MAREK GENSLER, MONIKA MANSFELD, The Physiology of Divination in Walter Burley

SUMMARY

Walter Burley’s commentary on Aristotle’s De somno et vigilia, De insomniis, and De divinatione per somnium is an interesting presentation of early fourteenth century views concerning psychology and the physiology of sleep and dreaming. Prophetic dreams, the main subject of the third commented treatise, are interpreted as a special phenomenon belonging to that area of study. Supplementing the teaching of Aristotle with opinions found in commentaries of Albert the Great and Simon of Faversham, Burley tries to identify criteria that would allow a naturalist to establish the conditions of prophetic dreams. He does so by analysing the nature and conditions of sleep, and dreaming in general, and thus narrows down the characteristics of what amounts to a prophetic dream. It is interesting to see how Burley attempts to strengthen Aristotle’s position on prophetic dreams in order to secure stronger philosophical support for the thesis that prophetic dreams exist and function as means of communication between the deity and man.