Early Modern Aristotelianism And The Making Of Philosophical Disciplines

"Danilo Facca investigates the contribution of Aristotelianism in the emergence of a system of philosophical disciplines for schools and universities in the late Renaissance and Early Modern age. Facca charts the intellectual context of this process, focusing on the interpretation of Aristotelianism at renowned German, Italian and Polish centres of study including Milan, Padua, Altdorf, Helmstedt, Torun and Gdansk, at a time when the authority of the Aristotelian tradition was under direct threat from the dissemination of Peter Ramus' thought. Each chapter assesses engagement with and criticism of ideas from Aristotelian theoretical and practical philosophy. They bring together the writings of major figures, including Peter Ramus and Bartholomũs Keckermann, and lesser-known academics who have not received sufficient recognition in existing literature, such as Ottaviano Ferrari, Philipp Scherb, Ernst Soner and Franz Tidike. By discussing the relationship of these academics with the Aristotelian legacy, this book reveals how innovative ideas that emerged during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries were actually formed through the reworking, and even distortion of concepts originally derived from Aristotle."--

Danilo Facca investigates the contribution of Aristotelianism in the emergence of a system of philosophical disciplines for schools and universities in the late Renaissance and Early Modern age. Facca charts the intellectual context of this process, focusing on the interpretation of Aristotelianism at renowned German, Italian and Polish centres of study including Milan, Padua, Altdorf, Helmstedt, Torun and Gdansk, at a time when the authority of the Aristotelian tradition was under direct threat from the dissemination of Peter Ramus' thought. Each chapter assesses engagement with and criticism of ideas from Aristotelian theoretical and practical philosophy. They bring together the writings of major figures, including Peter Ramus and Bartholomäus Keckermann, and lesser-known academics who have not received sufficient recognition in existing literature, such as Ottaviano Ferrari, Philipp Scherb, Ernst Soner and Franz Tidike. By discussing the relationship of these academics with the Aristotelian legacy, this book reveals how innovative ideas that emerged during the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries were actually formed through the reworking, and even distortion of concepts originally derived from Aristotle.

A reassessment of how the legacy of ancient philosophy functioned in early modern Europe In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle affirms that despite his friendship with Plato, he was a better friend of the truth. With this statement, he rejected his teacher's authority, implying that the pursuit of philosophy does not entail any such obedience. Yet over the centuries Aristotle himself became the authority par excellence in the Western world, and even notorious anti-Aristotelians such as Galileo Galilei preferred to keep him as a friend rather than to contradict him openly. In Early Modern Aristotle, Eva Del Soldato contends that because the authority of Aristotle—like that of any other ancient, including Plato—was a construct, it could be tailored and customized to serve agendas that were often in direct contrast to one another, at times even in open conflict with the very tenets of Peripatetic philosophy. Arguing that recourse to the principle of authority was not merely an instrument for inculcating minds with an immutable body of knowledge, Del Soldato investigates the ways in which the authority of Aristotle was exploited in a variety of contexts. The stories the five chapters tell often develop along the same chronological lines, and reveal consistent diachronic and synchronic patterns. Each focuses on strategies of negotiation, integration and rejection of Aristotle, considering both macro-phenomena, such as the philosophical genre of the comparatio (that is, a comparison of Aristotle and Plato's lives and doctrines), and smaller-scale receptions, such as the circulation of legends, anecdotes, fictions, and rhetorical tropes ("if Aristotle were alive . . ."), all featuring Aristotle as their protagonist. Through the analysis of surprisingly neglected episodes in intellectual history, Early Modern Aristotle traces how the authority of the ancient philosopher—constantly manipulated and negotiated—shaped philosophical and scientific debate in Europe from the fifteenth century until the dawn of the Enlightenment.

