Wyclif's revolution is therefore an
incomplete system of intensional logic, which he superimposes on the
standard extensional system inherited from Aristotle. As a result, the
copula of the philosophical propositions that are dealt with cannot be
extensionally interpreted, since it does not properly mean that a
given object is a member of a certain set or that a given set is
included in another; rather it means degrees of identity. Only in
virtue of renouncing any extensional approach to the matter were
Wyclif's followers able to give a logically satisfactory
solution of the problem of the relationship between universals and
individuals, which had always been the most difficult issue for
medieval Realists.


### 2.4 Supposition and meaning



The relationship between thought and reality was a focal point of
Wyclif's reflection. On the one hand, Wyclif believed that
thought was linguistically constrained by its own nature; on the other
hand, he considered thought to be related to reality in its elements
and constitution. Hence he deemed language, thought, and external
reality to be of the same logical coherence (see Conti 2006, pp.
114-18, and Spruyt 2008, pp. 24-25). Within this context,
the theory of supposition was intended to explain the different roles
that words (or phrases) can have in relation to language and the
extra-mental world when they appear as extremes (that is, as subject
or predicate) in propositions. Characteristically, his theory of
supposition provides an account not only of the truth-values of a
sentence, but also of its meaning; it is not therefore simply a theory
of reference, but a sort of complex analysis of language viewed as a
semiotic system whose unique interpretative model was the reality
itself. It gives clear evidence of Wyclif's realist choice and
of his conviction that any kind of linguistic and semantic features
must be grounded on ontological structures.



In what follows, I shall consider the most important aspects of
Wyclif's theory of supposition, trying to set it in relation to
the medieval tradition of treatises on signification and supposition
and particularly to its main source, the theory expounded by Walter
Burley in his *De puritate artis logicae tractatus longior*
(composed between 1325 and 1328), which contains an original and
intelligent defence of the old view of signification and simple
supposition against Ockham's attacks.



Wyclif defines supposition as the signification of one categorematic
extreme of a proposition (subject or predicate) in relation to the
other extreme (*De logica*, chap. 12, vol. I, p. 39). This
definition, which is drawn from Burley's *De
suppositionibus* (composed in 1302), sounds partially different
from the standard definition of supposition, as it seems to somehow
equate signification and supposition, since supposition is considered
as a particular kind of signification. On the contrary, according to
the most common view, which went back to Peter of Spain's
*Summulae logicales*, signification and supposition of terms
were clearly distinct functions, inasmuch as the latter presupposed
the former, but it was a *proprietas terminorum* (a term
property) totally different from it. In fact, (1) signification
consisted in the relation of a linguistic sign to what it signifies
apart from any propositional context; (2) a word capable of standing
for something else or for itself in a proposition had first to have
signification; (3) a term only had supposition in a propositional
context; and (4) the kind of supposition a term had depended on its
propositional context. In any case, in a traditional realist
perspective, supposition served to tell us which things are involved
in the truth-conditions of a given sentence: whether they are
expressions, real universals, or individuals.



At the very beginning of the chapter on supposition, like Walter
Burley, Wyclif divides supposition into improper, in which a term
stands for something different from its primary significatum by
special custom (*ex usu loquendi*), and proper, in which a term
stands for something by the virtue of the expression itself. So a term
has improper supposition when it is used in a figurative speech. It is
the case of the term 'cup' in the sentence 'I have
drunk a cup <of wine>'. Wyclif divides proper supposition
into material, when the term stand for itself or its sound (as it
occurs in "'I' is a pronoun" or
"'Iohannes' is trisyllabic"), and formal, when
the term stands for what it properly signifies. Formal supposition is
twofold: simple and personal. Like William of Sherwood, Peter of
Spain, and Burley, and against Ockham and his followers, Wyclif
affirms that the supposition is simple if the term stands for an
extra-mental universal only, as it occurs in 'Man can be
predicated of every man', and 'Man is a species'.
According to Wyclif, in both cases the term 'man'
supposits for the human nature, which is an extra-mental form common
to a multiplicity of singulars. Simple supposition is divided into
equal and unequal. A term is in simple equal supposition if it stands
for the common nature that it directly signifies, as it occurs in
'man is a species'. A term is in simple unequal
supposition when it stands for (1) a less common nature than that it
signifies, as it occurs in 'substance is a species', or
(2) a concrete accident or the characterizing property (*pro
accidente vel proprio primo*), as it occurs in 'this
universal-man is capable of laughing' ('*hic homo
communis est risibilis*') -- where the presence of the
demonstrative 'this' modifies the significate of the
subject-term 'universal-man', so that in the sentence it
supposits for that concrete exemplification (the human nature proper
to an individual man) which is identical with the subject of inherence
(a given human being) of the accidental form, or characterizing
property (in the example, the capacity-of-laughing), signified by the
predicate-term. The supposition is personal when the term which plays
the role of subject in a sentence stands for one or more individuals.
In the first case, the supposition is personal and singular, as it
occurs in 'this man is' ('*hic homo
est*'); in the second one, it is personal and common. The
personal and common supposition is twofold. If the term stands for
many singulars considered separately or for some (that is, at least
one) determinate individual named by the common term itself, the
supposition is *personalis distincta* (or determinate, as
Wyclif calls it in the final section of the chapter 12), as it occurs
in 'these (men) are' ('*isti sunt*').
If the term stands for many singulars considered together, the
supposition is a personal universal supposition (*personalis
universalis*). In turn, the personal universal supposition is
divided into confused and distributive (*confusa distributiva*)
and merely confused (*confusa tantum*). There is *suppositio
personalis communis universalis confusa distributiva* when the
(subject-)term stands for everything which has the form it signifies,
as it occurs in 'every man is' ('*omnis homo
est*'). There is *suppositio personalis communis
universalis confusa tantum* when the form (or property) signified
by the term at issue is affirmed (or not affirmed) equally well of one
of the bearers of that form as of another, since it applies (or does
not apply) to each for exactly the same reasons, as it occurs in
'both of them are one of the two' ('*uterque
istorum est alter istorum*'), where the expression
'one of the two' has merely confused supposition, since
none of the two can be both of them. The confused suppositions are so
called since they involve many different individuals, and this is the
case for the subject of a universal affirmative proposition (*De
logica*, chap. 12, pp. 39-40).



Wyclif takes a resolutely realist stand, as his formulation and
division of supposition (where simple supposition is described as that
possessed by a term in relation to a universal outside the intellect
and personal supposition as that possessed by a term in relation to
one or more individual) make evident. In this way, he stresses the
ontological entailments of Burley's theory. In his *De
suppositionibus* and *De puritate artis logicae* Burley had
adopted a semantic point of view in describing supposition, since he
had defined formal supposition as the supposition that a term has when
it stands for its own *significatum* or for the (individual)
items which fall under it. In the first case, we properly speak of
simple supposition, and in the second, we speak of personal
supposition. Wyclif makes clear what Burley had stated only
implicitly: the *significatum* of a common term is always a
common nature (that is, a universal form) really existing outside the
intellect. This fits in with his theory of meaning and his
ontology.



