CRATHORN, JOHN

English Dominican; fl. Oxford, c. 1340. He lectured on the Sentences and on the Bible as a bachelor at Oxford before 1341. Questions raised by him "in prima lectione sua super bibliam" occasioned three responses from his confrere, robert holcot. These became known as Sex articuli and were appended to Holcot's commentary on the Sentences. Notwithstanding his deferential references to thomas aquinas, Crathorn frequently endorsed the fundamental views of nominalism. In his Quaestio de universalibus (ed. J. Kraus, Münster 1937) he argued against the opinion of Aquinas, duns scotus, and wil liam of ockham. He insisted that every reality is in itself singular and incapable of being rendered universal even by the mind. Further, he held that it is impossible for the real nature of anything to be abstracted; thus uni versals can neither be real nor represent the real nature of anything. The principle of individuation can be neither matter nor form, but is the final reality of a thing in itself. He represents a group of English Dominicans who tried to accommodate authentic thomism to nominalism and empiricism.

Bibliography: a. b. emden, A Biographical Register of the Scholars of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 v. (Oxford 1957–59) 1:511. p. rotta, Enciclopedia filosophica, 4 v. (Venice-Rome 1957) 1:1310–11. j. kraus, "Die Stellung des Oxforder Dominikanerlehrers Crathorn zu Thomas von Aquin," Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 57 (1933) 66–88. f. pelster, Scholastik 9 (1934) 140–141, review.

[j. r. o'donnell]