Peter Auriol On The Metaphysics of Efficient Causation: Can Laurens Löwe

Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272 v i va
rium
brill.com/viv
Peter Auriol on the Metaphysics of Efficient

Causation
Can Laurens Löwe

Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
canlaurens.loewe@kuleuven.be
Abstract
According to Peter Auriol, OFM (d. 1322), efficient causation is a composite being (ens
per accidens) consisting of items belonging to three distinct categories: a change (or,
more generally, a produced form), an action, and a passion. The change (or produced
form) functions as the subject bearing action and passion. After presenting Aristotle’s
account of action and passion, which constitutes the background to Auriol’s theory of
causation, this paper considers Auriol’s interpretation of Aristotle’s account in con-
trast to an alternative interpretation defended by Hervaeus Natalis and William of
Ockham. Finally, it shows how Auriol, on the basis of his interpretation of Aristotle,
develops his own account of efficient causation as a composite being.
Keywords
Peter Auriol – Aristotle – efficient causation – action and passion – ens per accidens
Introduction
Causation is a key feature of our world. Events do not occur haphazardly;

they occur due to certain other events. Vases shatter because they are struck,
* The author would like to thank Gloria Frost, Russell Friedman, and Charles Girard for reading
earlier drafts of this paper and for providing very helpful comments, Gloria Frost for shar-
ing her unpublished work on Auriol, Russell Friedman (again) for his tremendous help with
the manuscript work, and, finally the two anonymous referees of Vivarium for their helpful
comments.
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15685349-12341344

240 Löwe
dynamite explodes because it is ignited, and sugar dissolves because it is sub-

merged in water.
Philosophers of the thirteenth and fourteenth century extensively discussed
the nature of causation involving events or changes (motus). They referred
to it as “efficient causation” (causalitas effectiva), and they generally agreed
that it ought to be understood according to Aristotle’s action-passion model.1
On this model, efficient causation is the production of a change by an agent
in a patient. The agent’s causing of the change is the action, and the patient’s
undergoing of this change, the change’s being caused, is the passion. For in-
stance, when fire burns straw, fire is the agent, and straw the patient, fire’s act
of causing the change of burning is the action, and straw’s undergoing of this
change is the passion.
Although virtually all thirteenth and fourteenth-century thinkers agreed on
the main tenets of this model, they vigorously debated its metaphysical under-
pinnings, most notably, how to specify the ontological status of action and pas-
sion and their relation to the produced change. This paper will consider one
very interesting contribution to this debate—that of the Franciscan thinker
Peter Auriol (1280-1322).2
1 It is well known that efficient causation was not the only type of causation that medieval
thinkers accepted. Following Aristotle, they also countenanced “material,” “formal,” and
“final causation.” The reason is that they had a broader notion of “causation” (causalitas)
than we have today. For them, ‘causation’ did not just refer to conditions for event occur-
rence, but rather to different ways of answering the question “why?,” that is, to different types
of explanation. What we today call ‘causation’ tout court is, on their view, but one type of
explanation, an explanation involving change, which needs to be distinguished from other
types of explanation that do not appeal to change, but rather to an object’s constitutive parts
(material, formal causation) or the goal of something (final causation). In this paper, I will
only consider efficient causation.
2 In what follows I rely on five key texts of Auriol’s (all of which contain the same doctrinal
commitments): Scriptum in primum librum Sententiarum, d. 27, q. 1 (hereafter Scriptum I)
(ed. R.L. Friedman, URL = http://www.peterauriol.net/auriol-pdf/SCR-27-1.pdf; last accessed
16 September 2017); Scriptum I, d. 30 (Commentariorum in primum librum Sententiarum
pars prima, Rome, 1596); Reportatio in quatuor libros Sententiarum (hereafter Reportatio)
II, d. 1 (Commentariorum in secundum, tertium, quartum libros Sententiarum pars secunda,
Rome, 1605); Reportatio IV, d. 13 (ed. Rome); and the Second Quodlibetal Question (hereafter
Quodlibet, q. 2) (ed. L.O. Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the Categories of Action and Passion: The
Second Question of His Quodlibet,” in Philosophy and Theology in the Long Middle Ages: A
Tribute to Stephen F. Brown, ed. K. Emery Jr., R.L. Friedman, A. Speer, Leiden, 2011, 399-436).
All translations from Latin to English are mine. I do not necessarily respect the punctuation
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Peter Auriol On The Metaphysics Of Efficient Causation 241
Scholars have already drawn attention to the fact that, unlike many thinkers
of the fourteenth century (such as Hervaeus Natalis or William of Ockham),
Auriol held that action and passion were really distinct from the change pro-
duced in causation.3 That is to say: according to Auriol, for instance, fire’s act
of causing the change of burning and straw’s act of undergoing this change
are sui generis entities really distinct from the change of burning itself. What
scholars have not yet drawn attention to, however, is another unorthodox claim
of Auriol’s, namely, that action and passion, though distinct from the change
produced in causation, inhere in the change as their “bearer” (subiectum). This
inherence claim has significant implications for Auriol’s understanding of the
metaphysics of efficient causation, committing Auriol to the view that effi-
cient causation is a complex entity involving action, passion, and the underly-
ing change as its constitutive components. Furthermore, for Auriol, changes
are the literal bearers of the accidents of action and passion, as I will argue,
and, since changes are themselves accidents, this implies that, for Auriol, acci-
dents can bear further accidents. Finally, Auriol’s theory of efficient causation
draws on two distinct dependence relations, as I will show. On the one hand,
as noted, action and passion depend on the change produced in causation in
terms of inherence. They are borne by this change. On the other hand, as we
will see, Auriol holds that the change itself depends on action and passion in
what he calls the order of “origin” (origine) because, on his view, action and
passion jointly cause this change.
The paper is divided into three parts. The first part will briefly present
Aristotle’s action-passion model, which constitutes the background to Auriol’s
theorizing about efficient causation. The second part will consider how Auriol
interprets this model. The third part will discuss how Auriol, on the basis of his
interpretation of Aristotle, develops his own account of efficient causation as
a complex entity involving two dependence relations.
proposed by the Rome editions of Auriol’s Sentences. Furthermore, I have (with the gener-
ous help of Professor Russell Friedman) corrected the early printed text by recourse to the
following three manuscripts: Firenze, BNC, conv. soppr. A.3.120 (=Fb); Città del Vaticano,
B.A.V., Borghese 329 (=Vb); Padova, Biblioteca Antoniana, ms. 161 (=Pb).
3 See Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the Categories,” 395; F. Amerini, “Peter Auriol on Categories,”
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 25 (2014), 493-535, esp. 523-24.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

242 Löwe
1 Aristotle’s Action-Passion Model of Efficient Causation
Aristotle presents his action-passion model of efficient causation in Physics

3.2-3:4
The mover will always transmit a form, either a this or such or so much,
which, when it moves, will be the principle and cause of motion, e.g.,
the actual man begets man from what is potentially man. Motion is in
the movable. It is the fulfillment of this potentiality by the action of that
which has the power of causing motion; and the actuality of that which
has the power of causing motion is not other than the actuality of the
movable; for it must be the fulfillment of both … But it is on the movable
that it is capable of acting. Hence there is a single actuality of both alike,
just as one to two and two to one are the same interval, and the steep
ascent and the steep descent are one—for these are one and the same,
although their definitions are not one.5
At least three claims are crucial to this model, which I shall call the “Form
Transmission Claim,” the “Same Motion Claim,” and the “Different Definition
Claim.” In subscribing to the Form Transmission Claim, Aristotle thinks that,
in causation, the agent acts on the patient by transmitting a form, where the
agent’s act of transmitting the form is the action, and its reception by the pa-
tient is the passion. The form may belong to a variety of categories, as Aristotle
makes clear: substance, quality, or quantity. Combustion, for instance, involves
the transmission of a quality, because, as he sees it, heat is a quality.
By the Same Motion Claim, Aristotle holds that the agent’s transmission and
the patient’s reception of the form are, as he puts it, “a single actuality,” where
this actuality is in the “movable,” that is, in the patient. Thus, on Aristotle’s
4 For discussions of Aristotle’s model, see, for instance, M.L. Gill, “Aristotle’s Theory of Causal
Action in Physics III, 3,” Phronesis 25 (1980), 129-47; S. Waterlow, Nature, Change, and Agency
in Aristotle’s Physics (Oxford, 1982), 182-202; E. Hussey, Aristotle’s Physics: Books III and IV
(Oxford, 1983), 68-71; A. Marmodoro, “The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle: Physics 3.3,”
Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 32 (2007), 205-32. My presentation of Aristotle’s model
is greatly indebted to Marmodoro’s article. Note that while I speak of Aristotle’s “model of ef-
ficient causation,” “efficient cause” is not a term that Aristotle uses. He instead speaks of “the
principle of change or of rest” (hē archē tēs metabolēs ē tēs ēremēseōs) (Physics II, c. 3, 194b30)
or “the principle of movement” (hothen hē archē tēs kinēseōs) (Metaphysics I, c. 3, 983a31).
5 Aristotle, Physics III, cc. 2-3 (202a9-20), trans. R.P. Hardie and P.K. Gaye, in The Complete
Works: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed. J. Barnes, 2 vols. (Princeton, New Jersey, 1984),
vol. 1, 315-446, at 344.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

view, fire’s action of burning the straw and straw’s reception of this change are
one and the same actuality—an actuality that is in the straw.
By ‘actuality’ Aristotle here means “motion” (kinēsis). This is clear because,
in a slightly later passage from Physics 3.3, he rephrases the claim that action
and passion are a single actuality as the claim that “they [action and passion]
belong to the same subject, the motion” (all’ hō huparchei tauta—hē kinēsis).6
By ‘motion’ Aristotle understands the actualization of a potentiality, that is,
a continuous physical process or change whereby the patient, which has the
potentiality to acquire a form F-ness, gradually acquires F-ness.7 Consider
combustion. For Aristotle, it is the process whereby a combustible object’s po-
tentiality to burn is actualized, and it thereby gradually acquires the property
of heat.
It is not quite clear how, on Aristotle’s view, the actuality of motion is re-
lated to the form that the agent transmits to the patient. Medieval thinkers
considered this issue in much detail, and they came up with two main theo-
ries. “Reductionists,” such as Peter Auriol (as we will see), claimed that motion
was a so-called “flowing form” (forma fluens). By this, they meant that motion
was nothing over and above the (successively) transmitted form. On their view,
combustion, for instance, was nothing but the heat form successively acquired
by the combustible object over the course of a certain time-period. “Anti-
reductionists,” such as John Buridan, disagreed with this view. They claimed
that motion was something in addition to the transmitted form, namely, a so-
called “flux of the form” (fluxus formae).8 They took a process like combustion
to be a dynamic entity existing over and above the heat form successively ac-
quired by the combustible object.
6 Aristotle, Physics III, c. 3 (202b19-21).