In the first chapter of his treatise on logic (*De logica*,
chap. 1, pp. 2-7) Wyclif maintains that: (1) a categorematic
term is a *dictio* to which a mental concept, sign of a thing,
corresponds in the soul. (2) Categorematic terms are divided into
common (namely, general expressions), like 'man' and
'dog', and discrete (namely, singular referring
expressions), such as personal and demonstrative pronouns and proper
names. (3) Common terms originally and primarily signify common
natures -- for instance, the term 'man' originally
and primarily signifies the human nature. (4) Categorematic terms can
be divided into substantial terms, such as 'man', and
accidental terms, such as 'white'. A substantial term
signifies a common nature proper to a set of individuals (of which the
term is the name) without connoting any accidental property; while an
accidental term signifies (but we would rather say: 'referes
to') a common essence, proper to a set of individuals, and also
(we would add: connotes) an accidental property, that is, a property
which is not constitutive of the essence referred to. (5)
Categorematic common terms can be divided also into abstract and
concrete. According to Wyclif, a concrete term, like
'man', is a term which signifies a thing that can have
both simple and personal supposition at once. On the contrary, an
abstract term is a term which signifies only a common nature without
connoting anything else, like 'humanity' and
'whiteness'. It is worth noticing that in defining
concrete terms Wyclif a) plainly attributes the capacity for
suppositing to things; b) does not clarify the metaphysical
composition of such things signified by concrete terms; and c)
describes the twofold supposition of concrete terms as a sort of
signification. (6) Finally, categorematic terms can be divided into
terms of first and second intention. A term of first intention is a
sign which signifies without connoting the properties of
being-individual or being-universal which characterize categorial
items. For example, 'God' and 'man' are terms
of first intention. On the contrary, a term of second intention is a
term which connotes such properties and refers to a common nature
without naming it. 'Universal' and 'primary
substance' are terms of second intention.



As is evident, the basic ideas of Wyclif's theory of meaning are
that (1) every simple expression in our language is like a label
naming just one essence in the world; and (2) distinctions among terms
as well as their linguistic and semantic properties are derived from
the ontological features of signified things. He affirms that
everything which exists signifies in a complex manner that it is
something real (*De logica*, chap. 5, p. 14 -- see Cesalli
2005); expressly claims that supposition is also a property of
signified things; and explains the semantic difference between general
terms, such as 'man', which can name a set of individuals,
and singular expressions, such as 'Socrates' or 'a
certain man' ('*aliquis homo*'), which name
just one item, by means of the different modalities of existence of
their different signified things (*significata*). Singular
expressions name and signify individuals, albeit general terms name
and signify common natures. In Wyclif's view, a common term
gives name to a certain set of individuals only by way of the nature
that it originally and directly signifies, and is common to a certain
group of individuals as their own quiddity (*De logica*, chap.
1, p. 7). As is evident from what he says in the first three chapters
of his *De logica* (on terms, universals, and categories
respectively), Wyclif identifies secondary substances (that is, the
universals of the category of substance) with the *significata*
of general (concrete) terms of that category (such as
'man' or 'animal') and individual substances
with the *significata* of singular expressions of that category
(such as 'this man', which refers to a single human
individual only). Furthermore, he holds that (1) common terms of the
category of substance, when used predicatively, specified which kind
of substance a certain individual substance is; (2) individual
substances are unique physical entities, located at a particular place
in space and time; and (3) universal substances are the specific or
generic natures proper to the individual substances, immanent in them,
and apt to be common to many individuals at the same time. As a
result, like Burley, Wyclif thinks of universals and individuals as
linked together by a sort of relation of instantiation. In other
words, he conceives of individuals as the tokens of universal natures,
and universal natures as the types of individuals. This consequence is
common also to many other Realist authors of the 13th and 14th
centuries. But, because of his peculiar reading of the relation
between universals and individuals, Wyclif derives from it an original
conception of the signification and suppostion of concrete accidental
terms, such as 'white', that inspired the new theories and
divisions of supposition developed in Oxford between 14th and 15th
centuries. According to them, any concrete accidental term which
occurs as an extreme in a proposition can stand for (1) the substrate
of inherence of the accidental form that it connotes (*suppositio
personalis*), or (2) the accidental form itself (*suppositio
abstractiva*), or (3) the aggregate composed of the individual
substance, which plays the role of the substrate of the form, and the
singular accidental form at issue (*suppositio concretiva*)
(so, for instance, William Penbygull in his treatise on
universals).



Wyclif ends chapter 12 of his *De logica* with three
*notanda* (pp. 40-42), by which he completes his
treatment of supposition. In the first one, he recalls that
categorematic common concrete terms can supposit both
*personaliter* and *simpliciter* at once
(*mixtim*) when the propositions where they occur as subjects
are universal affirmative or indefinite. For instance, the term
'animal' in (1) 'every animal was in Noah's
ark' ('*omne animal fuit in archa Noe*' as
well as the term 'man' in (2) 'man dies'
('*homo moritur*') can supposit personaliter for
every individual animal and man respectively, and if so, the first
sentence is false and the second true, and *simpliciter* for
every species of animals and the human nature respectively, and then
both sentences are true. In the second *notandum*, Wyclif
contends that proper names, personal and demonstrative pronouns, and
those terms of second intention by which we speak of the singular
items considered as such (namely, expression like
'*persona*' and '*individuum*')
cannot supposit distributively, since they were devised in order to
signify *discrete vel singulariter* only. Finally, in the third
one, he lays down the following rules about the supposition possessed
by the subject-term and the predicate-term in the Square of
Oppositions: (1) in every universal affirmative proposition, the
subject supposits *mobiliter*, that is: it has confused and
distributive supposition, while the predicate has *suppositio
confusa tantum* or simple. The supposition is merely confused if
it does not allow for descent to a certain singular nor a universal
-- in other words, a (predicate-)term has the supposition
*confusa tantum* when it is used attributively of its
extension. The supposition is simple if the predicate-term refers to a
common nature, as it is the case in 'every man is man',
where the predicate 'man' supposits for the human nature.
(2) Both the subject and predicate of a universal negative proposition
have confused distributive supposition, if they are common terms, as
it occurs in 'no man is a stone'. (3) In particular
affirmative propositions, such as 'some man is animal',
both the subject and predicate have determinate supposition. (4) In
particular negative propositions, the subject-term has determinate
supposition and the predicate-term has distributive confused
supposition.



