"Falsissima est ergo haec de triplici substantia aristotelis doctrina." A sixteenth-century critic of Aristotle - Francesco Patrizi da Cherso on privation, form, and matter

Early Science and Medicine

Volumn 2, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 227-250

  Deitz, Luc ^a  

^a Bibliothèque Nationale de Luxembourg   (Luxembourg)

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EID: 84873685575     PISSN: 13837427     EISSN: 15733823     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157338297X00131     Document Type: Article

References (102)

1. This article was written during my tenure of an Alexander von Humboldt-Research Fellowship at the Seminar für Klassische Philologie of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg. I wish to thank the Humboldt-Stiftung and my gracious host in Germany, Professor Glenn W. Most, for their unstinting support, as well as Dr Jill Kraye of the Warburg Institute, University of London, for many pieces of expert advice. Throughout this article, the abbreviation DP stands for Francesco Patrizi, Disfussionum Peripateticarum tomi quattuor. Quibus Aristotelicae philosophiae universa/listeria atque dogmata cum veterum placitis collata, eleganter ac erudite declarantur (Basle, 1581). The DP consists of four tomi, each made up of several libri; references Will be made to tomus, liber, page, and line (s) of this edition. (The Discussionum Peripateticarum tomi primi, libri XIII... [Venice, 1571], corresponds verbatim to DP
2. On Patrizi's life see especially P. Donazzolo, "Francesco Patrizi di Cherso erudito del secolo decimosesto (1529-1597)", Atti e memorie delta Società Istriana di archeologia e storia patria 28(1912), 1-147:7-47;
3. and B. Brickman, An Introduction to Francesco Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia (New York, 1941), 10-20.
4. The latest general account of his philosophy can be found in B. P. Copenhaver and C. B. Schmitt, Renaissance Phibsophy (Oxford/New York, 1992), 187-95
5. where further literature is quoted. Although most accounts of Patrizi's life and works devote a few lines to the DP, analyses dealing with specific issues are scarce: A. Antonaci, Ricerche sul neoplatonismo del Rinascimento: Francesco Patrizi da Cherso, one vol. to date (Bari, 1984)
6. and M. J. Wilmott, Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Humanist Critique of Aristotle, (Ph. D. thesis, University of London, 1984)
7. both analyse mainly DP 1, whereas M. Muccillo, "La storia della filosofia presocratica nelle «Discussiones Peripateticae» di Francesco Patrizi da Cherso", La cultura 13(1975), 48-105, focuses on DP 3, 1.
8. The only attempt at translating parts of the DP known to me are some 30 lines taken from 1, 13, and 4, 3 in: S. Cella, Francesco Patrizi da Cherso. Pagine scelte (Padua, 1965), 96-9.
9. DP 1, 13, 173, 9-14 and 45-8.
10. DP 3, 5, 344, 39-40.
11. DP 4, I, 364, 14-20.
12. DP 4, 1, 365, 2-10.
13. DP 4, 1, 368, 23-4.
14. DP 4, 1, 376, 15-377, 16.
15. DP 4, 1, 376, 48: "mundi totius forma";
16. cf. in general Met. 12, 6.
17. Phys. 1, 8, 192 a 21-2
18. quoted DP 4, 1, 377, 7: "Corruptiva enim sunt adinvicem contraria"
19. Phys. 1, 5, 188 b 21-3
20. quoted DP 4, 1, 367, 32-4.
21. Phys. 1, 5, 188 a 36-b 1
22. quoted DP 4, 1, 367, 26-7.
23. DP 4, 1, 367, 50-1.
24. Phys. 1, 6, 189 a 12-13
25. quoted DP 4, 1, 375, 11: "Quia scilicet si infinita essent, non esset scibile ipsum ens"
26. De part, an. 4, 12, 694 b 13-14.
27. Phys. 1, 5, 189 a 17-20.
28. DP 4, I, 375, 34: "[...] ut ea in solium principiorum statuamus"
29. Met. 5, 10, 1018 a 27-8
30. hinted at in DP 4, 1, 375, 35-36.
31. Phys. 1, 6, 189 b 23-7
32. quoted DP 1, 4, 368, 36-7. 44.
33. E.g. Met. 9, 1, 1045 b 27-9.
34. DP 4, 1, 368, 49: "argumentum nullo vitio laborans".
35. DP 4, 1, 375, 47.
36. DP 4, 1, 368, 32-3: "ex veterum doctrina", but Patrizi does not specify whom he has in mind.
37. Met. 7, 7, 1032 a 25.
38. Met. 4, 2, 1005 a 4-5, quoted 4, 1, 376, 4-5.
39. DP 4, 1, 377, 16: "Verae ergo principiorum conditiones, vera principia inquirenda, si modo sunt inquirenda, & non sumenda"
40. DP 4, 2, 378, 11: "Bone Deus. [...] Quid vanius?"
41. Met. 6, 2, 1026 b 21
42. quoted DP 4, 2, 378, 19-20: "Apparet enim accidens prope quid ipsius non entis"
43. Phys. 2, 1, 193 b 19-20
44. quoted DP 4, 2, 378, 39-40: "Privatio namque species aliquo modo est"
45. Phys. 4, 8, 215 a 9-10.
46. De gen. et con. 2, 10, 336 a 20-2. (My thanks to Dr W. F. Ryan of the Warburg Institute for helping me to identify this reference.)
