Theory and History of Ontology

by Raul Corazzon - e-mail: rc[at]ontology.co

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For an overview see the Index of the Pages or the Alphabetical Index of the Philosophers: A-F - G-O - P-Z; you can also download the page as Ontology in PDF format or see the Table of Contemporary Ontologists Table of Modern Ontologists (click on the image to see the PDF file)

Change of Address: The site www.formalontology.it is now at www.ontology.co

A Selection of Ontologists from Fonseca to Crusius (1560-1770)

Index of the Section: "The Rise and Fall of Ontology in the Modern Era from Suárez to Kant"

Index of the Section "History of Ontology"


INDEX OF THE AUTHORS

Among the most important studies on this period, I suggest: Courtine (1990) (fundamental) and (2005), Freedman (1999), Honnefelder (1990) and (2002), Leinsle (1985), Lohr (1988), the best introduction in English, Marion (1975), (1981) and (1988), Schmutz (2000), Wundt (1939 and (1945), Zimmermann (1998).


For the complete references see: Selected Bibliography on the History of Continental Ontology from Suárez to Kant


Pedro da Fonseca (1528-1599)

Being (not God) is the subject of Metaphysics - Exclusion of accidental beings and beings of reason from Metaphysics

"Comprising four quarto volumes, Fonseca's In libros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae(Commentary on the Books of Aristotle's Metaphysics) contains a critical Greek text which he himself established from the best available manuscripts and printed editions. (...)

After rejectirig opinions which bold that the subject of metaphysics is God, Aristotelian 'separate substances', or being in the categories, Fonseca says that the first and adeguate subject of metaphysics is being -- in so far as it is common to God and creatures (In libros Metaphysicorum IV c.1 q.1 s.3). Understood in this way, being is analogous, although as said of species within one genus or of individuals within one species it is univocal. Between God and creatures, between created substance and accidents, between different classes of accident, and between real being and being of reason, being is analogous by analogies both of proportion and of attribution. As God is related to his being, so in proportion a created substance is related to its being. Likewise, as created substance and its being are related, so in proportion is an accident related to its being. Again, as one kind of accident is disposed to its existence so is each other kind of accident to its existence. And as real beings are disposed to their being, so beings of reason are to theirs (Metaphysicorum IV c.2 q. l s.5, 7). An analogy of attribution obtains among accidents as an analogy of two things to a third (that is, created substance), while between accidents and substance it is analogy of one to the other. The same is true of beings of reason among themselves and then in comparison with real being; for beings of reason do not depend less upon real beings than do accidents upon substance. Again, a creature is being only by attribution or reference to God. Pursuing this, Fonseca distinguishes between formal and objective concepts. A formal concept is an 'actual likeness' (actualis similitudo) of a thing that is understood, produced by the intellect in order to express that thing. An objective concept is that thing is understood in so far as it is conceived through the formai concept. Both the formal and the objective concept of being are one, but not perfectly so for the reason that they do not prescind perfectly from the concepts of the members which divide being. Being as such is transcendent as are also the concepts of thing, something, one, true and good (Metaphysicorum IV c.2 q.2 s.1, 4-5; q.5 s.2).

In God alone there is a perfect identity of essence and existence. In every creature, essence is distinct from existence, but not as one thing from another. Rather, says Fonseca, a created essence is as distinct from its existence as a thing from its ultimate intrinsic mode. In this opinion, he tells us, he is following Alexander of Hales and Duns Scotus ( 12) (Metaphysicorum, IV c.2 q.3 s.4). It is possible that here Fonseca has also to some extent anticipated the Suárezian doctrine of modes.

Excluded from the subject of metaphysics are accidental beings (entia per accidens) and beings of reason. An accidental being, in the sense excluded, is a juxtaposition of two or more beings which lack any (intrinsic) relation to one another (Metaphysicorum IV c.1 q.1 s.3). Beings of reason are those which exist only inasmuch as they are objects of understanding. Within such beings of reason, as they stand in contrast with mind-independent real beings, Fonseca distinguishes proper being of reason from one which is fictitious. Properly taken, a being of reason is one whose being depends upon the understanding in such way that it can still be said of real beings, for example, the concepts of genus, species, and the like. A fictitious being as such is a being whose essence depends upon the understanding in such way that it cannot be said of any real being, for example, a chimera, a goat-stag, or the like (Metaphysicorum IV c.7 q.6 s.5).

From: John P. Doyle - Fonseca, Pedro da (1528-99) - in: Edward Craig (ed.) Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy - New York, Routledge, 1998 Vol. III, p. 689.

Texts

Studies

  1. Pedro da Fonseca. Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 9 1953.


  2. Ashworth Earline Jennifer, "Petrus Fonseca and material implication," Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 9: 227-228 (1968).
    "I intend to show that the sixteenth century Jesuit, Petrus Fonseca, whose Institutionurn Dialecticarum libri octo (1564) was one of the most popular textbooks of the period, was well acquainted with [material implication].
    Fonseca introduces the subject in his discussion of the appropriateness of the name hypothetical' as applied to compound propositions."

  3. Ashworth Earline Jennifer. Petrus Fonseca on objective concepts and the analogy of Being. In Logic and the workings of the mind. The logic of ideas and faculty psychology in early modern philosophy. Edited by Easton Patricia A. Atascadero: Ridgeview 1997. pp. 47-63
    "Petrus Fonseca was a Portuguese Jesuit who lived from 1528 to 1599. He was one of those responsible for drawing up the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum which set the curriculum for Jesuit schools across Europe, and he was also responsible for initiating the production of the Coimbra commentaries on Aristotle, or Conimbricenses, which served as texts for many schools and universities in the seventeenth century. He was himself the author of two popular texts, an introduction to logic, and a commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics. His logic text was one of two alternatives prescribed by the Ratio Studiorum of 1599, and may have been used at La Flèche; his Metaphysics commentary was used at many Jesuit schools, and may also have been used at La Flèche.
    In short , Fonseca was a leading figure in the Scholastic Aristotelian tradition of the late sixteenth century, a tradition which lies behind many of the developienis in early modem philosophy, and which in many ways is more important than the humanist tradition represented by Petrus Ramus.
    I have chosen to discuss Fonseca on objective concepts and the analogy of being both because an examination of these issues will help us to understand how logic came to be bound up with the philosophy of mind and because the history of how these issues were treated helps solve a small problem about Descartes's sources. My paper has four parts. I shall begin by giving a historical outline of treatments of analogy and their relevance to Descartes. Secondly, I shall discuss late medieval theories of signification, particularly as they appear in Fonseca, in order to show how logicians turned away from spoken language to inner, mental language. Thirdly, I shall explain how it was that analogy, as a theory of one kind of language use, was particularly bound up with the discussion of concepts. Finally, I shall look at the distinctions Fonseca made while discussing the concepts associated with analogical terms." p. 47 (notes omitted)

  4. Coxito Amândio Augusto, "O universal lógico em P. da Fonseca e no Curso Conimbricense," Revista Filosófica de Coimbra 13: 299-324 (2004).
  5. Doyle John P. Fonseca, Pedro da (1528-1599). In Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Craig Edward. New York: Routledge 1998. pp. 688-690
    Vol. III

  6. Felipe Donald. Fonseca on Topics. In Studies on the history of logic. Proceedings of the III. Symposium on the history of logic. Edited by Angelelli Ignacio and Cerezo Maria. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter 1996. pp. 43-64

  7. Ferreira da Silva Custódio Augusto. Teses fundamentais da gnoseologia de Pedro da Fonseca. Lisboa: Tipografia da União Gráfica 1960.

