Which language should philosophers use: technical or common language? In a book as important for intellectual historians as it is for philosophers, Lodi Nauta addresses a vital question which still has resonance today: is the discipline of philosophy assisted or disadvantaged by employing a special vocabulary? By the Middle Ages philosophy had become a highly technical discipline, with its own lexicon and methods. The Renaissance humanist critique of this specialised language has been dismissed as philosophically superficial, but the author demonstrates (...) that it makes a crucial point: it is through the misuse of language that philosophical problems arise. He charts the influence of this critique on early modern philosophers, including Hobbes and Locke, and shows how it led to the downfall of medieval Aristotelianism and the gradual democratization of language and knowledge. His book will be essential reading for anyone interested in the transition from medieval to modern philosophy. (shrink)

Introduction -- The attack on aristotelian-scholastic metaphysics -- The analysis of things : substance, quality, and the tree of porphyry -- Thing and word : a critique of transcendental terms -- From a grammatical point of view : the reduction of the categories -- Soul, nature, morality, and God -- Soul and nature : a critique of aristotelian psychology and natural philosophy -- The virtues and the road to heavenly pleasure -- Speaking about the ineffable : the Trinity -- Towards (...) a humanist dialectic -- Dialectic I : propositions, the square of contraries, proof, and argument -- Dialectic II : forms of argumentation -- Conclusion: Valla and "ordinary language philosophy". (shrink)

This article argues that there is much more continuity in Hobbes’s thinking on the church and religion than critics have recognized. I consider three issues which have been taken as prime illustrations of Hobbes’s alleged ‘new departure’ in the Leviathan: the nature and fate of the soul; the character of magic and revelation; and church-state relations. I show that in particular Richard Tuck’s interpretation of Hobbes’s intellecual development is mistaken. There is no ‘fundamental reversal’ or ‘new direction’ in Hobbes’s position, (...) but rather a development and an extension of a line of thinking which is already clearly visible in the earlier works. (shrink)

Rudolph Agricola’s De inventione dialectica has rightly been regarded as the most original and influential textbook on argumentation, reading, writing, and communication in the Renaissance. At the heart of his treatment are the topics ( loci ), such as definition, genus, species, place, whole, parts, similars, and so on. While their function in Agricola’s system is argumentative and rhetorical, the roots of the topics are metaphysical, as Agricola himself explicitly acknowledges. It has led scholars to characterize Agricola as a realist (...) or even an extreme realist. This article studies two little treatises on universals by Agricola that throw further light on his realism. It is suggested that they could be viewed as an early step in his long-term project of revising and re-organizing the systems of topics as he encountered them in Aristotle, Cicero, and Boethius. The article offers a close analysis of the treatises, suggesting that Agricola’s realism owes a (general) debt to the school of the Scotists. In both earlier and later work Agricola emphasizes the common aspects of things that enable us to categorize and talk about things without denying their fundamental unicity and individuality. An edition of Agricola’s second treatise on universals—a reply to a critic—is added. (shrink)

Lorenzo Valla has often been considered to be a sceptic. Equipped with an extremely polemical and critical mind, his whole oeuvre seemed to aim at undermining received philosophical and theological dogmas. More specifically he has been associated with the burgeoning interests in ancient scepticism in the fifteenth century. In this article the arguments in support of this interpretation will be critically examined and evaluated. Based on a discussion of two of his major works, De vero bono and the Dialectica, it (...) will be shown that Valla was not a sceptic. Even though the first work betrays the techniques of the Academy as employed by Cicero, the appropriation of these strategies served an agenda which can hardly be called 'sceptical'. The second work contains his reform of Aristotelian dialectic, which seems to testify to a sceptical interest in arguments which rely on verisimilitude and dubious validity such as sorites and paradox. But rather than reflecting an endorsement of Academic scepticism, this work, on closer reading, shows Valla to be highly critical on such arguments. This raises the question of how scepticism is related to rhetoric. Their similarities and differences will be discussed in the final section: Valla the Christian orator was no proponent of doubt, uncertainty and a suspension of judgement, even though at times he used strategies derived from Academic scepticism. (shrink)

This article seeks to locate Vives's work in the tradition of humanist thought that criticized the linguistic and philosophical abstraction of the scholastics. After discussing Vives's views on language and knowledge as functions of man’s biological nature, the article argues that for Vives the topics, as seats of argumentation, are a reflection of the ontological order and as such an instrument and heuristic aid for the human mind. They form a grid through which knowledge can be acquired and arguments be (...) formulated. The topics bridge the world of (unknown) essences and man’s epistemic categories. (shrink)

This paper studies Robert Boyle's account of kinds and classification. A number of commentators have argued that, for Boyle, classifications are inevitably the product of conventions. Others have challenged this reading, arguing that, according to Boyle, the corpuscular makeup of bodies gives rise to hard-edged natural kinds and classes. We argue that Boyle's position is more complicated than the available realist and conventionalist readings acknowledge. We argue that, according to Boyle, the individuation of kinds was to some degree the result (...) of convention. At the same time, however, Boyle held that our classificatory practices are subject to constraints. We identify some of these constraints by turning to Boyle's discussion of the late scholastic debate about the plurality of forms, in particular the contributions of Jacopo Zabarella and Daniel Sennert. In this way, we clarify how Boyle strikes a balance between realist and conventionalist elements in his treatment of kinds. (shrink)

This collection of new essays locates Boethius' Consolatio Philosophiae in the medieval context of Latin learning and vernacular translations. The first part is devoted to the Latin commentary tradition, while the other parts explore the vernacular traditions.

