Artigo Revisado por pares

“Impious Men”: Twelfth‐Century Attempts to Apply Dialectic to the World of Nature

1985; Wiley; Volume: 441; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1749-6632.1985.tb14582.x

ISSN

1749-6632

Autores

Tina Stiefel,

Tópico(s)

Medieval and Classical Philosophy

Resumo

Annals of the New York Academy of SciencesVolume 441, Issue 1 p. 187-204 “Impious Men”: Twelfth-Century Attempts to Apply Dialectic to the World of Nature TINA STIEFEL, TINA STIEFEL a Mailing address: One Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003.Search for more papers by this author TINA STIEFEL, TINA STIEFEL a Mailing address: One Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10003.Search for more papers by this author First published: April 1985 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1985.tb14582.x AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat REFERENCES. 1 “De erroribus Gulielmi de Conchis,” J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latino (hereafter cited as PL) vol. 180, col. 339. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted. 2 I have written the following articles on aspects of this problem: “Science, Reason and Faith in the Twelfth Century: The Cosmologists' Attack on Tradition,” Journal of European Studies (1965) vi: 1–16. “The Heresy of Science: A Twelfth Century Conceptual Revolution,”Isis (1977) 68:347–362. “Twelfth Century Matter for Metaphor: The Material View of Plato's Timaeus”British Journal for The History of Science (1984), forthcoming. 3 Peter Abelard, Theologia Christiana, PL vol. 178, col. 1315. 4 In the thirteenth century Roger Bacon referred to it; and as late as the fifteenth century it was quoted by Pico della Mirandola. For further details on Adelard's work, see Charles H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, 2nd edit. ( Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press, 1927), pp. 20–42. 5 George Sarton, Introduction to the History of Science, vol. II. ( Baltimore : Williams & Wilkins Co., 1931), pp. 71ff. 6 For a comprehensive discussion of this question see R.W. Southern, “The Schools of Paris and of Chartres,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century. Robert L. Benson and Constable Giles, eds. ( Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press, 1982), pp. 129ff. 7 See John of Salisbury, Metalogicon, 1.5 and 2.10. It is now believed that William of Conches probably knew most of the philosophers of his day. On this point, see Guillaume de Conches: Glosae in Juvenalem, Bradford Wilson, ed. ( Paris : Vrin, 1980) p. 83. 8 “Eius praeclaret natu Normannia, victu Francia, Parisius corpore, mente polus. Jules Alexandre Clerval, Les écoles de Chartres au moyen-âge ( Paris : A. Picard et fils, 1895) p. 182. 9 See R.W. Southern, Medieval Humanism ( New York : Harper & Row Publishers, 1970), pp. 68ff. 10 “Metamorphosis Goliae” in Thomas Wright, The Latin Poems Commonly Attributed to Walter Mapes ( London : D. B. Nichols and Son, 1841), p. 28. 11 Nikolaus M. Häring, “Thierry of Chartres and Dominicus Gundissalinus” in Medieval Studies 26 (1964): 278. 12 Southern, 9 p. 58. 13 Berengarius, De sacra coena adversus Lanfrancum, A.F. and F. Th. Vischer, eds. ( Berlin : S. J. Josephy, 1834). (Passage translated by David Knowles in The Evolution of Medieval Thought. [New York: Vintage Press, 1964, p. 95].). 14 “Neglegentia mihi videtur, si postquam confirmati sumus in fide, non studemus, quod credidimus intelligere. 15 Winthrop Wetherbee says: The development of a theology devoted to seeking the truth of scripture through the employment of the arts and the study of nature stimulated serious debate over the extent to which dialectic and secular learning might be allowed to encroach upon the traditional province of exegesis … Platonism and Poetry in the Twelfth Century: The Literary Influences of the School of Chartres ( Princeton , NJ : Princeton University Press, 1972), p. 17. 16 Although man is not armed by nature nor is naturally swiftest in flight, yet he has that which is better by far and worth more—that is, reason. For by the possession of this function he exceeds the beasts to such a degree that he subdues them. … You see therefore, how much the gift of reason surpasses mere physical equipment. Adelard of Bath, Quaestiones Naturales. M. Müller, ed., Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, vol. 31.2 ( Münster : Aschendorff, 1934) p. 20. 17 Adelard of Bath,De eodem et diverso, H. Willner, ed. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, vol. 4.1 ( Miinster : Aschendorf, 1903). 18 Adelard of Bath, Quaes.: 21. 16 . 19 De philosophia mundi (under Honorius Augustod), PL vol. 90, cols. 1127–1178, ch. XXXIV. 