The Middle Color: A History of a Problem in Thirteenth Century Oxford Commentaries on De sensu et sensato

The intersections between philology and philosophy are visible in the interpretations of passages of Aristotle’s De sensu et sensato devoted to the so-called middle color (color medius) by several philosophers active in Oxford in the middle of the thirteenth century, such as Adam of Buckfield, Adam of Whitby and Geoffrey of Aspall. In their work, they had to struggle not only with problems originating from De sensu et sensato itself, but also with others caused by the poor quality of its only translation available at that time. They also discussed a new philosophical problem emerging from Aristotle’s text: if there is a sequence of colors stretched between white and black, where middle colors are evenly distributed throughout it according to the ratio of whiteness and blackness in each of them, there must be a color in which the ratio is perfectly even and, therefore, it has to occupy the position in the very middle of the sequence. My paper presents their search for the middle color par excellence and intense discussions on the nature of the middle color.