Sciences

Albert is known for his great interest in all the sciences available at the time. He has commented on all the books Of natural philosophy written by Aristotle, which was at the time complemented with pseudepigraphs (De plantis, De mineralibus, De caelo et mundo etc.), and by Albert himself throuGh works of his own. As other masters of mid-thirteenth century (for instance Adam of Buckfield and Peter of Spain) he proposed a division of natural philosophy based upon the different aspects of its object (the mobile body), where each part corresponds to a precise treatise of the Aristotelian corpus. This includes the Physics (its object being the mobile body in general), the De generatione et corruptione, the De caelo et mundo, etc. The De mineralibus deals with the inanimate body, the De anima with the animated body according to the soul, its powers and parts, the Parva naturalia describe the operations of the soul, Albert’s De intellectu et intelligibili deals with the intellectual part of the soul, the De plantis describes the body as animated by a vegetative soul, the De animalibus as animated by a sensitive soul. But Albert’s curiosity and competence extended beyond the sole Aristotelian corpus, and included the arts of the Quadrivium as he for instance commented on Euclid’s Elements.

See also: > Aristotelianism in the Greek, Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew Traditions > Philosophy, Arabic > Thomas Aquinas