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When I told a well-known scholar that I was writing a book on Robert Kilwardby for the series Great Medieval Thinkers, he commented with humor that “Robert Kilwardby” and “Great Medieval Thinker” didn’t quite fit together. Humor aside, I guess many would be tempted to agree with him. Kilwardby has often been considered a secondary figure, remaining in the shadow of other major thinkers of the thirteenth century—and there were many. However, it all depends on how one defines “greatness.” Is the basis for greatness influence or prestige, originality or relevance?
The problem is that both originality and relevance are not simple concepts to define. If the subject of study is a particular author, rather than a mere strand of thought or idea, what constitutes originality? Is it about being the first to say something or saying it for the first time in a systematic and comprehensive way? And how much comprehensiveness counts for that purpose? Applying these methodological principles to Kilwardby means recognizing that, by some measures, he had one of the most innovative minds of his time and that, as such, he deserves a dedicated volume in the collection of Great Medieval Thinkers. By different standards, he may not. Kilwardby is no Aquinas, in the sense that they are incomparable in terms of their philosophical-theological production and intellectual impact. At the same time, it is important to note that there would be no Aquinas without his teacher, Albert the Great, and thus, to some extent, no Aquinas without Kilwardby. Aquinas and Albert were writing in the context of arguments Kilwardby was making, and even responding to them. Accordingly, claims of the dependency of Albert on Kilwardby, at least in regard to some logical matters, are largely undisputed. Kilwardby’s greatness thus derives from the way some of his ideas imprinted a pattern of thought that was later further developed, rather than from the fact that he himself fully developed those ideas. In a sense, then, his contribution is as an explorer of ideas, not as an accomplished philosopher, as Aquinas or Scotus would be after him. I take the significance of Kilwardby’s thought to reside precisely in how he looked at both old and new material with fresh eyes, trying to make sense of it in a way that was neither properly Augustinian nor properly Aristotelian. In that regard, he was posttraditions.
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