  8. Ferreira Joaquim Gomes, "Pedro da Fonseca, sixteenth century Portuguese philosopher," International Philosophical Quarterly 6: 632-644 (1966).

  9. Madeira João, "Pedro da Fonseca's Isagoge Philosophica and the Predicables from Boethius to the Lovanienses ", Leuven University, 2006.
    Contains in Appendix the Latin text and an English translation of Fonseca's Isagoge Philosophica.

  10. Madeira João, "Bibliografia de e sobre Pedro da Fonseca," Revista Filosófica de Coimbra 15: 195-208 (2006).

  11. Martins António Manuel, "Fonseca e o objeto da Metafísica de Aristóteles," Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 38: 460-465 (1982).

  12. Martins António Manuel, "A metafísica inacabada de Pedro da Fonseca," Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia 47: 517-533 (1991).
    "This paper starts from the fact that the fourth volume of Fonseca's "Commentariorum in Metaphysicorum Aristotelis Stagiritae libros" (CMA) contains no "quaestiones" to Met. XII. An analysis of several explicit remissions to topics and questions to be developed in the context of that Artistotelian script (Met. XII), made by Fonseca in several places in volumes I, II and III of his CMA, reveals that his project was, from the beginning, to develop in the IV volume the subjects related to the philosophical discourse about God, divine attributes, omnipotence and freedom, contingency as well as to the separate substances'. This indicates clearly that the metaphysics of Fonseca remained unfinished given the fact that the text on an important thematic cluster was not published notwithstanding the inclusion of such text in the original project of Fonseca. It is sustained that this fact should be taken in due consideration in any global interpretation of Fonseca's thought as well as in any comparison with other (finished) ontologies. Suárez is the most obvious case but not the only one."

  13. Martins António Manuel. Lógica e ontologia em Pedro da Fonseca. Lisboa: Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian 1994.
    Indice Geral: 0. Introdução 9; 1. A obra de Fonseca 15; 2. Determinação do objecto da metafisica 61; 3. Essência e existência 191; 4. Transcendentais e categorias 235; 5 O principio de não contradição 345; 6. Conclusâo 371 Bibliografia 377-386.
    English abstract: "The aim of the dissertation is to show the place of Fonseca's work in the history of ontology. Starting with a close analysis of the texts connected with the core of classical metaphysics it is argued that the Commentarii in libros metaphysicorum Aristotelis far reacher than a mere textual commentary of Aristotle's text and represent one of the rare efforts to bring out a real synthesis of the main theoretical problems and questions emerging in the context of the aristotelian project of a first philosophy. This systematic work is carried out in the second half of the sixteenth century, just before the beginning of modern philosophy. Chapter one is dedicated to a brief account of Fonseca's work in his historical context. The remaining chapters explores some of the central topics of Fonseca's ontology. Chapter two, after a brief discussion of the aristotelian project of first philosophy, follows the transformation of this project in Fonseca's text discussing in particular his analysis of the concept of being under the heading ens commune and the meaning of the thesis of analogia entis as well as the distinction between a formal and an objective concept of being. In chapter three we discuss the question of the distinction between essence and existence in order to grasp the meaning of Fonseca's thesis of a modal distinction ex natura rei. Chapter four seeks to articulate Fonseca's interpretation of the classical doctrine of the transcendentals (unum, bonum, uerum). The wish to articulate the universality and transcendentality of the concept of being has taken us to introduce the problem of the categories in this chapter and a brief historico-critical survey beginning in Aristotle and ending in Kant. Finally, chapter five discusses the meaning of the principle of non contradiction in Aristotle and in Fonseca."

  14. Martins António Manuel. Tópica metafísica: de Fonseca à Suárez. In Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). Tradiçao e Modernidade. Edited by Cardoso Adelino, Martins António Manuel, and Dos Santos Leonel Ribeiro. Lisboa: Ediçoes Colibri 1999. pp. 157-168

  15. Martins António Manuel, "Pedro da Fonseca e a recepção da Metafísica de Aristóteles na segunda metade do séc. XVI," Philosophica: Revista do Departamento de Filosofia da Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa 14: 165-178 (1999).
    "It is claimed that in order to a better understanding of the reception of the text of the Metaphysics of Aristotle in the second half of the sixteenth century one must carefully distinguish the commentaries to the whole work from texts that treat particular questions. Although much work is still to be done, the great commentary of Pedro da Fonseca appears as the major original commentary to the Metaphysics produced during that period."

  16. Romeo Luigi, "Pedro da Fonseca in Renaissance semiotics: a segmental history of footnotes," Ars Semeiotica.An International Journal of Semiotics 2: 187-204 (1979).

  17. Slattery Michael, "Two notes on Fonseca," Modern Schoolman 34: 193-202 (1957).

  18. Slattery Michael, "Fonseca on logical univocity," Modern Schoolman 34: 193-202 (1957).

INDEX


Benito Pereira (Benedictus Pereirus) (1535-1610)

"The problem that continues to haunt the commentators [of Aristotle] is how to reconcile philosophia prima as universal scientia de ente with philosophia prima as theologia . The latter appears to be a special science rather than a universal one, since it studies one particular being (albeit the highest one), whereas the former studies being qua being. Aristotle had already recognised this problem and had come up with a solution that proved so cryptic that it provoked even more discussion. (26)

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this discussion received an entirely new impulse in Protestant metaphysics. Although the early reformers had a very low opinion of Aristotelian metaphysics, by the end of the sixteenth century their successors had taken to writing textbooks on Aristotle's Metaphysics which copied the model of earlier commentaries. In fact, the Protestant scholasticism that emerged from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards drew heavily on the great Commentaries of the Counter Reformation, notably the ones composed by the Spanish Jesuits.(27) Faced with the institutional problem of how to teach theology and philosophy, the Protestant masters turned back to systematic Aristotelian philosophy of the familiar kind.(28) Moreover theological contorversies within Lutheranism and between Lutheranism and Calvinism "made precise definitions of terms like 'substance' and 'accident, 'nature' and 'person' absolutely imperative. (29)

This fuelled a keen interest in Aristotelian metaphysics. The Protestants were trying to construct a metaphysics conceived as a universal science of being, a scientia de ente . This meant the removal of all the heterogeneous elements of Aristotelian metaphysics that could only with difficulty be combined with this "pure" science of being. Hence we find in most Protestant metaphysicsa marked tendency to separate natural theology from metaphysics as a science of being qua being. Therefore, by separating true metaphysics as a universal science of being from natural theology as a scientia particularis , the ubiquitous problem of the subject matter of metaphysics was solved. The first to make this separation in the sixteenth century was actually a Jesuit, Benito Pereira (c 1535-1610). (30) His solution was taken up in various ways by Protestant scholastics, both Calvinist and Lutheran, such as Nicolaus Taurellus (1547-1606) , Abraham Calov (1612-1686) and Rudolphus Goclenius the Elder (1547-1628). This tradition was not an isolated German phenomenon but also spread to England. By distinguishing between "first" or "summary philosophy" and natural theology, Francis Bacon clearly draws on this tradition as well."