Wyclif's own discussion of the sophism *I promise you a coin
that I do not promise* (*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 3, chap.
3, vol. 2, pp. 55-72; but see also the *Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 7, pp. 133-35) makes evident the
realist stand showed by his theories of meaning and supposition. Like
Burley before him, in his *Logicae continuatio* Wyclif defends
the claim that what is explicitly promised in such a promise, 'I
promise you one or other of these coins I have in my hands'
(*promitto tibi alterum illorum denariorum in altera manuum
mearum*), is the universal-coin, and not a singular one, even if I
can fulfil the promise only by giving any singular coin, since a
universal cannot be given or possessed except by a singular
(*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 3, chap. 3, p. 62). Thanks to his
distinction between simple and personal supposition, Wyclif is able to
explain from a semantic point of view the difference between promising
a coin in general and promising a particular coin: in the first case
the term 'coin' (*denarius*) has simple
supposition, and therefore the proposition is true if and only if what
is said is true of the universal-coin; on the contrary, if the term
'coin' has personal supposition (more precisely, personal
and singular supposition), the proposition is true if and only if what
is said is true of *a* particular coin. According to him, by
promising a singular, a universal is promised *secundarie* and
*confuse*, and conversely (*ibid*., p. 64). So, given
two coins in my hands, the coin *A* and the coin *B*,
the proposition 'I promise you one or other of these
coins' is true, even though, when asked whether I promised the
coin *A*, my answer is 'No', and so too when asked
whether I promised the coin *B*. In fact, according to Wyclif,
what I promised is the universal-coin, since the phrase 'one or
other of these coins' has simple supposition and therefore
stands for a universal, however restricted in its instantiations to
one or other of the two coins in my hands (*ibid*., p. 67).



This does not mean that the universal-coin is a sort of third coin
over and above the two coins in my hands. Wyclif had already rejected
this mistaken conclusion in the previous chapter of the *Logicae
continuatio*. He argues that to add the universal-man as a third
man to Socrates and Plato, given that there are only these two
individual men in the world, exhibits a fallacy of equivocation. When
a number is added to a term of first intention (like
'man'), the presence of this numerical term modifies the
kind of supposition from simple to personal; but one can refer to a
universal only with a term with simple supposition. As a consequence
the universal cannot be counted with its individuals - and in
fact any universal is really identical to each one of its individuals,
and so it cannot differ in number from each of them (*ibid*.,
chap. 2, p. 48).



## 3. Metaphysics


### 3.1 Being and analogy



The point of departure for Wyclif's metaphysics is the notion of
being, since it occupies the central place in his ontology. After Duns
Scotus, the real issue for metaphysics was the relationship between
being and, on the other side, God and creatures, as Scotus'
theory of the univocity of the concept of being was an absolute
novelty, full of important consequences for the development of later
medieval philosophy. Wyclif takes many aspects from Scotus'
explanation, but strongly stresses the ontological implications of the
doctrine. Wyclif, like Scotus, claims that the notion of being is the
most general one, a notion entailed by all others, but he also states
that an extra-mental reality corresponds to the concept of
being-in-general (*ens in communi*). This extra-mental reality
is predicated of everything (God and creatures, substances and
accidents, universal and individual essences) according to different
degrees, since God *is* in the proper sense of the term and any
other entity is (something real) only insofar as it shares the being
of God (*De ente in communi*, chap. 1, pp. 1-2; chap. 2,
p. 29; *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 1, p. 13; chap. 4, p.
30; *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 4, p. 89; chap. 7, p.
130; chap. 12, p. 279; *De materia et forma*, chap. 6, p.
213).



If being is a reality, it is then clear that it is impossible to
affirm its univocity. The *Doctor Subtilis* thought of being as
simply a concept, and therefore could describe it as univocal in a
broad sense (one name -- one concept -- many natures).
Wyclif, on the contrary, is convinced that the being-in-general is an
extra-mental reality, so he works out his theory at a different level
than does Scotus: no more at the intensional level (the meaning
connected with the univocal sign, or *univocum univocans*), but
at the extensional one (the thing signified by the mental sign,
considered as shared by different entities according to different
degrees). For that reason, he cannot use Aristotelian univocation,
which hides these differences in sharing. Thus he denies the univocity
of being and prefers to use one of the traditional notions of analogy
(*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 3, pp. 25, 27), since the
being of God is the measure of the being of other things, which are
drawn up on a scale with the separated spiritual substances at the top
and prime matter at the bottom. Therefore he qualifies being as an
ambiguous genus (*ibidem*, p. 29), borrowing an expression
already used by Grosseteste in his commentary on Aristotle's
*Posterior Analytics*. The analogy of being does not entail a
multiplicity of correlated meanings, however, as in Thomas Aquinas.
Since Wyclif hypostatizes the notion of being and considers
equivocity, analogy, and univocity as real relations between things,
not as semantic relations between terms and things, his analogy is
partially equivalent to the standard Aristotelian univocity, since
what differentiates analogy from univocity is the way a certain nature
(or property) is shared by a set of things: analogous things
(*analoga*) share it according to different degrees
(*secundum magis et minus*, or *secundum prius et
posterius*), while univocal things (*univoca*) share it all
in the same manner and at the same degree. This is the true sense of
his distinction between ambiguous genera, like being and accident
(*accidens*), and logical genera, like substance (*De ente
praedicamentali*, chap. 4, pp. 30, 32). Hence, according to this
account, being in general is the basic component of the metaphysical
structure of each reality, which possesses it in accordance with its
own nature, value, and position in the hierarchy of created
beings.



Unfortunately, this theory is weak in an important point, since Wyclif
does not clarify the relation between being-in-general and God. On the
one hand, being is a creature, the first of all the creatures; on the
other hand, God should share it, as being-in-general is the most
common reality, predicated of all, and according to him
to-be-predicated-of something means to-be-shared-by it. As a
consequence, a creature would be in some respect superordinated to God
-- a theological puzzle that Wyclif failed to acknowledge.


### 3.2 Being and truth



According to Wyclif, the constitutive property of each kind of being
is the capacity to be the object of a complex act of signifying
(*De ente in communi*, chap. 3, p. 36; *De ente primo in
communi*, chap. 1, p. 70). This choice implies a revolution in the
standard medieval theory of transcendentals, since Wyclif actually
replaces being (*ens*) with true (*verum*). According to
the common belief, among the transcendentals (being, thing, one,
something, true, good) being was the primitive notion, from which all
the others stemmed by adding a specific connotation in relation to
something else, or by adding some new determination. So true
(*verum*) was nothing but being (*ens*) itself
considered in relation to an intellect, no matter whether divine or
human. In Wyclif's view, on the contrary, being is no longer the
main transcendental and its notion is not the first and simplest;
rather there is something more basic to which being can be reduced:
truth (*veritas* or *verum*). According to the English
philosopher, only what can be signified by a complex expression is a
being, and whatever is the proper object of an act of signifying is a
truth. Truth is therefore the true name of being itself (*Tractatus
de universalibus*, chap. 7, p. 139). Thus everything that is is a
truth, and every truth is something not simple but complex. Absolute
simplicity is unknown within Wyclif's metaphysical world. From
the semantic point of view, this means the collapsing of the
fundamental distinction in the common Aristotelian theory of meaning,
the one between simple signs (like nouns) and compound signs (like
propositions). From the ontological point of view, this entails the
uniqueness in type of what is signified by every class of
categorematic expressions (*Logica*, chap. 5, p. 14). Within
Wyclif's world, it is the same kind of object that both concrete
terms and propositions refer to, as individual substances have to be
regarded as (atomic) states of affairs. According to him, from the
metaphysical point of view a singular man is nothing but a real
proposition (*propositio realis*), where actual existence in
time as an individual plays the role of the subject, the common nature
(i.e., human nature) plays the role of the predicate, and the singular
essence (i.e., that by means of which this individual is a man) plays
the role of the copula (*ibid*., pp. 14-15).