47. Phys. 1, 7, 190 b 17-20
48. quoted DP 4, 2, 379, 7-11.
49. Phys. 1, 7, 191 a 5-7
50. quoted DP 4, 2, 379, 12-16.
51. The discussion of privation ends at DP 4, 2, 379, 40.
52. DP 4, 2, 380, 29-36.
53. Phys. 1, 6, 189 a 29-32. In order to make sense of this argument one has to bear in mind that Patrizi is here talking about universal form only, which would cease to be universal if it lost its fundamental property of being one of a pair of contraries.
54. I.e., the four elements themselves: DP 4, 2, 380, 40.
55. DP 4, 2, 380, 47: "Cur ergo non dicatur, materiae, quinque & quinque formae rerum principia sunt?"
56. DP 4, 2, 381, 21: "principiorum conditiones ex eis omnia fieri, ipsa non ex al'js, [...]." Cf. conditions (iii) and (v) in § 2 above.
57. Phys. 1, 7, 190 b 19-20
58. quoted DP 4, 2, 379, 8-9.
59. DP 4, 2, 381, 49. The difference between the two arguments is that here, Patrizi considers ever greater degrees of abstraction, whereas in the case of individual forms he considered ever greater degrees of concreteness.
60. Phys. 2, 1, 193 a 28-31; 193 b 3-5;
61. Patrizi's discussion starts at DP 4, 2, 382, 18.
62. Phys. 2, 1, 192 b 20-2
63. quoted DP 4, 2, 382, 20-1.
64. Met. 7, 10, 1035 a 2.
65. Phys. 2, 1, 193 b 6
66. referred to DP 4, 2, 383, 10: "Formam esse magis naturam, quam materiam?"
67. Phys. 2, 3, 194 b 23-9.
68. Patrizi quotes Met. 7, 3, 1029 a 1-7. 29-30; 7, 7, 1032 b 1-2 (DP 4, 2 383 56-384, 8. 11-14).
69. DP 4, 2, 384, 14-17.
70. DP 4, 2, 384, 25: "aeternius (vt ita dicam) ".
71. Met. 5, 8, 1017 b 24-5
72. quoted DP 4, 2, 385, 27-30.
73. Top. 1, 5, 102 b 4-9
74. quoted DP 4, 2, 385, 17-20.
75. DP 4, 2, 386, 30: "rationes per inane vagantur"; 386, 42: "vana philosophia".
76. DP 4, 2, 386, 29: "nomen audio, rem non explicant".
77. DP 4, 2, 388, 48-50.
78. Cf. § 1 above and on this C. Vasoli, "L'idea della prism sapientia in Francesco Patrizi", in Roma e l'antico nell'arte e nella cullura del Cinquecento, ed. M. Fagiolo (Rome, 1985), 41-56.
79. For the text of the 2nd c. BC forgery see H. Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Aåbo, 1965), 125-38;
80. for the story related in the text see Diogenes Laertius 8, 80. On Aristotle's supposed debts to Okellos see further DP 2, 6, 237, 47-238, 37.
81. De materia is the title of DP 4, 3.
82. E.g., Phys. 1, 9, 192 a 31.
83. Phys. 1, 7, 191 a 10
84. quoted DP 4, 3, 393, 4-9: "Subiecta vero natura, scibilis est per analogiam, ut enim ad statuam aes & ad lectum lignum, vel ad aliud aliquid eorum quae formam habent, materia & informe habet antequam accipiat formam, vel quod quid, vel ens"
85. DP 4, 3, 392, 41.
86. DP 4, 3, 393, 23.
87. DP 4, 3, 395, 30-3.
88. DP 4, 3, 399, 37-9.
89. DP 4, 3, 399, 39-40: "Reliqua omnia reijcienda, uti nec sensui patentia, nec rationi probabilia, sed absurda, incompatibilia, impossibilia"
90. Copenhaver & Schmitt, Philosophy, 193.
91. NUP, Pancosmia 6, col. 78 a.
92. NUP, Pancosmia 5, cols 76 b-76 c.
93. See on this L. Deitz, "Space, Light, and Soul in Francesco Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia (1591)", esp. § 6, forthcoming in a volume edited by A. (rafton and N. Siraisi documenting a workshop on "Renaissance Natural Philosophy and the Disciplines" held in May 1995 at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology (MIT, Cambridge, MA).
94. NUP, Panarchia 22, col. 48 a.
95. NUP, Panarchia 13, col. 28 d.
96. The first statement to this effect known to me can be found in L. Crasso, Elogii d'huomini letterati (Venice, 1666), 1:62;
97. this was repeated nearly verbatim in Les Eloges des hommes savans, Tirez de l'Histoire de M. de Thou, avec des Additions par Antoine Teissier (Leiden, 1715), 4:219 [= 319].
98. I tend to side with J. J. Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae (Leipzig, 1742-67), 4, 1:428-30
99. against J. Henry, "Francesco Patrizi da Cherso's Concept of Space and its Later Influence", Annals of Science 36(1979), 549-73, in rating it rather low.
100. J. Launoius, De varia Aristotelis in Academia Parisiensi fortuna (Paris, 1653).
101. Cf. P. Reif, "The Textbook Tradition in Natural Philosophy 1600-1650", Journal of the History of Ideas 30(1969), 17-32. Reif identifies an "interplay of Aristotelian and Neoplatonic elements evident in the doctrine on matter and form" (P. 27), but her account does not suggest that these "Neoplatonic elements" owe anything to Patrizi.
102. NUP, Panarchia 13, col. 28 d.