From: Cees Leijenhorst - The mechanisation of Aristotelianism. The late Aristotelian setting of Thomas Hobbes' natural philosophy - Leiden, Brill, 2002 pp. 23-24.

(26) Aristotle, Met. VI (E), 1, 1026a29-32. For an interesting recent account of this problem see Michael Frede, The Unity of general and special metaphysics: Aristotle's conception of metaphysics, in: M. Frede, Essays in ancient philosophy , (Oxford, 1987), pp. 81-95. For a comprehensive overview of older postions, see Joseph Owens, The Doctrine of Being in Aristotelian "metaphysics". A study in the Greek background of Mediaeval thought , (Toronto 1951, Third revised edition Toronto, 1978) pp. 1-68.

(27) See Lewalter, Spanisch-jesuitische Metaphysik und deutsch-luterische Metaphysik des 17. Jahrunderts (Hamburg, 1935; Reprint Darmstadt, 1967).

(28) On Melanchthon's use of Aristotle, see Sachiko Kusukawa, The Transformation of Natural Philosophy. The case of Philip Melanchthon , (Cambridge, 1995)

(29) Charles Lohr, "Metaphysics," (1988) p. 620. See also Walther Sparn, Wiederkher der Metaphysik: die ontologische Frage in der lutherischen Theologie des frühen 17. Jahrunderts (Stuttgart, 1976) and Donnelly, "Calvinist Thomism," Viator , 7 (1976, pp-441-455), p. 442.

(30) On the sixteenth and seventeenth century debate conceming the relation between universal scientia de ente and particular theology, see Rompe, Die Trennung; and Leinsle, Das Ding und die Methode. For medieval "separatist" arguments, see Zimmermann, Ontologie oder Metaphysik, pp. 292-314; and Lohr, "Metaphysics," pp. 587-590.


Texts

Studies

  1. Blackwell Constance, "Thomas Aquinas against the Scotists and Platonists. The definition of ens Cajetano, Zimara, Pererio 1495-1576," Verbum.Analecta Neolatina 6: 179-188 (2004).
    "Thomas Aquinas is usually studied as a metaphysician, this is not the reading given to him by three Renaissance philosophers. At the turn of the sixteenth century there were at least two schools of Thomists, one influenced by Avicenna and Scotus, and the other influenced by Averroes, a reading of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas himself. The discussion below traces how the interpretation of Thomas' De ente et essentia was changed from being a text for metaphysics to one used for physics. One of the meanings of ens-being-was as a term that was coterminous with the object. As a result, the debate over the first thing thought or the De primo cognito debate centered around the meaning for the term ens, the following essay demonstrates how it moved from metaphysics to physics."

  2. Blum Paul, "Benedictus Pererius: Renaissance culture at the origins of Jesuit science," Science and Education 15: 279-304 (2006).
    "Benedictus Pererius (1535-1610) published in 1576 his most successful book De principiis, after he had taught philosophy at the Roman College of the Jesuits. It will be shown that parts of this book are actually based on his lectures. But the printed version was intended as a contribution to the debate within his Order on how science should be conceived. Pererius redefined the meaning of scientific speculation to the effect that metaphysics was split into ontology and natural theology, and that further speculative sciences, such as physics, gained their own competence. Throughout this book, as well as in his warning against magic and in his commentaries on the Bible, the Jesuit addresses Renaissance strains of neo-Platonism, Aristotelianism, and syncretism."

  3. Rompe Elisabeth Maria. Die Trennung von Ontologie und Metaphysik. Der Ablösungsprozess und seine Motivierung bei Benedictus Pererius und anderen Denkern des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts. Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität 1968.

INDEX


Diego de Zúñiga (1536-1598)

Texts

Studies

  1. Diego de Zúñiga," La Ciudad de Dios 212 (1999).
    Contents: Modesto González Velasco: Fray Diego de Zúñiga (1536-ca.1598): biografía, escritos y bibliografía: 5-57; Victor Navarro Brotons: La recepción de la obra de Copérnico en la España del siglo XVI: el caso de Diego de Zúñiga: 59-104; Gerardo Bolado Ochoa: La "Física" de Diego de Zúñiga OSA: 105-147; Lera San José: Javier, Fray Diego de Zúñiga OSA, "In Iob commentaria", 1584: 149-182.

  2. Arámburu Cendoya Ignacio, "Diego de Zúñiga, biografía y nuevos escritos (I).," Archivo Agustiniano 55: 51-103 (1961).

  3. Arámburu Cendoya Ignacio, "Diego de Zúñiga, biografía y nuevos escritos (II).," Archivo Agustiniano 55: 329-384 (1961).

  4. Bolado Ochoa Gerardo, "Fray Diego de Zúñiga O.S.A.: una filosofía como enciclopedia de las ciencias y las artes en el siglo XVI," Revista Agustiniana (Madrid) 26: 105-150 (1985).

  5. Bolado Ochoa Gerardo, "La unión de los estudios filosóficos y retóricos en la Enciclopedia de fray Diego de Zúñiga (1536-1599?). Aproximación a la "Retórica"," Revista Agustiniana (Madrid) : 557-587 (1989).

  6. Bolado Ochoa Gerardo, "La "Fisica" de Diego de Zúñiga, OSA," La Ciudad de Dios 212: 105-147 (1999).

  7. Bolado Ochoa Gerardo. Fray Diego de Zúñiga, OSA (1536-ca. 1598). Una aproximaciòn biogràfica. Madrid: Revista Agustiniana 2000.

  8. Bolado Ochoa Gerardo, "Presentación de la "Dialéctica" de Diego de Zúñiga (1536 ca.-1598)," Revista Agustiniana (Madrid) : 465-500 (2003).

  9. Gallego Salvadores Jordan, "La aparición de las primeras metafísicas sistemáticas en la España del XVI. Diego Mas (1587), Francisco Suárez y Diego de Zúñiga (1597)," Escritos del Vedat 3: 91-162 (1973).

  10. Gallego Salvadores Jordan, "La metafísica de Diego de Zúñiga (1536-1597) y la reforma tridentina de los estudios eclesiásticos," Estudio Agustiniano 9: 3-60 (1974).

  11. González Velasco Modesto, "Fray Diego de Zúñiga (1536 - c. 1598): biografía, escritos y bibliografía," La Ciudad de Dios 212: 5-57 (1999).

INDEX


Rudolf Göckel (Goclenius) (1547-1628)

"Goclenius is best described as a protestant Scholastic', his most important contribution to the metaphysics being terminological. He is the first philosopher to use the word ontologia [in Greek] (*) to describe general metaphysics (...) Strangely enough, this word does not appear in the Isagoge , but rather in the Lexicon . Still, his use of the word precedes that of Calovius by 23 years (...), and that of Jean-Baptiste Duhamel by 65 (...).

Although he does not use the term ontologia in the Isagoge , Goclenius does distinguish general metaphysics from special metaphysics in this work and a fortiori stood the concept of general metaphysics. The distinction between general and special metaphysics is not Goclenius's invention, however. The Spanish Jesuit Benito Pereira (c. 1535-1610) had already made it by 1562 (see Rompe Die Trennung von Ontologie und Metaphysik. Der Ablösungsprozess und seine Motivierung bei Benedictus Pererius und anderen Denkern des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts 1968, pp. 7-13) and an earlier manuscript making the distinction has been found (Zimmermann Ontologie oder Metaphysik. Die Diskussion über den Gegenstand der Metaphysik an 13. und 14. Jahrundert 1965, p. 60).