7 Aristotle’s official definition of ‘motion’ runs as follows: motion is “the fulfillment (enteleche-
ia) of what is potentially, as such” (Physics III, c. 1, 201a10-11), where ‘fulfillment’ here means
the same as ‘actualization’ or ‘actuality’ (energeia), as Aristotle makes clear in Physics III,
c. 2, 201b31-32. How to adequately interpret this definition is a matter of debate. Some (like
D.W. Ross, J.L. Ackrill, and R. Heinaman) claim that Aristotle means by this definition that
‘motion’ is the actualization of something that is potentially changing qua potentially chang-
ing. Others (for instance, A. Kosman, S. Waterlow, and M.L. Gill) claim that Aristotle means
that motion is the actuality of something that is potentially in the end state qua potentially
in the end state. A helpful overview of the debate can be found in J. Kostman, “Aristotle’s
Definition of Change,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 4 (1987), 3-16, esp. 3-4. I shall here not
take a stand on this issue, since it does not affect my argument.
8 For discussions of the medieval distinction between forma fluens and fluxus formae, see, for
instance, A. Maier, Die Vorläufer Galileis im 14. Jahrhundert (Rome, 1949), 9-25; E.J. McCullough,
“St. Albert on Motion as forma fluens and fluxus formae,” in Albertus Magnus and the Sciences:
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244 Löwe
Regardless of which interpretation of motion turns out to be true, Aristotle

holds—to return to the above-introduced second key claim of his action-
passion model—that action and passion belong to one and the same motion
as their subject. That is to say, according to Aristotle, the agent’s causing of a
change, that is, the transmitting of the form, and the patient’s undergoing of
this change, that is, the reception of the form, are not two events. Rather we
have one event or change that is the subject of both the contribution of the
agent and the contribution of the patient. When fire burns straw, there is, ac-
cording to Aristotle, only one change of burning that occurs in the straw, and,
while straw contributes to this change by receiving the form of heat, fire con-
tributes to it by transmitting this form.
Although Aristotle thinks that action and passion belong to one and the
same change as their subject, he claims toward the end of the above-quoted
text that “their definitions (logoi) are not one.” This is the third and final claim,
the “Different Definition Claim.” In a slightly later passage from Physics 3.3
(202b11-22), Aristotle illustrates this claim by appeal to the example of teach-
ing and learning. He writes: “It by no means follows from the fact that teach-
ing is the same as learning, that to learn is the same as to teach.”9 As Anna
Marmodoro has argued, Aristotle can here be taken to say that, even though
teaching and learning are the same event, the essences of teaching and learn-
ing differ.10 This interpretation is supported by the fact that, in his discussion of
causation in Physics 3.3, Aristotle uses the term ‘definition’ (logos) interchange-
ably with the term ‘account stating a thing’s essence’ (logos tou ti ēn einai).11
Thus, when Aristotle says that action and passion, though a single change, dif-
fer in definition, he seems to mean that they differ in essence.
How should we understand this difference in essence? Take the example
of teaching and learning. Teaching is an action. It is, as Aristotle puts it in
Physics 3.3, 202b21, “an actualization of this in that.” Aristotle means by this
that teaching is an actualization of the teacher’s power to teach (“of this”), but,
Commemorative Essays, ed. J.A. Weisheipl (Toronto, 1980), 129-53; C. Trifogli, Oxford
Physics in the Thirteenth Century (Ca. 1250-1270): Motion, Infinity, Place, and Time
(Leiden, 2000), 48-56.
10 Marmodoro “The Union of Cause and Effect,” 223. This interpretation is not uncontro-
versial. Some scholars take Aristotle to intend by ‘logos’ in Physics 3.3 (which, following
the Hardie-Gaye translation, I have rendered as ‘definition’) not a definition in the strict
sense, that is, an account stating the essence of a thing, but rather something ontologi-
cally non-committal like a linguistic description. See, for instance, Waterlow, Nature,
Change, and Agency, 201-02; Hussey, Aristotle’s Physics: Books III and IV, 68-71.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

by actualizing this power, the teacher causes a change not in herself, but in the
student, that is, in another (“in that”). The teacher does not teach herself; she
teaches the student. Learning, in contrast, is a passion. It is, as Aristotle writes
in Physics 3.3, 202b22, “an actualization of that through the action of this.” For
Aristotle, learning is the actualization of the student’s power to learn (“of that”).
The actualization occurs in the student, but through or due to another, namely,
the teacher’s action (“through the action of this”). The student acquires knowl-
edge through the teacher.
What this shows is that, for Aristotle, teaching and learning, and, more gen-
erally, action and passion, despite being the same event or change, differ ac-
cording to their essences in that they involve different modes of actualization.
Action is an actualization of the agent’s power to cause a change, and this ac-
tualization occurs in another, the patient. Passion, in contrast, is an actualiza-
tion of the patient’s power to receive a change, and this actualization does not
occur in another (it occurs in the patient), but it is due to another, the agent.
This shall suffice as a brief discussion of Aristotle’s action-passion model.
For what follows, the three crucial claims can be summarized:
• Form Transmission Claim: Every causal transaction involves the transmis-

sion (action) and reception (passion) of a form.
• tion asMotion
Same Claim: Action and passion belong to one and the same mo-
their subject, where this motion is in the patient (and where this
motion may be either reducible to the transmitted form or a process over
and above that form).
• Different Definition Claim: Although action and passion belong to one and
the same motion as their subject, they differ in definition (essence).
2 Peter Auriol’s Interpretation of Aristotle’s Model
The above three claims encapsulate the general theory of causation, but a
number of questions arise about the details. As noted, the precise relation
between motion and the transmitted form remains elusive in Aristotle. But
there are also other things that are unclear. For instance, how exactly are we
to understand Aristotle’s claim that action and passion, while differing in
definition or essence, “belong” to one motion as their subject? Does Aristotle
intend a metaphysical reading of “belonging” here, that is, that action and pas-
sion are accidents that, while distinct from motion, “belong” to motion in the
sense of inhering in it? Or does Aristotle intend a linguistic reading, such that
action and passion “belong” to the same motion in the sense that the terms
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

246 Löwe
‘action’ and ‘passion’ are alternative descriptions applicable to the same

motion? Furthermore, how can action, which is of the agent, nonetheless be
in the patient, as Aristotle seems to claim? Why is it not in the agent? And why
is there, according to Aristotle, only one event (motion) in causation, given
that he also seems to think that action and passion are exercises of two distinct
powers, which, on the plausible assumption that power exercises are events,
suggests that we have two events rather than just one?
Medieval philosophers vigorously debated questions such as these. In doing
so, it should be noted, they did not merely pursue an exegetical interest. They
were also interested in adequately understanding Aristotle’s account of causa-
tion so as to develop a model of efficient causation of their own; and at least
one of their desiderata was that this model account not only for natural causa-
tion but also mutatis mutandis for supernatural causation, such as creation.
In developing their own models, they closely followed Aristotle, but, as one
might expect, by bringing in theological concerns, they also went beyond the
Philosopher in certain key respects.
Peter Auriol is a case in point. He basically accepts all three claims con-
stitutive of Aristotle’s model,12 and he takes the model to concern “efficient
causation” (causalitas effectiva).13 Auriol also goes beyond Aristotle, however,
in at least two respects. First, while he wholeheartedly embraces the Form
Transmission Claim, he modifies Aristotle’s Same Motion Claim, in part for
theological reasons, as we shall see shortly. Second, Auriol proposes a very
strong reading of how action and passion differ in definition—a reading that
has some basis in Aristotle, but goes beyond what Aristotle himself explicitly
advocates in Physics 3.3.14 A consideration of these two points will provide a
sketch of Auriol’s theory of efficient causation.
12 For Auriol’s adherence to the Form Transmission Claim, see, for instance Petrus Aureoli,
Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 3 (ed. Rome, 21bC): “Agens non attingit passum, nisi aliquid
producendo in passum, illud tale oportet quod sit forma ipsa.” For his adherence to
the Same Motion Claim and the Different Definition Claim, see, for instance Petrus
Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1, (ed. Friedman, 11.466-68): “Actio motoris et moti est
eadem secundum subiectum—secundum motum in quo fundantur … sunt autem
differentia secundum quiditatem et definitionem.” I say that Auriol “basically” accepts
these claims because, as we will see below, Auriol thinks that at least one of these claims
(the Same Motion Claim), though not exactly false, is too restrictive.
13 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 9.372-74): “Sed manifestum est
quod productum in ordine causalitatis effectivae dependet ab origine … Unde dependet
in esse suo ab actione et passione.”
14 In the present paper I will not discuss how original (or dependent) Auriol was with respect
to his near contemporaries. It is worth pointing out that at least some of his ideas were not
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Auriol modifies Aristotle’s Same Motion Claim by replacing it with a broader

