Burley Walter (c.1275–c.1344), English philosopher who taught philosophy at Oxford and theology at Paris. An orthodox Aristotelian and a realist, he attacked Ockham’s logic and his interpretation of the Aristotelian categories. Burley commented on almost of all of Aristotle’s works in logic, natural philosophy, and moral philosophy.
An early Oxford Calculator, Burley began his work as a fellow of Merton College in 1301. By 1310, he was at Paris. A student of Thomas Wilton, he probably incepted before 1322; by 1324 he was a fellow of the Sorbonne. His commentary on Peter Lombard’s Sentences has been lost. After leaving Paris, Burley was associated with the household of Richard of Bury and the court of Edward III, who sent him as an envoy to the papal curia in 1327. De vita et moribus philosophorum (‘On the Life and Manners of Philosophers’), an influential, popular account of the lives of the philosophers, has often been attributed to Burley, but modern scholarship suggests that the attribution is incorrect.
Many of Burley’s independent works dealt with problems in natural philosophy, notably De intensione et remissione formarum (‘On the Intension and Remission of Forms’), De potentiis animae (‘On the Faculties of the Soul’), and De substantia orbis. De primo et ultimo instanti (‘On First and Last Instants’) discusses which temporal processes have intrinsic, which extrinsic limits. In his Tractatus de formis Burley attacks Ockham’s theory of quantity. Similarly, Burley’s theory of motion opposed Ockham’s views. Ockham restricts the account of motion to the thing moving, and the quality, quantity, and place acquired by motion. By contrast, Burley emphasizes the process of motion and the quantitative measurement of that process. Burley attacks the view that the forms successively acquired in motion are included in the form finally acquired. He ridicules the view that contrary qualities (hot and cold) could simultaneously inhere in the same subject producing intermediate qualities (warmth). Burley emphasized the formal character of logic in his De puritate artis logicae (‘On the Purity of the Art of Logic’), one of the great medieval treatises on logic. Ockham attacked a preliminary version of De puritate in his Summa logicae; Burley called Ockham a beginner in logic. In De puritate artis logicae, Burley makes syllogistics a subdivision of consequences. His treatment of negation is particularly interesting for his views on double negation and the restrictions on the rule that notnot-p implies p. Burley distinguished between analogous words and analogous concepts and natures. His theory of analogy deserves detailed discussion. These views, like the views expressed in most of Burley’s works, have seldom been carefully studied by modern philosophers. See also OCKHAM, PETER LOMBARD. R.W.