Теодор Фрайберг: Орта ғасыр неміс дінтанушысы және физигі

German theologian and physicist

Theodoric of Freiberg (/θ//i/'/ɒ//d//ər//ɪ//k/; c. no – c. 1250 – c. no – c. 1311) was a German member of the Dominican order and a theologian and physicist. He was named provincial of the Dominican Order in 1293, Albert the Great's old post. He is considered one of the notable philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages based on his career and writings.

Theodoric became a Dominican friar very early on in his life, and he studied and taught at the local convent in Freiberg around the year 1271 (Teske 2003). He lived around the time of Albert the Great (1193 to 1280) (Fuhrer 1992) and was greatly inspired by him. Though other philosophers at this time followed in Albert’s footsteps as well, Theodoric “showed the most marked tendency to Albert’s universality of interests” (Fuhrer 1992). From the dates of Albert’s life, we can assume that Theodoric was still young when Albert’s career was almost at its end, and no assumption can be made as to whether or not Theodoric ever met or studied under Albert. In medieval documents he is assigned the title of “magister”, which tells us he had a great deal of university training at an advanced level (Fuhrer 1992).

After teaching in Freiberg for some time, he journeyed to Paris to study there between the years 1272 to 1274 (Gillispie 2008), although we do not know with whom he may have studied. In a book titled Treatise on the Intellect and the Intelligible translated by M. L. Fuhrer, Fuhrer writes that in the second part of a treatise Theodoric talks about a “solemn master” in Paris. Fuhrer goes on to say that Henry of Ghent was known as “doctor solemnis” by his students, but ultimately states that there can be no certainty that they actually met or knew each other. Theodoric then returned home to Germany for a while before coming back to Paris. Here he began his lectures on the Sentences in 1281 (Pasnau 2010). Exactly how long he remained in Paris in not clear, but it is agreed that he was made the prior of the Dominican convent in Würzburg around 1293 (Fuhrer 1992). Further sources indicate that he was appointed provincial of Teutonia in 1293 as well (Somerset, Fiona 1998). Theodoric was then “promoted” to the Provincial Superior for the province of Germany, the position previously held by Albert the Great (Pasnau 2010, Fuhrer 1992). Around the years 1296 and 1297 he was named “master of theology” in Paris, where he taught up to around 1300 (Teske 2008). Theodoric became one of the two Germans the other being Abertus Magnus) to earn this title of magister in the thirteenth century. The last position Theodoric was appointed to was Vicar provincial of Germany in 1310 (Gillispie 2008). His name does not appear in any kind of document after this time.

Theodoric's theological works tend to be heavily Neoplatonic, while his more secular philosophical works are more Aristotelian. Dietrich disagreed with Thomas Aquinas on certain metaphysical issues, and seems to have written in opposition to particular works by Aquinas. He had a remarkable influence on the 10 years younger Meister Eckhart, mainly via the treatises De visione beatifica (Of the beatific vision) and De intellectu et intelligibili (Of the intellect and the intelligible). Particularly, his theory of transcendentals clarified Eckhart's theory of the negatio negationis. It stressed the negative moment that determines privatio in general even in its privatio privationis formulation. One of his extraordinary contributions to medieval philosophy was a theory of the soul that equalled the Aristotelian notion of "agent intellect" and the Augustinian notion of abditum mentis (i. e. the hiddenness, or hidden place of the soul). The theory of the agent intellect says that in knowing, the mind is not merely passive, it has to work on producing a conception of its object, a conception which is then received and retained by the passive part of the mind. The hiddenness of the soul, in turn, is the ground of the soul in which God's image is imprinted, a spiritual apex of man's being by which he transcends space and time.

Opera omnia = Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Ævi, Hamburg, Felix Meiner Verlag, vol. 1 4:
Burckhard Mojsisch (ed. ), Schriften zur Intellekttheorie, Hamburg, 1977. Ruedi Imbach, Maria Rita Pagnoni Sturlese, Hartmund Steffan et Loris Sturlese (eds. ), Schriften zur Metaphysik und Theologie, Hamburg, 1980. Jean Daniel Cavigioli, Ruedi Imbach, Burckhard Mojsisch, Maria Rita Pagnoni Sturlese, Rudolf Rehn et Loris Sturlese (eds. ), Schriften zur Naturphilosophie und Metaphysik. Quæstiones, Hamburg, 1983. Maria Rita Pagnoni Sturlese, Rudolf Rehn, Loris Sturlese et William A. Wallace (eds. ), Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Briefe, Hambourg, 1985.

Dietrich of Frieberg ( 1992). “Treatise on the Intellect and the Intelligible”, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press.