claim—one that we might call the “Same Form Claim.” Instead of arguing, like
Aristotle, that action and passion belong to the same “motion” as their subject,
Auriol maintains that action and passion belong to the same “produced form”
(forma producta) as their subject. He writes in his Second Quodlibetal Question:
Thus it is clear … what action and passion are in creatures, because they
are subjectively in the produced form, whether this form is subsistent
or inhering, and, if inhering, [it is] either indivisible, as when it comes
to be in an instant, or the flowing parts of the form, if it comes to be
successively.15
Auriol has at least two reasons for replacing talk of motion with talk of form.
First, he claims that motion is a “flowing form” (forma fluens), as opposed to a
“flux of form” (fluxus formae).16 In other words, Auriol is a reductionist about
original. First, as Nielsen (“Peter Auriol on the Categories,” 387 and 389) has shown, Auriol’s
theory of action and passion strongly relies on the Categories Commentary of the sixth-
century Neoplatonist Simplicius. For instance, for Auriol’s claim that action and passion
are really distinct from the change produced in causation, see Simplicius, Commentaire
sur les Catégories d’Aristote, trans. William of Moerbeke, ed. A. Pattin (Leiden, 1975),
415-17. Likewise, for Auriol’s claim that action and passion are not relations because, un-
like relations, they are causally efficacious (a point on which I shall have more to say in
section 3 below), see Simplicius, Commentaire sur les Catégories, 407 and 410. Simplicius
is not the only antecedent. A discussion of the view that action and passion are really dis-
tinct from the change produced in causation can also be found in a late thirteenth-century
text that Auriol could have known, namely, in q. 25 of Peter John Olivi’s Quaestiones in
secundum librum Sententiarum (written around 1290). See Petrus Ioannis Olivi,
Quaestiones in secundum librum Sententiarum, ed. B. Jansen, 3 vols. (Quaracchi, 1922-26),
vol. 1, 445. Olivi himself does not defend this view, and regrettably he does not, in this text,
identify anyone who does, but his discussion makes it clear that medieval thinkers prior to
Auriol must have already defended it. I owe the reference to Olivi to G. Frost, “Causation
as a Single Event: Aquinas on Action-Passion Identity and Auriol’s Critique,” Unpublished
manuscript, 3 June 2016, which Professor Frost kindly made accessible to me.
15 Petrus Aureoli, Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 414.5-9): “Sic igitur patet … quid sit actio et
passio in creaturis, quia subiective sunt in ipsa forma producta, sive sit subsistens sive
inhaerens, et si inhaerens vel indivisibilis, ut si fiat in instanti, vel ipsae partes formae
fluentes, si fiat successive.” See also Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 21.857-60);
Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 413.24-28).
16 Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 19.785-90): “Quandoque vero ⟨actio⟩ sumitur
pro illa attingentia causativa qua agens attingit compositum quod agitur directe, et
formam et materiam indirecte, vel formam simplicem, si quod producitur sit forma
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248 Löwe
motion, believing that it is nothing more than the form that the agent succes-
sively transmits to the patient. Appeal to motion is, on his view, just a disguised
appeal to form.
The second reason why Auriol focuses on form rather than motion is that
there are several cases of action and passion that do not involve motion (that
is, a flowing form) but rather other types of forms (henceforth: non-kinetic
forms). It is here that his theological concerns play a role.
In the above-quoted text, Auriol lists two types of non-kinetic forms.
Consider first the second type, what he calls “indivisible forms.” Like motions,
indivisible forms are what Auriol terms “inhering forms.” Note that the notion
of an inhering form is broader than the notion of an accidental form. Every
form that requires a substrate in order to exist is an inhering form, according
to Auriol. Thus, the notion of an inhering form encompasses both accidental
forms, which exist in a substance, and substantial forms of material particu-
lars, which exist in matter.
In his Scriptum, Auriol adduces the form of light as an example of an indivis-
ible inhering form. Just as the motion of combustion, which is a divisible form,
is not a free-floating form, but rather a form that inheres in a combustible ob-
ject like wood, so the form of light, he thinks, is a form that inheres in a me-
dium like air.17 Like motion, moreover, the acquisition of an indivisible form
involves action and passion, Auriol holds. When air acquires light, then a light
source acts upon the air, and this results in air’s undergoing the change of being
illuminated. Nonetheless, indivisible forms are not motions, on Auriol’s view,
because there is a crucial difference in how motions and indivisible forms are
acquired. Unlike motion, Auriol thinks, an indivisible form like light is not suc-
cessively but rather instantaneously acquired by its bearer, and this in a so-
called “mutation” (mutatio). This means that a form like light is not divisible
into successive phases (this is why it is called “indivisible”), and this is why it is
not a motion, which does display such a division.
subsistens; et talis causalis attingentia directe spectat et constituit praedicamentum

actionis. Quandoque vero sumitur pro formali termino actionis, sive ille sit forma
indivisibilis sive forma fluens, ut motus, prout tamen includit huiusmodi attingentiam”
(emphasis added).
17 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 3.115-21): “Sed hic modus dicendi
falso innititur fundamento, scilicet quod nulla sit actio nisi fundata in motu. Constat
enim quod illuminatio est actio corporis luminosi in corpus illuminabile. Sed illuminatio
non fundatur in motu, non enim lumen acquiritur per motum, sed per mutationem
indivisibilem et in instanti … Ergo non omnis actio habet motum pro fundamento.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Indivisible forms constitute one type of non-kinetic form whose produc-

tion involves action and passion, according to Auriol. But there is another type,
as the above-quoted text makes clear, namely, “subsistent forms.” A subsistent
form is an ontologically independent form, one that, unlike combustion or
light, does not inhere in a bearer. A subsistent form is not the same as a sub-
stantial form, since only certain substantial forms, those that can exist apart
from matter, qualify as subsistent forms. In the Middle Ages, prime examples
of subsistent forms were rational souls and angels.
Being a Christian theologian, Auriol believes that God creates subsistent
forms, and, on his view, creation involves neither a motion nor an instanta-
neous mutation. For motions and mutations require a pre-existing bearer in
which a new form comes to inhere, and creation, being ex nihilo, precludes
the presence of precisely such a bearer.18 Although creation involves neither
motion nor mutation, it nevertheless involves action and passion, namely,
God’s action of creating and the passion of being created possessed by the
created subsistent form; according to Auriol, both of these elements are in
the created subsistent form.19
In sum, then, it is because Auriol thinks that action and passion are present
in several causal transactions, like creation and mutation, that do not involve
motion that he sees the need to replace the notion of motion with a broader
notion that also covers these other transactions—the notion of “produced
form.”20 This is, next to his reductionism about motion, the second reason why
he replaces the Same Motion Claim with the Same Form Claim.
18 Petrus Aureoli, Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 3, a. 2 (ed. Rome, 27aA; Fb, f. 10rb; Pb, f. 9ra): “Apud
Aristotelem contradictio est quod forma fiat per se, quia apud eum agens est tantum-
modo extrahens et transmutans. Ideo apud eum omnis actio est motus vel mutatio … Sed
apud Catholicos oportet, quod actio se habeat in plus quam motus vel mutatio, quia non
omnis forma educitur in subiecto, sed aliquae formae fiunt per se potissime ab agente
primo.”
19 For creation action and creation passion, see the following texts: Petrus Aureoli,
Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 1 (ed. Rome, 17aC): “Pono illam propositionem, quod creatio qua
Deus ponit immediate creaturam in esse elicitive, non dicendo imperative, est vera actio
transiens de genere actionis.”; Reportatio II, q. 2, a. 2 (ed Rome, 22bF; Fb, f. 10rb): “Creatio
passio est vere de genere passionis quia est via quaedam ab hoc in hoc.” For a discussion
of creation in Auriol, see, for instance, L.O. Nielsen, “Dictates of Faith versus Dictates of
Reason: Peter Auriole on Divine Power, Creation and Human Rationality,” Documenti e
studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale 7 (1996), 213-41, esp. 226-35.
20 Auriol even accounts for divine ad intra causation, that is, the generation of the Son and
the procession of the Holy Spirit, in terms of action and passion. But here there is no
form that functions as a subiectum for action and passion, according to Auriol, because
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250 Löwe
The Same Form Claim is the first respect in which Auriol’s own account of
action and passion goes beyond Aristotle. Auriol goes beyond Aristotle in a
second respect as well, namely, in his reading of the Different Definition Claim,
that is, the claim that action and passion, while belonging to the same motion
or produced form, differ in definition.
A popular medieval reading of the Different Definition Claim was, to appro-
priate a term of the Aristotle scholar Anna Marmodoro, the “one-entity-two-
descriptions reading.”21 On this reading—defended, for instance, by Hervaeus
Natalis and William of Ockham—, Aristotle’s Different Definition Claim is a
linguistic claim.22 It is the claim that the terms ‘action’ and ‘passion’ refer to
one and the same entity, namely, the motion or produced form, under different
descriptions. When we describe a motion as an action, this reading holds, we
describe it as a bringing about of an agent; when we describe it as a passion, in
contrast, we describe it as an undergoing of the patient brought about by the
agent. Hence, on this reading, the terms ‘action’ and ‘passion’ do not commit us
to extra entities in addition to motion. Action and passion are in rerum natura
nothing but motion; they are two descriptions of the same thing.
the Godhead does not display a subject-accident structure: Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I,
d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 21.855-61): “Cum enim actio non possit per se subsistere, quia
omne quod ad aliquid dicitur est aliud praeter id quod aliquid dicitur, per necessitatem
omnis actio exigit aliquid cui coexistat, quod quidem sit vel subiectum vel fundamentum
ipsius, sicut in creaturis motus vel forma simplex producta sunt fundamentum actionis,
vel si tale fundamentum negetur, sicut in divinis, ubi non potest actus et potentia, subiectum
et accidens reperiri –, necesse est quod indistinguibiliter adunetur, et sic est ibi de generare
et essentia”. For a detailed discussion of Auriol’s Trinitarian thought, see R.L. Friedman,
Intellectual Traditions at the Medieval University: The Use of Philosophical Psychology in
Trinitarian Theology among the Franciscans and the Dominicans, 1250-1350 (Leiden, 2013),
529-94.
21 See Marmodoro, “The Union of Cause and Effect,” 220.
22 See Hervaeus Natalis, Quodlibet IV, q. 4, a. 1 (Subtilissima Hervaei Natalis Britonis theologi
acutissimi Quodlibeta undecim cum octo ipsius profundissimis tractatibus, Venice, 1513;
reprinted Ridgewood, 1966, f. 91va): “Alia est denominatio, secundum quam forma habens
causam efficientem denominat suam causam efficientem, a qua scilicet effective habet
esse, et sic dicitur ‘actio’ … Alia est denominatio, qua ipsamet forma facta vel compositum
habens eam denominatur a causa efficiente. Et sic dicitur ‘passio’.” For Ockham’s reading,
see Guilelmus de Ockham, Expositio in libros Physicorum Aristotelis III, c. 6 (ed. V. Richter
and G. Leibold, St. Bonaventure, N.Y., 1985, 482.112-15): “Et ita est de ascensu et descensu,
motore et moto, agente et patiente, movere et moveri, et universaliter de omnibus relative
oppositis quod eadem res importatur et tamen diversae sunt definitiones exprimentes
quid nominis.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Auriol is opposed to this linguistic reading, which he knew in Hervaeus’s

version.23 He gives a clear statement of his own reading in his Second
Quodlibetal Question:
The quiddity of an accident expresses the reality of the accident from

