Why Philosophers Father Foolish Children. Peter of Spain, Albert the Great and James of Viterbo on the Transmission of Intellectual Qualities

Frequent failures in the transmission of intellectual virtues from parents to their offspring is a recurring topic in medieval medical and philosophical texts. Nonetheless, it represents a grey area within the emergent embryonic theory of the regular transfer of “hereditary traits,” a liminal phenomenon of a more general theory of generation. This study exemines early approaches to the generation of foolish children by wise men. Starting with the medical account in one of the Salernitan questions discovered in the Bodleian Manuscript (Auct. F.3. 10), the argument proceeds to Peter of Spain’s short digression on the topic in a commentary on Aristotle’s De animalibus and to Albert the Great’s dedicated question in the Quaestiones super libris “De animalibus”. The Salernitan question is the source of Albert’s physiological angle in attributing the failed intergenerational transmission of intellectual qualities to the inadequate digestion of philosophers’ semen. Albert’s position is considered against the background of his other works that address the generation of animals, the concept of digestio, and the role of melancholia adusta in the act of thinking. Additionally, the key points of James of Viterbo’s quodlibetal question are scrutinised.