Works

The surviving works of Peter of Auvergne are all directly or indirectly connected with his teaching duties at the University of Paris. What is unusual about the surviving body of his work is the fact that it includes commentaries on most oF Aristotle’s works that were in the curriculum of the Faculty of Arts at the time. The breadth and intensity of this engagement with Aristotelian philosophy marks Peter as one of the most influential commentators on Aristotle during the Middle Ages. The commentaries can be formally classified as commentaries in question form and literal commentaries. The literary form of the question commentaries - influenced by the instructional techniques used in the other faculties - is, in the case of Peter as well as of all the other masters, determined by strictly regulated discussion practices used at the university and results from the use of various techniques for recording these disputations. Peter’s commentaries in question form are as a rule made up of a list of central questions, presented together with some counterarguments built on Aristotelian assertions, and concluded with an answer. As these quaestiones, or question commentary texts, were obviously based on transcripts or notes (with the possible exception of the quaestiones about the Metaphysics), we can assume that they were composed during the time when Peter taught at the Faculty of Arts. The structure of the literal commentaries is different, in that each one carefully subdivides and structures the content of an Aristotelian work, then provides a sentence by sentence interpretation. Like other commentators of his time, Peter follows the practice of commenting on variant readings in different manuscript copies of the same Aristotelian text. The production and dissemination of Peter’s literal commentaries are markedly different from those of his commentaries in question form (again with the possible exception of the questions on the Metaphysics). They are obviously not notes taken by a listener, but rather complete written texts, indicating that they could only have come from the period when Peter taught at the theological faculty. This later date of composition is indicated by, among other factors, the method of dissemination, as these and other Aristotelian commentaries by well-known theologians (Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Aegidius Romanus) were copied using the so-called peciae system.

On the Logica vetus, only commentaries in question form have survived, and the questions on the works in the Logica nova ascribed to him are of questionable origin. In addition, a series of sophismata address logical questions. These commentaries highlight similarities to some of the modists. His particular interest in posing questions of metaphysics and natural philosophy is apparent not only in the commentaries on Aristotelian natural philosophy and metaphysics, but also in the known works on practical philosophy and the theological quodlibeta, which treat such questions in exhaustive detail (e. g., in Quodlibet IV, q.8: ‘‘Utrum potentia in materia et forma ad quam est, sint idem secundum rem’’). The two commentaries on the Politics may be considered prime examples of practical philosophy. The so far unedited commentary in question form (the most important exemplar of this text is Paris, BnF, lat. 16089) contains a total of 126 questions about the first seven books. It is the oldest surviving commentary on the Politics of Aristotle produced at the University of Paris, a work that directly or indirectly influenced all later question commentaries on the Politics. This commentary not only advances the necessity of a political philosophy as a subdiscipline of practical philosophy, but also endeavors to establish this separate field of study on the basis of a set of central questions. In order to demonstrate the status of political philosophy as a valid scholarly field, the commentator makes a thorough exploration of concepts from metaphysics and natural philosophy. This commentary was used by, among others, Marsilius of Padua in Defensor pacis (Dictio 1, c. 16), who obviously regarded it as an important transmission of political Aristotelianism (Flueler 1992, I: 120-131). Peter also wrote a literal commentary on the Politics, the so-called Scriptum as a continuation of a commentary left unfinished by Thomas Aquinas, incorporating Books III-VIII.

As a bachelor of theology, Peter had also read the Sentences of Peter Lombard, though only one group of questions on this work has survived in a single manuscript. Chief among the theological works are the six Quodlibeta, which he disputed after earning the title of master (1296), continuing the series year after year during Advent until 1301 (Schabel 2007). There are 108 questions in all (in 19 surviving manuscripts), treating completely different questions, of which the one concerning Peter’s understanding of the ''verbum mentis’’ was the most often quoted among Theologians of the fourteenth century (Cannizzo 1961).

Peter influenced the reception of individual Aristotelian works until early modernity through the broad dissemination of his commentaries. This enduring influence in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries could be related to the fact that Peter continued two commentaries on Aristotle left incomplete by Thomas Aquinas (De caelo, Politica) as well as to the fact that his other literal commentaries on Aristotelian natural philosophy (Meteorologica, Parva naturalia) were often copied, and later even printed, together with the commentaries of Thomas Aquinas.

See also: > Political Philosophy > Thomas Aquinas, Political Thought