which the subject differs. So, since the Philosopher and the Commentator
say that action and passion differ according to their quiddities, which
[the expressions] “from this that” or “of this in that” express for action,
and [the expression] “this from that” [expresses] for passion, but [that
action and passion] are one in subject in the produced form, in which
each relation (habitudo) is (inest), and this regardless of whether the
form is produced by itself (per se) or successively in the subject, which is
called ‘motion,’ or in an instant by an indivisible transmutation—[since
Aristotle and Averroes say this], it is necessary to say that the aforesaid
definitions (rationes) in which the quiddity of action and [the quid-
dity of] passion consist in terms of definition differ according to reality
(secundum rem) from the produced form, although they are subjectively
in it.24
On Auriol’s reading, Aristotle’s claim that action and passion differ in defini-
tion is an ontological one. The terms ‘action’ and ‘passion’ are not merely two
ways of describing the same motion or produced form. Rather, action and
passion are two entities that differ from one another according to “quiddity,”
that is, essence. Elsewhere, Auriol even claims that they are two distinct things
(res distinctae); that is, that they differ numerically.25 Furthermore, Auriol claims
in the above-quoted text that action and passion must also be “really distinct”
23 For Auriol and Hervaeus on action and passion, see Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the
Categories,” 381-82.
24 Petrus Aureoli, Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 412.22-413.6): “Quidditas accidentis exprimit
rem accidentis, a qua tamen differt subiectum. Cum igitur dicant Philosophus et
Commentator quod actio et passio differunt secundum quidditates, quas exprimunt ‘ab
hoc hoc’ sive ‘huius in hoc’ quantum ad actionem, et quantum ad passionem ‘hoc ab
hoc,’ sint autem unum subiecto in forma producta, cui utraque habitudo inest, et hoc
sive illa forma sit producta per se sive in subiecto successive, quod appellatur ‘motus,’
sive in instanti transmutatione indivisibili, necesse est dicere quod rationes praedictae,
in quibus definitive consistit quidditas actionis et passionis, different secundum rem a
forma producta, quamvis sint subiective in ea.”
25 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 11.452): “Ita actio et passio sunt res
distinctae.”
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252 Löwe
(different secundum rem) from the produced form. That is to say, for Auriol,
action and passion also differ numerically from the produced form.
Although Auriol emphasizes the (essential and numerical) distinctness of
action, passion, and the produced form, he also points out that these distinct
elements are connected. He says that action and passion are “subjectively
in” the produced form.26 In other words, he seems to think that they are in
some sense borne by the produced form. Thus, Auriol defends what Anna
Marmodoro (interpreting Aristotle) calls a “two-in-one-entity reading” of ac-
tion and passion.27 On his reading, action and passion are not identical to the
produced form; rather they are two essentially and numerically distinct beings
inhering in one and the same produced form from which they are numerically
distinct.
Auriol bases this metaphysical picture on Aristotle’s remark that action and
passion “belong” to the same motion as their subject, but Auriol’s claim that ac-
tion and passion are numerically distinct from motion goes beyond anything
that Aristotle explicitly says in Physics 3.3. Aristotle, as we saw, can be taken
to speak of an essential distinction between action and passion, but nowhere
does he invoke a numerical distinction between action and passion, on the one
hand, and motion, on the other.
Having considered Auriol’s reading of Aristotle’s action-passion model with
a view to two respects in which he goes beyond the Philosopher, a picture of
Auriol’s account of efficient causation is beginning to emerge. Auriol accepts
Aristotle’s view that efficient causation consists in the transmission of a form,
where the transmitting of the form is the action, and its reception is the pas-
sion. Auriol identifies motion with a form that is successively transmitted,
but he believes that action and passion may also involve non-kinetic forms,
notably indivisible inhering forms (like light) and subsistent forms (souls,
angels). Finally, according to Auriol, this form functions as a bearer of action
and passion, which are numerically distinct from one another and from the
produced form. In sum, for Auriol, efficient causation is a complex entity in-
volving a form—whether subsistent or inhering—with two distinct properties.
Additional specifications will arise when we consider how Auriol defends
his complex entity theory. In particular, one crucial insight that will emerge is
that the dependence, in terms of inherence, of action and passion on the pro-
26 For the same point, see the text and references adduced in n. 15 above.
27 See Marmodoro, “The Union of Cause and Effect,” 220. Marmodoro does not consider the
fact that Auriol defended a two-in-one-entity reading (which she herself espouses for
Aristotle). She seems to suggest that, generally speaking, medieval thinkers adhered to
the one-entity-two-descriptions reading.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

duced form is not the only dependence relation at work in efficient causation.
Auriol also holds that the produced form itself depends on action and passion,
and this in the order of origin. Let us now turn to this defense.
3 Auriol’s Metaphysics of Efficient Causation
It will be convenient to present Auriol’s defense of the complex entity theory of

causation as a defense of two core claims: “Anti-Reductionism” and the “Form-
as-Bearer Claim.” Anti-Reductionism is the claim that action and passion are
distinct from one another as well as from the produced form. The Form-as-
Bearer Claim holds that action and passion are grounded in the produced form
as their bearer.
3.1 Auriol’s Anti-Reductionism

To defend Anti-Reductionism, Auriol deploys a battery of arguments, chief
among which are three that I have labeled (for reasons that will become
clear) the “Preemption Argument,” the “Separation Argument,” and the “Order
Argument.” The Preemption Argument shows that action differs from the pro-
duced form.28 The Separation Argument shows that action and passion dif-
fer from the produced form.29 The Order Argument explains why action and
passion are distinct from one another—an argument that crucially relies on
Auriol’s view that action and passion are, according to their essences, what he
calls “intervals” (intervalla).30 Auriol repeatedly invokes these three arguments
when dealing with action and passion.31 I will here focus on the versions of
28 See Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 10.392-404); Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome,
678bD); Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 125bF-26aB); Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen,
411.19-25).
680aA); Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 3, a. 2 (ed. Rome, 26bD-E); Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed.
Rome, 125aF); Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 411.1-18).
679bF-80aA); Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 3, a. 2 (ed. Rome, 27aD-bA); Quodlibet, q. 2, 2.4 (ed.
Nielsen, 414.18-23).
31 See the references in the previous three footnotes. For other arguments, see, for instance,
Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 9.366-77); Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 2 (ed. Rome,
18bF-19aA); Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 125aD-E); Quodlibet, q. 2, (ed. Nielsen,
399.14-18). A very helpful discussion of some of these other arguments can be found in
Frost, “Causation as a Single Event.”
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254 Löwe
the arguments that can be found in Scriptum I, distinction 27, but I will also
consider other relevant texts.32
Let us first consider the Preemption Argument.33 This argument relies on
a thought experiment invoking what the contemporary metaphysician David
Lewis would call “preemption,” that is, a scenario in which two causes are
equally disposed to produce the same effect, but only one cause actually causes
the effect, though the other would have been an equally good cause.34 By this
argument, Auriol seeks to disprove the one-entity-two-descriptions reading of
action, according to which action is identical to motion or the produced form.
In his commentary on book 4 of the Sentences, distinction 13, Auriol adduc-
es the following example of a preemption scenario.35 Suppose that you have a
haystack and two fires, F1 and F2. Suppose further that F1 and F2 are equally
disposed to set the haystack on fire. So, F1 and F2 have the same heat, they
are equidistant from the haystack, etc. Finally, suppose that both F1 and F2
begin to transmit heat, but that only F1 causes the haystack to burn, while God
32 As I see it, the Scriptum I, d. 27 versions differ from the versions found in other texts in
terms of nuances, not doctrinal commitments.
33 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 10.392-404): “Si actio et passio
non different a motu et non essent res verae secundum suas rationes formales, posito
motu in aliquo mobili, non posset ratio assignari quare plus esset ab uno motore, quam
ab alio, positis duobus motoribus et appropinquatis ad mobile. Constat enim quod
motus talis mobilis potest profluere ab alterutro duorum moventium et intellectus aeque
potest fundare super motum respectum ad unum, sicut ad aliud, quantum est ex natura
moventium, et ex natura ipsius motus. Nisi igitur ponatur quod motus habeat aliquam
connexionem plus cum uno motore quam cum alio extra omnem intellectum (utpote
quia oritur ab uno et non ab alio et quia unum agit motum, reliquum non agit), non
poterit intellectus connectere motum cum suo proprio et determinato motore. Sed hoc
est omnino absonum et impossibile. Ergo necesse est, quod in rerum natura ultra motum
et motorem sit realis connexio motus ad ipsum motorem sub respectu originis motus a
motore et actione motoris.”
34 See D. Lewis, “Postscripts to ‘Causation’,” in idem, Philosophical Papers, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1983-87), vol. 2, 172-213, esp. 200-01.
35 Petrus Aureoli, Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 125bF-26ab; Pb, f. 45va): “Pono
enim quod hic sit stuppa, et pono duos ignes aequaliter approximatos, et quilibet
incipiat agere. Pono quod Deus subtrahat influentiam ab altero ne agat altero agente et
calefaciente stuppam. Quaero tunc quare forma facta magis denominabit unum ignem,
quam reliquum. Aut hoc est ratione formae, et patet quod non quia est eadem comparata
utrique, aut ex parte ignis, et hoc non, quia ignis aequalis est utrobique. Igitur oportet
quod sit aliquid extra formam et extra ignem, puta acceptio, ut quia forma accepit esse ab
isto igne, non ab alio, quae quidem acceptio est ligatio ligans istam formam cum hoc igne,
et non cum alio.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

prevents F2 from doing so. Auriol claims that, if action (fire’s causing of heat)
were not really distinct from the produced form (the heat acquired by the hay-
stack), then we could not explain why the haystack’s burning comes about by
F1 rather than F2.
Auriol reasons as follows. Taken by itself (ex natura ipsius),36 the form of
heat acquired by the haystack does not link the haystack with F1 rather than
F2. For, since F1 and F2 are ex hypothesi equally disposed to set the haystack
on fire, F2 could have produced a qualitatively identical form of heat in the
haystack.37 In other words, Auriol thinks that the form, irrespective of its re-
lation to the agent causing it, cannot explain why the haystack is set on fire
by F1 rather than F2. But since the haystack is set on fire by F1 rather than
F2, we need to explain why this is so. Hence, Auriol concludes, we must posit
something in addition to the produced form that explains this—something
that functions as the “connection” (ligatio) between the form and the agent.38
For Auriol, this connecting element is F1’s action on the haystack. On his view,
the reason why the haystack acquires heat from F1 rather than F2 is that F1 acts
on the haystack, whereas F2 fails to do so. In short, then, Auriol thinks that we
need action in addition to the produced form or motion because, without ac-
tion, we would have an explanatory gap in preemption scenarios.
The Preemption Argument does not establish that we need action as well as
passion in addition to the produced form. The argument at best shows that one
additional entity, namely, action, is needed. It is Auriol’s next argument—the
Separation Argument—that shows that we need to posit the reality not only
of action but also of passion.39 Crucial to the argument is the general principle
36 See Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 10.397), as quoted in n. 33
above.
37 I intend ‘qualitative identity’ to be something weaker than numerical identity. Auriol does
not say that F2 could have produced numerically the same heat form as F1.
38 See Petrus Aureoli, Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 126aB), as quoted in n. 35
above.
39 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 10.404-15): “Praeterea, illud quod
potest non esse per quamcumque potentiam, motu et motore eodem existente, non
est idem realiter cum motore vel motu, immo realiter differt a quolibet ex quo sine
contradictione potest non esse existentibus illis. Si enim esset alterum illorum realiter,
et illud alterum existeret, eo non existente, sequeretur eandem rem simul esse et non
esse. Sed manifestum est quod per divinam potentiam potest manere idem motor et idem
motus, non existente agere ipsius motoris nec agi motus aut fieri a motore; approximato
namque igne alicui combustibili potest Deus suspendere activitatem ignis, ne agat pro
aliqua hora, et facere in combustibili eundem motum quem ignis faceret in illa hora. Et
secundum hoc, maneret idem motor et idem motus, remoto agere motoris et fieri motus
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256 Löwe
that, if X can exist while Y does not exist, that is, if X can exist in separation
from Y, then X is really distinct from (non est idem realiter cum) Y. Auriol thinks
that action and passion can fail to exist, while motion (or, more generally, the
produced form) does exist. Hence, he concludes, motion must be really dis-
tinct from action and passion.
To support his claim that action and passion can fail to exist, while motion
does exist, Auriol uses a modified version of the above-presented thought ex-
periment involving combustion. Suppose now that only one fire approaches
the haystack. Suppose further that God suspends the fire’s heating activity,
and produces in the haystack the same motion of combustion that the fire
would have produced if God had not impeded it.40 In this scenario, as Auriol
points out, motion exists—the haystack burns—, but the fire does not act on
the haystack here (God does), nor does the haystack undergo the fire’s influ-
ence (but rather God’s). In other words, the fire’s action (agere motoris) and the
haystack’s corresponding passion (fieri motus) do not exist, even though the
motion of combustion exists. Therefore, motion must be really distinct from
action and passion.
The two arguments presented so far have sought to show that we must not
identify action and passion with the produced form. The second argument,
moreover, assumes a distinction between action and passion. Thus, an addi-
tional implication of this argument is that we must not identify action and
passion with one another. However, Auriol has yet to show that action
and passion have to be distinguished from one another. This is the third and
final step in Auriol’s defense of Anti-Reductionism. Auriol here advances his
Order Argument, which seeks to establish that action and passion are two re-
ally distinct entities on grounds that they are opposed to one another.
In basic outline, the Order Argument argument runs: if X and Y are real, and
X and Y are opposites, then X and Y must be really distinct entities; now, action
and passion are real, and are opposites; hence, action and passion must be
really distinct entities.41 The argument has three premises. The first premise,
a motore, quod tamen agere et fieri affuisset, nisi divina potentia suspendisset utrumque.
Ergo necesse est quod agere motoris sit aliud a motu et motore realiter, et similiter fieri
motus sit aliud a motore et motu, ex quo est res quae suspendi potest, manente utroque.”
40 The sense of ‘sameness’ at work here is unclear. Auriol does not say whether God can
produce numerically the same combustion or merely one that is qualitatively identical.
41 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 11.442-52): “Quaecumque enim
habitudines sunt oppositae et reales, per necessitatem realiter distinguuntur, notanter
enim dicitur ‘reales,’ quia si essent rationis et oppositae, distinguerentur sola ratione
inter se. Additur etiam quod sint oppositae, quoniam res oppositae impossibile est
quod sint eaedem, sicut patet in quolibet genere oppositionis. Sed probatum est quod
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

