Pantheism, Panpsychism, and secularism? To any historian of ideas still under the die-hard spell of the Enlightenment narrative, this would appear as an unlikely connection.1 If ever the theory of...

The paper deals with the metaphysics of Valerian Magni, a seventeenth-century Capuchin thinker and Church politician. It follows Stanislav Sousedik’s and Paul Richard Blum’s interpretations of Magni’s thought and aims to systematize Magni’s metaphysical notions and present their gradual development. The paper first focuses on Magni’s critique of Aristotelianism, which the Capuchin regards as an atheistic philosophy due to incorrect conceptions of God and the world. Then, Magni’s attempt to create a metaphysical system in his late work Opus philosophicum in (...) particular is presented. The influence of the Augustinian-Bonaventurian tradition and the subjectivist tendencies in Magni’s thought are taken into account. (shrink)

The article deals with the position of Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander sen. in the history of philosophy, history of science and philosophy of science. It works on humanistic foundation of Osiander’s thought and his elaboration of the tradition of the antient wisdom and Christian cabbala of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola in particular in the biblical exegesis. The article deals with Osiander’s edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’ book De revolutionibus orbium caelestium as well and with his edition of the mathematical work of (...) Girolamo Cardano. In the context of philosophy of science Osiander’s foreword to Copernicus is analyzed and its role in the controversy between instrumentalism and realism is assessed. Osiander’s instrumentalism is viewed as an anachronism. Finally, the influence of Neoplatonism and Paracelsism in Osiander’s theology is analyzed and judged as too general. (shrink)

In July 1647 Valeriano Magni published in Warsaw a description of his experiment proving the existence of vacuum. His treatise called “Demonstratio ocularis, loci sine locato, corporis successive moti in vacuo, luminis nulli corpori inhaerentis” provoked a huge polemic, not only with the opponents of the void but also concerning the authorship of the experiment. The article deals with the circumstances of Magni’s experiment and the polemics with both scholars attacking Magni from the point of Aristotelianism and French scientists who (...) admitted the existence of the void but accused Magni of plagiarism, for experiments with vacuums had been performed by Torricelli and Pascal first. The attention is paid to the philosophical background of Magni’s experiments. (shrink)

This paper deals with the differences between the concept of the agent intellect in Thomas Aquinas and in the early Franciscan school with a focus on St. Bonaventure. While according to Aquinas the agent intellect is the faculty of the human soul, in the thought of Alexander of Hales, John of La Rochelle and St. Bonaventure it has a double or even a triple meaning. In the Franciscan Masters the agent intellect is simultaneously considered as a faculty of the human (...) soul but also as God himself and in John of La Rochelle as an angelic intelligence, too. This comparison could be useful in a new interpretation of the Condemnation of 1277 where the proposition on the separate agent intellect is also considered. It seems that the condemnation of this proposition 118 is in accord with the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas. What is actually being condemned here is the doctrine, partially held by the Franciscan friars, who are traditionally considered as initiators of the Condemnation. (shrink)

Scholars dealing with Jessenius’ attitude towards Patrizi’s thoughts differ radically in their assessment of Jessenius’ intentions: Jessenius’ approach has been considered to be badly done plagiarism, a purely opportunistic act, an honest but not long-lasting fascination with Patrizi’s Platonism, or a correct understanding of Patrizi’s grasp of his own philosophy. The reason for the dissimilarities could be said to be the interpretation of the form of Jessenius’ reception of Francesco Patrizi’s philosophy is usually only based on an analysis of his (...) book Zoroaster, nova, brevis veraque de universo philosophia and on the reference to the particular historical context of its publication. This paper tries to present a different view of Jessenius’ edition of. (shrink)

The problem of method, which became one of the most oft-examined themes in Renaissance philosophy, is likewise the subject of Jan Jessenius' Et Philosophiae et Medicinae Solidae Studiosis. In the context of contemporary discussions which ended up distinguishing between methods of cognition and methods of presentation, it is shown that Jessenius does not avail himself of this distinction - despite the fact that he is considered a student of the Paduan school. On one hand, Jessenius does distance himself from a (...) rhetoricised form of logic which blurred the difference between method and the order of knowledge; on the other, he presents the method of attaining knowledge as a component part of the method of education. He understands logic, referring to Aristotle, mainly as an analytic art - not as dialectics. Analytics begin with induction, continues through the probabilistic syllogism, and is followed by a demonstration of the causes of things, thus drawing in essence from the progression of the demonstratio quia to the demonstratio propter quid, which the Paduan Aristotelians referred to as a regressus. According to Jessenius, however, the last phase of the whole process is definition, though its meaning is never precisely delimited. It appears that, rather than Paduan methodology, Jessenius took up the Aristotelian tradition which distinguishes four questions and associates different faculties of the human soul to each. He leaves aside the problems which were connected with the interpretation of Aristotle's texts during the Renaissance. In Jessenius' address, the question regarding whether scientific cognition is derived from first principles or first concepts remains unresolved. Johannes Jessenius thus appropriated the ideas of his Paduan teachers in a rather inconsistent manner and passed them on to his students in the same spirit, which bears witness to the level at which the methodology of science had been developed outside of its great centres at the turn of the 17th century. (shrink)