Both Wundt and Vollrath seem to have discovered the distinction between general and special metaphysics only in the Praefatio of Goclenius's Isogoge and have remarked that this distinction does not appear in the main text of the work. This is incorrect, however. The second part of the Isagoge is a series of disputations, the first of which, entitled De ente Communi, ad omnes Categorias conseguente discusses this distinction (Rompe is aware of this and hers is at present the most trustworthy account of Goclenius's work) Goclenius says that some divide first philosophy (prima philosophia ), which is usually called 'metaphysics', into two parts. The first is universal and studies the most general notion of being common to all things (de Ente in communi ). The second part is particular and deals with God, divine spirits (daemones ), and disembodied intellect (intellectus separatus a corpore , p. 126). Goclenius ascribes this view to Aristotle and then goes on to say that he prefers to divide things up differently. Knowledge (scientia ) should be divided into a universal and a particular part, and the universal part should be called 'first philosophy'. The particular part in turn should be divided into a 'transnatural' part which deals with God, and a 'natural' one, which deals with natural entities (pp. 126-7).

Goclenius's idea of knowledge, then, has a particular part which seems to contain every specific science. In contrast, Perera includes only theology, 'spiritology', and psychology, and Christian Wolff only theology, psychology, and cosmology, within special metaphysics. Thus Goclenius is proposing a way of cutting up the sciences such that prima philosophia is truly cast in the role of the queen of the sciences, lording over them all as the scientia universalis . On the face of it, Goclenius's taxonomy of metaphysics is more reasonable than that of Wolff or Pereira. If one is going to take seriously the notion of a 'superscience' which studies the most abstract idea of being which the objects of all specific sciences share, then one is compelled, I think, to include all of the particular sciences within specific metaphysics. This is true unless, of course, one has platonic misgivings about the possibility of being able to have knowledge about substances which have matter mixed up in them. However, a good Scholastic, wedded as he is to the spirit of Aristotle, has no such misgivings."

(*) The term ontologia was coined by Jacob Lorhard in 1606 [Note added by Raul Corazzon]

From: Goclenius, Rudolphus by Jeffrey Coombs - in: Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology - Edited by Barry Smith Barry and Hans Burkhardt. Munich: Philosophia Verlag 1991, pp. 312-313.


"Thus the Marburg professor Rudolph Goclenius in the preface to his Isagoge in primam philosophiam (1598), spoke of two separate sciences, a universal science called 'first philosophy' and a particular science called 'metaphysics'. First philosophy deals with being, its properties and its principles; metaphysics studies the various types of immaterial being: God, the intelligences and the human soul."

From: Charles H. Lohr - Metaphysics and natural philosophy as sciences: the Catholic and the Protestant views in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - in: Constance Balckwell, Sachiko Kusukawa (eds.) . Philosophy in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries. Conversations with Aristotle - Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999, p. 291.

Texts

Studies

Moreau Pierre-François, "Wolff et Goclenius," Archives de Philosophie 65: 7-14 (2002).

INDEX


Francisco Suárez (1548-1617)

INDEX


Gabriel Vasquez (Vazquez) (1549-1604)

Texts

Studies

  1. Baldini Ugo. Ontology and mechanics in Jesuit scholasticism: the case of Gabriel Vazquez. In Scientiae et artes. Die Vermittlung alten und neuen Wissens in Literatur, Kunst und Musik. Vol. I. Edited by Mahlmann-Bauer Barbara. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2004. pp. 99-142

  2. Lapierre Michael J. The noetical theory of Gabriel Vasquez, Jesuit philosopher and theologian (1549-1604). His view of the objective concept. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen 1999.
    Contents: Foreword I; Preface III; Acknowledgements VII; Introduction 1; 1. Historical overview 5; 2. Life and times of Gabriel Vasquez 11; 3. Concept and external world 21; 4. Cocept and truth 35; Concept and knowledge 55; 5. Concept and Being 75; 7. Concluding observations 93; Appendix A. Chronological table of Vasquez's life 97; Appendix B. List of the writings of Gabriel Vasquez 99; Bibliography 103; Index of names and subjects 109.

  3. Schmutz Jacob. Le miroir de l'univers: Gabriel Vazquez et les commentateurs jésuites. In Sur la science divine. Edited by Bardout Jean-Christophe and Boulnois Olivier. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France 2002. pp. 382-411

INDEX

Diego Mas (Didacus Masius) (1553-1608)

Texts

Studies

  1. Bastit Michel, "De l'intérêt d'une lecture traditionnelle de saint Thomas: la question de l' esse chez Diego Mas," Revue Thomiste 104: 447-468 (2004).
    "Résumé. On essaie ici de tester sur un texte de Diego Mas la fécondité théorique d'une lecture traditionnelle thomiste, au sens de lecture au sein d'une école. À partir des questions concernant l'ordre de l'existence à la forme et à l'essence, on aperçoit progressivement que la rigoureuse procédure scolastique utilisée par l'auteur du texte reconduit son lecteur à la question elle-même, et le met ainsi en mesure d'être philosophe en acte. En outre cette rigueur permet à une pensée de ce type d'entrer en rapport avec les développements de la philosophie exacte moderne et contemporaine où se manifeste aujourd'hui un regain d'intérêt pour la métaphysique et l'ontologie que l'on aurait tort de négliger."

  2. Gallego Salvadores Jordan, "El Maestro Diego Mas y su Tratado de Metafísica. La primera metafisica sistematica," Analecta Sacra Tarraconensia 43: 3-92 (1970).
    Reprinted in: Diego Mas, Disputación metafísica sobre el ente y sus propiedades - Edited by Santiago Orrego and Juan Cruz Cruz - Pamplona, EUNSA, 2003, pp. 17-88.

INDEX


Cristóbal de los Cobos (1553-1613?)

Texts

Studies


INDEX


Jacob Lorhard (Lorhardus) (1561-1609)

INDEX


Clemens Timpler (1563/4-1624)

"Within three of his writings, Timpler notes that the study and knowledge of metaphysics is required for the study and knowledge of all other philosophical disciplines. For this reason, Timpler's Metaphysics textbook merits examination here prior to consideration of his other philosophical writings. The basic components of Timpler's Metaphysics textbook can be outlined as follows:

Timpler Table 1

Timpler considers the subject matter of metaphysics to be everything which is intelligible to human beings; therefore, All that is Intelligible (omne intelligibile) is the all-inclusive category within which all component parts of Timpler's metaphysics are subsumed. Timpler divides the category All that is Intelligible into Something (aliquid) and Nothing (nihil). Each individual intelligible falls within one and only one of these two categories.

Timpler asserts that Nothing cannot be perfectly defined. His brief remarks concerning Nothing shall be presented within chapter 15 section 17 and within chapter 20 section 9. Timpler's "Something" (aliquid) is equivalent to "Being" (esse; est) in the broadest sense of the latter. Timpler's "Being" can be explained with the use of the following table:

Timpler Table 2

"Being" (understood in its broadest sense) includes A and C yet excludes B.

