Aristotelianism, Renaissance

« Aristotelianism, Renaissance By the Renaissance here is meant the period of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries during which there was a deliberate attempt, especially in Italy, to pattern cultural activities on models drawn from antiquity.

However, Aristotelianism during that period was not cut off from medieval developments, since earlier interests and topics of discussion still held the attention of philosophers, theologians and non-academic intellectuals.

Moreover, given that Aristotelianism was embedded in the university curriculum, the approach and activities of Renaissance Aristotelians often reflected earlier institutional developments.

The educational reforms of the German Lutheran Philipp Melanchthon and of the newly-founded Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) ensured that Aristotle remained central to the curriculum.

On the other hand, deliberate attempts to divorce themselves from earlier structures and approaches can be discerned in some Renaissance Aristotelians.

Owing to the influence of humanism, professors of philosophy whose loyalty was to Aristotle came to study Greek and explicate Aristotle from the Greek text, to imitate the style of classical models, and to prefer the Greek commentators over the medieval Latins because their language was Greek.

Renaissance Aristotelianism did not constitute a uniform, coherent school of thought with a clearly defined body of doctrines shared by all adherents.

A careful reading of the many commentaries, paraphrases, textbooks and treatises based on Aristotle's works reveals a surprisingly wide variation in interpretation and a strong tendency to modify or supplement the Stagirite's teachings with tenets derived from other philosophical or scientific sources or from contemporary interests and discoveries.

It is perhaps wise to speak of a variety of Aristotelianisms rather than to perpetuate the long-standing caricature of 'modern' philosophy and science arising by throwing off the shackles of a monolithic Peripatetic orthodoxy.

The various Aristotelianisms included Albertism, Thomism, Scotism and Averroism, but as a result of the new translations of the Greek commentators on Aristotle there were also Renaissance Aristotelians who approached Aristotle by way of Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius and John Philoponus.

Another current is best described as 'eclectic Aristotelianism'.

Some Aristotelians adopted a 'philological' approach, approaching Aristotle simply through analysis of the Greek text and not as a philosophical challenge.

This approach made Aristotelianism irrelevant to the enterprise of philosophy, but fortunately did not predominate.

1 Aristotle, the Greek text and the Greek commentators Although Aristotle was accorded the honorific title of 'The Philosopher' by most philosopher-theologians of the high Middle Ages (see Aristotelianism, medieval), there were also some who viewed him far less favourably.

The fourteenth-century Franciscans Francis of Meyronnes, Antonius Andreas and John Canonicus carried Bonaventure's critique of Aristotle to its ultimate conclusion (see Bonaventure).

The first called Aristotle 'the worst metaphysician', and both Andreas and Canonicus viewed him as a poor natural philosopher.

Their critical views were known to Renaissance Aristotelians like Nicoletto Vernia, Agostino Nifo and Marcantonio Zimara (c.1475-1532).

Nevertheless, Aristotle's influence on philosophy and science during the Renaissance was profound.

Both his own works and those of his many late ancient and medieval interpreters attracted a wide audience.

His writings on logic and natural philosophy formed the centrepiece of university studies in the arts and provided essential preparation for a career in medicine, law or theology, while his works on ethics, poetics and politics were widely read and discussed by a learned public increasingly educated in the schools of the humanists.

Despite the emphasis given to Renaissance Platonism in general histories of culture, a survey of the philosophical and scientific literature actually produced during the period from 1400 to 1600 clearly establishes the Renaissance as a golden age in the history of Aristotelianism.

Since Renaissance philosophers trained in the arts faculties of major European universities had normally received a thorough grounding in Aristotle, those who became professors in their own right for the most part continued to base their instruction on the Aristotelian corpus.

Their writings often reflected this, taking the form of commentaries on Aristotle, though works devoted to the systematic exposition of a particular topic - such as Pietro Pomponazzi's famous treatise De immortalitate animae (On the Immortality of the Soul) (1516) or Jacopo Zabarella's De naturalis scientiae constitutione (On the Nature of Natural Science) (published in 1586) - were not infrequent, particularly when aimed at a general learned audience rather than at other scholars (see Pomponazzi, P. §2; Zabarella, J.

§6).

Aristotle's dominance among university professors withstood the challenge mounted by the handful of appointments of chairs of Platonic philosophy in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Version 1.0, London and New York: Routledge (1998) Aristotelianism, Renaissance Italy (see Platonism, Renaissance §5).

Much of the continued predominance of Aristotle was due to the work of humanists, their knowledge of Greek, and the new critical techniques they developed.

The Greek text of Aristotle's works was published, notably in the edition of 1495-8 printed by Aldo Manuzio.

New translations were done, and from the 1530s onward, bilingual editions were produced.

From 1499 onward, but especially in the 1520s and 1530s, editions of the Greek commentators on Aristotle were printed, and these in turn were translated, many for the first time.

Nor was attention paid only to the Greek commentators, for in 1483 Nicoletto Vernia edited an important Aristotle-Averroes edition, and 1550-2 saw the great Giunta Aristotle-Averroes edition containing many works not previously included.

The Aristotle commentaries of such medieval Latin authors as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas were also printed.

At the same time, attention was paid to the canon of Aristotle's work.

Many dubious and spurious works had been excluded by 1600.

On the other hand, the Poetics, which had been little read during the Middle Ages, came to have a great influence on literary criticism, and the pseudo-Aristotelian Mechanics also attracted a good deal of attention.

2 Logic and method Renaissance Aristotelians developed an account of scientific methodology that built on insights put forward by Aristotle (§6) in his Posterior Analytics and Physics.

In a well-known passage in the Posterior Analytics Aristotle distinguishes between two types of demonstration.

The first he calls demonstration of the fact (to hoti) or demonstration quia.

Its primary characteristic is that the middle terms of such demonstrations tell us only the fact that something is the case and not why this is the case.

The second type of demonstration has a middle term that tells us the reason why (to dioti).

Medieval thinkers inspired by this analysis connected Aristotle's remarks on demonstration with his remarks at the beginning of the Physics concerning the proper method for establishing the principles of nature.

There Aristotle claims that one should start with those things that are more knowable to us and proceed to those things more knowable or intelligible by nature, though not to us.

In addition, some later thinkers equated two methods set forth by Galen (§§3-4) with the two sorts of demonstration.

In his Art. »