Reception of John Philoponus’ Natural Philosophy Aristotelian Science From Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Emmanuele Vimercati is Professor of History of Ancient Philosophy at the Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, Italy. His previous titles include Fate, Providence and Free Will: Philosophy and Religion in Dialogue in the Early Imperial Age (2020), co-edited with R. Brouwer, and Nicholas of Cusa and the Aristotelian Tradition. A Philosophical and Theological Survey (2020), co-edited with V. Zaffino.The importance of Philoponus, well until the time of Galileo, cannot be underestimated as the scholarly and interesting chapters in this book demonstrate.
William R. Shea, Galileo Chair, University of Padua, Italy
Natural philosophy in late antiquity, just like influence of this philosophy on medieval and early modern thinking is a sadly neglected field in scholarly literature. John Philoponus was a leading figure in Neoplatonism and his views on physics, especially on the nature of motion, were innovative. The volume is neatly arranged and contains many excellent analyses. As a result, it conveys important new insights, not only on Philoponus' theory, but also on the theoretical context within which it was received in later times.
Peter Lautner, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest
John Philoponus is widely regarded as one of the most important Peripatetic commentators who followed in the wake of Ammonius of Alexandria and as a highly original speculative thinker in his own right. He is also a figure whose large body of works remains relatively understudied despite efforts made especially since the 1980s to bring him into sharper focus. A similarly understudied but directly relevant piece of the overall puzzle is that of Philoponus’ philosophical influence after ca. 570 CE, which extended from the Arab world to medieval Byzantium, the Latin Middle Ages, and the Renaissance. The thirteen chapters comprising this volume mark an important and tightly orchestrated advance in charting the <i>Fortleben</i> of Philoponus’ natural philosophy from Philoponus himself to Galileo.
John Magee, Professor, Department of Classics, University of Toronto
Philoponus was one of the earliest philosophers to approach Christian revelation from the standpoint of Aristotelian philosophy. In doing so, he cleared new paths in the physical sciences, especially in regard to the questions of whether the world had a temporal beginning, whether the celestial realm is constituted by the same kind of matter as the terrestrial, and what causes those motions that we call) inertial. His analyses had an important impact on how medieval and Renaissance natural philosophers approached these same issues. Together, the papers in Vimercati’s important collection present a clear, comprehensive, and often innovative account of how this is so.
- Owen Goldin, Marquette University, USA,
In some of his most famous works, John Philoponus (c. 490-570 CE) confronts numerous aspects of Aristotle’s philosophy and science. Yet the influence of these reinterpretations and critiques remains under-examined. This volume fills this gap by uncovering the considerable impact of Philoponus’ natural philosophy in both the medieval and Renaissance periods.
Divided into three parts, the first part of the volume introduces central concepts in Philoponus’ philosophy. Highlighting the areas of crossover as well as of disagreement with Aristotle, chapters dedicate specific attention to Philoponus’ theories of place, matter and vacuum; his ideas of motion; his discussion of the heavens and the fifth element; and his anthropology. This is followed, in parts two and three, by a focus on Philoponus’ reception in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance respectively. Shedding light on the scientific ideas circulating in these periods, international experts explore a range of topics from the renewal of Aristotelianism in the Arab world, through the medieval Byzantine and Latin traditions, to Philoponus’ appearance in the early works of Galileo.
Engaging with a number of Philoponus’ key tracts, The Reception of John Philoponus’ Natural Philosophy is both a much-needed study of Philoponus’ influence and a revealing analysis of how Aristotelian science was received, adapted, critiqued and mediated throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Introduction, Emmanuele Vimercati (Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, Italy)
Part I: Late Antiquity (and Its Legacy)
1. John Philoponus’ Absolute Place and Its Reception by Francisco of Toledo, Ioannis Papachristou (National and Kapodistrian University, Athens, Greece)
2. Philoponus on Natural and Impressed Power, Emmanuele Vimercati (Pontifical Lateran University, Rome, Italy)
3. Philoponus on the Nature of the Heavens. Revisiting Some Old Debates, Marc-Antoine Gavray (University of Liège, Belgium)
4. John Philoponus on Being Human, Mark Edwards (University of Oxford, UK)
Part II: The Medieval Tradition
5. Proclus, Philoponus and the Brethren of Purity on the Eternity of the World, Carmela Baffioni (University of Naples – L’Orientale, Italy)
6. Averroes as Critic and Continuator within the Heritage of Philoponus’ Philosophical Theology, David Twetten (Marquette University, USA)
7. Philoponus’ Natural Philosophy in the Medieval Byzantine World: Psychological and Cosmological Debates, Tommaso De Robertis (University of Macerata, Italy and University of Toronto, Canada)
8. Philoponus and the Renewal of Aristotelian Cosmology in the Late Latin Middle Ages, Alessandro Ghisalberti (Catholic University, Milan, Italy)
Part III: Renaissance
9. Why Aristotle? Patterns in Renaissance Philosophy, Paul Richard Blum (Loyola University Maryland, USA and Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic)
10. Philoponus’ Metaphysical Cosmology in Renaissance Debates, Pietro Daniel Omodeo (University “Ca’ Foscari”, Venice, Italy)
11. Francesco Piccolomini (1523-1607) and Giacomo Zabarella (1533-1589) on Philoponus’ Definition of Prime Matter, Antonio Petagine (University of Roma Tre, Italy)
12. Philoponus’ Contribution to Copernicus’ Doctrine of Gravity, Dilwyn Knox (University College London, UK)
13. Philoponus in Galileo’s Early Works, Flavia Marcacci (University of Urbino "Carlo Bo", Italy)
Index
Aristotle’s influence throughout the history of philosophical thought has been immense and in recent years the study of Aristotelian philosophy has enjoyed a revival. However, Aristotelianism remains an incredibly polysemous concept, encapsulating many, often conflicting, definitions. 'Bloomsbury Studies in the Aristotelian Tradition' responds to this need to define Aristotelianism and give rise to a clear characterisation.
Investigating the influence and reception of Aristotle’s thought from classical antiquity to contemporary philosophy from a wide range of perspectives, this series aims to reconstruct how philosophers have become acquainted with the tradition. The books in this series go beyond simply ascertaining that there are Aristotelian doctrines within the works of various thinkers in the history of philosophy, but seek to understand how they have received and elaborated Aristotle’s thought, developing concepts into ideas that have become independent of him.
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