Despite appearances, Wyclif's opinion on this subject is not
just a new formulation of the theory of the *complexe
significabile*. According to the supporters of the *complexe
significabile* theory, the same things that are signified by
simple concrete terms are signified by complex expressions (or
propositions). In Wyclif's thought, on the contrary, there are
no simple things in the world that correspond to simple concrete
terms; rather, simple concrete terms designate real propositions, that
is, atomic states of affairs. Wyclif's real proposition is that
everything that is, as everything save God is composed at least of
potency and act (*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, pp.
38-39), can therefore be conceived of and signified both in a
complex (*complexe*) and in a non-complex manner
(*incomplexe*) (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 2,
pp. 55-56; chap. 3, pp. 70, 74, and 84; chap. 6, pp.
118-19). When we conceive of a thing in a complex manner, we
consider that thing according to its metaphysical structure, and so
according to its many levels of being and kinds of essence. As a
consequence, Wyclif's metaphysical world, like his physical
world, consists of atomic objects, that is, single essences belonging
to the ten different types or categories. But these metaphysical atoms
are not simple but rather composite, because they are reducible to
something else, belonging to a different rank of reality and unable to
exist by themselves: being and essence, potency and act, matter and
form, abstract genera, species and differences. For that reason,
everything one can speak about or think of is both a thing and an
atomic state of affairs, while every true sentence expresses a
molecular state of affairs, that is, the union (if the sentence is
affirmative) or the separation (if the sentence is negative) of two
(or more) atomic objects (on Wyclif's theory of proposition see
Cesalli 2005).


### 3.3 Being and essence



Among the many kinds of beings Wyclif lists, the most important set is
that consisting of categorial beings. They are characterized by the
double fact of having a nature and of being the constitutive elements
of finite corporeal beings or atomic states of affairs. These
categorial items, conceived of as instances of a certain kind of
being, are called by Wyclif 'essences'
(*essentiae*). An essence therefore is a being that has a well
defined nature, even if the name 'essence' does not make
this nature known (*De ente primo in communi*, chap. 3, pp.
88-89; *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, p. 43;
*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 7, pp. 128-29; *De
materia et forma*, chap. 4, pp. 185-86). So the term
'essence' (*essentia*) is less general than
'being' (*ens*), but more general than
'quiddity' (*quidditas*), since (i) every essence
is a being, and not every being is an essence, and (ii) every quiddity
is an essence, and not every essence is a quiddity, as individual
things are essences but are not quiddities (see Kenny 1985, pp. 21
ff.; and Conti 1993, pp. 171-81).



According to Wyclif, being is the stuff that the ten categories
modulate according to their own nature, so that everything is
immediately something that is (*De ente praedicamentali*, chap.
4, p. 30; *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 7, p. 130);
therefore, he maintains no real distinction between essence and being.
The essences of creatures do not precede their beings, not even
causally, since every thing is identical with its essence. The being
of a thing is brought into existence by God at the same instant as its
essence, since essence without being and being without essence would
be two self-contradictory states of affairs. In fact, essence without
being would imply that an individual could be something of a given
type without being real in any way, and being without essence would
imply that there could be the existence of a thing without the thing
itself (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 6, pp.
122-23). As a consequence, the *pars destruens* of his
theory of being and essence is a strong refutation of the twin
opinions of St. Thomas and Giles of Rome. Although Wyclif does not
name either the Dominican master or the Augustinian one, it is
nevertheless clear from the context that their conceptions are the
object of his criticisms (*ibid.*, pp. 120-22).



On the other hand, it is evident that while from the extensional point
of view the being and essence of creatures are equipollent, since
every being is an essence and *vice versa*, from the
intensional point of view there is a difference, because the being of
a thing *logically* presupposes its essence and not *vice
versa* (*De materia et forma*, chap. 4, pp. 184-85).
Moreover, in Wyclif's opinion, every creature has two different
kinds of essence and four levels of being. Indeed, he clearly
distinguishes between singular essence and universal essence
(*essentia quidditativa speciei vel generis*) -- that is,
the traditional *forma partis* and *forma totius*. The
singular essence is the form that in union with the matter brings
about the substantial composite. The universal essence is the type
that the former instantiates; it is present in the singular substance
as a constitutive part of its nature, and it discloses the inner
metaphysical structure of the substantial composite (*Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 6, pp. 116-18). Furthermore, he speaks
of four-fold level of reality (*esse*):


1. First, the eternal mental being (*esse ideale*) that every
creature has in God, as an object of His mind.
2. Second, the potential being everything has in its causes, both
universal (genus, species) and particular. This is closely connected
with the nature of the individual substance on which the finite
corporeal being is founded, and is independent of its actual
existence. It is called '*esse essentiae*' or
'*esse in genere*'.
3. Third, the actual existence in time as an earthly object.
4. Fourth, the accidental being (*modus essendi accidentalis
substantiae*) caused in a substance by the inherence in it of its
appropriate accidental forms (*Tractatus de universalibus*,
chap. 7, pp. 126-28).



Thus the identity between essence and being cannot be complete.
Consequently Wyclif speaks of a formal difference (*distinctio*
or *differentia formalis*) -- which he also calls a
'difference of reason' (*distinctio rationis*)
-- between essence and being. More precisely, he holds that:


1. The *esse ideale* is formally distinct from the singular
essence;
2. The actual existence is formally distinct from the universal
essence; and
3. The singular essence is formally distinct from the actual
existence.



In this way, Wyclif establishes a close connection between singular
essence and essential being, on the one hand, and a real identity
between universal and individual (that is, between universal essence
and singular essence), on the other hand. Essential being is the level
of being that matches singular essence, while actual existence is in a
certain way accidental to the singular essence, as the latter is
nothing else but the universal essence considered as informing
matter.


### 3.4 Being and categories



Since Wyclif thought of substance as the ultimate substrate of
existence and subject of predication in relation to anything else, the
only way to demonstrate the reality of the items belonging to other
categories was to conceive of them as forms and attributes of
substance. Accordingly, he insists that quantity, quality, and
relations, considered as accidents, are forms inherent in the
composite substances (cf. *De ente praedicamentali*, ch. 6, p.
48). In this way, just like Walter Burley, Wyclif wanted to safeguard
the reality of accidents as well as their (real) distinction from
substance and from each other, while at the same time affirming their
dependence on substance in existence. 