The broadest and most basic distinction made within Timpler's Metaphysics textbook, therefore, is the distinction made between something (i.e., "Being" understood in its broadest sense) and Nothing (i.e., Non-Being). There is no medium between Something and Nothing; any given intelligible object falls into one and only one of these two categories. According to Timpler, these two categories are contradictorily opposed to one another. The principle which states this contradictory opposition--i.e., which states that it is absolutely impossible for an intelligible subject matter to be both Being and Non-Being simultaneously -- is the principle of contradiction; Timpler regards this principle to be indemonstrable and absolutely necessary. The principle of contradiction is the most important rule contained within Timpler's Metaphysics textbook; in so far as it comprises All that is Intelligible, it regulates the entire subject matter of that textbook.

Timpler also notes that the principle of contradiction is "that primary complex principle which is basic to all of the arts" (i.e., to both the liberal arts and the illiberal arts).

It must be emphasized that All that is Intelligible and the Principle of Contradiction (all sub-categories of the former are regulated by means of the latter) are the broadest, most general categories not only of Timpler's Metaphysics textbook, but of all of his other writings as well. These two categories embrace the entirety of Timpler's thought as expressed within his various philosophical writings. The study of metaphysics is basic to the study of all other disciplines partly due to the fact that it directly deals with these two general categories which are basic to every other discipline."


From: Jospeh S. Freedman - European Academic Philosophy in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. The life, significance and philosophy of Clemens Timpler (1563/4-1624). Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1988, pp. 210-211 (notes omitted).

Texts

Studies

  1. Freedman Joseph S. European Academic Philosophy in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries. The life, significance and philosophy of Clemens Timpler (1563/4-1624). Hildesheim: Georg Olms 1988.
    Two volumes.

INDEX


Cornelius Martini (1568-1621)

Texts

Studies

  1. Pozzo Riccardo, "Kornelius Martini: De natura logicae : Prolegomeni ad un corso di lezioni del 1599," Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 44: 499-527 (1989).

  2. Pozzo Riccardo, "Res considerata and modus considerandi rem : Averroes, Aquinas, Jacopo Zabarella, and Cornelius Martini on reduplication," Medioevo.Rivista di Storia della Filosofia Medievale 24: 251-267 (1998).

INDEX


Bartholomäus Keckermann (1572-1609)

Texts

Studies

  1. Freedman Joseph S., "The career and writings of Bartholomew Keckermann (d. 1609)," Proceedings, American Philosophical Society 141: 305-364 (1997).
    Reprinted in: Joseph S. Freedman - Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500-1700 - Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999 - Essay VII.

  2. Muller Richard A., "Vera Philosophia cum Sacra Theologia nusquam pugnat. Keckermann on philosophy, theology and the problem of double truth," Sixteenth Century Journal 15: 341-365 (1984).

  3. Zuylen Willem Hendrik van. Bartholomäus Keckermann. Sein Leben und Werk. Leipzig: R. Noske 1934.

INDEX


Francisco de Araujo (1580-1664)

Texts

Studies

  1. Beuchot Mauricio Puente, "La doctrina tomista clásica del signo: Domingo de Soto, Francisco de Araujo y Juan de Santo Tomás," Critica 36: 39-60 (1980).

  2. Beuchot Mauricio Puente. Metafísica. La ontología aristotélico-tomista de Francisco de Araújo. Ciudad de México: Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas UNAM 1987.

  3. Fernández-Rodríguez José Luis. El ente de razón en Francisco Araújo. Pamplona: Ediciones Universidad de Navarra 1972.

  4. O'Brien Chrysostom, "El enigma de Francisco de Araujo," La Ciencia Tomista 89: 221-234 (1962).

  5. Wells Norman J. Francisco Araujo, O.P., on eternal truths. In Graceful reason. Essays in ancient and medieval thought presented to Joseph Owens C.SS.R. Edited by Gerson Lloyd P. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies 1983. pp. 401-417

INDEX


Johann Heinrich Alsted (1588-1638)

Texts

Studies

  1. Hotson Howard. Johann Heinrich Alsted, 1588-1638: between Renaissance, Reformation, and universal reform. New York: Oxford University Press 2000.

  2. Schmidt-Biggermann Wilhelm. Topica universalis: Eine Modellgeschichte humanistischer und barocker Wissenschaft. Hamburg: Meiner 1983.
    On Alsted see pp. 100-139.

INDEX


Joannes a sancto Thoma (John Poinsot)(1589-1644)


INDEX


Christoph Scheibler (1589-1653)

Texts

Studies

  1. Pozzo Riccardo. Logic and metaphysics in German philosophy from Melanchton to Hegel. In Approaches to Metaphysics. Edited by Sweet William. Dordrecht: Kluwer 2004. pp. 57-66 (on Scheibler see pp. 63-65).
  2. Pozzo Riccardo. Die Transzendentalienlehre bei Christoph Scheibler. In Das Geheimnis des Anfangs. Edited by Neuser Wolfgang and Reichold Anne. Bern: Peter Lang 2005. pp. 73-78
  3. Roncaglia Gino. Modal logic in Germany at the beginning of the seventeenth century: Christoph Scheibler's Opus Logicum . In The Medieval Heritage in Early Modern Metaphysics and Modal Logic, 1400-1700. Edited by Friedman Russell Lance and Nielsen L.O. Dordrecht: Kluwer 2003. pp. 253-308

INDEX


Johannes Micraelius (1597-1658)

Texts

Studies

  1. Canone Eugenio. I lessici filosofici latini del Seicento. In Il vocabolario della République des Lettres. Terminologia filosofica e storia della filosofia. Problemi di metodo. Atti del Convegno internazionale in memoriam di Paul Dibon (Napoli, 17-18 maggio 1996). Edited by Fattori Marta. Firenze: Olschki 1997. pp. 93-114

  2. Geldesetzer Lutz. Über das philosophische Lexikon des Johannes Micraelius und die philosophische Lexikographie. In Lexicon philosophicum terminorum philosophis usitatorum. Düsseldorf: Stern-Verlag Janssen & Co. 1966. pp. I-XXII
    Anastatic reprint of the second edition (Stettin, 1662)

INDEX


Sebastian Izquierdo (1601-1681)

Texts

Studies

  1. Ceñal Ramón. La Combinatoria de Sebastián Izquierdo: "Pharus Scientiarum" (1659), disp. XXIX, De Combinatione . Madrid: Instituto de España 1974.
    Texto latino y traducción españols von una introducción: La Disputatio De Combinatione de Izquierdo en la historia de la aritmética combinatoria, desde Clavius a Bernoulli

  2. Di Vona Piero. I concetti trascendenti in Sebastián Izquierdo e nella scolastica del Seicento. Napoli: Loffredo 1964.

  3. Fuerte Herreros José Luis. La lógica como fundamentación del arte general del saber en Sebastián Izquierdo: estudio del Pharus scientiarum (1659). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses 1981.

  4. Schmutz Jacob. Sebastián Izquierdo: de la science divine à l'ontologie des états de chose. In Sur la science divine. Edited by Bardout Jean-Christophe and Boulnois Olivier. Paris : Presses Universitaires de France 2002. pp. 412-421
    Traduction d'extraits de Le Phare des sciences pp. 422-435

INDEX


Bartolomeo Mastri (1602-1673)

Texts

Studies

  1. Blum Paul Richard, "La métaphysique comme théologie naturelle: Bartolomeo Mastri," Études Philosophiques : 31-47 (2002).

  2. Crowley Bonaventure, "The life and works of Bartolomeo Mastri, O.F.M. Conv. 1602-1673," Franciscan Studies 8: 97-152 (1948).

