Nicholas of Autrecourt

Nicholas of Autrecourt was a French medieval philosopher and scholastic theologian. Born around 1299 in Autrecourt, he was educated in Paris. He is primarily recognized for pushing philosophical skepticism to its logical extremes, leading to his condemnation by Pope Clement VI in 1346 and his subsequent public recantation in 1347. His theories on atomism, space, and time, where he suggested that all generation and corruption occurred through the rearrangement of material atoms, bear similarities to the ideas of al-Ghazali. Much of our understanding of his epistemology comes from surviving letters, though his correspondents remain largely unknown. Despite comparisons to modern skeptics like David Hume, direct influence is not evident. He died in Metz in 1369.