20 Father Chenu wrote that the twelfth-century men experienced … the realization [of the kinship between nature and man] … when they thought of themselves as confronting an external, present, intelligible and active reality as they might confront a partner … whose might and whose decrees called for accommodation or conflict—a realization which struck them at the very moment when, with no less a shock, they reflected that they were themselves also bits of the cosmos they were ready to master. M.D. Chenu, Nature, Man and Society, trans, by J. Taylor and L. Little ( Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 5. 21 Hugh of St. Victor, De sacramentis Christianae fidei, PL vol. 176, col. 188. 22 Honorius of Autun, Elucidarium, PL vol. 172, col. 116. 23 Alan of Lille, De Planctu Naturae, PL vol. 210, col. 445. 24 Ovid used it in the Metamorphoses (1, 1–30); he began his cosmogony by a description of Chaos and mentioned “a god or milder nature” bringing an end to the conflict that Chaos is. In Lucretius De rerum natura 2, 603 Venus is the creator of universal life, and she governs the nature of things; he calls her “naturae creatrix.” Martianus Capella (De nuptiis phil. 1, 18) speaks of Natura as “generationum omnium mater.” This universal goddess was at once the symbol of an intellectual concept, and a divinity evoking a genuine feeling of reverence in the fifth century. 25 In the twelfth century Natura appeared frequently in many kinds of writings. For example, John of Salisbury wrote, “Unica causarum ratio divina voluntas, quam Plato naturae nomine saepe vocat. Illius imperio servit natura creata, ordoque causarum torus adhaeret ei.” John of Salisbury, Entheticus, PL vol. 199, col. 978. 26 Quaes.: 6. 27 De sacra., col. 206. 21 . 28 De septem diebus et sex operibus, M. Hauréau, ed., Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale, vol. 32, part 2, 167–186, Paris (1888): 172. 29 Quaes.: 63. 16 . 30 Eodem: 23. 17 . 31 You say that if anyone living in a house is ignorant of what it is made, of its size and quality and layout, he is unworthy of its shelter: and that, just so, if anyone born and educated in the residence of this world neglects learning the plan underlying its marvellous beauty, upon attaining the age of discretion, he is unworthy, and, were it possible, deserves to be cast out of it. Astrolabium, praef., MS Cambridge, McClean 165, f. 81. 32 Quaes.: 23. 16 . 33 Another expression of wonder at the beauty of the universe as a work of great skill is by a coeval of the cosmologists, the monk known as Pseudo-Hugh of St. Victor; he writes of “… the beauty of the universe, the intricate contrivance of heaven and earth, this marvellous and delightful work. …” in Liber de stabilitate animae, PL vol. 213, col. 917. There is in all these exclamations a sense of the complicated and elaborately interconnected nature of this creation; the cosmologists experienced its enormous complexity and beauty as twin aspects. 34 Benjamin Maior, PL vol. 196, col. 70, ch. 1.6. 35 Quaes.: 6 ff.16. 36 Closae super Platonem, E. Jeauneau, ed. in Textes Philosophiques du Moyen Age, vol. XIII ( Paris , 1965), p. 125. 37 In his commentary on Plato's Timaeus he wrote: Having shown that nothing exists without a cause, Plato now narrows the discussion to the derivation of effect from efficient cause. It must be realized that every work is the work of the Creator, or of Nature, or the work of a human artisan imitating nature. The work of the Creator is the first creation without pre-existing material, for example the creation of the elements or spirits, or it is the things we see happen contrary to the accustomed course of nature, as the Virgin Birth and the like. Closae: 104. 36 . 38 Exposito in Hexaemeron, PL vol. 178, col. 746. 39 Someone will allege that this [the idea of nature's being responsible for the generation of men] is to derogate from the divine power. To such we shall reply that, on the contrary, it adds to the divine power because to that power we attribute not only the giving of a productive nature of things but the creation of the human body through the operation of such nature. Phil. mun. Lib. 1, XXIII. 19 . 40 De septem diebus: 172. 28 . 41 De septem diebus: 177. 28 . 42 Phil. mun. Lib. 1, XXXIII. 19 . 43 Phil. mun. Lib. 1, XXIII. 19 . 44 Epistulae XIII, PL vol. 178, col. 353A. 45 Phil. mun. Lib. 1, XXXIII. 19 . 46 Quaes.: 66. 16 . 47 De erroribus. 1 . 48 De erroribus,1 col. 339. 49 De erroribus,1 cols. 339–340. 50 Häring, 11 “ Thierry and Dominicus,” p. 277. 51 Gallorum Socrates, Plato maximus Hesperiarum, noster Aristoteles, logicis quicunque fuerunt aut par aut melior; studiorum cognitus orbi princeps, ingenio varius, subtilis et acer, omnia vi superans rationis et arte loquendi, Abaelardus erat. PL vol. 178, col. 103. Volume441, Issue1Science and Technology in Medieval SocietyApril 1985Pages 187-204 ReferencesRelatedInformation

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