Abstract
Albert of Saxony (early 1320s – July 8, 1390) was born in or near Helmstedt in the early 1320s. He studied at the University of Paris, and became the first rector of the University of Vienna. Albert was very influential in both natural philosophy and logic, and many of his works were already printed several times by the early sixteenth century. He was thoroughly familiar with the works of many of his contemporaries at Paris (John Buridan and Nicholas Oresme), as well as with important works from Oxford philosophers (Thomas Bradwardine, William of Ockham, William of Heytesbury). He drew extensively on these sources, but made important innovations in both logic and natural philosophy. Among other things, Albert was one of the defenders of the so-called impetus theory for projectile motion. This theory claimed that the proximate cause of the motion of a projectile was a force inherent in the projectile itself, in contrast to the more traditional (Aristotelian) view that the proximate cause was inherent in the part of the air that was adjacent to the projectile. Albert died in Halberstadt on July 8, 1390, where he had been the bishop from 1366 onward.
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Bibliography
Primary Sources
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De Boer, S. (2011). Albert of Saxony. In: Lagerlund, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9729-4_17
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