  3. Forlivesi Marco. Scotistarum princeps: Bartolomeo Mastri (1602-1673) e il suo tempo. Padova: Centro Studi Antoniani 2002.

  4. Forlivesi Marco, "La distinction entre concept formel et concept objectif dans la pensée de Bartolomeo Mastri," Études Philosophiques : 3-30 (2002).

  5. Knebel Sven K., "Entre logique mentaliste et métaphysique conceptualiste: la distinctio rationis ratiocinantis ," Études Philosophiques : 145-168 (2002).
    "In the scholastic way of spelling out "A = A", some sort of distinction intervened between the relata, viz. the distinctio rationis ratiocinantis . To distinguish between the distinctio rationis ratiocinatae and ratiocinantis was commonplace from the sixteenth up to the eighteenth centuries. But how to make sense of a distinction that is without any foundation in the object itself? Mastri's account marks a crisis within Scotism, since his reception of Peter Aureol's conceptualism made it possible to give the distinctio rationis ratiocinantis a metaphysical rather than a logical interpretation."

INDEX


Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606-1682)

Texts

Studies

  1. Dvorák Petr. Relational logic in Juan Caramuel. In Mediaeval and Renaissance logic. Edited by Gabbay Dov and Woods John. Amsterdam: North-Holland 2008. pp. 645-666
    Handbook of the History of Logic, vol. 2
  2. Pastine Dino. Juan Caramuel. Probabilismo ed Enciclopedia. Firenze: La Nuova Italia 1975.

  3. Schmutz Jacob. Juan Caramuel on the Year 2000: time and possible worlds in early-modern Scholasticism. In The medieval concept of time. The Scholastic debate and its reception in early modern philosophy. Edited by Porro Pasquale. Leiden: Brill 2001. pp. 399-434

  4. Schmutz Jacob. Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz (1606-82). In Centuriae latinae II. Cent et une figures humanistes de la Renaissance aux Lumières, à la mémoire de Marie-Madeleine de la Garanderie. Edited by Nativel Colette. Geneva: Droz 2006. pp. 182-202

  5. Serrai Alfredo. 'Phoenix Europae'. Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz in prospettiva bibliografica. Milano: Sylvestre Bonnard 2005.

INDEX


Abraham Calov (1612-1686)

"His most interesting metaphysical works are the Metaphysica divina pars generalis and the Metaphysica divina pars specialis . Calovius's logical / epistemological works, the Gnostologia and Noologia , may be of some interest, although as logic the works are weakened by the psychologism which is often found in logic texts of that period and school.

Calovius is a good example of the typical Protestant metaphysician of the 17th century. According tu Calovius, one's metaphysical studies should be guided by the truths of revealed faith, in this case orthodox Lutheranism. Without the guidance of the celestial light, all our travels into scholarly study are nothing more than pitiable wandering. But we cannot follow this celestial light unless we pay attention to both Scripture and nature. Calovius reveals himself to be a true scholastic by naming Aristotle the foremost philosopher. Thus, the main task of Calovius's work is to reconcile the revealed truths of orthodox Lutheranism with the principles of Aristotle's metaphysics. That one is so enabled to refute the errors of agnostic natural scientists, Socinians (a favourite target of Protestant attacks, this Protestant sect denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ), Jesuits, Calvinists, and other heretics, so much the better. Still, both soumces of knowledge are required: without Aristotelian natural science, there will be factual errors; without Scripture, heresy. (Hinc tot errores, tot haereses .)

Metaphysics, according to Calovius, is the wisdom of being qua being (sapientia Entis qua Entis ). This definition should be understood as denoting one discipline, which is also called 'ontology' or 'transcendental wisdom' (ontologia [in Greek] sive transcendentalis Sapientia ). The usual and improper sense of 'metaphysics' adopted by the Jesuit Benito Pereira (c. 1535-1610). according tu whom metaphysics is concerned with disembodied spirit, is rejected. Indeed, he says, they hallucinate who make the object of metaphysics either God or immaterial substance, and they plainly do not understand the nature of wisdom.

Thus, Calovius believes that the mistake of people like Pereira was to fail to acknowledge a notion of being which is general enough to be common both to spiritual and material beings. This, of course, may not be entirely fair to Pereira and other Thomists, since theological discomfiture may arise from claiming that God and creatures are subsumed under a general concept of being. Does this most general of concepts logically or ontologically precede God? Or is the dignity of God affected by sharing the notion of being with beings like you and me?

Metaphysics, fmally, must deal with what really is, not merely what could be. Calovius claims that truly and properly, metaphysics concerns itself with non-complex, essential, positive, real, actual being (Ens incomplexum, per se, positivum, reale et actuale ).

Only in an attenuated sense does it contain complex, accidental, deprived beings, beings of reason, and potential beings (Entia complexa, per accidens, privationes, Entia rationes et in potentia ). Calovius prefers to limit metaphysics tu the former, and we might not incorrectly cali him an 'actualist'. Atfer all, Calovius wonders, how does one abstract notion of being common to actual and potential being, if potential being is not truly being?"

From: Calovius, Abraham by Jeffrey Coombs - in: Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology - Edited by Barry Smith Barry and Hans Burkhardt. Munich: Philosophia Verlag 1991, pp. 112-113.

Texts

Studies

  1. Appold Kenneth G. Abraham Calov's doctrine of vocatio in its systematic context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1998.

INDEX


Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665)

Texts

Studies

  1. Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665) and Cartesian philosophy in the Seventeenth century . Edited by Verbeek Theo. Dordrecht: Kluwer 1999.

  2. Bardout Jean-Christophe. Johannes Clauberg. In A companion to early modern philosophy. Malden: Blackwell 2002. pp. 140-151

  3. Brosch Pius. Die Ontologie des Johannes Clauberg. Eine historische Würdigung und eine Analyse ihrer Probleme. Greifswald: L. Bamberg 1926.
    Inaugural Dissertation.

  4. Carraud Vincent. L'ontologie peut-elle être cartésienne? L'exemple de l'Ontosophia de Clauberg, de 1647 à 1664: de l'ens à la mens . In Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665) and Cartesian Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Verbeek Theo. Dordrecht : Kluwer 1999. pp. 13-38

  5. École Jean. La place de la Metaphysica de ente, quae rectius Ontosophia dans l'histoire de l'Ontologie et sa réception chez Christian Wolff. In Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665) and Cartesian Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century. Edited by Verbeek Theo. Dordrecht : Kluwer 1999. pp. 61-74
    Réimprimé dans: Autour de la philosophie Wolffienne pp. 117-130

  6. Lagrée Jacqueline, "Sens et vérité chez Clauberg et Spinoza," Philosophiques 29: 121-138 (2002).
    "This paper aims to show how the Spinozistic hermeneutical position in the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is founded in a particular tradition, that of Johannes Clauberg, which makes a strong distinction among the sensus genuinus (i.e., the meaning intended by the author), the true meaning, and the truth. L. Meyer, a physician and friend of Spinoza, accepts this distinction but he reduces the true meaning to the truth as it is understood in the philosophy of Descartes or Spinoza. Spinoza, however, maintains the distinction between true meaning and truth, and for him the Bible keeps its holy character as long as it helps man to practice justice and charity. Human reason brings out the universal moral teachings of the Bible and it fosters a community of those who genuinely seek the truth."

