Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Agricola, Rudolph

Agricola discusses three methods of study: reading, the compilation of commonplace books, and the sharing and development of knowledge through composition. In a sense, rather in the manner of Augustine’s De doctrina christiana (On Christian Doctrine), a literary approach, and a choice of classical and Christian authors, have taken Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998) Agricola, Rudolph (1444-85) over the whole of philosophy (though it should be remembered that the elder Pliny’s Natural History was one of Agricola’s favourite books). Agricola also wrote two small treatises, Singulares aliquot de universalibus quaestiones (Some Questions about the Universals) (1539) and the unpublished De universali singulari et uno (On the Universal, the Singular and the One), in which he maintains that all universal terms correspond to real things in the world. These treatises await thorough study, as does Agricola’s understanding of Ramon Llull, to whom he  makes a tantalizing reference in De inventione dialectica.