Aristotle's moral and political thought formed the backbone of education in practical philosophy for centuries during the classical and medieval periods. It has often been presumed, however, that with the advent of the Protestant Reformation, this tradition was broken. Countering this widespread view, Manfred Svensson discusses dozens of commentaries on Aristotle's Ethics and Politics that emerged from Protestant universities and academies throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, showing that early modern Protestants never lost their connection to Aristotle. He offers a broad contextualization of these works and in-depth discussion of their key ethical and political concepts.

Reframing Aristotle's natural philosophy, this wide-ranging collection of essays reveals the centrality of magic to his thinking. From late medieval and Renaissance discussions on the attribution of magical works to Aristotle to the philosophical and social justifications of magic, international contributors chart magic as the mother science of natural philosophy. Tracing the nascent presence of Aristotelianism in early modern Europe, this volume shows the adaptability and openness of Aristotelianism to magic. Weaving the paranormal and the scientific together, it pairs the supposed superstition of the pre-modern era with modern scientific sensibilities. Essays focus on the work of early modern scholars and magicians such as Giambattista Della Porta, Wolferd Senguerd, and Johann Nikolaus Martius. The attribution of the Secretum secretorum to Aristotle, the role of illusionism, and the relationship between the technical and magical all provide further insight into the complex picture of magic, Aristotle and early modern Europe. Aristotelianism and Magic in Early Modern Europe proposes an innovative way of approaching the development of pre-modern science whilst also acknowledging the crucial role that concepts like magic and illusion played in Aristotle's time.

This volume offers an important re-evaluation of early modern philosophy. It takes issue with the received notion of a ’revolution’ in philosophical thought in the 17th-century, making the case for treating the 16th and 17th centuries together. Taking up Charles Schmitt’s formulation of the many ’Aristotelianisms’ of the period, the papers bring out the variety and richness of the approaches to Aristotle, rather than treating his as a homogeneous system of thought. Based on much new research, they provide case studies of how philosophers used, developed, and reacted to the framework of Aristotelian logic, categories and distinctions, and demonstrate that Aristotelianism possessed both the flexibility and the dynamism to exert a continuing impact - even among such noted ’anti-Aristotelians’ as Descartes and Hobbes. This constant engagement can indeed be termed ’conversations with Aristotle’.

Shedding new light on the understudied Italian Renaissance scholar, Andrea Cesalpino, and the diverse fields he wrote on, this volume covers the multiple traditions that characterize his complex natural philosophy and medical theories, taking in epistemology, demonology, mineralogy, and botany. By moving beyond the established influence of Aristotle's texts on his work, Andrea Cesalpino and Renaissance Aristotelianism reflects the rich influences of Platonism, alchemy, Galenism, and Hippocratic ideas. Cesalpino's relation to the new sciences of the 16th century are traced through his direct influences, on cosmology, botany, and medicine. In combining Cesalpino's reception of these traditions alongside his connections to early modern science, this book provides a vital case study of Renaissance Aristotelianism.

Offering a bold new vision on the history of modern logic, Lukas M. Verburgt and Matteo Cosci focus on the lasting impact of Aristotle's syllogism between the 1820s and 1930s. For over two millennia, deductive logic was the syllogism and syllogism was the yardstick of sound human reasoning. During the 19th century, this hegemony fell apart and logicians, including Boole, Frege and Peirce, took deductive logic far beyond its Aristotelian borders. However, contrary to common wisdom, reflections on syllogism were also instrumental to the creation of new logical developments, such as first-order logic and early set theory. This volume presents the period under discussion as one of both tradition and innovation, both continuity and discontinuity. Modern logic broke away from the syllogistic tradition, but without Aristotle's syllogism, modern logic would not have been born. A vital follow up to The Aftermath of Syllogism, this book traces the longue durée history of syllogism from Richard Whately's revival of formal logic in the 1820s through the work of David Hilbert and the Göttingen school up to the 1930s. Bringing together a group of major international experts, it sheds crucial new light on the emergence of modern logic and the roots of analytic philosophy in the 19th and early 20th centuries.