John Punch (theologian)

John Poncius (or Pontius, bourgeois John Ponce, also called Punch, * 1599 or 1603 in Cork, † May 26, 1661 in Paris) was an Irish Franciscan ( OFMObs, branch of Observant ) and representatives of the Scotism.

Biography

Poncius entered as a novice in the convent Saint Anthony of the Irish Franciscans at Louvain and studied philosophy and theology in Cologne in Leuven. By Lucas Wadding, he was brought to Rome to the newly founded Collegium Sancti Isidori 1625 of this de Urbe, which should serve the training of Irish Franciscans and the renewal of Scotist studies. Ponce was authorized on September 7, 1625 as one of the first students and worked there as a teacher of philosophy and theology after completing his studies. He looked at Waddings with edition of the works of John Duns Scotus. He was also Rector of the Irish College ( Ludovisian College), one also founded by Wadding means for forming Irish secular priests. 1648 Poncius left Rome and went first for some time to Lyon, then to Paris, where he taught each. 1661, he died in Paris.

Poncius and " Occam's Razor "

The well-known formula " entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem " ( "entities should be only as many as necessary to accept "), which for a long time, first as formulating a nominalist basic idea and then cited as concise formulation of the concept of Occam's Razor and common William of Ockham was attributed, in reality has its oldest known document in Poncius, of this sentence in the slightly different form of "non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate " often in Waddings edition of Opus Oxoniense than one in schools ("from scholastics " ) 1639 quoted mentioned theorem. In the usual form of this theorem has become since then occupied first in the Logica Vetus et Nova (1654 ) by Johannes Clauberg.

Works

• Integer Philosophiae cursus ad mentem Scoti. Rome 1642 passim Excerpt from the revised version of Lyon in Paris in 1672
• Scotus Hiberniae restitutus. Paris 1660.
• Commentarii theologici quibus Io. Duns Scoti Quæstiones in Books Sententiarem elucidantur & illustrantur. Paris 1661.