### 3.4.1 Quantity



Among the nine genera of accidents, quantity is the most important
one, as it is the basis of all further accidents, because every other
accident presupposes it. Indeed, quantity orders substance for
receiving quality and the other accidental forms. In his commentary on
the *Categories* (ch. 10, SS 4) and in the first part of
his *Summa Logicae* (*pars* I, ch. 44) Ockham had
claimed that it was superfluous to posit quantitative forms really
distinct from substance and quality, since quantity presupposes what
it is intended to explain, that is, the extension of material
substances and their having parts outside parts. As an accident,
quantity presupposes substance as its substrate of inherence. Like
Burley, Wyclif also denies that material substance can be actually
extended without the presence of quantitative forms in it, thereby
affirming their necessity (cf. *De ente praedicamentali*, ch.
6, p. 50.), and consequently he tries to confute Ockham's
argumentation (*ibidem*, pp. 50-58). He admits that the
existence of any quantity always implies that of substance, but he
also believes that the actual existence of parts in a substance
necessarily implies the presence of a quantitative form in it,
distinct (1) from the substance (say Socrates) in which it inheres,
and (2) from the truth, grounded on the substance at issue, that this
same substance is a quantified thing (*ibidem*, pp.
51-53). He does not give us any sound metaphysical reason for
this preference. Nevertheless, it is easily understandable, when
considered from the point of view of his semantic presuppositions,
according to which, the reality itself is the interpretative pattern
of our language.



As a consequence, the structure of language is a mere mirroring of
that of reality. In Wyclif's opinion, therefore, some entities
must correspond in the world to the abstract terms of the category of
quantity (like '*magnitudo*') - entities
really distinct from the things signified by the substantial terms. In
any case, the most important evidence he offers for proving his thesis
is a sort of abductive reasoning, whose implicit premise is the
following inferential rule: if we can recognize a thing as the same
thing before and after its undertaking a process of change, then what
is changed is not the thing at issue, but a distinct entity really
present in that thing as one of its real aspects. The second premise
is the observation that men are of different size during their lives.
And the conclusion is that those changes are due to an accidental form
distinct from the substances in which it inheres (*ibidem*, p.
50).


### 3.4.2 Quality



Immediately after quantity, quality comes. Following Aristotle
(*Categories*, ch. 8, 8a 25), Wyclif defines quality as that in
virtue of which substances are said to be qualified. The chief feature
of Wyclif 's treatment of quality is his twofold consideration
of quality as an abstract form and as a concrete accident. In *De
ente praedicamentali* he clearly states that quality is an
absolute entity, with a well determined nature, and really distinct
from substance (cf. ch. 7, p. 61). Furthermore, even if incidentally,
against Burley, he notes that qualitative forms can admit a more or a
less, since the propria passio of the category of quality is to be
more or less intense (see *ibidem*, ch. 3, p. 28). 



By contrast, in the *De actibus animae* (*pars* II, ch.
4), he seems to conceive of it as a mode of substance, without an
actually distinct reality. Truly, there is no effective difference
between the theses on quality maintained in those two works, but only
a difference of point of view. As what he says about the
real-and-essential distinction and the first sub-type of formal
distinction makes evident, quality considered in an absolute way,
according to its main level of being, is an abstract form, really
distinct from substance; yet, if considered from the point of view of
its existence as a concrete accident, it is not really distinct from
the substance in which it is present, but only formally. In the latter
case,it is a mere mode of the substance, like any other concrete
accident. In fact, in the *De ente praedicamentali* Wyclif
speaks of quality,using the abstract term, while in the *De actibus
animae* he constantly utilises concrete expressions, such as
'*quale*' and '*substantia
qualis*.'


### 3.4.3 Relations and relatives



Aristotle's treatment of relations in the *Categories*
(ch. 7) and in the *Metaphysics* (V, ch.15) is opaque and
incomplete. Because of this fact, in the Late Antiquity and in the
Middle Ages many authors tried to reformulate the doctrine of
relatives. Wyclif 's attempt is one of the most interesting
among those of the whole Middle Ages, as he very likely was the first
medieval author able to work out a concept of relation conceived of as
an accidental form which is in both the relatives at once, even though
in different ways. Consequently his relation can be considered the
ontological equivalent to our modern functions with two variables, or
two-place predicates, whereas all the other authors of the Middle Ages
had thought of the relations in terms of monadic functions. As a
matter of fact, according to Wyclif, relation is different from
quality and quantity, since it presupposes them just as what follows
by nature presupposes what precedes. Moreover, quantity and quality
are, in a certain way, absolute entities, but relation qua such is a
sort of link between two things (see *De ente praedicamentali*,
ch. 7, p. 61).



Wyclif thinks that the items directly falling into any categorial
field are simple accidental forms, therefore he distinguishes between
relations (*relationes*) and relatives (*relativa* or
*ad aliquid*) - these latter being the aggregates formed
by a substance, a relation, and the foundation (*fundamentum*),
of the relation. Accordingly, the relationship between relation and
relatives is, for him, similar to the ones between quantity and what
is quantified, and quality and what is qualified. The relation is the
very cause of the nature of the aggregates (that is, the relatives) of
which it is a constituent; yet, unlike the other accidental forms,
relations do not directly inhere in their substrates, but are present
in them only by means of other accidental forms, that Wyclif,
following a well established tradition, calls 'foundations of
the relation'. In his view, quantity and quality only can be the
foundation of a categorial relation (*ibidem*, pp.
61-62).Thus, according to Wyclif's description, in the act
of relating one substance to another four different constitutive
elements can be singled out: (1) the relation itself (for instance,
the form of similarity); (2) the foundation of the relation, that is,
the absolute entity in virtue of which the relation at issue is
present in the two substances correlated to each other (in this case,
the form of whiteness which makes the two substances at issue similar
to each other); (3) the subject of the relation (or its first
extreme), that is, the aggregate compound of (*a*) the
substance which denominatively receives the names of the relation (in
our example, the substance which is similar to another, say Socrates)
and (*b*) of the foundation of the relation ; (4) the second
extreme (of the relation), that is, another aggregate compund of a
substance and its own foundation, that the subject of the relation is
connected with, (in our example, a second substance which is, in its
turn, similar to the first one, say Plato).



The *fundamentum* of the relation is the main component, since
it (1) joins the relation to the underlying substances, (2) lets the
relation link the subject to the object, and (3) transmits to the
relation some of its properties. Even though relation depends for its
existence on the foundation, its being is really distinct from it, as
when the foundation fails the relation also fails, but not vice versa
(*ibidem*, pp. 62-64 and 67).



Some rather important conclusions about the nature and the ontological
status of relations and relatives follow from these premisses:


1. relation is a truth (*veritas*) whose kind of reality is
feebler than that of any other accident, as it depends upon the
simultaneous existence of three different things: the two extremes (of
the relation) and the foundation.
2. A relation can (indirectly) inhere in a substance without any
change in the latter, but simply because of a change in another one.
For example: given two things, one white and the other black, if the
black thing becomes white, then, because of such a change, a new
accident, that is, a relation of similarity, will inhere also in the
first thing, apart from any other change in it.
3. All the true relatives ( propria relativa) are simultaneous by
nature (see *ibidem*, p. 64), since the real cause of being a
relative is relation, which at the same time (indirectly) inheres in
two things, thereby making both ones relatives.