  7. Mancini Italo. L'Ontosophia di Johannes Clauberg e i primi tentativi di soluzione cartesiana. In Festschrift H. J. de Vleeschauwer. Pretoria: University of South Africa 1960. pp. 66-83

  8. Savini Massimiliano, "L'invention de la logique cartésienne: la Logica vetus et nova de Johannes Clauberg," Revue de Métaphisique et de Morale : 73-88 (2006).
    "The Logica vetus & nova published by Johannes Clauberg (1654) is directly inspired by the works of Descartes. For this reason, this text is commonly considered as the first handbook of 'cartesian' logic. Which are, therefore, the Cartesian elements distinguishing this logic from the previous ones? Our aim is to show that there are two main aspects which Clauberg derives from the works of Descartes: on the one hand the foundation of logic on the perceptio clara et distincta ; on the other the role of medicina mentis assumed by logic, on the basis of a philosophical theory of prejudices that has been derived from the Principia philosophiae (but also from Bacon). Clauberg's logic, anyway, does not accept the most radical innovations of Cartesian theory of knowledge: in this way it is still bound up with the scholastic tradition."

  9. Scheffel Dieter. Zur Grundidee der Ontologie bei Wolff und Clauberg. In Aufklärung und Erneuerung. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Universität Halle im ersten Jahrundert ihres Bestehens (1694-1806). Edited by Jerouschek Günter and Sames Arno. Hanau: Dausien 1994. pp. 157-162

  10. Trevisani Francesco. Johannes Clauberg e l'Aristotele riformato. In L'interpretazione nei secoli XVI e XVII. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi Milano (18-20 novembre 1991) Parigi (6-8 dicembre 1991). Edited by Canziani Guido. Milano: Franco Angeli 1993. pp. 103-126

  11. Viola Eugenio, "Scolastica e cartesianesimo nel pensiero di J. Clauberg," Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 67: 247-266 (1975).

  12. Weier Winfried, "Leibnitiana bei Johannes Clauberg," Studia Leibnitiana 32: 21-42 (2000).
    "It is a much neglected fact that the young Leibniz expressed particular interest for the philosophy of Johannes Clauberg, a follower of Descartes with Aristotelian outlook who taught at the University of Duisburg. Indeed he found here, against the background of Cartesianism, important impulses and preconceptions for important basic positions of his, which in many respects can be understood as extensions and unfoldings of Claubergian approaches. In this way nothing less than a story of creation and development of Leibnizian thought is uncovered, e. g. from the gnoseological (symbolism of ideas; differentiation of nominal and real definitions, truths of reason and fact; the importance of real existence for the coherence of concepts) to the ontological area (the preparation of Leibnizian monadology through the question about the character of being in the innate ideas of Descartes; development of the concept of potency by means of that of facultas to that of virtus, of the petites perceptions of Leibniz and accordingly, for the first time in intellectual history, to his basic understanding of the unconscious): Further development of the anthropological question formulation through the idea of pre-established harmony."

INDEX

Jakob Thomasius (1622-1684)

Texts

Studies

  1. Leibniz Gottfried Wlhelm. Leibniz - Thomasius. Correspondence 1663-1672. Paris: Vrin 1993.
    Texte établi, traduit, annoté et commenté par Richard Bodeüs (11 letters by Leibniz, 5 by Jakob Thomasius).
  2. Mercer Christia. Leibniz and his Master: the correspondence with Jakob Thomasius. In Leibniz and his Correspondents. Edited by Lodge Paul. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004. pp. 10-46

  3. Micheli Giuseppe. The 'Historia Philosophica' in German Scholastic thought. In Models of the history of philosophy. Volume I: From its origins in the Renaissance to the 'Historia Philosophica'. Edited by Santinello Giovanni. New York: Springer 1993. pp. 371-473
    On Jakob Thomasius see pp. 409-442 by Giovanni Santinello.

  4. Santinello Giovanni, "Jakob Thomasius e il Medioevo," Medioevo.Rivista di Storia della Filosofia Medievale 4: 173-216 (1978).

INDEX


Jean Baptiste Du Hamel (1624-1706)

Texts

Studies

  1. Wells Norman J., "Jean Du Hamel, the Cartesians and Arnauld on Idea," Modern Schoolman 76: 245-271 (1999).

INDEX


Jean Le Clerc (1657-1736)

Texts

Studies

  1. Pitassi Maria Cristina. Entre croire et savoir: le problème de la méthode critique chez Jean Le Clerc. Leiden: Brill 1987.

  2. Schuurman Paul. The empiricist logic of ideas of Jean Le Clerc. In The early enlightenment in the Dutch Republic, 1650-1750. Edited by Van Bunge Wiep. Leiden: Brill 2003. pp. 137-153
    Selected papers of a Conference held at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel 22-23 march 2001.

  3. Schuurman Paul. Ideas, mental faculties and method. The logic of ideas of Descartes and Locke and its reception in the Dutch Republic, 1630-1750. Leiden: Brill 2003.
    See the chapter V: Jean le Clerc: Lockean empiricism in textbook format (1692) pp. 70-88

INDEX


Johann Franz Budde (Buddeus) (1667-1729)

Texts

Studies

  1. Fabbianelli Faustino, "Leibniz, Budde et Wolff. Trois modèles de théodicée," Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Étranger 128: 293-396 (2003).
    "The paper deals with the limitations of creatures, namely, more precisely the relationship between man and God amid a universe wanted by the latter. It studies the several attempts by Leibniz, Budde and then Wolff to reconcile human freedom and divine nature. Several axes of analysis are to be set in order to wander along the several patterns of those three authors, i.e. the one which traditionally opposed voluntarism to rationalism and should be contrasted as well as the one which opposes anthropology and theology."

  2. Masi Serenella, "Eclettismo e storia della filosofia in Johann Franz Budde," Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino : 164-212 (1977).
    Classe di scienze morali, storiche e filologiche. Serie V. Vol. I.

  3. Sparn Walter. Einleitung. In Elementa Philosophiae instrumentalis, seu institutionum Philosophiae eclecticae. Tomus primus. Hildesheim: Gorg Olms 2006. pp. I-LXII
    Johann Franz Budde - Gesammelte Schriften - Vol. I - Hildesheim, Georg Olms, 2006.

  4. Wundt Max. Die deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklärung. Tübingen: Mohr 1945.
    On Budde see pp. 63-75.

INDEX


Christian Wolff (1679-1754)


INDEX


Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762)

"Baumgarten's basic argument for the existence of a special faculty of sensitive cognition leads back to the core of his metaphysics. To be aware of the material perfection of the world from a finite point of view is, he held, possible only in a sensitive way that is not overwhelmed by abstractive concepts of the intellect. For Baumgarten, beauty is the observable phenomenon representing this material perfection, and the finite created mind is able to gain consciousness of it because of its original disposition to represent the reality and order of the world by clear but confused perceptions. Baumgarten elaborates a set of conditions for the 'art of thinking beautifully' (ars pulchre cogitandi ). He hereby relies on the doctrines of 'special metaphysics': cosmology, psychology, and the discipline yielding the ultimate ground of the relation between these, namely natural theology.

In his account of metaphysics Baumgarten in general follows Wolff. The first main part is 'ontology' or 'general metaphysics'. This sets out the 'predicates of being'. Baumgarten interprets the principle of contradiction in a way which yields the basic ontological concept 'something' or simply 'thing' (ens): what is not 'A and not-A', i.e. 'nothing' (nihil ), is 'something' (non-nihil ). The universal connection of all things is governed by the principle of ratio and rationatum : whatsoever B exist, is founded in something other A, and at the same time there is something other C which is founded in B. The further universal predicates are unum , ordo , verum , and perfectum , traditionally called the 'transcendental' predicates of being.

