Marguerite Porete et la philosophie médiévale

Abstract

It has often been argued that Marguerite Porete’s discourse on the virtues in Le miroir des simples âmes reflects a critique of 13th-century scholasticism. However, the rediscovery of Aristotelian thought in this period prompted thinkers to revisit the Augustinian definition of virtue and to distinguish between natural and supernatural virtues. A close reading of Porete's Miroir shows that her position on the virtues, far from being heretical, reflects the university discourse on the subject. Given this observation, can the Miroir be included in the medieval philosophical canon? This article considers this question through a brief analysis of the historical, historiographical and disciplinary considerations that have until now excluded non-scholastic texts from the medieval philosophical canon, and suggests that a revision of these considerations could lead to a broader definition of medieval philosophy.