that if X and Y are real, and X and Y are opposites, then X and Y must be really
distinct entities, is plausible enough. The second premise, that action and pas-
sion are real, Auriol believes is vindicated by his Preemption and Separation
Arguments. The premise that still requires defense—and which I will discuss
now—is that action and passion are opposed to one another. It is here that
the notion of “order” plays a key role. Auriol claims that action and passion are
“opposed in terms of the order of their terms” (quoad ordinem terminorum).42
To see what Auriol means by this, we need to first consider his theory of
“intervals” (intervalla). According to Auriol, intervals are to be contrasted with
so-called “absolute beings” (res absolutae), such as substances, qualities, or
quantities. Intervals require reference to two extreme terms in order to be un-
derstood, whereas absolute beings do not.43 In short, intervals are what are
today called “polyadic properties,” whereas absolute beings are either monadic
properties (qualities, quantities) or property-bearing individuals (substances).
Auriol believes that all items falling under the last seven Aristotelian catego-
ries are intervals, that is, relation plus the so-called “six principles,”44 namely:
when, where, position, having, action, and passion. While being an interval is
part of the essence of all of these items, action and passion are special intervals.
First, they are what Auriol calls “real intervals” (realia intervalla).45 They
exist in external reality independently of any intellectual activity, unlike, for
instance, relations (that is, occupants of the fourth category), which Auriol
believes have mind-dependent existence.46
effluxus effectus ab agente est reale quid positum in rerum natura; similiter et exitus
agentis et prorumptio in effectum est quid vere reale. Isti autem exitus et effluxus sunt
omnino oppositi quoad ordinem terminorum, quia unus incipit ab agente et terminatur
ad effectum, utpote actio qua agens prorumpit in ipsum, alter vero incipit ab effectu et
terminatur ad agens, ut videlicet exitus et origo effectus ab agente. Ergo isti duo exitus
realiter distinguuntur, et ita actio et passio sunt res distinctae.”
42 See Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 11.449), as quoted in the pre-
ceding footnote.
43 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 12.473-80): “Est enim commune
septem praedicamentis non-absolutis, quod intelligantur inter duo extrema per modum
cuiusdam intervalli … Sic igitur actio et passio inter se et a motu distinguuntur, non sicut
res absolutae, sed sicut quaedam … realia intervalla.”
44 So named after the anonymous late-twelfth-century Liber de sex principiis, which deals
with the six categories after relation.
45 See Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 12.480), as quoted in n. 43
above.
46 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 9.354-56): “Actio et passio secundum
suas rationes formales sunt vere res extra intellectum existentes, differentes quidem
realiter inter se et ab agente et passo” (emphasis added). On Auriol’s conceptualism
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258 Löwe
Second, action and passion are what Auriol variously terms “goings out”
(egressus), “flowings out” (effluxus), “paths to being” (viae ad ens) or “reach-
ings” (attingentiae).47 What Auriol wants to stress by these terms is that action
and passion are causally salient intervals. They originate one of their terms,
namely, the produced form. Action originates it actively, Auriol holds—it is
about relations, see M. Henninger, Relations: Medieval Theories 1250-1325 (Oxford, 1989),
154-55; T. Dewender, “Der ontologische Status der Relationen nach Durandus von
St.-Pourçain, Hervaeus Natalis und Petrus Aureoli,” in Philosophical Debates at Paris in
the Early Fourteenth Century, ed. S.F. Brown, T. Dewender, and T. Kobusch (Leiden, 2009),
287-307, esp. 303-06. Anyone acquainted with Auriol’s conceptualism about relations will
likely wonder how action and passion can be real extramental items, given that they are
intervals. Is not Auriol’s whole point about intervals that they cannot be real because they
exist in between their relata, and are thus neither subsistent nor inhering entities? Here it
needs to be noted that Auriol, in his defense of conceptualism about relations, need not
be taken to hold that all intervals are mind-dependent beings. He can be taken to espouse
the view that only certain kinds of intervals, namely, intervals lacking a bearer, are mind-
dependent beings, and that relations are intervals precisely of this latter kind. See Petrus
Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 1 (ed. Rome, 662aE): “Praeterea illud quod unum existens
est imaginandum quasi intervallum inter duo non videtur esse in rerum natura sed in
solo intellectu: tum quia natura non facit talia intervalla, tum quia huiusmodi medium
vel intervallum non videtur subiective esse in aliquo illorum, sed inter illa. Ubi constat
quod non est aliqua res quae subici possit. Unde necesse est quod tale intervallum sit
solummodo in intellectu obiective.” Auriol’s main argument here is that relations cannot
be real because they are not “subiective” in one of their terms. In other words, the bearer
is absent. Now, this problem of the absent bearer does not apply to action and passion,
according to Auriol. For, as we have already seen in section 2 (and will see in more detail
in section 3.2), Auriol thinks that they have a bearer, namely, the produced form.
47 These terms are of diverse origins. The sources of two terms are worth noting. The term
‘via ad ens’ is taken from Aristotle’s Metaphysics IV, c. 1 (1003b7-8), where Aristotle speaks
of a “process towards substance” as one kind of dependent entity. ‘Egressus’ is a term that
Auriol takes from his Trinitarian theology, where he employs it to describe the procession
of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds in God according to God’s love (amor), and love
is a “going out” (egredere) of the lover to the beloved. For the notion of egressus in Auriol,
see T. Suarez-Nani, “‘Apparentia’ und ‘Egressus’: Ein Versuch über den Geist als Bild des
trinitarischen Gottes nach Petrus Aureoli,” Philosophisches Jahrbuch 93 (1986), 19-38, esp.
25 and 36; T. Kobusch, “Petrus Aureoli: Philosophie des Subjekts,” in idem, Philosophen des
Mittelalters: Eine Einführung (Darmstadt, 2006), 245-46; A.A. Davenport, “Esse egressus
and esse apparens in Peter Auriol’s Theory of Intentional Being,” Mediaevalia Philosophica
Polonorum 35 (2006), 60-84, esp. 70-80.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

the causing (efficere/causare) of this term.48 Passion, in contrast, originates it

passively—it is the being caused (causari/passive originari) of this term.49
Now the Order Argument shows that action and passion are opposite in-
tervals. According to Auriol, all intervals essentially involve an order among
their extreme terms. One term of an interval is its beginning term (ab aliquo
incipiat), and the other its end term (ad aliquid terminetur).50 For Auriol, ac-
tion and passion involve the same terms, namely, the agent and the produced
form. Action is the agent’s causing of the produced form, and passion is the
produced form’s being caused by the agent. But the two intervals are opposed,
he says, in that action “begins with the agent and ends with the effect (i.e. the
produced form)” (incipit ab agente et terminatur ad effectum), whereas passion
“begins with the effect and ends with the agent” (incipit ab effectu et terminatur
ad agens).51 In other words, the order of the terms in one interval is the exact
reverse of the order in the other.
It is not immediately clear what Auriol means by this opposition of ac-
tion and passion in terms of order, but here is a way to make sense of what he
says. As noted above, intervals can be viewed as polyadic properties. Such
properties have two (or more) open places that are occupied by their terms
or extremes. For instance, the property of being the son of has two places that
can be occupied, for instance, by Jacob and Isaac, so that we have the state of
affairs that Jacob is the son of Isaac. Sometimes the position of the extremes is
48 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 1 (ed. Rome, 679aF-bA; Vb, f. 326vb): “Actio vero est
inter duo, non sicut habitudo connectens, sed sicut productio termini causativa qua
formaliter agens dicitur efficere et causare, passio quoque est etiam inter duo, non sicut
habitudo connectens, nec sicut productio, secundum quam causat agens, sed est id quo
productum causari dicitur ab agente.” See also: Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 3 (ed. Rome,
22bB-C); Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 128aC).
49 For “causari,” see Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome, 679aF-bA), as quoted in
the previous footnote. For “passive originari,” see: Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome,
680aE; Vb, f. 327rb): “Passio non oritur ex producto, immo infertur ab actione, et est id quo
passive originatur effectus.” Note that Auriol also accepts the Aristotelian idea that the
agent—a substance—is the cause of the produced form. However, he believes that agents
can only cause changes via action and passion, which are “that by which” (qua/id quo) the
effect is (actively and passively) caused. In fact, there is a whole causal chain that begins
with the agent, continues with action and passion, and ends with the produced form, as
we will see in section 3.3.
50 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome, 680aF-bA; Vb, f. 326vb): “De ratione inter-
valli est quod ab aliquo incipiat et ad aliquid terminetur.”
51 For the text, see n. 41 above. See also, e.g., Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome,
680aB); Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 3, a. 2 (ed. Rome, 27aD-bA); Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen,
414.4-14).
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

