Adam of Bockenfield
English Franciscan philosopher
Adam of Bockenfield (c. 1220 – before 1294) was an English Franciscan philosopher, who taught at the University of Oxford in the early 1240s. He was an early commentator on a number of Aristotle's works, in particular those dealing with natural philosophy.
Teacher of Aristotle
Adam and the theologian Richard Fishacre were two Oxford masters of the mid-13th century. Adam introduced the New Aristotle at the English university at a time when it was prohibited from being taught in Paris, France because of ecclesiastical restrictions. It is probable that Adam received a degree in theology and penned his Aristotelian commentaries during his regency in arts which began by 1243. His explanation of Aristotle's meaning drew heavily on the writing of Averroes.
Nature of the soul
His particular interest was in whether the agent intellect was within the soul or a power of the soul. Averroes' believed in the latter interpretation while many theologians were inclined to affirm the former. Adam doubted that the agent and possible intellect are of the same substance.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 17, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q2824030. VIAF identifies the subject as 17109864. The Library of Congress control number is nr95003109. None of the 8 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1220, 1294 and 1243.
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This entry incorporates text from “Adam of Bockenfield” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.