The paper focuses on the relation between the potencies of the human soul - i.e., the sensitive and the intellectual potencies - in connection with the constitution of the human species, as it is dealt with in some commentaries on the De anima (1240-1270). The aim of this paper is to illustrate the development of a much debated doctrine, according to which the specific difference of the human being is rooted in the sensitive faculty and thus produced by natural generation. In the view of some arts masters, this is actually the highest natural faculty in human beings and, as such, sufficient to realize their specificity. In the end, the paper suggests that article 113 of the Parisian condemnation of 1277 - Quod homo est homo praeter animam rationalem - may be attributed to John of Secheville (or some contemporaneous master of arts). © 2017 by Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales. All rights reserved.
BERNARDINI P. (Sun,) studied this question.