Like Duns Scotus, Wyclif divides relations into transcendental and
categorial relations (*ibidem* p. 61-62), and, moreover,
like many of his predecessors and contemporaries, among the latter he
contrasts real relatives (*relativa secundum esse*) with
relatives of reason (*relativa rationis*), or linguistic
relatives (*relativa secundum dici* - see
*ibidem*, pp. 62-64). Wyclif defines real relatives as
those aggregates (1) made up of a substance and (2) an absolute
accidental form (quantity or quality), (3) whose reality consists in
being correlated to something else. If one of these three conditions
is not fulfilled, we will speak of relatives of reason (cf.
*ibidem*, p. 63).



In this way, Wyclif eliminates from the description of the relatives
of reason any reference to our mind, and utilizes objective criteria
only, based on the framework of reality itself. In fact he maintains
that there are three kinds of relations of reason, each one
characterized by the occurrence of at least one of these negative
conditions: (1) one of the two extremes of the relation is not a
substance with its foundation; (2) both the extremes of the relation
are not substances; (3) there is no foundation for the relation, or it
is not an absolute accident - that is, a quantity, or a quality
(*ibidem*). The strategy which supports this choice is evident:
Wyclif attempts to substitute references to mental activity by
references to external reality. In other words, he seeks to reduce
epistemology to ontology, in accordance with his realist program.


## 4. Theology


### 4.1 Divine ideas



Wyclif's world is ultimately grounded on divine essence. Thus
there is a close connection between any kind of *truth* and the
divine ideas (cf. *Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 15, pp.
371-74; *De materia et forma*, chap. 2, pp.
170-76). Divine ideas play a threefold role in relation to God
and creatures: they are (i) the specific essences of individual things
themselves, considered according to their intelligible being in the
mind of God; (ii) God's principles of cognition of creatures;
and (iii) the eternal models of creatures. If we also take into
account that in his opinion (iv) divine ideas are really the same as
the divine essence and formally distinct from it, and (v) this
distinction originates from their being efficient (con)causes in
relation to the different kinds of creatures, we can easily realize
why Wyclif's position on this matter leads to heretical
consequences from the point of view of the Catholic theology: (i)
metaphysical and theological necessitarianism; (ii) restriction of
divine omnipotence; (iii) negation of the process of
transubstantiation in the Eucharist. In fact, Wyclif defines ideas as
the divine nature in action, since they are the means by which God
creates all that is outside Himself. In this way, any distinction
between the ideas as pure *rationes* and the ideas as
*exemplaria*, stated by St. Thomas in his *Summa
theologiae* (I, q. 15), is abolished. Furthermore, ideas are the
constitutive principles of divine nature, essentially identical with
it. Thus divine ideas become as necessary as the divine nature itself.
On the other side, ideas are the first of the four levels of being
proper to creatures. Indeed, since God could not help but create this
Universe (as we shall see in Section 4.2), everything which is is
necessary and so is a necessary object of God's volition. Thus,
the three spheres of possible, existent, and necessary totally
coincide. As a matter of fact, Wyclif, having defined necessary truths
as those truths which cannot not be the case, (i) distinguishes
between absolutely necessary truths and conditionally (or relatively
- *secundum quid*) necessary truths, and (ii) tries to
show how relative necessity is consistent with supreme contingence
(*Logicae continuatio*, tr. 1, chap. 11, vol. 1, pp.
156-65). He thought that such distinctions enabled him to
maintain simultaneously the necessity of all that happens and human
freedom (cf. *Tractatus de universalibus*, ch. 14, pp.
333-47); and many times he affirms that it would be heretical to
say that all things happen by *absolute* necessity; but his
attempt failed in achieving its goal.



According to him, absolutely necessary truths are such truths as (i)
those of theology (like the real proposition that God exists), that
are *per se* necessary and do not depend on something else;
(ii) those of geometry, that neither can, nor ever could, nor ever
will be able to be otherwise, even though they depend on something
else (*est ab alio sed non potuit non esse*); and (iii) the
past and present truths (like the real proposition that I have existed
- *me fuisse*), that cannot be, but might have been
otherwise (*per accidens necessarium, quia est necessarium quod
potuit non esse*). On the contrary, relative necessity applies to
those events that must follow certain conditions in order to be or
happen - so that any contingent truth is relatively necessary if
considered in relation to its conditions (*Logicae
continuatio*, tr. 1, chap. 11, p. 157). In its turn, relative
necessity is divided into antecedent, consequent, and concomitant. (i)
A certain truth is an antecedent relative necessity when its existence
causes the existence of another contingent truth (*antecedens ut
causa contingentis, inferens posterius naturaliter*). An instance
of such a necessity is the necessity of volition, as where my
unconstrained will or the unconstrained will of God is the cause which
necessitates something else (*ibid*., p, 158). (ii) A certain
truth is a consequent relative necessity when its existence is caused
by an antecedent (relative) necessity. And finally, (iii) a certain
truth is a concomitant relative necessity when it merely accompanies
another true event (*ibid*., p. 157). These features proper to
the relative necessity are not opposites, and the same truth may be
necessary in all the three ways (*ibid*., pp. 157-58).
Wyclif insists that all three kinds of relative necessity are
contingent truths in themselves (*ibid*., p. 158), yet he was
unable to show how this is possible. He thought he had an explanation,
but he was mistaken. In his *Tractatus de universalibus* (where
he uses all these distinctions in order to try to solve the problem of
the relationship between divine power and human freedom), he
explicitly maintains that in relation to the foreknowledge of God
every effect is necessary to come about (*Tractatus de
universalibus*, chap. 14, p. 333), and the Aristotelian principle
that everything which is, when it is, necessarily is (the well known
formulation of the diachronic contingence), applies also to what will
be and has been (*ibid*., p. 334). Taking into account that God
himself cannot begin or cease actually to know or will something, and
thus He cannot change from knowing that *p* to knowing that
not-*p* (where *p* is a given truth), nor from volition
to non-volition or *vice* *versa* (*ibid*., p.
335; cf. also *De volucione Dei*, chap. 3, p. 149), the logical
result is that in Wyclif's world nothing may happen purely
contingently. It is true that Wyclif insists that even if God can
never change from volition to non-volition, the fact that God wills
*p* is in itself contingent, if *p* is not a theological
truth (*De volucione Dei*, chap. 7, p. 192), but, like
Bradwardine, he maintains that God's antecedent will is
naturally prior to what He foresees. Given that God is immutable, and
hence that the divine power is not affected by the passage of time,
and divine ideas, within Wyclif's system, are as necessary as
the divine essence itself, the logical consequence is that, despite
Wyclif's claims of the contrary, the whole history of the world
is determined from eternity. As a matter of fact, Wyclif's
conditional (or relative) necessity is as necessary as his absolute
necessity: given God, the world's entire history follows.


