Peter de Rivo

Peter de Rivo (Petrus) (c.1420 in Aalst – 1490 in Leuven) was a Flemish scholastic philosopher, teaching at the Old University of Leuven.

His views on future contingents were controversial, being opposed by Henry of Zomeren, also at Leuven (French: Louvain).[1] De Rivo went to Rome in 1472 to defend his views to Pope Sixtus IV; they were condemned in 1473.[2] Under pressure from the influence of Cardinal Bessarion to whom Henry had as secretary,[3] de Rivo retracted partially his opinions in 1473, and more fully three years later.[4] This meant that views going back at least to Peter Auriol, that future contingents lacked a truth value, had become heretical in the view of the Catholic Church.[5]

References

• Léon Baudry (editor), The Quarrel Over Future Contingents (Louvain, 1465-1475): Unpublished Texts (1989), translated by Rita Guerlac

Notes

1. George Henry Radcliffe Parkinson, Stuart Shanker, Routledge History of Philosophy (1999), p. 381.
2. John Monfasani, Fernando of Cordova: A Biographical and Intellectual Profile (1992), p.36.
3. Paul Oskar Kristeller, Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror (1975), p. 226.
4. Steven Vanden Broecke, The Limits of Influence: Pico, Louvain, and the Crisis of Renaissance Astrology (2003), p. 51.
5. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, article Medieval Theories of Future Contingents