260 Löwe
irrelevant because the property is symmetrical. Consider the property of being

as tall as. If the state of affairs that Peter is as tall as Paul obtains, then so does
the state of affairs that Paul is as tall as Peter. But sometimes the position of the
relata is crucial, namely, when the property is asymmetrical. Consider again
being the son of. If Jacob is the son of Isaac, then the reverse cannot hold. Isaac,
thus, needs to occupy a specific place, and Jacob the other. This metaphysical
fact is reflected, on the linguistic level, by the fact that the proper name ‘Jacob’
has to occupy the left-hand position of the predicate ‘is the son of,’ while the
proper name ‘Isaac’ has to occupy the right-hand side, in order for a true sen-
tence to emerge.
Let us now consider action and passion in this light. For Auriol, I said, action
is the polyadic property of causing, whereas passion is the polyadic property
of being caused. These properties are clearly sensitive to the order of their ex-
tremes, as the behavior of their corresponding predicates aptly demonstrates.
For a true sentence to emerge, there must stand a term designating an agent
on the left-hand side of the predicate ‘causes,’ whereas on the right-hand side,
there must stand a term designating the effect. Yet the reverse does not yield
a true sentence. It is true to say ‘the earthquake causes the house to collapse,’
but it is evidently false to say ‘the collapse of the house causes the earthquake.’
An analogous point can be made for the property of being caused. On the left-
hand side of the predicate ‘is caused by’ there must stand a term designating an
effect, whereas on the right-hand side there must stand a term designating
the agent. It is true to say ‘the collapse of the house was caused by the earth-
quake,’ but it is evidently false to say ‘the earthquake was caused by the col-
lapse of the house.’
Now, I suggest that when Auriol distinguishes action and passion on the
basis of the order of their terms, he wants to say that they are two asymmetri-
cal polyadic properties. These properties have the same extremes, as we saw:
the agent and the produced form. But they differ in that the extremes occupy
distinct and non-interchangeable positions in these properties, as is reflected
in sentences involving the predicates corresponding to these properties. In a
true sentence involving the action-designating predicate ‘causes,’ an agent-
designating term must stand on the left-hand side, and an effect-designating
term on the right-hand side, whereas the exact reverse is the case for a true
sentence involving the passion-designating predicate ‘is caused.’
Recall that Auriol’s Order Argument seeks to show that action and passion
are really distinct from one another and hinges on the key premise that ac-
tion and passion are opposed as regards the order of their terms. By analyzing
this premise in terms of polyadic properties, we can understand Auriol’s point.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Action and passion are really distinct because they are opposite asymmetrical
polyadic properties.
The Order Argument was the third, and last, element in Auriol’s defense of
Anti-Reductionism, which, as will be recalled, was the first of two core claims
constitutive of his complex entity theory of causation. Having dealt with Anti-
Reductionism, I am now in a position to turn to Auriol’s defense of the second
core claim, the Form-as-Bearer Claim, which is the claim that action and pas-
sion inhere in the produced form as their bearer.
3.2 Auriol’s Form-as-Bearer Claim

Scholars of Auriol have debated what functions as the bearer of action and
passion. Lauge Nielsen has argued that, since, for Auriol, action and passion
are intervals, whose mark it is to require two extreme terms, they are, ultimate-
ly, bearerless entities “hanging in the air.”52 Fabrizio Amerini has contested this
reading and argued that, for Auriol, action and passion inhere in the patient as
their bearer.53
Neither view is completely accurate, though Amerini’s view is not incorrect
if suitably qualified. We have already seen that Auriol repeatedly states that ac-
tion and passion are “subjectively” (subiective) in the “produced form” (forma
producta),54 and in his Scriptum, Auriol shows that this means precisely that
the produced form is the “subject” (subiectum) or bearer of action and pas-
sion, claiming that “Motion is only related to action and passion as subject and
foundation.”55 He argues:
For since action cannot subsist by itself, because everything that is said
with respect to something is other than this thing which is called ‘some-
thing,’ necessarily every action requires something with which it coexists,
which is … its subject or its foundation, like motion or a simple produced
form in the case of creatures.56
52 See Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the Categories,” 394.

53 See Amerini, “Peter Auriol on Categories,” 521.
54 See the texts and references adduced in n. 15 and n. 24 above.
55 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 3 (ed. Friedman, 24.984-85): “Motus non se habet
ad actionem et passionem nisi sicut subiectum et fundamentum”.
56 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 21.855-59): “Cum enim actio non
possit per se subsistere, quia omne, quod ad aliquid dicitur est aliud praeter id, quod aliq-
uid dicitur, per necessitatem, omnis actio exigit aliquid, cui coexistat, quod quidem sit …
subiectum et fundamentum ipsius, sicut in creaturis motus vel forma simplex producta”
(emphasis added).
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262 Löwe
Action and passion, then, are not bearerless entities (contra Nielsen). They are
accidents that have a subject. Moreover, Auriol does not say that the patient
but rather that the produced form is the subject (contra Amerini). As we shall
see below, however, Amerini’s interpretation is, in a qualified sense, accurate
because the patient functions as a remote (but not as an immediate) subject
of action and passion.
According to Auriol, the produced form, which bears action and passion,
may itself be an inhering entity (as we saw in section 2),57 and if it is an in-
hering accident, he thinks that the form’s bearer is the patient (est in passo).58
The bearer of the produced form heat, for instance, is the straw that is being
burned. This means that Auriol adheres to the view that an accident—the pro-
duced form—can itself bear other accidents—action and passion.
A reader used to, for instance, Thomas Aquinas’s view that only substances
can bear accidents might find this view of Auriol’s strange. She might think
that accidents are normally properties that characterize substances.59 A ball’s
redness, for instance, characterizes the ball as red, and its roundness character-
izes it as round. But, she might ask, how can action and passion characterize
produced forms, which, if they are accidents, are themselves characteristics of
substances?
To see how, it is instructive to consider how we usually describe what
Auriol calls inhering produced forms such as processes or changes. It is fair
to say, I believe, that we regularly characterize them in terms of their causal
history. Take again the sentence: ‘the collapse of the house was caused by the
earthquake.’ Here we seem to ascribe a property to the event of the collapse,
specifically, the property (Auriol would call it a “passion”) of being-caused-by-
an-earthquake. We thereby characterize the collapse as one that occurred due
to an earthquake, and not, say, due to a wrecking ball. Thus, being-caused-by-
an-earthquake functions in a way that is analogous to the redness of the ball,
except that its bearer is not a substance, but rather a process. If we grant this,
then there is nothing too strange about the claim that an accident, the pro-
duced form, can bear another accident, such as a passion. Just as substances
57 It need not be an inhering entity, however; as we saw, Auriol thinks that it can also be a
subsistent being.
58 See, for instance, Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 7.262-66);
Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 407.1-5).
59 For Aquinas’s claim that only substances can bear accidents, see, for instance, Thomas
Aquinas, Scriptum in primum librum Sententiarum, d. 3, q. 4, a. 3, ad 2 (ed. R.P. Mandonnet,
v. 1, Paris, 1929, 119); Summa theologiae I, q. 77, a. 7, ad 2 (ed. Leonina, v. 5, Rome, 1889,
247-48).
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

are characterized by accidents, so can certain accidents (such as processes) be

characterized by further accidents.
I said that, according to Auriol, the produced form, if it is an inhering entity,
inheres in the patient. Does this mean, then, that action and passion, which in-
here in the produced form, also inhere in the patient, as Amerini would hold?
Auriol indeed defends this view, but he is careful to qualify it. In the following
passage he states that action (and, by extension, passion) inhere in (esse in)
the patient only via the produced form, here referring to action and passion as
“respects” (respectus), which, in this context, means the same as “intervals”:60
‘Action’ does not immediately denote a respect of the agent to the pa-
tient, that is, a respect that is, in terms of origin, in the subject before
the produced term [is in the subject]; rather action is in the patient by the
mediation of the term.61
Hence, it is not unqualifiedly correct to say that, for Auriol, the bearer of action
and passion is the patient. Rather, if we take this text together with Auriol’s
repeated insistence that action and passion inhere in the produced form, then
it seems that, on Auriol’s view, action and passion are embedded in two hi-
erarchically ordered inherence relations. First, there is the inherence relation
between action, passion and the produced form; second, there is the inherence
relation between action, passion and the patient, which is mediated by the
first inherence relation. To put it concisely, action and passion have “immedi-
ate inherence” in the produced form, which makes the form their “proximate
bearer,” but they have “mediated inherence” in the patient (since the patient
bears the produced form), which makes the patient their “remote bearer.”
60 For lack of a better translation, I have opted for the literal translation ‘respect.’ ‘Relation’
would be misleading because, in the scholastic framework, it only designates a certain
kind of respect, namely, the respect belonging to the fourth Aristotelian category. In some
passages, Auriol uses the terms ‘respectus’ and ‘intervallum’ interchangeably, see, e.g.:
Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1 (ed. Friedman, 5.211-20); Scriptum I, 30, a. 3 (ed.
Rome, 676bB-C). But Auriol is not consistent. He sometimes also uses ‘respect’ in a more
restricted sense to refer to relations, that is, intervals belonging to the fourth Aristotelian
category. See, for instance, Scriptum I, 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome, 679aF-bA); Reportatio IV, d. 13, q.
un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 126bA).
61 Petrus Aureoli, Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 407.1-5): “Actio non importat respectum
agentis ad passum immediate, respectum quidem priorem origine in subiecto ante
terminum productum, immo mediante termino est in passo.”
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264 Löwe
To support the Form-as-Bearer Claim, Auriol provides surprisingly few di-

