Albert of Saxony (philosopher)

Albert of Saxony (Latin: Albertus de Saxonia; c. 1320 – 8 July 1390) was a German philosopher and mathematician[1] known for his contributions to logic and physics.

After 1362, Albert went to the court of Pope Urban V in Avignon as an envoy of Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria to negotiate the founding of the University of Vienna.

The subsequent wide circulation of Albert's work made him a better-known figure in some areas than contemporaries like Buridan and Nicole Oresme.

Although Buridan remained the predominant figure in logic, Albert's Perutilis logica (c. 1360) was destined to serve as a popular text because of its systematic nature and also because it takes up and develops essential aspects of the Ockhamist position.

Specifically, Albert preserved Ockham's notion of simple supposition, understood as the direct reference of a term to the concept on which it depends when it signifies an extra-mental thing.

Albert followed Ockham in his theory of categories and contrary to Buridan, refused to treat quantity as a feature of reality in its own right, but rather reduced it to a disposition of substance and quality.

Albert made use of the idea of the distinguishable signification of the proposition in defining truth and in dealing with “insolubles” or paradoxes of self-reference.

Albert explored in a series of disputed questions the status of logic and semantics, as well as the theory of reference and truth.

Albert's Physics basically guaranteed the transmission of the Parisian tradition to Italy, where it was authoritative along with the works of Heytesbury and John Dumbleton.

Albert's commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics and the Economics also survive (both unedited), as well as several short mathematical texts, most notably Tractatus proportionum (c. 1353).