Richard Rufus of Cornwall (died circa 1260) was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 Franciscan

Franciscan

Most Franciscans are members of Roman Catholic religious orders founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. Besides Roman Catholic communities, there are also Old Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, ecumenical and Non-denominational Franciscan communities....

 scholastic philosopher and theologian who studied at Paris and at Oxford.

Rufus was one of the first medieval philosophers to write on Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 and his commentaries are the earliest known among those which have survived. He also wrote influential commentaries on Peter Lombard

Peter Lombard

Peter Lombard was a scholastic theologian and bishop and author of Four Books of Sentences, which became the standard textbook of theology, for which he is also known as Magister Sententiarum-Biography:Peter Lombard was born in Lumellogno , in...

's Sentences.

Rufus was influenced by Robert Grosseteste

Robert Grosseteste

Robert Grosseteste or Grossetete was an English statesman, scholastic philosopher, theologian and Bishop of Lincoln. He was born of humble parents at Stradbroke in Suffolk. A.C...

, Alexander of Hales

Alexander of Hales

Alexander Hales also called Doctor Irrefragabilis and Theologorum Monarcha was a notable thinker important in the history of scholasticism and the Franciscan School.-Life:Alexander was born at Hales ,...

, Richard Fishacre

Richard Fishacre

Richard Fishacre was an English Dominican theologian, the first to hold the Dominican chair at the University of Oxford. He taught at Oxford and authored the first commentary on the Four Books of Sentences of Peter Lombard to be issued from the Oxford schools...

, and Johannes Philoponus, and in turn influenced Bonaventure

Bonaventure

Saint Bonaventure, O.F.M., , born John of Fidanza , was an Italian medieval scholastic theologian and philosopher. The seventh Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor, he was also a Cardinal Bishop of Albano. He was canonized on 14 April 1482 by Pope Sixtus IV and declared a Doctor of the...

 and Franciscus Meyronnes. Roger Bacon

Roger Bacon

Roger Bacon, O.F.M. , also known as Doctor Mirabilis , was an English philosopher and Franciscan friar who placed considerable emphasis on the study of nature through empirical methods...

was a fervent critic of Rufus.

Richard the Sophister

There is some scholarly speculation that Rufus was the author of Abstractiones, a late thirteenth-century logic manual that consisted of a collection of sophisms or logical puzzles. A scribe who transcribed the work addressed its author simply as "Ricarde Sophista". The author was commonly referred to by the name "Magister Abstractionum".

External links

• The Richard Rufus of Cornwall Project
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Richard the Sophister
• Read, Stephen (ed).: Sophisms in Medieval Logic and Grammar, Acts of the 8th European Symposium for Medieval Logic and Semantics, Kluwer, 1993