The physician and philosopher Johannes Jessenius, an enthusiastic anatomist in Wittenberg, often had to defend his anatomical practices against Lutheran orthodoxy, as is apparent from the invitations he wrote concerning his dissections. His most systematic defence can be found in the introduction to his description of the dissection performed in Prague in 1600, where he provides three different strategies for the justification of anatomical research. The first method traditionally builds on the use of the ancient dictum ‘know thyself;’ the second (...) strategy is based on teleology, which Jessenius adopted from Vesalius’ work; and the final method is derived from the philosophical tradition of the Renaissance. Jessenius makes use of the concept of the dignity of man in order to support the dignity of anatomical practice. The fundamental meaning of the philosophical framework of Jessenius’s approach emerges from the comparison with both Andreas Vesalius, whose Fabric was one model for Jessenius’s anatomical work, and with the speech delivered by Adamus Zaluzanius a Zaluzaniis prior to Jessenius’s Prague anatomical performance. (shrink)

[St. Bonaventura: The Mind’s Search for God.].

Johannes Jessenius published the treatise on Causes of Sympathy and Antipathy in 1599 which was defended by his student and disciple Daniel Sennert. This disquisition provides interesting material with respect to the concept of natural philosophy and its development in both Jessenius and Sennert. Although Jessenius proclaims that he deals with the question of sympathy and antipathy generally in the Aristotelian manner, he simultaneously indicates the inspiration and main source of his disquisition, these having been lectures held by the Paracelsian (...) Tycho de Brahe. Jessenius, with the help of a distinction between occult and manifest qualities, connected in his disquisition the principles of Aristotelian naturalism with the Paracelsian notion of correspondences between the higher and lower world. Sennert in his later works finds the theory of sympathy, based on analogies or on the doctrine of occult qualities, incompatible with Aristotelian scientific methodology and thereby implicitly demonstrates the inconsistencies in Jessenius's disquisition. (shrink)

This article summarises the basic features of Melanchthon’s approach to Aristotle’s philosophy in the areas of logic, ethics and natural philosophy. Although Melanchthon builds upon the humanistic ideal of purifying classical heritage, his Aristotelianism should not be viewed as ‘pure’. His conception of natural knowledge (notitiae naturales) could be regarded as a significant non-Aristotelian element of his philosophy. The view consequently penetrates his logic, ethics as well as epistemology. Primarily, however, the reason behind his reception of Aristotle is a defence (...) of Luther’s views: the aims of logic and rhetoric lie in theexegesis of the Bible within the context of the principle of ‘ Sola Scriptura’; he rejects the medieval concept of felicity and puts antropology into the dialectics of Law and Gospel; the aim of natural philosophy is the exposition of the existence of God’s Providence. Melanchthon’s reception of Aristotle is thus influenced by the theology of the Reformation to such an extent, that we might refer to it as Lutheran Aristotelianism. (shrink)

The subject of the article is the interpretation of a series of experiments proving the existence of vacuum. This was performed by the Capuchin Valerian Magni in 1647 and described in the treatise Demonstratio ocularis, which is the first printed text referring to successful experiments with vacuum. The work generated great controversy at the time, not only with opponents of void, but also with French scholars, who accused Magni of plagiarism. The article reconstructs both the situation around the work’s publication (...) and the reaction to it, with an aim of presenting the philosophical background behind Magni’s experiments. Magni understood the experiments as confirmation of his anti-Aristotelianism, and placed them among his metaphysics and natural philosophy, in which he attributes the key epistemological and ontological function to light. (shrink)

[The conception of the intellect in the older Franciscan school].

Článek se zabývá pojmem panteismus v období renesance. Ačkoli termín panteismus se objevil až na konci 17. století a později v kontextu tzv. “Pantheismusstreit”, za předchůdce moderního panteistického myšlení byl označen renesanční filosof Giordano Bruno. Následně i Mikuláš Kusánský, a to jakožto pokračovatel myšlení Mistra Eckharta, začal být považován za panteistu. Jak Kusánský, tak Bruno v určitém smyslu obhajovali imanenci božského ve světě, avšak zároveň oba zdůrazňovali rozdíl mezi Bohem a přírodou a připisovali Bohu transcendenci nebo přinejmenším transcendentální aspekty. Toto (...) není v souladu s definicí panteismu v tzv. silném slova smyslu, kdy se tvrdí striktní identita Boha a světa. Zdá se, že pojem renesanční panteismus je konstruktem, který byl vytvořen skrze násilnou aplikaci terminologie osvícenské filosofie na renesanční období. (shrink)

Johannes Jessenius became known by his contemporaries mostly as an exponent of the Italian anatomical Renaissance in Central Europe at the end of the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The image of Jessenius in the twentieth century was also created with respect to his activities in the area of anatomy in Wittenberg and Prague in particular. The aim of this article is to put Jessenius into the context of the development of anatomy in the sixteenth century. (...) An important point in this progression can be seen in the change of the definition of anatomy from the art of dis- secting bodies and a “method” of instructing students to the way of acquiring knowledge of bodies and nature. The crucial role in this process played anatomical writings of the second half of the 16th century and the development seems to be connected with methodological discussions at the University of Padua. Jessenius, in his anatomical writings, primarily followed the Paduan anatomist Andreas Vesalius, whose work De humani corporis fabrica expresses the fundamental change in Renaissance anatomy. In addition, the methodological background of the anatomical Renaissance, which Jessenius became acquainted with during his studies in Padua, also echoes in Jessenius’ works. (shrink)