### 4.2 Divine omnipotence



This doctrine of divine ideas and the connected theory of being had a
significant result also for the notion of divine omnipotence. In the
Middle Ages, one of the most important features of divine omnipotence
was the capacity of annihilating, which was viewed as the necessary
counterpart of the divine capacity of creating. Wyclif denies the
thesis of an opposition between creation and annihilation, and
explicitly denies that God can annihilate creatures. He argues that
nothing is contrary to creation, since the act of creating is peculiar
to God, and nothing is opposite or contrary to God. In fact,
*absolute* non-being (the only "thing" that could
be considered opposite to God) is something self-contradictory, and
therefore logically impossible. Accordingly, there cannot be any
action opposite to creation. The only possible kind of non-being
admitted by Wyclif is corruption (*corruptio*), that is, the
natural destruction of the actual existence in time of an object in
the world (*Tractatus de universalibus*, chap. 13, pp.
302-3).



On the other hand, according to Wyclif, annihilation, if possible,
would be equivalent to the total destruction of all of a
creature's levels of being (*ibid.*, p. 307), and thus
would imply the following absurdities:


1. God could not annihilate any creature without destroying the whole
world at once, since universal-being is the basic constitutive element
of the second level of being (the *esse essentiae* or *esse
in genere*) of each creature (*ibid.*, pp.
307-8).
2. Since annihilation would be nothing but an accident, and more
precisely an action, it would be really different from both the acting
subject (i.e. God) and the object of the action (i.e., the thing that
would be annihilated). But any accident requires a substrate of
inherence. In this case, it cannot be God. Thus, it must be the object
of annihilation. Yet, because of its particular nature, if there is
annihilation, its substrate of inherence cannot be, and therefore the
annihilation itself cannot be, since no accident can exist without any
substrate of inherence -- an apparently self-contradictory state
of affairs (*ibid.*, pp. 310-11).
3. God could not annihilate any creature without annihilating Himself
at the same time, because the first and most basic level of being of
every creature is rooted in the divine essence itself (*ibid.*,
pp. 313-14).



The image of God Wyclif draws here is not the Christian image of the
Lord of the universe, who freely creates by an act of His will and has
absolute power and control over everything, but a variation of the
Neoplatonic notion of the One. Wyclif's God is simply the
supreme principle of the universe from which everything necessarily
flows. Within Wyclif's system, creation is a form of emanation,
as each creature is necessarily connected with the divine essence
itself by means of its *esse ideale*. God has been deprived of
the power of revocation (*ibid*., pp. 304-5), and the
only action He can, or rather has to, perform is creation. Because of
the necessary links between (i) the divine essence and the eternal
mental being that every creature has in God and (ii) this first level
of being of creatures and the remaining three, for God to think of
creatures is already to create them. But God cannot help thinking of
creatures, since to think of Himself is to think of His constitutive
principles, that is, of the ideas of creatures. Therefore, God cannot
help creating. Indeed, He could not help creating just this
universe.



Wyclif's rejection of the possibility of annihilation and the
subsequent new notion of divine onnipotence shed light on his theory
of universals, as they help us to appreciate the difference between
his thesis of the identity between universals and individuals and the
analogous thesis of moderate Realists. For these latter theses, this
identity meant that *the* individuals are *in potentia*
universal; for Wyclif it means that *the* individuals are
*the* universals *qua* existing *in actu* --
that is, the individuals are the outcome of a process of production
that is inscribed into the nature of general essences themselves, and
through which general essences change from an incomplete type of
subsistence as forms to a full existence as individuals. This position
is consistent with (i) his theory of substance, where the main and
basic composition of every substance, both individual and universal,
is not the hylemorphic one, but the composition of potency and act
(*De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 5, pp. 38-39), and (ii)
a Neoplatonic reading of Aristotelian metaphysics, where universal
substances, and not individual ones as the Stagirite had taught, are
the main and fundamental kind of being (on Wyclif's doctrine of
the divine omnipotence see A. D. Conti, "*Annihilatio* e
divina onnipotenza nel *Tractatus de* *universalibus* di
John Wyclif," in MT. Fumagalli Beonio Brocchieri & S.
Simoneta 2003, pp.71-85.


### 4.3 The Eucharist



Wyclif's heretical theses concerning the Eucharist are the
logical consequence of the application of this philosophical apparatus
to the problem of the real presence of the body of Christ in the
consecrated host. According to Catholic doctrine, after consecration
the body of Christ is really present in the host instead of the
substance of the host itself, while the accidents of the host are the
same as before. St. Thomas's explanation of this process, called
'transubstantiation', was that the substance of the bread
(and wine) was changed into the body (and blood) of Christ, whereas
its quantity, through which the substance of the bread received
physical extension and the other accidental forms, was now the entity
that kept the other accidental forms physically in being. Duns Scotus
and Ockham, on the contrary, had claimed that after consecration the
substance of the bread (and wine) was annihilated by God, while the
accidents of the bread (and wine) remained the same as before because
of an intervention of divine omnipotence.



Wyclif rejects both solutions as well as the Catholic formulation of
the dogma, since he could not accept the ideas of the destruction of a
substance by God and of the existence of the accidents of a given
singular substance without and apart from that singular substance
itself -- two evident absurdities within the metaphyisical
framework of his system of thought. As a consequence, Wyclif affirms
the simultaneous presence in the Eucharist of the body of Crhist and
of the substance of the bread (and wine), which continues to exist
even after the consecration. According to him, transubstantiation is
therefore a twofold process, natural and supernatural. There is
natural transubstantiation when a substitution of one substantial form
for another takes place, but the subject-matter remains the same. This
is the case with water that becomes wine. There is supernatural
transubstantiation when a miraculous transformation of the substantial
entity at issue takes place. This was the case, for instance, with the
incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, who is God and became
man (*De apostasia*, p. 170). The Eucharist implies this second
kind of transubstantiation, since the Eucharist, like Christ, has a
dual nature: earthly and divine. According to its earthly nature the
Eucharist is bread (and wine), but according to its divine nature it
is the body of Christ, which is present in the host spiritually or in
a habitudinal fashion, since it is in virtue and by means of faith
only that it could be received (*De apostasia*, pp. 180 and
210; *De eucharistia*, pp. 17, 19, 51-52, and 230; for a
description of the habitudinal presence, see the definition of the
habitudinal predication above, Section 2.3 - on the links
between his realism and his eucharistic doctrine see P. J. J. M.
Bakker, "Realisme et remanence. La doctrine
eucharistique de Jean Wyclif," in MT. Fumagalli Beonio
Brocchieri & S. Simoneta 2003, pp. 87-112; see also Kenny
1985, pp. 68-90).


## 5. Religious and Political Thought


### 5.1 The Bible and the Church



Wyclif conceives of Sacred Scripture as a direct emanation from God
himself, and therefore as a timeless, unchanging, and archetypal truth
independent of the present world and of the concrete material text by
means of which it is manifested. As a consequence, in his *De
veritate Sacrae Scripturae* (*On the Truth of Sacred
Scripture* -- between late 1377 and the end of 1378) he tries
to show that, despite appearences, the Bible is free from error and
contradictions. The exegetic principle he adopts is the following:
since the authority of Scripture is greater than our capacity of
understanding, if some errors and/or inconsistencies are found in the
Bible, there is something wrong with our interpretation. The Bible
contains the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so that nothing
can be added to it or subtracted from it. Every part of it has to be
taken absolutely and without qualification (*De veritate Sacrae
Scripturae*, vol. 1, pp. 1-2, 395, 399; vol. 2, pp. 99,
181-84).