rect arguments, and the ones he offers are weak.62 He does, however, present
a number of arguments that seek to rule out alternative views of the bearer of
action and passion, the most important of which are John Duns Scotus’s view
that action is in the agent and passion in the patient63 and Hervaeus Natalis’s
view that action and passion immediately inhere in the patient.64
With respect to Hervaeus’s view, Auriol argues that, if action and passion
immediately inhered in the patient, then action and passion, which are poly-
adic “respects,” would come to be in the patient without there being any abso-
lute (monadic) accident in the patient explaining why the patient has these
respects. So, for instance, if Hervaeus’s view were true, then the respects of
burning (action) and being burned (passion) would suddenly come to be in
the straw when it is being burned without the straw’s acquiring the monadic
quality of heat. Thus, an entity—the heat—that explains why the straw comes
to have these respects would be missing. This is absurd, Auriol thinks, and so
Hervaeus’s is not a viable theory. The respects of action and passion, Auriol
next reasons, can only be in the patient via some absolute accident, which is,
moreover, produced by action and passion. Auriol then argues that this ab-
62 For example, Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 3 (ed. Friedman, 17.714-18.724). Auriol,
drawing on the semantics of the terms ‘action’ and ‘passion,’ here first says, loosely follow-
ing Aristotle, that the term ‘action’ means (D1) “something’s going out into something”
(egressus huius in hoc), whereas the term ‘passion’ means (D2) “something’s going out due
to something” (egressus huius ab hoc). He then states that the genitive ‘huius’ refers to the
agent in D1 and to the patient in D2, but according to different ways (“Est autem differen-
tia per habitudinem importata per genitivum”). The genitive in D1 refers to the agent qua
origin of its going out, the action, not qua bearer. So, for instance, when we speak of “the
knife’s causing the cut,” where ‘causing’ denotes the action, then, Auriol thinks, ‘the knife’
does not refer to the bearer of the action of causing but rather to what gives rise to the
causing. The actual bearer of the causing, he thinks, is the cut, the produced form. This
is different in the case of passion. In D2 the genitive has the meaning of a bearer, Auriol
holds. When we speak of the “the cut’s being caused by the knife,” then ‘the cut’ refers to
the bearer of the passion of being caused, not to the passion’s origin (which is the agent).
Auriol then concludes from this that action and passion are both borne by the produced
form (“utraque remanet formaliter in producto”). I find it hard to see any argument here.
Auriol seems to me to simply assert his account of the meaning of the genitives used in
D1 and D2, and from this he deduces his desired conclusion that the produced form bears
action and passion. For a discussion of the semantics of the terms ‘action’ and ‘passion,’
see Amerini, “Peter Auriol on Categories,” 517-20.
63 See Ioannes Duns Scotus, Ordinatio IV, d. 13, q. 1 (ed. Vaticana, v. 12, Vatican City, 2010,
451-53).
64 See Hervaeus Natalis, Quodlibet IV, q. 4, a. 1 (ed. Venice, f. 91rb).
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

solute accident produced by action and passion is either the produced form
(forma producta), such as heat, or some other accident produced by them. If
the latter is the case, then since the produced form is already produced by ac-
tion and passion, there will be two products of action and passion, which is
absurd. Hence, Auriol concludes, the absolute accident in question must be
the produced form. Thus, action and passion are respects that inhere in the
patient via the produced form, which is Auriol’s own theory.65
Auriol’s argument against Hervaeus is rather brief; he presents many more
arguments against Scotus’s view that action is in the agent and passion in the
patient.66 In one argument, Auriol objects specifically against Scotus’s claim
that action is in the agent, because it conflicts with Aristotle’s account of caus-
al powers—an undesirable consequence for any medieval Aristotelian. This
argument lays bare the reasons for Auriol’s criticism of Scotus. Let us consider
it in detail.
According to Aristotle, action is an exercise of an active power, whereas pas-
sion is an exercise of a passive power. In Metaphysics 9.1, 1046a10-11, Aristotle
first defines ‘active power’ as an “origin of change in another thing” (archē
metabolēs en allō).67 That is to say, for Aristotle, an active power originates a
change (action) that is in the patient. Aristotle next defines ‘passive power’ as
an “origin of being changed and acted on by another thing” (archē metabolēs
pathētikēs hup’ allou). In other words, for Aristotle, a passive power originates
a change (passion) that is in the patient, but due to an agent. For Aristotle,
then, powers are essentially directed to another entity. An agent’s active power
is directed to a patient (not to the agent), and the patient’s passive power is
directed to the agent (not to the patient) in the sense of undergoing a change
due to the agent.68 For Aristotle, this directedness of active and passive power
to one another functions as the causal glue connecting discrete objects in this
65 Petrus Aureoli, Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 407.6-14): “Si enim respectus per actionem
importatus existeret immediate in passo et non mediante termino, qui per actionem in-
ducitur, sequeretur quod respectus de novo inciperet esse in passo, non ex acquisitione
alicuius absoluti, sed immediate. Nam si detur quod ex acquisitione alicuius absoluti, aut
illud erit aliud a termino producto, et sic erunt duo absoluta producta, quod est absonum,
vel est ipse formalis terminus, et habetur propositum.” See also Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 1
(ed. Friedman, 7.262-66).
66 See, e.g., Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 16-20), and Quodlibet,
q. 2, (ed. Nielsen, 406-07).
67 My translation, here and for the translation of the definition of ‘passive power,’ below.
68 C. Witt, Ways of Being: Potentiality and Actuality in Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Ithaca, N.Y.,
2003), 48, refers to this directedness of powers to another entity as the “different object
requirement.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

266 Löwe
world. It accounts for the fact that, for instance, the active power to induce
heat cannot induce a change in any arbitrary kind of object but only in a very
specific kind of object, namely, one that has the passive power to receive heat.
And it likewise accounts for the fact that a passive power to receive heat can-
not be actualized by any arbitrary kind of object but only by a very specific
kind of object, namely, one that has the active power to induce heat.
Now, according to Auriol, Scotus’s view is incompatible with the assump-
tion of this glue. For, if Scotus holds that action is in the agent, then, Auriol be-
lieves, Scotus cannot retain the view that an active power is an origin of change
in another thing (the patient). If an agent A produces an action α, then Scotus,
claiming that action is in the agent, must hold that α comes to be in A. Thus, by
producing α, A also comes to acquire α as a new accident inhering in it. Now,
Auriol thinks that we are entitled to ask what causes A to acquire α. He imme-
diately rules out several answers. He reasons that α cannot itself be the cause of
α’s acquisition by A because that would involve self-causation (α would cause
α), which is impossible. Nor can it be another agent B (where B ≠ A) because
that would entail that α is not A’s action after all, but rather B’s. Hence, Auriol
concludes by elimination, A must be the cause of α’s coming to inhere in A.69
This is a problematic consequence, to Auriol’s mind. For, in order to be the
cause of α, Auriol argues, A must have the active power to produce α. But since,
on the Scotist picture, α also comes to inhere in A, as Auriol observes, A must
likewise have the passive power to receive α. Auriol thinks that A cannot have
both powers because he reasons that if it had both powers, it would in fact
have to have a hybrid power that is simultaneously active and passive, a power
to produce as well as receive α.70 Such a hybrid power is not an active power
69 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 16.648-59): “Si enim actio esset re-
alitas non-absoluta existens subiective et formaliter in agente, omne agens praeageret in
se, et omnis potentia activa esset passiva; constat enim quod realitas illa quam dicit actio
adveniret de novo agenti; hoc autem non esset, quia productum realitatem illam imprim-
eret in agens, alioquin produceret se, quia per actionem quam imprimeret produceretur.
Nec potest dici quod aliquod aliud agens realitatem illam imprimeret in agente, quoniam
illud potius produceret effectum quam agens ipsum, illud enim effectum producit quod
actionem elicit. Quare necesse est quod agens imprimat realitatem huiusmodi et eliciat
in seipso per potentiam suam activam, et per consequens potentia illa erit simul activa et
receptiva sive passiva, et omne agens praeaget in se ipsum. Sed hoc est falsum et impos-
sibile, tum quia potentia activa est transmutativa in aliud, secundum quod aliud, ut patet
IX Metaphysicae; tum quia nihil agit in se secundum unum et idem, nisi per accidens,
secundum quod apparet ibidem.” See also Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 405.8-16).
70 Auriol’s reasoning seems to me problematic here. Auriol may be right that Scotus’s view
commits him to the claim that A has an active power to cause α as well as a passive power
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

in the Aristotelian sense anymore, Auriol argues, because it is not directed to

inducing a change in another but rather to inducing a change in the agent it-
self. By having this power, A causes itself to receive α; it does not cause some
distinct patient to receive α. So, there will be no causal glue tying the agent to
a separate patient. Rather causation will turn out to be a matter of the agent
moving itself. This goes against the Aristotelian account of powers and causa-
tion, and so Auriol concludes that the Scotist view that action is in the agent
is untenable.
Auriol, then, defends the Form-as-Bearer Claim by ruling out two alterna-
tive accounts of the bearer of action and passion. Neither action nor passion
are directly in the patient, as Auriol argues against Hervaeus. Nor is action in
the agent and passion in the patient, as Auriol argues against Scotus. Instead,
action and passion are both in the produced form. The produced form is, on
Auriol’s view, the only entity that can do the job of bearing action and passion.
3.3 Auriol on Efficient Causastion as an ens per accidens

What kind of entity is causation, given that it involves an action, a causing,
and a passion, that is, a being caused, borne by a really distinct produced form,
which may inhere in a patient?
Auriol strongly suggests that efficient causation is an ens per accidens,
that is, a composite entity constituted by items of diverse categories. In his
Scriptum, he writes:
Action is a per accidens being, and it names things of two categories, be-
cause, as an act, it is in the genus of the form and of that perfection to
which it tends; but, insofar as there is founded in it the causal reaching
(attingentia) of the agent, the reality of the category of action is had; and
so motion with this reaching are two things pertaining to two categories,
and they are related as subject and accident.71
to receive α. But why should these powers be one and the same power, as Auriol suggests?
Scotus could hold that they are two distinct powers in the agent, in which case Auriol’s
argument does not go through.
71 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 19.973-77): “Actio est ens per ac-
cidens, et nominat res duorum praedicamentorum, quoniam, ut est actus, est in genere
formae et perfectionis illius ad quam tendit, prout vero fundatur in ea attingentia causalis
agentis habetur realitas praedicamenti actionis. Et sic motus cum illa attingentia sunt
duo res, pertinentes ad duo praedicamenta, et habent se sicut subiectum et accidens.”
See also Reportatio IV, d. 13, q. un., a. 2 (ed. Rome, 126aF-bA); Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen,
412.14-21).
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268 Löwe
There are two senses of ‘action’ at work here. On the one hand, Auriol speaks
of ‘action’ in the narrow sense, and he thereby intends action in the sense of
a causally salient interval or “causing” (he uses the term ‘attingentia’). On the
other hand, he speaks of action in a broader sense, and he thereby intends a
complex per accidens being that comprises a causing (that is, action in the nar-
row sense) as well as the form produced by this causing (for instance, heat in
the case of combustion). ‘Action’ in this broad sense denotes a causal process,
and Auriol emphasizes that this process is a pluri-categorial being displaying
a subject-accident structure. In this respect (though Auriol does not say this
explicitly), a causal process is like a substance-accident composite, say, a white
human being. Just as a white human being unites entities of diverse categories,
an entity of the category of substance and an entity of the category of quality,
where the quality inheres in the substance, so a causal process unites entities
of diverse categories, where one inheres in the other.
In the above text, Auriol only speaks of the category of action and the cat-
egory to which the produced form belongs (say, quality), where the action in-
heres in the produced form. But I believe Auriol would also add the causally
salient interval of passion to the picture. After all, Auriol thinks that passion,
like action, inheres in motion as its subject, as we saw above. A causal process
is, then, at least a tri-categorial item, comprising a produced form (pertaining,
for instance, to the category of quality), an action, and a passion. The causal
process of fire’s burning straw, for instance, is the tri-categorial entity com-
prising the heat form successively acquired by the straw, the fire’s action of
causing the change of burning, and the straw’s passion of being burned, where
the latter two inhere in the heat form.
This picture highlights the fact that, for Auriol, action and passion depend
on the produced form as their bearer. But it is crucial to note that, according
to Auriol, the produced form also depends on action and passion, though ac-
cording to a different dependence relation. Recall from the above discussion
of intervals that action and passion are causally salient intervals in that they
are productive of one of their terms, namely, the produced form. The action ac-
tively originates the produced form, and the passion passively originates it.
In fact, the story is more complex. There is, on Auriol’s view, a whole causal
chain that begins with the agent originating action,72 continues with action
originating passion, and is completed with action and passion together origi-
72 Petrus Aureoli, Quodlibet, q. 2 (ed. Nielsen, 415.4-7): “Actio … est enim prius origine et
causaliter forma producta et posterius agente.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