Baumgarten's ontology manifests much sophistication. Yet there are profound difficulties which cannot be ignored. How, for example, can the universal predicates be compatible with each member of such disjunctive predicates as: necessary/contingent; changeable/unchangeable; real/unreal; singular/universal; total/partial; finite/infinite; simple/composed; substance/accidence? The universal and disjunctive predicates constitute the internal determination of the ens qua ens . They differ altogether from such external (or 'relative') predicates as: similar and diverse, simultaneous, successive, cause and caused, etc. The ontological predicates then furnish the basic material for most of the arguments of special metaphysics. In two points Baumgarten proves especially his independence from Wolff: in his doctrine of monads as immaterial, inextended substances; and in his doctrine of pre-established harmony in the absence of influxus physicus .

He herewith reinstitutes the genuine ideas of Leibniz, more than any other of the Wolffians."

From: Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb by Kalus E. Kaehler - in: Handbook of Metaphysics and Ontology - Edited by Barry Smith Barry and Hans Burkhardt. Munich: Philosophia Verlag 1991, pp. 77-78.

Texts

Studies

  1. Casula Mario. La metafisica di A. G. Baumgarten. Milano: Mursia 1973.

  2. Casula Mario, "A. G. Baumgarten entre G. W. Leibniz et Chr. Wolff," Archives de Philosophie 42: 547-574 (1979).
    "Historically Wolff recedes from Leibniz while Baumgarten, coming nearer to Leibniz, recedes from Wolff. If they are compared on two major issues: monadology and preestablished harmony, together with the principle of sufficient reason, concept of substance as force, concept of individual substance, it appears (as in our work on Baumgarten's metaphysics) that Baumgarten is more Leibnizian than Wolff. His metaphysics is the first Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy; he assumes and develops, with the methodology of Wolff, the philosophy of Leibniz."

  3. Pimpinella Pietro. Cognitio intuitiva in Wolff e Baumgarten. In Vernunfkritik und Aufklärung. Studien zur Philosophie Kants und seines Jahrunderts. Norbert Hinske zum siebzigsten Geburstag. Edited by Oberhausen Michael, Delfosse Heinrich, and Pozzo Riccardo. Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog 2001. pp. 265-294

  4. Tonelli Giorgio, "Casula on Baumgarten's metaphysics," Kantstudien 66: 242-243 (1975).
    Review of M. Casula (1973)

INDEX

Christian August Crusius (1715-1775)

"Crusius, in his Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten (Sketch of necessary rational truths; Leipzig, 1745), divided metaphysics into ontology, theology, cosmology, and pneumatology, in explicit opposition to Wolff's ordering of the metaphysical sciences.

Ontology begins, not with first principles, but with the notion of a thing in general, directly connected with the notion of a "really given thing'. Only after introducing these notions did Crusius discuss essence, existence, and causality. Crusius regarded existence as indefinable and as a primary notion arising from sensation.

In his discussion of causality, Crusius expounded a principle of determining reason, his version of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason. Crusius held, against Wolff, that a sufficient reason suffices only for free actions insofar as they are free. Rational truths and natural events not depending on free causes need a more cogent foundation, a determining reason. This principle does not derive from the principle of identity, but rather from what we must conceive or what we cannot conceive as united or separate, and thus from a new case of the principle of cogitabilitas. Crusius, aiming at a sharper distinction between mechanism and free actions, held that the real nature of causality is unknown and that our knowledge of causal connections is based on the constant conjunction of two events in experience. This, of course, cleared the path for the members of his school to accept the Humean critique of the causal connection.

Crusius's ontology reveals a general characteristic of his metaphysics. His was not a monolithic system beginning with a single principle and deducing from it all subsequent notions and propositions, as was Wolff's. Rather, it was founded both on several independent principles and on a multitude of elementary notions that could be defined only by an appeal to reality (by their concrete representation)—notions such as existence, space, time, and force; or, in psychology, the particular powers of the soul, some mental faculties, and pleasure and pain. Through Hoffman Crusius derived this view from Locke's doctrine of simple ideas, but he supposed that the number of elementary notions (which he once called categories) could be infinite."


From: Giorgio Tonelli - Crusius, Christian August. In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edwards Paul. New York: Macmillan 1967. Vol 2, pp. 268-271.

Texts

Studies

  1. Beck Lewis White. Early German philosophy. Kant and his predecessors. Cambridge: Belknap Press 1969.
    Chapter XVI: On the threshold of the critical philosophy. Crusius pp. 394-402.

  2. Burkhardt Hans, "Modalities in language, thought and reality in Leibniz, Descartes and Crusius," Synthese 75: 183-215 (1988).

  3. Carboncini Sonia. Christian August Crusius und die Leibniz-Wolffsche Philosophie. In Beiträge zur Wirkungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Edited by Heinekamp Albert. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner 1986. pp. 110-125
    Studia Leibnitiana vol. 26

  4. Fabbianelli Faustino, "Christian August Crusius: I presupposti metafisici," Rivista di Storia della Filosofia 59: 737-744 (2004).

  5. Heimsoeth Heinz. Metaphysik und Kritik bei Chr. A. Crusius. Ein Beitrag zur ontologischen Vorgeschichte der Kritik der reinen Vernunft im 18. Jahrhundert. In Studien zur Philosophie Immanuel Kants. Metaphysische Ursprünge und Ontologische Grundlagen. Köln: Kölner Universitätsverlag 1956. pp. 125-188
    Originally published in 1926.

  6. Koriako Darius, "Crusius über Unmöglichkeit einer Letztbegründung der Logik," Studia Leibnitiana.Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Philosophie und der Wissenschaften 31: 99-108 (1999).
    "In this paper we examine some passages of a logical treatise by Christian August Crusius. It seems that Crusius anticipated what might be called the circle of deduction, first discussed by Lewis Carroll.
    The question now emerges: why was it possible for Crusius to have deeper logical insights than his contemporaries, given that he was not a brilliant logician? The answer here proposed traces these insights back to his very peculiar philosophical premisses, which have been important for Kant's development in his early career."

  7. Krieger Martin. Geist, Welt und Gott bei Christian August Crusius. Erkenntnistheoretisch-psychologische Perspektiven im Kontrast zum Wolffschen System. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann 1993.

  8. Tonelli Giorgio. Crusius, Christian August. In The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited by Edwards Paul. New York: Macmillan 1967. pp. 268-271
    Vol. 2

INDEX


External links

João Madeira, Pedro da Fonseca's Isagoge Philosophica and the Predicables from Boethius to the Lovanienses (PDF)


RELATED PAGES

The Rediscovery of Ontology in Contemporary Thought

Bibliography of Joseph S. Freedman on Philosophy in Continental Europe (1500 - 1700)

RELATED SITES

Three sites (currently under development) which will be devoted to studies on Ontology in Italian, French and German:

Teoria e Storia dell'Ontologia

Théorie et Histoire de l'Ontologie

Theorie und Geschichte der Ontologie

Mobile version of this site for phone and laptop users:

Theory and History of Ontology (Mobile version)

The PDF version of all the pages is also available:

Theory and History of Ontology (PDF version)


Last modified: Wednesday, September 1, 2010