In attributing inerrancy to the Bible, Wyclif was following the
traditional attitude towards it, but the way he viewed the book
detached him from Catholic tradition, as he thought that his own
metaphysical system was the necessary interpretative key for the
correct understanding of Biblical truth. In fact, in the
*Trialogus* (*Trialogue* -- between late 1382 and
early 1383), where Wyclif gives us the conditions for achieving the
true meaning of the Bible, they are the following:


1. knowledge of the nature and ontological status of universals;
2. knowledge of the peculiar nature of accidents as dependent in
existence on their substantial substrates;
3. knowledge of past and future states of affairs
(*praeteritiones* and *futuritiones*) as real in the
present as past and future truths, not as things (*res*) that
have been real in the past and will be real in the future (a thesis of
his already claimed in the *De ente praedicamentali*, chap. 1,
pp. 2 and 5; *Purgans errores circa veritates in communi*,
chap. 1, pp. 1-2; chap. 3, pp. 10-11);
4. knowledge of the eternal existence of creatures in God at the
level of intelligible being really identical with the divine essence
itself;
5. knowledge of the perpetual existence of material essences
(*Trialogus*, book 3, chap. 31, pp. 242-43).



Only on the basis of this logical and metaphysical machinery is it
possible to grasp the five different levels of reality of the Bible,
which are at the same time:


1. the book of life mentioned in the *Apocalypse*;
2. the ideal being proper to the truths written in the book of
life;
3. the truths that are to be believed as they are written in the book
of life;
4. the truths that are to believed as they are written in the natural
books that are men's souls;
5. all the artificial signs of the truth (*De veritate Sacrae
Scripturae*, vol. 1, p. 109).



This same approach, when applied to the Church, led Wyclif to fight
against it in its contemporary state. (On Wyclif's ecclesiology
see Leff 1967, pp. 516-46.) The starting point of Wyclif's
reflection on the Church is the distinction between the heavenly and
the earthly cities that St. Augustine draws in his *De civitate
Dei*. In St. Augustine such a division is metaphorical, but Wyclif
made it literal. So he claims that the Holy Catholic Church is the
mystical and indivisible community of the saved, eternally bound
together by the grace of predestination, while the foreknown, i.e. the
damned, are eternally excluded from it (*De civili dominio*,
vol. 1, p. 11). This community of the elect is really distinct from
the various particular earthly churches (*ibid.*, p. 381). It
is timeless and outside space, and therefore is not a physical entity;
its being, like the actual being of any other universal, is wherever
any of its members is (*De ecclesia*, p. 99). All its members
always remain in grace, even if temporally in mortal sin
(*ibid.*, p. 409), as conversely the damned remain in mortal
sin, even if temporally in grace (*ibid.*, p. 139). The true
Church is presently divided into three parts: the triumphant Church in
heaven; the sleeping Church in purgatory; and the militant Church on
earth (*ibid.*, p. 8). But the militant Church on earth cannot
be identified with the visible church and its hierarchy. Even more,
since we cannot know who are the elect, there is no reason for
consenting to recognize and obey the authority of the visible church
(see *De civili dominio*, vol. 1, p. 409; *De ecclesia*,
pp. 71-2). Authority and dominion rely on God's law
manifested by Sacred Scripture. As a consequence, obedience to any
member of the hierarchy is to be subordinated to his fidelity to the
precepts of the Bible (*De civili dominio*, vol. 2, p. 243;
*De potestate papae* [*On the Power of the Pope* --
ca. 1379], p. 149; *De ecclesia*, p. 465). Faithfulness to the
true Church can entail the necessity of rebelling against the visible
church and its members, when their requests are in conflict with the
teaching of Christ (*De civili dominio*, vol. 1, pp. 384,
392).



In conclusion, since the visible church cannot help the believers gain
salvation, which is fixed from eternity, and its authority depends on
its fidelity to divine revelation, it cannot perform any of the
functions traditionally attributed to it, and it therefore has no
reason for its own existence. To be ordained a priest offers no
certainty of divine approval and authority (*De ecclesia*, p.
577). Orthodoxy can only result from the application of right reason
to the faith of the Bible (*De veritate Sacrae Scripturae*,
vol. 1, p. 249). The Pope, bishops, abbots, and priests are expected
to prove that they really belong to the Holy Catholic Church through
their exemplary behavior; they should be poor and free from worldly
concerns, and they should spend their time preaching and praying
(*De ecclesia*, pp. 41, 89, 129). In particular, the Pope
should not interfere in worldly matters, but should be an example of
holiness. Believers are always allowed to doubt the clergy's
legitimacy, which can be evaluated only on the basis of its
consistency with the Evangelic rules (*ibid.*, pp. 43, 456).
Unworthy priests forfeit their right to exercise authority and to hold
property, and lay lords might deprive them of their benefices (*De
civili dominio*, vol. 1, p. 353; vol. 3, pp. 326, 413; *De
ecclesia*, p. 257).


### 5.2 Dominion



As Leff remarked (Leff 1967, p. 546), the importance of Wyclif's
teaching on dominion and grace has been exaggerated. His doctrine
depends on Richard Fitzralph's theory, according to which the
original lordship is independent of natural and civil circumstances
(on Fitzralph's conception see Robson 1961, pp. 70-96),
and is only a particular application of Wyclif's general view on
election and damnation. In fact, the three main theses of the first
book of his *De civili dominio* are the following:


1. a man in sin has no right to dominion;
2. a man who is in a state of grace possesses all the goods of the
world;
3. as a consequence, there can be no dominion without grace as its
formal cause (*De civili dominio*, vol. 1, p 1).



Wyclif defines dominion as the right to exercise authority and,
indirectly, to hold property. According to him, there are three kinds
of possession: natural, civil, and evangelical. Natural possession is
the simple possession of goods without any legal title. Civil
possession is the possession of goods on the basis of some civil law.
Evangelical possession requires, beyond civil possession, a state of
grace in the legal owner. Thus God alone can confer evangelical
possession (*ibid.*, p. 45). On the other hand, a man in a
state of grace is lord of the visible universe, but on the condition
that he shares his lordship with all the other men who are in a state
of grace, as all men in a state of grace have the same rights. This
ultimately means that all the goods of God should be in common, just
as they were before the Fall. Private property was introduced as a
result of sin. From this point of view it is also evident that
Aristotle's criticisms against Plato are unsound, since Platonic
communism is correct in essence (*ibid.*, pp. 96 ff.). The
purpose of civil law is to preserve the necessities of life
(*ibid.*, pp. 128-29). The best form of government is
monarchy. Kings must be obeyed and have taxes paid to them, even if
they become tyrants, since they are God's vicars that He alone
can depose -- so that only secular lordship is justified in the
world (*ibid.*, p. 201).