nating the produced form.73 Thus, on his view, the agent is causally prior to
action, and action to passion, and action and passion are both causally prior
to the produced form, where this causal priority is not a temporal priority (non
quidem temporis), but rather one of “origin” (sed originis)—‘origin’ being a
term equivalent to (efficient) ‘causality.’74 In sum, there are two dependence
relations linking action and passion to the produced form, and these relations
run in opposite directions. While action and passion ontologically depend on
the produced form as accidents on a subject, that is, in terms of inherence, the
produced form depends on action and passion in terms of origin or causation.
Auriol explicitly notes the presence of both dependence relations in causa-
tion in a passage dealing with creation:
Something can precede another in three ways, either according to nature,

or according to origin or causation, or according to time. To precede ac-
cording to nature is the same as being more noble and perfect; in this
way no accident precedes its subject; rather the reverse holds; similarly,
an accident cannot precede its subject temporally, because then it would
necessarily be without a subject, or it would migrate from subject to sub-
ject. But an accident can very well precede a subject according to origin
or causality. But to precede according to origin and causality is also two-
fold. Either as the originating and causing [source] precedes the origi-
nated and caused thing, or as the origination and the causation precedes
the originated and caused thing. In this [latter] way it is necessary that
some accident precede the subject because, in everything that receives
being (accipit esse), the reception of being is something other than that
which receives being, and it is a diminished entity with respect to that
[which receives being], because, due to its imperfection, it does not per-
tain to [the diminished entity] that it receives being by itself; and so it is
posterior in nature and simultaneous in time because it is a contradiction
to conceive of one without the other, either that the reception of being is
without that which receives being, or the other way around. But since the
73 Petrus Aureoli, Scriptum I, d. 27, q. 1, a. 2 (ed. Friedman, 20.827-32): “Id quo producitur …
est realitas passionis et … id quo producens producit … est realitas actionis. Est autem
ordo inter ista, non quidem temporis, sed originis … Nam id quo producens producit
productum et id quo productum producitur ab agente sunt priora origine, et quasi viae
ad productum. Id vero quo producens producit praecedit origine id quo productum
producitur, sicut actio passionem quam infert.” See also: Scriptum I, d. 30, a. 3 (ed. Rome,
680aC-F).
74 For their equivalence, see the two italicized phrases quoted in the next note.
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270 Löwe
reception of being is as it were a path whereby the terminus, that is, the
thing that receives being, is posited in being, therefore [the reception]
has the meaning of causality with respect to [the thing receiving being],
and, consequently, it is necessarily prior according to origin.75
Setting aside the interest this passage has for Auriol’s account of creation, the
point for the argument here is Auriol’s statement that, while an accident is
preceded by its subject according to nature (inherence), it may nonetheless
precede its subject according to origin (causality). This occurs, he claims, when
accidents are productive of their subject, and this is the case when we con-
sider action and passion, which originate or cause the produced form. Thus, for
Auriol, efficient causation involves two dependence relations between action,
passion, and the produced form, running in opposite directions.
Summing up all of the key points, we can now describe the metaphysical
structure of efficient causation in Auriol as follows. Efficient causation is a
complex entity that involves the transmission of a form from an agent to a
patient, where this form may be a motion, but need not be (it may also be
a non-kinetic form, which may be either inhering or subsistent). The agent’s
transmission of the form is an action, a causing, and this causing originates
a passion, a being caused. Action and passion are two really distinct entities.
Specifically, they are intervals, that is, entities that require reference to two
terms, where the order of these terms is crucial. Action is an interval beginning
75 Petrus Aureoli, Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 2 (ed. Rome, 20aC-E; Fb, f. 7vb): “Praecedere potest
aliquid aliud tripliciter: vel natura vel origine sive causalitate vel tempore. Praecedere
natura idem est quod esse nobilius et perfectius. Hoc modo nullum accidens praecedit
suum subiectum, sed magis e converso. Similiter nec accidens potest praecedere suum
subiectum tempore, quia sic esset necessario sine subiecto vel migraret de subiecto in
subiectum. Sed accidens bene potest praecedere subiectum origine et causalitate. Sed
praecedere origine et causalitate est adhuc dupliciter: vel sicut originans et causans
praecedit originatum et causatum vel sicut ipsa originatio et ipsa causatio praecedit
originatum et causatum. Hoc modo necesse est quod aliquod accidens praecedat
subiectum, quoniam in omni eo quod accipit esse ipsa acceptio esse est aliud ab eo quod
accipit esse, et est entitas diminuta respectu eius, quia sibi non convenit quod capiat esse
per se ratione imperfectionis suae, et ideo est posterior natura et est simul tempore, quia
contradictio est unum intelligere sine alio, sive acceptionem esse sine eo quod capit esse
sive e converso. Tum quia acceptio esse est quasi quaedam via qua terminus, puta illud
quod capit esse, ponitur in esse, ideo habet rationem causalitatis respectu eius, et per
consequens est prior necessario origine.” See also: Reportatio II, d. 1, q. 2, a. 2 (ed. Rome,
20bC-D; Fb, f. 8ra): “In uno genere prioritatis est prior creatura illa creatione, in alio vero
genere prioritatis e converso. Creatura enim est prior subiective per modum deferentis et
subsistentis, sed creatio est prior in ordine causalitatis et efficientiae.”
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

with the agent and terminating in the produced form; passion is an interval
beginning with the produced form and terminating in the agent. Both inter-
vals are connected with the produced form according to two dependence rela-
tions. First, the produced form depends on them in terms of origin, inasmuch
as action and passion bring about the produced form. Second, however, they
depend on the produced form in terms of inherence, just as accidents depend
on a substance, thus constituting a (tri-categorial) composite entity, an ens per
accidens, together with the produced form. Since the produced form (if it is an
inhering entity) itself inheres in the patient as its bearer, action and passion
also depend on the patient as their remote bearer.
Conclusion
Like any theory, Auriol’s account of efficient causation has its weaknesses and
its merits. Let me first consider two possible criticisms.
An obvious criticism is that Auriol’s theory is too rich, ontologically speak-
ing. It involves at least five items: agent, patient, produced form, action, and
passion, and two dependence relations: priority according to origin, and prior-
ity according to nature, that is, inherence (which is, in turn, subdivided into
mediate and immediate inherence). Thinkers with a taste for desert landscapes
might urge that more parsimonious accounts of efficient causation can be had,
for instance, the Ockhamist view that causation is no more than one change
differently described as ‘action’ or ‘passion.’
Another (and in my view more damaging) objection that one could raise
against Auriol is that one of the key claims of his theory, namely, his claim
that causation involves two dependence relations, seems to involve an impos-
sibility. Exactly how can action and passion originate the produced form, thus
making the produced form causally depend on them, while also depending
on this produced form according to a priority of nature? It seems that action
and passion bring forth the very being which they need in order to exist, and
that the produced form bears the very entities it needs in order to come into
existence. Efficient causation, thus, turns out to be an entity that performs the
impossible feat of pulling itself up by its own bootstraps.
Despite these worries, I believe that Auriol’s account is historically signifi-
cant. First, as we saw, Auriol develops a detailed metaphysical two-in-one-
entity interpretation of Aristotle’s action-passion model, thereby deviating
from a number of his contemporaries. Second, as we saw, in order to develop
this theory, he is willing to espouse the view that not only substances but also
accidents can function as the bearers of accidents, which, given the plausible
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272 Löwe
view that processes can be property-bearers, I would consider a merit of his

theory. Auriol, thus, seeks to carry forth the Aristotelian heritage in his theoriz-
ing about causation, but, like any good scholastic philosopher, he does so in a
creative way—by introducing ideas of his own where the nature of the subject
matter seems to him to demand this.
Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

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Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272 v i va

Peter Auriol on the Metaphysics of Efficient

Can Laurens Löwe

Causation is a key feature of our world. Events do not occur haphazardly;

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/15685349-12341344

dynamite explodes because it is ignited, and sugar dissolves because it is sub-

Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

1 Aristotle’s Action-Passion Model of Efficient Causation

Aristotle presents his action-passion model of efficient causation in Physics

Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

6 Aristotle, Physics III, c. 3 (202b19-21).

Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Regardless of which interpretation of motion turns out to be true, Aristotle

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• Form Transmission Claim: Every causal transaction involves the transmis-

2 Peter Auriol’s Interpretation of Aristotle’s Model

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‘action’ and ‘passion’ are alternative descriptions applicable to the same

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Auriol modifies Aristotle’s Same Motion Claim by replacing it with a broader

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subsistens; et talis causalis attingentia directe spectat et constituit praedicamentum

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Indivisible forms constitute one type of non-kinetic form whose produc-

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Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

Auriol is opposed to this linguistic reading, which he knew in Hervaeus’s

The quiddity of an accident expresses the reality of the accident from

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Vivarium 55 (2017) 239-272

3 Auriol’s Metaphysics of Efficient Causation

It will be convenient to present Auriol’s defense of the complex entity theory of

3.1 Auriol’s Anti-Reductionism

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the causing (efficere/causare) of this term.48 Passion, in contrast, originates it

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irrelevant because the property is symmetrical. Consider the property of being

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3.2 Auriol’s Form-as-Bearer Claim

52 See Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the Categories,” 394.

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are characterized by accidents, so can certain accidents (such as processes) be

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To support the Form-as-Bearer Claim, Auriol provides surprisingly few di-

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in the Aristotelian sense anymore, Auriol argues, because it is not directed to

3.3 Auriol on Efficient Causastion as an ens per accidens

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Something can precede another in three ways, either according to nature,

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view that processes can be property-bearers, I would consider a merit of his

6 Aristotle, Physics III, c. 3 (202b19-21).

52 See Nielsen, “Peter Auriol on the Categories,” 394.