The Form of the Body: John Pecham’s Critique of Aquinas’ Doctrine of the Soul and the Summa Halensis

During the 1270s and 1280s, John Pecham developed an analysis on psychological issues, such as body/soul dualism, the unicity of powers of the soul, and the medium between body and soul. The master elaborated his own position by replying mainly to Thomas Aquinas’ account concerning the body/soul relation. While Aquinas affirmed that the soul is the form of the body, suggesting that the two comprise one substance and the soul does not just make the body live but also makes it a body, Pecham thought that the soul is the perfection of the body, so that soul and body comprise two separate substances, and the soul does not make the body a body but only makes it live. The aim of this contribution is to show that in Pecham’s polemical debating of the position of Aquinas, the three issues (i.e. body/soul dualism, unicity of powers, and medium between body and soul) are part of one and the same doctrinal perspective which the Franciscan master develops, making use of the tradition on ‘psychology’ to which also the Summa Halensis belongs