This article criticises recent interpretations of Hobbes’s intellectual development as a result of his engagement with rhetoric. In particular Johnston and Skinner have argued that Leviathan differs significantly, both in style and contents, from the earlier, ‘scientific’ works, The Elements and De Cive. They have argued that Hobbes’s re-appropriation of rhetoric in Leviathan was caused by a growing pessimism about men’s rational capacities. I think the textual evidence does not show such a shift in Hobbes’s thought. I argue that the (...) differences have been exaggerated, and the motives which are thought to have caused these differences have been misconstrued. (shrink)

In his Repastinatio . . . Lorenzo Valla launched a heavy attack on Aristotelian-scholastic thought. While most of this book is devoted to metaphysics, language and argumentation, Valla also incorporates chapters on the soul and natural philosophy. Using as criteria good Latin, common sense and common observation, he rejected much of standard Aristotelian teaching on the soul, replacing the hylopmorphic account of the scholastics by an Augustinian one. In this article his arguments on the soul's autonomy, nobility and independency from (...) the body are studied and analysed. His critique of Aristotle's opinions on natural phenomena as being untrue to what we observe will also be briefly studied. His arguments do not show him always to be deep or consistent thinker, but the critical review of Aristotelian philosophy proceeds from some philosophically interesting assumptions. Moreover, from a broader historical perspective his undermining of Aristotle's authority may be regarded as a contribution to the final demise of the Aristotelian paradigm, even though the humanist critique was just one factor in this process. (shrink)

Imagination has always been recognised as an important faculty of the human soul. As mediator between the senses and reason, it is rooted in philosophical and psychological-medical theories of human sensation and cognition. Linked to these theories was the use of the imagination in rhetoric and the arts: images had not only an epistemological role in transmitting information from the outside world to the mind's inner eye, but could also be used to manipulate the emotions of the audience. In this (...) tradition, with Cicero and Quintilian as its auctoritates, images were used to arouse and manipulate the emotions. Both traditions had to be revalued in the seventeenth century with the advent of a mechanist, Cartesian picture of human cognition and the physical world. In spite of their usual suspicion of imagination, which was commonly associated with illusions, dreams and fiction, seventeenth-century philosophers realised that the imagination also had its place in mathematical, scientific and philosophical thinking. This volume, number XII in the series Groningen Studies in Cultural Change, offers the papers presented at a workshop on imagination, organised by the editors in September 2002. It covers both the philosophical-psychological as well as the humanist-rhetorical traditions, discussing key figures such as Kilwardby, Lorenzo Valla, Leon Battista Alberti, Agricola, Gianfrancesco Pico, Erasmus, Paracelsus, Kepler, Bacon, Suarez, Descartes and Spinoza, but also treating hitherto neglected texts and writers such as Nicholas of Amsterdam and Jean Lemaire de Belges. By focusing on the ever-shifting ideas of the imagination as a philosophical and rhetorical tool, this volume not only deepens our understanding of its central theme but also sheds new light on the thought and writings of these and other authors. (shrink)

In his Repastinatio . . . Lorenzo Valla launched a heavy attack on Aristotelian-scholastic thought. While most of this book is devoted to metaphysics, language and argumenta- tion, Valla also incorporates chapters on the soul and natural philosophy. Using as criteria good Latin, common sense and common observation, he rejected much of standard Aristotelian teaching on the soul, replacing the hylopmorphic account of the scholastics by an Augustinian one. In this article his arguments on the soul’s autonomy, nobility and independency (...) from the body are studied and analysed. His critique of Aristotle’s opinions on natural phenomena as being untrue to what we observe will also be briefly studied. His arguments do not show him always to be deep or consistent thinker, but the critical review of Aristotelian philosophy proceeds from some philo- sophically interesting assumptions. Moreover, from a broader historical perspective his undermining of Aristotle’s authority may be regarded as a contribution to the final demise of the Aristotelian paradigm, even though the humanist critique was just one factor in this process. (shrink)

(1996). Platonic and Cartesian philosophy in the commentary on boethius’ consolatio philosophiae by Pierre Cally. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 79-100.

The article discusses 15th-century humanist Giovanni Pontano. Particular focus is given to his philosophical views on the origin of language, its impact on everyday life, and grammar. According to the author, Pontano brought forward ideas on the social uses of language which scholars have usually attributed to the later Enlightenment period. It is suggested that Renaissance humanism may be more important to philosophical history than previously thought. Details related to Pontano's views on semantic precision and the affective, active, and social (...) roles of language are also presented. (shrink)

While the concept of the human soul was always central to Christian thought, as to the origin of the soul Christian thinkers felt uneasy and did not hesitate to declare themselves ignorant. For once, Augustine did not point the way and found himself “beset with great trouble and utterly lost for an answer” in view of some of the difficulties that the issue raised. Of course, man's soul was universally believed to be created by God, but the questions “how”, “when” (...) and “where” did not admit of straightforward and unambiguous answers. Very broadly speaking, medieval thinkers could either argue that the soul is transmitted from parents to their children, rather like the conception of a new body out of the parents' “bodies”, or that God creates new souls daily. (shrink)

The essays in this volume reflect the wide-ranging interests of John D. North, distinguished historian of science and philosophy.